001 ☂ Video

[numberthree]

[ The network video when it comes on is of a brand new face that hasn’t been seen here before. A beautiful woman with creamy light brown skin and long, crimped blonde hair, styled artfully back from her face on one side and framing the other. Her make-up is subtle but smoothed to pull together at the toned light red of her lipstick. Her delicate-knit shirt hangs off one shoulder in a soft mint shade, and her bare skin is accented by a simple golden locket.



Everything about her is picturesque save one detail — a garish bandage, with clear, medical grade tape, wrinkling at the edge as she swallows, covers the center of her throat in a glaring white stripe.



She’s focusing on something in her hands when the video comes up, and she looks up at the camera with a faintly awkward reluctance cemented by determination. She gives a small smile that brushes some of the dust off the awkwardness and settles her shoulders, lifting from her lap a torn-out yellow notepad sheet and holding it before her and camera, but below her face, revealing a tattoo of an umbrella on her wrist. It reads, in thick black sharpie letters: ]



Hello. My name is Allison Hargreeves.



[ She counts in her head to five before she puts it down, lifting the next one. Trying to maintain her calm and poise at the necessity of this. To not feel the futility that necessity brings about. That her new inability to speak adds to it. The next page reads: ]



I am new here and looking for my siblings.



 [ Very specifically, them. Not just ‘anyone who knew her,’ given that in her world — and that there are other worlds is not a thing Allison wants to think hard on yet, and definitely right now, right here, with untold number of unknown people watching her — but on hers, she had been recognizable since birth. First as the only girl in the illustrious Umbrella Academy destined to ’save the world, of course’ and then as a world-famous actress for the second half of her life.



Allison knew better than to ask for things too blankly open stated. Stardom taught you many things about humanity you never wanted to know. She dropped the second paper and raised a third prepared one. ]

Their names are Luther, Diego, Klaus, Five, and Vanya. 



[ Another small pause and, instead of picking up a fourth, she simply turns over the third to show the last sentence. ]


Any help in finding them, if they are here, is appreciated. 


Comments

text;

[stuckintime]

Vanya and I are here. Klaus as well.

[He's not going to drop the 'hey our dead brother is alive here' surprise over text.]

Where did they put you?

video

[viciousmaukery]

First of all, it might be a little easier on you just to directly send texts to people. [It’d be easier on Molly, certainly—he’s not great at reading, but at least he can cheat with text and have a robotic voice read to him. But he doesn’t let that on.]

Second, I’m Mollymauk Tealeaf, I’ve met Klaus. He’s been very interesting, to say the least.

Text

[iminthebook]

Welcome.

I've not seen any of them, but looks like a few answered you already. I hope you can find the others, and if not, I will try to aid you, if they are here.

Finding people is something I am good at.

[numberthree]

[ Allison takes a second to shift her phone, and focus on the keypad. It is going to be easier, but, also, it takes a bit of precision hitting the right keys, and backspacing to recorrect spellings that absolutely get wrong by trying to do it all too fast in her sudden relief and desperate need to write back. ]

Maurtia Falls. Where are all of you?

[ A second later. ]

Luther and Diego aren't with you?

[numberthree]

[ Allison is very new to this small communicator thing and spends a few minutes turning it, and starting to type like an absolute newbie, with one finger slowly, trying to make sure everything is spelled right, and messing up, and having to fix things. To figure out where punctuation is. ]

It's nice to meet you.

You've seen Klaus? Do you know where I can find him?

[numberthree]

Thank you for the offer. I will definitely keep it in mind. We may need it where it to two of our other brothers. You are? Or how is it best to find you, if we do?

[iminthebook]

I am. I'm called Harry Dresden. And I'm in the book. Or you can message me in Jeopardy, at [address].

text; handle: ghost stories

[the_horror]

[Have a strange message from an unnamed person]

I see how it is.

[stuckintime]

Klaus and I got put in Jeopardy, Vanya is in Nonah.

We should talk.

[numberthree]

[ What this gets is mostly is a wrinkled brow and a long stare. Anonymous and random, and for the beat of a second almost deletes it, but she can't close it. Instead typing. ]

Excuse you?

[numberthree]

Thanks, Harry.

I'll check with my siblings and contact you later if we need your services.

[the_horror]

[Sorry, Ben is a bit of a pain in the ass with text sometimes.]

You call for all your siblings but me? Rude, really. I see how it is. Woe is me, and all that.

[numberthree]

[ Potentially the worst words in the world, and Allison's heart runs cold and sharp at an insanely hostile speed after Patrick, and Claire, and there's no reigning it back. Not after what only just happened. His words, that aren't words, there's no tone, no tell feel like a slap to he full awareness. Luther. Or Diego. Or both of them. ]

What's wrong? What happened to them? And Vanya-- is Vanya okay?

[numberthree]

[ It's a baffled annoyance. Confusion like a layer reading it. Thinking for a second maybe it's Klaus, frowning, and almost calling him out on it. Except she named Klaus, and that. She named everyone. Everyone.




Except.


And the anger that comes with it is so sudden and so complete. ]

I don't know who you are, but that's not funny.

[stuckintime]

Klaus and Vanya are fine.

Where are you now?

[iminthebook]

You're welcome.

There is good here, and strangeness, and hopefully, you will find the good.

[the_horror]

Okay, okay, no jokes. I could get away with it with Klaus, but I should have known better with you, right? It's been a while.

[If she seems mad to him about THAT, he'll switch to Video, but otherwise, typing works.]

[numberthree]

[ It brings to mind the wave of shock and disbelief that had exchanged in glances, in the concert hall. Ben, or Ben's ghost, at least, brought forth by Klaus, tentacles in every direction taking out their shooters. But that was Klaus' doing. Klaus' powers. He wasn't alive. Hadn't been even then. It wasn't whatever sick thing this was. ]

Stop this. Right now.

text; <--> video;

[the_horror]

[He switches to video with out saying much else. It's a image of Ben, sitting at his home desk, leaning on the table with his arms resting on each other. His head tilts and his brow raises.]

[He gives a faint smile then raises a hand to wave at her.]

Hey, sis. [He says softly.] I'm here in Jeopardy like Klaus and Five. I'm sure Five didn't tell you because he didn't want to upset you. Like I just did.

[Sure sounds like him, and he doesn't look much older than when he died at 17.]

[numberthree]

[ As extreme emotions go, the veer for being purposely obtuse and avoidant is that Allison has to remember that her brother has, at many times already shown, he's got a pension for acting like a grade-a-asshole when he feels like. Which happens to be downright often. It only vaguely makes her want to strangle him, and makes the edges of her fingers whiten on the edges of the phone, tangling fear into an anger she's so much better at. ]

That's not an answer.

I'm in my new apartment.

[numberthree]

[ It's probably almost funny. The scowl on her face is epic, something dangerously bordered by betrayal, as she's jabbing her finger at the phone to make it switch, and then --

It goes. Like a cloud of smoke. It falls. For a tragic pause, that crinkles outward. Brown eyes searching the screen, left and right and up, and down, her lips shifting without opening as her head tries to even process what the rest of her chest is already trying to jump toward. Impossible. It's impossible. but he looks so perfectly like -- and she'd wished so hard, so many times -- and Klaus had said so many times, but they all knew it couldn't -- and then, the concert hall --

-- she's not even thinking, doesn't even notice it when her lips form Ben? even without the sound.
Something too old and too young all at once taking up her face. Almost tragically hopeful. ]

[the_horror]

[He leans there, giving that faint smile, watching her look him over. Maybe he should have done this in person, but he didn't want to leave it to Klaus to tell her and her not believe him. Didn't want to leave it to Vanya and have there be a sore spot between them that wasn't needed. And he knew Five was leaving it to him as it was.]

[In person would have been good, but this was going to have to do.]

[He lowered his hand and watched her mouth his name. He had seen she was still bandaged, mute still. It was too bad that wasn't fixed when she got here, much like his death was fixed.]

Yeah, it's me. Klaus was always telling the truth when he said he saw me. Apparently they were kind enough here to give me back my life, however that works. [a pause, then softer, with more concern.] You okay?

[numberthree]

[ Allison is not certain that's a question he gets to ask when he starts talking this time, and she's able to hear his voice this time. And he does. He does. He sounds like himself even. She could have sworn she'd forgotten it. Voices go first, her therapist said somewhere. But he sounds just right. Looks just right. And Allison isn't sure she won't end tearing up.

She looks down at the edges of her device, and back to his face, in a slingshot, like maybe he would have stopped existing, she'd be wrong, this had to be wrong, a dream, something, the second she'd looked away, but he was right there. She raised a hand, vaguely her first two fingers asking for a second.

Not for a break, but because she was trying to shift things on her device. To figure out if she could still type, without making the screen turn off because she wanted words. But not for him to. To stop being there. To feel like even more of a sudden and inexplicable fever. For him to -- just. Go away.

He'd gone away for far too long already. ]

[the_horror]

[He's watching her with concern. He thinks he's allowed to ask that question, on several levels. One, because of her showing up here, and her injury, and her shock at his being alive. Mostly that last one. If she was okay with his being here like this.]

[He felt like that was a good question to ask. But that was just him.]

[She raised two fingers, as if asking for a moment, and he nodded. He was pretty sure he knew what she was looking for.]

You can still type. It should show up at the bottom of the screen.

[and to prove it he does as such.]

They are fairly interesting devices.

[numberthree]

[ She can tap on it, and it gives her back the box, and then it's the agonizing second of even having to think what to say to put it down, even though a hundred things all want to come rushing out of her mouth, and she's tearing up a bit and trying not to, but not trying actually hard at all, even slightly, because she keeps looking back, and Ben keeps being real.

She settles for something, even if it skips two many dozen other things. ]

What's the fastest way to get to there?