Second Nature
Disclaimer: I don't own them, and I'm sure they'd be stunned to find out that I actually can write a canon couple.
Sometimes, the most amazing and memorable moments of a person's life can start from something so altogether ordinary that it's become almost second nature.
So it was with a young woman, already trained and qualified as a nurse despite having yet to reach her twenties, when she hurried into her place of work one Autumn afternoon to find her boss making a terrible racket looking for something in his desk.
Oh, heavens, she lamented silently, not entirely able to put into thought, much less into words, the idea that he might not find things going missing quite so much if he would put them back where they belonged once in a while.
"Um, Doctor?" Gina called tentatively as she closed the Clinic door quietly behind her and watched in bewilderment as the dark-haired man rooted frantically through the drawers.
Alex jumped slightly.
"Oh! Gina," he noted, smiling a warm greeting. "I didn't see you there."
She blushed sheepishly.
"I'm sorry if I startled you. Are you looking for something?"
As soon as she said it, she winced at such a silly question.
No, nothing at all, I just like to rummage around in the desk for a little exercise. Oh, he probably thinks I'm a silly child...
"Ah, no!" he all but yelped, stepping quickly in front of her as she moved toward the desk to help him look. "I-I think I remember where I left it," he added hastily as a look of baffled hurt crept into sweet honey-brown eyes.
"I might be able to help," she suggested hopefully, trying to step around him.
His hand shot out to stop her, and he grew brightly red around the ears as his palm brushed into warm, firm contact with one full, nicely shaped breast.
"I'm sorry about that," he laughed nervously, all the more nervously for being uncomfortably aware that it was no more than half true. "Don't worry about it, Gina. I'll just keep looking.
"But if I help you, you'll find it sooner, won't you?"
What a dastardly weapon, this logic, he thought with a wince. What was the natural enemy of logic, again? Ah, yes; and what was the natural enemy of logic, that didn't involve simply drinking until it lost all meaning?
By the time Alex's overactive imagination had calmed to the point that it was no longer filled with appealing mental images of an uncharacteristically rowdy, drunken Gina, topless, with shimmering pale blue hair falling in thick waves down to brush against smooth pale skin of a gently curved waist, she had already begun to pull out the bottom drawer of the desk and sift carefully through it.
"Hey, wait a minute!" he protested.
She peeked over her shoulder.
"Doctor, you told me just the other day that I should feel free to look through your desk for whatever I might need if it wasn't out in the open. Did you recently put something in here I shouldn't see?"
He winced again.
"N-no, of course not."
After all, if he had been looking for the past hour with no sign of it, what were the odds that she would find it, with only a few minutes left before Dia would come blustering in, panicking over the strange rash on her neck or complaining that the changing weather was making her head ache, or—
Gina froze, and gave a choking little gasp.
Absolutely uncanny, Alex decided, uncertain whether to be incredibly impressed or deeply annoyed, as the pretty young woman dropped a beautiful feather of deep, shimmering royal blue back into the drawer as though she had been burned, and straightened up abruptly.
"I-I'm sorry, Doctor, I shouldn't have pried."
He caught her arm as she tried to hurry past him to the door,
"Gina, wait a minute."
She watched him curiously, the misery gathering in her eyes nowhere near transforming to tears, because she just had too much common sense for that, he thought with a baffled sort of admiration.
"Listen, this was supposed to be a surprise. I wanted to do it the night of the Full Moon Festival, with the night air around us, and the stars overhead, and...well, surroundings slightly more romantic than cots and medical paraphernalia."
Her eyes, already wide with surprise, widened a little more, and he moved one hand to her waist as she grew several shades paler and began to wobble a bit.
"But," he continued, lifting her chin with his free hand, "as long as you've found it for me, what do you think? Could you stand to live with such a disorganized husband?"
"I-I think I could," she replied after a brief moment, a sob shaking her voice slightly.
He laughed, startled, as a teardrop landed at his wrist; Gina, who never cried, was sniffling desperately, and snatching off her glasses as they began to fog slightly. Taking them and setting them gently on the desk, he pulled at the ribbons confining her hair to its long braids, and ran one hand through the thick mass, delighting in the cool silky texture between his fingers, and in the soft pink flush that filled her cheeks as she tried to pull away and hide her face shyly.
"Don't do that," he pleaded softly. "You're beautiful, and something tells me no one's ever told you that."
"Dia did, once," she said. Then she smiled, blush deepening, as she reached up to brush her palm almost reverently over his cheek.
A small difference, between touching to clean out a scrape or bandage a strained wrist, and touching just to touch, but a difference that she was already coming to love dearly.
Just now, it felt very strange, but soon enough, touching and kissing him like this and smiling peacefully and making these happy little purring noises as he touched and kissed her back, would be just like second nature.
End Notes: I'm starting to reconcile myself to being the only Gina fan in existence. I can't help it! She's just so cute, and sweet, and kind...and those glasses! C'mon, it's the cute li'l nerds who really know how to party. Alex is a lucky, lucky man. :D