somewhere between
the figure lying on the bed
pretending she's asleep
nd the doorwaay
where we peek
we can't help the things we need
we walk away like angry gods
our mouths so full of magic rocks
but they crumble each time we speak
and somewhere beneath
our hands are feathers in the dust
brush away the crumbles
hush and we might finally reach
if we held up a light she didn't see

- "Somewhere Between" by Karen Pernick

"What are you doing?"

The dark-haired man looked up from the notebook spread across his lap. The reflexes of an experienced writer kicked in, brushing away the little ragged bits of eraser off the page absently while he diverted his attention elsewhere. "Huh?"

Kiros let the gleaming katal rest on the side of the bed and joined Laguna at the cot. From that vantage, he received only a sideways view of Laguna’s narrow scrawl across the pages. "You’re writing. I thought you‘d be working on your gun, raring to go again."

"It’s nothing." Laguna searched for a hiding place and finally settled on shoving the notebook underneath the cot’s thin, ragged pillow. He had not, however, counted on the dexterity of a man who wielded two long swords with ease. Barely time for a yelped protest before Kiros retrieved the portfolio and flipped it open, weighing its few meager sheets in his hands.

"This isn’t an article." It had taken barely a week for priorities to change. A week ago only articles and thoughts and letters aimed at Timber Maniacs filled the notebooks in his bedroom. The one he shared with Raine.

"It’s a letter!" He jumped to his feet, glad that Kiros handed over the journal without a fuss. "A letter to Raine, okay? I swear, I don’t get any privacy around here."

"Privacy? You?" Kiros had a singularly rich laugh, even when it turned itself on Laguna. Which it often did. "I didn’t know you knew the meaning of the word."

"Yeah." Normally, some joke would pass his lips, some little comment to lighten the mood and make it all seem okay. Instead, Laguna kicked back against the cot’s legs, letting the leverage pull him to tired feet. A week of pushing himself to the limit, chasing the phantom sightings of Ellone’s trail, had tired them all. It didn’t help that the room stank of alcohol and dirty blankets, that the air conditioning was on the fritz in the height of a Galbadian summer. "I was gonna...oh, there it is." He’d thrown a blanket over the machine gun in case one of the hotel maids glanced into the room. No reason to cause too much panic, even though, from the streaked walls and rumpled covers, the maids seldom came here. Beside the gun lay a box of ammunition clips, a rag of soft cloth, and small bottle of oil. The sight represented comfort as much as battle--routine maintenance, letting his hands do the thinking in the automatic, instinctive rhythm of load, oil, polish. No reason to involve his brain at all. Yes, please.

Except Kiros now leaned with his back flush against the wall, regarding Laguna with an expression on his dark face that was by turns thoughtful and concerned. Eyebrows drawn down slightly, eyes caught on Laguna’s behind sleepless shadows, he pursed full lips slightly as though tasting an idea. Laguna didn’t like that look. Kiros was thinking, and when Kiros loaded any sort of plan into his head it was always remarkably difficult to get him to let it go.

Ward’s arrival was a blessing, a huge lumbering distraction with a stuffed brown paper bag loading each arm. Kiros sprang from his perch to accept a bag or two, rifling through the materials with a practiced eye. He groaned; not a good sign. "Not sandwiches again!"

As soon as Ward had arrived from Galbadia for the wedding, both of his friends had begun the laborious process of learning his new sign language. So far, though, only Kiros had acquired any real fluency. "Yeah, I know we have to watch the budget for now. What’d we get? Cheese...pickled onions, oh God no... Laguna, dinnertime. Laguna?"

"Huh?" All right, so he wasn’t a captain in the army any longer. He still led their little group, that carried certain priorities. Not that he’d ever claim to know what *responsibility* meant. But it was enough to scrub the back of your wrist, roughly, across your eyes, force the barest semblance of a grin before turning. The view wasn’t much, anyway, just a third-floor vista of the parking lot, around which spread the small town. Not much to recommend the entire place, except that it lay on the outskirts of Deling City and drew a few exiting tourists.

Ward’s thick fingers signed something his blurry eyes couldn’t quite make out. Wait...the how-are-you gesture, modified a little. Are you okay? "Yeah. Of course." Oh, sure. Never mind that every second ticked in the clock in his head, marking time he‘s spent away from them, every step they took on Ellone’s trail another pace or two farther from Winhill and Raine.

The other two men exchanged a look. Even Laguna could read the unease in their posture--tense backs, shoulders slightly bent as though under some uncomfortable burden. A quiet, somber Laguna was not something they knew how to handle.

He ate mechanically, trusting instinct to not let him choke. Around processed-cheese sandwiches and Deling City generic cola--about the cheapest meal Ward could find--he darted another look out the window. She was out there, somewhere. "We’re leaving first thing tomorrow, right?"

Another shared look, another uncomfortable pause. Back in the good old days, he’d been the one to sleep in, to hit the snooze-button time and time again. It had been a running joke, Laguna’s mumbled "just one more minute, guys." "Yes," Kiros answered.

"Sunrise?"

"First thing," he agreed.

Laguna was surprised that he’d eaten almost half his sandwich. He didn’t feel hungry, not with that same familiar weight of dread lying like lead in his stomach. Suddenly, the last bite went dry in his mouth. Grimacing, Laguna wiped his hand across the back of his lips--only Kiros among them would have remembered napkins--and rose. A second later, he sat back down on the edge of the bed, wincing a little, hands clutching his leg. Little tremors traveled up his right thigh, warning of the developing cramp.

Ward poked Kiros with his elbow, nodding towards the slumped, dark-haired man.

Laguna didn’t notice Kiros leaving the table until the taller man was standing beside him. His face had turned in profile, thrown into shifting shadows by the flicker of town lights beyond the open window. Laguna couldn’t make out his expression, but that low tone was gentle. "Six days."

Laguna jerked a little, normally-mild green eyes managing a glare.

"I wondered why you’d dated the letter like that. Six days since we left. Hyne, Laguna, you can’t tear yourself apart like this. We need you."

"Look." A deep breath summoned as much calm as he could manage. Hyne, he was no good at hiding his feelings. "I just miss her, okay? Them. Elle and Raine. I’m not going to tear myself apart, ‘cause the sooner we find Elle the sooner I can go home."

Home. That still had a strange sound to it, rolling off his tongue. Time was, just a few months ago, that he would have jumped at the chance to leave Winhill and travel the world with his two best friends. But, now, all of it paled beside the simple comfort he’d left behind. Raine and Elle. That said it all.

"Okay." Kiros’ arms dropped to his sides as he turned away. Ward averted his own worried eyes when Laguna glanced up at the big man. Laguna had always served as group cheerleader, bowling over his friends with irrepressible energy and good spirits. Only now, that spirit turned itself inwards, gnawing at him from inside, driving him by turns to despondency and frantic activity.

Neither really seemed to help.

In the dim light, Laguna couldn’t quite discern Ward’s last, signed comment. Something along the lines of leaving well enough alone, punctuated by some private comment to Kiros, where he turned in the chair to block his hands from Laguna’s view. Eyes locked on his own bare feet, Laguna ignored the exchange. He barely even registered the hand that briefly touched his shoulder, the murmur of "’night, Laguna" and the flicker of nightstand lights by Ward and Kiros’ beds.

He stirred enough to turn, reaching for his own light. Stretched out on the extra cot, his notebook spread across his pillow with his nose only inches from the scrawled writing, Laguna studied the words in the puddle of warm yellow light. Words seemed so shallow, with Raine in Winhill and Laguna here, God-knew-where.

Six days. Be home soon, I hope. Love, Laguna. Words had never failed him before. He could work magic with them, make them come alive in passionate articles and essays. Now, however, they weren’t alive. They didn’t stir him or conjure any images. They just lay flat and uninteresting and vaguely painful against the page. Sighing, Laguna reached across the cot to shut off his own light. He lay awake for a long time, green eyes gleaming in the dark, but at least he didn’t have to read those words over again.