"Sergeant Raine," called the Tech Sergeant beagle. "It's one of the MPs from Reilly Gate...they say you have a visitor. Says it's some girl."

The snow white wolf padded over to the phone whilst his troops and fellow NCOs leaned forward with bated breath. Cloud Raine rolled his eyes at them, though he himself had to admit that it was rare for something like this to happen to him...especially since he rarely dated, much less had given some girl cause to call him to the gate.

"Who is it?" he asked, shooing away one of the young Airmen who began to make kissing noises at him. His hazel eyes widened. "I'll be there in a minute."

Pulling his ABU top on over the sand colored undershirt, he asked the Tech Sergeant if he could take some Leave since the workload was fairly slow. The beagle edged forward in his swivel chair, eyeing the normally calm wolf suspiciously. "C'mon, Pickens, I'll eat the half day," Cloud argued as he unpatiently shifted his weight to one leg.

The beagle smiled and said, "Sure, Raine, but I think the guys and I are going to have Shop Lunch today...so...we'll just follow you out to Reilly Gate."

Cloud grinned at his supervisor and turned to the crowd of giggling Airmen. "Alright, alright, you guys are worse than any group of girls. Let's go ahead and get this shit over with."

It took less than three minutes for him to reach the main gate. There she was, sitting on the brick fence, talking to three of the MPs, laughing and bantering like she belonged there. He parked his truck, and all but ran up to her, making sure to maintain composure in front of the two carloads of his co-workers that pulled in behind him. He could already hear them whispering...some of them whistling.

Her eyes flashed towards him, a dark sepia. "Cloud!" She ran up to him and hugged him.

Trying not to obviously breathe in too much of his ex-girlfriend's scent of sandlewood that danced in her hair, he replied, "Wielder, it's been a while. But...what's so important that you had to drive all the way up here from Georgia instead of making a phone call?"

She laughed good naturedly. "Well, do you want me to tell just you or all of your buddies too?"

Cloud turned around and stared down the group of uniformed gossips behind him. Shaking his head and waving his arms he said in an exasperated manner, "alright, alright. Guys, Wielder...my ex girlfriend. Wielder, Guys."

"Charmed," she replied as a polite but loaded grin crossed her fangs.

With that, they walked off as the Cloud's hungry coworkers loaded back into their carpools, most of them yelling cat-calls which were promptly ignored.

"So..."

"I'm sorry for giving you such short...well...no notice," she started at his urging. "But I feel that I need to apologize..."

He stopped her abruptly but not cruely. "Wielder, we've talked about this before. What happened is in the past. Years ago, might I add. You've atoned for it. That's that. You really didn't need to make a trip out here to rehash this."

She stopped and turned to him, white rimmed ears falling to the sides of her head. "I don't think I ever did it RIGHT. Apologizing I mean..."

Standing at parade rest and bouncing a little out of nervousness, he attempted to be kind. "I'll be honest...when I hear about your...EXPLOITS...back home...it somewhat tarnishes the sincerity of your apology."

She nodded. "I understand that...but...someone else has shown me that I can't continue doing this...even my reputation alone seems to hurt those I attempt to care for. I've come here to tell you how truly sorry I am...and that' I've tried to change it...though it's too late for her already..."

Grabbing her hand gently so that her eyes would again meet his, he corrected her. "Wielder, you've never forgiven YOURSELF. You don't let anyone who's worthy of you near. All you have are trysts...no real love...no affection. For some folks, that's enough...but not for you...you've punished yourself more than I ever could."

She smiled as the truth of his statement hit her with bittersweet comfort. He reached a tentative hand up to her cheek and held it there. "So...tell me about this girl..."


Just a digital piece I did of Wielder and Cloud in a hypothetical "what if" kind of storyline. What if Cloud hadn't forgiven Wielder for her past betrayal? How much would have changed.

Photo is not mine. Googled it.

AND YES, I AM MARRIED TO CLOUD. IT'S JUST A STORY, GUYS. JUST A STORY. LAWL.