Because it's sad. Yeah,  yeah, shut up. Just because you have no idea what's going on....But anyway, I love these two.

"Ginger..." The painful, throbbing stone beneath my chest was growing heavier with every second, sinking deeper still as her name passed from my lips. You're not supposed to have those feelings anyway. Not for her, I could hear my sister hiss. I ignored it, however, just as I would have ignored her had she actually been there to say it. "I- I've got a surprise got you." Try as I might, it was near impossible to keep my smile genuine. She looked up from her book, her eyes widening somewhat with curiosity. My heart twisted and fluttered more desperately at the sight of them.

"Hmm?" The sound of her voice...it was as if the universe had set itself up to make this harder for me than anything I'd ever gone through. At least she'd never know. The ten years the separation would leave of my life would be twenty in her world, and by then she would have forgotten me altogether. Perhaps she would fall in love, get married, have children, be happy. I needed her to be happy, needed it even more than I needed- No, I didn't need it, I wanted to be a part of that happiness.

“My parents- that is, Father thinks he's found a way to get you home.” As soon as the words came out, the chances of her staying were further reduced from their already grim first outlooks. “He says if someone like you just disappeared around here, everyone would miss you terribly and- Not that I won't miss you, but- I mean...yeah.” I was rambling, I knew, but there was a significant part of my brain that just didn't care.

“Oh...well...”

“Mum says she's gonna miss you, but they both kind of think it's for the best if...because your home is over there and all, y'know? You belong there. Just like I sorta needed to come back home, because I belong here- and...-so....”

“Hey Khan?” I snapped my eyes back up again- apparently their gaze had slid down to the floor whilst my attention was elsewhere. Probably on some obscure, distracting topic. However, now she had my full, undivided attention. And it hurt to make eye contact. I had to look away, at least for a second. “I-” Now it was her gaze that was drifting. “I love you.”

The resounding thud of an out-of-rhythm beat in my chest caught me off guard, planting in my mind the tiniest doubt that I could say it, that I could say what had been on my mind now for just over an hour. Say it, my own voice hissed between my ears. You don't have forever anymore, Khan. It was fluttering. I'd often wondered in the months since meeting Ginger just what it would feel like to have such a ridiculous heart rate. Though I was relatively sure I'd yet to breach a “racing” twenty beats per minute, the erratic thundering behind my ribs was faster than I'd ever felt it before.

“I love you too.”

My voice was barely more than a whisper, after all the torment my poor overworked heart had put me through.

SO, I teamed up with one of my bestest friends ever to create this piece that I'm not sure if I like or not. I dunno...Our first Marco/Alia scene.

Alia (c)

“Why can't you be like Lidia?”

I regretted the words immediately, watching her face drop, in disbelief of my own inhumanly cruel demand. I didn't mean it! I wanted to shout, wishing ever more fervently by the second that the thickening lump in my throat would swell larger and larger, until I finally got the punishment I deserved for speaking to her that way. Idiot...apologize...But my mind was hardly working properly enough to get the apology out, and for a moment her yellow-gold eyes burned into mine. An axe to the back of the head sounded like a fitting retribution, but here was my Clytemnestra, no doubt equally wounded as the young queen had been following the sacrifice of her daughter...No axe in hand.

“Because, Marco, I'm not Lidia...” For a moment, the conflict in her eyes mirrored my own. I had thought at the time that my heart couldn't sink any deeper into the bottomless pit that was now my stomach, but it did. I had hurt her, as I well knew. I heard it, I felt it. She stood, grabbing her bag, and to some extent I couldn't blame her for wanting to leave. I couldn't have stood being in the same house as someone who had spoken to me the way I'd just spoken to her, let alone the same room. I would have let her leave, in fact, if not for one tiny drawback. I couldn't lose her. Not now- or ever- especially not now, to my own pride and impatience.

I stepped in front of her. “Love, I'm sorry...” She flinched, her eyes locking on mine for only a split second before moving on.

“Are you?” Her voice was heated and raw. “We both know that you never really accepted me. Me as Alia. You resented me for a while, even, Marco. You're angry at me for not being Lidia.” Her eyes met mine again, if only for a moment. The anger in her voice was echoed in her thoughts, her face, but it wasn't her anger towards me that bothered me. It was the harsh, untamed bitterness towards Lidia, who had done nothing but live and die fighting the same burden she now carried, that sparked my own indignation.

“Alia...” I began forcefully. “I am sorry.” As determined as I was to hold the anger in- what right did I have to be upset with her after what I had said- I could tell almost immediately that I'd done a poor job. She bit her lip, and her hands fumbled nervously with the end of her shirt. First one, then a second and third tear streaked down her face, though she made no sound.

“I'm sorry I'm not her.” The thought was quiet. She had tried to restrain the thought. In an entirely new wave, I pleaded in vain to whatever divine force may have existed that I could take it back. But the inward cry went unnoticed, the only witness to the begging being myself.

It was then that I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her tightly to my chest. Would she never understand? I stroked her hair gently and inhaled. “That's not what I meant...you know that's not what I meant...or you should...You question me...I'm not used to that...You're everything I could ever ask for...and more! I know you're not her...But....” I drew a quivering breath, hoping to alert her that I'd changed thoughts. "I shouldn't have said what I did...She's in the past now, and..." I'd been fighting myself since the day we'd met over this very same thing. I'd been struggling, fighting a losing battle not to fall for her for over half a year. I realized, though, at that moment, that I had lost long ago. “...And I love you...Alia...for who you are, not who she was...”

“You...you're not lying.” It was a statement, rather than a question. I looked down at her, surprised. She didn't fight my hold. “You...you love me...” A thought hit me. A fear that I should have had all along. What if she didn't love me? I'd been much too vain in making that assumption, and now I could only hope it didn't come back to haunt me. Her head shook against my body. “Marco, Marco...” she whispered, wrapping her arms around me in a return embrace. "I love you."

I pulled away, not far, but far enough to give her room. Breathing, I'd heard, was a wonderful thing. She stared up at me with a smile. I pushed a few stray strands of hair from her face. “La mia signora,” I whispered, and she closed her eyes, allowing the backs of my fingers to run gently up her cheek. “Il mio amore...My Alia...” She looked up at me again.

Something about the moment had taken me by surprise, to the point where I finally had to realize just what had happened. My eyes had closed on instinct, my hand held her face gently- her cheeks were so warm! The kiss was gentle and slow, if not at first for concern on my part. At first. My mind was racing, my heart was beating harder than it had in years. It was just her and I, entangled in that tender, innocent moment that I knew, somewhere deep down, should have felt like a betrayal. But it didn't. The world could have ended at that very moment. I wouldn't have cared. Looking back, I'm sure I ended it far too soon.

Her eyes opened less than half of a second after mine, and those piercing golden spheres gazed up at me once more. “You're forgiven, sweetheart. Always forgiven.”