One Match

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Airports and Penelope Blaise tended to have a harsh history. Never a fan of them - or flying - in the first place, it was never a great experience to bring herself to the small airport only get on a crowded piece of metal miles above the ground and land in a place even more crowded. And they'd only grown harder to handle when it meant she was leaving her counterpart. A couple of weeks, and that was it. She'd be back for Lucy's graduation, but that didn't make this parting any easier.

The last time she stood in this spot, she didn't get on a plane. Today? There wasn't much of a choice. She couldn't very well pull off the same stunt again, especially considering her brother was taking the same flight. Fortunately for everyone, he said he'd meet her at the gate after she said her goodbyes. Nobody wanted to be there for that.

With a tilt of her wrist, the wheels of her luggage came to a halt as she gripped the handle tightly. Her other hand was preoccupied within Lucy's. Fingers laced with possibly a tighter hold. She hadn't spoken for most duration of the car ride, and even as she faced the Australian, lips remained pressed shut tightly.

There was nothing wrong with visiting her family. Admittedly, she missed them in some sense, although not likely as much as she should. Rather, her focus was on losing the person she struggled to spend hours without, let alone days.

Her free hand left the luggage, and careful fingers curled around the bottom of Lucy's shirt, straightening it out with a small tug.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Lucy might have later regretted her silence as they made their way to the airport together, but for now she had no choice. The will to speak might have been great, but the thought of what to actually say was completely lost on her. So she let her counterpart have the cooler moments, but for herself, she only drove with a single hand. The other was practically fastened to her leg. Anything to maintain something before she found herself with nothing.

Of course, as she walked she considered the last time she and Penny were in this place. Lucy recalled the struggle behind keeping her mouth shut; a struggle that inevitably failed her moments after Penny crossed the line and moved out of focus. She called her back, and it worked. Here, they decided they were going to get married. There wasn't enough energy to articulate that importance of this break in the prior night, but tired dark eyes surely proved how they had tried.

For herself? She had to go back to that room. Alone. Though not a psychometrist, Penny was still everywhere in both those spaces.

As Penny tugged on her shirt, Lucy leaned in instinctively. Just a little more, like the need to be close was so obviously threatened. Of course it was. "Don't look like that." Lucy offered, though she had to understand the vague look in her love's eyes, and it was hardly something she could help now.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

The pull on Lucy's shirt did exactly as it was supposed to; not only was the Brit straightening out the material, but it worked wonders to bring her counterpart just that much closer. Crowded or not, she only looked to the Australian as she stepped closer. Just enough to shift her palm around to Lucy's hip.

Eyebrows rose slowly as she thought to question exactly what sort of look she was wearing. Although it wasn't hard to make the connection herself. Tired eyes looked to the ink manipulator, reminding her of the soreness within her own muscles. Without the chance to rest the prior night, everything about this moment was exhausting.

This was a place of significance. Where they took their first steps towards something much greater. It wasn't hard to recall the feeling in her chest as Lucy called her, asking her to turn around. How easily she had taken those steps back to the ink manipulator, and how she couldn't do the same again this time around.

And still, her expression never shifted. Caught somewhere between tired and devastated, her fingers tightened on Lucy's shirt as she pulled her close. "Would you rather I smile?" She questioned. Doing so hardly seemed appropriate, but the Brit attempted the joke regardless.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

As Penny reached out to her, Lucy couldn't help the way she took a slow breath inward. Last time she found herself here, everything was heavy with the very real sense that she could put a stop to it, and in the end she had. Now, she felt helpless instead, unable to revert the inevitable and highly irritable because of it. She did her best to keep that side of things from her counterpart, but of course she knew already. When did she not? The reality was that steps away from the airport on her own would drive her to snap at just about anyone.

A small tug at the clothes she wore and she was drawn in closer, taking a single half step to leave so little between them. Lips parted with every intention of arguing over the fact that of course it was what she wanted. She raised a hand and pressed it it to the side of her face, her thumb brushing across her cheekbone instinctively. Everything was worth taking in knowing it'd be out of reach in such a short amount of time.

The way she looked at her mouth then must have been so daring, so she did her best not to let her eyes linger. The last thing she wanted to do was make it even more difficult. Lucy simply wished for the ability to speak anything beyond what was at the forefront of her mind.

"Why does it have to be weeks?"

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

With a half step from both of them, distance was put to a bare minimum. Lucy was close enough to kiss, and as Penny felt her palm press to the side of her face, she considered doing so, holding back only to tilt her head into that hand instead. With closed eyes, she pressed her lips to the Australian's palm, exhaling every detrimental thought she could have possibly said.

Still, there was a question left unanswered, and as Penny kissed Lucy's hand a second time, she thought to leave it at that before dark eyes opened again to look at the ink manipulator. Weeks. The stressed word made it sound as painful as it was sure to be, and as Penny lifted her hand to press up over the one on her cheek, she squeezed it lightly.

"They're still determined to celebrate Christmas." Penny explained, shoulders dropping with a small shrug before her back instinctively straightened again. "To make up for lost time, I'm sure." Then again, it had always been weeks before - it was only that up until recently she had a reason to shorten her trips home.

"We'll be within the same time zone." Penny tried to explain, although optimism wasn't her forte in any sense of the word.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

It was admittedly hard to be so close yet lack the pressure of her lips. When they collided with her hand, Lucy took in a slow breath. How easy it would have been to lean in; perhaps such a display would well and truly deter her from her trip. Lucy had to wonder what the likelihood was that she could absolutely keep her like she had last time they found themselves here. Personally, she missed so much by staying. The youngest soul in her family was growing, and she was missing everything; she could only wish the thought didn't make her so bitter when she found herself in an airport.

The explanation felt weak, but Lucy took it anyway. She listened and nodded her head once to prove that she had her attention. It wasn't so hard for her to keep, after all.

"You're an adult." Lucy retorted, and the words came out a little more harshly than she intended. Surely if anyone could put a stop to what seemed like the inevitable, it would be the stubborn nature of her counterpart, else her own stubborn nature would force her to suffer through those weeks, "You can stay. You can say no."

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Every second she stood in this airport made it that much harder to venture past security and further into it. To leave her life behind to return to empty dorm rooms and wait out two weeks. Psychometry had little difference in the feeling that left behind, even if the psychometrist herself was sure she wouldn't be able to handle a shared space if it was left alone to herself.

Lucy's harsh words brought tension into Penny's shoulders as her back straightened. Lips pursed against the most valid point her fiancée could have possibly brought up. Was it morally wrong to wish to abandon her parents for a second time in favor of staying with the person she saw every day?

Her hand dropped, pulling Lucy's down with it as she gave it another tight squeeze. The other pressed to the small of her counterpart's back, taking that tiny step forward to eliminate the space between them as much as she could.

She didn't kiss her - not yet.

Instead, Penny pressed her forehead against the Australian's, exhaling as she weighed the argument in her mind, although really, she already reached a decision. That familiar harshness behind Lucy's accent was more to bring it out. "Bring me home." Their home.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

They were closer, now. Close enough for Lucy to feel the way her counterpart breathed; how slightly shallow it seemed given the threat behind the security gates. Weeks of nothing and somehow, someway Lucy could turn a goodbye into a fruitless argument. There was no point in fighting now. No point in dragging up perfectly sharpened explanations and reasons. Penelope Blaise was an adult, and she had been when she agreed to this.

But somehow, Lucy felt the lesser for not being the one to step forward. To bring nothing but mere millimeters between them. She might have touched her first in that goodbye, but she hadn't been so daring, and being forward had always been something she was now known for.

A tilt of her head and she could have stolen those lips, but she didn't. For whatever reason she now felt as if she shouldn't. Instead, confusion lined her own lips.

"I don't know what that means." Lucy replied honestly.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Kissing Lucy was still an option for the psychometrist. If anything, it felt as if it were the easier option. Physicality beat out what words couldn't quite say, even as they argued. However, this wasn't the time to let it win over, even as she wanted to.

"I want to go home." She stressed, not adding clarification immediately. Not until she tried to make her original point before driving it completely into the ink manipulator's mind. "Our home." She added with slight force, although not quite as harsh as she could have been.

"I don't care if it's a dormitory right now." Continuing was potentially dangerous, but Penny couldn't help it. "I don't want to go anywhere where you aren't."

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

A lack of understanding could prove to be Lucy's ultimate downfall. Without a clear mind, she had initially missed the desperation that lined Penny's every word. And as she asked, she knew she would forever be given an answer, but she hardly expected one so clearly delivered.

Dark eyes widened a touch at the words that graced her ears. There they stood, in the place where Penny had asked and Lucy had agreed, and she was being given the most pressing explanation. She exhaled a heavy sigh, her breath heated against her skin. "I know." Lucy replied instinctively. Because of course she knew just how much Penny wanted to stay.

"But we're standing right here." In the place where lives changed. Where forever suddenly seemed legitimate. There the rest of her life was no longer so singular.

Though the break, the ink manipulator finally kissed her, slow to draw her lips against hers, much less to maintain the connection.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Desperation was becoming a familiar sensation for the Brit. Leaving Pilot Ridge had never been a problem before - leaving anyone never bothered the detached psychometrist. Yet within the course of a year and a half, that had seemed to change so dramatically. Penny couldn't have imagined a day where Lucy Serrano would be the voice of reason, especially within an argument that she had started in the first place.

Before she could respond, the feeling of familiar lips took over her senses as they pressed against her own. Slow within their movement, Penny wasn't slow to reciprocate. She fell into the way Lucy kissed her with ease, thankful she had crossed that little bit of distance left between them.

She was even slow to draw away, even when it was hard to breathe from the connection that burned the oxygen up within her lungs. "Come with me, then. You don't have to stay here."

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

Now that she'd kissed her once, Lucy quickly realised how much more difficult it was going to be to tear herself away. As if it wasn't already bad enough knowing how intently Penny wanted to stay with her. Of course, things like that went without saying, but bringing them into the light had its purpose. Momentarily, Lucy was sure she'd lost the will to breath, but the next suggestion forced the air from her lungs in a heavy exhale.

"You're dreaming." Lucy replied, resisting the urge to scoff at the proposal. Though the phrase would surely suffice, the draw to continue remained; "No way in hell, love."

Classes might have been the best explanation here, but she hardly thought to try the excuse. As if she'd ever adhere to the need for decent attendance. "Just come back sooner." She tried her best to offer a more sound resolution, though she had to wish they'd attacked this concept a lot sooner. A few days earlier and she may very well have ended up with tickets on that plane.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

It was true; the thought of Lucy coming along with to New York to stay with her family was a dream. Rarely did the pyschometrist take shots in the dark - or even suggest something so remotely daring. It was, if anything, a desperate attempt to hold on. Or rather, to not have to let go as she knew she would.

Even so, Penny's nose crinkled as Lucy cursed, and in the same move the Australian took her breath away with the nickname only Lucy could use. She wanted to argue - to push the impossible idea of Lucy leaving. A thoughtful mind went through the steps in her head. Yet the more she thought to argue the more she knew it wasn't a feasible idea to argue.

"I'll talk to them." Penny gave in. Really, her parents could not stop the Brit from returning to the new state she called home. Lucy had that point made, and it was the most valid to make. She was an adult. By all means, she technically had this.

But that didn't make leaving any easier. She leaned forward, lips pressing against her counterpart's lightly. Slowly. As if she were trying to dedicate what it felt to memory although it was impossible for her to forget.

[Lucy Serrano-Blaise]

"I reckon they'll be thrilled." Lucy countered, doing her best to offer something of a lighter touch to such a heavy moment. Though she knew so little of her counterpart's parents, she could assume enough given the fact that they wanted Penny to visit in the first place. They easily missed her; the ink manipulator knew well from experience that she was easily missed. Perhaps it was selfless to agree to weeks away, because she'd already kept her for the holidays. Holidays that evidently meant little to the Brit were she not in the Australian's company in the first place.

It wasn't supposed to be about a fight, however strong or weak any kind of argument might have become. Had she the strength, she would have taken her up on the potential offer to take her back then and there, but the message was far too convoluted to follow. Instead, she fell further into the pressure at her lips, pressing herself in close enough that she might actually take those steps with her. Pulling apart seemed more impossible by the passing seconds, especially when hands curled into the fabric of her dress at either side so instinctively.

"Go on." She tried, breathing the little words against her lips before she stole them again.

[Penelope Serrano-Blaise]

Of course her parents would be disappointed to hear Penny planned to shorten her trip. Although they weren't as outwardly close as the average family, under several indirect emotional layers, there was a genuine family that loved and cared for one another. However, given the Brit's family history, her parents had to understand on some level the choices Penny made. It was likely how they forgave her on Christmas - coupled with the news of an engagement.

Go on, she said. As she held on tighter to her dress. As she kissed her again, and as Penny kissed her back. Lucy burned her skin, and the psychometrist found her at the point of rather being engulfed by flames than endure the chill that came with stepping away.

Her hands pressed harder against Lucy's form, keeping her as close as she could. Intimacy in a crowded airport was soon becoming something of a norm for the pair, given the last time they found themselves there. Before she could respond, she felt Lucy's lips against her own again, and her hands worked their way up around the Australian's form as she looped her arms around her neck, ignoring the verbal request in favor of giving into the physical.

Time wasn't on their side. Of course it wasn't. They delayed as much as they could in the first place, and as Penny broke away, she kept herself close. "A week." She breathed. "Just a week."