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13. Tabitha: Mother

It was Kit who discovered Zack was missing. His shout brought Tabitha running, but she screeched to a halt in the doorway of her son's room.

The window was open, threadbare curtains billowing in the night breeze. Zack was a typically messy boy, always being told to pick up after himself and knock the dirt off his shoes before he came in the house. He never did. Consequently the footprint on the windowsill was clearly visible even from across the room.

"His backpack's gone," Kit said. He had his head in the cupboard. Tabitha briefly thought it strange that he'd gone straight there to check. Then she realised it wasn't strange at all. They'd always suspected Zack would leave someday. His personality and dreams were too big for a place like Gongaga. They'd just assumed they'd have a little longer before he went – and that he'd at least let them know he was going.

"The missing food," she murmured.

"What?"

"Some things were missing from the pantry. I thought I'd just mislaid them."

Kit's was distraught. He wasn't the type of man to keep his feelings off his face, and his forehead wrinkled like corduroy as he processed the full implications of these discoveries. "How much was missing?"

"Enough. How many clothes are gone?"

Kit hesitated before answering. "Enough."

"He's …" Tabitha swallowed. "He's not coming back this time."

Zack was ten the last time he ran away. He'd made it as far as the next village, camping out in the open and living off the land because he forgot to take the metal key needed to open the can of ham he'd pilfered from the pantry. That time he disturbed a Fire Snake's nest and would've lost his leg from infection if he hadn't been found. When asked what the hell he'd been trying to achieve, he'd replied that he was trying to get to Midgar, of course.

"Midgar?" Tabitha had echoed in bewilderment.

"Sure. To join SOLDIER. I'm gonna be a proper hero and get paid for it."

The fact he was only ten hadn't struck him as important until he had it pointed out to him – alongside the fact Shinra wouldn't even employ him as a delivery boy until he turned sixteen.

That was four years ago. Tabitha knew Zack could count. He was still too young, but that hadn't stopped him. Zack was resourceful and single-minded when he set his mind to something.

Tabitha realised she shouldn't have assumed they still had time to talk him out of going to Midgar, or at least enjoy him a little longer. Her little boy wasn't so little anymore, but he was still her baby. The urge to protect him was still strong, even though Zack hadn't needed her protection for a long time. She'd known he was bored, and that small-town life chafed against him like a badly fitting halter, but she'd still hoped …

"He'll probably lie about his age," she heard herself saying. "He has his heart set on SOLDIER."

"But why run away like this?" Kit insisted. "Did he think we'd try to stop him?"

"Would we have?"

He couldn't answer.

Tabitha bit her lip and stared at the bare floorboards. Gongaga wasn't a place for the young. It held no allure to someone who wasn't content to plod through life at a snail's pace. She and Kit loved it, though. They loved the quietness, the peace, even if they came at the price of any real future. 'Just go along to get along; could have been the town motto.

Maybe that was why Zack had vanished in the night instead of saying goodbye properly. He wouldn't have wanted to disappoint them, or insult the life they'd chosen just because it wasn't for him. He was an impulsive boy, but not a malicious one, and never prone to the kind of hormone-driven teenage temper tantrums Tabitha a dreaded from the day he hit puberty. Zack was built for adventure and old-fashioned principles like honour and Fighting the Good Fight – all things Gongaga had long-since forgotten about as it fell into age and decay.

None of which dulled the knife-sharp ache of loss she felt when she looked at the open window. She felt like the time a long-eared coyote-cat had come in and stolen her baby from his crib. She'd returned to find it halfway out the window she'd left open while she went to fetch Zack's bottle. The force with which she smacked the animal with the broom had run all the way up her arms and made her shoulders ache, but it had dropped Zack and run off yelping. Tabitha had scooped him up and vowed never to again leave him unattended in a room with an open window.

"He'll come back when he's ready," Kit said with the confidence of those in denial. "You'll see. This SOLDIER business is just some passing fad. When Shinra refuses to take him he'll be back. Then we can put a lock on the window and shut him in his room until he's thirty."

Tabitha said nothing. Not out loud, anyway.

Please be careful, Zack, she thought as she held back her tears. Just please … until you find whatever it is you're looking for in life, please, please be careful.

"Tabitha?"

She swallowed. "Yes." Her voice came out a croak. "He'll be back someday."