fandomtownies | The Preserve, Wednesday Afternoon

Zack had been holding it together admirably well today.

Sort of. He tried not to be that person who observed the bad anniversaries. He really did. If he started doing that after the career he'd had in SOLDIER, he wouldn't have a happy day left to his name. But here he was, on the anniversary of what had happened in Nibelheim, and it felt like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. He'd spent a good portion of the morning just stalking around the apartment like a caged animal (which was apt, he supposed, considering the day) until finally he gave in, pulled on his SOLDIER uniform, picked up his (Angeal's) sword, and made his way into the preserve.

It was quiet there. Not quite the forests of his home in Gongaga, not nearly tropical enough for that, but soothing in a way that he'd forgotten about since his run from ShinRa, when he'd tried to return home to check on his parents.

So here was where he was going to stay, alternating between pacing, doing squats, yelling, punching trees until the trunks splintered, and - though he wouldn't admit it even to himself - just... breaking down and crying. Maybe he'd spend the night out here. He wasn't sure he had it in him to go home right now. He wasn't anybody anyone should have to put up with right then, and home wasn't terribly homey anyway.

[OOC: Open preserve is open! Zack will be... in a mood today. He needs to get it out of his system.]

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Alluka didn't usually go out to the preserve. It was kind of big, and scary, and it wasn't easy to skate around in like the rooftops and streets of Fandom (sure, that had stairs, but Alluka was used to that now) but her big dinosaur that Papa Jono had gotten for her had nudged her while she'd been reading a princess story and reminded her that it hadn't been out in forever.

So Alluka had finished her story, kissed her toys, and then begun the process of hauling her biggest toy outside so they could find an area it would like. The park had been deemed boring.

The trees had looked more interesting to her dinosaur so, since Alluka was a good girl, that was where they went even though it made her terribly tired to do so. (Her dinosaur was kind of heavy.)

But--oh, oh was that boy crying? He was a big boy, much larger than her but--

She set her dinosaur next to the boy, close enough that the fuzzy softness of it would be felt, and sat back on her heels. Maybe if she was quiet, the boy wouldn't feel bad for crying where she could see and would accept that her dinosaur (who had a big heart to match it's body) just wanted to help.

Zack had been vaguely aware that he wasn't alone out there for at least a few moments. Long enough to try, at least, to pull back his emotions, to stop the tears and to look at least to a casual glance like maybe he wasn't actually sitting on the ground in the leaves, sobbing his heart out.

It hasn't worked. And so he'd folded in on himself a little bit more, tried to bury his face in his knees. Maybe whoever it was wouldn't recognize him out there, at the very least. Or would just leave him alone.

The soft brush of the toy against his arm had caused him to pull in a startled breath, and it took him another moment to realize what it was before he looked to his side to find himself face-to-face with... a very large plush dinosaur.

Zack blinked.

Alluka nudged her toy towards him gently.

Then, because upset toys weren't always very rational, and she supposed that probably applied to upset boys too (after all, it rhymed), she peered around her toy, all big blue eyes.

"He wants you to hold onto him," she said in a whisper. "He says 'no one should cry alone'."

Oh. Oh, hey it was... was that girl from the clothing store. Zack blinked, and opened his mouth to speak, but gave up on those plans when another surge of emotion, this time mostly from realizing that someone was actually there with him right then, choked him up completely and it was all he could do to nod a little in thanks and to reach for the dinosaur.

He'd hug it gently. He didn't want to hurt anything by accident. Especially not this girl's friend.

Well, her friends were meant to be squished and she was pretty sure if her friend got hurt that one of her papas would know who to go to fix it.

(Maybe one day she'd be able to fix that sort of thing and Alluka jotted that down in the back of her brain as something to ask Sparkle about, with sewing.)

She didn't really know what to say, since saying 'it's okay' would be lying. So Alluka just settled herself down by him, and waited. She was good at waiting unobtrusively, so if he wanted to cry or just sit in silence and cling to her dinosaur, it was alright.

She didn't mind.

Yeah, but he was so bad at it. Zack needed to take a moment, burying his face in the dinosaur's neck and taking a few deep breaths to try to get his bearings again, before he finally managed to find words.

"I needed that," he managed, voice still a little thick with emotion. "Thank you."

What kind of SOLDIER cried in front of little kids?

One with a big, hurting heart?

"You're welcome," Alluka said, seeing if she could tie grass into braid. "I don't mind and my dinosaur doesn't mind either."

Zack nodded, and then managed one of his little smiles. It wasn't the big, reassuring grin he was going for, but... the place it came from was genuine enough. He pulled in another breath, exhaled, and then leaned back to look up at the sky through the leaves on the trees.

"Then you're both very good people," he decided. "Those are hard to find, these days."

Alluka wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

"Are, are they?"

What made a person good anyway?

"They are where I'm from," Zack replied, his smile going a little tired. "Here might be different, though. I don't know, maybe that's what it is..."

What was he doing out here in the woods? Sitting on the ground, crying at the leaves?

What did that change?

Alluka...

Okay, that wasn't helping her confusion levels at all.

"Um, um, that means you're a good person too," she said, hoping it was the right thing, "because you're here."

Zack blinked at that, and then gave a soft laugh, turning a smile back toward her.

"Maybe it really is that easy, huh?" Wouldn't that be nice? "You know... for now, I'll take it."

"Okay."

Alluka wasn't going to ask him about what came after now and why that might mean something else. Not when he still was holding her dinosaur. She rummaged through her purse and made a happy noise when she came up with a pack of Kleenex.

"Here," she said, offering them to him.

"Huh? Oh!" Zack gave a little sniffle, because that was the thing to do when offered something to do something about the sniffling with, sure, and offered her back her dinosaur. A trade, sort of. "Thank you. I kind of... yeah."

He was a mess. Tissues were good.

The Preserve, Wednesday Afternoon

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