From a Distance
Disclaimer: I do not own Galactik Football and I make no money from this fanfiction.
Tia could barely remember a time when she hadn't had a video-camera. An advantage of having parents as diplomats was that they could afford expensive toys as a sort of substitute for them actually being there to raise her. It allowed them to devote themselves to work, guilt-free, leaving her to her own devices under the supervision of a governess.
She hadn't liked many of her other gifts, she wasn't interested in dolls or computer games. She loved her video-camera though. She'd had the Breath from a young age too; it was her secret, just something else to mark her out from the other children. She rarely got to meet other children, she was home schooled, her parents thought she needed to be sheltered, protected. They wanted her to inherit their legacy.
When she was with other people she felt even more isolated, she could never quite relate. That was where the camera came in handy, it meant you could be there but you didn't have to be a part of the action. She was always on the outside of the scene, looking in, recording it for posterity. You could see so much from that viewpoint; more than you could if you were involved in the events.
She wouldn't just film people; she'd film things from her window, the birds flying freely through the air, swooping so joyfully. She'd always felt envious of birds. Football seemed the same as flying although she knew there was no chance she'd ever play football properly, she didn't even live on Akillian and even if she did there wasn't a decent team there anyway, not since the ice-age begun. Neglecting all those reasons, there was also the fact that her parents would never allow it. She had to make do with the freedom of others.
When Aarch returned to Akillian she knew she had her chance and she took it with both hands. She had crashed and it had been down to Rocket, then a complete stranger to save her. From the first moment she'd known that she was going to end up with Rocket, they were two of a kind; it made sense that they'd band together, as a sort of protection.
Rocket was as a shy as she was, shier even; he didn't have the lens of a camera to protect him. His father wanted to prevent him from football too (although Norata's reasoning was entirely different from her parents'). And sure, he'd saved her from her exploding ship, but she'd saved him by convincing him how much he needed football to survive. Many years later he'd save her from falling by using the Breath and she'd pay him back by saving him from Netherball. A relationship of equals; so different to the one-sided relationship of the observer and the observed. He saw things as clearly as she did; he had become their Captain because he always managed to spot the weaknesses in their opponents strategy.
They had their argument, petty things, usually as a result of Rocket not knowing when to stop running. He always came back though even if she had to drag him back herself. Rocket was always somewhat impressionable; he found it too easy to slip into a role; the goody-goody shy guy or the opposite, a violent psychopath. It's too extreme, Rocket needs to Tia to anchor him, to let him be himself somewhere in the middle of the scale. Tia knew she always had to watch him though; it didn't take much for him to fall.
She found her place with the Snow Kids, she belonged there, everyone accepted her there and she could be herself. More and more often she found herself on the inside, observing what surrounded her, a contrast to her previous perspective of being distant, looking on with envy.
But still she watched although not as closely as before.
That's it! It's short but it just popped into my head, I was writing a completely different fic and I was really stuck and hence this happened. It's weird for me to be writing a canon, het pairing though! Please review to tell me what you think!