hey sis -pia-

Petra had had a lot to think about lately.

Shortly after rescuing those kids from Deilig, she'd gone back to Nadar, packed up what few possessions she owned, and left without a word to anybody. She had never liked it there much, but she had always felt compelled to return because of goddamned Paisley, who had inexplicably pardoned her and then helped take down the human trafficking ring. Petra had never wanted to leave feeling like she owed the stupid little overloridian anything. But now, she had helped save those Redfern kids. Now they were even.

The Redfern kids. Saving them had felt good somehow. Felt right. Not like the sadistic sort of pleasure she'd gotten from taking down the human traffickers (well, maybe a little bit of that, too), but a sort of pride and accomplishment in actually helping someone for a change. It was a very alien feeling.

So what now? On the journey from Cuir to Nadar, Petra found herself thinking of Pia a lot. Her sister who was also a stranger, who worked at Redfern but had been on vacation when the Deilig clio attacked. She'd probably known some of those kids.

She decided she should go see her. To talk, or something. Petra honestly didn't know. But Pia wanted to know her even knowing the things she'd done, so it was an avenue worth exploring. She'd watched clio time and time again risk their lives for their siblings, even at the expense of others. Maybe it was a relationship worth salvaging.

Thankfully, Pia had been home for some time now and was no longer the absolute wreck she had been when she had first found out about the attack on Redfern. She was still a mess, but had pulled herself together enough to get by.

It was hard, living on Martha's Vineyard. This time of year there should be children from all over Amelia living on the island, but the town Pia lived in was very quiet. Most clio who lived here had children that attended the school, and they had all holed up in their homes for the most part, so even the normal hustle and bustle was missing.

Because the school was closed for the time being, Pia found herself with a lot of time on her hands. She tried talking to her teacher friends, but found she couldn't quite relate to their situation because they had all been there.

Anyway, she was sitting at her kitchen table, drinking coffee and trying to decide what to do with herself that day when a knock came at the door. She went to it, unassuming, and was shocked to see her older sister, Petra.

"Petra?" she asked, swinging her door wide open and stepping back so Petra could come in if she wanted.

On the way from the docks to Pia's house, Petra had walked passed a newspaper stand that had the rescue story all over the front page. Of course, she hadn't stuck around long enough after the rescue to answer questions or any of the bullshit, so her name wasn't stated. She was just listed as an "unnamed hero." She rolled her eyes and continued on to Pia's.

Once she arrived, she knocked on the door and Pia answered right away. She looked surprised, but stood aside nonetheless to invite her in.

"Hey," Petra greeted. She had a suitcase with her, not because she was assuming she could stay or anything, but just because she had nowhere to stash it. She'd find some cheap motel later or something. Pia had a cozy little house. Nowhere near as obnoxiously huge as the Nadar Estate. "I came because I was, uh, wondering how you were doing."

Petra was no good with talking about feelings or comforting clio, but she thought maybe she should try, if she wanted this sister thing to work.

Pia closed the door behind Petra, and noticed the suitcase she carried with her. Why did she have that with her?

"You did?" Pia asked, unable to keep the surprise from her voice when Petra told her why she'd stopped by. "I, um, I guess I'm doing okay." She didn't bother mentioning the situation with Redfern--Petra probably didn't know anything about that.

"How are you?"

Petra shrugged. "Good, I guess." She gave Pia a sort of sarcastic smile. "As good as I ever get, anyways."

She was glad Pia was okay and didn't seem to need any comforting. "I saw an ad in a newspaper on my way here," she said, not wanting to waste time with pointless small talk. "Redfern wants more security guards after that attack. Thought maybe I'd apply."

She looked at Pia, wondering how she'd react. Would she want Petra working at the school with her? Living at Martha's Vineyard? They'd see a lot more of each other that way. Pia had said she wanted a relationship, but Petra wondered if she really meant it.

"Yes," Pia said to Petra's comment about the extra security. Pia was definitely in agreement with the school board on that one. Especially at night when the teachers that lived on campus weren't awake.

Then, Petra shocked Pia for the second time today by saying she was considering applying for the job. "Really?" For some reason, Pia didn't think that Petra would want to work somewhere where she'd be surrounded by (sometimes extremely annoying and immature) children. "I mean--I think you'd probably be good at something like that, I guess I just..."

Pia decided to stop with that train of thought. It wasn't coming out how she meant it. "Do you need somewhere to stay?"

Pia wrote:"I mean--I think you'd probably be good at something like that, I guess I just..."

Petra steeled herself, immediately on the defensive, when Pia started stuttering and sounding like she was trying to dance around telling Petra she didn't want her to apply for the job. But then instead, she stopped and asked Petra if she needed a place to stay.

Petra's eyes widened a little bit in surprise. "I was just going to get a motel," she said. Was Pia actually offering to let her stay here? "Unless you had something else in mind."

"Well, I do have an extra bedroom," Pia offered. "It's not much, but it's got a bed and a dresser." If that suitcase held everything Petra owned, her things would definitely fit there. "You're always welcome here." She paused. Who knew if Petra would even want to stay with Pia. Petra'd never seemed too fond of her, the few times they'd talked since Petra's reappearance.

"It's up to you of course," she said quickly. "I can understand if you want your own place."

What would it be like, if Petra wanted to stay? The last time they'd lived together, or had any real interaction, was when they were small children.

So Pia really was offering to let her stay here. That was...Petra couldn't quite get a grasp on how she felt about that. With Paisley it had been infuriating, because it felt like pity. This felt different though. Maybe it was just because Pia wasn't as patronizing as Paisley had always been, but this just felt like a sister offering to do her a favor.

"That would be nice," she finally said, after way too long of a silence. Would it always be so awkward like this, between them? Petra knew she hadn't exactly helped on that front during their first meeting. But that was why she was here, wasn't it? To try to build something new between them? "Look, I know I'm not easy to get along with. But I'm...glad. That you wanted to know me again."

Gods, forcing those sappy words out was like torture. She really hoped that was all that would need to be said.

Pia waited a semi-awkward amount of time before Petra finally responded that she would stay. "Well I'm happy you came," Pia answered. She hadn't been expecting it, that was for sure. But Pia was happy that she was here, that Petra had seen something that might be worth salvaging.

"Do you want some breakfast?" Pia decided it was best not to dwell on anything too emotional or sentimental. Their mother basically broke down every time she'd spoken to Petra, and that had obviously proven to be the wrong approach. "I was thinking about making some eggs."

Thank gods Pia hadn't taken after their mother. Petra never knew what to do with her, she seemed to break down every time she so much as looked in her general direction. Petra couldn't handle that. She hated when clio cried, it was a sign of weakness to her. But at the same time, some little piece inside of her that still had feelings didn't want to give up on the mother who had never given up on her, when everyone else in Amelia had.

Pia, on the other hand, knew how to keep it together. Maybe the sisters weren't total opposites after all. "Sure, I guess," she replied. Petra had eaten everything from professionally made dishes at Paisley's estate to food that a restaurant had just thrown into a dumpster. Staying with Pia looked like it was going to be a comfortable in-between.

As Pia cooked, Petra noticed a newspaper sitting on her dining room table. The same one she'd seen at the news stand, with the rescue story. "You read this yet?" she asked. Of course Pia would have no idea Petra was one of the clio mentioned in the article. She wondered if she should tell her.

Pia looked over from the kitchen where she'd started making breakfast. "Oh, no, I hadn't gotten a chance yet. You can read it, if you want." Honestly, she'd had trouble focusing on any of the news about Redfern, and that was still front and center on the paper every day.

"How do you like your eggs?"

"I'm good, I don't need to read it. I was there," Petra said casually. She was kind of surprised, she thought Pia would have been more affected by what had happened. Maybe she was, and it just didn't show. She was kind of relieved either way, though. "Over easy."

Pia couldn't have heard her correctly. "You were?" At Redfern? Deilig? She stopped cracking eggs and looked up at Petra. "Wait, why?"

Petra looked at her like she was dumb. "Why do you think?" she asked. "To save those kids. Here, look-" she pushed the newspaper towards Pia and tapped the section that talked about the two unidentified clio who had worked with Paisley and that schoolgirl Marina or whatever. "That was me."

She didn't really know why she wanted Pia to know this. To know she had actually done something good. It shouldn't matter, she didn't really care what anyone else thought of her, which was why she hadn't wanted to be identified in the first place. But for some reason, she wanted Pia at least to know that she wasn't completely terrible.

Pia picked up the paper and started skimming. Petra had gone with the overloridian of Nadar. They were the reason her students had been safely rescued. A few names of students were in the paper, too. Names of kids that were now recovering in hospitals. Because of Petra.

Pia had tried to stay away from most of the news, because it made her feel sick and guilty. She'd hung on the edge of everything until she found out they had been rescued, and then forced herself to stay away from it.

"You saved them?" she asked, looking back up at his sister in an entirely different light. She was a hero. She'd rescued all those kids she didn't even know. "I--" she didn't know what to say. "Thank you."

Petra waved her hand dismissively, but she also smiled. A real smile, not a sarcastic one or a smirk. It actually did feel kind of good to gain Pia's gratitude. "I had to, you know?" she said. For a moment she was suddenly hit with how relieved she was that Pia hadn't been at Redfern during the initial attack. Like some sort of delayed reaction. "Those idiots would have died without me. Paisley, Nils, the girl. None of them had any business being there. And when I heard what had happened, I knew I could do something about it." If Petra could put the skills that had been beaten and brutalized into her to good use, then it meant her life wasn't a total waste.

She looked back up at Pia, who looked stricken. "I'm glad you weren't there. I probably would have had to completely destroy Deilig if you had been." It was her attempt at a joke, but there was some truth to it. If Pia had been hurt or killed during the raid on the school, Petra wouldn't have stopped at just killing those guards. She'd have slaughtered every clio in Deilig that she saw.

Pia didn't know how to mesh all these feelings she had about her sister. It was so difficult to think about all these different sides of her. She'd had so many feelings about Petra over the years. She'd idolized her, missed her, resented her, felt guilty about not thinking about her enough, then, after she found out she was alive, she felt a lot of those same feelings all over again. Right now, though, what she felt was awe.

"I wish I had been at school," she confessed. "When it happened. I just wish I hadn't been so useless, you know?" She couldn't have handled Deilig, she knew that and wasn't going to say she could have. But she just wished she could have been useful in some way to all those children she loved. To fight back at all, when the students were being ripped out of their beds and kidnapped.

It brought back a lot of the feelings Pia had felt after Petra was taken. So useless, away from the situation, while clio she loved were taken from her.

Petra was about to say that there wouldn't have been anything Pia could have done if she was there, though she realized she didn't know if that were true or not. Although she stood by her assertion that Paisley, Nils and Whatserface had no business in Deilig, each one of them had surprised her by proving at least somewhat useful to the mission. Maybe Pia could have made a difference.

"Well, no use regretting something you can't go back and change," she said instead. "Regret is a waste of time." She'd seen clio get eaten alive by regret before. It was never pretty.

Pia nodded. Regret was something she'd had to live with her entire life, so it wasn't a new sensation for her. But Petra was right--all the regret in the world couldn't change the past.

She finished cracking the egg and watched as it began to sizzle in the pan.

"The kids will be lucky to have you," she said, still watching the egg. "At school. To help protect them."

Petra rolled her eyes and scoffed. "As long as they don't bother me," she said. She had no patience for whiny little brats and their stupid childish problems. "I'll protect them from a distance." She could patrol the grounds at night, when all the brats were in bed.

Pia smiled at that. She'd figured as much.

After she finished making breakfast, the two sisters ate together. They both liked their eggs the same way, which Pia thought was funny. Pia didn't ask any more questions about the Deilig rescue, and she was glad Petra didn't seem to dwell on it, either. Pia couldn't think about what those poor kids had suffered.

After eating, Pia washed up the kitchen and allowed Petra to some time to put away her things in the spare room upstairs. When Pia finished, she called up the steps, "I have to go to campus today to do some stuff, do you want to come?" Petra could maybe fill out the paperwork for the security job.

"Yeah, sure," Petra said. What else was she gonna do, sit around here by herself? Besides, this might be a good time to apply for that job. "I've never actually been to the Redfern campus before." She had never thought she'd ever have any reason to go, either. She hadn't known until their reuniting that Pia was a teacher there, and she definitely hadn't ever thought she'd apply to work there. How things change.

"I'd never been there before I applied, either," Pia said. But she'd wanted to go so bad. It was one of the things that had driven her to teach. Every once in a while she as she walked around campus she still thought about memories that could have been made there. What would life have been like for her and Petra if that fateful night had never happened? What sort of students would they have been, who would their friends have been.

"I can show you around, maybe after we finish our errands we can get ice cream." Though they had just eaten, Pia was always up for ice cream. No matter the time of day.

"Wait, you didn't go to Redfern?" Petra asked. Why the hell wouldn't she have? She was even pretty sure she had some ancient, long-buried memory of her and Pia as children discussing what they would do once they went to school together. Then again, maybe her mind had just made that up. Memories from before age eight were all fuzzy and dreamlike, like they may or may not have actually happened.

"And, sure. I guess." It felt a little strange, doing something so normal as getting ice cream with her sister. It seemed so laid back and relaxing. Petra supposed this might not be so bad one she got used to it after all.