It had been two days since Vanya had last seen daylight, breathed in fresh air and moved of her own accord. It had been two days since she had last seen her son—or anyone, really—aside from him and if she were being totally honest with herself, things weren't exactly looking to change any time soon. In fact, the last time she could recall even catching a glimpse of someone—of anyone—was in the few moments after that fateful family meeting where they had discussed whether or not they should turn off Mom, and that had been two days ago. How did she know this? Because of that damned (familiar) cuckoo clock on the wall that had told her so.

It seemed like nothing had changed in the years that their odd little family had been apart. Harold was still as unhinged as ever and in turn and the Jenkins cabin was just the same as it had been six years ago. Not even the blanket of dust on the kitchen table had been cleaned away, nor the blasted notebook (the one which had started it all) had been moved; although a second rather familiar journal had joined the pile. It looked very much like the one her Father used to write in constantly when they were children and at this point, it wouldn't surprise her if Harold had somehow managed to get his grubby little hands on it.

And hadn't that been a surprise? After six years of on-again-off-again (reluctant) contact with her baby daddy, Harold had popped out of the woodwork like the roach he was, and struck her over the head without a second thought. Now normally, Vanya would brag about having the hearing of a bat or better thanks to her Legacies, but she had (understandably) been stuck inside her own head that day. Her mind had whirled with thoughts of Mom, Five's quest to stop the supposed end of the world and what she was gonna get Theodore for his birthday (because the start of teenhood was a big milestone to any child). Vanya had felt eyes on her back as she left the academy, of course, but she had brushed them off as a wayward LANE Keeper with wondering eyes or the burning stare of her sister who still insisted on keeping an eye on her, even after their rather large blowout in the theatre bathroom. Something that she now deeply regretted; but hey, hindsight was 20-20.

Log-lined & tile-plastered walls penned her in, the threat of Theodore's life at stake and the copious dosages of ketamine & lofentanil stopped her from moving or prevented her from fighting back (she knew it was those two drugs because a) her captor had no qualms about telling her exactly what he was doing and b) he made no attempts to hide said drugs). Those books and those little brown bottles, taunted her day & night as the drugs plaguing her veins did what they were advertised to do; wroughting her with pain and hallucinations.

Ketamine, the more readily available drug, was typically used as a local anaesthetic, particularly when operating on animals and for achieving an extreme high. Unfortunately, when used in higher dosages, the sedative caused the patient more than just the pleasant nothingness that those anaesthetics were often meant for; as Vanya could authoritatively tell you. Her bladder pinged whenever she so much as twitched one way or another, her memory had turned fuzzy and muscle spasms—particularly in her throat—had caused her to have more than one accident (which was why she had been moved to the bathtub at some point because Harold didn't want to have to constantly deal with her messes. Or so he said). Lofentanil, on the other hand, was simply a more powerful version of the carfentanil sedatives that she had grown up using under the guise of anxiety medication. (Vanya wasn't sure if Harold had purposefully overdosed her or not, but the pain was immense and most hours she spent the time languishing in the tub with a pained grimace on her face). Either one of these sedatives on their own could be lethal in their own rights, but together? She should have been dead long ago

Once again, Vanya truly & utterly believed that she had only her Loric genetics to thank for her continued survival (however painful) and the hope that she would one day see Theodore again. A day that she also hoped would never come. Because if Harold got his way, then they—Vanya, Harold & Theodore—would reunite as a family unit once more and finally achieve his lifelong dream of becoming a new & improved Umbrella Academy hero. With her late father gone, this dream now seemed far more real. When he had been alive, even the threat of exposure had been enough to stall Harold's plans, but now that he was gone, so too were those inhibitors.

Harold wanted to bring about the second coming of the Umbrella Academy—a right that he thought he was desperately owed—and with the death of Sir Reginald Hargreeves, he could finally do that. Theodore would be his muse; his hero, his figurehead and Harold, himself, would play the role of mentor & father. Just as Sir Reginald had done. The only problem was, was that Vanya was standing in his way because whilst she lived, she would do anything to stop that from happening; she would do anything to keep both father and son apart, which was why she had to go.

At first, Harold had thought that death would be the most suitable option (murder always seemed to be the answer for his problems, no matter how many times he was caught), but then Lady Luck smiled down upon him and he finally found something that would cement his dreams further. Sir Reginald's journal containing scrawled notes on the Umbrella Academy's powers were most insightful and it was here that he found out just how important of a motivator, stress was. Harold hoped that instead of killing Vanya right off—that taking her instead—would insight a sort of stress that pushed Theodore past his limits; that would help him to achieve his fullest potential. And in the meantime, Harold could satiate his hunger for blood by enacting revenge on the woman who had taken everything from him. His child, his money, his mobility and even his life. There was something beautiful, afterall, in whittling her down before he could carve her into something far more beautiful.

Thanks to the cocktail of drugs that Harold had been intermittently feeding her via the intravenous strapped to her arm, Vanya had fallen into a strange sort of painful trance-like state; one that played with mind, buffered at her emotions and subdued her Legacies (although she did have to wonder where Harold had gotten all of these items from, she suspected that Amazon and Craigslist played a much bigger role in her capture & hostage situation than they would ever care to admit). Glassy brown eyes stared off into the distance as the tick-tick-ticking of the cuckoo clock out in the hall, sung in her ears and the inch of cold water that she sat in, lapped at her twitching toes as she sunk back into the recesses of her own mind.

For the life of her, Vanya could pinpoint where she was, she didn't know when she had disappeared from that dingy little bathroom and reappeared in the darkened and waterlogged stairway; she only knew that she couldn't go back. The only source of light she had, was the one from whence she had come and there was no way she was able to get back. She felt like Alice through the looking glass as her head rolled back to see the large puddle above her head and the tiled room of the bathroom beyond. It was too far to climb back up, so the only way forward was down; down into the dark.

At first, she had thought that the place was deathly silent—almost suffocatingly so—but pricked ears picked up the small sounds that echoed around her like the crashing of cymbals in an orchestra. The clattering of cutlery against porcelain china, the sniffling wails of a child in the throes of a nightmare, the pattering of kitten feet upon the floor, a violin singing sweetly, the feverish arguments of enraged men, the crashing of shattered glass and the bored drawl of a philosopher. She knew these sounds, and yet…

"—SEEVE! [Seven] You're late for supper! Sit down!" A strict voice pierced throughout the darkness and the silence, commanding her feet to move forward without her permission. She felt herself beckoned forth like a hesitant child awaiting the inevitable scolding of a disappointed parent as she shuffled through the dark with hands outstretched. She KNEW that voice, KNEW that name and somewhere in the back of her mind, Vanya KNEW that that word belonged to her & her alone. And yet as she stepped out into the dimly-lit dining room garbed in a school uniform that she didn't remember putting on (but, again, knew to be her own), she still wondered as to whom she was answering to. A father perhaps? Brother? Uncle? Son? Were they even a family member at all?

Where the entrance of the house had been dimly-lit in blue, like the film of an underwater reflection, the dining room was bathed in a greenish glow that was just as jaundice as her own pale flesh and gave off a sense of uncomfortableness that was mirrored in the occupants sat around the long oak table. The elderly man—her father—at the end of the table silently gestured for her to take her seat at the other end and the smiley young boy—her son—sat next to her, excitedly thrumming his fingers against the edge of the table in anticipation.

Glancing over, her eyes trailed over either side of the table where her grown siblings (her breath caught at the sight of Ben sat there, whole & there) sat; each of them wearing the same prim & proper school uniform that matched her own, the one with the umbrella proudly emblazoned upon their breasts. (Hers was different, hers held not an umbrella, but a violin—a WHITE violin). Hair combed back and collars neatly pressed, they all looked like a matching set even with their tense forms hunched over the table. Only Five had the audacity to lean his elbows on the tabletop despite the reprimanding glare sent his way, whilst Klaus subtly rolled a joint beneath the safety of the oak.

Sour trepidation coiled up tightly in her gut as she approached the table, moving to take her place at the other end of the table, the one opposite her father and in between her son & her niece (she felt like she had been sequestered to the kiddy table). Shifting uncomfortably beneath all the expectant eyes pinned on her, Vanya took the brief moment to study the long oak table beneath her calloused fingertips. The wood was oak and scarred with nicks & divots that looked to be made by wayward knives and other miscellaneous blades. Each placemat that was laid out before them, bore several stacks of unmarked porcelain plates like something from one of Theodore's cartoons; and yet somehow Vanya intricately knew which fork was for what purpose.

"C'me on, Vanya, time to eat!" A disembodied voice echoed about the cavernous room again, bouncing off of the marble pillars and swam between her ears. She knew that voice. She KNEW, she knew that voice, but something just wasn't computing right. It was like trying to solve one of Five's equations, but the numbers just weren't adding up right; something was still missing even though she felt like she was staring the answer right in the face. At first, she thought it might have been her father's timbre again, but when her eyes reached her father at the other end, she saw that her father's lips had not moved once. "C'me on, open up! Here comes the aeroplane!"

"Excuse me…?" Vanya breathed, confused and uncomfortable as she silently suffered beneath the expectant stares of her family.

"We're all waiting" Father demanded.

"For what?"

"For you"

"For…me? I—I don't…I don't understand…"

"So you're not prepared? Is THAT what you're saying?"

"Well…prepared for what?"

"For the truth, silly" Claire brightly beamed in reply. "Don't you remember, Auntie?"

"It's not her fault, A'Doro" Theodore interjected, his expression turned guilty and tone had morphed into something more childishly demure as he stared down at the table in front of him like the wooden grain would swallow him up if he asked. "Doro was being mean again"

"She hit her head" Ben added, "That's why she can't do anything"

"She got too confident" Allison chimed in next, her tone snarky and smug. "Got herself captured"

"She's lazy" Luther agreed amicably, "Didn't study"

"No, no, no—! That's not it! I—!" Vanya protested in vain.

"—Maybe she's been faking it all along? Maybe she WANTED this?" Klaus suggested, quirking a brow in question as he placed the unlit cigarette between his lips.

"She's just not ready for this" Five replied in disappointment (somehow his words hurt her more than the others'), "She's not one of US"

"You're all wrong" Father succinctly refuted, cowing all of the Hargreeves (grand)children into submission, "Seeve DELIBERATELY chooses not to do anything"

Denial bubbled up inside of Vanya and yet a small niggling piece of her wondered if what he had declared was true. Was she really choosing not to do anything? What was so bad that she didn't want to leave? Was it better to stay? As these questions whirled around inside her head like a tornado, seven well-dressed & bent-necked nannies trundled out cloche-covered dishes that were painted in silver and gave off this odd odour which made her stomach roil. Off to the side stood the visage of her biological mother, Katerina, the android one who had raised her, Grace and the hunched form of Pogo; as they all watched the table with bated breath. What they were waiting for, Vanya couldn't say.

"What—what happened to you?" Vanya asked the crippled man who laid her dish in front of her with graceful movements despite his obvious injury. It was Harold (because even in the confines of her own mind, Harold still wasn't a part of the academy—he still wasn't a part of their family).

"You did" Harold replied, mindless of the twisted legs that shouldn't have been able to support him, but did.

"Me…? But I wouldn't—!"

"—But you did"

Vanya didn't know what to say, save for the fact that a strange sense of chilling cold and conflict surged through her when she took in the man's munted appearance. She was conflicted because when she looked at him, she could pick out the attributes that she saw in Theodore, that made her son so perfect in her eyes. Theodore was the best (and worst) of the them, with his big brown doe eyes & floppy locks that curled themselves up into tight ringlets, faint freckles that danced across pale cheeks and a mischievous grin that pulled at the corners of his mouth.

Number Seven also felt chills roll down her spine when she looked at Harold, because their relationship was not exactly one for the walls in the halls of fame. When the rose-tinted glass had shattered, their relationship had soured beyond belief and Vanya was glad that she had refused his numerous proposals (some marriage, others not) over the years. She thought (hoped) that the years apart would finally get it through his thick head, that they were not ever going to be tied together like that; that when they were done, they were DONE. But he never seemed to get the memo. Although, Vanya wasn't quite sure WHY she expected so much from him. By the end of their relationship, they weren't husband & wife, they weren't boyfriend & girlfriend, they weren't mother & father and they weren't even friends. They were just two strangers living together and raising their son out in the relative safety of the woods. And even that couldn't hold them together. Which was a shame; because Lorics mated for life and if you picked wrong, then you were stuck. Bit like Vanya was; course, she couldn't have predicted that it would ever turn out like this. No one (sans a Tavan) could of.

But soon enough, her attention was drawn from the crippled man who had retreated to a place beyond her shoulder as the cloche was removed and down towards her plate where she was faced with the visage of a giant jiggling brain that stood there proudly in its glorious salmon sheen. All around her, the other Hargreeves dug into their brains with much fervour and turning Vanya's gut even more as she tried not to gag. As she fiddled with her cutlery in an attempt to avoid eating it, Vanya could faintly hear Father telling Theodore to take smaller bites, for Claire to stop playing with her rather jiggly portions of her occipital lobe and for Five to eat his parietal lobe, which the teen had been neglecting in favour of the frontal lobe.

"Is there something wrong, Seeve?" Father intoned as he snapped out his napkin with a flick of the wrist and slung it across his lap, before cutting into his own brain.

"…I'm just not hungry" Vanya excused as disgust welled up within her and resolutely stared down at the organ on his plate. As much as it revolted her, there was NO way that she could watch her family eat it with so much vigour; but hearing them gulped the slimy thing down was just as bad.

"Try it" Father commanded as he sliced neatly through the cerebral cortex. "It might help you work up some motivation"

"…Vanya, are you awake in there?" The disembodied voice sounded again, grating against her ears just as Klaus' knife grated violently against the plate, like he was trying to cleave the entire thing in half. "Still kicking then? We may have to adjust your dosage"

"Wha—?" Vanya blinked dumbly, brows furrowed in confusion as she tried to understand what was going on.

"Oooh! Auntie's in trouble~!" Claire crowed, eyes bright as she watched what would happen when an adult got the shorter end of the stick.

"Vera" Theodore leant in close, brain juice dripping from his chin like drool and voice humorously serious. "You gotta eat your dinner or you won't get dessert!"

Vanya cringed as all burning eyes turned to her again and she was forced to cut the smallest sliver of the temporal lobe from the brain in front of her, least she feel the wrath of her father. Inspecting the piece as it glistened just so in the dim and jaundice lighting she heaved a heavy sigh and stuffed the piece into her mouth all in one go. The slimy texture hit her tongue first, making her recoil. Even so, she tried her best to swallow down the disgusting forkful down in one go, despite her body wanting nothing more than to reject it.

Choking & gagging on the tiny piece of morsel in her mouth, Number Seven found herself unable to eat any more and pushed away her plate in defiance; an action which brought her family to tears. Subjected to their jubilant & taunting laughter which sounded both muffled and deafening in her ears, Vanya soon cowered under her father's heavy-handed glare of disappointment. "SEEVE!" Father scolded as she tried her best to choke it down, "Either you WILL eat your dinner or you WILL go to your room without dessert!"