Chapter Text
“We need to talk.”
Renoir awoke from dozing on the floor of his atelier to the sound of Clea’s voice and her footsteps coming towards him. Without thinking, his arm reached out only to find the space on the mattress beside him empty. His daughter came to a stop a short distance away from the canvas that served as a poor privacy screen between his bed and the rest of the cavernous room. The painter sat up, running a tired hand over his face and back through his hair. His words came out as something like a croak, “Good morning, Clea.”
“Morning would have been two hours ago,” she replied, annoyed.
From what he could see of her, he could tell she had crossed her arms from the shift in her stance. He supposed he should be grateful she was giving him this much time to gather himself before laying into whatever argument she was about to start. He swung his legs off the mattress and managed to push himself to his feet with a grunt. He looked around for his cane, but could not find it.
“Where is your mother?” he asked, moving out from behind The Aberration and over to a table and chair nearby.
Normally she might have ignored his attempt at delaying the conversation and pressed on, but Clea frowned as she watched her father lean heavily on the edge of the table before lowering himself to sit beside it. His time in Verso’s canvas seemed to have aged him a decade or more. The sight made her uncomfortable. Weakness was not something she wanted to see in her father. Surely, it would pass given more time to rest, but she could not shake the feeling of inevitability: one day, he would be permanently so diminished.
At present, she decided she would not be lenient with him, yet she answered him anyway, “Either the mattress on the floor or the company was not agreeable to Aline. I came home to find that she had dragged herself across the manor to lay claim to my bedroom.”
Renoir exhaled, his shoulders relaxing. That was enough to bring Clea’s irritation back to the fore, so she took a breath before broaching a more sensitive topic.
“She told me you let Alicia stay in the Canvas," she began carefully, "that you believe she’ll come out on her own?”
Her father nodded and simply waited for her to continue.
Her eyes narrowed. “It’s been three days since you came back. Aren’t you worried she might not leave in time?”
“She’ll come back,” he replied, not sounding overly concerned. His decision may have been underpinned by hope more than trust, but if his wife had taught him anything during their struggle, it was that he was unlikely to get a better response from their youngest daughter.
Clea was in disbelief. “I can’t believe you left her there. She’s too weak to be in a canvas for so long.”
He eyed her critically. “You left her in there for sixteen canvas years.”
“I thought you would be out of there sooner and bring them both home with you. Was that not the plan?” Clea’s stance was aggressive now, her hands on her hips, making her seem larger than her slim frame would suggest.
Renoir’s tone gained a hint of annoyance. “She’ll be fine. She just needs some time.”
“Except she doesn’t have time,” his eldest insisted. “In her condition, she has another week or so. Now I have to go in again and rescue her, too.”
“Do not underestimate her, Clea,” he warned her, deciding to ignore the implication that he had needed rescuing. “Nor should you enter the canvas to retrieve her.”
She was defiant. “And why not? Neither you nor Aline look to be in fit enough condition to do anything about it.”
“Alicia has become quite… possessive of Aline’s creations,” he replied dispassionately. “If you storm in there, she will fight you and that would be damaging for you both.”
“Why would she fight me?” Clea was incredulous. “I’m not you!” She regretted her outburst as soon as the words left her mouth. For a moment her denial hung between them, her mind suddenly aflame with their mutual recognition of it.
Renoir's expression softened with some mixture of fondness, pity, and amusement. He had tried not to repeat the mistakes of the previous generation in raising his children, and still Clea behaved the way he did, reacted to things the same way he did. He sometimes wondered if he had only made more of an effort could he have prevented this version of himself from happening, or was his daughter simply who she was meant to be?
You are. Too much like me.
She flinched, the rhythm of her breathing increasing rapidly. She was not sure, but it did not matter, whether he had said it out loud or if it was the ringing in her own head. Much later, when rage could no longer sustain her consciousness, she would sleep only to wake suddenly from a dream. She dreamt of a boy with dark hair whose face she could not see but knew to be like her own. Perhaps he was her brother, her father as a child, or worse yet, her future.
At the moment though, she was angry, “You need to stop making your problems everyone else's. I should not have to keep fixing all of this.”
Renoir’s tone hardened. “I did not ask you to since it is not a problem.”
“It definitely is,” she retorted.
Finally, the volume of his voice rose. “You are making this a larger issue than it is.”
“But Alicia could —”
The strike of wood on the tile floor boomed through the atelier.
Both Renoir and Clea turned in shock towards the door to see that Aline had entered with the aid of Renoir’s walking stick. The Paintress took a breath before crossing the room slowly towards them, keeping her gaze levelled with her daughter’s.
“There may be a way to help your sister. Walk with me, Clea,” she requested firmly, then as she reached her daughter, “Give this to your father. He will need it.” She passed Clea the cane, pointedly ignoring her husband’s slack-jawed stare.
Clea took the cane and tipped it towards her father, saying, “At least Aline has some idea of what needs to be done.” Reluctantly she let her mother take her arm, turning towards the door.
Renoir snatched the cane before it fell, his expression shifting between a dejected pout and a scowl, before declaring, “You are both worrying too much.”
“You’re mad!” Clea gave him a sidelong glare over her shoulder as Aline half leaned on her, half dragged her away from Renoir.
“Don’t disturb your sister!” her father called after them.
They continued walking as she turned to ask her mother, “Did he lose his wits in the Canvas?”
Aline’s lips pressed into a flattened smile. Instead of answering, she patted her daughter's arm in consolation. They crossed the threshold of the atelier and continued down the hall before she looked up at her daughter again, noting the grim worry that had settled in the younger woman’s eyes. Clea wore it much the same way Renoir did, but Aline knew better than to voice the comparison out loud.
“Your father is right…”
“Maman!” Despite herself, Clea’s tone contained a distinct whine.
“If we want Alicia to return soon, you must be far more sensitive in how you approach her,” Aline concluded.
“But how?” her eldest pouted.
“Tell me, dear, how well can you control the flow of time inside your canvas?”