(Chapter 29|Misery)
"DAD IS DEAD."
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Katherine Hargreeves strutted hastily past her robotic mother, who was cleaning the living room and straight towards the bar. She took a seat on one of the tall leather-bound stools and poured herself a scotch on the rocks. It took her mother a minute to realise that someone had entered the room, Katherine couldn't blame her though, she worked herself too hard.
"Hello, Katherine, my dear! How are you feeling today?" Grace greeted her happily.
"Same as always, Mom." Katherine muttered, sending her mother a small smile over her shoulder.
"Sorry to here that, darling. I hope you're not over working yourself, you know your father just wants you to reach your full potential." Her voice echoed through the almost-empty room.
Katherine squeezes her eyes shut and cringed at her mothers mistake, maybe Luther was right, Grace wasn't okay.
"Mom, Dad is dead." She sighed.
"......of course. How forgetful of me." Her mother chuckled.
Katherine didn't say another word.
She shotted the entire drink before refilling the glass, her mind running wild with images or her late father and his ominous messages, the unanswerable questions that she so desired answers to. For example, the clock, that had only been present in her visions. Her father had said she was powerful, she found that extremely hard to believe, she had always felt to be less than her siblings knowing that she never fully accepted her abilities. As a child she would have given anything to be normal, to fit in, to have real friends or go to a real school.
After leaving the academy, she found her escape for her abilities that forced her into captivity. She was determined to start something for herself, to be her own person and stray from the stereotypes that defined the Umbrella Academy. Owning practically the biggest casino in Vegas, helped Katherine make a name for herself.
Meeting Meredith was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to Katherine, the first person other than her family that she could put her entire trust in, now knowing that everyone she's ever loved will be dead within days, she felt helpless. With the world ending, the Umbrella Academy should be trying to prevent the apocalypse, fighting side by side to stop the cause of it, instead they lay around aimlessly waiting for their inevitable death.
The speedster was awoken from her thoughts at the sound of footsteps, that Katherine recognised as male, not as heavy as Luther's and not as uneven as Klaus', therefore the source of the steps came from Diego.
She didn't need to turn around, she listened as he came to a stop. Their mother's melodious hums echoing through the silence of the room.
"Mom?"
"Oh! Hello, Diego, dear." Katherine heard her mother's feet shuffle against the floor to face her son.
"How are you....walking around?" Diego asked, barely audible to Katherine as the sound of her mother's heels blocked out his voice.
For a moment, Katherine had completely forgotten, her mother was supposed to be dead according to Diego, when she had heard him talking with Patch.
"One foot in front of the other. Why? How do you do it?" Katherine smiled at her mother's ability to make a joke after witnessing her husband dying and then dying herself, of course she could, she wasn't human.
"Mom, I...What's the last thing you remember?" Diego questioned, Katherine still with her back to them, scrunched up her face in confusion.
"Oh, let's see...March 21st. Sunset was 7:33pm. Moon was waxing crescent. Dinner was Cornish hen, rice, carrots." Her mother explained, Katherine recognised the same response she had gotten days ago when her, Allison and Luther had questioned her in kitchen.
"Mom, that happened over a week ago. Do you remember anything else?"
Katherine heard silence from her mother and then the creek of a door. Her superhuman reflexes kicked in and she jumped off the chair to face the source of the noise. Diego looked at her startled, he hadn't even noticed her she had been so quiet.
The speedster watched as her mother made eye contact with the person who had opened the door. Pogo.
"No." Her mother answered, almost forced as if the answer was programmed.
Pogo stood in the doorway, staring straight at Katherine, he knew she had figured out he had left the tape out for them on purpose. He also knew she was a smart girl and that his secrets would be uncovered if Katherine kept digging. He could see it in her eyes, though she was far away, he could tell she knew he and Grace were hiding something.
Katherine sent Pogo a glare, she loved her old friend, but he knew more than he was telling the Hargreeves siblings and although she hated her father, she now realised that his death was no accident.
"I suppose that's odd." Her mother broke the silence with her pleasant and familiar chuckle.
The speedster watched carefully as the ape turned slowly and left his place in the doorway. She turned back around, slowly this time, spotting the full glass on the bar in front of her, she picked it up in one hand and reaching into her back pocket with the other. She pulled out her cigarettes and placed one between her teeth, returning the pack and then lighting it with the lighter from her bra.
Kat hurriedly walked towards the couch, placing her drink on the table and removing the cigarette from her lips to release the smoke building up in her lungs, filling the air with a grey cloud.
"I wonder what the weather is like today." Grace said. "It would be nice to go to the park."
That was odd. Of course she felt bad for her mother, not being able to leave this hell hole but disobeying her father's rules, even if he was dead, was something she was not programmed to do, almost if she had developed her own decision-making mind.
"Dad never let you leave the grounds." Diego muttered.
"Your father isn't here anymore." Grace announced, Katherine's eyes widened, something was definitely not right with her mother.
"You can do whatever you want, Mom." Diego said proudly.
God bless Diego, Katherine thought, he was such a mommas boy that he didn't even notice that Grace was a completely different person than before she was turned off.
Finally, Katherine heard the clicking of her mother's heels against the floor become quieter and quieter. The speedster took another hit of the cigarette releasing the smoke into the air.
Diego spun around on his heel, facing Katherine with a look of confusion on his face, probably wondering where the smell of smoke was coming from.
"Katherine, what the fuck?!" He exclaimed, taking the cigarette from her hand and stumping it on the table. "Don't you know what this shit does to your body?"
"You do realise we've only got a couple days left anyway, if it puts me out of my misery sooner than expected then..... hallelujah."
Diego took a seat next to her looking at her sympathetically.
"I know you're upset that we can't do anything about it...but let's make the most of the time we have left, together." He took her hand in his and kissed it gently, a smile spreading across Kat's face.
"You wanna come on that walk with me and Mom?" He asked.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world."
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