Filling In The Blanks

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy IX or any of its characters.

Chapter 101: Breaking the Surface

There was an itch about him. An itch that crawled across every inch of his skin so fast that it almost felt like fire.

He was burning.

But he couldn't move. Nor could he open his eyes, or twitch a finger. His body was paralyzed as the burning itch continued.

There weren't any thoughts besides the itch. There was a faraway echo of cries, and for the briefest of moments when his fingers touched a wisp of a thought, he wondered what was going on, until that thought vanished like it'd never been there at all.

Please…

He was floating. There was no sense of time or space, and he almost could have laughed to himself, chastising his mind for such a silly cliché. But then the moment was gone, and he forgot what a cliché was altogether.

If you're there…

He didn't know what happened to him to make him feel this way. He didn't know why he couldn't move, or why he couldn't see and his mind offered no answers. It was only that itch.

It was irritating, and annoying and – why was someone still crying? He tried to move his mind's eye to focus in on the sob. It was a boy, but the voice was shrill and raw. What happened?

You have to wake up…

An ache started in his mind as he forced himself to remember the world outside of the burning darkness. A flash touched his mind – a porcelain face and a fair smile, dark hair pushed behind an ear. But then the flash was gone and he was left with even more questions.

Why did it seem like everyone was crying so much? That beautiful angel (another thing he remembered, but had already forgotten her face) was crying, and now, somewhere far away, he thought maybe another one of her kind was crying too. Was it for him? Or something far greater than the meager existence he had sustained?

You have to make things better…

He was tired. That was an awful lot of coherent thought considering how much he'd been drowning lately. No thoughts lingered in his mind now as he accepted that the burn and the itch wouldn't subside, and that he wouldn't get any answers to his questions, either.

You have to show them…

Slowly, the darkness faded deeper if it was even possible, and he let his hectic attempts at thought settle. He didn't know who he was, or where he was, or how he even got there. But that was okay for now.

He nestled down into the warmth of obliviousness, closing his mind off from the world like he was closing his eyes.

That there's still hope…


"We need to consider getting back to Dali before Kuja let's off his search party," Amarant mumbled, though no one listened to him.

He'd been with the resistance for basically an entire year, but found he still did not have the emotional connection to any of them like they were displaying for the young thief now trapped in the forest.

Ruby and Marcus were still pushed up against the petrified wall, the oldest thief still sobbing as she held onto him tightly. He watched the way her fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, but she didn't cry. He admired her for that.

The others had walked forward now, ghastly pale in disbelief or crumpled faces in despair. Everyone had lost something that day, and for some – like the Tantalus crew – the loss had been overwhelmingly biased towards them.

Watching the stronghold of the resistance crumble was nearly more heartbreaking than losing two members of their dwindling group in one day. Even though Amarant was probably more aware than anyone else that they had to keep moving, he had a hard time going forward to let someone else know.

But finally, his survival instincts won out, as he didn't like the quietness around them, lingering on the edges of their sobs. His legs moved on autopilot, carrying him to Steiner, who hugged Dagger tightly, for she had no one else to turn to. Her rock in this entire mess had just been petrified in the forest.

"Steiner," the redhead mumbled. He had to try several more times before the knight finally looked at him.

What he saw in the man's charcoal eyes startled him. There was so much uncertainty and hurt – he had a second of doubt that it was even Steiner that he approached.

"We need to get to Dali. I know everyone is hurting but we have to think about Zidane and Beatrix."

He took in a sharp breath, as though he'd forgotten that they were already suffering injuries inflicted earlier in the day – earlier than the death and petrification of two of their dearest friends.

"Of course," he murmured, sounding more like a lost child than Amarant had ever even heard Eiko or Vivi.

As the ex-captain stood to herd everyone out of their dormant seats, the ex-soldier's eyes swept the area for their two youngest members. Eiko was morning with the rest of the group, her hand latched to Cinna's as she scrubbed the tears away from her eyes with her long, billowing sleeve.

He expected to see Vivi right next to her, but froze when he didn't. "Hey…" he mumbled, though no one seemed to hear him. "Where's Vivi?!" he demanded louder, and that finally seemed to get some attention.

"Vivi?" Freya parroted, like it was the first time she'd ever heard the name.

"Yeah, short little guy, 'bout yay high, big pointy hat that's too big for him, kinda quiet. A, you know, mage?"

"Vivi!" Quina called out, standing from his stooped state next to Cinna.

"Vivi!"

"Where are you?"

Suddenly everyone but Marcus and Baku were searching, abruptly ravenous for something to do other than think about the tragedy that had struck.

Ruby finally looked in plain sight, to the blonde that had been settled into the grass, still unconscious and injured. Vivi was sitting next to him, tears spilling onto the blonde's tattered shirt. If she listened closely, she could hear the mage murmuring to the blonde – pleading for something.

Tears stung her vision, but she refused to let herself cry. She blocked out the tragedy of Blank for a moment, and shook her head. "I found 'im," she said quietly before weaving through the small crowd of people to get to him. "Vivi?"

"He has to wake up…" he whispered. "He has to tell us everything will be okay."

"Why, Vivi? 'Cause you're afraid?"

He shook his head. "Zidane can always word things to make it better, no matter what's going on. He's done that for me since I met him, and I know he does it for everyone else too."

There was quiet as they stared at the mage.

He rubbed at his yellow eyes, blocking the golden glow from the people around him.

"Zidane would want us to keep moving forward," Ruby whispered quietly, just to the mage though she was sure everyone else heard. She nodded like she too was hearing it for the first time. "He would tell us not to be sad – to pick ourselves up 'cause we got a job to do. Nobody gets left behind for Kuja."

"So what do we do about Blank?"

Ruby bit her lip, squaring her shoulders. She could still feel the pressure in her back where his stone fingers had pressed earlier. "Blank wanted us to save Zidane. I say we do just that."

"But what about him?"

"Right now, he's in no danger from Kuja's men. We need ta get these two medical attention somewhere safe."

"I hate that she's right, but she's right," Baku explained slowly. He pulled up his goggles to itch his forehead underneath. "We know where he is and we will save the little bastard, but we need to make sure Zenero and he did not leave us in vain."


The group returned to Dali in complete shambles.

Townspeople met them, hope in their eyes that soon turned to grief when they found out about the two Tantalus members.

Elouise's uncle was one of the first to reach him. His face paled at the sight of Zidane, still limp in Baku's arms. "Oh god…"

"What's happened?"

"We need help!"

"Send for medical surprise!"

"Beatrix is failing fast!"

"There's no time!"

"Did Kuja get them?"

"Where is Blank?!"

"Where is Zenero?!"

Too many people were talking at once.

As though the demands of the townspeople breathed life back into the group, they were yelling and calling out orders. Beatrix's heart rate was low; Zidane hadn't woken up again. Their health and sanity was going to shit and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it.

The familiar voice of Mae caught their attention in all of the confusion.

"Vivi! Eiko!" She yelled for her two friends, ushering them to the house. Her mother stood behind her, hands tight on her shoulders. "We have to help Beatrix!"

The citizens of Dali trailed behind, still asking questions that no one had the energy to answer. They didn't understand what had happened – and that was how the group of rebels wanted to keep it.

If Kuja came snooping for answers, they didn't want the civilians involved. Even more so, they didn't want the others to know about how gruesome the world around them had become. In some ways, the resistance had become sheltered. They spent so much time hiding that sometimes they forgot how lethal Kuja could be, and if they weren't careful they would be caught.

Their traveling mission from Ipsen's Castle to Dali had truly been a wakeup call for what the world had been like in their absence. But losing Zidane and having to enter that awful dungeon again, only to get sucked into the evil of the forest, and fall victim to things that Kuja didn't even have any control over was a painfully sharp reminder that if something wasn't done about the world's darkness now, they would lose any sort of sane grip and balance that ending the war would give them.

"What's happened to her?" Mia demanded as they all jogged towards the mayor's home.

"She was stabbed with a blade coated in grey powder," Freya explained. "We have dealt with the powder once before and it stops magic from being able to heal the wound."

"Quina used a little blue magic and a bit of stormvine to help her and with all the time we've wasted getting back that was the only thing saving her life."

"You are lucky you brought her so swiftly," the mayor's wife started, her voice grave, "because she is nearly dead already."

"You can save her, right?" Steiner asked, his voice sounding entirely upset and unsure.

"We can do everything in our power to try."

As soon as they burst into the mayor's home, he was up, puffing like he usually was when things got hectic, as he ran out of breath and sweated quite easily. His handkerchief was already in his hand. He was trying to stop Steiner and Freya, hoping to get the story from one of them about what exactly had happened out there.

That's when he saw Zidane and he blanched, suddenly excusing himself. But not before he stopped Dagger, praying that she would explain what happened.

"We saved Zidane's life – barely as you can tell." She wrung uncomfortably at her gloves as her eyes moved unfocusedly around the room. "Beatrix is in grave condition, Blank was petrified in the Evil Forest and we lost Zenero there too. Mister Mayor, the situation is not well."

She walked away when he didn't answer right away, his face frozen in shock as the late-comers passed him on their way to the kitchen. "No… I don't believe it is…" he finally murmured back to Dagger lamely, though she was long gone and hardly remembered she'd stopped to talk to the mayor at all.

"Please help me get her armor off," Mia instructed calmly as Freya and Steiner began unstrapping the metal plate around her swollen leg, and shucking her long silver jacket and white sleeveless shirt. Marcus reached around her hips to unlatch her sword and dagger hilt from her. "You boys can leave the room and go wash up her things for her while I do this. Dagger, I need you to stay."

Beatrix was unconscious, only in her armored pants and a bra on the table as the mayor's wife continued calmly putting together medical supplies. Mae helped gather her things, like they had gone through this process before and she knew just what to do.

Freya stayed too, and not too long later, Ruby entered the room with Eiko. All of the women were there and ready to help if they needed to be. Despite the mild cliché, none of the boys that were left were in any position to see a surgery.

Mia's face spoke for her; the epitome of calm and collective, but if one looked closely, they could see the sweat beading at her dark hairline, and the way her damp curls fell out of her bun. But her hands didn't shake and she didn't have a problem addressing the stab wound probably because magic had nothing to do with it this time.

She took some alcohol and rubbed it all around her skin. The stormvine had stopped the most intensive bleeding, so she didn't have to clean the wound much before she got a good look at it. "It's deep, but not too bad. There's probably some internal bleeding though that we need to fix."

"How do we do that without magic?"

She shook her head. "The old fashion way, dear."

Dagger stared at her, horrified. She had hardly ever had to patch a wound without white magic in her entire life and the thought horrified her.

"We've done the procedure to a chocobo –"

"That's a choco –"

"I know." Mia stated matter of factly, effectively shutting Eiko up in the process. Mae shot her an encouraging smile, just to let her know that her mother wasn't trying to be rude. "But Mae and I have been studying up as much as we can about the human body. We got ourselves some books from Treno while we had to stay there."

"So what do we do?"

"I'm going to need Freya and Dagger to hold gauze to the wound wherever I'm not. Ruby, you're going to hand me tools, and Eiko how about you get to work with a wash rag on her face, neck and shoulders. We want her to be cleaned up, and if we start now that just gives her more time to rest."

Everyone assumed their roles as Mia sucked in a deep breath and made the incision larger in her side. She worked quickly, pushing down through all of the blood and body parts Dagger and Freya could hardly begin to name. They certainly weren't doctors, and never had any way to study it, so Mia was absolutely the most experienced in the field. As the stormvine was spread apart, blood began to spirt with every low beat of Beatrix's heart.

It was silent for a while until an idea spawned in her focused mind. "What blood type is this woman?"

"What?"

"Blood type?"

"Same as mine; they made sure at least one of the royal guards had the same blood type as my mother and I. That's what they told me anyway." Dagger nodded.

"That's about as good as we can get, I suppose; Mae, set up a transfusion, please!"

The little girl instructed Dagger to sit, and went through the process with her all too quickly. Who knew when Beatrix was assigned that this procedure would ever be the opposite? The Princess giving blood to her knights.

As her daughter started the process and got it moving along swiftly, Mia continued sewing up what she saw to be the problem. Sweat openly dripped down her face now, but she kept going. The operation itself didn't take long, as the woman was fairly confident in her abilities. It would be the healing process that she was a little more worried about.

Luckily, most of the surgery was uneventful. She knew what she was doing enough to save the woman's life, and most of it was spent with the others staring at her actions in silence. And Mia didn't feel the need to speak either, unless she needed to.

"Dagger, could you try to cast a cure please?" her voice was strong – so much different than the timid, hardly-heard voice of the mayor's wife before they fled Dali the first time.

She completed a small spell, and it fell over Beatrix with little effect.

"Just what I suspected."

"What is it?" Freya asked, her voice edging on worried. There was so much blood for a woman that had lost too much already. Dagger was holding strong.

"There was no way to get the magic powder out of her system. The stormvine drained it a little, but not enough for a cure spell to be completely effective on her anymore. While I'm not physically experienced in operation on humans, I have had a bit of practice playing nurse; I think she will survive so long as we give her a bit more blood. But she may never be able to heal using white magic again."

"What?" Dagger gasped, standing before collapsing back in her seat. Mae instructed her quietly to sit down. "But what if something happens?"

"I hope then that someone with you may become familiar with the trades of physical operation. I know we have never been a world known for such operations as these, but on some people, it has to be the case."

The women blinked at each other. That was a hard thing to fathom. While to all of them the surgery with Beatrix hardly took but a few minutes, they'd actually been making the rest of the group worried sick for over an hour. Considering it was just a stab-wound, Mia knew exactly what to look for to sew up. It was clean – something all of them could be thankful for.

She worked patching the woman's final layer of flesh together as they sat in silence, Eiko still diligently working away at cleaning out her hair.

"I'll get a basin for you to wash it better in," Ruby said suddenly, flitting from the room. The others suspected she wanted to share the news with the rest of the group waiting anxiously in the living room with the mayor.

Mae left the room to get the Dagger some bread so Freya stopped and stared up at the dark haired woman. "If it were not for you, she would be dead. None of us know how to fix a problem such as this."

"You aren't supposed to. Your expertise should be healing normal wounds and protecting others – fighting so that things like this stop happening. Save special cases for the townspeople – it is one of the few ways we know to help you all in your great feat."

"It is still appreciated more than you may know," she answered.

"You all will be ushered into the basement soon," Mia countered, deciding to change the subject. The ordeal with Beatrix had been major at first, but as the surgery continued, the woman knew that the brunette was a fighter, and that she would be okay. "Kuja will not hesitate in scouting Dali." She moved to examine and stitch up Beatrix's swollen calf next.

"We do not wish to endanger you further –"

"Nonsense!" she tsked. Beatrix shouldn't be moved and you all know you're welcome here. Perhaps in Kuja's arrogance, he will not begin so early and you'll have time to leave before he makes it out here."

"I can only hope for that for the sake of you and your family and people."

Mia smiled, so grateful that for once, she could be helpful to the small group that had done so much. She wanted to ask how they lost the others, but Ruby entered the room and the older woman knew it would be a sore subject for her.

Ruby seemed to move on autopilot. Her movements were jerky and her eyes weren't completely focused and a few of them had their suspicions that she was in shock. But she didn't cry. She cried openly when Zenero had passed away, but the only thing they heard her utter after Blank got paralyzed in the forest was how much of an idiot she thought he was.

And that was that.

No one wanted to break the surprising togetherness she was managing by asking her if she was alright, or wondering if she fully comprehended the situation. So they let her remain as she was.

Honestly, her mind had yet to welcome the truth. She was pretending that Blank was sitting just out in the living room with the others, or that he was away like Fratley. Because how could Blank be gone? How could that redhead that had annoyed her for nearly as long as she could remember just vanish? How could he be in a place that she wasn't, and vice versa?

How –

She stopped herself right there. If she continued to analyze it, she really would realize what happened, and she couldn't handle that yet. Not when there were still people in the here and now that needed her help.

She took to washing Beatrix's hair absent-mindedly, Eiko wisely stepping away to give the blonde something to do. She didn't even notice when all eyes fell on her. Movement stopped for a moment – all but Ruby's as she continued to cup water in her hands, letting it fall over the long walnut locks of the ex-lieutenant.

It was Mae's return with the bread for Dagger that knocked everyone out of their temporary stupor.

"Thank you," she said quietly, staring down at the hunk of bread with no appetite. "Does anyone else want any?" she asked after a moment.

Mia shook her head. "We'll get bread for everyone else – an entire meal down in the basement. I know it won't be as comforting as eating in the kitchen –"

"It will do just fine," Freya insisted.

"- but that bread needs to be for you, Dagger. Your body has lost a lot of blood now, and I need you to replenish yourself and stay strong, okay?"

Her dark chocolate eyes fell on Ruby, who didn't tense up or move slowly like she suspected everyone was putting their attention on her. "Okay," she barely whispered back, taking the tiniest bite of the grain.

"Miss Mia," Vivi muttered from the doorway, his shy voice floating through the room. He sounded tired and afraid.

"Yes, Master Vivi?" she asked kindly, sinking to his level after she had wiped the rest of the blood from her hands. "What can I help you with?"

He held up a white blouse, the fabric somehow still soft to the touch. She took it while her eyes stayed glued to him, waiting for the curious explanation.

"I got an extra shirt from Beatrix's bag. I thought it might be better than hurrying to wash her things."

Nearly everyone let on a smile in the room. "Thank you, Vivi," the woman nodded. "This will work just fine."

"O-okay," he stuttered, before turning to walk out the door.

"How is Zidane's condition?" she blurted before she could stop herself. But the other women leaned forward, their own interest peaking the conversation. Even Ruby stopped and stared at the black mage.

"Still the same," he sighed. "I think he's gotten so much white magic in him that he can't absorb anymore yet."

She nodded, "Living tissue is strange like that."

"I wish it wasn't though," he said like he hardly heard her. "I wish he could keep getting cure after cure just so he could wake up…" Vivi trailed and turned, swallowed up in his own world again as he meandered from the room.

Dagger wanted to say something. She wanted to explain how much sadness she felt for Vivi – his best friend being trapped away in a painfully scarred body, unable to come to him in the mage's greatest time of need – when it would matter the most. But then she thought of Zenero and Blank and Beatrix, and then of Tantalus and Ruby, Steiner and Freya and felt out of place saying such a thing. Many best friends had been lost – not just on this mission, but along the way. Some light of their family was always flickering out.

"Let us get some rest," Mia suggested as though she read the girl's thoughts and knew that the time for thinking was over, and that they needed to begin to heal – as best they could for the circumstances, anyways. "Dinner will be ready soon."


There was silence in the small basement besides the sounds of water and scrubbing. At first, washing Zidane of the blood and sweat caked into his skin and hair was a big ordeal. Everyone hovered over Cinna, who tried not to feel claustrophobic with so many people around. At the slightest movement, all of them would jerk forward, getting ready to catch him if something went wrong only to realize that Cinna, indeed, still had control of the situation.

Slowly though, one by one, they began to dwindle away until it was just the one thief left, working softly to clean off his face with Dagger sitting loyally next to him, holding his hand and staring at his motionless body.

The only sign they had that Zidane was still alive was the shallow heartbeat that sometimes they could hear and sometimes they couldn't. Dagger had stopped checking at everyone else's request; they said it would do her no good having a meltdown every time she wasn't in the right position to feel it.

She really didn't blame them.

The raven heard Steiner's clanky footsteps before she saw him. Most of his armor had been shed, revealing many bruises and cuts of his own from the various attempts at escape. But his boots made no less noise with or without the rest of his garb, so she turned when the noise finally dispersed.

He was holding up a shirt, a pair of grey trousers folded over his arm. "I know they will not be the perfect fit, but I thought he deserved to be in something that wasn't tattered and stained."

She smiled, about to say her thanks before Vivi walked up next to him. "Actually, I snuck some of his clothes before we left on our rescue mission."

Everyone looked at the mage in surprise – he had been astonishingly on top of things, especially when it came to the others' comfort.

"I hope you don't mind that I went into his things," he muttered.

Dagger accepted the clothing, nodding her thanks to Steiner as he gave her a grave smile in return. "Thank you, Vivi… I don't mind, and I don't think he would either."

The young mage nodded and once the clothes were out of his possession, he pulled his hat down as hard as he could over his head, like he was trying to hide from the attention that was suddenly on him.

"Y-you're welcome."

Cinna wiped his brow just as Dagger turned around, before going back to gently scrubbing his hairline.

The girl rose from the chair, delicately placing Zidane's hand back on the cot. "Let me take over," she said quietly.

"You sure?"

She nodded, "So long as you come back and help me with the clothes."

If the situation was better, he might have laughed at that comment.

She still felt a presence behind her as the thief moved away. Guessing it was Steiner, she waited patiently until he was ready to say his piece.

"How is he?" he offered up softly.

Dagger shrugged. "As well as he can be, though without so much blood he looks a lot better."

"Stable?" he asked.

She puckered her lips in thought, sweeping the hair from his eyes, wishing she saw his eyes flickering beneath his eyelids. But there was no movement. "I guess we won't know until he wakes up."

Steiner pressed his lips into a thin line in irony. "I guess we won't."

There was silence. She continued to wait.

"If anything happens to him –"

"Don't," she advised. "Don't say it." Those were the first optimistic words the girl had uttered since he had been abducted that day. But at the same time – maybe her insistence that they keep trying to save his life was optimism enough.

"Cid was right."

"What?" she turned to him completely, her face challenging like he'd hit a nerve.

The ex-knight shook his head. "Cid knew that Zidane likely wouldn't live through this mission. He was right."

"Zidane is still alive," she pushed, not understanding what his point was.

"Maybe," he uttered.

"Steiner –"

"What are we doing this for?" he suddenly asked, not even trying to be quiet anymore.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, her tone just as forceful now.

"Perhaps it would be better if we gave up. Maybe we could stay out of the way. Stay alive. Together. Nobody else would have to die."

"He's not dead!"

"Look at him, Dagger!" he was all but shouting now, and definitely had the room's attention. "We don't know if he'll ever come out of that! He is still broken! No amount of scrubbing away the blood will change that!"

"That's enough –" Marcus had stood angrily behind him, ready to get in the man's face – to force him to back down. But Baku grabbed him at the last moment; the eldest thief twisted around, about to demand why their boss had stopped him from defending their cause, but when he saw Baku's nostrils flaring angrily with every breath, he knew the man held him back for different reasons.

"Why are we doing this?" Steiner asked, stepping closer to her. "I've lost my entire family to this war." He shook his head, "and now, I'm losing more than my blood. I –" he stopped for a moment, having to take in a deep breath, curling his hand into a fist and pushing it to his mouth to calm himself down. But Dagger saw the glint of tears in his charcoal eyes. "I've almost lost Beatrix. More than once."

She decided against arguing, just for the moment.

"And I…" he turned his head to the side slightly, showing her his profile. He chewed his lip, trying to find the right words. Then his eyes found hers and he shook his head like he couldn't take it anymore. "I don't think I've come closer to losing you than with this mission. With this ridiculous mission that has so far done nothing but make Kuja more lethal!" he shook his head. "No. I won't do that. I cannot lose you too."

"I'm not going anywhere, Steiner," she told him, nearly inaudible.

"But that's the thing! You don't know that! I don't know that – we don't know that! Kuja could kill us all! Everyone! Until it's just him and his soldiers left!"

"That's what we're fighting to stop!" she cried, just not understanding the sudden outburst.

"But what's the point?!" he pleaded for someone to answer him with the words he wanted so desperately to hear. "If I lose you, if I lose Beatrix –" his arm jerked out and gestured to the rest of the room. "- if I lost any more of my family! What's the point of it all? What's the point of winning if there's no one left to share it with! The hurt won't go away!"

Dagger froze, if only for a moment. She couldn't even remember the time or place, if she had witnessed the conversation or had been the one to say the words… but she remembered that same exact phrase. What's the point if I lose everyone?

There was so much worry, so much running in the last few weeks, she hadn't even had time to question what they were doing. Between Mae's kidnapping, Zidane's abduction, Cid trying to stop her, and the entire rescue and every little detail and loss on the way, she couldn't even remember thinking of anything but surviving, and helping each and every one of her friends and allies do the same.

And in the midst of having heard the same doubts before, she lost all nerve to say anything at all. How to change someone's mind who thinks that way? She didn't have the answers.

"Because that's what those who have passed would want," she blurted without really meaning to.

Steiner stared at her with unshed tears still in his eyes.

She gave him one small, sad smile. "Because if I died, I would want for you to be happy. I would want Kuja gone; I would want my death to mean something."

He stood there staring at her, looking more helpless than she'd ever seen him. The others behind him, though standing a little prouder, had the same doubts deep in their eyes. Nobody really knew what was going on anymore – not after how they broke in the Evil Forest.

Gone was the strong knight who always stood in front of her, even if it was in his best interest to leave. He was always protecting her – shielding her from the horrors of the world, or trying to anyways. He spoke on her behalf whether she wanted him to or not, and made sure that even those she kept close to her treated her the way not just a princess should be treated, but someone with so much burden, but so much life in her should be treated. She may have been living this hard life with the rest of the resistance, but in many more ways than one she was still sheltered – protected by someone who had always endured so much hurt so she didn't have to.

"Because you deserve that, Steiner," she mumbled, tears springing to her own eyes as she thought about his own life laid out in front of him. "You deserve to live through Kuja's reign – to help bring him down, and be recognized as the hero you are."

Everyone held their breath, waiting to see if the raven would say more.

She shook her head, stepping up to him and tilting her head up to see him properly. She squared her shoulders and sucked in a sharp breath. "But we aren't going anywhere. We're going to be there with you, just to make sure you relax and live that life we want you to."

His face crumpled, and he let out a shuttering sob, his shoulders shaking as his body seemed to collapse into itself. She threw her arms out to catch him, and both of them fell to a kneeling position.

"I'm so sorry, Dagger. I'm so sorry you had to see this wave of doubt," he told her, his voice low.

She shook her head. "You don't need to be sorry," she whispered, feeling overwhelmed but happy it happened at the same time.

Behind the duo, Ruby grabbed the hand of the closest person to her – who happened to be Amarant, already having given up his other arm to Eiko, who clung to him for dear life.

Baku still held onto Marcus, tears running down both of their faces as they watched the scene in front of them. Finally having a moment to themselves seemed to be a curse in disguise, for it gave them all the time in the world to reflect on what had happened – and just how much harder it was going to become. Marcus fell forward, grabbing a hold of Cinna as well.

Freya put a firm hand on Vivi's shoulder, knowing that at this point in time, neither of them had anyone to turn to. He turned to look back at the bermecian with the most heartbreaking eyes, but he didn't cry. She knew he wanted to be strong for the rest of them.

Their small group, once so great and powerful was broken, and she wondered if there was really any coming back from that.

But from the way Dagger continued to cling to the broken knight, Freya knew that they would give it their all.

They would try.


A/N: That ending was a little spontaneous! But I think it was important to show that Steiner has the same feelings of doubt as everyone else, and not everyone can continue for so long without breaking.

The angst is almost over children – I promise I'll be moving on from this sad little pit soon, so hang in there and hold onto your tissue!

Lots of love to all of you for your wonderful support!

Also, I apologize for the poor, wordy way this chapter was written. I think what might have been happening was that if I got too hung up on the details of Beatrix's little surgery, this would have turned into a big hunk of writer's block. I tried to revise but damn, this one might have been a little rough. So sorry loves!

-zesty-