"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago."
― Friedrich Nietzsche

"Do you remember when you were born?" Her voice like nails on a chalkboard, like a screeching halt of a turntable. When I said nothing, she continued, uncaring, "you were so hideously mucked up. Crying until I thought your lungs were about to burst."

She changed my dressing on the bed wound that festered on my side. I lay still, feeling very little as she peeled away the gauze from moist flesh. "I'm not sure you can stay here like this for much longer, Helena."

I reached for her hand, pleading, "no, I can't go back to a hospital." The sheer revolting thought of being placed in a hospital again erased the fear of being caught by Shin Ra.
She continued to change the dressing as best she could with whatever she managed to pick up from the pharmacy. "Is there a plan then?"

"Does there have to be?" I snapped, pulling my shirt down and cradling myself back into the itchy sheets only an inn can provide.

"I suppose not," she deflected, "but we can't just keep paying rent here. This inn situation was meant to be temporary."

"I'm not leaving. I'm in no condition." I huddled further into my blankets, the itch creeping on my bare arms.

"Not yet," she attempted again to appease me in hopes of breaking down my thick walls. "Eventually we have to think about it. We have to keep moving."
Insulted, I retorted, "you don't have to tell me." I knew we couldn't stay here and my spinning mind was beginning to understand too.

"I just want to help, Helena."

"You could have helped me when dad left us and you decided it was best to leave me at Shin Ra HQ." I launched myself forward, compelled by distress, "or maybe when I sent you birthday card after birthday card, asking you to just call me, at least once. Or maybe-." I stopped. It wasn't worth it and my chest felt hot.

"I know, you're right," after a moment of silence she spoke, her voice rasp, "I'm a terrible human being."
You are. "Don't say that." You ruined me. "You're all I have now."

She buried her head in her hands, sniffling. I was always the one to cry but nothing was coming out, I felt hollow. I just wanted to go back to sleep but this time of my own accord and not by the hands of a twisted man, a man he called himself "scientist."

"Maybe we can go someplace warm," I entertained her wish to escape. I wanted so desperately to be in her good graces, to stop her crying. "It would be nice to feel the sand."

"You mean Costa Del Sol?" She laughed. "That's a long ways away. Perhaps the perfect place to settle in."

"No, not for long. We need to keep moving." My hand twirled at a short strand of my hair. It snapped and I was left with nothing but the ends of my hair in hand, frayed.

"I'm glad you see it my way."

I stood up suddenly, feeling the blood rush and prick at my heels. I reached to scratch them but felt no relief. I was at their mercy. I was always at the mercy of something more persistent than me. "There's no other way. I could have long ago decided to just roll over but I didn't. There's no stopping now."

There was no stopping. Kathelyn took that to heart, her eyes brightening despite the curtains being closed. There was something so endearing and yet so heartbreaking to see her try so hard. There was a time she would have laid the world at my feet if she could but I learned to not trust someone so giving. The more I wanted to believe there were selfless people out there, people that wanted nothing but my best interest, the more I realized that I would remain alone. But there was something so ingrained in me: the need to rely on someone else. Kathelyn was one of those people: so brave and hardheaded. I wanted to rely on someone like her. Someone like him.

I shook my head; why was I thinking of him, of all times and places to reminisce? It didn't matter. He is dead. And I am here. I ask myself who won in the end?

I could hear it again, a radio playing. Kathe turned it on for white noise so that I could fall asleep. The hum and clacking heels of the hospital would accompany me into deep slumber after deep slumber. Old songs from childhood would drift in and out of consciousness and I would hum along. The music had stopped and a stern voice detailed an attack on Shin Ra HQ. I laughed in my chest.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Just thinking about how I'm outliving a lot of people lately." I twirled another piece of my hair, watching the end snap under the force of my forefinger and thumb. "I think there's a lot of hardships ahead," I admitted, "we should be prepared."

Kathe sat on the corner of her bed, sighing heavily as her legs collapsed under a heavy, almost palpable weight. "I think I understand. Neither of us are very battle worn."

"Maybe we should find someone who is."

Her eyebrow shot up, hovering just beneath her newly trimmed bangs. It's amazing how bangs can change your appearance. "We shouldn't get third parties involved, all things considered."

"I've always been able to keep a secret."

"You sure could," she laughed. "Remember, that one time I snuck out to meet Tara, that little brat from Junon? You tried to convince mom that I was in the house and just wouldn't break. You even started to cry. I think at one point you did manage to convince her, up until she caught me sneaking back in."

My heart sank slightly. "You still think of her as 'mom'?"

She went silent and her face fell. "I miss her, Helena."

Maybe it would have been easier if we forgot. We were kids, we shouldn't have had to deal with the things we dealt with. Kathe knew that before I understood, she escaped a fate much worse than we could imagine. So she decided to take me along this time to absolve her of some sins I couldn't bear to swallow. I had to grin and bear it, however; there was no choice now. I wasn't going to just lay down and die, although something deeply embedded in me wished otherwise. Laying in my hospital bed, I realized how much I didn't want to die, certainly not die from an infected bed wound. I wanted to see so much of the world. There was so much of the world I only watched through the lens of a television screen, through the lens of someone much more privileged than I. I bet they didn't even realize how privileged they truly are. I didn't realize how privileged I was. I was alive and he was dead. He'll never get to see the world like I was about to.

"We'll find you a way to head to Costa del Sol, I promise." She huffed, "maybe you're right. Maybe we do need to find someone to act as a meat shield."

I smirked; she always had excellent timing when it came to humour. I enjoyed people with humour the most. They always understood things in ways I couldn't quite comprehend. I bet they thought me very serious when in fact I love to laugh but never smiling -smiling required too much effort, laughing was entirely effortless. I wondered if I laugh more like my mother or our father? Kathe laughed like her lungs depended on the air being exhaled -like inhaling through a small straw. She thought my hair cut was hilarious. She had cut out all the mats but only the mats leaving me with a jagged bob. I entertained her and began laughing too. I didn't look like myself anymore. I looked like someone without a care in the world. So I laughed without her vaguely realizing that I wasn't laughing at the hair.

He didn't entertain Kathe's attempt at humour, however. The man, sun-kissed skin and sun-bleached hair, paid us no attention, his eyes fixated on the screen hovering in front of him. She tried to get his attention with a joke our father used to say -a drunkard's joke. Although the man looked like he knew of hard labour, his clothes stunk of beer. His eyes shifted in our direction after she told the joke a second time. "What do you want?"

"Times are tough," I twirled the shill in my glass, something they gave me when I asked for bourbon. "I heard the president is dead."

"Yeah," his tense shoulders fell around him, his elbows crashing into the bar rail. "All the best, I say." He raised his bottle in my direction, testing me. I met his bottle with my glass, the thin glass clanking hard.

I reached over from my seat, extending my hand. "I'm Helena, and this is Kathelyn."

"You can call me Kathe," she added.

He shook our hands with an equal amount of snapping at the shoulder; I nearly fell off my stool and Kathelyn jerked around slightly. Battle-worn, just like we ordered.
"Kathe and Helena," he repeated, "what can I do you for?"

We heard from the innkeeper of a group of miners who lost their jobs after the Mythril Mines were overrun by monsters. We asked if he knew of someone who would be able to drive us across the sea. "You'll see him. He's bigger than all of them. He has a boat and he'll help you for the right amount of gil." Jofrey was his name and he didn't seem to take too kindly to those who evoked it.

"We need help," Kathe was insistent. "We need to have someone ferry us across to Costa."

His eyes watered slightly as if he were about to bust a gut laughing but decided it was best to retract his sass. "Listen, I don't babysit strangers."

I flashed him the wad of cash in my jacket. Kathe had the brilliance to ask me to dump out my savings. It wasn't much as we could easily take it out in two sittings from the automated teller but enough to keep us going for at least as far as Costa del Sol. Kathe was the mind behind all of this; she clearly spent nights, even weeks planning my breakout. At least I hope she did rather than mulling over the idea altogether.

"Alright," his jaw slacked, "where to?"

"Costa del Sol."

"You have taste," he snickered.

"It's just somewhere I always wanted to go, you know? See an actual sunset."

Note:

I am working on uploading this from AO3. It's my third and last attempt at this story. I hope you enjoy!