Open Arms


"Is it true? What that man told us about Kefka?" Locke asked her as they huddled in their single room at the inn the night before they were to infiltrate the capitol's laboratories.

They sat against the wall, side by side, both with their knees drawn to their chest.

"Yes." Celes heard herself reply. "I've spent more than my share of time with him. It's true, all of it."

"Man." Locke sighed, laying his head back on the grey stone wall.

Across the room, Edgar and Sabin were making the best sleeping arrangements that they could with the single bed, spreading blankets and pillows on the floor before the dying fire in the fireplace.

"He was my mentor when I was originally selected for command." Celes informed him.

She'd told him this before, she was sure. But it never had the same meaning, now that they were in the capitol city where Celes was supposedly born and raised in the depths of the war machine, infused with it's chemicals and indoctrinated with it's ideals.

Locke's eyes rolled to meet hers. "What did that entail?" His baritone was softer and calmer than she anticipated it would be.

"Mostly shadowing him. He wasn't in the state he is now, though he had me join in in a series of interrogations once."

She stopped there, hoping Locke wouldn't pry her for details. But the deep darkness of his eyes nudged her to continue. She hesitated, knowing Locke would view her differently if he'd known the extent of her transgressions.

'Does it matter?'

"There was a man, suspended in chains." She heard her own voice as if it was the voice of another: cold, calculating, and cruel. "His wife and child were chained before him, close enough so that he could see the sweat on their brow, but too far to touch. Kefka ordered me to kill them."

She couldn't meet Locke's eyes, but she felt their weight, summarizing the situation and searching for a logical rationale in which she would not be at fault: but it would be fruitless. She was at fault, after all.

"He wanted me to use my blade, but I froze them instead."

Locke sat silently, eyes scattering to the floor instead.

It was true, all of it. She couldn't stand the act, though in her naivete at the time she resorted to a less direct and faster approach, one that wouldn't haunt her with the screams of a woman and man separated for eternity, or a child in a premature concept of a death sentence. Ice was mercy in this circumstance, whether Locke acknowledged that or not.

"What would you have done?" She turned to him this time and he shrugged, fingers fumbling nervously with the hem of his vest's sleeves as his chin rose.

"I don't know." He replied earnestly, "I just don't think I could do that."

"Well, then." She rose, terminating the conversation more so out of disgust for herself than his response.

Locke spoke honestly and with conviction, something she lacked within herself until the very end, when she was finally branded a traitor.


Celes led them through halls of steam and machinery. Edgar had stopped her along the way, linking various switches with mechanisms in his mind and looking to her for clarification. She had minimal knowledge on the topic, and gave him the best information she could, though it wasn't much.

They approached the hall of life size creatures in tanks, the creatures she remembered from her childhood and now knew were Espers.

In the dim flickering light at the end she recognized the man punching in the commands of the tanks at a keypad, causing fluctuations in the fluid and an audible groan from the supposed beasts within.

"Professor Cid?"

She called him, and when he rose to face her his complexion was weathered with many more lines than she'd last remembered, but the man who both cursed her and raised her smiled when he recognized her.

"General Celes!" He clasped his hands together, stepping towards her and away from the control panel to greet her. "Who might these dubious characters be?"

He motioned to the men behind her, Edgar and Cyan with their hands on the sheath of their weapons and Locke standing protectively at her side.

"Your troops?"

Celes shook her head. In any other situation it would've seem comical that he would address her comrades in such a way, but in that moment it was anything but.

"No, you see..." Celes hesitated in the midst of the mechanical engines that ignited in the room in that moment. Something was coming.

"I've heard you would come as a spy, seeking to cause an uprising." The twinkle in Cid's eye told her had said this out of humor derived from some rumor he'd found to be absurd, but her companions did not speak Cid's language of humor as well as she did.

"Celes?" She heard Locke say and she shook her head dismissively, raising a hand to him to signal that Cid's word's were nothing more than a jest, offered in an insignificant error that should've have meant anything.

But because of the events that followed, they meant a great deal.

"General Celes!" The familiar shrill voice proclaimed as Kefka emerged from an entrance close to Cid. He rounded the corner and mockingly bowed to her flamboyantly, displaying the display of Imperial military ribbons and medals pinned to his brightly colored cape.

"The game's over. Bring me the magicite shards." Kefka's voice dropped an octave.

Celes took several steps forward, separating herself from the rest of the group, attempting to flex out her chest with her shoulders back in what would hopefully be a display of strength.

"You deceived me?" Locke's voice made her facade crumble, and she swung herself around to face him with his blade drawn and pointed at her. His eyes were narrowed and full of hatred, glimmering with what she presumed could be tears, but it was the blade's tip aimed at her chest that did the most damage.

"Of course not!" She spat, drawing her own sword in an instinctive response. "Have a little faith!"

But her words did little to ease the man's aggressive posture.

Kefka's laughter echoed throughout the chamber, exasperating the hostility towards her as Cyan and Edgar followed Locke's lead.

"She tricked you all! Celes- that's so you."

Celes rolled her eyes. She knew of the instance that Kefka spoke of, when she was barely fifteen years old and he first attempted to seduce her in the Imperial gardens by leaving her an anonymous note with a date and location on it, and she'd paid a similarly built kitchen wench with long blonde hair to take her place in the setting provided by him. She never knew what became of the girl, but her survival instincts told her that she had made the right decision.

Kefka eyed her suspiciously from that day forward. "Be careful of that one," He'd tell troops under his command, "She's a tricky one. A mockingbird in a flock of vultures."

But Locke never knew that story, and so his blade remained pointed at her, an action that caused pain in her heart and furious tears in her eyes.

"Locke," She choked, "Please believe in me."

His brown eyes remained narrowed in her direction. He didn't return her straightforward gaze. His face was contorted in hatred and anguish. She was to blame for the loss of his beloved, She utilized him and his friends for survival after he pulled her from her prison in the dungeon. She deceived him, tempting him to partake in physical pleasure as his betrothed lay sleeping in suspended animation.

She didn't believe any of that, but as he faced her she could tell that he did.

"I..." He started, his eyes widening as they finally settled on hers before they flickered away and reflected hatred again.

"Exterminate all of them!" She heard Kefka cry over her shoulder, a command not meant for her but for the hundreds of minions he's kept stored within the facility for an emergency such as this. Her heart sank.

She knew what was coming. In on a moment's time beast after beast would break through the confines of the chamber and rip Locke, Cyan, and Edgar to shreds.

She'd never been good at teleportation- it was a spell she'd always passed off to Kefka when it was tactically necessary. But in that moment, she summoned the will necessary to make it happen.

"Let me protect you for once." She pointed her sword defensively back at Locke and his lips parted slightly in surprise. "Maybe now you'll believe in me."

She watched mid spell, as a white light surrounded her and Kefka and barricaded her companions from his wrath, when Locke's lips formed a phrase unintelligible before he faded from her sight.

"Stop it!" She heard Kefka scream. The acoustics of her surroundings where suddenly quite different, open making his shrill voice echo.


Her eyelids fluttered open. They were outside of Vector at least, and Kefka was likely to not have done any real harm to Locke.

"You." She felt a shockwave enter and exit her body, causing sheer pain from resonated form her spine to her finger tips. She screamed in agony, dropping her sword in the process, raising her head to face a maddened Kefka with an open fist aimed in her direction.

She collapsed, rolling on the ground the ward the pain off and conjuring a cure before she felt the painful grasp of hands of her wrists, confining them over her head.

"I always knew you'd get in my way! I told Gestahl you'd only be fit for breeding but no."

Celes felt his sharp fingertips graze the skin on her face, piercing it and drawing blood. She grunted, and cast Ice, which only temporarily stunned him enough so that she could roll out from under his grasp.

He countered with a swift blow to the side of her head and a quickly conjured thundara, eliciting another cry from her throat.

Celes inhaled deeply, conjuring runic and forcing him to utilize his sword against hers instead. She knew it was his weakness, he was as quick as her but not as intuitive or strong with his swings. She was the better swordsman, though he was more developed in Magitek ability. They clashed several times, and Celes mustered what strength she could to counter every blow he attempted.

"That's enough."

Celes collected her sword from the ground, raising slowly from all fours as the familiar voice convinced her to calm slowly.

"Kefka, you're under arrest for conspiracy."

Leo. Celes rose slowly, sword now in hand. The olive skinned general jerked his chin to his troops as he made eye contact with her, a gesture of friendship and recognition that she'd missed so.

Celes raised a hand, weakening Kefka enough so that he could be apprehended. She watched as the soldiers, emotions muted by the limited exposure of their helmets, chained the first ever Magitek Knight to a wooden board, and dragged him off by the speed of two horses.

"Conspiracy to what exactly?" Celes asked her old friend, wiping her chin of saliva and grit. "Last I heard he was doing Gestahl's will."

"Where to start?" Leo smiled at her and opened his arms, "It's been a while. We've all missed you, Celes. I never doubted you, not for a moment."

She returned his embrace. It was a strange gesture coming from Leo, but she admittedly had missed him as well.

"Your captivity, your sentencing, it was all Kefka's doing." Leo murmured into her shoulder as she closed her eyes.

"I know." She whispered back.

"No one actually believed you acted out against the Empire. You're a brave woman, Celes. You've started quite a movement."

She squeezed her eyes shut now, willing the tears back into their ducts. How could it be, that Locke had doubt her while the very people she'd rebelled against were so ready to receive her again? Surely there was more to the story, but for the moment, it was good to see Leo again.

She parted from him, one arm remaining on his shoulder, and scanning his eyes for information. He only smiled back at her, offering a potion for her injuries. She accepted, laughing a little at the absurdity of it all.

"What of the rebels?" She questioned him delicately, unsure of what her stance was to be on the topic.

"They arrived by your guidance, did they not? I don't believe any harm will come to them, as long as they cooperate."

Celes felt calm wash over her. Surely there was more to the condition of peaceful surrender, but Leo was someone she trusted, and his intent was pure.


A/N: Thank you for reading! Next bit will get into the time that Locke and Celes spend apart, and the title of this fic. Writing this has been fun and sort of painful thus far, reliving some painful experiences of adult relationships when things get so complicated, which is an aspect of this pairing that I loved from the start. I have and idea for how I want it all end with the canon ending in mind, and am excited to deliver! Like I said I will be having company with weekend again followed by lots of work so the update may be delayed but not forgotten! Thanks all!