THE DAYS IN FEBRUARY
by Cappucinno

Day 14, Part Two. Valentine

Zelda drummed the fingers of her left hand nervously on the countertop as the phone rang. She told herself that the only reason she was calling Link on Valentine's Day was because Malon had failed to show up at her apartment for their annual Valentine's Singles dinner.

There was no other reason she was calling Link Forester on Valentine's Day. None.

And if he thought there was, then that was his problem.

Ring… Ring…

Zelda contemplated hanging up.

Ring…

But that would make it seem like she was second guessing herself.

Ring… Ring…

Which wouldn't happen if she were only calling to discover her best friend's whereabouts.

She stayed on the line, fingers still drumming out their nervous marching tune.

"Zelda?"

"Link!" Zelda's heart lurched in response and she took a deep breath. "I mean. Hey. I'm looking for Mal—"

"Real quick, Zel—do you have any plans for tonight?" Link sounded uncharacteristically rushed.

Zelda's fingers froze on the countertop.

"…Zelda? Hello?"

"I was supposed to…" Her resolve was replaced with a decidedly unwelcome rush of nervousness. Before she could process her response her mouth was opening and she was spewing out words that would later come to regret. "—No. No, I don't have any plans."

"Great." Zelda kicked herself. "Do you want to come meet me at the bakery?"

"No."

"…What?"

"I mean, fine."

"Fine? You don't have to, Zel."

"Sure. I meant, sure."

Zelda didn't know what she'd been expecting when she'd showed up at Beyond Bizarre Bakery that night, but it wasn't this. She'd barely walked through the front door before Link came bursting out of the staff room, arms piled precariously high with fresh steaming food and clattering coffee mugs.

"Zelda!" Link was half-shouting to be heard over the loud stream of Sinatra and Dean Martin that blared in the background, but Zelda could see the relief on his face. "Thank Din you're here!"

What had she gotten herself into? She stared at the restaurant, bewildered.

Couples and singles alike filled every available seating area, flooding the familiar booths and bistro tables. Candles that might have passed for romantic if they weren't green lit the tables and blinking Christmas lights twinkled from where they had been haphazardly hung over the wall sconces and tucked into the ceiling boards.

Link was bustling around the restaurant—aided by some long-haired surfer looking man—depositing food, drinks, and plentiful smiles to the waiting patrons. He was admirably efficient, dashing in every way, and oozing the classic Link charm.

Even so, there was no getting around it. He was in way over his head.

If it hadn't been Link, Zelda was sure that someone would have ended up with food in their lap or coffee tipping all over their table. As it was, the service was just as perfect as the food itself. Except… well, it didn't have the element that Beyond Bizarre was known for.

There wasn't any time for relaxed banter or a friendly back and forth, no feeling of camaraderie or the personal element that so many came to look for there.

Zelda looked down at her carefully picked black dress—just barely above knee-length, a tasteful scoop neckline, wide straps but no sleeves—and sighed. As Link made his way over she slipped the wide silver cuff bracelet off her wrist and into her bag along with her pearl necklace.

By the time he made it to her, hands now empty, she was plainly adorned save for her heels. She thanked Nayru that she hadn't ended up doing much with her makeup, because that one could have been hard to explain.

Oh, hi Link. I just came to help all dressed up looking like I was ready for a date. Not that I thought it was a date, I just love dressing up to waitress.

Somehow, she didn't think she would have lived that one down.

"Zelda!" He said, breathless and just the slightest bit flushed. "Sorry about this, I don't have much time but can you—"

She put a hand on his arm, guiding the restaurant owner back towards the kitchen at a brisk pace.

"Walk and talk, Link. What can I do?" She was proud to say that her voice was all business, no disappointed female.

Link sighed in relief and took the lead, placing a hand on her back and marching her into the kitchen at a pace that outstripped her own. He released her when he reached the kitchen area and rushed back to the industrial griddle and prep area, presumably returning to what he had been doing before she got there and making orders at rapid speed from the slips pinned up to the hood of the stovetop.

"I'm backed up here, but it's pretty simple—sorry, I just don't have the time to do all this myself. What I need you to do is…"

He proceeded to rattle off the order system even as he slid plates of completed food to her and she scrambled to arrange the platters and garnish the plates. She memorized table numbers and locations, people's names, how they liked their food, how to hold a tray of food and drink without spilling anything and hit the ground running.

She rushed around the tables with the surfer-looking waiter—she'd learned his name with Shane—dropping off orders and making small talk, laughing and smiling where appropriate. After the initial rush, Link himself came back out with trays of his own and this time he wasn't rushing.

He stopped at the tables, smiling and asking how people were—how've you been? How's the family? The dog doing well? Your kid walking yet?—and the Beyond Bizarre vibe came back. Somehow, between the three of them, Beyond Bizarre ran smoothly that crazy Valentine's Day night.

Shane rushed around the tables, Link alternately slaved between the kitchen and visiting his customers, and Zelda worked in the gray space between hostess, waitress, and kitchen manager. They worked late into the night, until Link began to turn down the cheerful and melodic background noise of the Rat Pack, and the last of the Valentine's Day crowd had begun to trickle out.

The last customer had come alone and didn't leave until well after 11 pm, when Link finally shut the kitchen down and lied about the espresso machine being broken. It took the combined efforts of Link and Zelda to get him out the door and when he finally did they both took a deep breath and basked in the silence of Beyond Bizarre.

"Whew," Link said, sinking down into a chair at one of the now empty tables. "Big night."

Zelda became acutely aware of how much her feet hurt in the black pumps she'd unwisely chosen to wear and settled herself in a chair opposite Link. They were both silent for a while, letting the comfortable silence fall in.

"I don't know how you do this every day." Zelda said after a few minutes, sliding her shoes off. "Really, it's lot."

"Well, it usually doesn't get so packed." There was a pause and she scowled at him even before he continued speaking. "And I usually don't work in heels."

"Shut up." Zelda quipped, without any of the usual bite. She smiled across the table at him, telling herself that it was just a side effect of physical exhaustion that she felt a little warmth in her chest.

Link smiled lazily back at her and there was something in his eyes—always a beautiful blue, but deeper somehow tonight—that she couldn't place. Between them, one of the green candles that he'd set out was flickering with its last breath.

Zelda tried to ignore the way the candlelight made the light and shadows around them dance.

"Can I just ask what's up with the green candles?"

"I kind of… forgot it was February. They were left over from last year's St. Patrick's Day." Link had the decency to look sheepish, his warm smile turning into the more familiar crooked grin.

"You had candles leftover from St. Patrick's Day but not Valentine's Day? Do you even really need candles for St. Patrick's?" Zelda raised a brow at him.

"We usually don't have a Valentine's Day service."

Zelda blinked over the table at him. Link just shrugged and didn't quite meet her gaze.

The silence fell over them again. Somewhere in the background, the music stopped playing and the candle burned out.

"Zelda…" Link's voice was different, somehow, from its usual tone. There was nothing teasing or taunting, no false charm, just something soft and earnest that made her heart stop. "Look—"

"Hey man, I'm heading out for the night!" The both jumped as Shane walked into the room, fussing with a black backpack. "I nabbed some leftovers before I cleaned the kitchen up, sorry if you wanted any man—"

Shane stopped talking and looked curiously at the both of them.

"Oh dude. Sorry, did I interrupt something?"

"Nope." Link's voice was back to normal and that boyish smile came back. Zelda's heart resumed beating. "Thanks for sticking around, Shane. See you tomorrow!"

Shane shrugged and said his good nights before slipping out the door and disappearing down the block.

Link rose, stretching his arms up above his head with a satisfied noise.

"Well, we should head out too. It's been a long night."

They made the walk back to the apartment complex in relative silence and the night around them was still. At one o'clock in the morning, the streets were empty of the bustling Valentine's Day crowd.

The moon was doing something funny to Zelda's thoughts and when they were half a block from their respective apartments she reached for Link's hand. It was warmer than she expected, solid and strong as it closed immediately around her own.

Neither of them said anything at all.

That last stretch of the walk felt the longest, the crisp pre-dawn air a stark contrast to the warmth she felt. They stopped, at last in front of her door. Link turned to face her, his grip on her hand loosening but not quite dissipating.

"I just wanted to thank you, again." His voice was weird again, Zelda noticed distantly. "I don't know what we would have done without you."

"It's no problem, it was actually a lot of fu—"

"I wasn't done talking." A little bit of his usual wryness returned and she stilled as he put a finger to her lips to shush her. "As I was saying, it would have been a mess without you. You really saved me tonight. I owe you big time."

Zelda opened her mouth and Link pinched it shut. She scowled.

"I'm still talking. Stop making that face." She stopped. "And I just wanted to say… you looked really nice tonight. You probably dressed up—no, Zelda, still talking here—" She scowled some more. Link rolled his eyes. "I'm trying to apologize here. Let me finish."

Zelda moved to put her hands up in surrender, forgetting about Link's hand intertwined with hers. Their linked hands were next to her face and she found herself staring at them.

His hand dwarfed hers, his skin more golden than her own. His hands were callused and there were old burns on his knuckles that she'd never noticed before and—and his lips were really warm against her forehead.

Her eyes shut, her heart pounding dangerously fast. She felt Link's hand squeeze hers tightly and then the feeling of his lips on her forehead disappeared. Her eyes opened, her mind feeling foggy and her thoughts frustratingly distant.

The first thing she registered was Link looking at her in that weird way again—and then he was smiling. His smile was hesitant and uncertain, not as cocksure as she was used to and his hand released hers.

She stared at him and he cleared his throat.

"I just wanted to apologize if you were disappointed. I wasn't thinking about the fact that it was Valentine's Day when you called and what you might have thought, then I asked you to come over and—"

"Link?" Zelda's thoughts still weren't quite coming together. "Stop talking."

He did so.

Zelda nodded. "Good." She fumbled with her key and it took her an embarrassing three times to unlock her door. She turned back to him, only just noticing that he was still looking apprehensive and uncertain.

Her only thought was that this really wasn't a good idea and she'd never live it down, but it wasn't enough to stop her from doing it.

Zelda sighed and fisted his shirt, yanking him rather forcefully down and pressing her lips against his. She melted a little, still not releasing his shirt, even as she felt him go still. His lips were warm against her own, warmer than before, warmer than his hands, and she sighed into the kiss.

After a moment she let go of his shirt and moved back to look at his face, feeling distinctly dizzy. He was staring back at her looking like he'd been frozen in place.

She raised one finger, looking and feeling a little drunk despite the fact that she'd had nothing to drink.

"One time thing," She heard herself saying through the haze in her head. "Cause it's Valentine's Day."

Link nodded dumbly and she felt a vague sense of accomplishment.

"Okay. Goodnight."

The door shut.

Link stayed frozen in the hallway, staring at nothing.

A/N: Kind of odd to do Valentine's Day in October, but there you go! We're officially halfway through this story now, woo! Thanks for sticking around so long, despite my erratic update schedule. I guess the only thing I can ask you guys is... what do you think? I had fun with this, even if it took me a while. I hope you guys enjoyed the longer update-it's my thank you for being so patient.

Until next time,

Cappucinno