FicWad

It was only later, when I bring your dogtags and Raine's ring to Squall and I find myself crying like a child, that I realized everything that's happened. Really, we should have known long before it happened. You should have nominated a stand-in or a subordinate to take your place, and we should have left-for Galbadia or Timber or Winhill, or even Balamb, for Squall would have lifted his hatred for something like this. Especially after what he'd lost in the affair (and nearly lost). But you, my friend, were strong, and said that you would see it through. Despite Ward's death and your injury; despite threats on our lives.

I did not really realize what happened until Irvine and Squall had me calmed down, even. And then, when they asked-I could not tell them, for a very long time. Then, it all just came out.

What had happened, two summers before, when the train had been ambushed in Grandidi-all those innocent deaths-had done nothing to sway the populace to you, and you knew that. You knew that, when they found out about the SeeD you had hired to kill men of the nation, they were furious. That they shifted from you. I told them-your boy, and his friend, who was very much like a son to you as well-of how you had not been afraid before anyone, but how you had often come to me, and said you were frightened. I told them of your worry that I would be hurt, and how you never worried that anything would happen to you.

Even to the end, my friend. Even to the end. And for a while, I could not tell them anything more than that.

I remembered the Trabian revolution, from our history classes during training, the night the world fell away. The revolt against the Galbadian army that had taken control of that winter-nation. We were in my apartment, just talking, when the power was cut and you swore and said they were here. We hid, like children, sitting in the bathtub-I remember, because you laughed, and we talked about stupid things we had done in that stupid bathroom. I joked about you almost breaking your hip, and you laughed and said you were too old for any of this.

Too old? You were fifty-five. I suppose that is getting on. You didn't look a day over thirty. I told you that. You smiled. I did not tell them about any of that.

We were sitting in there, and we could hear the men in the halls, and shouting. You told me I had to get out, and I just laughed. "How will we both get out without them seeing us?" I asked, and I shook my head, because you were being stupid. And you ... you just watched me for a second, before laughing a little. You took off your dogtags first, I remember, and gave them to me. I asked what you thought you were doing. You took off Raine's ring, and stared at it. You had a tan line, and your skin was lily-milk white where the ring had been, like you were still wearing it. Then, you gave that to me to, and I yelled at you: "What are you doing/? Stop being stupid!" but you wouldn't listen. You took off /my ring, and I told you to put it back and on and stop being stupid or I'd never forgive you. Like a child. You smiled.

You kissed me, but I didn't tell them that.

You said there were servant tunnels out of the room, and that if I followed them, I'd come out into the kitchen, and if I went in my Estharin garb than noone would stop me. I told you to stop being stupid, but you just kept going on about how they were going to be there soon and if I didn't get out then they would kill me too-.

The rest is a blur, I told them. But I lied, because I couldn't say the rest. I couldn't say how brave you looked, and how I hugged you and kissed you and said that you weren't allowed to do stupid shit like that because it worried me. It scared me.

You told me I had to go. So I did.

Am I a coward? You told me to take Raine's ring and your dogtags to Squall, and I did, and I cried because I told him, "Your father wanted you to have these." I didn't have to tell him that you were dead, because he had heard of the coup before I arrived, and when I came in, he knew, he knew/, because he's /just liked you in so many ways that it's almost frightening, but mostly just makes me want to hide for the rest of my life.

Am I a coward?

You promised me, once, before Centra and before Raine and before any of this, when we were young and foolish, that you'd long outlive me because you were too stubborn to die.

You lied.

You lied, you stupid son of a whore. You lied, and now I'm stuck here.

Am I a coward, because I'm so mad that it hurts? Am I a coward, because I still love you?

Am I a coward, because I'm afraid to move on? I'm fifty-one. You've been there longer than anyone else in my whole life, and I don't-. I /can't/.

You can't make me.

I'm a coward, for not saying goodbye. But I'm saying goodbye now, when there's nothing to say goodbye to, nothing to remember you by, except for a few pieces of metal (and your ring fits on my ring finger, like a good ring should) and a young man who, now, calls you father before his mercenaries.

Are you watching, Laguna? He's not a boy, anymore, your little storm of a son. Maybe he never was.

I hope he turns out just exactly like you did. Brave, and strong, and never afraid.