Author's Note: I need to start making chapters be all.. NOT SHORT. Maybe I shouldn't write them during class any more? lol.. Mmm, class.. Mmm. Alisha and Saxxy Beast are both so… saxxy. Err. Anyway, I'm still a feedback whore! Which is sad, as I am getting like no feedback.. ;.;

Disclaimer: JACKJACKJACKJACKJACK!

Rating: Same as before.

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When Celes first looked up, her vision was momentarily blurred by tears, and she couldn't see a thing; those tears soon fell, though, and she could once again see properly. He was staring at her far too calmly, but his face was betraying some kind of emotion that Celes didn't quite know what was.

"Celes," he repeated her name a third time, and Celes felt her whole body give an involuntary shiver, "what are you doing here?"

Looking for a place to stay, her mind answered rationally, and she found herself wishing that he could hear her thoughts, what are you doing here?

"What are you doing alive?" she blurted out, though her mouth had opened to form different words.

Still staring at her as if there was nothing really wrong, he answered her question by once again asking his own: "What are you doing here?"

In reality, the moment of time that she took to answer that was very short, but to her it felt like hours of sifting through potential answers and then regaining enough composure to speak without her voice sounding strained, "Staring at the man I've been trying to find for the past seven months."

"Seven?" he repeated questioningly, "it's been that long?"

Celes slowly nodded, and briefly wondered why she hadn't just pretended that she didn't know him, like she had told Terra she was going to. She continued to stare at the man before her; falling silent.

He was quiet as well, but not for very long, "Why are you here, Celes?" he asked again.

"I'm here to find a place to stay--"

"--I know that," he cut in, "I mean why are you in Kohlingen?"

".. the same reason."

He shook his head, "You could have gone elsewhere."

"I like it here," she lied-- she hated Kohlingen, and even more now that he had shown up and made her miserable mood even worse.

"I'm not stupid, you know. You've never liked it here-- Rachel is here."

She found herself lying again, "That's not true."

"It's very true."

He was so right that it hurt, but she wasn't about to let him know that, "Think what you will."

"I was intending to."

"Where have you been all this time?" she asked quite suddenly, "We looked for you for so long..."

"Liar."

"What?" she was slightly shocked by that accusation, "What do you mean, 'liar'?" she said, although she knew exactly what it had meant.

"I mean," he explained, "that you're lying. You didn't look for me-- if you had looked, you had looked, you would have found me. And if you were looking, you definitely weren't looking hard enough," there was something in his voice that made it very obvious that he wasn't telling the complete truth-- some kind of nervousness-- but Celes was getting too upset to even remotely notice it. Unfortunately for him, 'upset' meant 'angry' in Celes' dictionary.

"Are you fucking crazy? Trying to deny to me something that I know for a fact I did?"

He said nothing, just shot her what Celes automatically assumed was a glare, though she was wrong-- he was upset as well, and for him that meant something along the lines of depressed. Celes just narrowed her eyes in his direction, slowly shaking her head in disbelief.

"I want you to leave, Celes," he mumbled loud enough for her to hear, turning around and leaving the room, he slammed the door behind him.

Celes stared at the closed door after he was gone; sitting down on the edge of the bed-- collapsing is more like it-- she buried her head in her hands and screamed.

---

Locke leaned back against the door, sliding down to sit on the floor; the last thing that he saw before closing his eyes was Natalya staring at him in confusion. There was silence in the room behind him, and then he heard Celes screaming incoherently.

Natalya made a funny noise in the back of her throat, before coughing to clear it, "Do you know her?" she asked.

"You can go home now, Natalya." his voice was sharp-- rude, and he felt bad using that tone with such an old friend. He didn't hear her leaving.

"Locke..," she breathed, obviously worried about him.

"Leave," he said, "please."

Natalya's footsteps disappeared down the hallway, and Locke let out a deep sigh; wondering what the hell he was going to do now. The most obvious thing would be getting up and away from the door so that Celes would be able to leave whenever she was done fuming, but.. when he tried to move his arms to push himself to his feet, they wouldn't listen.

"Guess I'm stuck here," he muttered to himself; knowing that he wouldn't be able to move until he was properly calmed down.

"Why the hell was Celes in Kohlingen? And after all the trouble he'd been going through to avoid her-- to avoid everybody. He couldn't have her around, it would completely throw him off course and keep him from doing what he'd come home for.

"Aw, man.. Why'd you have to show up now, Cel? I can't deal with this yet," he said to himself, "just a few more weeks. Let this be a dream.. and I'll wake up and you won't be here for another month. If you show up then, I'll be fine-- I'll be with Rachel." Rachel.. Rachel would be alive and well soon, he was sure of it.

Locke reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a shard of magicite. It was a peculiar one, being a different colour from any of the other magicite that he had encountered-- it was red, and almost completely broken, but it was warm to the touch and from stories that he had heard, it was extremely powerful.

"Phoenix," he breathed, "you'll save her for me.. but I need to wake you up first, don't I?"

Truthfully, he was only assuming that this stone had once been the legendary Phoenix, since he had no real way to identify it-- he couldn't sense it; couldn't feel any magic in it.. It was like that with his own magicite as well, it was like they were all just hollow when he tried to reach out to them. It was his opinion that maybe they were in some kind of deep sleep, or maybe a coma of some sort, and all that he had to do was find a way to wake them up.. Or so he hoped, anyway.

Phoenix had the power to bring Rachel back to life, and he was going to take serious advantage of that-- he had to take advantage of it. Rachel wasn't supposed to have died the way she had. Rachel was supposed to have lived, regained her memory and lived happily with Locke. Well.. that's what Locke needed to be happy, anyway. He loved her fat too much to let her go forever.

But Celes.. Celes would only get in his way and keep him from doing what he had to do. She was-- or had been-- all that he wanted in the world, short of Rachel being alive, and that was going to become extremely distracting. Celes being around would make him question his priorities-- make him want to be with her rather than Rachel. He felt so bad just throwing her our, though. What if she really needed a place to stay?

He was interrupted in the middle of his thoughts when he felt the door shift slightly behind him, and heard Celes cursing under her breath.

---

Celes had been screaming so loudly that her throat was hurting, and it was her cue to stop. She dug her nails into her scalp just enough to hurt, but not hard enough to draw blood. What the hell was that man thinking?

"Damn thief," she cursed him under her breath.

Of all people, Locke definitely knew better than to call her a liar when she was telling the truth-- he'd done it once before, and almost earned himself a broken hand. She hated being called a liar almost as much as she hated cutters, and-- oh no.

Jumping to her feet, she turned quickly to stare down at the bed upon which she had just been sitting; staring at the bloodstains and carefully putting two and two together: this was most likely Locke's room, and that would make this his bed.

"Oh, Goddesses no.." she whispered, arms falling uselessly to her sides, "Locke.."

Unless he was into some extremely twisted stuff, and Celes seriously doubted that he was, the blood was definitely his, and that meant that there was now one person on Celes' list of 'cutters she didn't hate'.

How could he do that to himself, even with all that he had gone through? He had to be smarter than that.. she knew he was smarter than that. She was going to have to ask him about this now, even if she was still kind of angry at him. Walking over to the door, she tried to open it and wasn't able to push the door outward, as there was some kind of weight against it on the other side-- she knew that it was him. Why the hell was he sitting on the floor, keeping the door shut after he'd told her to get out?

"Damnit, Locke!" she went back over to the bed and kicked it a few times, before sitting herself back down again and staring at her feet. She heard the floor creak slightly outside the door, like Locke was getting to his feet or something.. and the door opened.

Once again, she took a moment to regain her composure before lifting her head to stare at the man in the doorway.