Final Fantasy VI: Cold Fire
Who Gives Healing to the Healers?

Notes: This has been obsoleted by Don't Fall Away.

Celes was trying not to panic. "Stay with me, sweetie," she choked out. "Stay with me!" She attempted to put pressure on the huge gash in Terra's abdomen to stop or even slow the bleeding, but it didn't seem to help one iota. All it did was cause the injured girl to squeal weakly and make attempts to scoot away.

This… This couldn't be happening. The battle against Atma Weapon had been going so well, everyone working as a team for the common goal. Alas, in its death throes, it landed one last fatal blow. That deathblow had fallen on the group's only healer, Terra.

Terra grunted and immediately choked up blood. This was bad. Not bad, horrible. Again, Celes was trying to remain level-headed, but found difficulty in doing this. The girl she loved was dying in her arms and quickly. So much blood. So much god damned blood! A muddy puddle was in the beginnings of forming on the ground around her knees, but its squelchiness lost as she focused elsewhere. "Stay with me, sweetie!" she choked out once more.

"Celes," Terra wetly coughed, "it's cold…"

"Don't you dare die on me!" Celes tearfully ordered as she, again, applied pressure to Terra's abdomen. "Stay with me!" The injured girl softly squealed and weakly raised her trembling hand to cup Celes' tear stained cheek. She coughed red once more.

"Celes…" Terra barely had the strength to speak. "I'm sorry." The light in her eyes faded and her touch went limp. That which was Terra crystalized into a green gem that rested in Celes' trembling hands.

Her suffering was over.

Celes did everything she could to turn back time, to right this wrong. She pleaded with Terra. She pleaded with the gods; gods she didn't believe in. She swore up a storm and punched ice into the ground. It was all to no avail, fleeting gestures. All she could do was scream until she went hoarse, cry until she had no tears left. The tears that were being shed were expected, of course, but normally she'd know what to do in a situation such as this. This time no answers came, no luck to be spared. All that arrived from wherever emotions lied dormant was despair.

Who gives healing to the healers? Who provides comfort in their time of need? Why, those who love them, of course, but love can only take one so far. Love had been unable to save Terra from the deep lacerations and extreme loss of blood. Love had been the cause of Celes going berserk with rage on Kefka, Emperor Gestahl, and the Warring Triad. Love had been the distraction the caused her to fail in stopping Kefka from destroying the world they all knew. Love hadn't been able to help her escape with Locke, Edgar, and the others.

The only thing love had done was spare Terra the suffering that came about after the world was ripped asunder.

Celes stood on the cliff overlooking the vast ocean. A weak breeze was coming in and barely had the strength to lift her straw-like hair. She felt like she had woken from a nightmare only to find herself in another. She had woken, dizzy with fever and malnourishment, and found the half-decayed body of what had once been a person lying beside her. Half her clothing was missing and what she did have were literal rags. She had dropped so much weight that even a skeleton would be concerned for her health. One of her eyes was swollen shut and possibly infected.

A look in a broken mirror revealed a woman who was dead and didn't know it. This was true to a degree. She was dead on the inside. The numbness and pain were debilitating and having Terra's magicite did nothing to help ease it.

Celes shuddered and pulled the tattered bedsheet around her tighter. She had no clue how long she had been on this island due to the eternal twilight hour, but estimated that she had been "awake" for several days. How long it had actually been since that fateful day the Floating Continent had exploded eluded her. Guessing based on her weight loss put it at several months. Who knew what reality really was? In all honesty, with no food during this time she should have been dead by now. In the end, it truly didn't matter.

She spent most of her time on this cliff overlooking the ocean and a majority of the island. No signs of other humans. No signs of life other than her. Even the water was consistently still, the wind barely a breath, the plant life decaying, the sun barely warm despite its eternal half presence on the horizon. The silence was overbearing. She was alone in the world.

One could say things were bleak. That was putting it nicely. One could jazz that up with a curse to create "things were shitty". That still was putting it nicely. It was all semantics, really. What mattered was that there was no way out, no changing the way things were back to what they had been. This was life in a post-apocalyptic world. Everyone and everything except her; dead. Even magic was dying. She couldn't call forth the simplest ice to procure fresh drinking water. Perhaps, though, that was merely due to the weakened nature of her mind. One would never know for sure.

Everyone was gone. No Empire to fight. No Returners to aid her. No comrades-in-arms in Locke, Sabin, or Edgar. No one to love. No one to love her back.

No Terra.

She did have Terra's magicite in her possession, by some miracle, but even then, the gemstone did not exude the same warmth that Terra had in life. It didn't make her feel happy as Terra had done. It didn't make her smile or laugh. If anything, it was a reminder of everything she had lost; a reminder of what she had failed to protect, a reminder of how things had been and how they weren't. The emotions that reverberated from its core were the same as what Celes felt: sadness and despair.

Terra… I miss you…

Celes had nothing left for her in this world. No strength. No friends. No love. No tears. No way off this infernal island.

That wasn't true. There was one way.

Celes peered over the edge of the cliff with a wavering unsteadiness. White seafoam clung to the large groupings of stone in the water below. A fall from this height, so far up, would surely kill her. With an illness and other injuries as well, there was no way she could cheat death twice. Of course, she had no desire to. At this point, being alive was suffering. She couldn't suffer through the torture any longer. If no one would end it for her, then she'd do it herself.

She let the bedsheet fall from her bare bony shoulders and collect at her feet. She peered over the edge once more with her one good eye and, bearing in mind that she did not want to see it coming, turned to face back towards the path to the shack she had woken up in. Even the structure looked as desolate, lonely, and broken as her.

She clutched Terra close to her breast and took a painful deep breath. She was going to do it. This was it. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She didn't want to die. There were so many things she had wanted to do, so many things she had wanted to say. The only consolation she could see had been the night spent with Terra in Thamasa. So many things had been said, so many things done, so many things promised. It had been the perfect night.

If I stumble, please give me your hand. If I fall, please help me back to my feet. Dust me off, hug me. Let me know I'm okay. Your comfort, your smile, heals all that ails me.

Memories alone were not enough. This life filled with loneliness and regret was not worth living.

Celes allowed herself to fall back into nothing. The pink and orange sky filled her vision. The cliff where she had been standing quickly rose higher and higher away from her. Tiny sparkles that were her tears trailed upwards.

She landed on the largest rock that was cropping up out of the ocean and somehow was still alive. How…?! Why…?! Hot tears flowed because of the pain. It was unbearable, yet she could not move to ease it or finish the job. When she opened her eyes, she saw a smiling face looking down upon her, one framed by curly green hair. Green eyes. Terra. She tried to reach out to the angel kneeling over her, but was unable to lift her arm any further than her stomach. This prompted Terra to stand and reach down with her own hand.

"Take my hand, Celes. I'll help you back up," she said.

Celes openly sobbed as she willed her shaking hand to move further. The mental anguish was great. The physical pain was debilitating. The smell of copper and brine was nauseating. The sounds of the sea gently rapping on the stones were deafening. All she had to do was get within reach and it'd all be over.

"Terra…"

After what felt like an eternity, their fingers touched. The world soon fell silent and finally grew dark. All suffering in the world that Celes had known had ended and ceased to be. The perpetual twilight had become night.

I'm the darkness; you're my starlight…

Former Imperial General Celes Chere drew her last breath and shed her last tear. She remained there, splayed, broken and bruised, in the rocky sea like a mermaid until all evidence of her despaired existence was healed and washed away by the reluctant and eventual healer of healers, time.

More stories in the FFVI: Cold Fire Universe:
Rust Never Sleeps
An Angel of Snow
Don't Fall Away
Point Me to the Sky Above
Rust Never Sleeps Remix: Alternate and Deleted Scenes

On Archive of Our Own:
Prayer of Revenge