Run boy, Run
Allison Hargreeves sat on a windowsill, smoking a cigarette and watching its thin trail of smoke swirl among the stars. Her head was stuffed with cotton balls for thought.
She was trying to pinpoint the moment where it all went wrong. But the deeper she went; the more absorbed she got with every terrible thing shes ever done.
Soaking up every dark moment until those cotton-balls were saturated with filth and grime. Not unlike her lungs were with each breach of smoke.
All the same, she kept smoking.
And she kept thinking.
—
"Do you feel any better?" A crystal and sweet voice asked her.
A preteen Allison stood in front of her floor length mirror. Her curly hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail with a scrunchy, and her small body adorned in her signature uniform.
Allison looked past herself in the mirror, to see Winnie Hargreeves. A sight that usually brought her so much joy, but now filled her with bubbling hate.
"No! Get out of my room!" Allison hissed.
At her feet was an open Teen- Vogue magazine. The centerfold was a cropped photo of the umbrella Academy, with only Winnie and Allison. They stood grinning and euphoric, clutching one anothers hands.
They had just defeated a master criminal!
But.. that didn't seem to matter.
No one cared they had been awake for 32 hours, staking out a genius terrorist. That Allison had evacuated crowds of people and saved hundreds of lives. That Winnie had spent a day and night, working her hands bloody, trying to enrapture the entire plan on canvas.
No, they cared about their looks. They cared about how they styled their hair, and painted their nails, and how clean their skin looked.
They circled each flaw on their body's in highlighter circles with catchy statements like "Dream Hair? Not!"
Klaus had found the magazine in a back alley where he was supposed to meet... a friend. He called a child-hargreeves meeting to show everyone. There, Allison had snatched it out of his hands and ran to her room to cry.
Because it didn't stop at just pointing out their flaws. It decided to compare the two girls. And in their eyes, Allison fell short.
Allison was growing into her body and Winnie hadn't aged a day. Allison had teenage acne and Winnie's skin was still baby smooth. Allison had dark skin. Winnie was peachy.
"Alli, you cant listen to those people.." Winnie tried.
It didn't matter. Allison didn't hear her words. She only saw the elements that the magazine deemed "Perfection!"
She couldn't stand it.
"I heard a rumor you thought you were hideous!"
—
"I heard a rumor you didn't want to hang out with us."
—
"I heard a rumor you hate that dress-"
—
"I heard a rumor-"
—
"I heard-"
—
Was there an actual moment that began her down hill morality? She was a good person once... right?
"Ah.. Miss Allison."
Allison flinched and instinctually snuffed the flame. She quickly pushed away from her spot, leaving the crushed cigarette on the sill. Then she lifted her lips into a smile she perfected so many years ago.
"I was looking for you." Pogo said calmly, at the mouth of the room. His hands hooked neatly behind his back, while he looked at her with a knowing stare that he, too, had perfected years ago.
"How did... uh, how did you know I was up here?" Allison asked.
"Ah," Pogo smiled, "That wasn't hard. This is always where you would when you were too upset for Winnie to see."
Allison bit her tongue. Pogo knew. As much as the Hargreeves children needed Winnies unconditional love, very few of them knew how to actually deal with it.
Allison decided to just avoid her entirely when things got too tough.
After the Teen Vogue.. It took several weeks to get Winnie to like herself, and several more before she let Five touch her again.
That was around the time when Allison started to hide away.
Love was hard when you had Daddy issues and a power with untold consequences.
"Wait.. Who told you I was upset?" Allison asked, but then rolled her eyes and supplied the most obvious answer.
"Luther."
"Actually It was Miss Vanya... She called to make sure you were ok." Pogo replied.
Allison pinched a shaped brow, "Yeah.. I said some pretty unkind things to her."
"Shes your sister, she knows you didn't mean it." Pogo insisted.
"You might be confusing her with the short blonde one that doesn't age."
"Miss Vanya would know as well."
Allison started walking around Pogo. She crossed her arms and looked down at her feet as she went. Talking about something like this was making her very uncomfortable.
"She doesn't even know me! Which is fine! Because I don't know shit about her either!"
"Language." Pogo reminded, and was utterly underwhelmed with how unsurprised he was to say that.
"Sorry." Allison chuckled. "Its just... Its been a while since we've all lived under the same roof."
"Almost 13 years."
Allison looked down at him. Sometimes she forgot that he was a man, despite being more genetically similar to a monkey. He had intelligent thought and emotion, even more then shes seen from true human beings.
With that, he could feel just as alone.
"How did you do it?" Allison asked. "Alone, in this house, for so long?"
"Well, one grows used to things. Even if sometimes... one shouldn't."
Allison looked down. Pogo smiled. If only she hadn't glanced away- she could've seen that smile for what it was worth, for what it entailed.
That particular smile always paired with a Hargreeves helping of scheming trouble.
"Come with me." Pogo proposed. "I want to show you something. It might just cheer you up."
Allison looked back up and followed her beloved caretaker. Her heart a little lighter, and her day a little better.
"Make sure that cigarette is put out fully. Wouldn't want to start a fire."
Allison quickly jogged backwards to the open window. She plucked the still smoking cancer stick and snuffed it fully against the wood.
**
"You're Father stopped recording years ago. I still come here from time to time.. when Im missing you."
Allison and Pogo stood in front of a gigantic wall of monitors. Several screens blitzed in and out, showing surveillance in several rooms.
Allison stood in morbid amazement. She couldn't figure out if she should be horrified or touched.
"Pogo this is..." Allison blanked for a moment. "Most families have home movies to look back on."
"We.. have surveillance footage."
Pogo frowned as he looked amongst the series of tapes. His most treasured parts of their childhood played.
"I thought it might cheer you up."
"It does." Allison sighed. She still couldn't decide quite how she felt, but she was willing to roll with it.
At the center screen, a scene of Five and Winnie played.
She was draped lethargically across one of his lab tables, listening to him babble some scientific nonsense. (Allison knew it was nonsense because she watched him loose focus every time he looked back at her)
"We were so young..." Allison barely touched the screen before her eyes caught something else.
"Oh my gosh- thats me and Ben. We were the last ones in the tag tournament."
Small, black and white, Ben and Allison chased one another up the stairs. She could hear Ben cry she was cheating, just like it was yesterday. Diego, Winnie, and Klaus were probably out of shot declaring the same thing.
And then there was...
"Vanya.."
A scene of a lonesome Vanya played. She was tuning her violin in the foyer.
Suddenly, a small Winnie popped up. Winnie was covered in mud and carrying stems of flowers. She stuck one into Vanya's hair, and smiled.
Then Five appeared and tugged Winnie out of sight. He too, was covered in mud and acting grumpy- but Allison saw his grin before he disappeared completely.
Unfortunately, that wasn't were the tape ended. (when does it ever end with a happy couple?)
It showed Vanya hesitantly reaching out, even when Winnie was too far gone, and retracting to her chest like her fingers burned.
She went back to her violin, and Allisons heart stung.
"Why didn't we include her? I mean if anyone treated my daughter like that... I just cant even imagine."
"You were a child, miss Allison." Pogo told her.
"Yeah.. but Im not anymore. And she isn't either."
Pogo nodded his head knowingly. There were just some things that didn't totally depend on upbringing, and Allison knew when to draw that line.
"The rest of the tapes are in that Cabinet." He handed her a ring of keys. "Make sure you lock up before you leave."
Pogo glanced warily. "Things have been going missing and... some things are too important to lose."
Allison nodded absently and went back to inspecting the screens. Pogo held his breath as he too made extra sure that particular tape was in sight.
The monkey butler nodded to himself when it was and excused himself. As he went, he flipped a small 10x10 painting next to the door, onto its face.
This was just an extra precaution. In case she didn't see the tape of her Fathers death before she saw the painting of its exact contents.
He shouldn't have worried. Winnies predictions always come true.
"Oh god.. Dad."
—
"Does it show anything? Please- please tell me it shows something?"
"It does not number Eight. Stop crying and hand me that painting."
—
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Hi, sorry. I know this isn't necessarily about Five and Winnie- but I wanted to flesh out the whole story a little more. Thank you for reading!
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