There are moments in your life when time seems to stand still and hold its breath for fear of moving forward. Squall Leonheart had gone through more than his share of moments like that in the past, but this moment took Fate herself by surprise.

"...what?" Squall breathed. The color had drained from his face and a dull cold began to consume his senses, causing his whole body to tremble. "What do you mean, I'm dying?"

Dr. Kadowaki had to turn her head away. "You have a rare gene, Squall, that when dormant is harmless, but...when activated causes a disease known as Neffira Syndrome." she stated slowly. "It's very rare itself and frankly we don't know much about it, not even what causes its activation."

Squall was staring blankly, digesting what she said, but looking like he was a million miles away.

"It affects the brain, confusing it as to what signals it should send where and when to the body's systems." she continued. "Eventually it will stop sending signals to those systems completely, and...your body will shut down."

Squall held up his hand for her to stop, his eyes clenched shut as he tried to grasp what all this meant. "I'm...I'm just going to fade away...?" Squall asked weakly. "And there's nothing I can do about it?!"

"I'm sorry, Squall." Dr. Kadowaki replied sorrowfully. "We just don't know enough about it to--"

"Are you sure?!" He cried out, cutting her off. "I mean, this gene...you're positive...?"

She nodded in confirmation. "I'm positive, Squall. Don't you think I would go over those results a million times to be sure?"

(Of course she would...) Squall thought. (But...I have to be dreaming. This can't be real. It can't. I've finally found everything I was missing in my life for so long...)

"...you don't even know what caused this...?" he asked softly.

She turned her gaze to him once again, trying to be brave and calm, for his sake. "What activates the gene? No." she replied. "But the gene itself is hereditary--"

"Wait," Squall stopped her again. "You mean one of my parents has the same gene?"

"Yes."

Squall had to take a moment to register that. Of course it had to be true, it made the most sense, but it meant so much more to Squall to realize that fact.

Not long after defeating Ultimecia, Laguna had contacted Squall to talk to him about...the truth. Finding out that Laguna was his father had been difficult to accept at first, but after a few long talks, some cooling off, and spending some actual time together, things hadn't turned out so bad. Squall still called him President Loire or Laguna, and they didn't get to spend as much time with one another as both would have liked, but they had acquired a sort of bond. They met when they could--talked, laughed, cried. Oftentimes, Laguna would tell Squall about his mother. Raine Leonheart Loire had been an amazing woman, and both Loire boys felt partially responsible for her death.

Now, it seemed that one of Squall parents might be inadvertently responsible for his.

"Which parent?" Squall asked carefully.

"I checked into that." Dr. Kadowaki replied. "I wasn't able to get a hold of any medical records for your mother. Winhill isn't exactly the most technologically advanced village. But I contacted the head of the medical department at Esthar's Presidential Palace, and I was able to get your father's--"

"You told him?!" Squall asked angrily.

"Of course not." she assured him. "The doctor there and I are old friends. He owes me a few favors from times back, so I was able to convince him to pass along the information without informing the president."

Squall took alot of relief in that. He didn't want Laguna to know about this, or anyone for that matter. At least not yet. "Thank you..." Squall said sincerely. "So, what did you find out?"

"Well," she began, "There were no traces of the gene present in your father, so, even without seeing your mothers records, I know that the gene must have come from her."

Squall shook his head, "That can't be. I've never heard anything that said she showed signs of this syndrome you're talking about."

"That only means that it hadn't been activated." Dr. Kadowaki countered. "Actually..." She paused, seeming unsure of her next statement.

"What?" Squall pressed.

"Well, I believe it was activated in her at some point." She began. "You see, in most cases of this disease, the gene activates after a period of high stress or extreme emotional strain. Not in all cases, but in most."

"What are you trying to say?" Squall pushed, not liking where he believed this was going.

The doctor looked at him squarely again, trying to remain collected. "Your mother died in child birth, that we know, but the cause is something we don't know." She took a breath. "I believe that with the absence of your father during the time she went into labor, and with the sudden labor itself...that the strain of everything may have caused the gene to activate and accelerate the affects of the syndrome."

"Hold it!" Squall called out. "Are you saying that it's because of me? She died from that syndrome, that gene, because I was born...?"

"No, Squall!" She answered furiously. "Don't you dare think that! There's no telling whether that's why she died, or if it's true, whether the same thing wouldn't have happened later on from something else."

He calmed a little, but the thought of being the reason Raine died...he couldn't shake it.

"I only mentioned it because if it was the emotional stress that activated the gene in Raine, than that might be what activated it in you."

(Ultimecia...?) Squall thought (That time warp...losing Rinoa...I did almost die...)

"But it's been almost a year since then." Squall countered. "If it activated from that whole mess with the sorceress then why haven't I felt any affects so far?"

Dr. Kadowaki sighed. "The rate at which the syndrome works is very unpredictable and varies from person to person, so--"

"So, I could go years without suffering from any of the symptoms?" Squall said hopefully.

The doctor seemed at a loss for words again. To her, this was like handing out a death sentence to one of her own children. "I'm afraid not, Squall." she replied slowly. "Not in your case."

Squall's hopes were crushed anew. "Then...how long? How much time do I have?"

When you're young, you feel like you could live forever, and most of the time, you plan on doing just that. As a student of the Garden, Squall had learned to accept death. He had prepared for it, waited for it, even expected it at some points in his life. But he had changed so much over the past year. It's not that he was afraid to die, or afraid to feel the pain of the disease. He had lived through enough pain to know that he could survive that. Squall Leonheart was afraid of being dead. Afraid of losing the friends he had finally let share his life, the father that he was just beginning to know, the person inside himself that he was just beginning to know, and...Rinoa. He especially couldn't bear the thought of losing her. No amount of time would have been long enough to spend his life with her, even if he still had 50 years ahead of him.

Unfortunately, he wasn't going to come even close to that.

"Judging from the rate at which the syndrome is working so far, you could begin feeling the affects as soon as next week, maybe tomorrow, maybe by the next minute."

"How long?" Squall asked again.

Dr. Kadowaki struggled to keep herself from crying. She had completely broken down when she'd realized what Squall was about to go through. But she had to keep strong, for him. "Truthfully..." she began. "...a year. Probably less."

Squall felt like he had taken his own gunblade in the chest. (A year...?) he thought unbearably. (Oh, God...no...)

Squall collapsed into his hands, openly sobbing at the thought of losing so much when he had foolishly begun to take it all for granted. Just the other night he had been counting his blessings. Now, all he could count was grief.

Dr. Kadowaki rose slowly from her chair and came around the desk beside him. It was so hard for her to stay in control, especially seeing proud, strong Squall Leonheart in tears, but she wouldn't let him lose hope.

A year was still a year.

"Don't let this consume you, Squall," she soothed. "We can make the best of this. We can--"

"Make the best of this!?!" he cried, shooting up out of his chair and causing Doctor Kadowaki to stumble back. "I'm dying!! How can I make the best of that!?" Tears were pouring down his face, so much rage and emotion coursing through him.

Dr. Kadowaki felt lost. "Squall, please..." she tried, reaching out to him.

"No!" Squall called, pulling away. "I...I n-need...to get out of here..." He backed away towards the door, trembling all over, and nearly toppled over backwards.

"Squall, listen to me." the doctor began carefully. "We need to talk about this, get the others in here to help you through this. Quistis, Zell, Rinoa--"

"No!" Squall screamed. "I don't...want any of them to know about this..." He reached the door, stumbling out of it as it opened before him.

"Squall, you can't keep this from them!" Dr. Kadowaki called after him, but he had already started to run, trying so desperately to outrun something he couldn't see or fight, but that was eating away at him from inside, where he had no control.

"I don't care!!" Squall yelled back as he ran.

(...I don't care...)

tbc...

A/N: Well, that was part two. Still, want me to keep going? I hope so, cause I'm really liking this so far, but I still need your imput.

The disease I made up. I figured it wouldn't be right to give him something that was from our world; cancer, aids, etc. It needed to be something else, and this disease seemed like the perfect way to go about this. As for the name, it came out of the blue.

Some of you have said, "People have killed Squall in other fics," which is true, but that's not what I meant by doing something different. How many people have given Squall a disease, in a non-humorous way? Besides, how do you know he's going to die? I already know the outcome myself, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give anything away.

Well, I hope you're all enjoying this, cause if you are then I'll keep writing it. Please review. :-)