A/N: .:the Authoress rushes in, carrying a clipboard:. Yisss, I'm back! Feepp! Well, thanxies for reviewing, review answers are the end of the chapter. Sorry I forgot to do them last chapter!

Who is the girl lying in my arms?

Holding this bleeding woman, her face a mask of suffering, it's hard to take in that this is the Kim- young, naïve Kim- who caught me under her spell three years ago, in that bitter hellhole called Saigon. Saigon. The place that trapped me in its spell as well as Kim did, then abruptly disillusioned me when I realised that war was not just people killing other people.

Oh, yes. War is a lot more than guns and the heat of battle- maybe it's hard for some people who've never seen inside the chaos to understand. Because on the inside of the glamourous shell that movies and the media project, there are families torn apart by it- a father or a brother goes off to fight and doesn't return, and that family is scarred forever. Or a soldier falls in love with a girl. Whoever knew that love could be so painful? Only someone who's gotten tangled in that seductive spider web, and then discovered what dreadful results are born from it.

And I'm brought back to Kim. "I have had my fill of pain" she told me, on that fateful night in a place where one would never have been expected to experience something as close to magic as I did. Is this not painful to her?

It's something I've never understood, and never tried to explore- how someone could take their own life. Why did she? How could she? The answers come flooding back to me, but still I don't understand…did she think this was rational? And then I'm hit with irrepressible guilt. The tiny voice in the back of my head, my conscience, calls out at me jeeringly. It's my fault. It's my fault, for being stupid enough to fall in love, and being stupid enough to think that I could be her saviour, and then being stupid enough to think that, three years later, I could solve this whole mess.

Of course, the other side of my brain adds, It's also thanks to the fact that she has a son. It's not completely your fault.

And for a moment, I'm tempted to blame him. If the child was not there, Kim would not be dying right now. But I'm hit instantly with another wave of guilt. That's not just her child, it's my son, too. Your son. My conscience reminds me, like a bell that is ringing, and won't ever let you forget. Your son. I have to block it out as I'm brought back into the present by Kim's voice.

That hasn't changed. Her voice is exactly as I remember it, sweet and melodic. I'm vaguely aware that I'm beginning to cry, and that there are other people standing around, but that's irrelevant now.

The gods have guided you to your son, she tells me. She's smiling and in that smile I can see everything the way it was when we met- which is heartbreaking and wonderful at the same time. I cradle her in my arms, almost afraid that if I let go of her then it's over.

It's over anyways, now. I block out everybody else, block out the sympathy that I know is going to come, and simply sit holding her. The gods….huh. I'd like to talk to them. Maybe then I'd understand why all this happened the way it did?

REVIEW COMMENTS

East of the Sun- Thankies for the compliments! Also thanks for being the first reviewer! Throws a cookie

TailsEponineRox- Thanks to you, too. Hm, I sound like you? ponders Maybe you're my evil twin? Or it could be he other way around, lol.

WithoutYou19- Even though I hate you right now, because you're being evil to me at school and acting like a jerk, I'll say thanks anyways. However, no thanks to your review on 'Promenade'. It was rude and uncalled for, and you can email me to discuss why you thought it was bland and cliché- which, by the way, was not much in the way of constructive criticism.

A/N: I would also like to ask you guys something. Because I've never actually seen Miss Saigon, (I have the soundtrack and know the plotline and everything) I wanted to know if you knew whether or not John and the Engineer and Tam were in the final scene? I guess if they're not, that kinda ends this ficcie…

Le gra go deo,

'Ponine