Ward hated boats. He hated them worse than water shuttles. He hated them so badly, that just seeing one made his stomach clench and his whole body tense up, and he wanted to burn and destroy every single damned boat he saw.

So when someone called "Land!" and he lifted his aching head up to peer over the rail (where he had been leaning and retching once more,) he wanted to shout and jump for joy. Unfortunately he could neither jump nor shout.

Laguna had settled down after the first day on the boat. Laguna loved to be on ships and boats, the bastard. He'd spent the first night running around the deck saying "arrr" and "ahoy matey," to Kiros and Ward and anyone else who would listen. By the second night, he'd relaxed somewhat, and stood next to Ward (who was once again heaving into the water,) leaning on the railing and babbling about life and the sea in faraway, dreamy tones. Ward hadn't heard much over the sound of his own heartbeat in his temples, but occasionally Laguna would pat him on the back and ask him if he wanted something to eat, like a cracker.

By the last night of traveling, Laguna was almost totally quiet, and nervously agitated. Ward supposed the reality of what might come next had finally settled in. He wished that Laguna didn't bottle up his feelings so much, and try to put on a merry demeanor for everyone else's sake. He did it so often that Ward worried he'd die of pretending before he hit thirty three.

By the time land was in sight, Laguna was following Kiros all over the ship, a jittery, worried wreck. Kiros, of course, never wavered in his patience. Finally, he left Kiros and came to Ward, who was yet again leaning heavily over the railing, catching his breath.

"So," Laguna said shakily. "You think they'll let us in once we're there?"

Ward shook his head, and immediately had to close his eyes.

Laguna cracked his knuckles. "I don't think so either." He chuckled softly. "Too bad we can't dress Kiros up like a girl and say he's my wife and we want to adopt a kid."

The idea of Kiros dressed up as a woman made Ward laugh a little and forget his nausea momentarily.

Kiros walked up beside Ward. "You okay?" he asked him.

Ward looked up at him and frowned. "Do I look okay?" the look said.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" he asked Ward.

Ward shook his head slowly.

"Well, it'll be over soon enough."

Ward nodded, and considered living wherever they landed, forever and ever, so that he'd never have to get on the boat again. He gestured weakly to Kiros, first moving his hand like an airplane or air shuttle, then turning out his empty pockets and shrugging. "Too bad we're too poor to fly," he said with those signs.

Kiros smiled and nodded. "Would be faster too," he said. "All this worrying and waiting can't be good for Laguna."

"You call me?" Laguna said distractedly, breaking his reverie and looking at Kiros.

"No," Kiros said. "Looks like we're almost there. It's a good thing because I don't think the other people on this boat like us very much. I think they know we're not here to see the chocobos."

Ward nodded again. The rest of the passengers were indeed going to chocobo forest as part of a group tour. He didn't think they would be too upset when the three last minute extras disappeared from the crowd.


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"If there's one thing we're good at," Kiros thought to himself as he cut a path through the dense foliage, "it's running through the forest together."

"I think Ward wants to stop for a second," Laguna said tiredly.

Kiros looked at Ward, raising an eyebrow. Ward shrugged, and Kiros understood that Ward had made no such request, but Laguna probably wanted to rest. Which was just as well, he thought. Laguna looked like hell.

As they all sat down in a clearing, and Laguna began digging through his bag for some of the food and water he had brought from the ship, Kiros found himself looking at Laguna every few seconds, worriedly.

He was only thirty two, and Kiros couldn't tell if he looked older or younger than his age. He seemed to go back and forth. Laguna looked up and briefly met his eyes as he handed him a bottle of water, then he looked away just as quickly.

Kiros knew how desperately he was trying to hide from everyone again. Most people would think he was simply distracted or had his mind elsewhere, but Kiros knew otherwise. He didn't miss much. Ward frequently told him that.


He could remember clearly the day they had all found out about Raine. Laguna had found Elle and sent her back to Winhill, and they had banished the sorceress weeks before. Laguna had been torn between wanting, or rather, needing to go back - and protecting his family by staying away. In the end they had opted to sneak back to Winhill, even if only to make sure everything was alright. Laguna would see Raine, and if everything was well and there were no soldiers in town looking for him, he'd stay for the birth of their baby. After that, he'd had no idea what he would do. He had left Winhill in the first place to find Ellone, but none of them had expected that they'd be the ones to capture the sorceress. Laguna, he thought, often wished they hadn't.


They'd gone back to Winhill with no trace of Adel's followers in their wake, and they had all begun to feel somewhat at ease. Perhaps, Ward had told him, everything would be alright. Kiros thought he knew better at the time, but brushed the feeling away and attributed it to nerves.

It was dusk when they arrived, and Laguna had sprinted ahead of them, as if being pulled along by the sheer joy of being home. Kiros and Ward had come to realize that Winhill was truly home to Laguna, and there was no place on earth he had ever been happier. They had to run to keep up with him.

He stopped outside of Raine's window, grinning like a madman, too afraid to call for her. Since sealing the sorceress away, they had all been trained in paranoia.

"So it's you," a voice behind them had said.

Kiros had turned quickly and grabbed his katal. But the man stood his ground, looking at Laguna. Kiros had recognized him as one of the people who lived in the small town. Nearly everyone there had objected to their presence, and especially had something against Laguna, seemingly for taking one of their women away. They were so wary of foreigners, that they almost viewed them as unwelcomed beings from another planet.

The man stood there looking at Laguna for a few moments, then his face had softened into what looked like pity. Thinking back, Kiros realized the man probably had feelings after all, and truly did feel as badly for Laguna as he did for the whole town.

"Where's Raine?" Laguna asked, hopefully and almost shyly. He had always at least tried to be friendly to the people of Winhill, no matter how hard they made it for him. He knew that they loved Raine and he wanted to win them over.

"I'm sorry, son," the man said, trying to sound hard and practical.

Laguna shook his head, as if he didn't understand, though Kiros thought he was beginning to.

"Raine's dead," he said simply. "I'm sorry," he added once more, before turning to walk away.

As if it had happened yesterday, Kiros remembered Laguna stepping back, as if the man's words had physically knocked him backwards. He reached his hand out behind him and braced himself against Ward's shoulder, as he watched the man leave. For some reason, Kiros remembered that small gesture clearly. It would become one of those little details that would bring him right back to that place and time.

He himself wasn't sure he had heard the man correctly, or if he wasn't perhaps dreaming. As he watched the man turn the corner to his home, out of the corner of his eye he'd seen Laguna turn to look at Ward and shake his head slightly as if to say to him, "that's not true, right?"

But Kiros knew it was true, and his heart sank down the ground, just as surely as Laguna had, a second later.


Ward had taken Laguna into the abandoned, run down house he'd lived in before moving in with Raine, while Kiros had gone into town to ask just what had happened. No one had wanted very much to talk to him, but they did seem to understand that Laguna had a right to know. He found out that Raine had gone into labor prematurely (a point that he would spend years trying to drive home to Laguna: that he had NOT been late, but the baby had come very early.) The baby had lived, barely, but Raine had died the next day.

The baby was a boy, and the people of Winhill had handed him right over to a couple who had come from an orphanage. The couple, they said, had been searching for Ellone, to keep her from the sorceress. They had taken Ellone as well as Laguna's child. That was the last Kiros had heard, until a few days ago, about an orphanage.

The people of Winhill, Kiros had figured out, didn't even know for certain that they were handing the children over to the right people. They had convinced themselves that they were though, and it was good enough for them. He knew that they only wanted to keep Esthar out of their town, in order to protect their own children. In a way, he almost couldn't blame them. But he hated them at the time, just the same.

Laguna had spent the whole of the next day, and the night after that, sleeping on his wife's grave. He slept there until Ward came and carried him off.

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By nightfall, they were in a clearing in the woods, and they could hear the sound of the ocean not very far away.

"You want to change your clothes as soon as we're in seeing distance of the orphanage," Kiros said to Laguna. "Wouldn't want to scare anyone, Bandit," he added with a smile.

Laguna smiled back at Kiros' reference to the Shumi's first impression of him.

Kiros jumped up and grabbed a low hanging branch of a tree and swung his legs up over it. Standing up on the swaying branch, he grabbed the next highest one and did the same. He did this until he was near the top of the tree and could see over the other trees. In the distance, he saw what he thought they must be looking for.

A stone building stood out against the night sky under the moonlight. Kiros was immediately struck by its beauty. The shimmering sea behind it took his breath away. "Wow," he whispered softly. "Some orphanage." It was surrounded by high iron gates and, Kiros guessed, security cameras and guards. He doubted anyone got in without an appointment, which they most definitely didn't have - and didn't have time to get. It wasn't going to be easy.


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