Quiet Comfort

Locke really didn't know what the hell he was doing.

He had spent the last five years staying distant from all things female, struggling to convince himself that any connection or attraction was due to a remembrance of Rachel.

He had spent the last five years doing everything he could to quietly take the Empire down, struggling for a personal revenge.

And here he was, taking care a girl that was almost nothing like Rachel, and an Imperial soldier to boot.

And he didn't know why. Yes, he had been given a mission, but he found himself going beyond the call of duty for this fragile little thing. She was so quiet and her eyes so haunted that he found himself doing whatever he could to make her smile. He taught her to skip stones across the stream trickling by their campsite, he tucked a daisy in her hair, he bought her sugary desserts at an inn.

It was so drastically different. Rachel was so powerful, so beautiful. She had followed him to the caves; she had snapped at him when she was angry. With her, everything had been a battle, and he had fought to give her enough, to provide the excitement that she craved.

And this… creature, this china doll was nothing like her. Instead, after they built a fire, she curled up by his side and looked at the stars. And when he settled down next to her, he felt a curious kind of contentment. He felt rested, comfortable.

Maybe that was why.

As he lay there in the middle of a forest with a girl he barely knew, he felt like he was home.

Author's Notes

Well, I've had absolutely no time to work on anything except school this semester. Which is sad, so to try and get me back to posting things, I'm going to start posting my drabbles. These were written for the esper_cave community on Livejournal. The others that I've finished will be put up over time. I want to edit one of them, so it may take some time... Perhaps after I finish my English term paper. Eventually, when I finally settle down and finish the challenge, there will be 100 shots of Locke and Terra.