"Until There's Nothing Left of Us"

9

"The Collapse"

(The sky was cracked like porcelain.)

(CENTRA. WHERE SHE IS BURIED.)

"And that was it, Matron. That was us."

A moment's silence. One hand caressed her arm and she shivered to her own touch.

"It's all healed now. Good as new. But sometimes, I imagine it aching to remind me what he gave to me. I needed that. I needed the pain, needed him to hurt me, needed him to make me feel. I needed the damage. I wanted him to tell me I was right, that I was to blame. That he blamed me."

Selphie smiled a mischievous smile.

"You wanna know a dirty little secret, Matron?" she imagined a curious nod, "He can't take it back."

She giggled, ecstatic.

"He can't take it back because now, I will always know. I will always remember the moment when he finally surrendered." Selphie chuckled, "Soldiers and generals and corrupt Garden Masters and armies and Sorceresses have tried... but it was me who brought Squall Leonhart to his knees. Lil' ole me. That's the worst of all - knowing that I made him give in." Selphie hesitated, but why deny it now, "Knowing I made him give up. Not just his fight, but everything. He lost everything when he broke my arm, Matron, when he brought himself to hurt me, even if I had asked him to. I lost our child, I lost myself... and then I lost him. I traded him like an unwanted trinket spent in the Fisherman's Horizon bazaar - his heart for a little less pain. And looking back at it now, I can't help but be a little selfish and I wanna say I don't regret it."

Selphie sighed.

"Except I can't. Every time I look into those baby blues and see nothing behind them, I see that I betrayed him. Forced him to retreat, go back to who he was. Not a hope in the world, nothing meaningful, just sitting there, figuring out new ways to die. He has the whole world in his hands, Matron. One phone call and he can do anything. All that power and I showed him how useless it all was. How powerless he truly was... we truly are."

Tears, she felt, but there were none left by that point.

"And that's just it, Matron. My fever broke when he broke my arm. One move to change it all. I don't know where we are now. Brea's doing a fine job of being the General. I've seen the cadets, they're scared of her, but they also drool all over her whenever she walks into a room. Not just that she fought and bled with us, that'd be too easy. She commands respect. Sometimes, I have this image in my head. Back during the war, of her, just standing there, hands together in front of her, all prim and proper, just listening to me shouting whatever I thought would degrade her the most. Just taking it like some chump. But all I remember now are her eyes. Like Squall's, keeping everything locked up. Because deep down, she felt that she deserved it. I know what that feels like, I knew it when I was cussing her out, and I know it now. But Matron, somebody has to get to blame. Somebody has to be at fault, or it's ours, and sorry, but fuck that."

A moment's silence. In her heart of hearts, Selphie knew that the truth she had to speak wasn't what had happened to her, nor did it concern Brea's feelings. She knew the truth like she knew the furious lump in her throat, moving up to her tongue as she stared at the letters etched in stone.

"I blame you." She said.

The knot began to unravel, but there were more strands than her proclamation could undo.

"You couldn't cut it. Squall was wrong about you – him and sorceresses, he's blind where that's concerned. You couldn't take it." Her hands curled into fists, "You fucked it up! We should've handed you to them on a silver platter when we had the chance, 'cause now look at us! Look at your children! One's grave was desecrated, another is lost forever now, I had my child ripped away from me, and over what? Over fucking what!? Magic? Power? Fucking – I don't know, immortality, maybe? How's that workin' out for ya? Huh? Answer me, you bitch, tell me the truth - what was it all for!?"

When the levy broke, Selphie came crashing down. Her fists pounding the earth covering the grave, tears flowing freely, screaming and sobbing, she cried, free and out in the open, pouring every ounce of poison that she had collected inside herself. She asked the question again and again and again, because what was it all for? What was it all for?

Beneath it, she knew that there was a second question, the answer of which, she was afraid of more than she had feared anything in her life.

Had it all been for nothing?

The storm passed, leaving behind the wreck of a woman in its wake. Now weary, aching inside and out, she wiped her tears with the hem of her sundress and tried to find something inside of her that'd let her speak.

"A-and th-that's it, really... there's nothing else. I have nothing else left. For a moment there, I thought the war was over. Finally over. I've fought battles all my life. I'm sick of it. I'm tired. I wanna sleep and forget about it all. I want..."

Heavy sigh, deep breath.

"I want to have died in one of them. I want some punk to have gotten lucky, or a stray bullet to have missed someone else and found me, a bomb, whatever. I want whatever it is to have caught me. When I look back, Matron, all I want is to be a casualty. I've lived too long, I've survived too long. Why all of them and not me? Because I'm stronger? Because I'm better? Because I'm such hot shit? No. I'm not. I'm just a SeeD. I'm nothing."

Truth. Selphie stood up. She brushed the dust off of her dress. She straightened herself out, much as she could, and ignored the cavity in her body.

"But to him, I'm all there is."

Silence.

"Thanks for listening, Matron." She said, "Hyne knows, I needed someone to."

She caressed the headstone, its rough surface seeming soft and warm to her touch.

"We're all just fucked up little kids, Matron. Don't worry, I think we'll join you before long. But until then, goodbye."

The walk back to the hovercraft was long and quiet.