CHAPTER NINETEEN
fly away

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AN OLD JAZZ SONG piped through the hair salon's radio, but for once, Nadine didn't request to change the channel. She'd never really been a fan of '60s music—really, she was all about the '80s. Queen and The Cure posters had been plastered to every available wall in her room at La Petite Montagne, Elsa played from her vintage record player, and Duran Duran was often among the top artists in her Spotify Wrapped. Which is why it was so difficult to adjust to an era where none of these bands even existed—and, for that matter, neither did Spotify Premium. She'd spent her first few months in 1961 refusing to even turn on the radio. She just couldn't stand the music, nor the quality of them; so different from the crisp listening experience of 2019. It was just fortunate that she remembered the lyrics to a lot of her favourites. Sometimes, she was able to entertain herself by singing ABBA or Les Démons de miniut by herself, even if she didn't exactly have a pitch-perfect voice.

Today, though, Nadine really didn't mind the '60s tunes. She, Klaus, Allison, and Vanya were all lounging in Odessa's, the hair salon Allison worked at. It was obviously meant for Black hair—the labels of the products stacked on the counters proved as much—but Allison was making do with her options as she combed through Klaus's shoulder-length locks. Of course, she had a bottle of champagne in her other hand.

They were all a little drunk—and in Klaus's case, a little high. He was smoking a cigarette now, completely relaxed while Allison worked. Vanya was sitting in another chair, shooting finger-guns at the mirror, and Nadine was in a third, braiding and unbraiding her own short locks. One knee was pulled up to her chest.

"The nerve of that man," Allison was saying, a growl spilling from her lips. She'd been on a similar tirade about her husband for the past five minutes, and while Nadine was interested, her mind was a little too buzzed to pay complete attention to it. "I mean, one thing goes wrong, and he's on a warpath. I mean, doesn't know who I am? No, no. No, Ray, you know exactly who I am. You just can't handle it. I'm... I'm protecting him."

"From what?" Klaus asked lazily.

"The end of the world, for one."

"Is the world really gonna end in six days?" Vanya asked, watching Allison work on Klaus through her mirror.

Allison, who was now sliding clips into Klaus's hair, pursed her lips. "Well, it did last time, and we did everything Five could think of to stop it."

"Not everything," Nadine pointed out. "I mean, he did suggest killing a few random people, didn't he?"

She hadn't heard that first-hand, but according to Luther, that had been one of his options. He'd scrawled the math on his bedroom walls, and somehow concluded that the deaths of a few ordinary people could completely prevent the end of the world. It was certainly the Commission in him speaking—after all, it was very similar to what they'd attempted to do to Nadine—and likely wrong. Still, it had been an option that they hadn't used, and that was the only reason why Nadine brought it up.

Now that Allison had finished with him, Klaus got to his feet. Out of nowhere, he asked, "Hey, wouldn't it be weird if Five grew up all hot? Wouldn't that be weird?"

Nadine gagged. "That's disgusting, Klaus."

"I'm just putting it out there! I mean, I never really got to see him grow up the first time, and when I finally did see him again, he was a wrinkly old man. I'm just wondering what he'd look like in his twenties, or something."

Allison pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay, can... can we focus?" she asked. "I mean, clearly we're not saving the world tonight, but maybe, maybe, we could at least try to save my marriage."

As she spoke, Klaus poured an ample amount of whiskey into his flask; so much so that half of it ended up spilling over the sides and onto the floor. "No! No, because that's like... that's like asking a nun how to hump someone's leg. I mean, who in this room knows shit about relationships? This one?" he pointed to Vanya. "In secret love with some farm Frau."

Nadine dropped her leg and ignored the faint twinge that occurred in the pit of her belly. By now, it had become clear to her that some of her old feelings for Vanya remained, but whatever they were—if they were romantic—they didn't matter. She had Molly Hamasaki, and she was wonderful. She didn't need anyone else.

And, well, if Vanya could find her own Molly here, then Nadine truly was happy for her.

"Her name's Sissy," Vanya corrected Klaus.

Klaus didn't even acknowledge this adjustment before continuing, "—Which is an improvement on her previous love interest, the serial killer."

"What?"

Nadine scowled at the mention of Harold Jenkins, aka Leonard Peabody, aka the guy who had slammed her head into the wall and given her a wicked concussion. "I fucking hated that guy from the start," she said. "Never trust a man who still collects action figures at twenty-nine."

"Never trust a man that prefers the Stones over the Beatles," Allison pointed out. Nadine clucked her tongue. She wasn't really sure about that one.

Vanya's expression, which had been bewildered from the beginning, only turned more so. Allison let out a sigh, and then gave her a look that explained that she'd tell her everything later. When that was out of the way, Klaus continued on his commentary, picking up speed.

"Meanwhile, I'm carrying a torch... for a soldier I haven't technically met yet, and Nadine... actually, never mind. Nadine seems to be thriving."

Nadine laughed and leaned back in her seat. "Tell that to my four ex-girlfriends. Colette, Manon, Mirabelle, and Camille would all disagree with you completely. Especially Mirabelle. Honestly, fuck her."

"Well, then, that solidifies it!" said Klaus. "The healthiest long-term relationship in this family was when Five was banging that mannequin. The only thing the Umbrella Academy knows about love..." he raised his flask, "is how to screw it up."

"Cheers," said Nadine, though internally, she was thinking about what Klaus had said. Not about how they all were screw-ups when it came to romantic relationships—though that was certainly true—but how he'd included her when he'd said family. She didn't know if that was purposeful, or if he was just drunk enough to forget she hadn't grown up with them, but either way, her chest warmed. She was glad to know that despite her shitty home life, she had people she could always count on to be there for her.

As Nadine, Allison, and Klaus all took a drink, Vanya spoke up. "How do you guys deal with this?"

"What?" Allison asked.

"I mean, all of it. The time travel, seeing the dead, the end of the world."

"Well, I get really high," began Klaus, stumbling to sit down. "Allison... Allison..." he lowered his voice to speak in a stage-whisper, "lies to herself." As Allison kicked a rolling stool his way, Klaus continued, "Nadine beats people up—" Nadine took a swig of her drink, not bothering to argue. He technically was right, "—and you suppress all your emotions deep, deep down until you... you blow shit up."

"Yeah, I'd really like to not do that anymore," said Vanya.

"I can help you," Nadine suggested. "I mean, I know you don't remember, but I did offer, back in 2019. At that point, it was kind of too late, but I'm willing to try again."

Vanya shot her a smile. "That would be nice. Thank you, Nadine."

"Well, if you two are going to start magic lessons, then you better do it quick," said Klaus. "You've got six days."

"What the hell are we supposed to do with six days?" Allison asked blearily.

"Party?" Klaus suggested. "I don't know."

Nadine spun around in her chair. "I'm going to at least try to stop things," she said. "Either that or have a lot of sex."

Klaus burst into laughter and extended his hand out to her for a high-five. As Nadine smacked his palm, she remembered how she'd done the same with Lila. She took a moment to wonder how the eccentric woman was doing, now that she'd been cut off from the group.

Vanya sat up a little straighter in her own seat. "I'm gonna tell Sissy that I love her," she declared. "I don't want any secrets."

"Yeah," said Klaus, blowing out a plume of smoke.

Allison set down a hand mirror on the counter and stood up. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yes, 'cause, you know, if... if it's gonna go tits-up, the least I could do is be honest with my husband. I mean, Nadine's already got me beat, there. She told Molly the truth days ago."

"It wasn't as bad as I thought it would," said Nadine. Surprisingly, although Vanya's declaration that she was going to tell Sissy Cooper that she loved her had formed a little tightness into her chest, she hadn't reacted as viscerally as she'd worried she might. "I mean, yes, I was scared as fuck, but it was good to get it off my shoulders."

Klaus's face collapsed into a frown. "Oh... does that mean I have to face my cult?" he asked. "I just hate group breakups. It's why I stopped dating twins."

"This family's amazing," said Vanya, throwing her arms out.

Klaus cackled and stumbled out of his seat towards Allison. "Yeah, sure."

"Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves," she chuckled, as Klaus put an arm around her shoulder.

"Come here, Vanya," said Klaus. "You too, Nadine."

Vanya drunkenly hopped off of her seat, and Nadine slid off hers, the laws of gravity defying her for a moment. When she'd recovered from a brief tumble onto her ass, she joined the embrace, enjoying the feeling of so many arms around her. Even though the hug, as usual, irritated her still-healing ribs, sending newfound spikes of pain up through them, she didn't request it to be loosened. She just grinned and let herself breathe it in.

Far too quickly, however, the hug was broken up by a new song that came onto the radio. Allison let out a gasp upon hearing those first few notes, and moved away. "Oh! You guys! I love this song."

She headed for the radio and immediately turned up the volume. To Nadine's surprise, despite the fact that she pretty much avoided the music from this era, she actually recognized the song that was playing. It was one of them that she actually found bearable: Twistin' The Night Away by Sam Cooke.

The four of them immediately began to dance, even Nadine, who often was told she had two left feet. It didn't matter here, in this salon. The others weren't exactly prima ballerinas.

Let me tell you about a place... somewhere up a New York Way. Where the people are so gay and they're twistin' the night away.

Nadine knew that in this context, 'gay' referred to 'happy', but she still pumped her fist into the air at the lyric.

They're twistin', twistin'. Everybody's feeling great!

Nadine spun around in a wobbly circle, arms waving through the air like stalks of seaweed.

They're twistin', twistin'. They're twistin' the night away.

Without realizing it, her hands latched onto Vanya's. Nadine took a moment to stare into her warm brown eyes—such a different shade from the electric blue they had been overtaken by back at the Icarus Theatre—and then spun her, letting her dip into her waiting arms.

Let's twist a while! Lean up! Lean back!

Nadine twisted her feet and nearly slipped on the slick floor. Before she could stumble, however, Klaus caught her wrist. He shimmied closer to her, and, with a laugh, Nadine copied him, her body moving erratically and likely off-beat.

Now twist! Now lean back! Watusi! Now fly! Now twist!

Between sips of whiskey, Nadine strummed a fake guitar, did a pathetic attempt of a leap into the air, and let Allison spin her around.

They're twistin' the night away.

Nadine spun over to a mirror, and then, peering into her reflection—which wasn't exactly a welcome sight; her cheeks were flushed with alcohol, her hair was mussed, her makeup had smudged, and the bruises on her nose were still prominent—bugged out her eyes, shimmying in place to the beat. Because who the fuck cared if she looked like shit? Despite what men (not just in 1963, but in 2019, too) thought, Nadine didn't owe anyone perfection all of the time. Pretty wasn't the rent she paid to exist in the world as a woman.

Twistin', they're twistin' the night. One more time!

As Nadine continued to dance, it was as if the weight of the apocalypse had been temporarily lifted off of her shoulders. The relief was so gratifying, so lightening that she swore that, if she'd tried, she would be able to fly right out of here.

Instead, though, she danced.

Right until the song faded out.

AN HOUR LATER, the group finally split up, the four of them going their various ways. Vanya was heading to the farm, Klaus to the mansion he was staying in, Allison to her house, and Nadine back to Elliott's. She hadn't taken a car here, and anyway, she was too drunk to drive. Because of this lack of sobriety, Nadine's world was fractured; shapes around her blurring as if she was viewing them through smudged glass, and the laws of gravity occasionally upturning on her and causing her to lose her balance. The small, rational part of her that still remained despite her intoxicated state told her that going out alone while the Swedes were still on the prowl for her (and that wasn't even mentioning the police, who would definitely figure out her identity as Officer Coldwell's attacker soon) wasn't a great idea, but it was overruled by the rest of her addled brain. Everything will be fine, it whispered. Nadine listened to it.

Typically, Nadine wasn't such a heavy drinker. Sure, she enjoyed indulging in a glass of French wine every so often, but she usually stopped before the lines between tipsy and drunk were blurred. She may have been ecstatic right now, but she surely would regret her overindulgence in the morning, when she was puking her guts out and dealing with a killer migraine. As soon as she'd started drinking alcohol (at a house party when she was sixteen), she'd figured out that her body loved to give her the most revolting of hangovers.

She crossed the street, tripping over a rock that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and continued her walk. A yawn spilled past her lips. She missed Molly. She'd spent nearly the entire day without her. As she passed a chain of mom-and-pop stores (a convenience store, a candle shop, and a used bookstore), she decided that tomorrow, if Five hadn't returned, she'd take Molly out on a date. She didn't know where, exactly, the two of them would go, but she'd figure it out. They deserved a day out together, just the two of them.

Drunk as she was, Nadine didn't notice the black car until she was only a block away from Elliott's house. Then she drew to a halt, goosebumps crawling up her arms like hundreds of tiny spiders. She'd seen it a few blocks ago, she thought, when she passed by the homeless man sitting in front of the laundromat and dropped a few coins (she was beginning to run out) into his hat. And a block before that, when she'd been humming Don't Stop Me Now by Queen, she'd watched how its headlights illuminated the street ahead of it.

Fuck, she thought. She clenched her fists, willing herself to sober up. If you die piss drunk, Nads, you will never live it down.

As she stood there, trying to smack some sobriety back into her mind, the black car pulled up to the curb right beside her. A door opened. Nadine winced. This was it. This was where she fought all three of the Swedes, and most definitely got her ass kicked.

But instead of three blond, gun-toting maniacs exiting the car, a single old man stepped out of the front seat. Nadine swore she'd never seen him before in her life, but he seemed to know her, as he stepped right towards her, extending his hand. In it was a crisp envelope.

Nadine's mind still wasn't at full capacity, so instead of immediately demanding an explanation as to who the stranger was, she just reached out and took the paper from the man's hand. As soon as she was holding it, he gave her a nod and made his way back to his car. It was only then that her brain finally caught up with reality. She called out for him.

"Hey, wait! Who are you? What the fuck is this?"

The old man didn't respond. He just closed his car door behind him and drove away.

Shaken yet relieved that she hadn't been forced into a brawl for her life, Nadine looked down to the letter. She still wasn't completely sober, but the bizarre encounter had cleared her mind enough. Immediately, she opened the envelope, and, with a few false starts, read it in its entirety:

To my Pursuers:

I, Reginald Hargreeves, request the pleasure of your company for a light supper on the 20th of November, 1963, at half-past seven o'clock.

1624 Magnolia Street
Dallas, Texas

Nadine swore the last remnants of alcohol drained from her brain when she finished reading. Given that she'd been on a wild goose chase during these past few days in an attempt to locate Reginald Hargreeves, she was beginning to lose hope of it ever coming to an end. But it seemed that the old man had grown tired of it, too. Even so, he hadn't let himself get caught in a trap. He'd set up the meeting on his own terms, at his chosen location, on his selected date. It was definitely a power move.

As Nadine read over the invitation once more, a thrill ran down her spine. She'd never met Reginald Hargreeves; in fact, he was the only member of the Umbrella Academy, living or dead, that had so far eluded her. But now, it seemed, that she was finally going to get her chance. He may have been an asshole—his children had told her enough stories to solidify this fact—but, as Five had said, he might prove to be some help to them.

I've got to tell the others, she thought, stuffing the letter in her pocket and continuing the rest of her walk home. Since I've gotten an invitation, it's likely they did, too. We need to decide how we want to play this.

Unfortunately, Nadine never got the chance to tell the other members of the Umbrella Academy what she'd received, for she ended up passing out only a few minutes after reentering Morty's, still wearing her day clothes. And when Molly entered the room in her pajamas (she'd arrived back here an hour ago, after picking her grandparents up from the airport and driving them to the hotel they'd be staying at until the President came), she couldn't help but smile at the sight of her girlfriend, looking so innocent in sleep. It was true, what they said. Sleep did take years off of you. It also smoothed out furrowed brows, wiped away annoyed scowls. So not only did Nadine Vidal look younger when she was asleep, she also seemed calmer. Like the chain of various traumas that she'd had tied to her ankle for her entire life had finally been broken.

Molly leaned down and pressed a kiss to Nadine's temple. Then, gentle so as not to wake her, she removed Nadine's shoes, brushed her matted locks out of her face, and pulled back the covers, maneuvering her so she was snuggled into their warmth. Although Molly herself didn't know it, it was a testament to how safe Nadine felt here that she didn't wake up throughout this entire process. In the first few years after being shot, she hadn't been able to sleep anywhere, afraid she'd suddenly wake up in the middle of the night with a gun against her temple. Even when she'd recovered from her insomnia, she was still an extremely light sleeper.

Not with Molly, however. Even if she wasn't particularly strong, Nadine had always felt safe sleeping around her—with her.

Molly climbed into bed after Nadine and gave her girlfriend one last smile. Then she turned off the lights, curled her arms around her, and closed her eyes.

Soon, the room was silent except for their breathing.

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HAVEN: and there's act one finished!! don't worry, act two only has thirteen chapters instead of nineteen 😭😭😭 i hope you're ready, for, just like ignis fatuus, it's going to be the act where a LOT of stuff is revealed ;) including what's been going on in the commission regarding nadine ;)))) and the truth of the handler's visit ;))))))) i've been building this up since book one, so i'm super excited for it to finally come out!! i hope you are, too!!

thanks for reading <333