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

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

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."

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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?"

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..."

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?"

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."

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?"

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?

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.

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.

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..."

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.

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?

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..."

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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

And Zidane was deliberately keeping his gaze away from said fist, just to try and not dwell for a few moments. And of course, she had to prompt him to finish his confused thought. So he tried to blow it off first. "Oh, you know me. Just didn't...really know..." But there wasn't anything he could come up with that made sense, and the smile faltered faintly. "I didn't..."

Another pause, a sigh.

I love you.

Words she hadn't heard in far too long. Words she wondered if she'd ever hear sincerely ever again. Vayne had spouted words that belonged in poetry or song, and while flattering, it had not meant as much as those three simple words out of Zidane's mouth.

"But, I'm not getting married," she countered, softly. "Not... yet."

Gently, she squeezed his hand, her gaze drifting down to where they met.

"Don't you ever think about the future? What you want in life?"

The 'yet' freaks the poor boy out a little, but he can run with it for now. He can take a guess at what she means, he's not stupid. Yes, he avoids marriage conversations like they have the plague, but still.

The future, right. Okay.

"Sometimes?" He tried, smiling weakly. "I mean...not a lot, though. It's just...I kinda worry about now, you know?" A little pause. It wasn't entirely true, at the moment. "Alright, last night when I could sleep I was thinking about the future a lot but that's not really what you mean, I bet..."

Clearly, that wasn't the answer she'd been hoping for.

"No, it's not."

The statement was simple enough, but the words were heavy, somehow. It was obvious, in the way Dagger's shoulders sagged, and the distant look in her diverted eyes. Slowly, she loosened her fingers, began to slide her hand out of his.

His fingers curl through hers when she starts to pull away, not quite willing to let her escape that easily. "I'm..." A pause, not quite willing to apologize just then, simply because he isn't sure what he said that was wrong. Though obviously some of it was. Which he had known when he was saying it, he wasn't stupid.

"...tell me what you mean." It was probably a rather broad request, but then...it did get to the point.

Inhaling slowly, she exhaled with a quiet sigh. Still, she did not meet his eyes. How did she approach this? She'd been trying to drop hints for quite some time; every time she did, it seemed to get her nowhere. Dagger had even begun suspecting that she was the reason he took off so often.

Shaking her head, she finally looked up at him.

"I mean..." she swallowed, "that I can't keep doing this, forever. Never knowing if things are going to be anything more than what they've ever been."

Okay, he did know what she meant, but...well, he had to at least try and argue his side of the coin. "What's wrong with this, Dagger? I love you, and you love me." He smiled that smile of his, but his tail was lashing faintly in what was probably worry. "Do we really need more than that?"

Yes, he knows the answer. He's just being stubborn. It's a fear thing.

Her expression shifted then; a bit more stern, her lips pursing together in something that was not quite a scowl. She'd been trying so hard, to get him to come up with it on his own; had she not been obvious enough? She'd even begun to think that it was her well-meaning nudges that had ultimately started to push him away.

"Zidane..." Dagger nearly sighed his name in exasperation. "People who are in love, usually, get married. I'm in a position, where I need to get married someday. And besides that, I want..."

A pause, as she bit down on the inside of her cheek. She had to say it, now, get it done with. She had told other people, and still others seemed to realize it without her saying a word! Why was it so difficult for him to understand?

"I want a family."

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