Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Until the End of Eternity, and Longer ❯ Chapter Thirty-Seven ( Chapter 39 )

SPECIAL NOTE: I have, upon request, started a mailing list for anyone who wishes to be emailed when I update my fics. (It's a really short list so far.) Anyone who would like to be added to this update list should send me an email at bansheepuppet@fuckingwicked.com. All you need to do is send me an email FROM THE ADDY YOU WANT THE UPDATES TO COME TO. You don't need to send any major emails. Just type "add me" into the body of the email and I shall do so. This email address is used strictly for story updates. As such, I likely won't check email there often, if at all. If anyone feels the need to email me anything not regarding updates, use my standing email address as found in my user profile.

Lunatic Pandora1: *holds up hands in surrender* Okay okay! Sorry kit! Not the chibi omega! Anything but that! I give up. No more cheating with the typing of your name, scout's honor (granted I'm not a scout, but meh, let's play make-believe so that it sounds good). And, on other, more serious notes: wohoo! We'll just have to wait and see how things unfold.

Aison: good to see you are no longer confused. *pats you on the head like a good little puppy and gives you a Scooby snack* I hope the rest of the story is also "kick butt", as you so claim.

Weeeelllll….is it just me, or is this like, the never ending fanfic? Haha! Actually, I think we're finally approaching something resembling an end, in a few more chapters. Well, I think a few more fun chapters to go though. After all, can't end it with my poor 'guna still all amnesiatic, now can I? Well, we shall see what my evil muse cooks up, whatever the case. As usual, updates are sporadic, at best, disclaimers are inserted at random(like here: don't own it, shall never own it, just playing around with it, so don't sue!-see, like I said, here), and nobody, including the authoress, knows what's about to happen!

And so, we push ever onward, into another chapter of "Until the End of Eternity, and Longer".

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"Until the End of Eternity, and Longer"

By: Banshee Puppet

Chapter Thirty-Eight

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Laguna chewed his lip. Irvine paced. It was Squall who had to do all the talking this time around. He spoke with the nurse. The nurse told him all of the important things. He scowled. He tried the questions again. The same answers were revealed.

Frowning, he stood before his father and Irvine, who looked at him anxiously.

"If you keep looking at me like that, they're going to mistake you for patients," he stated dryly.

"Did you get a room number?" Laguna asked, wringing his fingers into the folds of his shirt. He wasn't really sure how he was supposed to feel about being here. He knew that here there was something he was supposed to remember, but…

Solaris's light burned behind his eyes. It made everything else seem not quite as bright as it used to be, and whatever other question he was about to ask was lost somewhere in the back of his mind.

"According to the nurse, there are no records of any current patients by that name," Squall said. "And any records of former patients would be locked in the safe of the late Dr. Doyle. He died last night. Heart attack. Whatever the case, if he was here, he's gone now."

Irvine sighed. And it was half relief, though annoyance also burdened him a bit. He didn't know how to feel about coming this close to meeting his bastard father only to have it reneged at the last moment. They'd come a long way though, and it was hard to believe that it was a wasted trip.

The three men flopped onto the couch in the waiting room, Squall leaning forward, elbows on knees, Irvine with his feet on the table, Laguna with his head leaning back so he was half staring at the ceiling…

What had gone wrong, and what were they supposed to do now? They would think of it. It would come to them suddenly. They just needed a moment to consider it all…

====

Max Kinneas looked up from his beer. The news. This was one of those bars that always played the news, as if the people here weren't coming to get away from the world. That's why people went to bars, wasn't it, to get away? That's what Max had always thought, and yet…the news. Well, one can only escape the world for so long, could only fly so far away from it all before the truth came beckoning and….

The man looked at his hands and sighed. They'd been strong hands once, but the pores had gotten larger, and the skin more creased with age. Max Kinneas was not an old man, younger than the recluse of a president known as Laguna Loire, that was certain, but the years had not been as gentle to him, and the age showed where Laguna's baby face made him look hardly more than thirty-five. Max made a fist. He was still strong, but not half of what he once was.

It was idly now that he thought of Jynx, his current partner in crime. Would she grow old as he had? Would her skin wrinkle like this, become this loose to the bone? He was exaggerating his own condition, he knew, but he'd been in that dark cell so long that he couldn't look at the sun anymore. He shoved his sunglasses a bit further up his nose and took a long, thoughtful swig of his beer.

Jynx Arashi. She really pissed him off. She just walked through life like she was walking through a graveyard. She was strong, and she had goals, he was certain of it (though he had no idea what those goals might be), but it seemed more like she was seeking her goals not for accomplishment, but end. What did she want? He knew only that it had something to do with family. Something….

His eyes shot up as he heard the words, "And in other news, Dr. Evarent Doyle of the Deling Psychiatric Hospital passed away last night…"

'Deling Psych…Dr. B. Doyle…' Max mouthed the words, eyes widening slightly. 'She killed him,' his mind blanketed the realization. He could imagine it. She would kill someone just the same as she did everything else, with perfect calculation and without remorse. It would be nothing more to her than brushing her teeth in the morning was. Nothing more than pulling her hair back into that dramatic bob of a ponytail…

That stupid ponytail. Always perfect, every hair always in place. He wanted to rip out that damned rubber band and force it to fall. It just pissed him off, how perfect it was, just like her, perfect little soldier girl, perfect little doll. But that's just the way the world was, wasn't it? Always turning people into shadows of what they could or would or should be…just like Jace.

Nevermind that there wasn't a thing about Jace's life that couldn't be, either directly or indirectly, blamed on him. He couldn't see that.

Right now, an image of a doctor he never met, a forged letter with his name burning a hole into his pocket, and the image of a stone-faced Jynx Arashi were the only things his mind could contain-that and the image of an old woman gasping for breath and, frightened, falling limp in his arms. He shivered. Jace's mother. He'd killed her. He hadn't meant to. It was an accident.

But what Jynx had done…totally deliberate, and he didn't know if he respected that…or if…he hated it. He just knew it terrified him, a bit. Just enough to make him think, to wonder at how far he was willing to go. Well, it had already begun, there was no turning back now, unless…

There was one trump card left for him to play, one way, perhaps, of controlling the hurricane that was Jynx before it swallowed him whole. He looked up at the bartender.

"Hey, you have a phone I can use?" he asked. Thankfully, the bar was all but deserted at this time of day. He wouldn't have to raise his voice.

He dug the phone number out of the pocket of his jeans, looked at it again, deciding if he wanted to go this far. He did. And so, he dialed. It would be about 5:30 in Esthar now, and night.

===

Ruvie sighed, dropping her coat onto the armchair. Work, this time of year…it was just hell. Gladly, Christmas was over, but doing all the returns was almost as annoying. Anyway, she was content. She thought about Xu. It didn't look like she'd be seeing her older sister this year, but that wasn't really news. Xu came by when she felt like it, it seemed, and she never stayed long.

Sure, Ruvie knew that Xu was an important person, that her job kept her busy, but she still had a family, right? Even if it was a family of one. She wasn't bitter, really, she just wished her big sister would call once in a while, or write, or something. Something had happened a long time ago, she knew that. It was obvious, from the way Xu acted, never really talked about work, and didn't stay for more than a short amount of time, that something had gone wrong. But Ruvie didn't know what. There was this odd gap in her memory. An accident in the training center, they had told her. She had been with another student. When Ruvie had decided to talk to the other student, find out what had happened or if the girl knew…they said she'd died. And that knowledge seemed to hurt a little more than it should.

She turned on the desk lamp and pulled her sweater over her head. Ruvie had given up on memory a long time ago, in truth. She couldn't remember, so instead of spending her life searching for a fragmented past, she decided to live for the moment. But even with that…her apartment was still so dark and lonely when she came in at night. There was nobody to welcome her, no one to tell about her day at work. She had no photographs, just a poster on the living room wall of Shuri, her favorite glam rocker.

She moved into the bedroom, depositing her sweater in a wicker laundry basket by the door and caught a glance of herself in the mirror. She'd filled out into a neat hourglass figure, curvey hips, though she thought her breasts were perhaps a bit too small. Ruvie sighed. "What would you think of me now, sis? Little sister's all grown up. I wonder if you'd even recognize me at all. I bet you look just the same. Proper and professional in your SeeD uniform. Of course, you probably have a few more pins and strips now, not that I'd notice them anyway."

Ruvie moved to her dresser to fish out something comfortable to wear. She wouldn't be going out tonight, so there was no point staying in her day clothes. "What's it been now? Two years? Three? I'm starting to lose count."

And just as her fingers touched a comfy gray sweat shirt, the phone rang. A moment of hopefulness was quickly passing. Just because she was thinking about her sister, didn't mean she would call.

"Hello, Ruvie here," she said cheerfully into the line.

It was a man's voice that graced her ears, and not one that she knew.

"Miss Arashi, I presume."

"Yes? Who is this? Can I help you?"

He didn't answer the questions. "If you want to see your sister again, come to Deling City Hall, 3:37. That's 10:37, Esthar time. You can make it, right?"

"Wh-what? What do you mean if I want to see her again? What's happened?" Ruvie's heart jumped into her throat.

"Nothing. …yet. You haven't got a lot of time to waste you know."

In a slight panic, Ruvie dropped the phone onto the receiver, not caring that it actually fell to the side of the bedside table, threw on the gray sweatshirt and grabbed her scarf, coat, hat, and purse on her way out the door.

The dial tone rang through her apartment as the door closed behind her, catching the corner of her scarf, which, rather than retrieving, she left to hang limply where it had gotten stuck. Whoever that was, if he was telling the truth, then he was right, she didn't have a moment to spare.

===

* "I don't understand…" Mr. Arashi said slowly. "What exactly is it, that she'll be expected to do?"

Martine must have explained it a dozen times, and Jynx understood. 'I don't want to go,' she thought. 'But if I stay, I'll only keep making them sad. SeeD. It's a pretty new thing, as far as history goes, but, I've heard about it once before. Mercenaries for hire. They'll want me to fight. They'll even…probably…want me to…kill. I bet that it's not as hard as it sounds. You probably get used to it.'

It was as Martine was about to explain again that Jynx stood. Her blank expression betrayed nothing. It had been her movement alone that designated her wish to speak. Silence fell. Everyone stared. Jynx had merely sat there, staring out the window for the past two hours that Martine had been present, and for an hour before that. She had not deigned to move when the man had entered, nor when he introduced himself to her; she had done nothing for three hours now, just staring out the window at the bright summer sun, the children playing, trying to catch a bird that was out of their reach. She remembered another bird, long ago as well, but now was not the time to think on such sad stories, especially not when a new chapter was about to begin.

But now, now she stood. And the anticipatory silence weighed heavy. Why was it, that for her, new beginnings always felt so stagnant and heavy? "… .fine," she said.

"Now, Jynx, think about…"

"I have made my decision, mother. I will go."

"No!" Ruvie's outburst had surprised them all. "Why do you want to leave us?!" the child demanded. "Do you really hate us that much Jynx???"

Jynx could only stare. Her chest felt so tight that she couldn't speak at her baby sister's accusation. Do I hate you that much??? Is that what you think? No, of course not. I could never hate you, Ruvie. Not ever. But what would have been pain and sadness on anyone else's face at such a moment…it was only Jynx's same blank stare. The eyes looking at the floor, some hint of…something there, but… …

Emotions were just far too confusing. They never came off the right way, even when she tried. When she was very young, she tried practicing in the mirror. It was only tensing and relaxing of muscles, after all, she was sure she could train her face to move the right ways… but smiles always looked like grimaces, and frowns looked like pouts, raised eyebrows only made her stoic expression hint at some mild confusion or surprise, but nothing even remotely convincing. Eventually, she just gave up. There was no point in trying. And by the time Ruvie was born, the blank faced Jynx Arashi had become set in her ways. It wasn't that she didn't care. It was just…she was someone completely unnecessary in this world, a child who couldn't cry.

It had been proven some years ago that it was actually some sort of disease, a muscular disorder, but that didn't matter, the old beliefs still stood. She would bring despair on everything she cared about.

Well, the truth hurt-but at least it was better than hiding behind a lie.

"I've made up my mind," she said finally. "It makes sense for me to go. It sounds like just the sort of place I belong."

"The sort of place…you belong…" Xu whispered, and put her hand on Ruvie's shoulder to prevent further outbreaks before turning to Martine. "When does she have to leave?" she asked steadily. Level-headed Xu; she'd always been that way, and the stranger known as Martine nodded his approval at this level-headedness.

"I will send someone to pick her up two weeks from Thursday."

And again, Jynx said, "fine," before turning her blank stare out the window once again. The children were still chasing that bird. I think…that birds are made for flying, she thought. Anything else is just unnatural.*

Jynx opened her eyes and stared at the clock as she let her sleep-weary eyes focus. She had a bit of time yet, so she turned her attention out the window again. Birds: they were everywhere these days, and the city was no exception as she watched an old lady feeding pigeons down below, across the street. What was it about people always insisting on domesticating wild animals. She didn't understand it. It went against nature, and she couldn't see anything to be gained from the act. After all, pigeons were dirty, and cities were dirty, and people continued to make little to no sense. She rolled her head back away from the window, sitting silently, staring dully into the darkness of the old bell tower that rested above City Hall.

Plenty of time yet. Over an hour before she had to be in position. Again, she closed her eyes.

===

Xu opened her eyes.

"What were you just thinking about?" Quistis asked gently.

"Hmmn?"

"You looked lost in thought," the blonde woman clarified.

"Oh, a little. I was just thinking of Shin."

Seifer's eyes darted across the train car at the dark-haired strategian. "What did you just say?" he demanded in that gruff way he had.

It startled her a bit, but Seifer had never been one for manners. "I was thinking about Shin," she said. "The village where we grew up."

Seifer and Quistis exchanged a look. Shin. Shin is what had started everything, that stupid necklace with the kanji "shin" on it that Laguna had given the girl as a Christmas gift. It was hard to believe that had only been a few days ago.

"It's gone now though," Xu continued with a bland sort of sorrow.

"It's…gone?" Quistis asked.

"It was demolished by a GF. It was nine years ago, this past Tuesday."

Again, Seifer and Quistis looked at one another. Tuesday had been the day Jynx had escaped.

"A GF destroyed your village. Why?" Seifer asked now. Finally, they seemed to be getting some answers.

Xu paused, memory coming back in flames and black soot. It took a while, but eventually, she spoke. "Well, you see…they were looking for Jynx…"

* "Stop it! I already told you! She isn't here!!" their father had yelled to the man who sacked them with GF over and over again.

"Don't lie for her! She's a demon, a shinigami! Where else would she go? Don't be foolish. I'll keep starting fires until she comes out!"

It was Xu who recognized him. Through smoke and flame, with Ruvie clinging to the back of her leg, she saw his face, his eyes. It was the man who took Jynx away; it was Martine. And of all the times to come. They were home for the Christmas holidays, and Ruvie had only just lost her memory thanks to the fire cavern.

Where was Jynx? No one knew. They just knew…she wasn't here. But it affirmed something for Xu Arashi: her sister wasn't dead. *

"They destroyed everything. Nearly everyone died. And she wasn't even there. They were so certain she was, that she would come out eventually, but she never did. And when there was nothing left to burn, they left. It was a hollow reassurance, it being right after Ruvie lost her memory of Jynx to the fire cavern, but…at least I knew that somewhere, my sister was still alive. In truth, I'd almost given up hope of that until you called me over the holidays asking if I knew her, Quistis."

"…so then…it was on Martine's orders that Shin was destroyed?" Quistis asked.

Sadly, Xu shook her head. "Not exactly. He was the one who headed the assault, yes. He was the one who sacked us with that GF over and over again, yes. But, actually, if you trace it back down to why they were there in the first place, to who accepted General Caraway's contract to have Jynx found, of who signed it, and who told them, "whatever means necessary" never thinking they would actually go that far…if you take it all back to basics, then…it was Cid."

===

note: shinigami translates, for all intents and purposes, as "god of death" or "angel of death", to the best of my limited knowledge.

Well guys, a bit of a cliffy again! I hope I'm finally clearing up questions that you may have had up to this point. If not, feel free to fill your reviews with questions, so that I don't miss any, since we ARE winding down at long last, and if you want to be added to my nifty-shifty mailing list…send me a line. Until next time…

Happy Haunting,

Banshee Puppet