[Patient, always patient, she watches him back without scrutinizing, without study, but searching - for recognition, for awareness, for anything that might suggest he knows her. Her expression is kept carefully in check, eyes flicking between his, and she waits.]
[His face crumples. At his words, she goes still.]
[Perhaps it was wrong of her to ask when she could already see the answer coming a mile away. But how could she not? How could she not hope that after everything, at what looked to be the end, when it all seemed to have finally gone right, things would go right for them, too? How could she not hope that he would remember her, when he was the one with whom she was created, when he was the one most like her, when she'd been so happy to have the chance to meet him even once, when she'd been so glad that in the end they knew each other, would know each other?]
[It feels more than a little like divine retribution.]
[And it's quiet, the way she sort of-- wilts slowly inward. All the air seems to seep out of her without any audible exhale, something so unspeakably sad in the slight lowering of her eyelids, no matter how valiantly she tries not to let her expression give away that it feels like someone's punched her straight in the chest.]
Oh.
[A hollow sort of sound, one that leaves her lips parted while she wavers, as if unsure what to say.]
[But she deserves this, doesn't she? She stole someone else's place, once; took from them their due in the memory of another who mattered to them. She's stolen from Roxas, too, not in quite the same way but in similar others that might have been worse. It twists uncomfortably in her heart, clenches her throat - she deserves this, she cannot deny that she does.]
[(And some part of her whispers in the back of her mind that of course he would forget. How could he not, when she is so forgettable?)]
I see.
[She swallows, eyes on the ground and lids low over them. Then, lifting her head, she smiles. It's a painful looking thing, strained from the beginning, but it's soft, somehow, just like her voice is when she admits, almost breathy,]
That's alright. I suppose I should have--
[-- Expected it. Faltering, she shakes her head.]
It wasn't fair of me to ask. You... don't need to apologize to me.
no subject
[His face crumples. At his words, she goes still.]
[Perhaps it was wrong of her to ask when she could already see the answer coming a mile away. But how could she not? How could she not hope that after everything, at what looked to be the end, when it all seemed to have finally gone right, things would go right for them, too? How could she not hope that he would remember her, when he was the one with whom she was created, when he was the one most like her, when she'd been so happy to have the chance to meet him even once, when she'd been so glad that in the end they knew each other, would know each other?]
[It feels more than a little like divine retribution.]
[And it's quiet, the way she sort of-- wilts slowly inward. All the air seems to seep out of her without any audible exhale, something so unspeakably sad in the slight lowering of her eyelids, no matter how valiantly she tries not to let her expression give away that it feels like someone's punched her straight in the chest.]
Oh.
[A hollow sort of sound, one that leaves her lips parted while she wavers, as if unsure what to say.]
[But she deserves this, doesn't she? She stole someone else's place, once; took from them their due in the memory of another who mattered to them. She's stolen from Roxas, too, not in quite the same way but in similar others that might have been worse. It twists uncomfortably in her heart, clenches her throat - she deserves this, she cannot deny that she does.]
[(And some part of her whispers in the back of her mind that of course he would forget. How could he not, when she is so forgettable?)]
I see.
[She swallows, eyes on the ground and lids low over them. Then, lifting her head, she smiles. It's a painful looking thing, strained from the beginning, but it's soft, somehow, just like her voice is when she admits, almost breathy,]
That's alright. I suppose I should have--
[-- Expected it. Faltering, she shakes her head.]
It wasn't fair of me to ask. You... don't need to apologize to me.
[Not ever.]