Chapter 35
AN: I have a reasonable excuse for not posting. Actually, three. The first is Fairy Tail. I had to finish it. The second is that I was adjusting my life back to school. The third I will reveal at the end of this chapter. HAH! You have to read that now! Anyway, SAO is still ahead of PJ by one vote, and I am starting to regret not putting Fairy Tail on the list of choices. I love that anime. Anyway, enjoy.
Gaius awoke when the sky had turned a deep purple from the setting sun, and the chirping of crickets echoed throughout the ruined town. Erin broke out in the first smile I had seen on her in hours. She stroked his face while joyous sobs racked her body. Gaius looked confused for just a moment, then concern was the prevalent emotion on his face.
"Hey Swirls." He wiped the tears from her face with a solitary finger. "You forgive me yet?" Her semi composed face turned into a visage of brokenness. Crying was choked off by the cotton confines of her boyfriend's shirt. Gaius just sat with her head on his chest, and stroked her hair. From her position, she punched hard into Gaius' shoulder.
"Why did you jump in front of that blade for me you ass?" She mumbled, muffled by the suffocating, and I am assuming sweaty shirt.
"The answer is simple Swirls." Gaius pushed her chin up to look her in the eyes. "I love you." The kiss that followed was more intense and passionate than anything I had seen before between them. Olivia and I looked into each others eyes with knowing smiles. I grasped her hand, and fingered the ring I felt like I gave her years before when it only was mere months. The couple separated, and just looked into each other's eyes with their foreheads touching. Gaius suddenly drew back in embarrassment.
"Do you still have that shock thing?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, could we…"
"Ahem! Still here!" I waved my hands. They blushed at what they were talking about in front of me and Liv. Erin got off of Gaius' chest, and brushed herself off, Gaius rose, eyes focused downward. He looked embarrassed, but also as if a weight was lifted off her shoulders.
"Sorry." He said happily. "I forgot you were here for a second." He was going to say more, but he was interrupted by the intrusion of someone we did not expect. Zach came running in, from his post at the healers station. What was going on? He hasn't left there much at all since he joined the shepherds.
"Erin! Noah! We have to get out of here!" Steven seemed to be panicked beyond belief.
"What is going on?" Erin asked him. "Why are you away from your station?"
"Jean came and told Chrom what we were." He hyperventilated.
"That isn't so bad. I doubt that he would be-" Zach cut me off.
"The problem is that he believed Jean, and now he is trying to capture and kill us." I tried to process this information. Chrom wants to kill us? He believed Jean? What was going on?
"Why would he want to kill us?" Erin asked him.
"He is blaming us for Emmeryn's death." Oh shit.
"Oh no…" Erin paced across the thin strip of grass that used to be a hallway. Zach wrung his hands nervously. Gaius and Olivia just stood there looking confused.
"Noah…" Oh shit. She sounded angry. "What is going on?" I had to tell her. There was no delaying it anymore.
"Um… Olivia? You might want to sit down." The resulting glare from the pink haired, battle crazed, waifu of mine was deadly.
"Yes?" She tilted her head that I knew from being married to her meant this better be good.
"I am not exactly from this world."
"What?"
"I am from a different dimension, and Jean is a copy of my soul. He is everything bad about me, ten times worse." She raised a single pink eyebrow.
"Either you are getting really good at lying, or that is the truth." Olivia said.
"I doubt I am that bad." I raised my hands in the air.
"Yes you are. Your eyebrows always scrunch together." She was smiling. That was a good sign. Plus her smile was beautiful. "That also explains some of your weird habits."
"What?"
"I have never seen anyone eat with their fork in their right hand before." She said. Looking at me. I saw that Gaius and Erin were having a similar discussion over next to Zach. My attention went back to Olivia, who was rubbing her temples the way she always did when she had a headache. "I just guessed that it was because you were foreign, but another dimension? That is a little hard to wrap my mind around."
"You were able to wrap your head around time travel okay." I pointed out.
"I believe you." She told me, then crossed her hands over her chest. "Don't think I am letting you off so easily though." Her violet gaze murked up like it always did before she flew into a bloodrage.
"What?" Her vision immediately cleared, and she smiled.
"You are telling me about your home over dinner."
"My home is wherever you are." She blushed fiercely when I said that.
"You always know just what to say." She wrapped her arm around my waist. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? I would have understood." I thought about this.
"Maybe when we discovered Lucina was a time traveler, and she was able to prove it, but I have been seasick the rest of the time since then." I scratched the back of my head with my left hand since my right was draped comfortably on Olivia's right hip.
"Oh!" She exclaimed. "I actually got something for you!" She reached in her brown leather satchel and pulled out an herb. "This is going to help." I would try ANYTHING to get rid of this seasickness.
"What does it do?" I selected one, and smelled it. It smelled vaguely of mint, but with a more acrid smoky smell as well. Almost as if someone was burning that plant.
"It gets rid of your seasickness completely." Olivia smiled at my very grateful face. "a small side effect will be a slightly sedated feeling, but that shouldn't affect you too much."
"I would let you continue, but we have to go." Zach told us. "Say your last goodbyes." olivia looked at me incredulous, and Gaius just laughed.
"As if!" Olivia sounded insulted. Zach just looked back at her calmly. ""I am not staying with the army that I joined only to get closer to my future husband, only to abandon him when we were married." Olivia stood on her tiptoes with the elegance only a dancer could achieve, and kissed me on the cheek. "The Shepherds can go ahead and get over it."
"That goes double for me!" Gaius claimed. "Abandoning your fiance to go wherever the hell you please is totally not sweet."
"What did you just call me?" Erin looked shocked when a sparkling ring with a perfectly crafted diamond on it's top fell into her palm.
"Well? What do you say Swirls?" He looked her in the eyes. "Want to be with a theif for the rest of your life?" Erin wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Is that even a question?" Erin asked. "Of course I will!" They shared another deep kiss, but this one was stopped by Zach.
"Could you continue that on the boat if you are coming? Naga knows we will have plenty of free time on our hands." They nodded, and they both mounted Erin's horse. We all ran double time to the boats.
One advantage of being in a small group over being in an army, is that we take less time to mobilize. we got to the boats, and met the crew and captain that took us here.
"Hail!" I told him. "We have been selected for a secret mission into Valm." He nodded.
"An' tis 'fects me 'ow?" He asked in a rough accent that I could not recognize.
"You are to be our crew." Gaius said, playing along.
"Arright." He cracked his neck. "Wen du we se' off?"
"Immediately" Zach told him.
When I had ingested some of the nameless herb, and Liv and I were comfortably sitting on the bed in our cabin, she looked at me.
"Alright Noah, story time." She took off the silk scarf that she perpetually wore on her shoulders, and I helped her out of all of the gold except the twin roses, one resting on her finger, the other resting around her neck. I lay next to her, having removed all of my weapons and clothing excluding my pants and black shirt, and felt the gentle sway of the ship. Liv was right. I felt tired, but definitely not seasick.
"What do you want to know?" I asked her. "Anything you want." She blushed and asked me:
"How is your world different?" I put my hand beneath the veil that covered her stomach, and traced little patterns on it as I considered how to answer. That was an extremely broad topic. Her eyes widened, then closed as she enjoyed my touch.
"There are many differences." She opened her eyes again, with a little smile that told me on no uncertain terms what was happening after this conversation. Strange since she didn't normally want to under these circumstances, but otherwise I was completely fine with that arrangement. "The biggest one is that there is no magic. Instead, they have horseless carriages, and a thing that makes food stay good way beyond the normal time. They also have machines that fly through the sky like a pegasus." She then began to frown slightly, and I stopped tracing.
"No, keep doing that, I like that." She smiled again as I resumed. "How is that all possible without magic?"
"People way smarter than I am figured it out." I frowned slightly. "It isn't all good though. The horseless carriages pollute the air when they are used. I had not seen as many stars in the rest of my life combined as my first night here. I would have been lucky to see a single star on a clear night."
"So these horseless carriages make the stars disappear?" She asked.
"Something like that."
"They trade beauty for convenience then?" She put her right hand around my right wrist to keep it going, and bit the tip of her left thumb. (Maybe she was trying to turn into a titan. Nevermind, that was a terrible joke.) "It is an interesting trade."
"It certainly is that." I agreed. "Any more questions?" She blushed.
"How did your parents die?" She asked my feet. I drew back, and sat up startled. She sat up as well. "I am sorry!"
"No." I shook my head. "You have the right to know Liv." She bit her lip. I kissed them to get her to stop. I did not need her stressed. It would only make remembering harder. I grabbed our guitar from the corner of the room. I began playing random chords.
"Here is what happened." She sat back against the bed frame as I began. I told her the story of how my parents died. She occasionally interjected with a question, (like what are cars. Mostly about the tech.) but otherwise stayed silent. When I finished, I began to cry. I began to bawl out tears of hate, rage, sadness, and most of all release. This was the first time I had told that story to anyone. My body racked with sobs, Olivia hugged my head to her breast.
"It will be alright Noah. It will be alright."
"What will happen when our children ask why they don't have two sets of grandparents?" I asked her. She blushed fiercely as I said this.
"T-this is the first time you have talked about our children." See? Sometimes shy Olivia comes and rears her head.
"I think that it is something we will be ready for." I cradled her chin in my palm. "What will I tell them?" She pulled my hand down, and we held our hands in her lap.
'Tell them that they are with Naga now." Olivia bent over to kiss me. We made out for a couple minutes, before I pulled her top over her head.
Olivia laid next to me sleeping peacefully, and I was barely keeping my eyes open. I occupied my thoughts with my future children. We had to find them before the Shepherds did. They might not get as welcome of a reception as they hoped. I looked over at my wife's naked sleeping form. She wiggled a little in her sleep as I wrapped my arms around her, and I fell asleep peacefully, forehead touching hers.
AN: Well. We are no longer a part of the Shepherds. Like you didn't see that coming. Anyway, the Third reason is that I have another project now. The account Threeguysandapen has a story on it. I am one of those three guys. The other two are not in fact guys, but girls, and excellent writers. their names are Dusted With Stars, and Thoaria. You may have heard me talking about them. We are writing a story of pokemon Emerald. (more based on ORAS.) It is called the Delta Emerald Nuzlocke challenge. The first couple of chapters will be sort of like the crack folder that some of you read, but when I take over on chapter 3… Shit is gonna get real. Go ahead and check it out if you like pokemon. Anyway, *Starts up Fairy Tail, and hums the theme* Follow, review, VOTE, or do whatever the heck else you like to do to my stories.