Zeku and Zell both retired to the living room to watch television. They both realized that there really wasn't anything else to do until the others came back, and Zee felt like she had already completely embarrassed herself too much for further conversation with the guest. Zell sat back down onto the reclining chair with the remote on the armrest and Zee went ahead and reclined her onto the couch just so that she could rest her head into the armrest and contemplate the issues that haunted her.
Twenty minutes passed and the two had not spoken to each other. Both were afraid the other would be unwilling to converse--that Zell would not want to be involved in her problems, that Zeku wouldn't like to be bothered after her emotional breakdown. Finally, Zell decided to take his chances and break the ice.
"Hey, Zeku? About what you said earlier..." she did not respond, but Zell wasn't quite expecting her to. "There's this place called Garden..." Zell glanced over at her, but stopped his sentence when he saw her curled up tightly in feta position, eyes shut, and head resting on her right arm which was neatly folded behind her ear. "Right...never mind that..." Zell looked back up at the television. He hadn't actually been watching.
For the last twenty minutes or so, Zell had been thinking about what Zeku had said about the moon and the stars, and he had felt her pain through her gaze and through the weariness in her voice. He had wondered to himself quietly everything that he could do to make it up to her--to see that full and beautiful smile again. He reached out to the remote and shut the television off; there was nothing good on anyways.
"Oh, Lina... what'll we do with ourselves?" he chuckled and Zee stirred in her sleep a little bit. Zell tucked his arms underneath her back and her knees and lifted her up as gently as he could without stumbling or waking her up. He carried her in his arm down the hallway, careful with each step so that she stayed sleeping against his shoulder. Zeku's room was all the way down the hallway, but as of now, it felt even further away carrying Zeku each step of the way.
He pushed the door open with the back of his heel and flipped the light switch on the best he could with the back of his arm. Very carefully, the pulled the folded sheets aside from her bed.
As he very lightly dropped Zeku down onto her bed, she suddenly swung her arms around his neck and he found himself stumbling with his face plunging right down into the section of her pillow right above her shoulder. "Zell..." Zell was taken aback. He pulled himself up and found him face to face with Zeku just a bit away. Her eyebrows were knit in a pained expression, her lips gently pout up into a frown. He smiled at her, then very carefully unhooked her arms from around his neck and tucked them nicely to her side.
"I'm sorry, Lina," he said to her, pulled the blanket up beneath her chin. "Goodnight." He headed out the doorway, shut the light, and left to search for rest himself.