I sighed and tried not to notice the grease stain the gun was leaving on the cushion it leaned against. "It’s just for you," I said, fanning myself with a menu. "I can’t remember it ever being this hot."

    "I’m just a lucky guy, I guess," Laguna replied, slumping in his chair. The ubiquitous blue jacket had given way to the heat, and his hair was tied back with an elastic band to keep it off his neck. "Now, Trabia – there’s somewhere that’s gotta be cold right about now. I wouldn’t mind a trip there. What do you think, Raine?"

    "I think it’s a long way from here." Here we go again.

    "They say there’s always snow in the mountains there," Laguna rhapsodized, his eyes going starry. "I’d love to go! Can you imagine getting into a snowbank in the middle of summer? Especially now," he said, picking at his sweaty shirt. "This is just gross. Haven’t you guys ever heard of air conditioning?"

    "That’s a good project for you. Go buy me a unit and install it." I knotted my hair into an even more severe bun at the nape of my neck to keep it out of my way.

    Laguna appeared not to have heard me. "It’s days like this that make you wonder why we wear clothes, you know? It’s just too damn hot to think. How about a nice sea breeze… mmm, Balamb. If I was there, I’d just take a running jump in the ocean. You ever heard of Balamb fish?"

    "Not really." I pushed clean glasses into the rack above the bar and tried not to think about Laguna leaving.

    "I’ve never tried it," he said. "That’s what I could do, travel the world and review restaurants! I can see it now… four stars from the great Laguna Loire, food critic! With a gold plaque on the wall to let everyone else see, read it and weep!"

    "You eat enough to be good at that," I replied, waspishly.

    "No one cooks as well as you, though." Laguna grinned at me. "I’d give you five stars. I bet even the Balamb fish isn’t as good as yours."

    "Flattery will get you nowhere." I eyed Laguna and grimaced a little at the sweat stain on the front of his shirt. "Why don’t you go take a shower if you’re so hot? You could use one."

    "How’s about a cold one instead? Plllease?" Laguna kicked back and put his boots up on the table. "Nothin’ like a cold beer on a day like this."

    "Maybe when you stop offending my nose, I’ll honor your request." I waved a hand in front of my face.

    "What?" Laguna lifted an arm and took a quick sniff.

    "You are so disgusting sometimes," I said, screwing up my face in disbelief. "I can’t believe you just did that."

    "It’s only natural," he informed me. "You go out hunting monsters all day, and see if you come back all roses."

    "Whatever." I straightened my tank top, fanning air under the fabric.

    "Oh, fine." Laguna stood up and picked up his gun. "I’ll remove my skeevy self from your presence, your Highness."

    "A beer will be waiting for you when you’re back."

    "An incentive! All right, you got a deal." Laguna saluted and sauntered out the door, whistling.

    I shook my head as I watched him go. "I just can’t believe it," I sighed to the air, leaning on the bar. "Of all people. Of all the people on this planet. Why does it have to be you?"

    "Who’re you tawking to, Raine?" Ellone peered around the corner, snuggling her moogle.

    "No one, sweetie," I replied. "It’s okay."

    "Where did Uncle Laguna go?"

    "He went next door to have a shower." I picked up my glass of water and took a long drink; it was hot as blazes. "But he’ll be back soon and then you can play."

    "That’s no fun." Ellone made a face. "How come he can’t stay here and do it? You used to wash his hair sometimes."

    "Ellone!" I spluttered, coughing water all over. "Not any more. He’s not hurt and he can take care of himself. He’s a big boy." Out of the mouths of babes, I thought.

    "So you can’t take care of Uncle Laguna because you’re not married?" Ellone said, furrowing her brow. I stifled a groan. Marriage – specifically, Uncle Laguna’s theoretical marriage to me – was one of Ellone’s favorite subjects. I had managed to get her to stop bringing it up when he was around, but if he wasn’t, it was fair game for the four-year-old. Whether she talked about it with him when she was over visiting was anyone’s guess.

    "Something like that."

    "So are you gonna marry him? Together, together! We’d all be together!" Elle sang, dancing along to her own tune.

    "We’re together a lot now," I reminded her, swinging her up onto a bar stool. She loved to pretend she was a customer. "You see Uncle Laguna all the time, and he plays with you just as much as he did before."

    "Not so much," she grumped, moping. "He fights monsters instead of playing hopscotch."

    I bit back a laugh. Watching Laguna play potsy with Ellone had been one of the funnier moments in my life. I’d seen them from an upstairs window, Laguna jumping along and fumbling after the marker, and laughed myself sick. That he’d seemed to be really enjoying the game only compounded my mirth. It only reinforced my opinion that he was an overgrown kid.

    "Uncle Laguna is doing something very important, and you should remember that the next time he tells you about the Buchubuchus." I tugged playfully at Ellone’s hair, and she giggled. "So what’ll it be tonight?"

    Ellone pretended to think. "Chocolate milk, straight up!"

    "Good girl." I pulled the carton out from under the bar and mixed it with chocolate syrup in a plastic highball glass.

    "Can I have a cherry?" Ellone banged her dangling feet against the bar, pleased with her "drink."

    "May I have a cherry," I reminded her. "Yes. And please don’t kick the bar, Ellone." I fished a maraschino cherry out of the jar and gave it to her on a plate.

    "Yummy!" Ellone squeaked, happily munching the fruit. She held up the long stem and showed it to me. "You know what Uncle Laguna can do with these? He can put it in his mouth and tie a knot in it! I wanna know how to do that!"

    "I am so not surprised…" I muttered under my breath. Ellone sipped at her milk and fell quiet. "Whatcha thinking about?" I asked, hunkering down so I was on eye level with her and made a silly face. Elle giggled.

    "Do you think Uncle Laguna’s gonna stay with us forever ‘n ever?" she asked, making a silly face right back. "I don’t want him to go back to the army. I want him to stay here with me!"

    "I don’t think Uncle Laguna is going to go back to the army, Elle, but I do think he wants to get a job writing somewhere."

    "But he can write anywhere, right?"

    Not really. I glanced at a crumpled old issue of Timber Maniacs stuffed into a cubbyhole above the little refrigerator. Laguna’s dream was to start working there as a journalist, and the publication was well-respected as an excellent independent ‘zine. None of the government agencies had gotten their claws into it yet, and it could be depended upon for the straight truth. That aspect greatly appealed to the idealistic Laguna.

    Elle didn’t need false hope. "He wants to travel all around the world and tell people what he sees, and you can’t do that just from Winhill, sweetie."

    Her lower lip began to tremble. "Can I go too?"

    "Go where?" The door had opened and there was Laguna, hair still damp from the shower. "Where are we goin’?"

    "Raine says you’re goin’ all round the world!" Ellone burst out, tears shining in her eyes. "I don’t want you to go, I want you to stay here and I want us to all be together forever and you and Raine should get married!"

    My eyes flew open in surprise and I dropped Ellone’s dirty glass on the floor. Laguna turned crimson. "Ellone!" I said, sharply, my own cheeks burning. "That’s enough of that. You know better." I couldn’t even look at Laguna as I handed him the promised beer. Ellone started to cry.

    "Awww, Elle, I can’t go anywhere yet, there are too many monsters here! I said I’d get rid of all the monsters, right?" Laguna pulled the sobbing Ellone onto his lap and patted her back. "Please don’t cry, ‘cause it makes me cry when you cry!"

    "Then you’re gonna stay with me and Raine?" she said, her voice quivering.

    "I’m not going anywhere now," Laguna replied firmly. "I promise." I escaped to the sanctuary of the kitchen and left them alone.

    "Get a grip, Raine," I said to myself through clenched teeth. "No romance, no marriage, Laguna leaves eventually. That’s what’s going to happen. Get over it." I splashed cold water on my burning face and washed Elle’s glass. When I came back out, Ellone was giggling on Laguna’s lap.

    "Look! I told you!" she sang, holding out a cherry stem with a knot in it. "Isn’t that neat?"

    "It’s pretty cool, all right," I said. "What a talent." Laguna snorted and I checked my watch. "It’s about naptime, Elle. Let’s go."

    "I don’t want a nap!" she cried, grabbing on to Laguna. "No no no!"

    Laguna gave me an I’ll-take-care-of-this look and stood up, still holding Ellone. "Naps are good," he told her, walking toward the stairs. "I’m gonna go have a nap right after you because I’m pretty tired! Even grown-ups need a nap sometimes."

    "Really?" Ellone said. "You need to nap too?"

    "Yeah, sometimes," he replied, voice trailing off as he ascended the staircase. "I’ll read you a story, how about that?"

    I set about picking up after them, tossing Laguna’s empty bottle into the bin with more violence than I’d intended. It just wasn’t fair. I wanted Ellone’s little happy-ever-after scheme just as much as she did, but I didn’t dare to hope for it with like she could with her natural child’s hope and faith. What the hell could a backwater like Winhill offer to a vagrant soldier with itchy feet? Why didn’t he just leave and end my personal hell? Then maybe the dreams would stop and I could get back to life the way it was before.

    Love. I couldn’t bring myself to say or even think the word except in the most transient of thoughts, but it was there all the same. What cruel jokes Fate plays, I thought cynically. It wasn’t worth dwelling on, but a clean break would work so much better than the eternal tease of his presence.

    The heat was making me irritable and I tugged viciously at the knotted hair at the nape of my neck, the little stabs of pain pulling my mind away from Laguna. I twisted the dark mass into a chignon, arranging it with deft fingers, and pinned it securely with the clip.

    Laguna was so quiet coming back downstairs that I didn’t see him, and I must have jumped a foot in the air when he tapped me on the shoulder. "Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you," he said, keeping his voice low. "She’s out cold. I think we could all use a siesta in this heat."

    My heart was racing from the surprise and his proximity. "Thanks," I said, trying to sound cavalier. "I’m sorry about the marriage thing. You know how kids get these ideas."

    "Yeah…kids." Laguna cocked his head at me and narrowed his eyes. "Your hair looks pretty like that."

    "Oh… thank you. It’s really nothing special." I put a hand to the back of my neck, feeling self-conscious.

    "If you say so," he replied with a smile. "I’ll see you later. Ellone has the right idea." I watched him go, blushing a little.

    "He said my hair was pretty," I murmured, obscurely pleased like a schoolgirl with her first crush. "Hah." I smoothed the flyaways down and went back to work.

    The usual suspects started to pile in around dusk. Laguna was back from patrol and buzzing around the bar, heartily greeting his friends and settling in for a game of cards and some beers. He had appointed himself as the sometime bouncer, and he did help keep things from getting too rowdy. Laguna wasn’t as tall as some of his former compatriots, but he was scrappy and quick, and stronger than he looked. Most of the soldiers who’d thought to challenge him had found that out the hard way. I appreciated his presence, since he was saving me a small fortune in chairs.

    Another bunch of soldiers walked in the front door, and my hands tightened on the bar when I saw who was with them. "I can’t believe Varro has the nerve to come back here," I muttered. He was a nasty drunk to who tended to get too interested in women when under the influence, and last time I’d been his target. His buddies had just about beaten him into submission to get him to leave me alone.

    Laguna glanced over, saw my tense face, and got up. "Everything okay?" he said, softly.

    I jerked my chin at the loud soldier. "That guy has given me a lot of trouble in the past. I’m surprised he’s back after the last time."

    Laguna’s expression hardened. "He better not try anything."

    "Maybe he’s learned to behave himself." I watched Varro for a minute and saw him pinch the rear end of one of the soldiers’ girlfriends and get slapped. "Or maybe not."

    "Jackass." Laguna sighed and folded his arms. "Can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em. Too bad."

    He went back to his game of cards but didn’t venture too far away from the bar for the rest of the night, and words could not have expressed how grateful I was. Varro had been cadging free drinks from his buddies with bluster and flattery all night long, and he was definitely drunk. As the other girls in the bar took their leave and disappeared, I was more and more concerned that he’d remember his favorite target.

    Laguna excused himself to go to the bathroom, and Varro, sensing that my protector was absent, ambled over to the bar. "Hey, good lookin’," the big man said, speech slurred from drink. "You din’ come say hello to me. I’m hurt."

    I didn’t look up at him. "Go home, Varro. You’re drunk." I tried to turn away, but he caught my wrist.

    "Don’ be like tha’," he said, weaving slightly. "All you girls wan’ is a big tough guy… like me." He pulled on my arm as I tried to break his grip, which was quite strong despite his inebriation. "How ‘bout a little kiss?"

    "Leave her alone." Laguna materialized next to Varro, green eyes blazing. "Get out of here and go home."

    "You gonna make me, half-pint?" Varro pulled himself up to his full six-foot-two height and sneered. "Who’re you, her boyfriend?"

    "Yeah, I’m gonna make you." Laguna was dangerously quiet. "And when I’m through kicking your sorry ass, you’ll never come back here again."

    The big soldier laughed uproariously, expecting his buddies to join in. Most of them kept quiet – they’d seen Laguna in action, and while he got his fair share of battering, he could dish it out as well as anyone else. "You? Kick my ass?" He let me go and swaggered up to Laguna. "I got this feeling it’ll be the other way round."

    My hands were fisted tightly and I was breathing hard. "Leave, Varro. Now. I don’t want any trouble, and you are trouble."

    "Maybe I want trouble, girly." He reached across the bar and gave me a hard shove, and I screamed as I fell to the ground, bounced off the back wall. Glasses shattered around me, and I covered my head, shrieking.

    Laguna erupted into a blur of motion, seizing Varro by the back of the shirt and hurling him away from the bar. I huddled behind the bar, frightened and shaking, listening to the sound of the scuffle. I couldn’t see what was going on – I could only hear the blows falling. Sick with worry for Laguna, I crept to the edge of the bar and peeked around.

    The soldiers had moved as much of the furniture out of the two combatants’ way as they could. Laguna and Varro were circling one another, looking for an opening. Varro was big and heavy, and dangerously drunk. "Laguna…" I whispered. "What the hell are you doing?"

    Varro was swinging at Laguna, his fists coming dangerously close to the smaller man as Laguna dodged. He spun a chair into Varro’s path, and Varro stumbled over it, giving Laguna the chance to drive his fists into Varro’s abdomen. The breath whooshed out of the drunk man’s lungs, but it didn’t seem to slow him down much, and he retaliated with a blow to Laguna’s jaw that sent him reeling.

    "Laguna!" I screamed, pressing my hands to my mouth. He straightened up and spat blood, gingerly working his jaw. Oh Hyne… please don’t let him get too hurt, I prayed.

    "Stay there, Raine," he warned, as Varro started another rush. Laguna moved aside at the last moment and tossed him over his hip, and Varro hit the floor with a crash. Laguna was on him in seconds, twisting the prone man’s arms up behind his back and pinning him to the ground with a strategically placed knee. He seized Varro by the hair and slammed his head into the floor.

    "Are you done, asshole?" Laguna snarled. "I don’t ever wanna see your face here again. And if you get within a hundred meters of Raine, I’m gonna kill you. That’s a promise."

    I couldn’t hear Varro’s response, but Laguna must not have liked it, because he twisted the other soldier’s arm even harder. I was thunderstruck to see Laguna so angry – his behavior was completely out of character. I could barely reconcile the focused man defending my honor in a bar brawl with his usual airy demeanor. The annoying little voice in the back of my head sang, something must have gotten him really upset, Raine.

    Varro was finally capitulating, gauging by the motion of his head. Laguna let him get up but kept a firm grip on his arms. Another soldier opened the door, and Laguna shoved Varro out the door and slammed it. He turned around, blood still trailing down from his mouth, and glared at the silent assemblage. "I think it’s time to call it a night," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

    The soldiers burst into applause and stood up to leave – I had the feeling that they didn’t like their abusive compatriot either. Laguna received many pats on the back and handshakes as they filed out. He seemed to barely notice, focusing instead on me. As soon as the last man had left, he hurried over and crouched next to me on the floor.

    "Are you all right? Did you get hurt when he threw you against the wall?" Laguna inspected me for signs of a cut, looking worried.

    "I think I’m all right," I said, voice quavering. "Laguna – your mouth…" I fumbled for a wet towel and tried to clean the ribbon of scarlet off his cheek.

    "It’s okay, it’s okay," he soothed, steadying my shaking hands. "As long as that lummox didn’t hurt you….sorry about the language, by the way." I tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob.

    "Oh, Raine…" Laguna put his arms around me and let me rest my head on his shoulder. "What an ass… you must have been so scared. Let it out if you got to. It’s okay." I burst into tears, burying my head in his coat, and he gently patted my head while the fear and anger bled away.

    When the torrent of jerking sobs abated, I stood away from him and dried my eyes. "Are you feeling better?" he asked. "Yeah?" I nodded and gave him a wan smile. "That’s good. I swear, if I ever see that guy again, it’s not gonna be pretty."

    "Thank you, Laguna," I said, quietly. "I’m glad you were here."

    "Don’t mention it," he smiled. "It’s all part of the job description. I hunt monsters, and that big jerk qualifies." Laguna ran a tentative hand along the side of his face, wincing. "He sure hits hard though."

    "Here, take this, please -" I filled a plastic bag up with ice and held it to the injured area, which was already starting to bruise. "Oh, Laguna, your poor face…" He took the makeshift pack from me and pressed it against the sore spot.

    "Aaaah, it’s not so bad. It’ll be fine by tomorrow. I’ve been in worse shape, as you know all too well. You going to be okay here?"

    "I think so," I said slowly, wanting to ask him to stay with me but unable to push the words past my unwilling lips. "You too?"

    "Yep, no big deal." He gave me a salute. "Just ensuring the safety of the Commander. Can I help you clean up the glass?"

    "That would be a big help." I picked up a dustpan and started pushing glass into it. Laguna grabbed a broom and some water and rags to mop up the spilled liquor.

    "What a waste of good whiskey," he said, giving the label of a shattered bottle a wistful look. "It smells like it was good stuff."

    "I keep the best stuff behind the bar," I said. "This isn’t the first time a bottle has hit the floor, though this is the biggest mess I’ve ever had back here."

    "Makes sense." We worked quickly to get the broken glass cleaned up and soon we were finished. I’d worry about the furniture tomorrow – it had been a long night. Laguna picked up his ice pack again and breathed a sigh of relief as the cold touched his swelling jaw.

    "Thank you again, Laguna." I said quietly, clasping my hands in front of me. "For helping me clean up, and for taking care of Varro."

    "Hey, it was nothing." Laguna stood in front of me, looking down, and for a breathless instant I thought he was going to bend down and kiss me. But he didn’t. "I’ll see you tomorrow?"

    I nodded. "Keep ice on that bruise," I said. "If you need anything…"

    "I know where to come," he finished. "See you soon."

    Laguna left, and I was all alone. Don’t you wish he’d tried to kiss you, the little voice whispered. I hugged myself, remembering the feel of his strong arms around me, and the warm scent of his coat as I cried all over it. I would nearly have sold my soul to repeat the experience, and I hated myself for it.

    "He’s still going to leave, Raine," I said to myself, and the tears sprang to my eyes again. "And he’s not right for you anyway." The truth was cold comfort as I put my head down to my arms and cried.