Unexpected

Chapter Twenty-Three

A/N: I want to give a special shout out for..... @Riya366 ! She was the only one who commented on the last chapter, the sweet darling. Thank you, Riya366. Some of you asked me if this story has a plot at all, or I'm just writing blah blah blah for the fun of it and springing some Kaider fluff in there.

The answer is I don't know. I do sort of have a plot. But I kind of don't. Sorry, guys. But it's like another mini Lunar Chronicles story, if I like to say so myself. This story is not all fluff and muff.

DUNDUNDUN sorry I'm weird I'll stop talking now. SORRY FOR THE SHORT CHAPTER. I really don't know where to go with this story anymore : (

CINDER

Cinder's eyes were getting watery. He shot her a concerned look. They were standing in front of her old Mechanic booth, and Cinder was holding up a rusted screwdriver, and she turned to face him.

"Everyone kept all this stuff?" she whispered.

Kai's lips tugged into a smile. "No one wanted to remove Earth's hero's old stuff, so we just let it be here while a local store owner next door manages to clean and dust the furniture but keep everything exactly where they were when you left them," he shrugged. "It's become quite an attraction sight in the market. People coming all over to see the great Lunar Empress' old mechanic booth."

Cinder went still, and she blinked. Her optics were impossibly glassy. "Really?"

"Yeah," Kai grinned, pulling Cinder against him as her face stretched into a huge smile.

Cinder pulled away, grinning giddily, and raked her eyes over her booth. The dust gray flaps she'd installed with the little income she had earned were still torn in the midsection and parts of it were in bits and pieces...just as she'd left them, covering the small chamber where she drilled into metal, where sparks flew and where the ground was slashed with scars.

The only thing different was that they were clean.

The gray was a shiny metallic color that she hadn't seen in over a year as she had become increasingly busy and occupied in her mechanic business and hadn't had time to clean the flaps. The fact that someone had taken time off their lives to do this kind of small thing warmed her heart, and not for the first time Cinder began wishing she could cry.

Cinder glanced at the back of the booth, where darkness reigned. Kai smiled as he saw her eyes widen as she caught sight of something, stuffed between a pair of cardboard boxes. Cinder bounded across the room, and gently shoved a box aside, a cloud of dust enveloping her hands.

"Kai, you remember these?" Cinder said, turning back and holding up three small, white boxes clutched in the palms of her hands. They had on a faint layer of grime.

Kai stepped closer, taking one of the boxes from her. Cinder watched as a flash of realization hit Kai's dark brown irises a moment later. He set one down on the table surface, and shook his head, a small grin pulling his lips.

"Yeah. When that evil sister of yours, Pearl, marched in here and slammed these down and told you to keep them in a safe-clean place and was ready to leave and wouldn't even say thank you."

Cinder laughed. "And what else?"

Kai tilted his head, smirking. "Then I told her to say thank you to you and she curtsied and blushed and all those things girls do when they see me--" he leaped back, mock-scowling and clutching his shoulder as Cinder whacked him with her hand-metal hand. "Cinder!" he gasped. "Stop being violent."

"You were getting self-centered," Cinder rolled her eyes and placed the white boxes aside to each other. A gleam of sorrow entered her eyes. "Not only that...but you stood up for me. No one ever did that," she murmured and glanced him, meeting his eyes.

Kai pursed his lips. "That's their loss, then. They don't know what a great person you are."

Cinder smiled. "Thanks, Kai."

Cinder turned and picked up a box of nails, rusted. "Hey," she grinned and held up a chipped part of a metal cylinder that had been flattened and smoothed. "This was Iko's spare parts! When Adri dismantled her and I got her chip back." Kai ran a hand through his tousled black hair.

"How many memories do you have here?" he murmured quietly, gazing around the booth.

"Many, many memories." Cinder replied softly. "Including the one where you asked me to the ball this very place." she stepped forward and placed her hands on Kai's chest. He smirked and leaned down, capturing her lips and running his thumb over her neck. Cinder shivered, excitement racing over her skin as she wound her arms around his neck.

"I also gave you the gloves here, too," Kai reminded her as he pulled back. He had on an impish grin and a gleam of mischief in his eyes. "Which you so quickly got dirty."

Cinder rolled her eyes. "I didn't have much experience with pretty things like that, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Kai laughed. "I'm just glad you became a mechanic." he wandered towards the front of the store, the breeze washing over his features.

Cinder placed down the spare parts and joined him, shooting him a quizzical look. "What do you mean?"

Kai turned, and a beam of sunlight highlighted the molten brown in his liquid gaze as he stared into her eyes lovingly. "Because if you'd never become a mechanic, never had been in this booth-in this market," he began. "then I would never have come here with Nainsi and we would never have met."