Utopia

Kira paled slightly at the mention of the interrogation. Were they really that knowledgeable? "I c-can see where y-your coming from..." she began hesitantly, shifting where she stood. "But Luke and I w-were teammates, a-and friends, and I..." she trailed off here, biting her lip. "I w-wouldn't do that t-to him..."

"We had to entertain the possibility that the police had sent you to find him with some kind of deal involving him being pardoned, so we had to intervene. We can see pretty clearly now, after taking a look at you first-hand, that you aren't out to get anyone, but we have to be careful," the lady explained walking around towards a drinks cabinet and checking a phone. "As it happens, we don't know where he is at the moment, so the best I can give you is his apartment and you can wait until he gets back."

Kira tensed slightly as the woman approached the drink cabinet. She half expected her to whip out some sort of weapon or a poison or something. "Th-Thank you," she stammered out, trying to sound a bit less scared than she really was. That didn't go so well.

She figured it'd be a bit creepy if she just randomly showed up at Luke's apartment, but after three years, and not even knowing if he was alive for most of it, she was fairly desperate.

"No problem," the woman replied, pouring herself a drink and gesturing towards a door behind Kira. "Word of warning: I wouldn't mention your talking to the detective. I mean I know Luke loves you, and he still has some picture of you and him when you were like 21 in his wallet, so that's obvious, but it's probably for the best not to set him on edge. Just walk through that door and you'll be teleported, and I'm sure he'll be there soon, or he might be already."

Kira's face turned a rather brilliant shade of red, and she rubbed her cheek embarrassedly. "Uh...o-okay," she stammered, keeping an eye on the woman as she walked towards the door. Teleport? How was that exactly supposed to work? Maybe there was some sort of teleportation Flow at work here. Biting her lip, she walked through the door, hoping teleportation didn't hurt.

When Kira opened the door, she would find herself in an apartment building, in an apartment on the top floor and far away from where she had been a second ago, judging by the view out of the window. It was a messy place, clothes strewn on the floor and doors left ajar. There were bloodstains on the couch and in the sink, and several empty pill bottles around the apartment. There was a small, meticulously kept garden out on the balcony, contrasting sharply with the rest of the place.

It could have been any old apartment, unless Kira noticed a photo framed and kept in mint condition on the coffee table, which depicted her and a younger Luke hugging, looking like it was taken a year or so after he had his burnt body healed. There were a few more photos from the time Luke had spent with Kira around the place, along with a couple of smashed frames face-down on his bedside locker.

Kira looked around, biting her lip, though quite frankly the mess didn't surprise her. Luke had never been that good at keeping things cleaned, though this was a bit worse than when they'd been together. As she scanned the room, her gaze fell upon the pictures around the room. She rubbed her eyes, trying not to think about how she'd kept all her similar pictures locked up in a drawer.

Listening for a few moments, and deciding that she was the only one around, she started picking up the clothes on the floor, turning up the frames, and at least trying to tidy the place up a little to keep her mind off things. She doubted Luke would mind, and the place needed a good cleaning anyway.

Kira's cleaning would reveal several scorched parts of the floor and burnt bits of his clothes. In fact, despite the apartment, which was in very good nick, most of Luke's stuff seemed to be in disrepair and ragged. After a couple minutes, a couple of voices could be heard downstairs, before a couple of heavy footsteps could be heard going up the steps.

Kira shook her head and sighed as she folded the clothes and put them on the couch. "Oh, Luke..." she murmured. Even if he was hiding, surely he could take better care of himself than this. As the footsteps came up the stairs, Kira's eyes widened slightly, and she scrambled around a bit, trying not to look completely suspicious. In the end, she just sat down on the couch next to the clothes, feeling a bit frazzled and watching the door anxiously.

The footsteps stopped outside the door, and a hand was placed gently on the handle. The door was opened very slowly, to reveal Luke looking suspiciously for an intruder before his eyes spied Kira. Surprise flooded his face, the man almost jumping out of his skin. After a second, he fully stepped in, looking abashed and unsure of what to say.

"Um, hi," he started.

Kira stared at Luke for a few seconds, her mind taking a bit to process what she was seeing. There were a few more seconds of awkward silence before Kira spoke up again. "Um, th-there was a woman, a-and she said something a-about teleportation, and...uh...I cleaned a bit. J-Just picked stuff off th-the floor, s-sorry, m-maybe I shouldn't h-have, but uh I d-didn't j-just want t-to stand around doing nothing and um, I d-didn't mean f-for this to be so awkward a-and um, I m-missed you," she rambled on for a little bit, shifting anxiously. For a few more seconds she stared at her feet, wishing she wasn't so awkward, or this situation wasn't so awkward, before looking back up at Luke.

"It's, it's fine. Don't worry about it... I probably needed it," Luke admitted sheepishly, kicking a burnt a t-shirt into the bin with practised accuracy. He looked back at his old girlfriend apologetically. While Luke was definitely more loudmouthed than Kira, he hadn't been much better at talking to people than she was for many a year. Despite this, however, he still ran forward when he saw her reaction to him, hugging her tightly. "I've missed you too."

Kira jumped a little when Luke hugged her all of a sudden, though she quickly hugged him back. So he didn't hate her? He wanted to see her too? Then why did he run away? It was all too confusing, and Kira was sure that there was something that she'd missed out on again.

After a little while, she let go of him, rubbing her eyes to try and stop herself from crying. She swallowed, trying to calm herself down, before promptly slapping Luke across the face. "Th-That's for running away today, a-and three years without a letter," she said quietly, before hugging him again.

Luke closed his eyes when she hugged him back, letting out a sigh of relief, before being caught off-guard and slapped. He put a hand to his cheek, which was rapidly turning red, and looked at Kira with a confused expression on his face.
"Ow..." he whined, abashed, as she hugged him back again. "Hey, I tried to send letters, and money too, because I knew raising a kid wasn't going to be easy, but all letters are censored these days! And I guess I was kind of afraid, too, if I'm being honest with myself."

"It still would've been nice to kn-know you were okay," Kira responded, though the fact that he tried, or at least said he did made her feel a lot better about the whole ordeal. She paused for a second, looking back up at Luke and frowning slightly. "I'm sorry," she said, though she was still a bit upset that Luke had left her completely in the dark for so long. Even a 'hey, I'm alive' would have been nice...

"Yeah, I can see where the problem in there would be," Luke replied sheepishly, scratching his head. He released her, trying to clear the detritus off the couch so that it was available to be sat on. Eventually he gave up on trying to do it delicately, sweeping the stuff off with the back of his hand. "I'm really sorry, Kira. I know that's kind of lame after three and a bit years, but I can't think of what else to say. I'm sorry."

Kira smiled weakly at Luke, before sitting down next to him, biting her lip. "It's alright," she sighed, looking over at him again. She really couldn't stay mad at Luke. She wasn't sure if she had ever been really angry in the first place, or at least not to the point where she wouldn't forgive him almost immediately. "I...Do you th-think we could be happy together? Like...if this ever gets worked out..." she asked. Though it seemed like neither of them had really managed to move on, three years was still a long time.

"Yeah," Luke replied instantly, in his raspy Dublin accent, nodding firmly to indicate that he wasn't just saying it and indeed truly believed it. Luke had always been stubborn to a fault, so it may not have surprised anyone to see that three years hadn't done much to shake his resolve. He looked much the same as his old self, though in much worse nick and with a much more ragged feel to him. "I seriously mean that, too. I mean... I was seriously scared when I saw your child, but you've allayed that now."

Kira smiled at Luke, though she looked a little embarrassed when he mentioned Jason. She shifted uneasily, running a hand through her hair. "After a month or so, they uh...told me you were dead. And I...well, you know how I get when I g-get drunk," she laughed awkwardly, looking down at her knees. "I stopped wh-when I figured out I was carrying Jason." It was terrible, all her life she'd been telling herself that she wouldn't be a single mother, pining after someone she couldn't have, and then whoops. She'd turned out exactly like her own mother.

"Damn... I'm so sorry," Luke replied, resting his elbows in his knees and his hands on his cheeks. "This whole time, I've been terrified that you had moved on and gotten yourself a kid, while I was stuck here, unable to go back. I mean I was terrified, seriously, even earlier today when I ran away. I didn't want to find out that you'd moved on and I was left behind. That must've been hard, way harder than what I did. Financially, too... Damn."

Kira sighed, before wrapping her arms around Luke and smiling. "It's alright, I'm fine, see? It only took me a few months to figure out they were lying, they had people following me, and why would they do that if you were dead?" she explained, trying to make light of the situation. It was the first time she'd actually spoke to him in three years, she really just wanted them both to be happy about the occasion, because she wasn't sure when it could possibly happen again.

"Yeah, they're dumbasses," Luke replied with a grin, hugging Kira back. He did have to remember that, however dumb they might have been, he slipped up once and they had gotten him, which he had just barely escaped. He banished the thought from his mind, now was supposed to be a happy time, and he really was happy to see Kira again. "Hmmm. I think you may have handled it better, you still look the same, where I look a bit worse for wear."

Kira pulled away slightly, glancing Luke over and laughing a bit. "I dunno, I don't see anything too horribly different," she said, before straightening up a bit. "Except for the gray hairs," she teased as she ruffled Luke's hair. He didn't see anything different with her? She always felt a lot older when she looked at pictures from before he'd left, though maybe it had just been her imagination.

"Hey, don't mess with my do! ...And don't even joke about the grey hairs, haha," Luke grimaced jokingly, his hair already looking quite the state from being neglected for best part of four years. He wondered how different he actually looked. He felt like he looked different, but retained enough self-awareness to know that that didn't mean he actually did. He idly wondered if it was the same for Kira.

Kira laughed, kissing Luke's forehead before settling back down on the couch. "Don't worry, your hair still looks the same," she teased. "When was the last time you got a haircut?" A quick glance around the room made her wonder the last time Luke had fixed up anything, let alone his hair, not that she would bug him about that now. The garden was in good condition, which made her feel happy enough, and even a little proud of Luke.