Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and its characters belong to Square Enix and many others. Sadly, I'm not one of them.
Revised and edited January 7, 2007.
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Metathesiophobia or, Moving Forward
By Lady Calliope
Part Nine: Philemaphobia
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She tastes of raspberries and chocolate and sweat. Dawn would bring consequences but he surrenders without a thought or a fight. Eternity is in her eyes, a moment sweet like candy. He pushes her onto the bed and loses himself completely for the second time that night.
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Where had he been going? He was supposed to be going somewhere important. Rocket Town. Shera. Right. To say he may not be returning after tomorrow's battle…
Another glance out the airship's window tightened his chest. They were sitting on a rock not too far away, fingers laced and heads leaning on shoulders, whispering words he couldn't hear. Everything looked so natural and easy, so comfortably intimate for them. He was a foreigner looking in at a strange and beautiful country, a place he wanted to call home but couldn't.
Lungs clenched along with fists. He had long ago divined why they had come together so quickly as a team, as heroes and comrades—and it had nothing to do with lofty aspirations or concern for the planet's future. They were prisoners. A chain held them fast and prevented any escape. Each of them had one and none knew how to break from it, how to loosen the invisible bonds that enslaved them to one another. He doubted if most even realized they were trapped.
He raised his eyes and two childhood friends kissed outside his ship. It struck him in the gut with the force of one of her best punches. He'd never been able to decipher the nature of his own fetters until that moment.
Suddenly he found himself wishing he wasn't so damn perceptive.
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One look at her and he physically felt himself fall. He thought the ground would rise to meet his face any minute. Tiny, curled fingers wrapped around his thumb as two pairs of ruby eyes stared openly at him.
He glanced at the name printed on the doll-sized plastic ID bracelet around her soft wrist.
"Lani?"
"Lah-nee. It means sky."
Shocked, he nodded in approval, throat too tight to speak. Without words she passed her daughter to his trembling arms, knowing that the safest place in the world for her baby was between her heart and his.
"She's so damn…small."
"She'll grow strong." If you're around to help her. Her underlying words were plain to him even if she herself didn't know what she was saying. The birth certificate would not list his name under "father," but the child's name meant more to him than any official document. He kissed her pink forehead, marveling at the softness of new skin and the blonde of her hair, and decided then and there to be whatever this squirmy bundle needed him to be. He would run to the end of the universe to be with this girl—to be with both of them.
Handing her back to her exhausted mother, he realized that, for the first time in years, he knew with profound certainty where he had been and where he was going. The fact that the road was unmarked and unknown didn't bother him in the least. He'd get there eventually.