I should've been writing another chapter for Blooming Wild but I had my heart set on doing something like this oneshot for a long time now. I've seen too few stories in this fandom set in the Ova-verse so I want to experiment with the - currently - only scenario that comes to mind. ^^;

Enjoy please!

Reflections

Hikaru wondered if she should be sad about this strange turn of events. Wondered being the key word of course.

Theoretically, she was dead. Hit by a car at the mere age of twenty-four; leaving behind her loving family, close friends - two of whom were almost like family and by all accounts the only ones who understood and remembered - and a career as a veterinarian which promised a lot according to her college teachers. She should have been mourning and anguishing over her hopeless situation...

Practically, it was a warm summer day and the sun was in her eyes, making all possible dark thoughts slip through her fingers like smoke.

Hikaru crouched down to admire a patch of fire lilies and couldn't help but feel as if someone else had done the dying for her: she'd just closed her eyes to push out the pain of broken ribs, intense head trauma and the bite of winter as she bled freely on the sidewalk - a moment of carelessness from her part and a drunk driver had done that to her - and then...she'd simply fallen asleep.

Her memory from between the time a hysterical passerby had decided to call an ambulance and the moment she'd woken up with a bee on her nose, sprawled on the edge of a small pond, was at its best blurry.

She didn't try to remember. Some things were best left forgotten sometimes. Instead she tried to focus on the here and now - on the pale sunlight that filtered through the trees and warmed her heart, the small groups of flowers that gave color diversity to her otherwise green surroundings.

Hikaru squinted upwards and breathed in deeply.

"Hikaru."

Her heart could have stopped then and there and she would've been none the wiser.

"Lantis." She stood up and turned around slowly, as if she had known all along that he was there, and self-consciously smoothed down the folds of her knee length soft pink dress, dusting herself out of reflex; her simple attire fell short next to the impeccable elegance of his white and black outfit, but pink was still an improvement from the black of her school uniform that had made her look so pale before. Her mother had always told her that she looked like a dark version of Snow White in that gloomy outift of striking contrasts. Mismatched and misplaced...

"It has been a long time." He seemed to start forward then visibly hesitated and after a moment of long silence, stepped back halfway into the shadow of the tall chestnut tree behind him. There were shadows just beneath the surface of his eyes. The same as that day when he'd first looked at her.

Hikaru smiled painfully and tried to pass it off as normal.

"It has. It seems like forever, doesn't it?"

Absence made the heart grow fonder. There had to be a grain of truth somewhere in that because Hikaru felt a swell of powerful emotion just by standing there watching him - so steady and and still, real. Unchanged. From the slant of his bright blue eyes and high cheekbones to the stubborn chin and hair the color of a raven's wing - he was still so handsome...or maybe, even beautiful. But she'd never tell him that last one.

He was so familiar to her while she was probably worlds away from what he remembered her to be.

"I've missed you." She admitted, out of the blue, strangled and torn between shyness and her need to express the feelings she had bottled up so long ago; when there'd been no time for romance or happiness.

Hikaru covered her mouth and lowered her head, catching a short glimpse of the way his jaw clenched. "I'm sorry if I come off as too forward. I know you don't have any attachments to me," she laughed weekly and brushed the hair from her eyes simply because it limited her vision and Hikaru still hadn't taken her fill of him yet, "but I really did miss you more than you can imagine."

It took three short strides for Lantis to bridge the distance between them and then three more seconds for him to pull her into his embrace and she was so close to feeling tragic. Because he was warm and there and he didn't think her stupid for still entertaining her silly - it wasn't silly for her but everyone else was entitled to his or her own opinion - adolescent love for him; or for turning it from just that to a sort of unattainable romance, which had never allowed her to get close to another afterward.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, offhandedly noticing that she'd finally grown tall enough to reach him even a little bit. Ten years did that to a person...

"I have never gotten to tell you of my attachment for you but such does not mean that it does not exist."

"But, Lantis..." Oh, how pathetically insecure she sounded. And hopeful. It was a wonder that she'd been chosen to be a knight. Where was the strength? The fire and the passion of Lexus? Her knees felt weak and wobbly.

"Not a word." Lantis chided. He curved his hand around her chin and made her look at him so he could press an affectionate kiss on her forehead. Hikaru blinked and told herself more firmly not to cry. "I would not have waited had it been someone else. My only left attachment to the living world is you and now that you're here, I am happy. There is nothing else I desire. Do you understand?"

That had to be the most tender declaration Hikaru had ever heard. It hadn't been overly-sweet nor had it been laced with sugar or honey and truly she didn't need one of those - Lantis was not the type to make flowery speeches and she was not the type to accept them. Sensible love was more like her. More like him.

"I hope I do," Soft, she felt as soft and light as a feather. "Does that mean, in your own convoluted words," she teased slightly playful, "that you love me?"

A smile lifted the corner of his lips and warmed his eyes. He stroked her hair and Hikaru couldn't help but think that death was suspiciously lenient to her. That, or she'd died and was in heaven. No or, if, but. She was definitely in her own personal choice of heaven. "I love you. Even though you've been nothing but a needy kitten since you've gotten here."

Silence. Then...

"I can't believe you said that. I am not..."

Lantis pressed his lips against her temple first and then kissed the corner of her lips. Sensuously.

"needy..."

The world tipped with her and she found herself right back where she'd begun - sprawled on the ground, surrounded by colorful flowers and thin blades of grass that tickled the nape of her neck. Only this time, Lantis was looming over her like a vengeful God of Storms and she couldn't quite pinpoint when and where his cape and shoulder pads had disappeared. There was no denying that he looked ever so sexy in black.

She squeaked when he scraped his teeth against the center of her palm, lazily loosening his collar, and thought that this side of his was really out of character as far as she was concerned. Or maybe this was the 'in character' phase of him that happened only in the bedroom...or in gardens and hidden forests where he ravished innocent virgins.

"What are you doing?" Other than straddling her...

"Proving that I love you. Is it not obvious?" Lantis purred, pressing his forehead against hers, without missing a beat.

"Obvious?" Hikaru asked breathlessly. Something was happening with her body - she was dead but her toes were tingling and her heart was going ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump in her stomach.

"Yes," he crooned, "I always did think that actions spoke louder than words. And I always wanted to prove that to you."

And he proceeded to do just that.

I think that Hikaru and Lantis just found new means to improve their, err, own personal heaven. The Ova couple of Hikaru and Lantis always had such potential...