[Vanya is still sort of trying to make herself breathe properly as Ben explains. It's not as bad as she assumed. She feels guilty, now, for thinking Klaus and Ben had lied to her, for likening them to Leonard or Dad or... anyone else.
If it had been so soon after Ben had died... Klaus had, for a long time towards the end of Vanya staying at the house, been mostly unable to "conjure" any ghosts, not to mention everything else going on with him. He'd gotten even worse after that, she thinks. Even after she left and had no real contact at all with Klaus anymore, she'd sometimes hear second or third-hand, and it always sounded like he was just... continuing the downward spiral.
Her brows knit as Ben recounts how each of them had reacted, further when Ben makes it clear how much of a joint effort it was. "Ben" was a taboo subject for a while. No one knew how to even begin to talk about what had happened. The statue was made so quickly and after the memorial, Vanya never brought it up. Not until the book, really.
Would she have believed him? Vanya was, she's been realizing, a very different person on her meds. She never wanted to think about anything that made her uneasy, so she just... didn't. Or she did, but she didn't let herself react to it.
Ben's right. As usual. Or... used to be usual.]
...Things were a lot different then. I don't know. I can't answer that.
[Not won't. Can't.
Because even if it wasn't some kind of top secret mission thing, Academy's eyes only, even if she's not reading this in her father's journal, this still changes things. It changes everything she built up to cope with missing Ben. It changes how she's supposed to think about her life from now on.
So much is changing, Vanya doesn't think she ever knew a thing about herself. It's overwhelming, how much her thoughts are trying to make these connections, trying to catch herself up on her own memories, trying to figure out who the hell she or any of them are, and it's too much.
She's forgotten to control her breathing. Her lungs remind her, desperate, and she covers her mouth because she's breathing too much now, she can't stop it, can't stop the gasping that makes her tear up, she reaches for her pocket to find it empty, she can't even see what's going on anymore and that just makes her panic more—]
cw: panic attack, also this is extremely Long im Sorry
If it had been so soon after Ben had died... Klaus had, for a long time towards the end of Vanya staying at the house, been mostly unable to "conjure" any ghosts, not to mention everything else going on with him. He'd gotten even worse after that, she thinks. Even after she left and had no real contact at all with Klaus anymore, she'd sometimes hear second or third-hand, and it always sounded like he was just... continuing the downward spiral.
Her brows knit as Ben recounts how each of them had reacted, further when Ben makes it clear how much of a joint effort it was. "Ben" was a taboo subject for a while. No one knew how to even begin to talk about what had happened. The statue was made so quickly and after the memorial, Vanya never brought it up. Not until the book, really.
Would she have believed him? Vanya was, she's been realizing, a very different person on her meds. She never wanted to think about anything that made her uneasy, so she just... didn't. Or she did, but she didn't let herself react to it.
Ben's right. As usual. Or... used to be usual.]
...Things were a lot different then. I don't know. I can't answer that.
[Not won't. Can't.
Because even if it wasn't some kind of top secret mission thing, Academy's eyes only, even if she's not reading this in her father's journal, this still changes things. It changes everything she built up to cope with missing Ben. It changes how she's supposed to think about her life from now on.
So much is changing, Vanya doesn't think she ever knew a thing about herself. It's overwhelming, how much her thoughts are trying to make these connections, trying to catch herself up on her own memories, trying to figure out who the hell she or any of them are, and it's too much.
She's forgotten to control her breathing. Her lungs remind her, desperate, and she covers her mouth because she's breathing too much now, she can't stop it, can't stop the gasping that makes her tear up, she reaches for her pocket to find it empty, she can't even see what's going on anymore and that just makes her panic more—]