First update in approximately forever. Still don't own the characters, nor any of the directly quoted (that is, "new") dialogue, which all come from the game. (I did modify some of it, and edited the holy heck out of some parts.) There's a brief reference to another fic of mine, Dazzled, if you can spot it. Enjoy!

The Fall

Chapter 8: How You Died

I am not unfamiliar with death, particularly of the violent sort. There is a surprising variety of gruesome deaths a mercenary can deal out, witness, or fall prey to. The blade, the bludgeon, the bullet, explosions, magic, poison... each has its unique way of working on living tissue until it is no longer living. This, I can deal with. Have had to deal with. There is mourning or satisfaction, finality. Life goes on.

It is the other deaths that trouble me still, the little deaths without closure. When a friend's eyes turn cold and uncaring sometime after her ninth mission, when your conversations turn to silences, when you feel your present adrift without an anchor to a past or future. There are losses so ephemeral that they are impossible to define, let alone mourn. Perhaps they should be a source of triumph. It means we are stronger, less sentimental, less vulnerable. Perhaps.

It was a little death I saw in Squall's eyes, when he rejoined us at the prison. I have seen eyes go dead after imprisonment and interrogation, but what was heartbreaking with Squall was the resignation I saw there. The stripping away of trust and safety was something he had accepted too long ago, and the tender mercies of D-District Prison only confirmed that acceptance. It steadied him, that buried ember of anger. After the initial anxiety I did not fear for him as much.

But it was Seifer who did this to him. I keep returning to that fact, inescapable and galling. Whether as a direct participant or by tacit acceptance, Seifer treated Squall in ways that made him flinch away from even a friendly touch and has him sit up from night terrors some nights, snarling a name. I lie very still when I wake with him, knowing it would wound his pride if I tried to mother him. Go talk to a wall. I am awake long after Squall's breathing is slow and even again, the strangled cry of "Seifer...!" still loud in my ears.

Maybe I'm taking this too personally. Seifer quite clearly changed sides, and he acted as a belligerent would. SeeD are not angels, and if necessary, like it or not, I know I can do such things. If what Seifer did is vile, then so am I. So is Garden.

Yet it sits wrong with me, that he could have done this thing. Knowing full well Squall is a newly-minted SeeD with little in the way of useful information, inflicting pain for pleasure or vindictiveness, not necessity? I told you, Trepe--it's my fight. You'd rather see it in ruins? Everything about the situation sits wrong, and I do not know what to think anymore.

I only know that there is a death of sorts in what Seifer did. To take that basic trust in the world away from another is to see that it can be done. That is why I will not be happy should I ever have to resort to torture, and it is why Seifer crossed a line he cannot cross back.

My belief in him died a little, too, and that is another kind of death. Something I cope with, because I must.

The entire Garden tilts at a strange angle, its foundations rocked and then resettled askew. The surrounding pavement has a rippled look where the shockwaves from the missiles tore through the ground. The ruined basketball court seems to echo with memories, the reverberation of a moment when the very air shattered and screamed. This place seems to remember that single instant when everything changed beyond repair.

Can there be repair or reparation? Any possibility of redemption, from something like this? Reassurance, return, recovery. All these re- words, because the only way to fix this is to go back. Back before the moment when everything changed, before the destruction and death, when he...

Before the moment he changed forever in my eyes.

I see myself in Rinoa's troubled face, and hear myself in her stammered words. I am SeeD and should not be so conflicted, yet her fear and ambivalence towards this fight are mine as well. With the evidence of a former student's, a former comrade's monstrosity before my eyes like this... Can anyone say with confidence that we will emerge in one piece from this? How will it change us, if it does not kill us?

"I understand." Irvine's voice is gentle, the plateau twang melodic in this place of silent echoes. "Someone might not be here. Someone you love may disappear before your very eyes." His voice lilts and dips in sorrow. "It's tough when you live your life thinking that way. But that's why I fight."

He picks up a basketball, and takes a deep breath. All eyes are on him now, though he speaks quietly.

"When I was a little kid... I was about four or so... I was in an orphanage."

And with all we have seen in the course of this journey, his next words are perhaps the most terrible and wonderful. He speaks in that musical voice of love and loss intertwined into one, of memory eroding gradually into forgetfulness. Our gradually joining remembrances touch something dormant inside of me until I see it all, the old stone house, the ocean, the children we used to be.

"Hey... Do you guys remember setting off fireworks?" His words hesitant at first, then more certain, Zell stirs another memory. The beach, the lighthouse...

"We did set off fireworks." How could I have forgotten it, all of this, for so long? The streaks of color cut across that endless summer sky. I'm going to die like that.

What? The voice is too familiar for comfort. Cry-baby Ze-ell! Go back to be-ed!

"Oh, my..." The realization is sudden and sharp. I see him so clearly in my mind now, the arrogance, the fire, the fascination of him.

Irvine nods, confirming the realization. "Seifer was there, too. Except for Rinoa, we were all there."

I remember them all now, the children I grew up with, the friends who stand by me today. Earnest, good-hearted Zell, tiny Selphie as bright as she was adorable (if a bit of a handful), Irvy who was shy and quiet but never missed what went on around him, sad-eyed little Squall who I never stopped worrying about, long after our childhood by the sea was forgotten.

And Seifer, loud and obnoxious, whose sole purpose in life seemed to be causing trouble. He shouldered his way rudely into everyone's attention, and turned everything he touched into mayhem. Always goading Squall, tormenting us, forcing me to fight back, shaking us forever out of our contentment. (But can I honestly say I didn't enjoy it, in a twisted kind of way?)

Seifer, who wanted to go out in a blaze of fiery glory. My fight from the get-go. You'd rather see it in ruins?

Seifer, the torturer, murderer, traitor. The descent I cannot understand but must if I am to have closure, or maybe some small chance of winning him back.

Could that answer lie in our shared childhood? Seifer was so shaken by the Sorceress Edea, whose voice was chillingly, achingly familiar to me. Where did I hear it before?

I'm very happy for you, Quistis Her eyes were dark, her face kind. The gentle, warm voice washed over me, holding me in safety and peace. I hope you will be very happy. I will miss you.

"I... remember. Yes, I remember now." The words come slowly as the memories flood in, too many, too sudden. How could I have so much of my life missing and not even realize it?

Don't go. Those beautiful green eyes were brilliant in the sunlight, strangely transfixing. Don't go with them, Quisty. He wasn't happy for me, didn't know little orphaned girls wanted parents who would love them and buy them nice things. What did I want to do? It was obvious, wasn't it, that I was supposed to want parents of my own? That stupid, smart-mouth boy.

But he turned out to be right, didn't he. Damn him. Doesn't she look just like us, Brenn? Pictures of another little blond girl all over the house, the sickening realization that the daughter they yearned for was not I, and never would be. The silences grew longer until they became a physical thing, and killed.

"Things didn't work out too well at my new home."

I imagine her sitting before that rosewood dresser one last time, where the glass and crystal would refract the sunlight into a hundred little rainbows. I loved to watch her make herself pretty and she would smile watching me watching her, and sometimes let me wear a little of her special scent. Her frozen smile was perfectly painted in death as in life.

"So I came to Garden at the age of ten." I hurry past the memories of my mother, my brief and disastrous adoptive life. (Why, after all these years, do I still feel that I've killed her?) "That was when I first noticed Seifer and Squall..."

The words seem to come of their own, as hesitant and rambling as my own journey through this maze of rediscovered past and emotion. It's embarrassing to realize how wrong I was about my own feelings, how the past twisted and warped them without ever going away. If it was the same way with Seifer...

If Seifer was vulnerable because of his Guardian Force-induced amnesia, could that be at least partially explain why the Sorceress affected him to the extent she did? Why was she so familiar to me, and maybe to Seifer, too?

Come with me, she said back in Timber. Come with me-

Come with me, Quistis. The lady had such a soft, warm smile. My name is Edea. You can call me Matron.

That voice. It comes to me now, lullabies, stories, admonishments, laughter... it was all that voice that I heard again in Timber, when it was cold and harsh, but still the same voice.

"Hey." It's all I can do to keep my voice nonchalant. This whole childhood memory situation is so new, I need indepedent verification to know I'm not mistaken. Was Matron's name really Edea? "Do you all remember Matron?"

Zell puckers his face up, and I can tell the mention of her touched off a memory in him. "She was always wearin' black..."

"Very kind... Long black hair..." The memories become clearer even as I speak. "Yes, I really admired her." She was the first, perhaps the only mother figure I know. Janis Trepe was too hollowed out by grief to be a mother to anyone, and I probably only knew a shell of who she used to be before she lost her little girl. Her real daughter. I shake that thought away.

"...Look alike? Nah, that's not it. Matron's name is Edea Kramer." I start at the name. "Matron is Sorceress Edea."

So that was it. That was the hold she had over Seifer, or at least part of it. God, Seifer... If he had not forgotten, would he still have fallen under her spell? Or am I making excuses for him--can anything excuse his actions, the destruction we see all around us? And even knowing this, the question remains.

"Why is the Matron...?"

Irvine's shrug is helpless, and he is correct when he says there is no way to know. There is quiet, unassuming wisdom in the way he speaks of this fight and what it means to him.

"I say we fight--shoot for a common goal. Hey." A slow smile comes to his face as he glances over at Selphie. "At least it'll keep us together a little longer."

"Yeah, let's do it." Zell pumps a fist. "We can't run from her for the rest of our lives." That's the Zell I know, practical and brave.

Selphie sighs. "It's such a bummer... I can't believe we have to fight Matron."

"I know." But is there really any other way? Or rather, any other way that will let me live with myself? "But Zell is right. We can't run from her forever." Nor can I run from Seifer. I find it hard to believe, with what I now remember about the woman, but even if Matron Edea enticed Seifer by exploiting his vulnerability to the past, the fact remains that he--they--must be stopped.

So this is how it goes. We go up against the woman who raised us, and someone we grew up with. At least we go into it with eyes wide open, thanks to Irvine.

"You guys are fearless." I catch Rinoa's quiet voice as she talks to Squall. I squash the pang in my chest at the sight of them standing together. I used to think it was jealousy, and maybe it is, that I am neither needed nor wanted, can never compare. Again. Damn it, Quistis. Stop this.

"I wish we didn't have to fight, either." Squall's voice is as low as Rinoa's, but I can tell how heartfelt his answer is. It reverberates in me, because I wish, more than anything, that things could go back to the way they were, before the moment everything changed. That Edea were still our Matron and Seifer our annoyer-in-chief. I wish...

But wishing will do us no good. Fighting might. The weight of the whip at my side is both terrible and comforting. Any doubts, any consequences we can deal with... after. If there is an after. At least there is closure in the death of the body. Watching the gentle fall of snow over this demolished Garden, I can't help but think it's the little deaths that truly linger.

It comes to this, as we knew, as we actively worked for. Somehow it is no easier for all that, but not as difficult as I dreaded. We made this decision willingly, and are here of our own will. All that remains is to follow through.

We step from the elevator into the Sorceress's room, fully on guard. For a moment our footfalls are the only sound in the room. The Sorceress watches from her high seat, her gaze cold and hard. Her face is familiar even under her outlandish makeup and the unfamiliar look on her face, but the familiarity no longer confuses me.

Before the Sorcess stands her knight, gunblade drawn.

"Oh, you shouldn't have." He is mocking, still cocksure, though pale and unkempt. "I was going to come visit you at my old home."

My teeth grit and heat rises to my face as I think of the glass-littered hallways of Balamb Garden, the eight-year-old cadet in our infirmary with the bloodied bandage over his eyes. I want to scream at this man who stands to face us, shame him, hurt him.

Most of all, though, I just want to know. Why? You were willing to die for our home. Was that a lie? What made you do this?

Squall is more succinct. "Shut up."

Seifer smirks to see he has gotten to us. "Did you guys come to fight Matron?" There is real anger in his sneer now, a cold glint in his eyes. "After all she's done for us?"

None of us answers. Thank Hyne Irvine prepared us for this, rearming us with our memory so we would not be blindsided as Seifer may have been. We made that decision because we cannot stand by idly, and also because it may be the only way to get her back.

Will we get Seifer back, too? Is there anything of him left to come back?

"Instructor Trepe." His tone is smooth, almost caressing, and I have to stop myself from flinching. "I'm still one of your dearest students, aren't I?"

I stand a little straighter, looking him straight in the eye. In the moment I open my mouth I feel the cold of the blade against my neck, hear Squall call out in a nightmare, see the ruins of Trabia Garden. So much has changed, so much done, and no matter what his reasons I cannot allow myself to be shaken in this fight.

"Not anymore." Not after all that. Not if I am to stand up and fight.

"It's too late, Seifer." Squall shakes his head. "You can't mess with our minds." We came prepared for this, both the physical and the psychological. And yet, as I watch an increasingly agitated and incoherent Seifer and the cruel, impassive face of the woman watching from behind him, I wish I were anywhere but here.

It doesn't matter anymore. Now is the time to fight, or die. The man I used to know, that I thought I knew, rushes forward with blade ready and teeth bared. My whip hurtles through the air, seeking a limb to grab or skin to slash open.

Let's get that monster.

I stumble to a stop at the doorway and gape. The grotesque form of the Sorceress is very still, suspended in the clear gel of her containment chamber, the mass of golden wires restraining her like a bright web. And yet the aura of malice and ill-will is almost palpable.

And before her, dwarfed by her form, Seifer, wounded, exhausted, barely standing, holds Rinoa restrained with his blade at her throat.

"Seifer!" Squall throws himself across the impossible expanse of that room towards them, but not in time, I know already, never in time. "NO!"

The Sorceress's Knight flicks a brief glance at him, at us, a snarl on his lips. He is desperate with nowhere to turn, a cornered beast of prey.

"Rinoa and Adel!" His hoarse voice rises to a hysterical pitch, mingling with the echo of Squall's voice. "The sorceresses as one!" His triumph sounds like a cry of anguish as he drags Rinoa closer to the Sorceress at bladepoint. "Watch closely, Squall!"

We are all running now, our frantic footfalls loud in the echoing room, our shouts frightened and nonsensical. I am unable to take my eyes from Seifer and Rinoa, the wild-eyed look on his face as though he, too, cannot believe this sight, this situation. For a moment he hesitates, the arm pushing Rinoa trembling, and my heart soars in brief hope.

Then he grits his teeth and gives one final push. Rinoa falls to her knees before Adel as if in obeisance, paralyzed with fear.

It's like a nightmare I cannot wake from. Adel's frozen face twitches, then splits in a wide grin. The entire containment chamber surges forward as she moves to claim her prize. Rinoa puts up an arm in futile self-defense but the Sorceress reaches out, the golden wires holding her singing as they break, and Rinoa's scream is thin and helpless as she is... devoured...

As we move to face Adel, to defeat her before she can completely absorb Rinoa (so helpless, like a fragile puppet, half buried in the other Sorceress's body) I see a shadow slink away at the edge of sight. And a shadow is all that remains of him if he is capable of this cowardice. I put him from my mind in the face of the battle at hand.

"We're saving Rinoa!" That puppy-eyed hero worship. He'll be okay, right? He's really amazing... Damn it all, hang in there, Rin.

For me that is how he died, this last little death. I will mourn him after, if there is such a thing.

One more chapter and an epilogue to go!