Archive of Our Own

What do you do when your sister tells the whole world that your brother was your first crush?

(Allison and Luther lived in a world of their own, one that only fit two people. I never expected to be included in anything, but even our other siblings seemed shut out. They were always together, always whispering, always laughing and sharing meaningful glances. I never asked the nature of their relationship. I never wanted to know.)

You mess up your makeup artist. You do six takes and screw up every time. You try and try not to panic. You ignore the crew when they stare at you, you pray they haven’t read the book yet. You shut out Vanya’s voice even as it rings circles around your head, I never wanted to know, I never wanted to know, I never wanted to know, and you think that Vanya might be the only one who feels that way now. 

You look at your co-star and hate him for being blond, for being muscular, for being famous. You don’t kiss him when you’re supposed to. You leave the set before they can call for take number seven (Number Seven, Number Seven) and get into your car before anyone notices. 

You drive and drive and drive and drive and you were a kid, and you never knew any better and things have changed and it’s not like that, it never was, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not.

You couldn’t picture this life when you were thirteen. Even in your dreams, even when you took your ideas of fame and projected them into the future ( you can’t use extrapolation as an accurate measure, it’s not… what? you always help me with french, why can’t I help you with math? ) they couldn’t measure anywhere close to the real thing. You couldn’t picture a life beyond the Academy. You could imagine it, but the Academy was all you’d ever known, your siblings were all you’d ever known. 

You drive and you get stuck in traffic and you try not to think of your dad, looking down at you stone-faced, telling you Mercy may be commendable, Number Three, but in the face of danger, mercy becomes a luxury. You look out the windshield and you see your dad’s study, you see him buried in his work. You see him, but he doesn’t see you. You shut your eyes and you see a crowd of people begging for your autograph, for your voice, for your attention. You remember how their adoration felt so, so hollow, but how it made you feel a little less hollow yourself. You count down from ten and catch on Seven, then try again and catch on One. 

(I think, says the woman with the doctorate and the bright white smile and the face just like Mom, That you were desperate for love in a home where there was so little to be found that you may have looked for it in the wrong place. No one can blame you for that. 

I think, she says, That growing so close with your brother was how both of you learned to survive. 

I think, you say, You might be right. 

I think, you say, I heard a rumor that you forgot I ever came here.)

You jump when someone leans on their horn behind you. You lean on the gas in turn. Your chest burns and your eyes are wet and you’re messing up your mascara, rivulets winding down and dripping off the end of your face like oil paint melting under heat. 

You’d tried to leave. You had left, a week after Ben’s college acceptance letter had arrived in the mail with no one there to receive it. Packed up in the middle of the night, left a note for Luther and no one else, and Jesus Christ, even when you tried to escape it was incriminating. 

You know it wasn’t love. You know what it was, you know why it was, you remember every word you made therapists forget, and you know, you know, you know because you can’t make yourself forget no matter how many times you say the magic words to the mirror. You know it was easier to live with the man who shot himself in the head at your orders when Luther’s reassurance made you feel a little less like a monster. You know that Luther forgot about the plans that went wrong when you returned that reassurance. You know it felt simple -- he was your knight in shining armor, you were the cunning princess. You were the dynamic duo on the covers of comic books. You were heroes. 

You know fairy tales and comics are fiction. You know the Academy was the same. You know you were a soldier and you know the moments of softness that pretending with him brought you may have been the only times in your life you were ever really a child. 

Without meaning to, you think of Five and I want to time travel and disappearing off the face of the earth. Without meaning to be, you’re jealous. 

You stop driving because you’re home. You stop driving because you can’t anymore. 

Your keys won’t fit in the lock so you sit on the doorstep and give your neighbors another reason to stare. A woman walks by with her dog, a stupid tiny white thing, and you almost wave before you remember that she might know. You crush the instinct to perform without mercy. 

Your ears are ringing, and then your phone is ringing, and you ignore the phone until you can’t anymore. You’re terrified of seeing Vanya’s number. You answer without checking and realize you’ve been ignoring Patrick. 

Allison, he says, What the hell is going on? Your manager called, she’s freaking out. She said something about your sister? Is everything okay? 

You starred in a movie together six months ago. You fell in love onscreen and you might be starting to do the same off of it. You don’t know why your manager would have called him, but then, you’re not sure if there’s anyone else.

Allison!

You say, I’m here. You say, I’m fine. You smile even though he can’t see it because a smile was just as much a part of your uniform as your navy blue blazer. 

You watch his car pull into your driveway. Allison, seriously, you’re making me nervous, he calls, hurrying towards you. Allison… Wait, what are you wearing?

You look down at the frilly red skirt you never would have chosen for yourself and realize you forgot to change out of your costume. 

You pick at the stupid tulle netting and ask Is that why Tina was panicking? Because I left without changing? The skirt cuts into your legs and you wonder how you didn’t notice it before. 

Patrick’s hands grip your shoulders. I don’t think so, he says. His eyes search your face, so worried it makes you feel like a real person again. Let’s go inside, c’mon. 

You let him take your keys. They fit in the lock for him. You let him guide you in. 

You put your arms around yourself when he lets you go, trying to hold onto some of his warmth. Your house doesn’t feel like it’s yours. It’s too big. The decor is bright and minimalist, what some designer told you was in fashion and you enthusiastically agreed to. 

It’s not yours, but then, what is? 

What do you do when your sister tells the world you haven’t earned a single thing you own? 

(Allison called it ‘rumoring,’ a phrase far more innocuous than her powers deserved. Ben and Klaus wanted to lessen their abilities, the other boys wanted to do more. Allison was the only one who found their powers perfectly to their liking. It was an odd form of solidarity, and one of the only ones I got to fully participate in -- the hatred of being controlled against our will was universal, yet Allison seemed fully indifferent to it. She never hesitated to use her powers to get her way, and to my knowledge, she still doesn’t.)

You collapse onto the sofa bought with money from a job you conned your way into getting. You cry into Patrick’s shoulder and don’t let yourself cry again. 

You are twenty-two. Your career has just started. You can’t afford to lose it now. There’s nothing else left. 

So you make a plan. You think, damage control, and force every other thought out of your mind. You were the only girl in the Umbrella Academy, so you had to be charming and witty and funny and pretty and a good role model even when you couldn’t use your powers because you never had the chance to fade into the background. You learned how to control an interview at fourteen and how to build a narrative not long after, so you fall back into the numbness that faking requires. 

When the first gossip rag publishes the first story about you not ten hours after you’ve read the book, you steel yourself and read this new bit of vitriol with a smile on your face. You were always a good student, so you take good notes. You highlight the lines you can laugh off and you circle the ones you’ll need to spin. You see the block quotes, you see I never wanted to know, you see She still doesn’t, you see red. 

The columnist calls you a fraud. They talk about Luther like he’s some kind of illicit tryst and not the one steady lifeline you had as a kid. You think you should call him, but people are always watching and you can’t risk them seeing. 

Luther could be every bit as devastated by the book as you, but Luther is safe behind the Academy gates and his old domino mask. You both may be playing make-believe for a living, but he only has to answer to Dad where you have to answer to the world. 

So you don’t call Luther. 

In fact, you don’t call any of your family. Damage control means separating yourself, it means controlling the narrative away from the Academy, so you have to pull the focus somewhere else. 

Damage control means that when Patrick comes around unprompted for the eighth time in a week, a smile on his face and coffee in his hands, you admit that you love him. Damage control means that when he says it back, you tell him he wants to marry you. Damage control means he agrees.

So Vanya has her fifteen minutes of fame, but you’re famous, so you take the other 1,425 the second they’re available. So for a moment, you’re not America’s darling, but a moment later, you’ve got an interview on Late Night and you’re showing off a ring. 

You’re charming and witty and funny and pretty and a good role model. No one is any the wiser. 

What do you do when your sister destroys your world?

You rebuild. You get out the scotch tape and the lies and the dazzling smiles and you make yourself a new castle even bigger than before. 

You invite her to the fucking wedding because you know she won’t go. 

You call Luther the moment it’s safe to tell him what’s going on. You pretend like he isn’t pretending to be happy for you, then you don’t call him again. 

You don’t let yourself regret it. You do what you have to do to survive. Sometimes, that means telling the man with the gun to aim it at himself, sometimes that means clinging to your brother a little more than you should, and sometimes that means picking floral arrangements and a beach venue. 

You let Klaus crash at your house when he comes in for the ceremony but feel relieved when he misses it, because the last thing you need is a scene. Klaus may be the closest person you have to a real friend, but you never stopped being a soldier, just changed to a different battlefield -- he’d only be a liability on this one. 

You listen to Diego when he gets kicked out of the police academy and you offer your help only because you know he won’t take it. You hate yourself a little more every day. 

You fall in love because you need to and have a kid because Patrick wants to. You make a life and you act in movies and you act like a good wife and you act like a good person because what else can you do? You’ve been climbing up a ladder made of ice your whole life, and if you stop for a moment, it’ll all melt beneath you, so you just keep going. Fool's gold is still valuable to someone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at, but you have performed the unique miracle of selling it at full price. The world knows what it’s looking at and they still love you. You won’t jeopardize that. 

You name her Claire. You think you’d die for her. You tell yourself you’ll stop for her. You don’t. 

You control the narrative. You control your life. You control your daughter, your husband, your friends. 

You stare into the mirror and you tell your reflection all the fun little rumors that might be floating around, but your reflection never really seems all that interested. You stare, and you know, you know, you know so many things you never wanted to. 

And you don’t forget.