I passed out in the back of a squad car with my hands cuffed behind my back. Came to later, when they dragged me out of the car practically by the scruff of my neck. Arms were asleep. Past pins and needles, and right into feeling completely numb. They hurt, bad, when the feeling finally came back. It didn't help that the cops dragging me to my cell weren't exactly in the mood to put up with any bullshit from a punk-ass kid. They probably thought I was struggling just because I could. They didn't know I got jacked in the head with a pool cue, and was struggling just to stay awake.

I lost consciousness around the time they threw me down on a cot in my regular cell. Didn't even remember them taking off the cuffs.

I woke up while it was still dark. Felt doped to the gills. Groggy, big head, couldn't feel my face. The muscles in my right knee were twitching in fits, and when I tried to touch my nose to make sure it was still there, I saw my hand shaking so bad I had to close my eyes so I wouldn't see it anymore.

The cops weren't so bad in Fisherman's Horizon. Not so bad at all. Hell, they left the lights down in the drunk tank most of the time, a fact that I'd been grateful for on more than one occasion. Some places I'd been, they left um on all night. And I'm not talking about regular light bulbs, I'm talking those big, florescent monsters. Those things can really make a guy sick, if ya know what I mean.

I wasn't the only one in for drunk and disorderly that particular evening. There was a kid, seventeen or eighteen I think, passed out on the floor on the other side of the cell. Initially, I thought it was funny. He was just lying there, drooling all over himself. I had a pretty good idea what kind of headache he'd wake up with in the morning.

Then I started to think it was kind of sad. There was no reason a kid that age should've been in the same situation I'd gotten myself into that night. He was far too young to be wasting his life the way I intended to waste mine.

Took me a good hour to get my ass up, wash some of the blood off my face at the sink, and then collapse again. By then I could hear them coming for one of us. Probably the kid. He probably had somebody out there with the means and the desire to bail him out.

I didn't have nobody. Not anymore.

The guard approached. Big guy, light skin. Couldn't tell much else about him, because he looked like a big blurry shadow from where I sat. There was another shadow behind him. Slight, tall, had tanner skin. I figured my cell mate had a girl who'd come to collect him.

Boy, would that've made me jealous most nights...

"Zell Dincht."

Who, me? Somebody came to bail me out?

Hell just froze over, folks, no refunds.

"Here," I croaked weakly, forcing myself to my feet. I stumbled over to lean against the bars, squeezing two of the steel rods between my fists as I fought to stay upright with all the upper body strength I had left. My legs felt like Jell-O.

I think the guard was eyeing me, and if I'd had the strength I would've taunted him for it. Probably good for me that I didn't. Just would've gotten myself into more trouble.

"You're free to go, Dincht. You made bail. Step back while I open it up, and quit bleeding on the bars, kid," the guard snapped irritably.

I stepped back, almost falling over for my effort. The guard opened the door, and then side stepped me, so I stumbled out face-first. Probably would've hit the ground if I hadn't gotten caught by whoever paid for my freedom that night. And let me tell ya, whoever it was, they had a damn good grip.

Still looking stupid, I got hauled up to my full height by the hands knotted in my shirt.

"Jesus Christ, Zell. What the fuck happened to you?"

I knew that voice. It wasn't a girl. Wish it had been. Hell, if it'd been my dead mother back from the grave to smack me around for being stupid, I would've felt better about it. But nooo, it had to be him. Sir Loser-lot himself. Was it past midnight yet, or was I having two horribly shitty days in a row?

I turned my head, trying to get a good look at Squall out of the better of my two eyes. I tried to laugh, but the sound hurt my ears, never mind my head, so I merely settled for chuckling as I forcefully shoved myself out of his grip, and staggered away from him.

I gave a huge mock salute, irrationally entertained by my own antics. "Officer on deck!" I shouted, just seconds from falling in a heap, yet somehow keeping up the regulation stance engrained in me since childhood.

My sight remained blurry, but I thought I saw the guy avert his gaze in that pretending-to-be-embarrassed-by-my-own-status façade he'd perfected over the years.

"You don't have to treat me like a superior, Zell. You aren't in Garden anymore. I'm here as your friend. I came to get you out, take you home."

"Sir, yes, Pussy-ass Headmaster, Sir!" I bit out, hardly able to keep my face straight against the onslaught of my own drunken humor. The strangest part being that I wasn't really amused.

There had been a time when Squall and I had been cool. Not quite friends, but we'd had a certain amount of respect for each other. At least, I'd had a certain amount of respect for him. He'd always treated me like a child. We'd graduated in the same class from Garden, become professionally trained teenaged mercenaries for hire the same day. When crisis struck in the weeks that followed, upper management handed Squall more power than he could handle. For the most part he did surprisingly well with it, until the end. That was when I proved what I was made of.

That was four years ago. A whole lifetime, it seemed. And my, hadn't things changed...

"Come on, Zelly. It's been a long night. Let's get you home, huh?" he offered, seeming to be offering the metaphorical olive branch. The only question on my mind was why he was the one acting like I owed him a favor.

Not that it mattered. I needed to get home, and I didn't have any cash to bail myself out. How did I manage get myself into such predicaments?

I relented, shrugging like it was no big deal in a ditch effort to save face, and attempted to walk out under my own power. I didn't get far. I think I took all of three steps before 'Squally' had to get under one of my arms and help me along.

I was morbidly entertained by the inconvenience my old commander experienced as a result of the difference in our heights and frames. I leaned on him extra hard, making sure he'd have a backache for his trouble.