11A/N: It's Sunday, my dudes. A perfect day for angst and tears and wrapping up a story. Once again, credit for this idea goes to The Night Ninja.
Lloyd had come home for Dr. Julien's funeral. It was a simple, quiet affair; he couldn't pick out a face in the meager crowd that he didn't know. They all talked in hushed whispers or stood around looking sadly at each other, and all there was to explain why they were there was a picture of the old doctor's smiling face set between burning candles and incense.
Lloyd stared at the little display for several minutes. He knew in his head what had happened, but the reality of it just seemed so far away. And he stared, watching, waiting for it all to sink in and at the same time hoping it didn't.
"You came." The voice was soft, familiar, and full of melancholy.
Lloyd turned around to see two familiar blue eyes in a strained smile. "Zane!"
He hugged his big brother as tightly as he dared. Zane was tall and usually reserved—not nearly as huggy as Cole or noogie-prone as Kai—but he wrapped his long arms around Lloyd's shoulders and held on just a little longer than he usually did.
Lloyd wished he could push all the comfort in the world through that hug and into Zane. He couldn't, really; he could only offer his own, and that wasn't much.
But it was enough.
When Zane finally let go, Lloyd pulled away and looked up at him sadly. "I had to be here for you," he explained.
Zane smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. Lloyd didn't blame him. "Thank you," he said.
Just then, Ed and Edna walked though the door, leaning on each other's arms as if they were walking into a hospital room. Jay looked up from his conversation with the others and met them at the door, where they talked in more whispers.
Zane had already looked up and was watching them, a look of gratitude and resignation in his eyes.
Lloyd knew that he probably had to go talk to them, so he tugged on Zane's sleeve gently and said, "We'll talk later."
Zane glanced down at him again and nodded somberly. "I'd like that."
The guys, Nya, and Uncle Wu retreated back to the schoolhouse after it was over, and Lloyd went with them. While Wu drank tea, they sat around in the break room talking—the only thing that felt right to do anymore—but Lloyd couldn't help but stare at his hands and feel like one bench in particular felt empty.
"Hey. Where's Zane?"
Lloyd looked up as soon as he heard Kai's question, and then he paid more attention to the people around him. Zane had disappeared.
"He was just here a second ago," Jay said with a frown.
Nya sighed and set her hand on his arm. "Let's give him some space. He probably needs it, after...everything."
Her face screwed up a little, and Jay put his arm around her and hugged her. Kai looked over at his sister and frowned, and then he looked away with a thundercloud over his head.
"What if...he needs help?" asked Lloyd. His voice felt weak.
"Healing of the heart does not come easy," Uncle Wu said quietly for the first time that night, "but it may be found both in company and in solitude. If Zane needs us, he knows where to find us. But he has had our company, and now perhaps he seeks comfort alone."
"He is kinda a loner..." Cole's bushy eyebrows pressed together as he thought it over. "You guys remember when he found out he was a nindroid."
"Yeah, come to think of it, we weren't much help there," Jay agreed sheepishly. He was still hugging Nya.
"Well, we helped by getting beat up, but I don't wanna do that again," groused Kai. He snuck another glance at Nya.
Wu nodded. "So you see that she is right. If Zane does not appear by dinner, we will have cause to worry. But for now, we'd do best not to intrude."
Nya was wiping her eyes. The others nodded and agreed, and after a short, awkward silence, they went back to talking about other things.
But Lloyd couldn't get it out of his head that he'd promised Zane that they'd talk later, so when he thought it wouldn't be too obvious, he got up, slipped out of the room, and went looking for Zane.
He checked both floors twice and Zane's room three times, but there wasn't any sign of him anywhere. Zane's shoes were by the door, so he couldn't have gone out unless he went barefoot, and Lloyd was starting to believe he'd just vanished into thin air.
And then he remembered his own secret place to go when he wanted to be alone and no one to find him. He booked it up the stairs to the second floor, walked to the end of a short hall, and pulled on a string that hung from the ceiling.
Lloyd almost winced when he climbed on the roof; not from pain, but from a bad memory. The last time he was on the roof of a school was with Pythor.
The sun was setting, and the part of the sky that wasn't orange was turning deep, murky blue. He could even point out some of the brightest stars.
And there was Zane. He wasn't close to the edge of the roof, but he wasn't close to the trap door either, and it took Lloyd just a second to make out his dark, hunched shape on the roof.
The tiles slanted precariously under Lloyd's feet as he walked over to Zane and sat down beside him.
Zane looked up and offered a smile.
That was permission to stay.
Lloyd tried to smile back, and then they both sat and stared at the sunset for a while.
Lloyd played with his sleeves. "So...how are you doing?" he asked softly.
Zane didn't answer for a while. It was almost as if he had to pull the words out from deep inside of him.
"I think you know." His voice wasn't unkind, but it was monotonous and sad.
Lloyd frowned. "No, I don't. Not really." He'd tried so hard to put himself in Zane's place all day and he couldn't, not for real. But if what Zane felt was just five times as bad as Lloyd felt, knowing that Julien was gone...
Lloyd sunk his face into his arms, tears burning at his eyes. "Nothing like this has ever happened to me before."
Zane was quiet for a while. "Your father..." he finally said slowly.
Lloyd shook his head. "That's different. He was only gone for like, five minutes." He paused, then finally dared to look up at Zane, and his heart felt like it would shrivel up and die just looking at him. "But you..."
Zane stared at the sunset, not blinking. The orange light was reflecting in his eyes. He raised one hand and stared at it, speaking slowly. "When I first met you and my brothers, I was wholly unaware of my background. All of my memories of my upbringing had been erased.
"When I accessed them again..." Zane's hand closed into a fist. "I remembered my father, but I also remembered his death." He started to rub his wrist and palm with the thumb of his other hand, and his voice started to catch a little. "I had him, and then I lost him. And the pain was both old and new, because it had been with me all my life, but I was just rediscovering it then."
Lloyd didn't say anything. He knew Zane had to get it out; he hoped it was helping. He also hoped that he wouldn't be crying by the end of this.
"It was only because Destiny smiled on us that I got him back at all." Zane pressed both hands into his chest, one wrapped tightly around the other, and for the first time Lloyd started to see pain flash across his face.
When Zane spoke again, his voice broke. "And now I've lost him again."
Lloyd could feel his face screwing up. He tried to ignore the watery blur in his eyes.
"I want him back." Zane had pulled his knees in and he hugged himself like a little kid, shaking, as tears started to come down his cheeks. "I know I shouldn't, but I want him back."
It was almost scary. Zane had always been the stoic one, almost aloof to frustration and cool under pressure; Lloyd had never seen him break like this. But more importantly, it was his brother that was hurting, and Lloyd reached forward and hugged Zane's side as tight as he could because he couldn't do anything more.
"I might not be the expert on this," he said quietly, "but I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be with your dad."
"But it's selfish," cried Zane. He looked at Lloyd earnestly with tears in his eyes, as if he was trying to get him to understand. "It had already been too long, and he was in pain..."
Zane turned away and bit the knuckle of his first finger.
Oh, geez...Lloyd didn't trust himself to talk without getting choked up, so he just turned Zane toward him so that he could hug him properly, and Zane buried his head in Lloyd's shoulder and wept into his shirt.
Lloyd bit his lower lip hard. I won't cry I won't cry I won't...
He cried.
And in the end...that was okay. Julien had been a great friend, and Lloyd was going to miss him a lot. Maybe not as much as Zane, but it still hurt really, really bad, and if he was going to get it out somehow, it might as well be with someone who was hurting from it too.
Besides, Zane was crying. Zane.
And Lloyd didn't want him to be alone.
Lloyd let Zane decide when the hug was over again. It wasn't over for a long, long time—and until then, Lloyd was comfortable just being there for him.
But when Zane finally let go, wiping his eyes, he looked at Lloyd and whispered, "Thank you."
Lloyd's smile was shaky, and so was his voice. "N-no problem."
They turned back to the sunset again; it was almost gone behind the horizon now, and the nighttime was starting to feel cold.
Lloyd couldn't help but wonder how Zane was feeling. He thought of his own dad, and how close they'd gotten in just a few months. If he'd had to lose him...
Lloyd took a shaky breath in. He couldn't imagine it.
"We're lucky," he said after a moment. "I don't think everybody gets to have good dads like we do."
It occurred to him afterwards that maybe he should have said "did", but then he wondered if it would have upset Zane more.
But Zane just smiled. "You're right. I'm very fortunate." He thumbed a new tear away from his eyes, not looking at Lloyd.
"But it's strange." Zane stared at his hands again, his voice choked up. "The pain I feel now that he's gone is exactly the happiness I felt when he was here. I can't celebrate that he's mine without...mourning that he isn't, anymore."
Lloyd bit his lip and nodded. He thought about for a moment and then said quietly, "Maybe that's okay."
They sat in silence a moment longer as the sun sank behind the horizon in the distance. Lloyd swore he could see the glint of a faraway reflection off the surface of the ocean before it disappeared.
He sighed. "I'm not very good at this, am I?" he asked.
Zane's wan smile was only visible by the dying light following the sun. "It's all right. I appreciate the sentiment."
Lloyd groaned and resisted flopping on his back in frustration. "You're not supposed to be comforting me!" he cried. "I'm supposed to be comforting you!"
"But I'm your brother," Zane answered blandly. "It's what we do."
Lloyd grunted and crossed his arms and definitely did not pout.
"And..." Zane added slowly, "it helps." He set his hand on Lloyd's shoulder, and Lloyd could feel the weight of it even stronger than normal. "To be able to care for others like he wanted me to. Like a little piece of him lives on...through me." Zane's smile was bittersweet.
Lloyd smiled back. "Can I just sit with you for a while?" he asked.
"I'd like nothing better," was the answer.
Lloyd hugged his side, Zane put his arm over his shoulders, and they sat there on the roof and watched the stars come out.
"Thank you," whispered Zane. Lloyd could hardly hear it above the wind in the trees.
"No," he answered just as quietly, and held his brother tighter. "Thank you, Zane. For sharing him with us."
A tear trickled down Zane's cheek, reflecting the light of the stars, but he smiled.
the end
A/N: Zane's line about pain and happiness being the same is inspired by a quote from C. S. Lewis: "The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal."
Reviews are rooftops. Thank you all for reading Grass Clippings.
