Work Text
She dies with her son in her arms, and her lips pressed against his forehead. She flatlines, right then and there but somehow, she’s still holding onto her son from falling. The doctors rush in, faces blurred as she watched them try to take her son away from her and⸺no. No. He’s hers. What are they doing? “Halt. Was machen Sie?” She barks. “What? Stop!” She shrieks. Nobody pauses, nobody stops. And she whirls around to see her baby⸺her liebling ⸺staring right at her, chewing on his fingers. His eyes are open, and she wonders why. He’s gurgling and whines gently and her heart breaks. She leans closer to her sohn , and tries to press her forehead gently against his, but she just passes right through him. He begins to cry, and she begins screaming. When Regional Hargreeves adopts her son, she’s estretic. He doesn’t have to grow up in an orphanage, forgotten and forced to fight on his own. But the billionaire has three other adoptive children, and she wonders why. She follows her son, with his newest nanny as the man just looks at him. “He doesn’t look like much,” he observes and her hands curl into fists. Her son⸺ ordinary ? No. He’s different, but she loves him with all her heart. He’s everything to her , and she’s everything to him. He giggles at her from his carriage, the nanny trying to get him to calm down. “Shush, little herz ,” the nanny whispers, trying to quiet him. Mila just makes a face back at him, and he laughs louder. “Number Four.” The man thunders and her baby quiets instantly. “If you cannot control him, then why do I keep you around?” The nanny downcasts her eyes, and Mila’s fingernails dig into her palm. Control? Who can control a baby? A child? She, for the first time, wonders if her son was better off in an German orphanage. He’s two years old when he gurgles “Mama,” at her and raises his arms for her to pick him up. He was a late bloomer; the others (now six⸺seven, if you include her son) said their first words at a year. He’s called by a number, not a name. And for that, she’s angry. Maybe he’s a Jörg, but she honesty can’t see that either. He frowns, and raises his arm more, insisting “Mama, up. Mama, up!” She leans down, and whispers, “Es tut mir leid, Schatz. Ich kann nicht.” He whines. She tries to run her finger down his chubby face, but it just passes right through. He starts crying, sobbing huge heaving cries until the android mother comes running in, shushing her child with ease. She’s the perfect mother, Mila thinks angrily. She’s not human, of course she’s perfect. Her little liebling calms; but doesn’t stop crying. “Mama,” he sobs. “Mama, mama, mama.” “I’m here,” she repeats back, watching the android. “I’m here, my little liche. Ruhe, sohn.” Her son’s four years old, and the old billionaire wants to force Klaus to be unafraid. Mila could’ve told him that her son can’t be forced to learn something. He can’t be forced to be unafraid. He’s got to be nurtured, to be taught not to be afraid . She decides, she’ll teach her son the proper way to be unafraid. And she’ll teach him it’s okay to be afraid. Her fingers tingle, and her son yawns, following her down the stairs, carefully. “Mein Baby. Mein Kind,” she tells him. “Wohin gehst du?” “Ich folge dir,” he tells her back in his sing-song voice. “Then, darling, we’re going to have to do some things.” She starts with animals. Cats, dogs, birds, hamsters. Any dead ghosts that aren’t people , and won’t hurt him. He’s six but she warns him to be careful with the animals. They are dead, but if he hurts them then they aren’t going to come back, are they? He’s careful, and she begins her teaching. Her son’s takes a liking toward the kittens that flock to his side and meow, begging for petting even if he can’t actually pet them. Kitten who’ve been drowned, been placed down, forgotten; cats who haven’t won their fight for lives, forgotten, starved, been beaten. Dogs who’ve tried to lick his face only to fly right through and whine. Birds who’ve feathers are gone, wings are broken, faces slashed. “It’s the circle of life, sohn. ” Mila tells her son. “It’s sad,” he whines. “Of course it is. But it doesn’t have to be. See? They’re happy because you can see them, darling.” “The people want me to help them,” he tells her. “Yes, they do. But you’ve just got to tell them to halt deine Fresse, okay? And if they don’t, then you come get me, okay? Alright, baby?” Her son laughs and a smokey looking black-spotted cat climbs onto his shoulder, her green eyes staring at Mila. She meows and begins to lick her paw, and her son’s first reaction is to stare wide-eyed at the cat. “Well?” Mila asks, a lump in her throat. “What’s going to be her name?” “I like Lick,” her son says proudly, and the cat stops and turns to stare at him. He falters, and frowns. “You don’t like it?” He asks her, and she huffs and keeps staring. Mila stares at him, wondering what’s going on in his head. “Isis,” he said quietly. “Her name’s Isis. Her goddess sent her, for me.” Mila blinks. “You can talk to her, liebling ?” “She says I can talk to any of them if I try.” Mila reaches down to her son’s shoulders and scoops the cat up. She jumps right out of Mila’s arms, and rests back onto her son’s shoulder. “Isis, huh.” Mila grits out. She wonders what it means, but it’s almost time for dinner, and her son isn’t there yet. And the schwanz will throw a fit. “Go on, my son. Go back to the house. Isis and I will be there soon.” Isis doesn’t move from her perch, but she does turn to stare at Mila. Her son begins to run, and Isis jumps off, trotting after him. Mila watches, and wonders if he’ll need her after all. He is eight years old, when Mila notices he begins asking where she’s at. “I’m right in front of you,” she tells him, trying to bury her face into her son’s hair, but passing through. The android has given him a name⸺Klaus⸺and Mila thinks it suits him. “Klaus,” she breaths. “Klaus, my darling. My sweetheart. Licht meines Lebens , what are you talking about?” “Mama?” Klaus breaths. His eyes are watering, and Mila wants to scream. “I’m right here,” she repeats. “Mama?”
“Liebling.”
Her son is asleep when an angel visits her. “It’s time for us to go, Mila,” the angel says gently, his wings tucked tight against his back. “I can’t just leave him,” she tells the angel. “He needs protection from the other ghosts.” “You can’t stay with him forever.” “I can stay with him long enough.” “Our Lord,” lighting cracked, and wings spread. “Said it’s time to go.” “Well, I said ,” her fingers curl into fists. “That my son needs protecting.” “The Goddess Bast has given him all the protection that he needs. Despite our Lord⸺” “The cat? Yeah, Isis isn’t enough.” A sigh. A cough. And the angel whispers, “Time is waning, Mila. Don’t you want to see your father and mother again? Your brother?” “My father and mother aren’t dead; my brother’s the one who refused to take care of my son. If he did, this billionaire wouldn’t have gotten him, and he wouldn’t have been trying to traumatize my son.” Mila sees the sun peeking behind the horizon. The angel does, too. “Mila,” he urges. “Mila, come with me.” “No.” The angel frowns. “Very well, I will return tomorrow night. For now,” his wings spread, and Mila notices the wings are also smokey-looking. “You may stay.” A different angel returns, late the next night. Her wings are a brownish-reddish color, and she sighs deeply. “Mila Aber,” her voice is quiet, high-pitched. “Our Lord will give you five years to stay with Klaus Hargreeves. But then, you will need to come with me to Heaven.” She bites her lip, staring at her son. Iris stands guard near him, snarling and snapping at the ghosts who’ve gathered near him. “They’re trying to give him nightmares,” she whispers. “And the… cat is keeping them away.” “And I am, too.” “It doesn’t matter. Do you accept the deal or not?” Mila looks up at the cat and the sun that’s just beginning to peek again. “Fine,” she says. And the angel’s lips quirk, just once, before she turns on her heel and with a flutter, she’s gone. She keeps teaching him, as her first year passes. She builds up from animals to people who’ve passed a peaceful death. Animals still flock her son, but she allows people who haven’t been killed in gruesome ways, and lived their lives to come forward and speak with him. “They might ask you to do something,” she tells him. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.” Klaus does. He adopts pets they’ve left behind, hides them from his family, and finds them other homes. Mila is proud. Her second year, Klaus is ten and she allows people who’ve died in car accidents through. Some of them are bloody, hurt, and angry. She tells them they’ve gotta calm down, after all what’s Klaus going to do if he’s frightened to death? They do. They calm down, and they explain how they die.
(It isn’t the best way because he can, and would, be traumatized. But she can’t keep away the murdered and other bloody shits that will come flood her son’s mind when her three more years are up. But she’s trying. She’s going to miss her son.)
Her third year, she teaches Klaus all she knows. About the world, the people, and the anger that’s holding ghosts to this plane of existence. “It’s your job, sohn ,” she starts. “To help them. But it’s your choice. Not anyone else’s. Yours.” Klaus looks at her, with all the bravery a eleven-year-old can muster. “I wanna help them,” he says. And Mila allows a few to trickle in, keeping it to a minimum of three and they scream for help. Klaus throws up, and Mila’s hands pass through his shoulder.
(And she wonders how Iris can ride on Klaus’s shoulder, lick his cheeks, and have Klaus pet her, but Mila can’t touch her child.)
Her fourth year, she lets go and Klaus runs. He helps everyone that he can, helps their murders and leave evidence where police can find them and Mila can’t help but be proud. Her son’s growing up, he’s twelve now, and she thinks it’s time for her to go. But it’s just one more year.
(One more year, her brain chants. One more year before we’re leaving. He’s got Iris, and he’ll be fine. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.)
When her son is thirteen, his brother runs away before breakfast is over and he doesn’t return. He’s Number Five, if Klaus is anything to be believed in. Weeks later, his brother (Number Six, Benjamin) dies on a mission and Klaus cries in his room for days on end. He tries drugs, but he can’t see Iris anymore, and he can’t hear Mila anymore; so he doesn’t do it. Ben pops up weeks after his funeral, and Klaus tries to tell his siblings but they block him out. After all, Klaus just wants attention because Dad doesn’t like him anymore. Mila’s fingernails just dig into her palms; and she wonders how she’s missed her son’s siblings. They’re always ignoring her son, talking about him, or all together just not caring. And she knows⸺ she knows ⸺that this is just how the schwanz taught them, and that they’re all broken in some way but she can’t help but be angry. After all, they don’t believe he’s seeing their dead brother, despite him being able to see the dead. When she sits there, the night she’s suppose to be leaving, Mila thinks. She hasn’t paid attention to the siblings despite her being here for thirteen years of her son’s life. She’s been with her son for the most part, payed the most attention to him, and only thought of the others in passing. But if she thinks deeply, she realizes that they’re all fucked up children. All born on the same day; all forced to go through the same training, except one. All forced to go through ‘special’ training or ‘punishment’ for talking at breakfast, lunch, or dinner; failing a mission, or losing a training session. Mila can’t help but feel sad for the girl who isn’t allowed to be seen, to be noticed. The one who’s ‘ordinary’ according to the dick. The girl’s clearly upset, angry because of it, but nobody notices. The boy, Ben, sits next to her chattering away at her ear. “Why’s there a cat there?” He asks. “That’s Iris. She’s protecting Klaus and keeping him from having nightmares and the others from joining him in the room.” “Iris means motherhood,” Ben tells her and Mila’s head snaps toward the cat. She stops licking her paw and stares back at Mila. Mila knows, then, that Klaus just needed her to meet Iris. That’s why Klaus couldn’t see her; but could still hear her. And why the angel came to her then and not earlier. When the angel (the wings looked like a galaxy) came to take her, she didn’t fight. Instead, Mila tells Ben “Keep him safe, yeah?” and turns away from Ben’s cry of “Wait, what?” “Ich Liebe dich, mein Sohn. Bleib in Sicherheit.” She whispers to her son one last time, and (for the first time since she died) kisses her son’s forehead and breaths in his scent. And then she leaves, and doesn’t look back, despite Ben’s mad scramble to ask her how did she do that? Can I do that? Will I be able to do that? She can’t afford to look back, because she doesn’t know how she did it. “In time,” she tells him. “You’ll learn.” And the angel grabs her arm gently, slings her up bridal-style, and with flaps of wings, they’re gone. Mila doesn’t look back.