I wiped the smudged dirt and grime off of my cheeks with the heel of my hand in vain. I dipped my palms in the small stream and cupped them so I could try to use running water to clean my face. Only the top layer which hadn't sunken into my pores yet came out.

As the water cleared, I looked at my reflection again. Golden hair, blue eyes, freckles, pale skin that didn't change even though I spent nearly every waking hour of my life outside. My hair was ratted and mangled, with a fine cover of dust over it, giving it a dirty blonde look instead of the honey color I was used to. Before this time came. Mommy said that the stock market crashed. I pictured a huge building falling into the earth with a big cloud of dust and debris. All I knew was that Daddy went away and Mommy was working extra hard for me and Sora.

"Roxas!" I raised my head, abandoning my attempts to wash myself. It was Mommy. "Come inside, dear. It's dinnertime."

"Coming, Mommy." I dried my face with the torn rag that was my shirt that I still had and soon would be left to waste as well as most of my clothes. I stepped inside the small ramshackle house we lived in. The entire community was akin to this one house. I looked over to see Mommy with her mousy brown hair tied up and pretty hazel eyes glowing. Sora had caught on the brown hair that my mom had, but had the blue eyes he and I shared with our father.

I had his face, his eyes, his hair. Or at least that's what one of Mommy's friends, Miss Rinoa, had told me. It was a shame that he left us, leaving Mommy to care for us, she had added. She also then called him a very bad word that she then told me never to repeat. I haven't.

Dinner wasn't that much, just scraps of bread from what was probably the bakery. I could scarcely bear to picture Mommy leaning down by the trash cans, hoping to find little bits of possibly burned bread that hadn't quite made it to the trash, instead onto the ground. As I looked at the blackened crust, I knew it was the case.
After the small, pitiful excuse that we called "dinner" I took Sora down to the stream to wash him. He, unlike me, was actually fairly clean for our situation, though that probably was because I insisted on giving him a daily bath while I barely got any.

Down here no one really cared about the little boy getting undressed by the stream. Everyone used the water; at least in the summertime. I playfully picked up my little brother and dropped him in the water with a splash, spraying both myself and him, and getting him soaked. He giggled as I knelt by the edge and started rubbing the accumulated dirt off of his face.

After that task was done, I scrubbed his hair until it was dirt-free: a task that was fairly difficult seeing that his hair had the same hue as the earth around us. After he was fairly clean and I soaked to the bone, we laughed and messed around in the stream as I managed to pull his clothes back onto him. We had a water fight: a glorious break from the strenuous heat we had to deal with.

After that, we entered back into the house/shack, dripping wet and soaking the dusty floors. Mommy heard us, and came over, chiding us about getting the house wet, though the wetness of our bodies was actually helping to clean the place up. When I mentioned this to Mommy, she laughed.

"Roxas?" Sora asked me as we entered the living area with a bundle of blankets: our makeshift bed.

"Yes, Sora?" I asked him.

I was ten, and Sora was six at the time. Six-year-old boys had very little tact and were also very keen and observant of the world around them. I should have known he'd notice something different about our house.

"Where's Daddy?" I dropped my blankets, turning to the boy, who was now sucking on his fingers, coating them with saliva.

"I…" I sighed, deciding against hiding the truth. "I don't know."

"He left us, and Mommy has been so busy, and I haven't seen Mommy smiling." Sora went on.

I frowned. "Sora, Mommy smiles all the time." I said as I spread the blankets across the floor.

As we started to curl up in the welcomed warmth together, my brother snuggled against me like a human teddy bear, he said, "No, Roxas. Whenever Mommy smiles, her eyes are frowning."

Whenever Mommy smiles, her eyes are frowning. I mulled over my younger brother's words. Sometimes, grown-ups over-think something, trying to find a way to explain it, when all we need is the simplicity of a child to explain something. And as I woke up and Mommy brought us breakfast with a smile, I saw it: there were frowns in her eyes.

She sat down on the floor with us, nibbling on the apple cores she had dug from an old trash can. "I found work to do." She told us.

"Work?" Mommy had said that it would be a miracle if she ever found work. Before the crash, Mommy and Daddy had complained about work, talking about how monotonous and mundane it was. Now she mentioned it as if it were a precious gift from the almighty Father in Heaven himself.

"That's good, right?" Sora asked, his fingers, sticky from eating his apple core, had found their way back into his mouth.

"Yes, Sora. It's very good." Mommy said. "Soon, we will have more money, and maybe we can get you boys back into education again."

I knew what education was: school. And school was boring with the icky little girls and rock-dumb boys that had once tried to beat up my brother and had each ended up with a bloody nose from me. But now, I missed it. I missed the bossy teachers that although trying to be friendly, came across as rude, and the chattering little girls that sat in the back row.

And so, my eyes lit up. "Really, Mommy? We can go back to school?" I asked.

"Maybe, Roxas. We'll have to wait and see. Now, why don't you go outside and play?" She pressed her lips against each of our foreheads. "I'll see you back here by bedtime."

Sora pulled his spit-covered hand from his mouth. "Bye Mommy." He said while waving.

"Bye, Sora," she said, and as she walked out the door, I heard her add quietly, "my precious little Sora and Roxas."

When she was gone, I took Roxas outside towards the stream. My shirt snagged on a tree limb, yanking a good portion of fabric off, so I gave up and removed the whole thing. Sora, noticing me, did the same even though his shirt was just fine.

We went down to the meeting place a little ways down the stream, where us boys and a few girls gathered to have fun while our Mommies and Daddies worked.

One of the little boys, a redhead with a mane of knotted hair named Axel, spoke first, holding his little sister, who also had the bright ginger hair Axel had, as he talked. "My Mommy died." His sister burst, and Sora gave her a hug.

"Don't cry, Kairi. Please?" Kairi gave him a sad look and cried into his shoulder, still in the arms of both boys.

Axel, who was my age, was barely holding back the tears, obviously trying to stay stronger for his sister. "Axel," I said, "how did she die?"

"Too-burr-coo-load-sis." Axel said, trying to pronounce the word right. We all knew what he was talking about. TB, it was called in its short form, was quite common and several people in our "town" were falling to it.

"Daddy was crying too!" Kairi softly wailed. "Daddy never cries! When I need him to not cry-"

Tears were pooling in Axel's eyes, but he blinked them back. No crying in front of Kairi. He had to stay strong for her. He could grieve later. "Come on, Kairi." He said. "Let's go home."

And though we played games all day, the news about Axel's and Kairi's mother toned all the happiness down. When we returned home, Mommy was waiting for us with slightly larger scraps of bread and small cups of watery soup. We gulped down our dinner happily.

As dinner ended, I told Mommy about Axel's mommy. Mommy seemed pained. "The poor man." She said. "Raising those kids all by himself. I don't know if he'll be able to stand it."

That night, after I bathed Sora (completely) and tried (and mostly failed) to clean myself, we started snuggling into the blankets. Sora then spoke again. "Did you see it? Mommy's frowning eyes?"

I nodded somewhat numbly. "I saw them, Sora. I saw them."

In the morning, Mommy greeted us with more bread, fresh stream water, and a smile that didn't go to her eyes. As we ate, she coughed.

I stopped. "Mommy, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Roxas dear." She told me, gently ruffling my hair. I took her word and chowed down.

When Mommy came home, she was smiling again, though her eyes were, once again, frowning. She coughed more, harder.

"Mommy?" I asked, somewhat more urgently. She gave me a smile that scarcely made it through her mouth, and went to her area.

The next week passed by, Mommy's coughing getting more common and hoarse than the day before. I kept asking her if something was wrong, but she would just tousle my hair and tell me everything was okay.

I knew it wasn't. Ten days after the first cough came the blood. I saw specks of it on her lips after a long coughing fit. And droplets in her hands whenever she covered her mouth. "Mommy?" I asked again. "Why is your mouth bleeding?"

"I'm not sure dear," Mommy lied. I could tell. "But I'm sure it'll pass."

Within days, she was confined to the house, and Mommy had us go stay with Axel and Kairi and their daddy. She assured us that she was perfectly fine, but I could see the frowns in her eyes again.

Three days after we started living with Axel and Kairi, we went back to see Mommy. We had found some old sunflowers by the stream, and although they were long-wilted, we hoped they would brighten up the house.

When we arrived, it was a nightmare. Mommy was lying on the floor, obviously hurting bad. We ran over to her, shaking her. I sent Sora to find help. He took off so fast, you'd never see him.

I held Mommy's hand as she coughed and blood spilled onto the floor. "Mommy?" I whimpered. She stopped coughing and raised her head. "Are you okay?" I had asked that question so many times since she had started coughing the day she came homer from work.

But instead of a lie and a false smile, she told me. "Roxas. I want you to be strong for Sora, okay? Br a good big brother and take care of him for me. I won't be able to do it for you."

"Mommy?"

"I'm going away, Roxas." She said. "But things will get better. And I know you'll do well in the future."

"Mommy…"

Then, she looked at me, and her eyes said more than what words could ever say. And for the first time since Daddy left, they were smiling. Just before they went dull and Mommy's head fell into my lap.

"Mommy?" No answer. "Mommy!" Nothing. "MOMMY!" I started bawling. Unlike Axel, I didn't have the restraint to hold back my tears. I wept and wept until I heard the door open, and in ran Sora. Behind him was a man who looked just like me. No. I looked just like him. He looked at Mommy's still form and began to cry. It was my father. Daddy had come home just in time to see her die.

"What did Mommy say to you?" Sora asked. Daddy was now taking care of us in the same house that we had been living in. I looked over at Sora.

"She told me to take care of you." Sora let out a strangled whimper, tears starting to leak onto his cheeks. "And Sora," I put both my hands on his shoulders, ready to share the small bit of happiness I had.

"Yes, Roxas?"

I smiled at him, a real smile. "At the end, she smiled at me. And her eyes were smiling too."

(AN: My English teacher had us write a story about the Great Depression, so I wrote this and changed the names. So… yeah. I didn't completely have their parents in mind when I started, but I guess I leaned toward Cloud and Aerith, no? Either way, it is a bit sad, but I hope you like.

Love, Destiny.)