WARNING: MAIN CHARACTER DEATH RIGHT OFF THE BAT! if this is a problem, go away now. no amout of complaining or flaming will be able to convince me to bring her back.

A/N: i know. another new fic. it happens. the customer service desk at work is still doing wierd stuff to me. and apparantly making me kind of dark an morbid too. this fic is going to be slow in coming out tho, cause i have to be in a certain mood to work on it. sorry if this bothers anyone--that's just how it is.

eerian

THE ONLY DISCLAIMER I'M PUTTING UP FOR THE ENTIRE FICTION: i've gotten tired of finding creative ways to say i don't own square-enix's stuff, so i'm only going to put this up once for the whole story.

I do not own Final Fantasy VII, any of the characters from that game. I do, however love them and felt the need to use them in this story that I am making no money from. It is strictly for my own amusement and the amusement of others via do own this story however. Do not copy or plagiarize my work or re-post it without my permission.

Something warm and wet drips from the tip of his nose. He knows that it is his blood, but he cannot acknowledge it in the face of what is covering his chest.

Her blood. Poured from her broken body as she died in his arms.

He is so broken he cannot even cry, though that will come later. All he can do is whisper her name like a prayer. Like it will bring her back if he says it enough.

"Selphie…"

It had been a freak accident that while they were servicing the Ragnarok that did it. A simple tune-up—something they'd done dozens of times together, before. While they were servicing the cockpit console, it exploded in their faces.

Irvine took a piece of shrapnel in the forehead. Selphie looked like she'd taken the whole damned console to the chest and stomach.

He had no memory of carrying her off the airship, but he must have. He'd been holding her, cradled to his chest, a few feet outside the infirmary when her heart stopped.

It had been his screaming that had brought Dr. Kadowaki into the hallway. The doctor had worked on the girl for hours, trying to piece enough of her body back together that a life spell would take. He'd been sitting in her office, head down, blood dripping from his forehead onto the floor when she came back in.

"I'm sorry, Irvine," Dr, Kadowaki told him. "I've tried everything I know. The damage was just too extensive to be repaired."

"I know," he said. And somehow, he had. He'd known when her heart stopped that Selphie was gone. "But you had to try."

"If there's anything I can do…" she offered.

"There's not. But thanks just the same." The words came out of Irvine's mouth mechanically, which was good; he couldn't have strung two words together otherwise.

Numbly, he left the infirmary. He didn't hear the doctor calling him to come back, didn't see the Garden in front of him.

All he could see or hear now was the explosion that had taken his Selphie from him.

Quistis found him hours later in the Secret Area of the Training Center. He was huddled in a corner, face and clothes caked with dried blood, holding a small gold ring. His tears had left very clear tracks through the blood on his face, making him look like some kind of macabre harlequin.

"Irvine?"

He didn't look up from the ring as he replied. "I was gonna propose to her today, Quisty."

She covered her mouth with one hand to hold back her own sob at his words. Tears welled up in her eyes. She'd known the two were close, and this added pain was making her heart break.

"I wanted to do it sooner," he continued, "But I was waitin' on the damn ring to get here."

Irvine looked up at her with the most anguished eyes she'd ever seen on a living being. "I didn't even get to tell her I loved her before…" The words caught in his throat as his body was wracked by more sobs.

For once, Quistis didn't know what to say. She couldn't find the words to comfort the cowboy when she was hurting so much over Selphie's death too. Instead of offering the kind of hollow comfort or "I'm sorries" that others were giving her, she knelt next to Irvine and pulled him into her arms. Finally, she let the tears she'd been holding back during her search for him come out.

Someone had once told her that grief shared is grief halved.