The sun rose without either snuggling boy noticing. The older of the pair hissed at the recognition of the door opening. A taller brunette stood wide-eyed blocking another brunette's view. Nida pushed the protesting cowboy out of the way to get out of the hallway and into a room were they could make out again. Putting a hand over the bewildered boy's eyes, Irvine hissed back at Seifer. "What do you think you're doing? And with him? In my room!" Sitting up and covering Zell's eyes, he scoffed. "It's my room too, and it's my business. If you leave, we'll be out of here in an hour. Now go."

"Fine, but we are going to have a long discussion when you get back," he pulled Nida out of the room and slammed the door.

Zell pulled Seifer's hand down and let the returning insecurity drip from his lips. "That was Irvine. You don't have to shield me from him. I'm sorry for getting you into this. He's so mad at me, I can tell."

Holding him again, Seifer replied, "No, he's mad at me. Don't worry, we'll figure something out. I told you I'd protect you from him right? Just believe in me."

Trying to reclaim a little sleep, the pair was woken up a second time by Seifer's computer beeping. He crawled over Zell and into the computer room to find an urgent message blinking.

You are to report to my office at 0900 hours for a mission.

Cid

Smirking, he yelled back to the waking Zell, "Looks like we're both on missions today."

"Huh?" he asked ridding his eyes of sleep.

"I'm on a mission at nine, too. Let's get up and out of here before we're late."

The mission was simple really. Go to Dollet and destroy the nest of monsters that were overpopulating the area. But Cid insisted on going on and on and on over the little things that had become primary to them. "Keep in contact and don't come back until you're done. Good, got it. Now shut your trap already!" he thought loudly.

When Cid had finished, he dismissed the trio and called in the next group.

As Seifer was evacuating the room with Quistis and Nida, Squall and Irvine trotted in in the middle of a peculiar conversation. "Bubble wrap, Stormy, bubble wrap," Irvine stated with a bit of disappointment lingering in his husky voice.

"Bubble wrap?" his lip twisted in disbelief.

"Bubble wrap."

"Man, you really," his words were cut short by the clearing of Cid's throat.

Cautiously, he swatted Zell in the ass as he passed by trailing behind the other two. Zell merely stuck his tongue out at the taller blonde to which Seifer smiled out of the door. As his face twisted away from his short blonde, he caught Squall eyeing a certain brunette on his team. Brushing it to the back of his mind, he tuned into Quistis who was explaining their schedule. "After that we'll meet up at the entrance at 1300 hours. We'll have to take the trains to get there so expect a long trip. Got it?"

"Yup," Nida replied.

Quistis looked up to Seifer to see the blonde nod at her. "Good. Bring enough rations for the next three days and stock up on spells. I don't need to tell you to junction all your GF's. I don't know how many days worth on monsters we have to kill, but we will need all of our strength. See you guys at 1300."

Quistis headed toward the classrooms and Nida followed Seifer's stride to the cafeteria. Seifer couldn't resist the urge to bring up Irvine's effect on the short brunette once they sat down with their not so gourmet sandwiches. "So, did you ever find Irvine?"

He nodded, doing his best to repress a blush. Nida was expressive and about as good as Zell at being stoic. "Yes, thanks for telling him I stopped by. I'm sorry if our coming back this morning massed things up for you and your date, whoever it was."

Seifer was content on leaving it at that, but the brunette couldn't contain himself. He watched Nida's face lit up over his bread.

"It's not what you're thinking though. Irvine and I just took a walk and I yammered on about nothing. He's a good listener."

"You have to be to deal with all the women he associates with."

"Seriously. He must know all the women in this garden! But he's not a womanizer like he makes himself out to be. You probably know that since you room with him. It's nice just talking to another guy for a change, you know not having to bullshit like you do with most of the people you know."

Seifer nodded in reply.

"Yeah, well I'll see you later," he parted to his own dorm.

Finishing his breakfast, Seifer bid him adieu and walked until he reached the last dorm on the left. Dreading the "long discussion" Irvine had intended, he hesitantly pushed the door open to see Irvine sitting on his bed looking as pensive as the cowboy could. "Let's get this over with Irvine." He sat across from him on his own unmade linens.

"What was Zell doing naked in your bed this morning? You two aren't even friends. Did you get him drunk? Are you taking advantage of him?" he accused with a soft voice, the same soft voice he'd always used with Selphie.

"Irvine, you know as well as I do that I wouldn't do that to someone I care about. I know you're good friends with Zell, but so am I. I care about him as much as you do. I'd never want to see him hurt by anyone let alone me. I've spent too much of my life aggravating him."

Irvine laughed at the absurd things that he heard came from Seifer's mouth. "You could never care about him as much as I do. Ever. And since when are you friends with him?"

"We rekindled our friendship yesterday," he said matter-of-factly.

"Ha! I've been friends with him before anyone else, and you don't deserve him."

"Why because you don't?" Seifer slipped. Seeing the stern look on Irvine's face go almost explosive he quickly changed subjects. "And I was friends with him way before you. Remember the orphanage? When were you first buddies with him? Maybe when you were nine. I was there for him, more inseparable than you two ever used to be, since we'd set eyes on each other. That's why Zell forgave me so quickly after the war. That's why he was with me in bed, because we care for each other. Sure I may have been a major asshole to him, but he knew that I would never hurt him or Selphie or Rinoa or Quistis or the rest of you."

"Then what about Squall huh? Why did you two mutilate each other?"

Seifer turned his eyes to the floor and uttered, "Ask Nida."

"Nida?" he digested the name of his friend in shock. "What does. . ."

"Just ask him, you fuck. I'm sick of explaining myself to you. And don't you dare even look at Zell the wrong way because I will punish you if you upset him again," he warned with a particular venom in his blue eyes.

Irvine proudly stared back at him without a word, but intent to do harm. He stalked out of the door with a white bag over his shoulder.

Seifer fell onto the bed that still carried the aroma of his lover with eyes like the sea between two islands. That heart-shaped face smiled through childhood and through adversity seemingly only for him. Recalling their childhood attachment to each other, he replayed his favorite memory before drifting off into a catnap.

"Seifaa!" Zell called out from under the shade of a willow tree near the shore.

Little Seifer trotted to the crouching blonde and said with a pointed digit, "You're supposed to say Polo, not Seifer."

"Yeah, but Seifaa sounds better."

Seifer sighed and sat next to the blonde. "You know my name doesn't sound like that."

Zell crawled closer to him and rested his head on Seifer's shoulder. "Seifaa?"

"Hn?"

"Can I tell you a secret?"

Seifer turned his head a bit to hear his counterpart better.

"I think Matron hates me."

"Why? Matron loves all of us."

"She just looks at me funny sometimes, and yesterday she gave Seffie more eggs than me! And I'm a boy! I got more growin' to do!" he huffed.

"She doesn't hate you, Zell. And next time she looks at you funny, I'll protect you. You won't ever be sad again as long as I'm around," he put an arm around him.

"You'll always be with me right? What if we get 'dopted?" he said with a bit of sadness. He had heard Matron talking on the phone with a lady who was said his name a lot. He was terribly worried he'd lose everyone. The fact that Seifer would be far away hurt him more than anything.

"Well if we do, I'll tell Matron that they have to take the both of us," his small-handed grip became a little tighter.

"You will?" he was beginning to doze off.

"Hn," he replied and watched his Zell doze off in his arms. That little face burned into his memory as he knew that someday they would separate. He might never see his best friend again. Try as he might to never let that happen, he knew Matron was stronger than him. As a vow to never stop thinking or caring for Zell, he kissed the top of his head, and soon after drifted off to sleep.

With the beeping of his computer, he awoke and packed up his bag. He then headed for the entrance, bumping into Nida on the way. "Yo."

"Hey, are you excited?"

"What for? It's just another mission."

"Yeah, but we get to go to Dollet! I'm usually sent off into the middle of some forest or something to watch endangered monster give birth. I mean, for once we're going to a city!"

"Hn."

Quistis tapped her foot at the lagging boys and pushed them into the car headed for the station in Balamb. "Took you two long enough, you were only five minutes early!"

"Oh chill, Quistis. We'll be in Dollet before you know it."

On the other side of the tracks, Zell stared blankly out of the window while Irvine and Squall argued about something unimportant in the background. They'd been on the train for four hours and in none one of those fours hours did Zell get up to shadowbox or to punch Squall again for being an asshole to him a few days before. On top of which, Irvine had been giving him looks he could feel without even so much as turning his head. He knew Irvine was mad at him, but it too would pass, he hoped.

"Seifer," he mulled over the name in his head. The pictures that appeared in his mind when the blonde was mentioned, the smell of him in the morning, the anxiety of meeting him for the first time after knowing him for so long; all these things washed over his brain slowly. His heartstrings were pulled by the bits of different emotions left behind the waves. It was strange to him how a lot of these were confusion, but overwhelming those were the pieces of faith he had in Seifer. Only these bits would lead him to finding the real Seifer he had known all along. "I'll try and hurry home so I can try to sort out this mess. It's only been a few days since I've found out who you were. Now I have to find out who you are. I have to put Irvine behind me. Maybe seeing him now is making it worse. Please, Irvine, don't flip out at me again," he thought. His brow tensed at the thought of the incident.

"You okay, Zell?" asked a daisy laced voice.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and swatted the hand away. "I'm fine."

They sat on the train for almost a whole day. The unnecessary stops made Nida a bit nauseous. Quistis sat in the cabin and went over another report she had to file the second they made it back to the garden. Her head turned slightly to see Seifer staring out the cabin window at something she didn't quite see. It puzzled her to see how he'd been acting lately. She wouldn't have noticed anything, but outside of the garden, letting him be away from everyone else, he was quiet and sighed a few times in the last hour. She also knew better than to ask him about it. If he really needed to tell someone, he'd tell Fujin or Raijin, she was sure of that. Or would he?

"Nothing will be the same between Zell and I ever again, but the care and need for each other. Even when I was messing with him or just picking on him, I needed him there. We were "rivals" in a way. I was the bully. Why does that carry so much stigma? I deserve it, I suppose. I'm the one that didn't show him I cared in the right way. Only time will tell if he's actually forgiven me or not. Until then, I might as well just protect him," he followed his train of thoughts to the brunette across the cabin who was fighting the urge to ralph on his new black pants.

His arms were wound around his stomach and he leaned over his knees just in case. Maybe had had a little too much to drink with Irvine the previous night . . .

"You okay, Nida?" he asked a bit too casually. He didn't want to come off as even more of an ass. "You don't look so good."

The only answer that could come out of Nida's mouth was a truthful one, "Yeah. I guess I should take better care of myself." He tossed Quistis a weak smile. She merely nodded.

"You'll be fighting on this mission just to teach yourself a lesson. Nida, you're almost too responsible," Quistis giggled at herself for sounding to hypocritical. "And you, Seifer. Do your best on this mission so all of us can get back as soon as possible."

Nodding, his eyes found the window again.

By the time they had arrived at Dollet, the sun had set over the cliffs. Irvine convinced Squall to let them spend the night in the city instead of on the grass or in one of those stinky tents. Zell didn't put up much a fight about the decision. Although he was meant for the outdoors, he did love room service.

When they found their rooms, Zell was pleased to find himself in a single room while the other two shared a room with two beds. Exhausted from the fighting on the way to the city, he plopped face first on the bed and spent a few minutes feeling himself breathe into the sheets. Only in Dollet did the rooms come with satin covered feather comforters.

On the other side of town, a taller blonde spent the time walking around the busy city watching happy people travel past him between the thousands of lights that illuminated the streets and shops. A gloved hand graced his cheek in remembrance of when he saw Zell through his window before the assassination attempt a couple years before. It was late as it was then, and he stared out of his hotel window wasting time until the sorceress called on him again. It had been a dull night and that short glimpse of the perky blonde in the crowd lit up his night like no light in Dollet ever could.

Again he walked through the streets as he had many times before, but he knew his light was somewhere else, somewhere shining so brightly, but no one would be there to really see it. Even with thousands of lights, everything seemed dim.

After a good hour of admiring the familiar sights and sounds of Dollet, he happened across a club he hadn't ever seen before. The lights were dim inside and the door was open for anyone to enter. From wall to wall, there was black paint with old neon signs placed randomly along them. In the back of the club, past the dance floor with sparse patrons, there rested a long bar with only two souls enjoying the spirits. Taking a seat far between them, he motioned for a hard drink, which probably would have been against Quistis's advice. Nida and the instructor had crawled into bed early, knowing full well that the day would begin too early for everyone's tastes. Still, Seifer doubted they would have joined him anyhow.

Swishing his drink around in the short glass, he watched the people on the floor dance closely and slowly to the music. One man was petting the side of the another's face gently while holding a sincere gaze into his eyes. After further inspection, Seifer realized what kind of bar he had walked into. Sighing, he drank the rest of his drink and ordered another. The melancholy mood had finally set in and all he wished for was to fall asleep in a warm bed thinking of his short blonde who was across the world for all he knew. His shining light must have been in the east where the sun rose from, and if he was lucky, it would set in the west, by his side.

From the combination of content lovers and alcohol, Seifer collected his heavy coat and called it a night. The dose of spirits made him drowsy, limp, making his wishes of a warm bed even more appealing. But, on his way back, he came across the gate where the Sorceress was nearly assassinated. He couldn't help but gaze at the golden tresses and shimmering pillars remembering the coldness in her eyes as she wiped his mind clean of the warmth the others had shown him during his stay at the garden. As he turned his head away, he remembered the window in the tower where he saw Zell's shining eyes. In either a drunken haze or nostalgia, he opened the door under the gate, climbed up the ladder, and onto the ledge where the window shown the ground far below. Leaning his elbows on that ledge, he reconstructed what he thought Zell might have seen from this spot. How he was controlled and used, how he talked down to them, how much he wanted them dead . . . It all still hurt. "How could I have thought that way? We were never all friends, but we sure as weren't mortal enemies, not even Squall and I. Zell, Quistis, Nida, they must have all hated me. They say they've forgiven me, but Zell, he was the only one who meant it. I can see it in his eyes when he laughs and in his dimples when he smiles. I miss you."

"I miss you, too," Seifer heard from somewhere far away. He looked around, through the window, but nothing. Nowhere did he find the source of the voice. Then, he looked down through the window to see a familiar Chocobo walking down the road to wait for a bus. Hardly believing it, he practically jumped down the ladder and sprinted down the street to find only strangers, unfamiliar faces. He cursed himself for imagining him.

Finally giving up on being awake, he walked back to his hotel past the main strip of commerce. Brutally disappointed by the day, he opened his door, stripped down and sunk face first into the cold, hard bed.