A few people had gathered to gawk at the first surprise in a while. So, feeling thoroughly foolish, I had to introduce him to all of them, and then chat a bit. Once the minor crowd dispersed, we retreated back into the store. Annie inspected him briefly, then announced she'd forgotten to "do something," and darted out. I let her go, finished sorting the mail on my own while he told me about his trip. He'd heard from Sabin about some old caves in the Serpent Trench that might once have been lived in, and he'd wanted to check them out and spend the victory holiday here.
"Did you find them?" I asked.
"Yeah, in the mountains around that tower. It's almost all torn down now, if you were wondering. Looks good, I think we'll start there next if we can get a grant."
"That's closer to the Nikeah end of the trench, though," I pointed out. "And there are other towns even closer to it. Weren't they working on a railroad?" I added, irrelevantly; I knew full well they had been, but I was hoping he had more recent news on its progress. It wasn't as though he'd stay in Nikeah and commute by train to his archeological site.
"Completed it as far south as Freyborg," he confirmed. "But I want to stay here." He smiled brilliantly at me, and I felt my face heat, so I ducked my head over the letters as I shuffled and then re-sorted them.
Duane had heard about the visitor, evidently, so when he came in I reintroduced them. They'd met before, briefly, when I'd come back for a visit just before we fought Kefka. I thankfully handed the mail off to Duane when he volunteered to make the deliveries, and closed the store a bit early – it was only four – and took him over to show off my house.
I kept the tour brief, but then when I showed him the kitchen sink I had to show off the hot water. He confirmed that the bath had this luxury as well, so he and his pack commandeered the bathroom. With nothing else to do, I started dinner. He joined me after a while, with his beard trimmed and a fresh bandanna as a headband.
"You look a lot less like a pirate," I greeted him, teasing.
"I looked like a pirate?"
"The beard, plus the bandanna..."
He sighed heavily, but not at all seriously, as he seated himself. "At least pirates hunt for treasure," he said.
"No, they steal treasure and bury it. Other people hunt for it later."
"Woman!" he protested, but he grinned and tipped the kitchen chair back. "How's the beard look on me, anyway?"
"You need to give me a bit of time to get used to it." He looked crestfallen and I backpedaled hastily. "It looks good! It's just a change is all! I was just used to thinking of you clean-shaven—"
"It does look weird," he interrupted. "Too dark for my hair."
"That's normal for light-haired men, though. Really, it looks good."
"Wasn't planning to keep it. I just let it grow because I didn't want to shave on the road," he explained, then called out, "Hey there!" The kitchen door had opened. Annie led the way, and Margie and Henry followed her. "Hi," she greeted him, and the other two giggled.
"Hi," he responded. "You're... well, you're not Isabella or Katarin, I'm sure."
"I'm Annie and this is Marjorie and this is Henry. They're both seven and I'm eight. Who are you?"
"I'm Locke. I'm a friend of your mom's."
"Yeah," she agreed, accompanied by more giggles. "We have to go study now."
"Okay," he said, sounding mystified, and they scooted out the door.
Kat dropped in not long afterwards. She looked at him, then at me, and I saw a huge grin spread over her face. "Thanks for starting dinner," she said, sounding far more gleeful than the situation warranted. That boded ill for me, I thought.
"I'll just fix the whole meal, Kat, don't worry," I said. She chirped an affirmative and exited as well, hopefully to mind the kids.
"You're doing great," he said, when the door had shut behind her. He'd timed the statement perfectly, if he'd been trying for irony; the potatoes were trying to boil over.
"I am?" I asked, distracted, as I shifted the potatoes off to the side and knelt to peer at the fire.
"Eight kids and you're in charge of the government? Looks that way to me."
"Well, thanks," I mumbled, embarassed and at a loss. "I have help, you know, I mean..."
"You look good, too. I was afraid you'd be wasting away. I mean, I can't tell for sure, you're wearing corsets and those long skirts—"
Before, I'd always kept to short skirts or trousers, a pair of preferences that, according to Celes, didn't work together at all. "I hardly ever lace the corsets tight at all. I like breathing," I replied, defensively. "Besides, that's what everyone wears," I added. I hadn't wanted to stand out worse than I ever did.
"Not anymore. Would you believe you're a fashion icon?"
"Of course I wouldn't."
"You were an inspiration to some Jidooran designer, at least. That style of dress you liked so much is all over the place. I saw a few girls almost showing knee in South Figaro, and Edgar tells me women aren't wearing corsets anymore."
"They're cutting into my business!" I exclaimed. "They'd better have some new expensive underthings to take up the slack. But you'll have to let Kat know, she'll be in agony till she gets the latest magazines. Why would I have been wasting away?"
He let all four chair legs hit the ground, propped his foot in the seat of the next chair. "I... well, all this past year I figured you were happy. You sounded happy. Then you wrote me that letter about the magic and stuff, and I figure, she's been miserable all along and she just stopped hiding it." He looked up at me, almost anxiously.
"No, no, nothing like that! It just hits me sometimes, that's all." Like mourning a death. You can't help feeling the absence, but you can't let yourself drown in it either. You try to move on and not to think about it, but sometimes it throbs like an old scar. I didn't voice the comparison, at least.
I guess that's what he was thinking of, too, because after a long silence, he just said, "I know how that is." He looked serious, sad, and he was staring at his foot, or at least in the direction of it. "I wish I could help," he added, quietly.
"I... me too," I said, not completely sure how to explain what I meant by that, but he didn't respond, so I busied myself over the stove and left him alone. But I sneaked a glance at him, and again he had perfect timing, choosing that moment to look up with a rueful smile.
"So how are your kids doing?" he asked. I couldn't help growing animated on that subject, and he seemed to cheer up in response. I was surprised, and delighted. I'd figured everyone, except possibly Cyan, just skimmed the bits of my letters with news of the kids, but there he was, clearly not falling asleep and even laughing occasionally. He could always have been humoring me, but I thought I knew him well enough to tell if he was faking it.
Over dinner, he kept everyone entertained with stories from the previous year's dig. I'd already heard many of them in his letters, but he told them well, and besides, I was just happy to have him around. The kids all seemed enthralled, one way or another – Rosie, perched on Locke's lap, was enthralled with a ring he wore, and tried chewing on it while it was still on his finger – so I let them sit up for some time after dinner. When I started to notice yawns, I ushered my brood, sleepy but protesting, off to bed. When I came back downstairs, Locke was holding forth about the process of archeology to Duane and Kat.
"...that's where they come in, translating things and figuring out what it all means about how they lived," I heard, as I came within earshot.
"But why?" Duane asked, sounding as if he'd already asked the question. "I mean, not knocking your job, but why does it matter how all these people lived centuries ago?" I slipped through the door quietly.
"Because it's cool!" Locke answered, meeting my eye with a grin. I grinned back, and began clearing the plates off the table. Locke got up to help.
"But—"
"Like Mr. Collier says, Duane, if you don't know your history you're doomed to repeat it, so this is just one more part to know," Katarin supplied. She was nursing Rosie under a shawl. That meant she must have really been interested and wasn't just being polite, because she hated to nurse in front of anyone other than myself or Duane.
"Collier? That the guy I met earlier?" Locke asked, as I put the stacks of dishes in the sink.
"Yeah," I said. "He's my second on the council."
"Younger than I expected," he said, into a pocket of silence. I looked over my shoulder, spotted Kat's elevated eyebrows. I didn't know why, but I was sure I'd hear later.
"He's about thirty or so, I guess," I said. "What were you talking about when I came in?"
"Duane was calling his livelihood into question," Kat interjected.
"I was not!"
"He wasn't. It's a perfectly good question. I don't have an answer, but it's a good question." He turned back to me, smiling apologetically. "I was just explaining about archeology in more detail. You told them a lot, huh?"
"I guess I did," I replied, though I hadn't realized I had, and I ran hot water over the dishes in the sink. "What about translating? What's to translate? We could read the queen's diary." Her language had been archaic enough to put Cyan's thoroughly to shame. The grammar was strange, some of the words unfamiliar, the spellings odd, and there were a few letters I didn't recognize either. But we'd been able to puzzle through without a trained scholar.
"That was their common script. They had another they used for inscriptions, official documents, things like that. It's just about impossible... Hey, you still have that diary?"
"Of course! I wasn't about to throw that away. Do you want it?"
"I'd like to transcribe it later, but it's a bit late to start today. I'd better get on to the inn, anyway." He stood, went to get his bag out of the corner.
"I'll walk you out?" I offered, and while he was saying sure, Kat caught my eye and smiled broadly. Yes, I'd definitely hear about whatever it was soon enough. We headed out of the kitchen, through the darkened hallway – Kat liked to call it the foyer, though I wasn't sure that was quite correct – and we emerged into the cool night air. It had been unseasonably warm the past few days, but the nights were always cold. "I'm glad you're here," I said, quietly.
"I am too," he said, equally quietly, and smiled warmly. "I really missed you."
I felt like I had when he kissed me, happy but with a percolating nervousness. "I missed you too," I said, barely above a whisper, and watched my words disappear in little clouds of my breath. I reached out, pointlessly, finally touched his arm – it seemed the safest place. He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and leaned in; the kiss landed low on my cheek, near the corner of my lips. He straightened up, and there was silence, for a breath or two, until he whispered, "I'd better get going."
"I'll see you tomorrow?" I asked.
"Of course!" he said, his voice climbing to a halfway normal volume, and then he grabbed my hand, squeezed it, and turned to leave. I watched until he was halfway across the square, then turned around and went back inside.
Duane was waiting in the kitchen, sipping his coffee. "Kat's upstairs putting Rosie to bed," he told me. He'd accepted the name, reluctantly at first. "We agreed, we approve of your friend."
"Well... good!" I said, going back over to the sink. "I'm glad." That actually meant a lot, coming from Duane; he always meant well, but he had a temper and he'd clashed immediately with Celes and especially Sabin when they'd asked me to join them.
"I didn't hate any of them," he said. "I was just afraid you'd leave, and then..." he trailed off. I nodded, sympathetically, but I wasn't sure if I could say anything without offending him. I could guess that he'd felt he'd be the head of the household, without me, and that the responsibility had scared him, that he'd feared he couldn't keep the family together, but I wasn't sure he'd admit it.
"I would have always come back," I said. But that wasn't fully true, because when it came to fighting Kefka, I hadn't been sure I could. And I'd gone anyway.
He nodded. "I know you would have tried," he said, and Kat walked into the slightly awkward silence that followed that, smiling brightly at both of us. "Well, I think she's down for the night," she reported. "What's going on?"
"We were just talking," he said. "I'll go check up on the chocobos, then get to bed."
"Be with you in a bit!" she called after him, and I heard him, through the door, acknowledge that. "So," she said, turning to me.
"So?" I repeated, reaching for a rag to scrub the dishes.
"He's a very nice man," she told me. "Locke. Mr. Cole."
"I know. He's my best friend, really. Almost my oldest friend." The oldest friend I fully remembered. I rubbed a stubborn gravy spot away underwater. "I'm glad you guys like him, though."
"And I guess he had about a month or so in there where he couldn't write to you because he was traveling," she continued.
"Kat, please don't start that again," I said hastily, rinsing the plate off under hot water.
"Why not?" she asked, teasingly, and I sighed. She stood, came to join me; I handed her the wet plate and a dry cloth.
"It's... I mean... he's... it's complicated." Pointless trying to pretend it was nothing. She wouldn't believe me. She wouldn't just let this excuse sit, either, and I scrubbed hard at the next plate, not looking up at her though I could feel her eyes on my face. "He had a fiancee, who just died less than a year ago, and one of my other friends was sort of in love with him."
"Sort of?" she repeated gently, and I just nodded, handed her the dish without looking at her. "But they're not together now?" she continued. "Romantically, I mean."
"I don't think so."
"Have they ever been together?"
I felt a stab of something that must have been jealousy. "I don't know. I thought he was interested in her for a while. Looking back, I think he was interested in me for a while. But he got over it. By the time we found him again, after, he didn't really seem interested in either of us." Until he kissed me. But that had been a fluke. And he'd been dancing with her.
"Where's she been?"
"In Narshe," I answered automatically, then paused in my washing, realizing what she was getting at. She bent and twisted her neck, trying to peer into my face. She was smiling as she straightened.
"And he was around Figaro, wasn't he? And that's not really very close to Narshe anymore." I just nodded. "And now he's here," she concluded. "Which is quite a distance from Figaro or Narshe. I think that says something."
"Well, maybe," I said, handing off another plate to her. "Maybe not. People can write. And it doesn't say a thing about how she feels."
"But it's a start!" she insisted. "And you can drop hints, fish for information. Or I can. I'll be all subtle. We'll work something out."
"Why are you being so nice to me about this?" I asked. "I figured you and Duane would both tease me mercilessly."
"Nah. Duane figures it's your business and he'll leave you alone. If you'd been writing love letters secretly all this time, I would have teased you, but not over this. That's why I acted like that earlier. I just didn't know."
"Oh. Um, thank you?"
"If that means you forgive me, sure. And I forgive you, so it all works out. Did he mention to you about short skirts coming into style?"