Chapter 16: Metal Moon

Carson was waving his hands erratically as he spoke. "She's out there in danger, and you're telling me that we're going to sit going to sit here and just hope that she comes back alive?" All the blood had rushed to his head and he was blushing with anger.

"I'm sorry, Carson." Cid shrugged. "There's nothing we can do."

"You're fucking me. You have absolutely got to be fucking me."

Cid sighed. "Quistis is good at what she does. I'm sure she's okay. I've seen her handle herself in worse situations."

"Worse situations?" Carson planted both of his hands on Cid's desk. "How can you say that? You don't even know what the situation is!"

"Calm down," Cid said sharply.

"No! I won't calm down!" Carson roared back. "As far as I know, the love of my life is out there gasping her last breath as we speak! You can't expect me to be calm about that!"

Thoughts of Quistis had consumed him all day, and he'd come up with quite a few terrible reasons why she wasn't returning any of his messages. As the board was discussing whether or not to send in reinforcements, he'd been pacing back and forth in his room, wearing a trail in the carpet. He knew that something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones. The forensics woman agreed with him and had gone with him when he'd first met with Cid to back him up. It seemed she'd been talking to the people at Esthar International who were very interested in the DNA sample she'd sent them a few weeks ago. The scientist who'd been in charge of their case then had been replaced by someone higher up the corporate food chain and the company was becoming aggressive in demanding details on where the tissue had been found.

None of that seemed to have any impact on Cid, and it certainly didn't have any on the board. Carson didn't understand how they could let this happen. Quistis was one of the best SeeDs in Garden, worth a lot more than even the lives they might have to sacrifice to save her.

"Look," Cid began, leaning back in his chair so that he could adjust his sweater which was riding up his belly, "Quistis knew the risks of this job and this mission before she left. And so do you. I worry about her, too. But my hands are tied."

"She shouldn't have gone on this mission to begin with," Carson replied.

"I won't debate that with you," Cid said. "She's there. It's done. I trust that she has all the skills she needs to get back in one piece and so should you."

Sensing that this argument was getting him nowhere, Carson sent the other man a scathing look and turned to leave the room without a parting salute. He'd wasted enough time already without stopping to be respectful to the very man screwing him over.

He walked with long, angry steps toward the elevator and pounded the button for the first floor unmercifully. To hell with Cid. He wasn't going to sit around on his ass. He couldn't. It was just a matter of figuring out what to do now. As the elevator dropped down, he paced back and forth, dragging his hands through his hair.

Deep his his heart, he knew that Quistis had walked into something she couldn't handle. Back in the day, with Ultimecia, she'd had Squall, Zell, Irvine, and Selphie with her. A whole team to back her up. But this time was different. He knew she needed all the help she could get.


The elevator doors opened with a whoosh.

A short, blonde girl stepped around him as he walked out and said hello. But he ignored her, having bigger things than social pleasantries on his his mind. His hands were tightened into fists as his side as he walked with determination toward the dormitories. When he passed by the library, he looked up to see a familiar girl walking out with a stack of books in her arms. An idea blinked to life at the back of his mind. Would she go along with it, he wondered?

It was worth a shot.

"Kelly!" he called out and walked up to her.

0 0 0

Still disoriented, Quistis treaded water and tried to figure out what direction Seifer's yells were coming from. She'd been running through the trees, fleeing for her life like a frightened deer, when suddenly the ground underneath her feet had ceased to be and she fell with a scream into the ocean. It was like running off the edge of the world. Now she didn't know where she was. Everything was black, cold, and salty. And the waves pulled at her as overhead the moon and stars jumped and swayed with the motion.

"Seifer!" She called out for him again. The monster had been right behind them, so close that she'd seen it in the light from her spells and had heard its breath puffing out as it ran after them. She needed reassurance that Seifer and Adrian were still alive and she wasn't just dreaming his voice or hearing it in the chaos of water rushing over her ears. The thought struck her that she might be alone now, the last one left of her team, but it was too painful to hold on to — not because she was afraid, but because the loss was too much to bear.

Paddling a little one way, she changed her mind and paddled in another. No direction seemed any better than another.

Then, from behind her, his voice carried through the night. "Quistis!"

It was clearer this time. Real.

"Where are you?"

"Here!"

She swam in the direction of his voice until finally she spotted his blond head bobbing in the sea. Adrian's chin was resting on Seifer's shoulder, and he was struggling to stay afloat under the other man's weight. For his part, Adrian was awake and coughing but still seemed too groggy to register exactly where he was or what was going on.

"Oh my God! Seifer…" Intense relief made her voice breathy. "You're alive."

"For the moment," he replied. He was low enough in the water that it splashed into his mouth when he spoke. "Help me."

It was difficult to maneuver Adrian between them, especially now that he was waking up, but they managed to get one of his arms slung over Quistis's shoulders, shifting some of his weight onto her. Immediately, Seifer began to swim easier.

"What way is shore?" he asked. "We need to get the hell out of this water."

"This way," Quistis said and began paddling in the right direction.

They were both good swimmers. Even so, their progress through the waves was slow and painful. The water felt as thick as molasses as Quistis pushed against it with her hands and feet, struggling for every inch. The current was carrying them down the shoreline and she could make out trees moving against the sky as they swam. Finally, they grounded on a rocky outcropping. With their last vestiges of strength, Seifer and Quistis heaved Adrian up out of the sea, then pulled themselves up behind him.

Sodden and exhausted, they collapsed next to him.

Seifer cursed quietly, wincing as he reached around his body to touch his back.

"What's wrong?" Quistis asked.

"Damn thing got me in the back," he ground out.

"The monster?" She scrambled across Adrian so that she could examine the wound, though in the dark she couldn't see anything. "It didn't poison you, did it? Are you feeling okay?"

"No, I'm not feeling okay!" he barked. "It hurts like hell."

"Seifer…if you're poisoned…"


God. She didn't want to even think it. There was no help from the islanders coming this time around. And nothing they had could counteract the poison's deadly effects, even if they could get back to their vessel in time.

"Where the fuck are we at, anyway?" Seifer asked, changing the subject. "Are we far from the ship?"

"I'm not sure," Quistis admitted. "I lost track once we started running. Was more concerned with getting away alive than where I was going."

"Well, you're the damn navigator here. Can't you figure it out?" he asked, his tone sharpened by his pain.

Not sure what else to do, Quistis looked up and attempted to find some point of reference: a star, a constellation, the position of the moon — anything. The southern sky was different than the one she was used to. Everything was off kilter and not quite where she thought it should be. She was beginning to lose patience and give into the panic threatening to grip her heart when she spotted a string of stars she recognized. They weren't oriented the way she was used to seeing them, but she followed them across the sky like a pointer until, finally, she found a lodestar.

"There," she said and pointed. "We're on the north side of the island, on the inside of the crescent. We anchored pretty close to the eastern side of the island, and there's a good current out there going in that direction. I think we could probably follow it back to our ship."

Seifer didn't say anything, but Adrian groaned.

"Seifer?" She leaned down over him and shook him, afraid he'd fallen into the same poisoned stupor Adrian had.

"Ow! Stop it!" he yelled.

Quistis put one hand on his cheek. "You've got to stay with me," she said, shaking her head.

"I am. I'm with you," he insisted. His skin was still clammy and cold from the water, so she didn't feel much reassurance. For a moment, she kept her hand on his face, feeling the muscles in his jaw move and his breath across her skin. It was reassuring. Centering.

"Quistis?" The sound of Adrian's voice shocked her.

Pivoting, she reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm right here."

"Where are we?" he asked.

"We escaped," she explained. "We're outside."

He groaned. "I feel like hell. Those bastards…they kept giving me something. God. It was awful."

Quistis was surprised that he remembered anything about his ordeal, but rather than interrogate him, she asked, "Can you sit up?"

"I don't think so."

"Seifer's hurt," she replied. "I might need your help."

"I'll do what I can," he promised and reached up to pat her hand.

Even though their situation was still dire, she smiled, glad that out of every SeeD in Garden, she'd been stranded with these two. What a team. Her team, she thought proudly. And damn it, she wasn't going to let them down. If they got back in the water, she felt certain that the current around the island would sweep them all the way to their ship. They wouldn't need to swim, just float, and as long as Adrian was awake enough to tread water, she was sure they could make it. Maybe the water would even wash some of the poison out of Seifer's wounds — though memories of Sascha Maurden's corpse quickly invaded to crush her optimism.

"Come on, guys," she said. "Get up. We've got to go."

"I can't walk," Adrian protested.

"You won't need to." The rock they were on was slippery when she stood up. "I'll help you. Come on." She offered him her hand and when he gripped it, she pulled him up into a sitting position. It seemed to make him dizzy but he handled his discomfort with grace, sucking it up like the soldier he was trained to be.

Seifer sat up without her help, though it was obviously causing him a lot of discomfort.

"I can heal you," Quistis offered, turning her attention to him.

"Better to let it bleed," he said, grunting as he rubbed his face with one still damp hand. "It'll flush the wound out. It's just that this salt water stings like a fucking bitch. I'm fine."

Maybe he was. Maybe it was just a flesh wound. But she wasn't completely convinced. Behind her, Adrian was getting his wits about him. He took in his surroundings, dark as they were, like a man who'd just been released from prison: running his hands across the rocks beneath him, breathing in the sea spray in massive gulps. Most importantly, he was lucid. Or getting there.

"Think you can swim?" she asked him.

"Of course I can," Seifer answered, not realizing the question hadn't been meant for him.

Charmed and sad, Quistis dropped to her knees, wrapped an arm around him, and leaned in to pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth, forgetting for a second that they had an audience.

"Ready?" she asked Adrian.

"As I'll ever be," he replied.

With one arm around both of them, Quistis slipped back into the water. At first, the two men nearly drug her under. But both found their strength and put forth a huge effort as they swam back out toward the current that would carry them home. Quistis turned around so that she could mark their movement relative to the island.

The water was cold and Seifer was struggling. He didn't make it obvious and never quit paddling, but she could tell. He was in pain, and he was exhausted. She admired how he battled through it, tough and determined, the kind of guy who'd never let his friends down.

They swam until the current finally caught them. Quistis could feel it pulling against her feet and watched as the island lurched into motion. Then the water carried them on so all they had to do was keep their heads above the waves.

They were moving quickly now, but not fast enough. Seifer was getting weaker, his movements more labored. And once he dipped beneath the water. They were losing him, and Quistis was terrified.

More than anything, she wanted to get to the ship and save his life. He'd always been a pillar of strength, a man who could survive anything and everything. Now his life was ebbing away and there was nothing she could do. This wasn't how it was all supposed to end. She kicked hard in the direction they wanted to go, hurrying their progress on.

The moon was bright in the sky above now, unobscured by clouds. Its light turned the tops of the waves into white, glistening tips and illuminated in stark contrasts the island's rocky coastline. It didn't look much different here than the place they had laid anchor. She was confident that they were getting close and murmured encouraging words to Seifer as they kicked and swam. The stars sparkled overhead as dark oblivion tugged at the soles of their feet.

Quistis thought of the way Seifer had kissed her, fierce and feral but also safe and soft and welcoming. And she thought about sleeping tucked into bed next to him those two dark nights in the compound. They were fleeting moments, but already so much more than what she'd shared with Carson, or any of her recent boyfriends. With death so close, she found she didn't want to think about any of them, or about Garden, or work, or even her friends. Rather, he thoughts overflowed with Seifer and her heart wailed at the thought of losing him.

"Quistis?" Adrian was panting, but his strength was coming back as quickly as Seifer's was waning.

"What?"

"Look at that."

He was looking toward shore, and she followed his gaze. The water was littered with bright, sparkling objects bobbing up and down with the waves.

"What is it?" she asked.

"No idea."

One bobbed close by. Quistis and Adrian kicked together out of the current and accelerated toward it. Seifer, his head lolling against Quistis, was dragged along behind them. He'd given up on swimming almost completely; his feet only kicked when he seemed to remind himself where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

The object grew closer and closer until they got within reach and Quistis could make out what it was.

"Metal?" she breathed.

They both looked across the now familiar bit of shoreline. Bits and pieces of metal were scattered everywhere — all that remained of their ship. Quistis looked up at the moon in despair and it seemed to roll at her.

They were all going to die.