- Rating: Teen
- Warnings: none
- Genre: angst, romance, missing scene
- Pairing: narumayo
summary: In the aftermath of the last Kura’in trial, Phoenix holds Maya close for the first time in years.
When it was all over– when the former ‘queen’ was awake and led away in chains. When the guns were holstered. When the cameras were back in bags. when the crowds had dispersed– that was when Phoenix held her in his arms. He held her tight, and he rocked her back and forth. Two years– he hadn’t seen her in two whole years. He should have known that he’d have to fight through the jaws of hell itself to hold her again. It was always like this.
“Maya…” he murmured, his cheek resting gently against the top of her head.
Maya Fey clung to him tighter. She was shaking, of course she was, she’d passed out after channeling a dead man for days on end only to wake up and find herself accused of assisting a killer. To find all of them at the end of a despot’s firing squad. The last few days had been a nightmare for the Master of the Kurain channeling technique.
“Hey Nick.” she murmured against him “looks like it’s over, huh?”
“Don’t say that,” he teased lightly as he held her. “They’ll find something else to throw at us.”
“I think they’re all outta evil queens, unless Amara turns out to be more than just kind of a dismissive prick.” she sniffled against his chest , before laughing. “Can you imagine? And then we’re back to square one, maybe I’ll even be the accused again!”
He held her tighter– just on the edge of too-tight.
“You’d better not be, Maya. I think I’m fresh out of miracles. I can’t believe we made it through that. I thought–”
“I thought we were gonna die, Nick. I thought it was all over.” Maya pressed her face against him, and he felt the warm , damp spots her tears left against his dress shirt pressed against his side. “I was just glad I’d gotten to see you one more time before they pulled the trigger.”
Phoenix shuddered as he held back his own tears. He’d thought so too. He’d really thought his number was up. How unimaginably lucky was he to be here holding her now.
He lifted her chin gently with his fingers and looked down at her.
“Hey, hey, don’t say that, Maya.”
“You thought it too, Nick.” Her face turned up towards him. Her smile was familiar and nostalgic, exactly the same as it’d been when he’d first saved her from her sister’s murder trial….yet somehow more mature.
She laughed, despite the tears in her eyes and staining her cheeks. “You probably thought something like ‘I thought my number was up‘ and ‘boy Maya Fey looks like a knockout now that she’s a Spirit Channeling Babe and a Half’…right?”
He laughed, and there was something of a choked noise, like a sob, in it. Same old Maya. He put his forehead against hers. “Yeah, yeah you got me. You’ve got my number, Maya. Hey, c’mere, channeling babe.”
He pulled her chin up further, and pressed his lips to hers. Their first kiss in two years.
Maya kissed him fiercely, pressing her lips against his with a soft hiccup of breath. He felt her melt against him, her arms suddenly around his waist and squeezing tighter.
She’d missed him desperately…and he could feel it on her lips.
Phoenix held her tightly, and kissed her softly. How long he had waited, and how hard he had worked for this moment. There had been so many times when he had thought they were going to be separated forever.
But here they were again– as foregone a conclusion as the tides.
