Phantoms in the Rain

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Written for my sister as a drabble challenge. She requested Jowy/Jillia, using the word rain, and uh, this is what she got. Read into it how you will.

Spoilers for Suikoden 2, right up to the final dungeon.

As always, comments and criticism are appreciated.

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The night he decides to kill her, it is raining. Sheets of water fall from the sky as he stares out his bedroom window, reflection distorted in the huge panes of glass. L'Renouille lay spread out before him, the capitol still and silent in the darkness.

Jillia is asleep in her own room, away from him. He thinks that is best.

What is best, however, is never what he wants.

Movement in the frozen town catches his eye, and he leans forward, hands against the glass as he searches. But no elusive phantoms make themselves known. He sighs and leans back, ready to pass the movement off as illusion when he notices it again. And pauses, back straight as his breath catches.

She stands behind him, her reflection no more than a wraith in the corner of his vision. Her hair falls around her, obscuring her features, and the silk robe whispers as she moves closer to him. Just a step, nothing more. It's enough.

A million reasons run through his head as to why she's here, none of them coherent, all of them wishful. But his face is even, only the hint of a smile showing through. The only face he'll ever show her.

The rain against the window sounds dull and lifeless, a reflection of their conversation. And he can't ever hope that someday that will change, that someday they'll be more than ghosts and phantoms to one another.

From the look she gives him as he kisses her forehead and smiles that false smile at her, he wonders that she knows that as well.

And as she leaves the room, the quiet question of one child echoes hollowly through his heart.

"Uncle Jowy, why is the sky crying?"