If You Love Them Let Them Go

No Specific Time Period

Rated K

The daytime was always the easiest for her. It held a large selection of distractions she could use to to occupy her mind, whether they be school and friends, or watching (and occasionally helping) her father work on whatever latest project he had going, or playing with one of the eight Robot Masters that also lived in the house.

She had to keep moving, she had to stay busy. When she was busy, she was happy; she could pretend that she had no troubles, that she was living the perfectly typical life of a teenager.

However, after the sun had gone down and the robots had gone into stasis and her father had finally given in to sleep, the lights went off and she was alone.

In her room, she would stay awake for hours lost in the thoughts she could no longer ignore. Thoughts of him.

Her best friend, her Knight.

It was funny, she reflected, that she thought of him as her closest friend, rather than one of the local girls and boys who she saw everyday. His visits were so sporadic, there was no way for her to try to guess when he would finally make an appearance. The only time she could count on hearing from him was on her birthday, whether it be a telescreen call or a letter attached to a present or an actual visit.

The only thing that was more unpredictable than his visits was the length of his stay. In pasts years they had ranged from as short as one hour to as long as two and a half weeks, which had only happened once. Without a question, those eighteen days had been among the best of her life.

The night he arrived, she had been at her desk, drawing, when all of a sudden a familiar whistled tune cut through the silence like a knife. Nothing affected her quite like the whistle that signified his presence. It would knock the air right from her lungs, her heart would give a sudden, jarringly loud beat, excitement would explode in her stomach and then shoot to every region of her body. She didn't know what being high felt like, but if she had to guess, she would bet it was like the sensation she had when she knew he had finally come back to her.

She had jumped up from her desk so fast that her chair was knocked over backwards as she scrambled to the glass doors that lead to her small balcony. She undid the latch and pulled the doors open.

And there he was.

They had talked for hours, sitting facing each other on her bed. She could never talk to anyone like she could talk to him; it was like he knew exactly how to react. He would listen intently, never interrupting her except to laugh when the content was light. Then when it was his turn to talk, she returned the favor. She didn't think she would ever be able to interrupt him; his voice was like music to her, smooth and cool, refreshing. He also had one of the best senses of humor of anyone she had ever met; he could make her laugh so hard she thought she would die from lack of oxygen.

Time passed far faster than it should ever pass, and soon the inky black of the night sky had faded into the dark blue of early morning.

She felt as though she was actually in pain as he strode back over to the glass doors. After he had opened them, he turned back around and ordered her to get a few hours of sleep.

And just like that, he was gone again. She found it impossible to follow his order. After wallowing around for a few hours, she slinked out of her bed and trudged through multiple hallways to the kitchen area and pushed through the heavy steel doors. In the middle of bidding her father good morning, she froze.

There he was.

That day they spent every hour together, once again not parting until the early part of the next morning. She didn't ask whether he would stay another day. She knew he wouldn't and it would probably kill her to hear him say it.

But there he was, sitting between her father and Pharaoh Man at the table.

The pattern continued for days. She was euphoric, but the whole time she was preparing herself for the imminent morning when he wouldn't be there. She went to sleep every night after he left her room telling herself that that was it, he was gone. But she couldn't help the hope boiling in the bottom of her stomach.

Knowing that it was coming didn't lessen the blow. When she walked into the kitchen to find only her father, she was devastated.

She hated that she wanted him so much, it wasn't fair; but she couldn't stop. It wasn't some case of teenage puppy love that could come one day and go the next. He had saved her life, putting his own health at risk to keep her alive.

She and her father had stayed with him at his family's house for a short period of time after the Wily incident. There she had become very attached to Rock and Roll, but it was nothing compared to how she felt for him.

As a child, she adored him. Now, as a young woman, there was not a doubt in her mind that she loved him, loved him so much that she would accept his wandering ways, just as his own family had, even though it hurt. She would never ask him to stop, beg him to stay. She would never try to cage him.
Because Kalinka loved him.

And he wasn't Blues unless he was free.