Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ On Earth as it is in Hell ❯ Life Starts Here ( Chapter 31 )

They had never even kissed.   Michelle paused in her work, her fingers idly brushing across the back of a filing folder, the texture of the manila paper not really registering with her. Her eyes were vacant, and although to a casual observer she might appear to be focused on the calendar that hung on the wall, she saw nothing.   This sort of melancholy was unlike her, she chided herself, though in all truth she was not alone. Ever since the earth shaking events of the past week, the entire Garden had been steeped in a quiet sadness. Mercenaries were no strangers to death, but their very home had been violated. A miasma of grief hung over the Garden.   As for herself, Michelle had been wrestling with a sense of great loss. Scott had been torn from her, but he was a man that she had known only for days. Terrible she should suffer the loss of a friend, yes, but it felt so much worse.   And they had never even kissed.   Her mind returned to that thought frequently, she found. And every time she thought it again, barely restrained tears pushed at the brink. Her throat was tight all the time now, lack of sleep adding dark rings to her eyes. She teetered on the edge of an emotional breakdown she couldn’t explain. She thought maybe she was going crazy. Or maybe she was already gone.   They had never even kissed. Not once.   A quiet sob slipped through her defenses, surprising her and she quickly covered her mouth with a hand. She wouldn’t cry, not here. Strength was needed in the Garden now, even if she didn’t have it.   A small and bitter smile twisted her once pretty lips, now pale and trembling. It had been explained to her, and everyone what had happened. Of course, the one man who had truly captured her attention could never have been hers. Of course she had fallen in love with an alien.   Oh Hyne. She had loved him? She had loved him. No, no no. Not in just a few days. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t happen. How could she have let it happen? Things like that didn’t happen. Not to her, not to anyone. How could she have loved him?   The admittance was more pain than she could bear, and the tears began to slip through her clenched eyelids to flow in warm rivulets down her tired face.   She couldn’t do this.   Michelle dropped her files, abandoning all pretense of composure and walking as quickly as she could down the halls to her dorm room, ignoring all the stares and sympathy she drew. Oh yes, she was the girl who had it bad for that guy who exploded. Scott what’s his name. Poor thing. Must have been a terrible shock. Abrupt anger clenched her fists, leaving nails marks in her palms. What the fuck did they know. They didn’t know she had loved him.   She hadn’t known either, though.   She reached her dorm room and keyed it open, locking it behind her. As quickly as it had arrived, her anger changed targets. Damn him. Damn him for not telling her who he was, where he had come from. He had lied to her, one of omission. Her state of mind wouldn’t allow her to wonder why she felt he had owed her that sort of honesty.   The he had left her, just vanished and gone back to wherever he had came from like she didn’t even matter, leaving her to be stared at, to be talked about like she was some kind of fucking widow, like she had been left standing at the altar. How could this hurt so much? How could anything so new scar so deep?

And he had left her. Left her like he didn’t even care, like she didn’t matter, like he had anything to do but break promises he had never spoken but she had heard anyway and oh my God, she had loved him she had loved him and he was gone.   Michelle collapsed on her bed and could no longer restrain the weeping.   ------   It was at a certain point, not long after everything had dissolved into darkness, that Scott became somewhat concerned. He was experiencing a falling sensation, which he reasoned could not be a good thing, as he had been standing on solid ground before the fadeout. He wasn’t afraid of falling per se, but depending on the distances involved it could end very badly.   A light appeared not too far ahead of him. He squinted, trying to discern its nature. It was growing, become brighter and larger, and soon enough he had passed through it. The light faded, and was replaced with a more ambient room light.   With a start, he realized he was falling from someone’s ceiling.   “GAH!”   ------   Started from her reverie by a sudden shout, Michelle rolled over on her bed just in time to make out the object of her sadness hurtling towards her.   Scott landed heavily with nothing to slow his fall, smacking into Michelle in a sudden tangle of limbs and bed sheets.   Somewhere, Kharan snickered.   Dazed, Scott lifted himself to his knees, having difficulty keep his balance on the soft sinking surface of the mattress. He wallowed around, trying to free himself from the sheets that had somehow wrapped around him. He was aware that someone else was doing the same, their identity obscured by the bedspread that had wrapped around them when they had rolled off the bed. He hoped they weren’t hurt, whoever they were. Kharan obviously had a questionable sense of humor.   His thoughts were swept away by an overwhelming feeling of relief and affection when Michelle threw the last of the covers off her head, revealing her stunned visage framed by now wild hair.   “Michelle!” Scott gasped, a true smile creasing his features. It was perhaps because of his sudden bout of joy that he didn’t see her hand incoming until it smacked with great velocity into the side of his face. “Ow, God!”   “You bastard!”   Of all the things he might have expected Michelle to express upon his return, incredulous rage was not one of them. He fearfully shrunk back against the wall as she slowly cornered him with blazing eyes.   “You left me!” She yelled at his confused and cowering form. “You left me just standing there, without knowing what happened to you, and you lied to me! You never told me who you were or where you were from, and I didn’t even realize I loved you until you were gone and then I couldn’t tell you because you left me!”   Scott held his hands out in a placating manner, as if trying to calm a rabid wolverine. “Michelle-“   “No! Shut up!” She pointed a furious finger at the edge of the bed. “Sit here. Now.”
Scott complied.   “Now you are going to give me that first kiss I never got at the Festival, and it better be good and worth all this crap you put me through.” Michelle crossed her arms, glaring at him.   Scott eyed her mouth nervously, wondering if she was in fact going to bite him. Michelle took the pause to mean refusal and began to lift her hand for what would no doubt be another painful blow.   “Whoa!” Scott leaned away from her. “I- I didn’t know you wanted a kiss..”   Michelle threw up her hands as if he had said the stupidest thing in the world. “You owe me a first kiss, Scott Keyor. Now pay up.”   Scott fidgeted, uncertain of how to approach the situation but knowing he had better do it before she belted him again. Should he purse his lips for a smooch? Go for something a little more intimate and tender? Play it safe with the classic and inoffensive peck? Slip her the tongue? He looked her in the eyes again, gauging her mood. No, no tongue.   Her brows began to lower at his hesitation and knowing he was out of time, he panicked. Leaning over, he quickly pressed his lips to hers, tilting his head to the side slightly for the right fit. Slow, he thought. Slow. He moved his lips slightly, exerting a gentle pressure on her lower lip before opening wider and capturing her mouth again, pulled away with a soft smack. Resuming his position on the edge of the bed, he felt it had gone fairly well.   Michelle licked her lips, face lost in thought as if she was judging whether or not it was an acceptable first kiss. Scott anxiously awaited her decision, feeling not only that failure would bring more pain, but also a certain amount of pride lost.   Returning her eyes to him, Michelle gave him a curt nod. “Okay, now we can move on to the rest.”   Scott was forced to fling his arms backward to catch himself and prevent his head from hitting the wall when she jumped on him, sealing her lips with his again and jamming, there was no other word for it, her tongue down his throat. Feeling vaguely violated but even more turned on, Scott tentatively wrapped his arms around her and returned the kiss.   He was just beginning to get the rhythm down and was relaxing into the experience when something she had said several minutes before registered. Gripping the sides of her head, he pulled her away to stare somewhat wildly into her eyes. “Did you say you loved me?”   Her eyes were so deep he thought he might drown. “Yes.”   He was thunderstruck. “But… How?”   With her lips still swollen from their kisses and her hair tumbling freely down the smooth expanse of her neck, he thought she had never looked more beautiful. She shrugged in answer, smiling a little self-consciously. “I just do.”   Actually, if he took into consideration Kharan’s parting words, it did make a certain amount of sense. Still, he found it disturbing that his fate was in fact not his own. But with Michelle laying warm and soft on top of him, her glorious eyes filled with quiet apprehension for his answer, he found little to protest about his set future.   “Well, that’s good,” He said finally. “I was too chickenshit to say it first.”   She laughed then, and kissed him with a wonderful passion, and he couldn’t understand how he had ever lived without it.                     & nbsp;