Well, whether you read or didn't read the bonus for last chapter, hope you enjoyed! Now we get to see what Ignis' friends thought of his... ahem... lack of return.

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Prompto sat in the room he shared with his three friends... or, well, he was supposed to share it with three others. Right now, only two were in the room with him: Noctis still out like a light on the bed near the window, and Gladiolus sitting in the chair next to his, nose in his book.

"Sooo..."

Gladiolus looked up at him.

"... Ignis never came back from Aria's room last night."

The bodyguard smirked. "No, he didn't."

Prompto fiddled with his camera for a bit before looking up at the older man. "You don't think they...?"

The smirk became a grin. "I think I'm pretty impressed by Aria's stamina. To go through what she did, and then—"

Prompto's hands snapped over his ears. "No no no, not another word! I didn't really want an answer!"

Amidst Gladiolus' uproarious laughter came a sleepy mumble as Noctis turned over in bed. "Can I get some quiet here..."

Gladiolus quieted, looked over at the prince. "Oh, his highness is up early this morning." It was nearly eleven.

Prompto practically spun in his seat to face his friend. "Nooooct! Gladio's being gross."

Noctis sat up, scrubbing one hand through his tousled hair. "Wha?"

Gladiolus chuckled. "C'mon, Prompto, didn't you get the whole birds and the bees talk in school?"

"La la la la, not listening!" The young man plugged his ears again.

Letting out a big yawn, Noctis glanced between his two companions, and then he looked around the room. "... Where's Specs?"

Gladiolus fell about laughing again, and Prompto dropped his head into his hands with a mortified groan.

—

Several rooms away, Aria stirred from well-earned sleep, groaning as she tried to burrow away from the sunlight streaming in the window. When her face met skin instead of blankets, she blinked awake to find herself lying atop Ignis, her face pressed into his chest. "... Oh."

She felt the quivers as he chuckled and looked up to find him watching her. "Good morning."

"Mmm... morning." She rolled onto her back, wiggling a little under the covers thrown haphazard over her body. "How long've you been awake?"

He held up his phone in the hand farthest from her in response. "A while. I didn't want to disturb you. You needed rest."

Her arms shifted, got halfway to stretching before her whole body flinched. Oh, nope. Nope, nope, moving was not good. "Ow... yeah, no kidding."

Frowning, he lifted himself on his elbow to better look at her... a task made easy by her lack of clothes, she figured. "Are you all right?"

"Mmmaybe?" She groaned, finding a myriad of aches and pains just in trying to stretch her limbs. "You might've had a point last night..." Now that the pain'd had all night to really settle in, she was realizing the consequences of her actions.

Ignis sat up, the covers just barely staying over his hips. "Well... I did warn you..." He sounded sheepish, and was occupying himself in reaching for his glasses from the nightstand.

Slowly working her arms under herself and sitting up with many winces along the way, she smirked at him. "Yeah, well... totally worth it." Really, there was no better way to prove her survival to herself. Even if moving was going to suck for at least a day now.

He simply smiled, leaning over to kiss her cheek before sliding to the edge of the bed to begin gathering his clothes. Aria watched him and giggled when his hair, slack without the product that held it in place, dropped in front of his eyes. "First time I've seen you with your hair like that."

Pulling his pants on, he eyed the mess her own long, brown locks made about her shoulders and arms. "Likewise." He smiled again.

She grimaced, pulled her fingers through the locks. "Damn... braiding it's gonna be a pain..."

"You'll not be fighting today." The way he said it almost made it a reprimand. "Why not leave it like this?"

"Aw, is that a request or an order?"

"Take it as you will."

Their mutual smirks fell a bit when there was a knock at the door. Aria pulled the covers over herself as Ignis crossed to open it... only to find Caedus standing there with a little bundle tucked under one arm. The hunter's brows crawled into the space his hairline once was as he surveyed the scene. Then he held the bundle out to Ignis. "Brought the clothes."

Ignis let out a breath.. "Thank you, Caedus." When he nodded and turned on his heel to head down the hall, Ignis let the door close and turned to Aria, who was resting her head on her drawn-up knees. The look on his face made her grin.

"Don't look so tense. He wasn't going to hit you."

"His expression begged to differ." He returned to the bed to hand her the clothes. "Can you... can you dress on your own?"

She let her legs out slowly, setting the bundle aside in order to shift to the edge of the bed. "Depends. Can you help me without blushing your face off?"

"... I can try."

It took them almost ten minutes to achieve that goal, and as Ignis gently pulled Aria's hair out from the collar of her shirt, she let out a sigh. Better sooner than later. "Hey, Ignis..."

He blinked, brushing stray hairs into place before sitting beside her on the bed. "Yes?"

"When you guys go to Altissia... I think I want to come." She'd lain awake thinking about it, considering her options... considering what she wanted. To destroy the empire for what they'd done to her.

When she looked up at Ignis, she found his mouth open in surprise. "... I thought you'd want to stay here, with your work."

She looked away. "It's not like I don't want to do my job, but... damn it, I just spent days getting tortured by Nifs. I don't just want to root for you guys to take them down... I want to make those bastards pay." By the end of her sentence, her voice had dropped into a snarl. Her wounds ached anew, as if remembering the blows that had caused them.

For a while, Ignis was silent. She didn't look at him, but she felt him watching her. When he spoke, it was soft and deliberate. "I can't say I don't want you along... especially after this. But... Aria, is this really what you want?" His hand touched her shoulder, feather-light. "You told me that a hunter's job is to help people..."

Leave it to him to throw that in her face. "Well... yeah..."

He sighed, thumb brushing back and forth on her healing injury. "I think you need time to think about it... we won't be ready to leave for a while yet. I'll keep you informed, and you can meet us at Cape Caem when everything is ready... then you can make your decision."

She felt a pout forming on her lips even as she looked back at him, but... fine. "Alright. But my mind won't change."

He smiled. "The mind is a strange thing. We'll see."