FINAL FANTASY VIII: BRIDGES
by Corvus


PART ONE


Cadet reviews were nominally the province of Instructors, but SeeD Commander Squall Leonhart liked to take a personal look at the progress of what he called the "best of the best", the future leaders of SeeD. So on a bright Sunday noon, instead of relaxing with his fiancée on a Balamb beach, he sat with her in his office evaluating what his staff had to say about young men and women under their tutelage.

There was something to be said for the feel of a hardcopy. Squall understood now, after serving more than a year as the leader of SeeD, why Cid Kramer prefered to hold a file in his hands rather than read the same information on a terminal panel. Sentimental, perhaps, but the paper gave a kind of personal connection to the data, made the words and numbers seem to mean something more on a human level. On a more practical note, he could pass papers to Rinoa for her opinion while he looked at something else.

In his hand he now held the review of a cadet named Kent Brougham. Squall's mind's eye showed him Brougham's round face, carefully-trimmed chestnut hair and bright coffee-brown eyes. Present at the time of the Garden Riot during the Ultimecia War, Brougham had been a member of one of the cadet squads rallied by Xu to confuse, harrass and delay the partisans of the usurper Norg and had displayed what Xu later called "a remarkable talent for thinking outside the box." That same talent had dazzled his Instructors in tactics, political science, history and melee, but had infuriated those same teachers when it came to math and physics. It also made Brougham see para-magical studies as tedious, and the cadet had a long history of struggling with the subject and its practical applications.

Kent Brougham made up for his seeming ineptitude with magic with blisteringly-fast and deadly-accurate archery. He was one of the few SeeDs in the history of the force to give much consideration to the bow. Xu herself had brought to Squall the cadet's thesis for a combat bow and ammunition that would function in the field against modern armored troopers as well as monsters. Squall remembered his reaction, and smiled, somewhat wryly; he'd nearly dropped the plans in shock. Why hadn't anyone else thought of the things Brougham was showing him? The cadet was thinking outside the box. Squall had approved the design and personally forwarded the plans to Esthar, where the prototype and its arrows were constructed of advanced polymers. On Kent Brougham's sixteenth birthday, he had received a gift with a card bearing well-wishes from his commander and the president of Esthar.

Now, it seemed young Brougham was ready at last to graduate. He'd faced the Fire Cavern and defeated an avatar of Ifrit, securing his place in the upcoming Field Exam mission. The SeeD observer that had accompanied the young man on the excursion into the volcanic cave, Selphie Tilmitt, stated with enthusiasm that Brougham's archery had felled attacking Buels and Red Bats almost faster than she could react. And, she screamed in all-capitals, he'd shot Ifrit right in the eye. The Guardian Force had been so amazed that a cadet had done so much without the help of Shiva and Blizzard spells that it had acquiesced almost immediately, a ringing endorsement for Brougham's talents. As if the reviews weren't enough.

"Surprise, surprise," Squall muttered, rubbing his clean-shaven chin. "Maybe it's best he doesn't care much for spells, or he'd be able to take over the Garden."

Rinoa looked up sharply from the paper she was reading and regarded her husband-to-be with a mixture of shock, alarm and worry. "What?"

"I'm kidding." He watched her lovely face fall, then screw up with mock irritation. Squall knew people still weren't used to him making jokes, even the woman he was soon to marry. It didn't bother him -- he knew exactly why they were still adjusting. In fact, it often gave him the chance to get the drop on people, because they just weren't expecting humor from the SeeD Commander.

"Oh, you," Rinoa admonished, and leaned over from where she sat on the end of his desk to firmly press her lips to his for a moment. "Is that Kent?"

Squall waggled the report in the air and proclaimed, "If Galbadia Garden could graduate SeeDs who would succeed without Guardian Forces, then by the spirits, Balamb Garden can graduate one SeeD who doesn't like magic." He slapped the papers down on the desk with a satisfying "thwack" and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. "The kid has a point, you know."

"What's that?"

He told her, "We fall into patterns of thought, established ways of doing things. I'm especially vulnerable to it. You know that as well as I do. SeeD needs people like Kent Brougham to shake us up, keep us on our toes."

Rinoa traced one slender finger along Squall's jawline, then down his chest. "I only had to beat you about the head and shoulders with a lead pipe, what's the problem?" she asked with an impish smirk.

"My problem," he growled back playfully as he caught her hand and held it up to his lips, "is that my fiancée is a brat!" He nibbled gently on her finger, then kissed it and clasped the hand in both of his. "Seriously, though, I'd graduate Brougham without a Field Exam if I could get away with it."

"You're that sure of his capability?" she wondered aloud.

"Yeah," he replied, "I am. But I can't do things that way, as much as I'd like to, so I guess we'll use the Field Exam as an opportunity to see just how good Brougham really is."

"Have you decided on the mission?"

Squall shook his head. Field Exam missions gave him fits, and he always caught himself putting off the decisions until the last minute. This time, he decided, he'd get some outside opinions. "No. Having a tough time figuring out which contract request could handle the worst-case scenario." Which was, as he always remembered, the complete failure of the cadets to achieve their assigned goals, necessitating the intervention of the SeeD observers. The concern was actually two-fold: For one, the time required for extracting the cadets from the combat zone and inserting the full SeeDs could be too long for the mission. For the other, any mission difficult enough to fail an entire platoon of cadets was a bad, possibly fatal test, and a failure on Squall's part to find the right balance between difficulty and survivability. Individuals would fail in any Field Exam. That was the purpose of the test -- to separate the wheat from the chaff. But the failure of an entire testing platoon was a failure at the highest level of SeeD.

"I always ask this, and you always say no," Rinoa chided softly, "but do you want some help?"

"Yes," replied Squall.

She blinked in surprise. "Okay... How about we get together with Xu and Quistis later and hack at the problem?"

"That sounds like a wonderful idea." He slid one hand up the arm of the hand he held and put his other hand on her other arm, then pulled her toward him. "Later."

Cursed, that's what he was. Just as he got Rinoa into his lap, the telecom panel on his desk beeped insistently, a repeating double-tone that told him someone inside the Garden was trying to get hold of him. "I'm gonna cut that thing out with my gunblade," he growled, and stabbed the Receive button. "Leonhart."

"It's Xu. You know I hate to interrupt you, especially when you gave specific instructions not to do so, but... I'm not sure what to do about this, um, situation."

Hearing the nervous tone in Xu's voice, Rinoa slid out of Squall's lap. The Commander leaned forward attentively. "Go ahead."

"I've got an incoming call for you, specifically. I think you'll want to take this one."

"Who is it?" he asked, feeling dread curdle in the pit of his stomach.

"It's... Jean-Paul LaFleur."

Jean-Paul LaFleur. Former SeeD cadet. Former member of the student body Disciplinary Committee. Former lackey of Seifer Almasy.

Jean-Paul LaFleur, called Raijin.

"Put him through," Squall said, his voice like a muffled bell tolling disaster.

"Yes sir."

The line went dead for a moment, then connected to the sound of street traffic. Squall frowned, moreso than he had been frowning a moment before. Only one place was that noisy. The former Deling City, now called Galbadia City. "Leonhart," he said to acknowledge the connection.

"Squall?" The single word told Squall a lot. Raijin was boisterous, loud, his voice fitting for a man of his nigh-titanic stature. He spoke with the melodious accent of the southern reaches of the western continent, his homeland. But that one word was flat, almost monotone. Something was horribly wrong. For him to call Squall Leonhart, rival of his best friend and commander of the organization he had left behind, and speak in such a heartbroken manner...

"Yeah, Raijin, go ahead, what's up?"

"Hey, man, thanks for taking my call. I know a lot's gone down between us. Means a lot to me, ya know. We... I need a favor."

Rinoa's eyebrows shot up her forehead. She'd never borne any ill-will toward Raijin or Fujin Kazeno, or even Seifer himself. But the "posse" had always been self-sufficient, right up to the end, and last anyone had heard the three had settled their differences and struck off for new horizons.

"I'm listening, go on," Squall said.

"I don't have much time, this call's expensive. Long distance charges, ya know. I... Fujin and me, we wanna come back to the Garden."

Squall looked at Rinoa, Rinoa looked at Squall. What the hell could have happened? "Just one second," he said to Raijin, then hit the Mute button on the panel. "Fujin and Raijin back in Balamb Garden? There'd be another Garden Riot."

"The War is over, Squall, it's a new time. Listen to him, something awful must have happened. Give them a chance?"

(Dammit,) he thought to himself. (And I thought the biggest worry for today would be the blasted Field Exam.) Rinoa had a point, though. This was a new time and the world was trying to move forward. Squall had made a lot of changes. Maybe it was time to extend an olive branch. He unmuted the telecom panel and said, "Tell you what, come to Balamb Garden and we can talk about it. I think we can work something out."

"You're the best, man. Um... Well, could ya send someone to pick us up? We're broke and, um... Fujin's really sick." The last three words were nearly choked. "Spent our last gettin' her some medicine that didn't work, and I can't take the time for any bounty hunting or anything like that so I can take her to a hospital. It's bad, real bad."

A lengthy train-ride from Galbadia City to Balamb via the Intercontinental Railway wouldn't do the albino much good, in that case. The best way to transport them would be... "I'll send the Ragnarok. High-profile, but it's the best option. You're in Galbadia City, right?"

"Yeah. Meet it outside the city, east side?"

"Right." It would be easiest to pick them up them outside the city's primary gate. "I'll get on it immediately. Raijin..."

"Yeah?"

"Don't worry. The past is the past."

"You really are the best, ya know? We'll be there. 'Bye." The connection broke, leaving Squall feeling like his world had just turned upside-down.

A soft touch broke him from his bewilderment. Rinoa crouched down next to his chair, her eyes twinkling. "I am so proud of you right now, I just can't tell you," she said.

"I think I forgave them all a long time ago. I'm just worried about the reactions from everyone else." Squall scrubbed at his face with a hand and exhaled a massive sigh. "Life's gonna be interesting." (Time to think outside the box...)

--------------------

He usually liked Sunday mornings. Comic strips in the newspaper, fishing with his uncle, the promise of a good football game on television in the autumn. At Balamb Garden there had been all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts and unrestricted free time. After the War there had been quiet time when he could relax and just love life.

But now, on this Sunday morning, he just couldn't relax.

Raijin knew his fussing and fretting was driving Fujin up the wall. He tried to keep his worry inside and put on that old "posse game-face", but it was just too hard. The medicine he'd bought for Fujin hadn't done a thing. There was nothing more the clinic could do, and he couldn't afford a major hospital. He'd even tried para-magic. Nothing.

He loved Fujin more now than he ever had before, knowing just how strong she really was, how hard she was fighting. He could barely stand thinking about how much of an honor it was that she had called him brother, given him a name from her people, made him family. He'd locked the bathroom door and turned on the shower last night so that she wouldn't wake and hear him weeping. If only he'd tried harder to find a good-paying job, made more money bounty hunting, tried harder to find Seifer and begged him for help, he could do something for Fujin. But he hadn't been able to find Seifer, they were out of money and she needed help. So he'd done the only thing he could think of. He'd called Squall.

Fujin had resisted at first, but for once he'd been able to change her mind. Raijin honored her request not to tell Xu what was happening; if Fujin's blood sister found out what was going on, all Hell would break loose. Lady Luck had flashed her winning smile, and now the Estharian dragon-ship that SeeD had claimed for its own was streaking across the skies to rescue them. Somehow it still wasn't enough to put Raijin at ease, though. He looked over at Fujin, sitting ten meters away, propped against the trunk of an old beech tree with a light blanket draped over her slender form. He'd carried her out of the city, daring with his eyes anyone to stand in his way, to question him. No one had.

"Hey, Fu?" he called. The albino's head turned a fraction. "Your sis is gonna find out when we get to the Garden." Fujin's single sanguine eye blinked slowly. She knew. Xu Kazeno was widely known as a pillar of calm strength, but her devotion to her younger sister was very deep. "She's gonna fuss." The blanket shifted just a bit as Fujin shrugged. It didn't matter now. "Yeah, I guess."

It felt like hours since he'd talked to Squall. He knew it hadn't been long at all, but the waiting was killing him. He wouldn't be able to relax until Fujin was under Dr. Kadowaki's care in the Garden Infirmary. The lazy clouds drifting overhead strolled past, lollygagging and watching the sick albino and her mountainous protector with a kind of callous curiosity. The rustling of the elm in the careless breeze sounded almost like a kind of mocking laughter. Raijin felt his fists clench of their own accord. He wanted to hit something. Hard.

"Raijin..." Fujin's weak whisper nearly didn't reach him. "Relax."

"I'm sorry, Fu. I'm just... ya know?" The word "worried" was something the posse never said. Even after the posse had split up, Raijin still didn't like to say it. But he was worried. Oh, spirits, he was more worried than he'd ever been in his entire life. He stopped watching the sky and walked over to sit cross-legged next to Fujin.

"Do not," Fujin replied. One porcelain-pale hand emerged from beneath the blanket and came to rest on Raijin's arm. Her skin was chilled, but she was sweating.

He covered that hand as gently as he could with his own, wishing there were some way he could give some of his strength to her in that touch. "Maybe. But I can't help myself."

The albino's eye closed, and for a moment Raijin thought she'd gone to sleep again. But she whispered to him finally, "Burden... Apologize."

"Aw, come on, Fu, you don't gotta be like that. You didn't wanna make me afraid for you. I respect that, ya know? You take care of me, ya know? So now I'm takin' care of you."

The woman's lips curled in a faint smile. Almost no one saw Fujin Kazeno smile, except Jean-Paul LaFleur and Seifer Almasy. Now Seifer was gone, so the smile was for Raijin alone. "Survive."

"We always do, ya know? We always survive." Yeah, they always survived. They'd gotten through the War intact, they could beat this. Raijin was amazed how much Fujin could do with a single word. He wasn't relaxed yet, but for the moment he wasn't ready to tear the world apart.

"Remember that night in Timber, when that guy in the suit got up on the bar and started to sing?" he mused, more to keep the feeling going than anything else. "Remember Seifer? Gettin' up to charge the ladies for a show, then payin' the guy to start takin' his suit off? I thought you were gonna kill him. Or that other time when that farmer's chocobo ran us down and Seifer went after it screamin' about fried chocobo dinner?" From the sound of her breathing Raijin knew Fujin had indeed drifted off. "Yeah... Good times. We're gonna have more good times, I promise. Swear by my grandmama's ashes," he invoked, calling up the most solemn oath he could think of from his home. "Yeah."

Raijin moved to lean against the tree and risked disturbing Fujin enough to put his arm around her so that she was leaning against his broad chest, over his heart. He remembered how his papa had done this for him when he was a little boy, telling him, "Listen to the heartbeat, the music of life. It's the music I make for you, son, Papa's love for you." Papa was gone now, but little Jean-Paul would always remember. That heartbeat would carry on in his memory.

He had dozed off himself by the time the Ragnarok neared. The rumble of its great engines entered into his mind, a dream of thunder before a beautiful storm. The sudden hiss of landing jets was a flash of lightning in his dream and he awoke to the sight of the scarlet ship settling on the level ground. "Fu, wake up, they're here."

The belly of the metal beast disgorged its landing ramp and two uniformed SeeDs descended and stopped at the bottom, a young man and woman Raijin didn't recognize. Raijin scooped up Fujin and began walking toward them with measured, cushioned strides. With each step he felt a little more hope. When he reached the waiting SeeDs they saluted in unison, surprising him. "Sir, we're here to take you to Balamb Garden," said the male.

"Let's go. Time's wastin', ya know?"