Author's Note: This story was first published here in February 2010, but only the first five chapters. Eleven years later, here's the unexpected arrival of 'what happened next'! We never do know what (or who) might knock on the door, in this strange duelling game called Life ...

Expected Arrival
by sharnii

I
It happened when they were having tea together, ten years after the half-remembered fairytale-cum-nightmare of Ohtori. Juri had awakened thinking something very bad was going to happen…and had promptly cut the foolish thought in the bud. Omens and portents: stuff and nonsense.

Still, she felt strangely adrift as she gazed across their low table, helplessly watching Utena's so-familiar fingers fidget with her teacup. There was something … threatening about the anxious way Utena kept glancing at the door.

As though she was expecting it to open.

As though she was expecting someone to be standing there.

Someone else.

Her.

"What's wrong?" Juri asked smoothly, masking insecurity beneath a layer of icy beauty. Utena's eyes flickered up to hers then back to the door, then down to her tea. A telltale flush stained her cheeks. She'd always been one to blush at any and every provocation. Juri found it endearing and aggravating in turn. Just now she found it frightening.

"What do you mean?" Utena sounded nervous. Juri grimaced; she loathed evasiveness, and it was unlike Utena in the extreme.

"I mean it's our ninth anniversary and you keep looking at the door. Expecting someone?"

"Nooo," said Utena slowly, and then, "Sorry, Juri, it's just that I, y'know, I had that conversation with Himemiya that we would … "

" … Have tea and cookies. Ten years after. Yes, yes I remember." Juri grimaced again.

"Poisoned tea and cookies," corrected Utena, almost dreamily. Juri felt her throat tighten.

"Lovely. Do you realize you've been stirring that lump of sugar into your tea for the last five minutes?"

"What? Oh sorry. Juri …." Utena blinked furiously and put her spoon down. "Sorry," she said again, shoulders drooping.

"Don't apologize," said Juri, "just give me my present." She smiled as Utena's shoulders straightened and her partner grinned back.

"It's like that, is it? Well, it's not like I have taste that can match the great Arisugawa-san's …."

"Stop it." A faint blush.

"But I'm told these are very in this year. And perfect for a redhead."

"You think I'm a redhead?" Juri accepted the jewellery box with real pleasure, enjoying the way their fingers lingered in the exchange. It was true Utena didn't have much taste in fashion but over the years she'd learned to ask for help from the right people. She'd had to: Juri had impeccable taste.

"Well …." Utena smirked. "They'll look beautiful no matter what colour your hair is." She shrugged. "Everything always does." She blushed right on cue.

Juri smiled and flicked open the box. The pearl-drop earrings made her gasp.

"You like 'em?" Utena was at her side suddenly; they were kneeling thigh to thigh. Long fingers blazed heat along Juri's face, smoothing over her high cheekbones (model's cheekbones she'd always been told), deftly pushing ringlets behind her ears.

"I do." Juri's voice was low and heated as she leaned into Utena's touch, allowing the younger woman to slip the earrings on. "But I like you even more."

"You're such a sweet-talker." Utena was laughing now, enjoying their banter, enjoying their charged interaction in a way that had taken a very long time to happen.

Juri turned her face down a little (thank God she was still taller), and slipped a hand into Utena's hair at the nape of her neck. She raised an eyebrow, enjoying the way Utena's pupils (predictably) dilated, and how her delicate lips parted just so.

"That's not all I'm good at."

"Really?" husked Utena, half a challenge. Juri kissed her, enjoying the way Utena met her back halfway, the way they smiled against each other's lips, the way it wasn't quite certain who was kissing who. This kiss had all the breathless confrontation of the first one, and all the nostalgia of the countless kisses in between. Juri closed her eyes, losing herself in the wholehearted passion that was Utena ….

The doorbell rang.

They broke apart, panting.

"Should I get it?" Utena started to get up, but Juri pushed her down to rise herself. She spared a glance for her partner, unsurprised to see Utena staring at the door with uncontrolled and unabashed hope. Juri hated her for it … such a strange feeling to have about someone you loved so very much.

"I will," Juri said crisply, striding forward. Best to get this over with. Best to rip off the bandage and start staunching the blood flow. Yes, it was best to find out if miracles really could happen, if nightmares would come true.

She swung the door wide.

Himemiya Anthy smiled up at her.

Juri stared. For a moment she swayed in place, disbelieving although this was exactly who she'd expected to see. For a moment an orange rose flashed before her mind's eye, proffered to her by the very hand that might at any moment be proffered in a polite western handshake (God forbid).

"You," she said in a dead voice, because really, what else was there to say?

"Himemiya!" cried Utena ecstatically.

Anthy looked right past Juri as though she wasn't even there. She smiled at Utena in a way that made Juri think of Takatsuki Shiori back when they had been best friends, and Utena the first time she and Utena had made love, and of everything warm and human.

"Utena," Anthy murmured, honorific conspicuously absent. And then she was shoving (yes shoving) past the frozen Juri to throw herself into Utena's eager embrace.