Don't own the boys. Not making any profit other than reviews. Hints of Yaoi and language appropriate to teenaged soldiers, but over all, this chapter is pretty tame. This fic has actually been written by four Yaoimongers: Acid Rain, Pixie518, Xineko and RaceUlfson. Many thanks to Xineko all her hard work beta-ing!

Revenant

Chapter One: Seifer

Okay, so I hate to fish.

I lived my whole life -such as it was- near the ocean. Fishing is long periods of sitting on your can and then it's all stink, slime, and sea gulls. But, I gave it a shot like I promised my posse I would

I had to get out of there before Fuu permanently maimed Raij trying to cheer me up.

After all of about 12 seconds spent considering my major lack of options, then a few days traveling and dodging people who did not seem to hold my dear self in high esteem, I was back at Balamb Garden.

I waited until dark and snuck in past the meager security; I wasn't the head of the Discipline Committee for nothing. Squall only glanced up from whatever paperwork his midnight oil was burning to say, "You're late."

I expected a little more, but he considered that enough said, and he's the Boss. That only rankled quite a lot. I shouldn't complain: Squall is a great boss, mainly because he doesn't give two shits about what you do as long as the goal is achieved without major lawsuits. For the record, the noodle factory fiasco was Selphie, not me.

So there I was back at Garden, fitting in like I'd never left. Okay, there were a few who were assholes about it. Zell was a mite offended, I think, that Squall made me a SeeD in the same ceremony he promoted Irvine, since I was technically on what Dincht considered to be the wrong side in the war. Irvine didn't mind. He was getting laid so regularly once he donned that uniform he could barely walk. And there's one in every crowd, you know, who can't let go of the past. I contented myself with flipping Xu off behind her back every chance I got, and smiling a lot.

Except for Kinneas, who had the very time consuming hobby of seducing every single and interested person in the Garden and surround areas, we all needed jobs to keep us occupied between mercenary incursions. I went with my forte, being an asshole, and ended up in charge of Discipline again. My favorite punishment was to force the little recreants to run laps. Yes, I ran with them. Yes, I ran rings around them, and yes, I was junctioned for stamina and no, they never figured it out. Respect may be something you have to earn, but there's no point in starting on the ground floor

The public may not have fully understood what the Second Sorceress War was about or what exactly we were fighting for, but they grasped onto Garden pretty tight. Consequentially, the Gardens became really popular: everyone wants his kid to go to the famous school and become a hero.

Balamb Garden was a little overcrowded, and frankly, a lot of the whiners were getting on my second to last nerve. My last nerve is the one that pulls Hyperion and restores order in the classroom.

I got a summons from Squall as I was sneering at my little captives in detention. I left the little nerdy one in charge, knowing I could review the security feed and kick ass later.

From my vantage point on the mezzanine before the broad slope of stairs, I watched Dincht duck and dive around clusters of bodies as he tore through the crowded corridor. No wonder he junctions for agility. Kinneas just sort of glided along the tiles towards the elevator from the opposite direction, bestowing his fuckme smile on anyone who rated over a 4 on the looks scale. Zell snap kicked the call button as they converged at the elevator and then settled into waiting, Dincht style: bounce bounce punch kick bounce.

"I could go out the window and climb up faster," I heard him grouse to Irvine.

"What's the hurry?" The longhaired Galbadian crossed his ankles and lolled back to observe the dating potentials in the herd of students that streamed past.

"Well... I dunno, but it must be important; all my classes are cancelled. I wanna to know what's up." Zell punched the air again. "I hate waiting."

Timing it so I arrived exactly as the elevator dinged and opened, I sauntered into their midst, "You guys can leave, I'm here now."

Zell glared and bristled to his full stature, all 5 feet 5 inches of furious chicken, "Squall called for all of us."

Irvine, who was hatless today, moseyed into the lift, slouched against the wall and casually fingercombed his flowing tresses. His attentions didn't make it appear any tidier, but it did look sexier, which was the point.

"Hmm," I agreed with Zell while I watched Kinneas preen. "Maybe Squall needs furniture moved."

The man in question was at his desk, sipping cold coffee. Rinoa had decorated his office in shades of blue and black and white, with framed diagrams of gunblade modifications on the walls, proving not even she could be bad at everything. Zell had drawn a clever little doodle of Shiva with her hands on her hips, bitching: 'Why is always so damned cold around here?' It occupied the spot on Squall's desk that once held Rinoa's picture.

"So what's up?" Irvine settled himself on the corner of Squall's desk and purred, "Interviewing for a new bedslave?"

"Don't get your hopes up, Cowgirl," I cut in, noticing that it was Zell who blushed, not our Fearless Leader. "Maybe he just wants us to move his couch." I got a bounce bounce punch for that one.

Irvine shrugged. "Worth a shot."

"Do to the influx of new students, we've opened up the unused floors in the dorm wing."

Squall sure knew how to grab my attention right away. "The kids in level 2 have been complaining ever since."

Forcing myself to relax, I said, "Buncha whiney babies. I'd be more surprised if they weren't." Attitude is better camouflage than olivedrab blotches any day.

"First time away from home jitters," Zell said, but slowly because he hates it when I'm right and even more when he has to admit it by agreeing with me.

"Give them a stuffed mog and a picture of Momma," Irvine advised.

Used us and our bullshit, Squall continued, "They report hearing weird noises –"

"Sure that's not coming from Kinneas' room?" I said. Irvine flashed me his toe-curling smile. Good thing I'm immune to it. And that my pants are baggy.

"– accompanied by funny smells." Squall ignored me, so typical.

"Ahh, see, and Dincht's room is right next door." Zell shot me a look I'll treasure. They aren't as good as Squall's glares, but it did have more teeth.

Squall set down his folder and looked up. "Xu thinks the area is haunted." We all stared at him. "Vengeful ghosts."

"What, they ate the Tuna Surprise at the Cafeteria and are out to get even?" Irvine shook his head.

Squall shrugged. "She did some research and found that a worker was killed in one of the closed off dorms during construction. Plasma cutters used to fit I-beams malfunctioned; the man was vaporized."

"At least it was quick," Zell muttered.

"That whole section was fraught with difficulties." Squall smoothed the folders on his desk and then lined them up perfectly with the botter. "Rumors started: ghosts."

"Haunted? You don't really believe that, do you, Squall?" Irvine's tone was incredulous. "Even that gig at Winhill turned out to be nothing but chicabos."

"Some of that area was in use with the earliest Garden classes." I really, really hate how I can't evade that cool grey gaze of Squall's. "You were in that class, Seifer: you and Xu."

For some reason my throat was dry, but I managed to grit out, "That room wasn't used." Squall kept up the torture by staring, waiting for more, so I forced myself into report mode and soldiered on. "Guy got the urge to prove it wasn't haunted. He was about to graduate. Had a perfect record. Didn't believe in ghosts. Hells, he didn't believe in Sorceresses."

Zell snorted. "And he was gunna graduate?"

"Maybe he wasn't SeeD," Irvine guessed. "Wasn't the mercenary corps part pretty hush-hush at first?"

I tried not to let Zell's dissing the man get under my skin. I could still see him, Carlos, his name was, joking around. He was one of those guys who showed all his teeth when he laughed. I glowered at the runt. "He couldn't stand his roomie, and that dorm was open, because no one else would take it, so he blew off people who told him it was haunted and moved in. It was a big deal that year."

Almost gently, Squall asked, "What happened?" Although I knew he had a good idea of what came next, it was bound to have been in the files, probably the very dossiers under his gloved hands.

I kept my tone nonchalant. "He did fine for about 3 weeks. Then he missed a few classes. Then he hung himself."

"He didn't, like, say anything?" Zell wondered, which was chickenwuss talk for: 'didn't anyone notice him going over into the deep end?'

Irvine, more practical, said, "Did he leave a note?"

"Yeah," I said, looking into his too pretty violet eyes, "It said : 'Fuck It'."

Squall's firm, decisive voice clipped the long silence that followed my pithy announcement, "The kids on Level 2 have also been complaining to Dr. Kadowaki about nightmares and insomnia," He turned the folders 90 degrees and smoothed and straightened them again. "Last night, after curfew, Bradley Butterfield, a 6th grader who had just scored in the top 5 in all his studies, attempted suicide." Zell and Irvine made sad little noises. I busied myself throwing off the chill that was trying to seep in. Squall did keep his office damned cold. "His room is directly over the 'haunted' room."

"Bet he did it in the bathtub," I said without meaning to. "Slit his wrists?"

Squall blinked once. "How did you know?"

Absently, I said, "It's one of the only rooms with a bathtub instead of a shower stall. Those wings have like 4 rooms with tubs. They were for the upperclassmen." I checked out Squall's acoustic ceiling. "The 2 SeeD grads who stayed in the room to prove it wasn't haunted both killed themselves in the bathtub. Together. They sealed the wing after that."

"We don't want rumors flying. We don't need panicked parents." Squall said, his tone as clinical and bland as the good doctor's lab coat.

"Or copycats," Irvine put in, grimly.

Hesitantly, Zell asked, "Is Bradley ok? How come I didn't hear about it?" He fidgeted with his armored gloves, his bounce all gone. "He's in my afternoon self defense class."

"He hasn't regained consciousness. We've been vague, an accident in the bathroom." Squall's voice was soft, trying and failing to mask the guilt.

"Well, that's kinda true, I guess," Irvine hedged, with a wry smile.

Squall nodded, as much to himself as any of us. "We need to handle this. If there is a malevolent spirit, it has to go. Otherwise, we need some way to diffuse the situation and reassure the students and cadets."

"Kick it's ass, "Zell muttered. "Hurting little kids like that."

I dragged my attention back from my detailed inspection of the sole of Irvine's boot and tried to focus on the conversation. "You have to evacuate that wing."

"To what end?" Irvine said.

"It's always had a higher than average percentage of fights." As the Former Head of the Disciplinary Committee, I know these things. "And of depression cases, of violent, destructive and self destructive behavior." I said.

"...could have been just cuz your room was there, Seifer." Zell flashed me a fangy grin.

"Xu wanted to do the same," Squall tapped his desk, a staccato of deliberation, "But if it's spreading, we may as well abandon the whole School."

"I can't shoot ghosts." Irvine fiddled with the beaded talisman he wore at his throat.

"No, but we fought Sorceresses, who folded into mist and self replicated. We can do this." Zell took a swift jab at a shadow. "The whole Garden can't sleep over at my folks'."

"Selphie and Nida are taking all the primaries on a weekend campout. Quistis and Xu are taking the secondaries out on mock maneuvers with the cadets. I have to have facts, not rumors, if I am going to appeal for funds to rebuild yet another Garden." Squall sighed; long speeches seem to wear him out. "We have to see what it really is. Someone is going to have to move into that room."

"I'll do it, Baby," Zell volunteered in a flash.

"No fucking way!" I almost looked around with the others to see who was shouting before I realized it was me.

"Not alone," Squall added quickly. "I was hoping all four of us."

Irvine perked up visibly and nodded, suddenly showing a lot more interest in the Slumber Party from Hell than in hunting something he clearly wasn't convinced existed. "We should stay together."

"Lissen, "I said, biting off the words like they tasted bad. "It got two SeeDs. Two. It didn't take 3 weeks for them, they had three days and then they killed each other and licked the blood. I saw it. It was ugly. It looked like... vampire night at the bathhouse."

"Anyone checked Xu's room for coffins?" Irvine drawled.

"SeeD or no, they were green kids compared to us," Squall said.

Zell nodded so enthusiastically he looked like he was vibrating. "We've been through a whole war, front and center. And there's four of us."

Any other time I would have been all warm and fuzzy over Zell including me in their little group. Too bad I was too I was too busy trying not to throw up. "You don't get it: there's nothing to fight, not a Hynebedamned thing."

"Can it be worse than a battlefield?" Irvine asked softly.

"This is like walking through a battlefield after the fight is over, when nothing moves. Or you hope something isn't moving." I turned and focused on the last bit of sunset visible through Squall's window.

Squall took command again. "I need to know if we can handle it or if I have to evacuate the Garden for good and I need to know as soon as possible, before any more children in our care get hurt." He stood with barely a creak of leather and adjusted his jacket. "Gather your gear and meet at the section corridor in 30 minutes. We don't have to stay and be macho, we just have to see what's going on. It's a volunteer mission: you don't show in 30 minutes, you didn't volunteer."

"I'll be there," Zell said. "I'd've gone to the moon if you'd asked."

Squall smiled faintly. "It was... overrated." He nodded to us. "Dismissed."

Irvine and Zell left elbowing each other and telling jokes. I hung back and looked at Squall. "Have you actually been in that room?"

"No, I haven't. I only got the pass codes from Cid a little while ago."

I waited until the muscle jumping in my jaw relaxed. "You go in; you stand there. You go into that bathroom. Then you tell me they were green kids and it's nothing we can't handle."

He trapped me again with those luminous gray eyes. "Will you come with me?"

"Fuck, I'm not letting you go alone!"

Squall nodded. He knew that. We both did. Asshole.

"You worry about the chicken and the cowgirl. I'll be there, and I'll be prepared." I stalked out.