I stared out the window of the tree-fort to the city below, watching in disinterest as the people began preparing for sleep and slumber. Quiet discussions of plans for the next morning. Dinner invitations. Future plans, I had watched it all before, in Deling, but this was somehow different. I didn't understand why. Maybe because my father wasn't paired with any part of it.
The breeze rustled the sheaf of papers in my hand. I looked down. Marshal and I spent most of the day in the tree-fort working on the mission, posing questions and situation possibilities. We had only come down for lunch and then immediately returned. Working out more possibilities. More questions. More options of action.
I frowned at the papers. Notes. Reasoning. Questions. Plans. Everything cold and controlled. I set them roughly away and looked again to town below. When I heard a click, I focused to my right to see Marshal previewing a picture.
He pushed a few buttons. "I'm keeping this one," he said. "Damn."
I looked again outside as Marshal came to lean against the wall to the right of the window.
He took up the papers and nodded in approval. "I'm glad you're on my side."
Sides. What side had I ever been on but my own? Wasn't I still? The only reason I kept on with this assignment was because it would effect my career, my standing with Garden, and my relationship with Seifer. I wasn't on a 'side' of anyone. I didn't even have an idea of how to change that.
Marshal handed the papers back. I took them without altering my view. "Ana?"
Curiosity at the tone made me face him.
He slightly smiled and adjusted his position against the wall of the tree-fort. "You think we could get together after this is all over? You know. Go to the movies. Dinner. Like that."
Continue showing a weakness and a thirst for something I hadn't had? Continue letting him see who I was while knowing I wasn't who he remembered? I looked away. Bittersweet terror.
"I could bring over the letters we wrote back and forth. Maybe it'll help."
I faced him again. "Letters?"
"Sure. You don't think I got hooked on you after one trek to the Tomb, do you? Hell no. We wrote letters back and forth for, Hyne, like six months or something before we even met in person. I sent them to your school, same as Seifer did. Then we kept on after that."
The kiss on the cheek. The holding of hands. I examined Marshal's face. Why don't I remember? It didn't make sense that I would cut his face out of my dreams if he and I had been close.
Marshal released a heavy breath as he moved to sit beside me on the box by the window. He rested a hand on my knee. "Ana, don't sweat it. There's got to be a reason you don't remember. We'll just talk to the psychiatrist we've got on staff. Squall said they really know their stuff. Helped him make sense out of a lot of shit. That's why he made everyone's ass sit in that chair--even Seifer."
And I remembered the few weeks I had to sit across from the older man with the balding head and the understanding eyes who listened. I hadn't said much, I never said much, but that hadn't stopped the doctor from knowing something was soon going to snap. He told me that one day the anger and rage would push and, if I didn't control it, I would become no better than that person I hated. If I controlled it, I would do something I wanted to do for years. And hadn't I?
Maybe the doctor's words had given me the permission to do it.
Marshal's thumb caressed the skin of my knee. I stared down at it. Not thinking anything. Not able to, and yet--I looked up again, meeting his silver eyes. What was I supposed to think? I still didn't know what I was expected to do. And the feeling of complete freedom of choice proved to be more of a terror than the intense need for a completion of his touch.
What if I chose wrong?
Was there a 'wrong'?
'I'd be doing it for the wrong reason. I'm not going to take advantage of you. I won't take what you don't want to give me.' I arched an eyebrow and slightly lowered my gaze to focus within. I wanted a different memory, and it hadn't mattered whose face was within it as long as it wasn't my father's. I would have taken the memory and the face from Seifer if his touch hadn't been as rough as that which my father had given.
'I won't take what you don't want to give me.'
I again met Marshal's silver scrutiny and the look that saw deeper. 'Me.'
Marshal cleared his throat and pulled his hand from my knee. He stood. "I think we better get down and go to be--Go to sleep. We don't know what to expect tomorrow, so it'd be good to be wide awake." He went to stand by the ladder down and stared at it with a fist on his hip as he scrubbed at his scalp and neck. "Ladies first," he mumbled.
I stood and stepped toward him, noticing his brief glances and the slight tensing of his body. I continued forward, backing him against the far wall of the tree-fort. Marshal stared down at me with a somewhat terrified expression as he pressed himself back against it. I clenched the front of his denim shirt and pulled him toward me until our chests touched. His heart beat faster, echoing mine. "Is the 'right reason' a desire to have the completion from one specific person?"
Marshal swallowed hard. "Oh yeah," he whispered roughly.
I held his gaze, my own expression firming with determination. "I will remember you."
Marshal held my gaze. . . and then he wrapped his arms around me to draw me close, drawing out that part of me I so tenaciously protected while coaxing a memory of a kiss I wanted but never had. A young girl's romantic dream.
He touched his lips to my neck and throat. "Damn." And then he was gently pushing me back. "Ana, I need you to do me a favor." I said nothing. I only watched him. "When we get back to our room, I'm going to change and then go for a jog."
I slowly nodded. We had discussed this as a tactic/ploy to look around the area for the possible location of the arms sales and/or the hideouts of the radicals responsible.
"I need you to stay and go to sleep."
I blinked and then arched an eyebrow. "What?"
"I'll give you a report when you wake up in the morning. I swear."
"I should go with you."
Marshal shook his head. "No. You shouldn't. Maybe tomorrow."
"Why?"
He smiled. "Because all I'd be doing is looking for the best place to pick up where we left off."
I blinked again. Then I smirked as I crossed my arms. He still held my upper arms. "Problem?"
Marshal regarded me with that same--He pulled me closer. "Big problem," and I could feel his lips tickle mine.
My throat tightened, but I was surprisingly able to ask "Being?" with an amount of believability that I cared about the answer.
He lightly caressed my lips "Work." and again "Seifer." and a little firmer.
Damn you, Seifer. I accepted the kiss, returning it with more pressure and persuasion and then pulling away and then returning, torn between work and my mission and what felt so damn good.
...a fountain near an unlit room within the ruins of a king's Tomb. A young woman and a young man sit side-by-side, dangling their feet into the cool water while smiling and laughing as they splash each other. Hands held and safety shared along with the stories of each of their pasts.
The young man has silver eyes and spiked black hair. The young woman has bright eyes despite the horror of her young life and brunette hair with streaks of gray. When the young man watches her he sees the brightness and not the horror. He sees a possible future and not an ugly past.
"Ana, can I kiss you?"
The young woman flushes and sends him a sidelong glance. "Okay," she whispers. She likes this boy. This young man who makes her feel safe.
He moves a little closer, cautiously leaning toward her as she leans toward him. Trusting. Expecting. Waiting. His lips touch hers, so softly it tickles. The young woman giggles and pulls back, shyly smiling up at the young man.
"Hey. What's the matter?"
I blinked and the vision vanished, but the eyes were the same. The face was the same, albeit a little older.
&nbs
p; "Ana?"
I stepped a little back and shook my head as I turned. "Fine." I remembered. The feeling. That first kiss. Walking home hand-in-hand. I started down the ladder. "Fine," I whispered. I liked that boy, and now I found him.