The room Ellone, Laguna, Kiros, and Ward were in was Laguna's private office. It was morning, so the sunlight coming in through the window was enough to light the room.

"Okay," Kiros sighed. He sank into the nearest chair and began massaging his temples. "What do we do?"

Ward took up a seat next to Kiros. Laguna kept glancing up at Ellone while he bent over his computer, but Ellone turned her face resolutely away from his.

"I can see you're worried about him," Laguna began, "I know you grew up under the same roof and all—"

"Mm-hmm."

Ward smiled almost imperceptibly.

Laguna shook his head wearily. "Listen to me. You haveto stop trying to help him. If I weren't your Uncle Laguna, there'd be no way you'd get off scot-free like you did two days ago. We have to make sure we know why he did what he did before we can decide what's gonna happen to him. Think about all the damage he's caused to this city; think about all the people who are dead because of him."

She was not her usual, quiet self. This other bossy Ellone surprised Laguna, but not too much so: after all, she had exhibited similar behavior as a child.

"Please try to empathize with him," she said. "Do you really think he hasn't thought about all of this himself?"

"I'm sure he has, but I'm not the only one making the decision." He glanced up at her again and indicated for her to come closer. She sighed and walked over to him. The computer screen displayed an Internet article with an accompanying photo.

"That's who won the election in Galbadia. They just swore him in last night. We should be hearing from him any minute now."

"Everything's stored on the laptop, sir," Selphie reported. "I still have to tally up the votes and submit them, though. With everything that happened, I wasn't able to get that done."

"That's certainly understandable. You did your job as well as you could." Cid raised his eyes to the ceiling for a few moments. "Now, the election was purely for write-in votes. Approximately 100,000 votes cast, and we need that tally as soon as possible…. However, I don't think that any of you are in any condition to stay up counting votes, so I'm going to hand the rest of the task off to Nida and Xu."

…

"Okay, the number of votes match up with what Galbadia got, so… so far it looks valid."

"Good," Nida sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Is there a faster way to do this? Can't we just have the computer search through the entire list and pick out the name with the most votes?"

"I'm working on it, okay?" Xu snapped, tousling her hair in frustration.

"Okay, okay, I just thought that intel was your strong suit."

Xu jabbed at a key and promptly shot up from her seat. "Why were we even assigned to work on this together? It's waytoo late for us to be able to even stand being around each other!"

"What?" Nida muttered. "What the—I didn't even doanything!"

"That's the point!" she snarled. "Why aren't you doinganything? You're just—sittingthere, asking how to do everything and then leaving me to do it!"

Nida calmly stood up as if he hadn't heard and turned the laptop around so the screen faced him. "This is going pretty fast…."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever then."

The laptop beeped. "Hey, it's done already."

"Who won?" Xu asked, suddenly becoming interested. "What's the name?"

Nida's face hardened.

"I'll handle this," Nida said decisively, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Go get some sleep, Xu."

"But who is it?"

"I said, I'll handle it," he repeated. "If I tell you who it is, you might start acting differently around certain people, and they'll sense it." He glanced up and looked her squarely in the face. "Seriously. Just go."

Dr. Kadowaki fully emerged from the main room and sat down in the chair next to Selphie's bed. "Now Selphie, you're absolutely sure that you feel all right?" she began.

"I guess," she mumbled, suddenly growing concerned. "Why? What's wrong with me?"

"As you know," she continued, "that young man with blond hair injected you twice. You must've gotten in his way if he deliberately did these things to you to cover up his tracks." She shifted a little in her seat. "Your blood test indicates that your hematocrit—which is your red blood cell count—is normal, but you have extra plasma floating around. My guess is that one or both of those injections was simply to add artificial plasma, but giving you extra plasma serves no purpose… unless there's something in the plasma that could make you sick."

Selphie continued to sit, looking increasingly worried.

The main doors to the infirmary opened and Rinoa stepped inside.

"Hi again—" Rinoa began.

"Wait outside the door, please, Rinoa," Dr. Kadowaki told her softly.

"… Right. Okay," Rinoa said, noticing Selphie's grave expression. Rinoa silently let herself out.

Dr. Kadowaki cleared her throat to break the silence. "Your body will get rid of any excess plasma and increase red blood cell production to balance the levels. Now, Fujin was also injected with something, but only once as opposed to twice with you. Her level of plasma is also elevated, but only slightly, so it makes sense to conclude that she was given plasma also. Going from there…."

Selphie leaned forward to see her face better. "Are you saying that Fujin and I might both get sick?"

She nodded pensively. "Yes, that might happen."

Selphie considered this for a few moments. "… So why am I the only one in the infirmary? Why aren't you monitoring her, too?"

At this, Dr. Kadowaki glared at her in a most disapproving manner. "As resident doctor, I administer care to the most needy first. Fujin only had one injection, whereas you had two, and you were showing immediate symptoms, memory loss and such, so I decided that you were the priority. I have my reasons for monitoring you—justyou—and that's that," she huffed.

Selphie turned slightly pink. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to question your judgment. That was rude of me to say," she stammered.

"It's quite all right," Dr. Kadowaki muttered nonchalantly, although visibly mollified by the apology. "There's nothing wrong with merely asking questions."

Seifer was sitting at the plain white table inside the room. His arms were crossed over his chest. Kiros opened the door to the room adjacent, and Laguna, Ward, and Ellone stepped inside before Kiros entered, closing the door behind him.

Seifer looked up. He could see through the glass at everyone in the room facing him. Ellone gazed blankly back from where she sat.

Laguna settled himself into a chair as well. "Could you please state your name before we begin?"

"Seifer Almasy."

"Seifer, do you know why you are here, and why I am interrogating you personally?"

"… More or less."

"Does this mean you confess to inducing a Lunar Cry intended to hit Esthar City, then later entering the city without clearance, with the intention of breaking into the Presidential Palace?"

"… Yes."

Laguna's eyes flitted over to the scar on Seifer's forehead. He remembered quite vividly seeing a similar scar on Squall….

"Could you explain exactly what you did once you entered the city limits?"

"… Do I really need to say what happened? I mean, isn't the fact that you caught me inside the Presidential Palace explanation enough?"

Laguna leaned back in his chair. Seifer had confessed to being responsible. However, he knew that Seifer was not the only one guilty. But there was no punishing Ultimecia further, and there was no point in punishing a man who didn't fully deserve to be punished.

Ellone had said nothing ever since Laguna showed her the news article. Laguna glanced her way, expecting her to protest in some way, but nothing happened. She didn't even seem to be paying attention.

"Okay, Seifer. We're going to have to hang onto you for a bit longer. How much longer, I don't know." He pulled a few pages of printouts from his back pocket and glanced down at it. "Galbadiajustswore in a new president. These are some questions he drafted, and I'm gonna ask you them, okay?"

Seifer wasn't paying attention, either; he was staring ahead rather blankly.

Seifer, she said. You don't need to answer those questions. I can get you out of here.

"It's okay," he said. "I want to answer them. They deserve my input."

"It's really basic stuff," Laguna pressed on. "We're not necessarily going to make you take the blame. We just want to understand what happened."

So you stay and tell them what you did, and then you go straight back to jail. … Isn't there anyone you want to see? Anyone you want to talk to? They might not let you see them.

"I already told you not to get involved."

Fine. You can answer the questions if you want. But you still have options. You can still do everything on your own terms and not hurt anybody. Go back into Time Compression one last time and go find whoever you need to see.

"If you send me there, you're not going to get away with it. No."

You don't need me. You can go by yourself. You're already connected. After you go there once, you never really leave. So you can go whenever you want.

Slowly readjusting to his position in space and inside the room, he blinked.

"I want to see the questions in front of me. I want them in my hand."

Laguna glanced over at the dark-skinned man to his right, then opened a drawer and put the papers into it. On the other side of the glass, Seifer stood up and opened the drawer to retrieve the papers, then sat down while beginning to read.

Seifer peered momentarily over the top edge of the paper. Ellone was watching him with those peculiarly observant eyes. Something he saw in them was oddly unsettling. His eyes drifted back down and he scanned through the questions; they weren't many. Not as many as he thought there would be. After the last question, however, there was the copy of a signature. He squinted to read it more clearly, to make sense of the hurried scribble and figure out who it was—the signature was familiar, but he wanted to be sure, that he wasn't somehow mistaken—

Here's your signal, Ellone warned.

Ellone's eyes closed, and she collapsed onto the floor, overturning her chair with a clatter.

"Ellone!" Laguna shouted back, but too late; Seifer had already disappeared, and taken the questions with him.

Alternate World: Addiction

He had never felt guiltier in his entire life. He deserved to stay in jail and pay for what he did. If he had known that this was how she had been intending to help him, he would have refused it on the spot. But would that have stopped her?

What happened back there? What happened to her? Was she faking it, or did she really pass out?

He opened his eyes but couldn't see anything.

Maybe she was trying to make a statement? What could she have possibly been trying to say?

He couldn't help but feel that perhaps, for the fist time, she couldn't think of a single better thing to have done. He suspected that the "better opportunity" he wished she had waited for might not have come at all, anyway. She never did seem to get much sleep—she had been wide awake and dressed in daytime clothing when he had broken though her window, after all—and by the way she was straining herself, she would not last much longer.

He was floating along in a steam of dark matter, with no tangible surroundings. From where he was now, he could go anywhere he wanted to. Where to go exactly, he wasn't sure yet, but he at least knew that he wasn't going to stay here longer than he had to.

He strained his ears, hoping desperately to hear it again: that voice inside his head. It had been so quiet that he almost hadn't heard it, but it had been reassuring in its softness.

Don't come back here. This is the last time.

But why would he want to come back? … He had said that he wanted more time. And Ellone knew, and she granted that wish not once, but twice.

But it was so obvious why he should leave forever: because it was so dangerous. It must be a miracle that he hadn't died here yet. But despite the great risk, he kept on coming back, and nothing good could come of so many visits. Time Compression was not for those who wanted it, but for those who needed it without wanting it. He had too much to lose now: it wasn't worth it. And he sincerely hoped that he would never need it again.

He chose his destination with deliberation and poured every fiber of his being into wanting to be there.

Dr. Odine sighed almost rapturously at the comatose Ellone lying on the bed. "Ah, Ellone, it has been too long!" He sighed again. "But," he continued with a grimace, "zis is only part of ze agreement… to make you get better, hm?"

There was a loud blaring, buzzing sound from overhead. He paused by Ellone's side, then, deciding to answer it, hurried over and opened the door to his laboratory.

It was a messenger. "I have an urgent request from Balamb Garden," he stated at once. "May I come in?"

Dr. Odine let him in and closed the door. "Vat is it?"

"Balamb Garden's resident doctor, Dr. Kadowaki, would like to know if you would be able to make a trip to Balamb Garden. She requests that you come as soon as you are able. You will be compensated."

"'Compensated', eh?" he murmured, his imagination leaping into overdrive. A tidy sum of money from the Balamb Garden Treasury certainly wouldn't hurt—he could always use some extra research funding. Or perhaps it would be something even better—no, he was sure of it. If this was something only he could help them with, then this "something" would most certainly be of interest to him.

"Agreed!" he decided. "Oh, but vat about Ellone? I'm supposed to—"

"The President can arrange for her to come with you."

"Yes…" he murmured again, thinking quickly. "If I can transport most of my equipment, zen it vill vork."

When Dr. Kadowaki stepped outside the doors to call Rinoa back in, she was surprised to find that Rinoa had left.

"Hm, I wonder what that was," she muttered before stepping back inside.

"Where's Rinoa?" Selphie asked.

She shrugged. "Guess she took a walk or something. Nothing to get worked up over," she replied. "Although it'd be nice if she were here to keep you company; I didn't mean to worry you with those test results."

Selphie nodded gravely, her face turning a slight shade paler.

The doors suddenly opened again, and Quistis stepped inside.

"I only just heard—why didn't anyone tell me you guys were back?" she demanded.

"They arrived very late last night," Dr. Kadowaki explained firmly.

Selphie, Quistis noticed, was not her usual happy self. She was subdued and quiet, and perhaps even a little bit cross.

"Fujin and Raijin told you what happened to Rinoa, right?" Quistis asked her.

Selphie nodded. Quistis took a deep breath, hoping for the reaction she was expecting.

"Well, your dorm room's involved, too, unfortunately. It's not that bad," she hastened to add, "some of the drawers are pulled out and their contents are a bit scrambled, but none of your things seem to be missing. We didn't touch it, we left everything as we found it."

"That's your room only, Selphie," Dr. Kadowaki added. "Now Squall's, we took photos and cleaned it up. My goodness, what a nightmare that was."

He was already half-asleep when he reached his room, intending to collapse upon the bed and fall asleep fully clothed. Something crinkled under his feet; someone must have shoved the brown envelope under the doorjamb.

There were photographs inside. Sifting through them, he could see large, brown, and blotchy stains upon the floor; he was sure it was dried blood. On top of this gruesome brown carpet were many long, slender, white sticks in various sizes, and deep reddish-brown blobs were holding the whole mass together like glue.

So this must've been where it happened, he thought, scanning the room carefully. Wait….His gunblade case was still propped up against the right-hand-side wall. This was most definitely his room in the photos. Other than the bloody mass upon the ground, however, he could see nothing else out of the ordinary. He was no closer to understanding what had actually happened, or why the people at Garden had reacted the way they had.

It all had worked out so perfectly that he was sure there had been some sort of communication between Rinoa and the people who found her. Had somebody known that Ellone would be able to awaken her while she was wearing that Odine Bangle, and that bringing Rinoa to him would make Ellone's job easier? If so, then the even smaller details could have been intentional as well. For example, after all Cid's efforts to keep them hidden, why were Fujin and Raijin, of all people, the ones sent to Deling City with Rinoa?

"This is too complicated," he muttered aloud. He stuffed the photos back in the envelope and shoved it into his bookshelf. The Odine Bangle was still in his pocket. He took it out and stared at it for a long time, thinking.