XVII
"We are bound to our mistakes until they consume us."
--Centran saying

It had taken them two hours of slow walking before three of the chocobos found them, heads ducked and tails drooping in avian displays of contrition. The missing forth one was the ill-tempered mount Aya had chosen, and at the moment Aya preferred that it would stay lost.

They mounted in solemn silence, Aya taking it upon herself (and her bird) to transport the unconscious Tam. Even at the steady pace the chocobos set, the journey seemed to stretch on forever. Their destination seemed to be always just beyond the horizon, kilometres replicating themselves like some great geologic treadmill. Finally, however, they crossed one of the low riffs that surrounded the port town, lit brightly in the dark night.

Aya brought her chocobo up short, staring down into the town. A ship had just come in, and its passengers were still unloading--but they could see with some degree of clarity that at least three important personages had already disembarked. Two were dressed in Balamb Garden's dress attire, and the third wore a set of more casual G-Garden Faculty fatigues.

Aya rocked back in her saddle, throat tightening. Glancing at Kamalyn, she saw that he had noticed, as well.

"On, no," Cabe whispered.

"What did you expect?" Aya asked dully. "Honestly. We broke the rules. I knew we'd be facing up to it eventually." She paused for a moment. "I didn't think they'd actually come after us, though," she conceded.

"That's Tam's dad," Cabe said, gesturing toward one of them. "He's pretty scary, you know. They say he--"

Aya shot him a glare, and he quieted quickly. "We'll manage," she said softly. Nudging her chocobo forward, she began the slow descent into the town. "Come on, you two. Unless you want to sleep out here and hope that they'll leave?"

Cabe watched as Aya went down, back as straight as an etiquette teacher. He glanced at Kamalyn, who was staring down at the SeeDs in a sort of despondent disbelief. Sheepishly, he moved his chocobo forward. After a moment, Kamalyn followed.

The three SeeDs--Squall, Fujin and Zell, apparently--noticed them as they approached. Squall stepped forward to meet them, eyes dark as they fixed on Aya. Aya didn't quail, staring back at him and seizing the conversation as soon as she got within speaking range.

"We need to talk," she said icily. "Alone."

Zell lunged forward, taking Tam from the saddle. "What did you do to him?" he snarled, proverbial hackles up at the sight of his son. "What did you--"

"You ever seen a ghost, Dincht?" Aya sneered, on the defensive and hostile. "I'm so drained I feel like I summoned a dozen Edens, and I'm damned irritable right now. You want to be the responsible one and prevent a screaming fistfight in the middle of the town, act like it. Back off."

"Aya," Squall said warningly.

"I know!" Aya's head snapped to him, eyes burning. "I know everything you're going to say already. I know what you think--"

"Be quiet."

Aya started. Squall rarely interrupted her in their arguments--the last time had been just after the SeeD exam, and the stinging failure it had brought with it. But this time, his voice was different--it was impossible to register any anger within it; as if he had grown so angry that it went beyond the human register, impossible to conceive or recognize. His tone held a deadly quiet to it, the sort of thing that made her want to back down immediately and beg forgiveness.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

Aya was about to respond, but a harsh growl from Zell interrupted her. "This is all your fault," he accused. "Tam listens to you, don't you know that? How could you bring him out here and--"

"I made a choice," Aya stated, slowly and firmly.

"It was a damn stupid choice," Zell snapped.

"I know." Aya took a breath and pulled herself up taller, to let them know that she wasn't conceding anything. The thought Oh, Hyne, I'm tired, ran through her mind, but she didn't show anything. Cabe and Tam had come up behind her and dismounted--just behind her, as if unwilling to enter the confrontation. She certainly couldn't blame them. "I failed to take into account the fact that the Battlefield has semicorporeal monsters in it. The measures I took to defend us were therefore inadequate. Had I been more informed--"

"You shouldn't have been here anyway!" Zell roared at her, standing. His arms were trembling, and each hand was fisted. "You shouldn't have been out here, and you shouldn't have brought them with you!"

Squall was silent, perhaps trusting Zell to drive the point home. Aya devoted her entire attention to the G-Garden instructor, ordering her thoughts.

"I was aware of what I was doing," she said, feeling the blood rise to her face despite her best efforts to control her anger. "I weighed the options and made a call based upon my judgment. I knew what I was doing."

"Did you know this was going to happen? Did you know that Tam would be hurt? Didn't you take that into account? Or did you just not care about what you could do to him?"

Aya's face was burning, and her vision blurred slightly. Hoping that there weren't tears in her eyes--she didn't feel anything like crying, and it would be hideously embarrassing if they were to think that she did--she stared at Zell with all of the hostility that she could scrape together. If Zell hadn't been so angry himself, he might have been cowed.

"You want to accuse me of something?" she demanded. "You want to make me feel horrible? You want to suggest that I wanted this to happen? Sad, because I'm not going to let you do it. I know what happened, and all you have are wild speculations. You want to argue, go ahead; but damned if I'm going to let you win with flying accusations! I'm innocent until proven guilty, and you--"

"Innocent?" Zell was practically glowing with anger. "Am I supposed to believe--"

"Shut up!"

Aya drove her bird forward, until the dangerous beak was level with Zell's eye. Staring down at the SeeD, she quivered in her saddle. "You think I can't see anything? You think I can't do anything? I'm not an idiot, Dincht, I'm not blind! It's fine for you to stand there and make accusations, it's fine for you to hate me without ever bothering to ask why I did it or wait for an answer--but I'll be damned if I'll sit and let you, if I'll concede! I'm not the one in the wrong here--and I've made some mistakes and Hyne damn, I admit that, but there are some things you can't just peg on me as if I'm the root of all bad things that have ever come to pass!"

The citizens of the town had quietly left the near area, giving them a wide berth out of some polite Centran discretion. Zell opened his mouth to make a response at least as angry as her volley, but Aya didn't give him the chance. Her vision was tunneling and there was a vague, pounding pain in her temples, but she ignored it. Her face was hot--so hot that it felt like being in the Fire Cavern in the middle of summer. It hurt to yell, hurt to think, but she kept on, regardless.

"All I hear, all I ever hear, is what I'm supposed to be, what I should be like. I should be like you, I should be like Da, I should be like the entire fucking crew of SeeDs who saved the universe in some great crusade that is so far behind us that it's not even taught in Modern History any more. I'm supposed to grow into someone else's shoes whether or not they fit--as if I have no soul of my own, as if I have no mind! I'm supposed to be what you are, do what you do--well, damn but if you haven't noticed, the world has changed! Didn't you go off on these same damn harebrained madcap trips? Cabe's dad got injured for a week while you were hunting Malboros, even you get a few broken ribs and nearly puncture a lung waltzing along fighting three-headed demon dogs instead of going on and saving Garden like you were supposed to! Well, damn and hell if you didn't put yourselves and all of your friends in as much danger as I did back in your hey-day!"

A small corner of Aya's mind scrambled frantically for the tact controls, but it was a futile effort. No matter how mortified she was making herself, the part that was still maddened wouldn't give up the reins. She couldn't see how Zell was reacting because she couldn't see at all--the world had gone dark, and all that was left was the thin stream of vocal fury spilling out of her without her consent and into the Centran night.

"And you think I wanted this to happen? Wanted? I care about them, about all of them, damn it, they're the only friends I have! It hurts so much, but I can't help it, and if I could have, I would have stopped all of this from happening--"

What am I saying? In the less-than-moment she took to take a breath, she wondered what had happened to her self control. It was spiraling off somewhere, and she had the feeling that one way or another this was going to end badly, very badly...

"I tried everything I could, and I couldn't fight them, I couldn't kill them, I could hardly get myself out of there! I couldn't help it at all, but I tried, I tried, and I don't know what else I could do--it was all too dark and you can't fight them, they make you so tired, and I--I feel so sick--"

A shuddering breath seemed strangely lacking in oxygen. She felt as if she was swaying, buffeted by the breeze, but she couldn't tell if either the breeze or the swaying was real or imagined. The rush of words slowed to a dribble, muttering themselves down into hoarse incoherence.

"--so sick of everything. I hate--I couldn't do it--couldn't think right, and if it's all gone bad and I'm sorry--so sorry if it's really all my fault--"

Everything vanished in a haze of burning dark.

"Hyne!"

Kamalyn bolted forward as Aya began to fall from her seat, catching her and lowering her to the ground. Touching her cheek gingerly, he withdrew his hand and swore lightly under his breath.

"She's burning up," he murmured. "Feels like an oven--"

A dark figure crouched next to him, and he froze in place as he realized that it was Commander Leonhart. The Commander ignored him, devoting his attention to giving Aya a cursory field inspection. He had looked grim when they arrived, but now he looked grimmer.

"Ultima poisoning," he pronounced at length. "She must have aggravated it just now. Zell, check Tam for it."

Zell swore, with much more vehemence and eloquence than Kamalyn had used. "Damn it, Squall, if that daughter of yours--"

"ENOUGH."

Oddly enough, it was Fujin who stepped to Aya's defense. Squall stolidly ignored the attack, deftly taking Aya from Kam's grasp and standing. "We need to get them back to a Garden infirmary as soon as we can," he instructed. "See if one of the independent clipper captains is willing to rush us back. ...and curb your temper. We're representing SeeD here."

Zell glowered, standing and stalking off toward the docks. Squall turned to Fujin.

"Take care of Tam," he instructed. Turning to fix Kamalyn with a dark look, he snapped "Return your birds and meet us at the docks" to him without any pretense of charity. "Cabe, come with us."

Shakily, Kamalyn stood and took the chocobo's reins and began to lead them off. Fujin caught his elbow as he passed, eliciting a startled glance.

"You'll have to report," she said simply, with a glance toward Aya. Kamalyn nodded.

"I know," he responded simply. It was, above all, the one thing he was dreading.

Fujin gave him a look, then turned to Tam. "Go," she urged him.

Kamalyn turned and went, hoping for a tornado or an earthquake to swallow him up before he returned. He was a SeeD, and that meant that he would be expected to act like one--that meant making an official report with all the truth to it, regardless of how the truth would make him look or would make the senior SeeDs feel. That, compounded with his worry for Aya and Tam, was going to make the trip back a particularly hellish one--one he was not looking forward to in the least.