Room 206, Friday Evening

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Well." Valentine sat cross-legged on his bed and studied the detention slip that he was assigned in today's Debating class. Granted, it meant that he would miss out on another potential hazy Saturday midmorning, but it wasn't about to stop him from spending his evening with Naminé, instead. "There are always Sundays."

It was absolutely worth it.

"Right?"

The Really Useful Book ruffled its page from across the room, thankful that its Saturday was bound to be a pleasantly calm one.

(For Naminé.)

Comments

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"I suppose you don't have to be at detention until ... well after dawn, at least," she smiled. She tucked her legs under her. "How has ... your week been?"

She sounded hesitant.

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Mostly uneventful, actually," he said. "I did some juggling on Monday, and aside from classes... Well, that's about the whole of it, really."

He tilted his head at her, studying her expression for a moment. He knew the hesitation in her voice well enough, but there were still moments when he had to try doubly hard to see it on her face.

"Would I be correct in assuming that your week was slightly more eventful than my own?"

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"I think last Saturday means we both ... had an eventful week," she admitted with a blush. "But yes. There are things I need to talk to you about. And I've realized that ... it's entirely possible that I haven't been fair to you, all this time."

[dark_slippy_thing]

Valentine would have pointed out that he had said 'mostly' uneventful, but-- frankly, Naminé had started to sing that old tune again. And he wasn't about to stand for it, if she was about to find another reason to inform him that he was absolutely mad or that she had broken him somehow.

But first, he'd have to find what she was on about now.

"What are you on about now?"

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"Roxas is gone," she said softly.

[dark_slippy_thing]

"He left?"

He really didn't like to hear that tone in her voice. Scooting over some so that he was sitting beside her, he put his arm around her shoulder.

"I suppose not everyone can stay at this place forever."

How this was somehow unfair to him, he had no clue.

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"Disappeared," she said, shaking her head. "I imagine he's ... with Sora, now."

[dark_slippy_thing]

With the little turd who had given him ... something that might have been money on Monday? He hadn't been with anyone at the tim-- Oh.

With.

"I... You know, it's... There's just..." He took a deep breath. There really weren't words, here. "Do you need anything?"

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"I don't think I've made it clear enough to you," she said, not looking up. "Who I am. What that means. What my ... my fate is."

Except I'm in a retirement home somewhere, drawing and laughing and old and I don't understand ...

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Your fate?" He wrinkled his nose a little.

He didn't like the sound of that at all.

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"He held half of what Sora is," she said, eyes finally finding his. She swallowed, hard. "That means that I ... I hold half of Kairi."

[dark_slippy_thing]

...

It took his brain a few moments to recover from that. That her ... her fate was to be swallowed up or absorbed into or... or whatever. Whatever. Kairi couldn't have her. She was his Naminé. She was here and real and she loved him and he loved her and she was a Somebody no matter what the bloody terminology was and he had to breathe.

Okay.

Okay. He'd breathed.

"And... how does that mean you've been unfair to me?"

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"I don't think I made that clear enough, when we started," Naminé said, hugging her knees. "How ... fleeting this would be. What lay ahead. What that would mean. For me. For ... us."

[dark_slippy_thing]

"When we started--" He had to breathe again. Okay. Good. "When we had started, we really hadn't known we had started at all. We just sort of fell into it. Or I did. There you were, and then--"

Breathing. Breathing.

"Even if it has the potential to be unfair... you were never unfair to me."

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"Wasn't I?" She winced. "I should have made this clearer to you. Before you ... or we ... certainly before any hazy midmornings. I ... I can't be sorry, that it happened, because ... I've never imagined in my life that I could feel anything like that. You've given me a gift. You've shown me that I can feel, somehow, despite everything in the world saying I can't. And this is how I repay you, by leaving you with nothing but memories when I ..."

She couldn't even say it.

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Naminé, you're right here. You haven't left, and you've given me so much more than memories."

Tear this heart out. Take it. Take it! If that will keep you here with me, take it. I won't be needing it without you anyhow.

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

Naminé closed her eyes.

"If you feel ... even half of what I feel, then this is cruel."

[dark_slippy_thing]

Another breath.

He reached for her hand, grasping it firmly in both of his.

"No... Everything has to end eventually. Everyone who falls in love knows it won't last forever. I'm not immortal either, you know. It's a risk, but it's a risk worth taking." He laughed weakly, entirely in spite of himself. "What a horrible life it would be if everyone refused to get close to other people simply because good things must end in time."

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"'In time'?" she asked, threading his fingers through hers. "I think everyone expects a bit more time than I've got. Unless ..."

A retirement home, not my future, someone else's, how, how, how do I get a future if ...

[dark_slippy_thing]

"Unless?" She had him somewhat curious, now, but if her 'unless' was something that would just leave him holding his breath... "I don't want to know. How long you have, I mean. Don't tell me. I'd rather live every moment like the last than spend time counting hours."

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"Just a curiosity from another time and place," she said, shaking her head. "There's ... a possibility that ..."

She let it hang. "I don't know, either. How long. I don't think it's very long. And I had no right to ... let last week happen, without saying that first."

[dark_slippy_thing]

He bit his lip and took another moment to breathe.

He wondered if she had any idea how much more unfair this conversation was as opposed to the notion that she'd...

....

"Had I known last week what you're telling me now, I wouldn't have changed a thing if I could," he said simply.

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"You would have had the choice," she said, shaking her head. "I ... stopped thinking about it. Being here, and having everyone say that I'm real. I let myself do things, have things that I shouldn't have. I ... I never meant to --"

Naminé winced. "It's selfish, I know."

[dark_slippy_thing]

There she was, everything that he had in the whole wor-- He didn't even have the world, and there she was, calling herself selfish and regretting things and blaming herself for ... for making them both happy, and it was breaking his heart.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug. This was right here and now and real and warm and beautiful, and maybe he wouldn't let go and she would never leave him.

"I'd have nothing if you'd told me right from the start, you know. I might have stepped back. I might have been wadded into a little paper ball and I could still be floating about in nothing at all. I might have come back and--" Valentine was always so terrible at talking about things like this. "You keep me breathing. That isn't selfish. It's more than I deserve."

[palestshadow.livejournal.com]

"I didn't mean that early," she said quickly, shaking her head. "Just before we were quite so ... was it that early, for you? I needed to see you, before you left. I suppose I should have realized it then."

Naminé placed a hand on his face. "You deserve rather a lot, you know. And I ... can't be sorry. For what's happened. What we've had. If that's terrible, then so be it. I never dreamed I might ... have something quite so beautiful."