"Hey Trepe."

She looked over her glasses and raised her eyebrows. "Hm?"

He grinned. She always had looked cute when she tried to look stern. It hadn't scared him then and it wasn't going to scare him now. "You ever think the world is a funny place?"

"Funny? How so?"

"Well, funny. You know, like how things happen? Like us right now?" He squeezed her hand and felt the quiver and jump of her pulse at her wrist.

"Right now?" She closed her eyes. It was too real, too beautiful. He was warmth and life and he was hers.

"Yeah." He squeezed harder, forcing her eyes to open and glare at him the way she used to. He liked her eyes. They were pretty and blue and smoldered the way the way he liked 'em to smolder. Some gals were boring, but not her. Oh no. She had never been boring. "If some fucker told me back in school that Quistis Trepe would be holding my hand like this, I'd have laughed in his face."

"Is it so funny that I'm holding your hand, Seifer?"

No. It wasn't funny at all. It was amazing and hard to believe, kind of like how the air smelled before a rainstorm. The world could end and he would know nothing else except the scent of rain. "Well, it's sure as hell surprising, ain't it?"

"Surprising?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know about that." She smiled then and stroked the muscles of his forearm, feeling the softness of his heartbeat through the tough sinew and skin. His jaw clenched when she leaned closer and kissed his cheek. She could smell soap and shaving foam and knew that he had shaved just for her. "For some reason, this just feels right. Like it was always meant to be this way."

"Like we were destined for it?"

"Yes."

"Heh. It figures." He closed his eyes when she became a blur. It was pointless to look at her when she was too close to see. "You always were the smart one."

"Hm..." She would have stayed like that, cheek to cheek with him, but she wanted to see him too. It felt far too right to hold him and she was beginning to feel the first sting of regret. All her life she had been taught to never regret. It wasn't for creatures like her, this feeling of loneliness and willow-bark sharpness. She had been alone for years. Why now? Just because the hunter entered her forest didn't mean she had to listen to his tales of others trapped beneath the sea.

Seifer sighed when she pulled away and adjusted her glasses. He looked up at her and smiled the smile that he saved for those special occasions when he wanted to be a real pain in her ass. "So how've you been doing, Trepe? Last I heard, you were in medical school and you had a better class of Trepie drooling over you."

Quistis laughed and covered her mouth with her hand. He wanted to slap her for daring to cover something so innocent.

"Trepies? Hyne, Seifer! I've not thought of them in years! I can't believe you remember them!"

"Remember them? Hell, I had to practically beat them away from your door so you could leave class in peace."

"Leave class in...?" Every afternoon, it had been Seifer Almasy and Instructor Trepe walking out of her classroom together. It seemed perfectly natural to both of them that she often 'walked' him out with his ear painfully pinched between her fingers, but that had been so very long ago. "Is that why you were such a problematic student?"

"Problematic?" He chuckled, though there was no real mirth in his voice. "Is that what you called me?"

"At times, yes."

"I beat the hell out of Leonhart and threw paper airplanes at you, then try to destroy the goddamned world and all I get is problematic?"

She rubbed her hand along his arm, tracing the veins with her forefinger. "You mean you intended to get detention?!"

"Well, you were the hottest teacher I ever had."

"That's not..."

He looked down at her hand, felt her skin on his and wished she would either move faster or stop altogether. She was torturing him with those gentle caresses and she didn't even know it. "Besides, you never asked for help, even when those stalking bastards were driving you crazy."

"Huh." Quistis leaned back and closed her eyes. It was proving more and more difficult to look at him without shaking. "I could have used some help back then..."

"Shit. You and me both, sister." His voice grew faint when he saw her bite her lower lip. They both needed so much back then, back when they were silly kids that knew nothing. He wondered if she even heard him when he mumbled, "You and me both..."

"Seifer, I..."

He laughed brightly at some unspoken joke and tried to turn to reach for her. "You're awful quiet, you know."

She roughly pushed him back down. "I'm sorry."

"Why the fuck are you apologizing?"

"I just..."

"What?"

"I feel like I should say more right now."

He grinned again, cat-like and fierce. "Why now?"

"If not now..." She leaned forward and kissed him slowly, gently, as if she thought she would break him. "...then when?"

"Heh. Good point." He felt the prick of something unfamiliar and knew that she had struck him somewhere vital. "A very good point..."

"They're watching us, you know."

"Fuck 'em. Let 'em watch." He kissed her back, holding her as long as his lungs would allow. He released her with a gasp and a ferocious cocky grin. "We'll give 'em one hell of a show, won't we, Trepe?"

"We..." She couldn't speak. He had taken her breath from her when he gave her his own.

"Fuck 'em Trepe. Fuck the whole goddamned world."

She smiled and turned from him to see the shadows of others watching every movement they made. It wasn't right, what they had commanded she do to him. He was hers and he always had been. They had nothing to do with them, nothing at all. They were nothing more than carrion birds waiting for the feast. "Uh, yeah. Fuck the world, Seifer."

"Trepe?"

She looked at him once more before she removed the needle from his arm. "Yes?"

"The sun was shining when you came here, wasn't it?"

"The sun?"

The drugs were swift. He was lost, gone, no longer the prisoner on the slab, but the boy she knew when they chased dragonflies and seagulls in saltwater tidepools. "Yeah. You'd only come to me if the sun was shining, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Seifer." She choked and held his cheek in her hand. "It's shining and beautiful and the sky is that pretty blue that you can only see when you're a child. You know that blue, don't you? When it looks like..."

He smiled and watched the world fall down. "Yeah, Quistis. I know that blue..."

"Is he gone?"

The prison guard peeked through the thin curtain and saw the doctor covering the corpse with a graying sheet.

"Doctor?"

"Hm?" She didn't turn, instead jotting something down on a clipboard and nodding to herself.

"What were you doing just then?"

She chuckled at the confusion in his voice. "Executing a prisoner. What did you think I was doing?"

"Umm..." He could have sworn he heard them whispering to one another, though he was almost ashamed. It felt as if he were spying on old lovers.

"Yes?"

"Uh, never mind." He heard her hum. It was some irritating pop song that his daughter always sang with her friends when they came over for sleepovers. He didn't know if he ever wanted his daughter to sing that song again. The doctor continued humming, leaned over the prisoner and adjusted his sheet, then resumed that scratching, scratching, scratching on her clipboard.

Prisoner number 0014: Almasy, Seifer

Time of death: 0434

Date: 02, June, Year...

"So..."

His voice grated on her nerves. Why wouldn't he shut up and let her complete her notes? He was worse than any fawning Trepie had ever been.

"Er, the prisoner? Is he dead?"

"Yes, yes. You may inform the president and his son."

"Er..." Her voice was calm, so calm. He wouldn't have been surprised to hear the dead man answer her in that same heartless, flat tone. "Yes ma'am."

As the guard left, the doctor carefully completed her notes, ensuring that she neglected no details of the prisoner's death. His life was already legend and lies and horrifying tales told to frighten children. It was always the stories now. She almost laughed. At times the villain and always the fatherless prince, Seifer had never been a knight, no matter how badly he desired the title. She wondered how badly he would have wanted to be a knight if he knew that mothers whispered his name to frighten their children of the darkness.

She wanted his death to be free from stories, from myths and fables and quests. It was foolish. The world was no place for knights. It was a place for liars and magicians, for witches that hid under bridges and whispered pretty lies, that told handsome knights the sun was shining and the sky would always be blue.

Notes completed, Quistis clicked her pen and tucked it behind her ear. She didn't look at the body hidden under the sheet. Seifer wasn't there, after all. Not anymore. The shell would soon be rolled to the morgue, where the newspapers could bid for pictures of the body. The Trabians had made offers in the millions of gil for the Lapdog's death-day photographs...

It didn't matter anymore. She would be safe in her penthouse, with her blankets and her books and her pretty, pretty stories.

He'd be there too. He always had been and he always would be. They weren't meant for the world.

Note: I used references to some of my favorite stories in this one: the film Labyrinth and the sad, sad, sad novel and film The Last Unicorn. Both of those are childhood favorites and I revisit them every year. Even though this isn't exactly happy, I wanted to try a different love story for Seifer and Quistis.

And happy birthday Aurenare. It's not happy, but you're not the typical Seifer and Quistis fan, so I hope this makes sense.