An Odd Feeling

Epilogue

By Relm

Lina sat by a tree basking in the sunshine. It had been a few days since 'the incident'.

Lina and Zelgadis had been resting but were not completely healed. Though Amelia had regained her magical abilities she and Sylphiel weren't able to heal both Zelgadis and Lina fully.

Lina's dagger was magically enchanted. Any wounds caused by it were resistant to magic therefore making healing them with magic nearly impossible. So that left Lina with many nasty gashes and Zelgadis with one sore leg.

But Lina didn't care. Everything was close to being back to normal. After the incident Lina and Mister Hender explained everything. Amelia was the only one that was really offended that they kept it a secret from her. Sylphiel understood the situation and didn't hold anything against Lina and Mister Hender. Xellos didn't remember anything and was demanding to know what happened at every moment. But of course everyone chose not to divulge any information thus making the said monster a very unhappy and very grumpy monster. Gourry didn't understand what was going on but didn't care. As long as everyone was fine he didn't care. Zelgadis was another story…

Zelgadis didn't remember much about what happened when Gar possessed him. He did remember hurting Lina and that made him sick to his stomach. Because the golem had been right about Gar sharing Zelgadis' memories it jogged up some Zelgadis' memories. He didn't remember everything but he did remember a great deal about Lina and everyone else. Which was why he felt so guilty. And since then he had been avoiding Lina at every chance. Anytime she came into a room he left the room immediately. Lina wasn't too happy about being avoided but she could understand what he was feeling. And she wasn't going to push him into anything not after everything he'd gone through.

Lina sighed stretching despite the pain in her limbs. 'The sun sure is bright today.' Lina thought while smiling. 'Which is kinda nice considering how much rain and gloomy weather we've been having.' Lina closed her eyes with the intentions of dozing off but then a big person shaped shadow overshadowed her.

Lina looked up shielding her eyes to see the person's face. But since he was directly blocking the sun his face was totally shadowed. But she could tell by the outline of the hair whom it was. "Come here often?" Lina asked with a smirk.

"Mind if I join you?" Zelgadis asked still standing before her.

"Sure take a seat. But should you be walking around with your leg like that?" Lina asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Probably not." Zelgadis plopped himself down rather bluntly next to Lina on her right hissing from the pain in his leg.

"So…" Lina trailed off.

"So…" Zelgadis replied.

There was a small silence between them. A leaf blew by on the wind that breezed by them.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" Lina finally blurted out.

"I haven't been avoiding you." Zelgadis looked down trying to avoid her gaze.

"Yes you have. Even now you're doing. Sure you're sitting with me but you can't look me in the face."

"I can." Zelgadis answered defensively. But still he was looking down, like the blades of grass near his left hand were the most interesting things in the world.

"Then do it." Lina half ordered.

Zelgadis timidly looked up to meet her gaze. For a moment their eyes locked but that was all it was, a moment. Within seconds Zelgadis was back to staring at the grass.

"I don't care about what happened Zel. That wasn't you." Lina sighed. The only thing she saw in those sapphire orbs was guilt.

"But it was still my body. And my mind was still in there."

"A body you had no control over, and a mind that was locked away. You had no control over the situation and there would be no way you could have fought off Gar's mind even if you had known what was going on."

Zelgadis didn't answer. He just continued to look down.

"Why can't you just forget about what happened?"

Zelgadis looked up. "But I could have killed you!"

"You didn't, I'm still alive. And so are you. You're human…mostly, Gar is dead and we're both alive. Why can't you be happy about that?"

"Because of everything that happened leading up to now. I shouldn't have been so obsessed."

"You just wanted to be normal. There's nothing wrong with that. Besides I personally don't mind if I got a little banged up. You've gotten your cure and you don't have to worry about Gar anymore. To think you had that monster living inside your head all those years kinda gives me the creeps. It's quite possible that he could have broken the mental prison Rezo put him eventually if you stayed a chimera. So I figure its better that's he's gone now. It would have been a lot harder to deal with him if he was taking over your chimera body." Lina rationalized.

Zelgadis frowned. "I never thought about it like that before…"

"See? So everything is better then!" Lina went to give him a smack on the back remembering halfway through about the pain doing such an action would cause in the past. She braced herself for the pain but then was confused when instead of hurting her she hurt him. Well of course there was the pain of actually moving her arm but Lina didn't feel any pain from hitting Zelgadis. "Sorry! I forgot you weren't a chimera there for a moment." Lina laughed sheepishly.

Zelgadis just glared at her rubbing the now sore spot on his back.

"So how are you feeling?" Lina asked after another fit of silence.

"Between the waves of utter guilt and pain in my leg? Not too bad. I still have some fuzzy spots in my memory but it's coming back to me slowly. I'll get it all back eventually."

Lina grinned. "Such optimism from you is refreshing. Normally you're brooding all the time."

"I did not brood."

Lina laughed. "You always brooded! Wandering off in that little mind of yours in total misery."

Zelgadis didn't answer he just grumbled.

Lina was going to go on when she remember something. "You know I haven't punished you yet for seeing me in the nude." Lina's face went slightly red.

Zelgadis' eyes went very wide his face a bright red. "What? What are you talking about? I've never seen you- you- without clothing! I'd never do something like that!" Zelgadis sputtered out.

"Yes you did. When you went to 'save' me from Gar for the second time. I was taking a bath and you had lied to me about Gar being alive and then he tried to get at me but you stopped him. After which took a very nice long look at me with nothing on." Lina was still blushing but she was getting madder by the moment.

"I don't know what you're talking about! I don't remember any of that!" Zelgadis cried out. He didn't remember that moment, though he couldn't say that he wasn't unhappy about that. 'What the hell am I thinking?'

"So I guess that memory hasn't came back to you… How… convenient for you." Lina narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'm not lying! I have no memory of that!"

Lina didn't answer she just continued to glare at him. But she eventually determined that he was telling the truth. Which was hard seeing how he still had a rather guilty look on his face and not from 'the incident' either. It was a different type of guilt. Like guilt from doing something 'bad'. So it made Lina wonder what exactly he was thinking about. 'He better not be thinking about that. Otherwise he's going to be in a world of pain.' "Then why do you look you do?"

"I don't!"

"You're not... picturing me... like that are you?" Lina's voice was deadly.

Zelgadis didn't answer he just inched away from her slowly.

"Well!"

"…"

Lina's face was even redder then before. She had figured he'd deny it but he wasn't!

"I'm not." Zelgadis said finally.

"Why'd it take you so long to answer!"

"Because!"

"Because why?"

"Because I was I'm sorry!" Zelgadis yelled and waited for the incoming fireball.

Lina was too embarrassed to do anything. Not that she could anyway. She was hurting too much to hit him and she couldn't use magic still.

"Huh? Oh right it's that time of the month!" Zelgadis exclaimed when he noticed the lack of being fried.

Lina smacked Zelgadis on the head despite the pain in her arm.

"I'm sorry okay?" Zelgadis apologized rubbing his head. "Does this mean we're even?"

Lina huffed crossing her arms. Out of embarrassment mostly. "Oh no you're going to get it once I have my magic back believe me." Lina said in a mock scowl.

There was a long silence between them again. Nether knew what to say after all that.

"So did I do anything else that I can't remember that I need to be punished for?" Zelgadis asked in semi-sarcastic voice.

Lina didn't answer. Instead she started to blush again.

Zelgadis looked at her funny. "What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing at all!" Lina insisted.

"Oh no something else happened. Tell me."

Lina let out a sigh before hesitantly speaking. "Zelgadis how much do you remember when Gar possessed you?"

Zelgadis frowned. "Some though I'd rather not think about it."

"Do you remember what Gar said when he first punched me in the stomach?"

Zelgadis looked at her confused. "I don't remember that part too well. Why?"

"Do you know what he did before he punched me in the stomach?"

Zelgadis shook his head.

Lina went red in the face again. 'He doesn't remember. Oh well then I don't need to mention that.'

"So what happened? What did he do with my body?" Zelgadis was very curious now and getting a little annoyed that she couldn't just spit it out.

"Nothing, nothing happened at all!" Lina said with a nervous laugh.

Zelgadis glared at her. Some images in his head came to mind but they were too muddled for him to pick anything out. But one image came to mind. 'That was before Gar though…' "You're lying but I have a question that I've been wanting answered since I started to get my memory back."

Lina paled. "What exactly?"

"I have this faint memory of waking up in bed with you. Why is that? What were we doing?"

Lina's eyes bugged out. She had forgotten about that. "Nothing! Nothing at all! You don't remember that? You entered my dream and we woke up like that. We weren't doing anything indecent I swear!"

"Oh," was all that Zelgadis could say. And it made sense because now he remembered it. "So what happened with Gar?" Zelgadis demanded again. He wasn't going to let this up.

Sadly Lina knew that fact as well. "Oh fine! If you're going to be that annoying about it!" Lina huffed in anger. "He kissed me." Lina's voice was barely audible.

"What?" Zelgadis asked dumbly. He heard her say it but he didn't believe it. 'I must have heard her wrong. That I would remember.'

"He kissed me." Lina said a little louder.

Now Zelgadis knew for sure that he heard her properly. And to make matters worse he started to remember what happened. And what Gar said afterwards. 'No… no… she knows! She knows! Damn you Gar! Even when you're dead you're making my life hell!' Zelgadis mentally cursed.

"And he told me that he wanted to give you something you wanted before making your life a living hell. And that he that it was something you had wanted for a long time and it repulsed him."

Zelgadis didn't answer but in his head he was yelling the same word over and over again. I would write the word but because small children could be reading this I choose not to.

"Zel?"

Zelgadis snapped back to reality. Not that he wanted to. Part of him wanted to crawl under a rock and disappear. The other part wanted to bury himself in the sand. Either way he wanted to hide. "Yes?" He managed with a squeaky voice.

"Was he telling the truth? Did you really want to kiss me?"

Zelgadis didn't answer he just nodded his head.

"So you have a crush on me then?" Lina's voice was a little too playful.

Again Zelgadis nodded. He didn't look at her. He didn't want to see what type of expression she had on her face.

"Well then we'll just have to keep it a secret for now for Amelia's sake." Lina stated matter-of-factly.

"Huh?" Zelgadis was confused.

"Unless you want to tell them all straight out? But I think sneaking around would be kinda fun." Lina smiled seductively.

"Huh?" Zelgadis was still confused. 'What is she saying…?'

"Because then we wouldn't have to worry about Xellos trying to bug us about it and Amelia wouldn't get upset. But then again when they do find out it wouldn't be good because we would have lied to them for such a long time and I don't think-"

"Lina what are you saying?" Zelgadis cut her off.

Lina didn't answer she just crawled over to Zelgadis. She brought her face up to his.

Zelgadis could feel her warm breath tickling his skin. He didn't know what she was doing. 'Is she going to…?'

But instead of doing what he figured Lina turned her face towards his left ear and whispered, "What do you think I'm saying?" She wrapped her arms around his neck even though it hurt to do so.

Zelgadis' heart skipped a beat. "What about Gourry?"

"What about him?" Lina asked moving her face to stare Zelgadis straight in the eyes.

"Don't you love him?"

"I might have thought for a time that I might have. But that ship sailed a long time ago." Lina wrapped her arms a little more around Zelgadis' neck while moving closer to him practically sitting on him. Which in turn made Zelgadis' body stiffen more. Lina had to refrain from grinning more. She liked making him nervous.

"You're interested in… me?" Zelgadis squeaked again.

It was Lina's turn to nod.

"You love me?"

Lina frowned. "That I don't know. But that's something I wouldn't mind trying and finding out."

Zelgadis was back to staring blankly again. Of all people Lina was the last person he'd expect to hear this from. "With me?"

"This isn't something you're used to isn't it?"

"I feel like this is a dream and I'm going to be woken up real soon. And it would probably be Xellos that wakes me up too."

"Would you be in this much pain if you were awake?" Lina asked referring to the wound in his leg.

"No."

"Then you're not dreaming."

There was a small silence between them again. Lina still had her arms around his neck with her face not very far from his.

Lina waited and waited and waited. But Zelgadis didn't move. He just stared at her like a deer caught in headlights. He hadn't moved at all not even his arms. Eventually Lina got fed up and was about to do something when she felt a pair of hands grab her at the waist pulling her downwards. His lips eagerly met with hers. The sudden movement caught Lina by surprise not expecting it but soon relaxed into the kiss.

Zelgadis' arms snaked more tightly around Lina's waist. One of his hands moved up Lina's back making swirling patterns with his fingertips. He brought that hand up to her face and caressed her cheek. And then he put his hands through her soft red hair marvelling at the touch.

The kiss was sweet and not too demanding. And it lasted a long while.

When it was over Lina let out a very content sigh as she leaned into Zelgadis putting her head on his chest.

"So was the kiss better?" Zelgadis asked stroking her hair. 'How I'm going to keep this a secret and not touch her hair around the others is beyond me.' He had always wanted to touch her hair but would have never dared to do it. And now that he could it was too additive.

"Yes." Lina purred.

Zelgadis couldn't help but smile. 'She's just like a cute little kitten.' "So we're keeping this a secret?"

"Yes. Still regretting you getting cured?"

"No, not at all Lina, not at all." Zelgadis said contently pulled Lina in a closer embrace.

The End.

Author's Note: I have many fics floating around and this is the only multiparter non holiday fic that I have finished. It was a very strange little monster to write, it did come to life dictating many times how it wanted to progress. That being said it was a blast to write it and I hope that everyone who made it to the end enjoyed it as much I as I did.