Warning: Mass updating in progress. Starting with Parts 7-30. Will probably put the rest of up later this week.
Also, this story is fully posted on AO3 already.
Broken Wings
N.W. 5
Love Will Not Lie
Lloyd closed the door behind him carefully. It was late. Paul would be in bed already, and Lilia...
"Lloyd? Is that you?"
He smiled to himself and stepped into the next room. "I'm home, Lilia."
Dark blue eyes rose from the blanket she was knitting, and Lilia smiled. "I wasn't expecting you back for another couple weeks. You're a little early."
Lloyd wanted to chuckle, but...
The speed with which Lilia put down her knitting was telling, and she was already on her feet when she spoke. "Lloyd? What's wrong?"
He closed the short distance between them, reminded keenly of that night in Flanoir so many years ago, just weeks before Colette had returned her necklace. "Do you remember... why the Desians wanted my mother's exsphere so much?" he asked, reaching out to brush a lock of hair behind Lilia's ear.
She hummed. "It was part of a special project, wasn't it?"
"Yes, the Angelus Project." He stopped here and let his head hang. This... was hard. "Kvar was trying to make a Cruxis Crystal by evolving an exsphere. And...while he may be five years dead... he did succeed."
Lilia didn't respond immediately, and Lloyd stayed silent, inwardly terrified of what she was going to say.
"So... you're going to leave?"
He may as well have been slapped, for all that he shifted back in shock. "Wha—?!"
"Isn't that why Colette left? Because she was an angel and you were human? Except... now you're an angel, and..."
Lloyd was shaking his head and pulling Lilia into a tight embrace before she could continue. "I love you." And...he really needed to stop blurting that out if he was just going to get hurt. Not to mention the fact that Lilia was clearly in a state of shock.
He took a deep breath, pulled back far enough to look her in the eye, and soldiered on. "I do. I'm not just trying to pull your leg or something. And...that's why I wanted to give you the choice." Another deep breath, and Lloyd was vaguely aware of just how gingerly he was touching her, like she was a delicate doll he could break if he simply held it wrong.
Lilia was a lot of things, but delicate wasn't one of them.
"Colette left because she couldn't bear the thought of having to watch me grow old and die. But now I've lost one of the best friends I've ever had, and I know she has to be hurting, too, because she's avoiding everyone. That's no way to live. I know it's going to hurt, watching everyone around me go, but... All the more reason to give them all the time I can. So in the end..." Lloyd stopped and brushed away a tear he knew Lilia hadn't meant to let slip. "It's up to you, Lilia. I'd like to stay... but if you think it'll hurt you in the long run..."
She surprised him.
She'd been doing a lot of that in the last few years, Lloyd mused.
But... the last thing he'd expected her to do was kiss him.
She was crying freely when she pulled away, but the laughter that accompanied the tears brought a smile to Lloyd's face... and lightness to his heart.
"You're so silly... I love you too, Lloyd Irving. And if Paul and I have to chase you down and sit on you, you're staying. You hear me?"
Lloyd couldn't help it. He was laughing and crying right alongside her. "Yes, ma'am."
Which, of course, prompted the usual response. "And don't ever call me 'ma'am' again."