Rain was falling pretty thickly by the time all the siblings, Mom, Pogo, and Katya were gathered outside. Valentina and Katya huddled under a black umbrella—yes, Valentina was aware of the irony—as Luther stood before the loose line of family, holding an urn. Diego stood beside Valentina, sans umbrella. Not that one wasn't available, Diego was just being a rebel. As usual.

"Did something happen?" Mom asked. She stood on Diego's other side, dressed in black, umbrella poised neatly over her blonde curls.

Allison glanced over at her, frowning. "Dad died, remember?"

"Oh." Mom still looked confused, and Valentina frowned. "Yes, of course."

"Is Mom okay?" Allison asked Diego, leaning around Valentina. She tried not to glare at her sister.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, "She's fine. She just needs to rest, you know, recharge."

"Shouldn't she have done that before all this?" Valentina asked, casting a worried glance at Mom. Diego didn't answer, just gave her a sad look. Valentina let out a sigh.

Pogo stepped forward next to Vanya, drawing everyone's attention. "Whenever you're ready, dear boy," he told Luther, who nodded. Rain dripped into his eyes from the hair slicked over his forehead. He pulled the top off the urn, looked around at all of them, and turned the urn upside down. Ashes fell from it, slumping unceremoniously to the ground.

"Probably would have been better with some wind," Luther said, looking gloomily down at the pile of ashes. No one responded.

"Does anyone wish to speak?" Pogo asked, looking around. Diego turned his gaze to the sky, Klaus smoked. Vanya looked away, as did Katya, and Valentina gritted her teeth. Pogo sighed. "Very well." Valentina couldn't help but notice that Pogo actually looked sad. "In all regards, Sir Reginald Hargreeves made me what I am today. For that alone, I shall forever be in his debt. He was my master and my friend, and I shall miss him very much. He leaves behind a complicated legacy-"

"He was a monster," Diego interrupted. All eyes snapped to him. Klau laughed, "He was a bad person and a worse father. The world's better off without him." He was right, Valentina thought.

"Diego-" Allison started, but Diego interrupted again, casting a glare across Valentina at her. Valentina instinctively leaned back.

"My name is Number Two," he snapped, and Valentina winced. She'd hoped to never hear her twin referred to like that again when they first left this house so many years ago. But he wasn't done yet. "Do you know why? Because our father couldn't be bothered to give us actual names. He had Mom do it."

"Would anyone like something to eat?" Mom asked, looking around with a smile. Valentina drew in a breath, and Katya gripped her arm.

"No, it's okay Mom," Vanya said.

"Oh, okay," Mom said, and Valentina smiled over at her.

"Maybe later," she said, nodding.

"Look, you wanna pay your respects?" Diego demanded, ignoring his sisters. He stepped forward, towards Luther. "Go ahead. But at least be honest about the kind of man he was."

Luther glared at Diego. "You should stop talking now," he said, his voice low. The voice of anger. Valentina's breath caught in her throat. She could feel the anxiety within her stomach rising, threatening to make her throw up, or cry, or both. She reached for Katya, ignoring the hand that clutched her umbrella-holding hand, eyes wide. Katya reached out and captured Valentina's hand in her own, twining their fingers together. Valentina felt a rush of love for her wife that only made the anxiety surge—she'd noticed a long time ago that anxiety and love weren't that different when it came to physical sensation.

Diego, of course, rounded on Luther. "You know, you of all people should be on my side, Number One," he said. The word "one" left his mouth as practically a growl. Valentina longed to leave.

"I am warning you," Luther said, his voice even tenser, angrier, than before.

"After everything he did for you?" Diego demanded, "He had to ship you a million miles away."

Valentina couldn't stand this. "Diego, stop!" she shouted, but her twin ignored her.

Diego stood directly in front of Luther now, and practically shouted in his face, poking Luther in the chest: "That's how much he couldn't stand the sight of you!"

And that was when the fight broke out.

Incidentally, that was also when Valentina's symptoms got the better of her. Resisting the urge to scream, she stumbled backward, to a bench placed at the side of the courtyard. Rain thundered onto her head. Vanya pulled Mom away from the fighting brothers, and Klaus guided Five away. "Boys! Stop this at once!" Pogo demanded. Neither listened.

"Come on big boy!" Diego called, and Valentina brought her hands to her mouth, choking on a sob. She squeezed her eyes shut. Klaus shouted, "Hit him! Hit him!" while Vanya and Katya yelled at them to stop. Katya stayed as close to Valentina as she could.

All Valentina could think of, all she could see, was her brothers fighting as teenagers, as children, shouting at each other and trying to best each other because Dad wanted them to. She flashed to fights she had been too young to take part in, weapons she shouldn't have held in her hands. Her brain brought back the few times Dad had lost his temper, almost always at her, berating her. It made her want to cry, and she realized as one hand—where did the umbrella go?—rubbed at her eyes that she was crying. At least, she didn't think it was the rain.

There was a thud, and the sound of tinkling metal, and Valentina heard Allison mutter, "And there goes Ben's statue." She opened her eyes. Rain still poured, Diego and Luther were bruised. Ben's statue had fallen from its plinth and lost its head. Diego staggered to upright, breathing hard. He didn't even glance at Valentina, at any of them, just stomped toward the house. The umbrella lay on the ground beside her. Allison turned to walk away just as Diego drew a knife—Vanya saw it too. "Diego, no!" both sisters cried, Valentina's voice shaking. He threw the knife anyway.

It sliced through Luther's arm, through the thick wool of his coat to the skin. Luther stopped, clutched his arm like it was broken, and stumbled off, breathing hard, towards the house. Valentina simply stared at her twin.

Vanya approached Diego. "You never know when to stop, do you?" she asked. Katya rubbed Valentina's arm with her left hand, her right holding Valentina from the other side. Holding her close. Valentina trembled.

"You got enough material for your sequel yet?" Diego demanded of her, his voice cracking. Valentina winced. She tried not to think about the book. She didn't like to, because while she understood her sister, understood why she wrote it, Valentina did not like the book.

Vanya simply stared at him, and Valentina remembered how close they were as kids. "He was my father too," she said, and walked away.

Katya placed her hand on Valentina's cheek, and her hand immediately came up to cover it, out of habit. Her fingers, where they touched her own face, were wet. "Vallie," Katya murmured, her voice low and soft, "let's go inside, get out of the rain, okay?" She waited for Valentina to nod before guiding her to stand, kneeling to collect the umbrella, and walking with her to the door, passing Klaus, huddled with his cigarette under a plastic umbrella, alone.

—

Valentina roughly pushed up the sleeve of her shirt. There, burned permanently into her skin, was a tattoo of a black umbrella. All her siblings had one, save Vanya, and she hated hers with every fiber of her being. Alone in the bathroom, she scratched at her wrist, tears running down her face. She couldn't pull her mind from the past, couldn't drag herself out of her memories.

She remembered the day they had gotten the tattoos. She went right after Diego, who didn't cry the way Allison and Klaus did, but who showed no emotion. Just discomfort. It hurt more than Valentina—twelve-year-old Valentina—could handle, and only her father's knowing stare kept her from crying out.

She was already crying when the artist started. She'd been crying since the needle first hit Klaus' skin and he flinched. When she was done, and Luther got his, Valentina turned away, letting Diego hold her, so she couldn't see his face. Couldn't see his pain.

She'd drawn blood, now, lines of red running over the black lines of the tattoo from where her nails scratched too deep. The red of her blood matched the red of her nail polish, and Valentina gasped, a choking noise that shuddered her whole body. She sank to the floor, one hand scrambling to pull toilet paper from the roll to press to her wrist. The cold tile floor beneath her was grounding, pulling her back to herself. Back to now. The cold and the pain.

—

1517 words.

Yeah, this chapter is a rough one, sorry! But I did not want to shy away from showing Valentina's symptoms, and how PTSD effects her life. Also, I wanted to include a little bit of the flashback from this part of the episode.

Let me know what you think!