Two days after it all happened, she comes to visit him.

She stood in the doorway, unsure of herself. How this scrawny little thing was the same girl who took on Princess Kraehe only a matter of days ago escaped him. Ahiru scratched the back of her head. "So uh, how are you doing?"

He doesn't get up, instead he had been in bed rest all day and he wasn't doing that for her. "Well considering I'm covered in bruises, my right hand is killing me and I was repeatedly assaulted by a bunch of crows - not as bad as I expected."

She smiled softly, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. "Oh, I'm glad. You really had me worried for me a second there." She crossed the room and sat on Mytho's bed across from him.

"Well, thank you for the concern." He turned his head to look at her. At least she was in better shape than he was. With him on bedrest, she was his only eyes and ears to what was going on. "Any sign of her yet?"

Her blue eyes dropped to the floor, obviously disappointed. "No. And I looked everywhere. Her room, the classrooms, the town - she's gone." How could this have happened? Rue was her friend and she was so sweet and so kind, this had to be a mistake. Ahiru didn't care what Kraehe said, Rue was still in there somewhere, she had to be.

He brushed some hair out of his eyes. "Well at least there's some good news. We haven't got Kraehe to worry about at this very moment."

She gave a defeated sigh. "I guess."

After that they fell into an awkward silence, neither not really knowing what to say. Come to think of it, when had they ever just had a casual conversation? And so they just stayed like that for some time. Until finally he said it.

"So you're a duck."

"Yep."

"An actual duck."

"Yep."

"An honest to god duck."

"Yep."

"And you are also Princess Tutu?"

"Yep."

"So how does that work?" He sat up, groaning as he did. That was a mistake. "I mean, were you cursed? Did you piss off a witch? Did you make a wish? Explain it to me. Talk me through how this." He gestured to all of her. "-happened."

And so she told him everything. Watching Mytho dance, wanting to see him smile, Drosselmeyer's proposition, the pendant's abilities, not knowing about Princess Tutu's fate when she had agreed to the job. All of it.

It took some time, but Fakir managed to wrap his around it. "So whenever you quack, you turn back into a duck and when you get splashed with water you turn back into a girl?"

"Exactly." A thought struck her. "Oh, and I turn back into a duck when I'm not touching the pendant too." She shrugged. "But you already knew that part."

He just stared at her, dumbfounded. Yep, this was his life. Murderous crows. Heartless princes. Ducks turning into girls and in turn into magical ballerina princesses. Great.

"It's a lot to take in I know."

He shook her off. "No, in fact a lot of things that have happened make a lot more sense now." She did seem to disappear a lot, he did often see her near bodies of water and there was that one time he could've sworn he saw her arguing with a pigeon. "Who else knows about all this?"

Ahiru went quiet, counting the names on her hand. "Well, there's me, Mr Drosselmeyer, Miss Edel, Rue and, well, you."

Wow, that was a lot of stuff to keep to yourself.

That was when she noticed him fiddling with his hand. "Is it hurting you?"

He looked down, not even realising what he had been doing. "Oh, no, it's fine. It just needs redressing."

"Do you need some help?"

"Leave it, I can just go to-"

But before he could protest, she was already up and in the drawer, fishing out the bandages. Then she was fetching a bowl of water and a clean cloth. Finally she sat beside him on the bed. "It's my fault this happened you in the first place, this is the least I can do." Gently, she took his hand in her and began to unwrap the bandages. He observed in silence (read: a huff) as she began to wipe the wound clean. She caught his eye and smiled."It's okay to ask for help you know."

That caught him off guard. Even now, after everything, she was still helping him. Idiot, never thinking for herself. Don't ducks need rest too? That was when he finally made up his mind. And he figured now was as good a time as any to mention it. So as she began to wrap the clean gauze around the wound, he cleared his throat.

"So listen. Mytho wants to have his heart restored to him and I need to respect his wishes and since you're the only one who can give him his heart back." He sighed, defeated. "It looks like it would make sense for us to co-operate."

Her hands stopped. Wow, she really hadn't seen that one coming. Sure they had teamed up to rescue Mytho from Kraehe, but they didn't have any other options that time. Now he was the one on suggesting it? "Really? You and me?"

"Yes." He motioned for her to keep going. Either she was playing doctor or she wasn't. "Rue knows that we know she's Princess Kraehe, we have more of a chance against her if we work together." He avoided her gaze, embarrassed to admit it. "And besides, we made a pretty good team down there."

Ahiru beamed at this and he did everything he could to ignore the slight twinge in his chest that smile gave him. "I guess we did huh?" She mused. With one final loop, her task was done. She cut the excess bandages off and went to put everything else away. He examined her handiwork, it wasn't that bad. Though, given that this was Ahiru, he wouldn't put it past her to have a lot of practice with this sort of thing. When she was done tidying up, she returned to her spot by the bed and extended her hand to him. "So, I guess this makes us partners then huh?"

He looked at her hand, the weight of what it represented hitting him. This was teaming with the girl who only a month ago he considered the biggest threat to Mytho's safety. This was teaming up with the girl who hated his very guts. This was teaming up with the girl who after all they had been through, all the harsh words they had shared, had trusted him enough to tell him the truth about who and what she was. There was no going back from this. They were in this for the long haul.

"Yeah." He took her hand and shook it. "For the time being."

Well that's us. Thank you all for all your support! I hope you liked it and don't forget to review!