Balamb Garden's Yuletide Vacation

Chapter 25

Friday, December the Twenty-second

Zell's Wonderful Life

Zell sat exhausted on the side of his bed, unable to remember the last time he had been able to obtain a good nights sleep. In his hands he held a nearly full prescription bottle of pain medication.

I'm worth far more dead than alive thanks to the life insurance policy Garden has taken out on every SeeD. In fact it will pay off everything I owe and still leave a little left over. I'm certain they could use the rest of it to help with some child who's an orphan.

"Zell Dincht, report to the Quad area immediately," Selphie's voice blared over the intercom system, echoing obnoxiously throughout Garden. The young man recognized the impatience in her voice and realized she would not leave him in peace until she talked with him.

She'll wreck everything. I'd better go talk to her, he resigned.

Zell's interaction with Selphie turned out to be short and not so sweet. Hardly sparing a second for a greeting, the Winter Festival chairperson launched into demanding to know when the Balamb Hotdog Emporium staff was scheduled to arrive and begin setting up for the festivities.

Zell's immediate response was to slump his shoulders, scratch the back of his head and turn bright red.

"Well?" Selphie asked, "Is this Quantum Dynamics of a Guardian Force or is it a simple question?

"Uh," the blond SeeD mumbled, "I've been in close contact with them and they should be on their way here right now." He looked everywhere but at Selphie.

"Do I need to call them, Zell?" She put her hands on her hips. "You don't seem to be very certain about what's going on. It surely won't be much of a party without anything to eat, you know?"

"No, you don't have to call them," Zell whined. "I've talked to them today and if it will make you any happier I will go and call them again just to recheck."

Selphie nodded her head. "Yes, that will make me feel a lot better about it. You know, I got a lot of things to make certain run smoothly at the same time. I don't mean to come down on you so, Zell."

"I know, Selphie." Zell shrugged, attempting to appear nonchalant. "Don't worry about it."

When he turned and walked away he could feel Selphie's eyes boring into his back.

Geesch! What does she want from me? I've gotta go kill myself as it is. Isn't that enough for her?

Selphie looked after him with an obviously concerned expression, prickles of fear racing up and down her spine. Realizing something was terribly wrong, she decided she would have to talk to Nicole again. Even Selphie recognized there were some things more important than punishing your boyfriend for a simple mistake, but of course that did not apply to herself.

~*~

After stopping to call the Hotdog caterers as he promised, Zell entered his dorm room and immediately observed an attractive female student who appeared vaguely familiar to him. The teenager had Zell's bottle of pain medication in her hands and apparently was in the process of taking an overdose, judging from the amount of pills she was about to toss into her mouth.

Zell raced across his room and knocked the vial out of her hands. Pills flew everywhere. "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Zell shouted.

"Saving you." She looked at him with wide blue eyes and smiled gently.

"Saving me?! Saving me from what?" Before the young woman could reply, Zell realized that, even though she seemed familiar to him, he didn't know who she was. "Whose homeroom are you in?"

"I'm not in the anyone's homeroom. I'm an angel and I know all about you," she told him calmly.

Zell's eyes widened in amazement. Her story was blatantly ridiculous. Oh Hyne! What have I got here? I don't have time for this.

"Oh, is that so?" he asked. "Who are you then?"

"I'm Cloud, AS2," the girl said.

Zell shook his head. "What's an AS2?"

"Angel second class," Cloud replied.

Zell snorted in disbelief. "What was that you said a moment ago? Why did you think you were saving me?"

"That's why I'm here," the young woman explained. "I'm your Guardian Angel. Ridiculous to think of killing yourself for money."

Zell did a double take and looked at her in amazement. "How do you know about that?"

"I just told you." Cloud was growing as impatient as Zell. "I'm your Guardian Angel. I know everything about you."

Looking askance at the apparent young age of the person standing before him, Zell responded sardonically, "Well, you look like the kind of angel I'd get." He walked around her, eyeing Cloud up and down suspiciously. "If you're an angel, where are your wings?"

"I just told you, I have to earn my wings."

"I don't know if I liked being seen with an angel without any wings. Maybe you'd better go," Zell suggested in an attempt to encourage the obviously disturbed young woman to leave. All he wanted was to commit suicide in peace, and he was behind schedule as it was. Much worse, it would probably take him at least an hour to find all the pills that were scattered about the floor.

"I'm trying to earn my wings, and you're going to help me."

"Help you?!" Zell exclaimed. "How am I going to help you?"

"By allowing me to help you." Cloud put her hand on Zell's arm.

"The only way you can help me is to get me some money. You don't happen to have any, do you?" Zell asked sarcastically.

"Angels have no need of money."

"Oh yeah, I keep forgetting. Well, it comes in pretty handy down here," the young man declared.

"Now, now." Cloud patted his arm.

Zell continued in a derisive tone. "I found out a little late that I'm worth more dead than alive."

"Now look," Cloud said forcefully, "you mustn't talk like that. I'll never get my wings with that attitude. You just don't realize everything that you've done. If it hadn't been for you -."

"Yeah, if hadn't been for me, everybody would be a whole lot better off - my girlfriend, my family, my friends," Zell interrupted. " Do me a big favor and go haunt somebody else."

"Look, I've got a job to do." The young woman tossed her sandy hair defiantly.

"Just shut up, would you?" the blond SeeD snapped at her.

"Hmm, this isn't going to be so easy. So you still say killing yourself would make everyone feel happier?"

"Oh, I guess you're right," Zell responded. "I suppose it would have been better if I had never been born at all."

"What did you just say?" Cloud's face took on a surprised expression.

"I said I wish I'd never been born," the young man repeated, much louder this time.

"Wait a minute, that's an idea!" Zell's self-appointed angel closed her eyes for a moment. "Ok, you've got what you wished!" she said with a smile as she looked up at Zell. "You've never been born."

"What's that you said?" Zell asked. He had been momentarily distracted by the fact that his knee had suddenly stopped hurting. It had been aching since he'd injured it on his last mission.

"You've never been born. You don't exist. You have no worries, no obligations." Cloud was grinning proudly.

Zell had no answer. He grabbed at his chest, disconcerted by the fact that the SeeD dog tags he always wore inside his shirt were also missing.

"Where are my dog tags?" he murmured. "I must have dropped them on my way to the Quad."

It was only then that he looked around and observed they were no longer standing in the Garden, but in the Balamb countryside instead.

"What are we doing here?!" he exclaimed. "Why did we leave the Garden?" He knew there had to be a logical explanation for this. There was just no way he was going to believe in angels, much less one such as Cloud.

"You wouldn't be in the Garden," the young woman answered. "You're no longer a SeeD. You've never been born."

"Aw, to heck with you," Zell muttered, walking away. "You make no sense. Let's just walk to town. I mean, I'll walk – you fly."

"I can't fly. I haven't gotten my wings yet."

On his way down the main street of Balamb Zell couldn't help but notice that the townspeople he greeted looked rather strangely at him when they passed. "What's wrong with them? They act as if they don't know me."

"They don't know you," was Cloud's answer.

"Just stop with that craziness! Come on." He paused. "On second thought I want to go back to the Garden. I'm going to take you to the library to meet my girlfriend. Maybe she can help you since you seem so confused."

Cloud's next pronouncement stopped Zell dead in his tracks. "Your girlfriend's not there."

"What'd you mean? Of course, she is."

"No." The brown-haired girl elaborated, "Nicole was fired from the library for buying the entire Pupurun series for the library. Without you there to read any of it no one ever checked it out and she was demoted and transferred. After that she was assigned to bathroom duty and became known as the Toilet Girl and quit in disgrace."

"Where is she?" Zell demanded. "I need to talk to her."

"You're not gonna like it," said Cloud. "Without you there she will become a lonely spinster and have nothing to do with men."

"Please take me to her right now."

"Okay," the student acquiesced, "but you've been warned.

Cloud hurriedly led Zell into the hotel where Nicole was working as a maid. They stepped over the Restroom Closed signs that were holding the door open. Zell discovered Nicole on her hands and knees in one of the stalls scrubbing out a commode with a toilet brush.

"Nicole!" he exclaimed loudly startling her. "What in the hell are you doing?"

The poor frightened young woman whirled around. Water splattered all over Zell and he was almost thwacked in the crotch with the toilet brush. He cringed in disgust and quickly reached for a few paper towels to wipe his face

"I don't know you!" she cried out shrilly. "Get out of here, the bathroom is closed."

Nicole finally noticed Cloud standing behind Zell. "Take your boyfriend and go somewhere else," she told the 'angel'. "You're not supposed to be in here."

"My boyfriend?!" the young woman echoed.

Her boyfriend? Zell was greatly disturbed.

Zell grasped Nicole by the shoulders and pulled the young woman to her feet. "Nicole! What's going on? Why aren't you working in the library? Don't you know me? It's Zell, your boyfriend."

"Leave me alone!" she screamed. "I've never had a boyfriend and I don't know anyone with the crazy name of Zell."

Cloud began pulling Zell by the arm. "Zell! Zell, we have to get out of here. You're frightening her!"

"No, I'm not leaving, this is wrong."

Nicole gave out with a blood-curdling scream. This time it drew the attention of the hotel owner and several male guests who burst into the restroom. Not recognizing Zell, they paid absolutely no attention to his explanation. After checking if Nicole had been physically abused in any manner they frog marched him to the front door and threw him out into the street. They didn't even bother to tell him not to come back. That much was obvious.

Zell slowly arose from his knees. "What's going on around here? Has everyone gone off their nut? They act as if they don't know me."

"They don't know you. You've never been born."

"Wha?! Oh, you're crazy. Where's Rinoa?" Zell asked. "She's a sorceress, she can help me with this."

Cloud explained patiently, "Rinoa died because you were never there to tell Squall she was hanging by the side of the Garden during the Galbadian Garden attack."

"What?! Oh, that's not right. I saw Rinoa just this morning!" After a moments thought Zell mused, "Quistis could help me. I have to get to her."

"Quistis has been long dead. Without you there to save her in the D-District Prison she was raped and murdered."

"That's it!" Zell exploded, jumping up and down and screaming loudly. "I'm going to talk to my mom. She'll straighten this out for me."

On his way through the town, Zell glanced around and finally noticed something strange. He stopped in his tracks. "That's odd. Rinoa had everything that didn't move decorated with some sort of Solstice decoration and now there isn't even one decoration in sight."

"Rinoa never did that, because she's dead. She died, I told you, back when Galbadia Garden attacked."

"Now you stop saying that!" Zell exclaimed. "I'm not gonna tell you again. Now come on," he ordered stepping up to his parents' front door. "It's locked," he muttered. "I hope they're here." He began slapping his pockets for his house keys."

"You have no house keys."

"Oh, that's right," Zell replied sarcastically. "I'm dead."

You're not dead, I keep telling you. You were never born."

Zell ignored the last comment and knocked on the door. He felt better when he realized someone had turned down the television in the living room. The door opened and a tall, dark-haired thin middle-aged man looked strangely at Zell. "Yes? May I help you?"

"Uh, who are you?" Zell asked.

"Who did you wish to speak to?" the older man responded smoothly.

Zell became slightly frustrated with this word play. "I want to see my mother."

"Your mother? There are no mothers living here, particularly yours. What's wrong with you? Are you drunk or something? Too much Shumi beer – hmmm?"

"Me?!" exclaimed Zell. "It's you who must be drunk. My mother has lived in this house for all of my life."

"Zell! Zell!" Cloud attempted to get a word in edgewise.

The older gentleman said very formally, "Young man, I assure you I have lived here for the last twenty years and neither you nor your mother have ever lived here with me. Now, good bye."

"Zell," Cloud attempted again to gain his attention.

"Listen, mister, how'd you like a knuckle sandwich?" Zell clenched his fists.

"Haha!" the man roared. "A knuckle sandwich? Who writes your dialogue? Take my advice and go home and sleep it off." The door was promptly shut in Zell's face.

"Zell," the girl said again.

"What?!" he shouted in sheer frustration.

"I've been trying to tell you. Your mother has never lived here. She became so depressed over not being able to bear or adopt any children that she had to be institutionalized eleven years ago. Your father deserted her at that point."

"I'm gonna talk to Nick. He'll know where my mother is." Zell acted as if he hadn't heard one word that Cloud had spoken.

Striding down the street, he turned right on the main road of Balamb's shopping district. His longtime friend Nick was sitting outside on a bench as usual.

"Hey Nick," greeted Zell. "How are you?"

A not unattractive dark-haired young man replied, "Okay, but I don't know you. How do you know my name?"

"Of course you know me, I'm Zell."

"Nope, sorry. Zell doesn't ring a bell," his friend answered.

Right then the unmistakable sound of a Solstice tree falling over with some of the tree lights breaking came from within the shop. Pop! Pop! Cloud nudged Zell with her elbow. "Every time a Solstice light breaks an angel gets their wings."

Nick's face took on a hard expression. "Look, why don't you two just mosey along. We don't need any characters around here."

"Aw, Nick," Zell responded, "she's okay, just obsessed with angels."

"And that's another thing you haven't explained to me yet. How do you know my name? I've never seen you before in my life."

"Nick, I've lived here in Balamb with you for ten years."

"Balamb? This isn't Balamb anymore."

"Why, of course it is," Zell answered feeling as though he was in the middle of a horrible nightmare.

Nick stood up. "Now I know you're crazy. This is the city of Almasyville. I don't know anything about who you are or why you don't know this isn't Balamb. Maybe I better call the law."

"No, you don't have to do that," Cloud said while pulling Zell away.

As they walked away, Zell muttered, "I don't know what's wrong with Nick. I've never seen him act that way."

"You'll see a lot of strange things now that you've never been born," explained the girl.

"You keep saying that, but either I'm crazy or you are."

"Now, tut, tut. Where are you going now?" Cloud asked with some alarm in her voice.

Before Zell could respond, a very pregnant young woman wearing a slinky yellow dress and an elf cap on her head came bounding up to him. "Ho, ho, ho!" she belted out, tossing her bouncy brown hair and jingling the bells on her cap. "I'm the Holiday Ho!" From behind her garish makeup, she attempted to give Zell a sexy look of longing. "For five gil, I'll give you a Solstice gift you'll never forget!" She wiggled her hips and leaned forward to give Zell a full view of her cleavage.

"The hell?" Zell blurted out. "Selphie?"

"Hey? How do you know my name?" She looked up at him fearfully. "If you're a cop I had nothin' to do with the Galbadia Bank thing! It's all lies I tell ya!"

The horrified young man ignored her outburst. "What in Hyne's name are you doing? Irvine would never allow you to do this!"

"Oh! A friend of Irvine's, are you? Well, if you find that backstabbing two-timer you can tell him that half the money from that last job belongs to me and junior!" She patted her belly. "And forget that offer, I wouldn't service a friend of Irvine's for a million gil!" With that, she flounced away and used her "holiday ho" line on the next man she saw.

Zell turned to Cloud with wide eyes and quivering lips. When Cloud opened her mouth to offer an explanation for Selphie's odd behavior, Zell raised a hand to stop her. "I don't even wanna know," he said. "You'll find a way to make that my fault too!" Zell stormed away.

"Hey!" Cloud called, rushing after him. "Where are you going?"

"Back to Garden, everybody's crazy here. Let's call a taxi."

"You have no money," Cloud informed him.

Zell began going through all of his pockets. "You're right, I don't understand this. I had money this morning; not much but some. Now it's gone. I don't suppose you have any?"

"No, angels don't have any -."

"I know, I know," Zell interrupted. "Angels don't have any need for money."

"Well we don't," the young woman retorted.

"We're going to have to walk. There's just no way around it."

~*~

When Zell and Cloud approached the area where the Garden should have been, he was flabbergasted to discover it missing; although that wasn't the truly amazing part. In its stead stood a fortress identified by a sign on the front gates as Fort Almasy. This despite the fact that just a little while earlier the Garden had been resting at that very spot.

"Where's the Garden?" Zell cried out completely bewildered.

"There is no Garden," Cloud answered flatly.

What are you talking about? Of course there's a Garden."

"No, when Rinoa was killed during the Galbadian Garden attack, Seifer's concept of right and wrong was forever destroyed by his own guilt. Plus, he had been the one to receive Edea's powers, and that drove him completely mad. After Time Compression had been foiled successfully, Seifer took over Galbadia and led them on a ruthless search to ferret out and kill every SeeD he could find. Every man, woman, and child that could be connected to Balamb Garden at the time was killed and the Garden was completely destroyed," the young woman declared with great emotion in her voice. "And the few who escaped… well, you saw what happened to Selphie…"

"But… but…" he stammered, raking his hand through his wild hair. "Squall! Squall would never allow this to happen!"

"Zell," said Cloud gently, "Squall never made it back from time compression. Without Rinoa's love to guide him back he became trapped forever. Selphie and Irvine were the only survivors, and they'd been so filled with remorse they turned to a life of crime."

Zell fell to his knees in complete despair with tears flowing easily down his face.

"You've been given a great gift, Zell," Cloud spoke. "The gift to see what the world would be like without you. Strange, isn't it? One man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around, it leaves an awful hole. You see Zell, you really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a shame it would be to throw it away?"

"Make me live, angel. I want to live again!" Zell sobbed.

"So be it," he heard a more mature female voice intone.

When he glanced up he was amazed that the pretty teenage girl had changed into a handsome woman. "Y – You're...Raine!"

"Yes, I am and you're reborn."

Zell found himself standing in his bedroom. "Was that real?" But Raine was gone.

His knee was throbbing as though he had been doing a great deal of walking and he felt exhausted. Checking his pocket, he found his money and keys were back and reaching up he felt his dogtags hanging around his neck as usual. Trying desperately to come up with a plan to replace the missing money, Zell took one last glance around his room which he had torn into a shambles and never straightened.

He observed a stack of money sticking out from beneath his bed where Seifer had stashed it never thinking Zell would ever find it. Quickly flipping through it, Zell discovered it was more than enough money to cover the expensive bill from the Balamb Hotdog Emporium.

Happily he shoved the money in his pocket. "Thank you Raine or whoever!" Zell shouted out.