Title: Coping Mechanisms

Characters: Balthier and Ashe

Spoilers: Up through Pharos at Ridorana

Notes: This is my first FFXII fic. After checking out the game, I had to give it a try. We never do see Balthier react after the past catches up with him. Sooner or later, I figure it had to crash into him, so that's what I wrote.

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No matter how much anyone expected it, life never got to be too much. Time never stopped, never even slowed a fraction, no matter what awful thing happened.

Ashe had thought, for much of her journey, that she was alone in knowing something of this. She had been learning, however, that her companions knew it, too- and none more so now than Balthier.

In this day of pain, and fear, and loss, he'd taken the worst of it. And it was wrong, it was her fault. She'd dragged him back to the past he'd flown from.

He'd tried- oh, how he'd tried- to slip back behind the mask of cocky, carefree pirate as he'd carried a still-wobbly Fran back to the airship. He'd even managed a clever line or two, but faltered at Ashe's sympathetic look.

"Don't, princess," he'd said quietly- even desperately- before pushing past her.

He hadn't been fit to fly, but, then, none of them had, so he'd done it anyway- at least, until Fran was recovered enough to demand the controls from him. That he'd acquiesced without a word was testament to how affected he he'd been by the whole ordeal.

Ashe frowned suddenly, and silently berated herself for such a foolish thought. Of course he was affected; he had just watched his father die- by his own hand, no less!

He was fiddling with his sleeves again, smoothing non-existant wrinkles in the fine fabric. She fought the urge to still his hands with her own, knowing he would never accept such a gesture. She did understand his pain- imperfectly, but well enough- but she couldn't show him. She remembered, from the days after Rasler's death, the anger she felt when anyone tried to offer her their understanding. She hadn't wanted anyone to understand.

So she made no move, said nothing, and simply watched. He knew she was there- and she prayed it meant some small thing to him.

Sleep took him, eventually. He fought it, eyes fluttering, for a time. Then his head nodded, chin hit his chest, and he was gone. She remembered that, too, from her time of mourning- the way her body would suddenly feel drained of all energy, shutting down to let her cope.

It would be too soon that they'd have to wake him, she realized sadly. There was going to be no time to pause and truly rest for any of them.

For a moment, it felt like too much. It should have been too much. But, then, that brought her back to her original thinking.

Life never was.