Work Text:
Times were getting weird in Lumière when an older sibling had to petition the younger for approval of his science project.
Well. Not that times had ever been normal to begin with. They’d left normal behind around year 86, when the consequences of the Gommage had started to become apparent to everyone. Or maybe normal had left with Expedition 60 and their swole commanders. Or this world had just been in a natural state of weirdness ever since the Fracture, Gustave mused, in which case trying to return to any sense of normalcy probably was a fool's errand, anyway.
Still, he used to be able to claim big brother rights over Emma when they fought over toys on the playground, so this situation was definitely weird. He glanced up at the oak door with his sister’s name on it. It felt too large for Emma, as did the title displayed beneath her name. The city council was preparing for the future and was grooming the next generation of Lumière’s leaders young.
And apparently it was keeping them busy, too. Gustave had barely seen his sister since she’d started this job, and still hadn’t seen her today, despite having made an appointment and everything. He leaned over to the kid sitting next to him, who had been staring at her shoes for the better part of an hour, and offered a commiserating smile:
“Almost our turn. She does like to keep people waiting, doesn’t she?”
The girl levelled him with a blank look that screamed boredom. Gustave couldn’t exactly blame her, having to spend her day in this hallway full of waiting adults (Merde, was he one of them now? He certainly didn’t feel like an adult quite yet.) At least the girl was considerably less fidgety than other bored 10-year olds he’d known. Come to think of it, this was the first time he’d seen her really move at all since she and her father had sat down next to him.
He fished around in his pockets. “I, uh, remembered I brought some sweets to pass the time. Had a feeling Emma would let me sit here for a bit. Do you like licorice?”
The girl blinked at him, her mouth opening slightly. Then it closed again. “No.”
Now, Gustave wasn’t always the best at reading people, but even he clocked that moment of hesitation. “You sure?”
“Mmhm.”
It came out quiet, almost muted, as if that ‘no’ had already exhausted her supply of words for the day. Puzzled, Gustave bit the end off a licorice string and put the others back in his pocket. The girl’s eyes followed the movement for a second, before casting back down at her shoes.
Now that he looked again, maybe that wasn't boredom, after all. Rather, the girl seemed guarded. Or scared? Of what? Certainly not of him; that would be a first for Gustave.
He glanced askance at her father (Gustave presumed) sitting on her other side. He found himself wanting to cheer the girl up in some way, but also wondering if he was overstepping some boundary. But the man likewise seemed to be practicing the art of staring at the wall, not gracing their interaction with a look. No directions or help from that quarter.
“Hey, so,” Gustave tried again, “whatever you’re here for, Emma’s really not that scary. She puts on a stern front, but she’s really out to help people. I should know; she’s been doing it to me all my life.”
The girl crossed her arms, still stubbornly looking at the floor. “I’m not nervous.”
Gustave released a breath. “Oh, good. Because honestly, I’ve been sweating all day at the thought of this meeting, but there really is no reason to be nervous, right? Right. Yeah.”
That prompted a giggle. Gustave turned to see that the girl’s lips had pulled up, just a little.
“You talk a lot when you’re nervous.”
“What, no. I’m calm personified. You’ve never seen a calmer man in your life.”
The girl raised an eyebrow, in that insulted-disbelieving manner that only kids were capable of. As if her eyes had come unglued from the floor and been given permission to roam, they now jumped from Gustave’s face to the stains on his coat, and from there to the apparition sitting next to him. She pointed: “What’s that?”
“This?” Gustave patted the device lovingly, and then, when it wobbled dangerously, quickly shot out his other hand to stabilize it. He pointedly ignored the little giggle from his other side. “This is something a friend and I invented for the expeditions. It’s, uh, a bit technical. Do you know what Chroma is?”
“Yes,” she replied immediately, much to Gustave’s surprise. “It’s the stuff we’re made of. Or, it’s at least a part of us; us and the whole world. Like, pigment colouring us certain ways. And you can use it to create stuff too, things you normally couldn’t make. Like pictos.”
“Well - yes, pretty much.” He sent her an impressed look. “I didn’t know schools are teaching that stuff in your grade already?”
Somehow that seemed to have been a wrong thing to say. The girl’s excited eyes dropped, everything drawing inward, her posture suddenly tense again. She muttered, “They…don’t. I just…say stuff sometimes. Sorry.”
Gustave frowned. “Sorry? You were right on the money! Hey, maybe if things don’t work out with Emma and I don’t get my funding, I could hire you as my assistant.” He patted his invention again, more carefully this time. “See, this thing is supposed to turn Chroma into a more malleable state, so expeditioners can use it for more than just pictos. It works alright in lab conditions, but obviously it’s too bulky to carry around in the field. So I need to streamline it, but that needs funding, and ideally a few more eyes than mine and Lune’s. Hence why I’m here.”
“I have eyes,” the girl announced shyly. “I mean. To look at it. And help.” She cringed, eyes flitting up to Gustave’s for a split second.
“That would be wonderful. I could use all the help I can get,” Gustave assured her, smiling. He leaned forward to get her father’s attention. “Excuse me, sir? Could I bother you for a moment?”
In the corner of his eyes, he saw the girl stiffen up, but had no time to question it before her father abandoned his wall-staring project and turned to him. The man had the look of money. If his suit and tophat hadn’t already given it away, the way his gaze briefly caught on the stains of Gustave’s coat would have done so. He smiled politely.
“I overheard. Your project sounds…ambitious, young man. If Maelle has caught an interest, I suppose you’re free to indulge it. And good luck with her. It’s not precisely my decision or responsibility, since she…” He levelled a stern look at the girl, who returned it with a glare that took Gustave by surprise. “Since she’s no longer my ward. Or she won’t be, in a few minutes.”
It took Gustave a second to understand what he meant. “...Oh.” Then it took him another few seconds to process the callous matter-of-factness of that statement. By the time he had finished and glanced at Maelle, the girl was again staring at her shoes, and might as well have drawn up walls to either side of her.
“Uh, thanks,” Gustave said, for lack of anything better, and slumped back into his seat. What was he thanking this man for? There were certainly other words he should say, particularly to the girl, but he couldn’t think of any.
Merde. So that’s why the two of them were here.
Only moments later, a door on the other end of the hallway opened and Emma swept through. His sister was in full busy-councilor mode and only nodded shortly to Gustave before her eyes caught on his neighbours. Gustave saw her straighten even further, if at all possible. "Monsieur Lagarde? Apologies for the delay. Shall we discuss your decision in my office?”
Any other time, he would have ridiculed her for this kind of formal speech, Gustave thought.
The man pushed to his feet, gesturing sharply for the girl. “Come along, Maelle. Let’s get this over with.”
The girl followed him into the office, eyes downcast, and Emma shut the door behind them.
Gustave stared at the lettering of her name on the door. He’d heard that foster parents had to seek official approval if they decided they didn’t want a child after all and sought to revoke their guardianship. A stop-gap measure. There were ever fewer grown-ups to take care of an ever-growing number of orphans, and this was one attempt to manage the rising tide. As the numbers ticked down, it was only going to get worse.
It seemed cruel to have that meeting in the presence of the child, no? Was that standard procedure? Gustave hadn’t realized that this would be part of Emma’s job now. He certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it. The brief but vibrant look of excitement on the girl’s face when she’d asked about his invention jumped to his mind, and he felt like he was going to be sick.
He glanced at the prototype Lumina converter beside him. He’d thrown himself into this project after he and Sophie had broken up. Perhaps a silly part of him had even hoped that if he could just get this, she’d see that there was hope for the expeditions and change her mind. Hopeless fucking optimist.
If Lune had noticed his sudden increase in fervour for the project, she hadn’t commented on it. Nor had she asked about the breakup. Gustave liked that about her. She could (and did) riddle him with questions about anything and everything, but she knew to back off when he was having a crisis. And in the end his state of mind furthered the project, so Lune was happy too.
The point being, aside from her, Gustave had barely seen any people since the breakup. In isolation, it had seemed like the end of the world for a long while, but being confronted with an orphan tended to put everything into perspective. There was no shortage of grief going around Lumière. At least Sophie and him were still alive.
After a half hour, the office door opened once more and Monsieur Lagarde marched out by himself, not sparing Gustave a look. Gustave tensed when the girl came into view, having to fight the urge to avert his eyes. He wasn’t sure how to act, and for once he and Emma seemed to be on the same page there. Gustave could tell because she looked even more composed than before; just a little too stiff in the shoulders to really sell it. Her hand hovered close to Maelle, who looked even more uncomfortable.
Gustave wasn’t the only one looking: everyone waiting in the hallway had gotten enough context clues to understand what was happening. Some busied themselves uncomfortably staring at walls or newspapers, but most were looking at Maelle with some version of pity. Gustave saw the girl freeze up under all the attention, her eyes darting around the hallway. She looked ready to bolt.
Gustave was on his feet before he could think twice about it, as if drawn forward on an invisible string. The girl’s eyes jumped up to his, panicked, and he forced a smile: “Hey, all this waiting didn’t help with the nerves. I could use some fresh air. How about you?”
He offered Maelle his hand. She latched onto it and grasped so tightly that Gustave thought it might bruise.
Then she did bolt, away from the office, and Gustave really had no choice but to follow.
“Gustave…?!” he heard his sister’s voice carrying after them.
“It’s alright,” he called over his shoulder. “Ah, Em? Please put the device over there someplace safe? It’s kind of important.”
He only caught a brief glimpse of her bewildered expression before he was dragged out of sight. Maelle’s pace was a harried flight, turning corners without look or hesitation. Gustave wasn't sure she actually knew where she was going, but somehow they ended up emerging on a large balcony overlooking the square. No sooner had they crossed the threshold than Maelle dropped his hand and leant on the railing. Her breathing was coming hard and fast; too fast. It was familiar, and the string between them pulled taut, tugging at his chest for him to move.
“Hey, hey it's okay,” he said, trying for the soothing tone he vaguely remembered from his childhood. He clasped her tense shoulders, hoping it would ground her. “Breathe. In and out, slowly.”
He repeated it a couple more times, breathing with her, both for her sake and to calm his own anxiety. He felt immensely unqualified for this, considering he barely had his own life together, but for the moment at least he could fake the calm he’d been going on about earlier.
Eventually Maelle’s breathing lost some of its panicked galloping, and Gustave was relieved to see some colour returning to her face. All things considered, she pulled it together surprisingly quickly. He got the sad impression that this wasn’t her first panic attack, but it had clearly been a bad one. Even now she was staring at the lively plaza below, but clearly not seeing it.
"There you go,” Gustave said, relaxing his grip on her shoulders but staying close, not to startle her. “It's okay, you’re okay.”
“I’m not going back to the orphanage,” the girl whispered.
“It’s okay,” Gustave repeated. “You’re not alone. Frankly, that monsieur didn’t seem like he was worth much, anyway. He shouldn’t have spoken about you like that.”
Maelle flinched, as if she only now realized he was there. She took a few hasty steps away from him, as far as the balcony would allow. Her eyes were wide as she looked at him. Confused, wary. Guilty.
“Your appointment. You missed it.”
“That’s…” Gustave stuttered, taken aback. “It’s fine, really; I can come back later. Hey, Maelle…”
“I messed it up,” Maelle muttered. “I always mess up. That’s why they wanted to be rid of me. The maman warned them when they took me in, but…”
Merde. Gustave took a careful step towards her, as one might a spooked deer. “You didn’t mess anything up, I promise. Look, Emma will sort something out. You won’t have to go back to the orphanage if you don’t want. It’s gonna be okay, Maelle.”
“Stop saying that!” Her eyes flashed, and all at once there was only anger in her expression. “You don’t know! It’s never true, never!”
Gustave froze and raised his hands in placation, but she didn’t even seem to see him anymore. Her gaze flicked to the door behind him, and she shook her head, a determined look setting over her face. “I’m not going back.”
Before Gustave caught on what was happening, she spun around and vaulted over the balcony railing behind her, falling out of sight.
“Putain…!” Gustave exclaimed. Belatedly he shot out his hand, but only caught empty air. Below, he saw Maelle landing on the awning of a flower stand and sliding down to the pavement. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she took off running.
In another context, Gustave might’ve been impressed. As it was, concern over the recklessness of this girl eclipsed everything else. It was a pretty far drop from the balcony. Like, vertigo-inducing high.
“This is a bad idea,” Gustave muttered to himself, before sliding his legs over the railing and leaping for the awning himself. Alas, it didn’t support his weight as well as it had the girl’s, and only slowed him to a point before he crash-landed in a pile of fertilizer sacks and flower pots. Groaning, he struggled to his feet, muttered a hasty apology to the aghast stall owner, and ran after Maelle.
She was damned quick. Gustave only caught flashes of fiery red amidst the crowd that enabled him to track her progress. He cursed the people of Lumière under his breath, who all seemed to have decided to take to the streets as one today. If he didn’t want to use his prosthetic to shove them out of the way, he had to take long detours along the edges of the buildings. He’d raced his friends down these streets plenty when they were younger, and yet somehow she seemed to know them better. It was all he could do to keep up.
Then he stumbled onto the plaza around the red and white tree, and there was no more Maelle. He spun around his axis, trying to gauge where she might have gone. His behaviour was quickly drawing some bewildered looks. Off to the side, a man had put aside his newspaper and was giving Gustave a look like he was about to call the authorities on him.
His heart sank. There was no sign of her, and there were only a dozen paths branching off from this square. Only a million places in the city for an angry, afraid little girl to hide.
“What are you doing, man?” Gustave wondered aloud. He had no business chasing a traumatized girl through the streets of Lumière. He was an engineer. And not one known for his people skills. There were authorities for this sort of thing. Professionals.
Like the orphanage.
I'm not going back.
“Excuse me,” he asked the man with the newspaper, “have you seen a young girl running through here? About ten years old, red hair, striped vest?”
The man gave Gustave a once-over, a frown nestled in the corners of his mouth. “What do you want with such a girl?”
“I’m not a creep, alright? The girl, she…” Gustave sighed. “It’s messy, but I’m trying to help her. I think she’s lost, and I don’t want her to hurt herself.”
The other man looked at him, unblinking. There was something about his eyes… Gustave felt a shiver run down his back; a strange sense of danger. He was just about to make his excuses and back away when the man finally replied: “She went that way. See that energy rope by the boulangerie? Rapelled right up to the rooftop.”
Gustave followed his line of sight and spied the rope in question. Okay. That narrowed it down somewhat; there were only so many places those roofs could take you to. Those he could check.
“Thank y-” he started, but when he turned back, the stranger had disappeared.
This day keeps getting weirder.
The air got cooler when he stepped into the biting wind on the rooftops. Winter season had come upon the city without him noticing, Gustave thought. He’d really spent too much time in the workshop.
But the sun was shining, and he could see for miles out to sea from up here, past the shimmering border of the dome and to the jagged edges of the continent on the horizon. For the first time in weeks, he wondered where his old mentor was now. Timon had lived for days like these. If things had gone well for his expedition, they should be coming up on the Monolith by now. Gustave couldn’t help but look to the enormous 41 that was their lives’ clock. Maybe this time it wouldn’t be replaced with a 40. Maybe.
Gustave wasn’t the only one whose eyes were drawn to the distant mountain. When he reached the rooftop glasshouse, he immediately spied his elusive quarry on the other end: the flame-haired girl had her back turned to him, looking out into the distance. She looked pensive, one arm hugging the other. Maybe she was thinking about someone out there, too. Or mourning someone, Gustave thought, his heart giving a painful twinge.
He approached cautiously, trying his best to appear as non-threatening as possible. He really didn’t want to cause her more distress. If I can get at least one thing right today, let it be this, please.
“Maelle?”
Maelle spun around, her eyes widening. “You…You followed me!” Her hands balled into fists. “I’m not letting you take me back.”
“I’m not trying to do that! You made it very clear you didn’t want to see the orphanage again, and I’m not gonna force you, I promise.”
“You’re lying.”
“Trust me, I’m really, exceptionally bad at lying,” Gustave assured her.
She didn’t seem convinced. “What are you doing here, then?”
“Well…” Gustave scratched his head. “Honestly, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”
Something flickered across her face, gone too fast to make out. “Why do you care? You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I don’t even know your name.”
“My mistake,” Gustave smiled apologetically. “Pretty bad at introductions. I’m Gustave. Emma, the councilor, is my sister. It’s nice to meet you.”
She cocked her head at him, now visibly confused. “You need to ask your sister for money?”
“Not exact-...When you put it like…It sounds bad when you say it like that. I need the city’s money, for the project. I’m doing fine on my own otherwise.”
“Doing fine chasing little girls? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Gustave couldn’t help but chuckle at the snippish tone. “Well, I do, but this seemed important. And people usually don’t run from me. I’m not exactly the intimidating type.”
“No,” Maella agreed, looking him up and down. Some of the tension in her tiny frame seemed to melt away. “You’re…weird.”
“That,” Gustave nodded, “I have heard before.”
“I bet.”
“Though I was just thinking about this before we met. If the whole world’s weird, doesn’t that just mean I’m a step ahead of everyone else?”
He thought he spied the hint of a smile. “Sure, if that makes you feel better.”
“You know, it does.” Somewhat sure that Maelle wasn’t going to immediately make a run for it, Gustave leaned his back against the wall of the glasshouse. He fished around in his pocket, relieved to find that his emergency supply had survived the pursuit. “Licorice?”
“Weirdo,” Maelle huffed. But she did catch his off-target throw, expertly at that. She broke off half the string and chewed on it, while putting the other half in her pocket. Gustave had never seen a child ration sweets. Something told him that, if he’d left her to her own devices, she would have been just fine on her own.
She really shouldn’t have to be, though.
“So, from one weird kid to another,” he tried, “what was your plan, after you’d shaken me off? Camp up here between the petunias? Cause I imagine that it gets a little chilly at night.”
“Hm. Hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she quoted Gustave, though there was little humour in her smile. “But anything’s better than…than doing that whole circus again. Every few months a new family, new home, new incident, and back to the orphanage.” She turned her face away, but not before Gustave saw the hurt there, quickly swallowed down with another piece of licorice. “You have no idea what that’s like.”
“No…” Gustave agreed. Everything in him wanted to hug this girl, but he was very sure that anything resembling pity wouldn’t be appreciated. “That must have been…difficult.”
A shrug. “Got used to it. I just don’t belong anywhere. At least not with people. Maybe the petunias will let me stay around.”
“I don’t think that’s true. That you don’t belong anywhere.”
She turned back to him at that. Her mouth made a thin line. “You don’t know me,” she repeated.
“I know a little bit,” Gustave offered. “The best way to get to know people is by talking to them. And I believe everybody has a place, somewhere.”
She only huffed; a noise that made Gustave flinch with its severity. No child should ever sound like that.
Everything seems to narrow on that thought, Gustave’s whole world shrinking down to the stubbornness and hurt staring at him from across the glasshouse. He couldn't look away if he wanted to.
“You could come with me,” he offers impulsively. “Em and I… we have space, at home. You wouldn’t have to go back to the orphanage. Or sleep with plants for neighbours."
Maelle’s only response is to stare at him. It is this close to turning into an angry glare. Maybe he’s pushed too far.
“What is this?” she demands, finally. There’s a quiver to her voice, almost buried underneath the anger there. “Are you saying you want to adopt me?”
“I…” Gustave starts. Stops. Is that what he is saying? Maybe. Yes?
A part of him has been contemplating that idea since she disappeared into Emma's office, he realizes. It’s a terrible idea. He’s not qualified; barely an adult himself. But then neither was the man who marched her into his sister’s office, right? Yes, Gustave thinks; at the very least he could do a better job than that. The bar is literally zero. He can do better than that.
The better question is whether he could do alright by Maelle; give her the home she deserves. Which should be significantly more than zero.
He has to swallow a few times before he can gather his courage and get his mouth to say the words: “If that’s what you want, we…We could give it a shot, yes.”
“No.”
Oh. The one word is all it takes for his house of cards to crumble. What was he thinking? Of course she can see right through his faux confidence, to the mess that he would make of that role.
“I’m…sorry, Maelle. Of course you’re not… I just thought that I’d…”
“You don’t want me,” she states.
Oh. This time his heart seizes for a different reason. The conviction in her voice. Whoever put it there, Gustave suddenly finds he wants to strangle that person. It's such an unusually violent impulse that it scares him.
“Why not?” he asks instead. Trying for the gentlest, least demanding tone he can find.
“I just told you!” It’s the first time he’s heard her yell. “No one ever kept me for long. You’d only get tired of me; everyone does. Don’t pretend you won’t. I’m not doing that again!”
“Maelle. I get it, I think. But I promise you, I’m not going to get tired of you. I don’t think I could. Emma neither, once she gets to know you properly.”
His words don’t have quite the encouraging effect he hoped. Rather, Maelle seems to take them as a challenge, judging by how her jaw sets.
“I’m not like other kids,” she states. “I’m…difficult. Normal kids don’t start screaming in the middle of the night and wake up their whole families. Or start walking through the house without waking up, like in a trance. I’ve scared a foster mother half to death like that once. You don’t want that in your house, right?”
Gustave blinks. “Is that it?”
Her eyes narrow menacingly, like she thinks he’s being sarcastic, and he quickly amends: “I mean, it’s a good warning to have in advance, but I fail to see how it makes you ‘difficult’. There’s measures you can take to protect yourself if you sleepwalk. And everybody has nightmares.”
“Not like mine.”
“Alright, but either way, you don’t have to endure them alone, Maelle. Sometimes it helps, sharing what we’re afraid of with someone. Then it starts to seem less scary.”
“No!” She glares at him, frustration practically leaping off her face with claws bared. “I’m just not right. Sometimes I just stare into space, even when people are talking to me. And when I do say something, it has nothing to do with what they were talking about. It’s disrespectful.”
“Oh, that happens when you have too many thoughts in your head. I do it to Lune at least twice a day. But she's even worse, so neither of us complains.”
"You're not listening to me!”
“Because none of what you’re saying makes you a bad person!”
“Maybe you’re the bad person! With your whole ‘I just wanna help’ gig. You don’t actually care about me. You just want to do some charity work to feel good about yourself before your number ticks down and you go up in petals.”
“That’s not true,” Gustave says quietly.
“Oh, or did you make your parents some promise before they went up in petals? Like, oh, it’s too late for you, but I’ll help some other stranger who doesn’t want my help anyway.”
“Maelle.” He hears a hard edge creeping into his own voice. The grief over their loss hasn’t scabbed over, and he has to fight to keep her words from turning it into an uglier shape. “That’s enough.”
There’s a flash of guilt, quickly hidden beneath the mask of a smile. “See. That’s what I do; hurting people. I’m gonna hurt you and your sister, too.”
Deep breaths. Gustave shakes his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Ask all my foster parents. When I was six, I pulled my step brother's arm behind his back so hard he cried!” she states, almost triumphantly.
“Oh. Why did you do that?”
That question seems to startle her. She stops for a few long seconds. Pulls her lower lip between her teeth.
“...He was mean. Saying stuff about me to his friends, but he was always nice in front of his parents. Broke my toys, then said I broke them. He…he called me a…”
“You don’t have to say it,” Gustave shushes her quickly. He tries to catch her eyes, which have started avoiding him again. “Listen, I’m not gonna say that you were right to hurt someone. But sometimes bullies listen to nothing else. The way I see it, you were acting in self-defense.”
Her lower lip wobbles ever so slightly. “They… never asked me why I hurt him. I was back in the orphanage the next day.”
“Oh. Merde. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.” She sniffs, still not fully looking at him. “About what I said. About your parents. I didn’t mean that.”
She draws in a sharp breath, and Gustave swallows down his immediate response. There’s more coming.
“I don't even remember them.”
Fucking hell. Is he allowed to hug her at this point?
“My…parents. My real parents. There's just…nothing.”
They're a city of orphans. They all of them know loss; it's a constant companion, a wound they rarely mention, even though they see it etched into the face of everyone they speak to. But as the disappeared grow younger and younger, so do the faces of those who miss them. This girl is too young to be this scarred. It's cruel. And…
And it makes him angry. Makes him want to drag the Paintress from her monolith and demand an answer, demand her to look at him, at Maelle, and justify her actions. But he can’t, and the utter powerlessness of it makes him want to scream.
But that wouldn't change anything, help nobody. All he can change are the small things.
She's trembling when he touches her shoulder. There's a fear in her eyes that he recognizes now. Fear of loss, and its sibling, fear of attachment. She's been here before, and she's trying to shield herself pre-emptively. Keeping everything at arm’s length so she won’t have to face the pain of losing it.
Gustave tries to communicate that she doesn’t need to. I'm here, and I'm not leaving you. It's a promise he can’t make, and he doesn’t care. Any promise in Lumière is based on hope at this point. May as well spend it on something good.
He hugs her.
For all her protestations that she’s not a normal kid, there’s nothing abnormal about the way Maelle dives into his arms and accepts the hug. Gustave feels a shaky exhale against his chest. She’s as much hiding her face as she’s seeking out the offered comfort, he guesses. He tries to say something, and gives up. Sometimes, words just aren’t needed. I’m here. I’m not leaving.
They stay like that for a while. He tries not to hold on too tightly, so Maelle can pull away if she wants to. She doesn’t, but neither is she leaning into the hug completely. Still keeping a bit of a distance. That’s alright. He supposes real trust is going to take time.
Finally she shuffles away and he releases her. “You smell,” she mutters.
“Engineer. Sorry.” He pretends not to notice the way she wipes at her eyes. If his own voice sounds a bit hoarse, no one ever needs to know.
“Ahem. Let me try this again. Properly.” He takes her hand in both of his. The human and the prosthetic one. He can’t help but notice that she never once commented on it. “Maelle, I would love to have you in our family. I can’t promise that I’ll always…that I’m going to be the best…guardian. But. I promise that I’m going to try. Alright?”
Her eyes are boring into his. There’s no avoidance now.
“Are you sure?”
“I am. And even if you don’t trust…if you don’t believe me yet, I’m going to do my best to earn that trust.”
“Hm.”
“How about this: for a start, I could treat you to some ice cream; ice cream makes everything better. If you’re not tired of me by the time we’re done, you’re welcome to stay at our home, so you don’t need to go back to the orphanage. And if that works out for you…” Gustave shrugged. “I don’t know. Step by step, I suppose.”
Maelle shuffles her feet. “That’s not much of a plan.”
“Hey, I never said I was a good engineer.”
“I can stay with you?”
“If you want to, yes.”
“You’re really leaving it up to me?” She sounds like she’s still looking for the trap in his words. Biting her lip again. “What about your sister? What if I don’t fit in with you?”
“We’ll make it fit somehow. Between you and me, Em and I aren’t exactly the perfect family unit anyway. Things have been… Since our parents gommaged, we…” Gustave shakes his head. They’ve never verbalized it, even though he’s sure Emma feels the same as him. “I’m not sure. Off? We’re the adults now, but we’re flying pretty blind there. I still feel like a work in progress. Though I think Emma is starting to find her space now. But don’t tell her I said that. It’ll just go to her head.”
“So she’s not a ‘work in progress’ anymore?” The question lists just this side of teasing.
A sigh escapes his lips. “Was that a weird turn of phrase? Whatever, add it to the pile. You and Emma are going to get along great if you’re already making fun of me.”
“You make it too easy.”
“That, also, is fair.”
Maelle’s grin is a beautiful thing. It tilts slightly, at the same time as her head, as she’s studying him.
“You call yourself weird a lot. But you’re not actually. You’re just…” She frowns, and Gustave sees a part of the wall go up again. “Just nice. It’s weird.”
She stops short, and when she realizes what she said, her annoyed little huff cracks the wall, just a little.
Gustave smiles. “Wanna try that again?”
“Shut up, weirdo. As if you’re any better with your sentences.”
“Touchè.”
“Ice cream.”
“Yes ma’am.”
A few hours, three waffles of ice cream and lots of teasing remarks aimed at one Gustave later, he watched the whirlwind that had swept into his life sleeping exhausted in his mother’s old bed. The events of the day must have tired her out. Very understandably so.
Gustave felt much the same way, but also…good. Like something had clicked into place in his life. He also felt nervous, incredibly nervous. It was a lot of responsibility to suddenly be shouldering.
As he had been reminded several times today already, and was about to be again, if he read his sister’s look correctly.
“We’re gonna regret this,” Emma prophesied wearily.
“Oh, you can see into the future now, Ms. Councilor?”
“What do you know about raising a teenager? What do I know?”
“It can’t be that difficult. She’s smart. We’re adults. We’ll figure it out.”
Emma gave a long sigh. “I hate your optimism. And that she’s smart is precisely what concerns me. Don’t you think she’s already thought about how this is going to end?”
Gustave huffed and closed the door to the bedroom, walking away without a response.
Emma followed, not letting him off that easily. “We’re young, but even so, how many years do we have left? She’s going to lose us too, like she lost her parents.”
“No!” Gustave turned on her. “One of the expeditions is going to succeed before then. We have almost a decade. That’s ages. She’s not going to… And we’re not…”
He fell silent. It was almost word for word the argument he’d had with Sophie. Their last one. He did understand that point of view, even if he didn’t agree with it. But this was different. This was not some hypothetical kid from his hopes and dreams; this was a living, breathing girl who had no one else.
“Gustave…” Emma sighed. Right then, her worry was bare to see; more open than she’d been with him in months. “You can’t know that. It’s cruel to base her happiness on a hope. Or yours. I can see you’re already attached to her, but…”
“But nothing. They’re gonna succeed. I’m gonna make sure of that. Listen, before all this went down, I wanted to show you this thing Lune and I have been working on…”
The nice man's sister is right; she has thought about it.
She doesn’t mean to spy on their conversation, but she also can’t help herself. It’s survival instinct. She needs to know how they talk about her when she’s not there. Needs to know what they expect of her.
Of course she’s thought about their age; how they are going to turn into petals and float away. But it’s a distant worry. They're going to get tired of her long before then anyway. Once they see that she’s not who they’re looking for. Good daughters don’t eavesdrop, or make people jump off balconies. They’ll see.
Gustave saw. She thinks. And he didn’t leave.
It's dangerous to remember how he hugged her on the roof. She does it anyway. It reminds her of something she can’t quite name. Something warm and soothing and filled with music. Something she wants, with an intensity that scares her.
Her eyes flit to the window. The moon outside is painting the room in blues and grays. They've left it unlocked. She could just leave. Should. Before she starts to believe this could actually last. Before she gets attached.
She makes it halfway to the window before she turns around and climbs back into bed. She’s a coward. No, she argues stubbornly, she’s being strong. Running away would be easy. She’s gonna make an effort, instead. She’s gonna eat sweets with him, make fun of him, laugh with her, convince her that she’s not going to regret it, and maybe find a place where she actually feels like she belongs.
All she has to do is stay. And pretend that it’s a choice.
She’s already attached.