Finale, Part 3: Destiny Islands, Brighton, the City of Light, on a Thursday Afternoon
Naminé stared as the man turned around. He almost sounded like - for half a second she had been sure it would be -
A stranger's eyes stared at her, expectantly. She waited for the face to resolve itself into something familiar. Nothing changed. But her heart was still pounding, for some curious reason.
"I'm sorry?" she said, shaking her head. "I'm ... a bit out of sorts, I ... I'm afraid I'm not myself, just yet." Except that was inside-out, wasn't it?
Still hopelessly staring into those eyes. Had she lost memories, while she had been Kairi's? It would, she supposed, be only fair.
"Do ... I know you?"
Valentine's heart hit the pit of his gut like a brick falling from a roof. She didn't remember him.
She didn't remember him.
It didn't even occur to him that his face was all wrong, for a moment.
"I should hope you remember me," he said, "unless I'm not the only one standing here who happens to have gone completely mad."
Or maybe he had. He must have gone mad, and there was a stranger on the beach whose time he was wasting entirely and he appeared to be in love with her. Oh, excuse me, miss, I didn't mean to want to kiss you just there, you just look exactly like my entire world. Which is another world entirely. My, the sun is bright, today.
He ran a hand through his hair, trying to cover the sun from his eyes- those were obnoxious. How could that other-him deal with such a horrible, nasty face?
Face. His face.
He broke into a grin, then. His face.
"Or maybe I am the only mad one here and I just happen to know your name and- Naminé. It can't possibly be you, can it? Here...?"
Naminé's jaw dropped. It was his voice. It was. It had to be. There was no one else in the world who sounded like that.
She reached one hand out to brushed his cheek, not realizing she was being forward, not caring. Impulsively she turned it, instead, to cover his eyes, and that's when the face leaped out at her.
"Valentine?" she asked, choking on the name as it fell out. It was harder to see, now; his image was blurring as her eyes teared over.
He couldn't help but continue to grin that huge grin of his- if his lips were going to be the only part of his face that still resembled his face, then he was going to use them, damn it anyhow. Only now he really couldn't see her through her hand- it was still a very nice looking hand- and he decided all at once that he ought to wrap his arms around her or else perhaps she might vanish on him entirely, and he couldn't stand to see that happen. Not again.
She was here and it was impossible and he was here and his face was all wrong, really, but it was them, wasn't it?
In his arms. As though maybe she'd never been gone.
It was him. Of course it was him, didn't she know by now how well she fit into his arms? Her Valentine, here, on this beach, and that meant she had to throw her arms around him in turn and kiss him until they were both quite out of breath.
"Your face," she laughed. "Someone's taken your proper face away."
"My face feels naked and rather not here," he admitted, still grinning. "But right now, that really doesn't seem to be much of an issue."
His lips had the fresh taste of her lips on them. His whole world, in his arms, leaving his lips pursed and everything spinning.
He grinned. "They took my face and gave me you, I think that's a fair enough trade, hm?"
His world, his Somebody, just as warm and real as he remembered her.
She placed a hand on his cheek again. "I'm sorry you had to lose your face," she said. "You're lucky they've replaced it with such a handsome one. It would be a shame for you to lose your charm and sophistication."
She tore her eyes away from his (his eyes, Valentine's eyes!?) for a moment, glancing at the beach around them. "How on earth ... are we here? Either of us? And do you have any idea where we are, for that matter? I'm afraid I'm lost entirely."
"Here?" He looked down the length of the shore, furrowing his brow in thought.
It was odd, having a brow to furrow. He tried not to dwell on that bit too thoroughly. It was easy, what with the way she was stroking his ego as she was. She was so very, very good at that.
"Here appears to be a beach. In the rea- In Helena's world, most likely." They were all real worlds. Even the ones made of paper and ink. For the first time in his life, that much made sense.
"She allowed me to use the MirrorMask." He laughed, and all of this required that he lean down to kiss her again. His nose seemed so very far from her cheek as opposed to usual. Usually he was bumping his mask against her face, wasn't he?
It was unusual, nudging her face in against his, pressing her nose and cheek against warm skin as he kissed her. Unusual, but very nice indeed, and she could certainly get used to it with a few more kisses. They would have to kiss rather a lot, just to be sure.
"I was ... with her," Naminé said, lifting a shoulder. "I told her your name, and I think she ... released me, somehow. Except we're not separate the way we were. I feel different. I can't put words around it. I'm myself, but I'm all of myself. I'm whole."
She kissed the tip of his nose. That, too, was something she would have to practice. If she had time. Please, could she? She would be diligent, she promised.
"So we're on a beach, and our inventory shows we're down one proper face. If that's all we're missing, I'd call this a success. But then I'm not the one missing a face, so perhaps I shouldn't say."
He was laughing again. He'd been certain that she was gone and he'd known she wasn't, and it all had been so very upside-down that everything was bubbling up out of him like a shaken bottle of soda, spilling over all haphazard.
And lips against his nose that way actually rather tickled.
"I'll take this," Valentine stated, between chuckles. "If it was simply you and me in the middle of nothing at all, without faces or names or even air to breathe, I would most certainly take it."
Even without a face, he was so very whole again.
"I don't think we have much else, but ourselves," Naminé admitted. "I've nothing whatsoever in my pockets. We can be paupers, living by the sea. I'll draw for tourists and you'll juggle."
She was only half-joking, at that.
Valentine reached into his own pockets to find- Well. A wallet. With enough money to keep them fed for a while, some identification for a boy by the name of Jason (such a drab name, that), and a few ripped ticket stubs that looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn't quite place where they were from.
That was neither here nor there, really, was it?
"That sounds like a perfectly lovely idea," he decided, stuffing the whole mess of it back into his pockets again.
And yes, he had put extra emphasis into the "o" sound in "lovely."
"I've always loved living by the water," she mused, brushing her fingertips over his eyebrows, around, up to his hairline and down again. "I daresay we'll be very happy paupers. We can rent a tower."
Another kiss, to the tip of his nose, and one on each eyelid, and one on that forehead of his. All so very him and all so entirely new. "I think it might take me a bit to get used to you like this," she laughed.
He was laughing again. Lips on his face, against his forehead and his eyes that tickled in all kinds of new and unfamiliar ways, entirely pleasant- Yes, he could manage with this. This, and being able to see all of her in one glance. All of the world, it felt like, in every direction except behind him, was right there.
"We ought to see it all," he said, very suddenly, and though he was grinning broadly, he wasn't worried for a moment that his face might crack.
"Let's," Naminé beamed. "We have all the time in the world, don't we?"
They had each other, and they had time, spinning out in lazy spooling years ahead of them. They could be destitute and living on scraps and she'd still think she was far richer than she could have ever hoped to be.
In the city of light, there was a massive tower.
Inside the tower, there was an Almost Very Important Man, and the juggling partner that he'd picked up while he'd wandered down the street. The juggling partner, he'd recognized from another of Helena's drawings, Bing, she'd called him.
The tower had been a surprise, but not an unpleasant one.
Jason had no complaints. Aside from the book that continued to preach at him about listening to his mother. What a perfectly useless book, indeed.
On Destiny Island, Kairi watched the waves lap against the shore, smiling to herself as if she'd remembered a particularly pleasant joke or a warm memory just her own.
She would miss her sister, her self, whatever it was that they had grown to be. But as she had felt the pale heart push away from hers and sweep out over the ocean, she known it was finally right.
She was alone. But she never would be again.
In Brighton, Helena was laying on her back with her feet in the air, having the most fantastic conversations between her black left sock and her right white one. Her Valentine marionette was hanging not far off. He'd looked lonely for the past week or so, and so she'd decided she bring him along with her to her Aunt Nan's flat. Her mother had decided that she was simply being silly, and her father had scratched his head, puzzled, when Helena had insisted that he had to be taken care of. He was, after all, a Very Important Man.
After another bout of 'black magic marker,' Helena caught a flash of something out of the corner of her eye.
A doll, sitting on her nightstand. Small and blonde, in a white summer dress.
Right beside Valentine, where she belonged.
Helena smiled.
Just a boy. Just a girl. Standing on a beach in Brighton, their arms around one another, kissing as though the world might end. They had survived that once. Whatever lay beyond this moment couldn't scare them.
Just them, with all the time in the world and one another to share it with.
Nearby, up against the water's edge, a small boy was building a sandcastle.
(OOC: Part 3 of 3! It's finished! ( One and Two are here.) Preplayed with the kickass importantman, as always. Thanks so much to everyone who helped, especially multi_madrox who inspired part of the ending, and I totally cribbed a line from KH's theme song in there, yes. Naminé will be letting people know she's all right shortly.
Naminé's going to townlumni status; feel free keep her journal friended if you'd like to read the continuing adventures of Valentine and Naminé. He'll be staying on as an alum.
NFI, NFB for distance, but OOC is massive love. And farewell (for now) from our two.)