Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Final Fantasy VIII or any concepts associated with the game. These belong to Squaresoft (now Square Enix). All I own is my interpretation of those concepts, and it is that which I intend to share with you here.

Hide the Scars

By Draic

Chapter One: Preventative Measures

The middle-aged blonde sighed, rose from his cluttered wooden desk and crossed to a small filing cabinet opposite the door. Crouching down, he pulled open and flicked through the lower drawer, finally pulling out a small bundle of papers marked, 'Alie, Tytha'. Shaking his head in irritation, he stood and kicked the drawer shut.

Rifling through the pages, he pulled out one entitled, "Medical History", and dumped the rest of the bundle. Resting for a moment on the edge of the desk, he carefully scrutinised the page, though it was in his own untidy scrawl and he knew the contents by heart:

Tytha Alie was admitted to the Infirmary with a cracked rib during her first year at Garden. According to her Instructor, Hursha Foset, she'd wandered too close to the Grat enclosure and had received a sharp blow to the midriff.

During her second year, she was brought in with deep lacerations across her neck and throat, inflicted during a combat training session with her partner, Cadet Yil Derreth.

After her first attempt at the Fire Cavern test, she was treated for severe burns. During an encounter with a Bomb, she had been driven to the edge of the pathway and lost her footing. Her right foot was submerged to the ankle in lava before Instructor Foset could pull her back. Despite partial protection from her Elemental Defence Junction, she lost the use of her foot.

The blonde moved back to his seat to scrawl a new entry on the paper:

Tytha was again admitted after her Field Exam so a bullet could be removed from her left thigh. Operation was successful.

He signed the entry, just as he had all the others: Dr Parelan Dincht, M.D.

He carefully positioned the paper on his scanner, attempting first to smooth out the newest crinkles his grip had forced on the page. He saved the newly created file to the Garden Database, and returned the sheet of paper to its bundle.

Then he hurled his pen at the wall opposite.

Dr. Dincht rested his head in his hands. He had hoped never to see Tytha again. He had hoped never to have to tend to another of her injuries, or to hear of the circumstances surrounding the event. And, more than anything, he had hoped to find that she'd grown beyond the careless, naïve, ignorant girl he'd discovered seven years ago during their first tearful encounter.

"I just wanted to be friends with him," she'd told him between wet, strangled breaths.

"He's a monster, Tytha. Monsters attack people. You should be more careful," he'd replied.

And she'd promised him that she would, in that wide-eyed childish way that sounds so convincing but means absolutely nothing.

Because here she was again.

Of course, the girl hardly set out to be injured; it was more that she had a knack for getting into dangerous situations. He just wished that there were something more he could do to prevent her from being hurt so often.

You work in a military institution, Parelan, he reminded himself, and so does she. If you're expecting her to never get a scratch, you're deluding yourself.

But Tytha's problems are more serious than just scratches, he argued as he replaced her papers in the cabinet and moved to pick up his pen. Someone could have stopped these things from happening to her. Straightening, he found himself staring into the recovery room, at the girl lying on the bed.

Tytha was clearly awake but facing the window, presumably watching the sun scaling the sky, as nothing else seemed to be happening in the plains that stretched out to the northern mountains.

The doctor felt his jaw tighten in anger.

Her teachers just don't understand. Just because she's good with a weapon and excellent with the theory, it doesn't mean she's ready for anything that comes her way! What about her mind; her personality? How can they see her as a warrior when she still thinks like a child? How can they send her to fight for them when she continually puts herself and everyone around her in danger? She wasn't ready to enter the Fire Cavern. And she sure as hell wasn't ready to take the Field Exam. She's proved them wrong over and over again… and they still think she's ready to be a SeeD!

Tytha stirred and rolled over, her short dark hair replaced by pale blue eyes and a small mouth that broke into a slightly crooked smile at the sight of the man in the doorway.

"Hi, Doctor Dincht."

Dammit, Tytha… Luck can only hold out for so long…

"I thought by now we might have been on a first name basis, Cadet Alie," the doctor said, pushing up a smile of his own as he entered the room.

"Sorry, Doctor Pa," the girl replied, giggling a little.

"Doctor Pa," he repeated, and winced. "Boy, does that sound wrong. When are you going to stop calling me 'doctor'?"

She smiled. "Maybe when you stop being a doctor?"

Parelan poked her softly with his pen. "Well, just bear with me for a few minutes and then I'll see if I can afford to be a human being for a while," he told her. "But in the meantime, how are you feeling?"

"Fine."

At his raised eyebrow, she straightened to a sitting position and corrected herself. "I mean, I can't feel much of my leg, though it does ache a bit."

"That's good to hear. You were shot in the thigh, after all; I should think you'd be a bit worse than 'fine'."

Tytha stuck her tongue out. "You're such a pedantic poof."

The doctor ignored her.

"The ache is probably just because the anaesthetic is wearing off and you're starting to feel your leg again. If it starts to become actual pain, just let me know. And, provided you don't suddenly discover you've been shot somewhere else, you should be able to leave this afternoon."

"Okay," Tytha replied, and turned to the window once more.

Parelan leaned towards the window but still couldn't see anything unusual. "What are you looking at?" he asked.

Tytha turned her head and looked at him with shining eyes. "I'm waiting for the flowers," she said.

The doctor blinked. "The flowers?"

The girl went slightly pink, but explained herself. "A few years ago, I went exploring with my friends and found this huge field of flowers near the edge of the forest. You can't see them now, but when the sun gets a little higher…" she sighed. "They're like a beautiful patchwork quilt that I can just wrap myself up in."

"Sounds like a poem in the works, Tytha," the doctor noted with a smile. "Will you call me in when you find them? I'd like to see this for myself."

"Sure!" she said, and rolled back to the window.

Parelan hesitated before speaking again. "And… congratulations on passing the SeeD exam."

"Thanks!" the girl replied, not looking away from the plains outside. Dr. Dincht shook his head in amazement.

Flowers. She's just passed her SeeD exam - despite being shot - and all she's thinking about are flowers.

As he turned and passed through the doorway, the grin slipped from his face.

Hyne, Tytha, what are you doing? Why are you living here when your heart is somewhere else?

How could Tytha herself not notice that she was out of place here? The best aspects of her personality were the things that tripped her up when it came to her training, and all the things that were most important to her lay outside the Garden. She should be out honing the skills that were most important to her, instead of fighting herself like this. Surely she could see it?

But then again, she'd always lacked the practical awareness that allowed people to adapt to their situation. She'd become far too thick-skinned - after so many injuries, it had been either that or give up - and although it meant that she'd always bounce back no matter what life threw at her, it also meant she'd stopped learning from her mistakes. She was continually diving headlong into the same fight - and not realising how badly she was losing.

There was only one way to pull her out of it. Someone would have to do something that would force its way through her thick skin. Force her to see her situation and take charge of it. It would hurt. Hyne, would it hurt. But as a doctor, Parelan knew better than most that sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

He crossed once more to his desk, pulled the keyboard towards him and began typing.