"Seriously, Quisty, a Geezard?" Irvine scowled at her from the bed, his limbs still wobbly, his ego stinging. "Couldn't you have given me something with a scrap of dignity?"

"It was a precaution," Quistis said. "We already know that you can use physical skills derived from distillates, and the Geezard is a relatively harmless creature with predominantly physical attacks."

"Humiliating attacks. How'd you like to space out and then come to gnawing on the head of a training dummy?"

Quistis made an odd choking sound and turned toward the computer. "That was definitely a unique sight. On the bright side, this is an off day for many employees, so you only had a fraction of the audience you had for your first test."

"You were already one person too many for that."

"Don't worry about it. Yes, you're a curiosity for many people here at O. Labs, and they will probably talk about you for a few days. But they're scientists and researchers, and soon enough, something else will catch their attention, and they'll forget all about you." She looked at him, but Irvine spared her only sidelong glances, and frowned at the monitor on the wall across from him.

Quistis sighed. "And I promise to select distillates from more noble creatures for your remaining tests," she said.

"Thank you." Irvine leaned back and yawned. The test had drained him of energy, and what little he had left, he had just spent arguing with Quistis. He rummaged around for a magazine, and was rereading an article on mysterious creatures lurking in the ruins of the Galbadian Missile Base for what felt like the tenth time when an orderly entered with his lunch tray. Irvine perked up and dug in, responding only with a grunt and a nod when Quistis excused herself to make some phone calls.

She must have taken her own lunch break, as well, because she returned about forty minutes later.

"You got your wish," she said, sitting on the couch. "Only respectable creatures from here on. The more powerful the creature, however, the stronger the distillate's effects will be, so I suggest you get as much rest as possible over the next few days. No late-night programs, or reading by the light from the hallway."

"You know about that? Who told?"

"Just because I'm not here doesn't mean that you're not still being monitored. Anyway, as I was saying, if you want to use distillates from powerful creatures, you need to make sure both your mind and body are sharp."

"Got it." Irvine held up his empty tray. "In the meantime, think you can get them to send another one of these? Food is the best way to keep myself sharp!"

• • • •

Irvine tried to sleep as late as possible on test day, mainly in an effort to ward off the hunger pains that characterized his fasting period. Having gone to sleep far too early the night before, however – for the same reason – he found himself alternately thumbing through magazines and flipping through channels for over an hour before Quistis arrived.

He answered her greeting with an indistinct grumble, and groaned when he saw the now-familiar tray loaded with vials and syringes. Upon closer inspection, though, he noticed something was missing: the Blue Bullet, itself.

"What's this?" he asked, pointing out the apparent oversight. "Did I earn a reprieve? For my stellar behavior, perhaps?"

"I'm afraid not. I'm just waiting for the distillates to arrive."

"Whoa, special stuff?"

"In a way. They've been tested and certified safe for blue mages, but are still going through the approval process for use in projectiles. We didn't have any extra on hand, so I requested a small batch for this study."

"Just for me? Watch out, Quisty, this sort of treatment can go to a guy's head!"

"The effects of the distillates will, definitely." Quistis checked his vital signs. "These are far more powerful than the others you've tried so far, so we'll have to monitor you more closely. You're also going to have to be completely forthcoming about what you experience, even if you don't think it's serious at the moment."

"You're making me kinda nervous, Quisty. Are you sure these are safe?"

"Absolutely." She noticed his expression and smiled. "Don't worry, I haven't gone full mad scientist … yet. I've cleared the use of these distillates with my superiors, and the med team is prepared to help in the case your symptoms become overwhelming."

That was little reassurance, but the mental image of Quistis as a deranged scientist was enough to make Irvine chuckle. He tried to imagine what kind of monsters she'd create, and whether she'd enlist the help of her Garden friends to bring her experiments to life. Zell would likely be a subject on his own, and Selphie could very well serve as an energy source.

It was a ridiculous daydream, but it kept Irvine's anxiety at bay. He was so wrapped up in it, that he jumped when someone knocked on the doorframe. He turned and saw a dark-haired man in a shirt and slacks standing there, holding a clipboard and two small boxes, and wearing a badge that clearly marked him as a visitor.

"Brought your bullets," he said, grinning and handing the boxes to Quistis. "Torama's on top, Blue Dragon on the bottom."

"Thank you," Quistis replied. "I'm sorry it was such short notice."

"It was no problem. Besides, it gives me an excuse to finally see this case for myself. Dr. Devres suggested I stick around to observe the testing, and he granted permission to speak with the subject. He's lucid, right?"

"Yes, he is." Quistis motioned the man inside, and he walked up to Irvine's bed, pulling a chair beside it and sitting down.

"So," he said, "how's the intrepid Horatio Blue doing?"

Irvine blinked at him. "Horatio Blue?"

Quistis laughed. "I'm sorry, Irvine, I had to tell him. It was too funny."

"I take it you're not comfortable with that name," the man said, looking at his clipboard, "Mr. Kinneas. May I call you Irvine, though?"

"Yeah, of course." Irvine grinned, wondering who this man was, and whether he'd seen him before and simply forgotten. "I'm just not used to hearing the other name, and my brain's all fuzzy from testing – and hunger – so half the time I can't even remember who Horatio is supposed to be."

"Understood." The man extended his hand. "I'm Argider Cato. I'm a librarian and a blue magic researcher. I specialize in distillates research, and often work with Odine Laboratories in testing and development. In fact, that box of ammunition you intercepted in the shopping mall was fresh from my lab at the library."

Irvine froze mid-handshake, his arm going limp. "Oh. Heh. I'm really sorry about that, you know."

"I'm sure you are. And professional conduct demands that I reprimand you for your actions, and make very clear how much I disapprove of them." Argider's stern expression wavered, and his mouth turned up at one corner. "But, personally, I'm quite excited by the outcome. While I'm sorry you had to suffer such uncomfortable side effects, your transgression has forced us to question what we know about how distillates – and human bodies – work. You've become very important to the advancement of scientific knowledge in Esthar. Bet you never saw that coming."

Irvine raised an eyebrow. Who was this guy? He didn't act like the other Estharians Irvine had met at the lab. He wasn't even dressed the same. But he wasn't an intruder; his badge spoke to that. And he didn't seem to make Quistis nervous at all. In fact, looking at her, uncapping a bullet and drawing a syringe full of orange gel, Irvine realized that she was perfectly at ease with Argider in the room.

So, he wasn't a lunatic, at least. A little overzealous about research, maybe, but not on the level of Dr. Odine. Irvine hoped.

Argider pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and clicked it. "Now, Irvine, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions about your experience. And don't be shy about asking for clarification, if you need it."

"Okay."

Many of the questions Argider asked seemed basic – gauging Irvine's discomfort during tests, asking him what he remembered of his actions – but his expressions, and the copious notes he made about each answer, told Irvine they must be part of a larger, more complex, inquiry.

"Thank you, Irvine," he said at last. "Your answers will help give us some context in which to interpret the other subjects' experiences and results."

"Wait, other subjects?" Irvine frowned. "As in, other than me?"

"Sure. It's imperative to collect as much data as possible before coming to a conclusion, especially on something as important as this."

Quistis' statement about luck – or, rather, the inutility of it – replayed in Irvine's mind. "So, how'd you get these subjects? Did you kidnap them?"

Argider looked at him strangely. "Of course not."

"You mean, people actually volunteered for this stuff?"

"If by 'volunteer,' you mean, 'volunteered by their C.O.,' then, yeah." Argider grinned. "Peacetime is wonderful, unless you happen to be a low-ranking soldier."

Irvine stared at him. He really was a puzzle, the most easy-going person Irvine had met in Esthar. Irvine told him as much.

"Are you sure you're really Estharian?" he added.

Argider laughed. "Unless my parents have maintained an elaborate lie for thirty years, yes, I am. You'd be surprised to learn that, as a society, we're not really as stiff and humorless as a lot of people think we are. Though I can understand how you might have a hard time believing that here at O. Labs, surrounded as you are by – how can I put this diplomatically? – nerds."

"Look who's talking," Quistis said, still running through preparations. "Don't think I didn't see the latest installation of the Midwinter King Saga lying on your desk at the library."

"Ah, snooping again, I see."

"It was right there!" Laughter rippled through her words.

Irvine looked from Argider to Quistis, a bemused grin on his lips. Quistis' sudden playfulness added another level of strangeness to the situation. Irvine felt as if he'd somehow slipped into an alternate reality, albeit a very entertaining one.

"Tell me, Irvine," Argider said, turning back to him. "You've known Quistis a while; has she always been this nosy?"

"Back to work, Mr. Cato," Quistis said.

"Yes, ma'am!"

Confused though he was, the geniality of the exchange was contagious, and Irvine didn't want to miss out on it. He motioned Argider closer. "I don't know about nosy," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "but Quisty's always been bossy."

"Not just with me, then? That's a relief!" He glanced back at Quistis once more, then excused himself for the interruption, and asked Irvine a few more questions.

"Well, that's all I needed to know, for now," he said, rising and offering his hand once more. "Thank you for your time, Irvine. It's been great meeting you." He walked toward the door, and Quistis stopped him along the way.

"Will you be staying long?" she asked.

"Unfortunately, no. I've got quite a bit of work at the library. A few reports to finish, helping Retta process the new shipment. What about you? Long shift ahead?"

"I'm afraid so. I probably won't be out of here until 20:00 at the earliest, monitoring Irvine's recovery and logging data."

"In that case, I suppose dinner is out, but I'll call you tonight." He took her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. She reciprocated, and Irvine's eyes widened.

"I'm looking forward to it." Quistis held onto his hand a moment longer as they said their farewells. Argider waved to Irvine once more as he exited, and Quistis turned around, smiling.

"Quisty!" Irvine cried. "What was that? Flirting on the job? What about your boyfriend?"

Quistis simply looked at him, until realization dawned on Irvine's mind.

"Wait, that was him?"

She nodded.

Irvine settled back, more perplexed than ever. "Huh. Not what I expected at all."

"I've heard that before."

"Well, yeah, you would! He's so laid-back and normal." When Quistis glared at him, Irvine tried to clarify. "When Sefie said you were seeing somebody, I imagined someone stuffy and uptight."

"Why? Because I'm stuffy and uptight?"

"Yeah! I mean, no! It's just, he's so different from you."

"Yes, he is, but we get along well."

"I'd think someone like that would annoy you."

"He does, sometimes; and I'm sure I sometimes annoy him." Quistis shrugged. "We're both very stubborn people who are used to being right, so it's only natural that we occasionally clash. But those are rare occurrences, and our differences pale in comparison to everything we share, and to how we feel about each other." Her smile returned, enigmatic and mischievous, and Irvine knew that was all he would hear about what Quistis and Argider shared.

He shifted in the bed, slightly unnerved to see this side of Quistis: soft and dreamy, and completely unapologetic for it. Irvine briefly wondered if Selphie had a similar side to herself, but shook away the thought with a grimace. That wasn't possible. Selphie wasn't sighs and goofy grins; Selphie was sunshine and dynamite, sweet and dangerous, a firecracker in a wildfire.

She was a force of nature, and that's what Irvine liked about her. That's what made her awesome.

Both he and Quistis were ripped from their reveries when Quistis' phone rang. She answered it, then rose and walked to the tray, a soft laugh escaping her and telling Irvine exactly who was on the other end. He rolled his eyes and extended his arm, waiting for the injection.

"That Argider guy's kind of silly," Irvine said, as Quistis swabbed the inside of his elbow. "Why don't you tell him to grow up?"

"Because he has." She picked up the syringe and administered the distillate. "There's a key difference between you and Argider –"

"Yeah, I'm better-looking."

Quistis sniffed. "I didn't think the distillate would affect you so quickly. No, the difference is that Argider knows when to be serious. It's perfectly fine to be lighthearted, but you can't treat everything as a joke. You'd do well to remember that."

"Hey, I can be ser –" Irvine stopped short and swallowed hard, driving back the bile that rose in his throat. The room spun around him, and he shut his eyes against it. "Ugh, Quisty, I think I'm gonna need that bin."

She handed him the plastic bin without a moment to spare. He retched violently, bitter liquid burning his mouth and throat, stinging his nostrils. By the time he was finished and cleaned up, a pair of orderlies had arrived and swiftly moved him to the transport chair.

"You know, Quisty," he said, as they wheeled him into the hallway, "I never asked you what creature I'm supposed to act like today."

"Torama," Quistis answered, returning the bin to him in time for another barrage. "A very noble creature, just as you requested."

• • • •

"How'd you expect me to use Blaster?" Irvine asked weakly. "I don't even have whiskers!"

"I didn't," Quistis replied, curled up on the couch with a textbook. "This test was to confirm that you can't use magic or special skills from a distillate. That the Torama distillate is among our more powerful ones underscores that. No matter the strength of the distillate, non-blue mages cannot mimic magical attacks."

"I could've told you that last week. I think you're enjoying this."

"What, making you uncomfortable, watching you hallucinate, spending hours with you during recovery? There are many other ways I'd prefer to spend my time, and I don't like seeing you hurt."

"Not very convincing." Irvine looked out the window and saw daylight giving way to a lavender evening sky. "Hey, how long was I out?"

Quistis glanced at the clock. "A little over eight hours. It took longer to remove this distillate from your system, and the med team recommended extended sedation to prevent the recurrence of side effects. How are you feeling?"

"Gutted. Really, I feel empty. No energy."

"You haven't eaten in over twenty hours. Would you like me to request a meal for you?"

"Nothing heavy." Irvine couldn't believe he'd said that. The way his stomach felt at the moment, however, he was certain heavy foods would send it back into full-scale rebellion. He pressed a button on the siderail and raised himself to a seated position. He blinked and shook his head to clear it of cobwebs spun by sedation, then watched Quistis hang up the phone after making a request. "Have you been here the whole time?"

"Of course. That's my job."

"Must be awful boring. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I have enough to keep me busy."

"Your schoolwork, eh? How's it going?"

"It's going well. The courses are challenging, but I'm keeping up. The hardest part is managing my time."

"Yeah, I was wondering about that. How do you do it?"

"With difficulty." Quistis smiled. "I've only got two years of study left, however, and every time I begin to tire of it, I remind myself that it's worth working here, and proving that I can succeed outside of Garden."

"You still gotta prove yourself? Even after everything we did?"

"'Everything' means nothing to most people. Nobody understands what we did back then, not even ourselves. Aside from the Lunar Cry and whatever effects Time Compression had on this era, no one witnessed Ultimecia's power directly. That makes it hard for them to even envision the threat she posed, let alone comprehend how we stopped it.

"For most people, once conditions returned to normal, life went on. They rebuilt and continued, and that's all anybody really could do. Saving the world is never enough to fill up a resume, let alone when nobody knows how you saved it."

"I guess you're right. That sucks."

"It sure does."

Irvine was quiet for a moment, remembering what they'd gone through. The violence he witnessed, the horrific visions that plagued him on the way out of Time Compression. Those remained with him, but, over the years, he had pushed them to the periphery of his consciousness, desensitized to their imagery except when they invaded his sleep.

"Quisty," he said quietly, "do you still have the dreams?"

"Nightmares? Yes."

"Even with –"

"Those nightmares are ours alone to grapple with. Nobody can take them away, and it's unfair to expect anyone to." She looked down, biting her lip and blinking rapidly. "All anybody else can do is comfort us when those dreams come, but that's still more support than we got when the dreams were still fresh, still very real."

"Garden sucks, too." Irvine felt his chest tighten with resentment. "No support at all. We saved the world, had a big party, then after that, it was back to the grind, figure things out for yourselves. I only hung around as long as I did because of Sefie, because I wanted to help her rebuild Trabia Garden. But once I turned nineteen, Cid kept hounding me about taking the SeeD exam. When I realized he wasn't going to bend the rules for me – or, you know, just make me an honorary SeeD for helping you guys – I left.

"It wasn't 'til I hit Deling City, though, that I figured out Garden's biggest trick of all: turning us loose with no practical work skills. So, there I was, looking for a job, with no real talent except for my shooting." Irvine smirked. "But what Garden didn't know was, I learn best on my feet."

"We have to." Quistis sighed. "Garden taught us how to fight, how to kill, how to survive. They never taught us how to live."

"Probably 'cause they never thought we'd live this long, anyway. We showed them, huh?"

"Yes, I suppose we did." She grinned. "You're very resilient, Irvine. Especially for someone with a streak of chicken a mile wide."

"Hey, don't use my humble admissions against me!" He couldn't maintain a scowl, however, particularly when an orderly walked in with a tray of food. Irvine sat up straight and looked at the bowl of broth and packets of crackers in front of him, then groaned.

"Try to keep that down, first," Quistis said, returning to her book. "Then, you can request something more substantial."

He did, and followed his soup with a sandwich. Then, satisfied and still lethargic from sedation, he reclined his bed and looked up at the ceiling.

"You can leave now, Quisty," he said. "I'm fine."

"Thank you, but I'll stay here until it's time for your next reading. That's only about twenty minutes away."

"Are you sure ol' Argie won't mind you spending time with a dashing young sharpshooter instead of him?"

"I'm glad to see your ego is undamaged, but I highly doubt Argider considers you a threat."

Irvine laughed good-naturedly. "Yeah, probably not. So, one more test to go, huh? Then I get to sleep for a week and collect those sweet, sweet gil?"

"That's right. This project passed much more quickly than I thought it would."

"Another thing that's easy for you to say." He yawned. "But thanks, Quisty, for putting up with me."

"I didn't have a choice."

"Yes, you did. You could've left me here in the dark, no magazines, no conversation, only popping in whenever to check these machines."

"That would be shirking my duties."

"Excuses, excuses. Just admit it, Quisty, you're a big softie." He turned toward the window and smiled as Quistis stammered to find a suitable retort. He never heard it, however, since sleep moved in swiftly and carried him away once more.