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Sitting on the porch and listening to the birds sing as the sun rose was part of Norea's daily routine. She was a light sleeper and woke up earlier than the average person, and so to pass the time she would sit outside and enjoy the scenery. The lake out front shone in an array of colors as the sun's light hit the water and the surrounding foliage filled her with a sense of comfort. She had lived in an area much like this once when she was a child. Dawn of Fold had set up camp in a dense forest, specifically an area under government protection, that had a freshwater lake similar to the one in front of her. The children in the camp would frequently break away and go to the lake to play. Sophie was one of them, and she'd drag Norea out with her just for the sake of it. While Sophie and the other kids splashed around in knee-high water, Norea would sit on the bank and take in her surroundings. When the area was eventually burned down due to a clash between Fold members and the Benerit group, Norea decided to immortalize it in a drawing.
It took a few months before her art skills could be called serviceable, and even longer before she could properly replicate the lakefront that was burned into her memory. However, even when Naji and the other adults praised her for her art, Norea still thought it fell short of the real thing's beauty. Just looking at the picture she worked so hard to draw made her feel sick, because she believed she would never be able to see it again. But now, right in front of her, was the same scenery she had seen in her dreams. She always found herself wondering how Elan managed to pick up such a prime piece of real estate.
As the sun crested over the trees, Norea heard faint mewing from inside the home. Turning around, she saw their four cats waiting by the screen door, flicking their tails from side to side and staring at her with hungry eyes. With a sigh, she got up and went inside to fill their bowls. Originally, they didn't have any animals in their house, but when a stray kitten managed to find its way underneath their floorboards, Elan immediately adopted it. Once other cats realized their house was a place to get free food, they began swarming in droves. While Elan attempted to keep all of them, Norea, who wasn't too fond of animals, shut that idea down and gave away most of them. Now there were only four of them left, Elan's favorites, and while she wasn't keen on feeding and cleaning up after four stinky animals, they didn't make much noise outside of feeding time so she allowed them to stay. They usually crowded around Elan during the day, and at night cuddled up with each other in a shared bed.
Speaking of beds, it was around the time Elan should be waking up. Heading into the bedroom, she saw him lying there like a log, with nothing indicating that he was currently present in the waking world. Elan always slept like the dead, even when Norea would wake up choking and gasping after a particularly bad nightmare, he wouldn't stir. Apparently it was a side effect of the experimentation he went through. His body needed a lot more rest than the average human in order to continue functioning. The doctors said it might get better with age or developed medicine, but Elan hadn't seemed too hopeful about it. Norea sat down on the bed and began to shake him awake. It took awhile for him to groan and turn around, and when he finally did, Norea noticed his movements seemed stilted.
"Ugh...Are you gonna stab me?" Elan quipped as he looked up at her. He rubbed his eyes to clear away the fog in them, but as he moved to sit up he found himself struggling. "Hm? Lazy day, huh?"
"Lazy day" was his term for when his body decided to stop working properly. Some days he would be perfectly healthy, but on others his legs would become numb and wouldn't respond. It was a side effect of overexerting himself in the Pharact. Normally, spending as long as he did at Permet score 4 would have crippled him for life, or even killed him, so one could say he was lucky he made it out as well as he did. But Norea knew the truth. The fact that even after all the experiments he went through, and how much he struggled for a normal life, he still ended up disabled. And the reason why he did so was all for her.
He always made a big show of only caring about himself, but deep down, he was a decent guy. Maybe it was because she reminded him of someone he lost (he never told how they were related, but Norea could guess), or maybe because they had similar pasts. Either way, when Norea should have died alone in a Gundam, Elan pulled her out and took over her job, telling her to live for herself. Of course, later he tried to play it off as just a joke, but Norea knew from experience the eyes of a man who thought he was going to die. After the incident, he was rushed off to a hospital in an attempt to save his life, and all Norea could do was wait outside, a prevailing feeling of emptiness enveloping her.
A majority of the Permet in his body, both from the Pharact's infusion and the previous experiments, was taken out. But after years of polluting his nervous system, they couldn't fully remove it or his body would enter shock. Even now, once a month, he had to go in for maintenance to keep himself from relapsing. He always made sarcastic and bitter comments about it, but never let his well-crafted facade drop. Apparently the GUND-Arm people were working on technology that could help him and the others burdened by Permet experiments. It was a nice sentiment, but it still wouldn't make up for the years of torture they went through. They were only doing it out of guilt, but that was something Norea could understand. After all, maybe Norea was only staying with Elan out of guilt as well.
"Oh, Ms. Du Noc, may I receive breakfast in bed. Hand fed of course." Elan smiled up at her, but the corners of his lips didn't reach his eyes.
"Sorry, but I don't let freeloaders live in my house." she responded.
"How rude. And besides, I'm the owner. If anything, you're the freeloader." Elan chided. Along with medical help, Elan also received a large compensation of money for his troubles. To Norea, no matter how tall the stacks of bills were, it wouldn't erase the pain she went through, but Elan simply smiled and accepted it.
"Still, laying in bed all day isn't good for your health." Norea leaned off the bed and opened the shared closet in the bedroom. Inside it was a folded up wheelchair they kept for these occasions. At first, Elan didn't want to use it but after Norea threatened him in every way imaginable, he sucked up his pride and made use of it. Norea picked up Elan as best she could and dragged him onto the chair, all while he simply sat there like a dead body, clearly amused by Norea's struggling.
"You're an ass. Making me do this." Norea grunted as she dropped him onto the seat.
"I'm just making sure you're in good shape. It'd be horrible if you're strength rusted after all this time." Elan chuckled. Getting frustrated, Norea walked off to the kitchen, leaving Elan to put in the effort to follow after her. As he rolls into the room, one of the cats (Pancake maybe?), jumped onto his lap and began rubbing its face on him. "At least someone knows how to greet people."
Norea huffed as she began preparing breakfast, two bowls of cereal since she didn't know how to cook, while Elan played with his pets. As she laid the bowls out on the table, she caught Elan staring outside a window.
"What are you thinking about?" Norea asked.
"Ah, nothing much. Just that it's really beautiful outside." He said. "I knew places like this existed, but to actually be here..."
As she looked at his eyes, shining with vitality even after everything he went through, Norea felt something stir in her heart.
"Yeah, it's beautiful." She stated, gaze focused not on the world that captivated her heart for years, but on the person in front of her. "Full of life."