Prompt: Paige and Sierra have a bit of melancholy yet hopeful bonding (yes it's canon)

  At one time, the building had been a clock repair shop. It was a small space, nestled between an ice cream parlor and a used bookstore in a forgotten strip mall that hadn’t seen a real upgrade in over thirty years. Which was just the way its previous tenant had liked it. Being ignored as long as the rent was paid on time went a long way toward excusing a few potholes in the parking lot.

  That previous tenant wasn’t the original clock repairman who had established the shop, though he had still taken on the occasional job on commission, just to keep up appearances. And to pay that rent when needed, given how much of his own personal funds had been going toward his actual project.

  Standing there in front of the doors, their forms obscured by the shadows resulting from a very old streetlight that only worked about a tenth as well as it should have, Paige and Sierra were silent. At least, as far as the outside world was concerned, they were. Neither said anything out loud, because they didn’t need to. There was no reason to keep up appearances when it was just the two of them. Their internal communication was so much easier, and far more efficient.

  I still don’t know what we’re doing here, this place was a prison for you. It wasn’t anything close to a real home. And I know you didn’t really see it that way. I have all those memories too, remember? What good memories could you even have that involve this building? Sierra sent.

  The entire message was sent, received, and read in a fraction of a second. In the next second, the full response from Paige came. I don’t have any good memories of this place, no. What I have is… wishes. I wanted it to be a home. I wanted him to accept me. He didn’t. He never did. But I still kept wishing for it. Now he’s gone, but we’re here. And so is this place. That’s why I want to be here. He never gave it a chance either. It was always just a stepping stone to greater things. He never really stopped and looked at it. He never saw any of the potential the store had.

  Potential the store had? You want to open the shop and fix clocks for people? Why would you do that? It’s not like we need the money. And if you’re itching to deal with annoying customers who are too stupid to breathe without written instructions, I’m sure the kid would be perfectly fine letting you play clerk over there until you get hold of yourself and remember people are just useless idiots. Once again, the response from Sierra appeared instantly, the entire exchange thus far having taken less than three seconds. So much better than all the time that would have been wasted if the two of them had been speaking out loud. If they’d done that, the whole thing would’ve taken about a full minute worth of verbal communication. Talk about a complete waste.

  Glancing sidelong at her sister, Paige just gave a very small smirk, shaking her head before turning back to the door. She reached out to tug it open without responding beyond that, and stepped inside. Come on, I want to look around for a minute and see how much stuff we need to clean up. And yes, I really do mean we. You’re the one who lost the bet, so just suck it up now.

  An audible groan escaped Sierra, the first sound either of them had made since they arrived here. She followed the other girl into the dusty shop and sent back the complaint, How the hell was I supposed to know Qwerty could play the piano like that? You cheated and you know it.

  Yes, I cheated by listening to him when he said he liked to practice on that keyboard in the back of Wren’s shop. It’s not my fault you didn’t see the trap coming when I said you weren’t the only one who could play that thing. And, as I recall, you were the one who actually suggested we bet. After sending that a second after getting Sierra’s reply, Paige flicked the lightswitch, then gave a slight grimace as only one of what should have been half a dozen overhead lights came on. Not that seeing this place fully illuminated would have helped that much. It was an absolute mess.

  After informing Paige that she knew she was manipulated into that bet, Sierra walked out to the middle of the shop floor. Only about half the shelves were still there, and most of those were empty. Here and there were a few scattered clocks, or simply broken pieces of what had once been such. A thick layer of dust had settled over everything, and there was what looked suspiciously like a rodent nest in one of the corners. The more the two of them looked around, the more clear it was that in the years since their father had left this place, no one had actually set foot inside.

  This, of course, wasn’t the most recent shop he’d had. That one had been very thoroughly torn apart by the Ministry. This was the first shop, before he had any other funding, before the Tanes had really stepped in to help get things off the ground. This was the very first home Paige had ever known, when she was being put together in the back room. It was her actual birthplace.

  Sierra, by that point, had walked over to what used to be the counter where the clerk would sit and meet with customers, or talk on the phone. That phone, an actual ancient, corded, rotary thing, was still there. It was some sort of antique, covered in dust and heavy enough to give someone a concussion if they were hit with the receiver. She stood by the thing, running a finger across the surface before frowning at the dirt that left on her. “Ew,” she said out loud. From her pocket, the Biolem girl produced a gray cloth, which she carefully wiped the phone off with. Only then did she pick the receiver up again. The whole phone was made in a fancy Victorian style.

  Dibs, I call dibs on the phone. It’s neat. I bet the kid could upgrade it to do some cool stuff but still keep the retro style. We should bring her over here to look around. But only once it’s clean. And speaking of how much the place needs to be sorted out, we do have some help, you know.

  Paige, standing by one of the few remaining shelves, shook her head and sent back, We’re not bringing any of the others over here, Sierra. We’re cleaning this place and fixing it up ourselves. I told you, this is important to me. I always wanted to see Pittman make this shop work. He’s gone now. And even if he wasn’t, he never would. But we can. I want the two of us to put it together. It matters, okay? I want to do it with you.

  Looking over her shoulder at her sister, Sierra made a face before relenting with a wave of her hand. Yes, yes, I get it. I’m here, so let’s see what we can do about this. Where do you want to start? Assuming burning the whole place down and building from scratch isn’t actually an option.

  In answer, Paige simply walked to the half-hidden door at the back of the room. When she tried to open the thing, it caught on something. She had to push hard against it, hearing the thing on the other side scrape a bit. With a grunt, she shoved bodily into the door and forced it open. The desk that had somehow fallen into its way was loudly shoved backward, scratching the floor.

  “Sure, that’ll buff out, or something,” Sierra actually said out loud, for a change of pace, while moving up beside her. The doorway led to the actual workshop, where the original owner had fixed clocks. And where their father had done his very first bit of work on what would eventually become Paige herself.

  Standing in that doorway for a few long, silent seconds without moving or sending anything over their connection, Paige stared into the workshop. Her eyes fell on the heavy steel table on the far side of the space. A single, small, overhead bulb was on, leaving the whole area almost entirely dark. Not that it mattered for the two Biolems. They could both see just fine. Paige, for her part, didn’t even really need to see to know what she was looking at. The table. The one she had been lying on, well, the one her orb had been lying on when she was first woken up. She had been blind then, connected to a nearby computer. Pittman had communicated with her through that, before she ever actually had Roxanne’s partial personality uploaded. She was far more of a machine at that point. For her part, she compared it to being an infant, before learning how to talk and crawl, or sit up. Though most people didn’t remember that period of their lives.

  Slowly walking into that room, stepping around the broken desk that had been blocking the door, Paige moved to that table. She ran one hand along the part where her orb had been sitting when she was first turned on and Pittman had run through all her diagnostics. Swallowing hard, she looked over at an old plush recliner. There was a dusty white cloth draped over it now, but in her memory, she saw Pittman sitting there with her orb in one hand, carefully adjusting some of her smaller components. He wore a pair of goggles that let him zoom in to see better, along with a headlamp. As he worked, the man was telling the newly-created orb all about how she was going to be a partner for his child. He just had to finish putting her physical body together first.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  That was when Paige turned toward another door. That one led to the alley behind the shop. In her memories, she saw Pittman draping plastic sheeting all over the entire workshop, covering the place with it to keep the whole place as clean as possible. Then he was coming through that alley entrance, wheeling heavy metal barrels with hazardous waste signs on them. Barrels full of biological material, pieces of human bodies that he needed to use to create his Biolem forms.

  It wasn’t quite the same as Frankenstein, exactly. He didn’t give her arms and legs and such from a dead body. It was more like he… broke the bodies down into their very basic genetic components, and created new pieces out of that. The Biolem body was alive. It grew and changed over time, so it needed actual living genetic material to start from. The dead bodies provided that basic material, and Pittman essentially created a mold, putting the completely broken-down genetic pieces inside, then programmed it to follow the genetic pattern of the person he wanted the Biolem to resemble. Over the course of a couple weeks or so inside the tube, the puddle of material would grow and change into the actual body he was trying to make.

  Once the body was made, and aged to where he wanted it, Pittman had made a big deal out of letting the orb-bound Paige (not that she actually had any name at all at that point) see the space she would be taking up. He said a lot of pretty words about how she and his daughter would be partners. True partners, with her programming and his daughter's mental patterns merging into a full person.

  Except it didn't work out that way. The man rushed to finish. He had time that he could have used to perfect the mental upload carefully, but in his arrogance, he didn't think he needed it. He rushed the work, and tried to upload the mental pattern from his daughter before it was actually ready. This had catastrophic consequences. The process of taking the brain pattern was incredibly stressful. Worse than the man had actually expected, or planned for. Roxanne, who was already in poor health, didn't survive the process. Worse, she passed away before the upload could be completed.

  All of which meant that the Biolem wasn't the perfect copy of his daughter he had been trying to make. He had to fill in the gaps with pieces of mental patterns from other young girls. He didn't kill any of them in the process, as far as Paige knew. He simply uploaded small pieces of their brain patterns after convincing the parents to let him do scans for… some nebulously-explained reason, enough to fill in what was missing to make Paige work properly. She was, in essence, about seventy percent Roxanne, and thirty percent four or five other girls, all together into one person.

  She was basically more like a close sister than the exact person. And that wasn't good enough for the man. Pittman couldn't take responsibility for his mistake himself, so he blamed her. His daughter was dead, and all he had to show for it was, in his mind, a failed experiment.

  In the end, he decided she wasn't completely useless, after all. She was a proof of concept, and he had taken her to the Tanes so they would provide the funding and other support for his immortality project. Paige had always wondered if the fact that he was responsible for his daughter's ultimate demise was what had made the man so obsessed with creating and controlling immortality. It was certainly why he could never treat her as a real daughter. Whenever he looked at her, he saw his mistake. A mistake that could have been avoided if he wasn't in such an arrogant rush.

  By that point, she had moved over to that rear entrance door, and opened it to look out into the alley. This, the filthy space between buildings, with that old green dumpster and a neon sign advertising fresh baked goods for a shop that didn't even exist anymore, had been her first look at the outside world.

  That was another complicated memory. When Pittman had realized he would never be able to make her an exact copy of his daughter, he nearly cast her out of the building entirely. He dragged her by the hair, curses erupting from him. To the man, she wasn't an innocent little girl. She was the symbol of his failure and the death of his actual daughter. He had dragged her to the door, flung it open, and shoved her out into the alley. Falling under the filthy pavement, she had begged her dad to let her stay. She promised to be a good girl.

  The truth was, her pleas probably hadn't actually gotten through to him. Not in the way she intended, at least. Instead, seeing how much she begged to be allowed to stay with him had convinced the man that she was real enough to prove that human minds could be uploaded safely. He had failed with his daughter, but that was only because he rushed things. He knew how to do it properly now.

  So, he brought his failure back inside, and set to work making her the basis of his big immortality project. From there, she was introduced to the Tanes, where she ended up meeting Anthony and Cassidy, and the rest… the rest was history.

  Sierra had come up behind her, slipping past the other girl to step into the alley. She walked right over to the spot where Paige had fallen all those years earlier, and crouched down to run her hand over the cracked cement. You know why he decided to call you Paige, right? Because this was a new page in his life, a new page in his story. That's all you were to him. And me… I didn't even warrant that much thought. He told me I was going to be able to be the real Roxanne, but we both know that was bullshit. I was just a tool for him, a way to erase you. He never would have let me keep that body. He never would have let me continue to exist. He was always going to erase both of us.

  Paige walked over there as well, crouching next to her sister before turning her head to look back at the doorway. Even now, she could picture the man himself standing there, his expression changing from one of complete disgust and rage, to a contemplative look. In that moment, back then, she thought she actually got through to him. She had thought that he had started to care about her.

  She had been staggeringly na?ve in those days. But no more. She knew he could never have been a real father for her. He could never accept who and what she was.

  You're right, he would have killed us both, wiped us completely out of existence so he could start over. All he really wanted was the body, so he could fill it with a new mind, something that would be perfectly obedient to him. After sending that to Sierra, Paige pushed herself back to her feet. That's why I want to be here now. That's why I want to fix this place up. Because he saw this whole shop as a waste. He never saw the potential. Just like he never saw the potential of you or me. He threw the place out as soon as he had another option. I want to bring it back. I want to fix the shop and see what it can be. This was where I was born. I want to save it.

  Sierra rose as well, offering a shrug. Yeah, I get it, believe me. You're right, the place has some potential. But what are you gonna do about running it with all the other shit we need to do? It's not like we have oodles of free time.

  Paige walked back into the workshop, closing the door after her once the other girl followed suit. We'll see how it goes over the summer. Once it's all fixed up, we’ll have very limited hours, by appointment only. We won't only fix clocks. We'll fix other things too. Mostly antiques. I really think I'd like to work with old things like that. We can partner with Wren, let her sell the stuff the people don't want back. But mostly, I think I just want to take old things that people think are worthless, and give them new life. I want to fix what other people think is broken and useless. And I know we had the bet, but you don't really have to help if you don't want to. I just wanted you to see this, and understand what I'm going for.

  Sierra walked over to the big table once more and turned to boost herself up onto it. Sitting on the edge, she nodded, speaking out loud once more. “Look, you don't have to call off the bet. I'm right here. I’m with you. I may not exactly understand exactly why you need to do this, but I’m not gonna ditch you. I’ll help. Who knows, it might be fun.”

  The two Biolem sisters looked at each other for a long, silent few seconds, before Paige smiled faintly. “I’m glad you’re here.” She didn’t just mean at the shop, or with her at that particular moment, and they both knew it.

  Sierra, in turn, simply laid back right there on the table, staring at the ceiling. “This place is gonna take a lot of work to fix up, you know? I can see leaks up there already, and we haven’t even really started poking at things yet. He didn’t exactly care for this place even before he moved on. And now it’s sat for years like this. How much did you have to pay for the lease? Cuz it’s gonna take a lot more to make it presentable.”

  With a soft chuckle, Paige sent her reply instantly. I didn’t rent it, I bought it. The space is ours. We didn’t need the landlord coming around to bother us. And yeah, it’s gonna take work and money to make it presentable. But that’s okay. I think it has potential. After sending that, she boosted herself up on the table and laid back as well, right next to her sister.

  The two of them stayed like that, staring at the damaged ceiling in that dusty, damaged workshop. Their father may have thrown them out, for all intents and purposes, but they had each other. And they had Irelyn, even Haley, and the rest of their team, their friends. They had a new family, one that didn’t involve the man who had decided they weren’t good enough for him.

  Potential. That was what this place, this family, this life had, for both of them. And they weren’t going to waste it.

  No matter how many holes they had to patch to make it work.

  Joke Tags: And For Anyone Scratching Their Head On The Timing? This Is At Some Nebulous Slightly Future Point Shortly After The Most Recent Arc