The Way Back to 429, Post-Vortex

[the_merriest]

Two daughters, very different, both gone. One wee Turk, not hers in any sense, gone as well.

Rikku was walking back to the dorms, very, very slowly. And trying not to sniffle quite so much. And failing.

She reached over, almost instinctively, for Reno's hand.

(for the modded one)

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[raspberryturk]

Another small hand in his.

The one that Reno was most used to finding his fingers curling around.

He gave a little nod, and licked his lips, and looked downward, to where he was making a fist overtop of Rikku's. Possibly, he was never going to let go.

He'd done too damn much letting go, tonight.

[the_merriest]

She twined her fingers through his. "It s-seems cruel. Here, let me show you things you can't keep. Little ones that call you Mommy and th-they can't stay. It seems ... horrible and awful and ..."

[raspberryturk]

Reno... couldn't argue with that.

It was cruel. Cruel and sick and twisted and wrong that they'd never know how those children were doing on the other side, and they might never see them again, themselves. And maybe that was all the real family some of them were ever going to have, and it left a bad taste in Reno's mouth.

"They were family," Reno agreed. Because... that was the important part, in his head, at that moment. "All of 'em."

[the_merriest]

"All of them," she echoed, a little distantly. "My two and your four. Family."

There was a stray note in there that seemed off.