Three Step Story
by Lalita
Disclaimer I don't own Lufia. Not the plot, not the idea, not the art, nadda.
Summary The first step to recovery is recognition. Then, it's determination. Will Aguro and Jerin follow this plan?
Author's Notes Well, for all of you still reading this, here's the final chapter! Chapter Three is by far the shortest, but I hope it's also the sweetest and will satisfy the fluff desires of all who read it. (Don't worry, it's not TOO sappy... Promise. )Also, much thankies to everyone who reviewed before! I apologize for the formatting... Grr... This thing doesn't like me. -.- Anyways, and please read and review!
Chapter Three Determination
"Dammit, woman, what was that for?" Aguro demanded, rubbing his cheek. "You could've at least hit the other one."
Jerin glowered at him. "I'll tell you what it was for," she snapped, her hands curling into fists at her side. "It was for leaving here alone without telling me!"
"Who are you, my nanny?" Aguro said incredulously. Of all the crazy females, he had to be stuck with this one. "And I wasn't alone."
"Oh, you had a boy with you! A boy!" Jerin threw up her hands in exasperation. "Much help that is!"
Aguro's temper flared. By God, he was tired, hungry, and confused, and she wasn't doing a thing to improve his mood. And where did she get off insulting Dan? The boy had more courage than she did; avoiding him for days, as if that helped anything. "More help than you ever were!"
Jerin laughed. "That's right," she said scathingly, "I was useless. You would have survived all on your own if I hadn't nursed you to health after Glasgar Tower."
His head was hot, so hot, so hot... and yet he couldn't stop shivering. Chills racked his body. A low moan escaped his throat, the sound hoarse even to his own muddled mind. Instantly, a cool cloth was pressed to his forehead and he relaxed back onto the pillow. The hand gently touched the side of his face, but the door opened and the soft fingertips left.
"How is he?" Max stood in the doorway, quickly eyeing the situation. His voice was strained, resonating like a drum roll in Aguro's head. He frowned.
Jerin shrugged and dipped the cloth back into the water basin. "No better, no worse," she said, "and keep your voice down."
Max's lips thinned. "How long will it be before he's recovered?"
"Hard to say... With my poultice, he could be better in a day, but he keeps fighting me off. At the rate he's going, it'll take a week."
"We don't have a week!" Max erupted, slamming his fist down on a nearby table. "Lufia's gone! We have to get her back!"
Jerin left Aguro's bedside. "I know," she said simply. "I know."
The strength seemed to seep out of Max and he slumped down onto the chair Jerin recently vacated, head in his hands. "If I was a good leader, he wouldn't be hurt. Lufia wouldn't be gone."
Jerin placed her hand on his shoulder. "You are a good leader," she said confidently, "and it's not your fault Aguro's wound got infected. It happens. And as for Lufia..." she stopped, taking in a deep breath. "We'll get her back. You'll see. She'll be alright."
Max looked up at Jerin, looking more like a lost puppy than a man. "How do you know?"
Jerin closed her eyes. "I just know." She took his hand, and then grinned impishly at him. "We elves get these feelings sometimes."
A spark of hope reached Max's eyes and he stood. "I'll be down later to help you give him the potion." He gave Aguro a sideways glance. "He's like a big baby, isn't he?"
Aguro wanted to sit up and tell Max to shut his spiky red ass up, but he couldn't. His muscles felt like jelly, slack and slippery. He couldn't even lift his head, much less stand up and throttle Max to death.
Jerin laughed. "He is," she said, and ruffled his hair affectionately. Aguro stopped his efforts to move, frozen to the spot. She had not just touched his hair. She had not... What made her think she had the right to, anyway?
The door closed, signaling Max's departure. "Am not," Aguro whispered hoarsely. Jerin jumped, thoroughly surprised he'd been awake the whole time.
"Good morning, Prince Charming," she said sarcastically. "Nice to see you've left the land of the dead."
He peeked one eye open, then instantly shut it as the world began to spin. "Now I wish I'd stayed there."
Jerin lifted his head to take his pillow out and fluff it, then called out the door for some broth to be brought in. "Nice to see you, too."
Aguro raised his eyebrows. "You could sound a bit more enthusiastic at my unexpected recovery."
"It was hardly unexpected. My poultice works better than anything you humans can come up with."
"Apparently not, for I swear it's your nasty brews that keep me abed."
"You are the most ungrateful patient I've ever dealt with."
"And you're the ugliest nurse I've ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on."
"I thought not," Jerin said, satisfied. She put her hands on her hips and stared petulantly at him.
"Aye, and my taste buds are permanently ruined because of those foul concoctions you forced down my throat!" Aguro said gruffly.
Jerin shook her head. Her face had softened, her fists unclenched. Aguro noticed the sharp marks in her hands, almost deep enough to draw blood. Speaking of blood, she looked like she'd been biting her lip- something she only did when she was nervous or worried. But why would she be worried? Had she worried about him?
"You left without a thought or care as to how I might feel," Jerin accused, her voice wavering.
"Well I was hardly going to waste time arguing with you when lives were at stake," Aguro said, crossing his arms.
"You still could have sent someone to tell me," Jerin insisted. "As it was, I found out from Jenks's wife you'd left with enough goods to last a week and a fat purse in her husband's hands to keep him quiet."
Aguro clenched his teeth. That bastard. He should have known Jenks would do something like this. "And you believed him?" he asked skeptically.
"Of course not! What do you take me for, the village idiot?" Jerin glared, daring him to say yes. He refused to take the bait. "But I did hear a woman say her boy had been gone over two hours, delivering a message to a Lieutenant. It didn't take much to put two and two together."
Aguro sighed heavily and raked a hand through his disheveled hair. "I didn't think you'd want to see me, much less care if I threw myself in danger's way."
"Didn't think I'd care?" Jerin's voice rose a few decibels. "Didn't think I'd care if you'd have died and the last thing you'd remember about me was a slap and a few angry words?" Bitter tears sprang to her eyes.
Aguro was dumbstruck. "So is this an apology? I have to tell you, it's a sad attempt."
"Apology? You deserved what you got! If anyone should be hearing an apology, it should be me!"
"Excuse me, but I think I'm the injured party here," Aguro snapped. He pointed to the red mark left by Jerin's palm. She blushed, but before she could get in another inane comment, he said, "I'd love to spend all night arguing with you, but I'm sore, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm not in the mood to put up with crap from anyone. Now if you'll shut up and let me be, I'm going to see about grabbing a change of clothes and some coin for the Inn."
Jerin opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. "You know, you could stay here tonight," she said awkwardly.
"Damn straight I could. I just don't want to stay in the same town, let alone the same house as you."
Jerin's mouth thinned. "Alright then," she stormed, and slammed the door to her bedroom. Aguro stared at it, watched the pool of light from the crack of her door disappear as she doused the candle. He stared and stared until the room grew cold and the fire died, until the only light came from the thin sliver of the moon.
This wasn't the way things were supposed to have gone. What the hell was wrong with everyone? What the hell was wrong with Jerin? He came home weary and confused, and all she did was scream at him. Much good that did for anyone. She should have hugged him, fixed him dinner, told him how glad she was that he was unharmed. But in a sense, hadn't she done that? Damn woman. Damn, damn woman.
He slumped against the wall, debating. General Barlington had given him a two-week hiatus. What was he supposed to do? He didn't think he had enough coins in his pocket to last that long at an Inn. There'd be no point to it, anyways. He had a perfectly serviceable bed here. This was his house, and he'd be damned if he let that vixen decide when and where he slept. He was a grown man. He could do what he wanted to.
He pounded unceremoniously on her door. "Wake up, woman," he growled.
"What now?" Jerin mumbled before flinging open the door. Aguro jumped at the sight of her red-rimmed eyes and puffy nose. She'd been crying. "Well?" she asked crankily.
"We need to talk," he said, not able to keep his eyes from drifting over her slim body. She wore only a thin sift, nearly translucent. He felt his blood thunder in his ears.
"Talk?" she laughed bitterly. "I don't think we can do that. No, I know we can't do that. Go to bed, Aguro."
"Just give me a minute," he demanded, and put his foot forward to block her from slamming the door. She glared.
"Time's wasting, Aguro," she snapped. "Better make it worthwhile."
"Come out here and talk to me," he pleaded.
He could see her resolve crumbling. She sighed. "Why? We can't talk to each other more than five minutes without one of us driving the other insane."
"Please?" Aguro tightened his grip on the door. He looked into her eyes, giving her what he hoped passed for a puppy dog look. Last time he'd tried one of those, she'd gleefully informed him he looked like a bulldog in heat.
"Fine," Jerin grumbled, and started to push him out of her way.
"Wait. First... put on a robe," Aguro said hoarsely. Her ears turned a brilliant shade of scarlet, but she agreed and seconds later, the two were facing each other in the simple kitchen. Aguro sincerely hoped they wouldn't argue this time, not with a knife in seconds' reach of Jerin's hand.
"So..." he cleared his throat. She raised her right eyebrow expectantly, then crossed her arms over the front of her ample bosom and leaned against the rough wooden table. "You know we can't go on like this."
"Like what?" she asked lightly.
"Dammit, don't play dumb with me."
Her fingers began to play with the tassels on the end of the tablecloth. "So you're finally admitting I'm smarter than you?"
"Why do you always do this?" He threw up his hands in exasperation. "Sometimes I don't even know why I try."
"Me either," Jerin admitted. She tilted her head to the side and looked at him curiously. "But every time I try to give up, I can't."
Aguro would have had to be blind to see that honest statement had taken a lot of courage from Jerin. Her hands were back to gripping the table. He had the sudden urge to lift one up and trace his lips over her palm.
Jerin cleared her throat nervously. "How bad was Grenoble?" she asked.
Aguro clutched the sudden change of topic like a lifeline. "Bad," he said grimly. "Just a different kind of bad than the kind left by monsters."
Jerin frowned, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
Aguro wanted to kiss the little furrow of confusion on her brow, but he restrained himself. Instead, he related the facts to her as briefly and as few as possible. Still, it was enough to make anyone horrified. "That's disgusting," she said, crossing her arms glumly. "Why would anyone do such a thing?"
"Desperate men are powerful. Powerful and crazy."
She shook her head slowly. "And no one stood up? They all just took it?"
"Some did. One that I know of for sure. They died, though."
"That's horrible."
"That's life," he corrected.
She looked at him, startled. "Is that what you honestly think? That life is all horrible? All bad times and no good?"
Aguro leaned back against the wall. "I don't know what to think sometimes," he said, musing aloud.
Jerin nodded. "Sometimes I don't know, either. But then I think about all the good times we had with Max and Lufia, and I realize life isn't all that bad. You take what it throws at you."
"But that's it! We only met each other because of bad times. If things had stayed peaceful, we never would have known the others existed."
"So good things come out of bad."
"It's hard to see it that way, though, when you're talking about innocent people getting killed," Aguro said darkly. He bit the inside of his cheek.
Jerin instinctively stepped closer to him, radiating compassion. "Just because some people are like that doesn't mean we all are. It doesn't mean you are, Aguro."
Aguro dropped his head into his hands. "You didn't see it like I did. The pastor. Dead because some man decided that his misfortunes were the poor man's fault. And what else do you have to believe, if you're desperate and near starving? It makes me think. What would I have done if I'd been there? Would I have been the same way?"
"Don't talk like that, Aguro," Jerin said fiercely.
"It's true, isn't it?"
"No," she snapped. She took his hands away from his face and hugged him hard enough to break his bones. "It's not true. You would never blame your problems on anyone but yourself. Sometimes you even take responsibility for the ones that aren't yours. You're a good man, and I know you would have stood up for what was right, just like you always do."
Aguro's jaw clenched. "We defeated evil," he said softly. "Remember? Why wasn't it enough?"
"Oh, Aguro," Jerin whispered, drew herself away from him, "just because evil was defeated once doesn't mean it won't come back."
The two stood in companiable silence, Aguro's brooding mood slipping away, eased by her simple but honest and well-meant words. He sighed. "So what do we do now?"
Jerin shrugged daintily. "I don't know," she said. "I, for one, am tired. How about going to bed?"
The minute the words were out Jerin wished she could reel them back in. It was Aguro's turn to raise his eyebrows. He smirked. Jerin gasped. "Not like that! You know what I mean."
"I surely do," he said, and seconds later lifted her in his arms.
She squealed and kicked her legs. "Put me down!" she wailed, and struggled even harder.
Aguro grunted. "Watch where you're kicking, woman," he warned. Jerin paused to look up at him devilishly. It was all the insensitive he needed.
His mouth crashed down on hers, firm and hard. She gasped in surprise and he took advantage of the opportunity. He slipped his tongue in to silkily caress her own. To his pleasant shock, she responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him even closer. She was clumsy, and, Aguro guessed, new to this art at which he had long excelled. He broke the kiss to look down at her, snuggled close to him and breathing just as hard as he was.
"Damn," she whispered breathlessly.
He chuckled. "Watch your tongue, missy. I might have to wash your mouth out with soap."
"I'd rather we find a better use for it," she said, and grinned at him.
He shook his head in amazement. "You never fail to surprise me."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It was supposed to be one."
"I think this is the longest conversation we've ever had without trying to kill each other."
"Let's make it last then, shall we?"
"Agreed. No more talking," Jerin said. She kissed his cheek.
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