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A Shade of Black
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"People say that black is a shade… but after spending enough time shrouded in it, you realize that there are many shades of black."
Squall Leonhart
.x.
Prologue
The night was cold, foggy and starless. A presentiment sense of doom piercing the air.
He pushed harder and harder on the pedal, and the car jolted forward down the nearly abandoned highway in correspondence with the bursts of power. The engine revved and he noticed that it had began smoking, not to mention the heavy downpour that made his vision fog and blur. It destroyed any perception of the road that he might have had left disregarding his tears. His auburn hair was wet and matted against his pale skin from having been in the rain and his gray eyes searched hungrily for answers that he couldn't possibly grasp when the questions still seemed much too difficult to even comprehend.
One being - where in the world he was going. He didn't know and he didn't care. He pushed harder still. The car slid to the side and then with another thrust of speed pressed onwards. Like a small child arguing with its parent, the engine began sputtering, he could hear the short, startling ruptures of sound coming from the front of the car. He knew that at any given moment the engine could die, at any given moment, so could he.
It was ironic that after everything he had been through, that was all it came down to. Fate.
Or maybe 'fate' is really not all it's cracked up to be, he deliberated. Maybe it doesn't even exist at all?
The car swerved one final time, one of the wheels catching on a ridge on the corner of the road and bouncing onto its side. The screeches of the metal against the cement impeded his eardrums and his rigid body whipped from side to side. The sheer force of the impact caused his head to snap back uncomfortably against the seat and he let out a sharp gasp. Before even having a chance to notice that the airbag hadn't yet been deployed his head was propelled forward, slamming mercilessly against the steering wheel. After what seemed like an eternity the car finally came to a skidding halt.
The man, in his last moments of consciousness spotted his cell phone dangling off his keychain, attached to the key still in the ignition. He reached out and missed, the key chain swung and his mind began thrusting him away from this place, into a state of lost reality.
Like his life dangling before him, the key chain riddled with what now seemed to be useless ornaments and much too many worthless keys finally swayed into his grasp. He fondled the small piece of technology for a few moments, not really knowing what to do next. As fast as he could and without much thought of what exactly he was doing, the man pressed the only button he could think of, that rang like a true habitual pattern in his mind.
Speed dial. He didn't know if it would reach anybody, nor did he care anymore, at this point. His body was cradling him into sweet oblivion. A place where he didn't have to rely on anybody, a place where he could live exactly how he'd dreamed. A place existent only in his own mind.
.x.
Josh Groban – Remember When It Rained
Wash away the thoughts inside
That keep my mind away from you.
No more love and no more pride
And thoughts are all I have to do.
Ohhh, Remember when it rained.
Felt the ground and looked up high
And called you name.
Ohhh, Remember when it rained.
In the darkness I remain.
Tears of hope run down my skin.
Tears for you that will not dry.
They magnify the one within
And let the outside slowly die.
Ohhh, Remember when it rained.
Felt the ground and looked up high
And called you name.
Ohhh, Remember when it rained.
In the water I remain.
Running down
Running down
Running down
Running down
Running down
Running down
Running down
.x.
Chapter One
"Where… am I?"
The pale, auburn haired man could barely lift himself, roused only by the thought of how he had gotten out in the open and how it could have gotten bright out so suddenly. Had he really been out that long?
Without a thought, he heaved himself backwards onto his heels, sitting up enough now to take in his surroundings.
Shock overwhelmed him. Hadn't he been on a road? In a car? He looked around, dumbfounded.
Right before him he could see his own reflection in the narrow and slow-moving river. A dense mist crept over the glassy surface, sweeping outwards and upwards and into the branches of the lush scenery encircling him. It was a sight that most people waited their whole lives to see, magical in it's untainted beauty. It seemed to him to be the perfect fairy-tale cut out, the place where the main-characters cottage would be nestled peacefully in amongst the trees.
He only wished that he could remember what had happened. One minute, he was Squall Leonhart, Commander of Balamb Garden, husband and knight. He'd had everything that he'd ever wanted. Then, in the next it had all been shattered. When he'd seen her with him. Out of all people, why did it have to be him?
Squall held a hand to his head, feeling the rough leather rubbing soothingly against his pulsing temples.
That all seemed far off now, distant worries. Right now, his main concern was where he might be and how on earth he had gotten here.
The Commander stood up, somewhat shakily before catching his balance on a nearby tree. The whole world seemed to be shaking, vibrating in an uncontrolled rhythm. He leaned his back against the trunk in the hopes that all would return to normal, maybe he was simply dreaming?
(Snap)
Out of nowhere the noise penetrated the serene sounds of nature and made Squall jump. For a moment he hesitated, caught between the notion of waiting to see if it was a person who might be able to help him, or hiding. He chose the latter after realizing that he was unarmed, swiftly dodging behind the tree he had just been leaning against. The sounds of somebody walking grew closer and at that point he finally managed to determine that it was definitely a person and not some wild animal.
It actually sounded like more then one person, and upon listening closer, the Commander could hear whispers drawing near.
"No, I swear I heard something over here!"
"You say that all the time, Morgan, and it's usually just a wild chocobo…"
Squall flinched and his heart began racing, he still felt quite dizzy but had grown used to situations like this after all of his years of combat.
"No, I'm sure I heard something!"
The whispers sounded like they had made their way to the opening now, where Squall had found himself when he had first woken up. He tensed briefly, all of a sudden wishing that he hadn't decided to hide and had just stood his ground.
While still calculating what plan of action he should take, a long, narrow blade unexpectedly came around the edge of the tree. Very slowly, like the owner of it was unaware of his presence. Squall took the opportunity given to him.
"Ahh!" what turned out to be a young boy cried as Squall abruptly shoved the blade to the side and had ripped it from his grip before he could so much as blink.
"W-who are you?" he stuttered and Squall looked up to find a young girl standing behind him wearing an anxious expression.
"What are kids doing in a place like this? Not to mention… where is a place like this?"
The Commander glanced down again, taken off guard by the shocking resemblance that this boy held to a former 'Zell Dincht'. Minus the facial tattoo and about four inches in height, of course. He even had that wild look in his eyes, a yearning to prove himself. Some traits that the boy didn't have exactly dead-on were the same hair and fashion sense. His hair was longer, to his shoulders and very unruly, curling every which way it pleased. Also, it was more of a sandy blonde then the platinum color of Zell's hair. Even his clothes reflected his utter lack of care towards appearances. A soiled white, long-sleeved shirt under a forest green vest and some dirty beige khakis.
"You shouldn't have a sword, how old are you?" Squall demanded, holding the blade dangerously close the youngsters neck.
He felt like a complete hypocrite as he said it, considering the young ages of most of the newest recruitments to Garden.
"But they know how to use their weapons," Squall thought to himself reassuringly.
"I-I-I…"-
"Please! Don't hurt him! He was only playing!" the brunettes eyes darted up to the girl now, who he had failed to notice the age of. She seemed to be around fifteen but her whole demeanor exuded maturity. From the long, ankle-length pink skirt, to her own leather brown jacket and black blouse.
"Then maybe he should answer the question," the Commander stated casually, still not sure what to make of these two.
"He's twelve and I'm almost sixteen…" Squall smiled at how dead-on he had been about her age then relaxed and with-drew the blade from the boys throat.
The young girl immidietly leapt forward and yanked who seemed to be her younger brother backwards and into her arms, never once looking away from him. Squall grimaced at her reaction, he never meant for them to be this afraid of him… he'd just always heard that you had to first establish respect from children?
"But what do I know? I'd make a lousy father…you even said so…"
"You don't… have to be afraid," he assured them, watching the young girl intently.
Looking at her was like looking at a picture of a younger Xu, except for some differences. Her hair, instead of shoulder-length, was tied in a ponytail and hung just below her waist. Her face, for her age seemed much too womanly, full lips, high cheekbones and bold, green eyes. She was now huddled against a tree with the young boy cradled in her arms.
"You didn't make it seem like that a moment ago," she snapped, glaring at him and making him feel uneasy.
Squall only looked away, falling silent, not knowing what to say.
After many moments of uninterrupted silence, the girl finally calmed down, relaxing her grip on the boy and sighing.
"Alright, I'll believe you if you give my brother his sword back".
The Commander seemed taken off guard by this, staring down at the blade in his hands absentmindedly before moving forward and handing it back to the boy. He smiled shyly at Squall and excepted the blade with both hands, embracing it in his arms after having it returned to him.
All three stared around awkwardly, not quite sure what to do or say next.
"Can you tell me where I am?" Squall finally inquired, tired of being completely oblivious to where he was and how it was that he had gotten here.
The young girl seemed surprised by this, her grip on her younger brothers shoulders tightening.
"How do you not know where you are?" she said making it seem like an accusation, a spiteful tone still in her voice.
Squall could only shrug and glance around restlessly. This girl was making him feel stupid.
Eventually, realizing how uncomfortable this was making him, the girl moved closer to him and gave a reassuring smile.
"This is silly, you don't seem like a bad guy, so… I'm Abigail, and this is my brother Morgan, it's nice to meet you?"
"Squall," he said and hesitantly shook hands with her, muttering a "it's nice to meet you, too" after remembering his manners.
He still felt dizzy and quite shaken up, so the crash couldn't have been some kind of dream, could it? Squall wasn't understanding this at all, not to mention that he didn't recognize this place as anywhere remotely close to where he had crashed. In fact, there hadn't been a single tree around the highway for the whole time he had been driving, just empty plains.
"Anyways, you were asking where you are, Squall?" Abigail questioned and the brunette nodded, resting against the tree again slightly.
"Well, you're in 'Harbodia'," seeing the questioning look on the older mans face she continued, "it's a small continent just off the mainland".
Squall shook his head, memorizing every detail of every blade of grass around his shoes.
"I've never heard of any 'Harbodia' before…" he finished, looking up into her inquisitive eyes.
Abigail gave him a shocked look and Morgan only laughed, tapping his blade in front of him as he walked circles around the much taller man, the stranger.
"Haha, Abby, he must be from Eurigale! Those people don't know about anything but their own kingdom, they're so ignorant!"
"Eurigale?" Squall mumbled, searching his memory for any recollection of the place and finding none.
Morgan paused at hearing him and looked straight up into the Commanders face, "You don't even know where Eurigale is?! Wow! What hole did you crawl out of?"
"Morgan!" Abigail snarled, slapping the boy upside the back of his head and earning a sharp hiss from him in turn. Then she glanced up to Squall with the most pleasant look she could force onto her face.
"So, if you're not from Eurigale and you've never heard of Harbodia before, then where exactly are you from?"
"Well, I live at Balamb Garden, I'm the Commander," Squall paused there, still not used to hearing himself say that, even though it had been nearly a year since he had earned the title, or had it forced upon him.
"Balamb… garden? You live in a garden? What?" Morgan spat, giving Squall a mischievous smirk and slinging his miniature and light-weight sword over his shoulder, tapping it in a concentrated rhythm.
"It's a military base, SeeD, military forces?"
"This is strange, I've never met anybody who doesn't know about SeeD before…"
"A military base? Hmmm, I've never heard of it," Abigail concluded with a grim expression on her face, inspecting the older man even closer now.
"Are you feeling alright? I mean, you seem kind of sick…"
Squall glanced up and realized that his dizziness was getting worse, negligently pressing a hand to his head he glanced between the two.
"Yeah… I just, feel a bit dizzy,"
"Why? Did you hit your head or somethin'?" Morgan questioned, his face right in Squall's again.
"No, I got in an accident, but… I don't know how I got here..."
"You're getting blurry… everything is getting… fuzzy… "
"Uh, Squall?" he could hear Abigail's concerned voice, and then see her moving towards him at the same speed as the darkness suddenly surrounding him. His eyes felt heavy and he felt his back brush against the tree and then hit the ground.
"Squall, are you okay?"
He glanced up once more and into the two young and worried faces.
"Yeah…" he muttered before completely blacking out.
.x.
"Hey… uh, hello? You in there?"
"I recognize that voice… it's-"
"Rinoa!" Squall darted up in the bed completely dismissing the reason he was there in the first place. He nearly fell out of the bed in his excitement and the head-rush almost came to be too much, to the point of him blacking out again.
"Whoa… take it easy, will ya?" came the familiar voice from what seemed to be across the room.
The brunette struggled to sit up, resting himself back onto his arms and taking in the foreign structure of the room. It was like nothing he had every seen before.
The ceiling dipped low in the middle and the outermost walls crept up into the smallest crevasse of the ceiling as possible, almost every which way he looked there was some sort of stained-glass window staring back at him. There wasn't a single space of blank wall, the Commander noticed the long strips of what seemed to be paper lining the walls, inscriptions made on them in some foreign language. Turning his head he came to find one of the strips right near his head, he poked at it curiously and watched the way the pinkish texture of the strip wavered and made small ripples on the surface.
"Some kind of gel?"
"You were out for a day and a half," Rinoa affirmed, her voice sounding like she was much too concentrated on not spilling the dark liquid from the bowl in her hands.
Squall was bewildered to find her in different clothes then her usual, in fact, it didn't even seem like something he would have taken her for liking.
He examined closely the black shirt that resembled the one she had always worn, except for the small straps that riddled the area around her ribcage and the lacey top bit that covered her just enough. She wasn't even wearing her trademark, blue trench coat with the angel wings on the back. Instead she had on what seemed to be a very formfitting purple bodysuit. Along the legs and the arms of the suit Squall managed to notice the white markings that formed some sort of insignia. On closer inspection he was also surprised to find it was the same symbol as Griever. Now the Commander found himself truly stunned, how had Rinoa managed to get a hold of such clothing? Had she made it when he hadn't known? That was very possible, considering that she was doing much more when he hadn't known, too.
Squall looked away from her as she sat across from him to the side of the bed, stirring the liquid in the bowl that had taken up her arms only moments before.
"Where are we?" he asked, making sure his tone came off as cold as possible.
"Why is she smiling so much? Does she even care that I know? … She can't just pretend that nothing ever happened!"
"You're in Kindell, a small town that not much know about in Harbodia. Now be quiet and drink this," she demanded, holding the liquid to the Commanders face.
"But, it's in a bowl… "
"Can't you put it in a cup?" he asked, taking the bowl into his hands to relieve the stress on her arms.
"Don't be picky!" she chirped, squinting her eyes at him and shaking a finger. Squall could only gape at the display.
"What in the hell does she think she's doing?"
"Rin-ah?!" Squall shouted angrily as the whole entire bowl tilted and spilled all over his white shirt. He looked up to find a very excited canine.
"Angelo?" the brunette said softly, after realizing what had been the cause of the jolt of the bed and the innards of the bowl spilling all over him.
Surprisingly the dog didn't seem to respond to the name, but kept wagging his tail nonetheless.
"Angelo? His name is Kula…" Squall looked over at Rinoa, shocked.
"Okay, something is really wrong here…"
"Rinoa?"
The dark-haired woman shook her head and stared at him like he had just threatened to kill her.
"Who's Rinoa? My name is Magdalen".
.x.
She hated hospitals, the smell, the look, the feeling. She tried to avoid them as best she could, they brought back too many painful memories of losing her mother. Now possibly, she could be losing someone who meant even more to her.
She remembered how it had felt. After searching tirelessly for her husband all night she had come back to Garden only to be informed by a very solemn Quistis that he had been brought to the hospital. That he had been in a crash.
She was still dripping wet from the rain now and trudged down one of the eerie entrance halls of the hospital, hesitating only a moment before stepping up to the desk.
"Deling City… he'd gotten as far as Deling… oh well, this is the best hospital in the world, besides Estharian ones, maybe. I should be glad that he got this far… but, was he ever planning to come back? Of course he was, he's the Commander. He was probably just planning to kick me out of Garden. To think that if they hadn't built the extension bridge from Balamb continent to the continent where Deling City is, he might just be in a ditch somewhere, he might have never gotten help on time…"
"Yes, miss?"
The voice startled her out of her thoughts, as she looked into the rosy face of the unit clerk sitting behind the desk.
"Uh, I'm Rinoa Leonhart, I came here to… uhm, to see Squall Leonhart? He crashed his car, I was told by a friend that he was brought here…"
Reality seemed to set in hard as she heard herself say the words. 'He crashed his car, he crashed his car'.
Rinoa fought back her tears as they suddenly welled up behind her eyes. They were burning, and she felt her chest clench, her heart starting to race as the woman searched attentively through documents of all the current patients that had come in.
"Was he brought in by EMS?" the woman asked, her eyes stabbing painfully at the young girl over her spectacles.
"I think so…" Rinoa replied apprehensively, rolling her feet on their sides and tugging twitchily at her trench coat.
The unit clerk nodded curtly again and began typing away at her computer.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Rinoa of twitching and exchanging nervous glances with some of the waiting room patients the woman glanced back up at her.
"He's in room 402, the second floor, you can head on up, I'll call and inform the doctors of your arrival,"
"Thank you," she said, jerking her head away as fast as possible and rushing towards the stairwell, where she hoped there would be little to no people.
"Doctors? So, he's really hurt then if he needs more then one… Squall…"
Rinoa reached the stairwell, determined not to cry, especially upon seeing that it was occupied by one of the staff. The woman gave her a nervous glance as she passed by, nearly dropping the cigarette from her hand. The raven-black haired girl only smiled casually and hurried up the stairs.
The scent of the tobacco still clung to her even as she reached the second floor and started hurrying down the halls in search of his room.
"Room 402, room 402, room 402… that's the brand of cigarettes that dad always smokes… those mint kinds…"
"Room 402…" she muttered to herself unconsciously, preparing herself before finally pushing the door open and heading in.
The room was silent as she crept in from the corner of it, and there he was, lying as still as a corpse on the bed. Too many machines to count hooked up to him. An air mask secured to his face, his heartbeat reverberating throughout the soundless room. Rinoa was more surprised to find him there, however, hunched forward in a chair near the bed, his head in his hands. When she came in, he'd turned to her, his expression blank.
"Seifer?" Rinoa began and frowned candidly at seeing him.
Uncharacteristically, he got up from his seat and without a word she knew it was being offered to her. Her eyes trailed after him as he moved off to the other corner of the room. She moved forward and took the seat uncomfortably, dryly swallowing the lump in her throat.
Never in a thousand years had she thought it would come to this.
"Why-?" her sentence got cut off before she could even finish it, "He called Quistis while you were out looking for him and I was there… he didn't say a word but we could hear the car running. We knew something was wrong. She recognized the number and we were able to trace it to his location... So we called the hospital nearest to him and told them about the situation. I went out to find him, figured that they might need some help".
"Or that they wouldn't get there in time…" Rinoa thought bitterly. His concern didn't surprise her, she had always known that he didn't harbor as much hatred for the other man as he made it out to be.
The feeling of dread that had been mounting inside of her only grew with the maturity in the usually obnoxious mans words.
"Oh… will he be okay?"
"Please let him be okay, please…"
Seifer shrugged in a more distinctive way and she glanced down into her lap, not able to look at the motionless body in front of her any longer.
"Oh?" came a startled reply from the corner of the room from where she'd entered. Rinoa instinctively turned to face the voice.
It was the doctor. This man was a far stretch from Dr. Kadowaki from Garden though, he seemed all business. His face showed that very clearly in every deepened crease as he furrowed his brows and frowned down at his clipboard. He must have written her name down after the unit clerk called him, to seem more professional or to help her just a little bit in getting through this by making her feel more human to him then just a job. She didn't know, she avoided doctors just as much as she did hospitals, Dr. Kadowaki being the one and only exception.
"Mrs. Leonhart?"
"Yes?" she muttered, grimacing at how weak her voice sounded.
"I am glad you are here, we left for a moment to give you some time," whether he paused to collect his thoughts or just to add to the drama, Rinoa didn't know, "I'm Dr. Jefferson. I'm sure you would like to know about your husbands status".
Rinoa flinched at the sheer stupidity of the man. She knew he was only trying to be nice, that he couldn't possibly understand how she felt anymore, he'd seen too many tears and death already. That's what happened to men seasoned in his sort of practice.
She glanced back over to her husband. Lifeless, his heart beating in tune with the puffs of air being pumped into his listless form.
"I wonder if that's how you feel? If that's why you despise your career so much… it changed your whole perspective. I wouldn't know… We haven't really talked lately…"
Without waiting for her reply the man, a walking pillar of professionalism continued into the room and stood across from her. He stared into her troubled eyes from across the hospital bed that her injured husband currently occupied.
"Head wounds, none too serious, he broke his right arm and has three fractures to his ribs. When he came in he was bleeding profusely, he had been impaled by a shard of glass which had cut an artery in his leg. We've tied it off and given him blood transfusions, luckily, the surgery went smoothly".
Rinoa cursed herself inwardly for not having stayed at Garden.
"I could have been here for him if I had just… but I couldn't have done that! I didn't' know this was going to happen…"
Instead, outwardly she only somberly mumbled, "That's good".
"Now…" Rinoa stiffened, there it was, that 'I've got to tell you something and it's going to break your heart' tone.
She couldn't stare into the doctors eyes, she didn't want to, but she managed to force herself to.
"There is a slim possibility that he may slip into a coma,"
Rinoa could feel her breath catch in her throat. A coma? The word just wouldn't compute in her mind even though it was tearing her apart on the inside.
"We'll keep a close watch on him for the next few days, but I don't want you to start worrying, lets just stay optimistic," even in saying them, Dr. Jefferson knew that his words were falling on deaf ears.
"He could slip into a coma? No, why Squall? … please, not Squall, anybody but Squall!"
"Yes, I understand, th… thank you".
The doctor nodded, looking at Rinoa with concern on his face before walking over to Seifer and whispering something in his ear.
"If you have any questions or need something, just ask the young lady out here at the desk and she'll help you. Okay?" he added.
Rinoa nodded again, her lips felt so tight that she was surprised she could even manage an, "Alright".
She listened to him leave the room, the light tap of his feet against the linoleum echoing down the hallway.
As if following the doctors example, Seifer left without a word also.
Then, and only then, did she let herself cry.