2/26/05 The idea wouldn't leave me alone. If anyone asks, I'm pointing to that. And I now understand those people who wonder in their author notes why they're starting yet anther fic when they can barely manage the ones they have already; I just joined their ranks.

Any comments with thought are welcome and more helpful than you probably realize. Any comments with curse words are ignored.

Disclaimer:Rallalon does not own Tales of Symphonia or any of its characters, items or locations.

.-.-.-.-.-.

"Once I can stand, four will test me, but this time is the last straw! Who's been on clean-up duty for the past week?"

A girl of nearly thirteen years, her pink hair tied back in two pigtails, looked up from the vegetables she was chopping. "Ah… me?" she offered somewhat timidly. What had she done? Usually the man referred to simply as "Cook" would at least put down whatever sharp utensil he happened to be holding before letting his temper loose.

Instead of increasing the intensity of the chef's annoyance, her confession cut the man's momentum. "No, really, who?"

"Me, sir."

"Combatir, you've been with us for four years now: you know where to put the pans away and how to clean them."

"Yes, sir."

"So who are you hiding?" He made an obvious attempt to make himself look less threatening, the effect mostly ruined by the peeler he had yet to put down. The next words the insanely organized chef gritted out were made with obvious effort: "It's. Not. That. Big. Of. A. Deal."

"Sir, Alicia is on clean-up duty this week," Melissa, one of the older helpers, pointed out.

An eyebrow rose. The gesture of doom. "Just Combatir? Just our pre-teen little friend?"

"As in, we wash, I dry, she puts away," another woman hurriedly amended.

Cook considered this for a moment before announcing loudly to his kitchen staff, "I'm sure you all know what this means then." He paused, evidently waiting for himself to be proven right or for someone else to get indignant over whatever it was that he found so outrageous. "Someone else," he said slowly and with emphasis, "is using our kitchen."

Several people humored him with offended sounds.

"This I will not tolerate! A kitchen is the sanctuary of a cook! It should not be violated in such a manner! This-"

"So, Ali," Melissa said quietly in a practiced whisper, "do you think the President's son is really back this time?"

Chopping again and nodding along to whatever the chef was saying, Alicia shrugged. "If Cook's this riled up over some pots and pans being put away in the wrong place, I guess. He'll want to impress- What, you don't think so?"

Melissa shook her head. "Cook hates him. Picky eater or something. Don't look at me like that. Cook's good, but he's not that good. And if President Junior's really been 'studying' in Meltokio, odds are that he's had some pretty good stuff. Veggies done?"

She nodded before pointing out, "Sybak, too." Both knew that it was how she had learned about the opportunity for her current job here.

"Oh yeah. I'd nearly forgotten about that. Hey, slower on the adding; you don't have to dump them all in at once."

Alicia nodded once more, lessening the amount she was adding to the soup at a time. "But what do you mean 'if'?"

"There's always going to be rumors, you know."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You guess or you know?" Cook suddenly demanded of her, forcing her to wonder where his speech had gone off to.

"I… know?"

"Now that's dedication! Thank you, Combatir."

Once she decided that Cook was out of earshot, she asked the question. "What just happened?"

"You volunteered to stake out the kitchen and wait for the 'Rearranger'."

"Oh."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

A stake out wasn't as exciting as she'd pictured. Of course, Alicia had never pictured staking out a kitchen so that might have been part of it tonight. They'd narrowed the time down between after eleven at night and before three-thirty in the morning, leaving her with four and a half hours of kitchen watching. In the dark, as a light would alert him to someone being there. At least Cook was letting her sleep in tomorrow for her, er, service to the cause and that was always a treat.

Truthfully, she had to wonder about the "Rearranger". Even if there was someone sneaking into the kitchens, they couldn't be doing it just to rearrange pots and utensils. Odds were they were cooking, though why they would was still a mystery.

It would be a good idea to check the pantries, Alicia decided around one in the morning. Though it would be hard to tell by looking at amounts of what was still there (they did cook for all of the Lazereno Company, after all; that was a lot of ingredients to keep track of), seeing if anything had been obviously moved might be possible. That, and it would give the incredibly bored girl something to do.

She was squinting in one of the larger pantries when she heard it.

Footsteps. Heavy footsteps.

The kitchen light clicked on.

Holding her breath, Alicia tip-toed to the door and peeked out, catching a glimpse of a man's back, before softly closing the door, making sure it was all the way shut before slowly releasing the handle.

That was the plan anyway.

She kept watching him. A decently dressed man, his class wasn't obvious though she could assume his age between sixteen and twenty. He moved with confidence, as if he belonged there instead of being the trespasser he was. He didn't even look out of place there; in fact, he seemed the opposite. No fear of being caught was in him. In fact, he looked . . . content, happy even. When he paused, it was from being in thought. Even looking at him from behind, she could tell he had one hand holding his chin, probably debating what dish he wanted to cook. There was something about the idea of him that made her smile, that someone who was too afraid to test their skills in front of people during the day would perform so for the dark.

Now she was just being silly. In the way she'd meant to do it before, she closed the door.

It was only afterwards when she realized the problem.

Were he there to cook as he obviously was, he'd come into her hiding place. She'd be found. For some reason, though she had every right to be there and he none, she found the thought highly embarrassing.

Footsteps approaching. Closer, closer. The Rearranger paused outside the door.

And went on to the next pantry.

Alicia breathed a silent sigh of relief. Why, she wasn't sure. She was supposed to be demanding to know what he was doing here and how he got in; she shouldn't be hiding!

Yet she stood there, waiting. She could just clean up afterwards and no one would be the wiser. Yes, she'd do that. Truth be told, she was a little . . . scared of showing herself and, well, she didn't want to disturb him. It would just be . . . rude.

And she had a description. She would just tell Cook that the Rearranger was tall with blue hair. Yes, that seemed like a good idea.

How long she stood there before going back into one of the corners of the pantry, she couldn't be sure of. Once Alicia was fairly sure she would be mostly out of sight if he did happen to come in, boredom took her. And her pigtails were giving her a tension-headache.

Eventually, the sounds of food being prepared turned into the sounds of food being eaten. There was a content sigh in there somewhere as well. This was soon followed with the noises of whatever-he-had-used being washed. It sounded like he used the old cleaning machine, so that took awhile, maybe ten minutes. Then - oh, she winced at this - the clamor of those pots and pans being put away.

Clink! The lights went out.

And finally, heavy footsteps going away, getting quieter and quieter until silence seemed to ring in the air. A long moment passed until she stood from her spot on the floor and walked quietly to the door. She opened it slowly and peeked out.

The kitchen was empty.

She checked the clock on one of the stoves. 2:27 AM. The Rearranger had been there for over an hour.

Ten minutes of carefully putting everything back into its proper place, not just close to it, led her to come to a few conclusions. First, he was cooking only for himself. Two, he'd made some sort of pasta. Three, he was either remembering where things went much better by now or Cook was really in need of therapy. Four…

Four, she really, really wanted to go to bed. A short while later, she did just that.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

"So, Combatir, how'd it go?"

"Wha- oh that, yeah," Alicia mumbled, still tired enough to be easily confused even after her morning nap. That was why she was having trouble keeping her thoughts straight. Otherwise, of course if it were otherwise, she wouldn't have been thinking about him so, about how he had seemed so generally pleased to be in this very room, about how- how wonderful he'd seemed somehow. But no, that word didn't really fit him, did it? Not as closely as Alicia would've liked, anyway. She couldn't know that after only an hour with him with a closed door between them. It wasn't a bad thing, really, that he was there without permission. It wasn't like he was doing anything bad, just cooking, she was sure that was it.

Of course she wouldn't have been thinking of him had she been fully awake. That would have been silly. She was very tired, after all; a person got silly when they were tired.

"Did you find the Rearranger?" Cook prompted, making it clear she'd been quiet a bit too long. "Nothing was out of place, so did you stop him or did he not come?"

"I-" She shook her head. He had come and she hadn't stopped him.

"I see."

It was a moment before Alicia realized what she had implied.

But she didn't correct him.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Quiet. Dark. Restless.

It was a great change from her fatigue earlier in the day. Alicia rolled over in bed, trying to see the other person in the room. "Melissa?"

"…Umm?"

"Melissa?"

"Wha…?"

"I can't sleep."

"…kay, Ali."

Silence.

"I really can't sleep."

"Al-leeeeeeeeeeeeeee…"

Melissa. Fun by day. Cranky zombie by night.

Realizing that there would be no help from her roommate, Alicia stared at the small clock on the short table between their beds. 2:27 AM.

Huh.

"Going for a walk."

"G'night, Ali…" she heard as she gently closed the door.

As she walked in the dark, Alicia realized that she'd never gone to the kitchens at this time of morning before. Not alone anyway, she amended. Holiday breakfasts could take forever to prepare and she'd been put on the morning team more than once. There was always a certain someone who was never happy about it when the same was done to her, but that could get pretty funny. In fact, two months ago-

Heavy footsteps.

Alicia backed into a doorway and tried to press herself into the shadows. She was fairly light, so he probably hadn't heard her over his own walking. And if he had then . . . well, she wasn't sure what then, but . . . if he came to inspect, she might see his face at least.

Part of her mind stared at the notion, saying And that makes it better how?

Finding no better answer than that it would satisfy her curiosity, she held her breath, listening. He was going in the other direction, off towards the main area of the company building. Still, she waited until the silence was as complete as it could be in any building with people living in it.

He was definitely gone now.

And so off the to kitchens she went. Ten minutes later, she was heading back to the room she shared with Melissa. He was getting better, but there were still some mistakes obvious to the trained eye. They were mostly simple things that wouldn't matter to anyone who wasn't obsessive-compulsive, but mistakes all the same. It was also clear that someone had been in there or she was just getting way too into this. And the cleaning machine was being temperamental again. She'd have to keep a close eye on it, more so than usual.

"…Where'd ja go, Ali…?"

"For a walk. Go back to sleep."

"…kay."

.-.-.-.-.-.

It fell into a sort of a pattern after that. Sometime around two-thirty in the morning, Alicia would wake up and be unable to go back to sleep, for some reason worried that the Rearranger was going to get caught. She would then creep down to the kitchen, once she told Melissa that the early-morning walks were really helping or rearranged the pillow and sheets on her bed depending on the older girl's state of consciousness. From there, it was look around, correct, come back, and sleep. Fairly simple.

In a strange way, she felt that she got to know him. It was clear that he was gradually working up to longer and more complex recipes, meaning that his skills were probably improving. She just couldn't wreak that for him. There was also how she felt a bit like an accomplice, seriously sneaking about for the first time in her life to aid another's late-night exploits. She was probably just romanticizing it, but there were times that it didn't feel that way. Sometimes, she arrived before he left, once before he even stared cleaning up. From behind a doorframe, Alicia had watched him, reflected in the metal of the stoves and ovens. She'd gotten her first glimpses of his face and, incomplete as they might have been, seeing the front side of him made her face feel much too hot. At those times, it felt like he was waiting for her, like he wanted his turn to catch a glimpse of his partner in this culinary crime.

Of course, she'd eventually remember that the Rearranger didn't even know about her, that he had no way of knowing.

She was forced to rethink this a week or so after she became a teenager. That was the morning when she came in to find the lights on and a plate, still full, sitting on the counter. Garlic chicken with rice, very well presented and still warm. After a moment of staring at it and wondering if this meant the Rearranger was going to come back, she noticed that what she had assumed to be a napkin under the knife and fork was really a slip of paper, folded in half.

Looking about and listening for his telltale footsteps, Alicia slid the paper out and unfolded it. On it were written two words:

Thank you.