Work Text:
The elevator dinged, its heavy doors opening with a quiet whirr.
“3rd Floor,” the metallic voice rang through the small cabin, followed by a strange, drawn-out gurgling noise.
Louise gave the old speaker a brief glance and shook her head. She had been gone for nearly a year and in that time, nobody had fixed the old thing for some reason. Some things never really change, it seemed.
She quickly stepped out of the metal cabin and into the dimly lit hallway of the large apartment building, noting with some surprise that someone had at least removed most of the graffiti from the walls of the narrow space - there was even a fresh layer of light gray paint by the looks of it. Something was being done, at least.
As thankful as she was to see the building being maintained, she couldn’t help but feel a bit out of place in it for some reason. Her eyes briefly wandered over to an entirely innocuous patch of the wall - just below one of the cables that snaked their way across the upper half of the walls around her. Her gaze was met with only a solid gray color instead of the six names she knew should have been there.
A shiver went down Louise’s spine and she adjusted herr sweater instinctively. It was not something she would normally wear - all bright colors and horrendous patterns that had earned her more than a few confused and even appalled glances on her way there - but today was special.
Louise quickly checked her watch and let out a quiet hiss as she noted the time. She was late, as always. The way she knew her sisters, she would be the last one to arrive again, probably busting in mid-dinner like last year. For a second, she thought that maybe she should just turn around and walk on back home to save herself the embarrassment, but she forced the notion out of her mind.
This was about family, after all.
She made her way through the largely silent hallway, accompanied only by the muffled sounds of conversation and music from the surrounding apartments. Louise couldn’t help but smile a bit. Even if today wasn’t officially a holiday anymore, it seemed like more than enough people were keeping the tradition alive.
Finally, she stopped in front of a door that looked much like all the others she had passed before, with the poorly-made faux-wood lamination peeling off in places, revealing the dull, gray metal beneath.
Louise breathed out deeply, forcing some of the tension she was feeling out of her body before reaching out and ringing the bell. A loud buzz was heard from behind the door, followed by silence. The girl blinked, wondering if, somehow, her sisters hadn’t heard the bell, maybe over the sound of whatever movie they had no doubt put on after finishing dinner.
Suddenly, the door swung open, and Louise was met with the pale face of Kassandra, her eldest sister.
“Lou!” the woman exclaimed before wrapping Louise into her arms suddenly, pushing all the air from her body in an instant.
“H-Hey Kassie-!” Louise answered, struggling to breathe as Kassandra’s hair tickled her cheek. They stood there for a few seconds before Kassie finally decided to let go of Louise, though she left her hands on the shorter woman’s shoulders as she smiled at her.
“It’s so good to see you, Lou. Come on, come in - I forgot how cold it is out here,” she said before stepping to the side and gently tugging on Louise’s shoulders. Louise quickly stepped inside, and Kassie pulled the door close behind her.
The apartment smelled of cinnamon and apples, reminding Louise of her childhood when she would make home-made cookies with her family. She breathed the odor in deep for a second, letting its warmth and nostalgia flow through her.
“So, how are the-” she started, pausing as her eyes wandered towards the door to the dining room. It was very… quiet, as she realized. Music was playing, yes, but she didn’t hear any talking from the other rooms, and what little she could see of the large dining table was empty.
“-others. Where is everyone, Kassie?” Louise finished, turning to Kassandra. Her older sister rubbed her upper arms awkwardly, avoiding Louise’s gaze for a second or two before sighing.
“They… I don’t think they’re coming, Lou.”
“What? But- you sent us all an invite, right? Maybe they missed theirs?” Louise said as she slipped out of her boots, but Kassandra shook her head.
“No, I messaged everyone too, but I either didn’t get an answer or, well…” she trailed off, putting a hand on Louise’s shoulder before suddenly continuing, “Come on, let’s sit down and have some food. You must be freezing, and I just heated up what I had ready for the reunion anyway.”
Before Louise could answer, Kassie had already walked off towards the dining room, leaving her younger sister alone in the small hallway of the apartment. Numerous photos hung on the walls around her, all containing some manner of important memory; Births, graduations, and even promotions in the army were all immortalized around her, but it all felt so… hollow without the actual people there to reminisce and joke with.
Slowly, she made her way to the dining room, surprised to not find Kassandra there. Instead, her sister was standing in the small kitchenette, carefully pouring hot water into two small cups on the kitchen table.
“Let me guess: Still no favorite tea flavor, Lou?” she asked off-handedly, pulling open a drawer filled to the brim with various old paper containers. Louise raised an eyebrow - she had kept them all stocked, just in case the others would demand their favorites. How nice.
“You know what… Chamomile this time, why not?” She answered, taking a seat at the kitchen table as Kassandra rummaged around in the drawer.
“Sleeping issues?” the older woman asked, turning around with two tea bags and a small container filled with various packets of sugar their family had amassed over the course of a few decades. Louise was the only one who liked her tea sweetened, so there was never any risk of them running.
“Work’s hell, as always. Feels like I’m trying to think for fifteen people at once sometimes. I really wish I could just… Make them do their job, you know? Without having to prepare a whole speech each time, at least.” Louise sighed as she quickly plucked a few packets of sugar from the container while Kassandra dropped the tea bags into their cups.
“Careful - you might have some tea with your sugar, Lou.” she teased as she sat down, grabbing one of the little spoons she had prepared and quickly stirring her cup. Louise could see the colors and flavor practically erupt from the little packet into the water, and she saved her answer until after she had followed her sister’s example.
“Not my fault I need a lot of sugar, Kassie. I’m the only one out of the family who needs to use her brain daily,” came her answer. She quickly continued before her sister could answer, “Speaking of… I set a new record the other day. Five books in a single day.”
“How that brain of yours doesn’t burst from all the stories and papers you stuff it with is beyond me, sis,” Kassandra answered, her eyes following the crystals of sugar that poured from the packets into Louise’s tea.
“My brain is big and my curiosity unending - it’s a nice distraction from the mundanity of life, so that helps too. Sometimes I even read at work, even though that’s technically against the rules.” Louise answered, taking a cautious sip of her tea before hissing, “Ah, still too hot…”
“It’s freshly brewed, Lou. What did you expect?” Kassandra laughed before leaning forward slightly, “So, little miss Rulebreaker over here, huh? I’m sure the team you manage are furious when you’re done with your work halfway through the shift and spend the rest of it with your nose in a book.”
“They can be angry all they want - It’s not my fault that I’m good at my job, is it?” Louise quipped back, “Besides, all it takes is a dirty look to get them to back down. No backbone, I tell you.”
Kassandra only responded with a quiet chuckle as she sipped her tea. A comfortable, homely silence filled the room as the two sisters sipped their teas slowly after removing the tea bags. Louise wondered what they could talk about.
“So, I heard they closed that pool you liked to go to,” Kassandra broke the silence, “How did you, uh, take that?”
“Don’t even remind me, that ruined my whole month when it happened,” Louise grunted back, “Things got so dire that I got into yoga of all things, can you believe that?”
“Ooh, flexible girl, huh?” Kassandra chuckled.
“I wish. I look and feel like a geriatric who worked her whole life on the fields of Kitezh after every workout, and don’t even get me started on my feet. I don’t envy Replikas often, but I’d much rather not have feet in moments like those.” Louise continued, sounding more tired with each word as she remembered her various home workouts.
“Well, it’s good to hear that you’re staying active despite having a proper job. I’m totally consumed with my work - I swear I’m porking up.” Kassandra sighed, eliciting a chuckle from her sister.
“Mom DID warn you about that, Kassie. But… You look the same as ever to me, if that helps.” she said, trying to take a sip of her tea but finding her cup empty, “Ah, well, guess that’s my drink done then.”
“Just in time, too. I think the stew’s heated up again.” Kassandra said, quickly standing up and turning around to the stovetop where a large pot stood, steam escaping from the tight gap between its lid and the rest. Kassandra quickly grabbed the lid, using a rag to avoid having her fingers burned. Steam briefly erupted from within, enveloping her head like a cloud for a split-second before dissipating upwards.
“Yep, that’s about done! Come on sis, grab a plate from the dining table. I’ll give you a helping.” Kassandra continued, quickly putting the lid down and grabbing a large ladle instead. Louise quickly turned away and almost jumped over to the dining table, grabbing the two plates that were readied there, returning back to the kitchenette with them.
Pouring the stew into the plates was thankfully a quick process, and so the two were able to quickly return to the dining table, both with newly-filled plates and the smell of home-made stew surrounding them.
Louise wordlessly took a seat at the table, quickly being joined by Kassandra, who sat next to her. Neither of them sat at the head of the table - such was tradition. They exchanged a quick glance and a nod before digging in. Food came first, more conversation could wait.
They ate in silence. If Fia had been there, she would have some snarky remarks to make about the cooking - too much salt, or perhaps the chunks would have been too large. Louise could almost hear the words in her mind, but they soon became subsumed in the silence as well.
Before long, her spoon hit the bottom of the plate with a high-pitched ringing, and she glanced over to Kassie. Her older sister had already finished her plate some time ago and was looking at Louise expectantly.
“So? Are you gonna show me?” Kassie said teasingly. Louise knew exactly what she meant, but she feigned ignorance.
“Show you what? The horrendous sweater you made for me last year that I totally didn’t dig up from the back of my closet and clean specifically to wear it here today?” she answered with a forced casual tone to her voice. Kassandra blew some air out of her nose at that, shaking her head.
“You know exactly what I mean - you told me about it earlier and how annoying it would be, so…” she motioned towards Louise’s forehead before continuing “...can your dear old sister see it? Pretty please?”
Louise sighed, sitting up slightly as she rolled up the sleeves of her sweater slightly. She had kept her hair down during her trip to the apartment for one purpose - to hide the tattoo that she had been legally required to get after a medical examination two weeks ago.
She moved her messy hair out of the way, revealing three red stars tattooed on her forehead in a triangular formation, with one star resting on top of the other two. Kassandra let out a whistle as she leaned closer, tapping the symbol with one of her fingers.
“Right… so that’s where I gotta aim to do the most damage, huh?” she joked before returning to her seat and clearing her throat, “But for real now - what does it… like, mean?”
Louise shrugged her shoulders and scratched her nose. She wasn’t really sure what it meant either, apart from her being “Bioresonant” of course… whatever that meant.
“I don’t know, honestly. Maybe it means that I’ll land a sweet job as a Replika technician - all of them have the same mark, if you ever met them,” she said, pushing her plate away.
“Oh yeah, that’d be nice I guess… So, did you get a job offer free with your freako-diagnosis?” Kassie joked, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.
“Nope. They uh… need to measure my ‘aptitude’ for it. With my luck, they’ll probably find out that I’m barely bioresonant enough to…” she paused before continuing, “I don’t even know what bioresonant people can do, really, but I would surely only be able to do the most basic things.”
“Come on sis, don’t put yourself down like that. I’m sure you will… resonate real well, yeah. You’ll be a goddamn bio-tuning fork, I bet. Gonna lead the bio-orchestra.”
Louise looked over at Kassie, both of them sitting in silence for a second.
Then, they both began laughing.
“What does that even mean, Kass? Are those even words? Are you having a stroke in your ripe old age of 34?” Lou shook her head, wiping a tear from her eye while Kassandra put her hands up defensively, stifling a giggle.
“Hey, forgive a girl for trying, ok? I’m just happy you’re reaching new heights here,” she replied, eliciting an eye roll from Louise.
“Oh, haha - I get it, because I’m short. A classic. You know what, maybe I will reach new heights. Before you know it, I’ll be in charge of this whole apartment block, and the first thing I’ll order is that all shelves have to be made accessible to non-freakishly-tall people too!” she joined in on the bit, waving her arms around in the air to underline her point.
The two of them laughed for a while longer before silence returned to the apartment, settling between them coldly. It just wasn’t the same as it should have been.
“I miss the others.” Louise said, crossing her arms as she snuggled into her sweater, “We are family… Where are they?”
“I don’t know, Lou… But I miss them too,” Kassie answered, growing silent for a second before suddenly standing up from the table, “But! At least you and I are here, right? We’ve got each other, even if the others… if they couldn’t make it today,” she said, walking around Louise’s chair and quickly opening up a nearby cupboard, rummaging around in it. The shorter girl craned her neck, trying to see what her sister was doing, but with little success.
“Today is about togetherness, the value of people around us, and…” Kassandra slowly spoke, rising up from the cupboard before quickly jumping over to Louise, who barely had time to flinch before her sister abruptly forced something onto her head.
“Kassie, what the hell are you-” Louise started, her hands shooting up to grab the fluffy edges of whatever Kass had shoved onto her head before she froze up in surprise.
“No, you didn’t… did you?” she turned to her sister, who was towering behind her with a massive grin on her face.
“Oh, you bet I did. Do you have any idea how long it took me to find the right color of red to patch the holes with? Ages!” Kassie spoke, slowly wandering back to her seat as she pointedly hid something behind her back, “And you lot made fun of me getting into sewing, too, said that I wouldn’t be able to fix what little was left of our childhood toys. Well, behold!”
She whipped out the thing she had been hiding, revealing it to be a red and white hat, much like the one Louise knew she was wearing as well. The last time she had seen the pair of hats, they had been basically torn to shreds by 6 pairs of curious, grubby hands, with their pompoms turned into balls to be thrown about haphazardly.
“How did you… How long did this take you? Where did you even find the pompoms, I swear Olivia threw one of them into a parallel dimension that one time…” Louise mused as she slowly took her hat off, turning it in her hands in awe.
“Oh yeah, that. Don’t even get me started on that, honestly. One of them was stuffed into Fia’s favorite teddy bear - that was a whole operation that I don’t want to get into - and the other one I found while doing some cleaning. It was stuck behind some water pipes in the little alcove above the toilet. Really, it’s a wonder it didn’t fall all the way into the basement, it was stuck on a valve that kept it in place.” Kassandra blabbered, stopping only briefly before adding a quick statement, “Oh yeah, I had to get the pipes replaced, I forgot to mention that.”
“These look great, Kassie. Was this one mom’s or dad’s?” Louise questioned, but Kassandra just shrugged her shoulders.
“Honestly… I had to replace most of the fabric, so they are… The hats of Theseus, you know? I like to think that they are ours now, you know?” she paused, tapping her finger on the table as she looked at nothing in particular, “I was gonna… have us like, play a game to determine who’d get them, but I guess that’s not really necessary now, huh?”
Louise reached out to Kassandra, putting one of her hands over that of her sister.
“Hey, it’s ok. I think you did a really good job on this - thanks for letting me have it, Kassie.” she quickly said, pausing briefly to think before continuing, “Though… I wonder if this will become like, contraband soon, what with the Nation having its own holidays and all…”
“Ooh, look at you - I didn’t know you had joined the fun police, sis.” Kassandra joked, putting her own hat back on and flicking the pompom towards Louise.
“No, but I am the thought police, OooOOOooO!” The younger sister replied, putting her fingers to her temples playfully, “I am beaming Nation propaganda into your brain right now, Kassie! Can you feel it?”
“Oh no, I feel the overwhelming urge to file paperwork for three days straight, oooh!” Kassandra replied, giving Louise a little punch to her shoulder before shifting tone slightly, “Come on sis, how about we open some gifts, hm? I’ve got one for you.”
Louise cleared her throat awkwardly, putting her hat back on and pulling it all the way down to her eyebrows while burying her face in the sweater’s giant collar.
“I uh… I didn’t know what to buy you all, sorry. It’s been so hectic and-”
“That’s ok, I know you’ve been busy with all the medical stuff and the tattoo and the likes… Just, here.” Kassandra somewhat rudely cut Louise off, reaching beneath the table and pulling out a small box before letting it fall on the table. Louise felt the entire piece of furniture shake surprisingly hard, her eyebrows shooting up immediately.
“...Did you get me a pile of bricks or something, Kassie?” she asked, hesitantly reaching out and grabbing a hold of the comically oversized ribbon that topped the otherwise only mildly decorated box.
“I guess you’ll have to open it and see, won’t you, Lou?” Kassie answered, trying to sound as disinterested as she could while Louise pulled the box closer.
With a final semi-questioning glance towards her sister, Louise lifted the lid off of the box, immediately gasping in delight. The whole container was filled to the brim with various books, most of which she had wistfully gazed upon through the dirty glass of the local book store’s windows more than a few times.
Looking over the collection before her, Louise recognized more than a few books that were… Note entirely legal , to say the least. Alongside technically Nation-approved works like “Kassandra” and “Der geteilte Himmel”, she could see works like “Farenheit 451” and “Lord of the Flies”, which she hadn’t seen in years at the very least.
It was clear that some of the books had been to hell and back, with the colors on their covers faded and a few of the pages that Louise looked over being littered with small stains made by coffee, or perhaps tea.
“How- Gods, how much did this cost you, Kass?” she whispered, gingerly lifting one of the tomes from the box and turning it in her hands.
“A favor or two, but don’t worry about that - it was worth it for you, little sis,” Kassandra’s words came from Louise’s side, but the shorter woman was too busy flipping through the old, dusty pages of one of the books she had just received.
“Some of these are forbidden books, too… Kassie, you really shouldn’t have, I mean, I…” Louise trailed off, slowly closing the book she held in her hands, “How am I going to repay you for this?”
“Simple: You’re gonna go to that aptitude measurement, whenever that is-”
“Tomorrow, actually… Tomorrow morning.”
“Ok, you’re gonna go there, you’re gonna learn what they want from you, and then you’ll probably take over the world, like you said. And then…” Kassandra briefly let the silence hang in the air before smiling, “...and then you come and see me next year, that’s all I want.”
Louise smirked, shaking her head as she placed the lid back on top of the box.
“Ok, I promise. But, well… How about we head out and grab a bite at the restaurant one block over? My treat?” she said, patting her wallet as she stood up.
“Only if we wear the hats, Lou,” Kassandra replied, standing up as well.
“Deal, but you’re gonna be the one to answer any questions we get - got it?” Louise snapped back playfully, already halfway to the door. She smiled slightly as she turned away, her eyes scanning the pictures on the walls again and quietly cursing her other sisters for not showing up. They knew how lonely Kassie could get.
As she slipped her shoes on, hearing Kassandra throw her coat over her shoulders, she just sighed and shook her head. If none of the others would be there for family, then Louise would have to pick up the slack. Not like she wasn’t used to doing that at work.
She blew some air out of her nose as Kassandra walked past her, pulling the door open and stepping outside. With any luck, she’d become a Replika technician and use her new wage to buy an apartment closer to her sister. That way, they would always be just a stone’s toss away in case one needed the other.
The door clicked closed behind her as she joined Kassie back out in the hallway, the two of them exchanging a quick smile.
No matter what, they would have each other.