Water Under the Bridge
Chapter 6

"So, what's the deal?"

Aranea kept her eyes forward as she and Prompto trudged through the grass that nearly towered over the both of them. She pretended to not hear him the first time, but when he asked the question again, she rolled her eyes and stopped to face him. "What are you blabbering on about, Blondie?"

"Between you and Iggy," he said like the answer was obvious.

Months had passed by since Prompto walked in on her and Ignis in the kitchen. If it weren't for the fact that Gladio and Prompto had basically been on opposite schedules, Prompto surely would have spilled his guts to him but, as luck would have it, he had to continue to shoulder the secret on his own.

Aranea rolled her eyes harder. "What about him?"

Prompto winked and nudged her in the side with his elbow. "Oh . . . you know."

"No, I seriously don't."

She parted the grass carefully, quickly motioning for everyone to lay low as an Iron Giant stomped by. With baited breaths, they waited for it to finally get a fair distance away before moving on. They were headed for Aracheole Stronghold, an abandoned Empire base south of Lestallum that was rumored by various refugees to have a large stock of potions and elixirs. Cor designated Aranea and her men to lead the search for these items. He also placed Prompto on the team since Gladio had worked tirelessly the last couple of days on guard duty.

This time, Aranea was thoughtful enough to forewarn Ignis about her departure, estimating she'd be back within the week—a far cry from her month-long mission before. For some reason, it was getting harder and harder to leave him each time she was sent away. It was, unexpectedly, tugging at her heart. Whatever, he'll be ok, she thought, assuming she was just worried about his wellbeing.

Now, here she was with the ever-persistent Sunshine Boy who was dead set on getting her to admit to some asinine and vague notion that simply wasn't true.

"Oh, but you seriously do. How else would you explain me walking in on you and Ignis, alone, in the kitchen, practically kissing— "

"Woah, woah, woah, hold up. There was no practically kissing. In fact, there wasn't anything close. He was hungry and his hands were all wet, so I gave him a bite of my food. I'm not seeing the big deal," she admonished before turning to Biggs and Wedge, yelling over her shoulder for them to keep up.

"I'm sorry, but are you forgetting the look of absolute desire in his eyes as you did that? Because, from what I saw, that certainly tells a different story than what you're telling me." He tried to walk alongside her, but she sped up to get away from him. "Listen, I've known Iggy since high school and that guy has the emotional range of a teaspoon. Think what you want; I know flirting when I see it and you two were, or are, definitely flirting."

Aranea spun on her heels, getting in his face. "What the hell are you going on about?" she hissed, narrowing her eyes. "There's no flirting or anything between me and Four Eyes. For Astral's sake, he's not even that good looking!"

Prompto's jaw dropped in disbelief. "Hey, come on! You know not true! I think we can all agree that Ignis is very good looking! The man has the cheekbones of a God and the most dazzling of smiles that could melt any woman's cold, lifeless heart," Prompto playfully swooned, batting his eyelids and snickering. Aranea clenched her teeth. Prompto may have been joking, but what he was saying wasn't a lie. Still, Aranea didn't need to tell him she thought that.

"Good, then you date him."

The sharpshooter scrunched his face. "Nah, he's not my type. Come back to me if he turns into a blonde, southern Belle with a proclivity for cars. Then we can talk," he hinted as they moved from heavy grass to open terrain, Aracheole Stronghold just up ahead.

They approached the fortress in silence, daemons howling and screeching not far off. Aranea thought the third-degree interrogation was finally over, but Prompto decided he wasn't ready to let up. Her eyebrow started to twitch when he rambled again and she wanted nothing more than to stab him, cut him into itty-bitty pieces, and bury him right where they were standing. He just wouldn't. Shut. Up.

The base was literal steps away at this point when Prompto started again, his voice much higher in pitch as he goaded her. "—I mean, I'm just saying! It's no coincidence that when you're in town, Iggy likes to wake up and go on morning walks. That's fine and all, but then he's perfectly happy with staying in the room when you're away on missions. Weird, right? If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was meeting someone. A certain Commodore, maybe?"

She stopped in her tracks and faced him, the biggest grin plastered across his lips. Her face fell.

He knew. He may not know the specifics, but he knew something was up.

Aranea gripped Prompto's bicep, her grip eliciting a yelp from him as her nails dug into his skin. She yanked him close to her and detected a fleeting hint of fear flicker across his eyes. "Listen here, you little shit. If you say a word about anything— "

"I thought you said there wasn't anything between you."

"There's not."

"Are you sure?" he sang, drawing out the last word irritatingly. He yelped again, this time louder, as she tightened her grip.

"Oi! Is everything alright up tha' way?" Wedge called out, both him and Biggs bringing up the rear as they all stood in front of the heavy-metal entrance to the stronghold. Prompto and Aranea jerked their heads to the duo and then back at each other.

"Ohhhh, we're fine! Nothing to see here, right Aranea?" Prompto brushed away their concerns, but under his breath, he hissed: "Sheesh, get your hands off me."

He wrenched away from her vice-like grip and flicked her arm away, proving to be a little stronger than Aranea thought for someone who appeared so scrawny. Her eyes were slits as he walked by her, trying to figure out the lock mechanism to get inside the base. He was quiet for a moment, concentrating on the task, before cracking the lock and gaining entry.

Without turning around, he stirred the pot again. "What's wrong? Afraid I'll tell Gladio? Because I mean, if we're being honest, I would be the one to spill the beans, right?" he sighed. "But I won't. I can't do that to Ignis."

Biggs and Wedge skirted by Prompto and Aranea, ignoring their squabble as they entered the fortress, guns readied and aimed should any daemons call this place home. Aranea wanted to follow the duo inside, but she couldn't pull her stare from the blonde, his words echoing in her head. "Wait, can't do what to Ignis?"

Prompto sighed dramatically, pulling his own gun from its holster and popping in a few more bullets into the chamber. "Ignis may not realize it and you may be in denial, but whatever it is you two have been up to and whatever you guys have been doing, it really has brought out a side of Iggy I've never seen before." His expression was rather serious as he spoke, but he kept his hands busy with his gun. "He's a lot happier these days. I honestly haven't seen him this cheerful—if you can call it that—since Altissia, maybe even before that.

Funny enough, he's also been trying to get in the kitchen more. He's still too stubborn to let us help, though. I mean, he'll ask us to make sure that his measurements are correct and that he's using salt and not sugar, but I can't say he even entertained the idea of stepping foot in front of a stove until I saw you two in our kitchen that time."

"He's trying to cook again? Alone?" Aranea tried to mask the surprise on her face by pretending her nose itched for far longer than necessary, but Prompto noticed.

The sight of her trying not to show her emotions made Prompto smile. "Something, or someone, definitely inspired him, that's for sure. Maybe it's coincidence or maybe not, I don't know. If it'll make you feel better, I'll keep pretending I have no idea what's going on, but— "

Aranea interrupted him before he could finish his sentence. "That's because there is nothing going on. The lack of sun must be messing with your mind or something, but whatever Specs does has absolutely nothing to do with me, so get those thoughts out of your head." She bumped him intentionally with her shoulder and got a sick joy when she heard him say "Ouch" under his breath. "Let's go. We have potions to grab and daemons to slaughter."

Luckily enough, or unluckily if you were Aranea and itching for a fight, there were few daemons within the confines of the stronghold. A few imps here and there and one Fire Bomb, but that was it. She couldn't deny that the lack of daemons made grabbing the massive load of scattered potions that much easier to do. Even though she and Cor didn't exactly get along, she was silently thanking him for pressuring the team to bring backpacks so they wouldn't have to juggle the stock in their arms.

Filled to the point that the bags barely zipped up, they surveyed the base one final time for any stray useful items lying around before heading back to the stronghold entrance. They understood they'd have to stop and make camp along the way. The city was just too far away to get back in one day on foot with the dangers ahead, so they wanted to make sure they were prepared to head home.

As they started to head out, something caught Aranea's eye—papers scattered by and around an office desk. She held a hand up. "Hold up, don't leave just yet."

The three men tilted their heads various degrees in confusion and she walked to the papers. They were large sheets with a giant bullseye in the middle, surrounded by blue, yellow, and black rings. Target paper. She hid a smile and rolled up the papers, tucking them under her arm. Biggs and Wedge ignored her orders to wait, instead choosing to carry on to the base entrance. They didn't really care what she did, so long as she remained safe. Prompto, on the other hand, remained unmoving from where he stopped.

He pointed at the papers in her arms, smirking. "Interesting thing to bring back."

"Can it, Blondie. It's for target practice; but if you don't knock it off, I'm going to use you as a target instead of these papers."

"Target practice for you? Or target practice for Iggy? Because if it's for Iggy, I don't think he'll be happy to use me instead of those papers. But if it's for you . . ." He made a zipping motion over his lips, pressing them together as he threw away an invisible key to keep his mouth shut.

Aranea scowled and Prompto interlocked his hands over his head. "Can I just ask you one thing?" He saw her cock an eyebrow. "Do you have feelings for him?"

She held his gaze and took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she released it slowly. It looked like she was going to reveal a major bombshell. She looked at him again. "No," she replied curtly, storming away.

Prompto held a hand out and chased after her. "Wait! Is that a 'no' to asking you one thing or is that a 'no' that you don't have feelings for him? I'm gonna need clarification! Ugh, slow down! You're walking too fast! Dammit, wait for me!"

Lestallum had, once again, been thrust into chaos as Altissian refugees had started to make their way to the city for salvation. The streets were unruly with rattled and disordered citizens trying to figure out what to do, or where to go, next. The good news was that this showed there were more people in the world who were safe; the bad news was that it made Lestallum feel a great deal smaller and cramped.

Due to the sudden influx of people, Aranea decided it was best that she and Ignis move their training to the lit outskirts of the city where the tree line began. It would make pinning the targets that she'd brought home that much easier (just as it was easier to pin paper to tree bark, it also wouldn't be feasible to aim a sharpened lance at brick and stone buildings) and they would still have the quiet privacy they'd both come to enjoy with each other. The targets wouldn't replace having to face actual daemons, but anything was better than nothing.

Aranea also proposed they meet later in the afternoon (even though it would always seem like night no matter what time they met) on this day, just because everyone was too busy to notice they were gone and she'd wanted to sleep in for once.

Now, she laid on her side on a patch of grass, head supported with her hand, finding herself admiring Ignis, the way he took aim, and the way he threw his weapon at the targets around them, though he remained blissfully unaware of her blatant staring. Prompto was right—he was very good looking. That didn't mean anything though, right? She could admire him and admit he was handsome . . . and charming . . . that gorgeous accent . . . and oh God, those muscles under his fitted short-sleeved t-shirt . . . no. That didn't mean she was flirting or that she had any feelings for him. That's where Prompto was wrong.

She shook her head, vaguely aware that Ignis was saying something to her. She pretended she'd been listening and managed to seamlessly fall back into their idle conversation between his throws. They conversed and joked back and forth, both a lot livelier than they would be at 5 am. It was a nice change of pace.

Another throw and the lance pierced the paper pinned against the tree, close to the center but not close enough. Ignis moved his head from one shoulder to the other, stretching his neck and trying to loosen up. His hair caught the light of an obnoxiously bright lamp overhead and Aranea snorted.

"Do you dye your hair, Specs?"

Ignis tossed a look over his shoulder. "What reason would I have to dye my hair? That makes no sense."

"Well, you used to have light brown hair and now it's dark brown. It looks like you dyed it. What, was changing up the style to get my attention not enough?"

"I didn't change my hairstyle for you," he challenged. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to figure out why, over the course of however long, his hair went dark. "It's probably just a mixture of my getting older and no sun to lighten it up. It's science, really," he hypothesized. Aranea didn't ask further—still convinced he secretly dyed it—and Ignis returned to target practice. Sometimes he would miss the tree completely, other times he got lucky and nailed a bullseye.

As he practiced, they talked about simple subjects: Their favorite seasons and why (Ignis said Autumn, hands-down, for the coffee and changing of the scenery while Aranea chose Winter for the longer nights), would they rather live in the past or the future (after much debate, they both settled on the past, but not too distant past, since the future was uncertain), and favorite subject back in high school (neither could choose because Ignis loved and excelled at all subjects while Aranea barely scraped by and hated school with a fiery passion).

Chatting, before an awkward and trying thing between them, was now effortless and fun. It was light. They welcomed each other's company and basked in, what could easily be, the hours of dialogue they exchanged back and forth.

Aranea snapped her fingers with another topic to discuss. "Oh, I've got something! Tell me something about yourself that no one else knows."

He grunted, throwing another lance at the tree and grazing the outer edge of the target paper. A bead of sweat fell down the side of his face and he wiped it away with the back of his hand, furrowing his brows at her question. "I doubt there's anything about me that you're interested in hearing and that no one else would have a clue about."

She shrugged. "There has to be something that no one else knows. You're definitely the type to hide a thing or two."

He recalled the lance back to his possession and pondered her question. Sure, Ignis wasn't exactly an open book when it came to his life, but he grew up alongside Gladio and Noct, especially, so thinking of something that they didn't know about was rather difficult. He closed his eye and tilted his head back in thought.

Then, he remembered.

"Well, there is one thing . . ."

His tone of voice failed to give Aranea any hint at what it could be, good or bad. She leaned forward in anticipation. "Well?" she urged, waiting with baited breath.

Now he looked a little embarrassed, mindlessly fiddling with the weapon in his hand. "It's not something I'm proud of . . . but there was . . . an indiscretion on my part. Can I trust that this stays between us?" Aranea tilted her head, waiting for whatever this indiscretion was.

He took a deep breath and, before admitting his secret, he launched his weapon at the paper and hit an outer ring. Pushing his tinted glasses higher on his nose and crossing his arms, he turned to her. "It was back in Altissia. We were celebrating our arrival to the city. His Highness wanted to unwind and I couldn't very well let him go off alone, so we all made an outing of it. I . . . I allowed myself to imbibe in a few more drinks than I can usually tolerate. Somewhere between the shots and however many beers I had, everything went hazy.

There was a girl—very attractive, intelligent, could hold her own in a conversation . . . you get the picture. Anyway, we really hit it off and I remember her inviting me back to her loft since it was quieter there. One thing led to another and, the next thing I knew . . ." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and grimaced, failing to catch the sudden, but subtle, shift in Aranea's demeanor.

"I remember stumbling back to the Levelle and tripping over my own feet more than I ever thought possible. Everything was spinning and I mentally forced myself to not get sick. I was relieved when I finally got to the room and everyone was passed out because I wasn't exactly proud of what I'd done. Gladio never had a problem with bringing women back to the room, but for some reason it made me feel . . . When they awoke, they never asked where I went and I never brought it up." His jawline was taut with stress. "That was not my best night, but I can't do much now to change that."

Silence. Ignis waited for Aranea to say something, anything. She was the one, after all, who asked for something no one else knew, and this was the thing. The wind around them blew, the grass rustled, and the noise from Lestallum floated in the air—but Aranea stayed quiet. Deathly quiet. It wasn't like her to not find the humor in something like this and he just knew she was glaring daggers at him.

"Did I offend?" he meekly asked, taking a careful step forward.

She wasn't offended by any means—how could she be when she'd had her fair share of sexual dalliances—but when it came from Ignis' mouth that he, too, had a past, it made her feel something she'd never felt before in her life.

His clouded gaze was on her now and she shook her head, trying to rid the mental images in her head and the unpleasant feeling in her chest. She resorted to sarcasm and stinging remarks. "No, not at all. Honestly, I'm just shocked someone would want to fuck such a drunken, uptight douchebag. Not so upstanding as a Royal Advisor, are you? I wonder what his Highness would think of you?"

He rolled his eye and stood up straighter, miffed at her comment and confused. If he didn't know any better, he'd gauge to say she was . . . jealous? "Thanks, Aranea. Always the classy one. Spare me the vulgarities. You asked me to share something and I did."

Frustrated with her sudden change in behavior, Ignis harnessed that emotion and channeled it into his target practice. He brought his arm back as far as he could and hurled the lance toward the paper. As he completed his throw, a loud pop and a sharp pain shot down his arm. He inhaled sharply and brought his other hand up to cradle his elbow.

Immediately, Aranea was on her feet and by his side, having heard the noise. "Shit, what did you do?" she asked, trying to peel his hand away from his elbow. "Let me see. Can you move your arm?"

He winced but could bend his elbow, although it was plain to see how painful it was to do so. She carefully assisted him in moving his arm before she nodded with definiteness. "It's not broken, so that's good. Probably just hyperextended it a bit, but nothing we can't fix, right?" With one hand on his arm and the other on his shoulder, she guided him to sit down where she had been just before. "Don't move, ok? I think I have something in my bag."

He waited patiently as she walked to the edge of the lit area where her bag was. She rifled raucously through it, hoping she'd brought what she was looking for. As he sat, his attention was called to her when she mumbled something just loud enough to hear it was something directed at him, but he didn't catch it.

"What did you say?" he asked. She mumbled again and he sighed, debating whether to ask her to repeat whatever she was saying.

He didn't need to because she stopped sifting through her bag and spoke louder. "I'm . . . sorry. For what I said. I . . . ugh, I suck at apologies. But I'm sorry."

It took a second for Ignis to register she was referring to her crude comment regarding his one-night stand. It was surprising that she had it in her to apologize for anything at all. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

She paused and added one more thought. "You know, you have no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed about it. There's nothing wrong with having some free-for-all fun every once in a while, alright?"

That was it. She didn't elaborate further on her apology and he smiled, a wave of liberation washing over him as if her words, and her words alone, absolved him a bit. She went back to her bag and stopped again, cursing her lack of success of finding what she was looking for. Right as she gave up, though, she let out an "Aha!" and found gauze and potions tucked in the deep recesses of the bag under her change of clothes and a spare blanket.

Now, she thought, it was her turn to bring up uncomfortable topics. "So, your buddy, Prompto, seems to think there's something going on between us."

Still nursing his elbow, he barely flinched at the words. "Oh?"

Aranea stood and returned with a roll of gauze and a potion for the pain. She knelt down and delicately took his elbow into her hand, compressing it in the bandages so he wouldn't move it more than necessary. "Here, take this," she said, handing him the potion. "When we get back to the Levelle, I'll give you another potion and hopefully that'll be enough to mostly heal you."

Without another word, Ignis took the potion and felt slight relief, but not enough to completely numb the pain. Like Aranea said, it would probably take another potion or two to completely heal, but this would work for now.

Aranea fell backward onto her behind and into a cross-legged sitting position. "Anyway, yeah. Back to Prompto. He kept insisting that you and I have some sort of thing between us and I'm just in denial and you're just too stupid to see it."

"Interesting choice of words he used for me," Ignis chuckled, leaning back against the rough bark of a tree behind him. "I wonder why he thinks that about us. You don't see me, or us, in that way, do you?"

She recoiled, not expecting to be put on the spot like this. "Of course not! That's ridiculous! Come on, a relationship between us is basically a disaster waiting to happen. Why would a guy like you ever be caught dead with a girl like me, anyway?" she snorted forcefully.

Hearing that from Aranea felt like an odd punch to the stomach for Ignis. He found it unusually difficult to agree with her. No, of course, there was nothing there. He managed to mumble a half-hearted concurrence to her response, though doing so just felt so wrong. Obviously, Prompto was mistaken. Nonetheless, Aranea was pleased with his agreement and took it as a sign that, once again, she was right.

She turned to him but stopped when she noticed his sagged body language. Well, that hurt to see. She wanted to see him uncaring. Stoic. Nonchalant. She didn't want to think that what she said had any effect on him whatsoever, but the fact that it possibly did, especially because of what they were talking about, petrified her. Had Prompto been right? No. How could he be?

Aranea changed the subject. "Oh! Prompto also mentioned that you were back in the kitchen a lot more lately, which I thought was interesting because you never once said anything to me about that."

"I didn't think you'd care."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, unbelieving, as she playfully smacked him on the arm. "Of course I'd care! We're friends, right?"

"Sure . . . friends . . ." He sounded the word out as if it were the first time he'd ever spoken it before, nodding slowly. The earlier exchange still ruminated through his head and everything just felt so odd all of a sudden. Ignis couldn't understand what was happening in that moment. They were friends. Always had been (except for when she tried to kill them, but that wasn't exactly her fault). But friends didn't seem like the right word. He ran his hand over the bandages on his elbow and figured he was overthinking everything. Lack of sleep could do that to someone.

Friends. Yes.

Aranea, too, felt the shift between them. Unlike Ignis, however, she was determined to avoid the topic. She forced a smile and hoped it would hide the anxiety she was feeling. "So, what have you been making? Anything worth my time to sample?"

"Depends on what you consider worth your time," he said, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning forward at the waist to stretch his back. He sat back up and sighed. "I've mostly been working on dishes that are too easy to mess up, like soups and the occasional stir-fry. Prompto tried to assist me with dumplings once, but that was a major disaster. Not his fault, mind you. Mostly me just trying to learn the ropes again. I can only imagine how appalling the kitchen looked when we were finished."

She laughed quietly. "It sounds like you're doing quite well. Maybe you can cook me something when you're comfortable with your skills?"

"Hey, now. I don't just cook on demand these days," he joked, his smile growing a little upon hearing her laugh.

"Well, fine then. I don't want your stupid, nasty food anyway!"

"You know, I would be offended if it weren't for the fact that I know my dishes are top-notch. But you go right on ahead and believe that anything I make is subpar," he winked and Aranea pushed him like she'd done before.

"Fiiiiine, I guess your food is ok. But not a step above that, got it?"

He nodded and his laughter tapered off. "So, Miss Highwind, if you could have any dish, what would it be?"

She contemplated this. Everything sounded great right now, but she settled on one thing in particular. "I love seafood, so I guess something with that?" The more the thought about it, the more her eyes lit up. "Like shrimp! Oh, yeah, shrimp and maybe pasta? Definitely something like that! Wow, that would be so good right now. With a salad and a glass of wine?"

He heard the excitement in her voice and she continued to rattle off her dream dish and every aspect of it. It was probably the most excited he'd ever heard her sound and, in turn, it excited him. Who knew talking about something so trivial as food could be so enthusing. Though it was probably the trivial things nowadays that brought forth the most happiness to counteract the mundaneness and sheer horror of everyday living.

"Sounds like I'll have my work cut out for me."

"I'd say you do, Specs."

"Then, I'll make sure that you're the first person I cook an entire dish for, start to finish. I can't promise it'll be anytime soon, but I can promise that I'll try." He reached his hand out and held it in the air to receive a handshake from her. "Deal?"

Aranea looked down at his hand, back to his face, and then again at his hand. She smirked, holding hers out, too. "Deal."

They shook on it. Aranea didn't want to let go, but she did. She had to and she thought she saw a trace of regret on Ignis' face at letting go as well. Or maybe she was just reading too much into it. They were just friends, after all. She made that perfectly clear. This world was too uncertain and far too unstable for anything else, and she was ok with that. She had to be. But, for the first time in a long time, she actually felt . . .

Happy.

Author's Note: I was so glad to see the reactions that I got from the last chapter. This chapter looked a little more at Aranea's thoughts and went back and forth between her and Ignis a bit, but I hope you enjoyed the small deviation from just Ignis' point of view this time around. It looks like a certain someone got a little jealous of Iggy's past ;)

Also, the 'emotional range of a teaspoon' comment in this chapter was a comment used in Harry Potter. Just wanted to make that known that I did not come up with that. All J.K. Rowling!

If you ever want to reach out, you can find me on Tumblr at the same username. :)

Can't wait to see what you all think of this chapter!

Oh! And Happy Birthday, Gladio! Haha, time to break out those Cup Noodles in celebration!