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[claritatis]

"You've reached Ignis Scientia. Leave a message and I will endeavour to get back to you post-haste."

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[claritatis]

[He's barely left her side since this started. His uncanny ability to find his way across the field of battle apparently extends to locating her in the mess of Null and Hadriel combatants, and he takes the opportunity to rest as she does. Highly trained he may be, but the years do take a toll.

Ignis is tired.

He feels the approach of her hand a bare moment before she makes contact, and he turns his own over to lace their fingers together. The words hit him like something sharp and solid, sinking into his chest and reminding him, not for the first time, that they come from different worlds.]

I'll miss you, too. [The words aren't easy to say, emerging in a low murmur as he squeezes her hand. He'll miss her, so much that it's already an ache in his chest.

But--]

You know I'd follow you anywhere if it meant we could stay together.

[dedikated]

No, you wouldn't. ( The dismissal comes without thinking, because she's always lived by that assumption. That logic. It's held true for her from the first moment she set foot in Hadriel, and has been the same for him for as long as she's known him. They're both too attached to their worlds, with too much responsibility and too many people tying them there to want to leave it permanently.

Things have changed, that much is true, with Noctis' death, but that key piece hasn't changed, surely. She would never have been willing to leave her world, even straight after losing Marc. There were still others. There were still her friends.

Most importantly, it was still her home. Still the logic and rules she knows and understands. )

Wish that were the case. ( Don't get her wrong, the selfish part of her which demanded that Glacius better come find her world, if he truly can travel through dimensions and the universe, aches for nothing more than that. The ability to simply keep the best parts of this city and have her home world and her friends-turned-family all at the same time is simply too good to be true. )

But Earth isn't Eos.

( Isn't his home, and no matter the selfish desires or how strongly they burn, she could never ask him to leave whatever's left just for her. )

[claritatis]

No, it isn't.

[And, truth be told, he would have no idea of what to expect from Earth. From what Kate has told him, it doesn't sound too far removed from what he's used to as far as how people live is concerned, and he has wondered what it might be like...

Ignis doesn't let go of her hand. Noctis is gone. Eos is in ruins after ten long years of sustained daemon activity, and that time has put a distance between he, Prompto and Gladio that he isn't sure can be healed. But she's here. A bright, warm light in his life that he wants to follow.

His eyes lower to the floor and flicker as if tracing flashes running across the blackness, and he can feel his heartbeat begin to quicken as he speaks again.]

I have nothing waiting for me there that means more to me than you.

[dedikated]

( It's peaceful where she is. Relatively speaking, anyway. But this war against the Null has had her thinking of things beyond this city, and beyond this world. How back home — real home, England, not simply Earth — there's a whole new chapter unfolding, and a whole lot of real repairing that needs to be done, beyond the simple signing of treaties and agreements.

Things she should be there for, after running away for ten years. A responsibility she has to so, so many people, where she can't allow herself to continue to hide behind a new career.

(She has no idea how she'll even begin to explain this to Jonathon. Or Dagny.)

But those mulling thoughts are startled out of her head with that sentence and Ignis doesn't need to be able to see to picture the expression that flickers across her face — it's the same one she wore the first time he said I love you, after all. Even after all this time... )

Still surprising me. ( Rude.

She squeezes his hand once, quickly, and purses her lips, tugs them to one side and another. She's heard the theories and promises, that the Door could send people to worlds not their own if they wanted, but she dismissed it every time. Even if it could, who would want that?

Well. Apparently, Ignis. )

And what would you do there?

( How would she even go about explaining his entire existence when they got home? And how many favours would it take to make his existence seem legitimate in the future? )

[claritatis]

[It was such an easy thing to say. An easy decision to come to. If he's going to remember this place, he can't imagine spending the rest of his life never being able to see Kate again. He knows that he's never going to meet someone like her again.

And, no, he doesn't need to see her face. Six, she's been so easy for him to read for so long now.]

I try. [He murmurs in reply, shaking his head in muted amusement. It isn't as if it hasn't occurred to him how difficult it could be to integrate into another world, and how difficult it could make things for Kate, at least in the short term...

But if it's something they could work out, then he's all for it.]

I'm sure I'd find some way to put my talents to use.

[But he doesn't think that's her main concern right now.]

If it's too much... don't feel you can't say so.

[dedikated]

I—

( God it would be so easy to fall back on a yes, here, because that's what she's always believed would happen. It would hurt, and she'd probably spend ages after the fact berating herself and singing the song of this is exactly why dating and love is stupid, but she'd braced for that for the whole time they've been together.

Considering a future? That's... difficult, strange and foreign to do. It seemed so impossible until just now, as unnatural as imagining who she would possibly be without her brother. But she had to face that, didn't she? And now—

Now she has to face this. Or at least face thinking about it. What would it be like, once the dust has settled? Once all the adjustments have been made and people have accepted him as a new part of their world and lives?

It could be great, if things go well. But what if it doesn't? )

... Don't make me the reason for leaving. ( The words don't come out easily, stuck to her tongue like gum sticks to a pavement, but they're there. Fear will always rear its ugly head in moments like this, wanting to claw all her feelings back inside of her and keep them safe, always putting up a fight, and Kate's long been tired of letting it win.

So. How to explain this. She shifts, twisting her body until her leg curls up on the table and she's angled towards him, hand finding his thigh and resting there.

He might not be able to physically see her, but she'd much rather look at him in she's going to say all of this. Each word comes out slowly, clear and clipped, weighted with all the consideration she's giving each of them. ) That's too much. I don't know... I don't know how to handle that. I don't want you stuck in my world and hating it... or resenting me.

( A moment's pause, an exhale, and the soft squeeze of his knee. )

I'd rather lose you like this than like that.

( She'd hate every moment of losing him, and every painful memory that arises for weeks and months after, but... isn't it better to know that she would be able to look back at this as something good instead of let it destroy itself and be scorched into something horrible? )

[claritatis]

[They never really talked about this, did they? Not back then, and even now it feels like she's trying to avoid the conversation. Considering a future after this place has never been something entirely on the cards for them, but Ignis finds he wants to consider it. He doesn't want to have to think about saying goodbye to her.

Maybe that's selfish. Childish, even. It is, when he thinks about it, and it isn't entirely fair to put the weight of the decision on her shoulders, but it's her world, and he won't follow her to it if she doesn't want him to.

He manages to meet her eyes when she looks at him. Another of those uncanny skills he seems to have gained over the ten years since he went blind.]

That's fair. [Ignis says, and he takes a moment to find both of her hands and clasp them gently between his. An easily escapable grip, but one he hopes she won't fight her way out of.]

I know you're afraid of what might happen... and perhaps it's selfish of me to even ask this of you. I don't want to give you up. I don't want to give us up. Being with you is still the first thing I was ever able to want to have just for myself.

[He squeezes her hands lightly.]

And now, so is leaving here with you. The only thing that could have ever mattered to me more is already gone, Kate. You're not my reason for leaving Eos. I just... I have no reason not to. [There's a small pause, while he lets that sink in, and then he smiles.]

And even if things don't work out between us as we are now, we'll always be together in some way. I'd never abandon you, and I don't think you'd leave me to fend for myself either.

[dedikated]

... This is insane.

( She mutters more to herself than to him, head bowed towards her chest in thought. What hasn't Hadriel changed about her life and self in these few years? Now even the one fundamental belief she'd had — that once it was all over, life would go back to normal, without any changes — seems to be crumbling.

He's not the only one who doesn't want to give this up. None of this had been part of her plans, her assumptions of how returning to Hadriel would go or what she would end up feeling for the young man trying to make heads or tails of the new world he's been tossed into. But going against those assumptions made her happier than she can remember being for... well, perhaps ever. He's given her countless reasons to try, to relax, to not get out of bed at the crack of dawn, and losing those things — that smile, the gentle grip of her hands, kisses pressed to her knuckles — is something she'd resigned herself to, the same way she'd resigned herself to a lifetime of working at The Agency.

And that thought? When she's ten years away from that place, with a clinic of her own and a whole new skillset? That's the final chip at the cracks in the wall of fear which has her resisting.

This, undoubtedly, is absolutely insane. She has no idea how she's going to explain any of Hadriel to her friends in a way that doesn't have them worrying for her sanity or drinking habits. But this makes her happy. He makes her happy. And the kind of happiness he gives her is something she's never been able to find back home. )

... Alright. ( The answer comes in an exhale, the release of so much weight, the undoing of a knot in her chest she'd barely noticed. ) Come home with me.

( Four little words which almost leave her dizzy as they leave her lips. )

[claritatis]

[It is insane, he can't deny that, yet when has anything about their life together been normal? Meeting here, when they never should have been aware of one anothers existence. Somehow falling in love against the odds, through separations of space and time, through separations of years... His feelings for her have never changed, and he might even say they have grown stronger with his own age, once his memories of her had been fully regained.

Even now, this time and place that they choose to talk about this, is utterly insane. Of course they would choose now.

He doesn't expect too much of a fight against his suggestion, and he doesn't get one. She gives in, and Ignis can't stop the bright smile that flashes over his features as he slips an arm around her to pull her in close to him and kiss the side of her head.]

You won't regret it. I promise you that.

[And neither will he. Eos holds little for him now that would be better than being with her, wherever she is. If he thought she would agree, he would have invited her to come back with him instead.]

But we can speak of it in more detail later. When this is over.

[dedikated]

[ Ah, of course.

There's still a war outside. ]

Hold you to that.

[ But for now? For now she'll hop off her perch and offer a hand with a brush of fingertips against the back of his, reach for weapons and breathe in. It's time to push the future aside and concentrate on surviving the present. ]