Mariela shot up in her bed, heart racing and breath heaving as she looked around wildly. Slowly, the dark room came into focus, and even more slowly, Mariela's heart started to ease back down as she realized that she was alone. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she stood and padded her way barefoot over to the small window. The sky had just started to lighten as the first hints of dawn were showing, and Mariela couldn't help but feel a little grateful for it; she wasn't going to be able to go back to bed any time soon, so getting ready to start her new job sounded like a great way to work out her nerves.

She only had the bag she'd brought with her; she'd spent the weeks after they'd gotten to the little town sleeping between the church and alleys, and the journey before that hadn't been anything she could have brought things for… even if she'd had things to bring other than her brother.

Gritting her teeth and pulling her only other dress out of the canvas bag, Mariela changed before going to the little sink in the corner of her room to wash her mouth out and her face off. There were no mirrors in the room, but she was more than grateful for that—Sister Theresa had been so kind about letting her bath at the church and sleep there on a cot when she got back before the end of their night, so she knew she was at least vaguely clean, but Mariela was sure that vaguely clean was all she'd managed to be. With a sigh, she ran dampened fingers through her blonde curls in an attempt to comb them out before giving up and slipping out of her room.

As she walked down through the hideout, Mariela was grateful for the empty halls. She wouldn't consider herself a shy person by any means, but the last few weeks had been… difficult on her nerves, to say the least. And as much as she really did like Gauche, and honestly liked everyone she'd met here so far, Mariela did not have the best history with Magic Knights. If she could find her footing a little before having to roll the dice on whether the Magic Knights here were all as nice as the ones she'd met so far, she'd be happy.

It didn't occur to her until she got to the open living space at the bottom of the hideout that she didn't know what exactly she was supposed to be doing. The way that Gauche had talked yesterday, it sounded like the Black Bulls already had someone who took care of keeping house… so she wasn't even sure if she was supposed to be looking for a specific person to show her the ropes she'd be working. As she looked around at the overturned chairs, empty bottles, and singed floors, however, Mariela figured that she couldn't go wrong with starting and waiting to see what happened. After a bit of hunting around, she managed to find two empty wooden crates and started putting all the empty bottles she could find in them. She was under one of the tables, gingerly picking up the bigger pieces of glass from a shattered amber bottle, when a voice from behind her made Mariela jerk up so hard that she hit her head on the table above her.

"You must be the new girl!" The guy who had startled her didn't even seem to notice that she'd banged her head on the table, something that she was rather happy for; it was embarrassing enough having it happen. Crawling out from under the table, Mariela was greeted by a boy with messy ash blonde hair and a huge smile. He was also wearing an apron and holding a broom, so she had to assume that he was the housekeeper that she probably needed to meet. Straightening and brushing off the front of her dress more out of habit than necessity, Mariela held her hand out and smiled.

"Hi, I'm Mariela. You must be the person whose job I'm taking?"

The boy threw his head back and laughed, and Mariela couldn't help but smile at the infectiousness of it. If he was a Magic Knight, maybe the Black Bulls really wouldn't be so bad.

"Yeah, and you're welcome to it, trust me. I'm Asta." He shook her hand with a grin and a nod to the glass she'd been picking up. "Did you want some help with that? I don't know if you're doing magic to protect your skin or something, but I wouldn't want to pick up broken glass by hand."

Mariela laughed awkwardly, taking the broom from Asta and nodding. "I thought I'd get an early start, but I didn't know where anything was. Would you mind showing me?"

Asta nodded enthusiastically. "That's a great idea! I'll do you one better even and give you a tour of the hideout."

Mariela smiled gratefully. "That would be amazing, thank you." With a glance at the floor, she added, "Just let me sweep this up real quick, I don't want anyone to get hurt."

The look on Asta's face confused Mariela—something like a cross between confusion and amusement—but what he said next confused her even more.

"It might be kind of hard for you to get used to this place."

x

Gauche had barely slept. No matter how he tossed and turned, the only thing that could give him any form of peace through the night was the picture of his sweet Marie… and unfortunately, he still hadn't figured out a way to assure he'd see her in his dreams.

If he were being honest, though, Gauche wasn't entirely sure that his cure-all was helping as much as it usually did; part of why he couldn't seem to calm down involved a woman with violet eyes a little too like the ones in his photos.

The fifth or sixth time he shook himself awake from a sleep he couldn't remember slipping into, the picture of Marie crinkled in his hand, Gauche decided he was done trying to sleep. As if he wasn't irritated enough, he'd ruined one of the pictures of his angel. It was time to get out of this room and grab some food or something.

Standing and stretching, Gauche walked over to his sink and splashed some water on his face. He took a deep breath and looked out his window; the sun had just risen, and the sky looked like a painting. It was going to be a beautiful day.

Gauche was in the process of debating with himself what to do with the beautiful day—going on a ride might be alright, but if he wasn't going to see his Marie, what was the point? —when he heard a laugh that made him snap his head down to look at the lawn, all thoughts of the day forgotten. Mariela was out front in the brightening day, kneeling in front of a basin of water and doing laundry. The smile on her face was… dazzling, with her head thrown back and her eyes closed in laughter. Gauche had exactly half a second to be drawn in by it before he realized that her smile and her laugh were being shared with a loud little runt who, at this point, Gauche needed to kill. It had been a good run, working together to save the kids from those Midnight Eye nutjobs, but there were other Black Bulls who didn't constantly show up where they weren't wanted for Gauche to learn to get along with.

Pulling his grimoire out and not even bothering to look through it, Gauche conjured a mirror and blasted the water basin that Asta was using, making the entire thing explode and sending Asta scrambling back in surprise. It would have been a perfect hit… if Gauche had thought about the fact that Mariela was sitting too close to not get drenched, too.

Gauche gnashed his teeth as he watched Asta pull off, first his Black Bulls robes to offer her to dry herself a little, then his shirt when he evidently realized that his robes and the apron he was wearing had taken most of the hit. Mariela taking it was the last straw.

Gauche was out his room door and heading down the stairs before he even realized what he was doing.

x

"Ow!"

Gauche had just gotten out of the hideout—after a very annoying conversation with Yami, who obviously knew that Asta was outside with Mariela—when he ran directly into Noelle.

"My bad," Gauche mumbled, trying to move around her, when Noelle stopped him.

"Do you know her?" Her face and voice were the same level of haughty they always were, but Gauche wasn't distracted enough to miss the blush or the anxiety under it. When he didn't answer immediately, Noelle crossed her arms and snapped, "Well?"

Gauche narrowed his eye at her. "Yeah, she's here with me. What do you care?"

For the briefest second, Noelle seemed to relax before immediately catching herself. Snapping her head to the side to avoid looking at Gauche, she said primly, "I don't care. Why would I care if Asta is hanging out with some girl? They're just doing laundry, why would anyone even want to do something like that? It's not like I was watching them or anything, I was just… here, and I thought it was weird that Asta was shirtless and some girl I'd never seen before was in a white dress that was soaked with water. I mean. I thought maybe it could be a security risk. Since you know her, that obviously isn't the case. So. Everything is obviously fine."

Gauche suddenly felt extremely queasy. Mariela had been wearing a white dress. He'd been so distracted by Asta's gross muscley body that he hadn't thought about the fact that Mariela's white dress had just been soaked with water. Shoving past Noelle to turn the corner around to the part of the lawn where the two had been doing laundry, Gauche groaned in frustration and kicked the brick wall of the hideout. They were gone. Of course they were gone.

"Don't you have any manners?" Noelle was snapping behind him. "I'm royalty, don't just push me like that!"

"Where did they go?" Gauche wasn't looking for a particular answer, so it caught him off guard when Noelle actually had one for him.

"They were saying that they were going to get another basin of water," she answered immediately, then looked away again, her nose in the air and a flush darkening her cheeks. "Not that I care or anything, I was just here when they were talking, and you know Asta, he was so loud that I heard what they were doing. I don't care where Asta changes, why would I care if he's changing with… with…"

The choked sound that Noelle made perfectly encapsulated what Gauche was feeling about everything she had just said.

Noelle looked at him out of the corner of her eye, her face still getting pinker and pinker as she asked, "So, um. Who is she to you?"

Gauche opened his mouth but realized that he didn't have an answer to that. He cleared his throat to buy himself some time, then decided that he was just going to ignore the question.

"Look, you obviously don't want the little meathead hanging out with another woman," Noelle opened her mouth to speak—most likely to object—but Gauche didn't break to give her a chance. "And I don't want Mariela hanging out with him, either. So why don't we work together, just long enough to get what we both want?"

Noelle opened her mouth again the second she realized that Gauche was finished speaking, but then closed it, the look on her face suddenly hesitant. Gauche could almost hear the internal debate she was having with herself. Finally, she managed one word: "Deal."

x

Mariela was having an amazing time. Seeing as she had been doing house chores all morning, that was definitely saying something.

After a very weird accident where a washing basin just seemed to… blow up, Mariela had needed to change out of the dress she was in. However, seeing as she only had the two dresses and the other needed to be washed before she could wear it again without her skin crawling, she'd hesitated at the thought of changing back into it. Asta, almost like he could tell what she was thinking, had immediately offered to let her borrow some of his clothes; though he'd denied it vehemently, they both knew that Asta was probably about the same size as she was… minus all the muscle.

The thought of Asta made Mariela both smile and made her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. Her rambunctious new friend reminded her so much of Marlin… she'd always thought her little brother was like the sun, condensed down into a little person.

Her heart gave another painful squeeze; she'd gone too long without her sun.

Mariela gave her head a little shake, trying desperately to clear it before she started to cry. That was exactly what she needed—to meet an entire squad of Magic Knights while she was bawling like a baby.

No weakness. Bandits, Magic Knights, nobles, royalty—Mariela had learned long ago that they were all the same breed of carnivores. The only way to survive in a world they ran was to never let them smell the fear. Her brand of strength might not look it, but it had kept her alive so far.

Looking at the clothes Asta had lent her laying on her bed, however, Mariela couldn't help but feel like maybe—just maybe—the people here really were different. She'd heard the rumors about the squad, just like everyone else—maybe their rowdiness would be a good thing. Asta had been so nice to her all morning, and Gauche had basically pulled her off the streets for no reason other than his little sister. Any squad that had people like that couldn't be all bad.

She finished drying herself off and pulled on one of Asta's plain white tunics, then the pair of pants he'd loaned her. Mariela grinned as she adjusted the clothes; the tunic was just long enough to cover her entire torso, and both the shirt and the pants fit like a glove. Asta might have been a little shorter and more muscled, but she'd been right—they were basically the same size.

Mariela, excited to let Asta know that he had been wrong, and they could definitely fit each other's clothes, opened her room door and almost walked right into Gauche.

"Gauche," she said with a surprised smile. He'd caught her off guard, but if she were going to run into someone, she was grateful that it was someone she knew. "Good morning. How are you doing? Can I do something for you? Are… are you okay?"

Gauche still hadn't said anything and was looking rather… unhappy. Mariela's brow creased in confusion as she tried to trace what he was staring at to find the source of whatever it was that seemed to bother him so much.

"Oh, I didn't take his robe!" Mariela said quickly, finally realizing that he was staring at her clothes. Since they belonged to his squad mate, he probably recognized them, and the last thing she wanted was for anyone to think she was impersonating a Magic Knight or something ridiculous like that. "I swear, he gave these to me to borrow, and I didn't touch his robe."

Gauche blinked slowly before finally meeting Mariela's eyes, a very forced looking smile on his face. Mariela's heart dropped—he thought she was a thief. He had gotten her a place to stay, and now he thought she had stolen his friend's clothes.

"I—I swear," Mariela was panicking now. She tried to move past him through the door, grabbing his hand to tug him along with her. "We can go find Asta, he—"

Gauche cut her off with a guttural sound deep in his throat before tightening his grip on her hand to stop her from going any further. "Why did you need Asta's clothes?"

"I swear, I didn't steal these," Mariela was starting to get desperate, panic bubbling up in her like acid. "Please, I can prove it—"

"I don't think you stole those." Mariela shut her mouth abruptly, panic draining out of her as swiftly as it had come and confusion taking its place. Gauche still looked a little pale and uncomfortable, but the smile he gave her this time was a lot more reassuring… even if it was clearly still forced. "Who the hell would want those? No, I was, uhh… I was just wondering why you weren't wearing… your own clothes."

Mariela blinked in surprise, unsure what to say for a second. "Something happened while we were doing laundry out front, and I got soaked from head to toe." Mariela paused, her face starting to heat for several reasons as she continued, "Because my dress was white, and because I only have the two dresses, Asta let me borrow some of his clothes until mine were cleaned and dried."

Mariela had forgotten about the fact that she was holding Gauche's hand but was quickly reminded of it when he started squeezing hers until it hurt. She tugged a little, and Gauche lightened up his hold immediately. He still didn't let go, but Mariela was sure that any good big brother probably reflexively held onto hands that were in their own.

"We should get you some clothes," he said suddenly, and Mariela couldn't help the look of embarrassment that came to her face.

"I… I don't have money for clothes," she said very quietly, her eyes firmly trained on the floor at her feet.

"I'll pay for them," Gauche replied immediately, and Mariela looked up at him in both shock and confusion. He added quickly, "You need clothes, right? You can't, uhh… it's not like you can wear Asta's clothes forever, right?"

Mariela couldn't help but laugh at that. It was probably because he reminded her so much of Marlin, but Mariela had already pretty much decided to treat Asta like a hyperactive little brother. "Maybe we could work out a schedule; I'll be washing all the clothes, anyway, so it's not like he won't be getting them back clean."

Gauche immediately put her hand in a death grip again, but this time seemed to realize it before she needed to say anything. "Ha," he said through gritted teeth. "That's a funny joke. Come on, let's go get you some of your own clothes. You live here now; you should have things to put in your room."

Mariela was so caught off guard by what he was saying that she could do nothing but stare at him for a second. When she finally got herself together, all she could ask was, "Why are you doing this for me?"

Gauche stared back at her for just as long before finally answering with a simple, "Because I want to." He gripped her hand again, this time without trying to break it, and nodded down the hall while he tugged her lightly. "Come on. Consider me the welcoming committee. Just don't tell Yami I said that."