A/N: I know I have been neglecting this poor fic, but school is almost out and I'm going to have a lot of spare time coming up in about a week. My plan is to get this completed ASAP so that I can move on to some other fics that I have waiting in the wings. Hopefully things will work out that way.

Chapter 12: The Darkness Inside

Seifer wasn't sure what had possessed him. He'd reached a point where he simply couldn't restrain himself any longer. He knew that he'd hurt Quistis, in more ways than one. The slight limp to her gait was evidence that he'd strained her physically, but he could tell that she was scared. She wasn't as strong as she'd once been, and she certainly had no one to help her out if she found herself in a tight spot.

He liked to think that he had more self control than that. He'd grown up since the ordeal with the sorceress, and he wasn't quite so quick to anger anymore. But, for some reason, having Quistis treat him like a common criminal had made something deep inside of him snap.

The world was just starting to grow dark, and the temperature was dropping accordingly. The sky was clear, and Seifer knew that the night was going to be cold. He wasn't at all confident that Quistis was prepared for how low the temperatures would drop come nightfall.

"We should find a place to stop soon," he announced, meaning to offer it as a piece of advice. Regardless of how he felt about Quistis, it was in his best interest to arrange for his own safety. If she wasn't thinking ahead for the both of them, then he figured he would. She shrugged off his suggestion, ignoring him as she continued to trudge through the snow.

Seifer frowned, fighting back bits and pieces of anger that immediately rose to the surface. His feelings toward Quistis weren't so much rooted in hatred. The truth was, he sort of liked the little blonde up ahead of him. He'd never really disliked her. The simple fact that she'd been the shadow haunting his night and that she was taking him back (probably to face execution) made it difficult for him to display any of his kind feelings toward her. If anything, he'd thought Quistis would feel more sympathetic toward him than anyone.

"So how much are you gonna be getting for my head?" he asked, tossing out the comment simply to ruffle her feathers.

"Better be quite a bit for all the trouble I've gone through to get you," she snorted.

She had some spunk to her when she wanted to. Seifer tried hard to hide the smile that snuck up on his mouth. Quistis was smart, and she was tough. Most of the time he felt otherwise on the issue of her strength, but he had to admit that it took guts to leave home and trek out across a god-forsaken foreign land. She didn't know the first thing about surviving in the cold, but she was learning. And, despite the bitter look across her face, she hadn't voiced a single complaint.

"That can't be the only reason you're out here," he persisted.

"There's a lot of reasons I'm out here, Seifer."

"Feel like sharing any of them?"

"Not particularly."

She obviously didn't feel like chatting. Seifer shifted his gaze downward, watching the snow move steadily as they walked onward. Quistis would stumble from time to time, throwing snow up behind her. Either she was hurt, or she was tired...quite possibly both. Seifer wished she would just swallow her pride and find a place to camp for the night.

"This is a nice little area," he announced, looking around them at the mountains on either side. He was hoping to open the way for her to agree and suggest setting up camp on her own.

"Yep," she agreed, nodding her head. They walked on, Quistis stubbornly ignoring him to the best of her ability. He wondered if she was mad at him, he couldn't blame her if she was. He had attacked her. Although, he hadn't really meant to hurt her...he'd just been pushed to the edge and wanted her to stop and listen to him.

"Look, are we going to stop or not?" he finally demanded. "It's going to freeze damn hard when the sun goes down, and I'd rather be sitting by a fire."

"I don't want to spend any more time out here with you than I have to," she barked. Her azure eyes flashed with irritation, solidifying Seifer's theory that she was pissed at him.

"Same to you," he retorted childishly. "But I'd rather not freeze to death with you."

"Shut up, Seifer," she growled.

"Fine," he rolled his eyes. She was making a mistake, and if she wasn't woman enough to admit it, than she would just have to find out for herself.

They walked on for another half an hour before the air started to sting the inside of Seifer's lungs. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and he knew Quistis wasn't going to be able to keep going much longer. She was used to the balmy seaside weather, and the Trabian winter was a harsh thing for anyone to travel though. Quistis' cold weather endurance was lower than Seifer's, and as he started to flounder he knew that she had to be struggling much more than she indicated.

Fifteen more minutes went by. They were agonizing for the both of them, but Quistis stubbornly refused to give in. He had to admit that she was tougher than he'd anticipated. She kept walking on even as he was struggling with the urge to stop.

In the end, the weather won out and Quistis was forced to stop. Seifer's lungs were aching and the muscles in his legs were numb. Quistis didn't quite have the dexterity to start a fire as she pulled off her gloves. Her hands were shaking wildly, and a frustrated look crossed her face as she tried to steady them. The same thing had happened to Seifer on his first night through Trabia. It was a frightening thing to be betrayed by his own body, and for long moments he'd believed that he was going to freeze and die. The most depressing facet of that thought was simply that nobody would care. Sure, someone along the line would find his icy corpse and probably get a substantial reward for retuning it to those who wanted to see him dead.

Being at the top of Garden's most wanted list wasn't something he liked to think of as a life accomplishment.

"Warm up your hands, then try again," Seifer told her, his teeth chattering.

"And how to you propose I do that?" she asked angrily.

"Pull your arms inside your coat and tuck them under your arms." That was the way he'd been able to save himself. In reality, he supposed that his situation hadn't been a life or death but, but at the time it certainly had seemed so. Much like Quistis, he was cold and frightened and hadn't been thinking as clearly as he could have been. The answer was obvious: steady the hands, build the fire, thaw out. It was so simple that it was almost instinctual.

He watched, sitting in the snow, with mild interest as Quistis' arms disappeared inside of her coat. She was sitting next to him, her knees tucked up to her chest. Resting her chin on the top of her knees, she watched him. Her teeth were chattering as well, and he wondered if she was regretting not listening to him from the start. Whether or not her intentions were hateful, he didn't want her to die. She obviously hadn't realized that, and as long as she hadn't Seifer figured he would use the fact to his advantage. Of course, she didn't scare quite as easily as the average person on the street.

"Getting better?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah..." she nodded, rocking back and forth slowly. After a few moments of silence her arms came back through the sleeves of her coat and she again attempted to start a fire. This time she was much more successful, and in minutes she had a healthy, roaring flame.

They both sat at in unsafe proximity to the fire, their sides pressed firmly together. Seifer's hands were still bound, but in front of him so that he could still warm himself adequately. As their bodies thawed, the tension gradually returned. Quistis, however, seemed to be in a slightly better mood.

"What was that whole thing about earlier today?" she asked.

"What thing?" Seifer knew what she was talking about, but he preferred to play stupid.

"When you pulled me down," she replied, seeing right through his bluff.

"Oh...that thing..." he hesitated. "I'm not really sure."

"What do you mean you're not sure?" The firelight was playing nicely off of her features. Seifer, in his fickle little way, thought for a moment that she looked absolutely beautiful. Why his thoughts were always so contradictory was a mystery to him, one he would certainly have liked to solve.

"Well..." he had to advert his gaze to the fire. The way she looked in that moment made it hard for him to explore the dark side that he harbored. "I guess I got tired of you treating me like a criminal."

"You are a criminal," she reminded him.

"No I'm not! Dammit!" He yelled. "Because I ended up fighting on the loosing side of a war, I'm a criminal?"

"No," she shook her head. "Because of what you did during the war."

"I was eighteen," he reminded her.

"And you're saying that you've grown up since then?" she asked disbelievingly.

"You don't have a clue what I've been through," he replied, shaking his head. He did know that he had his demons to contend with, but he wasn't as sadistic and evil as most people thought of him. He and Squall had been rivals, even friendly rivals at times, they had never been arch enemies. The only time things had become that bloody and twisted were in the very depths of the war when he'd been under quite heavy outside influence anyway. He teased, and he pushed, but he wasn't evil. Maybe he did need to serve some punishment for the things he had done, but he couldn't help but feel that the things some people discussed (execution for one) were over the top for his crimes.

"Maybe not," she shrugged. "But it's not right for anyone to do some of the things you did."

"Would you have done them to protect the people you loved?" he asked. "You would have killed me to save Squall...or even Selphie or Zell."

"I don't know that I would have killed you," she admitted.

"Really?" He didn't believe that for a moment. She was a mercenary, she was trained to kill and do so without mercy for the enemy. She got the job done no matter what it took, even if that meant the loss of her own life. It was the SeeD way. Which was more ruthless then? The very Garden that she was working for or himself?

"Despite what you believe, I don't have any desire to see you dead, Seifer," she shook her head.

That was an interesting development. She didn't want to see him dead, yet she was risking her own life to drag him halfway across the room to face the music. If that didn't mean death, what did it mean? True enough, he could be incarcerated. The thought of that was generally displeasing to him. All things considered, he supposed that he would rather die.

"Then what are you after?" he asked.

She stared at him for a few moments.

"Answers," she finally replied vaguely.

Seifer frowned and turned his attention back to the fire. He didn't like to think of what questions she had to ask him. They would all drudge up bad memories that he'd worked for the past few years to forget. She wanted to shine a light into the dark part of his soul, to find out what made him tick and why he'd acted the way he had. She wanted answers he didn't have, and ones that he didn't want to pursue. Most especially, he wasn't interested to finding out why Quistis had always been one of two people in his life that he genuinely cared about.