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"There are no easy answers."
--Anonymous

"Ah, shit."

Seifer cursed as he saw the road ahead. Almost halfway to Galbadia, it was the middle of the night. Squall was tired; the wounds on his head and side were throbbing, and Seifer seemed to have more reserves of stamina than should be humanly possible. But it was the rail ahead that provided the greatest dilemma: the raised tracks had broken and fallen several meters downwards. Squall gave a low, almost inaudible groan. "We'll have to jump it," Seifer continued.

"You're insane," Squall said, halfway under his breath. Seifer heard anyway.

"You think of a better way to get there? Maybe you want to go all the way back to FH and borrow a boat? Because I really know how to row. And feel like it." He turned back to the rail, steeled himself, muttered something that sounded like "no fear," and jumped. Squall watched him land on the other side, then turn and beckon.

"C'mon," he called out. "It's not that hard. Unless you're afraid, that is."

(...this is moronic.) Squall had never turned down a challenge in his life--not from Seifer. That wasn't how you dealt with him. So, ignoring his side and imperfect balance, gathering all his waning energy, he jumped--

--and fell short, landing on the broken edge and slipping on the broken concrete. Within a second Seifer's gloved hand had latched onto the front of his shirt, and he pulled him onto the actual rail.

"God, you're clumsy," he sneered. "That's twice now I've saved your ass. Don't think I'm not keeping track."

"...thanks," Squall said darkly.

"Yah, I didn't expect any gratitude from you," Seifer said, releasing him. "This looks like a good spot, and you're about to collapse. We'll camp here for the night."

(It was time to set up camp for the night five hours ago,) Squall thought, and sat down with a touch of resentful gratefulness. Seifer, using a traditional match and dry wood, got a fire started in a clear spot on the rail. Soon it was crackling merrily, and Squall was glad to have something between him and Seifer. Even if it did cas unpleasant visual echos of the ill-fated Deling Parade--when he had learned that his archnemisis was escourting his mark, even though he was supposed to have been executed. The first time he had glimpsed him had been through the blazing light of a torch.

"We'll start at first light tomorrow," Seifer said, firelight gleaming in his eyes like ambition.

(Let's not and say we did,) Squall thought. (Dammit, Seifer, I'm injured! You saw when it happened! Why don't you realize you can't just push me 'till I drop? Are you trying to kill me?)

The last thought stopped him. What if Seifer had brought him all this way to get rid of him? It made sense--did it? Seifer could have let the Lieutenant kill him, but he hadn't. And when Squall missed his footing on the rail, Seifer had caught him. There were easier ways to make sure he was dead than walking all day and half the night and then murdering him in his sleep--or through exhaustion.

But the look in Seifer's eyes, the degrading sneer--it was frightening. It reminded him of the training session a year ago, the one that had left them both with scars. When Seifer had blasted him, sent him sprawling in the dirt with a wild flash of magic, then swung his gunblade at his rival--

It had been the first time Squall had ever seriously considered Seifer a personal threat, the first time he had ever honestly thought he might die. He hadn't, though; but he had been marked for life. The scar across his face would never go away.

Seifer hadn't gotten away unscarred that day, either. His mark was just as incriminating, just as lasting. Almost exactly the same as Squall's, but tilted the other way. Equal and opposite. Fitting, somehow.

Squall let his eyelids droop until Seifer thought he was asleep, and watched his enemy carefully. Seifer watched back, searching for the illusion. It was a standoff--unspoken, almost subliminal.

Squall began to drift. It was cold, but for the fire--dark, as well. The sea was lapping beneath them, gentle and mindless, a deep unbroken expanse. The bridge on which they sat was a thin silver line, fading and disappearing in the distance. His entire body wanted sleep.

His eyes drifted closed--but in the last moment of wakefulness, merging with the first scraps of dream, he saw something. A change came over Seifer, slowly--the facade dropped from Seifer's face. He didn't look predatory or hateful. He looked almost... melancholy. As Squall drifted off to true sleep he saw Seifer sigh, and close his eyes.

-

Seifer watched until he was sure Squall was asleep, and relaxed his scowl. Truthfully, he could have done without Squall's presence--could have done without the SeeDs' appearance in the FH battle. His rival was a valuable ally--he could realize that--but he was also an unpleasant reminder, a ghost of more terrible times. Ever since he had found himself at Balamb Harbor after Ultimecia's defeat, delerious, washed ashore with no idea where he was or how he had gotten there, he had wondered if he could ever go back. He didn't think so; las he had mentioned to Squall, they would kill him if he came within a kilometer. Some wounds were still too fresh.

He had spent a few days at Balamb, until the Garden had passed overhead one day. He had been fishing with Fujin and Raijin--Raijin had insisted, said that it would make him feel better. It hadn't. He was a lousy fisherman, and he hated being lousy at anything.

But Garden had flown overhead, whole and victorious, throwing everything he had done in his face--and then it had turned away from him. He had decided that Balamb wouldn't do, he had to move on to somewhere where there were no memories to assail him--somewhere where the academy wouldn't always be right there on the horizon, somewhere where he could breathe, and be alone. He had chosen Fisherman's Horizon, one of the most isolated spots on the globe. He had even turned in his weapons--an act which turned his stomach, made him feel as if he had cut every bit of himself away and become a walking memory of a man--watched Fujin and Raijin turn in theirs, and tried to settle down.

For a year, he had been trying.

Then the black army came, and Mayor Dobe had fortunately--eventually--been wise enough to see that an attempt to negotiate would be met with nothing but bloodshed. Turning to Seifer, Fujin, and Raijin to defend the town, he had put all his trust in them. No one had ever trusted him so much. Even Ultimecia had hemmed him in with orders and caveats, kept a tight eye on him to ensure that he didn't stray. With Ultimecia, he had been a dog on a leash. Mayor Dobe, Dobe the pacifist, Dobe the corner preacher, had made him a champion and commander.

Then, out of the blue, Squall and his team had showed up and started helping--even though they hadn't known he was there. Unwilling to face them, Seifer hid, and watched. When Squall had entered the showdown with the Lieutenant, Seifer had had an irrational burst of anger: how dare Squall steal his glory! How dare he play hero, like he alwasy did--how dare he, when Seifer needed it so much more! But that had passed when he saw the Lieutenant's pole snap Squall's gunblade as if it was nothing, and send him nearly careening off the edge. For some reason, he couldn't let that happen. Maybe it was because he wanted to redeem himself. Maybe it was because he had to prove himself the better hero, the more admirable. Maybe it was because he didn't want Squall to die. He didn't honestly know.

Now he was going back to the place where the hell-nightmare had started, to the heart of the country he had once ruled. No, that wasn't right--he hadn't really ruled anything. Everything he did was at the Sorceress's whim, and he couldn't break that control any more than he could voluntarily break his own neck. And why? Why was he following Squall? Dammit, it wasn't because he cared about the safety of Fisherman's Horizon. It was because he wanted to help Squall--wanted to repay some of what he had done to him. Wanted to turn from the villain he had been made into the hero, the knight, he had always wanted to be.

It drove him insane.

Seifer sighed, closing his eyes. Concentrating on the sea breeze teasing his hair, he tried to forget all his troubles--for the time being.

-

Zell collapsed on the sleeping pallet in the conference room, staring up at the wall. His clothes hadn't quite dried yet, and they were uncomfortably chilly. Edea had decided to accompany them on their search after she had heard what happened to Squall, and was sharing the hanger with Quistis. Irvine, Nida, and Zell were all bunking in the conference room, on cheap, soft pallets they had bought in Balamb long ago and stashed for just such an emergency. The Ragnarok was landed safely at the Cape of Good Hope, and the night sky was darkening. However, no one was getting much sleep.

Zell was still wondering about his rescue earlier, turning Bahamut's scale over and over in his hand. And he remembered the time earlier when Squall had come running to his door, demanding to know where Leviathan was, thinking he had seen it in the Training Facility. Zell had laughed then, thinking--who knew? Maybe it was a new, prankster side of Squall that Rinoa had uncovered, or maybe simply a trick of the light or an odd hallucination Squall had seen; but he took the claim much more seriously now. He shuddered. It seemed the GFs were acting strangely.

He had always thought GFs couldn't appear without being summoned, but is seemed he was wrong. It made a bit of sense, he thought, that the GFs could choose whether or not to appear. He had tried to juction Shiva once, then made mistake of trying to use her in combat--it had been an uphill battle all the way, a test of wills that Zell simply could not win. Irvine had found him later, delerious, bleeding, arm fractured, and screaming obscenities at the ice-elemental GF. By that time the enemy he had been fighting had attacked him and gone, leaving him with the conviction that he would stick to using Ifrit.

So, if a GF could choose when not to appear, wouldn't it make sense that it could choose when to appear? But if so, whay hadn't they before? What about all the GFs who died while they were being coaxed (or, perhaps, coerced) into appearing? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to just appear and get back inside a persons brain, safe? And why were the GFs suddenly so concerned about the safety of the person they were junctioned to? They never had been before.

(Squall would know,) Zell thought. (He'd be able to tell. Like at the Shumi village, when he had to explain to us about the search for all those stones and the Elder's weird hand trick.
(But... wait. If the GFs are suddenly protecting us, why didn't they save Squall? They were doing this before, because he saw one at the Training Center. They still are doing it, because Bahamut saved me. So why didn't anyone save Squall?)

Resisting an urge to punch something, Zell closed his eyes. It would probably be best if he got some sleep, he knew, but there were just too many questions. Something big was happening, and Zell didn't like it when big things were happening and he didn't know about them. He liked it even less when he didn't know about them and they involved him anyway.

-

Laguna had given up questioning Diablos, complaining that his replies were more cryptic than a fortune teller's at a cheap carnival. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he found he could see a bit; not that there was much to see. Swirling clouds of varying degrees of blackness composed the background, and the silhouettes of Selphie and Rinoa were plainly visible. Diablos was marked by the firey gold orbs that were his eyes, and nothing else could be made out.

"I wonder what time it is?" Laguna thought out loud.

"There is no time here," Diablos said. "Only the time you bring with you."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Rinoa demanded, sniffing.

"Time moves at your speed now," Diablos said.

"What?"

Diablos fixed his baleful, molten eyes on Rinoa. "Five days have passed since you arrived." He turned to Selphie. "Two since you arrived." And he turned to Laguna. "You arrived this morning." There was a hint of wry self-pity in the voice when Diablos continued. "Your time, of course. In my time, I have already been here three eternities."

"So how do we get out?" Laguna asked.

The firey red eyes closed. "You do not get out. Someone else comes in."

And, try as he might, Laguna could get nothing more out of the Guardian Force.