For a moment, she simply stands there, her hands balled into fists. Her long, measured breaths sound needlessly loud in her ears.

The viewing slot is already open- inside, Quistis can only see shadows left by the grainy blue light that illuminates the rest of the prison.

"Is that my dear Instructor?" A voice pours from the cell, rusty from disuse- it is a sound that seems to come from the darkness of the cell itself, low and rough and gravelly. "Well hello, Quistis."

Ice flows through her veins at the sound of his voice. The anger that had roiled in her gut around Ranmor has now settled into something that shrinks back from the cell in front of her, from the thing she must do. She sifts through herself for some measure of courage and finds only resolve. Flat, cold, resolve, which at times she thinks has replaced her blood.

"Seifer." With difficulty, Quistis forces herself forward, forces the name from her throat.

But Ranmor has made updates to the Restricted Cells: a thick photonic screen that covers the single window in the cell. Beyond the pale blue screen, she can see only shadows. The door to the cell is locked, the photonic screen active. She knows this already without testing it.

"How did you know it was me?" she asks, as an afterthought.

"Only you would wear perfume to a prison, Trepe," he said. "Besides, the walls around here have ears."

She can't look into his eyes to measure his tone- to read the amusement or derision there.

He is only a voice.

And as much as it saves her from having to look him in the eye, it saves him, too, from having to meet hers.

"Just a minute, please."

"I'm not going anywhere," he replies.

She walks over to the wall panel and hits the comlink for the security desk.

"This is visitor badge 515-C-Class A requesting containment field lowered for single entry."

"...there isn't anything in here about allowing anyone into the cell," replies the box on the wall stubbornly.

Quistis has to bite down hard on her cheek to prevent a retort. "As I understand it, the D-district cells have a one-way entry allowance that is overridable by any Class B or Class C employee of the prison for the general population."

"Yeah, that's in a GP cell...you're in a restricted section, Miss Trepe. There are security codes required for those."

"My orders are to interview the prisoner, and I can't do so effectively if I can't see him. If I have to come up here, get President Loire on the line, and then come back down here to enter the cell again, I'm going to be inconvenienced. I'll have to report this inconvenience to my superiors. I refuse to interrogate this prisoner in the middle of the hallway."

A pause. "I'll have to clear it with Dedalus."

"Do so."

Dedalus, the warden of the prison that operates under Ranmor's apparently ever-present eyes, is the one that had searched her at the doors...thoroughly. She likes him only slightly more than President Ranmor, which is to say, not at all.

The soldier is back on the phone again. "Request has been granted. One moment. You'll have to hit the prisoner cell comlink to get back out, and a guard will come assist you."

"Fine." She steps through as the field weakens, feeling the rush of air that swirls around her ankles as the door once again slides shut behind her.

A mercenary first, she takes stock of her surroundings. The cell is a six-by-five enclosure, fashioned out of steel and a shell of hard plastic. A toilet is in the far right corner, and a small aluminum sink is placed next to it. Both structures seem firmly affixed to the surrounding wall.

Aside from that, the room is bare wall and tiled floor, and the air is heavy and stale. The small window, from the inside, emits a faint hum. It is the same technology bug zappers use, only cranked up to accommodate sufficient voltage to fry a human being.

After her quick assessment of the room, her eyes flicker over to Seifer, who is seated and whose eyes have not left her. Unlike Ranmor's stare, which was fixed to intimidate, the pressure of Seifer's gaze carries only a mild curiosity and perhaps, underlying that, a strange amusement that she is here.

It has been months since she's seen him. One of last times, his sword had been drawn, and there was a sorceress between them.

The very last time, there was a courtroom between them.

Now there is nothing but the solid, empty space of the cell. No weapons, save the ones they can fashion out of words, and she wonders at the fact that she feels more uneasy now than when he was rushing her with Hyperion, trying to impale her with the blade.

He is much thinner than he was at the trial, and the shadows under his eyes have deepened. There are bruises on his face, too- some a bright purple and some a sickly blood-orange color that is starting to blend with the skin. His hair is long, too, and hangs in his eyes, and the blonde stubble of a beard is thickening on his face. His arms and legs are in heavy chain shackles, bound together, and Quistis has to wonder why they've bothered to chain an already trapped man.

The reasons, she guesses, are psychological.

The cell is dank and dark and reeks of the stale odor of dried sweat and the faint but fetid stench of slow plumbing.

It seems stupid to ask how he is doing, so she doesn't.

Despite the ragged condition of his body his eyes are lit with a deep, unbroken interest as he looks at her. For a moment, she returns it.

His posture is as straight as ever- the arrogant tilt of his head at the same imperious twelve degrees. They haven't broken his spirit yet- though, judging by his appearance, it isn't for lack of trying.

"Brave, of you, coming in the lion's den." he says. "Who you trying to convince you're not afraid…you, or me?"

And there it is again- that same old irritation- he might be her student again, smirking at her from across a classroom, testing her patience and her position.

"Believe it or not, Seifer, I've fought bigger monsters than you," she replies. She is determined not to show fear, which she suspects shows as much as anything else she might employ against him.

Instead of glaring at her, however, he grins. "Touché. So, do what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Didn't the walls tell you already?" she asks him, now stuck in that thick vein of sarcasm that he's always taken such delight in drawing out of her.

The small tug in the corner of his mouth tells her he's picked up on the sarcasm. "Nah. I just thought they'd send you."

She blinks. "And what made you think that?"

"Because you'd come," he replies, simply.

She doesn't know what to make of that statement, so she busies herself with what she came for, with her directives: simple, straightforward directives. "I'm here on behalf of Esthar to record your own testimony on the events of the Second Sorceress War."

His eyes narrow, slightly. "Why?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but I think because Laguna wants a full account of the events of the war, or as many accounts as possible. He wrote an account of the war with Adele, himself, but his knowledge of this war is largely incomplete."

"A historical account?" A pause. "By all means."

Being set down in recorded history probably appeals to him, she thinks, even if the pages will paint him as the villain.

She removes a small recording device from her bag and makes sure the tape is rewound. "I'm going to record the conversations between us, if that's all right with you."

"Doesn't matter to me." He watches her set up the tape recorder. "How long will you be here?"

She pauses, trying to think of the right words. "Until it's finished."

"You mean until I'm finished."

"...yes." There's no point in lying to him. She is not here to save him- the nation of Esthar has no interest in his fate, and Seifer has no friends in Balamb, either. With Edea gone now, Cid has no reason to champion Seifer. Cid, in fact is in no position to help anyone- he has been shut up in his office since the news of Edea.

He leans back in the cell. "Fair enough. You answer my questions, then, and I'll answer yours."

"Answering your questions isn't part of my contract," she replies coolly.

He folds his hands behind his head. He might be vacationing on a beach, instead of a restricted cell in the highest security prison in the world. "Yeah, well, I ain't got a contract, so how about explaining to me how you're gonna get the answers you want out of me without something in return?"

She glares at him for a moment. He has her there. He knows damned well that if he won't talk, there's very little she can do (legally) to make him. And he knows she always plays by the rules- his immunity is her good character. Underneath the layers of bruise and grime and grit, he is still the same irrepressible enigma, still tugging on his leash.

"I can just hear that big brain of yours cooking," he says, chuckling. "Weighing, balancing, trying to decide how exactly this is all going to pan out, deciding what angles to choose. You haven't changed at all, have you?"

"Have you?" She retorts. Damnit, she should have stayed mad. It made her reckless, yes, but it also gave her momentum. She's been back-tracking since she entered the cell.

He answers her with that same infuriating shrug. "Why don't you go back to your little hotel, order some room service, and decide just how much you want whatever information you think I have?"

"I didn't come here to play games with you, Seifer," she says.

"This isn't a game," he replies evenly. "It's a trade. Information for information. You should be good at trading by now."

She glares at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Think about it, and maybe we'll talk tomorrow."

It takes her a moment to realize she's been dismissed.

….

..

.

The Dingo Desert seems to go on forever- sandy and hollow and dry as a bone.

The rental military jeep courtesy of Galbadia smells like stale cigarette smoke, and the heavy odor of the cheap green air freshener intended to improve it is almost worse. She drives with the windows down, ignoring the sand and wishing she'd had the foresight to request something with a collapsible top, even if it means she'll wind up with her own personal beach inside the car.

As she drives, she thinks, letting her thoughts flow like the warm wind through the open window.

The truth of it is that she had not been prepared for him. In fairness, she knows that there is never any way to prepare for someone like Seifer, someone without rules or boundaries of their own, but she had hoped that her natural defenses against him had grown stronger over the years.

Wrong.

She had prepared for a broken man. She had gotten instead a man that was still more interested in breaking her.

The kind of discomfort she feels now is the result of that lack of foresight and the shock of seeing him as a haggard lump of bruised bones. She is just beginning to feel it now. It has followed her from the prison, and is only now climbing onto her shoulders, sinking its guilt and self-reproach into her thoughts.

The memory of her first battle with a ruby dragon comes to mind along this seam of contemplation. The battle itself was a blur, all motion and adrenaline, and she hadn't realized she'd been badly burned until after the beast's body lay cooling at her feet. The pain had come later, crawling in a searing red blister up her arm that throbbed with an intensity that made her teeth hum.

Just like now.

She tightens her hands around the steering wheel. She reminds herself that this is just another job. It is a job that will be catalogued and filed and stored away in a filing cabinet that will most likely never see the light of day again.

She checks into the hotel and orders a full meal, prawns and sea scallops on a bed of angel hair pasta with a white wine reduction and a glass of chilled pinot grigio. She rolls the wine around in her mouth before swallowing it.

A trade.

You answer my questions, and I'll answer yours.

Trade. The word tastes bitter on her tongue- it spreads through her mouth and contaminates the wine. Quistis Trepe does not trade. She does not bargain. She did not spend her childhood bloody and bruised, proving herself to every military misogynist and exceeding every expectation they set in front of her to travel the world on her knees, her hands cupped in supplication.

But Seifer has never been impressed by her strength. He has always been more interested in testing her weaknesses.

She has two unsavory choices, then: she can fail the mission, or she can give Seifer what he wants. Deep down, she knows already this is not a mission she can fail.

In two weeks he will be dead, and everything she's said will be dead with him, sealed away in a pine box and buried without a marker. She can edit the tape. Her secrets will die with him.

She'll play his game, then, because soon, it won't matter.

She cleans her plate and drains the glass, transcribing her notes and compiling a fax to send to Balamb and Esthar in the morning.

The sheets are 800 Count Centrian Cotton, and the pillows are stuffed with phoenix down. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, she is restless in her sleep. There are no soft things in her world- not beds or pillow or words, and this entire room feels strange instead of soothing.

She can hear herself blink in the dark.

"You should be good at trading by now."

14 more days.