I don't know if everyone's going to like this fic, as it's quite sad compared to my other works.

Ever wonder what's going through Jaffar's head after he has left Nino? Well, I did, and the result was this story. I also did not name either Jaffar or Nino in the story except for a few rare instances, so I hope it doesn't confuse you guys too much. Hope you like it...

Note: There are a few references to events I wrote in my story Two Angels in this fic. It's not necessary to read that story beforehand, but if you haven't read it, I'm just letting you know.

I also had to remove the song lyrics because all of a sudden, songfics aren't allowed. What the hell?

The path stretched endlessly forward, endlessly back. There was nobody in the surrounding field for miles, no sound save for the constant rain hitting the ground and the noise of his feet slowly sloshing through the muddy road. He was completely and utterly alone.

The rain soaked his dark-red hair, his face, his body, his clothes. He didn't care. His legs burned with exhaustion, begging to stop moving. He didn't care. There was no destination in his mind, nowhere he was trying to reach. He didn't care. He just kept walking. Slowly, painfully, but he was moving nonetheless.

But she wasn't there with him. That he did care about.

He could see her; he could see her face, see those shining, clear baby-blue eyes, see that radiant smile that had once filled him with so much warmth and happiness. He could hear her; he could hear her sweet, melodious voice, hear her whispering "I love you" in his ear. He could feel her; he could feel her messy bright-green hair entwined between his fingers, feel her slender, light form pressed tight against his body. But those were only memories.

Her face was burned inerasably into his mind, but the only real, concrete evidence of her appearance that remained with him was the pendant she had given to him. The proof of her love for him rested on his forearm, having been there for what seemed like ages. And inside the pendant, surrounded by her family, was a picture of her. She had only been a toddler when it was created, but even in the picture of her two-year-old face he could see the exact features of the young woman he loved.

Whenever he looked at the picture, all of his memories would come rushing back. Meeting her for the first time, saving her in the Bern prince's manse, recognizing the love he had for her, telling her his feelings, marrying her, having twin sons with her. Everything. And when that happened, he would inevitably start crying, no matter how hard he tried to stave his tears off. He had only cried once before in his life before he had left her, but without her it seemed as though his tears had no end.

The pendant wrapped around his forearm only brought him pain, but he could not bring himself to get rid of it, could not bring himself to throw away the only concrete memory of her that he had left.

Why had he ever left her?

She had made the world more lively to him, more colorful. She had been a beacon of warmth and happiness, her sunny, serene personality pervading through him whenever she was nearby. As long as she was by his side, the world seemed bright, happy. Without her, the world was dark, lifeless. The falling rain made everything around him appear dull, but even if the sky had been cloudless, the surrounding field would have been completely gray to him.

There were no words to describe how strongly he longed for that brightness, for that color to return to his eyes. But without her there was no source of joy, no source of liveliness that would color the world before him. Without her, his world was dead.

She was like the sun to him. She brightened everything around her with her presence; the sight of her smile warmed his insides. Her love for him was the reason for everything happy that had happened in his life, the reason he was no longer a cold, lifeless machine as he had been when he was an assassin. When he was away from her, he would revert to that state, speaking little, merely doing what his job required him to. But when he was away from her, he could always comfort himself with the fact that, like the sunrise, she would always return to him, always be waiting for him when he returned to the home they shared, ready to brighten his life once again.

Now there were no more sunrises.

She was the sun, the source of the light and warmth that gave him the energy to go on. And just as with any other living being, without his sun he could not live.

He didn't know how long he had been without her; he had lost track of the days and months long ago. All he knew was that he wanted to return to her side. The desire consumed him, increasing the exhaustion in his limbs. Every day, he would feel that same pain, that same weariness that told him he had to stop walking, that he had to lie down and rest. But until nightfall, he could not stop. It was the punishment he had made for himself for breaking his promise to remain with her.

He hated it. He hated having left her, hated walking every single day without end, hated everything in the world except for her and their twin sons, the product of their union. In Rei and Lugh he could still see her; they had inherited none of his features and instead received all of hers. Messy bright-green hair; shining, clear baby-blue eyes; radiant smiles that seemed to brighten everything around them. They might have been exact replicas of their mother had they been female. But in a way, he was glad that there was at least one difference between her and their children. She was irreplaceable, unlike anyone else in the world. He loved Rei and Lugh, but that love was nowhere near what he felt for her.

Several months after Rei and Lugh had been born, they had had a picture made of their family, a picture that had hung in the bedroom he had shared with her before he had left. The dichotomy between him and the rest of his family in the picture had always been startling to him; while she, Rei, and Lugh all radiated light in their bright smiles, he was their opposite, the darkness. He was smiling in the picture, but his presence, his darkness simply didn't fit with the light pouring out of her and their sons.

It had never bothered him much while they were together. He was the darkness, she was the light, and they balanced each other in a perfect union. But alone, he lived in the dark and only in the dark.

There was no light for him anymore. There was only the darkness and he hated it.

-

But one day, after countless weeks and months, even years, he decided that enough was enough. He had left for her safety, but the rumors of his presence in the town he had lived in had to have dissipated after he had been away for so long. He decided that he was going to go back to her. He was going to experience that long-overdue sunrise.

Their house had been empty.

"It was so dreadfully sad, what happened to that girl," the woman in the next house over told him, wringing her hands together nervously. "She was married and had twin boys, just about the happiest life a girl could have. But then, one day, her husband just got up and left. Nobody in the town ever figured out why. I think she knew, but she never told anyone." She looked over at the house then, sighing sadly. "Saint Elimine, she was so heartbroken."

"But what happened to her?" he asked, deciding it was a good thing that the woman had not recognized him.

The woman looked at the ground then, shaking her head. "We all tried everything we could to make her feel better." The woman looked up again, directly into his eyes, before sighing sadly once more. "But she was just so in love with her husband that she couldn't let him go. And, well...eventually she said to herself, 'You know what? I'm going to find him. I don't care how long it takes; I love him and he's not going to get away.' Then she just packed up and left, just like her husband."

He tried to restrain it, had told himself before that he couldn't show such emotions in front of anyone besides her. But there, in front of the woman, tears started streaming down his face.

Because he knew that his last chance to experience that sunrise had slipped away and there was no getting it back.

"B-but...sh-she had children," he choked out through his tears. "W-what happened t-to th-them?"

The woman started to cry then herself, the sight of his tears causing her own to spring forth. She pressed her forehead into her hands, trying to stop them. When she had finally calmed down enough to speak, she explained, "She...sh-she s-sent them t-to the l-local orphanage. She told them—" she had to pause then, once again pressing her forehead into her hands to stop her tears, "—Sh-she told them...that sh-she w-would come b-back for th-them...w-when she had f-found him...oh, Saint Elimine..."

No longer able to restrain herself, the woman dashed back into her house then, sobbing all the while.

And wiping his own face, he set off for the orphanage without the slightest hesitation.

"Is it really you?" the caretaker of the orphanage asked him when he arrived there. The caretaker was Lucius, the monk that had fought alongside him during their battles against Nergal.

"Rei and Lugh," were the only words he had said in response, his voice already breaking. "Are they here?"

Lucius's head fell then, his long blond hair obscuring his face. "They...they are here." He shook his head, looking back up at him before he could dash off to his sons. "You can see them, but...you...you cannot let them know who you are. I'm...I'm so sorry."

"What?" he demanded, rage taking place of the sadness that had initially been present. "Why not?"

The monk looked into the room behind him, where the children of the orphanage were. His expression was utterly helpless. "When...when she brought them here, she promised them that...that once she found you she would come right back." He shook his head again sadly. "If...if they know that you are their father...they'll think their mother has returned as well. I'm so sorry..."

He took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, attempting to calm himself. "I...I understand," he said. "Please...let me see them."

Nodding somberly, Lucius led him into the other room.

There were at least ten children there, but he picked out his sons instantly. Lugh was playing with a ball, throwing it around a circle of other children. Rei, on the other hand, was sitting in the corner of the room, sulking about something.

When he and Lucius walked in, however, Rei looked up, and upon seeing an unfamiliar person in the orphanage, the green-haired boy walked over to them slowly.

Rei tugged on Lucius's white robe. "Father Lucius, who's this?" he asked curiously.

He looked at the monk and saw that the blond-haired man had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, apparently trying his hardest not to burst into tears. "He's...he's an old friend of mine," he stated after a few moments.

"Oh," Rei replied innocently, completely missing Lucius's pained expression. "Hey mister, what's your name?"

He took a deep breath. "Jaffar."

"Jaffar?" A smile appeared on Rei's face. "That's what Mommy said Daddy's name was!" But after a few moments, the smile disappeared. "But...she's not here... And you don't look anything like me or Lugh. She must have been talking about someone else."

Those were the last words he would ever hear from either of his sons.

-

She had been the only one who understood him, the only one who had cared about him. Everyone else he had ever known had either been afraid to approach him or known him well enough to realize speaking with him was pointless. But she had wanted to stay with him, had wanted him to fall in love with her. He had often wondered whether she had known her presence was changing him while they were traveling with Eliwood's battalion, but in the end he had decided it didn't really matter. The only thing that did matter was that he loved her, and she loved him. And because of that, he had to find her again.

After visiting the orphanage, the objective of his journey had changed. At first he had traveled simply to distance himself from her and to keep her safe from the attacks of the bounty hunters that were always after him. Now, however, he traveled the continent trying to find her, just as she traveled the continent trying to find him.

He would find her.

His sun would rise again.

But there were times when even that hope of finding her again faded, times when he felt that he simply could not go on. And in those deepest pits of despair, there was always one question, the same one he had been asking himself for so long.

Why did he ever leave her?

He would pick himself up then, reminding himself that whatever his reasons had been, he had left her and there was nothing he could do to change it. He couldn't change it, but he could rectify it. He would find her and fix his mistake. That was his only reason to go on living.

His sun would rise again. He would make sure of it.

Was she nearby? Was she miles away? He had no way of knowing.

Did she know where he was? Was she searching blindly? He had no way of knowing that either.

Did she still live? He had no way of knowing, but some deep part of his heart told him that she had to be alive. His sun still had to be there, somewhere.

He would find her.

But even then, he found himself praying. Not to any god or goddess, but to his angel, his sun. The prayer sounded familiar when he uttered it; he knew he had spoken the words before, a long time ago in some faraway land...

Nino...you must live. You are...worthy of living...

Please don't kill me.

Please review,
-TheOneAndOnlyT