Blanc had never been much when it came to family. That's what she convinced herself at least.
Truthfully, before that obnoxiously loud robot had come into her life, the closest thing she had had to a family during her CPU life was that sleazeball Mr. Badd. That's right. Mr. Badd. That bastard who kidnapped kids and turned them into hideous monsters. THAT Mr. Badd.
Sure, he turned out okay long, long after the damage had been done to Blanc and Lowee, but there was no going back for him and Blanc now. There was just no way for things between them to go back to how they had been. She didn't want him back, and besides, she'd moved on to bigger and better things.
... Well, whether or not Copypaste was better was questionable sometimes, but there was no doubt that the lumbering machine was definitely bigger. It helped that he was bigger. He could do work for her with relative ease, and whenever she felt like remodeling, he was more than happy to go along with it even if his only pay was Blanc just watching him work. Blanc didn't even have to watch him sometimes. The robot was just happy to be wanted and needed.
At a glance, one might think that Blanc was simply using the robot. Maybe she was in the beginning. To an outsider, it probably appeared like she still was even to this day.
Now, however, could hardly be called the beginning of their relationship.
The fact was undeniable that she did, begrudgingly of course, enjoy the robot's company. While she had once been someone to enjoy her solitude, his presence soon became a thing that she accepted as a natural part of her day. Her life, even. As the years began to pass, she even came to realize she... would miss him if something were to happen to him.
That's right.
Blanc would miss Copypaste.
That horrifying realization came with a long shudder and Blanc deciding she should lock herself in her room for a week to make sure she hadn't lost her mind. A mental health break if you will.
Unfortunately for Blanc, she found that she had a lot of time to do nothing during that week. For a while she would just think about work, her writing, the usual things... But after a while, she got bored of that and began rummaging around her room, mostly in search of a spare pen or something to do. When one had nothing to do, after all, they should just find something to do, right? That was the plan anyway. What she had found instead of something to do, however, was an old, old album, so old that Blanc had forgotten it had even been there.
This was probably because she had made herself forget.
For a while, Blanc debated on whether or not she should look inside. Just looking at it brought up a lot of emotions inside Blanc, and none of them were particularly pleasant ones. That album contained things about Blanc's past that she had pushed aside for one reason or another, though they were all mostly the same reason, and they were things that she wasn't sure she really wanted to think about ever again. Locked within the album were the building blocks of Blanc herself. She had done such a good job of building a wall around herself to keep thoughts of it all out, so why now was she so tempted to peek inside?
"No."
If nothing else, Blanc was stubborn, and stubborn girls tended not to be so willing to change their minds about things. Her mind made up, Blanc buried the album back where it belonged and continued her search for something to do to fill the void known as boredom.
After that incident, Blanc was able to put the album out of her mind for a while. Her week of self medication and sanity checking came and went and, much to her relief/horror, she was still attached to that obnoxious robot. She still felt as though he had wormed his way into her life and just... belonged there.
This realization didn't have to change anything, she supposed. It really didn't change anything at all in fact. With that decision, Blanc was able to go about her days as usual once again, caring about her tea serving robot in her own peculiar way. If that was her family, then she supposed she could live with it. It wasn't like there were alternatives or anything.
That's what she told herself and it seemed to do the trick. Really.
"We've come to play!"
"I hope... we aren't interrupting..."
Except it was really hard for Blanc to convince herself of that when she had another self with twin sisters who seemed to adore her and just loved breaking in to have fun. She wasn't fun, was she? Of course not! She hated fun!
"Yaaaay, Copy's here!"
"Hi Copy..."
As Blanc watched the pair of little girls happily barge in and start to play with her robot, the CPU felt at a loss. The twins did this to her quite often, almost always these days in fact. At least it felt like it, although it probably wasn't even three times a week. How was she supposed to deal with them? How should she treat them? How should she approach them? How should she even talk to them?
Her other self had acted as if it was no big deal, and had even found living with Copypaste to be strange in comparison to having to little kids running around. Blanc didn't get that. Copypaste was loud and annoying, but he made sense to her. She could understand him and she knew how to deal with him. They fit together, in their weird way.
Sisters, though?
"Look, Rom! I think Copy's gotten bigger since last time!"
"Ram, robots don't grow..."
They were like little aliens.
"Ha ha ha! I actually got upgraded recently!"
... Okay, so Copypaste was kind of alien too, but at least he came with a built in translator. Or something.
Blanc watched them in silence for a little while, sipping the tea Copypaste had brought her shortly before the twins had arrived. All three of them were having a good time. She, on the other hand, was sitting there feeling like an outsider. Like she was the alien here. In her own home no less!
She couldn't feel mad though. If anything, she felt... sick.
Maybe she should just...
"Lady White Heart, where are you going?"
Blanc had been planning on making a quiet escape from the situation, as it was making her feel... uncomfortable. Trust Copypaste and that damn loyalty of his to catch her before she could make a clean getaway. Now all three of the troublemakers were staring at her, and she couldn't do a damn thing about it.
"I was... Uh..." Shit! Blanc hated being in situations like this. What the hell was she supposed to say now? It wasn't like she wanted those kids to KNOW that she had wanted to ditch them. Not only would that leave a bad taste in her and their mouthes, it would probably get back to her other self, and the last thing she needed was having her mirror image on her case. Realizing there was no escape now, Blanc slumped her shoulders and admitted defeat. She was stuck. "I was gonna get some snacks and crap. There's not enough for three people now."
The three pairs of eyes watching her didn't waver. Blanc could feel a bead of sweat rolling down her neck. That was such an obvious lie, wasn't it? There was no way anyone would fall for such a dumb-
"I. Am. TOUCHED!"
Oh shit there went her eardrums.
"To think that the kind and merciful Lady White Heart would want to allow her humble servant to continue playing, when it is he who should be getting the snacks..." Copypaste's metallic cheeks were quickly being soaked by the stream of tears coming from his eyes like a pair of waterfalls. "Does your kindness know no bounds, Lady White Heart?!"
Blanc wanted to answer, but she was more concerned with covering her ears at this point. She knew she should have gotten more earplugs the other day. On that note, she realized the twins, who weren't used to this volume, were probably much worse off. Unfortunately, when Blanc looked to the twins to see if they were okay, she found...
"Y-You're... so nice..."
"Stop Rom! If you cry, t-then... Then I... I will tooooooooooo!"
... that they too had tears streaming down their cheeks.
Evidently her other self wasn't much of a giver. Then again, she wasn't either, she had just pulled that excuse out of her ass.
"R-Right," Blanc wasn't sure if she should leave now. Would these three be okay without someone to keep them in check? To be honest, though, Blanc really wanted to get out of there, even if she had to come back, so she figured it didn't matter. "I'll be right back then..."
Blanc made her way out if the room, closing the sliding door behind her, before collapsing against it and letting out a whoosh of air. As she stood there, collecting herself, she listened in on the trio in the room she had just left. At first there was some sniffling, which almost made Blanc feel guilty. Almost.
"Lady White Heart truly is a miracle of the universe... I'm so blessed to live such a wonderful life!"
Blanc rolled her eyes. Maybe she should just go...
"Really? Does she read to you too?"
"We love it when our sister does that..."
... then again, she wasn't in a rush. She was suddenly feeling rather curious.
"Read to me...? Read what to me?"
Yeah! Read what to him? Was she screwing something up? What was her other self doing that was so great?
... Oh wow. Wow. She was actually, surprisingly, feeling a little defensive over this. Better give them a reason to keep talking. Or to change the subject so she could stop feeling so strange. Either one worked. Cupping her hands around her mouth, Blanc pretended to yell from the other room.
"We're out of... shit, uh... oh, the things! We're totally out of those, so I'm gonna go get some more!"
Blanc followed this with some dramatic footstep noises made on the ground, hoping it would convince the three in the room behind her that she would be gone for a while.
It took a moment, but it seemed like her plan had paid off.
"She really is nice..."
"I-I wasn't doubting her! But ours is better, right Rom?"
Blanc grit her teeth. Those ungrateful punks! Why she oughta... No, actually... She considered their words for a moment and sighed. Well, if it was true, she couldn't really blame them. She had no experience with "real" family, at least that's what she believed, whereas her counterpart had these two sisters to live with and care for. It wasn't like she would ever have anything like that either. Just... Copypaste.
That was wrong. A voice in the back of her mind tauntingly spoke up, as if it had come solely to remind her of things she would rather leave behind. What a jerk.
Blanc bit her lip, memories of that item she had disturbed in her room coming to her, flooding her mind despite how she desperately wanted them to go away. She had wanted to forget. She didn't want to feel like that ever again.
And yet here she was, familiar feelings starting to creep up on her once again. Damn it all.
Feeling heavy, Blanc closed her eyes. She couldn't even hear the twins or the robot anymore. They were talking about reading books now or something. Blanc could picture it, and in fact on the few occasions she'd been left with Peashy, she had probably performed the act herself. Peashy, unlike these twins, tended not to care, so Blanc would return those feelings in kind. Rom and Ram, though? Even though it was apparent that they had no idea what their sister often read to them, they clearly treasured those times like nothing else.
Like a ball of concrete had been dropped into her stomach, Blanc felt positively... She couldn't even describe the feeling, but she didn't care so much about the twins or one upping her other self anymore. She wondered why she had cared at all.
Her feet making soft noises on the floor, Blanc wordlessly, thoughtlessly, made her way to her room. She had known she couldn't ignore it forever, but she would have liked to give it a few more years. Decades even. Then at least, like it or not, there would be no way for her to deal with what she would find inside. Though really, there was no way the contents would still be relevant anymore. It had been too long.
"Where is it..."
Thoughts of snacks and escapes long forgotten, Blanc was like a woman possessed. While she had stumbled upon the album so easily the first time, it was as if now that she actually wanted to find it, it refused to be found.
She needed it now. She needed to put this behind her or at least satiate this sick feeling inside of get and make it go away for a while!
"Where is it...?!"
Blanc suddenly found herself becoming very panicked. It was one thing when it wasn't there when she didn't want it, but what if it was gone? What if it had been lost? What if it was gone for when she was finally able to look back and appreciate all of that? She didn't want that! That- That was all she- Without it, there wasn't- There was no more- No! She couldn't lose that! She just couldn't!
"Where is it?!"
Breathing heavily, Blanc's movements started to become frenzied as she moved from shelf to shelf, knocking things down and pushing things aside in the hopes that it would reveal that damn album. Adrenaline pumped through her body as she tore her room apart, trying desperately to locate that accursed album. She had come here to just satisfy some twisted desire, so she could go back to ignoring it, but now she needed it. She couldn't go another moment without confirming its contents, without making sure they were real.
"Is this it...?"
Blanc spun around, panting heavily. Standing at her room's door was Rom, holding the thing that Blanc had been so adamant in finding in her tiny hands. The little CPU Candidate looked at Blanc, her expression one of concern. For a moment, Blanc just stared, partly wondering how in the world the old album had gotten over there while also feeling so incredibly thankful it had been found. Now she could look at it and hide it away from another half century.
"It was... knocked over here. Copy is going to get the snacks, so I, um..."
Her worries almost instantly fading at the sight of the old book, Blanc found herself falling backwards and collapsing into a sitting position on her bed. That had taken more out of her than she had expected, and now... Now she actually had to look at the damn thing.
Blanc exhaled and looked at Rom. Her frantic yelling had probably been heard, though right then she didn't particularly care that she had been caught in a lie. Copypaste would get over it and the twins had their "real" sister to look to for a role model. She didn't need to be perfect for them.
"That's bitter of me..." Blanc mused to herself. This whole album thing must've been making some old wounds open up. Pushing that aside, she looked towards Rom, who was watching her uncertainly. What was she supposed to say now? What would be too much? What would be too little? Eventually deciding on a simple answer, Blanc pointed at the book. "Yeah, that's it. Could you bring it over?"
"Y-Yes!" The CPU Candidate chirped her response like an eager little bird, rushing over to Blanc's side before making herself right at home and plopping herself down next to Blanc on the bed.
Blanc hasn't counted on how familiar the twins felt with her. Even shy little Rom had no problem just sitting down on Blanc's bed and looking up at her as if she was really her sister. They might have been bragging about "their" Blanc to Copypaste behind her back, but it occurred to her that they rarely ever made comparisons between them to Blanc's face anymore. She had been reading too much into it, hadn't she? Damn. Like she needed more things to feel lousy about today.
It wasn't that she was feeling particularly lousy right now or anything, but once she looked in that album, well... Blanc knew herself well enough.
"Um... What is it...?" Rom's quiet voice brought Blanc back to reality. She realized that the thing had been gently placed onto her lap. She supposed if she should be glad for anything, it was that the quiet one had been the one to come looking. There was no way in hell she'd be able to handle the other one right now, and she couldn't even fathom what to do if it had been Copypaste that had barged in. "Is it a story...?"
Blanc repeated the question to herself as she straightened the album in her lap, leaving the front cover facing upwards. It had been fairly dusty when she had first rediscovered it, but thanks to all the recent handling, now it had various smears in the dust, leaving some parts covered and others looking fine.
"Yeah. I guess it is..." Blanc took a deep breath in, then blew it out hard, sending the remaining clumps of dust on the album's cover flying. It looked new again. Just showed how little she'd used it. Something this old should be worn out and full of memories, not stuffed in a corner and trying to be forgotten. It was really damn telling. "It's my story."
Rom tilted her head as Blanc opened the cover of the book. Was it something she had written then...? Her sister liked to write stories too! Maybe the two Blancs could write something together...? Oh, that would be fun...!
"Oh...!" Rom gasped. While Blanc had known all along that it wasn't a regular book, Rom had just assumed it would be filled with words. To her surprise, what was looking up at the two girls was a faded picture of two adults. They were wearing very formal looking clothes and they looked incredibly happy. Rom had no idea who these people were, but Blanc seemed to, judging by the way she was gingerly touching the photo with her fingers. The Candidate turned to Blanc, eyes full of curiosity, and asked the question she was dying to know the answer to. "Who are they?"
"My parents." The words felt sticky. Like there was something wrong about them. They hung in the air for a moment, Blanc looking at the picture with a strained expression, Rom looking at the picture in confusion. Blanc didn't notice Rom's confusion, but if she had, she probably would have attributed it to the fact that parents were a foreign thing for CPUs of the other world.
As it turned out, Candidate wasn't totally out of the loop. Nepgear had explained how things worked here to her, Ram, and Uni one day. While the twins had entertained the idea of spending a few years straight here to enjoy a growth spurt they would otherwise be unable to have, nothing much really came from the lesson as it quickly had devolved into a pillow fight between Uni and the twins over who would be the bustiest if they were given the chance to age.
In other words, what was confusing Rom wasn't the fact that this Blanc had parents, because she knew that.
It was the date written at the bottom of the picture.
She knew the date in this world was different than the one back home, but even then, something was seriously off. That just couldn't be right...!
"B-Blanc?" Rom always had to remember not to call this Blanc "sister." It wasn't so much that she thought it was a problem, but it seemed to bother Blanc. "I think... I think someone wrote the numbers wrong."
Blanc turned to Rom, confused. Why would she think that...?
Then she looked back down at the album.
Oh yeah. That would probably be confusing.
"No, it's right. And then..." Blanc didn't give Rom a chance to say anything, instead choosing to turn the page. She already had enough problems dealing with these girls, she couldn't even imagine how things would be once they finished going through this trip down memory lane. Blanc wondered why she was even bothering to show the kid any of this.
It wasn't that hard to figure out. She'd deny it, of course, but it was true even so.
She would never be able to make it through this alone.
"A wedding!" Rom gasped as Blanc set the next page down, surprised to see such a thing in the album. She had never been to a wedding herself, though she could certainly recognize one from a picture. Despite the fact that this one looked much more traditional, like something from an anime (she saw a lot of anime when Vert babysat), she could tell that it was most definitely a wedding. Rom couldn't be distracted by the pretty clothes for long, however, as she soon caught sight of the date again.
Blanc noticed the change in Rom's demeanor and decided it was time to turn some more pages. Might as well introduce the story's protagonist. Swallowing, despite the sense of dread and pain Blanc felt looking at these, she began turning. There were more pictures of the happy couple, but she didn't stay on them for long. As the pages continued to turn, the couple's clothes grew less elegant and their expressions less joyous. However, after lifting the page showing a picture of a pregnant woman, suddenly much happier compared to how she had looked just a single picture prior, Blanc paused.
Was she really ready to look at these again?
It felt like it was still too soon.
"... Are you okay...?"
"Huh?" Rom's voice snapped Blanc out of her thoughts. No, she wasn't okay. But she needed to be. Everything that had brought her to this point required that she be okay. Nodding slowly in response to Rom's question, Blanc silently turned the page.
Rather than a picture if the couple that had been starring in the last few pictures, this new picture was of a newborn. Blanc wasn't sure what to think, looking at this creature that had once been herself. She had been so... fragile. So human. No one would have ever thought this little baby would found and rule over a whole nation back then. Never in their wildest dreams...
"That's me," Blanc began turning the pages slowly, giving a brief description for each one. "This is when I learned to read. This is me a few weeks later playing my first game. This is after our house burned down. This is after da... after the man in the earlier pictures lost his job. And then the next job."
Blanc pursed her lips.
"He still wanted us to uphold tradition, even when we couldn't eat a lot of the time. It was important to him. He kept trying. He kept saying it would be okay as long as we were together."
The idea of not being able to eat was completely foreign to Rom, so she could only look at Blanc in wonder. It wasn't just that she had been born into a good life, though that certainly played a part, it was that she had always been a goddess. Having never been human, combined with being more of a child, their problems had never really felt... real to her.
Instinctively, Rom found herself latching on to one of Blanc's arms to give the older CPU some kind of comfort. Or maybe to give herself comfort from the feelings Blanc's story was building up in her. Either way.
Blanc looked at Rom, tempted to tell her to stop, but she stopped herself from doing so. The hole in her chest that had been there for so long... The hole that Copypaste had been working diligently on filling... It felt a little less empty with that tiny CPU Candidate clinging to her like that.
She wondered what her other self would do in this situation... And then she wondered why she should care. She wasn't that person. She was her own person. Forcing a smile, Blanc nodded, hoping it would get the message (whatever it was) across to Rom.
"Thanks."
Rom blinked up at Blanc, unsure of how to take this, but she eventually decided to just smile softly. Words weren't get forte anyway.
Unfortunately, awkward silences weren't Blanc's either, so she soon found herself clearing her throat and turning back to the album.
"Anyway... Things kinda kept going to shit for a while. That was how they were and we accepted it." Blanc skipped over some pages. They hallmarked things that had meant the world to the family back then, things that they took more joy in then than Blanc took joy in things now, but looking back on it, Blanc couldn't stand the thought. It all made her sick to her stomach. "And eventually... I became a CPU."
"You look just like you do now..." Rom shouldn't have been surprised, but she was. Perhaps, again, because the date of the picture was still off. It felt off to her anyway.
It was a nice picture though. Blanc's parents were standing on either side of her, and she was looking relatively pleased with herself, all things considered. It seemed like things had finally begun to look up for the family, at least if the picture had any say in the matter. Rom wondered why Blanc didn't seem happier.
"Well, yeah. That's kinda what happens," Blanc wondered if it worked differently in the other world, but given Neptune... She doubted it. Shaking her head, Blanc closed the book and set it aside, much to Rom's surprise.
"Huh? W-What about the story?" the girl asked, looking from Blanc to the album. There simply wasn't any way that it ended there. There was too much left! Her sister never left stories hanging unless it was bedtime, and Rom wasn't tired at all...!
Besides... If Blanc was here now, then there had to be more...!
"There's nothing else in there."
The feelings behind those words stayed in the room and left a heavy impression on Rom, and it was one she didn't understand. Had something happened? What could have made the story end there?
And wait...
"That's wrong..." Rom said quietly. Blanc, eyes widening, turned on the girl suddenly, causing her to cower. She had never seen her sister (or someone with her sister's face, anyway) look so... so... distraught before.
"You wanna tell me it's wrong?" Blanc practically spat the words out, coming off much harsher than she intended. She hadn't meant to speak that way to Rom... rather, her words were likely directed at a much more obvious target. "Go ahead, look inside! There's no more pictures! No more happy family! Just a CPU that doesn't belong anymore!"
Blanc realized too little too late that she was taking out her frustrations out on the wrong person, but that didn't do anything to stop her now. These emotions had been building up for decades and it would take something much stronger than the tears of a girl she was convincing herself barely knew.
"Sure, they pretended to care for a little while! But then they stopped coming, stopped calling, they even stopped pretending! So what if the first thing I did was give them land and a new house?! So what if I shaped my whole damn country and life in the image of my dad's stupid traditions, his culture?! So what?! They didn't want anything to do with me! Now that I was bringing the bread home, no, now that I was sending it home from the capital, they didn't need to pretend to give a shit anymore! One less mouth to feed after all! And hey, great that the other me gets such a great life with sisters and shit, really goddamn happy for you, but excuse me for not being perfect like-"
While tears weren't enough to stop her, a hard, resonating slap was. Evidently Ram had come in at some point and, upon seeing her sister crying before her other sister's lookalike, had taken matters into her own hands. Quite literally.
Blanc blinked a few times, raising a hand to cover her reddening cheek. She slowly turned to look at the twins. Rom was off the bed and had taken the safer position of hiding behind Ram, who was giving Blanc a look that made her feel like she had just ordered a thousand kittens to be dumped in a shark tank.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't-"
For once, Blanc found herself stumbling over her words, unsure of what to do now. A new sort of panic was rising in her chest. What had she done? How could she fix this? Would it even be possible?
She realized she was scared. She didn't want to lose these girls.
"We never thought you were perfect! We... We wanted to love you like you were a second big sister. Like our sister had a twin like us!" Blanc knew Ram was trying hard to restrain herself, for Rom's sake. She had gotten better about that. It was still hard to see. "But... But I don't want anyone who makes Rom cry in my family! I hate you!"
Before Blanc knew what was happening, the twins were leaving. Ram was dragging Rom away, Copypaste was trying to go back and forth between both parties and make everyone feel better, and Blanc... Blanc just felt truly terrible.
Blanc didn't wait for long. The twins were gone and they were probably going to be gone for a long time. Maybe forever. Upon returning and finding no twins to feed, Copypaste had declared he would make Blanc her favorites, but she didn't feel very hungry after what she had done.
So she left. At first she just transformed and began flying aimlessly, looking over her country. The buildings, the culture... All of it, these days, was considered the culture of Lowee. If people really knew how it had originated, she wondered what they would think.
Blanc soon wondered what she was thinking. While she had most certainly been flying aimlessly initially, she quickly came to realize she was headed in a very specific direction, to a very specific place she had never hoped to visit again. She wanted to turn back, but after everything that had happened today, she felt like she might as well see it through to the end.
Keeping thoughts to a minimum during her flight, Blanc just hoped she wasn't making a bad call here. With how today was turning out thus far, she had half a mind to think that the property would have been sold and torn down or something.
Given that train of thought, as she approached she was genuinely surprised to see that the place looked like it was in such good shape... especially considering the owners, by all accounts, just shouldn't be among the living anymore. Maybe they had sold it after all?
She made very little noise as she landed, though she wondered if it mattered. The place didn't look very lively. Looking around the place, she whistled appreciatively. She had sent the best people she had had at the time to build this... estate, really, and it still held up. Too bad the people who had built it were all retired now, though she did have Copypaste now anyway for this kind of thing.
"At least they were living the good life..." Blanc murmured to herself, running a hand along a statue of... some thing or another. It had been too long since she'd had to care about this sort of thing, and trying would just make more painful memories resurface.
To her surprise, the statue, like everything else, seemed well taken care of. Clean, polished, like new. She supposed it could actually BE new, it wasn't like she remembered the details of this place or anything, but...
"Doesn't matter to me. I don't even know what I thought I would find here."
Blanc turned away from the statue, shaking her head. She was just about ready to transform back into White Heart, bottle all of this back up, and forget it had ever...
"Hey lady. Who're you?"
... happened?
Blanc rubbed her eyes slowly, as if doing so would fix this. Nope. The little girl staring up at her who had appeared from nowhere was still there. She looked like she was maybe Peashy's age, at least her physical age anyway, but she had bright blue eyes and light brown hair that was tied into pigtails. Typical little kid, really.
"I'm..."
"Mama! There's a lady here! Lady, come follow me!"
Before Blanc could answer the kid's first question or say anything to her following statement (order, really), she dashed off towards the house. It was the place Blanc hadn't planned on checking, or maybe she had been saving it for last. She wasn't sure, but now it looked like she wouldn't have a choice in meeting whoever had bought this place off her parents. Maybe they could point her to where she needed to go to find their graves.
Sighing, eyes downcast, Blanc followed after the little girl. She hadn't counted on having to interact with the public today. Though she really wasn't in the mood for it, it would be a bad call all around to just fly away before introducing herself. And she did want to find out where her parents were buried.
Rubbing her temples, Blanc stopped walking as she found herself standing before the entrance. It felt strange, finally coming here after all these years only for it to be inhabited by strangers.
"Now now, Mem, 'lady' isn't nice. Just who is..."
There it was. The trailing off. Blanc didn't have to look up to know the look on the kid's mother's face. She'd seen it countless times before. She'd go somewhere, try to do something, get treated like a "normal" person, then they'd realize they were speaking to their goddess and get all respectful and crap. It was annoying.
... Speaking of annoying, what the hell was taking this kid's mom so long? Seriously, what was taking her so long?
Having had enough of the awkward silence, Blanc lifted her head so she could get a good look at the dumbass who didn't know what their own CPU looked like... and promptly gasped.
The woman wore a pale blue kimono and seemed to be upwards of thirty. Well, she had a kid, so she had to be on in the years, right? Nothing surprising there.
That wasn't what shocked Blanc.
That light brown hair. Those blue eyes. That face. There was no doubt about it.
This woman... This woman... As crazy as it sounded, there was only one possible explanation for the way this woman looked.
Their eyes locked together in an exchange of emotion, the woman finally spoke, tears in her eyes, and confirmed Blanc's suspicions.
"It's really you... I knew you would come someday!"
Blanc could only manage one word.
"Rom...?"
That word was all it took. The woman burst into happy tears and nodded fervently. Blanc couldn't believe it. Never in her wildest dreams would she have suspected that...
"I... have a sister?"
That did it. With those words uttered, without a moment's hesitation, the woman who appeared for the world to be an older version of the girl Blanc had been sitting on her bed with just an hour earlier threw herself around Blanc.
Blanc just stood there, being hugged by this stranger who wasn't a stranger at all. She was in shock. Of all the things she might have expected to find here, this sure as hell wouldn't have been on that list.
After that, the next few minutes were a blur. Blanc remembered being ushered into the house, the little girl now cheering "Aunty! Aunty!" as her mother tried to shush her, and then Blanc was left in the living room to her own devices while the woman (Rom, Blanc had to keep telling herself) prepared something to eat for her guest. The kid (her niece, Blanc had to keep telling herself) kept peeking in, looking like she was both curious and also afraid. That was kids for you.
Eventually the kid left, probably bored, giving the CPU some real alone time. The first thing Blanc did with it was survey the room. It was nice. Obviously there had been some upgrades over the years; a new TV had been installed, there was a game system plugged in: the usual things one might find in a typical Lowee household. Despite the grandness of the building, it was still rather homely looking. She wasn't sure how she should feel about that. Good, maybe?
Finally turning to look behind her, Blanc froze. Her face paled and her blood ran cold. She should have figured it would be here, given that this place was in fact owned by a direct relative of hers, and raised with the same traditions she had been... but even so, it had completely slipped her mind. Maybe she had forced it away on purpose.
It was a shrine for her parents. It had pictures and candles and everything. It was clearly well cared for, if that mattered for this kind of thing, and it was clearly made very respectfully, but...
"Shit." Blanc swore quietly under her breath, eyes frozen on the shrine. She couldn't move an inch. It was as if time had stopped completely, waiting for her to look at this before it could start moving again. No, it was forcing her to look at this.
Blanc felt very small all of a sudden. No longer did she feel like the mighty White Heart of Lowee, a hero who had helped defeat the Seven Sages and bring peace to two worlds... Instead, she felt like a child who had just come to the sudden realization that her parents were no longer of this world. She briefly wondered how it happened, before shaking that thought away. Knowing how wouldn't bring them back. It wouldn't change things between them. That could never change. There was no going back, especially now that they were gone.
... Still...
Here she was, sitting before this shrine. She couldn't deny that she had had a family anymore. At least not in this moment right now.
What should she say? What could she? After everything that had happened... There were things she'd like to say, but she just couldn't say them in this house, with her newfound sister here to possibly overhear. That would do much more harm than good.
"Yeah, you can't say it to a stranger, but you can just yell it at her other self and make the poor girl cry..." Blanc reminded herself bitterly. The CPU made a face and pushed those thoughts aside for later. She had more important things to deal with right now... like the smiling pictures of her deceased parents.
What the hell was she supposed to do? Had Rom put her here on purpose?
No, she couldn't imagine any version of the little girl that had held her arm so gently today would do something so cruel. As nasty as Blanc herself could be, she just couldn't fathom that.
"Sorry for the wait...!" Speak of the devil. Blanc turned to the doorway to see the woman (the woman who was her sister, she reminded herself) coming into the room. She carried with her two glasses of juice while balancing a plate of cookies on her arm. "Mem is playing a game in the other room. I figured you would rather it just be us for now. I can get her back in here if you want."
"No, that's fine." Blanc paused, looking at the balancing act going on before her. "Do you want help...?" Blanc found herself offering, surprised at her own generosity. Maybe she was just glad the kid was out of the picture. She didn't know these people. If it had been a regular person trying to please their CPU, she wouldn't have batted an eye.
"After you've done so much?" Rom seemed somewhat amused by Blanc's offer, which just puzzled Blanc. What had she done for these people? Until today, she hadn't even known they existed. "Don't worry, I do this all the time."
"Uh huh..." Blanc could only accept Rom's answer, and true to her word, Rom placed everything on the table down with the diligence of someone who had been at it for a long time. She was clearly used to serving a lot of people.
That begged the question though... Shouldn't there be another person here...?
"Oh... I should have realized you would find it. I'm sorry..."
Blanc tilted her head, wondering what Rom meant, before realizing that she was still sort of facing the shrine. She had felt frozen in place after all. She quickly turned away, her gaze downcast. Good going, girl. That wasn't really a subject she had wanted to get into until she was on her way out, if she even got to it at all.
"It was peaceful, if that's what you were wondering..." Rom supplied quietly. Blanc flinched. She HAD wondered, albeit briefly, after all. Seeing a reaction out of Blanc, Rom smiled strangely. "We... That is... Well, they told us not to expect you. I wasn't sure if I should reach out to you for the funeral, but father insisted not to before he passed. It was in his will in fact."
That struck a nerve. It really did. It was one thing to be forgotten, but to not be wanted? So explicitly?
She had thought she was over this... Well, this afternoon's outburst probably disproved that. She clearly was, in fact, not over this by any means.
Still... This? This new detail?
It fucking hurt.
Blanc clenched her fists at her sides, but she didn't want to throw a fit and bring two Roms to tears today. One was more than enough, thanks. So she did her best to contain herself, which was a great feat on her part. To her great surprise, however, this Rom... didn't look all that upset.
"I thought so."
Blanc stared at the woman incredulously. She thought so? What the hell was that supposed to mean? This woman didn't know her. She didn't know anything!
"You were his pride and joy, you know..." Rom smiled wistfully. Blanc nearly choked as soon as the words processed. Rom paused, to see if Blanc was okay. She looked over the CPU with a gaze that Blanc had never before felt upon her. It was so... familiar. So caring.
She couldn't stand it. She had to say something.
"Bullshit."
Rom looked wounded at first. Were Blanc a more tactful person, she might have felt bad about speaking ill of the dead in the dead's child's home. But you know what? Screw that. She had been his child first and she had been miserable and lonely for years because of him.
"I thought so..." Rom repeated those words again, though now her expression was much more somber. Blanc didn't like it one bit. It took her a lot of effort to not snap at the woman sitting before her, but she knew she didn't have the right after what she had done to the little Rom earlier.
She was really tempted to though.
"Well, don't leave me in suspense. What is it you know?" She tried to hold back her tongue, and she succeeded... somewhat. Rom, older Rom, whoever she was- The woman smiled sadly. "Come on, out with it!"
"We..." Rom paused, an odd expression crossing her face. "I didn't want for anything growing up. I was told often how that was thanks to you. In fact, it came up quite regularly, how it was thanks to you that we were in such a wonderful place now."
"Yeah, well..." Blanc suddenly felt uncomfortable. What did that have to do with anything? It wasn't like she had done it FOR Rom. She wondered if she should correct that, if it even needed to be corrected, but decided to evade that issue altogether. "So what? I made sure all of Lowee was well off. I didn't want anyone to have a childhood like I'd had."
It was at that point that Blanc remembered all those pictures she had skipped over when she had been showing the smaller Rom the album.
Sure, she had been poor as shit, but...
"That's right. That's exactly it."
Blanc stared. She didn't follow. Rom meanwhile looked like she had just revealed the great truth of the world.
"What is?"
"Father..." Rom paused, seeming to want to choose her words carefully. "I couldn't have been around then, you know that, but I've heard. Do you remember how at first he tried acting normal? Then he and mother, little by little, stopped giving you as much time?"
"Of course I remember..." What was Rom getting at? First she tells Blanc that she'd never wanted for anything, now she was rubbing this in her face? That wasn't going to make it easy for Blanc to contain herself. It really wasn't. "Is there a point to this?"
Blanc wanted to say more, but Rom's expression stopped her. Blanc stopped, waiting for the woman to go on.
And go on she did.
"He realized you had become something great. As you did more and more and made our land not just a better place for us, but for everyone, he came to believe that you shouldn't be burdened by family..." Rom paused for a moment. It was clear even to Blanc that this must have been the topic of many fights while Rom was growing up. "He believed for every moment you might spend on your family, who you had done so much for already, you could have instead spent making the country a better place for someone who needed it more." Rom paused, this time looking like she was ready to cry.
Blanc wanted so badly to interrupt and scream. She wanted to yell to the heavens themselves "What about me?! Don't I get a say?!" and things like that. As if her parents could come down and answer her. She wanted to know why the country could become great and wonderful at the cost of her relationship with her family. At the cost of her having w family at all even. She wanted to know why the country couldn't become great and wonderful while she still had her parents. Maybe she would have liked to be "burdened" by them! She had been doing it for them, hadn't she?!
She wanted to scream and yell and ask all those things... but she knew it wouldn't change anything. It was far too late for that now.
Rom seemed like she had more to say anyway, and Blanc couldn't form the words to stop her at this point anyway.
"And he just... He and mother didn't feel worthy of you. He felt like he was a failure of father, of a man, and mother felt like she had let you down too. For you to have become so much, all despite the things they had done wrong."
The CPU of Lowee was speechless.
"They loved you, don't get me wrong, they just..." Rom's expression was pained. She clearly wasn't sure how she should word this. Blanc had to wonder if Rom had thought she would go her whole life without meeting her older sister. "They thought you were better off. They didn't want to ever bring you back to that place you had come from ever again."
That was it. Blanc had had enough.
In more ways than one.
"I get it. I get it."
Blanc couldn't believe it, but she did. She finally got. After all this time wondering why, now she knew. After all these years, despite how this new knowledge hurt her quite a lot, it was like a weight had been lifted off of her all of a sudden even so. She could deny it if she wanted to, she could doubt Rom and go on being stubborn and hateful, but Rom had no reason to lie to her. Hell, from the sounds of it, Rom had probably grown up being compared to a fucking goddess every time she did something wrong. That couldn't have been easy.
Her parents hadn't hated her. With all the pain they had caused her, knowing that alone made such a massive difference now.
"But I always wondered what you would think." Rom continued suddenly, as if she hadn't been looking so pained just moments ago. Now having Blanc's complete and total attention, she continued on. "You couldn't have wanted to just stop having parents, right?"
"O-Of course not!" Blanc found herself protesting loudly, as if saying so now would matter any. As if by yelling, she would get to let her parents know how she felt. Reality wasn't so kind, of course. "I just... I felt like he stopped caring about me. I felt like both of them did. Hearing this now... I feel like they never thought about me. How I felt about it. And back then, I was so sure they hated me that I just..."
"Exactly..." Rom brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and smiled. "You're both incredibly stubborn, you and father. I think you both wanted to see each other, but you wanted the other to make that first move. You were both so set in your beliefs that you, well..."
Rom's smile faded as she gazed downwards, towards the untouched snacks. She couldn't very well smile about the end results, now could she? Two parents had died without ever seeing their daughter again, and said daughter had been left to believe they stopped loving her. It was sad. Blanc, not sure what else to do, did the same, finally sampling the juice. It was good. It didn't make her feel better, but it was good. She was still reeling from all of this. So much of what had made her who she was... was wrong.
She was hurting like hell now too.
And ironically, if not for the intervention from the other dimension, she might never have known or felt otherwise. She might have gone on forever feeling the wrong way about her parents. Her desire for a replacement had probably been why she had latched into Mr. Badd so readily, even when she very well SHOULD have seen all the signs that pointed to his true intentions.
She briefly recalled Mr. Badd and his daughters... then pictured herself in place of the little girls.
Ugh.
Okay, now that was a road she most definitely didn't want to go down. Time to focus on the real world again.
"I always thought you'd come someday though."
Blanc looked up. She hasn't expected that. The expression she saw in Rom just then reminded her so much of the little Rom that she was tempted to rub her eyes.
This really did seem like something out of a dream. Yet it was real, and Blanc was... glad for that. Painful as this was, she was glad. She didn't want to live like she had been anymore.
"Why?"
Really, after everything Rom had said about Blanc being stubborn and stuff, why would Blanc ever think to come here? It wasn't like she knew she had any family left to come back to.
"You're family. If you were even half the person father described, then goddess or not, you would come." Rom smiled warmly at Blanc. She was the one who didn't feel worthy now. "I was just worried how much gray hair I would get waiting for you."
Blanc looked away. She really didn't feel like she was worth that smile. She hadn't come out of any good intentions. She had come because she made a sweet little girl cry and one thing had led to another. She didn't deserve this. She wasn't that good. She was a foul mouth, short tempered goddess that spent as much time screwing around in another country playing games and wasting time as she did actually working. She had let her parents down. She had let Rom down.
That was it. That was the truth of the matter here. She was the one who had let her family down, not the other way around.
"And that's the expression father would wear whenever I asked if we could go see you. Exactly the same one."
Blanc felt like a fish out of water now. How did this woman know her so well?! She opened and closed her mouth a few times, unsure of how to respond. Before today, she would have found it insulting to be compared to her father, but now... Now it didn't feel so bad. It still made her feel, but the feelings were so drastically different that it was as if that had been in another life.
It was almost like, through a freak turn of fate, she was starting a new life today.
"Now what?" Blanc felt like changing the subject was necessary. She wasn't good with this kind of thing, and to be honest, this was a hell of a lot to process. Maybe they needed to stop running it into the ground.
"Now?" For the first time since they had begun talking, Rom looked stupefied. Good! No sense in Blanc being the only one that was confused. Now that she was looking confused, Blanc found her looking more and more like the other Rom. She... She liked that. Maybe.
"Well, if you knew I was coming someday, you must have had a plan, right?" Blanc remarked casually, trying to lighten the mood somewhat. Rom responded by picking up one of the painfully ignored cookies. Well, that helped. Regardless, they could sure as hell use a lighter mood in here.
Speaking of lighter moods, maybe now was a good time to bring up something that had been bugging her for a while now. She was getting a little worried even. How to ask though...
"By the way, uh..." Blanc cleared her throat, hoping to draw Rom's attention away from the cookie she had begun munching on. It seemed like she was trying to avoid the previous topic anyway. "Anyone else around here I should know about? Any brothers... or sisters maybe?"
The cookie in Rom's hand snapped in half and the woman appeared for the world like a deer caught in the headlights.
If Blanc had been harboring any doubts that this girl was in fact Rom, one look at her now would wash them all away.
This girl was most definitely, without a doubt, Rom.
Blanc swore inwardly. So the thing Rom was trying to avoid was exactly the thing Blanc wanted to talk about now. That was probably a bad sign. She just hoped it wouldn't be TOO bad.
She didn't know how much more bad news she could handle today.
"T-There's... One..." Rom no longer seemed able to meet Blanc's gaze. That clinched it. There was something Blanc wasn't being told, and she had a feeling she knew who it involved.
"Okay..." Blanc started, trying to sound like she didn't know. She didn't know exactly, after all, but she had a general idea. Time to find out the details. "So where is this one sibling?"
Rom seemed to sink into the floor. It reminded Blanc of little Rom this afternoon, which just made her feel ashamed of herself. Maybe she shouldn't push this? Rom had welcomed Blanc into her home and explained so much to her, this was enough, wasn't it?
And yet...
Now that Blanc knew she had more family, she wanted to meet them. She wanted to get to know them. She wanted them to get to know her. She wanted-
"She... She lives in Leanbox."
- to know what the hell that traitor was thinking!
Blanc stood up in her seat as soon as the words left Rom's lips, trying to form some kind of response. Of all the places in the world, why in the hell...?!
Leanbox? Leanbox?!
"L-Let me explain! Please!" Rom seemed quite frantic now. Well, most people did know of Blanc's temper, and the citizens of Lowee probably knew it better than most, so Blanc couldn't blame her. Much.
"Okay. Explain."
As a show of good faith, Blanc sat back down and made a gesture for Rom to continue. It didn't really make the woman feel too much better, but it seemed to help a little bit. She kept talking, at least, and that was all Blanc wanted right now.
"To be specific, I have a twin sister named Ram. As you can probably guess, well, I already mentioned it, but we... heard a lot about you when we were growing up. A whole lot." Rom paused, watching Blanc for some kind of reaction. She wasn't sure how much more obvious she could be with this.
If Blanc thought about it, if she was thinking about it on the right track now, this made sense. She had already been picturing how hard it must have been growing up when you had to fill the shoes of an older sister who became a goddess. It would have been a miracle if both of them had turned out as sweet as Rom.
And given what she knew from dealing with the little Ram...
"She hates me, doesn't me?" It wasn't a question. More of a statement, albeit one she really hoped Rom would deny to her.
"No! No she doesn't!" Blanc almost felt relieved. "At least I don't think she does."
"You sound pretty confident in that," Blanc remarked. She wasn't sure what she should feel here. It wasn't like prior to today she had had sisters of her own to care about how they felt, just Copypaste...
Shit, wait until she told him about this! That would blow his freaking mind-
Blanc paused. She was thinking about him way, way too positively again. Not that she felt that was a problem anymore, but... Still...! It was Copypaste!
"She just..." Lucky for Blanc, it looked like Rom hasn't noticed that the CPU had been distracted... which was probably unlucky, because that meant this situation was even more complicated. "She wants to be her own person. She and I used to fight about you all the time when we were younger. She..." Now Rom looked downright sad, and it just hurt Blanc knowing that this was because of her. She had caused this rift between the two twins. How could she fix that? Was it even possible? "It's because she doesn't hate you that she's like that. That's what I believe. I'm sure of it." Rom nodded, though Blanc wasn't sure who she was trying to convince. "She wants to prove herself to you. To our father. She wants to show the world that she can be just as good as you even if she's not a goddess."
The CPU was silent for a moment. She couldn't really object to that. She would have probably done a lot worse if she had been in Ram's position. It wasn't really all that bad now that Rom had finished explaining, just... complicated. Ram definitely wouldn't be as happy to see her as Rom had been though, but she could work on that. They had time to fix that.
So that just left one problem with the situation.
"But Leanbox? Really?"
Rom laughed. It was a sound that felt like music to Blanc's ears.
"I'd be lying if I said that that probably wasn't out of spite."
Despite herself, Blanc smirked a little.
Yeah, that sounded about right.
After what felt like a lifetime of catching up with and getting to know her sister and niece, it was finally time for Blanc to leave. She wasn't entirely thrilled with the idea, as part of her really wanted to stay longer, but as the day stretched on, it became clear to her that they both needed some time and space to process the day's happenings. As badly as Rom had wanted Blanc to come, it actually happening was clearly having an effect on her, and Blanc knew she needed some time to think things over herself.
"You'll call me as soon as you hear from Ram next?"
"Yes... And we can come visit you in the capital someday?"
"Make it any day. And I won't miss any of the squirt's birthdays from now on?"
"O-Of course not! Oh, I'm so happy you came! Really!"
"Yeah... Me too."
That didn't mean Blanc was planning on letting this end here. This was just the beginning.
The three finally said their goodbyes, and with promises of future get-togethers on all of their minds, after one last hug, Blanc transformed into White Heart and set off into the night sky.
At first, she found herself going slowly. She was tempted more than once to turn around and ask to stay for the night. Part of her really wanted to go back, after all. At the same time, much as she was loathe to admit it, she was also kind of eager to get home and tell Copypaste about everything.
So in the end, she kept on and continued her lonely flight home.
Now the thing is, the big problem with flying long distances alone, Blanc found, was that it left a person with a lot of time to do nothing. When you have nothing to do on land, you can usually find something to do. When you're in the sky? You've got nothing to do and no something to find to do to replace the nothing. And when that happened, they tended to think.
And Blanc had a lot to think about tonight.
On the one hand, she had a lot to feel good about. A lot of good things to think about. Her parents has never hated her or forgotten about her, she had two sisters and even a niece, and she just felt less... angry than she normally felt. Like this event had help her let go of a lot of her long standing problems, things she'd never thought she would be able to say goodbye to.
And yet...
Just suddenly having family didn't make them family. Blanc was angry at herself for thinking it, but... Despite being related by blood, Rom and Mem had been as alien to her today as Rom and Ram (the other ones, that is) had been the first time she met them. They had led drastically different lives until now, and while it was clear that this woman had grown up with her own feelings and thoughts about Blanc... Blanc just didn't have that for her. Having that connection of blood hasn't made them magically more able to relate. That was never how these things worked.
It made her question how she had always treated the twins from the other world. Sure, she'd tried to get along with them, but she had never tried to be a sister to them. They weren't "hers" after all. And truthfully, the idea of having real family all of a sudden was even scarier than the idea of another her having family. Now she had both, and she felt so unsure about it all.
Of course, in having this new family, it presented a much larger issue. It had shown Blanc all the things she had missed out on, all the things she would never have.
She would never get to see her parents again. She would never get to hear how they had really felt about her, not even once. She would never get to see Rom and Ram grow up. She would never get to see Mem be born and start to grow.
There was so much she had lost and she had never even known. If not for certain things aligning just right, she might never have.
If not for Neptune and the other world's interference, hell, she might still be looking to Mr. Badd for a family. White Heart shuddered at the thought. She was happy for the man and his daughters... Sort of, but that didn't mean she ever wanted him back in her life after what he had done to her.
Still... It made her think.
And before Blanc knew it, she was flying towards that giant portal to the other world.
She wasn't sure what she was thinking, really. It wasn't like they were "her" family. It wasn't liked she owed them anything.
Not any more than she owed Copypaste or this woman and child she had just met anyway...
Yet she treated them well, didn't she?
Okay... Relatively well, in Copypaste's case, but still!
White Heart clenched her fists and sped up.
She didn't need to lose any more family tonight, even if they weren't really "her" family. In a very un-Blanc move, she realized she wanted to wear her heart on her sleeve, if only for tonight, and make things right with the little twins. She had driven one pair apart, she didn't want to do it again. She didn't want to drive them away from her either.
So she had no idea how to act with them. She had learned that she didn't really know how to act with her real sister either, but she as sure as hell tried. Hell, she had even judged the new Rom based on the one she knew better, even with all her fumbling around. Was that the difference? Had that been the one, key thing all along that had separated her from her other self?
That she had never really tried?
By the time White Heart arrived at the other world's Lowee, the sun was starting to rise. Strangely enough, she wasn't feeling that tired. She was filled with a sense of purpose that seemed to keep her awake, though now that she was here, heading towards the Basilicom where this world's Blanc lived with the twins, she began to wonder just how she would do this. She had made the impulsive decision to come here, but she hasn't really thought about it beyond that.
By the time she arrived at the Basilicom, it was officially morning, time for normal people to start waking up, and White Heart still hasn't come up with some kind of plan of action. Lucky for her, it seemed that White Heart didn't need to think too hard. As soon as she stepped into the Basilicom, she was greeted to the sight of... herself.
Seated calmly on an armchair that clearly didn't belong in the front hall of the building was this world's Blanc. She was sitting next to a pile of books, apparently having used her night to go through them, for she wasn't asleep. She was looking at White Heart with a scrutinizing eye, getting off the chair and setting the book she had been reading to the side with the rest.
White Heart took a defensive stance. She should have figured the twins would have filled their sister (their REAL sister) in on the events of the day before. She was probably in some pretty deep shit, wasn't she?
"I-"
Blanc, the other Blanc that is, raised her arms, as if to pacify her transformed lookalike.
"Cool it. You're not in trouble."
White Heart blinked. She wasn't? Why the hell not?
"Yeah, I know what happened... But I'm not Ram either." The other Blanc ran a hand through her hair, leaning slightly to the side. She looked uncomfortable. "Look, can you change back? I'm not gonna jump you, so I'd feel a lot better if I didn't feel like you were about to jump me."
White Heart gave the other Blanc a wary look, but... It wasn't like she didn't deserve a good whack if she was being set up. Resigning to whatever was coming, she closed her eyes and returned to her human form, which seemed to satisfy the other Blanc.
"Alright. C'mon."
Without waiting for Blanc to respond, the other Blanc promptly turned and headed deeper into the Basilicom. Having already decided to accept whatever was coming, Blanc could do little more than follow after her.
For a little while, they walked in silence. Blanc wasn't sure what to make of it. Was this some kind of experienced-sister technique of delivering punishments? The silent treatment? She had heard about this.
"Rom's not mad at you, by the way." The other Blanc's words surprised Blanc. "You hurt her, and I had half a mind to come over there and give you a good beating for yelling at her, but she made me swear to let you be. Crazy, huh?"
Blanc frowned. She didn't understand. Why would Rom do that? She had been downright nasty to the poor girl.
"She gave me the general idea..." The other Blanc sounded uncomfortable again. Like Blanc, it seemed that she wasn't too good with her feelings either. That was somewhat comforting. "You've been through some shit. You had your reasons. I won't push, it's not any of my business, and no offense, but I don't really care. If you want to tell me about it, fine. Then I'll care. But you didn't. So I care as far as Rom does."
The other Blanc stopped walking, looking behind her at Blanc.
"And Rom doesn't blame you. She was crying all freaking night about how hard it must have been for you, even with Ram going on and on about how mean you are." Blanc bit her lip at that. That sounded eerily familiar. "Oh, you definitely scared her, and you sure as shit hurt her feelings, but she doesn't blame you for it. She said you were hurting more than she was."
Blanc swallowed, looking away. She felt like a real bitch now. Plain and simple.
"So here's the deal. You go in there." The other Blanc pointed at a door, presumably the twins' room. "You make nice, not just to Rom but to Ram too, you make it up to them, and we move on with our lives." The other Blanc paused, then suddenly looked incredibly dangerous. Blanc visibly flinched at the look she was receiving from her own face. "And know that if you ever pull this kind of stunt again, I won't care what you've been through or how Rom feels about it, I WILL come over there and personally beat the shit out of you."
Blanc could only mod dumbly. What else could she do? She deserved that NOW as far as she was concerned.
The other Blanc stared at Blanc for a few moments, then nodded to herself and sighed, turning away. She began heading down the hall.
"Good. Now get in there. Rom made me promise to wait for you, she was so sure you'd come for some reason." The other Blanc yawned loudly, raising an arm to wave farewell weakly. "I'm goddamn tired... Anyway... They're yours for the day, so have fun with that. I'm taking a personal day."
Blanc watched the other Blanc go, a small smile forming on her lips despite everything that had happened today. Or perhaps it was because of it?
She turned to the door to the twins' room. She didn't have a god damn clue what she was going to do or say with them, but for some reason, she was glad she had the chance to do it. Trying to suppress her smile, she pushed the door open.
No, she would never get back what she had lost.
"Wake up, squirts! Aunt Blanc's in charge today!"
But she would never forsake the potential of the future again.