AN: This was originally going to be a oneshot, but after too many months to count, I finally cracked and made it a drabble. ;_; I debated with myself for a while whether or not to put it in Music to My Ears, but I decided against it. Takes place if Luke doesn't comes back at the end.
Summary: Small red-headed replica boy, think you can save the world today?
Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of the Abyss.
Boy Wonder
you mean the world to me; i mean the world to you
It's cold up here. The air is chilly, the wind whipping beach-sand hair across Tear's shoulders, their shadows long from the setting sun. They're so far up that she feels as if they're on the top of the world, where no one else exists and nothing can hurt them, where they are untouchable.
"Thank you."
"For...what?" she asks him. He's full of sad smiles and goodbyes as he reaches for her hand and squeezes it tightly (and never lets go).
Luke inhales sharply and closes his bright eyes, trying to convey his feelings in the simplest manner possible because he wants her to understand why he's doing this, why this is so important. A minute passes before he replies vaguely, "For everything."
There's nothing to thank her for. She looks away unable to meet his stare, and Luke finally lets go of her hand after one last squeeze. She's supposed to watch over him, make sure he gets home safely. Short gasps escape from her lips and she can't stop shaking, but her face is dry. She can't even cry correctly. Why can't she do anything right?
Tear watches the little boy in man's amour walk away to his death and thinks, Luke, I…
Goosebumps tingle the skin where his fingers touched, and her heart's pounding against her rib cage as if it wanted out — out of her body, out of her sight, and probably with him. But she squeezes her arms across her chest so that it can't escape and leave her too.
Emerald eyes catch her sea-blue for a split second. She should say something, anything, to calm his (her) nerves, tell him any (last) words at all. She should tell him that she loves him, she should tell him to not go, she should tell him that everything's going to be all right because it will.
But the words are stuck in her throat so she promises to tell him everything when (if) he gets back.
He looks away, breaking their eye contact, and faces the sky. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it wasn't. Either way, it's too late because he's gone (forever).
In a few moments the sun will completely disappear from the horizon until dawn.
Come back, Luke.
She can't bare to watch, but she can't look away because she doesn't know when she'll see him again.
Auldrant's light disappears beneath the crumbling white once-city, and Tear finally turns away. That idiot, how dare he save the world, how dare he save thousands of people he never met, how dare he sacrifice his own life. He's selfish and stupid and so very self-sacrificing and— and it was never meant to be this way.
He should have never been a hero.