Title: Mourning
Summary: Lance follows Matt from camp after several days of strange behavior from Matt.
Rating: T
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship
World: Post EBF4
Matt had been distant during the past week. At first, no one had noticed, until Natalie asked him the same question four times in a row before the swordsman blinked out of the stupor he'd been in and focused on her.
"Sorry, what'd you say, Natz?" Matt asked with a grin.
Natalie scanned Matt's face for a long moment before hesitantly asking, "Are you okay, Matt?"
Matt cocked his head, "I'm fine, why?"
"You've been staring into space all day," Natalie replied with a frown. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Matt nodded with a grin, "Yeah. I'm fine." His eyes became distant again and he glanced down the road as he murmured, "Just fine."
Lance arched a brow and exchanged a confused glance with Natalie and Anna, "You positive, man? You've been acting weird for several days now, now that I think about it."
Matt rolled his eyes and said, "I promise I'm fine, just thinking about… visiting home."
Anna started, "Where do you live?"
"Wherever we happen to be walking," Matt replied with a cheeky grin.
"I meant where's home? We can swing by there and you can say hi, if you want," the ranger elaborated with a roll of her eyes.
Matt's grin flickered before he shook his head, "Nah, it's okay. I'll pay a visit on my own time. Besides, we've got a nest of elementals to clear out, right? Let's go!" With that, the swordsman turned and briskly continued walking.
Natalie stared after Matt with confusion and concern in her eyes, "He's acting really weird. I wonder why he wants to visit his home so much all of a sudden." She started walking after him with the other two beside her.
Lance shrugged, "Maybe he's homesick?"
Anna snorted, "I doubt it."
"It's possible, actually," Natalie mused aloud. She shook her head and added, "Matt's only nineteen, it wouldn't be out of the question for him to suddenly want to see his family, and I don't think he's been to see them even once since I met him."
Lance frowned, "You're right, but he's never mentioned his family or home before, so why now?"
"Dunno," Natalie sighed.
They crested the hill to see Matt staring off to the west with the distant look in his eyes again. He shook it off at their approach and grinned before pointing down the hill to the north. The rest of the party looked down to see a large cluster of earth elementals working on tearing up the road. The party exchanged grins and launched themselves down the hill and into combat.
That evening, after they had slain the elementals, they party was stretched out in various sleeping bags around the campfire. Lance, Natalie, and Anna all slept soundly, but Matt lay awake, staring up at the stars. He silently sat up and looked across his sleeping friends to make sure they were out before slipping out of his sleeping bag. He crept away from the camp and glanced back at their still forms one last time before vanishing into the night.
Unbeknownst to him, Lance had been awake, expecting Matt to slip off. He sat up and stared after the swordsman with concern in his eyes. It was highly unlike Matt to be so quiet and pensive during the day, and even more so for him to sneak away from the campsite. The gunner's mind drifted back to Matt's plan to visit home, and he frowned with a glance at the stars overhead. Surely the swordsman didn't plan to pay a visit home in the middle of the night?
Finally, Lance slipped out of his own sleeping bag and stood up. He snagged his gunblade up and set off after Matt. The full moon made following Matt ridiculously easy. The swordsman's hair caught the moonlight as did his weapon's hilt, and he made no attempt to hide himself. Lance, in his dark clothing, was a much more difficult to spot target, not that Matt ever looked back. He followed a few yards behind his friend in silence for several miles.
Finally, dark smudges appeared on the horizon. Lance frowned as he wondered what they were. The shapes were too irregular to be hills, and too small to be buildings. Still, it was clearly Matt's destination as he picked up the pace slightly. The swordsman was still unaware of his shadow as he approached the smudges. It wasn't until they were practically to the shapes that Lance realized what they were and his breath silently caught with shock.
They were the remains of long-since-burned buildings. Matt raised a hand as he came level with the first one and he slid it along the ruined support of the wall. His expression was easily visible in the moonlight and was one of sorrow before he turned and headed into the ruined village. Lance hesitated for a moment as Matt slipped out of sight. He now knew with certainty that Matt had come here to not to visit, but to mourn. If that were the case, then it was a private affair, and not one he thought Matt would like anyone interrupting.
And yet, leaving his friend alone and surrounded by the ghosts of a tragic past felt wrong as well. Lance took a deep breath and followed Matt into the village. As he walked between the burned and collapsed remains of the buildings, he felt a lingering sense of unease. The place was silent, even the crickets didn't chirp within the area. No plants grew on the wood or the ground. Whatever had happened to burn the buildings had not been natural.
Lance shivered as he looked around for some sign of Matt. He turned a corner and saw an open space with the crumbled remains of a fountain. Matt sat on his feet at the base of it where a crude wooden marker had been set up. He'd laid Heaven's Gate out in front of him along with a bouquet of flowers. The swordsman was silent as he mourned, but his shoulders shook. Lance watched the scene for a moment before stepping forwards, purposefully scuffing the ground with his foot. Matt instantly stiffened and twisted around at the noise. His face had tracks of tears on them as his eyes fell on Lance. The swordsman blinked in confusion for a moment before scowling.
"Why are you here, Lance?" Matt asked in a soft, but decidedly unfriendly voice.
Lance tilted his head for a moment before shrugging. He said nothing but moved closer. Matt watched with narrow eyes as Lance stepped up and knelt next to him. The gunner dug into his Adventure Pouch for a moment before withdrawing a small handful of the rare flowers he'd gathered to sell and set them on the ground beside Matt's offering. He set his gunblade down and sent a silent prayer for whoever had died here that Matt had cared about. Matt was taken aback at the strange show of respect from Lance.
Finally, Lance opened his eyes and answered Matt's question, "I was worried about you. I followed you here, and I knew before entering what you came here to do, but it seemed wrong to leave you while you were obviously hurting. You don't need to tell me what happened here or who died that you are mourning for, but I'm not leaving until you're ready to."
Matt stared at his friend for a long moment. Finally, his lips quirked in a soft smile and he nodded, "Okay. Thank you."
Lance nodded silently and remained kneeling beside Matt as the swordsman returned to his mourning. The gunner's eyes scanned the grave in front of him and he mused that it must have been up for some time. A small pile of gold, silver, and gems sat at its base, some of which were dusty or tarnished from sitting in the open for so long. There were signs that the marker had been repaired multiple times before—scrapes in the wood, bits of tattered cloth from old bindings. Lance wondered how many years Matt had been coming here. He mentally shrugged and dug out a ruby and a handful of gold to add to the pile.
Matt's eyes opened at the soft clinking sound. He let out a sigh and turned his gaze around the ruined square. "I was nine when we were attacked," Matt said quietly.
Lance turned his head to show he was listening, but said nothing.
"I remember playing with a couple other kids before one of their parents showed up and told us we had to go inside. We complained, of course, but she snapped at us to move," Matt recalled. He shook his head and went on, "Even back then, I knew something was wrong. She was scared and the fact that an adult was scared of something made us panic. We scattered, some of us going home, others running around aimlessly. I had just crawled into a drain in the streets—one of my favorite hiding spots—when I smelled smoke."
Matt broke off to let out a shuddering sigh. Lance hesitantly reached a hand up and set it on the swordsman's shoulder.
"To this day, I don't know what attacked us or why, but I do remember there being a lot of screaming and smoke. I remember wondering why the water draining in was red, but I was too scared to look for the source. I stayed cowering in the pipe and heard something big moving around. It snuffled at places, like a hound searching for prey. It paused at my hiding space, but I guess the smell covered my own scent because it moved on without incident."
Lance's stomach twisted as Matt spoke. The swordsman's voice was soft and filled with sorrow and pain. The shoulder under his hand trembled, and Lance tightened his grip reassuringly. Matt shot him a grateful glance and continued his tale.
"I stayed hidden long after the monster left. I kept expecting to hear my parents calling for me to come out of hiding for dinner or something. But the sun set and the moon rose with no one saying anything. I couldn't even hear any fire, or birds, or bugs, or anything. So I finally crawled out and… I don't really remember what I saw or did immediately after that. I've heard traumatic experiences often get forgotten, so maybe that's what happened, I don't know. Anyway, I must have fled the village, because I woke up with an old lady feeding me some broth. Apparently, her husband found me passed out on the road and brought me home with him."
Matt's eyes squeezed shut with a choked sob, "They told me they headed back the way I had come to my village and saw the devastation. They apologized for my loss and said I could stay with them, but I didn't really understand then. I thought my parents would find me, or maybe one of my friends would come poking around to play, but no one ever came. They'd all been killed, and by what the people told me before I left their home when I was thirteen, there wasn't any way to have identified any bodies. They did gather some people to dig graves for them, but there was no way to know what names to put on the markers."
Matt gestured to the memorial in front of him, "I built this when I was eleven. I went over all the names I could remember. I come here every year to remember them. I'm sorry for worrying you by slipping off, though."
Lance shook his head, "It's fine; you have a very good reason. I'm sorry for intruding. I won't tell the others about this."
Matt nodded, "Thanks. I'm actually kind of glad you followed me. I'm handling it worse than I usually do this time; maybe because it's the ten year mark. Ten years since I've seen my parents, ten years since they were all killed and I wasn't." His eyes welled with tears as he mumbled, "It doesn't seem fair that only I survived."
Lance swallowed at the raw pain in Matt's voice. He carefully reached both arms out and drew the swordsman into a hug. Matt buried his face in Lance's shoulder and cried. The gunner simply held his friend and rubbed one hand over his shaking back. He didn't urge Matt to calm down, didn't whisper soothing reassurances. He merely held Matt as he worked through his grief at his own pace. Mourning was not something that could be rushed or aided other than by making sure the person knew someone was there.
Finally, Matt's tears slowed to a stop. He raised his face from Lance's now soaked shoulder. He raised an arm to wipe his soggy face on his sleeve and was startled when Lance tapped his shoulder and silently held out a pack of tissues. Matt accepted them with a watery smile, and used them to blow his nose and wipe his face clean. Once he was relatively under control, he quietly thanked Lance.
"You're welcome," Lance said, equally quiet. He hesitated before asking, "Feeling a little better now?"
Matt nodded, "Yeah, I do."
The swordsman pushed himself to his feet and picked up Heaven's Gate. He watched Lance stand and retrieve his own weapon. He realized that he really did feel much better now, better than he had in all his years coming here. It was embarrassing that his friend had been there for his breakdown, but he was grateful there had been someone there. And Lance had handled it very well. It had been a relief to simply speak of what had happened with someone who wouldn't judge him, wouldn't pity him, and likely wouldn't even mention the ordeal ever again unless he brought it up first.
Lance eyed Matt's clear gaze with a sense of relief. It was good to see the swordsman looking steady. He wished he could have helped Matt before now, that the tragedy had never happened to him. But he knew that both of those things were pointless to wish for. He'd been there tonight, and Matt seemed better off for it. That was good enough.
Lance waited as Matt bid farewell to the spirits of the dead villagers. Then, he followed alongside Matt as they headed back through the ruined an abandoned town. No words were shared as they trekked back to camp, and once there, neither man said anything beyond goodnight. They lay their weapons down within easy reach and slowly fell asleep.
The next morning, Matt was back to normal, cheerfully trying to eat plants and monsters that weren't edible. Lance treated Matt no differently than normal beyond a hand briefly clasped on his shoulder. The swordsman shook his head when Natalie asked if he wanted to visit home. Matt's eyes caught Lance's from where the gunner sat near Anna and he smiled briefly.
"No, there's no need," Matt said. "No point dwelling on the past. Besides, I'm sure they'll understand if I don't swing by today, or anytime soon."
A/N: Just a little thing I thought of and wrote. Leave me a review and I'll likely see some of you over on The Long Road Home or Shadow of the Blight pretty soon. I promise I have not forgotten about either of those stories and their next chapters are underway after weeks of plot bunny interference.
