A sunny start, OTA

[stepfordbot]

Routines are important. Establishing them, maintaining them- a lifetime spent with a house full of children that required minding and strict standards to follow as to their care filled Grace's days and gave her purpose. As the family waxed and waned, as the children grew and lives became infinitely more complicated the routine changed. But one thing remains the same no matter how old or young, no matter how full or empty the house has become. The most important meal of the day.



Nutrition dictates a certain variation now and then, but a single dish tends to surface over and over. Be it the dietary value or the aesthetic- or that it was one of the few ways she could, when they were young, offer the children a moment that was close to normal. Normal children aren't raised with an unloving and distant father, Normal families don't run drills with knives and violence instead of nursery rhymes and storybooks. Normal families and normal children had eggs sunny side up with smiling faces made with bacon.

Which is on the menu today alongside a stack of pancakes and a few prepared, wrapped and warmed sandwiches of egg, sausage, cheese, and english muffins for those that need to eat and run. Sliced fruit and glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice.

She's singing under her breath, something simple and lilting as the smell of bacon fat and frying eggs fills the air. No matter what happens, she's been able to feed and provide. As soon as the first set of eggs are finished she calls out- "Children! Eggs are ready."

Comments

[stepfordbot]

"...Will have made first chair? The grammar of time travel is so confusing, isn't it?" Grace laughs, light and easy, shaking her head at herself more than the situation. Their lives are strange, from the unexpected nature of their birth to the way they were raised, to how the world supposedly ended. "One of the boys told me. I'm so proud. of you."

Much as she understands Reginald's fears and tactics- Vanya's skill hasn't ever been in question. Seeing her able to be passionate, to pour that into her music? Part of her is sad she hasn't seen it. "I always knew you could do it."

She plates up the violin pancake, walking over to set it down in front of Vanya, one hand reaching out to brush back her hair. "You've always played beautifully."

[gigue]

Picking at the sleeves of her sweater is an easy distraction, something to keep her focus on while she tries not to bask in this - in having a moment alone, with Mom, with her praise. It's reminiscent of some of the better memories this place has to offer - I am going to be extraordinary - but it's impossible to keep out the bad ones. They go hand in hand.

She never could have been extraordinary, not with the meds Dad put her on. She's lucky - lucky - he found a dosage that didn't make her whole life a murky mess. More than it already was, anyway.

Is it fair, to blame Mom for that a little? Because the anger is there (is this how Diego feels all the time?) hot and aching to be directed. But a lifetime of learning to internalize her feelings has made her an expert in guilt, and it spins through every thought.There's no escaping it.

"Yeah, you did." She leans back in her chair as Mom comes to her, and for a moment just stares blankly at the pancake. Not because she doesn't like it, but - God, she's forgotten this. She hasn't lived here since she was - what, fourteen? The last time she spent a night here, she was eighteen, and moving from boarding school to college. It's been so long since she's had someone who - who really cared like this, and it makes her eyes sting.

"I missed playing for you." For someone who could put up with her playing, anyway. It's impossible for her to tell, now: was she any good, back then? Did she have any actual talent before her meds really wore off and whatever she is settled into her playing? There's no way to measure it, at least, no way for her to do it. So maybe it's just that she missed her Mom.

[stepfordbot]

"I missed hearing you play." She had records, certainly, and could perform on a piano if pressed but she never cared to. It didn't have the same warmth, the same life even a detached, medicated musician could bring to the notes. "I kept track of your performances. I couldn't attend but-"

She takes a moment to turn down the burners- there's food enough for anyone else walking by. In this moment? Grace doesn't want her attention split between meal preparation and her child. The most potentially volatile- the most wronged. Part of her compliance was hard-wired, going along with what Reginald wanted but- she can't help feel as though she should have done more for Vanya. Done better."I wanted to."

Something she's never done- pulling out one of the chairs for her own use- she doesn't eat, why have a seat at the table? Why share a meal like this with the children? There wasn't a point in it but- that isn't the point of this moment. Carefully, as this is new ground, Grace offers her hand over the table. "More than once I tried to go- but I could never make it past the gate. Oh- but I was able to read your book."

[gigue]

The surprise is clear on Vanya's face when Grace sits down. She can't remember that happening, not once in all those long years through their childhood. And the surprise just grows, though - of all their family, Mom is the only one Vanya believes outright when she says she would have come to see her perform.

(That pit of anger flares dangerously in her stomach, but Dad is dead and gone and she already tore this house apart once. Klaus is the only one who can reach him now.)

When Grace stretches her hand across the table, Vanya stares at it a moment, childish uncertainty at war with her own internal reminder that she's an adult, they all had bad childhoods but she's an adult and she doesn't have to feel like crying just because her mom is paying attention to her again. But god does she want to.

V reaches bot hands out, nudging her plat to the side so her elbows don't land on a pancake that she's too touched by to eat, at least right now. Both hands wrap around Grace's, because right now it is easier to accept this, to ignore the harder murmurs in the back of her head telling her that she doesn't need this now, but if she takes that hand it will be yanked away when she does. Vanya doesn't want to believe that. It gets a little harder when the book is mentioned. She almost cringes.

"What did you think?"

It had been a take down book before take down culture grew like a disease online. It was the only way she knew to vent, to divulge every awful detail she remembered, dredge up the past in the hopes that it would finally leave her.

It didn't, of course. it might as well be tattooed on her in place of the Academy's symbol. Grace, at least, she only discussed in raw moments, brushing past the birth mother she never new to describe Grace as the mother that gave them the only emotional stability the Hargreeves kids would have - and she was a robot. Vanya hopes it didn't offend her like it did the others, but she knows little about that book was kind.

[stepfordbot]

Aside from a bare handful- gestures of affection were frowned upon and outright discouraged by Reginald. Grace did what she could to work around his attention, to try and give the children what they needed, what they wanted even while navigating the tightrope of expectation and harsh standards. Whether or not she managed? She'll never know. Doing right by them now is far too little, far too late but- it might help?

It hurts no one for her to try.

Grace squeezes Vanya's hand, smile going small and soft and fragile for a moment, reading that wariness, that conflict in her daughter's posture. Of all the children she has had the most trying childhood, the most neglect, the most harm. There's no undoing that. "I thought it was very frank. I-"

It's difficult, at times, even with Reginald gone. To speak ill of him. Code strains and tangles enough to warp her voice into a tuneful warble as she pushes through, brows pinched, teeth grit against her protocols. "I agreed with your thoughts on your father."

One it's out she sags in her chair, blinking. If she needed to breathe, she'd be breathing hard. A little easier. It becomes a little bit easier every time she tries. "And I'm proud of you for writing it. The world has everyone else's story. I'm glad it has yours too."

[gigue]

"Mom--"

The beginnings of panic start in Vanya as Grace struggles against her internal mechanisms. V can just see how it will go, catastrophizing in her head almost immediately: Mom will go haywire again, completely off kilter, the others will blame her, it'll be her fault, for bringing this up or for talking about it at all and - and, what, is she supposed to just feel guilty for everything, expect to take the blame for every little thing?

Or just the apocalypse?

But Grace gets the words out, and though she relaxes, Vanya has a death grip on her hand still, clinging. It's more for herself than it ever was for Grace, but V can't quite bring herself to let go. She wants to cry, ask if Grace really means it, just so she can hear it again. I'm proud of you for writing it. She never thought anyone would ever say that to her. Hell, not even her therapist could say it to her, give the praise in small pieces peppered with ways in which it may have just made everything worse. Like Vanya hadn't been able to see that for herself.

She sniffs, turning to drag her nose and eye against her shoulder, rather than letting go of Mom's hand to wipe them. "Are you okay?"

[stepfordbot]

"I'm better. Reginald-" She shakes her head, lips pressed thin. "You know what he did to me, to make his plan work. Pogo repaired me."

She's not hurt anymore. Not half here and half drifting in a fog- she hadn't thought that was even possible and was proven wrong in the worst sort of way. A heat like anger curls in her gut with nowhere to go- Reginald is dead and there's nothing to be gained by taking it out on Pogo. "I'm fine, sweetie."

She squeezes back, free hand slipping up to pat Vanya's. "I'm learning to- it's difficult to speak ill of your father in a very literal sense, for me. When I try it sounds- like that. It doesn't hurt me but it is...it's a strain. But every time it becomes easier. I can already say things now that I wouldn't have been able to before!"

A more cheerful thought, that, and this? This is the other child that needs to hear it most, and has every right to hear it before the rest. "Vanya, I am proud of you-" Which isn't new, she's always been able to say that. "And I am sorry for what you were put through. I'm sorry for the secrets. And I'm sorry I couldn't tell you I love you when you needed to hear it most. I should have been able to tell you every day."

[gigue]

There's no holding back the tears by the time Grace finishes her explanation. Vanya closes her eyes, head bowed forward because it's easier not to look - or maybe because she learned that not being seen is easier to bear when you don't expect it - and tears spill down her cheeks, hot and stinging.

She's got a death grip on Grace's hand, because anything could end this moment and she wants so badly to prolong it, to be here in these, what, ten seconds for the rest of her life. There are so many things that Vanya has needed to hear, and more than that, needed to believe. Grace could always tell them she was proud, but as V got older, it meant so much less. By the time she left the academy on a mostly permanent basis - high school at a boarding school, only back for winter and summer - so much of what Mom said felt like vapor. It was noticeable, appreciated, but stopped doing much to bolster her. By the time she went to college - well. The first time she came home since leaving was for Dad's funeral.

Things are different now. Noticeably: this frank discussion, the apocalypse she left behind, her powers and how terrified they make her. "I'm. I love you too." She has to bite her tongue to keep from apologizing for not saying it earlier. She can't remember the last time she did.

[stepfordbot]

"Oh sweetheart-" Grace has to move- hand still caught comfortably in Vanya's death grip (she was built to withstand Vanya at her worst, designed to be durable, meant to intimidate) as she comes around to pull Vanya into a gentle embrace. There had been so much she'd meant to say, so much she'd wanted to do, to offer- and so much of it was impossible as long as Reginald determined it dangerous. For Vanya to feel, for Vanya to be aware of her powers, the world around her. For Grace to treat her any different than the other children despite her needing, desperately, more attention, more care. "It's alright." To feel, to cry. Grace never could describe how unsettling it'd been to see someone that wanted so badly and tried so hard to come up against a mental and emotional block not entirely unlike her own. She was built and coded and designed- actual people, actual children? Shouldn't live that way. "You are wonderful and you are special- and you're somewhere safe."