three...
catch, not break

Leon was completely alone. All around him seemed to be nothing but limitless dry, cracked earth and a grey cloudless sky.

Walking here seemed incredibly easy, his steps light and boundless. He felt free and...incredibly lonely.

Hello? He called out, his voice echoing back to him. He waited a moment but there was no response,

Anyone there? But there was still no response.

He began walking straight, seeing if maybe moving would bring him towards people. The scenery remained the same however, everything so identical that Leon began to wonder if he had even moved at all.

After what felt like an eternity he stopped, turning around so he could take in all angles. The lack of change in perspective made him feel slightly dizzy and he closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them he expected everything to be different, but not a single thing had changed. So Leon sat down on the ground and crossed his legs underneath him like a pretzel and he waited.

Leon didn't even bother opening last nights file. Instead he just dragged the whole thing into the trash, exhaling loudly as he brought his forefinger and thumb to pinch the bridge of his nose. He caught his reflection in the window behind his desk and he glared at it.

"You are a class A asshole." He said out loud.

His hand moved to his phone and he picked it up by the corner as if it were dangerous. He tossed it, rotating so he always grabbed it at a different corner for a while while he absently thought about calling Cloud to let him know that he was alright. 'Hey just called to let you know I'm not in a ditch or anything. I just stood you up.' He scoffed, 'Give me a break.'

Leon could feel a pounding building in his head. He dropped his phone unceremoniously onto the desk and leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples as he ran over what he should do in his head. 'This is why you don't get involved.' he thought, unable to stop the frown from reaching his face.

He would do nothing and things would go back to how they were before. This was the inevitable result anyway, he would just skip all the complicated things in the middle.

Leon nodded, righting himself back in his chair. He would not see Cloud again. That was the smart thing, the right thing.

Even if it left him feeling emptier than he'd ever been before.

If he didn't leave his apartment, Leon was able to go about his routine as per usual, with a minimal amount of guilt. Guilt made him angry and anger made him lonely and loneliness made him even more angry and then nothing got done. So he stuck to his routine. He would wake at 8 am, clean his apartment, eat a simple breakfast and write until the sun went down, then he would order food and perhaps write some more or read something and then go to bed.

But the truth was, nothing he had tried to write in the last three days had turned out right. He couldn't get into anyones head, half the time he couldn't even get started. He didn't want to write about Cloud anymore, he wanted to erase the blond's brief existence completely from his life, but what was left after that? His previous method of simply making things up seemed already beyond his ability. So, in actuality Leon spent a lot more time than he was comfortable with staring off into space, doing nothing.

'Could this even be called living?' Leon thought, before catching himself. He'd made it a point in the last three days to not think about things like that. The one thing almost putting himself out there with Cloud taught him was that living itself was not very important to him right now. Surviving was.

Leon's first relationship is as whirlwind a romance as a person of his personality can get. They meet in a frozen yogurt shop although neither of them particularly likes frozen yogurt.

He is his first everything.

Alcohol always leaves him vulnerable, shows his wounds, makes him honest.

They lie on the the too small dorm bed after a celebratory evening out, and his partner is threading fingers through his hair.

"You can't leave," he says quietly into the crook of his neck.

"I won't," the other responds, and he sounds sincere.

Leon awoke to the sound of his cell phone alarm blaring directly into his ear. He jumped back, disoriented as he blindly grabbed for the device to stop it. He'd fallen asleep at his desk last night and it had been extremely unforgiving on his back and neck. He attempted to crack both as he got up, and head into the kitchen with the intent to make coffee.

He stifled a yawn as he reached the pantry, and registered in passing that he had to go into the office for a meeting at noon as he opened the door. The canister was alarmingly light and when Leon opened the lid to look inside he realized that he was completely out. He cursed loudly as he slammed the door closed, already feeling the caffeine withdrawal headache pulling at his temple.

From that moment on, nothing went right. The pipes in the building must have frozen because his water only came in at a light, freezing cold trickle and he managed to knock over a stack of papers he hadn't numbered yet onto the floor while vacuuming. This was the making of a bad day and he was very close to blowing off the meeting entirely and staying in bed for the remainder of it. But the fact that he didn't have a story for this week made it impossible for him to miss the meeting, and the pull of coffee was too strong.

So, albeit in a terrible mood, Leon pulled on his coat and scarf and head out of his apartment for the first time in what was now coming on four days. He locked the door behind him and began a descending the stairs. It was freezing the hallway and said a small prayer that it wasn't this cold outside. He was so wrapped up in his chattering teeth that it wasn't until he had already descended several steps of the final staircase that he recognized the figure coming up.

At that exact moment Cloud was ascending the stairs, his head down as he flipped through his mail. The sound of Leon's boots on the steps above him caused the blond to look up. His cheeks and nose were red from the late autumn chill and there was a look of almost comical surprise in his large, impossibly blue eyes as they locked onto Leon's. The surprise flickered briefly into hurt and then glazed over into blankness.

Leon's scowl lifted and his own eyes widened as they took in the sight of Cloud, emotions rushing him with enough momentum to carry him the rest of the way down the stairs and out the door. A piece of him, after seeing the hurt on the others face wanted to grab Cloud and explain everything, the other part wanted to simply look away. Look at the door, the ceiling, the stairs beneath his feet anywhere but at Cloud's face.

A moment of icy silence passed between them before Cloud started walking again, "Good, you're not dead." he said as he shoved passed the brunet.

Leon opened his mouth to say something, anything but Cloud spun around before he could even begin to imagine putting together a sentence.

Cloud stopped suddenly at the top of the stairs, turning violently towards Leon.

"You know, I could have really liked you Leon. You make it difficult but damn it I would have tried so hard." He said, one hand gripping the old bannister as if for support. "If you didn't like me, if you weren't interested in that, you could have just said so. Or you could have left things as they were. You didn't have to come looking for me and ask me out so you could...I don't even know what your plan was."

Leon felt as if Cloud had just punched him in the chest, "Cloud I -"

"Save it," Cloud said, turning around and clearing the rest of the way to his apartment, "Don't worry, I got your hint." he called over his shoulder.

Leon half wished Cloud had just pushed him down the stairs. He felt as if he had. He knew it was cruel when he did it but he just couldn't go. He couldn't get up and meet Cloud and do this all again.

'So why did you even ask him out in the first place?' he asked himself as he descended the stairs and walked out into the cold afternoon.

He couldn't think of an answer to that. In a moment of weakness he had wanted to make Cloud his. Once he realized that that also meant he would be giving up himself as well he couldn't do it. He did not want to get involved.

'I should be happy Cloud hates me,' he thought, 'Makes things easier.'

And yet the thought of the blond hating him made him hate himself more than anyone else could ever hope to.

By the time he'd reached the She… headquarters he was sure he'd felt every emotion it was possible for a human being to feel. He walked through the office, mindlessly greeting the other staff before reaching the conference room. He was relieved to see that only Aerith was there. She was humming as she flipped through a magazine and tapped the side of the table with her pen. She looked up when he entered the room and one look at his face and the content look she was wearing disappeared.

"What happened Leon? What's wrong?" she asked, getting up from her chair and moving around the table so she was standing in front of him. She felt his head for a fever, "Are you sick?"

Leon shook his head, What was wrong? He didn't even know how to begin answering that.

"Leon, sit down," Aerith said, pulling out a chair for him, "I'm going to go get us some coffee, you think about what you want to say because something is clearly bothering you immensely and we are talking about it."

Leon didn't bother to remove his coat as he sat down, running through the events in his head. When did things become so complicated? he thought with a frown.

Aerith returned in moments with two steaming cups of coffee. She set one cup down in front of Leon as she sat beside him at the conference table, turning her chair so he had her undivided attention. Leon took the cup gratefully and downed an appreciative gulp.

Aerith quietly allowed him to savor the drink before tapping her manicured nails on the table, "So…" she prompted.

Leon ignored her for a moment more before setting the cup down and sighing deeply. He absently picked at the sleeve around the cup, working the words together in his head. "I...think I messed up."

Aerith smiled at him, setting her own cup on the table, "Elaborate."

Leon sighed, "I don't see the point of this,"

Aerith rolled her eyes, "Just try it. Sometimes just saying things out loud helps. In college, I had a professor who used to say 'I don't know what I think until I tell you'."

Leon gave Aerith a pointed look, which she matched with one of her own. "I told the girls to come in a half hour later. So you have thirty minutes to get that look off of your face before they pick up on it and trust me. They'll be worse than I am."

Leon sighed, "Fine. Fine okay. Just…" He wondered how he could do this without opening up too much to the determined woman across from him.

Aerith watched him with passive, receptive eyes and Leon looked away, focusing instead on the clouds in the sky beyond the window.

"So...I got a new neighbor who...was...intriguing to me from the moment I saw him. We ate together once which, might have been sort of a date but then I screwed it up."

"How did you screw it up?" she asked

"He asked me out...sort of...and I shut him down. But then I asked him out and I stood him up and now he hates me and thinks I'm an asshole."

"Why would you do that if you liked him?"

Leon shook his head, "Because I realized I don't like him."

Aerith gave him a pointed look.

Leon sighed, "Well. Not so much that I don't like him but that I don't want to be with him. I know that that wasn't the correct way to go about it but...it's done. I don't blame him for hating me. I guess...that was sort of the plan all along but I didn't think it would bother me this much."

Aerith made a thoughtful noise. "Ignoring the super asshole move you pulled, I'm a bit confused. How can you like someone and not want to be with them?"

"Simple." Leon snapped.

"Clearly not," Aerith countered, smiling as the brunet glared at her. "I think that the reason him being upset with you bothers you so much is because deep down you do want to try things out with him but you're holding yourself back. It's just dating Leon, it doesn't have to be so scary."

"It's bigger than that." Leon said scowling, "It's not about him at all."

Aerith pointed at him, "You're words, not mine." she said with a laugh, "I don't know what is holding you back, but something is. And it goes beyond your neighbor and beyond dating. It touches all your relationships. With your coworkers, and your friends."

She leaned back in her chair and fixed Leon with a leveled stare, You know we've been working together for going on three years now Leon and this is the first full conversation, not about work, that we've ever had? You come into the office once every two weeks and communicate entirely in emails. You purposefully hold everyone ten feet away and you're so good at it not even Yuffie has any idea of what goes on in that head of yours."

"Is it a crime to be a private person? To want to keep to myself?" Leon asked.

Aerith smiled sadly and shook her head. "Of course not. But, it's different than simply being introverted. Or it feels different. It feels like you're not even here. And not that you're daydreaming or something else but that there's this giant meticulous wall built around you at all times. But then you write. Romance of all things. Beautiful romance."

Leon opened his mouth to protest but Aerith put a hand up,

"I know, Lies and fiction. We've all heard the speech. But I think the only person you're lying to is yourself. And you used to be really good at it, but you can't anymore and that's what's eating you up inside."

Leon realized his mouth was still open and closed it. He didn't really have anything to say to that. She was wrong but-'Well. Is she really wrong?' He thought to himself, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he thought about his life. "I know I keep people away, and it is on purpose. But that works for me. I'm happy this way."

Aerith rested her elbow on the table and cupped her chin in her hand, "Are you really though Leon?" and there was something so genuine and sincere in her voice that Leon did stop and think.

What did it even mean to be happy?

Everyone always pushed happiness on each other and sought it for themselves but what did it all mean in the end? Was there some scale to base it on? How did you know, really know if you were happy?

Leon guessed, if you had to ask that question, you probably knew the answer. He sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that hour.

"It's...not about being happy to me right now. It's about surviving."

Aerith looked genuinely shocked at that, "Surviving? Making friends, and falling in love, that's detrimental to survival?"

Leon shrugged. Saying it out loud did sound sort of ridiculous. He was supposed to be good with words but this feeling just couldn't be relayed. "It could be."

"How?"

Leon did not want to keep talking but Aerith was so sincere, had such genuine concern for him that he felt like he owed it to her to continue. And a part of him wanted to explain. Wanted to work it out into words so it would make sense, so he could feel justified and get on with his life.

"People are the least reliable things in existence. They leave, always, sooner or later and they die easy and they change their minds yet we constantly put faith into them. We give each other all this power, too much power and we treat it like it doesn't mean anything. And then when things fall apart we've already given away a piece of ourselves and now it's gone or it's different and it doesn't fit anymore. You're a fraction of the person you were before and you don't have anything to show for it."

Aerith didn't say anything, simply watched Leon patiently as he visibly struggled to put his thoughts together.

"But...you don't learn,"

Leon thought of his mother waiting for his father to come back, of her blinding faith in him.

"You keep making the same mistakes over and over again, giving away the best pieces of yourself to people who treat them like trash."

He thought of how it killed her.

"You keep giving away pieces of yourself,"

He thought of his sister at the orphanage promising forevers and then leaving. He thought of all his friends one by one going through the front gate and never coming back.

"You know that it's stupid, you can predict how it ends. But you do it anyway, you can't help it."

He thought of the feeling of building something you thought was precious and having it taken away. He thought of failed relationships and broken friendships and things that just faded into nothing.

"And then one day, you have nothing left. You're not there anymore."

Leon looked up into Aerith's sad, alarmed eyes and he realized that his own were growing wet with unshed tears. He quickly blinked them away, a look of determination unraveling across his features instead, "That's idiotic. I want no part in it."

They sat in silence for a moment, Aerith looked as if she wanted to cry as well. "I...can understand that line of thinking," she said softly, "But you're wrong."

Leon blinked at her.

"Life and interacting with people is not just giving away pieces of yourself until you disappear. You give and you take as much as you give and the pieces that you take become a part of you and that's how you grow. That's what living is. No one is meant to stay exactly how they were. That's being stagnant. That's being dead." Aerith eyes were boring into his own desperately. "You have the power to choose who you give what pieces to and it's up to you to chose the people who are going to give back as much as they take. Sometimes we make mistakes and we get hurt but even if things go badly it's never a waste."

Aerith smiled at him, grabbing his hands, "It's fine to be selective with who you let in, but if you shut out the whole world you shut yourself in as well. And it may be fine now, but eventually you're going to need a friend and there's a very good chance that if you don't fix things now that it'll be too late."

Leon shook his head, "I don't know how."

"You follow your heart...or maybe it's your guts. You just allow the feeling and if you mess up then you mess up. Life is a work in progress after all. You don't only exchange pieces with lovers. You can share with friends too."

Leon looked as if he wanted to say something so Aerith stopped talking and just looked at him. When he didn't she squeezed his hands and smiled deliberately at him, "We can start with me, and even Yuffie and Kairi if you want. If you give me a little piece of you I promise I'll match it. And if you ever mess up, I'll try and replace what was taken so you never disappear."

Leon almost smiled at that, it reminded him of another conversation he had what felt like a hundred years ago, "Like a social guinea pig," he said quietly.

"Hm?" Aerith asked.

Leon shook his head and squeezed her hands back, "Thank you Aerith. I promise I'll consider it."

Aerith smiled and pulled her hands out of his grasp. "That's all I can ask." She got up and walked over to her original seat, shuffling some papers out onto the desk, "You can come in now girls, I know you're out there."

Leon shook his head, there really wasn't much he could do but laugh.

Aerith sent him home with the orders to think about what they'd talked about and figure out something to write. This issue his story would be replaced with a guest fiction piece which would give him two more weeks to come up with something. He had never been more grateful for his boss then he was right in that moment, but as he walked back home in the early twilight he realized the twisting feeling was still in his stomach. Everything had become so complicated and Leon wanted to just go to bed and sleep until it passed. When are things ever that easy he thought as opened the gate leading to his apartment buildings stoop.

He paused to grab his mail, which despite being four days worth was a pathetically slim pile. He walked up the stairs two at a time, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be out of the cold and into his warm apartment, flipping through the envelopes as he walked. Bill, Bill, solicitation, Bill, solicitation, Laguna Loire.

Leon stopped dead in his tracks as he read the familiar name of his father. He inhaled sharply before continuing the short walk into his apartment. Once inside he tossed all of the mail with the exception of the letter from his father onto the counter. He grabbed it between both hands, ready to tear it into two but stopped. He pulled it away from him, reading the name and address once more as if he was trying to make sure that it was indeed a letter from his father.

He sighed, slapping the letter into his palm as he paced his living room. Perhaps reading the letter for once, hearing what his father had to say, would give some perspective to what had torn his family apart and set him on the path it did? Maybe it would help him understand himself?

Leon shook his head as he walked back and forth across the carpet, How could anything he possibly have to say now help anything at all? But he couldn't deny that his curiosity was reawakened. After a few more moments of pacing Leon came to the decision that he would deal with it tomorrow. He lay it on top of his closed laptop and went to take a shower, resolving to just eat dinner and go to bed.

But lying in bed that night Leon could not get to sleep. Eventually he gave up even attempting to shut his eyes and instead glared at his ceiling in the dark. Every time his mind drifted close to sleep his thoughts jumped back to his meeting with Cloud on the stairs. The blonds winter flushed face and the look of hurt behind his eyes.

"You know, I could have really liked you Leon. You make it difficult but damn it I would have tried so hard."

Leon groaned and turned over so that he was on his stomach with his face buried directly into his pillow.

'I wish I never looked out the window that morning.' He thought, shocking himself. Part of him was horrified by the thought. Just the knowledge that someone like Cloud was out there, someone who could make enrapture him so deeply it would draw him out of his self imposed social exile was enough, made the confusion worth it. But the other part of him was too confused, too frustrated to think of anything but his own warped perspective. He had been so sure of himself, so comfortable. Now, he didn't even know why he did the things he did.

Why did I ask him out? he thought, rolling over onto his back again in the dark. He could just make out the shadowy outlines of his sparsely decorated apartment, the moonlight shining through the curtain-less window like a searchlight.

He sighed and closed his eyes, 'Because I wanted to know him.' Leon brought his thumb and forefinger to pinch at the bridge of his nose. He had guarded himself so well, made the conscious effort to not get involved and yet he himself had chosen to throw all of that away. When he didn't think about it, he wanted to know everything about Cloud and he wanted to tell Cloud about himself too. He wanted to tell Cloud that even though he really didn't know him that well he could feel some sort of pull. He knew he could really, honestly fall for him. He knew he would give him everything and that scared Leon more than living out a life alone and isolated ever could. 'But would that change anything?' Leon thought, 'It's already too late.'

"I won't be going anymore Leon. Not without you." and he smiled so sincerely Leon believed him.

And then eight months later, twisting the hem of his white button down shirt in his hand,

"It's just...I want a family Leon. A normal one, you know?"

Leon did not know.

That was the last time Leon was surprised.

When Leon opened his eyes, he had one brief moment of blissful nothingness before his brain caught up to his body. Laying in his bed, staring at the ceiling in a room now filled with light, the events of the day before came back to him in humiliating waves. Cloud hated him, but he deserved that, and he had talked way too much to Aerith. But it had helped, a little.

Leon sat up, hissing as his feet touched the freezing cold floor of his apartment. Winter was fast approaching and it was going to be a cold one. Once his feet were as used to the cold as they were going to get he stood up and headed to his bathroom to wash up. With his toothbrush still in his mouth he left the bathroom, and went to the living room, booting up his computer before returning into his room to put on a sweater. It was on his way back to the bathroom that the envelope on his counter caught his eye. He stopped, reading the sprawling script again as if to be sure.

Laguna Loire.

He frowned, turning to head back into the bathroom.

When he finished his morning routine he returned to the counter and picked the letter up delicately, as if it were a bomb or a wild animal. He sat at his desk and held it out in front of him. How many of these letters had his father written him? How many had gone unread, ripped up into tiny pieces and swept into the trash? Leon held the letter up to the light the paper was so thick he was unable to make out any of the inside contents. He was tempted to just rip this one up as well, but there was a part of him that was curious again, after all these years, what the man could have to say to him. Perhaps it was the same part of him that wanted to ask Cloud out, that took Aerith's advice to heart. The part of him that churned out story after story because of a few glimpses of eyes, blue like the definition of the word, and now wouldn't churn out anything.

He could rip the letter up without reading it and continue his life as he'd been living it, solitary and safe. Or, he could open the letter, and read what his father had to say. He could, without bias or judgment, hear the excuses or rationale and change everything. What was done, would still be done. Reading the letter would not undo the past, which is why he had never bothered reading it before, but perhaps understanding why things evolved the way they did would help him come to terms with them. Something he clearly desperately needed.

And just like that, Leon got an idea.

Leon used his cell phone so sparingly that it took him about three minutes longer than it should have to find his address book. Once he did however, he called Aerith, anxious to run his idea for his next piece by her.

He could practically hear the smile in her voice as she said, "I think that is a fantastic idea Leon,"

So, with the approval of his boss, Leon started to write. For the first time in a week Leon couldn't help but write, and for the first time since he could remember Leon wrote honestly.

"Your father is a kind, and brave man. He fought very hard in The Great War so that we could be safe."

"But where is he now?"

"He's off making sure that we stay safe."

"Well why can't he do that from home?"

"...I don't know."

Leon pulled another sweater over his head, cursing his landlord for not raising the heat. The feeling of the cold reached so deep he practically felt it in his bones. It made him think of that one day, weeks ago, standing in Cloud's apartment. Nostalgia drew his eyes back towards the window that started it all, and to his surprise, when he looked down onto the sidewalk he locked eyes with Cloud.

The blond was standing before the gate, looking up with something Leon would classify, if he was an optimist, as longing.

Cloud looked as surprised as he did to lock eyes with the brunet and he looked away, continuing towards the gate.

Leon wondered what the blond saw when he looked at him.

Before heading up the stairs of the stoop and out of sight Cloud looked up again, his face slightly reddened with something perhaps just a bit more than cold.

Maybe it wasn't too late.

This will be my last love story.

My mother was beautiful, strong willed, and self-sufficient. My father was a bumbling idiot whose only worthwhile venture was to wash up on the shores of Winhill after nearly getting himself killed. My mother nursed him back to health, and, I'm sure you can assume, they fell in love. When the war spread and reached closer to home he returned to the army to help manage the conflict. This is all very romantic. But you see, the thing about romance is, at least in the way I've always presented it to you, that it is a piece of a bigger picture. A section carved out in an effort to present a certain facet of a situation. The road to the ultimate happily ever after.

It's fiction. Romance can not exist in real life because things are never that contained.

If I was writing the story of my parents meeting, I would end it with my father going off to war, my mother standing on some cliff face watching his airship fade into the distance, one hand on her still flat but nonetheless pregnant stomach with hopeful thoughts in both their hearts. You as a reader will have faith that things will end well for both of them, but there will be enough left to the imagination to keep you thinking. But the happily ever after will hang in the air for them regardless.

In real life, this is not what happened.

Half of Leon hoped that the ringing would go on forever, the other half was impatient for it to stop.

"Hi, this is Laguna."

When the line finally connected Leon almost hung up. More than hung up; He had to fight the urge to throw the phone out his window. He cleared his throat instead, "It's me. It's Leon...uhm...Squall."

There was the sound of something dropping, a chair scraping against the floor. Leon could almost picture the other mans shocked face.

"Squall?" the voice over the phone, alarmingly similar to his own, managed to choke out, "Is it really you."

Leon thought that was a stupid question, and so he didn't answer it.

This didn't seem to matter to the voice on the other end, which continued,

"I...I've been writing you. For years I've been writing you, I assumed you didn't get them or didn't want them but I couldn't stop. I guess you finally read one?"

"I didn't," Leon said quietly. He suddenly felt like he was four years old again, sitting on the window sill asking his mother impossible questions. "I just skimmed it to get your phone number."

"Oh," Laguna said.

There was a few moments of crackled silence before Leon sighed heavily, "I just...have some questions. Can you talk?"

"If I have answers, they're yours." Laguna responded without hesitation.

Leon nodded, more to encourage himself than anything else. "Why did you go?" he asked finally.

When my father left my mother was pregnant with me. He never came back and she died waiting and now she's a Winhill ghost story. Having someone whom I loved and relied on taken away suddenly was disorienting. Especially to a five year old who could only barely understand. That was the first time my heart broke.

My sister and I were sent to an orphanage where I spent my formative years not realizing why all my friends who went through the front gate never came back. I loved my sister more than anything else in the entire world, and we promised that we would always be together. But one day, she went through the front gate too and I was alone. This was the second time.

"I had to," Laguna responded.

"Bullshit!" Leon snapped.

"It isn't." Laguna said, "I was a soldier. The conflict was getting bad. They needed help. We all had to leave."

"Why didn't you come back?" Leon asked, surprising himself with how vulnerable he sounded.

Laguna sighed, "After the war, everything was mess. Whole cities were destroyed. There were more refugees than supplies. More refugees than relief. I stayed behind to help rebuild."

"You abandoned us." Leon said matter of factly, "You left us alone to play hero."

Laguna didn't respond to that. They stayed in silence so long Leon thought he had hung up.

I was eight years old and the first lesson that I learned, really truly learned, about life was that the only thing you can count on when it comes to people is that one day they will leave. As I grew older, this stance expanded. People are not nice. People are liars. People are selfish, willfully ignorant, exhausting. People are more trouble than they are worth. People are not worth it.

Everyone repeatedly proved me right until eventually I picked up the pieces and without even dusting them off I locked them away. I looked at the people around me, clinging desperately to each other only to end up miserable and alone, with pity and contempt. The people who read these stories for comfort and entertainment and hope were all idiots, less enlightened than me. I thought it was better to be alone than to allow yourself to get close to someone and feel the pain of them leaving. That was the true key to living without pain.

"I'm sorry," was all he said, finally, "I can't justify the pain that I must have caused. But I swear, none of it was intentional. I didn't know that your mother was pregnant when I left, and I didn't know that she had you. If I did, I would have come back as soon as possible and I know that you probably can't believe that but it really is the truth."

Leon couldn't bring himself to respond.

"By the time I came back, she was already dead and you and your sister were gone. I searched everywhere for you guys, I really did but nothing came of it. I never stopped looking and it wasn't until recently that your sister found me actually. We've been looking for you...but you changed your name."

"Ellone is with you?" Leon asked.

"Not at the moment," Laguna responded, "But we see each other from time to time. She has a family over on Destiny Islands so she can't scour the globe looking for you like she used to, but trust me. She's never stopped searching."

"That's bull shit. I'm not hiding. I'm not hard to find. I don't go anywhere. I don't do anything but wait." Leon said, and the honesty of that statement shocked him.

There was a moment of silence as Laguna carefully chose his words, "You changed your name. You won't return any of my letters and your phone number is unlisted."

Leon frowned, feeling as if he had been looking through a telescope and it was suddenly pulled away.

Had he been hiding all this time? Was he subconsciously pulling away from everything that associated him with his past?

But the truth is, I was wrong. I tricked myself into thinking that life was just about surviving. About getting from one day to the next no matter what, each day exactly like the one before it. I thought that was success.

It wasn't until I first saw you that that changed.

That first morning you moved in I looked out of my window with interest for the outside world for the first time in a week. We locked eyes and I felt something stirring in me that I haven't felt in a very, very long time. At first I wasn't sure what it was, but now I know it was my heart, unlocking.

The more we interacted, the more sure I became that you definitely would, if I let you, be the one to ruin everything. Or maybe save everything. Change everything. What's the difference really, when it comes to these things? But I was scared. I was so used to living a certain way that I ignored my own heart in an effort to protect my life of indifference and routine, and in doing that I hurt you.

For that, I am so very, very sorry. You said that you really could have liked me if I let you. That you really would have tried.

The problem was, I knew that, and it terrified me.

I thought that dealing with other people was giving away pieces of yourself until you disappeared...but that's wrong isn't it?

"I'm sorry," Laguna said quietly, again.

Leon ran a hand through his hair. How much pain had he caused himself by both consuming himself with his past and running from it? He felt silly. He felt like a kid, still after all this time.

"It's…" he trailed off. What was it? It wasn't okay. It wouldn't be for a long, long time but for the first time in his entire life the thought that it might be, someday didn't seem so farfetched. "It's the past." he said finally, "You can't change it."

"No," Laguna said softly, and Leon could almost hear the smile in his voice, "But you can change the future."

"Maybe," Leon said.

"I'm...really glad you called me Leon," Laguna said after a moment of silence.

"Me too," Leon said, and he wasn't lying.

That's something that all of you know.

Sitting here, writing these stories I thought I was so much smarter than all of you. But that's wrong too.

All of you who read these stories and believe in love and romance and trying, despite all odds to find that one special person for you are all so incredibly brave, and smart, and courageous and I couldn't do that.

But...now I think I want to try. I don't know what is going to come of this. I'm probably going to suffer a lot. I'm probably going to cause a lot of suffering too. Maybe it's already too late.

But if it isn't. If you're reading this.

Forgive me. Please.

I'm not afraid anymore and I think I could really like you too. More than I've ever liked anyone, more than anyone's ever liked anyone before. If you could find it in your heart to give me that chance, I promise I'll spend as long as you let me trying to make it up to you.

When Leon finished reading his piece for what felt like the five hundredth time he hovered over the send button for a very, very long time. It was the most honest thing he had ever written and he was going to publish it for the world to see? To judge? Did he really want to do that?

Leon thought of Cloud sitting across from him. He thought of him standing in his living room. He thought of him leaning against the doorway. He thought of him carrying too many bags up the stairs stubbornly. He thought of him hurt and honest about it.

He thought of looking out his windows and seeing eyes, blue like the definition of the word.

He hit send.

But even if he isn't reading this. Even if it's just all of you who are always reading, so faithfully and so bravely, I owe you all an apology too. All this time I thought I was a liar and you were all just too desperate to realize the truth. But the only one being lied to, the only desperate one, was me. Forgive me. You all deserve the stories you have read in these pages, except more. You deserve them to go on and on and on. You deserve love, and happiness, and most of all the truth.

The first snow fell on a Thursday. It piled up and up and the snow plows came and cleared the streets, pushing it up onto the sidewalk making it almost impossible to walk.

It had been three days since the issue with his final story had hit the newsstands and he hadn't heard a single thing from anyone except for Aerith congratulating him and Yuffie threatening his life if he didn't show up to happy hour later that week.

Life continued on as it always had, without change. But there was something different that Leon couldn't deny. He felt lighter. He felt real.

When he turned the corner onto his block he was thinking about his most recent conversation with his father. It was one of the many they'd been having recently. He thought of how that made him feel good. He thought of booking a flight to Destiny Islands for the holidays. He thought of what exactly he was going to write now. He thought of what he was going to have for dinner.

Then, right when he went to grab the door to the building it opened.

He found himself face to face with Cloud and his mind emptied completely.

Cloud blinked and Leon stepped back and they stayed for a moment, staring at each other in the cold.

Leon wondered if Tifa still read She… and if she maybe read his story and showed it to Cloud and what he didn't know was that it was written all over his face. When Cloud looked in his blue gray eyes he saw earnestness, and sincerity. Sorrow and regret and hope.

Leon looked at Cloud and was vaguely confused to see understanding.

Leon thought about apologizing, for almost bumping into him and everything else too, but before he could open his mouth, Cloud smiled at him.

"Long time no see,"

So this is what is going to happen.

I won't be writing this section anymore because I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm done pretending, I want to find the real thing.

I've never really believed in happily ever afters, but here's hoping.

fin.