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I.
They’re running late. Again. Gustave checks the watch on his wrist as the seconds tick by, a barely audible tick tick tick counting each passing moment. Silently though not without judgment, Emma shifts and tugs at the end of her glove.
“Maelle!” she calls up the stairs.
“I’m coming!” Maelle’s voice returns immediately, frustrated. Emma shoots Gustave a look and, when he doesn’t take the hint, she sighs loudly and reaches over to punch his arm at the elbow.
He takes the hint.
Gustave is up the stairs of their small house in seconds, striding down the hall to push open Maelle’s door. To describe the room as having been hit by a hurricane would be paying it a kindness Gustave isn’t sure it deserves, and his room has been declared a biohazard by Lune twice.
Maelle sits, cross-legged, on the floor, digging through a pile of clothes that Gustave hadn’t known she owned. She’s worn nearly the same outfit for as long as he can remember, not for lack of trying on Emma’s part. Maelle always looked at the outfits with thinly-veiled disgust and did her best to, at least somewhat politely, turn down the suggestions.
She’s muttering to herself as she throws another shirt into a different pile in the room. Gustave leans against the doorframe and waits. Another shirt, three skirts, and a brassiere are thrown before Maelle throws her hands up in the air. “Where is it?” she mutters to herself, digging her fingers back into the pile.
“Where is what?”
He deserves the shoe that is thrown at him for that as Maelle screams. “Putain. Gustave!”
“What are you looking for?” Gustave pushes off the frame and sinks down to the floor next to her, trying, and failing, to cover the smirk that threatens his face.
Maelle hesitates. “... Emma gave me a ribbon for my hair, last week. I wanted to wear it. For her.”
It’s sweet, Gustave thinks, watching Maelle slowly blossom. Even if it has taken years for them to get here, Gustave smiles as Maelle looks away, scowling to prevent the blush on her cheeks from directing her narrative.
“What colour was it?” Gustave asks instead. Grateful for the bone she’s been thrown, Maelle tells him.
He finds it four minutes later, folded in a small pile neatly atop her dresser. With a smile, Gustave ties the bow in her hair and gives her a hug. “C’mon. Let’s go before Emma writes up a lecture for us.”
II.
They’re leaving in three days and Maelle cannot stop pacing the length of her room. Emma’s taken to wearing earplugs and Gustave is starting to think that she had the right idea, given how peacefully she seems to be reading her book.
The thought lasts another minute before Emma’s head comes up and she meets his eyes, a soft smile frozen on her face. “She’s going to do this until the second you leave,” Emma says quietly.
“Seventy-two hours and you’ll have peace and quiet in the house finally,” Gustave replies at the same level.
Emma throws the nearest pillow at his head.
When he straightens up, laughing, Emma rolls her eyes at him. “Go comfort her,” she scolds. “You’re better at that than I am.”
“Women,” Gustave grumbles. The second pillow hits him square in the back of the head as he takes the stairs two at a time.
Maelle paces in front of her window. It’s open, like it always is, leading directly out to the bridge he’d built her when it became clear they couldn’t stop her from sneaking out her window. At the very least, she could reach the next roof over safely.
“Hey,” Gustave leans against the doorframe. “Where’s your head at?”
“Go away,” Maelle says in that way that means she wants him to stay. Gustave shrugs helplessly and waits until she comes to him, resting her head on his chest. He wraps her in a hug, suppressing the urge to make a comment about how she hasn’t done this in a while.
That would just chase her away. Emma would throw another pillow at him.
“I can’t find it,” Maelle mumbles finally, into the fabric of his cardigan.
“Hmmm?”
“I said,” she pulls back, grimacing, “I can’t find it.”
“Ah.” He pauses. “What is it, exactly?” Her grimace expands, nearly swallowing her face whole.
“... Emma gave me a pin. Last year.” He remembers it then. A pretty little brooch, glimmering blue jewels in the shape of a butterfly. He hadn’t ever seen Maelle wear it. “I want to bring it with,” Maelle says without looking at him.
“Well.” He looks over the state of the room. “No wonder you can’t find it.” She punches his arm. “Ow. Alright. Let’s get looking, then.”
It takes them five hours to find the small pin, wrapped up and tucked away in the corner of one of her wardrobe drawers. Gustave pretends not to see the smile that blossoms across Maelle’s face when she sees it. He pretends not to see the tears that prick in the corners of her eyes, and most of all, he pretends his own don’t do the same.
III.
Verso approaches her quietly. Maelle knows he’s coming; Verso can walk silently, an impressive skill he’d stopped using the last time Sciel had swung on him when he’d surprised her. “Hey,” Verso says and drops down to sit next to her at the cliff they’ve camped on. He leans back on his hands, just visible in her periphery.
“Hey.”
“So.” Verso says, drawing out the word for slightly too long. Maelle turns and squints at him. “I found something I thought you might like, the last time we passed through the manor.”
Her eyes dart between his hands and his face, waiting for him to give her whatever it is. But he doesn’t. “What,” she asks flatly. Verso raises his eyebrows. “What is it?”
With a groan that doesn’t entirely fit the youthful appearance he has, Verso sits up straight and reaches into his pocket. He sets a small figurine in her hand and closes her fingers around it. “It was in one of the doors you’d opened,” Verso says.
He’s lying. Maelle knows he’s lying. They searched each room top-to-bottom every time they found another door.
Still, she smiles tentatively and murmurs, “Thank you.”
Hours later, when she’s sick of staring at the Paintress’ looming figure, Maelle looks at the figurine and smiles. A small ballerina, as if from a music box, standing en pointe. Red hair flows in waves down the ballerina’s back, dots of blue eyes staring back up at Maelle.
Six days later, Maelle stares at the figurine again. The silence of Lumière is overwhelming. Suffocating.
Verso sits down next to her. “You need to talk to him,” he says quietly. Maelle doesn’t answer.
She holds the figurine up and with a wave of her hand, with a gesture and some chroma, it spins in the air slowly, a tune playing on the wind. “I didn’t even know I lost this,” Maelle says. “Where was it?”
“Renoir’s room.” Verso looks away. “He was making you a new music box with m- with Verso’s music. Before.” Maelle’s shoulders slump.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Verso just nods. There are no more words left to say, no more he has to say to her now. Still, he smiles when her head comes to rest on his shoulder.