Lucas

27th of April, 649

"Lucas, I know you're trying, but..." Justine said, shaking her head. "Look. I'll level with you. Ms. Osoldo's saying you're not going to pass the year if you don't do well on this paper, and even then you'll still need to pass your finals."

"I AM trying, I swear!" Lucas said, frustrated. "It's just... when am I ever going to have to use any of this? Is one of my future bosses gonna come up and ask me to analyze a chapter from a book or something? We've got like two weeks left in school, why does any of this matter?"

Justine rubbed her temples. "Lucas," she said, stress apparent in her voice. "You and I both know that you'll probably never have to it again, so can you please try? Just for this week. Like you said, you'll probably never have to do it again."

Lucas knew that she would make a fantastic teacher - way better than stodgy old Ms. Osoldo. But Lucas also felt like she was always frustrated with him because of his lack of effort - he knew he could've been trying harder than he was, it was just that he just didn't really want to. Justine fiddled with the top button of her shirt as she leaned over Lucas' attempt at a rough draft, and he could see the disappointment in her eyes as she scanned the words. She was kind to him, and he really didn't like letting her down. But with the additional responsibility of working in the workshop with Joel, Lucas felt stretched thin. He didn't really know how to explain that to Justine, who he was admittedly smitten with. Like Espee, she was Beldaran, and at times she reminded him of an older Ceres.

"Terracius to Lucas, I repeat, come in, Lucas," she smiled, tapping him on the arm. He hadn't realized he'd zoned out like that. "Don't fall asleep on me now, alright? This isn't too bad. We should talk about a few things, though."

Lucas went through a litany of changes with Justine, and he felt rather deflated at the end of their time together. He felt that everything was going wrong, and increasingly was beginning to feel that none of his life choices mattered and that everyone was guiding him on rails to do certain things. Ceres had already gone home as she was yet again irritated with him. A timer on the desktop beeped, signifying the end of their study session.

"Ah, shoot. 45 minutes already?" Justine said, scrunching her mouth. "We were just getting somewhere, I think. Oh well, we'll try again next time. You've got your marching orders. I believe in you; you can do it."

"Thanks," Lucas said. He didn't really feel like he could do much of anything right.

"You know, I'm proud of your growth this year," Justine said as she packed her binder into her backpack. "You've come a long way, Lucas."

"Really? Uh, thanks. I don't feel like I've done a lot."

"Well, I've seen it. Progress doesn't always come quickly, you know. You've got to work at it and keep working at it. You're almost at the finish line now, and I look forward to cheering you on at graduation."

"You know, I'm really going to miss these sessions," Lucas said. His brain felt like pudding. He didn't know why he said that.

"Really?" Justine raised her eyebrow. "I'm going to be blunt and say I'm not sure I believe that, but nonetheless I appreciate it. It's nice of you to say."

"Oh. Uh... I mean it, though." Lucas gathered his own papers into his backpack. "Like, thank you. I'd be totally screwed without your help."

Justine smiled and shook her head. "Hey, you're doing it too, Lucas. You're the one ultimately writing these things. I'm just here to help guide you."

"I was just saying... uh..." Lucas froze up, unsure of what to say. Justine just smiled warmly at him.

"Hey, next week's our last session. Shoot me a SGNL message if you want me to bring anything special to it."

"Like what?"

She looked at Lucas quizzically and laughed. "Snacks? Drinks? I don't know, Lucas. You tell me."

"Oh. Uh, yeah. That would be cool."

Lucas could feel beads of sweat on the back of his neck. Why was he trying to flirt with her? His mouth moved before his brain could react.

"Hey, Justine? Will you be back at the school next year?"

"Probably? I don't know yet. The program I'm in ends this year, but I like it out here so perhaps the school will take me on as a substitute or something. Why, why do you ask?"

Lucas' ability to make rational thoughts was on the brink of escaping out of his ear.

"Oh, nothing really. I was just gonna say that I'm thinking of leaving Cygnus later in the summer. It would be cool maybe to keep in touch?"

"If you want to," she shrugged. "You could always ask me questions about navigating college or wherever you end up, you know. Just because I tutored you here doesn't mean I can't help you once in a while outside of here."

"Thanks," Lucas said. He didn't feel quite as stupid anymore, but he could feel his cheeks flushing. Justine's SGNL phone buzzed aggressively in her bag, and she pulled it out, smiling at what she saw.

"Yeesh, I better get on the road. My boyfriend's in town for the weekend, so I've gotta get going to meet him in time. Have a good night, Lucas."

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"Ugh, you're always so late coming back," Ceres griped as Lucas came up the stairs. He'd had to walk back to the house as Espee was out with Carmine's wife Maureen for the afternoon, and by the time he made it back the sun was almost down. "Why didn't you call or anything? I was getting worried."

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"I was just walking," Lucas said. "What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that? So what if you'd been hit by a car or something? How would I have known?"

"Ceres," Lucas said as he leaned against her doorway. "You sound like Espee talking to your dad. Look, I'm back now. No need to worry."

She pouted and flopped herself back on the bed.

"I'm tired of you working for my dad."

"Ceres, I don't get a choice in that."

"And I'm tired of you doing that tutoring thing, too. You don't need it. You're smart enough without someone telling you how to write."

Lucas remembered his chat with Espee about Ceres' jealousy from last week, and it was quite apparent to him that the seedling of reassurance hadn't yet taken root in her head.

"Next week's the last one, Cer. It's not like I want to go to them, but you know I've got to listen to Ms. Osoldo."

"To blazes with Ms. Osoldo. I lost all respect for that old bitch when she made fun of Bobby when his mom died." Ceres sighs loudly, and Lucas felt a twinge of nerves telling him to just go back to his own room and leave her be. Instead, he sat down in a chair at her desk.

"I mean, you're right, but c'mon, Cer. Be realistic with me, okay? If I don't pass, I don't get to come with you."

"Yeah? So pass the class, then."

"It's not that..."

"I don't want to hear it, Lucas. You spend too much time just messing around reading books and watching TV instead of doing your homework, and when it comes time to actually need to do anything, you're left floundering."

"What do you mean? I'm trying. Ms. Osoldo just grades my stuff harder than everyone else."

"Yeah? I guess that's possible. Maybe she's just trying to get rid of you like she did to Bobby's brother. Maybe she thinks you're too busy sleeping in class when you're supposed to be listening?"

"Oh, come off it," Lucas said, irritated. "It's not like you're not part to blame, anyway. You spend too much time trying to get me to fool around with you," he continued, and then felt his heart freeze in his chest.

"You have a problem with that or something? We don't have to do that. That's something I like doing with you, but if you don't want to, I'll stop."

"That's not what I meant at all."

"Then you've got no point."

Lucas felt exasperated. How'd they get to that, anyway? It seemed like one logical leap after another, and he felt like it was giving him motion sickness.

"Hey, Cer? Why are you giving me crap about coming back late? Weren't you out with Rita this afternoon?"

"Yeah, and so what? I got back an hour before you."

"Then why does it matter if it takes me a while to get back?"

"Ugh, come on, Lucas," she said, sitting up on the bed and hanging her legs off the side. "Can't I just miss you without playing twenty questions?"

"Ceres."

"Lucas."

"Look, Cer. In a few weeks, none of this school stuff is gonna matter anymore. Alright? What're you really mad about?"

Ceres bit her lip and Lucas could see a roiling anger behind her eyes.

"Seriously? That's what you do? You ask me another question?"

"That was three questions you just asked?"

Ceres threw one of her pillows at the wall and pointed towards the bedroom door.

"Get out, okay? Go! I want to be alone now."

Lucas said nothing further and stood up with a grunt. As soon as he got into the hall, he heard Ceres' quick steps come up behind him to slam and lock the door in his wake. He rolled his eyes. This was getting out of control, quickly.

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The strand of Pulse lights from Erdrick's shop glowed purple-blue in the corner of Lucas' room as he lay in the dark, listening to the rain pitter-patter against the roof. Ceres hadn't come out of her room for the rest of the night, and now that it was time to go to bed, Lucas wasn't exactly sure he had enough in him to care about checking up on her. She was a big girl; she could take care of herself. She didn't need Lucas to do everything for her. On a parallel track in Lucas' mind, though, he was thinking of what he could do to suture up the rift between them.

While her birthday was still three full months away, Lucas had been planning it since the moment her seventeenth birthday ended. It was going to be a whole big deal that, on a feral monkey-brained level, would end with them making love for the first time. At least, that's what Lucas had planned for. He knew with the increasing frequencies of the tempestuous interactions between the two that that was going to be an increasingly hard sell. He found himself daydreaming of Justine instead and had to shake the face from his mind. However, when he tried to picture Ceres, another face came to his mind - clearly, even though he hadn't seen her in the flesh since he was thirteen years old. Lethe - there, as beautiful as the last time he saw her. He felt like crying out, but held it in. Why was he thinking of her, of all people?

It was an immensely desperate struggle to keep those memories at bay, but some nights Lucas couldn't set them aside. He relived the moment of losing her in his mind at least once a month, such as the trauma was. It was formative in the worst way, a culmination of hopes instead dashed. He never saw her again after the men on the train took her away, and Rocky had never been able to provide him any answers. He'd never talked about her in depth with Ceres, partially because of the knowledge of how jealously she may react to the perceived 'threat'. Lethe was 15 when they took her, and if Ceres was going to get jealous of a kiss he'd had years before he and Ceres had even met... well, she could just deal with it.

The rain continued to pour down. Lucas hadn't been able to get used to the intensity of the rainstorms in Cygnus, brief as they usually were. Oftentimes hail would fall with the rain, denting cars and breaking windows. In Mormont, his forested hometown in eastern Noctavia, he'd enjoyed the calm, gentle rain that would fall every few days. In the winters, it would fall as powdery snow that would be gone before the next sunset. He loved it there, and his thoughts returned to Ceres as ideas for the future cropped into his mind's eye.

The confrontation had clouded his thoughts, and he struggled mightily with it. It exhausted him to be at odds with Ceres, worse still when there was no real way to fix it. He couldn't fix something that she didn't want any part in repairing, and the realization of that at times felt numbing to Lucas.

He thought of Mormont again, trying to clear his head of all the bad thoughts. He remembered cutting down a tree at the Winter Festival with his father and mother. It was one of the earliest clear memories he had of them. His mother; her flaming mane of red hair, easy smile, blue eyes as cold as ice. His father was sturdy and strong, with eyes like grey clouds and dark, well-kept hair. Their laughter together was something he tried desperately to preserve in his memory, but as the years had passed, he felt the horror of beginning to forget the sound.

The sound of Mom's 'I love you.' The sound of Dad's "I'm proud of you, champ." Family. My family.

Lucas felt like a wreck. He needed a distraction but couldn't figure one out. Despair threatened to swallow him again.

Then, he looked at the Pulse lights, and it spurred his mind to jump tracks, trying to come up with something again for Ceres' birthday. It felt like a fruitless endeavor to be trying to plan something so important so far away, but he knew he had to impress her. He wasn't doing a good enough job in that department, and her nasty comments were really driving that home. He felt trapped at times, however, in promises he'd made to her about their future. He loved and cared for her, surely, but her intensity in talking about marriage and children had rattled him the first time she said it.

Children, he thought. While I like the idea of it, I couldn't actually do it. Lucas thought of his father as he turned on his side and closed his eyes.

The way his father screamed his name and told him to run away that afternoon. He was 8 years old then. The gunshots. The terror, the fear, the tears. He never forgot those sounds.