Disclaimer: don’t own. Not KH, not Final Fantasy, not anything else mentioned. Boohoo.

Post-BoT??

For Zeromaru Chaos Mode. Hope you like it. Sorry it's late...

--

“You had something for me?”

“Birthday present,” Ally replied simply. “I know how much you love the old school games, and I stumbled across this in Andre’s collection, so I figured that it could go to a good cause.”

“Good cause, Ally?” he, Zero, asked. His brown eyes stared her down, ever-nineteen. But she’d surpassed him again, hitting her twenty-first seven months ago. She had a silver band on her ring finger, and her hair almost down to her waist. “Come on, you’re losing your mind. I’m a lost cause, not a good one.”

She rolled her eyes. “For an immortal, you can be sucha drama queen,” she commented dryly. “Just open it already.”

He glanced at the rectangular package between them.

“It’s shiny looking,” he commented briefly, not moving to pick it up from the grey floor, even while the odd colours swirled in the grey realm around them. They were meeting between worlds, her grey corridors and his dark ones intertwined.

“I wrapped it with bubble-wrap and paper that looks suspiciously like aluminium foil. Thought it would amuse you.”

“Thought right. Can’t find either of those things in commonplace anymore. We were so far ahead before Earth destroyed itself,” he commented, and she could sense the nostalgia in his tone.

“Like they said in the ‘Wizard of Oz’,” she said with a small shrug. “There’s no place like home.”

“Not that you’d remember it, Ally,” he snorted. “You’ve forgotten half your millenias anyway.”

“First life’s the only one worth remembering,” she contradicted, crossing her arms. “You have to remember, Zero – without you, I would be just like everyone else in the family – a mindless zombie too far gone. You stopped me from doing some very stupid stuff. Couldn’t forget you if I tried. Couldn’t forget home if I tried.”

“Tenth grade poetry?”

“Haunts my nightmares. Couldn’t forget that either.”

He chuckled. “You did say it was horrible.”

“And thatwas an understatement,” she retorted. “Old English poets were all such pigs. Basically all of their stuff was trying to convince a woman to sleep with them – no mention of marriage whatsoever. And don’t even get me started on William Shakespeare…”

“What’s wrong with Shakespeare? He was one of the best poets and playwrights in human history!”

“I’m not disputing that,” she conceded. “I actually happen to think he was a total genius – and a hopeless romantic. But he had a wife, a mistress, and was basically in love with a guy, all at the same time, and still had the audacity to have a go at his mistress and the guy when they started canoodling, and this is all totally irrelevant because you’re supposed to be opening your present.”

“…I think I’d rather discuss the particulars of the English language with you…”

“…You know I wouldn’t give you a ferret again, right?” she asked dully. “If I could find one now, I’d be keeping it for myself, not sacrificing it’s life to play a practical joke on you. Ferrets are just that cool.” She paused. “Besides, why would you want to talk about the English language – wherein a house burns up when it burns down, to fill in a form, you fill it out, and for an alarm to go off, it has to go on. You have to wonder at the unique lunacy of it…”

“…Done now?”

“…Open your present,” she deadpanned, and he chuckled.

“Okay, kitling, alright. I’ll open the damned present.”

“Well if you think it’s that horrible, I might just take it back,” she said, letting out a small sigh. “And I would’ve thought all the game formats would amuse you – my mistake!”

His eyes narrowed, and the next second the gift was in front of him, paper being torn away. Older, she may have been, but she still knew how to push his buttons. She grinned.

“All the classics, kit? You really shouldn’t have,” and there was a slight impressed tone in there as he stared down at the stack in front of him. She smiled.

“You’ve got your Final Fantasies, your Ar Tornelicos, your Soul Caliburs – not that I know why Andre had them, since he failed at them miserably. Hell, I even stuck in a couple of Star Wars games…”

“Like I said, classics,” he reiterated with a grin. “Best birthday present ever.” She laughed silently.

“So you say. I’ll have to get back soon.”

“Ah. Your future hubby gave you a curfew?”

“No he didn’t,” she replied dryly. “I gave myself a curfew, thanks,” she explained, glancing at her silver ring thoughtfully. “You know bad things happen when I stay out late, Zero-kun.”

“Hmm… Still think you should come knock around some heartless on your pre-wedding night.”

“Kairi would kill me if I looked sleep deprived. That girl’s obsessed with organizing everything.”

“…Oh my god…”

“…what?”

“…Is she going to make you wear a dress, Ally?” And from that he burst into a fit of masculine giggles while a vein popped in her forehead and her expression turned livid.

“That’s it, I’m proposing a shotgun wedding,” she hissed. He laughed harder still.

“There’s no such a place as Vegas anymore, kitling,” he laughed.

“No, no. Shotgun wedding as in I will be holding a shotgun to Kairi’s head for the entire thing, and if she moves I will shoot her.”

“Ah. That’s a true shotgun wedding there,” he commented, clearly humoured. “Of course, it is you, and you can’t have an interesting wedding without a slightly eccentric, mostly insane bride.”

“…Touché.”

“Nonetheless, you should go soon.”

“Hmm…” she murmured, staring at the ground for a couple of minutes. Then she moved to give him a hug. “Happy nineteenth, Zero. Again,” she murmured into his shoulder, and he chuckled, returning the embrace and lifting her off the ground slightly as he did so.

“That’s my girl,” he said. “All with the small humour. I may still be nineteen, my friend, but look at you…”

He moved back from her, hands on her shoulders, and looked her up and down. She lifted an eyebrow dryly.

“I’m engaged, you aren’t allowed to look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re going to kiss me again,” she said. “Engaged. Engaged. Holy crap, I’m engaged.”

“Yep. Soon you’ll be married. Then you’ll get bored with your little toy and look towards a young, handsome, powerful man for a passionate love affair to liven up your life, and I think I know just the person you’ll be looking for.”

“You overrate yourself sometimes,” she sighed, rolling her eyes, and he grinned. “Take a step back for a while, Zero. There was always something weird about us. We were never quite like that.”

He smiled, nodding slightly in acceptance, only to give a playful retort she knew he didn’t mean. “You’re only saying that because you’re getting old.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re getting jealous,” she retorted, smirking. “Save your factual comments for my mid-life crisis in fifteen years. Then you can laugh all you want.”

He chuckled, pulled her in for another hug, and then pushed her away.

“Go on. He’s waiting for you.”

It was all the approval she needed. She smiled.

“Thankyou.”

--

She walked in to find her silver haired boy watching her from the kitchen counter, and his quick glance at the calendar, with the day circled in silver, told her all she needed to know. Riku’s gaze said all he didn’t say.

He knew she’d gone to see him again.

She rolled her eyes, made her way over to her fiancée, and gave him a quick kiss, moving off in a moment with no more than a flutter of her fingers in front of his smirking face.

He’d seen the ring still intact on her finger, heard her delighted mutter of ‘engaged’, and watched as she danced off for her regular evening routine. And it didn’t matter that she’d gone to see his old rival, her old friend, because it washis birthday, and she was still Riku’s.

For that, she was forgiven.