Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Until the End of Eternity, and Longer ❯ Chapter Ten ( Chapter 10 )

Disclaimer and etc. . .

Whoa, here it is, finally, a longer chapter, a whole 17 pages this time. Hope you like it.

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"Until the End of Eternity, and Longer"

by: Banshee Puppet

Chapter Ten

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Squall had forgotten. No one had gotten around to telling Irvine that Laguna was here, but he hadn't expected the cowboy to react the way he did. He knew he'd be mad, sure, but when Irvine saw Laguna and lunged violently for him, Squall was reacting on pure instinct when he tackled the cowboy.

"Irvine. Calm down!" he pleaded. Even he could hear it in his voice. Irvine didn't like violence. Everyone knew he was angry, that he had every right to be, but that he might attack Laguna, the thought had never crossed his mind.

"Get OFF!!!" Irvine hissed, struggling against Squall who had him pinned to the ground, barely. He nodded to Zell, bangs flopping a bit and a glare that said, `get over here, I can't hold him like this forever.' And Zell was quick to comply.

"Not until you relax. You've got every right to be pissed off but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you kill him. You think that's what SHE would want?" Squall snapped at him and Irvine went suddenly limp in their arms. Zell nearly tumbled forward at the sudden absence of strain, but Squall caught him with one hand and steadied him.

Irvine sat up in an Indian position, hands clutched in fists on his knees and a deep scowl creasing lines in his brow and around his lips. "You didn't TELL me!" he accused. "Why didn't you tell me?" and suddenly all the anger was gone from his expression and he found himself crying again. Laguna recognized the emotion. It was grief.

He looked sympathetically at the young man that he could remember running around with his mother's cowboy hat as such a small boy, always smiling, laughing. They were all so happy then.

"I loved her too, you know," Laguna said softly, after a pause. "Above all else, she wanted you to be happy, even if it meant forgetting that she ever existed. She knew that knowing how she died would make you proud, probably, but also very sad, and maybe a little angry. It was hard not to say anything, but. . . I'm sorry Irvine, I was just trying to respect her wishes."

"H-how she died? Nobody tells me anything. Why is there a statue dedicated to my mother in the center of town. Why is she a hero? What did she do? How DID she die, Laguna?"

"…it was my fault." Laguna said softly, shadow aging his face again, and a grief very different from Irvine's. Irvine who could cry because he wasn't there, and Laguna, who could cry because he was.

"I'll tell you how she died, Irvine, and then you can decide what I deserve and I won't stop you. But let me tell you how she lived first. You're mother was the most amazing girl. Strong, and full of energy, and extremely willful. She made me want to be a better man, even when I was just a little boy. She was like a sister to me, and I really looked up to her. That's a little strange to say, since I was a bit older than she was, but it's true.

"Her parents took me in not long after my mother died. My father had died a while before, and my step-father and I. . .well, to say we didn't get along is pretty much the understatement of the century. I really hated that guy. I even tried to kill him once. It was Jace who stopped me…"

Squall inadvertently found himself drawn into the story. `Laguna's parents died when he was young…and he tried to kill his step-father? I can't picture that at all. Was Jace so important to who he grew up and became? Would I be like him now, if I had had a Jace?' he couldn't help but wonder.

Laguna remembered. Sure, he remembered every detail. Even as he spoke, telling the story to the boys and their friends, it was like reliving a nightmare.

He didn't know how his father died, just that it happened before he was born. And there never really turned out to be a right time to ask. He was five when his mother remarried. The man was a low-ranking soldier, stationed in Deling City. There weren't any wars going on at the time, so it was a pretty useless thing to do, it seemed, but other than that, he didn't really think about it. His name was Jarim Tayne. He was a tall man with a little bit of muscle and a certain unaccounted for charm that his mother had fallen for hook, line, and sinker. His mother never mentioned what Jarim did when he was away all night sometimes, but even a kid could figure it out when you find lipstick on a guy's collar that isn't his wife's shade, or when he walks in smelling like smoke and stale perfume. He didn't even try to hide it. Yeah, Laguna hated him almost from the beginning.

"I guess she put up with it because she thought I should have a father figure, or something, but I'd have been a lot happier if it was just the two of us," he heard himself saying. "Anyway, I was nine when she died. It wasn't his fault, but I blamed him anyway. I hated him for a million reasons, but after that day that Jace and I went to the circus, I hated him most of all for not being there to save her…"

"Fire! Fire!" the screams were so loud that they made Laguna's ears bleed, and a sinking feeling rose in his chest. That fire was awfully close to his house. Waitaminute! That WAS his house!

"My house!" he screeched. "Mom!"

His feet pounded the pavement in panic and Jace was right beside him. "Mrs. Loire! Erm I mean, Mrs. Tayne! Mrs. Tayne!" she was calling.

"You can't go in there," a particularly burly soldier told them.

"But that's MY house! My mom's…where's my mom?!?" Laguna pleaded.

The man looked sadly down at the boy as Jace tugged wordlessly on his sleeve. "`guni…look over there," she said, pointing.

There was a body, covered in a sheet, and out from underneath the covering, one charred hand had tumbled off the gurney, the only recognizable thing to be seen the vague outline of a human hand, and a gold wedding band with a small opal at it's center. His mom's ring. The ring THAT MAN gave her.

"I was only nine years old, but I knew death when I saw it," Laguna explained. "They went looking for Jarim the one place they knew he was most likely to be, the Galbadia Hotel with one of his girlfriends, and that's exactly where they found him. I stayed at Jace's house that night, but the next day Jarim and I took what of our belongings the fire didn't claim and moved into that same hotel. And even though I could tell he was sad that she died, every night he still came up to the room late smelling like alcohol and women. At first, I thought I was angry at him for not saving her from whatever in the house killed her, but after the investigation was done, I got to be angry at him for as good as killing her himself."

"Hey Jace. Good to see you," Laguna said sadly. "I guess it's harder for you to come visit every day with me all the way out here now, huh? Your mom and dad don't let you take the buses alone and all."

"Laguna, your mom. People are saying…"

"She committed suicide. Investigation closed yesterday. She set the house on fire herself. I guess that's why she was so glad we were gonna be at the circus all day. She was just waiting for an opportunity. She left me Jace. Why'd she leave me like that?" he sobbed.

"It wasn't you. You're mom loved you a lot Laguna. She'll love you forever, even if she's dead. Wherever the dead go, she loves you there too. It was hard on her, living with THAT MAN though, I guess. Erm, Mister Tayne, that is."

"She left me all alone," he sniffled.

"You'll never be all alone, `guna. You'll always have me. Don't forget. Okay. You'll always have me."

"Until the end of eternity?"

"unuh. Longer than that. We'll take care of each other. Forever. If you ever need anything, I want you to come to me, and I'll come to you if you need help too. You don't have to even ask. Just come and I'll know. I'll be your family now, Laguna."

"Like a sister."

"Yep. So don't cry anymore, okay. You should come over tomorrow if you can. Mum and Dad are making spaghetti and meatballs. Your favorite."

"I will. That'd be good. I need to get out of here before I do something I regret."

"I was still awake when he came in that night. It was also the first night that he brought one of his girlfriends into the room. I was so angry. He hadn't saved her, probably caused her death, and now he went around like he didn't even care. Something just. . . snapped. I grabbed his gunblade and lunged at him. . ."

Squall was having a hard time registering this story. It just all seemed so unlike the Laguna he knew. Heck, it was even unlike the Laguna who he'd known in the dream world. He knew it was unfair of him to assume that was all there was of the man, but how could none of this ever come up. Was it so painful that he didn't even THINK about it if it could be helped? That didn't make any sense. Squall thought about painful things all the time. And besides that, even if Laguna could talk about himself and his dreams forever, there was something different about the story he was telling now. It was about him, sort of, but not in the same way. He was more thoughtful, more deliberate, a sad look on his face but one of concentration, he was being careful not to wander off the topic at hand. This was a story about someone else. He could only make Irvine understand Jace from the perspective of his own life; that's why things like his mother's death and his step-father's infidelity were important. Squall realized, Laguna hadn't meant to give away that side of himself, but it was. . .necessary. He had a lot to make up for.

"I don't know why Jace didn't leave, but Jarim dodged easily. I didn't know how to handle the weapon, and it was too heavy for me. His girlfriend ran out screaming and Jace shoved her way into the room before the door could lock. . ."

"Laguna don't!" she pleaded, horror etched on her features. "This isn't going to bring her back."

"No, of course not! But it'll make me FEEL BETTER!!!" he hollered, taking another swing at his somewhat more than surprised step father.

"For what? Like five seconds?"

"I suppose I knew that she was right, but I still wanted to kill him. I was so angry back then. Of course, after having a gunblade swung at him about half a dozen times, Jarim sorta wanted to kill me too. And there was Jace, just an eight year old kid, trying to yank the two of us apart. I guess I must've gotten clocked pretty hard or something, because the next thing I remember, it was three o'clock in the afternoon and I was blinking up at a white ceiling, hearing little beeping noises, and that awful hospital smell, like formaldehyde and perfume. Sterilized death. Mom, at least, never had to deal with THAT smell." Laguna shook his head vaguely. It was obvious that he had no love of hospitals, but the reason for that was one that Squall couldn't understand.

`There's something you aren't saying,' Squall thought. `You have more secrets than I thought.' All the same, he had to at least respect Laguna for telling this story. He knew that thinking about Jace was painful for him, given what he'd seen last night, and what he'd "heard" from Ellone.

"Anyway, Jace was sitting right there in the guest chair by the window, staring out, looking like she should've been to sleep hours ago when I woke up. I felt so dizzy."

"He gave you a concussion," Jace said softly, turning her face towards Laguna and revealing a black eye so bad that it was nearly swollen shut and a small cut beside her eye.

"You're eye…"

"It's no big deal. He was aiming for you. I just sorta…got in the way. He didn't hit me as hard as he coulda. Don't worry about it. It'll heal," she said.

"You look tired."

"I've been waiting for you to wake up…to tell you what happened while you were out. Not very good, journalistically speaking, ya know `guni. You slept through most of the story."

"Ha. Ha. You stayed all night?"

Jace nodded. "I told you that I wasn't gonna leave you alone, didn't I? I made a promise. Anyway, mum and dad said you should come stay with us now. If you and Mister Tayne keep living together, someone's gonna end up dead. They're filling out papers and stuff now, I think. Mister Tayne seems to think it's the best thing too; after all, you did try to murder him last night. Hyne, Laguna, what were you thinking?"

"I was just…I was so angry Jace. It was his fault. Because he didn't love her. Mom killed herself because he treated her so badly. I miss her is all. I was thinking, I miss her, and I guess I was thinking that it was his fault. And then he came in with that woman as if mom never existed at all. It was too much."

"If it matters, I think he probably did love her, in his own way, you know. He had lots of girlfriends, still does, but, remember that she's the one he chose to marry. To do that he had to love her at least a little. Some people, I think, just aren't made for that settled, stationary kind of life. You shouldn't blame him. I can respect him for not sneaking around or trying to hide it at least. He lives life his own way. That doesn't make him right, but it makes him. . .I dunno. He's not right but. . .I don't think it's something he can help, like you couldn't help what you did last night, and like I can't help, you know. . .things. . .the way I am. Whatever the case, since you snapped like that, the doctors say you have to go to therapy for a while, and take some sort of medication to make you not homicidal anymore."

"Am I really. . .am I a messed up kid, Jace? Do you think the doctors are right, that I need all that stuff?"

"Naw. You're just `guni. You always will be. And I'm just Jace. Still, you and I are kids, ya know, so it's not like we really have much say in anything anyway. All we have is our dreams. We can only hope that in the future, we'll grow up to be strong and kind and do the right things and all that stuff. So don't forget, no matter what they make you do now, you're still you, and you have big dreams, like traveling the world and being a journalist and all that. Don't forget your dream, no matter what, `kay?"

"I won't forget. What about you Jace? You never talk about yourself really. What's your dream?"

"I. . ." she paused for a long time, as if trying to figure it out, or find the right words, minutes maybe. Laguna just waited; he knew better than to interrupt her when she was thinking. "I guess I want. . .to be like a knight. Not a knight exactly, but similar. I want to have something to protect, and to be strong enough to protect that special something. It's pretty silly, huh?"

"But you already do all that. You protect me all the time."

Jace shook her head. "No. We protect each other, Laguna. We always have. Always will."

"You stayed tonight to protect me then? From what?"

Jace nodded a bit, "Yourself, `guna. These past few weeks, ever since your mom. . .you know. . .you've been so terrified of being alone. You go around acting like nobody cares about you. But I'm still here. I still care. You're not worthless or stupid like you seem to think. You do dumb stuff sometimes, but that's okay. Mistakes are just a part of living. That's what dad says. Sometimes taking the wrong road is the only way to find the right one. I guess it makes sense, in that weird way that my dad makes sense from time to time."

"You're dad's a weird guy."

"He wasn't always. Mum says a bomb went off too close to his head this one time, and he was never quite the same. But I'm pretty adamant about it all, and pretty stubborn. And I don't think he's any crazier than we are. He just thinks in a different way, like he came to close to death and never came all the way back. Anyway, you get used to him. Mum says that the way he is is the reason I'm the way I am. . .I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just pretty sick of everyone always making excuses for me."

"I was in therapy for the next four years, and on "happy drugs" until I was sixteen," Laguna remembered a little too flippantly, scratching his head a bit in that way he always did when he was embarrassed to admit something, and with a small smile he added, "I guess the effects never really wore all the way off." He laughed, as if vainly trying to lighten the mood.

`This isn't the way I imagined it, the way you lived,' Squall thought. `I thought you were. . .happy and normal and just sort of dumb and goofy,' Squall thought. `No wonder you get so sad around this time of year. Jace was all you had, wasn't she? Like sis was for me. I. . .I'm afraid to be alone too.'

"Man, my throat's pretty dry. Can we take a little break and pick up later?" Laguna asked. He'd been talking for a few hours he realized suddenly, and needed something to drink pretty badly. "Ken, can you, ya know, some water?"

"Sure thing `guna. I'll make up some wings too. It's about lunch time," Kennedy said and poured a glass of water before heading into the kitchen.

"Ken's a pretty great guy," Laguna commented absently. "Anything to help out when he can. All the people here are like that."

They were silent for a long time, nobody really knew what they were supposed to say. They ate lunch quietly, with only the occasional joke about how Ma Dincht managed to raise Zell without ever getting around to teaching him table manners, or some other goofy comment, as if deliberately trying to lighten the mood. But finally, Irvine got up the nerve to ask the other question that had been plaguing him.

"Laguna? Did you know my father?"

This, apparently, was the wrong question. Laguna frowned deeply, his body shook a bit in anger and the glass in his hand smashed, cutting his palm. "Shit," he whispered. "Uh," he forced a smile. It looked so wrong and he hated being surrounded by the worried faces, just like back then. "Yeah, we. . .ah. . .we met a few times," Laguna said finally with that wide, fake grin. The fact that at the same time he was letting Kennedy clean and bandage him up with a first aid kit as if it was no big thing did nothing to keep up the illusion of happiness over the memory though. "Why don't you go upstairs and rest a while, `guna? You look tired," Kennedy said, to which Laguna nodded weakly and said, "ah. . .well. . .yeah, I suppose that would be best," and got up, feeling the eyes on his back as he headed up the stairs.

"We don't talk about him around here, Irvine. Especially not around Laguna," Kennedy explained as he swept the broken glass up into a dustpan. ". . .do you know the difference between love and possession?" Kennedy asked after a long pause.

"Sure. . ." Irvine said, worry lines creasing his brow as a suspicion crossed his mind, one he hoped-prayed-wasn't true.

"I'm glad, because your dad didn't."

"He. . .he hurt mom?"

Kennedy nodded. "And she wouldn't leave for a long time. Because in spite of everything, she loved him. Guess she saw something there that nobody else did. She seemed to be drawn in by people who were suffering, always wanted to help out, maybe that was it, who knows? But when you were born, she was afraid he would hurt you too. She had to make a choice, and she chose you. Anyway, it wasn't long after that that she ended up in Bella Maure. But I don't know the details. I guess Laguna does, but, like I said, we never talked about it much, especially not around him. Laguna. . .he's a really good guy. . .but there are some things he has pretty much zero tolerance for, and you're dad's always been one of those things. Last I heard, he was living in Deling City, but that was fifteen years ago. He might still be there, but `guna can never know where he is. I think he can't get over losing Jace, not just because of not being able to save her from dying, but also not being able to save her from living. But there are some things that you have to save yourself from. That's what I believe."

"You think too much," Irvine teased, hoping to rid them of the foul mood.

"He was never supposed to be a fighter. That's why he ended up failing so badly," Squall said as if that was the end of the conversation. `Laguna, my father, he wanted to be like her, but it was never the type of person he was supposed to be. So he ended up failing and screwing up pretty badly, because he ended up playing a role that was never meant for him. That guy. . .the military. . .what were they thinking, giving him a weapon? Dad, (the word felt strange, even without saying it out loud) stop trying to be her. Please. Don't you understand that you're destroying yourself?'

"Unh!" Irvine groaned. "This feeling. . .Squall. . ."

"N-not now, Ell. . ."

`Where am I now?' Squall wondered, looking around. `er, when, to be more specific.'

Laguna shoved some hair from his eyes. It was raining and Squall got the distinctive feeling of worry. He stopped in front of the Galbadia Hotel and glanced in the window. The reflection of a drenched and helpless fourteen year old boy stared back. He was the only person on the streets in this weather. `Jace, where are you? You're dad's been in the hospital for weeks now. He's dying. Do you even care? Why are you behaving so coldly? To live life with no regrets. . .that's what you said. I know that you're a person who's incapable of feeling any remorse, but you're father won't live through the night. He's been calling you. There's something he wants to say. He's not going to live out the night. Won't you regret not being there, even a little?'

"Where are you, Jace?"

Laguna wandered helplessly through the streets. He was tired, wet, and from the sudden shivering and sneezing, he was fairly certain that he had a cold. His hair was pasted to his skin, his toes were starting to get numb, but he kept looking. "I'll go get her," he'd promised the poor, dying man. "She isn't far." He lied, he had no idea where Jace was. He just knew she wasn't where she was needed. Wasn't her father's heart something special that needed her protection?

`This looks like a fun place, so why this blank feeling? This empty void in my heart?' Irvine wondered. He was surrounded by people and loud music. Dancing he vaguely realized by the motion of his hips. . .with three different guys. . .at the same time. . . `go mom!…Waitaminnit! Hey, get your dirty hands off my mom!' He noticed only vaguely that Jace didn't actually seem to mind at all, but that was beside the point. It was his mom, it was just. . .wrong to be here to witness this.

Jace shook her head, "damn fairies," she mumbled. `I don't need another conscience, I have Laguna for that. I just wanna have fun.'

As if on cue, Laguna showed up, drenched in the doorway.

"Speak of the devil," Jace said, groaning mentally before pointedly ignoring him and deciding that sucking face with the nearest of the three guys was much more fun than dealing with a scowling Laguna right now.

But Laguna would have none of that. "Jace, I've been looking all over for you!" he said, putting his hand on her shoulder and all but yanking the two apart.

"Have you? Well, now that you've found me you can go away," she said, not looking directly at him, but deliberately past him. Deliberate words. Words meant to hurt. And it hurt her to say them, but. . .he just didn't understand. Because he was a kind person, he couldn't understand.

"You're father's been calling for you. We need to go to him."

"I'm not going anywhere, Laguna," she said as she spun to glare at him, her dance partners having abandoned her already.

"But Jace, he's dying."

"You don't understand anything. You think I'm being cold. But I've decided, I'll look out for the living. A dead man like him is not my concern," she said. "So YOU go to him. My business with him is already finished."

`So cold, what made you so cold?' Laguna, Squall and Irvine all wondered at the same time.

"Please reconsider. Come with me. If you won't do it for him, then do it for me Jace. Come to the hospital," Laguna had resorted to shameless begging. `For Hyne's sake, Jace, he's your father, he's dying, and he's asking for you. I hate begging, but if that's what it takes, so be it.'

"Is there some great danger at the hospital that's waiting for you, Laguna, because if there isn't, it would be pointless for me to go there, and even more pointless for you to. If something there will cause you pain, then you needn't return to that place. If you're foolish enough to go after a direct warning like that, then you can't expect me to protect you from your own stupid whims. He'll die whether we're there or not. It can't be changed, so there's no reason to dwell on it. Go away. I want to have fun and you're being really boring. Why don't you go take some of your HAPPY PILLS `guni. God, you make me so sick sometimes. They've got you in the palm of their hand. Come back when you get tired of being a puppet."

Irvine blinked awake and found himself lying on the tavern floor, one step up from Squall, it seemed, who was rubbing his head from bearing a sudden impact with the tabletop and trying to shake the stars away from his eyes while he scowled. Rinoa couldn't help but giggle. Squall looked pretty funny when he woke up confused like that.

Suddenly, Squall shivered, and sneezed.

"It looks as if all is NOT happy in never never land," Irvine noted lightly.

Squall nodded vaguely. "She was really cold. A-choo!!"

Irvine nodded, remembering that Squall's shoe had been missing, just like Laguna's last time, and now the broody SeeD appeared to be sick. "I don't get it. It's like she wasn't even the same person everybody's been talking about. Can't say I'm feeling all too proud to be related at this particular moment. And what about you? You get colds from desert heat now?"

"It won't do any good talking about things we don't understand," Squall interrupted as he unconsciously wrapped his arms around him to fend off the chill. `So cold.' He was shivering.

Kennedy scratched his head at the secret language that didn't seem to have anyone confused but him. "Ah, did I miss something?" he asked.

Some looks were exchanged that said, this is an awfully complicated matter to try to explain, before Selphie says. "There's this dream world that we end up in from time to time where Squall is Laguna and he sees the past sort of, as it happens from inside Laguna's head. From the sound of things, this time, Irvine was Jace too. I didn't know Ellone knew Jace."

"Well, they must've met somewhere along the way, whatever the case. It doesn't matter, it's not as if there's anything we can do about it. They had a fight, big deal," Squall said. `It was just a fight.'

"One helluva fight though Squally," Irvine commented, ducking because he was sure the first thing Squall could get his hands on would come flying in his direction at the abuse of his name. When it didn't and all he got was a deep scowl, he continued, explaining to the others. "The gist of it is, mom was out clubbing when her dad was dying in the hospital. When Laguna tried to come and get her, all about the sopping wet, she said some pretty harsh stuff and pretty much told him to get lost."

"Then what happened?" Rinoa asked.

"Dunno, that's when I woke up."

"I went back to the hospital," Laguna said as he came down the stairs. "Without her." He was silent for a few moments as he sat back down at the table. "The day her father died. It wasn't long before my sixteenth birthday. Jace was fourteen at the time, and turning out to be a pretty troublesome teen. I didn't want to see anything bad happen to her, so we had quite a few fights throughout high school. I guess Ellone is curious too, huh?"

Squall nodded. "We saw the day that your house burned down too. Last night."

Laguna took it in stride. "Well, at least I know she cares, right?" he said with a smile. "Though it might've been easier for her to just ask. Ah well, I guess you want to know what happened after we fought in the club huh?"

"Of course," Irvine said with his `no duh' tone.

Laguna chuckled a bit at this and then, thinking back, he said, "Well, like I said, I ended up going back to the hospital without her. . ."

He clutched Laguna's wet hand tightly, feeling the shivering that went all the way through Laguna's body. The boy was sick. . .from trying to find his daughter no doubt. His vision was blurry, but he could at least tell that the boy was sopping wet.

"You said she was right down the hall," he scolded.

"I. . .ah. . ." Laguna stuttered. He knew he shouldn't have lied to Mr. Donovan, but wasn't it better than hurting his feelings?

"You know. . .how I feel about lying, Laguna. You can't always make people do what you want, you know."

"I'm sorry Mr. Donovan. I thought I could get her to. . .that is. . .I mean. . ." He was cold, his lips were chattering, he knew if his body was capable of it, he'd be sweating from the nervousness right now, but since it couldn't, his leg decided to cramp up. `Ow, shit!' he thought.

"She's not coming," the man said resignedly. "I didn't really expect her to, but I hoped. My daughter, she's very stubborn, isn't she? Just like her mum."

Laguna nodded. "She's. . . um. . .Jace is special somehow. I'm not sure how yet, but, I just know that she'll be someone important one day."

The man smiled weakly, he couldn't really see Laguna very well anymore, everything seemed very dark, but he could still feel the boy's hands shaking.

"I know that too," he said, finding his voice was having a hard time coming out at a normal volume. "Tell Jace. . .those who are righteous must also be strong. Tell her. . .the path of the warrior is. . .the path to one's own death. To seek death at every moment. But also. . .that as long as a person lives. . .they're alive. Tell her I'm not angry. Tell her. . .I understand."

But Laguna didn't understand. All Laguna understood is that he was watching a man die. And he couldn't believe that he'd ever wished death on anyone. This man had taken him in, and, in his own strange and sometimes less-than-ordinary way, raised him for five years. His heart felt like it was going to explode. He was leaving.

"I. . .I'll tell her," he sniffled.

"Laguna Loire. Whatever path you choose, make sure you live every day of your life," Mr. Donovan said. . . "and next time you go outside in the pouring rain… … … ..bring… … a jac…. …ket…. ...with… ...you."

He couldn't speak anymore, his ears just vaguely registering Laguna's words of promise. But he knew, until the very last moment, he could feel the boy sitting there holding his hand. His wife had said her goodbyes before he had left for the hospital, and Jace hadn't come. He would have been fine with dying alone, but Laguna wouldn't have that. `Such a kind boy. I won't worry about Jace and Maggie, now. Such a good boy. But Laguna, you have a lot to learn about. . .life.' And with that thought, Jace's father passed into another world.

When Laguna woke up in a hospital bed, he saw Jace sitting by the window, staring out blankly.

"Jace?"

"Pneumonia," she said. "You're such a dumbass `guni."

"I thought you weren't coming."

"I told you. I have no business with the dead. Mum told me you were here for a few days for observation because of that stunt you pulled last night, so I came to make sure you were okay."

"Cold, but fine otherwise. Your dad wanted me to tell you. . ."

Jace held up her hand for silence. "My dad is dead. He lived and died, like all people do. It doesn't matter. And don't you ever try to tell me again. He told me all I need to know with every breath, every step. He didn't need to put his lessons on life into words for me. You're the one who needs words, `guna. You have a lot to learn yet, about living."

"I was thinking last night."

"Uhoh. That's always a bad sign," she teased.

"I'm serious!"

"For once." The frown she got in reply told her that it was time for her to be serious for a bit too, so she shrugged absently saying, "Alright. Shoot."

"I thought I'd ask the doctors to take me off of my medication. I think I had a revelation last night. I've taken some things lightly that I shouldn't have, and some things seriously that I should have taken lightly. Do you think I'm ready for that?" Laguna asked seriously. "It's been five years. Will I be okay without them?"

Jace just smiled. "No more meds for `guni. I'd like that. I've missed you a lot. . .while you've been gone."

"No more meds."

"No more running away," she corrected.

Understanding, finally, Laguna nodded and smiled as best he could. "No more running away," he agreed.

"Jace was never mean just for the sake of being mean. If she behaved cruelly sometimes, it's because she thought that it was the only way to get her point across. To live a life with no regrets…that's what she wanted, but it got her into some trouble too," Laguna said thoughtfully.

~~~~~~~

well, there's chapter ten. I'm noticing that I have a pattern of ending chapters of this story in something resembling mid-thought. I wonder why that is. . .

On a side note, today I discovered coffee! I know I know! Twenty-two and never drank coffee before! I have decided that I have lived a very sheltered life. I don't actually like it so much, but I think it'll grow on me. The only downside is that the caffeine buzz wears off all of a sudden, and then you're just like. . . need more. . . need more now. And I know that there's absolutely no relevance to this rant at all, but I gone off on a good tangent in almost two days, so I thought it was about time. So-kay. No idea what happens in the next chapter since I don't remember. But hey! Uploaded four chapters tonight, yay progress. . . r&r pwease. Thankyee.