Notes: So in a review for another of my stories, 'Paris Lights', someone called 'fan-rei' suggested I write a similar story set at the end of the series. And that was a good idea. So, thanks fan-rei.

Summary: Leaving the manor behind.

CONSECRATION

by Ijemanja

x

Mireille keeps one eye on Kirika as she drives.

Kirika sits silent and unmoving, her head resting against the window. Even the jostling of the truck over the uneven road doesn't rouse her.

'I'm sorry about Chloe,' she says, not even sure whether Kirika will hear her.

Kirika blinks, and murmurs softly, her eyes never leaving the passing countryside.

'She loved me.'

There's nothing else to say, really.

x

Keeping to the back roads seemed like a good idea until it started to rain. The packed dirt has turned to mud beneath the wheels and the sky has grown dark.

Her arm is hurting, a sharp, constant pang as she grips the steering wheel. Her leg is bothering her only slightly less. She needs a break, and pulls to a stop at the side of a narrow country lane. And she's still just sitting, her head back, her eyes closed, listening to the rain pattering on the roof, when Kirika opens her door and climbs out.

Mireille's head snaps forward and she watches as Kirika wanders down the road. In the dim light it's difficult to make out where she's going - if she has a destination in mind.

It's pouring out there.

With a sigh, Mireille gets out and follows.

She knows Kirika is thinking about Chloe, and Altena and the manor. It's a disjointed sort of knowledge, though, when all Mireille wants to do is leave the place behind - and after all it isn't as if they can ever go back.

But this isn't about her.

Kirika stops and stands with her face upturned and Mireille approaches slowly, water in her eyes and running down the back of her neck. Her shoes squelch in the mud.

(They were ruined anyway - it's impossible to get blood out of leather.)

'I was home, Mireille,' Kirika says, her words half-drowned.

She can't tell if Kirika is crying but her shoulders begin to shake and it isn't from the cold.

Mireille goes to her and pulls her close and there is no gun this time, no press of hard metal, to remind them, no shadow of the task yet to be accomplished over their heads. There's only quiet, helpless sobs between them. Mireille puts her arms around Kirika's trembling frame, holding her.

Hands clutch at Mireille's back, and Kirika presses her cold, wet face into Mireille's neck.

'This is home,' she almost wants to say. But she never quite gets there.

x

'Come on,' she says. 'In case you hadn't noticed, it's raining.'

It elicits the very smallest of smiles from Kirika, which was the point, after all.

Perhaps there's a small part of her that could have huddled in Kirika's arms a while longer, to seek solace there from the events of the day - of all the months behind them.

(Two girls in a storm, bruised and bloody, clinging to each other. This is fate.)

Kirika, though, is half dead on her feet, her eyes drooping with exhaustion, and it's easier to let practical concerns take over.

The truck is packed with supplies - weapons and ammunition, rations. Because when you don't know what to expect, Mireille muses, it's only logical to just bring everything.

She finds dry clothing for them to change into, and a first-aid kit so they can re-dress each other's wounds.

Then they drive.

x

(Civilisation, again.)

The manor, the vineyards, the army of gun-toting priestesses, it all seems less real when they're idling in traffic, eating fast food.

She devours a handful of fries and takes a sip of her drink, only to make a face at the taste. Regular. She holds it out and Kirika takes it, wordlessly handing over the diet coke instead.

She holds the cup, cold and damp with condensation, and thinks about Kirika slipping from her grasp. She thinks about how she might have made the long drive home alone.

It's need, she realises, this feeling curled inside her like a small, frightened animal.

She's never needed anyone before, but she needs Kirika and she never thought she'd admit it, not even to herself. Now it's here, between them, and she can't take it back.

Up ahead a traffic light turns green, and the line of cars begins to move through the busy intersection. They'll be back in Paris within the hour.

x

'Glad to be home?' she asks.

Kirika nods shyly.

And though all of this is familiar - the patches of sunlight falling through the open windows onto the floorboards, the clink of a teacup being placed back on its saucer, the comfortable silence between them, Kirika's small, hopeful smile - everything is different, now. Everything feels new.

So she kisses her. Holds Kirika's face in her hands and kisses her. And Kirika kisses back, opening her mouth and sighing against Mireille's lips.

(This is home.)

Kirika's hands on her arms, at her waist, on her stomach under her shirt. Her fingers in Kirika's hair, her tongue in Kirika's mouth. And:

'I think I was waiting for this,' Kirika says.

x

It isn't strange. She had wondered about that.

(Before, when she allowed herself to ponder such things.)

It all comes down to intimacy, though, Mireille thinks. And intimacy had arrived quietly and unannounced months ago - in the long nights, in the many moments of silent understanding, in the pounding of their pulses in their throats and their feet on the ground and the smell of blood and bullets lingering in their hair and clothes for hours afterwards. For days, sometimes.

So this is new: Kirika's arm around her waist and the cheek resting softly against her bare back and the scent of their sweat and their sex in the sheets. This is new, but it isn't.

Her hand over Kirika's, their fingers intertwining, seems easy and obvious. (Like something she should have always known.)

She traces over the knuckles, each finger-joint and vein showing through Kirika's pale skin.

'Your hands are so small,' she says. 'I never noticed that before.'

Kirika makes a small noise behind her. She can feel a smile against the nape of her neck.

She presses Kirika's palm between her breasts, over her heart.

So this is what it's like, she muses, being happy, being content.

It probably won't last.

She wonders what Kirika would say, knowing that her inner voice is as sarcastic as when she speaks aloud. Kirika, though, is asleep - judging by the slow breaths she can hear, and feel too, the in-and-out, the rise and fall, through every point their bodies touch.

'I'll tell her, later,' she thinks.

x

end