Another old oneshot. I'm still fond enough of this one, despite its problems, that I'm leaving it up.
Great Plains of Galbadia
Ole mama Kinneas always used to say that a challenge was just an opportunity in disguise.
Irvine never tired of hearing it when he was a kid, not a once. Many a fond memory nestles itself deep in his mind – images of Ma cooking up a batch of her famous apple and rhubarb tarts, all steaming juice and feathery pastry. She reminded Irvine of one of them big factory machines, chugging along all dependable-like, yet there was a certain grace to Ma Kinneas' stride in that kitchen that was impossible to ignore.
She'd talk as she worked, never receiving an answer, never requiring one. It was something of a tradition between her and her young'un, begun early on a Saturday morn and finishing sometime in the afternoon, as she laid the pies out to cool. And once the final sweet, steaming treat had found a home on the windowsill, she'd turn to Irvine, dust her hands off, and say the line.
"Remember, Irvy," she'd say in her thick, rustic twang, a twinkle in her eye. "Life's fulla challenges. If ya let 'em get to ya, they'll break ya. Look on 'em as an opportunity, an' the reward's'll be great."
He still remembers those words to this day. Especially on this day, 's matter of fact.
She weren't never a particularly attractive woman, not in terms of what catches Irvine's eye. But in the photo album of his mind, she's as beautiful as Hyne Herself; afternoon light shafts through the kitchen window and catches her face, caressing her weather-beaten brow with a tenderness unmatched by even the most ardent lover. It's almost obscene in its beauty.
"Irvine?"
A shopping trip. A meaningless godsdamned shopping trip. Take her twenty minutes to walk the track from their cottage to the shop outside Deling City, and twenty minutes back. She'd most likely spend said trip skipping every second step, or singing in her woefully untutored but stunningly pretty contralto. And she'd bring him sweet things when she returned, or perhaps a few caps for his popgun, or perhaps a new moviebook …
"Irvine."
They found her body deep within the city itself. Irvine would later learn (he was deemed to young to be told the truth, at the time – after all, what four-year-old wants to hear such a thing?) that such crimes were common in Deling City – the wide spaces plus abundance of people makes for perfect vehicular kidnapping territory. He would also learn from the coroner's report that she had been gagged, and that the gag had evidently been pulled roughly from behind – gouges were found in her cheeks, extending her mouth by almost a quarter of an inch. She had been raped no less than six times.
And then they had eviscerated her.
"Irvine."
Her hand in his.
No small comfort, that. A painful grin splits the cowboy's face.
"Right here, dahlin'," he replies, false cheer in his tone. He doesn't turn to face her, though he can tell she wants him to, though he still believes there's no more beautiful a sight on Terra than that of her smiling face. But she won't be smiling now. He doesn't blame her. This peculiar brand of melancholy is most unlike him.
"Irvine, I can't keep doing this."
The Fear grips him now, grabbing a handful of his viscera and holding on with a grip of iron. He doesn't reply; he knows what's coming. He's also aware of the fact that she's well within her rights to be pissed off with him.
Still, doesn't stop the Fear.
"I know," he replies, the grin gone.
"You won't tell me her name. You won't tell me stories about her, though I'm sure you've got lots. Anything at all about her, or about your Da, or about anyone else might be related to you … about you. You're a mystery to me, Irvine."
"I know," he says. It's a pathetic reply, but it's the only one he's got.
Selphie takes her hand from his, drops her eyes. "Who are you, Irvy?" she whispers. "How long've we been married now?"
"Goin' on eight years," he replies, smiling crookedly. He'll never forget the day as long as he lives.
He still doesn't look at her.
"Yeah. Eight years. And you still won't let me in there." She jabs him in the head, sharply; he'd be a liar if he said it didn't hurt. "And you definitely won't let me in there." She jabs him in the chest. A meaningless gesture, he thinks; since when did a pulsating lump of muscle dictate the way a person thinks? Crappy romance novels got a lot to answer for.
He keeps this thought to himself, however.
He can feel Selphie tense beside him. She's furious he won't look at her, he can tell, but right now he can't quite bring himself to do anything but remember.
"I'm going back to the hotel," Selphie says, her tone unsettlingly devoid of emotion. She sounds chillingly like Quistis, another long-lost victim to the SeeD Machine. "Don't take too long here; we still have to get packed, and we need to be back at G-Garden by oh-nine-hundred. I'll see you later."
She turns and stalks off. He hears the car door slam, followed shortly by the sound of Selphie driving away. He raises his eyes at last, taking in the sight of the car speeding away down the empty highway, and wonders briefly how he's gonna get back. He shakes his head, laughing softly. It really don't matter all that much. He's in no particular hurry.
Irvine turns once more to face the small hillock. Such a small feature, way out here at the corner of No and Where. And to the rest of Galbadia, it means exactly jack shit. However … Irvine's sharp eyes can see the weatherbeaten remains of the old mound, long since smoothed over by wind and rain. It's almost beautiful, and the lack of a gravestone don't bother him none. He's sure his ole Ma would've said it were too morbid for her.
"Hey, Ma," he whispers softly, his hat in his hands. "Guess you'd be real proud o' me, huh?"
He snorts softly.
"So there's this girl I met, right. I loved her since I were a kid, since I lost you. Kept me sane in the orphanage, she did. And the memory of her kept me alive through my Cadet years. Taught me to run hard and shoot fast, to be the best there is at what I do. I owe everythin' I am to her."
He stops. His hair blows crazily in the wind, the dying sunlight glinting against it, giving it the appearance of liquid flame. His SeeD dress uniform is a strange choice of clothing out here, but he doesn't really care. It seems proper, somehow, though he's never been sure if Ma would've approved his choice to become a killer.
"An' then one day, right outta the blue, she comes back inter my life," he continues, still quiet. He longs for a cigarette, but can't quite bring himself to disrespect his Mama by lighting up here. "Only she don't recognize me. Not only that, but she don't know me at all. There's nothin' there once she hears me name, just … just that crazy happiness she's got when meetin' new friends."
He drops his eyes. "She started to remember, though. We hung out durin' the war, we fought together, we bled together, we healed together. And eventually we loved together. But it don't seem like enough anymore, ya know what I mean?"
He's got a feeling she does. Irvine's always had a way with words, and what someone might take as an insult is more often than not a way of telling them the things he can't bring himself to say. Selphie's love is no longer enough for him, no. He longs for freedom, but not from her – no, he longs for freedom within her. He wants to tell her his mother's name, and he wants to share his stories of her. He wants to tell her about his Da, and how he used to sit out the front of their small cottage every afternoon and play his jangling bluegrass songs on his battered old banjo.
He wants to tell her about how he learnt of his Ma's death, and how Da drank himself into an early grave six months later. He wants to tell her about his memories now, his memories as a six-year-old orphan who was slowly going insane. He wants to tell her how meeting her changed everything, how it felt to have a friend, and how it felt to lose her. He wants to tell her about growing up in Galbadia Garden, about the heavy, stifling halls and the horrible military discipline – and he wants to tell her how it was now primarily memories of her, her and not his mother, that not only kept him sane, but made him strive to become the best at what he did.
Yeah, he has a feeling Ma knows what he was talking about. The wind ain't quite so strong now; it curls around him, slipping sensually across his coat and through his hair, and he swears he can hear whisperings on the wind.
They sound like her.
They sound like agreement.
I miss you.
There are a lot of things he wants to tell Selphie. Most of all, however, he wants to tell her exactly what it meant to him when she came back into his life. But he can't. The walls he's built around him since Ma died have long since become impenetrable – and, as Squall could tell him, if you live long enough under a mask, eventually it becomes difficult to tell where mask ends and face begins. And even after the line blurs itself, it disappears completely, and leaves a brand new person.
Irvine smiles slightly, but there's no mirth there. Ask Squall? He still remembers the brief stint he did at Balamb Garden three years ago, and he remembers the night he came up to Squall's office, two glasses of whiskey in his hands and a hankering to chat with a friend on his mind.
He remembers the tinkling sound of the glass smashing as it fell from his lifeless fingers, as he stared at Squall, slumped across his desk. The coroner's report gave the approximate time of death as about five minutes before Irvine got there, and cause of death as sudden myocardial infarction. Stress from a job he'd never wanted, adulation and praise from people he'd never met, and a severely worsening drinking problem … Irvine hadn't needed any of that. He'd known from the second he laid eyes on his friend that he was looking at a corpse, and that Squall hadn't died peacefully.
And he hates Garden for it.
He hates their lies, their hypocrisy, their Hynedamned fucking morality.
Irvine shakes his head. I come out to Mama's grave, and look where it gets me, he muses. Shit, Ma, you don't mind, do ya? Long's I'm dwellin' on the past, it can't hurt to remember the others. They ain't far outta my way, after all.
So he closes his eyes, and allows a small smile to play across his features as he remembers Squall, cold and frightening when they'd met again after all those years apart, then slowly warming up as Rinoa found her way into his heart. Rinoa, bright, bubbly Rinoa, the happiest, sanest Sorceress he'd ever met. Where was she now? Was she even alive? No one knew. After Squall's death, she'd just kinda … vanished.
Zell, who lived at home now, looking after his terminally ill mother. Quistis, Headmistress and Military Commander of Balamb Garden, her eyes and voice so Hynedamned cold after so many years you might as well strike up a conversation with a statue.
And li'l Selphie, who he's pretty sure is starting to hate him.
"Yeah, you'd be real proud o' me," he says again, his eyes on the grave, a bitter laugh in his voice. "I couldn't save half my friends; one of 'em don't want to be saved. Hell, I cain't even save myself."
He places his hat back on his head. "Been real good talkin' to you, Ma," he says brokenly. "I'll see ya again next year."
He turns away from the grave, pausing only to light a cigarette. And then he begins to walk, his feet wending their long and lonely way back to Winhill, and he wonders briefly how long it's gonna take him. He doesn't have a weapon on him, so if he gets attacked on the way he'll more than likely end up as part of the food chain. The thought brings a wry smile to his face. Perhaps that wouldn't be so bad.
And all around him, the wind whispers.
And he feels safe.