Fic Meme

[joiedecombat]

Stolen from infinitepryde:

Inspired by Doctor Who's "Turn Left:" Pick one of my stories and tell me a point in the tale that you'd change. Something tiny (e.g. "and then Fay chose silver glitter instead of gold") or big (e.g. "and then Rose was arrested instead of Jack") and I'll tell you how that one difference would have altered the course of the entire story.

Since I usually write shortfic which doesn't especially lend itself to this sort of thing, I will expand "story" to include RP and canon. Have at.

Comments

[bentarc.livejournal.com]

I'll throw you a bone. What if Laguna hadn't sent Squall to SeeD.

1/2

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

The pistol weighed in Squall's hands, cold and heavy like so much lead.

"Don't worry, you shouldn't have to use it. Hold onto it just in case, all right?"

Laguna had smiled as he'd said it, sounding as cheery and carefree as ever, but still Squall couldn't help but feel like he'd just seen his father look his real age for the first time that he could remember.

From somewhere outside the Presidential Palace there came a low rumbling like distant thunder. Sitting on the floor behind his father’s desk in the presidential office, Squall stared down at the gun in incomprehension.

"What the heck is going on...?"

"You ought to stay back here yourself, Laguna," Uncle Kiros had said in the midst of fitting his long-disused katar to his hands.

"No way! I used to be a soldier too, you know."

"Yeah, well now you're the president of Esthar. You should think about your responsibilities."

His father had simply ruffled a hand over Squall's hair, and Squall, still paralyzed by the weight of the pistol in his hands, hadn't had a chance to even think about trying to wave him away.

"Believe me, Kiros, I am."

It felt like he’d been sitting there for hours.

"Squall?"

Beside him, Ellone did her best to smile, but she still looked worried.

"It'll be okay," she said. "Nothing's going to get all the way into the palace."

"Take care of your sister," his father had told him, the last thing he'd said before he and Uncle Kiros and Uncle Ward had disappeared through the office doorway and into the hall outside.

Squall looked back down at the gun in his hands.

"I don't get it," he said.

"Squall--" His sister scooted a little closer to him to put her arm around his shoulders.

"I seriously don't get it. Monsters coming out of the sky, Galbadia attacking, a sorceress... It’s like some kind of bad dream."

It was unthinkable that an enemy would get as far as the presidential palace, Squall told himself. It didn’t help. It was unthinkable that Esthar would be attacked at all. The occasional target practice sessions on the range were for trips to Winhill, where the occasional caterchipillar or bite bug still sometimes managed to wander into town. Esthar was safe.

From somewhere at the other end of the hallway came the indistinct sounds of shouting voices, and a staccato popping that might have been machine gun fire. Ellone’s arm pulled tighter around Squall, her fingers digging into his shoulder, and the two of them sat very still, listening anxiously.

A deep, muffled boom vibrated through the floor, making Ellone flinch. After that, silence.

Squall gripped the pistol tightly with clammy hands and tried not to think about how there’d been the hitch of a leg cramp in his father’s step as he’d left the office.

2/2

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

He couldn’t take this any more. Shrugging off his sister’s arm, he scrambled up onto his feet and started around the desk toward the door.

“What are you doing?” Ellone rose up to call out to him anxiously across the desktop. “Uncle Laguna said to stay here.”

“It’s okay,” he told her; “I just wanna see what’s going--”

The office door blew in with a force that knocked Squall off his feet, throwing him back against the solid bulk of the desk hard enough to force the air right out of him. Wreathed in wisps of smoke and steam, a tall blond guy in a long white coat loomed in the shattered doorway, boots crunching on the splinters that littered the floor.

Squall’s first dazed, stupid thought was that the guy couldn’t have been much older than he was.

“Squall!” Ellone cried out, her voice shrill will panic. The blond guy smiled nastily and hefted a bloodied gunblade up against his shoulder, scattering drops of red against the white coat.

”Take care of your sister,” his father had told him.

Squall raised his pistol and fired and fired and fired and fired.

It was that easy. More splashes of blood bloomed on the long white coat; he swayed, looking down at himself with an expression of foolish disbelief, and almost in slow motion dropped, first to his knees, then crumpling to the floor. He really couldn’t have been that much older than Squall; Squall found himself watching the uneven rise and fall of his back in time with a wet, soft rattle of indrawn breath, once, and once more, and then nothing.

He’d just killed a guy, Squall thought numbly. He could hear Ellone from behind the desk - was she crying? - but he couldn’t quite remember how to move.

“Useless,” said the dispassionate voice of the sorceress, and then she was stepping over the dead body, dragging her long black skirt through the pool of blood that was spreading over the floor, and Squall remembered how to move after all but it didn’t matter anyhow. He’d only half managed to lunge up onto his feet before she made a contemptuous gesture with a clawed black hand; there was a flash of cold bluish light and he fell hard back against the desk again with the wind knocked out of him.

It felt like there was a spike of ice driven through his shoulder, and it took Squall a confused moment to realize that was because there was a spike of ice driven through his shoulder, pinning him to his father’s desk like a bug in an insect collection.

Ellone’s scream went on forever.