Elmyra sighed as voicemail picked up. "I thought I told you not to let me go to voicemail, Reeve," she said tiredly. "But from what I'm seeing on the TV, I can tell you're very busy. Keeping…so much of everything going…I dunno how you're doing it. Kalm keeps getting more refugees, and I see all the vehicles and those—what are they? Temporary roads?—all those things outside Midgar from our window…" Rubbing her face, she swallowed. "Just…Just call me back," she murmured. "Marlene keeps asking about you. She wants you to know she's seen the emergency broadcasts and she thinks you sound very important."

So much more lingered on the tip of Elmyra's tongue, but she forced herself to say goodbye and hung up.

Staring at the ceiling briefly, Elmyra sighed and steeled herself. She eased back out the front door to soak in the almost-normal sight of Marlene and the other neighborhood kids playing games in the street. Other adults sat on their porches and stoops, watching the children as well—all of them with the same, numb disconnect in their faces. The violet haze irradiating the sky from the direction of Midgar was now only the background noise of daily life. Parents had given up sheltering the children inside after the days had dragged on. School was canceled, most businesses had closed. The unsaid reason was there, present like an icy fog that hung over every family and every forced smile as each day passed.

They were running out of time.

Elmyra heard a text notification, and she lazily lifted her phone to look at it. To her surprise, Reeve had actually responded.

Someone will be coming by today. I can't leave Midgar. Please get Marlene's reaction.

She stared at the message in puzzlement. She replied, Who?

It's a surprise. He punctuated this with a black cat emoji giving the thumbs up.

Elmyra chuckled and shook her head. Something had changed in Reeve. It was such a shame it was too late.

Abruptly, Marlene let out a shriek, causing Elmyra to flinch in shock and her gaze to snap back to the street. Marlene dropped her jump rope and ran down the street toward the square with abandon, squealing happily all the way.

"Marlene?" Elmyra blurted, rushing down the steps after her. "What are you doing? Marlene!"

Through Marlene's ecstatic cries, she finally formed words that Elmyra could understand: "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"

In shock, Elmyra slowed to a halt at the edge of the square, a hand on her chest as she watched Marlene bolt toward a towering figure who reached the mechanical well at the center of town. Allowing a duffle bag to drop from his shoulder, Barret Wallace laughed boisterously and knelt to welcome Marlene into his embrace.

Tears welling in her eyes, a smile came to Elmyra and she brought up her phone to record. Marlene dove against her father, and Barret brought her into a one-armed hold.

"Who's this big girl?" Barret chuckled, his smile taking over his entire face. "Who's this? I'm looking for a baby. This big girl can't be Marlene."

"It's me, Daddy!" she giggled.

"No!"

"Yes! I'm a big girl!"

"You're such a big girl," he agreed, sweeping her off her feet and onto his shoulder as he pulled himself to his full height. "Take off my glasses, sweetie, I wanna get a good look at you."

Eagerly she plucked off Barret's sunglasses and then leaned against the side of his head. "You're bigger too."

"Naw, I ain't bigger," he snickered. "Pretty soon you're gonna be too big to fit there."

"No!"

"No? You just said you're a big girl."

"Not too big for shoulder rides."

While Marlene clung to him and started swinging her feet, Barret met gazes with Elmyra. Clearly having trouble keeping his eyes dry, he titled his head slightly. "And I do not consent to any recording, ma'am. I will have to ask you to stop that at once."

Marlene waved at Elmyra, recognizing the blinking light of the camera. "Hi, Miss Elmyra!"

Beaming through the moisture rolling down her face, Elmyra stopped recording. "Mr—Barret. You made it. You made it in time."

The hours had cascaded into over three days, with Barret smothering Marlene at every moment. In no way was Marlene ungrateful, returning his enthusiasm in kind. She had to get him up to speed about the months since her father had first left Midgar: all the toys she had amassed, her new clothes, her new friends, the food she cooked with Elmyra, the coloring books and drawings she had completed, and the planters she helped tend to. Barret absorbed every word, nodding and encouraging her rambling, and unquestioningly reading her any picture book she shoved in his hand.

Barret had given Marlene her late birthday gifts. Marlene had been overjoyed to have the necklace that had once belonged to the mother she never knew—though Elmyra could see the layers of unspoken pain looking at it brought to Barret. To Marlene's delight, some of Barret's vibrant kaleidoscope of fellow outlaws had also scrounged together what they could to add to the belated gift-giving: Tifa had donated a particularly lovely shell from a place Barret called the Forgotten City, someone named Nanaki gave a beaded bangle supposedly for Marlene's hair (but it was far too large), a girl called Yuffie had made an ink print of Marlene's name in Wutaian characters, a Shinra Space and Aeronautics Department flag that had apparently once hung in the Highwind had been given by its crew and the illustrious Captain Cid Highwind himself (Barret also had pressed that Cid insisted the flag was from someone named Vincent as well. Marlene was visibly less enthused about that), and Cloud passed on a somewhat worn but still lovely, purple parasol—along with a note that brought Elmyra to tears.

Cloud expected Marlene to take very good care of that parasol, it had belonged to Aerith.

It was so hard to see Barret as the same AVALANCHE leader who had been escorted to execution on camera those weeks ago. His face was soft, his smile infectious, and his laugh warm. He went out of his way to help Elmyra with any chores and used only polite tones in the house. The only thing that linked this Barret to the one Elmyra had seen over the screen was the heavy, intimidating weapon that fit over the stump of his right arm. While Barret had removed it and set it aside the second he had stepped into the house, it still rested beside the door…standing as a grim reminder of the violence intrinsically linked to Marlene Wallace.

Just past midnight on the third night, Elmyra quietly eased down the steps, two mugs of herbal tea in hand. Barret sat on the sofa, dwarfing both it and Marlene as she draped against him and slept soundly. His amber eyes were distant as he gazed at the barest hints of violet visible through the curtains.

"If you fall asleep like that you'll strain your neck," Elmyra whispered as she approached, handing him a cup.

"Thank you," he said quietly with a subtle nod. After a short sip, he sighed. "…Can't really sleep. Might doze a bit."

Sitting on the loveseat beside them, Elmyra's brow turned in growing unease. "You're leaving, aren't you?"

Tiredly, Barret nodded. "I still got a few hours before I gotta head out."

Staring into her cup, Elmyra swallowed. "…You're running out of time, Barret."

Slowly, he shook his head and let out a drawn-out, quiet "sh." "Don't start that."

"She needs you."

"I know. That's why I gotta go."

"What…What do you think you all will accomplish?" she asked uncomfortably.

"It's hard to describe," Barret said in a low voice. "But if there's even a chance, I have to try. For her."

"And if you fail…will you regret losing that time?"

Barret leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "…Yeah. But I gotta fail for that to happen."

Curling her legs on the loveseat, Elmyra quietly sipped her tea. For a time everything was still, Barret humming some tune under his breath, and Elmyra found herself nearly nodding off. She yawned deeply. "Oh, dear. I should probably go to bed. Could you at least…consider not going?"

Barret rolled his head straight again and calmly drank his tea. "How old was your husband when he enrolled in the military?"

Struck by the question, Elmyra rubbed her neck. "Fifteen."

"Cloud was fourteen when he first tried out for SOLDIER," Barret said softly. "Tifa learned how to bartend before she could legally drink."

Unclear on where the train of thought was going, Elmyra shrugged. "That's not uncommon. Although, I was surprised, Reeve said he had completed university and was hired by Shinra by seventeen."

"…Got all that done by seventeen?" Barret repeated, shaking his head. "He didn't mention that, but I guess that sounds like the right time frame." Polishing off the last of his tea, he held out the cup for Elmyra to take. "That girl Yuffie? She was fourteen when she left Wutai the first time. A fourteen year-old girl on her own like that. You know how old I was the first time I stepped in a mine to work? I was thirteen, Elmyra. Thirteen, and I thought that was some kinda damn privilege to crawl down a dark hole and risk killin' myself."

Frowning as she collected the cup, Elmyra shrugged. "…Where is this going?"

"My grandparents wanted to beat the hell outta me," Barret chuckled. "They hadn't wanted me to start so young. And they told me what it was like before the wars…the wars that just never stop. Drinkin' age is still twenty-one in so many places because of how things used to be. People still thought you were a kid at twenty. Can you imagine that?"

Uncomfortably, Elmyra looked away. "…It's hard to."

"I'm fightin' for Marlene's life," Barret continued. "But…I been thinkin.' What good is givin' her a childhood that goes by too fast? Why did we let war do this to us, Elmyra? Why won't we let our children be children? The one we're fighting…the one that summoned Meteor, he was never allowed to be a child even once. A weapon forced on him the second his tiny hands could hold one. And look where we all are because of that. The fightin' has to stop. Every damn bit of it. I wanna be one of the last ones that has to."

A lump growing in her throat, Elmyra stared at Barret in awe. Swallowing and blinking to force back moisture, she nodded firmly. "Alright, Barret. I get it. Go. Fix this. I…I let everything get to me."

"Ain't nuthin' wrong with that," he assured her with a strained smile and a weary chuckle. "I got a lotta folks keepin' me sane. I'd be a lot worse off if I didn't."

Standing, Elmyra patted his right shoulder gently. "Go on. Show me what a world after war looks like, Wallace."

Chuckling softly, Barret gave her a firm nod. "Yes, ma'am, I will."

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