Chapter 21: Can't Wait

A plate of some kind of amorphous gray mass that vaguely resembled food sat in front of Samus as she restlessly pushed it around with her fork-like utensil. She was sitting next to Zelda at some kind of table made out of that metallic-stone material that seemed to dominate the Luminoths' structures throughout Aether. The moth aliens looked on as Samus played with the strange food, wondering how long it would take for them to give in and stop insisting she eat it.

"So let me get this straight," the bounty hunter said, hugging the soft gray cloak tightly around her shoulders. She had been cold upon waking up in the infirmary, and they had given her the warm garment to make up for the fact that all she had on was the two-piece workout set. "Zelda couldn't heal me because Ganon used the Wonder of Shadow to amplify his own power? But you guys showed her how to use the Wonder of Light to counteract that?"

U-Mos nodded as he looked down at the mostly-human woman. "That is correct. The Wonders are not simply useful as a set, but each has its own unique ability, and they can only be utilized by those who hold a fragment of the Seventh Wonder, or those magic triangles as you've referred to them."

Samus raised her eyebrows and pushed around the weird food on her plate a little more, earning her a disapproving look from Zelda. "So it wasn't the light of Aether. That yellow ball did it. I guess the water one does something with water and the forest one… what the hell kind of magic do you do with a forest ball?"

U-Mos made a sound like sighing and pressed one of his feathery digits to the place where the bridge of his nose would have been. "Unfortunately, I don't have all of the answers. As I was saying earlier, these were creations of the Chozo… because apparently they thought this was a good idea. For some reason."

"I take it you don't agree with that decision?"

"The Chozo were… a complicated people. They certainly had some very roundabout ways of doing things, and often pushed the limits of their own control a little too far. I suppose that's why they had a tendency to seal away and hide the things they could no longer control and lacked the power to destroy, like SR-388 for example."

"SR-388?" The name sounded familiar, but Samus could not remember the context in which she had heard of it. After so many years, certain aspects of her time with the Chozo were vague memories, particularly the sorts of experiments they conducted away from Zebes. The details had never been relevant to her during the years of her training, so she had never bothered to learn them.

U-Mos brushed away her question with a wave of his hand-like appendage. "Not relevant. What matters now is that your wounds have been healed and Zelda has learned how to unlock the powers within the Wonders."

Samus nodded, poking the food again, determined not to have to taste it.

"It would help, Savior," U-Mos said as he stared at her playing with the food, "if you actually ate the nourishment we formulated for you so you can fully regain your strength and head back out to continue your fight."

"Eh… I've got stuff on my ship," the bounty hunter tried to protest, but all it earned her was an angry look from Zelda.

"Look, you," the princess began, her tone a touch harsher and more confident than usual, "I just brought you back from near death. We traveled across a galaxy to get here, and you've had dark magic coursing through your veins for nearly two weeks. Your injuries might be all healed up, but dammit, Samus, eat something other than those freeze-dried garbage bricks you call food. U-Mos and the Luminoth prepared this specifically for you, for your body and genetic make-up. Of all things, now is not the time to be a picky eater."

Samus frowned and made a small growling noise under her breath, but she relented. It didn't matter to her that all of the Luminoth were staring her down, waiting for her to take a bite of the gray blobs, but Zelda was another story. Slowly, she looked down, scooped some of the weird almost-gelatinous substance onto her utensil, and took just a small enough bite of it that she could taste it and feel its bizarre text in her mouth. Swallowing it was not a pleasant ordeal, but it wasn't as bad as she had expected it to be.

"That wasn't so bad, now was it?" Zelda asked, and Samus made a face like she had just sucked on a lemon. "Now you're just being dramatic…"

"Do you want to try some?" Samus held the plate out toward Zelda and the princess rolled her eyes.

"Give me that," she said, snatching the utensil away from Samus and helping herself to a spork-ful of the goo. As she swallowed it, she shrugged. "Honestly an improvement over those MRE things you made me eat."

Samus made a face and grudgingly took the spork-looking thing back from Zelda as she proceeded to begin eating the nutrient-rich mass that was neither quite a liquid nor a solid. She shoveled it down and didn't look up until she was finished, only to flash Zelda a miserable look as the princess grinned.

"Don't you feel better now?" she asked.

"My internal organs are filled with gray blobs. I don't know how I feel about this."

Though she wouldn't admit it aloud, Samus actually did feel better. It was like a layer of fatigue just dissolved even though she hadn't realized she had been carrying it. In fact, she felt better than she had since before the ill-fated battle where they had lost the Wonder of Fire.

"Back to business though," Samus said before Zelda could say anything else. "The Wonders. We've got like… three or four of them. Forest, Water, Light, and your triangle plus Link's triangle. We know Ridley and Ganon have Fire and Shadow plus his triangle. That only leaves one more, and we've been down so long I'm sure they've found it by now."

"Respectfully, Savior," U-Mos began as the bounty hunter and princess both looked over to him, "I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet."

"Oh?" Samus raised an eyebrow as U-Mos raised his long feathery arms above his head.

"The Chozo were an unusual people," he continued as an orb of light began to form in his outstretched hands. Light from the rest of the area around them seemed drawn into the center of it, and the two women stared on in amazement. "But they were also good close allies of the Luminoth." He cupped his hands together as the light faded, and as he lowered them, he held them out to Samus, revealing a small orange sphere in his feathery palms. "They left us a few gifts before they departed."

Samus's eyes widened as she looked up from U-Mos's outstretched hands and then back down at the orange orb. Amazed by how he had seemed to conjure it out of thin air, Samus slowly reached out and took the Wonder of Spirit.

"It was here this whole time?" she asked, and the Luminoth Sentinel nodded, placing one hand over her heart and bowing.

"I wanted to wait until you were well before I revealed it. I wished only to aid you on this quest, so please forgive me for not giving this to you when you arrived, but you were gravely injured, and I knew you would be incapacitated for quite some time."

Samus just nodded, staring down at the Wonder. "Thank you."

"Yes," Zelda added. "Thank you, U-Mos, for everything you've done. We are so grateful for such generosity from the Luminoth."

U-Mos just held up his hand and brushed away her sentiments. "It was the very least we could do. There is a reason we refer to our Savior as we do, and it's because she single-handedly fought and ended a cycles-long war and saved all of our lives in the process. We can never truly repay her courage and her service, but we are thankful for the opportunity to be of what little help we can."

Zelda glanced over to Samus with a look of pride and something like adoration, and the hunter could feel her face getting red as she looked away.

"That's Samus," Zelda said, practically beaming as Samus could still feel the princess's eyes on her. "She's a hero. A true hero."

"Stop it," Samus muttered under her breath as she finally looked back over to Zelda. "I'm a mercenary. Link is a hero. He did that whole ocarina of time and magical sword thing. I just do the missions I'm assigned."

"No one at your Federation," U-Mos began in an almost-smug tone, "assigned you to save our dying world and restore the Light of Aether. And no one compensated you for that. You may not wield the Triforce of Courage, Savior, but there is more than one way to be a hero."

Samus could feel her face getting red as she averted her eyes, but then she felt Zelda's hand on hers and looked over to see the princess just about glowing as she looked at the hunter. Samus wasn't sure what to say, but something about the other woman's smile and her soft touch made her want to throw her arms around her and vow never to fail to protect her again as she had in the battle against Ganon. She felt it again, that feeling welling up inside of her and threatening to explode, and she knew she was hopelessly in love with the Hylian princess. And it terrified her.

It took her a moment to tear herself away from Zelda's bright blue eyes as she looked back down at the Wonder of Spirit and tried to gather her thoughts. With a few deep breaths, she was able to compose herself as she finally turned to Zelda again.

"I guess there isn't anything else we need to do here," she said, getting a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. "We just have to figure out where to go next."

"At this point," Zelda replied, completing oblivious to Samus's growing sense of dread, "I think it would make the most sense to head back to Hyrule. We could meet up with Link, and then we'd have four of the Wonders plus two fragments of the Triforce. I think we'll stand a better chance against Ganon now that we know what we're doing."

Samus just nodded. She knew it would come to this. She'd bring Zelda back to Hyrule, and just like that, the little bubble they'd been in for the past few days would burst. They would fight the final battle somehow, and assuming they survived, Zelda would go back to her station as Hyrule royalty and Samus would return to her job as a mercenary.

"Oh! Before I forget," Zelda said with a grin, snapping Samus out of her brooding. The hylian jumped up and pulled Samus to her feet as well. It was a strange sight given how the hunter towered over her.

From a brown leather satchel on her belt, Zelda pulled out the yellow orb that was the Wonder of Light once more and held it out to Samus. The bounty hunter just stared at it.

"Ganon augmented Ridley's power using the Wonder of Shadow," Zelda said. "If you'll let me, I want to augment yours using the Wonder of Light."

A thought occurred to Samus, and she looked over to U-Mos.

He nodded. "It will work exactly how you are imagining it will, Savior. And yes, it will draw from the Light of Aether, but we will be all right."

Samus just nodded to the Luminoth Sentinel before turning back to Zelda. "So what do you need me to do?"

The orb began to glow as it floated between Zelda's palms, and slowly the princess pulled one hand away and pressed it up against Samus's heart. The hunter could feel the light energy rushing through her, and it made her adrenaline spike.

"Just activate your power suit," Zelda said, "and let me share with it my power."

Samus closed her eyes and pressed her left palm against Zelda's hand on her chest. As she drew the power of the Wonder into herself, she activated the power suit, and once more her body was enveloped in light. Only this time, it was different.

The light and energy swirling around her were not just her own. Zelda's light was there too. She could feel it along with the energies of the Light of Aether, just as she had the last time she had been to this planet.

As the armor formed around her, she knew exactly what had happened before she even opened her eyes. Still, it was an unbelievable feeling to see her body once more encased in the Light Suit, the suit the Luminoth had allowed her to borrow to defeat Dark Samus and destroy Dark Aether.

The princess's eyes widened in awe as Samus stood before her clad head to toe in the white armor. Samus could tell she had not been expecting such a drastic change in the hunter's physical appearance. It was less bulky than the Varia suit, and though its design was very different, the structure was similar. Her cannon still looked roughly the same, but her face was much more visible though the pale visor, and light shone from four points in her chest.

"How do I look?" Samus asked, unable to keep a straight face at the princess's look of absolute wonder.

"You look… beautiful,Samus." Zelda's breathing was calm but heavy as she looked through the white visor to Samus's striking blue eyes. "You look like a goddess."

"A goddess? Is this what your goddesses look like?"

Zelda just shook her head, her cheeks pink as she tried to hold back laughter. "No… no. I guess I just thought… I don't know what I thought. You don't necessarily look like any of our goddesses but… if there were a goddess from your world, from this part of the universe, well… it's you, Samus."

Samus smiled as she reached out her armored hand and touched Zelda's cheek. The princess closed her eyes and savored the touch, and once more Samus was overcome by her need to protect and cherish this woman who she had known for such a short time but who had somehow managed to make it past all of the barriers she had put up.

She could feel the words on her tongue but couldn't bring herself to say them again. Not here. Not in front of U-Mos and the Luminoth. She needed to be with Zelda and could feel the white hot warmth searing her skin wherever the princess touched, even in spite of the armor. She wanted her, and she needed her. She needed to hold her once again, finally well enough to carry her, and that was what she intended to do.

"U-Mos," Samus said, turning to the Luminoth sentinel but still acutely aware of Zelda's cheek in her palm. "Thank you. For everything."

The Luminoth placed his hand over his heart and bowed once more. "Go, Savior. Go slay the evil and save the galaxy."

Samus grinned before she turned down to look at Zelda. The princess had both of her palms pressed against Samus's chest at this point, eagerly looking up at her as if she expected to be lifted off the ground.

But Samus had other plans, and as she deactivated her suit, Zelda looked confused for a moment until the bounty hunted scooped the princess up into her arms and held her bridal-style. It felt better to feel the princess's soft skin pressed up against her own without the armor in the way.

"Let's go back to the ship," she said, and Zelda kissed her cheek as Samus turned and left the Luminoth structure.

She carried her all the way back to her ship, Zelda's arms wrapped snuggly around her neck the whole time as they made their way back. And when it was finally time to leap up to the top of the ship, Samus easily made it in one bound. It felt like Zelda weighed nothing at all, and even once they were on the lift down into the ship, Samus still held the princess in her arms. She wasn't willing to let her go, not this time.

And as she carried Zelda into the ship's living quarter's Pikachu looked up at them from where he had been snoozing on the couch. Samus just gave him a quick nod toward the cockpit.

"Hyrule," she said.

"Pika pika?" the Pokémon asked, tilting his head in confusion.

"Hyrule," Samus repeated, once again nodding for him to head into the cockpit. "The coordinates are already in the system. Just punch it in and hit autopilot."

"Pi-pikachu!"

Samus rolled her eyes. "Make yourself useful for once instead of sleeping all day, you lazy cat."

Pikachu made a grumbling sound deep in his throat, but he stood up and jumped off the couch and did as he was told. As he disappeared off into the cockpit, Samus looked down at Zelda once more.

"Now then?" she asked the princess and was answered with a deep passionate kiss. Samus's skin felt feverish as she opened the hatch to the bedroom and carried Zelda inside, laying the princess across the narrow bed where they had spent many a night in each other's arms.

Zelda made the first move as she grabbed Samus's shoulders, pulling her down onto the bed beside her. Their lips met passionately and Samus savored the taste of her lover as she leaned over her, supporting herself with one arm and caressing her lover's hair and neck with the other. It felt so natural and so right. Samus audibly gasped as Zelda kissed her neck, and the hunter nearly lost her balance as the princess's lingering lips made her arms suddenly feel like jelly.

Zelda laughed and seized the moment to playfully push Samus over onto her side. She smirked as the hunter flopped onto her back, completely surprised by the sudden turn of events as Zelda lowered herself over the hunter. Her slender fingers trailed down Samus's muscular neck and shoulders, raising goosebumps all over the hunter's skin as Zelda's lips met hers once more.

But the kiss was merely a tease as Zelda pulled away from Samus's mouth and began to kiss down her chin and onto her neck. Her fingers deftly worked their magic as she caressed her lover's shoulders with one hand and her exposed abdomen with the other. Samus shuddered as Zelda kissed down her neck, and as the princess reached the most sensitive spot, the hunter let out a whimper.

"Too much?" Zelda asked, backing off slightly but keeping contact on Samus with each hand.

"Mmm?" Samus moaned slightly, her head still foggy from the sensations. "I- I guess I wasn't expecting that."

Zelda smirked playfully as she traced a line with her finger down Samus's neck and top. "What were you expecting then?"

"I don't know," Samus said, suddenly feeling anxious and actually recoiling at her lover's touch. She knew it was only Zelda, but having someone leaning over her like that made Samus's skin turn clammy. She could feel her adrenaline spiking again as it suddenly became hard to think straight. "I know you said you haven't done this kind of thing before and—"

"And what?" Zelda asked, realizing something was wrong and backing off of Samus as the hunter sat up. "I know it's my first time, but were you expecting me to lay there like some kind of useless doll?"

"I-I don't know." Samus pulled back farther, and she could feel her body tensing up. It was getting difficult to focus.

"You don't know? Samus? Haven't you learned anything since our fight with Ganon? I healed you! I activated the Wonders! I gave you that white armor! I'm not useless!"

"What? What does that have to do with anything?"

"I mean you have to stop treating me like some passive, helpless little thing! Whether we're in battle or on some planet or here in bed doing… whatever this is we were doing!"

Samus pressed a palm to her forehead and closed her eyes, trying to slow her breathing before it could get too fast. "That's not… that's not what happened."

"Then what did happen?"

"I don't know!" Samus lowered her hand and just stared at Zelda. "I don't know what happened. I just know I wasn't expecting you to throw me over like that and be over me and touching my throat and…" She paused, not sure what to say. "I'm sorry I just… I don't know. It just freaked me out."

Zelda's posture relaxed as she looked at Samus. It looked like something suddenly clicked in the princess's brain. "You don't like having your neck touched."

"Not usually, no." Samus put a hand around her neck, feeling the high collar of the workout top. "But I thought in this context it would be different and…" She shook her head. "I just don't know, Zelda. I know I keep saying that, but I really don't know. Usually I'm with you, and I'm fine, better than normal. But other times I just… it's like I'm with you, and you're close to me, but suddenly I just get cold and feel like I'm standing far away and just watching."

"Even though you can feel me touching you?"

Samus nodded. It felt like such a shameful thing to admit, that her brain constantly felt the need to sabotage what should have been happy moments and she couldn't overcome it. "I'm sorry, Zelda."

"Don't be. It… actually explains a few things."

"It does?"

Zelda nodded. "May I come closer?"

"Of course." Samus scooted over to the side so she and Zelda would both have room to sit against the wall without touching each other.

"It explains a lot, actually," Zelda continued. "There have been a few times now where we've been hugging and I've felt you just randomly tense up. I thought… maybe you just weren't attracted to me as much as I thought you were."

"No…" Samus shook her head. "No, it's not that at all. Look, if you want to try again, I'm feeling better now. We can try again and I'll try harder this time—"

"Try what?" Zelda's face was soft, but she looked almost sad as she stared at Samus. "You want us to act like there's an end goal in mind? Samus I love kissing you, but I don't want us to have to 'try,' especially not our first time together. I want it to feel natural, and I want you to be comfortable and… well, honestly I was pretty nervous myself."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better about freaking out."

Zelda rolled her eyes. "I'm a virgin, Samus. Up until I met you, I didn't even know I could be attracted to a woman, much less what two women are supposed to do together. I… I'm still not even really sure what two women do together. I've read novels of course, but not with… you know, two women."

Samus smirked and failed to hold back a laugh. "Well, I can tell you it's not normally like this."

"That much I figured out on my own."

"But seriously though, that's actually something I'm pretty well versed in."

"I know," Zelda said, scooting closer to Samus and leaning her head into her chest as the hunter wrapped her arms around her. "So yeah, of course I was nervous."

Samus ran a hand through Zelda's hair, and soon the princess was all but purring as she lay on the hunter's chest.

"This is pretty nice," Samus said after a while.

"It is."

"You don't feel nervous right now, do you?"

Zelda shook her head. "And you're not zoning out?"

"Nope. I'm right here."

"Then that's all that matters," Zelda said, nuzzling deeper into Samus's chest. "I don't care what we're doing. I love you, Samus, and I just want to be with you."

Samus closed her eyes, leaning back against the wall as she let Zelda's words wash over her. They terrified her, and she felt that cold feeling returning, but she focused on matching the princess's soft breathing and eventually that feeling came to pass. She was still there, sitting on her bed and holding the most important person to her in the entire galaxy.

"I love you, too, Zelda."