One more Ib fic, I promise. Then I'll be done. I just need... this pairing in my life right now. And I was inspired by a PV I saw to write this.

Mary had wandered off around the room they had momentarily stopped in, a much more easily-impressed girl than that of Ib, admiring the art and mannequins scattered around the room. Garry personally found them demented, twisted, scary with those wax eyes, and he hadn't neglected to destroy one earlier. He had begun to wonder more and more about Mary's backstory.

Yet since she wasn't currently in the room, that left him and Ib alone. Together. Ib was browsing the bookcases, reading the same things over and over, trying to comprehend some of the big words she was too young to understand. Garry felt an itching at the back of his head telling him to prevent her from stumbling across any 'older' stories, but that was not the thing he had on his mind right there and then.

The thing he had on his mind was actually quite literally in his palm, as he looked between the nine-year-old girl he'd came to quickly care for and trust, and the blue rose that held his entire life inside its petals, its moderately sharp stem held gingerly and gently between his fingers.

"Hey, Ib," he said quite suddenly, grasping the little girl's attention. She put whatever book she was flicking through back into the case neatly and turned to him with a questionable look on her face. Never one to talk - and she had hardly muttered a few sentences to him throughout their whole friendship - she simply waited for him to continue. He smiled at her, "Come over here, please?"

Ib did as instructed and totted over with the upmost curiosity. She liked talking to Garry because he was nice and interesting, much more knowledgeable than herself, with him being an adult and all, but sometimes she didn't know what she expected him to say.

"Ib," he finally continued, taking a breath to gather his words, his heart beating quite fast, "I have something for you to hold." Ib went on looking at him, wondering what he was talking about, yet listening intently. Garry fingered the rose in his hand which was obscured by his long and furry coat for a moment or two, before finally pulling it out in front of him, and showing it in all its glory.

It was rather beautiful, Ib had always thought. She watched Garry replenish his rose with the vases and marvelled in the colour of it. Blue had always been a nice colour to her, as much as she loved red. It was serene, calm, gentle, everything that characterised Garry, so it was very fitting.

Still, she kept wondering what he was talking about as he smiled at her. Something to hold? The rose? He pushed it out a little more towards her, clasped very softly in his hand, and waited for a while before speaking again;

"Look, this is my whole life," he explained, enjoying her looking at it with awe and wonder. He had recently dipped it in one of the water vases, and it was still wet and emitting a fresh smell. Dew drops hung still off the end of its petals, only making the blue colour even more spectacular. It took him a while again for him to continue, as he grasped the entire idea of what he was giving her. "Take it."

Ib's eyes wandered up to him again, this time portraying surprise and shock. She wasn't sure what, literally, taking his life entailed, but the rose was so pretty. And he was smiling at her still, a smile so warm and joyful that it reminded her of why he was her friend.

Eventually, small hands reached out slowly to grab the stem. There was a slight prickling feeling from the tiny stabbers on the stem, but holding Garry's life in-between her delicate little fingers was worth the slight pain. She looked over it with wonder and care and for some reason, this one blue flower was making her stomach flip around aimlessly. For Garry, it was even worse.

"You're holding my life in your hand." He took a breath again, unable to stop smiling. Ib was treating it so preciously, alarmed a bit when she accidentally fingered a petal too roughly, and just genuinely intrigued by it. The man had no doubt in his mind that this little girl was something special, or at least special to him.

He had trusted her with this rose that kept him alive.

She had trusted herself to not hurt it and just hold it gently.

Literally holding his life-force in her hand, Ib looked up to Garry. He looked back at her. She smiled and pressed an innocent kiss to the centre petal, before holding it back out to him gingerly.

"Thank-you, Garry," she said, in the sweetest voice he had ever heard. "You can hold mine, too." She took out her red rose, which he found to be the most beautiful of all the roses he had seen at least, and handed it to him.

This time he was the one to treat it with more respect than he had for himself, and in turn, he kissed the centre petal of her rose too, before handing it back to her.

"Thank-you, Ib," he said softly back to her, smile still there but much smaller and more soulful.

After the exchanging of the roses, Mary bounded back in dutifully, and started proclaiming about how coolly designed the mannequins were.

Ib turned back to the bookcase and acted as if nothing special or important had happened, although inside she was feeling more than she was portraying on through her body language.

Garry sighed, and turned away for a moment, smiling and pretending to listen to Mary.

A little nine-year-old girl called Ib, the one with the red dress and brown hair and tiny frame, had held his life in her hands, after an obscure version of proclaiming trust between him and her, that had none but succeeded.

She was still holding his life - and heart - now, but not quite literally this time.

Omg it's so sweet it's almost sick. Hope I did all right again. I just love this game. :-)