Mana Khemia: Legacy

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: This chapter contains character death. If you don't like, don't read. I didn't want to do it either, but it was necessary for this story, as you'll see in a minute. I also paired off everyone in the workshop, so I hope you don't mind.

For this story, all endings, EXCEPT the Muppy ending and the Nikki ending are true, and with a lot less traveling involved in the Pamela ending. Just replace Vayne with Flay in the Nikki ending, and you can consider that true as well.

We don't talk about the Muppy ending.

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PROLOGUE

The day was too sunny for this sort of thing. Warm sunshine bathed the field that they were standing in, making him feel uncomfortably hot in his black clothes. He bore the heat, though. It didn't matter. Nothing much really mattered at this point. He stood there and bore the heat and the words and the tears for her, because he knew that she would want it to be sunny, and she wouldn't want them to be sad.

He hoped she would forgive them for the last part.

Vayne sighed, wrapping an arm tightly around each of the two six-year-olds standing to either side of him. To his right, Vivianne sobbed heartbreakingly into his coat, the Mana of Wind hovering solemnly over her shoulder. To his left, Adelind, always more controlled than her sister, huddled into his hold, one arm tightly around her doll. He heard her sniffle, as if she was fighting back tears. Behind him, Nikki was crying again.

He felt his throat tighten up and tears come to his eyes. He had been holding them back for most of the day. He had cried too much in the days following her death. He thought he had finally gotten himself into some semblance of control. And maybe he did, because Nikki and the twins managed to only rattle him.

It was Roxis, Roxis of all people, coming forward with a white rose in his hand and placing it on the headstone that they had all synthesized together—Roxis dropping to one knee to place the flower there and removing his glasses to cover his eyes as he spoke that nearly unseated him all over again.

Oddly enough, he hadn't cried much on the morning that he found her.

It was nine years after their graduation from the Academy, seven years after their wedding, six years after their children were born—children that Vayne had protested in the beginning but that she had insisted on, saying that if she could handle fighting, then she could handle this. Her health had started to take a turn for the worst shortly after the twins were born, but she hadn't minded. She didn't even blame them for it. All she did was worry about how she wasn't able to help care for them as much as she wanted to, and how Vayne had to take care of her and the twins at the same time and how he was holding up.

He had put on a smile for her then, and he continued to put on a smile for her for most of those years, even when he had to wake up in the middle of the night because Vivi wanted her diaper changed and Addy wanted another bottle. Even when he was picking empty cans of finger paint out of his cauldron and painstakingly rubbing crayon out of his recipe books.

Pamela had, surprisingly, been a great help in those years.

The last year though, had been particularly horrible for all of them. He had stayed up all night synthesizing remedies as the Mana of Wind monitored her on and off fever, examining her in the morning and tossing and turning in the bed in the master bedroom that she hadn't slept in in three years, because he knew that she was running out of time. Her sickbed was fast becoming her deathbed.

If Vivi and Addy hadn't started school, and weren't gone for most of the day so he could focus on her, he didn't know how he could have coped.

That morning, when he walked into her bedroom with another remedy in one hand and a smile on his face that was slowly growing more and more forced, hadn't come as a surprise. It had been painful, but he found that he wasn't surprised at all. He remembered walking up to her bed, the sunlight shining on her face and reflecting off the vase that held the flowers Vivi and Addy had picked for her. He stared at her for a long while, and somehow, even without checking, he knew.

He remembered kneeling at her bedside, the remedy forgotten on the ground as he held her hand between his, his thumb brushing softly over her knuckles as he stared at her face. He remembered kneeling there for hours, remembered thinking that finally, after the fever and the pain of the last year, finally, she looked like she was at peace. And he knelt there, and knelt there, and knelt there, until Vivi poked her head into the room and walked up to him, with Addy following cautiously behind her, and Vivi had asked him what was wrong with Mommy.

He remembered letting go of her hand to hold both girls close to him and tell them that Mommy had gone to sleep and wasn't going to wake up anymore, and that she was in the same place as Sulpher, and that he was always going to be there for them and take care of them. And he held them and let them cry. Then, he stood up, taking a twin's hand in each of his, and led them from the room, closing the door behind him and calling the others immediately after that.

He didn't cry until he was alone in bed that night, and Vivi and Addy had finally tired themselves out and were in their room.

Flay and Nikki had been the first to arrive, coming in after two days. By that time, he was a wreck. Surprisingly, Flay hadn't said anything to him, instead closing the door behind himself and leaning against the wall with his arms folded as Nikki ran and threw her arms around him, sobbing into his shirt. He held her, and he cried again, vaguely hearing Nikki explain about how they would have come sooner, but they needed to settle the kids with one of Nikki's friends, all except for Siri, of course, who would need to be chained to the house wall to leave behind, and did he need anything?

Need anything? He needed her back. He had wished and wished until he couldn't wish anymore, hoping for the first time in nine years that some spark of his Mana powers remained, just enough to bring her back. But nothing happened.

He didn't say this, but he had a feeling Nikki knew as she pulled away from him, looking him in the eye. And then she wiped her eyes and stood up, saying something about cooking lunch for the girls and putting the house back in order.

Only when Nikki was gone and the door was shut behind her did Flay step forward and put a hand on his shoulder. Vayne remembered looking up at Flay and seeing, surprisingly, that there were dark circles under his eyes and that his eyes seemed strangely red, although the idea of Flay crying seemed so absurd that even then, he couldn't imagine it. Flay had leaned over and tightened his grip on Vayne's shoulder, saying that it was okay to be sad and that they were all sad, but Vivi and Addy didn't need a wreck. They needed their father.

And then he had walked out of the room to find his eldest child and do something more Flay-like.

Vayne had watched him leave and waited a few moments before standing up, wiping his eyes and going to find his own children to reassure them once again that everything would be alright.

Roxis and Anna had arrived just a day after the other two, and although it would have been completely out of character for either of them to open up and greet him the way Nikki had, Anna had given him a small hug and a pat on the shoulder, before turning around and putting the house back in complete spotless order in a matter of two hours. Roxis had stood in front of him and stared at him for the longest time, before coming forward and promising, grudgingly, that if Vayne or the twins needed or wanted anything from him in the next month, he would grant it without referring to their ongoing rivalry.

From Roxis? It might as well have been a hug and a declaration of undying friendship.

They had buried her as soon as everyone was around, on a sunny day. And they all stood there now, the two couples with each other, Vayne with his daughters, Pamela alone. They stayed there until there was nothing left to be said, until everything had been done and taken care of. And one by one, they withdrew.

Vayne watched as Siri pried Vivi away from his side, saying that she knew just how to cheer her up and leading the older of the twins away. Siri had tried to pull Addy away as well, but the other twin shook her head, saying that she didn't want to go, and after a while, Siri had given up. Vayne watched his daughter and Flay's walking behind the rest of the group, the Mana of Wind following behind them.

The Mana had offered to pact with Vivi shortly after the death, and Vivi had accepted. Only six and already bound to a Mana, Vivi's future as an alchemist was secure. As if the last name Aurelius wouldn't be enough to get her through the doors of Al-Revis. He watched Vivi, tightening his hold on Addy.

Nine years ago, he told Isolde that he was never going to wish to disappear again, no matter how hard life became. He had kept his word then, even though he had nearly broken it after her death. He had stopped himself, because he knew that even if he wanted to, he couldn't disappear. He had to live for Vivi and Addy, to raise them in a way that would make her proud.

He wouldn't leave them alone.

He wondered for the first time if that was why she had been so insistent to have them, even knowing the adverse effects that childbirth would have on her health.

Because even though she was gone, every time he looked at one of the girls, he saw her. Standing there, smiling, alive, healthy, and whole.

He sat in the grass in front of her grave, Addy huddled up next to him. And the two of them stayed for a full hour after everyone else had left, just sitting there, staring at the name on the headstone.

Jessica Philomele-Aurelius.

That night, a few hours after he had put Vivi and Addy to bed and tucked them in, Vayne lay in his own bed and stared at the ceiling. The house was quiet. Everyone in it was asleep, except for Pamela, who was probably out and about scaring the town's residents or something. He sat there and thought about Jess. He smiled in spite of himself as he remembered how they met in his freshman year, swallowed and steeled himself against a fresh wave of pain as he remembered her slowly wasting away in front of him.

She would want him to remember her the way she had been. Remember her at graduation, remember her on their wedding day, remember what it was like to kiss her, to hold her…

It was times like this when it hurt so much he almost couldn't breathe.

The door to his bedroom creaked open. Vayne sat up, turning towards the door. Addy stood in the doorway, her silver hair falling around her in messy waves and her green eyes glittering with tears. She had one hand around her doll—a little blond doll that Jess had synthesized for her when she was three years old and Jess was feeling well enough to take a trip to the nearest Athenor with him, and the other on the door.

He tried to smile softly at her, pushing the blanket off himself.

"Can't sleep?" he asked, keeping his voice down so that he wouldn't wake the others.

Addy shook her head, walking over to the bed and lying down beside him. He placed an arm around her, looking into her face. "…I miss Mommy," she said, quietly, her voice cracking.

Vayne felt the knot in his throat tighten. He took in a rattling breath, his hand moving up and resting on her cheek. "I know," he said. "I miss her too."

Silence. Then Addy inched closer to him. He pulled her close with one hand, pulling the blanket back over them with the other. Addy didn't cry. She just whimpered once as he held her close, breathing in the smell of her hair and reminding himself that this child, this being that he and Jess had made together, this little girl needed him. And he needed her. He needed both of them to make it through this.

Addy stilled in his arms, and for a few moments, Vayne thought she had finally fallen asleep.

"Daddy…"

Her voice was soft, so soft that he wouldn't' have heard her if it wasn't so quiet. She looked up at him, her green eyes determined and shining in the moonlight.

"We'll be alright, Daddy…" he heard her say. "You, me, and Vivi. We'll be alright."

"I know, Addy," he said softly, closing his eyes and holding her close. "I know…"

"…and even when Vivi leaves…just you and me. We'll be alright…"