In Who's Name? Chapter 16: Memories, a final fantasy viii fanfic

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Characters and universe borrowed from Final Fantasy VIII. Not owned by Gold.

Right. Now this is important. From the next chapter onwards, this story hurtles towards its ending. Remember the clues from the previous chapters. From Part 2: Seifer nearly drowned before he was rescued. Part 3: Dr. Kadowaki suspects suicide and Seifer has some very strange injuries, not from drowning. Quistis remembers that Hyperion saved Seifer. How? Why? Part 7: Rinoa reminds Quistis that Quistis saved Seifer from drowning. Part 10: Fujin was attacked. A little black floppy disk makes its debut. Part 14: Those files…

Title: In Who's Name?

Part 16: Memories

Edea Kramer sat in the small, pretty sitting-room, one of Garden's more unusual places, her hands clenched in her lap as she waited quietly. She thought of the blonde girl who had driven her over, and pangs of guilt wrung her heart. Quistis had looked so tired and old, not at all like a girl who had barely reached twenty-one years of age. She had put too much on the girl's thin shoulders since the day she had begged Quistis to save Seifer from the executioner. What have I done? I'm so sorry, Quistis, more sorry than you'll ever know. I wish there had been someone who could have helped you. You had to do everything by yourself.

The former sorceress looked fondly at Quistis, who was languishing in an armchair nearby, unsuccessfully trying to hide her yawns.

"Didn't you sleep well last night, Quistis?" asked Matron worriedly as she stretched across with some difficulty to lay her hand over the girl's. "You look exhausted. You haven't been staying up marking papers again, have you?"

Quistis smiled and Matron was comforted by the smile.

"No, I was just lying in a terribly uncomfortable position all night," Quistis said with a little laugh. "I didn't find out exactly how uncomfortable it could be until I woke up. I've even got a crick in my neck." She grimaced slightly.

Edea sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, Quistis," she said humbly.

"Whatever for?" asked Quistis, genuinely surprised.

Edea leaned back. "I've given you a burden too great," she said quietly. "It's too big even for you to handle and I made you handle it alone."

Quistis tilted her head thoughtfully. "Are you sorry you asked me to save Seifer?" she asked directly, fixing her clear eyes on Matron.

That one straightforward question brought home to Edea exactly why she had relied on Quistis Trepe to save the wayward sheep of the orphanage flock. Squall, Seifer and Quistis were all comparable in terms of intelligence although each had his or her own advantage in certain areas. But amongst all of them, Quistis Trepe was the only one with the ability to read the emotions accurately, and to see the human consequences and possibilities of any action. In short, she saw the big picture in very human detail. Irvine had that ability, but he did not always have the level of intelligence to follow up on it. Alone amongst them all, from Ellone Loire to Selphie Tilmitt, Quistis Trepe combined an ability to analyse with unfailing accuracy, with an intelligence for brilliant planning and strategising in nearly every situation, human or military.

And as usual, Quistis had hit on the crux of the matter.

Edea Kramer surrendered to her clever child with a smile and a laugh. "No," she admitted. "No, I'm not sorry I asked you to save him…but I am sorry that I gave you no choice in the matter."

Quistis rested her chin in her hands. "You didn't have a choice either, Matron," she pointed out thoughtfully. "You were on the verge of dying and you didn't have enough time."

"You don't have to save him anymore, Quistis," said Edea quietly. "It's over. He's free. You're free."

Am I? Not as long as Dr. Kadowaki's charge is on me. Quistis was saved from having to make a suitable reply when the door opened at that point, and Seifer Almasy entered.

He advanced towards them silently, a slightly haunted cast to his eyes. In his mind, the nightmare was still fresh, and he searched the face of the frail, wheelchair-bound woman for any sign of the Sorceress in his nightmare. She had the face, yes…the same beauty, the same shape and line of nose and jaw…Seifer paled…

And then Quistis brushed past him unintentionally on her way out.

Seifer blinked as the darkness of the previous night seemed to ebb away with that one brief touch. He looked at Matron again and realised that this was Matron, much older than the youthful Sorceress of his nightmare, never mind the same face. And this face was beautiful, but it had kindness, warmth and experience, and the wrinkle or two he remembered from his last visit to her, on the day of the fire. And it didn't have those sickening markings on it. He relaxed.

"Matron," he greeted her, bending down to kiss the older woman on her cheek.

Edea smiled sadly. "Seifer." She had seen his sudden, unexplained fear, and she knew without being told that he had remembered. "You're looking well. What did Dr. Kadowaki say?"

Seifer shrugged and smirked a little. "Nothing that I remembered." He smiled disarmingly at her. "I'm all right, so don't worry too much about me. A couple of burns, bruises—nothing I can't handle."

Matron smiled affectionately at him, but her eyes were still worried. "How's the progress on your memory?"

The reaction was immediate and telling. Seifer's jaw clenched and his hands curled into fists. He said nothing for a long time and Matron did not dare to move.

"I—remember some things," he said finally, looking at the floor. "I dreamt of it last night. I—" He shuddered and Matron put out a hand to him, but he sheered back.

"I'm sorry," she murmured sadly, tears filling her eyes as she withdrew her hand slowly.

He shook his head slightly. "No. It wasn't you. I know that. I—" He lifted anguished, horror-struck eyes to her face. "I know what we went through." He swallowed.

Tears spilled quietly down Edea Kramer's face. "I know. I know…"

They sat in a long, pain-filled silence, linked by the harshest of bonds, lost in memories of a time they would give their lives to erase. Edea broke the silence first, laying her hand over Seifer's.

"How much do you remember? Everything?"

Seifer's laugh bit like caustic and his eyes glittered, bright with agony. "I remember everything in my life, up to the point where I was lost in Time Compression. I sacrificed Rinoa. I even remember fighting Quistis in the name of Ultimecia's Knight. And—and I tortured Squall…" His voice broke. "I…tortured…"

For the first time in his life, Seifer Almasy wept, bitter drops from a soul that was descending slowly but surely back into a dark quagmire from whence he had barely escaped with his life nearly two months before.

!*!*!*!*

Gold: Dark quagmire. That's another clue. But be warned. Nothing is as it seems. *flings her head back and laughs softly*