Hero of the Day

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"Still the window burns, time so slowly turns, someone there is sighing…
…keepers of the flame, can you hear your name, can’t you hear your baby’s crying?"

--Metallica, "Hero of the Day"

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Part IV

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Marlene gazed aimlessly out of the window, her small chin resting in the palm of her hand. She sighed, adjusting herself in her less-than comfortable chair, resting her thin legs under her sore and somewhat numb rump. Her lips curled downward into a frown. She watched another band of dirty and hurt people enter the small town, practically begging to be allowed into the Inn, only to be turned away.

It didn’t seem fair. She was sitting here in this nice home, with Ms. Elmyra, when there were all of those people having to scrap up some place to sleep.

It wasn’t fair.

They were probably just as nice as Ms. Elmyra. So *what* if they came from Midgar? They didn’t want to hurt anybody. They only wanted to find some place to sleep. Their homes were probably burned away when the Meteor nearly hit. They lost *everything*. Some may have lost their little doll they had since they were kids. Some lost *limbs*. Some even lost friends, and *family*. The young girl sniffled, wiping her tiny hand across her pug nose in a way a child could only do.

It just wasn’t *fair*.

The small child clutched her small teddy bear tighter. She was a big girl. She could handle it. She wasn’t going to cry. She was three; she was big. She saw in the distance another crowd nearing, and her frown only became bigger. This bunch looked like the worst one of all of them. The poor people…they all looked so sad and lost. They couldn’t go anywhere; all the shops were empty, and all the beds were full. Her eyes stung with tears, but she set her jaw, and blinked them away. She was a big girl. Big girls don’t cry.

Taking a deep breath, she scanned the crowd, looking closely for her father. She knew he left because he was trying to save the Planet, but she still missed him. Her lip twitched down, and she sniffled again. She was a big girl, she told herself. She *had* to be a big girl for Daddy. And big girls do *not* cry.

Her eyes locked upon a single fire-lit figure in the whole mass of people below. Her entire figure jerked forward, leaning her head against the thin pane.

She off-handedly wiped a tear away.

"Daddy," she squeaked.

---

Reeve sighed, leaning heavily against the unforgiving wooden back of the hard chair. He ran his cut and swollen fingers through his ratty black locks, his piercing blue eyes standing out in stark contrast to the dark and dreary conditions of the tiny room; which would have been small enough if it wasn’t overflowing with refugees.

Wearily, he slowly pulled his aching hands down over his face, massaging his bloodshot eyes for the seventeenth time. Against his will, he gazed at some twenty people that were piled around him, curled up into various positions to keep warm in the barely-heated back room of the materia store. Each of them appeared haggard; far more so than he. His suit was marred with soot and blood, but it was still in relatively good condition.

He got away scot-free.

"Dammit," he ex-spy whispered into the darkness. He was in good condition, and he had to watch hundreds of people be literally torn apart by the Meteor’s tornadoes. Not only was it enough to live through *that*, he had to survive unscathed while he helped others dig out dismembered, scorched, or otherwise mutilated remains of loved ones. He couldn’t mourn for them as they wept; he couldn’t tell them that he felt their pain. He lost a robot, and a plush office in a corrupt building. He lost nothing of value.

He snarled, clenching his hand into his fist. No, that may not have been entirely true. The last images he saw of his friends were of them hurtling down into the lifeless dirt that surrounded Midgar. Perhaps they were alive, headed his way right at the moment. Or, as he suspected—and summarily feared—they all died in a fiery inferno, crushed to death under the folds of steel, just like those in Midgar.

And he got away scot-free.

"*Dammit*," the swore heatedly, the fog of his breath catching a tiny bit of light, illuminating it for a moment before it vaporized into nothing. They didn’t deserve to die that way. They put their lives on the line to "fight the good fight", as the saying went. And what happens to them? They die in the immediate aftermath, before anyone had a chance to know of their heroics. To him, at that moment, death at the hands of Sephiroth was a more pleasant fate than the ones his comrades were possibly sharing now. Death in obscurity. The irony of it all.

And he *still* got away scot-free.

"Dammit all to hell," he huffed, his aqua eyes gleaming in the darkness. He lost nothing, while his friends and his fellow citizens lost everything. They bled, and he watched. They died, and he stood by. They looked to him for help, and he could only look back.

Rubbing his hand twice over his trimmed goatee, he stood as best as he could manage, and clumsily made his way over to the door, trying his best not to step on anyone. Balancing himself in an awkward position, he shoved the door open, hopping over the snoring child at his feet, softly pressing the door closed. He glimpsed at the store owner, dusting his strangely empty stock shelves, hurriedly heading out the front door.

His face darkened as he laid eyes upon the newest batch of refugees, half-heartedly wondering if Cloud or the others were in there. Haltingly, he took in his surroundings, his sapphire pools falling upon the tiny girl that sat in the windowsill, her posture slumped forward in fatigue. Poor Marlene. When he arrived, he didn’t have the heart to tell the small child what he had seen. After all, he didn’t really know what happened, and he didn’t want to cause the girl any undue worry.

He harrumphed. As if undue worry was the most of his problems at the moment.

Reeve noticed something different about this group than the last ones that entered. A small dot of light caught his eye, casting a red ambience about the various people around it. It wasn’t a torch, for it was moving too quickly and erratically to be connected to any solid object. It was almost as if the fire had a life of its own—

He blinked, his angular face falling in shock. "Red?" It couldn’t have been. He watched as the Highwind plummeted the ground, and as everyone was thrown back into the abyss. The flame flickered about, illuminating a large, hulking figure, who was literally head and shoulders taller than everyone else in the group. It had to be Barret. No one else would be that large, and be carrying Red—

Wait. "Why is Barret carrying Red?" he murmured to no one in particular.

A portly—not to mention drunken—refugee passing by him stopped, whirling around to face him. "Did ye say Barret, lad?" the old man hissed, his milky eyes focused intently on him. "As in, th’ terrorist bastard that called Meteor?"

His face fell. “Excuse me?”

The old man looked at him as if he had suddenly grown another head. “I thought ya said somethin’ ‘bout th’ bleedin’ scum, Barret! Did ye or not?”

“No,” he replied immediately.

The plump man nodded to himself. “Aye, thought so. Well, I can only say one thing ‘bout them bastards. God bless Shinra for stoppin’ ‘em”

God bless Shinra. Right. “I heard those were only rumors.” He had tried desperately to dissuade people from believing that it was, in fact, Avalanche who had called Meteor, and not Sephiroth. However, it was quite hard to argue with the President of Shinra Inc., sniveling little mama’s boy that he was; *especially* when Reeve had to lay low while the various lynch mobs searched for him. Added to the fact that Avalanche wasn’t exactly squeaky clean—they *did* blow up the Sector One reactor, killing dozens of innocent people in the process. Those who had lost loved ones in that attack, and the supposed ‘terrorist attack’ on Sector Seven, never questioned what Rufus—and later that fat bastard Palmer—fed them.

The rest were just too complacent to think for themselves.

God bless Shinra, that greedy son of a bitch.

"Rumors my eye!" the old man shouted, stamping his foot on the ground, reminding Reeve of a horse somewhat. "Th’ bastard blew th’ Sector One reactor sky high, an’ dropped th’ Sector Seven plate fer no other reason than t’ kill as many people as possible! Why should their callin’ the Meteor be a rumor, eh, laddie boy? With *their* track record? Ha! I doubt it!"

He wished that he could animate all his memories of his friends for everyone to see. He wished that he could tell everyone that his friends risked their lives to save the planet, for no reason than to help others.

He wished that he could take some of blame for himself.

"What’cha gotta say, laddie? Not so tough *now*, are ya?" the pudgy man prodded.

He wished he could bash this guy’s face in.

"You believe what you want," the ex-Shinra employee spoke at length, "but sometimes jumping to conclusions can wind up coming back to haunt you."

"Terrorist lover," the fat man sneered.

Oh, how he wished he could bash this guy’s face in.

"Simply because I want to keep an *open mind*, I’m now a sympathizer to terrorists?" He winced. That didn’t come out the way he had planned it. "All I’m doing is trying to get to the truth, and trying *not* to lynch someone who may have done nothing wrong."

"Why?" the drunkard snorted. "They ain’t human."

The chattering of the crowd became louder as the haggard crowd of broken people staggered into the town square. "If you say so," he huffed, turning on his heel, "you drunken fool."

"Terrorist lover!" the old man bellowed, pointing to his direction. Everyone within hearing range stopped, glaring hateful looks at him. Hiding his own disgust, he stalked back into the materia store.

Maybe he *didn’t* get off scot-free, after all.

Go on to Part V