Fandom: Harvest Moon
Pairing: Gina x Dia
Theme set: Epsilon
Title: always there
Rating: T
Warning[s]: Femmeslash. If you don't like, don't read.
Notes: Hooray for Magical Melody.
#1 - Motion
The first conscious memory Dia has is of her three-year-old self motioning for Gina, of the blue-haired girl coming over, of Dia smiling widely and saying, “Gina, let’s play.”
#2 - Cool
They are four years old when a heat wave hits their little town, and being four years old, they think nothing of taking off all their clothes to cool off; they are completely confused when their respective parents begin yelling at them, because they can’t see a single thing wrong.
#3 - Young
Dia was born sickly and continues to be so throughout their childhood; it makes her parents fight, and it makes Gina sit by her bed all day and worry until she’s nearly sick herself, and it makes Dia wish more than anything that she weren’t a child, because surely an older girl wouldn’t be as sick, or at least would be able to do something about it.
#4 - Last
Dia’s parents have always fought over everything, but she always thought she’d stick it out until the day she comes home to her mother trying to explain away a black eye; twenty minutes later, she’s knocking on Gina’s door with a bag in one hand, realizing that she’s just left for the last time.
#5 - Wrong
The entire journey to Flower Bud Village, Dia stares out the window, wondering if she’s done the wrong thing by leaving, but all it takes is one look at Gina, just as determined as she is and talking about her new job and the newly completed Sanatorium, and she feels better.
#6 - Gentle
That first night at the Sanatorium is cold and quiet and empty, and a shivering Dia is just about to get out of bed when Gina appears a couple of feet away, smiling gently, and Dia smiles faintly before pulling her blankets aside and replying, “You know me too well.”
#7 - One
She’s never had very many friends besides Gina-a few acquaintances from school or the hospital, no one permanent-but it’s never bothered her; she always thinks that there’s only one person she can’t do without.
#8 - Thousand
It doesn’t take Dia long to notice that the doctor is always happy to give Gina extra time for lunch or help her with some paperwork, and every time she sees him glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, a thousand ways to kill him pop into her mind.
#9 - King
Dia was always good at chess, but try as she might, Gina never could quite get the hang of it, so the few times she gets to say, “King me,” she can’t help feeling the tiniest bit smug.
#10 - Learn
One night Dia quietly brings up the doctor, and Gina is quite surprised to hear Dia’s observations, shaking her head as she says, “Oh, Dia, there’s no way he likes me that way,” and Dia replies with her own head shake and a barely audible, “You’ll never learn, will you?”
#11 - Blur
And the next day, when Dia happens to be over at the Clinic, she overhears a fight between a doctor and a nurse who seem to have forgotten she’s there, and she looks over just in time to see Gina storming out, eyes blurred with tears, and her heart plummets just as her feet start to carry her toward the door.
#12 - Wait
“Gina, wait,” she calls out, her heart now racing from exhaustion rather than worry for her friend, and Gina turns around to see Dia struggling to run after her; her eyes go wide and she nearly has a heart attack herself as she hurries back to Dia.
#13 - Change
“You were right,” Gina says sadly as she changes the bandages on the cut Dia got from falling to the ground and hitting a rock, “you were right, he did like me, but I don’t like him that way, and he thought there was someone else-oh, Dia, what am I going to do?” and Dia whispers back, “It’s okay,” even though it isn’t, because Gina has done the same thing for her so many times.
#14 - Command
Now, Alex gives orders and Gina follows them, and she comes home quiet and subdued, and Dia does her best to comfort her friend, all the while unable to shake the feeling that somehow this whole thing is her fault.
#15 - Hold
One of those nights, they are sitting there eating dinner when all of a sudden Gina collapses into tears with no explanation, and Dia doesn’t think before wrapping her arms around her and whispering, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and Gina returns her embrace, still weeping but grateful for an anchor.
#16 - Need
Gradually, things get better, and Gina starts to smile more, starts to become more like how she used to be, and Dia feels strangely needed, like it’s thanks to her that Gina is all better, and she can’t help but inflate with a little pride when she thinks about this.
#17 - Vision
Without her glasses, Gina’s vision is worse than horrible, so it’s no wonder that she always keeps them on, but when they were kids Dia told her that she thought Gina was prettier without them, and since then Gina has wondered if beauty is a worthy thing to get in exchange for losing sight.
#18 - Attention
“Dia, are you listening?” Gina asks hesitantly, and Dia hurriedly snaps out of her daydream and begins talking as fast as she can manage, because if she lets up Gina might ask her what she was thinking, and Dia can’t bring herself to speak of Gina’s involvement in the things Dia was imagining.
#19 - Soul
She wonders about heaven sometimes, wonders if she herself even has a soul, what with the way she’s acted in the past and some of the things she’s said, but then she sees Gina’s cheerful smile and feels like maybe there’s hope for her yet.
#20 - Picture
There’s a picture of the two of them when they were eleven, their arms around each other’s shoulders as they grin into the camera, and both of them keep their respective copies as close as they can to their hearts, right where they belong.
#21 - Fool
She’s in the midst of another one of her daydreams-they’re getting annoyingly frequent now, she notes-when Gina taps her on the shoulder and startles her so much she jumps out of her chair, and Gina begins frantically asking if she’s all right, and all Dia can do is close her eyes and think, “No, of course not, fool.”
#22 - Mad
Over the next couple of days after that incident, Dia becomes increasingly aggressive towards Gina, snapping at her over little things, and it finally boils over when Dia explodes at Gina over a slightly undercooked dinner, shouting various words that she herself doesn’t understand, ending with her screaming, “Get out of my head!” over and over while tears stream down the face of a confused and terrified Gina.
#23 - Child
When Dia finally falls silent, Gina claps a hand to her mouth, sobbing, and slowly the anger drains out of Dia, along with the color in her face, and she feels like the helpless little girl who trailed through the hallway watching her parents fight, in a distant past that isn’t so distant.
#24 - Now
They both go to bed without speaking, and Dia can hardly stop her own tears from finally falling as she whispers, “What have I done to her now?” again and again and again, because that’s all she ever does, isn’t it, is hurt Gina, hurt her best friend, again and again and again.
#25 - Shadow
Hours later, Gina is shaken awake from her fitful sleep by a pale hand extending from the shadows beside her bed; she sits up, blinking wearily, staring at Dia, who is shivering in the dark with apology written all over her face, and she smiles before saying what she’s always said: “It’s okay.”
#26 - Goodbye
The next day, while Gina is working, Dia packs up her things and writes up her note of farewell; it almost kills her to do it, and she practically has to drag her feet out of the Sanatorium, but she keeps telling herself that it’s for the best, that the most important person in the world to her would be far better off alone.
#27 - Hide
But as pure coincidence would have it, Gina just happens to be leaving the Clinic for something right when Dia is marching away, and when Dia hears the yell from behind her, she gasps and scrambles and tries unsuccessfully to conceal herself behind the nearest tree, but Gina catches up to her with no problem, grabbing her arm and shaking her head and asking Dia why in the world she’s doing this, and Dia tries to answer, but realizes she has none.
#28 - Fortune
And as luck would have it, Gwen happens to be walking by along with Jill from the farm, and any confrontation Gina and Dia might have had is put off by the other girls insisting they all come back to the Perch Inn for a nice meal, and as Dia runs her bag back to the Sanatorium-she can’t recall what excuse she gave for having it-she can’t decide if it’s really lucky they were interrupted.
#29 - Safe
Dia had never felt safe around her parents, more like they were both ticking time bombs waiting to catch her in their crossfire-but all it took was a few kind words from Gina and Dia, despite her lingering cynicism, couldn’t help feeling the slightest bit better.
#30 - Ghost
It’s not that Gina believes in ghosts, really-it’s more like she believes in an open afterlife, in ancestors that watch over their loved ones, in mysterious presences that can’t be explained.
#31 - Book
They have yet to talk about Dia’s almost-departure from the village-both of them have kept to themselves for days, reading in their spare time instead of talking; but it’s like great minds thinking alike, the way they both keep glancing at each other over the edges of their barely-focused-on books.
#32 - Eye
Finally, Gina is unable to take it anymore, and she, conflict-adverse and timid as she is, takes Dia by the hand and begs, “Dia, please, just look me in the eye and tell me what’s going on,” and Dia looks up, swallowing hard, feeling her heart shatter.
#33 - Never
“Gina, I’m sorry,” Dia whispers, voice shaking, “I’m sorry, I never wanted to hurt you, I swear it, but it’s just that lately I’ve been-I mean, I-look, you’re so important to me and I’m so scared that you’d be better off if I wasn’t-damn it, Gina, what am I going to do when you finally leave me?” and Gina shakes her head back and forth the entire time, saying, “No, Dia, no, you’re my best friend, I would never…” finally trailing off as both girls succumb to silent tears.
#34 - Sing
They sleep in Gina’s bed that night, holding each other in soundless acceptance of their newly mended rift, and after a long time just listening to the sounds of the night outside, Gina begins to softly hum a little tune, and Dia picks up on it quickly, joining in-Moonlight Sonata, the favorite song they’ve shared since they were little.
#35 - Sudden
When Gina wakes up, she finds her arms wrapped around Dia, who has her head pressed into Gina’s chest, and all of a sudden Gina finds herself blushing bright red and struggling between two little voices in her head, one telling her to get out of the bed as fast as possible and the other telling her to stay.
#36 - Stop
She’s so glad that they’re not fighting anymore, so glad that she can come home from a hard day at the Clinic and have her best friend there to talk to, but for some reason she suddenly can’t stop thinking about Dia at all, even more so than usual, and she keeps having strange dreams involving things she shouldn’t be dreaming about with anyone, especially not her best friend.
#37 - Time
When they were little, they talked about being grown up like it was far away; now they are grown up and they have no time left to spare, and both of them have to wonder if it was all they’d made it out to be back then.
#38 - Wash
On her day off from the Clinic, she plans to do all the laundry, and she’s a little surprised when Dia offers to help; still, as they work over the tubs of water side by side, she decides this change isn’t an unwelcome one at all.
#39 - Torn
It’s getting harder and harder for Dia to wrestle with her desire to go to Gina and confess everything-because once she finally stops denying everything to herself, once she finally lets herself be honest, she has to admit that what she feels for Gina is not the way she used to feel toward her best friend.
#40 - History
One night during dinner they end up getting into a very long discussion about old times, all the days they shared as kids, laughing over some stories and nearly crying over others, and before they know it it’s past midnight and they have no idea where the time went.
#41 - Power
“Here, let me help,” she says hurriedly when she catches Dia trying and failing to lift a heavy box of books to one of the shelves all by herself; she stands behind her and helps her push the box up, and in the few seconds it takes them, Dia’s face has flushed over.
#42 - Bother
The other girls in town have been pestering her to ask Dia about Kurt and just what’s going on with them, and Gina feels an unfamiliar sense of annoyance at the thought of Kurt and Dia together in the way everyone seems to think.
#43 - God
She’d never really gone one way or the other on the whole religion thing, but she can’t help but think that Gina might be a blue-haired angel sent from heaven to protect her, because how in the world would she have gotten along all this time alone?
#44 - Wall
They say one night can change everything, and it proves true: one night, Gina and Dia are walking upstairs and Dia trips and she somehow manages to pull Gina back with her, and they end up leaning on the wall, pressed into each other, breathing heavily.
#45 - Naked
And before either of them can stop to think about what’s happening, they are in one of the beds and their clothes have disappeared and they’re touching each other in ways they’ve never done, ways that are completely foreign to both of them, eyes locked together, too rushed and caught up to say or think anything.
#46 - Drive
The next morning, neither of them can make the effort to get out of bed for a long time; it takes a tremendous amount of effort for them to finally make themselves get up and dressed, and when they finally do, Dia shyly forces out, “I’m not sorry about last night,” and Gina blushes and looks down, silently agreeing.
#47 - Harm
She’s so glad that Gina was okay with last night, because the very last thing in the world Dia wants is to hurt Gina in any way, and for a moment she was so afraid that what they’d done would end up doing just that.
#48 - Precious
Gina is surprised and confused and happy and uncertain at the thought of last night, but amid her muddled feelings, the one thing she’s sure of is that whatever is going on with her, the only thing she has to make sure of is that Dia is okay, because the pale, dark-haired, green-eyed girl is the most important thing in Gina’s world, no matter what.
#49 - Hunger
The next day is Gina’s day off, and they decide to take a walk down to the beach; somehow, they end up in a secluded corner of the sand and sea, kissing each other passionately to the sound of waves slapping on the rocks.
#50 - Believe
Afterwards, they hold each other, and Dia is unable to stop smiling; she knows that this is not the end of their problems, that there are so many complications awaiting them, but she also knows that Gina is here and Gina has not left, and for the first time in her life, she begins to feel like love is something she could start to believe in after all.