Misfire

The title says it all…

Please review! Any criticism, comments, or pickings up on logic holes I could have missed would b greatly appreciated!

**

The lean, blond man stood on the corner of Fifth Avenue, his trenchcoat billowing about his muscular form in the wind. His square jaw and finely structured cheekbones were racked with tension. There was a skittish, almost wild look in his deep green eyes. Something was definitely bothering him.

Two shadows flickered on the wall behind him. The street was deserted except for a few pigeons fighting over a mouldy scrap of cheese someone had thoughtfully left squashed into the pavement. Everything was silent. The sun blazing down on his back seemed slightly incongruous with the ominous atmosphere.

The shadows moved slightly to the left and right, dodging out of his line and vision with the skills of panthers. The sun played off his hair until the gleaming strands looked like spun gold.

Minutes, it could have been hours, passed. The man glanced at his watch, the worry now evident on his face.

Turning on his heel, he walked away, his pace quickening to a run. He ran down a deserted alleyway, through milling crowds, into a narrow street that was dingy and suddenly much colder than the blazing heat he had just come from. He stopped, seeing something. His mouth formed one word.

"Quistis?"

**

His trembling fingers pressed the trigger almost on their own as he closed his eyes and heard the fatal bang. No scream of agony, no last words, a muffled choking sound, a soft thud.

He kept his eyes closed after that, but, the curiosity was too much and eventually he peered out from underneath his eyelids. The scene in front of him looked as if it was straight out of a horror movie. No – it was exactly as he had imagined it. She lay, beautiful as an angel, her breathing no longer stirring the wisps of fragrant hair that lay across her face. Her hair didn't look like it had when he first saw her, like golden ribbons, flying in the wind. Now it was more like gold silk, spread out around her pale face like a halo, stained with blood. The slow spreading crimson stain near her collarbone was reaching the edges of her cutoff t-shirt, where it pooled and dripped ominously onto the sidewalk. Her face was white, chalk – white, but beautiful, her eyes finally closed in peace, the tears still wet, their stains still etched on her cheeks. The last delicate blooms of colour were ebbing away from her cheeks. Her eyelashes lay, dark black and naturally curling, splayed out across her eyelids. One hand was flung gracefully across her chest as if in self-defence. Now it was limp, but graceful even in stillness.

Mark stared at his hands, at the crimson body, then back at his hands. Spots of blood danced on them, whether in reality or his imagination he did not know.

I just killed Quistis! I just killed another human being! Oh no – I – how could I –

What's going to happen to me?

"But I didn't kill her", he told himself, rubbing his ice-cold hands together frantically. "My fingers pulled the trigger on their own. I didn't mean to shoot. I didn't mean to kill her. I didn't!"

His stomach clenched as he imagined the horrific terror Quistis must have felt as her last breath left her, then her violent struggle to hold on, trying to remember things about her life, things that were good. Things that she would carry into the blackness of eternal sleep.

And as she sank deeper and deeper into the water of death, her lungs would finally contract in a spasm, forcing the blood to flow freely, until finally, irrevocably, she would be – dead.

Mark looked at her body, trying to shake off the crushing guilt that was weighing upon his dark head.

Then, he turned and ran, the picture of her crumpled body printed infinitely, indelibly, on his mind.

**

Squall walked between Nick and the woman who had picked him up from his room. "I don't need your help!" he said, scowling as the three entered the secret agent headquarters. "Unless you want to help me rescue Quistis."

Nick looked at him sharply. "I thought you didn't know where she was."

"I don't" Squall lied, with a sidelong glance at Nick. "But I might have some ideas about how to figure out where she is."

"Then the best way you can help is to talk to us," urged Nick, not unkindly. "Believe me, we want to get to the bottom of this just as much as you do."

"Then go with me to find her" Squall pleaded. "It's the only way I'm telling you anything. I swear. I'm not letting you Neanderthals loose on her with those guns…"

"We're ready for the interrogation" said the woman. "Should we take him down to the tech room?" She spoke to Nick, but her eyes never left Squall's face.

Nick shook his head. "No, I've changed my mind."

Even the woman looked surprised.

"I've decided to take him up to the crime room. Squall seems to be having some trouble with his memory. Maybe something up there will spark it."

"You'd better let us come along" said a large, brutal looking agent with a menacing look at Squall. "You might need our special…expertise."

Squall met his stare, pretending he wasn't terrified out of his wits. "Expertise at what? Let me guess. As an encore, you eat puppies."

"That's right" interjected Nick. "He love 'em with tartar sauce. Now, are you coming with me, Squall, or do you want to see your last few moments of light now?"

"Do I have a choice?" Squall held up his wrist, which was still handcuffed to Nick's. The agent had thrown a raincoat over the cuffs so as not to attract attention as they walked to the secret agent quarters. But the steel but cold and hard into his wrist, a cruel reminder that he was stuck in a relatively safe building in Balamb, while the girl he cared about was far away and in trouble.

The girl he cared about…

Nick hit the button on the elevator, looking at the woman agent. As the elevator bell rang, Nick leaned over to whisper something to her. Squall saw her eyes widen. She nodded. Then, Nick dragged Tom into the elevator.

"He's all yours" she said. "But call me if you need me."

"Nick punched a button."

"Hey!" yelped Squall. "The tech room is on the fourth floor. Why are we going all the way to the roof?"

"Change of plans." Said Nick. The muscular man spoke softly, but his stormy glare silenced Squall.

They stepped out onto the roof of the hotel, and Squall was hit by a blast of icy wind. A helicopter was hovering overhead, whipping the winds around them into a frenzy of noise and movement as it moved onto a nearby helipad.

"Come on," ordered Nick as he pushed Squall towards the helicopter.

Squall blinked back tears. Now he understood. The agents' threats about obstruction of the law hadn't been idle ones. Nick was taking him directly to jail. He'd never find Quistis now.

**

 What Seifer saw lying on the floor in front of him nearly made his heart explode.

"Quisty…?"

His voice was wavering, thready, and unsure. He knelt down and touched her pale skin, his hands coming away sticky with blood. Peeling back her orange cardigan, he saw a bullet hole, leaking with crimson blood, a dried crust of blood already forming around the edges. He plugged the hole with a strip of material from his shirt, but the blood would not stop flowing. Cold tears spilled down his cheeks. This couldn't be happening. Suddenly, a wave of nausea and crushing guilt overcame him, and he was violently sick into the gutter.

After he was done, pale and shaking, he was at her side again, cradling her in his arms. She couldn't be dead. She couldn't be…

Do I run and hide

Do I scream and shout

Do I feel the pain

Let the feeling out

I never thought I'd come to this…

Quistis laughing in the rain…her blue eyes dancing…her bare shoulders gleaming in the moonlight…

"No! No!" Seifer screamed into the deserted alley, shaking with fury and rage. She couldn't be dead, not after all they'd been through. She had more strength in her than that. He'd kill the guy who'd done this, kill him. He bent over her frail form, lifted her wrist and felt for a pulse.

Nothing.

Waves of adrenaline surged through him as he dropped to his knees and began administering CPR. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, dripping into his eyes as he continued breathing into Quistis' mouth and pushing down on her chest. He blocked everything out of his mind except the rhythm…breathe in, breath out, push, one two three four five, breath in, breathe out…

Minutes passed, which seemed like hours, but Quistis wasn't responding. Her face remained deathly pale. Seifer's shoulders ached, but he refused to give up hope. You're gonna make it, Quisty, he vowed, pushing away any doubt of his girlfriend's recovery.

**

"Stay with me, Quisty! Stay with me!"

With you…I'm going to stay? Squall…Zell…Irvine?

No, that wasn't right. Squall was back at garden, being ridiculously authoritative and completely oblivious to the hundreds of crushes girls had on him, as usual. Why, she had once been one of them! But no. Those cute bangs of hair he wore over his head would flutter slightly in the breeze, and a collective sigh from his students would wisp through the room. And Zell? Fighting as usual, ready to defend everyone! And Irvy was probably with Selphie, talking about some picnic they were planning to do today. It was a lovely day. She remembered sun, hazy clouds drifting nomadically over the sky. And then something had happened…

"Quistis…I love you…

I'm tired, Mummy, let me sleep…no, that wasn't right either. She didn't have a mummy. She'd grown up in an orphanage, the quiet, clever one, teased by everyone else. She'd never had a mummy to run to, a mummy who only had to listen to her problems. Matron had to listen to everybody's, and hadn't cared so much about her in particular. She loved everybody else just as much, She wanted someone who loved her more than anything else in the world. But, she had that, didn't she. In…in…in Seifer. Where was Seifer? He'd gone away. But then, she'd found him…found him again. She loved him more than anything else in the whole world. Where was he?

"Wake up…wake up…see the sun…"

The sun…the moon…sun and moon came out to play, boys and girls came out to play…how did the rhyme go. She sighed and moved between the sheets of the white hospital bed. Was she in hospital?

"Quistis…there's so much I want to say. So much I want to say, and I hope you can hear me.

When I first met you, I knew that you were someone different. I came from a hard background. My family never had time for me, and when they abandoned me when I was four years old, I was glad to be taken into care. I was always running around after them. I wanted to hear them say, "I love you". They never did, and as a result I would never say the dreaded words to anybody else.

You have a place in my heart which can't ever be replaced. If you lived to be one hundred years old, I would live to be 100 less one day, so I'd never have to go a day without being by your side. The way you smile, the way you talk…that fire in your eyes that makes you you. Even lying there in your hospital bed, your tense grace embodies everything that is Quistis. If you…if you die here, today, you can stay in my heart, in that little place just here, and stay there forever, so you'll always be with me. You can blossom and grow there, and help me with whatever I have to do. That way, I'll never have to be without you.

It was fate that mad us meet on the train. I'm sorry for lying to you; I'm sorry for anything and everything I've done that's wrong before. I've said horrible things. I've done worse. But when I imagine your face, all the hurt and pain goes out of me, as if I was floating in bliss. When I look at your face, things well up inside of me that I didn't know I had. What was happening to the hard, cold Seifer? Two weeks ago after the train incident, I looked at myself in the mirror, and asked myself, what's happening to me? I answered myself; I'm falling in love. Falling in love with you.

What we have is special because we can accept eachother's faults. We respect eachother for what we are. I want you to be peaceful in death. Imagine a peaceful scene. Recall a moment of happiness. Hold peaceful thoughts. Soon you will have interior peace. Once again you will rest in heaven.

Hope lights a flame in the soul. In heaven, believe that true love will always exist in my heart for you, and you will, forever be a debutante of my heart. I give my heart and soul to you. If you leave me today, you leave me for your brothers and sisters; the angels…the angels…"

Tears spilled down Seifer's cheeks, his words becoming more and more choked. "The angels in heaven." He gasped. He turned away, resting his head on his knee, sobbing unrestrainedly. Minutes passed.

And Quistis' eyes flickered open.

**

TADA! Please review and tell me if this chapter was just a waste of time. I'm not too experienced and I'd like to know where my faults lie. I'd also like positive feedback (who doesn't!) so  get reviewing!