Mismatching Colors Chapter 3: Colloyd: At the Beginning, a tales of symphonia fanfic

Lightning-Dono: This one is for Colloyd, the pairing of Colette and Lloyd. :D This one is a songfic. The song lyrics are italicized and in bold.

Answers to the Reviews:

AborsenSabriel87 – I kinda like Zelos, but if that's what you're going to go for, then go ahead. I feel awful for Genis, though. Zelos, you idiot...Thanks for the compliments!

ObviousMan – Yay, it's Sano! xD Darnit, calm down! Thank you for the compliment, Breezy/OM! I acted how I thought best for Zelos, though...He'd probably just say that jokingly, but he never realizes how much it really hurts.

Dragonmaster-Sain – Like said in the above review, Zelos has no clue how much it hurts.

Katrina-Chan – Tee-hee, just how Genis would act. xD Zelos has problems with colors. Perhaps he thinks Genis is really old? Thank you, and I may write another Gesea story in the future!

Freakyleaf – Thank you! Oh, yes, I'm not dark and angsty, I'm actually freakishly happy. xD But I don't know...I haven't got the energy to be happy all the time, and I'm a sucker for sad stuff. :)

At the Beginning

Author: Yours truly. (:
Disclaimer: I don't own this pairing or ToS. I kinda wish I did, though. I also don't own the song "At the Beginning" sung by Donna Lewis and Richard Marx.
Notes: All flashbacks are unrelated to actual in-game scenes. This one isn't angst-y, though, so if you're tired of reading angst, then go for this one.
Warnings: Uh...Kissing?

We were strangers, starting out on a journey
Never dreaming, what we d have to go through
Now here we are, I'm suddenly standing
At the beginning with you

Colette glided like a graceful swan through the forest, her now agile legs carrying her through the dense grouping of trees, all the way to Dirk's house. Her golden hair cloaked her shoulders as she sprung from tree root to tree root, never hesitating once to look behind her, even at the slightest premonition of danger. A small ripple in the pond nearby sent a little plop! noise through Colette's sharp eardrums, causing her to cringe slightly.

The forest was her realm, she felt, the one place where she would belong, embraced within it's ethereal arms. But there was another place of which she belonged, and that was in the arms of Lloyd.

"If you ever need anyone to confide your worries to, come to me." Lloyd spoke to her calmly. She watched him almost tearfully back.

"But I'm becoming a monster. An ugly Cruxis Crystal..." The words sank in like a poisonous sap sliding down her throat, swelling into a lump in the vicinity of her Adam's Apple. "I'm so sorry for letting you see me this way...I know how hard you tried."

The brown-haired teen shook his head rapidly, staring deep into those shallow, sapphire eyes that reflected more pain than the bright color dared to show.

"No, don't apologize!" He yelled at his friend who had been confined to bed strictly by Raine after having a severe coughing fit. "It's hard enough knowing that this was involuntary, but to have you say sorry even though it wasn't your fault? Look, I'm doing this out of my own free will. No one's making me do this for you." His voice softened. "So accept that and stop telling you're sorry about things you can't be sorry for, okay?"

Colette heaved a great cough.

"Okay."

No one told me I was going to find you
Unexpected, what you did to my heart
When I lost hope, you were there to remind me
This is the start

Lloyd was sharpening a piece of metal viciously against a round smooth rock, making jagged lines on the surface. He was attempted to quell his nervousness. Colette was going to arrive at his home any moment, and he had to be ready to say something he had always wanted to. Unfortunately, as Lloyd brewed the words slowly in his mind, it didn't sound right. Before, they had sounded perfect. Now, as he muttered them under his breath, he sounded like a sappy greeting card. It was sure to win over Colette as she loved that stuff, but to him, he might as well have gone to the store and gotten a pre-made piece of folded paper with words written inside it.

Dirk was out in the woods, hacking down wood to treat a leak on their cottage roof, buying Lloyd some time to prepare his speech. Memories ran through his hectic mind like a constantly running film strip of the many times he had suffered defeat against Colette's innocent feminine powers.

"What's that, Lloyd?" Asked a curious blonde, peering over his shoulder at the box of chocolates he held protectively in his arms, looking as though he had just committed robbery.

In truth, it was a box of chocolates he had been planning to give to Colette. Unfortunately, he remembered that Colette was allergic to cherries, so he had been attempting to stuff all the cherry-filled chocolates into his mouth before anyone could tell him off. But it was hard to escape those acute eyes that followed him around, haunting him.

"Nuffin'," Lloyd choked out, coughing crazily into his gloved hand.

"Oh, Lloyd, you're so silly!" She giggled, her voice kissed with an angelic touch that made it sound light and bubbly. "Are those chocolates for a girl?"

There was a rather embarrassing moment of silence as Lloyd hacked the last of the trapped chocolate into his hand, hastily wiping it away on his pants.

"Crap," he muttered, noticing that he had just stained his newly obtained pants a light brown. "Er, I mean, no. They're for...um...me."

Colette giggled hesitantly. "Umm...Okay." She walked away. Lloyd started after her, but Zelos landed his hand on Lloyd's shoulder.

"Nice try, bub."

And life is a road that I wanna keep going
Love is a river, I wanna keep flowing
Life is a road, now and forever, wonderful journey
I'll be there when the world stops turning
I'll be there when the storm is through
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you

Colette sprinted up to the steps, spotting Lloyd's flashy red clothing.

"Lloyd!" She cried, arms spread open like a pair of stiff, makeshift wings. A smile spread across her pale face.

Lloyd grinned back at her. "Welcome back." He felt himself turning red. This is my moment. A light sigh escaped his lips, feeling the rustling of leaves as they rubbed against each other gently in the breeze. Treetops shuddered, heavy with animals balancing themselves carefully on their branches, waiting, seemingly for Lloyd to speak.

We were strangers on a crazy adventure
Never dreaming, how our dreams would come true
Now here we stand, unafraid of the future
At the beginning with you

"Um...Colette? I have something to tell you." He escorted her slowly to the wooden bench that lay by Noishe's open shack that sheltered him from the harsh weather conditions.

"Yes? What is it?" She asked eagerly, bouncing enthusiastically on the balls of her feet, nearly tipping herself over forwards.

Lloyd set a finger on her lips, forcing her to fall quiet before letting her sit down on the bench. He fell in place next to her, forgetting that he was supposed to be saying something. Instead, he focused his attention on two birds that were chirping back and forth, disturbing the still, cool air.

"Um...S-So..." Colette's stuttering brought Lloyd back into their dimension.

"I have to tell you something."

"You...just...um...said that," she said quietly, hoping that it didn't sound too rude. Lloyd spaced out often, but whenever he felt like saying something, it burst right out of the endless black hole on his face.

Knew there was somebody, somewhere
A new love in the dark
Now I know my dream will live on
I've been waiting so long
Nothing s gonna tear us apart

A doubtful thought suddenly shot into Lloyd's spacey mind. What if she already likes someone else? She must...it's been a couple of years since we last saw each other...Oh no. Lloyd felt like crying suddenly. How could he have been so stupid? Colette, a cute, innocent angelic woman. He, a rough barbaric man who had once caused the deaths of so many people. Lloyd felt ridiculously foolish as he sat there beside her. Oh, well. Atleast I'll know if I tell her.

"Colette?" He waited until he received her attention full-blast. The warm, oceanic blue eyes burnt into his. "I...well, I've wanted to tell you this for some time now. I thought that I should've waited because this is going to come somewhat as a surprise."

"What do you want to tell me? I'm sorry for making you wait so long..."

"Don't apologize," he said quickly. "I just thought that now was better than ever, since you're visiting and all..."

Colette impatiently bounced up and down on the bench, causing it to creak uncomfortably. She looked as though she were jamming away on a very active song. "Please, tell me!"

"I love you."

The blonde, blue-eyed angel watched him steadily, shrinking him under her gaze. What more does she want? He asked himself miserably. I'd do anything for her...Except I might not have the money to afford a diamond ring.

"Oh, Lloyd, I'm so happy!" She bawled, crying happily into his shoulder, embracing him tightly.

"...You are?"

"Are you kidding?" She laughed. "I can't believe it...Finally...I've been looking forward to this for years."

Lloyd's grin spread across his face. "Why didn't you just tell me before instead of waiting?"

Colette giggled. "It's so much better to wait, because when it finally comes...you're so much happier for waiting all that time to conclude it in such a wondrous way."

Lloyd didn't quite get it, but it decided that he'd touch on that later.

"So you don't hate me?"

You fool. Of course I don't hate you, Colette thought, anguished by the thought that her lover actually thought that she hated him. "Of course not!" She wrapped her arms tightly around him. "I'll never let you go, either..."

And they shared their first kiss.

Ooh, look, sappy ending:D But it's a really bad ending...I'm not good with endings. The rest of the lyrics to the song are just repeating, so I didn't bother.