Standard Disclaimers: It's not mine. None of it. The bank owns me until I pay them back for my so-called education. And no, you can't have my French books or my chemistry books, I need them both. This fic has been reposted because Fanfiction.net somehow convinced itself that it could never be more than one chapter.
Literary notes: This fic is inspired (and very heavily influenced) by Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, so if you notice any similarities, that's why. It also draws a lesser degree of influence from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. (It is not, however, a re-write of either one.) Both of them are fantastic books (especially if you like seriously disfunctional characters) despite the fact that you're likely to read one or both of them in school. Oh yeah, and both of them are copyright by whoever it is that now owns the copyrights. I don't own anything here either.
Historical notes: I have to look this stuff up because I never paid attention in history class! If you find any errors, email me please! (vivianelatour@aol.com) I am taking a creative liberty with the presence of women in the military. As far as I know, it did not happen during WWI, but I'm writing it in for philosophical reasons -- namely because it was discrimination. If you want to know where I got some of this information from, besides picking my little sister's brain, again, email me.
French notes: Most of the French -- which will be not very much -- I use should be relevant to the story in some way. I will translate everything except chapter titles, which are probably only going to be a single word anyway. Again, if you find any errors, email me. I'm not even remotely fluent by any stretch of the imagination, so I am going to make mistakes.
Other notes: This is alternate universe. I'm trying to keep as much as possible in spirit with the game, but I have made some changes, aside from the obvious ones in setting and character history. Some less important characters have been written out or left out, and a couple of minor romantic subtexts are completely absent. I also show some pairing biases (for once), not all of which are canon. No, I'm not telling what they are. Want a hint? Look at the rating information below. Also, thank you to the reviewers from the first time this was posted!
Review to your heart's content, but don't abuse the author.
This chapter is rated PG for repeated references to death and emotional trauma. No language, no violence, no perversion, non-yaoi, non-yuri. This chapter is basically just a character introduction; the real storyline will start in the next chapter.
No, I won't do this every chapter. Expect just a quick disclaimer and rating information on the next one.
Wasted Time, Wasted Lives
by Viviane Latour
Introduction: Perdu
They were lucky and luckless as they stumbled home from across a sea that was not so blue anymore to shores that were no longer so green, to a society that had left them behind. They returned home, and although the buildings were the same, the occupants were not. They tried to rebuild their fragmented lives only to discover that some pieces were missing and could never, ever be replaced.
He arrived home, sister in tow, just in time to bury their mother; shortly thereafter, consumption consumed his sister and he was forced to bury her as well. He figuratively buried his ever-absent father when he changed his name. He became sealed within himself so that not even his two nearest and oldest friends could reach him. A talk with one of them gave him direction; a letter to another friend and a quick note to a friend of his dead sister's and he was ready to depart.
She came home to an inheritance. She shed a few tears over her parents' demise, but not many. One did not need to see her take the tricolored flag off of her wall to know the land of her birth; the foreign melody of her voice revealed it quite well. "Coming or no," she told both her boyfriend and her best friend, "it is my home. I am going back." She saw her friend distance himself; not even her boyfriend's walk was the same. Had she changed as well?
He was broken. He would have been home earlier if it was not for that. He leaned on a cane, plagued by a permanent limp during the day and incessant nightmares by night. He heard them, his buddies, his partners-in-crime, give themselves up to the enemy night after terrible night. They had tormented younger students together, graduated together, enlisted together, and would have been captured together. He watched his best rival from childhood grow cold, but his girlfriend was still here, although they fought more now, screaming matches rather than petty squabbles, and the nightmares kept coming. He could go without sleep for three days.
The diamond ring weighed heavily upon her right ring finger but not her thoughts. They had been high school sweethearts, adored by everyone, the last of the adherents to a particular way of life. Their Southern aristocracies were slowly dying though they and their manors still remained. She had been a socialite before, and he had been a talented hunter. She stopped going to parties. He sold his guns. A letter from a relative of a now-dead friend of hers was all it took to convince them to abandon their old lives.
Small town life stifled him now. He had done so much, seen so much that he craved more! He needed people and noise, not the crickets at night and the cows during the day. A letter from a war acquaintance convinced him to pack his bags and promise his dear mother that he would come back one day to take her away with him. He turned in all the moonshiners before he left.
They were all lost.