A/N: Hey c: Sorry this one took a while to get done/put up.. I got sick this weekend. It sucks. Makes it hard to concentrate. But i've got medicines~
Anyways~ This chapter is longer.. tu gusta? and I stopped it before anything steamy, so I can make you wait til next chapter. hur. I know you guys are not gonna gusta that one. heh :x
Enjoy!
~ Matty
The world had not been fine in many years. The last war had torn everything they knew apart. Fires burnt homes to the ground, and forests to ash. Blood stained the grass, clothes, skin, everything it could touch. Death marred the minds of children, and ripped their innocence out of their chests.
The youth were forced to fight, shipped off into the midst of the war, and few returned. Those that did were incapable of coping with the similarities between war and home. Most became rebels and bandits.
The bandits raped and murdered innocent women and children, often taking a few of their victims away from their homes, kidnapping them for 'amusement' on the road. They robbed graves, and disrespected the dead, even of their own ex-comrades with no hesitation. They grew in numbers from just soldiers to the dirty thieves and scum from the sewers that were looking for a reason to come crawling out.
They were becoming more and more violent as the authorities began to try and take them down, and with the increase in violence, things were getting reckless.
For a while it had been Lightning and a few of her allies who had chased the rebels back, slaughtering them carelssly as they had done to the innocent.
In some of the western hemisphere, the war lingered. And a few of the ally went over to fight, to put a permanent end to it.
Lightning herself, had volunteered to go across and fight, but she was forced to withdraw from the forces, for a more important duty. One that had been thrust into her hands, that she had tried to refuse, and back away from, but was unable to escape from.
Fang had pulled her aside from the group of them at dinner, and led her outside, away from the festivities. For a few minutes they'd just sat there, avoiding each other's gaze, looking round at the night sky, and the woods along the sides of the house.
"I need you to watch Vanille." She said, shrugging thick locks of brunette over her shoulder. "I'm going over to fight, and I want you to stick back here and take care of her."
"Excuse me?" Lightning snorted, shaking her head. "There is no way i'm going to sit back here, while the lot of you go to fight. It's stupid. Vanille can take care of herself, Vanille doesn't need a babysitter, Vanille-"
"Loves you." Fang snapped, narrowing her eyes, her lips curling into a snarl.
"She loves you too!"
"Exactly!" she yelled, her hands curled into fists at her sides. She spat at the ground and stomped it with her boot. "It's not fair to her to have to worry about the both of us. It's not fair that she could lose the two of us. She doesn't deserve that."
"Oh yeah, and why the hell should I be the one staying back?"
Fang had lost her temper at that point, and fisted the front of Lightning's shirt, growling low in her face. "If you're going to go around kissing her, holding her hand and spouting all that bullshit about caring about her-"
"It's not bullshit! And get your fucking hands off me." She responded, shoving her back. "I don't kid around. Not about a damn thing, especially her, so how dare you claim that I do!"
"Prove it then! If you care about her, stay back and take care of her, make sure she's ok! The war is done here, but it's not done there, and as far as some people see it, it's not even done here! You know more than anyone that those dirty sacks of shit won't hesitate to hurt anyone. If you leave her here, and she gets hurt, her blood is on your hands. I'm sure you've got enough of that, don't you Lightning?"
"Fuck you. You act like you know me when you hardly do, Fang. I put up with you because Vanille adores you. That's it. You can expect me to be civil, but don't expect me to put up with your bullshit when you act like this."
"You're so god damn selfish!" She shouted, glaring off to the side. "Will you please look at her and tell me you're fine with leaving? Look at her. But just one other thing. If you can look at her, and still be fine with leaving her behind, I want you to end it with her. I don't plan on letting you walk off and make her wait here for someone who might not come back to her."
"Who are you, her mother?"
"I might as well be. She's like my baby sister, thank you. I've taken care of her up til you came along. I'm still gonna look out for her even if she has someone else to do it. She doesn't deserve to be hurt. So look. I'm just trying to be proper here, and get you to understand just how damn important she is to me, and how she should be to you too, since you're saying you honestly feel those things for her. If she matters so much to you, stop being such a prude, and you'll know what i'm saying is logical, it's the right thing to do. I want you to stay back with her, so she's happy, and so she's safe. That's it. Someone has to keep her safe. I think that's a much more important job than going over there."
"Why can't you stay here then? Why don't you stay and i'll go?"
"Because! Because it's easier to let go of a close friend, then it is to watch someone you love just walk off, knowing they could die. I've left her plenty of times before. She can handle it one more time. She'll need you.. and it pisses me off to know that, but it's true."
Lightning frowned and looked back at the front door, crossing her arms over her chest, fiddling with her gloves. "I'll do it." She murmered, almost not wnating the other to hear. She wasn't even sure she did accept it. But she had heard.
"You will?" Even Fang sounded shocked at her words, and Lightning knew it was too late to take them back. "Good... now let's go back inside before Vanille thinks one of us has killed the other."
"Tch. Most of the time when we talk, she's close to being right in her thoughts." Lightning replied curtly, before she turned and headed back inside.
Fang had been the one to tell Vanille about their friends, and herself, leaving to fight. She was also the one to take the longest packing and hugging her goodbye.
Vanille had cried for hours after they left, her face buried in her pillows, or Lightning's lap when she sat by her to pat her back. She would lay her head against her legs and look up at her with red, puffy and watery eyes, and ask her hundreds of questions about fighting, about the dangers, and Lightning lied about most of it. She sugarcoated as much of it as she could. It was bad, she knew, but Vanille didn't need to know the truth about it. She didn't need to know the risks, the chances that any of their friends would be back, or the same. It was better for her to remain ignorant.
Ignorance didn't last long enough. It never did. It was far from blissful, like the sayings always went. And as much as Lightning had tried to keep her safe, she couldn't protect her emotional stability. And that, as they had always known, was her most fragile quality.
It had been over a year since the others had gone over, and some had begun to return as Winter hit. When Vanille had learned of their return, she had rushed out to meet Fang, and was greeted with nothing but the cold loneliness.
Fang was dead.
It had been close to two years since then, and it had taken this long to get Vanille to stop crying from the moment she woke up til she fell asleep. Sometimes Lightning wanted to be angry with Fang for going, and for dying. She couldn't help Vanille. It was trying all of her patience, and she didn't want to get mad at her for mourning. People were not her forte, and Fang knew that. But she would continue to try despite that. She had to.
She sighed out heavily and slid her fingers through her hair as Vanille turned her head to rest it against her chest. "How are you really? You don't have to lie to me. It certainly doesn't make me feel better if that's your concern."
"I'm scared, I feel sick.. all I can smell is.. fire.. blood.. All I can see is the same. I can't get it to go away. I scrub and scrub and it's still there." Vanille muffled. "It won't go away!"
"Let's go clean you up then." Lightning said, pulling her up off her feet and into her arms, bridal style. "Don't get so worked up.. we'll wash the blood off."
"It won't work.. it's always gonna be there, the blood.. that's all there is now! Just blood everywhere!" she cried, ducking her head down and laying it against her shoulder to watch the scenery pass by.
"Hush." Lightning replied, placing her fingers against her lips, quieting her down as she walked down through the woods and away from the corpses and pools of blood. "You'll see. It'll be alright.."
She carried the younger woman down a winding trail, and off to the right when it branched off to several directions. They remained silent as she walked, accompanied only by the sounds of her feet trodding over dry leaves and twigs, and the steady breathing from Vanille. She didn't bother to try and keep conversation up. She just let Vanille be with her thoughts, and focused on her own.
Finally she came to the clearing, where a large, crystal clear lake flowed. The trees grouped together all around it, almost as if to keep it secret from anyone who didn't know it was there. There was a small dock on the other side, where the people in the towns nearby may have once fished, and a rope swing was tied tight to a strong oak just to the side. She settled Vanille down on the bank and sank onto her knees in front of her. "It's going to be alright, Vanille. I'll make this better for you... You just have to trust me. Can you do that?" she asked, brow raised.
"Can you fix everything else?" She mumbled feebly, slumping low. "I'm sorry.. I just.. i-it's just.."
Lightning frowned and pulled her gloves off and slid her bare fingers underneath the younger's chin. "Don't.. don't be sorry. I honestly wish I could make it all go away. And have you smile again. I can't take the burden from your shoulders, or the pain you feel from losing her. I can't do much to fix that. And no, I can't fix everything. I can do nothing about your past. But I promise i'll give you a better future."
"I don't know what i'm doing half the time anymore, Lightning. I can't feel anything anymore. I forget how to be happy.. I don't want to be numb, not with you.. but I can't help it..I think i'm going crazy.. I think I'm-"
Lightning raised her chin and brought her forehead in to rest against hers, gliding her fingers over her lips to hush her again. "Shh." she whispered, hot air against her skin. "Don't think. Just do."
