A/N: Hello! I've seen these sort of alphabet drabbles around in several different categories, so I decided to use/steal the idea for my own little story but add a little twist. Thanks for giving me the idea, fellow authors~! You're all awesome!

(Spoiler alert: the "twist" is that all the scenarios are in the same chapter because I'm too lazy/uncreative/unproductive to write 1k word drabbles 26 times. That and I won't tell you the word, you'll have to find it~ It's not hard at all, though, for the majority of them it'll be in like the first sentence... But just for good measure, I'll list all the words at the end so no one's confused, if you even care about that.)

So... here's another long Leon/Frey fic to add to the abundance. You can never have too many stories depicting the events between these two cuties though, honestly.

Flashbacks are in chronological order! Even if it seems silly at times to put one in front of the other, it's in order. Speaking of silly, some of the words are pretty... out there, but I only kept those because I'd already started writing it and didn't want to think of a new word. /lazy

Anyway, thanks for reading! Enjoy :)

26 Reasons

The simplest, most unoriginal fruit, the apple, was your first gift to me. You were so excited that your tree had finally started dropping its fruit that you gave the first batch away to anyone and everyone, even unsuspecting tourists.

When you made your way to me I already had a general idea of what was in store, but I pretended not to know for the sake of your happiness; your smiling face was rather adorable, after all.

"An apple?" I asked you skeptically after you all but threw the gift at me. "If you're giving it away, I'll take it."

I swear, at that time, you had the silliest grin on your face. I only got to see it for a few split seconds though, because you bounded away as soon as your task was finished, desperately searching for your next receiver.

...

It was a few weeks after I got settled in that you came running to me again, this time with your knee bleeding.

All that I gathered from your incessant, excited chatter was that you tripped and skidded your knee in the town square, something about a Buffamoo. I raised my eyebrow inquisitively, wondering if you would ever clearly explain yourself.

Ah, you were chasing your new Buffamoo because it still wouldn't listen to you. You brought it outside and expected it to stick around but obviously it didn't.

Even though you were hurting and in desperate need of a bandage, you kept going on and on about your Buffamoo and how much you hoped it would be all right until you found it.

I remember thinking then that you were truly selfless, and there would undoubtedly be more situations like this one - not necessarily involving your barn monsters, but at least something that you would care about more than yourself - where you would come running to me for help again.

I also remember thinking I wouldn't mind.

...

Fast forward through a few more weeks, and I knew I was already captivated.

With everything you said, I hung onto every word, and with everything you did, I was constantly watching you. That was around the time I grew more comfortable teasing you, but I only did so because I was uncomfortable being around you. I thought by acting more confident than I really was, you wouldn't see through the farce.

...But the main reason why you captivated me was because you did, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

...

Throughout the nights, I started to get delusional. I would have daydreams about you in the mornings, mainly consisting of the next time I would see you, but at night the terrors haunted me, where you would get taken away and I'd never see you again.

Of course, I would never tell you this, because the way I imagined you would look, troubled and insecure, made me feel the same. Eventually, my delusions would fade, but I knew the hurt reflected on your face if I told you wouldn't. I couldn't do that to such a cute face.

...

You were so energetic, the way you managed to track down everyone in the town and give them gifts. How you remembered all the favorite gifts I would never understand, because at the time I couldn't even remember what you liked.

Nevertheless, when it was my turn to receive your home-cooked meal for the day, Doria, I smiled and accepted it gratefully.

In the end, I only ever mentioned I didn't care for Doria after you left my side, making sure you couldn't hear it.

...

You invited me to your house after some more of my unintentional teasing, though I think your main motive was to make my favorite meal. I had the lingering suspicion for the past week, smelling oil and some sort of fried seafood on your person, not to mention you'd been pestering me for the name of my favorite dish for a while.

I followed you in hesitantly, wondering if you perhaps knew the implications behind something like this, but I quickly forgot everything as the scent of salted rainbow trout wafted through my nostrils.

"Ah, this..." I took in a deep breath, savoring the scent just in case this was all a cruel, sick joke. "You made this for me?"

You nodded giddily and led me to your table. Once I sat down you brought the plate over, setting it right in front of me.

As I ate, I realized that for the first time in a very long time, I felt full, but not only because my hunger was satiated. My entire being was full - full of hope, of adoration and feelings I was afraid might spill over if I didn't figure out a way to contain them.

I think I discovered in that moment that I loved you.

...

It was summer.

It was hot, sweaty, and everything just reeked of the dreadful season. Admittedly, I couldn't remember very many of my past birthdays, but I recalled enough to know I wasn't too fond of the ninth day of summer.

I was walking around aimlessly, trying to avoid going to the lake, but I heard your voice coming from that direction and soon enough I found myself in front of the water.

Actually, I wasn't even looking at your swimsuit, though a quick glance told me it was every bit as cute as you were. The way the sun glistened off your body after you'd just emerged from the water, though, I'll never forget.

...

The Harvest Festival rolled around just weeks later and, even though you won, you didn't rub it in anybody's face. You simply smiled and thanked them for their congratulations, and I remember I thought of you in the highest regard at that point.

I could tell you were nervous at the start, having to make your appeal, but you knew your way around the festival by now so there wasn't a doubt in my mind that you would win. Your tiny little green pepper won over Volkanon's heart instantly (though I'm sure your cuteness also played a huge part) and the smile on your face was just priceless.

...

You were an idiot.

The first time I called you that was when you came back from the field, covered in mud and bruises. It seemed you'd ventured off into a dangerous, unknown area without being fully prepared, all by yourself.

When you came back I was frantic once I caught sight of you. I scolded you until I couldn't understand what I was saying anymore, asking why you didn't bring me or Forte along.

The entire time you just kicked your feet in the grass, mumbling empty apologies and promises that you would never do it again. I knew you better though, so I sighed and shook my head, knowing that the first chance you got you would go right back out and explore what you didn't know.

That was just who you were: a troublesome, adorable, lovable idiot.

...

By the time you pulled another crazy stunt, it was already the middle of winter. Everything was slippery and wet and really, I don't know why you even thought to do what you did.

You were repairing your barn's roof because the latest snowstorm had proved to be too much for it, and when I saw you, you jumped down in excitement. Even though you acted well, I could see the flash of pain on your face, and I scolded you again - and of course you simply smiled and laughed it off.

Later in the day, though, I caught you with a slight limp in your step. I came up from behind you and picked you up, ignoring your protests as I carried you to the clinic. It was after work hours but I knew everybody had a big crush on the princess of Selphia and would make an exception, especially Nancy.

She seemed to be having dinner with her family but as soon as I barged through the door with you she gasped and yanked back the curtain to the bed. I laid you down and, surprisingly, you didn't fight me anymore. I guessed you accepted your punishment, being taken care of when you were hurt.

It turned out to be just a sprain in the knee, but that didn't stop me from accompanying you back to your room in the large castle and staying with you until you fell asleep. You, of course, refused at first, but you were so drugged up that after a few minutes of arguing you just sank into your bed and snored.

...

I had known for a while that you were a big klutz, but it still caught me by surprise the second time I saw you cut your finger with a knife.

You were caught up in making food for the townspeople again, too busy idly chatting with me in the room, and didn't pay attention.

I felt partially at fault, despite your insistence that I did nothing, but for the second time that winter I scooped you up in my arms and interrupted Nancy's evening dinner. Your embarrassment quickly outgrew your protests while Nancy wrapped a bandage of gauze around your finger, but in the end I did get a "thank you" from you, so it was a win-win situation for me.

I couldn't watch you sleep this time because you weren't under medical influence but you repeated over and over that it was so cold outside, that I shouldn't go home in that weather. I told you to choose your words carefully, be wary of what you wish for, but with a heavy heart I left you alone and walked out to the terrible weather, wishing I wasn't such a thoughtless person.

...

The word rang through my ears as if it was the sweetest melody, though it also racked my body with confusion and fear. With this, we were entering unfamiliar territory new to both of us. I already knew the answer I would give you, but the other half of my being begged me to reconsider.

I loved you, that much was true, but when put into the overused three-word phrase, it wasn't enough.

Still, you stood your ground and plagued my very existence with your heart-wrenching sobs until I finally dropped the last barrier between me and you.

You didn't stop crying, even after I held you and told you I accepted your confession, and that was the reason I used Love as your nickname. It was hardly a word I'd used before I met you.

...

About a week after your confession, you were still so energetic and happy that you went around giving away some of your obnoxious Buffamoo's milk.

You told everyone that "Mooshu" had produced much more than usual and decided to share the profit. It was only nearing nine o'clock in the morning so it was obvious the milk was freshly obtained.

Once you made your way to me I immediately refused, pushing your excited frame further away.

That was when I told you I wasn't very fond of it, and it would be a lie if I said I didn't get a kick out of your disappointed face.

...

Now that we were together, you'd decided to press your luck as far as you possibly could. Unfortunately for you, though, I could see through people just as well as you could.

When you told me you would be out in the field for a few days and asked if I could help Vishnal look after your crops and animals, I crossed my arms and told you sternly, "No."

You asked why and I just said I didn't want you to put yourself in danger again. For good measure I brought up the recollections of the past when you got hurt.

It took a while for you to calm down and stop hitting me, trying to make me let go of you, but finally you eased up, and it was a long time before you asked me the same question again - and even then, I went along with you, spear in hand, to ensure your safety.

...

I found the door to your castle bedroom left open one night, so instead of knocking I took the liberty to just push my way through.

What I found before me was a surprise, to say the least. You seemed to be out like a light, sleeping on top of the covers, though it was only ten o'clock at night. In your haste, I guessed you forgot to close the door and turn on your alarm and cover yourself up...

Nevertheless, I went to your side, brushed your hair back, and kissed your forehead before leaving. You really were quite the troublesome lady.

...

After all the fuss I made with myself concerning my birthday, I couldn't believe I forgot it while you remembered.

For whatever reason you showed up outside my bedroom at the inn with a basket in your hand. You excitedly told me to take it and open it and I did, wondering just what was so important. Inside, there were several gems - amethyst, sapphire, emerald, ruby - all sparkling faintly in my room's ceiling light, just waiting for me to reach out and touch them.

"Happy birthday! Here's your present," you said with that sincere tone of yours.

"Thank you."

It may have seemed like nothing special or important to you at all, but for me, just knowing you remembered and cared was monumental.

I think, after you left, I actually teared up a little.

...

I'll never forget the time you told me you liked all of my quirks.

We were sitting in front of the lake, my once-afraid attitude towards it all but dissipated now that I was with you, leaning against each other like all mushy couples do. Especially since we were alone, though, I didn't particularly mind this quality time spent together.

I asked what you meant and you simply said, "Well, you always pretend to be so apathetic and uncaring, but deep down you really like everybody in Selphia."

I chuckled half-heartedly, not really understanding what you were trying to get at, but at least you cared about me enough to make an attempt at comprehending my state of mind.

"If you say so, Love."

...

Our most passionate kiss was that time in the rain, I remember.

I'd just finished telling you everything about Maria, and almost as if we were being thrown a curveball of poetic cliches, the fall rain immediately turned into a downpour.

You tried to hold back your tears, and in the rain it probably seemed easy to hide, but I saw through you and brought you into my embrace to calm you down. Even though I was the one who was supposed to be hurting on the inside, you felt my pain and cried for me when I couldn't, and for that I thanked you.

I kissed you quickly and chastely at first, loving the way you were so surprised, and afterwards I sensed even you were hungry for more. I happily obliged, though when our clothes were utterly soaked and we looked like nothing but unattractive messes, I had you transport us home so we could catch our baths before Lin Fa closed the bathhouse.

...

It was a very cold night, even for winter, and I believe the snow was coming in through the crack under the door.

Whatever the reason, we were snuggled up on the bed in your room, tangled up in the skin underneath the blankets. That was the first time I truly saw you, and the first time you caught glimpse of my other naked half.

...

After a while, I realized your lips had two tastes to them: sweet and tart.

It wasn't like it depended on what you ate, either, it depended only on the way you kissed me. If we were meeting after a long day of hard work, your kisses were so sweet and tender I nearly melted under your touch.

Then, if we were continuing that meeting later in the night, everything you did was so sour, so tart, that it almost felt forbidden; but then you made such pleasant noises that made me forget all of my thoughts.

...

When we figured out you were pregnant out of wedlock, you gave me ultimatums. You told me if we weren't married by the time the baby arrived that you would deliver it yourself out in the middle of nowhere and never come back.

I knew you were only saying it to spite me, and it was obvious in the way that you quickly broke down and apologized, sobbing, and I think it was then that I realized hormones truly sucked.

...

Everything about you was so vexing that I wasn't sure if I loved you or hated you. Of course even I knew deep down it was the former, but during the pregnancy period I wasn't sure if I could believe it all the time.

You would send me out on errands for your strange food cravings and "the cutest Fluffy you can find" so you could squeeze it to death, and half the time I was going insane myself so I wasn't any help.

You bothered me constantly about the wedding and when we would have it, who we would invite, what decorations we would plaster everywhere, among everything else under the sun.

All I could tell you was to wait until the baby was born - only then would we be calm enough to decide everything.

...

After the baby was finally born, it seemed like there was a constant war going on in the town, except the only soldiers were the two of us and our child.

We were on our toes and on edge with the crying, feeding, screaming, and everything else he did.

You decided to name him Noel, as he came just a week before Christmas, and I was just happy we finally agreed on something for the first time in months.

It was also the first time I fully realized your feelings for me, because it couldn't have been a coincidence that Noel was just my name spelled backwards.

...

Noel was already five years old, and so we took him out in the nearby field to show him nature. Along the way he stumbled and fell countless times but would always get right back up, giggling and smiling just like you would every time something bad happened. He ended up discovering a rare flower during one of his falls.

"That's a xeranthemum," you told him with, your own bright smile plastered on your face.

Even I was surprised as I'd never heard of it before, the tiny silver and purple flower standing proudly above the grass. Noel tried to pick it but you brushed his hand aside, telling him that it would hurt the flower's feet if he yanked it from the ground.

He took the answer in stride but accepted it nevertheless, getting back up and continuing his journey full of bruises.

I remember looking back at the flower and wondering if the chance of Noel's finding it were the same as mine of finding you; after all, you were obviously one in a million.

...

I never thought there'd be someone like you in all my years of life.

I would often sit by Ventuswill's side and chat with her about how I would never find anybody perfect enough for me to call my bride. There would never be anybody who I would be completely enthralled to see every day, to wake up next to every morning.

But as I looked at you in your white gown and watched you stare down at me in my own white tux, I couldn't think of anything else other than "why didn't we do this sooner?"

Noel joined us, holding both of our hands in between us, and together we greeted the town and finally became one - it sure took us long enough.

...

After everything we'd been through, all the years we'd put up with each other, it was a little nostalgic to look back on all the memories, so that was just what I did when I relayed our love story to Noel - though he was only fifteen so I obviously left out the more raunchy details.

He sat beside me on the bed, wide-eyed, and just listened to everything. He'd open his mouth to ask me some innocent questions here and there, and he seemed to take a great interest in how we'd met and why it took so long for us to marry.

"We were both a little stubborn for too long," I admitted to him with a sheepish smile.

After a while I told him that I'd better stop talking about everything lest you come barging through the door, upset that all of our secrets were being spilled to our son.

And when you came in and did exactly that, bringing a fresh spring zephyr into the room with you, I realized I was probably going to love you forever.

Ending note: After completing this, it is definitely among my personal favorites to be published on this site, and I hope everyone who reads it feels the same way. I feel like each time you write, you give a little part of yourself away, and with some stories it might be a bigger piece. I can't place my finger on it, but this story hits close to home, even for me, and I wrote it.

Before I worked out the ending to this, I thought of making it a story where Frey dies and this is just Leon flashbacking through all the events, and the way it's written almost makes that idea plausible. But I scrapped it and I'm glad I did, because I'm such a wimp I already teared up at the ending. THEY'RE JUST SO CUTE.

Anyway, I'll get this list of words out of the way so everything can just kind of mellow out~

Apple, Bleeding, Captivated, Delusional, Energetic, Full, Glistening, Harvest, Idiot, Jump, Klutz, Love, Milk, No, Open, Present, Quirks, Rain, Snow, Tart, Ultimatum, Vexing, War, Xeranthemum, You, Zephyr.

Did you catch all of them?

Thank you for reading!

~CGA