Chapter 18: Treading Water

Quistis scrambled from the lean-to in time to see Seifer walk up to Adrian who was standing near the water, watching as a Garden ship came in to shore. The sun glinted off the sides of the vessel, casting a halo about the whole ship in the late morning humidity.

"What the hell is going on?" Seifer asked as he zipped up his pants.

"Sorry, man," Adrian replied. "Brecht followed the course we logged when we left Galbadia. They were combing through the debris from our ship when I got there."

"Garden actually sent someone after us?" Quistis asked, surprised.

Adrian shook his head but didn't have time to explain further before Carson's head popped out the top of the vessel like a jack-in-the-box. He waved his arms and began yelling at the top of his lungs, setting birds to flight at the edge of the jungle. "Quistis! Oh my God! Is that you? Are you all right?"

"Holy Hyne," Adrian said under his breath and shook his head. "He's gotta stop yelling like that before he draws the damn monster right to us."

Anger simmered in the cauldron of Quistis's stomach as she stared across the water at Carson. It wasn't just that he had interrupted something between her and Seifer, or the flash of guilt she felt when she thought about how unfaithful she'd been, or that he was giving away their position. Rather, what bothered her the most was the likely reason he'd decided to come after her in the first place: he didn't think she could handle the mission on her own. The fact that he'd caught them in a moment of genuine desperation would only validate what he already thought about her.

"I'm fine!" she called back, her whole body stiff with ire.

"Okay! Hold on! We'll see how close we can get." Carson vanished again and the ship carefully edged forward into the shallow water, searching for the point at which its belly would begin to scrape the bottom.

Adrian turned to Seifer and Quistis. "I delayed them as long as I could. I mean, I figured that you guys were probably…"

"It's okay," Seifer replied, though it was clear from his expression that it wasn't.

"Yeah. It's okay," Quistis echoed. "This is good, after all. Just the sort of break we needed." Though she knew that was true, she didn't feel any relief yet. Maybe in a few hours when she settled down…

The vessel hit bottom, throttled down, and a hatch opened on the side allowing Carson to scramble out into the water. It was armpit deep and he splashed through it toward shore like a man possessed.

"Quistis!" He jogged up to her, his arms thrown open for a hug. "I was so worried! When we found that wreckage…Hyne. I thought you were—"

She evaded his embrace. "What are you doing here?" she demanded instead, interrupting him. He dropped his hands and looked like he'd been slapped.

"What? I…I came to help you."

"Why?"

"Because I love you."

"Oh no. No. Don't give me that. Tell me the truth. Is it that you didn't think I could handle the mission?" She crossed her arms and glared at him.

"Well…" He was tongue tied for a moment. "I just thought that…"

"You thought I'd just fall into your arms if you came down here and saved me?" she shouted, making his usually lifeless eyes flash. "You should know me better than that, Carson. I'm not some pathetic little princess, no matter how much you want me to be."

"What in the world are you talking about? Look around, Quistis. You're stranded here. Your ship was destroyed. And you want me to apologize for saving you?"

"No! I want you to apologize for never believing in me!" she yelled and shoved him.

He shook his head, his mouth gaping wide. Everyone was watching them and she couldn't help but feel a flash of guilt for taking out her frustration on him so publicly. It wasn't entirely his fault, and to his credit, he had managed to show up right when they needed him. A few days more and there might not have been much of a team to save. But the mission had left her emotionally raw and everything she'd left unsaid in their relationship was rushing out. Now there was no way to take it back. So she stood firm, saying nothing more, and waited for him to respond.

He didn't. He just turned away from her.

She could tell he was hurt.

With a sigh, Quistis turned to the others and was surprised to see Kelly standing beside Seifer, her eyes wide and a black case dangling from her hand. What in the name of Hyne was she doing here?

"We…um…brought supplies," she said and smiled. "I've been working with Dr. Kadowaki, and we found something that might work against the monster's poison. So I brought some anti-venom just in case anyone was hurt."

Caught off-guard, Quistis didn't know what else to say besides, "Thanks."

"Have you seen it yet?" Kelly asked.

"More than one," Seifer replied. "Up close and personal. The damn things are almost completely immune to magic, which includes magic-based attacks by guardian forces. They're engineering them here on the island."

Kelly frowned. "Who is they?"

"We don't know yet," Quistis said. "We're pretty sure that they're the same radical group Sascha Maurden was involved with in Galbadia. But they're definitely not Galbadians. And not Estharans either."

"Who else would have that kind of technology?" Kelly said and shook her head.

"Exactly what we've been wondering," Adrian replied.

Seifer crossed his arms and changed the subject. "How'd you guys convince Cid to let you come down here anyway? I thought we were on our own."

"Oh…" Kelly exchanged glances with Carson. "We tried, but we didn't exactly convince him."

"So what did you do?" Quistis asked.

"We sort of…stole the Ragnarok," Kelly explained and bit her lip. "And this ship. And we had one of Carson's students fly us down to Edea's orphanage in Centra. We left him there though, so he should already be back to Garden by now."

"You stole the Ragnarok?" Quistis swung around to face Carson. "They'll fire you! They could kick the both of you out of Garden completely. Hyne, Carson. They could press charges against you for this kind of thing."

Still sulking, he just shrugged and didn't say anything.

He'd put a lot on the line to come and rescue her, Quistis realized. His career. His freedom. Even the lives of others. That wasn't like him. It hit her forcefully that his dedication to her far outweighed how she felt about him.

"How long have you guys been scraping by here on the shore?" Kelly asked, looking around at their lean-to and the remains of the fire.

"A few days," Adrian replied.

"Well, we've got plenty of food and fresh clothes on the ship. You guys should eat something, get cleaned up, and get some rest."

"That sounds wonderful," Adrian said and started toward the water, needing no more of an invitation. Kelly followed him, and Carson lagged behind to help Seifer and Quistis gather what personal belongings they had in their camp: weapons and a few scraps of clothing. Seifer's trench coat was ruined, torn and bloody, but he draped it across his arm anyway.

Before they left, they covered the fire over with dirt, buried the remains of the fish Quistis had been cleaning earlier that morning, and tore down the lean-to. Quistis was a little sad to see it go. Despite the circumstances surrounding it, there as many good memories in this place as bad. Living on the fringes had been simple and elegant, without complications. It seemed preferable to where she was now, wading through the ocean between her boyfriend and…Seifer — not quite a lover, much more than a friend.

Quistis heaved herself up into the ship and found Adrian already settled in. His shirt was off and Kelly was tending to the still raw wounds on his chest with a puffy wad of cotton and a bottle of potion. He winced as she dabbed and swabbed.

"I think you should take the anti-venom," she was saying. "Just in case."

"In case what? It comes back? The poison is completely out of my system. Trust me — if it any of it was still there, I'd be dead."

Kelly shrugged. "Better safe than sorry. And anyway, it'd make me feel useful."

Adrian smiled down at her, the potion already acting to bind his skin back together. "Right now, I'm damn happy to have you here. Hell of a lot nicer having your healing hands on me than Brecht's." He stopped, shame faced, when Carson came up out of the water and into the boat behind Quistis.

It wasn't fair, she thought, for everyone to be so hard on him, including herself. He wasn't a bad guy. He deserved better.

And he ought to have a girlfriend who loved him back, Quistis thought. But now wasn't the time to have that discussion with him.

"How are you, Seifer?" Kelly asked, turning away from Adrian. "He said you were injured, too."

"I was. But Quistis healed me," he replied.

Carson flopped down in front of the ship's control panel and closed the door, then started up the engines and began backing them out of the shallow water.

"There's clothes up there," Kelly said, pointing to one of the cabinets. "And the facilities are back that way. You'll have to take turns. But go ahead and clean up, get changed. I'll find you something to eat."

Adrian and Seifer let Quistis go first. She fished around amongst the clothing until she found something that would fit, a pair of navy blue Balamb Garden sweat pants and a gray t-shirt, and walked into the ship's bathroom, drawing the curtain behind her. There wasn't much to work with, but the water was warm and clean and she was able to sponge off most of the accumulated grime as well as wash her hair in the oversized sink. She felt fresh and tired as she pulled on the clean, dry clothing and wrung out her hair.

"It's not exactly a hot meal," Kelly admitted as she handed Quistis a sandwich and a bottle of water.

"That's okay," Quistis replied. "It looks delicious."

And it was, even though it was just peanut butter and jelly. Her stomach rumbled as she ate, relishing the sweet filling, the soft bread, and the chilled water that washed it all down. For dessert, she ate an apple down to the core.

"Where are we going?" she asked when she felt the engines kick in at full throttle.

"Home," Carson replied.

"What? You mean, back to Garden?"

"Yeah. Of course."

"We can't leave yet," she replied and got up to sit down next to him in the co-pilot's chair.

"Why not? This monster is obviously too dangerous for us to take on alone. Your supplies are tapped out, and Kelly isn't field trained. We're best off at this point to head back to Garden, debrief, and then let them send out a fresh team. It's not like the island is going anywhere."

"No. But the people here might," she pointed out. "They knew we were from Garden, and that meant something to them. If they have any reason to think that we escaped, they're not going to stay put and wait for someone else to come find them."

"What is it that you think they're going to do?" Carson asked. "Crate up all the monsters and disappear?"

"They don't need to take the monsters with them. They created the things; they can just make more wherever they go."

Carson shook his head. "That still doesn't change the fact that you are completely out of magic and supplies, that Adrian and Seifer are both recovering from injuries…"

"We could have the jump on them right now," Quistis said. "They don't know that we're alive. And they don't know that you're here yet. We could storm their compound…it has almost no defenses at all. And these people aren't military. They'll go down easy once we're inside. All we have to do is get past the monsters and we can shut this whole operation down."

He didn't look convinced.

"Carson," she said, reaching out to touch his arm. "It's not just the monster that's the problem. They have all the information anyone would need to make one in their compound on that island. They could sell it to the highest bidder if they wanted to. And these things are specially suited to take on SeeDs. One of them, a juvenile, almost killed all three of us. And we're some of the best SeeDs in the world. We've got to try to handle this now before it gets out of control. Success here…it could convince Garden not to kick you out."

That hit a chord.

"I'm not worried about my job," he said after a minute. "I knew before I took the Ragnarok what it would mean for my career."

Quistis frowned. "You love your job."

"Yeah…well, I love you more."

She didn't have anything to say to that. So she looked away from him to the ship's navigational screen. The familiar, crescent-shaped outline of the island was there.

"I won't go back to Garden," she finally said. "I want to finish my mission here."

Carson sighed and reached forward to slow the ship down.

"Okay. Fine. We'll give it a shot," he replied. "But I we're not going to take a ton of unnecessary risks. You three aren't fully equipped for this. If we run into too much trouble, we're going to cut and run. At least then we'll be alive to get word back to Garden. Agreed?"

Quistis nodded. "That's reasonable."

He forked a hand through his hair and stopped the ship completely.

"You should get some sleep," he said. "Kelly and I will get together all the supplies we can, and once you're all rested up, we'll head back to the island."

"Thanks," Quistis replied, then reached out and put one hand on his arm. "And…I want to say that I…"

He glanced at her, some of the frost in his demeanor melting. "You what?"

"I shouldn't have yelled at you like that in front of everyone," she whispered. "I'm sorry. It's been a hard couple of days."

He smiled and reached down to grip her hand. Quistis fought not to pull away. "I know, babe," he said, the endearment sounding awkward. "It's okay. I forgive you."

Extracting her hand from his grip, Quistis got up and noticed Seifer watching her from where he was sitting eating his sandwich. He frowned and looked away as she walked up to him, a deep crease forming where his scar crossed the bridge of his nose. Adrian and Kelly were making small talk which he hadn't cared to join in. And as she excused herself to get some sleep, so did he. The bunks at the back of the ship were separated from the rest of it by a blue curtain. He pulled it shut behind him.

"Hey," she whispered when he sat down on the lowest bunk.

"What?" he mouthed back.

She sat down beside him, hoping that Adrian would give them at least a few moments alone.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing," he insisted.

She pressed her lips together, not sure what to say when they had so little time. "I'm sorry we didn't get to finish what we started," she finally settled on.

"Are you?" he asked, arching one eyebrow.

Confused, she nodded but didn't get to say anything more before they heard Adrian yawn loudly from beyond the curtain. Quistis pressed a quick kiss to Seifer's cheek, not liking the way he turned away from her when she did it, and scrambled up into the top bunk. She didn't bother to pull the covers back or get under them. She just huddled up with her back to the door and closed her eyes.

This was a mess, she realized. Not just the mission, but her personal life, too. She knew now that it was never going to work between her and Carson. She didn't love him and never would. But were things already beginning to disintegrate between her and Seifer as well? She'd been worried that their relationship might not last beyond the odd bubble of space and time the island seemed to exist in. Having Carson around was awkward. But that shouldn't have stopped him from kissing her in private, should it?

She wished they could talk.

But for now, it was going to have to wait.