Unmeant
By Karen Hart
Disclaimer: In no way do I own any part of the Xenosaga series, nor do I make any money from this or other fanfictions. I write these stories for love of the game(s), nothing more.
Some things were never meant to be.
Like a future.
It was cold in there, just outside the infirmary door, though Juli did nothing to alleviate the chill. She merely sat down, head bowed against clasped hands, shivering. Or perhaps that quaking had nothing to do with the cold. In between convulsions she alternated between telling herself that this wasn't supposed to happen—didn't happen, no, it couldn't've—and reliving the last hour. God, to turn back time…
An hour ago. She stood in front of a glass partition, Dmitri Yuriev on her left, Lieutenant General Helmer—she'd never learned his first name, shame on her—on her right. Beyond the glass sat row upon row of encephalon dive tubes, some six hundred and sixty, most filled with near identical "children". Some few feet away from them was a single uncovered unit that looked for all the world like a standard examination table, on which her own daughter lied, utterly inert.
"Once again, your target destination is the same beach from the last encephalon dive. When you reach that point, you are to neutralize and destroy the U-DO waves located there, then dive out afterwards." She tried her best to avoid referring to her daughter as a subject as she gave the URTVs their orders. "Good luck."
"Luck, hm?" a voice like gravel purred from her left. She nodded, looking up at the blonde man.
"It seemed like a good idea."
She looked up at this point, at the door, the walls, anything that could be a distraction. She didn't particularly want to remember this part—but she did, and she had and she would, just keep cycling through it until she either snapped or went numb.
It'd started with a twitch. She'd been watching Sakura the whole time, just like every time before, hoping for a reaction. Juli started, took a step closer to the glass and lifted a hand to press against the cool surface. Another twitch. Not her imagination. A reaction. Success? She didn't dare blink.
Another twitch, small hands starting to move in spasms. Not right, she thought, in sudden alarm. "Sakura!" As though the girl could hear her. The hands moved upwards, then, settled at a pale throat. Squeezed then, until the knuckles turned sickly white and the eyes bulged in an unresponsive face that turned colors Juli didn't want to contemplate.
Red lights flashed as emergency klaxons started sounding. More squeezing. People shouted above the din, confused queries flying about the room. The dive units opened then, largely unnoticed, though not every child exited the tubes, some lost forever. A door flew open on the other side of the glass, admitted a group of white-garbed medics. They raced across the room to the bed. Why hadn't they placed it near the door?
But it was too late, anyway.
Dear god, she thought with a snarl, make it stop. Please. She rubbed her eyes 'til they were dry and red, and scowled at the air in front of her. Sakura wasn't gone. Wasn't. It hadn't been long enough. They could bring back suffocation victims. Happened all the time. It did, really. A pair of hands rested on her shoulders then, and she looked up at a face peering down at her. Light blue eyes peered down at her, the whites as red as her own. When had her husband acquired so many lines? "Joachim." She said the name flatly, though her voice cracked at the end.
He sat down next to her. "I heard," he said a moment later. Just that. Then: "Is she…?" He wasn't normally this inarticulate.
She looked down and shrugged, then nodded. "Probably." At least her voice didn't break that time.
"I see." Joachim was silent for a moment. Longer than that, really. "Li—" The nickname died on his lips. "Juli." She looked up at him and stared as he took her by the shoulders again. "Juli, it's not over. We can bring her back." His voice was hushed, hardly more than a whisper and raspy from a throat gone raw with grief. "It's not—no, look at me, Juli. Look at me. That girl we've been working on, we could bring her back in her. Just have to gather the data, just get everything—all of it inside. We can do this, Juli! We can!"
She continued staring at him, first in confusion, then in horror, and finally in outright fury. Who did he think he was? No, who was he? And what in hell was he thinking? Damned coward couldn't face the truth. She brushed his hands off of her and stood up. "I wish I'd noticed it before. You're flat out crazy. Our daughter is dead, Joachim, dead, do you hear me?…And here you are talking about bringing her back inside a soulless doll!" It was enough to make her sick. Her face contorted into a snarl, and she said as much. His eyes had gone wide in shock.
"Juli—"
"Dead, Joachim." It was the last meaningful thing she ever said to him.
Some things were never meant to last.
Like a family.