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Sweat trickled across Pierre's face, seeping together with growing tear stains. He reached to the bedside table for the tissue box, cleaning the mess as best he could in the half-light.

"Th--That didn't happen. I was there, and that didn't happen. Aardig used her powers to their max, causing a change in her body, that was it. She beat the army of ten thousand, yes, yes she did. Then she began her conquest. Right, yes, her conquest. ‘Empress of the World’ and all that..."

Pierre muttered to himself, the bizarre nightmare still lingering in his mind.

"I... I Don't wan--" the words caught in his mouth. He was an adult after all,

'A grown man, men don't cry over bad dreams, they don't get emotionally overwhelmed and lash out at people in the park, they don't get... lonely...'

In a sudden movement belying his age, Pierre threw back the covers of his bed and sprang out. Wearing nothing but his felt pyjamas and briefly stopping to grab a torch, Pierre opened the bedroom door. Quickly making his way around the third floor's narrow corridor, not wasting time on the light switch, he reached out for the bannister to the old staircase. Finding it, he began the descent, feeling the soft carpet beneath bare feet, complimented by the creaking of each step. The long winding stairs were illuminated only by the sparse torchlight.

Finally, he reached the second floor and strode to one particular door. He hesitated only momentarily, staring down the long, eerily empty corridor. He knocked at the door, but before he could even finish his first thumping, it swung open.

"She's not here..." Inside was Maka's room. The bed covers lazily rolled back and no inhabitants.

Pierre started panicking, half running and partly stumbling his way back up the staircase and into his study. Empty, just as he had left it before bed.

"No....no, surely not...."

He once more made it down the stairs and again down another flight to the first floor, his hand bumping against the bottom end of the bannister where something soft caught his attention.

Shining his torch on it he saw a beige frock - Maka's frock - Despite the number of coat hangers and hat-stands around the house, she always opted to leave it atop the bottom staircase-railing. Soft Earth-clothing was something Maka had been so reluctant to try at first, but in just a week, he could see her growing used to it - He had even seen her looking into a few shop windows on their daily walks around town.

'Just a week, in just a week she has become so familiar - Like she was always here brightening up this old house.'

Moving on from the landing, Pierre entered the dining room. Empty like all the rest. He slumped down against the nearest chair, one of the few that had survived his and Maka's duel back on her second day in the house.

'This house is empty. Maka has left. I pushed her away, I made her leave...'

A

nd how empty it felt, a home large enough for twelve or more back on planet Bhaile: had now returned to its single occupant. Pierre all by himself in those long dark hallways, eating alone in the expansive dining room. Writing and sleeping alone on the quiet, isolated third floor - Alone.

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A rustling suddenly caught his attention, a sound like glass knocking gently against plastic.

Pierre sprang back to his feet and into the hallway. Walking down to its end, he turned to stare into the only door he hadn't checked, the kitchen door. And there it was, the ceiling light was off, but instead the whole room was illuminated by a brilliant white glow. Maybe not as hot and 'atom-melting' as it had seemed when he first saw it a week ago in his study, but nonetheless a wall of white, and staring into it contentedly, Maka.

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"Don't--" his throat caught to the point where the words were little more than a rasp. Maka turned with a start of surprise at the intrusion.

"Don't... please don't go, don't leave me..." Pierre half-mumbled, dropping to his knees as though bowing.

"Pierre, what's wrong--" Maka tried.

"Don't go. I know I have no right to ask this. I said those terrible things about you, and I even struck you! I had no right to do that - I will never have a right to do that... But please don't go!!"

Tears streamed down his face now, and any semblance of his supposed 'manly' façade melted away.

"I thought I had lost it all years ago. That I was destined to be alone here on this stupid, unfair Earth. I was trapped to sit in my room on my computer, ostracised and rejected from society simply for being different. Destined to be alone because that's just how things are - And I was ok with that, I think. Ok with just being here alone - Comfortable, mind you.

Big house, every item I could ask for, riches galore. But Maka, in this single week with you, I have smiled more than I did in decades, remembered feelings I thought were reserved solely for 'other people'. Remembered that I don't have to hide away in my room like some reject for all eternity. So please, I know I have no right left to ask you this, but don't step through that stupid portal!"

Maka smiled that slightly mischievous, cunning and most of all, always exceptionally kind smile - "Then you accept me as being--"

"No!" Pierre borderline-wailed, "No, and maybe I never will, and I'm sorry for that too. I wish with all my heart I could acknowledge you as 'my Aardig', I really do - But you aren't the girl I once knew. You're not some idealised made-up woman from my head either. Rather, you are compulsive, cheeky, inquisitive - So very beautiful and so much, much more human - But, but I think that's ok, good even... because... Because you are, Maka Umit, my..."

The words faded again. They seemed so silly to say aloud, like something he might have written into one of his weaker novels, yet the words felt so very true.

"...Your friend, Pierre?" Maka finished for him.

He nodded. With a grin Maka put her hand to her chin as she responded, "Well, I guess I could stay a little longer. A trial week perhaps? From now until Valentine's, to see if you really want me around!"

She said playfully, "But I have one condition."

"Anything."

The evil grin faded, and the kind smile returned to Maka's face once more. She reached out her hand to the white light of the so-called portal... And closed the fridge door.

Like everything in Pierre's home, the fridge was of an expensive and practical make, its interior light more than enough to partially light up the kitchen if one say, came down to get a glass of milk in the middle of a restless night…

The fridge door closed, Maka leaned down to Pierre's still crouching form and grabbed his head into her arms before embracing him fully.

The embarrassment of realising the 'portal' had just been the open fridge door faded from Pierre instantly as Maka hugged him. She was warm, so very warm.

'When did someone last properly hug me like this?'

"I'll stay for the trial period if you agree to be my Valentine," Maka whispered into his ear. Pierre's face, covered still in tear straining and stress, flushed a bright crimson red, 'Blushing isn't very manly either is it?'

"I still think it's for children..."

He mumbled.

"I don't care," she cooed back.

Pierre nodded, finally raising his arms and returning Maka's embrace; "Then I'd be honoured to be your Valentine, if you'll still have me, that is."

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