Our paths, they did cross, though I cannot say just why...

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Characters: Garnet and Zidane
Progress: Ongoing
Summary: A Reunion after one long (and one less long but more confusing) absence.
Location: Alexandria
Date: January 1804
Warnings: Nothing? Well, emotions. And probably some wibbles.

Zidane stood outside of Dagger's door inside the Palace at Alexandria, staring at the ornate pattern on the wood with an oddly distant expression on his face. He'd entered this door hundreds of times, he dropped in on her constantly and it was an open invitation, and yet suddenly he was nervous. He didn't want to say scared, but that was there too, lurking away at the back of his mind.

He almost made himself knock, almost, his hand raised up to knock, stopped, raised again, and then he stopped and frowned at himself. This didn't make any sense. Sure, this wasn't exactly an usual situation, but...but she was still his girl. This shouldn't have been anything different. He shouldn't be so nervous.

So, after a few moments of collecting himself, Zidane reached out and pushed the door open, stepping in the same way he had hundreds of times before, with the same big smile (he hoped) and cheerful expression (he hoped) that was always there. He was happy to see her...he really was. No matter what else was going on, he was always happy to see her.

"Hey Dagger, I'm ho-" the briefest of pauses. "Back." 

Comments

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

He'd caught her right in the middle of something. Just moments before he'd walked in, she'd been fixated on the item in her hands -- the piece of nethicite gifted to her on the even of her birthday. Mind a whirl with the possibility of war, massacre, the knowledge of even more recent causalities, and the queen was staring into the stone as if it should hold the answers to stopping the madness. Amidst all of this, was the knowledge that Zidane was due in Alexandria this afternoon, but then, she'd been expecting him to call, knock, anything -- it had been ages since he'd simply let himself in...

Like he had just then. He'd surprised her so thoroughly that she jumped, nearly dropping the nethicite in her hands. Once her eyes fell on him, she could look nowhere else; he held her attention thoroughly for one, eternally silent moment.

That is, until she broke it. "...Welcome back." what kind of response was that?

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Zidane looked pretty much the same as he would have when he'd left a year ago, same haircut, even the same clothing, though it was unlikely she'd remember that. And Dagger changed her clothes so often Zidane never managed to keep track of what they were. They all looked good on her, that was all he cared about.

Zidane was caught in that gaze just the same as she was, not even breathing as he looked at her. In his mind, it had only been a few days since he'd seen her, and yet...there was something different, a distance that made it feel like forever since he'd gotten to look at her again. She looked...the same, if somewhat more stressed around the eyes.

And then, surprisingly, Zidane didn't know what to say. There were lots of words running around in his brain, but he didn't know what any of them seemed to imply. He opened his mouth to speak, stopped, frowned at himself, and then suddenly his legs were carrying him across the room to her. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten there even, just one minute he was standing there in front of the door, and the next he was standing right in front of her, and his arms were reaching out, taking her waist, and he was kissing her.

And it wasn't a little 'hello' kiss either, at all. No, this was a kiss of sudden desperate emotion mixed with juuuuust a hint of fear.

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

She saw him advancing, but somehow, no words came to her lips. The play of expressions on his face was confusing, baffling, but nothing compared to the shock that came next. This time, she really did drop the nethicite, and before it hit the carpet, his lips were on hers. Despite the conversation they'd had at her birthday celebration one she was slowly beginning to think, really had been just a dream, she hadn't expected such a bold move!

Her heart skipped, and she let out a muffled sound of confused protest. However, it died quickly. He was.. holding her again, kissing her again, and she was slowly sinking in a familiar, dizzying feeling.

For a second, she almost forgot where she was.

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

It wasn't forward, not to Zidane. No matter what people were telling him, about a year passing, about an apparently impending marriage, he didn't care. None of that mattered except the fact that he wasn't going to give Dagger up. Especially not to...whatever in the world was going on.

When the kiss finally broke he wasn't even sure how much time had passed, and surprisingly, he actually flushed, only for a second and it was gone but it was there, as he looked down at her, his hands still on her hips, his face only an inch or so away from hers, their noses almost touching.

"Whatever I did, Dagger...I'm sorry."

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

She could feel his breath against her cheek, her arms folded between them. How had her hands gotten to his chest? She didn't know, but her fingers were playing with the fabric of his vest. Dagger's gaze fell to her hands, and then rose to his face again. Then, she pushed against him, an attempt to step back, so she could see him better.

"What... what has gotten into you?" she asked softly.

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Zidane hadn't noticed her hands on his chest either, which was surprising because they were Dagger's hands. On his chest. That had been a more engrossing kiss than he had realized. He actually smiled a bit at that thought, looking down at her, and let his hands slip from where they had curled around her to rest on her hips, not quite willing to step far enough away they wouldn't be touching yet.

"I'm not sure," he smiled, and it was a nervous sort of smile, the kind that would've been accompanied by him scratching the back of his head and probably laughing, if his hands weren't busy and he was already talking again. "I just...it suddenly felt so..." A shake of his head, and he sighed. "I needed to kiss you."

It was true, though it didn't really help him explain much.

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

"I... I don't mean that," she was fumbling over her words, scrambling to regain her senses. "Well, that's not true. It's partly that. What I mean is..."

Stand your ground, she told herself. Shaking her head, she pulled back again, a little further this time. How was she supposed to think with his hands all over her?

"Zidane, where did you run off to? What happened to your phone? Why didn't you answer my calls?"

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Maybe that was part of his unconscious plan, to throw her off her game...then again, feeling her hands on his chest didn't exactly help with his. When she pulled away, he let his arms drop back down to his sides.

"I didn't run off, Dagger. I went to see my sister, and then I was in Treno. I did answer your call, you only called me once."

Knowing there was no real way for him to prove this just by talking, he tugged his phone out of his pocket and just offered it out or her to take. She was obviously more familiar with the strange little device anyway.

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Dagger was becoming frustrated again, and it was showing in her eyes. Pursing her lips together, she reached out and took the Sky Phone from him, only to shake it for emphasis of her statement.

"I don't mean this phone, I mean the one you had before. Did you break it? Lose it somewhere?" Her tone was growing less accusing by the second, edging it's way into desperate, and even concerned. Her brow wrinkled and she paused, examining him. "Do you have any idea just how worried I've been?"

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Zidane actually wilted backwards a bit at the shaking phone and the tone in her voice, his tail dropping down to the ground and curling around his left ankle. "I..." He reached up to scratch the back of his head, trying to figure out what in the world he was going to say.

"I'm sorry. I don't...I've never had another phone, Dagger. The moogle in Treno gave me that yesterday, he had to teach me how to use it..."

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Dagger stopped. After a second, her shoulders eased, and she lower the hand holding the phone. Zidane was many things -- a good actor, a skilled fighter and an even better thief, but after three years of getting to know every nuance of his personality, Dagger could tell when he was trying to pull one over on her, and when he was being sincere. Maybe it was the way he said it, or the look on his face... no, it was that distinct drooping of his tail he was almost like a dog in that sense, his tail always betrayed him.

He was really serious.

"...You... really don't remember having one of these before?"

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Zidane saw the way her shoulders sagged, watched her arm drop, and he wanted to reach out and touch her again...his fingers actually twitched as he resisted the urge. She wanted to step back, he was...giving her the room to do so. Until they figured this out, until...well, okay, he was going to kiss her again, it was just a matter of how long his self-control held out.

He wasn't usually quite this..amorous, especially with Dagger. He knew she had certain...morals...and he was not willing to cross them. But at the risk of losing her? Well...some lines could be bent. And it wasn't like they hadn't kissed so many times before.

"No," he shook his head, his eyes slightly distant as he went over his recent memories. "You walked me to the airship dock, I got on the ship. I was on it...six or seven hours? We were passing Lindblum, I decided to take a nap, and then...I was in Treno, and Eiko was telling me it had been a year, and moogles were giving me phones. And people were apparently falling out of the sky." He smiled a bit at that last part.

"That's it."

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Dagger fell quiet again. Again with the Airship dock, and the visit to Mikoto. That had been so long ago, but it was almost too arbitrary to be anything but the honest truth. Tilting her head slightly, as if she expected to get a better look at him, Dagger brought her hands together, so that both with clutching his phone.

"They don't really fall out of the sky, you know," she replied finally, an attempt at good humor that was lost. A pause, and a strangely distant smile, as her eyes drifted to the side. "It's strange... when all of this started happening, it was you who explained it to me. And now, you don't remember... any of it?"

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Despite the awkwardness of the joke, Zidane laughed softly. "I kinda figured," he smiled still, letting his hand drop to his side.

"I don't know what to tell you though, Dagger. I don't remember any of it, the whole last year." He sighed quietly, half-turning away. "It's actually really, really strange to have people telling me about these things I did, that...I didn't do. Or I don't..." He shifted. "was it me? I mean...it's not the same phone."

If he had just hit his head and lost his memory, wouldn't he still have his phone?

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Shutting her eyes, Dagger shook her head; whether in disagreement or dismissal was hard to say, and she didn't bother to clarify with words. Instead, she just held the phone out for him to take.

"So... if you don't know what this is... then you don't even remember when Midgar first appeared? It was before anyone or anyplace else. Uncle Cid led the excavation that resulted in these." And she lifted the phone just a bit, indicating the little wonder of a device one that the entire world, in all it's strangeness, had come to rely on so heavily in months past.

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

He took the phone back, looking at it while she spoke, turning it over in his hands a few times, and then slipping it back into his pocket. And then he turned back to her, and he couldn't resist reaching out to take her hand. He didn't try to move closer, he just leaned over to catch her hand gently. Partly he wanted to hold it, and partly to see what she would do.

"Dagger, I don't know what Midgar is."

There was a sort of...irritated resignation in his voice.

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

At this, Dagger frowned. No, he wouldn't have known Midgar. It had shown up long after he'd gone off on that particular visit to Mikoto and the other genomes and mages. She was so caught up in wrestling with the sudden thought that he did not remember the past year, that at first, she didn't notice that he'd taken her hand. It felt so normal, that it was only when she glanced down that she realized it.

And then, her chest clenched, and she felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath her. There, on her hand, was the ring. The one Vayne had given her. The one she'd been trying on and taking off, alternately for several weeks now.

What do I do?!

"Zidane... all of this aside... the reason I've been trying to get a hold of you..."

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Zidane hadn't actually noticed the ring until he took her hand, but the moment he had felt the metal there he had known what it was. he'd turned her hand over just a bit in his, and his gaze was on it now as she spoke. With his thumb he turned the ring a few times around her finger, his eyes narrowed, and his head didn't come up until she finished speaking.

"You're getting married."

It was a statement, not a question. And he couldn't sound more devestated if you had punched him in the stomach while shooting his favorite puppy and telling him his cat died.

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Her head snapped up. "I haven't said yes!" she argued. The tone in his voice, those three words, it was absolutely heartbreaking. This was not how she had wanted things to go, nor was it anywhere near what she had expected, even in the worst case scenario.

Curse it all, why did she have to have it on when he showed up?

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

He felt a remarkably amount of relief when she said that, and it would be rather obvious since his rather wilted tail perks up. But only a little, since I mean...there's the one obvious, massive thing there.

His fingers gently turn the ring a full circle around her finger again, and then he releases her hand, letting his arm drop to his side. "You're wearing his ring..."

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Any argument that came out of her mouth now, she knew would only sound like a lie. That didn't stop her from trying.

"I was just trying it on," she insisted, and then held up the offending hand. "It's not even on the right hand," she continued. Every word of it was true, but that didn't make it sound any better.

Slowly, she lowered her right hand, tucking it into the palm of her left. Shutting her eyes against the painful image before her, Dagger fell into a guilty silence.

"He knows already, that he is not my first choice."

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

Zidane didn't really seem to know what to say to any of that, trying to figure out why the hand it was on would really matter. He understood decorum and such, learning about it had been part of learning to be an actor. But...she was still wearing it.

But her second thing, that drew him to pause. It had been a point of contention between them, obviously. Getting married. It wasn't that he didn't want to marry Dagger. He did! He didn't want to marry...well...the queen. Or more specifically, he didn't want to be king. And yet...

Now? Faced with the prospect of losing Dagger? The physical embodiment of that loss resting on her finger right there in front of him? It was...even more terrifying, in a sense.

"So take it off." He finally said, his voice soft, his tail lashing about behind him in a clear sign of nervous agitation until he seemed to notice and forced it to settle. "Take it off and give it back."

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Dagger pressed her lips together in a tight line. One hand still covering the other, she pinched the band with her thumb and forefinger. Then, she stopped. There was a significant pause. "I tried once. He insisted that I keep it."

It wasn't a lie. Besides that, there was something more important at hand. It was more than a ring, and to her, it was more than what it was to Zidane. It wasn't just a ring, and it certainly wasn't just a promise to another man. It represented so many things that she wanted, where she wanted to be, and even the pressures that had been put upon her for several years now.

Slowly, she slid the ring off her finger, and folded it in her palm instead.

[tantalus-born.livejournal.com]

There were lots of responses Zidane had to that. Take it off then, and stick it in a drawer. Or throw it away. Just...take it off. But he didn't have to, as before he could say anything, she had drawn the ring from her finger.

Zidane visibly relaxed. Everywhere, his entire body just seemed to settle a little bit, as if some massive pressure had been drawn off his shoulders and he could suddenly breath again. And he actually looked somewhat tired, after this new change. He hadn't slept at all during his night-flight to Alexandria...he'd just sat, and worried.

"Thank you," he smiled that big smile of his, and took a step closer, reaching out to settle his hand ontop of hers. Not trying to take the ring or anything, just wanting to touch her hand again now that said offending piece of metal was gone. "Seriously." He actually gave a faint laugh. "I didn't..." He couldn't finish, he just shook his head.

But his tail wasn't drooping near the floor anymore.

[crowned-jewel.livejournal.com]

Dagger turned her hand, slowly, so that she could settle their palms together, slide her fingers between his. Her left hand, in a fist, retained the ring.

"...Didn't... what?" she asked, urging him to finish his statement.