All You Did Was Save My Life, a kingdom hearts fanfic

Disclaimer: Brokenly not mine.

A/N: Written for this week's challenge at KH Drabble, which was 'all you did was save my life'.

All You Did Was Save My Life

All you did was get me through, I owe every breathe to you;
Heart and soul unparalysed, all you did was save my life.

-- From All You Did (Was Save My Life) by Our Lady Peace.

Cid stared at his toolbox and wondered if it the soul could die before the body. Your heart and brain could, so why not?

He believed in souls? It'd be easier if he didn't. Belief scored the line between 'unfortunate' and 'catastrophic'.

Heartbeats and brainwaves could be monitored. You knew when they'd stopped. Souls were unquantifiable. Was there a unit for calculating pain? Cid could gauge the miles a gummi ship could fly on a teacup of fuel, but not the distance between watching your world die and metaphysical shutdown.

People should be like machines. He understood machines. Machines made sense.You fixed what broke. You oiled what squeaked. Rattling meant things were going tits up. You abandoned crashed wrecks with grateful cursing.

People were nonsensical. You pushed, they pulled. You pulled, they bit you. They rattled, but try to help and they fought like you were injuring them. They squeaked, but oil couldn't cure how a five-year-old cried. And if something broke, you had as much chance of fixing it as flying to the moon on a cracker.

Cid wasn't cut out for childcare. Mostly he wanted to hide in his workshop. His tools' reassuring heaviness worked better than a healing potion: turn, twist, tighten, fix. The Highwind provided a focus for everything inside he'd never given a rat's ass about before. Hearts used to be for pumping blood. Now suddenly he was watching them break every day. You couldn't walk into the safe-house he'd renovated without crunching smashed trust and faith. He hardly dared vacuum – not because it was demeaning for a decorated captain, but in case he sucked up the last hope.

The Air Force had a saying: Hurt a dog, it still loves you; hurt a cat, it replaces you; hurt a woman, she leaves you; but hurt a plane and you hurt yourself. Nowadays he had an addendum: Hurt a child and it'll be hurt. And it won't apologise for you not being able to repair it.

Seventeen years ago civil war turned their world into a wasteland. Afterwards Radiant Bastion became Radiant Garden when Ansem tried to make up for what they'd done. He hadn't been able to heal it, so he'd reimagined a small part and hoped that sufficed. Cid wondered whether that was what he was doing, keeping house and confining these kids to Traverse Town like some nursemaid instead of plotting revenge.

Seventeen years ago even Leon hadn't been born yet.

Sighing, Cid lugged his toolbox from the workshop. Yuffie found him, hammering nails into the crooked floorboard that'd nearly broken Tifa's toe. He didn't acknowledge her. He never knew what to say to these damaged kids, with their invisible wounds and accusing eyes.

Damn it, he wasn't the bad guy here. He was trying to save them – from themselves as much as the Heartless.

"You always do that," Yuffie said at last.

"What?"

"Housework. When you an' Leon argue."

Perceptive for someone not yet six.

"He still thinks you should let him use Highwind to go fight."

"Then he's still an asshole with no sense." Damn. He wasn't supposed to swear in front of her. He always forgot. Further proof he was crap at this.

Yuffie stared relentlessly. "I'm glad you won't let him." She awkwardly hugged Cid's head before dashing way.

He gazed after her, thoroughly bemused. Yuffie rarely touched anyone anymore; not since her father's shielding arms dissolved around her as the Heartless took his heart instead of hers.

In ten years time, what would she be like? What would Leon be like? What would any of them be like?

Fucked if I know.

Cid bent his head and went back to hammering nails. He knew how to do that right, at least.

Fin.