A/N: Here's a quick little Kaider one-shot. If there's enough interest after reading, I might do more, probably with more ships than Kaider, but I don't quite know yet. Anyway, enjoy, and please review to let me know what you think! (Constructive criticism always appreciated!)

Disclaimer: I don't own TLC or the image, sorry. (I'm a klepto. It's getting out of hand. Jk)

Rating: K

Because

"But why?" Kai asked, for what seemed like the thousandth time that day.

Cinder shrugged, a slight upward tilt of her shoulders that sent the neck of her shirt slipping down one arm. "Because."

He groaned. She had been like this ever since she brought it up, strategically-gracefully, even, he thought-evading a real answer to every question he hurled her way. "Because why?" he persisted, flushing as he heard himself, whining like a petulant four-year-old told they weren't allowed any more cookies from the cookie jar. He tried again. "Please, Cinder. Try to string at least five words into an answer, will you?"

That didn't sound much better (it wasn't. It was, in fact, much worse), but she just rolled her eyes. "Oh, I don't know. I'm prone to whims. Obsessed with things I don't need. Secretly trying to become a superhuman-robot hybrid."

Kai arched an eyebrow, mouth tugging down in annoyance. "You're already a superhuman-robot hybrid, Cinder. You have a computer in your head."

She leaned over and kissed him, her soft, cool, decidedly not robotic lips swiping across his cheek and sending a pleasant tingle down his spine. "It's just something I have to do. Trust me on this, okay?"

This, he decided, was the closest thing he was going to get to an answer. He gazed at her across his desk, steepling his fingers to his lips. When she'd first come into his office about fifteen minutes earlier, he didn't know what he'd been expecting to come out of her mouth. (Then again, when did Kai ever know what was going to come out of his fiancée's mouth?)

But it wasn't what passed her lips, which was, "I want to get tear ducts installed."

For a moment, he'd just stared at her. He'd been in the middle of hashing out an immigration deal with the African Union, but his port had shut off, black screen all but forgotten. "Er," he'd said. "What?"

"I want to get tear ducts," Cinder had repeated, flopping down into one of the deceptively-comforting-looking chairs that really weren't very comfortable at all. (Ah, government.) "There's a surgery that can be done. I already talked to Dr. Liu."

Kai blinked. "Why?"

And so the evasion had begun.

He sighed now, shaking his head a bit. He wasn't done asking questions-not even close-and though there were about a billion more whys still left in him, he said something else instead. "Will it make you happy?"

Cinder studied him, as if this hadn't quite been what she was expecting. Kai hid a smile. He loved surprising her; she was so largely unflappable that it seemed a triumph every time he did.

"Yes," she said. "It will."

And that was that, at least for the time being. But a few days later, when she came back into his office after the surgery, somehow looking brighter-eyed than before, his port almost slipped from his fingers.

She stood there in the doorway, titanium hand pressed to her lovely pink lips, her eyes swimming with tears. They were rolling down her cheeks, dripping off her chin and plopping to the floor. Kai was reminded, somehow, of an old story his mother used to tell him at night before she passed away, of a little girl in a pale blue second-era pinafore and white stockings that stepped through a doorway into a strange world and was so confused and bewildered that she made an ocean with her tears.

And suddenly he understood. It was odd, how quickly it came about, as if he'd been struck over the head with a lightning bolt. Boom. She wanted tear ducts so that she could cry. Sometimes, against all reason, it was that simple. There wasn't a complicated answer to every complicated question.

It was a funny thing, crying. He didn't do it often, mostly because his father had always maintained that a strong ruler didn't cry, but Kai had always been of the opposite persuasion. Crying had a way of emptying out the sad and the brutal and the angry, leaving behind an empty niche to fill with better feelings, better thoughts.

He didn't know who or what she was crying for-her sister, Peony, the throne she'd left behind, Cress and Thorne and Scarlet and Wolf and Jacin and Winter so far away, the palace halls she'd emptied, the glimmering lake she'd dived into years before. Maybe she was crying for Levana, or for the mother and father she never knew. Maybe she was crying for the mother she'd gotten that had never really earned her title, or the other sister, the cruel one, that had never learned to love her after so many years.

Maybe it was for him. Kai didn't know. She had so many years to make up for.

He pushed back his chair, striding across the plush vermilion carpet, and wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest, but as he held Cinder, as he felt moisture sink into his pressed, wrinkle-free linen shirt, he had the feeling that somehow, her tears weren't all sadness. Tears could be happy too.

"Shh," he murmured, lips barely brushing her ear. "It's alright. I know. I know."

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Pleased review! ;)