A/N: This is set in episode 8. I felt like they could have done a much better job fleshing out the conflict in Amy and Ledo's relationship caused by him leaving so I wanted to explore it a bit more. Honestly, they probably would have done it if it had been more than just a 13 episode short anime (which I'm bitter about. It could have been even better-and it was already awesome!).

This is NOT a short story. It's supposed to be an 'excerpt' from the episode and that's why it's written in cut scenes instead of something with a definite start and finish.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gargantia or its characters.

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Amy felt the buzzing of Gargantia's many engines through the thin soles of her sandals as she raced over the bridge that connected a smaller ship to the main one. The path she took was very familiar, because Ledo's favorite spot to 'stand by' (as he would put it) was just outside the Yunboro hangar where they'd first met.

The grit was loud as she reared her heels into the deck to stop herself from tumbling into the open, looking a fool as breathless as she was. She knew Chamber heard her approach, but he sat perfectly still behind the ensign, ever the dutiful partner. Amy looked up at the robot and then at the stars, fearing it would be the last time she ever marveled at the way they reflected off Chamber's flawless metal form-that is, if Ledo really did intend to leave with Pinion.

By the time the thought caused a frown to settle onto her lips, she'd caught her breath. Her stomach lurched in that uncomfortable way; did she want to approach Ledo...or vomit? A little of both, she admitted mentally, but she swallowed the latter and braced herself for the former, using a soft voice to catch his attention.

"Ledo, can I sit with you?" she whispered, and her words caught in the seaspray. She'd long since learned that in order to avoid having the barrel of his gun against her forehead, it was best not to startle the ex-soldier.

He heard her, and it was evident from the way he calmly tiled his head back to meet her eyes. His movements were so slick and graceful, like he'd never doubted himself once in his short life. He probably hadn't; part of her was jealous of the realization.

"You may always sit with me," he said, his tongue wrestling with the English language. It came out broken as ever, his grace immediately depleting. She supposed it was a good representation of what her entire culture had done to him - shattering his world view and leaving him stumbling around in the mess.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Amy said, taking a seat on the deck as close to Ledo as she dared. "I didn't mean to...you know…"

The soldier blinked, his blank expression revealing that he, indeed, did not know.

"Well, when I grabbed your shoulder and you told me not to, uh, touch you," she said. The words tumbled out smoothly, but they smacked against her lap because the way he always looked at her with those knowing violet eyes-she couldn't keep her confidence under that gaze. Her braids dangled on either side of her downcast face.

"I did not mean for you to never touch me again," he said, setting down the whale squid tooth he had been idly melting into a flute before her arrival. It tapped against the deck, along with his strange weapon. Amy took the chance of looking up at him and he pinned her down with his stare.

"I just felt bad for upsetting you," she said, furrowing her brows in a desperate attempt to convey her feelings. She wasn't sure he completely understood emotions. Actually, she was sure he didn't, but all she could do was try to show them and answer any questions he might have had.

"I am not upset at you," Ledo began. He was still when he spoke, his movements conserved for a more dutiful purpose. "I am upset by the presence of the Hideauze and your people's unwillingness to stop them."

There was that word that always seemed to come up - Hideauze. It came off his lips much more easily than any English word, melting into his dialogue. Recalling the times he spoke his alien language, she admired the way the noises molded together into words she didn't understand beneath the sound of Chamber's robotic translation. Admiration was the last emotion she wanted to be feeling, so she forced her lips into a firm, stubborn line.

"Stop them from what, exactly?" she retorted, keeping her tone as neutral as possible. His words were fighting words, but she knew he didn't intend for them to come across that way. Sometimes things were lost in translation, and that was okay - she was a patient person.

"We must stop them from destroying mankind and waging war across the galaxies."

"There aren't any galaxies on Earth, Ledo," she said simplistically, tilting her head down to look at the ocean over the bow. The waves crashed angrily against the barge, spitting up a fog of salty water. The quickly-evaporating liquid felt lovely on her exposed, sun-kissed skin. "It's just us and the water, forever and always."

She knew she sounded whimsical, but she liked to think that part of her was what drew Ledo in. Her free thinking ways that startled him at first, the way she danced with the stars that night in that revealing outfit. He'd watched her then, his eyes filled with wonder that fueled her movements, unlike the disturbing lust that the other boys had regarded her with.

Ledo was different - he was unobtainable. He slipped through her fingers like the waves when she surfed them because his mind was still at war in outer space; forever and always, as she'd put it.

"They will take the seas and destroy your ships," Ledo said, his jaw set in his first show of emotion that night. He picked his gun up and put it back in its holster. The tooth lie there, abandoned. One of his legs was tucked beneath the arch of the other, and his arms were crossed. He looked out at the sea, the churning waves reflecting in his eyes.

"Maybe you're wrong," she said. Since she understood he hadn't meant she could never touch him again, she risked leaning forward. Her fingertips brushed his knee that was folded on the ground, and she felt a jolt in her stomach; such an innocent thing to feel so electric over. "Maybe your predecessors took their sea and destroyed their ships."

"Impossible. The Hideauze are-"

She interrupted him, her face once again averted to the deck. The moonlight teased her against the reflection of Ledo's pants-some strange alien material that looked a lot like shiny tarp. "I know, they're the enemy, plain and simple. You're leaving to fight them with Pinion and there's nothing I can do to stop you."

"Correct."

Her chin snapped upward. She was still leaning toward him, so their faces were close enough that she felt the bolt down her abdomen again. She glared at him, ignoring the raging hormones inside her young body.

"I do not understand why you are upset," Ledo said, his eyebrows momentarily knitting into concern. His features snapped back almost immediately to nothingness, his soldier's reflexes more intense than ever since his discovery of the whale squids below them. "I wish to protect you, Bebel and everyone else aboard."

There was nothing to protect them from until Ledo landed, but she pressed her lips together to keep from mentioning that. Everyone else was already angry at him for disturbing the whale squids; it wouldn't do any good for her to attack him, too.

"You can do what you have to, but I want you to know I'm going to miss you." She looked down, thankful for the short layers in her hair that covered her cerulean eyes. "A whole lot."

There was a silence, and Amy's brow sweated with the sinking thought that she'd crossed the already-muddied line between friendship and romance.

"Chamber," Ledo finally spoke, looking up to his companion who still towered above them in a dormant stance. The ensign spoke in his mother tongue, and she heard him mention the word 'miss' with a questioning tone. The Yunboro spoke back through the transmitter around Ledo's ear, the green light softly illuminating the shocked expression on its wearer's face.

"You will feel sad when I am gone?" he confirmed, tilting his head slightly to the side. The long, ghostly layers of his hair brushed delicately against his lips.

Amy nodded, forcing her gaze to his violet eyes; no lower, no higher. "Of course. I…"

Like before, when she'd grabbed him around the waist to keep him from stepping inside Chamber to fight off the pod of squids, she felt emotions that she didn't know how to voice swell in her chest. Those intense eyes of his were still widened with surprise. A blush had risen to his cheeks, and she knew her feelings would be returned if only she could say them aloud.

She wanted to be by his side. She wanted to touch him and feel that electricity again. She wanted to smell the mechanical scent of Chamber that lingered around him. She wanted to feel the heat of his arm around her; a delicacy she'd experienced too few times. She wanted to feel him touch her butt again, but with more knowledge of the gesture.

Finally, blushing deeply, she settled on the most umbrella term she could come up with to cover the range of emotions she felt for him. "I want to be with you."

"With me?"

"Yes, with you," she said, nodding. She meant in every sense of the word. She wanted to be with him as a partner and she really wanted to kiss him, intensely and with no regards to far away wars or marine life. She wanted to hug him and cry into his chest and beg him to stay - but she knew his duties were elsewhere, and that was okay.

She had always been patient, and that was how she would remain until the chance arose for her to voice her feelings once more; preferably when she could find the proper words to say.

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Amy eventually went back home, leaving Ledo alone with the ocean and his thoughts.

"What did she mean by 'be with me', Chamber?" he asked his companion. There was a very brief silence before the transmitter lit up.

"I cannot predict with any certainty what her motives are. Hypothesis: she would like to spend time with you."

Ledo grunted, pressing his chapped lips into a firm line. "She wants to spend time with me? I want to spend time with her, too. Why does that make me feel like I'm going to throw up?"

"The feeling of an upset stomach when a human comes in contact with another they consider to be attractive is commonly referred to as butterflies. This phenomenon is caused by the sensitivity of the human intestinal tract when adrenaline is present," came the familiar AI's voice. As with everything Chamber said, the logic in it calmed Ledo down. He took a deep breath, knowing the action would help dilute the offending chemical from his blood.

"Why would being around Amy make my body produce adrenaline?" he asked after exhaling, craning his neck to look up at his counterpart.

"Hypothesis: You are showing symptoms of puberty, which is the reproductive coming-of-age all humans must experience. Most soldiers feel the effects of this when they have earned their first stay on Avalon and are thus exposed to the females who inhabit it."

Puberty was not a word that was familiar to Ledo. He was sixteen, well past the age where his voice got deeper and dark gray hairs sprouted in places well hidden by his uniform, but he had never thought of himself as falling victim to romantic feelings for someone. He was a well-trained soldier. He was a warrior who protected the Galactic Alliance from Hideauze so others could feel the things he was feeling.

Warriors were not supposed to get butterflies.

"How do I make it stop?" he asked, idly fingering the handle of his gun in its holster. It was a luxurious comfort in such a foreign world to have the means to protect oneself.

"You will feel the effects for a minimum of two years and a maximum of five years," said the AI.

"That's unacceptable. There is a war to fight. I can't keep…" Ledo trailed off, resting his forehead on his one propped knee. "How can I focus on battle when I want to do strange things with her?"

"Define strange things." The voice was even and robotic as usual, phishing for information it didn't already have. Chamber was always learning and retaining, a never ending cycle that had saved the ensign's pasty butt on more than one occasion.

"I want to be very close to her," he revealed. "I want to smell her hair. I want to put my arms around her. I have this feeling like I want to touch her rear end and I don't understand what that means."

"Hypothesis confirmed: you are experiencing the effect of hormones, Ensign Ledo."

"Thank you, Chamber," he said, the words of gratitude spoken in his tongue reminding him of the first thing he'd said to Amy in her own language: thank you. He had to admit, he was much more grateful for the things Amy had done for him than he was learning about his physical situation. Ledo let himself get lost in thought - another Earthly luxury.

The wind blew between them, carrying away the silence that had fallen as he remembered his first few days aboard Gargantia. Chamber spoke, "You are a strong-willed soldier. You know what must be done and that feelings cannot be prioritized at this time. Correct?"

"Correct," he confirmed.

"The battle will not be compromised in that case. You may stand by until our departure with the separating ships tomorrow."

And that's what he did. He stood by, melting holes into the tooth he'd easily forgotten about in the presence of Amy. He waited for sleep to come, which was hard sometimes because the Galactic Alliance would always issue REM orders that were carried out by the pilot's AI. It didn't come naturally most nights, but it usually only required a bit of patience.

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A/N: I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you thought-critiques and comments are welcomed.