Claudine believes Maya rejects her advances because of her blindness, when in reality that couldn't be farther from the truth. Maya believes Claudine will despise her for her lies and for being a woman... It's all spiraled into a dangerous, hurtful mess...

Disclaimer: I do not own Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.

Chapter 9. Free At Last

A magnitude of thoughts race through Maya's mind in that moment as she pelts out of the bedroom and into the hall.

Some part of her mind briefly notes the late hour, how quiet and unassuming the night was, how the rest of the world was fast asleep while Maya's entire world was crashing down around her.

She lets instinct guide her as she runs, until she can hear the surefire sounds of a person who can't see as she tries to run as far away as quickly as possible.

That is Maya's greatest fear right now. Greater than the fear that Claudine hates her is the fear that she might get hurt.

After so many months living here, Claudine could navigate her way around the estate without her cane, but that was while walking. Now, she is moving as quickly as her legs can take her. The risk of danger was astronomically high.

All else is pushed to the back of Maya's mind right now. All the pain and heartbreak and secrets. First and foremost, she needs to reach Claudine and stop her.

"Claudine!"

She cries out for her, not thinking for a second that knowing she is being pursued might only spook her and make her run faster. Maya skids around the corner and spots her wife staggering toward the staircase, likely hoping to hurry downstairs and flee the estate entirely.

At this point, Maya would accept it if Claudine ran away, so long as she could make it there in one piece.

But as she is now, distraught and shaken and scared, there is a very high risk for injury.

By now she's made her way to the top of the staircase. Maya had been running at top speed, but now she screeches to a halt, stopping several yards away from her.

"Claudine, please-!"

"Leave me alone-" she snaps. She grips onto the railing and takes a step down. Maya's heart twists

"Please-" she begs. "Please stop running! I won't chase you anymore, so please don't run."

"Fine! Now go away and let me leave in peace!" Claudine starts down the staircase, still sniffling and wobbling. And as much as it pains Maya to let her go, she keeps her word and doesn't go after her.

"But please-" she calls out. "Please let me explain-"

"You don't have to!" Claudine's voice carries back to her, and Maya hears the pain in it. "I already know why…"

"You're mistaken-" Watching her wife stagger precariously down the steps, Maya can't keep still after all. She hurries just to the top of the staircase to watch her.

Claudine is still limping down, struggling against the length of her nightgown, which is longer than her usual daytime dresses.

And then, Maya watches her bare foot get snagged in the material. Claudine had been in the middle of a sob, but that quickly turns it into a yelp as she loses her balance.

Maya all but flies down those stairs. She skips two and three at a time and throws herself forward in sheer desperation.

"Claudine-!"

She falls, but Maya reaches her and manages to grab her wrist just in time. Giving a firm tug, Maya pulls Claudine up and locks both arms around her, then allows herself to take the fall.

The initial impact sends stars through her mind as her head collides with a step, and a dull pain shoots down her back. But in spite of the pain she holds tightly to her wife as they roll and slide down the last few stairs. They come to a stop in a heap at the bottom, moaning and whimpering.

Maya doesn't move right away, trying to assess whether or not she'd broken or sprained anything. But other than an understandable pain in the back of her neck, nothing is wrong.

Immediately she pushes herself, cradling Claudine in her lap.

"Claudine! Are you alright?" Frantically, Maya looks her over. She can't smell any blood, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. "Are you hurt? Can you breathe? Tell me if-"

"I'm fine!" Claudine wails. "Gods, you are such…" She tries to glare up at Maya, but then just ends up curling up onto her side and burying her face in Maya's stomach. "You can't do this to me… you stupid man… You can't just break my heart one moment, and then come running after me, and save me, and hold me, and worry about me the next… You're so unfair…"

"I know-" Maya chokes with relief that her wife is unharmed, save from a few small scrapes and bruises. "I know… I have been terribly unfair to you, Claudine. So please… Let me make it up to you. Let me tell you the truth. You deserve to know."

Claudine lets out a few more sobs before slowly easing herself back. Her eyes are more confused than hurt now.

"What truth?" she asks. "It's not just because I'm-"

"Make no mistake," Maya declares. "Your inability to see has never once made me regret choosing you as my wife. The reason I cannot sleep with you isn't at all because you are blind, or that I fear our child being blind. Perish the thought. I beg of you. You are the most beautiful, talented, and intelligent woman I have ever met, and I can't even begin to describe how much I love you."

Maya leans down and holds a long kiss to Claudine's forehead, praying she believes this honest truth.

"This whole mess.. All of the fault lies with me, and me alone. Please forgive me, and allow me to tell you everything…"

She eases back and looks down at the girl in her arms. Drying tears are smeared all along Claudine's face and neck. Most of them are hers, but Maya had watched a few of her own tears drip down and land on her cheek as well. She has no handkerchief this time, so Maya uses the sleeve of her shirt to gently clean off Claudine's face.

Claudine remains still in her arms, getting her bearings. She finds Maya's free hand and holds it tightly.

"All right," she says at last. "I'll listen to whatever it is you have to say, Tendo Maya. So please just… tell me. Let me understand…"

"I will. I promise." Maya seals the vow with a long kiss to her cheek. Claudine makes one last little sob beneath her and squeezes her hand.

When they part, Maya feels herself being filled with a steadying calmness. Resolve.

"Are you certain you're not hurt?"

"I'm fine. What about you?"

"A few bruises, that's all. Can you stand?"

"Yes."

"Good." With this, Maya scoops Claudine toward her chest and up into her arms as she gets to her feet. Claudine yelps, instinctively lashing out to loop her arms around Maya's shoulders.

"H-Hey! I just told you I can stand on my own!"

"I asked if you could stand," Maya agrees. "That doesn't mean I'm about to let you when you've just fallen down the stairs."

"Look who's talking."

In spite of if all, Maya lets out a small chuckle.

Slowly, making sure not to jostle her wife, she ascends the staircase with Claudine, and carries her all the way back to their bedroom. Maya closes the door behind them, then brings Claudine to the bed and carefully puts her down.

She picks up a glass of water that had been left on the nightstand and hands it to her. When Claudine has had her fill, Maya finishes the rest.

By some miracle, they had ended up here once again. Even though Maya had hurt her so badly, Claudine is still giving her another chance to make things right.

"Truly an angel."

"Hm?"

"Nothing." Maya breathes in deeply as she sits beside her wife. This time, Claudine offers out her hand, and Maya accepts, nervously rolling her fingers across her palm for a moment.

She tries to think of the best way to say it. Claudine waits patiently for her to collect her thoughts.

At last, Maya exhales, long and slow.

"Claudine. There is something I must tell you. Something I have… never told anyone else before. There is a handful of people who already know, but I never told them. They simply knew about it from the start, from the moment I was born…"

Maya can already feel her heart starting to pound.

All her life, she's been told to keep this a secret. All of her instincts are telling her to be quiet, not to reveal this. It's almost like a means of self-preservation in a way.

But more than that… her heart pounds out of love for Claudine. The need to tell her the truth.

Because Maya loves her, and because Claudine deserves to know.

She must be able to feel Maya's hand shaking, because Claudine lays her other hand over it by means of support.

"I'm listening. Take all the time you need."

Those patient, caring words Maya had given her so many times… Claudine now gives them back to her, in the moment she needs to hear them the most.

Maya breathes, again and again, until she's drawn enough strength from her wife to proceed.

Gingerly, she slips her hands free of Claudine's, then unbuttons her night shirt. From there, she unwraps the bindings around her chest and lets them fall to the floor.

Then, she takes Claudine's hand and guides it to her chest, right at the center, so she can feel for herself.

There's a beat of silence.

A look of confusion paints Claudine's features, and then it turns to shock. A single, puzzled word falls from her lips.

"Eh…?"

Maya feels as though her heart might burst right out of her chest.

"It's just as you can tell. I am a woman, Claudine."

It's the first time she has ever, ever, said it out loud. It feels both terrifying and liberating at the same time.

She's never done this before. She doesn't know what should come next.

So she ends up spilling out the entire truth all at once.

"It's true that my mother and one of her babies died at birth. But it was not the girl who passed away. It was the boy. And so my father decided to raise me as his son. I was brought up as a man, taught as a man, addressed and treated like a man… But I am a woman. I lied to you, and that is the simple and honest truth."

The familiar, hot sting of tears begins welling up again, and Maya can't stop them from dripping free.

"I'm a woman… And yet I love you. Truthfully and completely." She clutches Claudine's hand over her chest even tighter. "Do you feel how hard my heart is beating right now, Claudine? It's for you. It's only for you. It's because I love you, so much so that it's almost unbearable. I hardly know what to do with myself…"

Maya's eyelids are too heavy now beneath the weight of the tears. Her vision blurs as she bows her head, unable to look up at her wife and see her reactions.

"I lied to you… I hurt you… And for that, I am eternally sorry. All this time… you have been being touched by another woman… Kissed by another woman… Surely I disgust you. Surely you must despise me…" A loud sob escapes her throat, and suddenly Maya can't stop herself. "It's terrible… I promised myself I would never hurt you, and yet that's all I've done… I've lied to you and made you think you were touching and hugging and kissing the man of your dreams… But I'm a woman… I'm a woman and I-"

Slap.

The hit registers on her cheek, and Maya sobs again.

"Yes… I deserved that… After I lied to you and hurt you so much I-"

"You… idiot!"

But Claudine's voice isn't angry or disgusted or repulsed like Maya had been expecting. And a second after the hit, Maya realizes it didn't actually hurt. The slap hadn't been more hurtful than it was jarring. A wake-up call. The means of knocking sense back into someone who had spiraled into a rant of lunacy.

Slowly, timidly, Maya lifts her face to finally look at her wife properly for the first time since she'd revealed her secret.

Irked. Flabbergasted. Annoyed. Incredulous. Offended.

So many things all at once radiating from a single person.

One of Claudine's hands is still pressed up against Maya's chest. The other, which had done the slapping, now comes up to cover the reddened cheek with a soft, yet firm touch.

"I don't believe this-" Claudine growls through grit teeth. "Is that all?! That's your big secret?! And you think I hate you for it?!" Her touches are quite gentle - a glaring contrast to the lively passion in her voice. "Never - never - in all my life-! Have I ever been so-! Insulted and offended!

"You seriously think I care about something like that!? Did you really think so lowly of me, Tendo Maya? I don't give a rat's ass that you're a woman! I don't care what gender you are or aren't! You're Tendo Maya! The man- woman… person I fell in love with! That hasn't changed, and as long as you stop degrading yourself for no reason right this instant, it never will!"

By the time she finishes, Claudine is breathless. She looks like she wants to both smack Maya again and kiss her at the same time.

It's not at all the reaction Maya had been expecting.

She'd expected disgust, rejection, hatred…

Not acceptance. Not understanding. Not unconditional love.

Truthfully, the fault lies with Maya in the end.

For her to have ever doubted Claudine's beautiful soul… To have thought even for a second that she would react any differently… When they had a love as deep and profound and enthralling as this…

Of course she wouldn't care about something as trivial as gender.

All this time, Maya could've just been honest with her.

But she'd kept quiet, for Claudine's sake as much as her own. She'd already faced enough ridicule in her life for being blind. She didn't need to be the blind wife of a cross-dressing noblewoman on top of that.

At least, that's what Maya had decided all on her own. Until now, she hadn't thought to consider Claudine's feelings in all of this.

"Ridiculous-" Claudine huffs again. "Absolutely ridiculous. Tendo Maya, you are the most annoying, ridiculous, infuriating ma- woman I've ever met!"

With this, Claudine pulls Maya down and kisses her full on the lips.

Maya is taken aback, doing her best not to topple them both over as she braces her hands on the mattress and tries to remember how to function. Claudine breaks the kiss.

"Ridiculous!" she cries again. She then grabs one of Maya's hands and mirrors Maya's previous action, bringing it to her chest. "Can you feel it, Tendo Maya? Can you feel my heart? How hard it's beating right now?"

Maya gulps. She can. She can feel her wife's pulse slamming up beneath her palm like a stampede of wild horses, even faster than Maya's had gone. Maya gives a timid response.

"Yes…"

Claudine huffs.

"That's how much I love you, you stupid woman. That's how happy I am when you hold my hand and take me out for walks, or take me horseback riding, or read poems to me, or dance with me…" She tries to swallow around a sob, but it hitches in her throat, and her voice breaks. "And that's how scared I was… when I thought I might lose you forever. How broken I was when I thought you didn't want me… didn't love me…"

"I do!" Maya blurts the words all at once. "I love you, Claudine! I've never loved or wanted anyone more in all my life than I love and want you. I swear it on the Tendo name. On my mother's and brother's grave. I swear it on my own heart. I love you, Saijou Claudine. More than anything…"

Maya breaks down all over again. But when she crumples, Claudine reaches up to hold her.

And for the first time, Maya lets her.

She doesn't jolt or recoil reflexively this time as Claudine wraps both of her arms around her and presses up close against her. With her chest unbound and her heart beating so close to Claudine's, Maya finally feels like she can breathe.

She hugs her back, clinging to Claudine with everything she is, sobbing into the curls of her hair.

"I love you… I love you…"

She can hear Claudine fighting to hold back tears as well.

"I love you too, Maya. I love you no matter what."

At last, Maya is finally free.

She weeps out of pure joy, falling sideways onto the mattress with Claudine snugly in her arms. In between the sobs, she laughs, relishing the warmth and liberation of her wife's unconditional love.

She lets Claudine touch her, and she loves every second of it.

Every light glide of her fingertips over Maya's ribs. Every gentle bump of her knee against Maya's thigh. Every tender brush of her palms against her chest.

Maya doesn't have to hide anymore.

For every sweet, freeing touch Claudine gives her, Maya gives one back. She cards her fingers carefully through her soft hair, caresses her tearstained rosy cheek, kisses her beautiful pink lips.

For a long, long time, they simply lie there together, savoring the tenderness of it all. Claudine traces innocent patterns over Maya's stomach and back. Maya nestles into the crook of her neck and listens to her heartbeat.

They've done these things before… And yet now, as of tonight, it's entirely new.

"No wonder you're so soft," Claudine mumbles eventually. "And your hair is so long and smooth."

Maya chuckles.

"Am I soft to the touch?" she wonders.

"Very. I mean, you're clearly very strong, but there's just this… softness. I can't explain it. I feel it's something unique only to women."

"I can understand that," Maya muses. "You're quite soft yourself, Claudine."

"I still wish I could see you…" The only hint of regret Claudine shows is when she says this, but even that fades away quickly. "But this is enough. I could always tell that you were beautiful. I just knew it."

"You flatter me, Ojou-sama."

A few more moments pass between them before Maya begins to notice Claudine's fingers curling and uncurling, almost fidgeting, like a child who has a request but is nervous to ask. Maya nuzzles her nose against hers curiously.

"Claudine…?"

She watches a blush cross her wife's face in the darkness.

"Maya… I want to touch you. I can't see you, so I want to know… I just want to know you in the best way I possibly can. Is that alright?"

Maya pushes herself up onto her forearms and rests their foreheads together.

"Funny. I was also going to ask if I could touch you…" She hovers her lips over Claudine's, just in case she would rather not do this after the emotionally-charged night they've had.

But Claudine's response is a hum of interest as she loops her arms around the back of Maya's neck.

"By all means…"

Claudine kisses her first, tugging her down closer to deepen it.

Maya still can't believe this is real. Claudine had learned her secret, accepted it, and continued to love her regardless. She loves Maya, and she trusts her.

So Maya is absolutely certain not to get too carried away.

When she touches her, she always does so very lightly first, so that Claudine can be aware of where Maya's hands are on her body. Only when Claudine leans into the touch or makes an approving sound does Maya proceed.

She kisses her more than anything as she gradually pushes the nightgown up to her thighs. And at the same time, Claudine maps her hands all over Maya's body, giving a few playful squeezes here or a mischievous tickle there.

Maya plays along, letting her have her fun for a time before she refocuses. She kisses her sweetly and asks her consent first.

"Claudine… May I touch you…?"

Claudine isn't scared at all like she would've been with anyone else on the planet. And though she really didn't care if Maya had been a man… She has to admit, she really loves that she's a woman.

"Yes," she says breathily. "I want you to touch me, Maya."

Maya swallows, heart fluttering.

"But… May I touch you… like that-?"

"Yes!" Claudine groans in exasperation. "Yes, you insufferable woman!"

"Alright. Then please, tell me if it hurts, or if you feel uncomfortable in any way, or-"

"There she is," Claudine rolls her eyes with a smile. "The worrywart Tendo Maya that I love." Claudine pulls her down for another tender kiss. "I'll be fine. You won't hurt me. I love you, Maya."

Maya half-squeals and half-whimpers into her neck, hugging Claudine tightly.

When they're both ready, Maya sits up again, bracing herself over her wife as she trails her fingers a little higher up her thigh, pushing the nightgown aside.

When Maya finally stops worrying that Claudine might be pushing herself or doing this out of any sort of obligation…

She realizes she's actually enjoying it, wanting it, and loving it, simply because it is Maya who is with her.

With Claudine's hands continuing to touch her all across her chest and down her stomach too, Maya gets lost in the heat of the haze. She kisses her, whispers to her, and makes love to her.

Sweetly. Tenderly. With all the care in the world.

She reads exactly what Claudine needs and when she needs it.

And when it's all over and Claudine is left a frazzled, breathless, beautiful mess, Maya kisses her silly until her pulse calms down and the shivering stops.

Of the two of them, Maya is the one who cries first, blubbering over and over again how dearly she loves her. Claudine holds her close, petting through her hair and tracing patterns all down her back.

Maya is more than happy with just this. But when Claudine shows interest in reciprocating, Maya isn't about to refuse her wife's wishes.

Claudine touches her even more softly than Maya had, but still with enough passion to elicit waves of pleasure. Maya collapses with Claudine in her arms, both of them panting, hearts pounding.

"I love you, Claudine…" she whimpers. "I love you…"

"I love you too, Tendo Maya. My Tendo Maya…"

They kiss. Again and again.

Until the sun rises and floods the room with gold.

Only then do Maya and Claudine curl up in each other's arms and sleep, enveloped in gentle warmth of a love like no other.

A/N: At long, long last! Maya is free of her secret, and Claudine is free of her fears! Freedom is a theme I've made sure to keep returning to throughout this story. At the beginning mentioning how the poor commoners were free due to living on the streets, and how nobles were free since they have so much money and can do anything. Claudine and Maya are the only exceptions: Claudine isn't rich nor poor, and due to her blindness is kept caged. Maya should be free, but is restricted by her secret. All the mention of doves and birds for Claudine, and how Maya must constrict her chest. But Maya gave Claudine her freedom in giving her a wonderful life, and Claudine gave Maya her freedom in accepting her for who she is. And now they can both live and breathe freely.

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