Luther ducks his head and tightens his fingers and waits. Allison looks away and then looks back and hates that it makes her take a breath in, gives her nothing new to take in, and shoot back. She ends up blowing that same breath back out her nose. Because she gets, even as stupid as it is, that in some part it's very sidelined attempt to say it is in her hands. Or, maybe, also that he might let her say no.

He doesn't think he should do it,
but he hasn't ordered her to do it.

Maybe understands how badly that would go.




Except that she can't. Say no.

Terrible trite thoughts about how she can't say anything at all, that creep knife-sharp and self-sabotaging. But she can't if they want to have any chance of it working. Because she can't even imagine Luther and Vanya in a small space having that conversation, while both still don't know how to handle even talking about each other with her. And Diego is a radioactive nuclear option.

And it will be one of them if she says no.
If she tells Luther she won't do this either.

And then it might never happen.



And she knows. She does. She's been putting it off. Selfishly hoarding the moments of just getting to be Vanya's sister with her, instead of anything like the keeper she's become between her and the others. They'd gotten just to be themselves, as much as either of them knew how to be. To get drinks. To go to that spa with Ben.

But it wasn't good enough, and she knew that. She always had. It had stayed buried under her skin, especially every time Vanya shied away from any admission of remembering what she had to given how she'd arrived and how her reactions read during any time it came up. How she was refusing even to play her violin or be involved in anything related to music. Eventually, it was going to have be handled. She kept thinking that.



And somehow, now, eventually had caught up with her.