"Vanessa, I really—"

"If you try to tell me one more time that you're feeling sick and that's why you decided not to come, I'll go hunt down Gauche and start yelling at him," Vanessa warned. After what had felt like an eternity—though Finral had assured her it had only been about ten minutes—she'd managed to convince Mariela to come out to the beach. Seeing as she'd gotten back to the base to find Mariela scrubbing down the floors, Vanessa hadn't been willing to take any excuses of a vague illness that was keeping Mariela from having fun with all her friends. Eventually, Mariela had caved… well, kind of. She'd admitted that she thought it was best that she stay away from Gauche for a bit. That had been all the prompting Vanessa had needed to grab Mariela's arm and the bag she still hadn't even unpacked and bring her back to the sunshine and sand.

Vanessa didn't think she was a meddlesome person—well, usually. But it had broken her heart to see Mariela's bloodshot eyes and her watery smile, explaining weakly that she'd gotten sick somehow overnight and wouldn't be able to go with everyone to the beach, after all. Mariela had been so excited the day before when they'd all been out bathing suit shopping together; Vanessa didn't need to know what had happened between her and Gauche to know that Mariela shouldn't have to miss something she'd been looking forward to because of it.

Vanessa gave Mariela a reassuring smile and didn't move any further into the hotel until Mariela gave her a hesitant one back.

"Please don't yell at Gauche," she asked finally, and Vanessa laughed.

"I won't, if you promise to actually try to have fun. Okay?"

Mariela's smile got a little less hesitant as she nodded back at Vanessa. "Alright, you win," she finally conceded. Throwing a look over her shoulder at the front desk, Mariela started to turn around. "I need to get a room—"

"Oh, just take mine," Vanessa finally let go of Mariela's hand and fished around in her bag for a second before pulling a key out of it and holding it out to Mariela.

Mariela held her hands up in front of herself immediately, eyes going huge. "I couldn't possibly take your room, where would you stay?"

Vanessa looked over at Finral—who was still wearing the robe he'd first left his room in— with a sly smile and gave him a wink that he met with huge eyes and a deep red blush. "I'll just share a room with Finral. He doesn't mind, right?"

Finral's mouth opened and closed for a second before he finally cleared his throat and nodded a little too quickly. "Of—of course," he said, voice still a bit strained as he refused to meet Mariela's big smile. "Is that why you already put all your things in there?"

Vanessa smiled sweetly, wrapping her arms around him to hug him tightly. "You guessed it, stud!" With a laugh, she let go of him and held the key back out to Mariela, shaking it slightly. "Come on!"

The smile on Mariela's face looked a lot less forced as she took the key from Vanessa's outstretched hand, and Vanessa could finally release the small amount of worry she'd still been holding onto this whole time. As she turned and pulled Finral along with her so they could make their way to the beach, the last thing she caught was Mariela leaning against the door and winking back at her.

Vanessa's smile broadened as she pulled Finral along a little faster. She deserved a drink and a good time for her good deeds.

x

Mariela was already really, really happy that Vanessa and Finral had come back for her.

She was standing barefoot in the sand, just watching the waves lap at the shore, fascinated. The ocean was so big, and so blue, and just so, so… beautiful. It hadn't taken Mariela long to throw her bag on the hotel bed and change into the bathing suit that Noelle had let her borrow, so she'd been out and in the sun a lot faster than she would have thought she'd wanted to be after that morning—but the second she saw the water, she forgot about the awkwardness with Gauche for the first time all day.

"Awkward" as the descriptor didn't seem to cut it. Every time Mariela thought about what had happened, her face flushed red in abject humiliation. Sure, she was from the Forsaken Realm, and she was only a simple farm girl and had only really spent time around simple farm boys, so maybe she was a little lacking in experience. She'd heard that city girls, and especially noble girls, sometimes got married younger than she was. So maybe she had just missed something… but she never would have guessed that Gauche would be so against even the thought of being with her that he would literally shove her away from him like she was disgusting and he was already regretting having spent the night with her.

Well… he probably was regretting it, Mariela thought glumly. She shook her head a little to try and clear it; it did no one any good to remember how it had felt or looked to have Gauche reject her, least of all her.

"You look hungry!"

Mariela smiled broadly as she looked down at Charmy's smiling face and the big bowl of ice cream being held up to her. She dropped down to the sand and took the bowl gratefully from Charmy. "How did you know, Charmy? Thank you."

Charmy beamed before grabbing her own bowl from the fluffy sheep chef behind her and sitting down next to Mariela. "You looked sad! And food always fixes sad, silly."

Mariela laughed as she watched Charmy start shoveling away at her ice cream. In truth, Mariela was not hungry—she wasn't even really sad, if she was being honest with herself. She was just… embarrassed. Mortified, really. But the second she took a bite of her own ice cream, she decided that Charmy had a point—maybe food really did fix everything.

"Well, thank you, Charmy," Mariela said before settling down to eat the rest. "How was Yuno? You left early when we all went shopping to go meet up with him before we came out here, right?" Charmy looked over with a huge smile, and Mariela could almost see the hearts floating around her. By the time she had finished her own bowl, even while talking, Charmy had already blown through three and had finally stopped her gushing to focus all her attention on her food. Even if Mariela couldn't eat another bite, she was happy to keep sitting in the companionable silence for as long as she could get away with it. Laying back, she closed her eyes and basked in the sun, grateful for the millionth time that she had such good friends. When Gauche had first offered her the job—

Mariela winced internally and cut the thought off. She was just very, very grateful to have made such great friends so easily and so quickly, and this was just another example of why. Even if her life had never changed, she never would have left the Forsaken Realm—she never would have seen the ocean.

That thought made her bolt up, eyes flying open as she startled herself out of the peaceful thoughts. Was she really allowing herself to be grateful for what had happened to her family? How twisted was she? Why was she allowing herself to enjoy something so special, so beautiful without her brother? While he was still in bed, lost to whatever world that mage fire had dragged him off to… Mariela was here.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly as she got to her feet. Charmy looked up at her curiously in between bites of her fourth bowl of ice cream, and Mariela gave her a smile that she hoped wasn't nearly as awkward as it felt. "I think I'm feeling a little sick, I'm going to head back to the hotel, okay? Thank you so much again for the food, Charmy." Mariela patted Charmy on the head affectionately as the Magic Knight went back to happily eating her cold dessert, then stood and started hurrying back to her room.

She shouldn't be out here. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

And this is probably why he was so grossed out by you, Mariela thought darkly as she finally closed her door behind herself and pressed her back up against it. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she slid down the door and closed her eyes. It's because you're pretty goddamn gross, Mariela.

x

"I'm not answering your question until you ask straight."

Gauche grit his teeth and suppressed the urge to throttle his Captain. He'd seen Mariela exactly once since Vanessa had blown up at him that morning—and he still thought it was pretty unfair of Vanessa to get so angry about something that had nothing to do with her—and the sight of Mariela in the yellow bikini she was wearing had almost knocked him unconscious. It had taken most of his effort not to follow her out to the water, and then even more effort to keep himself from going up to her while she sat there with Charmy eating ice cream. Out of nowhere, though—at least, from what Gauche could tell—Mariela had bolted to her feet and almost run off the beach. He'd caught a glimpse of her face; it had looked like she'd seen a ghost.

So, it had taken even more effort to keep himself from following her while she hustled off to the hotel.

It had been hours—Gauche never did see her come back out to the beach. The sun had set, everyone was in the hotel dining room eating dinner together, and Gauche had only left his room so he could make sure Mariela was okay. Unfortunately, however, she wasn't here… which didn't exactly make him feel any better.

Why did I bother asking Yami? He thought to himself acidly, even though he knew the answer. Yami, for all his alleged refusal to get involved with anyone else around him, was one of the sharpest bastards that Gauche had ever met; if someone had seen her while he'd missed her, it probably would've been Yami. Or maybe one of the girls, but after his conversation with Vanessa this morning, he'd decided it was safer to take his chances with the captain's indifference. He'd been banking on the refusal to get involved to keep Yami from doing this, but Gauche had obviously been wrong to assume so.

"Have you seen Marie?" He asked again through gritted teeth. He wasn't even sure what Yami was expecting him to change about the question—was it not embarrassing enough that he was doing this at all? What more could Yami possibly want from him?

Yami finally looked up at Gauche over the top of the hotel magazine he was reading, eyebrows raised. "Who?"

Gauche wrinkled his brow, feeling his frustration mounting to dangerous levels. "Marie. You know exactly who I'm talking about."

Yami sighed a cloud of smoke out around the cigarette in his lips before taking it out of his mouth and looking up at Gauche with a look that said he wasn't quite sure explaining was even worth his time for someone so dense. "Marie," he stressed, "is with Sister Theresa. Not sure why I would've seen her any time recently, especially not more recently than you would've seen her with all your going out there explicitly against orders lately."

Gauche groaned in frustration before leaning back in his seat. "Don't pretend you don't know what I mean."

"No," Yami said, already going back to looking at his magazine. "I don't think you know what you mean. If you're asking about the grown woman who cleans our hideout and came out here with us, I'm almost positive her name is Mariela."

Gauche narrowed his eye at Yami. "What are you trying to say?"

Yami rolled his eyes, and Gauche gnashed his teeth together. If it were anyone—anyone—other than his Captain doing this to him, he would've blown their head off by now. "I'm not trying to say anything. I'm saying that Mariela and Marie are two different people, and if it took you this long to put that together enough to start feeling weirded out by your feelings for her, you're beyond my help and you should probably just leave her alone."

"Shut up," Gauche snapped immediately, and Yami snorted. Clearing his throat, Gauche tried again. "I mean, I don't know what you're trying to say right now, but all I'm doing is using a nickname. My darling angel Marie calls her that, too."

"Your darling angel Marie is a kid, and she's not the one who wants to get in bed with someone who reminds her of her brother."

"I'm going to fucking kill you—"

"Pull your shit together," Yami cut Gauche off, finally looking up over the magazine again and giving Gauche a look that made him reluctantly shut his mouth. "No, I haven't seen her. I saw Noelle and Vanessa leaving the room she's in before they came out for dinner, though, so I'm sure she's fine. Don't worry about her."

"I'm not worried about her," Gauche said immediately—defensively. Yami didn't even bother to look back up.

"Yeah, I know. So, leave her alone."

x

Gauche did not leave her alone.

He tried to convince himself that it wasn't that he wanted to see her. He had a reason, after all. It was just that he'd spent almost three hours after talking to Yami trying to think of any reason at all to go see her, and that was probably not as casual as he wanted to believe it was.

Whatever, Gauche snapped at himself as he stood outside of her hotel room door, trying to convince himself to knock. Just because I was waiting for a reason doesn't mean that I made one up.

And that was actually true; he'd run into Charmy while he was wandering around the hotel in agitation and she'd let him know that the entire squad was planning on going out to watch Noelle train later that night. Seeing as Noelle was supposed to be the one to get them through the strong mana region without dying on the way, Gauche supposed it only made sense that they were all so invested in making sure the water mage could actually do it. And, as reluctant as he was to admit it, he was starting to see an actual team forming within their squad.

This is all Asta's fault, he thought, annoyed and not quite sure why. The more he thought about it, however, the more he realized what it was—Gauche did not like change.

Shaking his head and suddenly deciding that the real world was less frustrating than his thoughts, Gauche knocked on the door in front of him before he could lose his nerve and stand around looking any stupider than he already did.

x

Mariela opened the door without checking who was there, positive that it would be either Vanessa or Noelle come to gossip again… and stared blankly at Gauche, unsure what to do.

For better or worse—and Mariela definitely categorized it under, "be careful what you wish for"—ever since she had left the beach that afternoon, she hadn't thought about Gauche or what had happened between the two of them at all. She'd been far too busy pacing back and forth and thinking about her brother.

Sister Theresa would call this penance, she'd thought to herself, over and over again, immediately followed by, Well. Isn't it?

Vanessa and Noelle stopping by before they'd gone to dinner had been a welcome reprieve after she'd unknowingly spent hours going back and forth in the same square of space, and Mariela would've been lying if she'd said she wasn't hoping they'd come back to hang out again if neither of them had found things to do with their individual boys.

Gauche, however, was one person she hadn't thought would be there when she'd heard the knock.

After another tense moment, she asked awkwardly, "Can I… help you?"

Gauche hesitated before finally saying, just as awkwardly, "Yeah. Well, no. I mean…" with a frustrated groan, Gauche leaned against the doorframe, making Mariela almost jump back with the sudden nearness. Regardless of what he wanted, she was positive being too close to him could only lead to bad things—again.

Seeming to think the same thing, Gauche straightened immediately and cleared his throat. "I'm going out to the beach. Did you want to come?"

Mariela blinked. "What?"

"Everyone is going out to the beach to see if Noelle's got what it takes to get us to the bottom of the ocean alive," Gauche backpedaled, face starting to go red. "I was heading out to the beach now to meet everyone else. Did you want to come?" He added haltingly, "I, uhh. I know you and Noelle are friends. I figured you might want to see her training."

Mariela grinned, suddenly much more comfortable. "She mentioned going out with Asta tonight to train. If she's okay with it, yeah, I'd love to watch. I'll meet you all out there in a bit. Thank you for letting me know."

Gauche hesitated before clearing his throat. "I'm not sure if that's exactly what's going on," he said finally, not meeting Mariela's eyes. Coughing into his hand, he mumbled, "I think we're surprising her or something, I don't know. Either way, you probably shouldn't be walking around by yourself at night."

Suddenly very uncomfortable, Mariela started, "I don't think—"

"I'm sorry," Gauche cut her off in a rush, making her stop short in surprise. Still refusing to meet her eyes, he repeated, this time more slowly, "I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean to hurt your feelings when I ran out of your room this morning."

Mariela could feel her face going bright red. "There's nothing to apologize for," she started immediately, and Gauche met the insistence with another loud groan.

"I should not have run out of your room without saying anything this morning," he stressed each word even as he still refused to look at her. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, alright? I'm sorry that I did. Again."

Mariela waited to see if he was done, then realized that she had no idea what to say to any of that. Finally, as the silence got nearly unbearable, Gauche seemed to force himself to turn his head to look at her. "I…" he trailed off, then cleared his throat to try again. "It didn't have anything to do with you, and I guess there was no way for you to know that if I didn't say so before I left the room. I'm sorry, okay?"

Mariela took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Please don't apologize," she said finally and gave him a small smile before shutting off the light to step out of the room and close the door behind herself. She nodded up the hallway. "Why don't we head down to the beach?"

All the stiffness in Gauche seemed to drain out of him as he finally gave her a smile. "Yeah, let's go."

Before they could leave, however, Mariela cleared her throat awkwardly. When Gauche finally looked at her, she added a bit uncomfortably, "And Gauche?"

The look on his face wary, he asked, "Yeah?"

"Can we maybe never talk about this morning again? Anything about this morning?"

Gauche let out a slow sigh that seemed to deflate him. "Yeah," he conceded, and Mariela thought he sounded almost regretful. "Yeah, that's probably fair."