Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to Square Enix. If I'd written that game, there'd have been way more gay sex.

So there we were, Zell and me, driving a car from the Garden motor pool down to the beach. Selphie, Quistis, and Squall had all flaked on us; they were all busy with classes and paperwork, I guess. Still blows my mind that Selphie's teaching now - Advanced Junctioning. Guess she's taking a page out of Quistis's book. Anyway. The car's one of those open-sided military-issue all-wheel-drive numbers, and we're driving along the coast road, so there's a nice little breeze coming in. We had a cooler full of beer in the back - I had finally turned 18 a few months before, so we were legal. Blue skies, eighty-eight on the thermometer. Life was looking pretty good.

I let Zell drive; he enjoys it more than I do, and that way I got radio privileges. (Balamb's got a decent country station.) The view wasn't bad either... and I'm not talking about the landscape. The non-tattooed side of Zell's face was toward me, and I couldn't help but look. He looks sort of vulnerable when you can't see the tattoos; reminds me that we're still kids, I guess, and that other guys my age are still in school, with nothing more to worry about than when the next term paper's due. There's nothing like fighting a war to make a guy feel old and jaded.

Anyway, he noticed me looking at him once or twice, so after that I stared out at the sea. It was just grassy dunes and white sand between us and the water. I was just starting to wonder if we'd packed enough ice in with the beers by the time we got to the beach.

We were far enough out from town and the Garden that it was still pretty quiet; a couple of families out with their kids, some ocean kayakers coming back in from an early-morning trip. It was still a few hours before noon. We staked out a prime spot, set down the cooler, spread out some towels. Zell shucked his shirt and ran for the ocean. I took off my hat and shirt and started slathering myself in sunscreen. (Gotta protect my delicate complexion, you know.) Then I sat down and pretended to read the latest Weapons Monthly while Zell splashed around in the surf with somebody's dog. He (Zell, not the dog) looked absolutely fucking gorgeous, all tanned skin and muscle, blond hair wet and slicked back, swim trunks hanging low on his hips. If I hadn't already known I was bi, that sight alone would have made me seriously question my sexuality.

The dog's owner called to it, and Zell smiled and waved. She was a little brunette with pigtails; I had seen her around the Garden once or twice. She waved back at Zell and walked over to him, and the two started talking. I felt a totally unreasonable twinge of jealousy, and tried to distract myself by actually reading my magazine. That didn't help, so I reached into the cooler and pulled out a beer just as the two of them (plus the soggy black dog) started walking back up the beach toward me. I took a deep breath and a big gulp from the can, and plastered a smile on my face.

"You gonna introduce me?" I asked, doing my best imitation of... myself, I guess. The girl was pretty enough, but for some reason that made me feel even worse. Since when has looking at a cute girl actually lowered my spirits?

"Irvine, this is Gina. She works in the library at the Garden. Gina, this is Irvine, who holds the keys to all things cold and alcoholic." Zell grinned. I sighed and handed him two beers. He handed one to Gina, who handed it back to me.

"Actually, I can't stay long," she said. She had a soft voice, like what you'd expect of a girl who works at a library. "My shift starts in an hour, and I have to get the dog back to my parents' place. Thanks, though. It was nice to meet you, Irvine. Oh, Zell - that book you wanted got returned the other day. Come pick it up on Monday? I'll be there all afternoon."

"Sure thing," Zell said. We waved, and she walked away. Zell sighed, plopped down on his towel, and opened his beer.

"She seemed nice," I said, in the most neutral voice I could manage.

Zell stared at me like I had suddenly turned into a Pupu.

"'Nice?'" he said, incredulously. "I was expecting 'I'd bend that over a table' or 'Does she have a sister?'" He took a drink. "When did you turn into an old lady?"

"Hey, now. No need to get your panties in a twist," I said. "Seemed like you two had a thing going there. I'm not gonna get in the middle of that. I have principles, you know."

Zell laughed. "Since when?"

I chose not to dignify that with a response and finished my beer instead. As I was getting another, Zell asked, "So how are things going with you and Selphie?"

I pulled a little too hard opening the can, and the pull-tab snapped off. "They're not."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"That means she called me a 'spineless bitch' and threw me out of her office. I really don't want to talk about it."

"Fair enough."

We sat for a while, just drinking. The beach had started to fill up by then, and the sun was getting pretty hot. Finally I stood up, a little unsteadily (what can I say? I'm a lightweight), with the intention of going for a swim. Zell stood up at the same time.

"Did you see that?" he asked sharply, looking toward the ocean.

I was about to say that I didn't see anything when an orange fin broke the sand. I reached for my gun, and cursed when I realized it wasn't there.

There would be more; Fastitocalons hunt in packs.

Zell was already running towards the monsters - by then, three orange fins were visible, and two more appeared as I sprinted down the beach. I wasn't armed, but I still had my junctions; at the least, I could heal Zell if he got hurt.

Another fin appeared under Zell's feet, and he went down.

I felt the magic gathering in my hands, and the moment Zell rolled clear of the creature, I let the spell go, arcing to hit the fin in a brilliant blue-white flash. The monster shrieked and erupted from the sand, rushing towards me with its jaws open. At that moment, Zell seemed to materialize next to me, delivering a solid punch to the monster's head. It fell to the ground, writhing, and we turned on the rest of the pack.

I shot off Thunder spells as fast as I could, getting the monsters angry enough to come above-ground, where Zell could finish them off. He moved efficiently, fluidly, dodging attacks and countering with brutal strikes whenever he saw an opening.

After a few minutes of fighting, there were no monsters left.

The few civilians left on the beach stared. I counted nine dead monsters.

I took hold of Zell's shoulder. He stood in the middle of the carnage, breathing heavily, eyes wide.

"We're leaving," I said in a low voice. "Come on."

He followed me without a fight. I scooped up our stuff, barely slowing down, and headed for the car.

He didn't say anything until we were in the car, headed back to Garden, this time with me driving.

"Do you ever... do you ever feel like you're back... in the war?"

I glanced over at him. The stark black tattoo was facing me, and he was staring out the window, into the green hills.

"Shit, yeah," I said. "Wakes me up at night, sometimes. I started leaving my gun in the closet, so I'd stop sleepwalking with it."

His eyes turned toward me. "Really?"

"Yeah."

We drove along for a while.

"Radio?" he asked.

"Sure."

All the stations were playing news or commercials, so he turned it back off.

"You know," he said, "there were lots of times we all could have died. During the war. But I didn't think about it much then. There was always one more thing to do, one more fight to win, one more base to sneak into."

I grinned. "That one was fun."

He smiled, but it faded quickly. "But now... I mean, we're pretty damn safe. No one's actively trying to kill us. There's plenty of monsters still around from the Lunar Cry, I guess, but most of them are in Esthar, and Garden sends out patrols to keep them away from towns anyway. But... what I mean is... We could still die. It's less likely now, I guess, but there could be a fucking tsunami right now and we'd be gone, just like that. It... I guess it bothers me more now than it did then." He took a deep breath. He was looking out the window again.

"Maybe now you've got something you don't want to lose," I said, keeping my eyes fixed firmly on the road.

"I dunno about that," he said. "More like, it would leave too much of a cliffhanger. There's still stuff I want to finish."

I didn't know what to say to that. We stayed quiet, each thinking our own thoughts, until we got back to the Garden. I turned in the car and keys at the garage, and we headed inside the gates.

In the front courtyard (I always thought of it as "the Garden garden"), Zell stopped and turned to me.

"I'm glad to have you watching my back," he said, and stuck out his hand.

I took it. He had a strong grip. "And it's good to know you're watching mine." I smiled. "Anyway, us world-saving types have to look out for each other. Right?"

He smiled too. "Right," he said, and walked off in the direction of the lobby.

I stood there for a while, remembering the warmth of his hand.