Sorry it's a bit late today, I had work. I still got it here though. Aren't I reliable? ^_^

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Fifty Days

Chapter 14: The Final Gift Of The Sorceress

She must have stayed in the infirmary for days, slipping in and out of consciousness. She didn't feel the passing of time, but occasionally opened her eyes and saw someone watching her and sitting down next to her bed, reading a book. She reached out to ask them how long she had slept, when her vision would become blurred and the world would slip away from her again. She thought she saw Selphie sometimes, other times Rinoa or Zell. Once she had awoken and found Selphie asleep over her lap. She had shaken the girl awake, and for a few seconds Selphie had gaped at her, and then hugged her fiercely, and she had been driven under again.

However, the one episode in consciousness had been to open her eyes and see Seifer standing over her, glaring down at her with an expression on his face equal parts exasperation and… something else.

She opened her eyes slowly, and lifted her arm against the light. She opened her eyes farther in surprise as it came up easily, and not like the lead weight it had appeared to be in the last few days. The suns rays cast an unearthly halo around her arm, and she stared at it for a few seconds, and then stared harder, as she couldn't quite make out where her skin ended and the light began.

"Quisty! You're awake!"

She sat up, again surprised at how easy it was, and saw Selphie sitting at the end of the bed staring at her with joy. The girl stared forwards to wrap her arms around her, but then stopped and looked slightly embarrassed. Another figure looked up from the magazine he was leading, and Irvine grinned at her. "Welcome back," he said softly.

Quistis rubbed sleep from her eyes. "How long have I been asleep?" she asked groggily.

"Coupla days," Selphie replied, and then she kicked into gear. "Everyone got worried when you didn't come out, and Cid said not to bother you with stuff, so we left you alone, 'cept for me and the others obviously, but people kept dropping by with stuff, and you woke up sometimes. Kadowski says it'll pass eventually, and Seifer's all moody as usual, and-"

Selphie kept it up for a few more seconds, and noticed the look of polite bafflement on Quistis' face, and stopped. Irvine took this as a cue. "We were worried," he said simply, saying in three words what Selphie was doing in a few dozen. "People kept leaving presents," he went on.

"I don't see them…" Quistis said, looking around and seeing an absence of aforementioned gifts.

Selphie blushed slightly. "Yeah, well, you were asleep, so…" She trailed off.

"You ate them?" Quistis finished for her.

Selphie nodded. "Yup!" She didn't seem upset.

"Were they sugary?"

"Why d you ask?"

"No reason." She turned to Irvine. "What's happening?"

Irvine shrugged. "You've been slipping in and out for a few days. The good doc's been trying everything she knows to keep you up." He leaned closer. "Quisty, what's the matter?" he asked quietly.

Quistis shook her head, and ignored the fact that they had watched her slip in and out of darkness for the last two days. "I'm fine," she said.

Irvine shook his head. "Look at yourself in the mirror before you say that again."

Quistis stared at him for a second, and then he reached to the windowsill behind her and came back with a mirror. She gasped. No wonder she couldn't distinguish between skin and light, there wasn't any difference. The colour had drained from her, leaving her looking like she had never been exposed to sunlight. Her once pure blue eyes were just washed-out greys, and her lips had went the same way. She ran a hand across her head and grabbed a strand of hair. It had turned white.

"You look like Fuji- ow!"

"Irvine!" Selphie hissed menacingly.

Quistis tried to stop, but laughed anyway at the confused expression on Irvine's face. He sighed. "He's right though." She felt a cough bubbling inside her, and held it down.

"Quistis, what's wrong?" Irvine asked again, more insistently, staring into her eyes intensely.

"Enough with the interrogation already, the Instructor's more than annoyed by now I would think," a new voice said.

Quistis turned and smiled as Seifer walked into the infirmary. "Seifer."

He nodded. Once. "Instructor."

Selphie glared. "What're you doing back here?" Quit hogging her.

Seifer shrugged. "I just needed some help with this topic," he said, and gestured at the massive time he had under his arm.

This time it was Irvine who glared. "I don't think she's exactly-"

"OK."

Irvine turned to look at Quistis in shock. "What?"

Quistis waved them away. "Shoo. Let Seifer say his piece. After ten minutes you can force him out if you want to. You can even drag him out of you want."

Irvine saw this as a fair trade-off. "Done." He and Selphie stood, the diminutive brunette shooting daggers at the trench coat-clad cadet as they left and the door slid shut soundlessly behind them.

Seifer looked at her for a few seconds, and ten commented quietly; "You look like hell."

Quistis chuckled, and then she couldn't hold it in anymore, and started coughing spasmodically. She waved away Seifer when he started towards her. "It'll… pass…" It did, eventually, and Quistis fought o get her breath back as Seifer watched impassively. She looked back up at him. "Well?" she asked quietly. Her eyes flicked to the massive book under his arm.

Seifer shook his head. "Not what you think."

Quistis' face fell. "I didn't think it would be," she said, and then her heart missed a beat as Seifer held up a hand.

He laid the tone down on the bed, and Quistis noticed the title; 'Sorceress Legends and Myths'. "I didn't say I found nothing." He opened the book at a recent-looking dog-ear and laid it out in front of her. He pointed, and she started to read at the top of the chapter.

Among the many lies and heretical fallacies concerning the Daughters of Hyne, there are few detailing the aftermath of the destruction of one of their number. One of the few to survive the ages is the Last Touch. Legend records that after the sorceress has been defeated, the dying magical being projects her will in one final bout of malice and spite against her killers, infecting those around her with a fatal miasma that drains the life-force and destroys the body of the warrior who strikes the final blow. The illness may lie dormant for many years, but when aroused from slumber attacks without mercy tea-

She slammed it shut. "Enough."

Seifer looked at her for a few seconds. "Do you want me to-"

Quistis shook her head, and opened the book, and scanned down.

-lways fatal. No common magiks may affect the final act a sorceress asks of Hyne. All throughout written history stories of the heroes who kill the beings are threaded through with tails of uncommon death and pallid comrades taken from the-

She shut it again, and old dust shook off it and made her sneeze. "Well, that's just damned great!" She fell back against her pillow again, the IV lead into her arm jolting around with her. She ignored it. "All that for nothing!" she shouted. She threw the book onto the floor, and Seifer picked it up and placed it on the table.

Seifer leaned back away from he and took a deep breath. "For what it's worth, and Hyne knows after all I've done it isn't worth much at all, I'm sorry."

Quistis glared at him, on the edge of starting to cry again. "No, it isn't," she said, "But thank you anyway." She paused. "You said, last time, you admired me." Seifer adjusted his collar and nodded. "Did you mean it?"

Seifer sighed. "What can I say, you beat me. Soundly. You and Squall and the others. And then you took me back in even after that-"

"Cid did, if you remember. I didn't want anything to do with you," she corrected him.

Seifer smiled slightly, seeing not entirely hostility in her eyes. Maybe something else more accommodating? "And do you still hold that opinion?" he asked.

Quistis became silent and rested her head against her hands, and Seifer was aware that the room was now totally silent. Doctor Kadowski was away, and there were no other injured students. They were totally alone. Finally she answered. "No."

It took him a while to figure this one out. He did, and smirked, but not sarcastically, as he usually did. "I'm honoured," he said, and gave a mock bow.

Quistis laughed. "Thank you, for that at least," she said.

Seifer gestured as if it had been nothing. In fact it had taken a chunk out of his studying just to find the book in the first place. "It was nothing."

Quistis shook her head. "You always say that, but it isn't. You should stop brushing things away so casually. Thanks. Again." She seemed to be grasping for words now.

"Sure, anytime." He turned to go, but Quistis grabbed his hand. He shivered slightly. She was cold.

"Seifer?"

"Yeah?" he replied.

"Don't leave me alone in here," she asked quietly, and Seifer saw the look in her eyes that was usually only seen on animals when they're staring into the headlights. The pale face staring up at him from the imprisonment of the infirmary bed just made it worse. He sighed in resignment as his heartstrings made themselves felt. "OK." He drew up a chair and sat down, and instantly Quistis seemed to relax slightly.

"Thank you," she said again, "I don't… I don't want to be by myself," she said.

Seifer folded his arms over his chest and just looked at her as she drifted off. The bone-white colour of her skin made her look like she would shatter if touched, and he didn't dare do anything that might upset the tubes running into her; whatever they were doing, they were obviously working. The first time he had come in she had opened her eyes for a few seconds before closing them again. It was about that time that he had wandered to ask Rosie about how to find information on sorceresses.

Well, I think we have a suspect. Ultimecia, you utter bitch...

But she's already dead. What're you gonna do Almasy, burn her corpse? Oh wait; she didn't have one of those either, 'cause she was a sorceress!

Seifer settled into the chair and seethed. Here he was; Seifer Almasy, murderer of probably hundreds, healthy as anyone and there lies Quistis Trepe; saviour or the world, and who ends up dying because of petty revenge? Hell, if anyone he'd have chosen Zell.

He paused, and tried to think up a reason why he would have cared if it had been. For sure, if Zell had come down with this, he probably wouldn't have looked all ways from hell for that damned psychic dictionary.

Romantic dream still alive and well? he asked himself.

NO! I killed enough 'cause of that damn thing. It stays where it is. Buried.

Like your little dreamy friend will be if you don't do something…

He looked down at Quistis again and saw she had fell asleep again, whether from fatigue or the drugs he didn't know, but she looked peaceful enough, so he let her be. He snapped his fingers irritably. Damnit Trepe, why'd you ask me to stay with you?

He wasn't going to leave though. His conscience made sure of that.

From time to time the door would slide open and someone else, usually Xu or Rinoa – or Squall, surprisingly enough – would turn up and ask him what he was doing/whether he needed anything. He shrugged to one question and shook his head to the second. Occasionally an enterprising student would wander in purportedly with an injury, would look around an see Quistis laid out on the bed, gasp when they saw her condition, and then walk back out quickly. Seifer found them an annoyance. He wasn't moving, and he only realised what he had agreed to when one of the Trepes came in and really started bugging him. Irvine never came back in to force him out either.

He had been sitting there for about an hour when suddenly two small neurons in his brain went click, and his head snapped up. If this is a magical (he hated that word, it sounded like something from kid's fairytales) curse, then why can't magic solve it? He picked up the massive book from the bedside and started to scan through it again. he came after what he was searching for after just a few seconds.

-lthough the sorceress' gift is deadly to common man, there are theories that uncommon man may have some resistance to it. In the age of- It went off into a long-winded take about a sorceress who had died and the one who had defeated her, who had - and this was the important part - almost died from her final gift. Seifer closed the book, mind starting to spin again.

Uncommon man? Well, I don't know any men, but I know a couple of women...

He waited for a few more seconds, and then made up his mind. he stood and headed for the door, to go and find Rinoa. He made a note to phone Esthar Palace whe he was done.

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Ahhh. Don't rush me.