Green World (n.)- A place, theoretical or tangible, where the main characters can be together in an ideal setting.

FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC

FITHOS

I'll be here…

LUSEC

… Why?

WECOS

I'll be 'waiting'…

VINOSEC

… For what?

FITHOS

I'll be 'waiting'… for you… so…

LUSEC

… If you come here, you'll find me.

WECOS

I promise.

VINOSEC

"Please return," Matron told him as she wrung her hands. She seemed very stressed by his presence. "You do not belong here."

The little boy came running back to her, looking disappointed. "I can't find Sis. Am I… all alone?" His head swung upward and his striking bluish-gray eyes connected with Squall's. "Who's he?"

"Nobody," Matron responded quickly. "You don't need to know. The only Squall permitted here is you."

She shifted her attentions to the brown-haired teenager in front of her. Her tone of voice expressed genuine worry. "Do you know where to go back to? Do you know how? Will you be all right by yourself?"

He gave the SeeD salute.

… I'll be all right, Matron. Because I'm not alone… I'm not alone… If I call out, they will answer.

But where were they? He was in never-ending darkness without a soul in sight. Before he could calm himself down, he began to panic. "Where is everyone? Rinoa! Where are you? Zell! Selphie! Quistis! Irvine!

"Rinoa!" She would not, or perhaps could not, answer him. There was nobody left.

Am I… alone?

Rinoa? I want to hear your voice.

Which way… do I go?

I can't make it back… alone.

"Rinoa?"

Am I… all alone again?

Where… am I?

Squall was lost in Time Compression, suddenly marooned on an empty wasteland, and worst of all, he was alone.

He started to walk. One step became two, then three, and then four. With every step he took, his resolve weakened. He would die where he stood. The ebb and flow of time would never let him go.

Just as he thought this, the edge of the rock he was standing on materialized before him. All of a sudden, he was on a tiny island, not an infinite plane. I'll never make it out of here. I'll never see any of them again.

He was still walking, but his feet felt so, so heavy. He collapsed onto the ground as his vision started fading out.

He and Rinoa were standing in the flower field behind the orphanage. The sky was a sublime orange, and the colors shimmered on her smiling face.

Her face. What was happening to it? Her features blurred as she turned to face him.

His mind went off, cycling through all of his dearest memories. Rinoa all alone on the dance floor, spotting him for the first time. As she turned her head, he saw that her face was unnaturally shadowed.

Quistis blasting holes into the robotic spider, gunning it down in a narrow-eyed rage. Selphie tumbling down a cliff and dusting herself off with a carefree smile on her face. Irvine winking as he cocked his gun. Zell grinning as he gave Squall a thumbs-up.

Rinoa started walking towards him as he leaned against the ballroom wall. Then Rinoa was floating helplessly in space, watching the chain around her neck rise up in front of her. His ring—Griever's ring—was there beside her mother's wedding ring. But she didn't smile at the sight. She only gasped soundlessly as the glass dome of her suit shattered, rending the breath away from her body.

A single tear rolled down his face, but he didn't feel it on his cheek. Had that last 'memory' even happened? If he were in the right frame of mind to think and reason, he would have said that it couldn't have been. He had jumped out into that cold infinity just to rescue her. Now, however, he wasn't sure if it even mattered anymore. If he could never hear her voice and hold her in his arms, then she had might as well be dead. And if she was dead, then so was he.

He could see her again, walking towards her. Her face was still just beyond his reach. And just when he thought that he would never see her face again, she slid away from him into nothing. There was nobody there where she once stood, no smiling, mischievous face to greet him.

… Gone?

He faintly realized his environment morphing around him. He was now cloaked in pure white light.

A soft, downy feather, small and white, formed out of the emptiness. It alighted upon the ground just as he did.

This is it… It's over…

Cid and Edea entered the room through the solid oak doors behind them. Everyone jumped into a line and saluted, leaving Rinoa looking a little left out.

"Enough of the formalities, all right?" Cid asked, smiling slightly. "At ease, all of you."

Pleasantly surprised, everyone relaxed and reassumed their personalities.

"So like, what's this about?" Irvine blurted out.

Cid and Edea both glanced momentarily at Squall. Why was he not surprised that the conversation ended up on him? He nodded, aware of where this was inevitably headed.

"Squall," Cid began somewhat hesitantly, "I think you know what I'm talking about when I say that there's something you might want to share with your friends. If you'd rather not, though, I understand, but they deserve to know what… happened."

Squall sighed heavily at the very thought of even attempting to explain the unexplainable. He allowed himself a long look around the room to buy some time: everyone was watching him expectantly, but they were also trying—and failing—to conceal that expectation. He could see on Rinoa's face that she also felt guilty for being curious. That was probably how the others felt: curious, but ashamed of feeling so. Did it even occur to them that he had opted out of discussing it for a reason?

It wasn't that he hadn't given any thought to it: on the contrary, it had been at the back of his mind ever since he no longer had to reach out to try to find Rinoa. The only thing Squall knew for sure was that thanks to his little time-travelling stint, he had sealed the coffin on his own fate, and none of it had been his decision. More than ever before, he felt that all-too-familiar feeling that his life was out of his hands. He was powerless.

"… I'm sorry."

"Do you remember what I told you the last time we spoke?" Edea asked.

He could almost hear her words echoing in his head, haunting him: "As of this very minute, my bitter story has ended. I now understand there is an end, no matter how painful it may be. Therefore... Squall? You must fight to the end! Even though it may bring tragedy to others!"

At the time, he didn't fully understand how she had been involved. But now that the end had indeed passed, he understood.

"Yes."

"Good. Then you understand that there are no apologies. You did what you had to do, so I don't want you to have any regrets." She scrutinized him with an almost fierce gaze. "Do you understand? It had to be done."

None of that mattered, however, when compared to what he had seen after that. To see her die out there… it was just too much to take. He knew that no matter how much he wished he could change it, he would have to watch her die again. It didn't matter if it took five or fifty years for it to happen. When it did, he was sure that his sadness would destroy him.

"Squall? Are you okay?" Rinoa's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and her worried frown brought him back to the present time and place. Why was it so hard for him to look her in the face?

"…"

Zell waved a hand to call attention to him. "Yo Squall, just a reminder, but, we weren't there, and it'd be… well, nice of you to fill us in, 'cuz we don't know what the heck you're talking about."

"I'm sure he's tired of thinking about it," Edea answered. "Is it okay if I tell?"

Squall nodded, not caring what they knew. There was no point in suffering through it alone.

The little boy ran into the darkened space and put his hands on his hips defiantly. "I'm gonna find Sis!"

"Squall!" Edea yelled out.

… Matron.

He cast his gaze around as his surroundings lightened; they were at the orphanage. The rough, gray stone walls and the green vines snaking and coiling across those walls caught his attention. The blending of colors was very soothing to the eye.

"Excuse me. Have you seen a little boy?"

He turned his head and found himself face to face with Edea once more. But this Edea seemed to be many years younger—as had he.

"You don't have to worry," he assured her. "The boy won't go anywhere."

She smiled in visible relief. "I think so, too. Poor thing…."

Behind him, he heard the ominous sound of energy gathering in space. Out of the purple ethereal of the smoke, Ultimecia appeared. Her eyes smoldered darkly; a bizarre mist was cast over their surface, showing the clouding of the spirit inside. He quickly edged in between Edea and Ultimecia and drew his gunblade on the latter.

"… You're alive?"

Edea peered over Squall's shoulder at Ultimecia, calmly assessing the situation. "… The sorceress?"

Squall's vision widened to take in everything in front of him. "Yes, Matron," he answered tensely. "We had defeated her… Matron, stand back."

Edea spoke gently. "It's okay," she assured him. "There's no more need to fight. That sorceress is just looking for someone to pass her powers on to. In order to die in peace, a sorceress must be free of all her powers. I know... for I am one, too." Her posture did not waver through any possible doubts she may have borne inside. "I shall take over that sorceress' powers. I do not want one of the children to become one." She moved decisively, coming closer and closer to Ultimecia.

Ultimecia, similarly, took a heavy step herself, although directed towards no one and nothing in particular. "I… can't… disappear yet," she groaned laboriously. Squall sheathed his gunblade warily. "Matron!" he barked in warning.

Edea took this gap in Squall's attention to close the gap between her and Ultimecia, who fell to her knees. In a rush of purple streaks flying through the air around them, an intangible ghost of energy passed quickly from Ultimecia's chest to Edea's. She hung her head, exhausted at the effort of completing her own death, and disintegrated into nothing.

At the moment of contact, Edea lost control of her body and fell to the ground. Squall hurried over and knelt down beside her.

"Is this... the end?" she asked.

He nodded. "... Most likely."

She lifted her head to look at him once again. Their eyes locked at the moment their gazes overlapped. "You called me Matron," she breathed almost fearfully. "Who... are you?"

"A SeeD. A SeeD from Balamb Garden." He wasn't thinking; the words were simply flowing out of his mouth unhindered.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "SeeD? Garden?"

"Both Garden and SeeD were your ideas," he continued. "Garden trains SeeDs. SeeDs are trained to defeat the sorceress."

She rose to her feet. "What are you saying?" Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "You're... that boy from the future?"

Squall, suddenly realizing just what was happening, took a step back in shock. "... Matron," he mumbled, freezing where he stood. Is this… what I think it is?

Edea nodded. "Cid and I had a long talk over this, and after that we watched over you very, very carefully, yet we kept our distance so you would not suspect anything. Our plan was to let time run its course unaltered, but use our influence when we felt it necessary."

Squall hadn't expected this. All this time, he had been right. He was a dog on a leash with Cid and Matron taking him wherever they pleased, and they had just admitted it right to his face!

Cid spoke up, interrupting Squall's thoughts once again. "We had an approximate age determined. You drew your gunblade in front of Edea, so we knew that you would learn to use it sooner or later. Another interesting thing she took note of was a scar running diagonally down your face.

"So we used your information on SeeD to start up Balamb Garden. Later on, we sent you there, along with Seifer, and Quistis a few years later. Zell was adopted, but he joined eventually as well.

"Just a few months ago at the SeeD Test mission briefing, I noticed you in the crowd, Squall, and I saw that scar on your face, just as Edea described it. You were within the set age range, but that scar was the icing on the cake. Things were going to start happening, to everybody, but especially to you. By this time, Edea had left under Ultimecia's influence, but my hands were tied. I had an entire Garden to head, NORG most certainly wouldn't let me leave my post to go chasing after her, and I could no longer afford to let you out of my sight."

He scratched his head and paused to collect his thoughts. Nobody made a sound.

"It was hard, you know, watching you from afar, not being able to step in and let you know what was going to happen. In retrospect, maybe I was too hard on you. I know the responsibility was very stressful for you, and I'm sorry for putting you through all of that. Just keep in mind that you were the only one with the natural skills to be the Commander. You had to lead us in order for you to be the one to defeat Ultimecia, return to the orphanage, and set everything in motion again."

Cid looked positively weary with age. The wrinkles in his face seemed at their most prominent, and his eyes looked the saddest that Squall had ever seen.

Squall didn't know whether he felt outraged for having his life ruled over by fate for the past twelve years, or relieved that it was all in the past and he was finally free from those chains that had tied him down for so long. For the first time, his life was in his hands and nobody else's. But what do I really feel? Why don't I feel any different now that I realize this?

He had known it ever since he left the orphanage. He knew what he had done. At the time, he was shocked. Now, he didn't care anymore. It was over, and he was back with the only people he had ever depended upon.

There was much fidgeting from his comrades. Every one of them looked slightly guilty, as though they were intruding on Squall's privacy merely by hearing his life story being told. Every few seconds, somebody would tear his or her gaze from the floor to steal a glance at him, searching for a reaction, one shred of emotion. He was sure that he was keeping a poker face on, but Rinoa seemed to be the one displaying his feelings on hers.

"Squall?" This time it was Selphie who spoke up, albeit very timidly. "Before you just run outta here, could you just tell us how you met up with Rinoa before the rest of us found you two? We… don't really understand what happened… why did you pass out like that? How'd we end up in the back yard of the orphanage again?"

Quistis added her two cents right away. "Remember how Laguna told us that Time Compression would be conducive to our thoughts and feelings? Well, maybe since the four of us were trying to find you two—" she pointed at Squall and Rinoa "—and also get back to the right time, we all ended up at the orphanage because… you two were there, and we were all there together before."

I don't feel angry for being used… because none of it matters anymore, Squall thought. We're all here together, and that's what's important right now.

"I really don't know. I'm not the one who would." Squall turned to face Rinoa. She smiled that quiet, knowing smile of hers because she understood: they had ended up where they had been because she and Squall had kept their promise.

Time… Places… Who I wanna be with…

Rinoa walked on through the grass. The sky was darkening overhead, already of a deep blue shade, interrupted only by clouds.

I wanna go there! Where Squall and I promised.

"Squall! Let's go home! Where are you?"

A barren, rocky plain appeared beneath her feet. She wandered along in no particular direction. Where was he? Her hand found its way up to the ring hanging about her neck. As soon as she touched it, she felt a quick burst of hope inside her. He was out there somewhere. All she needed to do was find him.

Rinoa could faintly discern a dark figure on the ground. She walked a little faster towards him. She knew it was Squall. It had to be.

Was he asleep? She cupped his face in her hands, but he didn't respond. His skin felt cold to the touch. She recoiled in fear. She refused to believe it.

A shower of pink flower petals flew in over her head before the ground spewed forth greenery and flowers of the brilliance only seen in pictures. She hugged his still body as if it were her life and soul.

They were 'here'. And it was beautiful. No, not beautiful. It was perfect.