"Ooooh, a gentleman," she clicks happily, and turns back to Jill. You two are so cute together!"

She genuinely throws up in her mouth a little, and he gets an unpleasant look on his face. "We're not-"

He starts to speak at the same time. "That isn't it-"

"You're not enjoying your dinner, Ms. Valentine?"

Of course she i-

Oh. He's joking. "They didn't teach you to cook in clone school, obviously."

"That was not among the memories and skills they fed into my brain upon my conception, no."

Jill thinks about turning back instead, dumping him on Chris, saying, "I lied, I can't do this. I can't be near him without wanting to do something horrible to myself and him." 

But then what? Chris would give her that pitying look. He'd throw the copy at someone with a life, someone who shouldn't have to deal with this for six months, and then they'd probably commit her again.

A family in five acts.

And then…and then it will be like it was before. Everything's changed…the whole world will be different. No more Shinra, no more SOLDIER, no more Mako, no more Midgar. But not for Elmyra Gainsborough.

That's Hawke, the one and only. Although in the couple weeks that he's known her, that doesn't feel out of character. She told Merrill that she missed the dirt in Ferelden, or something.

"I miss the stars," you say.

"It's -" Luna takes a minuscule breath in, and her eyes drift from his to a middle distance in the room. "It's a lovely dress, regardless."

"Oh!" He says, that little excited lilt in his voice. "That's good, I'm going to write that down! " And Miranda just rolls her eyes.

Prompto's voice drops, and you press your ear harder to the doorway. "D'you...know what I did? To Y/N?"

That snaps him out of whatever polygon-related haze he was in remarkably fast. "What? What do you mean?"

Be strong, Ifalna, says a voice in her head that sounds like her mother.

They're a ragtag bunch, that's for sure. Not that the same can't be said for their little reunited family.

You wait and wait and wait, but Nibelhiem isn't a friendly town full of people who will give you errands to run to try to quell your anxiety. Instead, you spend the better part of three days pacing the hotel lobby. Zack challenges nearly every visitor to a squats contest and maintains a smile, but you can't do it. You can't stop thinking about him down there, alone.

Eventually, you go back down there. It's like he isn't even in the room with you. Dark bags surround his green eyes, and his skin looks waxy and even more pale than usual. He's muttering to himself over a table covered in papers, but it almost doesn't sound like actual words. When you call his name the first four times, he doesn't reply. So you sit for another minute and watch.