By the time the Tower of Salvation started to fall apart, Zelos was still clinging to life. That's just like him, Sheena could not help thinking, he'll even refuse to die, as long as he can be a nuisance to me.

Sheena pulled Zelos over her shoulder, and he groaned in his pained half-sleep. "Come on," she told him, stepping carefully along the glass walkway to the Tower's entrance. "We gotta get outta here, Zelos."

The crumbling of the Tower crescendoed into an unbearable flood of cracking stone and smashing glass. A large piece of a statue tumbled from above, crashing into the altar and shattering it. The whole room seemed to tip, and Sheena barely dragged Zelos out of the way of a falling pillar before it cracked the glass beneath them.

Sheena swore to herself, pulling Zelos across the catwalk. His feet dragged limply, leaving two streaks of blood on the glass. The walls rumbled around her, but she trudged onward. She slowly made her way toward the entrance, praying fervently, for herself, for Zelos, for Raine and Genis and Colette and Lloyd—dear gods, those last two were still up there.

She hesitated, only for a moment, slowing to lift her eyes to the endless greenish blue of the Tower's interior. The walls seemed to be closing in on her, the air itself seemed to rip apart with sparks of light, sending waves and tremors of dense air through the building—even her own body did not feel as if it were in one place.

She knew it was not the time to stand and linger in the doorway, with this place collapsing around her. She told herself to keep going, to just put one foot in front of the other, to keep her eyes locked on the rectangle of light that glowed at the end of the walkway…

"Sheena!"

She almost ached with relief to hear the voice. She turned, tugging Zelos closer to her, and saw Raine, bruised, bleeding, dragging an injured Genis behind her.

"Come on!" Sheena shouted, as if that would help them move faster. They made their way past the shattered altar, barely avoiding the clouds of dust and debris that tumbled after them. They jumped across the widening cracks in the floor, like creatures hurdling the Flanoir ice floes, stumbling and picking themselves back up and stumbling again.

"Come on!" Sheena shouted once more. They were close enough now that she could see the terrified looks on their faces, the cuts and bruises—she could make out Genis' discernible limp, and a streak of blood running down Raine's face. She almost dropped Zelos to reach out for them, almost turned around to help them across the last stretch of ground, when the air around them warped so drastically Sheena felt physically ill for a moment.

Suddenly everything twisted in her mind—up and down, left and right rotated, switched places, curled back on one another continuously, and she lost herself completely. She swore she could feel her feet leave the ground, swore her feet left her body altogether, swore that for a moment, a brief, terrifying moment, she had died.

Then something crashed into her, soft but powerful, and she was forced out of the Tower and back into reality. She tumbled into the grass—sweet, Tethe'allan grass—Zelos still clutched to her, and rolled to a stop. The world spun around her for a moment, the clouds blurred into the blue of sky, and she finally regained herself.

When she sat up, she saw Zelos beside her, limp but alive enough to let out a weak, whiny groan. The half-elf siblings had landed nearby, and the elder now helped the younger to his shaky feet.

"Are you guys okay?" Sheena asked.

"As 'okay' as one can be in this situation," Raine muttered.

Genis, staggering to his feet, let out a cry, almost making for the Tower's entrance once more, until his sister gripped the back of his collar and held him still. "Lloyd and Colette are still in there," he said, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"And we can do nothing about that," Raine said sadly. She seemed unsteady on her feet, almost as if drunk. "We can't. There's something…" She reached a hand to her forehead and it came away red. "I… Why do I feel…"

"It's the mana," Genis sniffed. "I swear, it's doing something… something insane."

"You can feel it too?" Sheena asked.

Genis cried out, holding his ears as if trying to block out a horrible sound. "Wh-what's happening?" he sputtered.

Sheena raised her gaze to the sky as it bent and swirled above them. "Take a guess."

Lloyd didn't open his eyes until his toes touched firm ground, and even then, when he felt the soft dirt under his feet, he still wasn't sure if what his eyes told him was true. He stood in front of a pool, lit with a beautiful green glow, so still and welcoming in the windless day. Lloyd wasn't sure if it was really day, or night, or neither, since the sky around him was a soft hue of pink, enveloped in an opaque mist. The seemingly sourceless glow that danced around him, lighting the pool, lighting the trees and sky, was thick with an indescribable power. This, Lloyd realized, was the power of Origin. He was standing at the very threshold of a new planet; he was at the hub of an outspreading web of mana, witnessing with his own eyes the death of the old world and the birth of the new.

This strange place, with its overpowering saturation of mana, with its prevalence of Origin's energy, felt like it was beside the world, rather than in it. The air around Lloyd seemed new, electric, almost metaphysical, and as he glanced around him, he saw that bits and pieces of the earth floated in the mist. He wondered briefly if this was a dream, but his senses told him no, this was simply the beginning of something magnificent. He looked around, at the expanse of trees flickering like mirages in the supernatural light. He saw Colette standing a few feet behind him, wings shining. She too, seemed untouchable, like an illusion in the mist, so Lloyd didn't dare reach out to her, lest she disappear. She smiled at him and nodded, glowing lustrously in the light, as if reassuring him that everything was in order. She stood on the edge of the world he had known, waiting for him, and when he looked in her eyes, he saw a glint of eager expectation. She was waiting for him, waiting for him to do something. He again turned to survey his surroundings.

On the other side of the small pool sprouted a tiny sapling, thin and dark, and Lloyd knew that this was the new Kharlan Tree, the new mother of all the world's mana. But she herself was just a weakling at this point, her minuscule branches struggling to lift their leaves to the light. Lloyd marveled at the tree, the fragility of its birth, the potential housed inside it; this delicate, nascent thing was going to save the world.

Lloyd smiled, even though he felt no triumph, no overwhelming joy at his success. He felt only a dim sense of satisfaction, overarched by a greater sense of unease. But it was not only his own doubt that disquieted him, it was not the questionable morality of what he had done. He still had one obstacle left, bigger than Mithos, bigger than the world itself. He took a deep breath and glanced down at the Eternal Sword, which he still held firmly in his grip. Origin's power hovered all around him, but the spirit itself was still within him, awaiting his command. He took a slow step into the pool, and cold water filled his boot. He didn't mind; it was soothing, refreshing, so he took another step toward the tree. He planted the Eternal Sword in the mud beside him, calling upon Origin to do one last thing for him.

He sensed doubt in the air around him. Are you sure, it asked, and he nodded inwardly. He was sure. In fact, this was the first time in years he had been so certain of something. He took a step further into the water, reveling in its coolness, and reached a hand forward. Before him, floating in the spiritual mist, were a few droplets of dark blood. He extended a finger and gently touched one of them, and it bounced back into the air like a thick bubble, staining his fingertip red. He knew whose it was.

He turned his palms skyward and spread his arms, closing his eyes and steeling his heart. Submerged waist-deep in the cool water, he waited for that dreaded weight to gently push on him. His arms shook slightly, but he told himself that he was ready to face it, ready to carry the burden. At the call of his heart, the weight came, and his arms wrapped around something solid. He opened his eyes.

In his arms was the body of his father. It was strangely light, even when saturated with the gravity of death. Lloyd lifted Kratos' head and took a long look at his face, the face that he had at once adored and feared, hated and admired. Lloyd looked more closely than he had in his entire life, eyes running across the strong nose, the arching eyebrows, the pale, unmoving eyelids. It was a face that had endured the ravages of time and history and remained untouched, that had survived eons of war and hatred, but was unable to survive a son. Lloyd's heart sank, but he walked forward, deeper into the pool, toward the tiny tree growing on the bank of the opposite side. He stepped slowly through the cool water, letting it take some of the weight of his father's body. Kratos' limbs listlessly twisted eddies in the pool, and Lloyd was reminded of the time his father had taught him to swim. He wondered if he just let Kratos go, he would suddenly rise up from the water and lead him to shore. No, Lloyd told himself. Don't think of that. Lloyd clutched his father closer to him and continued his slow wade forward, now up to his chest in the greenly lit water.

When he emerged from the pool on the opposite shore, water dripping from his burdened form, he lay Kratos gently at the base of the tiny sapling. He looked peaceful, comfortable, ready to sleep; the top of his head barely touched the tiny sprout, his hands lay upturned at his sides, and the mild ripples of the green pool licked at his feet. Lloyd knelt beside him in the soft dirt and ran a hand across his father's face, brushing aside a strand of wet hair to reveal his white eyelids, unmoving and lifeless. He bent down and kissed his father's forehead, wishing that he had done so more often when the man was still alive. He slowly pulled away and leaned back in the fertile soil, laying his right hand across his knee. With his left, he slowly removed the exsphere that he had come to think of as his mother, and placed it in Kratos' limp hand. Lloyd closed his father's pale fingers around it, praying that it would watch over him while he made his journey to whatever place lay beyond the strange and unsettling world of the living.

Lloyd then reached into his shirt, wrapping his fingers around the ever-present locket. He drew it from his clothes and opened it one last time, looking at the joyful faces of his parents, so proud, so full of kindness. Even Kratos, stern, humorless Kratos, beamed madly with his child in his arms. Lloyd found himself smiling slightly before snapping the portrait shut. He pulled it from his neck and gifted that to Kratos as well. He lay the locket on his father's unmoving chest and let his hand rest there for a while, perhaps waiting for that slow, slow heartbeat to thump against it one last time.

With the exsphere and locket in his possession, there was no way Kratos could lose his way on his solitary journey. Lloyd hoped that his gifts would guide him to a better place, a place where Anna waited for him, a place that, after all these years of nomadic homelessness, of running and hiding, they could call home. Lloyd knew his mother and father would wait for him there. He leaned in, chest pained, and when he opened his mouth, could barely hear the whisper.

"Thank you. For everything. For putting up with me, for caring for me, for..." he paused, eyes watering, "teaching me to swim. And to sew my own clothes. And to blow smoke rings..." A few tears dropped from his cheek onto Kratos' still chest, and Lloyd hung his head, trying not to lose himself in agonizing memories. "I'm sorry. I'm not going to see you for a long time. So when you find mom..." he could barely continue, "tell her... tell her I love her." He stared at his father's face for a long time, wondering if whatever was left of him could hear his feeble requests. When Lloyd lifted his eyes, he saw a white silhouette, long-haired, resplendent, and he thought that it was his mother, come to fetch Kratos for his first steps in his soul's migration, come to guide him into the peaceful reaches of oblivion.

"M… mother," Lloyd whispered, reaching out to the silvery ghost.

"No." The face that emerged from the glowing haze as not Anna's, but it was equally beautiful. It was long, pale, framed in hair the color of a meadow in summer. "I am the Tree's guardian spirit."

Lloyd hung his head again, a little disappointed that in this place between life and death his mother hadn't come to greet him. He stared downward, focusing on the locket that sat glinting on his father's chest, until the spirit reached out a kind hand and lifted his chin. "You have done well. In time, the world will be right again, thanks to you. Peace and balance may yet be restored, if you can provide this tree with the love and nourishment it needs to grow."

Lloyd clenched his jaw, trying to hold in his cries. He looked down at his father, at his limp form, and knew that he would be the first offering to the Great Tree. He wrapped his arms around his father one last time, squeezing him tight, not caring that Kratos couldn't return the favor. Lloyd's voice was muffled, buried in fabric, and his quiet tears made it shaky, but he was sure the spirit could hear his voice.

"Spirit of the Great Tree," he whispered. "Let his body nourish your soil. Let life grow… where he lies." Lloyd lifted his head and looked the woman in her kind, green eyes. "If… if it's you who judges the dead, please… don't judge him harshly." Lloyd began to sob outwardly. "I know he's done wrong. I know… he's done terrible things. But please… please give him peace."

The spirit touched Lloyd on his tortured brow with a slender white finger. She smiled kindly at him. "He shall have it."

Lloyd couldn't thank her. He only gripped his father's limp arm, reliving all those moments he had been afraid to let Kratos leave him. All those times he had told his father to not go, to stay, to alleviate the agony of his abandonment and his terror of being alone. But Lloyd was not alone anymore, and neither was Kratos. They both had their own things to do, their own paths to take.

Lloyd glanced at his father one last time, and his heart settled down. He reached out and gently touched Kratos on the chin. "Goodbye, dad." His lungs tensed a little when he forced himself to say it, for the first time in years, maybe for the first time in his entire life: "I love you."

And then he let go. He stood and turned, leaving his father's body in the care of the Tree and its spirit, confident that the locket and exsphere were enough to guide Kratos to peace. And maybe, many years later, Lloyd would follow him, with his own memories and treasures and convictions to guide him. But not yet.

When Lloyd stepped back into the pool and made his slow way over to the other side, his heart filled with something a little brighter than sorrow, but he didn't know what it was. The mysterious feeling guided him to the opposite shore, where Colette waited for him, reaching her hands out to him. Beyond the glittering water, he could see the world, the real, disastrous and confusing world. He saw a blue sky, green fields, figures of those who waited for him: Genis, Raine, Zelos and Sheena… bewildered but alive, with a hundred wounds and a thousand stories to tell. When Colette grabbed his arms and helped him out of the cool water, the overpowering thickness of Origin's presence dwindled. The unsettling mysticism of the air around him disappeared, and the world finally put the last stitches in its seams and pulled itself together. The pinkish mist cleared to reveal a perfect sky, and before him sprawled the reunited world, his world, newly born and waiting for him.

Colette reached out for his hand and took it in hers, brushing his red exsphere with her thumb. It sent strength through him, his own strength, tempered by suffering and joy and growth. It would lead him through this new world, this world that needed him. He stepped forward, a breeze rustling his hair, and he thought he heard his name echo in the wind.

Keep on living.

He looked up into the bright sky, a shiver coursing its way through him.

My son.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he stopped. He turned, glancing behind him at the pool, at the tiny tree, but when he looked to where he had left his father, the body was gone.

(Original) Endnotes

I thought maybe this crap needed a little bit of an explanation. For the curious and patiently indulgent.

This story was initially written in the span of about a month. Most of it was composed in the two weeks following the death of my best friend. I was wandering in a stupor for a while, keeping track of how many calories I had eaten since she died, how many minutes of television I watched, how many steps I took. It was insane. I was measuring how the garbage can filled, I was keeping track of what food was rotting at what pace. After only a few days, the nonsensical accounts of tiny events built up so much clutter in my head I thought it would kill me. So I decided to write. I went back through our old messages, trying to find a theme or motif from our childhoods. I didn't have to look long: the last message she sent me was a picture of her mail-ordered used copy of ToS with the caption "IT CAME!" She had never owned the game since I had leant her my copy. We were supposed to replay it together, since by that time the cancer had metastasized to her spine and she couldn't really move her thumbs. I would have to play it for her. But I never did.

So I thought maybe writing something about it would suffice as an apology. I knew she would find it silly and pleasing if I wrote a fanfiction. The fic didn't turn out quite as silly as it could have, since it was written in a pretty questionable state of mind, but still, it kept me afloat for the weeks following her death. I did nothing but write. I barely functioned, I neglected my classes, I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. I stared out the window a lot. I thought furiously. I spent hours alone, watching a word document slowly expand. At about 50,000 words in, I thought it would be kind of a waste to just delete the damn thing when I was done. So I thought I might as well post it somewhere. I wanted finish it and release it into the wild before it totally ate me alive. I wanted to get over it and let it go.

I still find it embarrassingly funny that my method of coping takes form of fanfiction. No one knows I wrote this, and I would never live it down if they knew. But I kind of wanted to tell someone about how it came to be. So here this is. Thanks for reading it—I really do appreciate it. I have never actually attempted fanfiction before and I didn't know how fun it could be. And how easy it was to find support and critiques form other people who have the same interests. So maybe I'll write more. And maybe nobody else will have to kick the bucket for me to do it.

Well, I've tried to clean up this mess as best I could. It's still… uh… very, very flawed, but I tried to preserve the spirit of the piece while polishing and tempering its more difficult bits. There are so many things I still find wrong with it, but I don't think that shaving it any more will do it good. I think it just needs to live as it is. Be who it is. Rock its flaws.