Room 504, Thursday Evening

[intraspective]

It was stupid, right?

That she was standing outside the door to her room, their room, and fidgeting and hadn’t yet found the bravery to go in. Stupid stupid stupid. It was her room, Zack was in there, and he was the one person who she was never uneasy about being in his presence.

And yet. She was still standing outside the door, shifting from foot-to-foot in a suit she’d slipped off-island that morning to pick up. A new identity, a new direction to head in after school was over. It brought peace of mind to her, right now, even though she knew the future would be hard. There was a card in her pocket, a new piece of I.D., with a name she’d chosen on Tuesday.

It was—this was—something huge. But just to her.

And to him.

Ino took a deep breath, spent an extra moment making extra sure she was still neat and tidy in her new suit, her new shoes, her new self because Ino knew that the suit was only the outward marking of a Turk and that this job would claim her for its own, and then pushed open the door, stepped inside, and shut it. All silently, all in seconds.

“Zack?” she said, after a breathless moment of something not unlike fear, while he did squats, his back to the door. He hadn’t noticed her.

Not until she’d spoken.

[For the puppy, zomg, and NFB, plz!]

Comments

[puppy_fair]

And squat, and squat, and-

"Hey, Ino! How was your d-whoa."

Guess who had just turned around!

"New look?"

It was a very good look on her, but a bit different from what he was used to, was the thing. And Zack wasn't entirely certain what to make of that. That was Turk uniform... right? Had she just decided she wanted to try one on? Or...

[intraspective]

In her own welter of emotions, Ino found that she couldn't figure out how he felt with his quick 'new look?' and it added to her worries, compounded them, because if he didn't like this then--

They would both have to live with it.

"I," Ino swallowed, ducked her head just slightly, which set tendrils of her hair falling forward over her shoulders. She still wasn't used to having her hair down all the time, but it left her face well enough alone. "I told you, before, that I was going with you after graduation."

Another second to draw in a quick breath, tell herself she wasn't allowed to think this was a bad idea, and then she went on, "I--I could do a lot of things, on Gaia," she said, her eyes seeking and holding his, unless he looked away, "but this--I'm good at this. And I'll be able to help make things right."

Did that... did he... was that okay? She waited, in a silence that seemed horribly stretched to her, being so caught up in her own conflicting emotions as she was.

[puppy_fair]

Zack was still caught up in staring, by the time she'd finished speaking. And it wasn't a bad sort of staring, really. It was certainly a curious one, though, looking over the way the uniform played over her curves, studying how she looked with her hair down.

And then he smiled a little bit.

"You did tell me that, didn't you?"

For what it was worth, that was a smile, on his lips. Not just him going through the motions. Something warmer, more real.

[intraspective]

He was smiling and though her hands were shaking slightly, she felt steadier. He was smiling, for real, and her world could keep on turning.

It hadn't been screwed up by her making a decision that was... life-altering, to say the least.

"I did," she said softly. "I meant it."

[puppy_fair]

It was amazing how, when it felt like he couldn't move at all, Zack could still clear the room in a couple of easy strides when it meant that he could wrap his arms around her.

He really wasn't inclined to let go, any time soon. This was...

It kind of finalized it, didn't it? Her promise, that she'd stay with him. Like there was no question at all, now. And the Turks? Why would Zack have any problem with that? Most SOLDIERs didn't have anything good to say about them, but Zack Fair was not 'most SOLDIERs,' either.

"I'm glad."

[intraspective]

She had to blink, hard, there as her arms slipped around his waist to hug him as tightly has he held her.

"I'm happy," she murmured, her forehead against his chest. "I... I... I'd been worried about if it would be..."

Okay? With him?

It was scary in a bone-deep, soul searing way. She'd given up her world for his, for him, quite literally, and with her eyes wide open to the fact that... that if things fell out the way they'd done originally, that she'd picked her own death knowingly.

The future she'd picked was anything but safe, and Ino knew it.

Zack was worth it, to her. Gaia was worth it, to her.

What price, love?

[puppy_fair]

Priceless.

"I'm... scared," he admitted, in a whisper so low that you'd have to strain to hear it. "That you're following me into something so big. That you'll get hurt, too. Of a lot of things."

The things that were for Ino's ears only.

"But... I'm happy, too. That... I mean..."

He didn't want to be alone.

[intraspective]

"I love you," she replied, the words stubborn and sincere and as unyielding as stone. "I choose you. No matter what happens, I want to be there."

Ino closed her eyes, comforted herself with the familiar smell that made up Zack to her.

"I want to be where you are. Even if there's pain and there's fear and there's loss."

They would fix things, right? But that didn't mean things wouldn't still go wrong.

[puppy_fair]

Things could always go wrong. That was one of the big things that Zack had learned over his time on Fandom Island. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he smiled or how optimistic he managed to keep, life was always going to have plans of its own.

It was just... bigger, somehow, and he felt so much smaller, knowing that the odds were very low that he'd ever live to see thirty.

"It'll be okay," he decided, nodding a bit as he pressed his face into her hair. "It has to be."

Because he'd said so. So there.

[intraspective]

Because they said so. Which held more power than just one of them.

"We'll make it that way," Ino said, her voice reaching his ears and only just. "And if it's not--we'll still have each other."

Neither of them would ever go on alone.

[puppy_fair]

That got a bit more of a smile out of him, and he squeezed her closer to his chest still.

Never letting go. It'd be difficult for Ino to do her first run around Sector Eight with a SOLDIER stuck to her like glue.

"We will," he agreed, nodding a bit.

At least for a few more years.

The things he wouldn't dare say aloud.

[intraspective]

She breathed and felt herself relaxing as he continued to hold onto her.

"I'm glad," she murmured, "that you're--happy."

About what she'd done that had had the potential to go so very badly.

[puppy_fair]

"How could I be anything but?" He exhaled a soft laugh into her hair. "We'll be close, this way. And it means that you have a place, right?"

More than just a roof over her head. A function. Something that either one of them would have been completely lost without.

[intraspective]

She turned her head to press her lips to his chin. "I do," Ino replied, with a bit of a laugh in her voice, a little breathless. "And a home, and a love."

She was lucky.

[puppy_fair]

He was lucky.

"And so do I," he replied, his voice little more than a happy rumble in his chest. "So it works out perfectly, doesn't it?"

He was keeping her.

[intraspective]

"Very perfectly," she said, with a giggle that made her shoulders shake though little sound escaped. "Just as I planned."

She wasn't going anywhere.