Title: "All That Really Matters"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R
Summary: John Smith and Pocahontas make two very special friends.
Disclaimer: Pocahontas, John Smith, John Rolfe, Meeko, Percy, Flit, Grandmother Willow, and all other characters are all © & TM Disney and are used without permission. Everything else is © & TM Pirate Turner. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this story, and it is for entertainment purposes only.

I'm Standing on a bridge

The cloaked figure stood in silence, his strong arms draped over the bridge's wooden railing. His head lifted, and blue eyes pierced the darkness in search of any sign of the one he loved only to find the only movement belonged to the building storm. Icy fingers blew back strands of his blonde hair, but he only pulled his hood tighter around his face. He knew she wouldn't come, but still he did not seem capable of forcing his booted feet to move. She wouldn't come. He knew that, but he still couldn't leave for without her, he had no heart to go anywhere -- or to even live.

I'm waitin' in the dark
I thought that you'd be here by now

Her thin arms gathered her cloak closer around her slender frame, clinging to the small shelter it granted her from the freezing rain. She turned slowly, her moccasins falling in silence over the snow. Her brown eyes scanned the darkness in search of any sign of the one she loved, but none came and her heart broke a little further. She hadn't really thought that he would be here. It was too dangerous, and perhaps it was even best that he had not shown for at least it should mean that wherever her love was, he was safe.

She couldn't be with him, but still she couldn't stop herself from coming here whenever she dared to steal away from her husband for long enough. Tears stung brown eyes that had once been full of spirit and life but were now dulled with sadness beyond anything that any heart should ever have to know and age beyond her years. She should know better. She should give up on him, but she couldn't. She loved him too much.

There's nothing but the rain
No footsteps on the ground
I'm listening but there's no sound

The wind whistled through the swaying branches, and he could swear that it was laughing at him for being such a fool. His heart believed she still loved him, but his brain knew better. If she truly loved him, she would have been here this night, but she wasn't. It had been years since they had even been able to be alone together and even longer since his aching, lonely arms had been allowed to hold her. Still, he couldn't give up on her. He loved her too much. He always had and would even after the day of his death.

Or the night, he suddenly thought, as he gazed thoughtfully over the bridge. It would be so easy to just jump from here and end it all -- end all the pain, all the misery, all the loneliness, all the heartache. "She wouldn't want you to, you know." The quiet, calm voice made him jump, and he whirled around to face a petite woman with an athletic build who looked up at him through knowing brown eyes.

Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life

He was the only one who had ever truly cared for her. She had believed her family loved her when she had married for their sakes, but she had been so terribly wrong. Her father only wanted her for what she was able to do for their people; they had always and would always come first to him. She had tried to be worthy of being his daughter, had sacrificed everything for her people, but still she couldn't make herself just accept her fate. She had never been one to choose what he expected of her, not until it had came to Rolfe. She had married to keep her people safe -- a people who did not even care enough about her to check on her, a father who did not even love her enough to realize that she was anything but happy or perhaps simply didn't care. After all, what did one woman's happiness matter when held against his people's safety?

She sighed. She wished she could just accept her fate for their sake, but she couldn't. She had never been able to. She loved him too much. She always had, and she always would until the day of her death. Or night, she realized suddenly as her eyes rose and drifted around the dark woods. She could just stay here this night, let the storm and the coldness that already filled her from his long absence take her. They would never dream she had purposefully allowed it. They would think it to be an accident.

It would be so simple, so easy to just end it all here this very night. No one would come looking for her. They only cared about what she would do for them. They didn't really care about her. No one ever had except for Meeko, Percy, Flit, Grandmother Willow, and the man she loved but could not be with, John Smith. It would be so easy, she thought again as she knelt slowly onto the snow.

"You know that is no answer." The calm, gravelly voice caused the Native American to jump to her feet and whirl around. Her brown eyes looked slowly up, traveling the inhuman figure until she met his kind, caring gaze.

She had to fight to find her voice. "Who . . . What . . . Who are you?"

"A friend." He held out a hand to her. "A friend who wants to help." She studied his huge hand whose fingers ended in claws for just a moment before finally slipping her much smaller hand into his offered hand.

Won't you take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
but I... I'm with you

Howling, icy winds rushed around them as they sped through the night. She looked down, her eyes squinting as she tried to make out the difference between the millions of lights and tiny dots that they passed over. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. She knew he was thinking about her just as she was him; she could sense it as surely as she knew her own name.

She had lost all track of time long before they landed and he set her gently on her feet. Other creatures like the one beside her looked in concern at her, but their words just seemed to rush right over her skin. She looked around at their faces, trying desperately to recognize some one but seeing no one she knew and nothing save what she had sensed in her own heart to back up his claim of friendship.

I'm looking for a place
searching for a face
is anybody here I know
cause nothing's going right
and everything's a mess
and no one likes to be alone

"Where are we going?" he demanded through pants as he raced alongside the stranger, running for what he knew not.

She looked back at him, the night winds combing its icy fingers through her long, raven hair. "Just trust me!"

He gave her a strange look when she said those three all-too simple words. It had been a very long time since he had last trusted anybody, but for some reason that he could not explain any way other than a gut instinct, he trusted this odd woman. He continued to run with her, struggling at times to keep up as his crying heart pounded maddeningly. He thought again of the woman he loved. He just wanted to be with her, and although he knew that this stranger could not possibly be leading him to her, that thought and burning need to be with his beloved made him run even faster.

Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
but I... I'm with you

Brown eyes peered up at the towering, gentle creature beside her. "I do not understand," she spoke slowly, shaking her head. "Why did you bring me here?"

"Wait," was his only reply, "and you will find out." He ushered the others away and into the building. A door shut, and she found herself alone on the rooftop of a tower.

oh why is everything so confusing
maybe I'm just out of my mind
yea yea yea

That had to be it. She must have finally slipped over the edge. How else could any one, even Disney, explain what was happening to her? Whoever heard of giant men with strangely colored skins and claws any way, men who appeared more like bats than anything else she had ever seen? A door slammed against concrete as it was thrown open, and Pocahontas whirled back around to see . . .

It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
but I... I'm with you

He walked through the door . . . and into another world. He froze, his hand still on the knob, and blinked severely. His eyes must be playing cruel tricks on him. It couldn't possibly be her!

She stood as still as a statue as she watched him move until he froze in the doorway, his blue eyes wide. She could not believe her eyes, but still her quavering voice somehow found strength that she did not think she still possessed. "J-John?"

Her beautiful voice caressed his eyes and sounded lovelier than the most beautiful music he could imagine. "Pocahontas!"

They ran at each other, their hearts leaping for joy as their feet pounded the cold stone beneath them. The icy winds whipped around them, but they no longer felt the cold even as a gust knocked his hood off of his head and completely stole her cloak, sending one of their strange watchers chasing after it in the night air. Rain pelted them, but they did not care. All that mattered was that they were finally together and there was nothing here in this strange place to stop them and keep them from each other. Their bodies crashed together in a tight hug, their arms wrapping securely around each other and squeezing as if to keep the rest of the world far away from them, and their lips met in the searing kiss that both had craved desperately for for so long, bringing a resurgence of life, hope, faith, and most of all, love.

The chorus of applause that went up from just inside the door and the whistles from higher in the air went unnoticed by both. Standing in the doorway, a massive arm slid around a slender waist, and a man pulled the woman he loved closer to his side as Goliath and Elisa Maza continued to protectively watch over the other couple, their grins just as broad as the rest of their family's.

Take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
but I... I'm with you
I'm with you

All else was lost to John Smith and Pocahontas as they continued to kiss each other. Their hands roamed each other's bodies, caressing every inch of the curves and muscles that they had both dreamed of for so long. Their tongues plunged into one another's mouths as they clung more tightly and closer together, desperately seeking to quench their long-building fires in the only thing that had ever been able to satisfy and also spark those fires -- each other. Their hands lovingly caressed each other's faces as their tears began to fall, dropping into the heated, sensual embrace of their kiss.

Take me by the hand
take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are
but I... I'm with you
I'm with you
I'm with you...

An old gargoyle looked on with tears shining in his eyes. Hudson clasped Goliath's shoulder as he whispered softly to him, "Well played, my boyo; well played." His ancient gaze traveled the rest of his family, and his smile grew as he saw Broadway and Lexington struggling to keep hold of the Princess' trio of furry brethren and realized that Brooklyn had managed to retrieve her cloak. His gaze turned back to the lovers as memories flashed over his mind's eye. He had owed a certain tree a debt from long ago, and this was how she had finally chosen for him to repay her. Though they did not know it yet, John Smith and Pocahontas had just became a part of his clan, and they would protect them and see to it that they were finally able to live the lives they had deserved all along.

Still, John Smith and Pocahontas continued to kiss. They did not understand how such creatures as the gargoyles could be real or why they had chosen to help them. John Smith only knew one thing -- he was finally united with the one he loved more than life itself, the one he would do anything to live out the rest of his days and nights with. Pocahontas only knew one more as she could hear Meeko, Percy, and Flit: her family was whole. They were whole. They were together, and there was nothing to keep them apart. And that's all that really mattered.

The End