Recovering The Satellites.

They drew their weapons, read the rules, sent the rebels back to school

They'll book you for the next crime

Catch you in the nick of time

Are you going to swim the mainstream?

Mainstream-Thea Gilmore

Chapter Two: Mainstream.

Several hours after Zell had disappeared, Seifer's morning of boredom was finally interrupted by the delivery of food. He had the mattress balanced against the wall when the door opened, searching idly for any contraband alcohol, cigarettes or pornography left by the previous occupant of the room.

There was no particular reason for his actions, only the vague thought in his mind that discovery of any of the three would make time pass faster. And in Seifer's experience, just about the only place to hide anything in a Garden dorm room was inside the mattress or resting between it and the springs. As the handle turned he'd just come to the conclusion that maybe the Garden authorities also knew this useful fact. There was fuck all there.

As the handle turned and the door began to open, he slammed the mattress down on the bed and sat on it, ignoring the disarranged sheets. A quick glance was sufficient to inform him that the food-bearer wasn't Zell, and he said nothing as the cadet, a thin youth in his early twenties, handed him a plastic plate and some blunt metal cutlery before walking out again.

Seifer and poked through his meal with an expression of first disbelief and then of mild curiosity as he shook the spoon free of an entangling piece of rubbery flesh. "What the fuck is this?"

His only answer was the click of the door swinging shut.

Seifer said "Bastards." vaguely and then went back to exploring his food.

Owing to the relative lack of fertile, non-creature-infested land, it wasn't a surprise that most Balamb consumables were manufactured out of bits of monsters. It was something you got used to. Most cooks got pretty good at hiding the taste. Today it looked like they hadn't even tried.

What happened? The food wasn't great two years ago, but it sure as hell wasn't this bad.

Seifer looked down at his bowl again. He twirled a tentacle round his fork thoughtfully, noting that there seemed to be more tentacle than was rightfully possible.

That's probably why Dincht likes the hotdogs so much-'cause the whole point of sausages is that you can't tell what they're made out of…

He supposed that there was a slim chance Squall might try to have him poisoned, but doubted it. Poison wasn't Leonhart's style. He looked down again at his plate, knife poised to stab anything that moved, and tried to decide what the hell it was supposed to be.

Calamari?

Once he'd put a possible name to the dish, it didn't look quite as revolting as before. It was against Seifer's personal code of ethics to refuse either a meal or a fight. You just never knew.

Oh, well. Try anything once.

He chewed. To his surprise it wasn't all that bad -as long as you took care not to look at what you were putting into your mouth. And ignored the unpleasant rubbery texture.

He was just swallowing the last remnants of his meal as the door swung open again.

This time, it was Zell.

Seifer gave him a wolfish grin. "Come right in, Dincht. This food's fuckin' awful. Could do with some chicken to finish it off."

The bitching defiance was only half habit. Seifer was feeling vulnerable, and for good reason. One of the principles of war they'd been made to learn sometime in their first term at Garden was that the best defence was a good offence and Seifer had taken it to heart. He always fought back, and to make doubly sure fought before he was even attacked.

It was an approach that had always gained him more enemies than friends

Zell scowled. His assignment was obviously getting to him. Even his hair looked more defensive than normal. "Get up. You've got an appointment."

"With what? Squall? Quistis? Hell, death?"

But he went, anyway, just because he was curious and there wasn't anything else to do.

It proved to be Squall, of course. Seifer worked this out about two seconds into the elevator that led to the third floor and the headmaster's office. He spent the rest of the time peeling gilt off the handrails behind his back as he tried to think of something to say to the man who he'd almost killed.

He challenged me to a fair fight, could have executed me, and didn't. No matter how much that pisses me off, that means I owe him.

Seifer worked the problem over in his mind, scowling as he did so. It wasn't a thought he particularly enjoyed. In the SeeD's position, he'd have done exactly the same thing-only he wouldn't have pulled any punches at the last. And worse, he'd probably have laughed while he did it. Or at least said something ironic.

Hell, at least I admit I'm a bastard.

The lift doors hissed open. Seifer, absorbed in thought, didn't remember to turn round, and got a venomous glare for his oversight. Feeling like a complete idiot, he spun and followed his escort down the red carpet to the pair of ornate double doors that barred the headmaster's office from the rest of the world. A small and plain desk sat to the left of the doors. It was empty.

Hn. Wonder who's got the job of Squall's secretary now? Don't envy them, whoever they are.

The circle of SeeDs surrounding Seifer spread out in a half-circle around him, covering every exit route except the office door. It was pretty clear where he was supposed to go, so he stuffed his hands into his pockets and stepped into the headmaster's office.

The room was pleasant, light and airy courtesy of its position high in Garden's roof. Canopies and wall hangings decorated three of its four walls, designed to protect the imposing raised desk at the back of the room from the sun. The shade created an avenue of sorts, an elaborate corridor centring on the Commander's desk. The effect was emphasized by some sort of stencil glued to the empty panel of glass behind the counter. Its marks resembled the frame of a picture. Part of the curling decoration appeared to have been scratched off.

The effect was completely wasted on Seifer, who didn't notice the decor at all. His attention was focused on the man seated behind the table, the man dressed in scuffed black leather over an outsize white dress shirt. The man who looked oddly ill at ease in the opulent surroundings, as if he'd much rather be doing something else.

Squall.

Headmaster, rival, enemy, foster brother….it should be illegal for one opponent to mean so much….

Seifer's escort seemed to have left him at the door. He walked down the red carpet, sauntering just a bit, if only to keep up appearances. It masked the stiffness of his first proper duel in two years. And hopefully, it would piss Squall off no end.

He reached the red carpet in front of the desk with no mishaps. Leonhart didn't look up.

Seifer glanced around.

It became quickly apparent that they were alone. There was an empty metal chair resting on the dais in front of Squall's desk. Squall still didn't look up or invite him to sit, so Seifer stepped up to the platform, hooked one boot behind a spindly chair leg to pull towards him and sat down anyway.

The door closed behind him with a soft creak.

Seifer resisted the urge to look around, to see whether any of the SeeDs had remained to watch over him. He stretched both long legs out in front of him and slumped down in his seat, raising his chin just a little to meet Squall's eyes.

Squall didn't look up, giving Seifer a good view of dusty brown hair. He appeared to be reading some kind of paper. After staring at Squall for a good thirty seconds without the other man appearing to move, the ex-knight got bored and twisted round in his seat to examine the office. It hadn't changed.

Somehow, in his two-year tenure, Squall had managed to avoid stamping his personality upon any of the furnishings. The pictures were the same old graduation photographs and letters from impressed clients that had been displayed back when Cid had been the headmaster. The polished desk held a framed photograph, angled away from Seifer so he couldn't see the picture, a small, dog-eared book, some stationery and a Kings Of Leon CD.

Bo-ring.

He listened to the footsteps of the SeeD escort that had delivered him slowly fading away and tried to think about what to say. It was a new sensation. Seifer usually said whatever came first in his brain the second that he opened his mouth, but this was a special situation. Maybe he could cut some kind of deal.

Hell, fuck you, you know, I've got better things to do than sit here and take your shit anyway, just drop me off at the next city, please, and we'll forget this ever happened.

He shook his head, slightly. Squall still didn't look up.

That's never going to work.

He tried again.

Squall, give me a job, some kind of power, people to boss around, and, oh yeah, let me screw one of your best friends, or I walk…and then- what? Shit. Deep down I guess I really am a knight. All I ever wanted to do was fight, maybe quest a little here and there. But if I do it by myself, things go to shit. I need Garden.

I need the money.

I need Quistis, but I'd rather have nothing at all than beg.

Squall still ignored him.

Seifer realised that commanding the Garden hadn't made his old rival any more talkative. He fidgeted on the metal chair, crossing one leg over the other to find a comfortable position. Parts of the frame were pressing into parts of him which ached.

He was uncomfortable, and in more ways than one.

At the back of his mind was the fact that he owed Squall- for letting him live, for saving Edea, hell, probably for saving the world. It made him angry. Like if he ignored the debt, maybe it would go away, and he wouldn't have to owe his worst enemy any more. He sighed.

"Hell, Leonhart, why'd you ask me here if all you're going to do is fucking ignore me?"

Nothing.

Seifer tried again, switching to a light conversational tone, for maximum annoyance. "You know, it must really suck to be promoted for the one thing you're good at, right? And then you spend your life stuck behind a desk, can't fight, can't go anywhere without somebody noticing."

Squall didn't react.

Seifer continued, fishing for some kind of reaction. "Watching people doing the job you love. It must be a pain in the ass. Does the power get to you? Does….." He trailed off, swallowing the sentence already in his throat.

Does Rinoa like it?

Remembering that he didn't want to mention Rinoa to Squall. Didn't even want to think about Rinoa.

Button-pushing, again. It was something he'd always been good at. And he'd always enjoyed teasing Leonhart, back in the mists of time.

"Shut up." Squall said, quietly.

It wasn't the authority in his voice that bothered Seifer. It was the volume, like Leonhart didn't need to shout. This annoyed Seifer, mostly because he'd always considered shouting commands one of the perks of unlimited power. He fell silent for a second and then decided he wasn't going to take any shit from Squall.

"I'm surprised you bothered to drag me up here. Doesn't it take five minutes to call Galbadia up and have them send a car?"

"I'm not going to call Galbadia." Squall said, quietly.

His comment didn't surprise Seifer one bit. Squall would never have challenged him to a duel if he'd meant to turn him over to Martine. He'd be kicking his heels in a nice cell right now instead of sitting up here in a relatively comfy chair and waiting for Squall to notice him. He coughed and said "I just want to get this straight. Not now? Or not at all? I'm not going to stay here if you're going to hang a death sentence over my head twenty-four-seven."

Squall looked thoughtful. "There is one other option. Aside from staying."

Seifer raised one eyebrow, intrigued. "What?"

"See that door over there? Walk through it and you'll never hear from Garden again."

What door?

Seifer leant back in his chair, wincing as he did so, and followed Squall's gaze to a small hatch set into the side of the headmaster's office. It was half-covered by one of the ubiquitous cream draperies, maybe one of the reasons why he hadn't noticed it before.

He looked at Squall, at the door and then back at Squall again. "What's the catch?"

"There isn't one."

Seifer filed this comment under 'officially too good to be true' and leant forwards in his chair. The front two legs hit the carpet with a thud. "Mind if I have a look?"

Squall gave him a flat stare. A faint breeze from an air conditioning unit somewhere in the office stirred the fur on his jacket collar and did nothing to hide the coldness in his eyes. "Whatever, Almasy."

Seifer shrugged, stood with as much dignity as he could muster (not a lot, given borrowed clothes and a seriously scarred sense of self-esteem) and walked over to the door. It was set into a heavy metal frame and made of thick wooden panelling, just like all the other bits of Cid's -no, Squall's- office that weren't glass. Most importantly, as Seifer tried the handle, he realised that it wasn't locked.

You have to be kidding.

He frowned, and turned back to Squall. "So, let me get this straight. I just walk out there, and I can go? No soldiers after me again, nothing?"

Squall gave him a have-you-not-been-listening glare. At least, Seifer thought that was what it was. It looked suspiciously like all of Squall's other poker faces.

"Yes."

Seifer looked at the door again, checking for booby traps, triplines, explosives, suspicious wires. There weren't any.

Seifer's well developed sense of paranoia corrected him, pointing out that if there were any traps, they were just extremely well-hidden. He reached out and put his hand on the doorknob anyway. It was extremely cold, cold as ice, in fact, and that should have given him a clue. It didn't.

He frowned and looked down, tanned skin ridged with scars pale against the shining gold. The door handle gleamed tantalisingly, greasy with polish. He could see roads reflected in its shining surface. Roads to freedom.

Roads to anywhere but here..

He didn't have to put up with all of Garden's shit any more. He didn't have to wish he'd never come back, didn't have to sort out the ..thing, with Quistis. He could just….leave.

It won't hurt, just to have a look….

He risked a look back. Squall was watching him with interest, chin resting on two leather-gloved hands.

Seifer told himself that he was just checking, in the spirit of adventure. He twisted his wrist, the metal cold on his ungloved palm, and opened the door.

Onto nothing.

There was no corridor, no stairs, no road to freedom, nothing except white emptiness. Seifer looked up to more of the same, looked down, and had to swallow to stop himself from throwing up. Slightly below his line of vision a glowing white ring floated through the air, tethered to the ground by long white ropes. Balamb's energy shield system. Below him spread the expanse of Garden, shrunk down to toytown size.

Fuck. Of course. We're in the headmaster's office. There is no way out, except the lift. The lift, and this very long drop.

The sneaky bastard.

The gap in front of him felt high and very cold. Seifer carefully took a step back, reaching for the door handle as he did so. Its own weight had swung the door out in its frame. It had somehow slipped from his grasp and was dangling a foot away over the void.

Not close enough.

Seifer swallowed. He didn't mind heights, but anyone would have a problem with this long a drop, and he'd fallen way too many times. In fact, now that he thought about it, the distance that he'd fallen seemed so much higher that the amount he'd actually climbed. But then, this wasn't the time.

It was true that he didn't have to close the door, but somewhere along the way it had become a point of honour. Fuck Squall. Fuck him for offering hope, for making him believe he was free to go. Just another illusion.

He inched out, the steel toecaps on his boots feeling very heavy, and stretched for the cold brass handle, remembering too late that he was using his bad wrist, the one Kadowaki had told him not to use.

Did Squall think this was all some kind of game? For fuck's sake.

His fingers touched the handle, wrapped round it and jerked inwards. For a second he had a horrible vision of it swinging out further and wrenching him out of the office, leaving him dangling like a hooked fish.

Squall would probably think it was funny.

He wrenched again. The door's hinges creaked, fighting the pull of gravity. It swung closed, excruciatingly slowly. A third pull slammed it shut. Seifer fumbled the catch, and he was safe.

He leaned against the wall for a second and breathed out, half-hidden from Squall's view by the draperies. And then his eyes opened and the anger inside him ignited and he stormed out to face Squall's desk, trying to forget the feeling of vertigo that almost had him grasping for every available stable surface.

This time he didn't bother with the chair. Boots ringing less impressively than he would have liked on the carpet, he marched right up to Squall's desk and slammed the palms of his hands flat down onto the table. The impact of wood hitting skin hurt, but not as much as the quick flare of pain in his wounded right hand. Seifer didn't care. He was too angry.

"That's. Not. A. Choice."

Squall looked up and met his eyes for the first time, shadowed grey irises under blade-straight brows. "It's a choice. Just not one you'd like to make."

"Yeah, very funny, Leonhart. If I was going to jump I would have done it two years ago."

Squall gestured at the chair. Seifer ignored him. His stomach lurched, reminding him of that long, cold, fall.

Bastard. Serve him right if I did throw up all over his precious desk.

"There's always a choice."

Seifer frowned, brows meeting. He glowered at Squall. "So that's it. I stay here, or I die?"

"Not necessarily, Almasy."

"So that was all just to make some kind of point?"

Squall shrugged.

"Damn you, Leonhart. I thought this motherfucking soldier farm had changed and it-"

Squall cut him off in mid-tirade. "Quistis said you helped her. That you said you'd come back with her."

Seifer stepped back, slightly, shoulders settling as his muscles relaxed. "Yeah. I did. You talked to her?"

"Yes. Talk to me. I need to hear your story before anything can happen"

Seifer considered "Like what?"

"Anything."

The ex-knight took his hands of Squall's desk, feeling rather stupid. Returning to the chair seemed a bit too much like following orders for his taste, so he leant against Squall's desk and folded his arms.

What I really, really, want to happen, right now….is a cigarette….

"So. Time compression." Squall said, curtly.

Seifer frowned. "Yeah. Quistis mentioned a few things. Looks like I went in a bit earlier than you guys, though. Still came out the same time as you lot."

He didn't say that Quistis had told him in the early hours of the morning one day, when it had been too hot and he hadn't been able to sleep. Again. "So I worked for a while."

"What did you do?"

Squall's comment, sharp as a blade edge in a duel, made Seifer think. It was s tricky one, after all. He hadn't exactly been a crook. And he'd never been a criminal, because he'd never been caught.

"Uh-I was in the removal business."

In a way it was almost true. He'd been paid quite well for removing obstacles from the path of wealthy people. Obstacles came in two flavours, monstrous, or human. You didn't get many monsters in a city.

Thankfully Squall seemed to be satisfied. "Where?"

Somewhere in Southern Trabia. Middle of nowhere. And no, before you ask me, I don't know why there. Just was. Went to ground in the nearest town. "

Squall's silence grew deeper.

Seifer scratched at his scar. "Yeah, so you know what I ended up doing there. But go figure. You're fucking mercenaries. This motherfucking school doesn't give you many life skills at the end of the day, but it damn sure tells you how to kill things. So that's what I did. And yeah, I was good at it. And yeah, it paid well. Not as well as you'd think, but hell, I wasn't in a position to complain. And I'd still be there now if Martine hadn't started posting my face on every vertical surface. But he did. So I ran. Went to Trabia. And then he went after me. You know the rest."

"Lucky." Squall said, noncommittally. Seifer couldn't work out whether or not he was being sarcastic or not. What could he do about it? Break the table? Smash a window? Jump across the desk and rearrange Leonhart's face for him? Get real.

He kicked at the table and thought about Quistis.

"What next? We know about the Trabian mission. Little more fuzzy on recent events."

"I'm getting to it." Seifer muttered. He chewed his nails and then stopped; because the taste of stale nicotine was making him feel sick. "Before you ask, Quistis didn't know I was alive. So don't blame her."

Hyne- I'm getting defensive. Shutupshutupshutup….

Squall said nothing. Seifer hoped that meant he hadn't noticed.

"So like I said, I came back. Worked down the coast to that little seaside town."

"Hana."

"Yeah, right. Monster–slaying, minimum wage jobs. Nobody noticed. Maybe they didn't want to. Maybe they were all fucking blind. It was like there was this great big blind spot, like they'd decided to forget about the war, how they got their asses saved by a bunch of kids who weren't even old enough to shave." He gave Squall's smooth chin a critical glance, searching for any signs of growing stubble. "Guess I was just one of the things they'd decided to forget. Lucky me."

"Whatever, Almasy. " Squall muttered.

"I'm getting there. As for the rest, there's nothing to tell. I heard there was a SeeD in trouble. Must have just been nosy. So I went."

"That easy?"

"Yeah."

"You didn't wonder if there was anything strange going on?"

"Nope. Don't know if you noticed, Leonhart, but logic never was my strong point. Call it atoning for my sins if you're feeling biblical, but don't spread the word around. I'd never live it down. Got a reputation to keep."

Seifer crossed everything he could cross and several things he hadn't known he could. In some kind of twisted way, he was enjoying this. After all, he'd finally found a way to steal centre stage again, instead of settling for some lame-ass sidekick role. He though he'd hit just the right note of brusqueness, bravado and bad language but he wasn't quite convinced that he'd managed to pull it off.

Squall's expression never changed. He didn't look as if he was inclined to be talkative.

Seifer scowled. "So who's after me?"

"Technically, everyone. But people forgot a lot of things after the wars, and one thing they decided to forget was the sorceress. And her knight. Edea's…" there was a long pause "safe."

"Quistis said she wasn't right."

"She isn't. But you'd know that."

It wasn't a question.

Seifer looked down at the desk, searching for something to fix on, just to avoid Squall's eyes. Standing, the picture on Squall's desk was just about visible, if upside down. A pretty, slender girl, smiling teasingly towards the camera with her dark hair flying in the wind. Rinoa Heartilly.

Seifer wondered that was still her name, or whether Squall had managed to string enough words together to propose. From what he remembered, they'd been pretty into each other during the wars, and that was another unpleasant mental image.

Rinoa. Edea. Sorceresses. Knights. Fuck'em.

He gave Squall a flat glare. "Don't know what you mean. It's all a blur."

He wished it was. No more midnight awakenings, sheets tangled and Quistis spitting hair. No more moments when the world seemed to slip sideways in the dark, taking him with it, dragging him down through the mud of all that he'd been and failed to be.

He wondered if it was the same for Squall. He tended to forget that the man sitting in front of him was possibly the only other surviving sorceress' knight in existence, but then again, their situations were probably a little different. Seifer assumed Squall probably knew what he was getting himself into -unlike himself, who'd only thought he did.

Looking at Squall now, Seifer didn't doubt that Squall knew exactly where Rinoa was, what she was doing and how fast he could get to her if he needed to. His own connection was a little vaguer. He could sense that Edea was alive, and unhappy.

He'd never tried to reach for more. After all he didn't want to be reminded of the wars. And if one of the things he had to forget was their gentle matron, shit happened.

"Convenient."

Seifer ran one hand through his hair, swallowing to remove the taste of blood from his throat. He surreptitiously wiped a hand across his mouth. It came away clean.

How the hell can you live with this, knowing what Rinoa could become?

He changed the subject. "Galbadia. They'll want a trial."

"They can't."

Seifer snorted in disbelief. He shifted his weight on the edge of the desk. The wooden ornaments weren't getting any more comfortable. "You're not telling me you're going to protect me."

"I don't have to. I had Xu look some things up. Charges of war crimes only apply if they're against civilian targets. And as for the rest, if Balamb drops charges-"He looked away from Seifer, perhaps remembering D-district "-you're clear."

"And you'll drop charges?"

"We might"

Seifer narrowed his eyes. "What's in it for you?"

Squall just shrugged. Seifer was getting very bored of his non-conversation.

"So what happens now?"

"That depends on you, Almasy."

"Depends on what."

"I have a few conditions."

Surprise, surprise. Seifer hoped that they didn't include celibacy. He sighed, realising that this was about the best offer he was ever going to get. "Hit me."

Squall sighed "One, don't cause any more trouble."

"And if I do?"

"You'll wish you hadn't. You're subject to court-martial and disciplinary rulings the same as any other SeeD from the minute you leave this room."

Seifer hadn't really expected anything else. "Go on."

"Two, you're not allowed to talk to any cadet under the rank of SeeD. Civilian staff are okay, but not the trainees. Three, you can't leave Balamb Garden-"

"WHAT?"

"Until your case is reviewed, or when obeying an express order issued by a SeeD of superior rank. Subject to subsequent behaviour."

Seifer recoiled off the desk, eyes already searching for an exit route. "Fuck you if you think I'm going to stay here."

"Almasy, betraying the Gardens carries a fixed penalty. Death by firing squad."

Seifer subsided.

Squall carried on. "Four, no junctioning. Magic, or GFs. And you can't carry a weapon. And that's all."

"That's all?"

"Think of it as conditions of bail."

Seifer scowled. "So I'm confined to quarters. In a military school, and I can't talk to kids or carry a weapon?"

"What did you expect? It's better than prison."

"Only just."

Squall sighed. "Don't make me regret this. We need fighters. We still haven't wiped out all the creatures from that Lunar Cry two years ago."

He didn't say the one you caused. Didn't have to.

"Right. I'll be fuck all use to you if I can't even use Hyperion."

"Give it time. I need to know I can trust you. I'm taking more of a risk than you know."

Seifer snorted. "Believe me, I know exactly how much of a risk you're taking. So what if I go by your rules?"

Part of him accepted the challenge while another wondered exactly what Leonhart was playing at. It wouldn't be so bad if Squall didn't know what happened last time I did exactly the fuck I wanted.

It stung. Squall was being fair again, and Seifer hated him for it. "You don't have to do this."

Squall shrugged. "One more thing?"

"What? You want my soul?"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk to Rinoa."

Now there was a surprise. "Would you?"

The defiance came naturally. Two seconds ago, Seifer would rather have chewed nails than get within fifty meters of Rinoa. Sorceresses? You could keep them.

"So I can't talk to kids, or Rinoa, can't fight, can't leave the Garden. Anything else?"

"I said you couldn't leave Balamb.."

Seifer waited, hoping that he meant the town, not the Garden.

"There's one other option. You could take a trip to Centra."

Seifer frowned, trying to work out whether this was an elaborate euphemism for 'sleeping with the fishes.' "And what?"

"See Edea."

The words hit like bombshells. "Why? Aren't you afraid I'll turn again? Be her knight?"

"I think she'd like to see you. That's all." Leonhart said mildly.

Seifer pulled the chair towards him and sat down on it, heavily. "Tough shit. I'm not going."

Squall raised one eyebrow. "Why?"

"You guys say she's got problems. She sure as hell doesn't need another. Doesn't need me making everything worse for her again. Reminding people." He searched his pockets. "Got a cigarette?"

"No."

The ex-knight changed the subject. "So. What about the exam?"

Squall shook his head. "No"

"What, you don't think I'll pass the test or something?"

"You know the rules, Seifer. If you don't pass the year you're eighteen, you don't pass, period. There's a lot of jobs in Garden. We'll find you something. Zell'll sort it."

Ah, great.

Seifer looked at the table like he was thinking about trying to smoke it. "Shit. Anything else?"

"Just don't eat a lot. There's a food shortage at the moment."

Ah. So that explained the deadly food. He knew that Garden had a small garden, a rare luxury to provide fresh food for the soldiers, in between the monster meat. And fish. Living this close to the ocean, there was always fish. Fish, and chocobos.

"What's up? Zell eat all the hotdogs?"

Squall gave him a long, cold look. "There's been a cold winter. And a hot summer. It happens."

Seifer, a man who knew about as much about agriculture as the average fish knew about bicycle repair, nodded vaguely.

"One more thing.."

"What?" Seifer refused to add' Sir' to the sentence as a matter of principle.

"Zell told me you've been pestering Quistis. Don't. It wouldn't be a good idea"

"Is that a threat?"

"No. More like advice. Quistis can look after herself."

Seifer smiled "Fine. What now?"

"I've assigned you a room." He tossed a keycard across the table. "There'll be everything you need. Don't try to leave; people are watching you, even if it doesn't seem like it. Meet Xu outside, she'll give you your timetable."

It seemed that thanks were in order. Seifer didn't bother to give them. He nodded once, curtly, and rose from the chair, scooping up the keycard from the table as he did so. The light caught a colour coded strip on the card, glinting green.

Seifer scowled. Cadets had identity cards striped red for Restricted Access. SeeDs got cards with blue strips, allowing them access to hidden areas of the library, the storerooms and certain other zones deemed too hazardous for mere cadets. He wasn't sure what code green meant, but he was willing to bet it meant Incredibly Restricted. He'd be lucky if he could get into his own bedroom. Much less Quistis's.

"I can get into the Training Centre with this, right?"

Squall shook his head.

"Fuck, can't I even kill monsters?"

"What with?"

Seifer had to admit that Leonhart had a point. He turned away in disgust and then swung back as the glint of sunlight on sharpened metal caught his eye. A dark shape stood propped up against one of the ubiquitous windows, half-hidden by the desk.

He thought of Squall's Lionheart and then dismissed the idea out of hand. Squall wore his sword on his hip all the time.

Never though Squall was the type to collect weapons. But hell, it's his funeral.

Squall regarded him with a puzzled look on his face, no doubt trying to work out why his opponent was squinting into the shadows of his office. Seifer ignored him. Not the Lionheart..but the same shape..

Anybody else might have mistaken the weapon for a simple Galbadian gunblade, but Seifer knew that sleek silhouette as well as the back of his hand Better, in fact, given his penchant for wearing gloves.

Hyperion.

Strangely enough, it wasn't the fact that Squall had kept his gunblade that annoyed him. After all, he'd lost, and deserved to. It was the fact that his rival had ignored his most prized possession, just tossed it in a corner in a pile of junk and paperwork.

If their roles had been reversed he'd have displayed Squall's Lionheart over the fireplace for weeks. There were no fireplaces at Garden-the sophisticated maintenance systems didn't allow for roaring fires-but he'd have got one installed just for Squall.

"Almasy?" Squall's voice, though soft-spoken, had a dangerous edge.

Yeah, fuck. It's nothing I didn't sign up for. Shit, if I'd just died life would have been so much easier.

Doing the right thing shouldn't be this fucking hard.

After all, that's why I don't.

There wasn't anything left to say, so Seifer said nothing. Instead he swung round and walked out, part of him expecting Squall to call him back. By the time he was half way through the doors, he'd guessed that it wasn't going to happen. By the time he reached the lift and hit the button for the ground floor, he knew it wasn't going to happen.

There seemed to be no other SeeDs around.

Hmm. That was easy…

"Almasy."

He mashed the lift keypad viciously.

"Almasy."

It didn't sound like Squall. Seifer turned.

Xu stared at him exasperatedly from behind the secretary's desk.

Seifer laughed "You're going to get it when Squall's PA comes back."

"I AM Squall's secretary, asshole."

Seifer pressed the buttons again, bringing the lift to a halt somewhere between the third and fourth basement levels, swore, and gave up. He switched his attention from the stricken keyboard to Xu and said "He said…."

Xu interrupted, glaring at Seifer from over the top of the computer monitor. "Who?"

"Squall."

"Who?"

"Squall." Seifer frowned, trying to work out where this was going. "You know, Squall Leonhart? Your boss?"

"You could at least use his title."

"Okay, Squall Leonhart, hero guy, commander of this dysfunctional shithole….." Seifer left off pressing buttons and sauntered up to Xu's desk, giving her his best flirtatious leer and ignoring the lift keyboard behind him, which was flashing red and giving off sulphurous smoke. "Said you might have something for me"

Xu slid a stack of forms across the table. "Right, Sign here, here and here." She slapped a pen down on top of the pile of paper.

Seifer signed, illegibly. "That was quick."

Xu smiled. "That's just to prove I've given you the forms. The top three are requisition slips. Take them to the quartermaster, but make sure you detach the bottom blue copies and keep them. The yellow copies need to go in the box outside the dormitory entrance."

"That's it, then?"

"No. Fill in parts eleven, nine, eight and ten of the green forms, and all of the purple ones; unless you answered yes to questions 3a and 7b."

"Then what?"

"Then you have to do sections three and five of the purple forms and these extra pink flimsies." She slapped another pile of paper on top of the first and propped a SeeD manual on top of it all. "The rest of the paperwork's self-explanatory. Even to somebody of your intellect. It shouldn't take you more than……oh, about ten days. Enjoy."

Seifer picked up the pile of forms, testing the weight. "You're loving this."

Xu smiled sweetly. "Damn right."

"I really get on your tits, don't I?"

Xu nodded.

"Is this still the sorceress thing?"

"Yup. In addition….." she began to tick off points on her nails…"In a word, you're arrogant. Shameless, immoral, antisocial, irresponsible….you're dangerous. You've got an explosive temper and sometime it's going to go off again big time. You're a psychopath waiting to happen, and someday everyone will realise that it was a big mistake letting you live."

"And you'll say you knew me when, right?"

"Oh, shut up."

Seifer smirked.

Xu sighed and switched on her computer, typing in a nine-digit keycode without looking at the screen. "Quistis seems to think you helped her, over in Trabia. Me, I'm not convinced, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I won't make things too hard for you."

Seifer looked down at the pile of paperwork. "This is the easy way?"

"You're still here, aren't you? If Squall had been in his right mind, he'd have killed you."

"Guess it's lucky for me that you're not in charge, huh?"

"Yes" Xu hissed through gritted teeth. "Don't worry, I'll change his mind. Now get out of my sight before I do something we'll both regret. I'd hate to screw up my career for a loser like you."

"How much do they pay you for being Squall's glorified secretary?"

"I'm a SeeD. Which, might I remind you, is more than you are."

"You call that an insult?"

"No. An insult would be me telling you that you're a lying worthless waste of space and that our most esteemed commander must be mad to let you back in here. Pity that I'm far too self-possessed to let my feelings show, isn't it."

"Could have fooled me." Seifer picked up the sheaf of papers from the desk, pocketing one of Xu's biros as he went. Xu just snorted, obviously regarding him beneath her contempt. She didn't look up as he left the foyer, walking over to the lift doors.

A slight smell of smoke hung in the air. Screams drifted up the shaft.

Seifer shrugged and made for the emergency stairs. CrappyGarden technology.

He made it down to the first floor and halfway to the dormitories without anything more than a few hostile stares. After Xu's razor tongue, it was almost a relief. Seifer usually enjoyed annoying people, but even he had a limit. He walked aimlessly down the hall, bored but too bloody-minded to give up and go back and sit quietly in the room Squall had assigned him.

Wonder where Quistis is?

The thought was almost automatic. They'd been so long together in Trabia, sleeping together, fighting together, even just talking….

His hand found the keycard in his pocket, tracing the outline of the small plastic tag.

I'll have to ask her what this means. I bet she'll find a way to sneak me into the training centre. It's not breaking the rules if I can get round them somehow.

This example of lateral thinking was typical of Seifer, the kind of person who when faced with an impenetrable maze, would escape by demolishing all the walls.

He sighed and slouched down the corridor towards the first-level SeeD dormitories. There was no way of knowing exactly where Quistis's room was, but Seifer had a plan.

One, find the smallest, youngest cadet he could, preferably one who knew absolutely nothing about either the Sorceresses Wars or current events. Two, intimidate, threaten or charm them into telling him where Quistis's room was.

He looked around as he walked, thinking that, despite everything, it felt good to be back in Balamb. The standard Garden décor hadn't changed one bit. Institutional without being cheap, and scrupulously clean with the tiny embellishments and clever design features that hinted decorously of serious money. It was cool inside despite the summer warmth, air-conditioning set just a couple of notches below comfortable. He decided he'd have to organise himself another coat.

It was like coming home.

Seifer wondered idly whether to go to the training centre anyway and then decided against it. To train he needed a weapon, and that meant borrowing or begging some kind of equipment from the stores.

No chance. At least not if Squall's got any sense at all..

He didn't like being unarmed. It felt wrong enough to make him jumpy and the hostile glances from some of the cadets weren't doing anything to make him feel more at ease. There was nothing openly antagonistic for him to challenge, nobody was quite that stupid, but whispered comments and stares got boring fast. Squall would have made some kind of announcement, and, by the looks of it, everybody had listened.

Nobody was even going to give him an excuse for a fight….

Pity.

He moved to the wall to let a group of trainees pass by. The five older cadets with them tried hard to pretend he didn't exist, but the children were curious. Their eyes followed him as they passed like commuters staring at some gruesome car crash. No doubt they'd heard.

"Hey, mister." one of the kids called out, resisting the nearest cadet's efforts to get her to shut up. "Didja really kill people?"

Don't talk to any children, Squall had said. Since when did he do what Leonhart told him?

Seifer gave a one-shouldered shrug and said " I guess." in a conversational tone of voice. He didn't bother to mention that any one of the fresh-faced teenaged cadets leading the group had almost certainly done the same.

"They said that…mmphmmphmmph"

Her speech was cut off as the cadet leading the group gave up on bribes, threats, extreme threats and finally death threats and clapped a hand over the kid's mouth

"Don't speak to him."

"Why not?..I.."

"Come on. I want to know what people say" Seifer gave the cadet, who looked about sixteen, his most charming grin.

It didn't work. The cadet just grabbed the kid by the arm and hustled her off. As she went she gave him a glare over her shoulder, a heady blend of two-thirds hostility and one-third fear.

Heh. Five minutes back and I'm getting my kicks teasing name-calling children and their nursemaids. Nothing annoys your enemies like forgiveness, huh Leonhart? I could have coped with an execution. .It doesn't take so long.

This is going to need work.

The bastard had to have some kind of secret motive, a hidden reason for letting him live, for going to all this trouble when it was blatantly obvious to anybody sane that the most Seifer would bring to Garden was more trouble….

He reached the dormitory door five minutes later, already mentally calculating the distance between his and Quistis's bedrooms and almost broke his foot kicking at the door to open it. Swearing imaginatively, he tried the handle. It still didn't open.

Seifer stepped back and looked at it, scowling. It had a keycard holder, and he was holding a keycard. It didn't require Quistis's IQ to work out how to open the door.

Wedging the paperwork under one armpit, Seifer dug one hand in his pocket for his key, flicked it out and turned it over, wondering how best to manage the tricky job of swiping a lock set at waist height while holding several piles of unbound forms that must weigh a good ten pounds. He'd just placed the edge of the card in the slot when a heavy hand descended on his shoulder.

"Hey, Almasy."

It was only then that he remembered that if Quistis's room was here then they must be, too. Squall, Zell and all of the rest. Seifer had never made it out of the cadet dorms, but he'd heard that graduating to SeeD carried a few privileges, including a bed wide enough to actually sleep in, a mattress not made out of chickenwire and a really dumb uniform.

Seifer narrowed his eyes. "Irvine."

The tall Galbadian regarded Seifer with a mistrustful stare. He was dressed from head to toe in worn leather and suede, despite the heat, and wearing more jewellery than most women the ex-knight could think of. His long silver rifle hung over his shoulder. What was it called?

Exeter's a stupid name for a weapon. It's like calling Hyperion "EstharCity."

He hadn't been particularly unpleasant to Seifer in Trabia, but there had been just too much dirty water under the bridges for Seifer to regard any of the SeeDs objectively.

The feeling appeared to be mutual.

Irvine said "You saw Squall?" He moved subtly, shifting Seifer away from the doors. His body language was still friendly and relaxed, but somehow Seifer got the feeling that the sniper was warning him off.

"Yeah." Seifer didn't volunteer any information. It was becoming painfully obvious that the SeeDs had the upper hand, and he was fast running out of ideas.

Irvine nodded at the keycard in Seifer's card. "He gave you that?"

"Yeah. Hyne, stop looking at me like I killed somebody and looted the body. Doesn't he tell you what's going on?"

"He told us. But that doesn't explain why you're down here hanging round the SeeD dorms."

Seifer thought for a second about lying, and then decided not to bother. "Looking for Quistis."

Irvine shook his head. "Uh-uh. No, you don't."

Seifer shifted position, tucking the pile of papers more securely under his arm. This way, if Irvine started on him, he reckoned he could have the whole lot over the balcony and both hands free before the cowboy expected it. "Why the hell not?"

"She doesn't want to see you. Here, or at her office."

Seifer caught the word office and tucked it away in his head for future consideration. "Did she tell you that? She didn't, did she? She'll see me."

Irvine coughed. "No. Besides, it's Instructor Trepe. Not Quistis."

"What?"

"I said, call her Instructor Trepe, thank you. Not Quistis. And stop being so damn aggressive."

"I am not aggressive. Just watch it, you." Seifer snapped, indignantly. He wasn't sure whether or not getting into arguments with some of Leonhart's best friends counted as 'causing trouble' but he'd already broken one of the rules of his parole already, the one about not talking to children. And when you broke the rules, it was best to break them good and hard.

Still….

He sighed. "Just so you know, I didn't plan to behave the way I was behaving." It was about as sincere as he ever got.

Irvine watched him with an odd expression on his face, behind a curtain of hair. "Uh-huh?" He took a step forwards, shepherding Seifer further away from the doors. "So, what do you want with Quistis?"

Seifer made a Hyne-give-me-strength gesture with his free hand. "I just want to talk."

Well, maybe at first. His long-term plans definitely included less clothes, but talking would do for now.

Irvine gave him a humouring smile. "Look, no offence, but last time we saw you you weren't exactly user-friendly. You can't blame us for being protective."

So that was it. Seifer wasn't sure whether or not he preferred Zell's balls-out no-way speeches or the sniper's softly-softly approach. They both added up to the same equation, anyway. He wasn't going to see Quistis for a while

At least, that's what they think…..

Seifer shrugged and turned away. Let Kinneas think he'd given up. He tried to think of a few words to marshal in his defence. "I was eighteen. I bet you didn't do anything you want to remember when you were eighteen." He realised as the words left his mouth that it was just about the stupidest thing he'd said in a long time, up to and including 'What about if I come back to Garden."

Irvine just stood there. He didn't look impressed.

Seifer sighed. "Oh yeah. You saved the world. From me. So just don't answer that." He scowled, taking stock of the situation.

Irvine had managed to position himself so his back was to the dormitory doors. He didn't look aggressive, lounging against the wall like it was some beach in Balamb, but it was pretty clear that Seifer wouldn't be getting through there any time soon.

"Answer me one question, Almasy?"

"Yeah? What?"

"What were you doing all that time away?"

Seifer shrugged, trying to think up something that didn't sound too pathetic. "I got abducted by little green aliens. They offered to take me back to their planet and make me their king but I told them no, 'cause I had to get back and atone for my crimes."

"Really."

"No."

Seifer turned away, fed up for once of confrontations. Zell, Kadowaki, Squall and then Irvine, it seemed like half of Garden thought he needed taking to task about his past misdeeds. And the nicotine withdrawal was getting worse. He would have happily tipped the contents of an ashtray into his mouth and chewed.

He turned back. "Hey, Irvine?"

"What?" The Galbadian's voice was lazy, almost slurred with that weird Galbadian plains accent that sounded as if he was trying to drink a bottle of rye whisky and french a chocobo, all at the same time

"Got any cigarettes?"

Normally he would never have tried to bum cigarettes from Irvine, but the situation was getting desperate. He hadn't smoked anything for at least twenty four hours.

He would have sworn Irvine almost smiled, under that stupid hat. "No-smoking zone, Almasy."

"Yeah, yeah." Seifer was already heading back down the way he'd come.

He filled up the remainder of the morning with mindless chores. He picked up clothes that fit better than the ones he was wearing from the stores and basic equipment from the commissary. That took a few hours and after that he started on the forms, wedging the door to his room open with the SeeD manual so he'd have an advance warning of whoever was coming.

A quick leaf through the paperwork convinced him that Xu hadn't been joking. He'd read novels that were thinner than the stack of paper on his desk. All the forms seemed to be designed for maximum inconvenience and minimum efficiency, and it didn't really help that he was missing his birth certificate, passport, SeeD ID card and every other proof of identification he could possibly think of. Or that his preferred method of stress relief was tearing out every fifth sheet, folding it into a paper aeroplane, and throwing it out of the window.

Seifer made a mental note to go see Squall and explain to him while he technically didn't exist.

After an hour he'd had enough, and decided to hand what little he'd completed in and do the rest some time later. He left, and spent the rest of his afternoon ferrying copies of variously-coloured forms to what seemed like every department in Garden. They were greeted with one of three responses.

Number one, Seifer's least favourite, he categorised as 'polite unhelpfulness'. It wasn't personal, and maybe that was what annoyed him so much. The encounter went like this; he'd darken the door of some little office full of lowly paperpushers. They'd all immediately decide he wasn't going to be their problem, shunt him along to their superiors, and they'd send him to somebody else. It took subtle threats of violence and a pointed comment to the tune of that he'd already seen Squall and he was sure the Commander wouldn't want to be bothered with such a trivial thing and would quite possibly demote, or ever defenestrate, whoever did, to get the first set stamped.

The second response was downright hostility. Seifer might have enjoyed this one far more than number one, but sadly, it was the subtle kind. To his infinite regret and growing frustration, it never quite reached the stage where he could legitimately have either filed a grievance or called somebody out. Most people didn't quite have the guts to be nasty to his famous face.

Number three was 'treated like an unexploded bomb'. True, it made him feel dangerous, and Seifer liked that, but nobody would talk to him, except the terminally curious. By the time Seifer reached his dorm room to start on the last set of forms he'd spent the last two years wandering the continent with amnesia, learning deadly martial arts from small saffron-robed monks up a mountain somewhere in Trabia, travelling into another dimension and on a mystic quest to throw a cursed piece of jewellery into a volcano.

He reached the doorway of his assigned room, and then stopped abruptly. The manual he'd used to wedge the door open was missing. He couldn't remember whether or not he'd left it locked, but light shone out from the cracks between the door and its frame. Light -and noise. There was the murmuring sound of hushed voices from inside.

Seifer frowned, and checked the room number again. Satisfied, he told himself sternly not to be too paranoid, and pushed it open.

He caught a blurred impression of light and people just before somebody grabbd hold of him. Seifer fought instinctively, face pressed against a starched uniform, his arms pinned to his sides. Somebody thumped him on the back with fists that felt like hammers.

Anyway, season's greetings, everybody. I recommend the fic 'It's a Wonderful Final Fantasy' by Tenshi No Korin for humorous holiday reading. Click on or cut and paste the link.

Reviewers: thank you all. I hadn't expected such a response. Hope you're not disappointed.

Amber Tinted: I hope RTS's as good as SDTC. I'd like it to be better, but we'll see how that works out.

Ardwynna Morrigu: Thanks. I love sarcasm and general cynicism.

Breaker-one: If I could think of as many sarcastic/witty lines on the spot instead of sitting in front of a computer then I'd probably be out doing something more exciting.

Ghost140: ta, glad to see you haven't picked up on anything glaringly OOC/obvious yet-always good

Kjata: thanks for your support:D

Nynaeve77: Ah, accents. Well, I'm not American, so I imagine the Balamb accent as kind of neutral, slightly Midlands (as that's where I come from) so definitely East Coast equivalent. Irvine has the accent from 'Five Hundred Miles' by the Proclaimers. Selphie's Cornish, where they all speak terribly fast.

Mana Angel; Wow. People have been WAITING. Or maybe you're all just being polite.

Melete: Thanks for reading.:P

Quistis88: Thought you were posting? At least, I got an email. Now I just have to find time to R&R-apologies but if it's a choice between reading and writing, I tend to go for the writing. But I try.

Sabacat: I wouldn't say Seifer was feisty -always puts me in mind of small Japanese schoolgirls. Dunno why. It's just this thing.

Seatbelts; happy holidays to you too, you guys. Seifer's easy to write. He's kind of …….focused. If you can't argue with it, kill it. If you can't kill it, fight it anyway.

Seventhe: hiya to you. SDTC was all about getting Seifer to Garden so I could write everyone else. It just took a bit longer to get there, is all.

Sheep the adventurer; Ta. Glad to see it held your attention-bit long, but somehow twenty pages seem to be my default chapter length. Works for me.

Sickness In Salvation: RTS is definitely the last FF8 fic for me. My schedule gets fairly hectic next year as I have to be on call at nights -I don't think I'll be able to continue-and I'm not sure I'd really want to. Maybe I'll do a few single-chapter fics for some less popular fandoms or even original.

Slipper: Hey. I'm flattered.

Superviolist; It's a fanfiction about mercenaries. Conflict's a given, of one kind or another.

Virus: thankyou:D