Louis/Gina

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He's not good with girls; Louis knows this, and he's come, over the years, to just accept it and move on.

There have been girls he's liked; there's even one that he's firmly convinced he loves. But that doesn't make him good around them. He never knows what to say, so he doesn't say anything, and then they think he's cold or stupid.

And he knows that girls don't like men in clothes that are too baggy, or too short, and cobbled together with safety pins and patches.

So the first time a little blue-haired girl slipped into the Tool Shop, clothes and hair drenched, glasses rain-streaked and fogging badly, he panicked a bit.

Especially when she asked him, very respectfully – called him Sir, even – if he would mind her company long enough for the storm to lighten a little, because she was having a terrible finding her way.

He turned red, because he didn't know yet that she calls everyone Sir, and it doesn't mean that she thinks they look old or that she's afraid of them. But he let her stay to stay, because he knew that walking in the rain with glasses was like trying to see your way through a fishbowl, and even gave her a towel to dry her hair because he wondered what it looked like down.

They didn't talk a lot, because he's not good with girls, and she hates to be a bother, but when the storm finally lightened, she gave him a small, sweet smile that made him feel like his discomfort might have been worth it.

The next time she came to visit, she had a little more to say to him, because she came specifically to thank him for ordering in that Silk Thread for Jack. They moved from the thread, to the strange metals she sometimes found from digging in the garden, to the easiest ways to prepare an egg.

It was then that he thought, surprised, that Gina was very easy to talk to. He didn't know if it was that she didn't giggle and chatter like other girls, or that she could sit still when occasion required, or that she didn't seem to care about her appearance and was hard to offend, but an hour had passed before he'd known ten minutes was up.

A third and fourth visit later, the visits began to come at greater frequency, and Louis stopped turning red and silent when he saw her, and calling out a cheerful greeting with the twinkling smile that few women knew about.

On days when the shop was closed, she would somehow manage to hunt him down on his walks by the lake – that is, when he didn't specifically amble up to Clove Villa to wait for her shift to end so she could join him. They might end up in the café for some of her favourite herb tea, or he might offer to brew her a cup before he started work on his latest invention before a captive audience.

All the while, Louis thought he was finding more to say than he ever had to a woman. Gina, he learned quickly, had an avid interest in his inventions and plans for future ones, asked as many questions as he was willing to answer about tools and their proper use and construction, and hung on his every word in a way that he thought dimly should have made him nervous.

It didn't make him nervous, but there were other things to do that. Namely, a gradual awareness that he had finally found something that he couldn't talk to her about. Sweet, sensible Gina, with her ruffled apron and her prim black dress and her Mary Janes and her braids, like a little girl but not, so easy to talk to, deserved to hear it from him, these three little words that were making his stomach twist up nervously whenever he even thought them.

And because she deserves better than someone who can't choke out three simple words, he thinks, gathering up what scraps of courage hadn't vanished the moment she came trotting toward him through the square with that refined yet brightly beaming smile, he'll take his chances, even though he's no good with girls and he knows it.

But apparently, he thinks a few moments later, panicked and incredulous and exhilirated as her eyes grow wide and her cheeks brightly pink before she throws herself affectionately at him, he's good enough.

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End Notes: Teehee...that was fun. Although, all the glasses-augmented cuteness almost made me pass out. XD I'll probably do one with these two based in Magical Melodies eventually, because I think they'd go pretty well together. And they both love Green Peppers! OTP! XD