Mending
Pallette was in simulation room F-3, targeting Mets. It was a cross between a game and an exercise in concentration.
The far wall had been made into a honeycomb structure- there were over a hundred hexagonal boxes interlocking from the top to the bottom. In each box was a Mettool. One or ten might pop up at any time and shoot a low-grade sphere of plasma at her. Performance in the exercise was determined by how many mets she could kill (they kept regenerating) in a designated amount of time, or until she took a certain amount of damage.
Suddenly her comm. chirped.
"Pallette, this is Skylar, over?"
She flinched in surprise and grunted as a shot hit her left shoulder guard. It barely stung, but threw off her concentration. The fact that Skylar kept trying to get her attention over the last three minutes of her exercise didn't help. The time counted down eventually- reached zero.
Pallette grimaced, thinking how annoying he was, interrupting her in the middle of training, incessantly bugging her. Then she laughed abruptly. So that's what the field hunters were always complaining about.
Then her score appeared.
"Pallette? What's so funny? ...Pallette?"
"You cost me a simulation ranking, Skylar," she said as the screen blinked 89%. "What do you need?" she asked wryly.
Skylar wisely didn't comment about the simulation. "There's someone at the front entrance who wants to see you."
"Who is it?" Pallette asked, dispelling the gun.
"Your brother."
She paused and tilted her head to the side, raising her eyebrows. "...Oh really?"
"Yeah," Skylar answered. "This isn't the point where you tell me you don't have a brother, is it? Because this guy looks exactly like you."
What could he want now? Pallette sighed. "Tell him to wait, I'll be down in a second." So she was- teleporting from the training room directly to the front entrance.
Skylar did a double-take when she touched down. He smiled, but suppressed it at her raised eyebrow. Canvas, dressed in civilian clothing, sat in the reception area. He'd looked up at her approach, but didn't seem to recognize her.
Pallette reached up and pulled off her Field-ready helmet. Her twin gaped.
"What do you want, Canvas?"
"Pallette and Canvas?" Skylar asked, his tone incredulous.
"You're one to talk, Sky-Lark," Pallette said, turning her head to 'almost but not quite' glare authoritatively at the receptionist. The self-named Skylar ruffled his feathers and gave her a beady-eyed glare.
"Go back to your job, lieutenant," she said with a pointed look. Sullen now, he did so after handing her a visitor's badge. "C'mon," she said to her brother, offering him a white-gloved hand. He looked at her a bit nervously, but accepted it.
***
She teleported them into the common inter-unit meeting area.
Hunters in armor, civilian clothing, even cloth uniforms loitered there, sitting around tables and in armchairs. The volume of conversation was kept to a pleasant buzz, every now and then a voice would rise in laughter or to punctuate a statement. Canvas, well used to crowds of people interacting, was slightly comforted. Pallette had done it for that reason, as well as wanting other Hunters around to keep Vas from doing anything he wouldn't dare try in public.
She let go of his hand and sat down at a nearby table for two. Pallette kept her armor on and took the reinforced chair, setting her helmet down on the table. Canvas tuned out the background noise easily and focused on her- and continued to seem nervous at the sight of her. Pallette wondered if it was the armor alone causing this reaction. She thought it was- and kept it on. She didn't want Canvas to be too comfortable.
"Well," she eventually broke into his staring, "what can I do for you?"
"...I was thinking, maybe you could talk," he murmured hesitantly. "And I could listen."
Pallette shrugged a little. "Talk about what?"
"I..." he swallowed. "Well, we-"
She felt no need to move the conversation along. Pallette had seen what Vas was, and it didn't scare her. She'd been afraid in their previous meetings, but here Canvas had come to her. He was asking her for something this time, and after all the trouble he'd caused, Pallette didn't feel inclined to make this easy for him.
"Pallette," he finally blurted out, "aren't you angry?"
She tilted her head to the side. "Did you come here expecting me to yell at you?"
Vas nodded slowly.
"I imagine you had a response prepared for that," Pallette murmured, a smile growing on her lips. "I've spent the past few weeks not giving you what you wanted, Vas. I don't plan on starting now."
"I-"
"Woah, Pallette, I didn't know you had a twin!" Johan slowed by their table and stopped, grinning.
She smiled at the other Hunter, nodding. "Johan, this is my brother Canvas, Canvas, this is Johan."
"Hi," he said, holding a hand out for Vas to shake. "Pallette and I were in Navi Training together." Canvas took it slowly, managing a weak grin. "So who's the painter?" Johan asked jokingly.
Pallette rolled her eyes tolerantly, but shook her head at Johan. Canvas blushed with embarrassment. Johan took the hint, said a jovial goodbye, and took himself away.
"When you think about it that way," Pallette murmured, "I suppose you've been rather blank since I left the family."
Canvas' head snapped up to her, a glare narrowing his pale eyes. Pallette met it calmly. He grimaced and looked away when he realized she had been serious, despite the pun.
"I did choose that name because of you," he muttered.
"I remember."
They sat in silence for a while. Other Hunters noticed them sitting there- the nearly identical faces- but they also saw the patient calm on Pallette's face, and the pained uncertainty of her brother. No one else approached.
"Pallette, I-"
"Why don't you tell me what you were planning to say in your lab?"
"... I was going to ask you to come home, because I miss you." He paused carefully. "I'd like to be able to see you anytime I want without having to worry about clearance issues or what our siblings will say about my leaving. If you came home, I wouldn't have to ask permission every time I wanted to talk to you."
"So we're still talking about making things easier for you."
"That's not what I-"
She talked over him, "You've known exactly where I was for the last forty years, Canvas. You could have called me any time, they might have berated you for it, but I doubt anyone would have stopped you. I watched- right after the split, I watched to see what Vandemere would do, whether he restricted your movements and freedoms. I wanted very much to hate him instead of you," Pallette said all of this in a calm, controlled voice. Her eyes betrayed sadness, but it was an old wound that didn't pain her as much as it once had.
"I've always hated that he set us up to gain all of that knowledge only to ensure that we couldn't use it anywhere but under his supervision. I hated that he caused the rift in the line, and the fact that he set half of us up to be abused by employers that were sub-standard human beings. He did those things, but that's all he did." Pallette sighed, shaking her head, scoffed a little. "He never held you hostage, he never kept you from doing what you wanted. All this time I've seen him as a tyrant... what did he really do, except set the Line in motion, and watch to see where we'd end up? I thought about that and I realized- all Vandemere did was send me that disc. You're the one who's stalked me, threatened me, and intruded on my life."
Canvas couldn't look at her. He hunched over the table a bit, staring wretchedly at the metal surface.
"Canvas- stop. Stop trying to manipulate me- stop exaggerating. Stop all of that, and tell me what you want."
He rested his forehead in his hands briefly, and when he looked at her again there were tears shimmering in his eyes, but his face was angry. "I was selfish. I wanted you to come home, and I never really thought about what you wanted."
Pallette nodded, agreeing. "Do you still want me to talk?"
Vas seemed reluctant, but, "Yes."
"Then let's go," she stood, grabbing her helmet. When Canvas rose from his chair, Pallette took his arm.
***
She teleported them into an empty briefing room. The small navi keyed the door into locking and dispelled her armor. In a simple sweat suit and tennis shoes now, she turned and faced Vas, who was standing in the middle of the room. Pallette crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.
"It hurt me when you told me not to call you anymore." She wasn't yelling, but there was anger in her voice, and Vas seemed relieved to hear it- even as he grew more miserable while she continued. "Maybe I wasn't following the path you would have chosen for me, but I was still trying to keep in touch with you.
"You rejected me, and that still hurts. You never understood, never tried to understand that maybe Dr. Arroway meant something to me. Maybe I didn't reject Vandemere's vision out of simple disobedience, but loyalty to what I thought was right. Then, he- all of you- sent me that disc. On the day of her funeral."
He wasn't looking at her, but he nodded.
"What do you want, Canvas?" Pallette asked, irritated, hurting, but still the one in control of their conversation. "I'm not going back to Vandemere just to please you. I have a life I enjoy with the Hunters- I have friends and a job I find fulfilling." Pointedly, trying to drive the fact home, she said the next slowly and clearly, "I don't miss you enough to give any of that up."
Canvas flinched a little. Blinking back tears, he pulled a disc out of his pocket and held it out to her. "This is the only copy," he whispered.
Pallette looked at him, took the disc carefully.
"It's surveillance footage of my lab- the night I saw your friend. It's the only copy," he said emphatically, looking away as her eyes hardened. "I came here to tell you that I'm done." Vas straightened up a little, smoothing his jacket- a nervous gesture. "I'm... not going to bother you anymore."
"What changed your mind?" Pallette murmured. His posture spoke of defeat. He hadn't caused trouble for the deal or tried to contact her for weeks. Canvas' actions supported the possibility that he was telling the truth.
"I took a long time to think about what your friend- the antique," he smiled weakly, "said that night. I don't want you to hate me... if you don't already... and I know you eventually would have if I'd gotten you to come home."
She didn't answer that, tucking the disc into her pocket. Canvas took the visitor's badge off his shirt and set it down on the computer console near his hand.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Pallette grabbed his hand before he could teleport out. She remembered this.
Their roles had been reversed- this time it was him apologizing, about to go, believing that nothing more could be done. Canvas had read her the riot act just after the Line split- angry that she wasn't staying, not willing to accept her decision. She'd told him she was sorry, and gotten no response. But Pallette was not her brother.
"I forgive you."
Then Canvas did cry.
She stepped forward, pulling him into her arms gently. Vas shook, sobbing brokenly into her shoulder. "It's okay. Shhh, it's okay..." she rubbed his back gently. All this time she'd been worried about what it would do to her if she hugged him, Pallette had never thought what it might mean to him. She'd never realized that although he had done the rejecting- it just might have hurt him as much as her. She finger-combed his hair gently and felt Canvas trying not to clutch at her sweat jacket as he cried- trying to maintain some form of control over himself.
"When did you become the older one?" he whispered around hiccupping breaths- Vandemere had given them that too.
"Anyone can grow up if they have the right life experiences," she murmured.
"I-I didn't want to hurt you, I just-"
Pallette shushed him gently, squeezing tight. They stood there for a while. Pallette dared to hope this would change things. She'd lied a little- she did miss him enough to give up her life with the Hunters, but she wouldn't have been happy in a situation she hadn't chosen for herself, and while the Hunters still needed her, she wouldn't leave.
"I'm not as adult as you," Canvas said later, "I-I need to know-"
"I love you," Pallette said. "I do. I always did." She kissed his hair. "Always will."
He made a small sound, began crying again.
She just held him tighter.