eight
The sound of her crying is a knife driven straight into his chest, a high keening that he is certain can't be coming from her. But even as he sinks to his knees under her sudden weight, keeping her close to his chest, feeling her shake in his arms, the sobbing matches up with her breathing, and Seifer knows.
The thing they most feared has come to pass, and somehow, somehow, Quistis is a part of it.
"What's wrong?" he demands. "Quistis, talk to me. What is it?"
But she has no words for him, nothing except her frantic breathing as she fights for control over whatever demon has possessed her, her exhalations a muffled sob that he eventually realizes is actually a single syllable, over and over again: No, no, no, no.
He fumbles for something to say, some comfort, but he has nothing, and all he can do is hold onto her, until the sobbing slows. Her nails are digging into his arms, ten tiny flashes of pain. Eventually, her grip slowly lessens, and he is a little surprised to see that she's only drawn blood in one crescent indent, a narrow red streak drawn by her index finger that smears as her hand falls away.
When it seems that she can breathe again, he asks her for an explanation, hating that he can't just reach in and pluck the answer out.
"They're gone,"she says. and the hoarseness of her voice wraps tight around his heart.
-slipped into the space between.
The sharp knock on the door is almost anticlimactic, and Seifer has every intention of ignoring it, but Quistis is disentangling herself from his arms and getting carefully to her feet, scrubbing the sides of her hands against her eyes.
"You don't have to get that."
She turns to look at him, and she looks a wreck, her face pale in the storm-dawn.
"Yes, I do."
xx
Xu is standing there in her crisp dress uniform, not a hair out of place. "There's been a situation," she says without preamble, the second Quistis opens the door. "Get dressed."
"What the fuck did you do?" Seifer's voice is hard, giving voice to Quistis' thoughts, and she can feel him right at her shoulder, looming, his hand hovering protectively at the small of her back. His intimidation tactics have never worked well on Xu, and they certainly don't now.
Xu's expression remains neutral, her tone very nearly so. "I didn't do anything. The Council did. And as I am now acting commander, I would appreciate it if you obeyed a direct order for once and put some pants on. There's a briefing in ten minutes in Classroom C."
Behind Xu, Quistis can see that SeeDs are starting to file out of their dorms, murmuring amongst themselves, in various shades of dress; most still in some variation of sleepwear. There is not a cadet among them. Her friend (her commander) doesn't stick around to talk once she's delivered her message, and turns away, disappearing into the crowd. Quistis watches her until she's gone, and then thumbs the panel to shut the door.
"She couldn't command her way out of a paper bag, the bitch," Seifer mutters, and Quistis doesn't blame him for giving voice to the thought. She can only imagine the sort of stress she's already inflicted on him. He rakes his hand back through his hair and turns his attention back to her. "You okay?"
She doesn't know how to explain it to him, and even when she opens her mouth to try, her words fail her. "I don't know," she says finally, hating how useless that phrase is, but it is as honest as she can be. "Rinoa- she did something a couple of days ago. It's hard to explain," she adds at the expression on his face. "I... feel things. Things I shouldn't. Things I can't know. It feels like-"
"Like something's crawling over your brain?" he says, and Quistis stops. "Like something's there, inside you?" He taps the center of his chest when she turns to look at him.
"How did you-"
Seifer lets out a bark of bitter laughter. "Shit, you could've told me. I've been there before, babe."
(Are you a boy or man boy or man boy or man-
I am not a boy!)
She remembers a television studio and Seifer in his great grey coat, swinging Hyperion with a teenager's recklessness, willing to follow Edea anywhere. To hell, if she wanted him to, her loyal, fearless knight.
Ask Seifer. He can explain it better than I can.
"Oh, my god," she breathes, as the pieces snap into place. It makes perfect sense when put into that context, everything right down to the pull in her gut
(you have no choice, the magic sings, building up in her veins, and she can smell wildflowers)
leading her off into the dark.
xx
Rinoa wakes slowly, the dream still clinging to her, making it hard to open her eyes, to let go of the pictures, but she does, forcing herself to blink away the last bit of sleep.
The ceiling above her is unfamiliar, exposed wooden beams set in a neat grid. The blanket covering her isn't the smooth, soft comforter, but a neat quilt done in neutral colors. The bed is softer than she's used to, and when Rinoa shifts, rolling onto her side, she can see a baby's crib.
She is alone.
"Squall?" she says, but her voice is thick and hoarse from disuse. She licks her lips, swallows, tries again. "Squall?"
He is there, just outside of her field of vision, she thinks. He is so close. He should be answering her.
There is the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and she tenses for a second before she feels him, his presence a balm against her nerves. He's there, loping around the half-wall with a practiced gait, the cup of coffee in his hands never spilling a drop.
"What's wrong?" he asks immediately.
She sits up, and her muscles protest. "I didn't know where you were."
Liar.
He sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking a little under his weight. "Coffee," he says by way of explanation. "How do you feel?"
She takes a mental inventory quickly. "I'm okay," she pronounces. "Tired."
"You've been asleep for twelve hours."
She is surprised by that. She hasn't slept more than three or four hours a night for almost six months. But maybe she shouldn't be surprised, not after what they did. After what she did. "Where are we?"
He smiles, just a little. "Winhill."
The memory comes back to her, then. "Your mother's house?"
"It was the only place I could think of."
"What about-" Soldiers, screaming, guns going off, loud, loud, loud, and she shoves time and space apart- Rinoa flattens her hands against the quilt and doesn't finish the question.
"Nothing yet." He doesn't have to voice the rest of his thought. Rinoa can pick it out of his mind: he's a marked man and she's a sorceress, and Winhill is very near the top of the list for places Garden will check first.
"We could go back. Turn ourselves in."
"No," he says sharply. "Rinoa-"
"I know," she says, and runs her hand along his back gently. She knows about the order, about the kill contract. She knows, because he knows, and he can never keep a secret from her. It doesn't bother her as much as she thinks it should. It's what a knight does, even if he loves her, even if he marries her. The fact is that she will eventually succumb to the dark spot in her heart, and he will have to kill her.
I won't let them hurt you.
She doesn't know, exactly, whose voice rings in her mind.
xx
In the sunlit ruin of the Leonharts' apartment, a cell phone rings, rings, rings, rings, rings, the vibrations causing it to bump against the edge of the nylon bag it's sitting next to. The screen lights up blue- Trepe, Quistis is calling.
The ringing stops, and the phone automatically clicks over to voicemail, its default setting, broadcasting the prerecorded greeting: "Squall Leonhart. Leave a message."
"Squall," a woman's voice says, frantic. "Squall, pick up your phone. You need to pick up your phone. Please."
There's a long pause, the caller's breath using up a minute of recording space.
"Call me back the second you get this. And, Squall-"
There is a man's voice, rumbling in the background, too muffled to be picked up beyond vibrations.
"Be careful," the woman says finally.
There is a click, and the message saves itself to memory.
Missed Calls: 1, the display reads. New Voicemail.
