A/N: I know Seifer and Squall seem sort of unusually buddy-buddy in this chapter, but I've always sort of thought that they understood one another. They didn't hate each other, just found themselves on different sides of the fence.
Chapter 22: On Trial
Garden had been deemed a neutral enough ground on which to hold Seifer's trial. The people of Galbadia, apparently, were after his head. Those in Esthar who had been forced to deal with the aftermath of the lunar cry were also quite peeved with him. Each had sent representatives and witnesses to the trial (never mind that half of their complaints hadn't been his fault). He supposed everyone needed someone to blame, and as Ultimecia was conveniently unavailable, he was the most obvious scapegoat.
For the first day, he'd been held in a detention area, the same room in fact that he'd broken out of in order to chase after Squall to Timber. If he'd ignored the urge to run into the fray, it was quite possible that he would have never found himself in the mess he was currently in.
Squall came by to visit often, although the others had kept their distance. With as easy as he was to pick on and start a fight with, Seifer's feelings toward Squall were really rather friendly. Squall was always willing to fight back, and the constant race to best one another had driven them to become the master gunbladers that they both were. On this particular day, three long days following his arrival in Balamb, Seifer sat and stared across a shiny table at his rival.
"The trial's set for tomorrow," Squall announced, tenting his hands.
"Yay," Seifer rolled his eyes. He wasn't exactly eager to have all of the past dug up and displayed.
"I'm set to testify." Squall showed no emotion as he broke the news to Seifer. He had been around to see most -of the more horrible things that Seifer had done, not among the least having occurred in the D-District prison. He only vaguely remembered watching the brunette across from him squirm with uncomfort as Seifer tried to pry answers out of him.
"Against me?"
"You do what you have to," Squall shrugged nonchalantly.
That had always been Squall's philosophy on life. He did what had to be done, and he didn't regret the decisions he had been forced to make. It was probably an easy way to view the world. You do what you have to, and there's nothing you can do to change that. It allowed for a lot of guilt and regret to be forgotten and shifted responsibility on to someone else's shoulders. Squall had the right idea. It was too bad, Seifer thought, that he'd missed his chance to adopt the same ideas.
"Quistis is as well." Seifer had a hard time hiding the emotion that he felt concerning this new piece of news. Quistis was going to testify against him? He'd thought that they were...something.
"Really?" he choked out the word, knowing if he didn't reply at all Squall would know that he felt something toward the blonde.
"She's being forced to," Squall blinked slowly. "Cid is rushing the trial, the Galbadians got angry at the sudden crunch to gather their case, and Cid compromised by forcing those of us unwilling to take the stand by holding our SeeD membership hostage."
"Quistis didn't want to testify?"
"She was the only one."
Seifer thought that over for a moment. Maybe then they were something.
"Rinoa thinks she's sweet on you." Squall blushed a little at repeating Rinoa's words. He wasn't comfortable getting involved in other people's relationships. In fact, Seifer doubted that he was still completely comfortable in his own relationship.
Seifer smiled to himself. She was sweet on him. Even if the whole trial turned sour and ended up being the end of him, it didn't seem quite so dismal knowing that Quistis Trepe liked him back. Wondering only at the back of his mind when he'd become such a sap, he watched Squall stand up and stretch.
"Speaking of Rinoa," he sighed. "I've got to go."
"Cracking the whip, eh?" Seifer laughed. Squall was whipped. Of course, Seifer was really one to talk.
Squall nodded and pulled his fur colored jacket on. Seifer had never liked the jacket. It fell about to Squall's last rib, and the big fluffy collar made it seem all the more feminine. He'd hoped that over time Squall would realize he looked like a woman with a boa and ditch the damn thing. Obviously, he had yet to take a peek in the mirror.
He left without so much as a goodbye, formality wasn't really Squall's style. Left alone, Seifer found himself thinking of Quistis. He'd never imagined that she and he would ever find themselves on friendly terms. He'd maybe imagined her naked from time while sitting in her class, and he'd certainly dreamed up a few vibrant fantasies, but none of them involved love. There was a big difference between day dreaming about her in her underwear, and day dreaming about just having the opportunity to be around her.
Maybe things wouldn't turn out so bad, maybe they'd have their chance. He wanted to go back to Faber. He wanted some Faber's of his own. He wanted Quistis. All of that was hanging on the outcome of the trial.
Seifer didn't sleep well that night. He tossed and turned, thoughts of family and death intermingling in his mind. By the time morning came, he'd gotten maybe a few hours worth of sleep. Dark circles had formed under his tired eyes, and the sight he presented was just pathetic enough to maybe take mercy on. He'd also been able to grow back the shadow of a beard, and his hair was slightly disheveled. It was no longer slicked back like he'd once had it, but hanging in small chunks about his head.
The trail was being held privately in the quad, which had been transformed to suit that specific purpose. When Seifer walked in, held on either side by two SeeDs, a good number of people he recognized looked up at him. He spotted Squall, Zell, and Quistis right away. On Squall's right hand side sat Rinoa, and on the other side of Quistis sat Irvine, although Seifer didn't immediately recognize him.
He was sat down in a rather unforgiving chair. He had his back to most of the people, facing only Cid and three other men who he didn't recognize. There was no jury, Seifer was too infamous a criminal to be tried by jury. Instead, his fate laid in the hands of a few select men, Cid among them.
With little ceremony, the trial began. The first witness against him, not surprisingly, was Squall. There was, he supposed, no defense. Everyone knew what he had done, it was just a matter of deciding the right punishment once all the facts came out.
Squall, speaking more words than Seifer had ever known him to in one sitting, calmly described Seifer's attack on the president of Galbadia, Vinzer Deling. He did so with little emotion, not seeming to blame or sympathize with Seifer. He was the model of stoicism. Moving on past the president, he described seeing Seifer in the parade in Deling City and the battle that resulted.
The tension in the room rose dramatically as Squall talked about the torture he suffered in the D-District prison. He left out quite a bit of detail, going only so far as to not reveal any of his personal feelings on the subject but still relay the story. He went on to tell of Seifer's exploits upon the mobile Galbadia Garden, and the attack which he had launched onto Balamb Garden. He did admit that he had wished afterward that he had moved to attack Galbadia Garden first, it made sense tactically.
Squall's unemotional testimony came to a close with his description of Seifer upon the Lunatic Pandora. That had been Seifer's last stand, not including his throwing Rinoa to Adel. That event Squall narrated with a bit more verve.
Seifer was feeling rather depressed by the time Squall had left the stand. His testimony alone seemed enough to clinch the death penalty. After all, how many horrible crimes had he committed just in that one story? Hyne only knew what other things would be presented.
Zell came next, his eyes hot and angry as they landed on Seifer. He'd teased Zell without mercy, but other than that he could think of nothing in particular that he'd done to the fighter.
"Seifer is a bully without conscience," Zell announced, his chin high. The wuss, he'd only been able to say so knowing there would be no repercussions. "He abandoned us on our SeeD field exam to fight off monsters and soldiers ourselves, then acted as if he had done all of the work. He's not happy unless he's antagonizing someone."
Rolling his eyes, Seifer tried not to jump up and strangle the blonde. Nothing that Zell was describing was a crime, although it did say something for Seifer's character. He wasn't a nice guy. In fact, he was a jerk. His stomach rolling, Seifer watched Zell step down from the stand and Selphie fill the empty spot that he left.
"Seifer ordered a missile attack upon both this Garden and the one in Trabia that I originally studied at," she announced, her head held high. "Squall managed to save this Garden, but the one in Trabia was hit and damaged badly. Many students there died and many others were seriously injured." She went on to dissolve into tears while talking of the place she had grown up. Seifer had ordered the attack, but he'd been strictly under orders at the time, he'd even told Squall as much.
Still, the way things were going, the outlook was not good. It took quite some time for Selphie to be calmed down enough to continue with her testimony. Her eyes were puffy red, her nose running, by the time she reclaimed her seat next to Irvine. Seifer watched her walk back to her seat, his eyes momentarily meeting the unhappy ones of Quistis. She was coming up soon as a witness, and he was dreading to hear what she had to say. Regardless of how she felt about him, she would tell the truth. And that would be he last twist in the knot of the noose tightening around Seifer's neck. Things certainly weren't looking bright.
He sunk down in his chair, trying to hide his despair from those present. The least he could do is go down like a man.
The following two people were ones that Seifer didn't recognize. They focused on the atrocities following the lunar cry. Seifer, really, had nothing to do with the lunar cry. The stupid people of Esthar shouldn't have dug the damn thing up if they didn't want something bad to happen. They had lived under Adel, and Seifer couldn't honestly thing of much worse.
Wallowing in depression, he watched the faces of the men who held his future in their hands. Cid was sympathetic enough, and Seifer had a good feeling that the older man would go to bat for him. Squall had indicated as much on his trips to the detention room where Seifer was being held. Cid had rushed the trial in order to prevent a strong case from being built, and Seifer was thankful for that. Cid was a good man.
Although, listening to so many people tell of the many and varied ways in which he had ruined their lives, Seifer started to wonder if he didn't deserve whatever he had coming.
In order to derail his dark thoughts, he cast his eyes around the once happy quad. He was surprised that Selphie hadn't decorated with "Hang Seifer" balloons or something. In fact, the versatile space was stripped of almost all decoration. The spartan décor was fitting. It looked as poor as he felt, and he liked to have his surroundings reflect his mood.
A disturbance toward the back of the room interrupted his thoughts. He turned, straining his neck to see what everyone else was looking at. Part of him figured that it was probably some disgruntled person come to kill him. A bullet, had had to admit, was preferable to sitting through more of the trial. It was torture of the most heinous kind.
Still, he was surprised when Edea stepped out of the crowd, Faber at her side. His little hand was clasped tightly in her own. His heart soared at seeing Edea, but sunk when he spotted Faber. The last thing he wanted was for Faber to find out that he wasn't much of a hero. Having the little kid find out all the things that he'd done in the past was a frightening idea. The one person in the world who thought Seifer was one of the best human beings alive was about to find out that he was nothing better than scum.
Edea smiled at Seifer, then at Quistis, and took a seat directly behind him. He turned around to look at her, puzzled as to why she'd had shown up and even more so concerning Faber's presence.
"Don't worry, sweetie," she whispered. "Everything's going to be fine."
He wanted to believe her, but as he turned around to face front again, the name was called that he had so been dreading. Edea's hand landed firmly on his shoulder, comforting and strong as Quistis Trepe walked up to take the stand. Her blue eyes met his, then traveled back to Edea's. This, he realized, was going to be the clincher. If not to the men of his makeshift jury, then certainly to himself.
Quistis was going to be the death of him.
