Summary: It takes more than time for hurts to heal.

A/N: 30 minutes. I was feeling for some drama, one sleepless night. Thanks to all who fav'd Cuchi-Cuchi-Coo! There's a poll about what story I should put up next, on my profile. Drop by and tell me what you think about the ideas. My ideas and official A/N on this piece are also written on my profile in the section for this story.

Papa Can't Preach

The sun that isn't there isn't not shining, so he feels it's safe to call it a sunny day. Maybe it'll even be a good one.

A good day is when he finds out that he hasn't stumbled into international crisis half-blind and with his arms crossed and good leg cramping, partaken in a completely non-verbal meeting with his son and come out feeling like a complete jerk and victim at the same time, or lost the matching sock somewhere between the journey from the bathroom to his bed.

Laguna realizes that he may have some strange standards for what constitutes a good day, certainly he's not so foolish as to believe otherwise, but he feels he's entitled to some of it. Or, at least he hopes he is.

But looking into the eyes of his son, sharper and far bluer than they had seemed during their last meeting a couple days ago (where he tried to not retreat like a complete coward while thanking Cosmos for some of the missing issues), he thinks that maybe it has a great chance to become a bad one.

Maybe.

Just a little.

"I see you're having fun." Found my name familiar, didn't you? Lots of Squalls around here, where there's about 20 of us tops. Thought you could pretend and my memories wouldn't come back, right, and escape from whatever this is without bothering to warn me? Is what he can read shooting out of his eyes, in the lean on his left-foot, and the wrinkle of his scar.

Having learned his son's silent language after many, many attempts at communication and frequent lack thereof (and a bit of experience with Ward's condition) have left Laguna a complete and total appreciation for those who still don't understand it. It's sarcastic, bitter, and often pokes at everything everyone else keeps in their heads. In Squall's mind, however, his thoughts seem to have a bit more power, and if you bother looking closely, the thoughts you thought you could bury come hurtling out of their hiding places, as if commanded by their master, the Grandmaster of Bitter. All with some sharp commentary driven by a mind disillusioned with practically everything. Laguna's lived longer than Squall, and isn't half as much jaded as the boy who is less than half his age.

And in this world, everything seems a bit amplified, and looking at Squall, he can almost see the thoughts forming around him. Or maybe Laguna was projecting his thoughts onto him. He was never really sure with him.

"Ah-I thought, with everything and all you'd want some space-" Now, Laguna hadn't been trying to escape his temporary-amnesiac of a son, no matter how quickly he departed from the teen the moment he had determined his condition.

He hadn't.

It had been a quick retreat to gather his thoughts, and maybe earn some brownie points with a kid who seemed less capable, far less intimidating than his son with all his memories. Maybe save him, look like a hero...or at least seem like a respectable, reliable adult for at least a little while, and hope to Hyne that a little of it would cause some sort of a breakthrough in their relationship. Because nothing else was working.

It wasn't brainwashing or anything. Just a little much-needed, prayed-for, greatly-sought-after encouragement.

That you could abandon me again? It appears as it often does, gradually and delicately, draped around his leather-covered form like a veil of ice from his beloved Shiva. Laguna saw this one before, when he'd been invited to a little meeting between Elle and him, thinking that maybe everything could work out with all of them (not her of course) together again. "I thought you were all about sticking-together and friendship." He was summarily proved wrong, and a bit disturbed by how everything had gone wrong in the situation with Squall. How all the bad of the situation seemed to have centered on his life and affected him so much.

It was utterly unsettling to realize this, and sometimes made the snarling lion act that much more easier to accept.

"No," Laguna begins sheepishly, combing his hair with a hand and trying out a weak smile to diffuse the Ultima he swore was building up beneath them both, or maybe just his feet. He'd learned this maneuver in Esthar, behind his desk and looking at people whose black hearts would have brought the city he loved to its knees if not appeased. And, Hyne-be-damned, he had to use it on his son. "I was just…" Trying to make it better. Trying to do something, anything to make you stop doing this to yourself- to us.

See? He could do it too. Like father, and ever-raging son.

There's a pause, and the sound of Squall's leather gloves gripping onto the gunblade in his right hand as he tilts his head to swipe a rogue strand of hair off his face. He looked like her sometimes, when his thoughts took him elsewhere. And that gives him hope.

Is there anything else we could do? Anything to make this better?

And Squall turns away.

Maybe this wasn't going to be a good day.

And Laguna moves, slowly, marching in time to a quiet, personal dirge, as he follows the back of his son through the broken world and beyond. To the future.

But he wasn't going to give it up.