i.
They are back on board the now mobile Balamb Garden, docked outside Fisherman's Horizon until repairs are done and they are ship-shape and ready to make their next move.
She is weary, bone weary; never has her standard issue bed seemed more inviting.
ii.
She dreams about home in the mountains, in the land of faeries and forests and snow and Blue Dragons and the bitter cold; her Guardian Forces feed her memories of training missions and friends now lost.
Then the dreams morph into nightmares of rubble and smoke and blood and failure.
She wakes up in the middle of the night, looking for the blood staining her hands. The feeling doesn't leave no matter how many times she washes, no matter how hot the running water.
iii.
She does not cry.
SeeD do not cry.
She is too afraid to show a weaker side to herself; she has a reputation to maintain. She feigns cheerfulness and hope, but it shows.
It shows.
Still, she does not cry.
iv.
Her heart is a pit of sadness and despair. She goes through the motions, pretending nothing has gotten to her, pretending no one has noticed, least of all Irvine with his pitying eyes, or even Squall.
Each movement threatens to overwhelm her.
She is SeeD. She fights this. It is unacceptable.
v.
The concert is everything she could've hoped for. She plays, and when she plays, it's a requiem for the dead.
I've finally done it, you guys. I've finally done it.
Slowly, her heart begins to pick up the pieces and mend itself bit by bit. It's only what they would've wanted, right?
vi.
When they arrive, it as if her nightmares have come to life – smoke, rubble, the ever prevalent stench of death and ruin.
Without thinking, she climbs the battered front gate and leaps towards home, home, what is left of home, her heart pounding in her chest.
vii.
They find her in the graveyard, quietly weeping, hand mindlessly smoothing down the dirt of the newly formed grave before her.
They leave her be, no questions asked.
viii.
She's reconciled herself to the fact that there is no coming home, that she'll never see her old friends again, except in dreams and memories that threaten to fade. That's the price of Guardian Forces. Your heart for our powers, mortal.
It's nothing to wallow about, not in her line of work. Not when she could die any day. Not when they have a sorceress from the bloody future to contend with.
So she makes the best of things. It's what they would've wanted.