Chapter Text
"I made you something to eat," Renoir said as he nudged his way through the doors into Alicia's study, hands filled with bowl and mug.
Closing the book she was reading at her desk, Alicia nodded to him and plastered on a smile, even though it hurt to do anything with the muscles in her scorched ruin of a face, and any smile she could make was more likely to make children cry than laugh. With her one good eye, she gazed at the lemon tea and soup filled with pieces of bread and omelets and tried not to sigh.
Ever since the fire, they'd been avoiding anything that required much chewing, and tried to stay with things cold or lukewarm. No more scalding hot coffee like she used to enjoy, and anything hard was cut into smaller bits before it was served to her. Alicia could already imagine her father in the kitchen clumsily breaking the bread into bite-sized pieces before he brought the food up. He had a talent for painting, much like everyone in their family did, but outside of that he might as well have had two left hands when it came to anything else. There had been talk of hiring help again but until then, it was only family inside the house.
"You don't need to say a word," Renoir added softly as he pulled himself a seat and gingerly sat down, which Alicia took as a sign that they were going to have one of those serious heart-to-heart conversations where he was to lecture her on the ways of the world while she nodded along like the dutiful daughter that she was. "Here," he said as he opened a drawer and set aside paper and pen for her to write on.
Alicia studied the blank piece of paper before looking at him, the man who she'd hated for a while when she watched him slaughter most of Expedition 33 and kill Gustave, still hated after she regained her memories. One of the hardest things she had to do since returning from Verso's Canvas was working through the anger and separating the creations in there from those in the real world.
"It was a brave thing you did," Renoir said awkwardly when Alicia didn't write anything. He peered around her room, looking at the bookshelves and possibly thinking it odd that a Painter would surround herself with the written word. "I know it could not have been easy. Especially when you wanted me to leave his Canvas as it was. The fact that you destroyed it tells me you understand why it had to be done."
She still hadn't told him that it'd been the false Verso in the Canvas that had banished her against her will and took care of that. She's not sure she could stomach her father's reaction to such a revelation, if she'd be unable to handle his sympathy, or worse, the reassurance that the painted mirage of her late brother had done the right thing. She's tired of being told what was the right thing to do. Funny how often that tended to be the opposite of what she wanted to do.
Reaching for the pen, Alicia settled on a safer subject. Is Mamam alright?
Renoir inhaled. "She's doing better," he said. "Your mother's asleep at the moment. Which reminds me. I need to tell you that she has been summoned to see the Council tomorrow morning." He grimaced. "I will be going with her just in case. We'll try to be back soon but it's likely we won't return until the evening, so I will try to have something set aside for your breakfast and lunch. There's much for her to catch up on, and it turns out the rest of the world isn't inclined to wait when one has to grieve, much as we wish it were otherwise."
Alicia didn’t need him to explain it. She could read between the lines. When Verso died and Alicia had been scarred for life, Aline had been allowed a stay of absence from Council activities for the necessary period of mourning, despite the fact that she was the head of the Painters and their enemies the Writers were still out there. But when her mother began indulging herself in the throes of escapism by staying in her departed son's Canvas, the Council had petitioned for her return, and when Renoir had replied to advise that his wife was indisposed indefinitely, they had moved on and elected a new temporary head to fill her seat. Now that she was returning, there's to be politicking, and factionalism and questions on whether the current head would relinquish the chair to Aline or if the appointment was now considered permanent.
All questions that Alicia didn't particularly care about but realizing were things she needed to at least be aware of if she was going to return to being a person in this world absent of Lumiere and Gestrals and Gommages and the joy and splendor of all things wonderful and whimsical.
If Lune were here, she would have asked her about the book she was reading instead. Sophie would have told her to have a sip on the tea and make a start on the food. Gustave would have definitely changed the subject to engineering. Sciel would probably have told her an anecdote from her week, something inspiring in a humanistic sort of way. Monoco would have told her to come with him out to the courtyard and spar till her arms were sore. Esquie would have offered to take her up into the sky for some fresh air.
Verso would have remained silent, and waited for her to decided what she wanted to talk about. If only he'd given her the choice on staying or leaving the Canvas, instead of making that choice for her. "I do this for the man who saved you from the fire," he'd croaked as he parried her thrusts and countered with a riposte that sent her reeling. "I am trading my life for yours just as he did."
Even now, she still remembered them all, and the life she got to have with them. It ached to know that she was already forgetting the finest details about them, like their mannerisms and quirks. Soon their faces and voices would fade from her memory, and after the rest of them followed, she'd have lost them forever.
"I'll try to get Clea to come by later this week," Renoir remarked aloud as Alicia sat there in silence. "I'm sure they can spare her for a day or two. She deserves a break."
Alicia frowned. Clea was the last person she wanted to speak to. Far as she was concerned, her older sister could stay the hell away from her forever. It was a childish thing to hold her accountable, what with her being the one who had talked her into entering Verso's Canvas to begin with, but it gave Alicia another convenient target for the feelings welling inside her.
Renoir stood up with a grimace and stifled a hiss of pain as he straightened, and then Alicia remembered he still needed his cane, even if he didn't always have it on hand and despite his jokes that his physician was being overbearing in making sure he had one. Here she was moping and leafing through books while he brought up her meals with his bad hip and knees. "Everything won't be as it once was," he said kindly. "But I promise that they will slowly start to get better."
Alicia stopped him with an upraised hand. You don't have to make any meals for me tomorrow, she wrote. I will try to prepare something on my own.
Renoir smiled. "You sure?" he asked. When Alicia nodded, his face relaxed while her chest tightened. "I'm so proud of you," he murmured as he left.
She wished with all her heart that he had not said that.
The next day, she waited until her parents had left the house before she got up and made her way to her father's atelier downstairs. Setting up a chair, easel and brushes, she sat down and began to paint. She did not stop for breaks or to eat and when she had finished, the sun had fallen and it took all she had to make the several trips to bring her work back to her room upstairs before she staggered to her bed.
When Aline and Renoir returned home later that night, they checked on Alicia and found her fast asleep and half a dozen finished portraits in her room, all of them with faces they recognized from somewhere far away, including one of Verso which made Aline tear up and tremble.
Renoir found himself drawn to one depicting a girl brandishing a rapier. She had ashen hair and unburnt yet blood-splattered skin, and both her eyes stared out at him pleadingly as he picked up the canvas and saw the name signed in the corner.
Maelle.