Disclaimer: I do not own Galactik Football.

Doors

"I told you, you'd get bored and cold here," Rocket said, shaking his head when he caught her trying to hide her teeth clattering slightly. He walked over to a nearby cupboard and grabbed a blanket from inside.

"I'm not bored, or cold," Tia argued back, "I just..." she trailed off, unsure whether it'd be good to state she had missed him. The reason she had missed him was because he had done a change of plans and left Aarch Academy and had been staying with his family and that was because of the miscarriage. It'd both remind him the situation at home and also make him feel guilty for neglecting her. And she didn't want him to feel worse than he already did.

She watched him stride towards her and spread the blanket on his way, wondering why she had grown so accustomed to his presence anyway. All her life, all her friends, everyone she knew had been temporary save for her parents and Stella; she didn't get attached so quickly.

He threw the blanket around her form and engulfed her into the quite very welcome warmth.

"You just?" Rocket raised an eyebrow as he rubbed his hands over her arms.

"Never mind," Tia said, "What are you doing now?"

"I'll build a door to the cave, so that you won't get cold when you're here," Rocket explained pacing about his secret place, shuffling through stuff. The cradle he had built was now back here, standing amidst the wood he had used for it, to spare his parents having to see it all the time. His gaze lasted on it for a second too long before he turned back to searching for hinges.

"How can I help?" Tia asked, discarding the blanket and following him.

"By staying under that blanket," Rocket answered, throwing her a stern glance over his shoulder.

"But I can help, Rocket! I want to!"

"Why would you? You never did any manual work in your whole life as far as I can tell, and this one's just a stupid thing I do to get things off my head."

He stood up, hinges and a few nails in hand and walked up to the entrance of his cave.

Tia watched the wind from outside thread through his dreadlocks as he looked for the best parts of the tree branch that the hinges could go into.

"I like doing things with you," she admitted quietly.

"You'll be building a door with me," Rocket reminded her, still concentrated on his work, his tone leaving no room to hope it could be a fun activity.

"I like doing everything with you?" Tia suggested.

"Everything?" Rocket asked bemused, turning towards her then, "Does that include, fighting and arguing and..."

"It actually does," Tia cut him.

He watched her face for a long moment before he said:

"Pass me that monkey wrench, will you?"


"You're late," Norata said, looking over at him from the kitchen door.

"Yeah, sorry," Rocket took off his hoodie and hung it to the cloakroom, "I had to give Tia a ride back to Academy."

"Oh, she was with you then?" Norata smiled, "How's she?"

"She's good," Rocket went past him into the kitchen and checked what was in the oven, falling victim to his grumbling stomach and folloing his nose, "She sends her regards."

Norata nodded:

"We already ate but there's some chicken for you."

Rocket took it out and started to arrange a meal for himself; Norata brought out some salad from the refrigerator as his son cut a few slices of bread.

"Does Aarch want you back?" Norata asked serving him some water.

"I don't know."

"He probably does," they sat at each ends of their small table in the kitchen, "You are the captain and not training regularly may affect your health too."

"I go to the trainings, Dad," Rocket said, as he reached for the salt.

"After which you come directly over here," Norata countered, "Dame Simbai is probably going crazy over not having the record of everything you eat –no, eat that chicken, your mom made it, it's healthy."

"She made it?" Rocket looked up in surprise.

"She insisted she made it," Norata said, "I told her not to worry but she said something about feeling useless and then I let her."

"It's probably for the better," Rocket said, taking a slice, "She should do something to get her mind off of... you know. And it's delicious!"

Norata sulked:

"You were never so hyped over my chicken."

"No offence, Dad," Rocket said, savouring the meal, "You make a lot of great stuff but this... is a masterpiece."

Norata shook his head but stole a piece from the plate, too.

"Is she better then?" Rocket asked quietly, "If she can stand around so much..."

"Yes, she says the pain is barely there now," he took a bite, "It really is delicious, she never made that one before. But I think we can start taking short walks tomorrow morning."

"Isn't it a bit soon?"

"The doctor said as soon as she can endure it, she can do it. And she wants to do it, says it's boring to lie down all day."

"Well, then, if you start with a really short one..."

"Don't worry about it, I can't go around walking long distances, too," he sent a vague nod towards his crippled leg.

Rocket instantly felt bad about it. It wasn't pity he felt, no, he just thought it was not fair. Tia had said they were still young enough to have children but both his parents were physically hurt now, not to mention the emotional baggage they had had to carry through their lives.

He was losing his appetite but he dug his fork into his meal and ate as not to let it go to waste.


He woke the next day to notice it had snowed during the night. His parents were gone with a note that said they would be back in a few hours and since it actually was not an early-morning-training day he decided to have a good breakfast and watch some sports. He found a laid out breakfast instead and as he munched over it in the kitchen, he noticed the snow had blocked the entrance to the flower shop over the night. His father probably thought it was more important to take his mother out for a walk if he hadn't taken care of it already. He decided he could skip watching sports; he had enough of it in his life.

So after placing the dishes into the washer and having his regular morning coffee, he grabbed the thick gloves, found the old shovel, tucked the hems of his pants into his boots and left to take care of the snow mound after dressing up securely in his hoodie.

Not that he hadn't been doing such things since he had been a little boy –what with his father not being at the top of his health and himself being actually quite interested in building things- but he couldn't help noticing he had been throwing himself at manual work to get his mind off of everything lately. Maybe it wouldn't work for other people, but it did for him; it gave him time and space to sort things out. And when he couldn't do anything in the face of the events, like now, it made him feel useful.

It was almost an hour later, when he began to lose the sense of his fingertips and sweat going down his back was getting really annoying, that he heard someone call:

"Don't shovel much, do you?"

Rocket whipped around to find a Keira three times the size of her normal self smiling at him with mischief. She seemed to be wearing Norata's parka over her own coat, as well as a scarf which she seemed to grow tired of as she took off her neck.

"No, not recently but I used to do it a lot..." Rocket said, digging the shovel into the snow and taking his cap off to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

"Well, no, I..." Keira smiled somewhat sheepishly, "I was quoting a movie, actually," she said.

"Oh," Rocket blinked and pulled his cap down on his dreads once more, "What was I supposed to say then?"

"'What made you say that?'" Keira supplied.

"What made you say that?" Rocket repeated.

"Just your technique," Keira bounced on her feet somewhat girlishly, "You're taking it a bit too sloppy. You either live in the city or the warm climate."

Rocket raised an eyebrow in question; "City," Keira prompted. "City," he said.

She smiled and walked up to him: "Not bad. You might have taken after me on some things after all."

He shuffled his feet with an embarrassed grin: "I do look quite a bit like you."

"So do you," Keira looked up at her son, who was already taller than her, seemingly trying to read all of his young history on his features -everything from his slanty golden eyes to his straight nose to his stubborn chin to his high cheekbones to that blended skin colour that screamed he was a creation of Norata and hers.

She bit her lip, she didn't want to cry, but she had missed on so much and it had resulted with this beautiful young boy feeling awkward around her when they were supposed to be –they could have been- closer than anyone else.

She dropped her eyes, and she could tell he had the same posture as the only man she ever loved –that agile strong way he carried himself (even when disabled) passed down to his son without a lost trace.

Tears welled up and she hated it but knew it was a lost cause; her medic kept on rambling about hormones and that psychiatric joked that she should force herself to cry if she had to (she had dryly pointed out that acting was not forcing one's self to cry) and well it all had to be damned, because she had lost another baby and couldn't help blaming herself again.

Rocket stood shell shocked, having no experience of taking care of a woman, let alone handling a crying one, let alone handling a crying mother. He would never tell anyone but he would forever feel indebted to Tia for hugging him on the day she had learnt of the miscarriage; because it was that radiant memory on his mind that whispered to his ear to remind him how comforting it had felt.

So, he raised his arms and enveloped his mother –two coats over and all- in his embrace, awkwardly, clumsily, without knowing what else to do, but feeling, deep down, that they had opened a door somehow.

Keira smiled into his son's chest.

He smelled like his father.


Phew! This took forever, eh? And once again I'm not sure about it because I wrote it in bits and pieces but hopefully it still works *fingers crossed*

Credits: I think I read about Rocket shovelling somewhere, I'm not certain it might be on one of the roleplays but yeah that inspired this.

Also the movie Keira was quoting was "Beautiful Girls".