The ground beneath Vanya's back is freezing; the cold sinks like ice into her blood. When she tries to move her arms, her legs, her back, it's with such stiffness that she has to lie still and breathe through it for a moment.
She cracks open her eyes and is almost surprised not to see steam rising from her lips. Although considering how dark it is, she might just not be able to see it in the gloom.
It strikes her as a little strange, really, when she blinks at the room she finds herself in, that she's not more surprised to find herself here.
Dad did always like to shove you into dark corners.
Whatever he drugged her with, it's still in her veins; Vanya has a hard time propping herself up on her elbows. The walls, strangely coated in spongy foam cones, waver before her eyes as if
she's looking at them through smoke.
Some small voice in the back of her head asks why she's so calm about this.
Not like I can feel much of anything right now, Vanya thinks muzzily. The world spins around her as she tries to lift herself up. One hand slips, fingers numb and uncoordinated, and Vanya falls heavily to one elbow. She winces, hissing, and the sound reverberates back at her.
She'd seen something like this room on some weird historical documentary she'd watched with Klaus and Diego while she detoxed; it's a silent room. Like an isolation chamber; no sound comes in and no sound gets out.
Suddenly the quiet is oppressive, almost buzzing in her ears now that she's noticed it. Her head clears a little. Her heart beats hard in her chest.
The drugs are burning off.
"Okay," Vanya whispers, but breaks off when the word echoes back at her, okay, okay, okay . "This is okay. You're okay. You're fine."
Her father has drugged her brothers and locked her in a cage.
"It's fine. You're fine. You're alive, aren't you?" The walls ask her, aren't you? Aren't you? Aren't you?
Yes, she is. But for how long?
Stop it. Crying's not going to help anyone, you useless thing.
Allison's always telling her she's got to be kinder to herself. Vanya rolls her eyes, dashes the tears away with a hand still clumsy with sedatives, and sits up again. This time her core balance holds, more or less, and she catches sight of the small square of light in the large metal door across the room from her resting place.
This whole room- the cones, the darkness, the small window out into the world- it is all disgustingly familiar. As Vanya stretches her legs out, testing her knees, she stares at that sliver of light. A wisp of a memory tickles at her, there one second and gone the next.
It takes too long for her legs to get with the program. Her right ankle gives out on Vanya when she stands and she finds that the cones lining the walls aren't nearly as soft as they'd seemed upon first glance. She dashes more tears away, vaguely aware she might be hyperventilating, and staggers her way to the door. Her body slumps without Vanya's permission, the thud reverberating sickeningly in the unnatural stillness. Vomit tickles the back of her throat. Vanya clamps down on it and thinks her father might have underestimated how quickly she can burn off sedatives after so many years. That niggling in the back of her mind gets worse.
The room beyond Vanya's cell-oh, God, she's a prisoner, Klaus told her this would happen and she didn't listen why didn't she listen she promised she'd listen to Klaus-is blank and plain and grey.
Her face is reflected back at her in the glass. The tear tracks and her unkempt hair make Vanya look so young, even to herself. She's not even thirty. For a second, her own childhood face replaces the image, a reflection she left in the far past.
You're in here because he's scared of you.
Movement beyond the glass catches her eye and Vanya tears her gaze away from furious brown eyes.
Vanya wants to beat at the glass as her father strides toward her on sure feet, loose-limbed and comfortable in this prison. She wants to rage to spit to scream, but the rest of the sedative makes her fingers weak as they scratch at the barrier, her mouth slow and her brain stupid.
In the end she can only manage to glare. Sir Reginald- he's never really been your father, has he?- crosses the room and stands in front of her and Vanya wants to seethe at how far she has to look up at him. But she has to meet his eyes. She has to. He reaches out and presses at something on the wall she can't see-some sort of intercom, apparently, because her silent room is suddenly erupting into harsh static and Vanya has to cover her ears and lean heavily on the door to keep upright.
"I have always known it would come to this," Reginald's voice is bland, but she can hear that fucking smug undercurrent threaded through it. He just always has to be right, doesn't he? Her dear father. Vanya's stomach rolls. "I have planned for you to return here for years, to make sure the apocalypse is averted."
"You-you-" Her mouth feels like it's filled with cotton, her tongue too thick behind her lips. The tears haven't stopped coming and she curses her weakness. Vanya shakes her head. "You knew the world would end?"
Her father's face is lined with distinct disdain. "The Umbrella Academy has served no other purpose than the prevention of the apocalypse. I have made sure that contingencies," he gestures widely, grandly, at her cage and Vanya swallows stomach acid, "are in place. Five's return tonight just proves that my decision to return you to confinement was the correct choice."
Vanya has braced her hands against the door, fingers trying for purchase where the thick steel denies them. The icy cold of her cell is sinking into her bones. The world is spinning, she feels like she may be sick or maybe she'll faint. But-
Sir Reginald sounds so fucking self-satisfied. He thinks his big plan has come to fruition. He thinks he's got her right where he's always wanted her, right under his thumb like she never even left. And yeah, maybe he does, maybe he deserves to be a bit self-congratulatory because his biggest dreams have been realized but he's waiting for her to ask that perfect question, the one that will seal his victory over Vanya.
What do you mean, return me to this place?
Vanya raises her head. Allison's hands had been so gentle when she'd run them through her hair after that panic attack. She'd looked into Vanya's face and she'd told her a rumor.
They're all afraid of your power.
"You think I don't remember what you did to me, Dad?" She asks. A thread of steel straightens her spine and she feels fire racing in her veins. Her own reflection overlays her father's surprised expression and her eyes spark and spit heat like she's never seen. The whatever drugs are left in her system are still dampening her powers but a breeze still picks up in her cell, lifting her hair in a halo.
All that time ago, sitting among the remnants of her panic attack, Allison had pulled back and looked into Vanya's white eyes and told her, "I'm sorry."
"What? Why?" Her fingers had curled unconsciously in Allison's sleeve and Vanya had wondered when she'd gotten so clingy. She used to be fine on her own; then again, back then she'd only had herself to rely on. "I gotta say, you handled the whole panic attack thing pretty well. One time while you guys were out I cried at a movie and Luther looked like he was gonna jump out the window. He threw a bunch of blankets at me and bolted."
"Vanya, I've got to tell you something," Allison had said. Something in her voice made the air leave Vanya's lungs and she'd blinked, hard, because Allison had tears in her eyes. "I've got to tell you something absolutely terrible I did to you that I only just remembered when I-when I started thinking about moving out here with you, and I just-I want to say, before everything, that I'm so so sorry and I didn't know what I was doing and I love you, Vanya."
"Whoa, hey."
Allison had stopped and taken a breath when Vanya exaggerated her own breathing. Her sister's hand was cold in her own. Vanya laced their fingers anyway. "Take your time. What's this about?"
Allison's eyes had fastened on their linked hands. Her voice was so small Vanya had to lean in to hear. "When we were four, Dad took me to the basement."
It took a long time for the story to unravel. Several of Vanya's decorations were smashed. Allison didn't let go of her hand.
After it's over, Vanya had closed her eyes for a long time. They were scratchy and dry and overused. She had opened them and looked at Allison.
"I love you," She'd said. "And I'm sorry too."
You could show them your power.
The rage wants to fill her lungs as Vanya stares her father down. "Sorry to burst your bubble," she says, wry, "but Allison told me months ago about what you made her do when we were four. You're an absolute son of a bitch, you know that Dad?"
You could end it all now, the small voice in her head reminds her as Sir Reginald wheels on his heel and gets as close to sprinting away as his dignity will allow. But the sedatives are still working at her and Vanya hasn't slept in who knows how long and she got assaulted last night and her family is scattered to the wind, so she turns away and leans against the door. It's as cold at her back as the floor was.
Vanya blinks slowly, an unnatural stillness clouding her mind and sighs as she surveys her old hell. "He couldn't have left the bed?"