fourteen | oo49 [voice] BACKDATED TO THE 6TH

[ The feed cuts in with the journal's camera staring at the dark sky. It's dim now, in the gray lifeless world that exists after the sun sets but before night truly falls. There's no person to be seen, though briefly a shadow passes over the camera - someone's hand.

There is the sound of crying, audible still over the soft patter of slow rain against the pages. It is at once gasping and muffled, with the very obvious quality of someone trying very hard not to cry and just failing.

Xion's trying. Really she is. Really she knows that he'll be back in a week, that it will be fine, he'll be healthy, they'll be able to move on. Finally. But the months since Luke's kidnapping all the way back in February - since she confronted him and he finally confessed to her in April - have been long, so long, impossibly hard and terribly dark. It is no relief that his death has finally come to pass. It's just the curtain fall on what has been one of the worst periods of her whole, short life. ]

Luke is...

[ She chokes, then coughs, trying to clear her throat and stop the tears. Her voice shakes, but doesn't crack again. ]

Luke fon Fabre is ... is dead. He'll be back... he'll be back in a week.

Maybe I shouldn't have said this. But it's not fair, is it? [ Her voice warps, thick with the tears in her throat. ] The people who love him should know.

I'm sorry.

[ The journal shuts. ]

(ooc; Xion won't be replying to this post, largely, outside of a handful of people she especially feels she wants or needs to speak to. However,

relinquishing might be hopping around replies a bit more.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Unhappy, yes, but neither is Sanji surprised when his glance finds his daughter looking like she just crawled out of her own personal hell. And she looks smaller, somehow. Skinnier. She's bearing more weight on her shoulders rather than less, it seems, and it hurts to look at - to know she had no choice but to carry it, and largely by herself.

He stands from his seat on the fountain's side, crossing the last of the distance between them. There's nothing cheery in his expression; it's somber and in mourning, from having to see his daughter grieve and losing his son-in-law. When he hugs her... it's for the both of them.]

[ She just hiccups on wet, heavy sobs and hugs him in return. Rarely has anything in her life hurt so much. This might just be the single most painful thing. She clings to him hard and curls her fingers into his shirt and just wishes she were dead, too.

Though she doesn't say that. She knows he'd be mad. ]

C'mon. [Still holding her, he leads Xion back to the fountain's edge so she'll have a place to sit. And once she's off her feet, he pulls her in close again, until her head's on his shoulder. Tears or no, she can stay there as long as she wants.

He doesn't say sorry. He knows how much words like that rarely help; instead, they make the tragedy all the more potent. Besides, she can probably feel the apology in the air, in the way he holds her. This isn't something he ever wished for her]

[ If he's listening, he might hear from her something ... he might not expect. Or maybe the last thing he wants to hear from her. ]

I'm sorry.

[He frowns; not angry, but a little uncertain. He can't think of why she'd be apologizing.]

... For what? [He pulls back just enough to glance at the crown of her head]

... watching Luke go through that... watching him die...

[ She chokes. But, somewhat despite herself, she plows on. ]

I put you through that. I put so many people through that.

I don't regret going through this. [Yes, he says it. It isn't a happy statement, but it's a truthful one]

And you know his friends would have wanted to know the truth. [To be honest, he's not sure if this is what Luke would want... but ultimately, Sanji trusts Xion's decision to share this]

[ ... she laughs. Abrupt, and very unhappy. ]

You're right... that's why I said it. I know it's not what he wanted... but they deserved...

Dad, that's not what I meant. [ She lets him go, to rub at her face. ]

... I made you watch me die. I made so many people watch me die.

[He just looks at her now, expression unreadable]

Do you regret the choice you made?

[ Her brow knits. ]

What choice did I have...? I could have made someone kill me sooner, or ... or killed myself, but ...

[ She just looks so crushed. ]

I don't know...

[Oh, there is more she could have done - run to the mountains by herself, for instance, and taken her own life. She could have lied afterward, played it off like a kidnapping. Certainly, someone would've found out, but they all could've been spared the cruel fate of killing her themselves.

But that's a very cruel truth to tell, and she's already hurting. So instead he says:]

You chose not to die alone.

... I think ... it was selfish.

[ She leans against him heavily, lacking the energy to support herself. Her tears have mostly stopped by now, but the pressure is still there, tight and painful, behind her eyes. ]

If you hadn't been there.... I know Sokka and Riku would have died. All I could do was watch... just like I did now. Sometimes I feel like that's all I can do...

[ Her eyes slip shut. ]

I still can't decide, even after all this time ... if being selfish is okay sometimes.

[Sanji holds back the urge to shift in the sudden pool of his own uncertainty, the memories from over a year ago creeping into the cracks of his thoughts - jagged, shattered pieces on the floor he only half-remembers, dusted by age and a Malnosso experiment.

An experiment, that in the greatest twist of irony, saved those boys' lives when he might not have been able to.

A brief, metallic tang floods his mouth, the only hint that he's biting down too hard on the inside of his cheek. He closes his eyes. No, don't-- just don't think about it. The particulars aren't important right now. He answers her, voice steady and tempered with gentleness while his thoughts are not]

You don't blame others for being selfish at times, do you?

They're not--

[ ... replicas. ]

... they don't make the people they love watch them die, or--

[ A pause, as she realizes what she just said. If someone claimed Luke made her watch him die, she'd argue vehemently that it was her choice to be there.

... but hadn't that been untrue of her own death? People she hadn't even known had been pulled into it...

Confused, suddenly, she lapses into thoughtful silence. ]

[Sanji can feel the confusion behind that pause; it saves him from having to chide her choice of words. He holds his silence, waiting to see if she can puzzle out her thoughts]

... I don't know.

[ Her voice is a whisper. ]

I just wish this wouldn't ... happen to us. We break...

[And now Sanji says nothing because... what can he say to that? He's not a replica; all the experience in the world won't equip him with the words to lessen the hurt and misfortune that comes with her existence.

He curls a little closer to her, resting the top of his cheek on the crown of her head.]

[ With a shiver, she begins to cry all over again. It's hard. It's just so hard. She just watched Luke die right in front of her eyes, and she can't stop thinking about the fate of a Replica...

She's sorry, dad. She is. But for now she's just going to cling to him and bury his face in his chest until it stops hurting or she stops crying or ... whatever comes first. ]

[That's fine with him. His chest and shoulder were made for moments like this. Besides the occasional, tender murmur or a hand lightly squeezing around her smaller frame, he just sits, and waits, and lets his daughter cry her heart out without judgment.]

oo49 [voice] BACKDATED TO THE 6TH

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