Author's Note: Another FFIX fic… my muse for these must have kicked up into overdrive, I swear . A billion ideas, all waiting to be fleshed out! Anyways… here's the latest.

Disclaimer: Heh… we all wish, but wishes don't put food on the table. Well, only if you're a genie, which I am not. So no, I do not own FFIX or Squeenix.

Because of an Angel

"In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's."

– George Eliot, Silas Marner

Once Dagger asked me about Tantalus; why we were different from other bands of thieves, why we only stole from the undeserving nobles, why we kept our morals and refrained from harming others unless we had to. That was early in our adventure; I couldn't tell her then. Later on, after her mother died, she asked me again; my reply was the same, though this time it was because I just didn't know how to put it into words. Then, after regaining her voice, she said she understood a little, though she didn't know why. Even then I couldn't tell her. It was so hard for any of us to put into words.

In truth, we all used to be like the lowly street urchins. The drugs, the gambling, the women… it was all a daily part of life for me. I was five years old when I first had a drink; eight when I had my first joint and at ten my first hit of cocaine. And I was the 'light' one of our bunch. So many unhealthy relationships… so many unnamable women. I didn't know what a true family was, what true friends were. Even with those I called family I felt estranged. Our relationship was one of convienence and skill, nothing more. We wanted the same thing, and together were good enough to obtain it without getting caught. Nothing seemed to be able to stop the cycle.

Baku was in it the longest; his brother and father as well. As a general rule, the women in his family weren't allowed into the 'business'; even though they did the majority of the 'work' requiring 'feminine skills'. He 'adopted' me when I was a baby, finding me out in the streets where Kuja had probably left me to die. He is my father and my pillar of strength.

Blank is older then me by a year or two, though to most in Tantalus, I am the 'Big Brother'. He and I came into Baku's care at about the same time, and it was Blank who 'showed me the ropes' when I got old enough. Blank, he… hell, the man's my brother; he took care of me.

The same goes for Marcus and Cinna, though they came a few years after us. Marcus used to be part of a rival band, but defected to Tantalus after we wiped out his crew. Cinna was what we called a 'cook'; he grew and 'cooked' the drugs for Baku, then the rest of us peddled them out in between scores.

Ruby is… well, she's Ruby. An ex-girlfriend, but our relationship was always one of conveinence. She was a local actor that taught us about the theater world so as to cultivate our 'legitimate' faces as a professional acting troupe.

Then there is all of the others, special to me in their own right. But even as much as we were a family, it was always a family teetering on the edge of destruction. You do not want to be on Bakus' bad side if a shipment doesn't come through… he threw me out a window once, and I had nothing to do with the arrangement at all! We were on the edge of collapse; even the Lindblum police and Regeant Cid, Bakus' best friend, were suspicious. I don't think I have to tell you how many times I've had to hide evidence.

I left around the time I was eleven to find my true parents. In truth, I couldn't handle it anymore; I needed time to think. It didn't take long for me to come back; in fact, the day I did came back home (I was nearly thirteen by then) was the day Ariadne came. Bakus' brother had been killed by the security at some noble's manor when caught breaking in; the Police said it was self-defense, but that's bull-shit. Five against one, and they killed the man in self-defense? Yeah, and I'm a fuckin' chocobo.

His brother had a little girl with some hooker named Candy; the girl only about five when Baku took her in. At first, we didn't know what to do with her. She was too young to help us in any thefts and we didn't really want to put forth the effort to put her into school. It's sad, but true; back then we were the bad men. The kind of men Dagger thought of when she pictured 'thieves'.

It didn't take little Ariadne long to work her little self into our hearts, though. She was such a sweet, kind little girl that none of us could believe that someone like her could have a hooker and a druggie for parents. Once, when I was drunk and riding down a gysahl green high (you wouldn't believe what those things do to you when used by humans!) I got to watch her kindness first hand. At only five years old, she naievely asked if she could 'help us feel better'…

"Ziddy… Uncwal Baku said his head hurts… does yoos hurt twoo?"

"Like I got hit by a fuckin' airship; now go play outside," I had tried to shoo her away, wanting to just ride out what was left of my high before the hangover hit. And holy fuck, it was a hell of a hangover.

"Nyuu… I remembwer Uncwal Cinny gots some nummy potions! Dey help!" And with that, she ran off to get 'the potions', only to bring us all bad a carton of orange juice. She insisted it was the 'Magicwal Ninja jwuice' from her favorite T.V. show when we tried to tell her that orange juice did nothing.

She forced the orange juice on us any time we looked the least bit unhappy. No matter what kind of shitty day we'd just gone through, little Ari would always be there with a carton of orange juice in one hand a bottle of asprin in the other. She was our little angel.

So, unable to face our own fucked-up-edness, we sent little Ariadne to school. She deserved a better life then the one born to her, all of us could see that. We thought it was to late for us, that we would always be caught in this spiral of drugs, theivery, women, and filth. At thirteen I was already resigned to the fact that I would die on a street corner somewhere from either an overdose or getting caught in a theft.

Blank and I were out 'buying flowers' – pickpocketing – when we heard. I still remember Marcus' exact words…

"They've got her!" Marcus yelled, unrestrained, at us as he ran through the crowded streets of Lindblum in our direction. I lost sight of my target and rounded on the older man, utterly furious. Zidane Tribal does not miss his mark. Ever.

"What the fuck are you talkin' about, Marcus?" I glared at my brother, angry at missing my mark.

His eyes were wild, his face anxious, "Zidane, Blank… the Charon band! The Charon band… they took Ari!"

I felt like someone had rammed a knife through my gut. The 'Charon' were another group of thieves that had immigrated into Lindblum from Alexandria; needless to say, we didn't like outsiders on our turf. We had been at odds for years, and in the past few it had been getting worse and worse. And now they had Ariadne.

The Charon weren't well known for leniency.

At first, they demanded a ransom. We paid it. Then they demanded drugs. We gave them that. Ariadne still wouldn't be returned to us. No one in Tantalus slept, none of us knew what to do. Every morning we were out on the streets, scrounging up and all information we could. No one could stand to be in the hideout; every time we went in there, the ghostly memories of a cute little girl and her magical ninja juice would plague us. It even got to the point that the police – our number one enemy – and Cid got involved. Still, we couldn't find her.

After a week, the Charon contacted us. They said that since the little girl kept screaming for us – and since we had paid so handsomely for her – that we could take her home. Baku and I were to go, but the Charon were morons if they thought that the others wouldn't be close by.

Their hideout was on the outskirts of Lindblum, a little east of the main gates. A small wonder we hadn't found it; their main hideout was outside the walls. But we went, anxious to see Ari again and bring her home safe.

What we found was like it was scrapped out of the deepest pit of hell.

They were gone, having abandoned the place not even a few minutes before. And it was in the far back of the building's basement that we found her.

You wouldn't even put an animal through what she had been.

She didn't look like our Ari anymore. Those bastards had done her over so many times that the cute, shy little girl we all knew and loved was a heaping wreck of bruised flesh and broken bone. She was shackled to a bed, bleeding from every orifice, every cut, every slice those sick fucks had done to her. Not even us at Tantalus on our worst day did this to another living being.

But through it all, she was still breathing. We rushed to Ariadne's side, telling her to hold on, screaming for the others to get in here, doing anything we could to make the goddamn bleeding stop. But we knew. Oh, we knew Ariadne wouldn't last. It was as if she had held out this long just to say goodbye.

I held her, bawling my fuckin' eyes out. She was only a little girl; the day we found her was her sixth birthday, for Christ's fuckin' sake! What they had done to her… how she had suffered…

Yet even there, in my arms – even in the end – she smiled at me. Smiled and held onto me, content with just being able to see us again. We didn't understand what she saw in us, even now. Such a little sweet, innocent little girl that – even in her last moments – all she wanted was to make sure we were okay.

Her last words tore me apart… "It's okay; I can… go be wiff mummy and daddy now, Ziddy… so be a good widdle monkey and dwink yoo magicwal ninja jwuice, okies?" Still, in the end, worrying about us…

She died in my arms, only six years old; in a filthy hovel instead of the rich palace surrounded by great-grandkids like she deserved.

It was then everyone should have realized I wasn't from this planet; I lost it. The first time I Tranced was then, though we didn't know that's what it was at the time. I tore the whole fuckin' building apart, tracking down every last one of those sick fucks and tearing them apart. That was the only time in my life that I deserved the title Garland had given me; 'Angel of Death'. By the end of the day, the Charon were a black smudge in Lindblums' history.

After that, we couldn't go on as we were. Ariadne believed in us, loved us, and we couldn't – wouldn't – let her memory die. After that we became the group that Dagger knows us as, proud to carry the name Tantalus. Thieves we may be, but we became the kind of thieves Ariadne saw.

It's sad to say it, but it took the death of a six year old child to make us realize what screw-ups we were.

Then when I saw her for the first time, up on that walkway, I couldn't believe me eyes. She had that same inquisitive gleam in her eye, that same innocence of the world and all it's horrors. At first, when looking at Garnet, I thought I was looking Ariadne again.

It was from that moment, as cheesy as it sounds, that I resolved to protect Garnet.

And now here I am; our journey is over, Kuja and Garland are dead. I returned to Alexandria – to Dagger – just as I promised I would. We are together now, and that's how we will stay, concievably for the rest of our lives.

All three of us.

"So… will you tell me what makes you all so different from the other thieves?" Dagger asked one day. We were huddled together in a garden inside the castle grounds, one overlooking the city. She had her back pressed against a tree and I was on the ground, an ear pressed against her stomach with a hand rubbing it as gently as I could. She was eight months along, and her baby-belly absolutely fascinated me. I would never say this to Daggers' face – she'd kill me – but damn, she'd gotten BIG! And inside her was our kid, a living thing we had both helped to create. The doctor had told us it would be a girl. It was wonderous, exciting… and a little frightening.

"Hmmm?" I looked up at her, the woman I love, with my usual evaiseness when it came to this question, "Why do you want to know? I know you asked Baku about it already…"

"I know, but I want to hear it from you," Dagger's eyes softened as she ran a hand through my hair.

I sighed and laid my head back down on her belly, listening for our little baby. When I felt a little nudge against my cheek, a content smile broke out across my face. I closed my eyes and just laid there, content. I had done some bad things in my life, seen some shit go down that no one of any age could understand. There were many things I wasn't proud of, but I'd be damned if anyone hurt anyone I love again.

After a few minutes of silence, Dagger stopped her stroking of my hair to ask again, "Zidane?"

"Dagger… Tantalus is different… we are different…" I sighed once more and opened my eyes. The sun was setting; it hit the city just right that I could have sworn I saw a little girl smiling up at me.

"We're different… because of an angel."

Dagger didn't argue with me when I said that our first child be given the name Ariadne.

Author's Note: I demand reviews! xD I love FFIX, even if this one is really depressing. ;.; I always thought that Tantalus wasn't a good as they seemed, or if they were that something had to happen to get them there. They ARE thieves, afterall.