i found myself in crowded rooms, feeling so alone

[numberthree]

WHO: Teen!Rumor + You
WHERE: Nonah (or wherever, we can handwave how)
WHEN: May 4th
WHAT: Allison is hit with Wild Fey Magic, and reverts back to being 13
WARNINGS: One super temper and a mass case of flippant, ruthless uses of powers



Number Three had no clue where she was when she woke up.

The bedroom was bare and unfamiliar, and someone had put her in some weird set of pajamas. While their father might be the end all be all a totalitarian dictator, he had prepared them, if not for every situation, then with skills that could be used wherever they might find themselves. If panic touched the edges of her thoughts, she brushed it away with all the dismissal of ants. She skivvied out of the strange bed, stole a tunic shirt, and belted it at the waist, making sure her every step was silent.

She'd been kidnapped and tortured before. That wasn't anything new. But she wasn't about to stick around and wait to see what the latest flavor whatever villain who got the drop on her had in mind. Weirdly. She couldn't remember how she'd been kidnapped at all, where her uniform was. But that could wait. They could have drugged her. She could focus on that once she was home.

Number Three crept out of the bedroom into ... a house? A house full of boxes? And one where the front door only had a knob lock and deadbolt? This was too weird. But she wasn't looking a gift-horse in the mouth. She slipped out from the house, closing the door carefully, slowly, and waiting for about fifteen more feet of silent steps from the door before she started sprinting down the street, still holding her breath.

It only gets weirder and weirder. She doesn't recognize any of the street signs, and she asks someone on a sidewalk where she is, and how far from home it is. But she doesn't know the name of this place. Or anywhere else they mentioned. Weirder still when she finally found someone with a phone (or whatever this was, that was the size of her hand???), and The Academy phone number didn't work.

It's a mistake the first time she mentions The Umbrella Academy because a crowd forms out of nowhere, screaming questions (about whether she's some love child from the future? And asking any number of things that seem crazily worse. She's pretty sure someone just asked if they went in for underwear or no underwear with costumes wherever she came from).

Eventually, with or without some help, Number Three does manage to wrench herself free of the teeming crowds, that are like the crowds from home and nothing like that at all. After getting a few blocks away, she dropped on a bench. She was racking her head. This wasn't her job. This was what Luther did. Or Five, if he was allowed to.

One barefoot, forlorn, if headstrong and temperamental,
child-hero for sale to any buyers who would like to find her.

Comments

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[timehit]

If Number Three feels irritated or out of place, then no doubt these sentiments are shared by her brother. Freshly arrived to this particular time and place (no, don't bother explaining to him the concepts he is already acutely familiar with—in fact, why don't you read the folder because then you'd stop wasting his time), Five isn't one to meander about unnecessarily. It's against his training and against his character, frankly, so he quickly sets his mind at task.

After buying coffee from a street vendor, he scrolls through his communicator; the crowds on the way to the "porter" for Nonah mean nothing. Even in this whip-thin boyish body, he blinks from one space to the next, here and gone in a second. No push, no shove, no hindrance from these people who gape at the newest imPort. It's when he's stepped foot in what is supposed to be his new hometown that he finds what he's looking for in the name registry.

Hargreeves, Allison.

There, now isn't that easy?

This man out of time has spent plenty of his in other spaces, enough to understand these little devices and how to find a mark. Or, in this case, find a sibling. He doesn't act rash, of course. There's plenty of time to decide the best course of action; working for the Temps Commission, indebted to their cause, has given him a unique perspective. So he drinks his cooling coffee (they should clean the pots more, he can taste the lingering burnt bitterness), and he wonders what he'll come across. Or when, or who. It might be advantageous to observe things quietly—

Ah, but the people of Nonah are so loud. Giving a disapproving look to a group of girls who pass by, he just so happens to overhear them gossip. Umbrella Academy, one says; I heard a rumor, la-dee-da, and so on. Most of it is rubbish, so there's no point in sticking around when he has what he needs.

A blink, and space bends to his will. A blink, and he's there, just across the street from her. Five tosses the empty cup in a trash can, slides his hands in his pockets. Teenage Allison, well, that's certainly something. He sighs and waits to catch her eye.

[numberthree]

There's something beyond pavlovian around (just the way their Father planned so much of it from the very first seeds scattered and dollars paid). Time and space are still closing around her brother when Number Three looks up. A thing that takes barely seconds, means he's been there less than seconds.

But she's already moving. "Five!"
Reaction already in action, as always. "Finally!"

Fingers and palm of one hand pushing up from the bench, with a single point alone, using all the alacrity of balance and ballast lifelong martial artistry loves. Already dashing across that street the moment her feet are down, with not a single thought to the cars or her bare feet. Sure, there are cars honking like mad, swerving, and the asphalt is blistering, but she'd love to see anyone get out and try anything.

Beside Diego, she's probably the one who loves best being given a reason to do her worst best. "Where are the others? Where's Space?"

[timehit]

You wouldn't know it to look at him, as he tilts his chin up and watches her bound across the street, but a very particular surge of emotion hits Five at this old, familiar sight. It's not a brother's sense of protectiveness—no, she didn't make it as Number Three to need any of the boys to play knight in shitty armor. Those riled up drivers skidding to a halt to allow her to pass are more lucky that she's not irate enough to pay them mind.

Eh, the feeling's more like this. And maybe Luther was right about it, but he's not going to apologize or admit anything; but these are his people, his home, the only place a fucked up old man caught in a boy's body belongs. Spending a haphazard string of days trying to halt the apocalypse doesn't negate years of missing them. It's nothing in comparison to that long, lonely life, so when Allison meets him on the sidewalk, cheeks flushed and ready for a fight, he can only pull his lips into a tight, begrudging smile.

"Just got here myself, maybe an hour ago," he admits. "Am I the only one you've seen so far? It's funny, but I saw another name in the registry before I found you."

With a smooth gesture, he takes out the communicator from his pocket and hands it over for her to inspect. Luther's name right below hers. Fitting, probably, if he was more of a romantic and less of a tired, old cynic. Five affords her a moment to process the information before continuing.

They've got a lot of work ahead of them.

[numberthree]

Number Three is flushed and smiling, though the kind made of the sharpest hair of a knife-edge, relieved, and ready when she hits the other sidewalk. Five might be the most arrogant and showy one of all of them, but she'd take any of the other five of them over the rest of the world (theirs, or this one) every single day of the week.

Oh, how true that will be, doubly, in so few years.
First, about him. Then about Ben.

"What?" Allison falls back on her heels.

It's a sharp slap, the instant frustration and self-castigation, well trained in, their Father's voice already admonishing her for being sloppy, for not using the resources already in front of her. But Five was, also, the smartest, too, especially where it came to learning brand new things. She could yell at herself later; the only important thing now is taking that device he's holding out, and looking at it. Skimming until she sees two names.

Allison Hargreeves,
followed by Luther Hargreeves.

"Who are they?" There's a fast lookup. "Relatives of Dad?"

Which seemed insane by itself, even asked. Their Father claimed no one as family. He hardly even claimed them as his children, except when there were cameras flashing and article quotes to be taken down. Except in the strictest legal sense of their purchase and adoption. It was Mom, really, who fit the name and title, who had made the name 'Father' stick, even if nothing else about the man had fit it.

[timehit]

Of course. Number Three, if arrived from a certain instance in time, wouldn't recognize those names. But for Five, that just begs further questioning; how did the government here come upon that particular data? Just as they know his identity and power set on arrival?

Too many possibilities and not enough time to do that math. He's just going to have roll with it, figure things out on the fly. (That's what they were all trained to do, isn't it? Save the world in a blink of an eye?)

"The government knows more than they should here," he says, and it's true. There's no reason for him to trust this place; only his siblings, even if the one in front of him isn't the one he held the hand of as he pushed them all through time. "And for some reason I don't yet know, they seem to have assigned you these names. Call it an educated guess for now, but I think it might be best if we try to contact Number One through this channel. If we get a hit on his location, we'll be in a better position to get more answers."

Typical Five, asserting his knowledge and intellect. Everything is so matter-of-fact as he says it, but he doesn't grab ahold of the device in her hands. Instead, he gestures to a few buttons. "There, that should record something."

[numberthree]

He doesn't answer the question at first. Which is not even anything new for Five. But it's still true, and it annoys her. Even though he does get there, in his roundabout fashion some five or ten seconds later. Number Three knew she wasn't naturally patient, but the whole situation made it worse right now. Not knowing things. Not having all of them together.

Stupid people thinking they got to name her now, too.
She had two names already. That was enough names for anyone.

She didn't hesitate -- it's part of how she earned her place, her number -- when his fingers hit the buttons and he said those words. Jumping straight in as his words finished, leaning toward the little device. "This is Number Three," and with a glance over, "--and Five. We're somewhere downtown in a place called Nonah. Where are you?"

Then, with a look at Five. "Is that good?"

The smallest flicker of uncertainty was there. The kind only her siblings knew how to see. It's not like a phone. She knows he's not there. She knows Five's scorn and derision about what he knows and everyone else doesn't takes less than half a second, but they're a team, they're together, and alone, and she knows that he'll know things. Which they need more right now.

(Even as her heartbeat just a little faster
at the knowledge of Space being somewhere here.)

[timehit]

"That's perfect," he says, but of course even as a compliment it comes out in the same dry tone he always uses. "If that doesn't get his attention, nothing will."

Taking back the communicator from her hand, he hits the send button and gives Number Three a curt nod of his head. Meanwhile, he's already running his mind through the possibilities that this effort won't work. Perhaps Number One, in a fit of youthful impatience, broke this delicate piece of machinery and has foregone messaging altogether.

He could always be busy with—god, who cares what Luther's hobbies are? The models and LPs. Those books that Five may or may not have filched at his own convenience, once upon a time (boundaries are such a tenuous concept anyway). There's a great number of unknowns in this place, so really, it's kind of a shot in the dark.

"Want to take a walk for a minute? I noticed the locals here are a bit...loose with their gossip. It might be best not to linger in one spot." Five is still holding the device in his hand, should Luther respond, and he gestures forward to the path ahead. If the Academy is well-versed on anything, they definitely know about being mobbed by fans. (There's some things Five didn't miss, even at the end of the world.)

[numberthree]

Derision is Number Five's awake setting, and Number Three had the urge to roll her eyes. The only thing keeping it from that was that just the sound of his voice, and the sharpness, short, saltiness of it, was so normal that the biting edges, doubled, for making it easier for her to breathe, too. That something here was exactly how it was supposed to be.

Made it easy to drop into her own place.


Her own skin.

To settle the line of her spine, and
the span of her shoulders, and the rise of her chin.
Like everything about it was beneath Number Three's attention.

She nodded her head in the direction away, and started them walking one direction instead of simply asking where, or even agreeing. "Yeah. I got to see that up close and personal already. Wherever this is, they still know what the Academy is, but it was weird, too. Their questions were just weird."

[timehit]

"I haven't had time to settle on a good hypothesis," he offers, falling into step and allowing her to lead them off down the street. "But it could be the work of a divergent timeline. Things are familiar here, but not quite right."

That's really putting mildly; obviously wherever or whenever this is, the Temps Commission has no oversight. Too many variables, too much chaos. Now, Five doesn't consider himself sentimental, but there is something about the present moment that feels right in spite of all that.

Where and when they pulled his sister from, she's still got that same spark of fire in her eyes, that defiance in her step. Just like he remembers, in fact, and the nostalgia is enough to make the edge of his mouth twitch upward. "What kind of questions did they ask?"

[numberthree]

Number Three didn't pay as much mind to his first words, as he decided to jump to talk of timelines. He liked to play at pretending he understood time, understood what his powers might be related to, but they all knew, it was more shadow than show. A toy that couldn't be touched. One their father said couldn't be controlled

Like Four's fear of himself, and Six's transparent reticence.

Testing and practice were out, so it all air and empty words for Five.

She crinkled her nose up at the question, though, and it made her shift her weight from foot to foot, shoulders tipping, as she half rolled her eyes (at the sheer stupidity of 'normal' people even wherever this was). "Stupid things. Like whether we preferred the underwear on the inside or outside of our costumes look."