Metal Band One-Shots

In Years Gone By (Floorja)

 "I'm home," Tarja called as she entered the apartment.

 "Good. Dinner's just about done," Floor called back.

 Tarja smiled as she walked to the kitchen.

 "Hey, you," she said, and gave Floor a kiss. "I guess all that restaurant experience really pays off at home."

 "Oh, sure you say that. You're just glad I know how to cook everything so you don't have to."

 "Hey, I have a lot of work to do, one that doesn't involve being in a restaurant all day."

 Floor smiled. "All right, I hear you."

 As they sat down at the table, Tarja asked, "Have you forgotten what today is?"

 Floor thought for a moment. "Something important, I'm guessing. I can't put my finger on it, though."

 "It's been ten years, Floor. You know, since we first moved away from home."

 "Oh. Yeah, it is, isn't it? How could I have forgotten that? That was when you were starting college. To think, about six months before that, you came to my house in the middle of the night to tell me you wanted to run away from home."

 "I was still a kid, Floor. I didn't realize then what a bad idea running away was."

 It was true that Tarja and Floor had never quite run away from home. However, by time graduation day came, they knew that whatever they were going to do with their lives, they wanted to do it together. So, late that summer, they left town together for the city where Tarja would be attending college.

 "But you never applied yourself," Tarja had pointed out at the time.

 "I didn't want to go," Floor replied. "I can find a job, though. There has to be an opening for something around."

 Over the four years Tarja attended college, she and Floor both had jobs and worked hard the entire time. They didn't have much free time to spend together, and they had fights every now and then, but somehow they managed to stick together. When Tarja finally got her business degree and was able to get a better job, she was able to have a more reasonable schedule, and it gave her a chance to realize how much she had come to love Floor.

~~~~~~

 After Tarja fell asleep, Floor lay awake, thinking. She was pretty sure Tarja had been right about the date, and that meant it really had been ten years already.

 She remembered their first days together, decorating the apartment and moving all their things in, making it really feel like a home. 

 When looking for a job, Floor managed to get a job at a local restaurant. She'd always enjoyed cooking things with her mother, and everyone there saw she had some talent with it. She'd even had the opportunity at attending a cooking school.

 Looking back, Floor almost couldn't believe she and Tarja had actually lasted ten years. They fought a lot in those early years, and hardly ever got to spend any time together. But they still had a party when Tarja earned her degree, and when Floor told her about cooking school, Tarja insisted they move to the city where the school was together.

 When moving to the new city, Floor went to school with some tuition help from her parents (who were happy to hear she realized the potential she had to be a master chef), and Tarja was a able to get a good job. And after school, Floor was able to get a job at a really good restaurant, where she still worked and was considered very valuable to the place.

 But what mattered the most to her out of everything was that Tarja was still there. They stuck together, and she never left. Floor loved her, and she seemed to make every day better, and she knew Tarja would probably say the same thing about her.