Squall was lying down, all limbs sprawled, looking up at the cloudy sky above him with eyes hazed with pain. He couldn't move, not even to assess the severity of his wounds. A quarter of an hour ago the enemy frontline had blazed past them with insulting ease, in an unstoppable wave of chaos, noise and blood. He could still hear the shouting of men and horses alike heavy with hate and pain, but the ongoing battle was taking place way behind of him. In his proximity, the only sounds reaching his ears above the insistent buzz installed inside of his skull, were some faint moans and an insistent voice, broken with tears, repeating somewhere at his left "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

He didn't look. He didn't want to know. He closed up his mind to the sounds and craned his neck in an attempt to take a look at his leg, the major source of pain in his battered body. He couldn't lift his head high enough, and after a few strenuous tries he ceased in his efforts, not accusing the bump of his head against the hard, dry ground.

Seifer was not there. He had been beside him, covering his left side but he wasn't there anymore. Dazed, Squall realized the torpid state of his mind when he took notice of the simplicity of his thoughts. He was probably slowly bleeding to death, and Seifer was not beside him. From these two evils, the second one was the worst.

Their flank had fatally received a chivalry charge. The lines had not resisted. He could recall Seifer saying that staying their ground was a suicide with only a short spear and a shield made of leather and cork to defend themselves. As the enemy chivalry formed a line in the distance, the officer in charge had started shouting insults and death threats to whoever dared to take a step back. "Hold your position like real men, you, dregs of society. Be useful for once". "A longer shaft." Seifer had said to Squall, in a hushed voice "If we could set it against the ground and point it against the horses' breast, we could stand a chance. A longer shaft and this wouldn't be a massacre. Fuck them. Fuck." And then he had looked at Squall's panicked eyes and said "You shouldn't be here. I'm sorry, Squall. I'm sorry"

Groaning in pain Squall forced his middle section to lift from the ground to take a look at the fallen soldier crying at his left. An arrow shaft protruding from his own shoulder came into his vision field, alongside a stinging sensation that he blearily catalogued as mild discomfort. Oh, yes. The archers. The arrows that had preceded the chivalry charge. It was deeply embedded in his shoulder, the armor piece that should had protected him hadn't been able to withstand the impact and a whole section of the piece was missing. Blatant, incapacitating pain registered for a moment, but as soon as he verified that the man wasn't Seifer, he let himself rest again. He got a glimpse of his legs before lying down. One of them was broken, as he had expected. A horse, a damned horse at full gallop had run over him. The impact had surely broken more than his leg, judging from the pain he felt in his chest and hip.

But, where was Seifer?

Squall's benumbed mind initiated a trip of its own down memory lane, as the easiest way to meet Seifer at last and find some peace: back to the day he met him.

He had feared him. Everybody at Garden respected him, with that kind of shocked obedience that comes from first-hand experience. It had taken a few weeks of that sardonic smile of his, the casual glimpses of some of his natural goofiness, to shatter the stony image that Seifer had carried around with only eleven years old. Seifer was born a leader. The only reason Squall could come up with to explain why the older boy had taken an interest in him (a whiney pipsqueak with a runny nose who had to be tied up to a damned post on his first day to prevent a runaway) was the one thing they had in common: at their young age, there was already blood in their hands.

It wasn't the best recommendation card to enter your second shelter home. Once it was clear that he wouldn't fly away, the guards raised their vigilant eyes from him and left him to face alone the unwelcoming arms of his new foster community. A group of three boys, older than him, had ganged up to beat him. A little girl had spitted on him, and things would surely escalated if Seifer hadn't taken sides. As soon as he entered the fight, one of the younger guards in charge of the children, named Moon, had appeared with a long bamboo stick and had started distributing hits on the pack of shrill kids, sparing both Squall and Seifer, as he chastised with a soft, neutral voice: "Don't fight. Don't be cruel, kids. Don't fight."

That night, the first he spent inside the barracks that held their dorms, he had buried himself under the full of holes mattress as the kids around him kept whispering threats that ranked from peeing on him to smash his face in with a stone. But the scornful voices were rendered silent when Seifer placed his mattress beside his. Not understanding Seifer's intentions, the gesture was more disturbing for Squall than calming, and he couldn't help but wonder what exactly Seifer wanted from him. After some minutes of restless tossing around, Seifer's hand fell on his hair, and he could hear his voice, a steady, anchoring whisper in the dark:

"I'm here."

He realized then that Seifer was offering, not demanding anything from him. Those two words worked like a healing mantra, back then, and in the upcoming years. It didn't matter how bad the situation could get. If Seifer appeared and leaned his hand on him, sometimes on his back, sometimes on his arm, sometimes on his hair, and once, the most special of all them, over his heart; and pronounced those words, it worked like a magical litany, fixing up all the wrongs in the world.

The sound of voices getting near dragged him from the depths his mind had been wandering through, back to the present and his precarious situation. He held his breath as he paid attention, trying to discern if the people approaching were friends or foes, but before he could figure it out, a face appeared in his vision field, so suddenly that he flinched visibly.

"Hey, Buttons, this one is still alive."

The one talking was nothing more than a kid, but Squall could see in his eyes that ageless quality that translated life experience not into wisdom, but malice; a clear sign that the owner of those deep orbs had seen way too much, and had lost quite some bits of his soul in the process. It wasn't a reassuring realization, and when a second kid, older, watched him from above with a deep frown creasing his bow, he knew he was in trouble.

"That can be fixed."

Squall saw him raise his leg, but he didn't see the hit come. When the boy's foot connected with his temple, his consciousness abruptly faded.

The rain woke him up. It wasn't a heavy downpour, but a fine drizzle that freshened his feverish skin, alleviating the pounding inside of his skull. He couldn't hear the sounds of battle anymore and he idly wondered if that was it. There was something comforting in the thought of finishing off the death toll for the day. The Grim Reaper quench for souls had to be sated already, if only with the members of Squall's company. He closed his eyes tightly, remembering the hurried conversations among the lined up men. He had ignored Seifer's advice ("Don't, Squall") and he had shared some stories with his fellow soldiers, enough to realize that they were no true soldiers. Farmers, artisans, fishermen, one per family, pulled to the front line in the latest draft. He wasn't a soldier, either, so he had felt a connection to them. It had been as brief as the time it took the enemy chivalry to smash their lines.

He understood Seifer's advice now. He mourned for all the people in both sides who had thrown away their lives in the latest political move from who knows which side, but specially, he mourned over those who weren't faceless anymore: over Carter, who was planning his wedding for the end of the summer, and over Frank, whose four children would grow up alone now.

Orphans like himself. The pain of his injuries felt dull and distant and he wondered if he was dying soon. A lump got caught in his throat and for the first time Seifer left his mind, replaced by the only person who could fill the spot.

"Sis." he whispered, more a sob than a word "Sis, I'm sorry."

His vision blurred with tears and he felt himself keeping a precarious balance between consciousness and oblivion. A few large carrion birds were flying in slow circles, each one bringing them closer to earth. The message was one of finality, and Squall felt himself losing the last thread of hope he was hanging to.

I'm scared.

The boys had stripped him from the rests of his armor and boots. They had taken even the arrow that had been embedded in his shoulder. The pain from his injuries and from his broken leg was dulled to the extent that he was barely aware of it. His limbs felt like dead appendages, alien to his command, moisture-laden and cold. He was bitterly wondering why wasn't he dead already when heavy steps nearing him made his survival instinct take charge, and he went still, muscles taut with awareness as he tried to keep the heaving in his chest to its minimum expression.

A hand rested on his head, warm in contrast with the slick coldness of his skin. A voice reached his ears.

"Squall, I found you."

He felt a pull in his body. He was being lifted from the ground and carried around by at least three persons, judging from the number of hands he could feel dragging his body up. And that definitely was Seifer's voice.

"You can't possibly understand how difficult it was to locate you among all these... these..." Seifer trailed off in search of the right word but ended up shrugging it off "Whatever. Fallen soldiers all look the same. Once they are down, you can't even differentiate which side they were fighting for. It surely does not matter anymore for them. I wonder who will claim victory at the end of the day."

One of Squall's carriers let out an annoyed grunt. Among all the gratefulness he felt at the moment, Squall couldn't help but sympathize with him. Those musings were something neither of them wanted to be hearing right now. They reeked of insubordination, and Squall idly wondered if Seifer had put his confidence in the two persons helping him out of respect and real trust or if he was being reckless, as per usual.

"It's not like if the ones left lying here are going to appreciate the gloriousness of a hard-won victory, anyway. Surely their widows won't feel it was worth it when next spring the lords find another stupid excuse to fight, claiming their children this time to swell the ranks of their companies."

Squall gathered his remaining strength to speak:

"Seifer... for heaven's sake... shut up."

A lively laugh was Seifer's reply and Squall wished he could see his face.

"Still there, Squall? Good. Keep it up. I'll get you some help the second we get back to the camp. Hold on."

Seifer's hand, dirtied with mud and fresh blood, appeared on his vision field to pat his hair. Squall blearily noticed a smeared bandage covering what looked like one or two missing fingers. There was a shift on his weight, and balance returned once Seifer took hold again of his share.

"I'm done with this shit, Squall. Next time I fight I expect it to be in a battle picked up by myself, not because the lord's newest wife was not a maiden in their love nest. Whoever thought the slip would go unnoticed?"

"Was it like that?" one of Squall's carriers asked, voice thick with disbelief "Because of that stupid kid... We just…" like Seifer before, he was amiss of words to describe the full extent of the day's happenings.

After a few seconds of silence, Seifer admitted:

"No, I'm making it up."

"Bastard." the man replied "Shut up before I..."

He fell silent abruptly and Squall nervously wondered what was happening. He could clearly picture in his mind a defiant Seifer giving the burly man one of his death stares, and he wondered how much these two persons knew about him.

"You shut up, dude." The edge was definitely there, in Seifer's voice. A loud and clear warning to anyone who had been around Seifer time enough to witness the treatment he had in store for those who pissed him off.

Apparently, this one knew, because not a single word was spoken again till they reached the camp.

Squall was put down with care in front of the improvised campaign tent that worked as a hospital, his surroundings barely registering in his mind above the protests of his battered body, till the sound of two voices in the middle of a discussion lingered above of the buzzing in his ears time enough to finally catch his attention.

"... not enough. Who are you to decide whom I give my assistance first or last?"

"I'm no one of importance." That was Seifer's voice, dripping hostility "Not in the big scheme of things. But I'm of the greatest importance for you right now, if you understand what I mean."

"How dare you...?"

"Go and finish treating that soldier you were working on. If you are not back here in ten minutes to help my friend, I'll go looking for you, and I can guarantee you two things. One: I'll find you. And two: you'll regret making me come for you."

After that, Seifer kneeled beside him and for the first time Squall could take a good look at him. Seifer looked like he felt, battered, bruised and about to collapse. Squall guessed that his threats were working on reputation only and for the first time since Seifer had picked him up from the battlefield he wondered if they were going to make it.

"Hey" Seifer smiled down at him "Stop pulling weird faces. You'll get a fix in no time, Squall."

"You could use some help yourself." Squall let out, wincing when a pang of pain hit his throat.

"I could" Seifer agreed "But first, let's take a look at what we have here."

He started maneuvering him, looking first at his bloodied shoulder and then shifting his attention to the mess in his leg.

"It's broken." Squall commented without trying to disguise the detachment he felt in his voice.

Seifer hummed affirmatively.

"Don't worry. I won't let that stupid sawbones cut it off, it won't be necessary." It was an uneducated affirmation, but enough for Squall. Seifer had never let him down before. "Your armor and boots are gone. Did you slip out of them or...?"

"I was robbed." Squall wanted to shrug it off, but Seifer frowned and in a swift motion took a hold of his collar, ripping it open unceremoniously.

"They took your ring and pendant, Squall." Griever. Squall's mind blanked, but despair must have been plainly written on his face, because Seifer's next words were laced again with that dangerous edge of his "Describe them."

"Two brats. Young. 9-10 years old maybe, the younger one. Around 13 the older one. Both with shaved heads, scrawny... stranded. No different from the hundreds of no-one kids that follow the company on a regular basis."

"I'll find them and get the ring back."

Squall wanted to protest the absurdity of that statement, but the surgeon chose that moment to come back, lips pressed in a thin line, and Squall's focus was immediately shifted to pain, blinding and excruciating, before, finally, blessed unconsciousness took hold of him.

"I thought that was it"

Seifer lifted his head for a second to regard him before returning his attention back to the stick he was sharpening with his knife. A quiet sound of understanding came out from his throat.

Squall sighed as he laid down on the grass, letting his mind wander unrestrictedly down memory lane. Yes, he had thought it was his end. Lying down for hours on a battlefield as life slowly bled away from his injuries was an experience he'd rather spare.

A musical laugh sounding at his right made him lift his head up enough to see Rinoa crouching down near him trying to catch a grasshopper. She laughed again when the small bug jumped away from her, giving chase with that focused persistence only small kids could deliver. At his left, Seifer drove the sharpened stick in the ground and started giving form to their campfire. There was a relaxed expression on his face as he also watched the little girl happily running around.

Their little army adventure hadn't been the breakthrough they had expected. Even though they were part of the army on the winning side, the pay wasn't that good to compensate the risk and the long term physical damages they endured. Thankfully, their injuries had been severe enough to earn a discharge, take their last pay and be free to walk away. Squall had received a pat in the shoulder from their sergeant, and a comment about his bastardy, before he was showed the way out. There was no use for a soldier whose limping was so exaggerated that he couldn't take a hit without going down. Seifer, on the other hand, lost two fingers of his left hand and took a hard blow to the head. The company's surgeon said that there was blood accumulating under his skull and that he needed to get the bone trepanned to let it out and solve the problem. Seifer had gone berserk on him; yeah, trepanation would solve the problem, and a beheading too. He had gone to the sergeant to get their release leaving the surgeon still wondering if Seifer was agreeing to the procedure or not. The sergeant only acknowledged Seifer's departure by double checking that he was really gone, looking immensely relieved to watch him take the road.

There were a lot of discharges after the battle. And that meant that the means to pay were scarce. They got out with just a few coins and Impervious, an old battle horse that let out a sibilant hiss with every breath. Squall wondered what they could do next with the means at their disposal. He limped heavily and Seifer had episodic onsets of vertigo. They had a horse, strong, but old, rheumatic and probably with broken wind.

So they were back at their starting point, alive, but beaten and poorer than they were before. And there also was Rinoa.

Rinoa was the child of a soldier. Whose? They didn't know. Many kids had waited after the battle for their fathers to come back. Those who had no other acquaintances, and who had been old enough, were enrolled as messengers or aides. The girls, old and young, joined the group of harlots that accompanied the soldiers. Rinoa was just 6 years old, but intelligent enough to understand the destiny waiting for her if she stayed. They had found her huddled up in Impervious' stable, unafraid of the beast, but scared of men. It had taken all of Seifer's charisma to get her out of her corner, and when he tried to kick her away, he discovered the painful way that the great horse was on her side. After receiving a stomp that had him jumping on one foot and sputtering obscenities, and after almost losing an ear when the horse threw a bite while he still was bouncing, Seifer opted to mount the girl on the horse's back and both, toddler and beast, had followed obediently.

The little girl plopped down beside Squall and with a wide grin plastered on her face, she lifted her arms, showing him her hands loosely clasped together. She opened her palms slowly and Squall could see the green grasshopper for a few seconds before the small fellow decided that enough was enough and jumped back to the relative safety of the tall grass.

"It was huge!" Rinoa exclaimed in delight before resuming her hunt.

After a few minutes of silent watch on the tireless child, Squall repeated:

"I thought that was it."

"It was a close one." Seifer agreed, although Squall could tell that he was only giving him half of his attention, the other half centered in giving form to the campfire.

"For both of us." Squall pointed out.

Seifer acknowledged his comment with a dry grunt, before he leaned down to cautiously blow on the embers. A few seconds later he got a small fire going. As he fed it with dry sticks and one big pine cone, he replied.

"We are done with the army, if that's where you are trying to get."

"More like the army is done with us." Squall corrected "But, yes. I was worried that the experience could have not been tough enough for you."

"There is easy money there."

"There is a pay. A miserable pay just enough to eat, take some shots and pay for a roof over our heads for a week. It doesn't pay off for the long marches, the mud in our soles, themerciless rain and the bone-wrenching cold. And the cramps, the fucking cramps. All of that just to have a privileged spot to face blood, pain and death in the frontline." He made a pause but Seifer stayed quiet. After a while, Squall added "I'm tired. I want to settle down. Find a place I can call 'home' and rest."

Seifer regarded him pensively and scratched his chin with his mutilated hand.

"War gives many opportunities. I'm not talking about the chance to get some coins enlisting, but about abandoned farms and animals, villages, boats, homes… although we still have to fight for it. We are not the only ones looking for an easy way to subsist."

"As long as we don't kill any innocents."

Seifer's expression hardened.

"There are no innocents."

"Rinoa is innocent. Kids are innocent."

"Rinoa imposed herself to us, we didn't really have a choice, so, no, not an angel. And kids… the kids of war are far from good. Either that or they are dead."

Squall regarded him with what he expected was finality. Sometimes it was this hard dealing with Seifer.

"We are not killing any innocents." He repeated slowly, putting emphasis in every word.

Seifer opened his mouth to object, so Squall was quick to add:

"I don't care about whatever stupid flaw in my argument you are going to point out now, whether it is a false dilemma about a life or death situation or any other action meant for survival. We'll do whatever it takes to preserve ourselves, but we won't kill to just flourish, pave our way, or for mere enrichment."

Seifer made another attempt to cut in, but Squall raised his hand and let out another torrent of words, speaking fast, blatantly ignoring Seifer's roll of eyes. He knew that Seifer had killed before for lesser motives than the ones he had mentioned, so he wanted to make his point as clear as possible.

"One of us has to be in charge of the morals here, Seifer. Troubled times doesn't clear the way to resort to violence indiscriminately. We'll have enough chances to fight just defending ourselves, and you know that some actions have the tendency to come back and bite people in the butt years after they were committed. I want to settle, a clean settle, so I can sit down by my fire and rest not only my body, but my whole being." Seifer snorted and refused to meet his eyes "Let me paint the picture clearer: I want peace, a boring life, uneventful, with the only milestones of the passing seasons. I want my time to pass slow, my worries to become mundane and my heart to be filled with quietness. I have had enough of discipline, of fear and of the sound of blood thundering in my ears. I want to be able to hear the silence, as Moon would say. I trust you to help me to get just that. And I hope you'll be able to enjoy it with me."

There was no way to hide the hopefulness in his last sentence. He hadn't realized it till the words came out of his mouth… how utterly scared he was that Seifer wouldn't be able to fit in his ideal domestic fantasies. Maybe he should speak out and add that his picture would never be complete if Seifer wasn't part of it. It was embarrassing admitting it, and he was afraid that Seifer could get the message wrong, but it would be worse to just lose him and stay the rest of his life alone, because a life without Seifer was a life of solitude regardless of the amount of people that could fill his home.

"You are an idiot."

It wasn't the simple, good natured, comment that you make to lightly disregard someone's excess of optimism, but a straight censure. Squall almost bit his tongue to stop the words from coming out. Seifer was still looking aside and in those few seconds when he could almost hear the sound of his dreams shattering in a million pieces, he realized two things: one, despairing, that he already knew; and another, brand new, that gave him hope.

Number one was that there was darkness in Seifer. Profound. Destructive. It was so deeply ingrained within him, that it tinted the way he looked at the world, fading the colors of life, staining his thoughts and dictating his pragmatic and sometimes violent life philosophy.

Number two was the look in Rinoa's eyes. The child had gone still at some moment and was looking at them with an uncharacteristic serious and centered look. There was maturity behind those big, brilliant eyes. Intelligence and premature wisdom.

When their eyes met, Squall realized that he was staring right into their future.