Original characters, world and backstory belong to Squaresoft, lucky folks.
This is a wee bit smutty and includes slash; censored a little to meet the R rating. Full version as intended is on my website www.scribblemoose.co.uk.
Please tell me what you think of all this, if you can bear to, by review or email (fanfic@scribblemoose.co.uk)
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Chapter 19 - Between
Quistis looked at the ceiling. There were no cracks, no blemishes. Nothing.
When she'd been a little girl, in the orphanage, there had a been a lot of cracks in the ceiling. The building was old and built of stone, near to the beach. It had settled into the ground over the years, each shift, each tide marked in the plaster. Quistis remembered lying on her bed next to Selphie and making pictures out of the cracks and flakes of paint; Selphie always made the best ones, whole scenes with dragons and trees and mountains, while Quistis could just about make out shapes and faces. When it got dark, Selphie would make up stories about her pictures and whisper them to herself as she drifted off to sleep.
Quistis couldn't move.
She didn't know what time it was: judging by the light it was probably about midday, but she couldn't be certain without opening the blinds. She supposed that eventually someone would drop by to summon her to a debriefing. In fact she was surprised no-one had called her already. But then again, why would they? Rinoa could tell them everything there was to tell. What could she add? A detailed account of how she'd waited, and waited, and done absolutely fuck-all to keep Selphie safe?
There was nothing wrong with her body. She just couldn't move.
It hurt, now, to remember how much she'd looked forward to the mission. She'd wanted so much for it to be like old times, working as a team, people around her like family, the rush of victory. But, of course, it hadn't turned out like that. She'd failed. Again. She couldn't be trusted. Not to teach, not to lead a mission. Squall would never be able to depend on her again.
She had no reason to move.
She should have known what would happen. She should have been prepared, known more about the Dia. She should have guessed that Chet, or something like him, would be there. She shouldn't have got drunk that night, made a fool of herself, had so little sleep. She should have been more alert, sent a probe down when she first realised they'd been gone longer than they should. She shouldn't have left Selphie there and run, she should have stayed and found some way to save her.
If she moved, the world might shatter.
She couldn't imagine what would happen next. She supposed they would go back and rescue Selphie, somehow, if she were still alive. Strange thing was, she didn't much care what happened next. It didn't feel as if it was anything to do with her. The future was something that was going to happen to other people. Not her. She didn't deserve a future.
So why move?
* * * * * * *
Irvine woke up to find himself, strangely, still asleep.
"Sniper."
It was like a dream: there was fog, and a long path, and the sound of the ocean.
"Sniper." Not a voice in his head this time: a real voice. Soft, sweet, thick, like melting marshmallow in hot chocolate.
"Ether? Where am I? "
"Between"
"Between what? I didn't die, did I?" He was fairly sure he hadn't, but there seemed no harm in checking.
"You live. You will be well. You are between sleep and wake."
"I can't see you."
"I am here. You know me."
"Did you… bring me here?"
"Yes."
"Why?
"To explain what happened."
"What? Why I passed out? The pain?"
"It is not natural."
"The pain?"
"The Great One with The Sorceress is not natural."
"What do you mean, not natural?"
"It is … altered. It hurts us. It's feelings, it's thoughts are wrong."
"Wrong as in… evil?"
"Unnatural."
Irvine was reminded that Guardians didn't have the same kind of morality as he did. Or any kind of morality at all, really. As if he needed reminding of that...
"I must tell Rinoa. Can you wake me up?"
"No. But you will wake up, soon. When you are well."
"Is it dangerous? Will it hurt her?"
"It finds her Worthy. We do not harm that which we find Worthy."
"Good. So… you still find me worthy, right?"
"Sniper, you are magnificent."
He couldn't help grinning.
"Thank you. So we're okay, you and me?"
"You are Worthy. I am yours."
"And this Bane Rinoa was talking about? Who's Bane?"
"I know no Bane."
"Oh."
"Be still. Be well."
"What? Ether?"
The voice was gone.
Irvine looked about him, caught sight of tiny waves trickling over the path in front of him, through the fog. The tide was evidently coming in, and there was nowhere to go to outrun it. Strangely, the thought didn't concern him, much.
* * * * * * *
Selphie raised her head, determined that she would stay awake this time, at least. Being awake was better than the dreams. Anything was better than the dreams.
Well, almost anything.
She'd managed to block out the music by holding her own song in her head, and that helped. It kept the feelings at bay, at least, and she could look more dispassionately at the memories, as if she were watching a movie, and they belonged to someone else.
For all she knew, they did.
She concentrated on what Chet was doing, telling herself that whatever he had in mind for her this time, she could bear it.
Had in mind. Heh.
It would have been easier if he'd beaten her. She'd taken beatings before: from bullies when she first arrived at Garden, from Seifer in the desert prison, from monsters and men in battles. It was part of her life, pain and injury, and she'd learned to turn it to her advantage, to use it to fashion that clear, bright sense of purpose that sharpened her wits and made her all the more deadly when the opening came for her revenge.
But he hadn't beaten her.
He'd raped her past.
He'd put his fingers in her mind and stirred about; looked at the things she kept safe and secret, the things she cherished because they were shared with those she loved, her worst fears, her happiest daydreams, he'd taken them all and looked at them, one by one, carelessly, brutally, before he tossed them back to her like they were garbage, with a sneer. He'd taken her thoughts and tainted them, so they weren't hers any more, polished the pain and fear and dulled her comfort.
The only thing he hadn't touched, yet, was Xu. She'd managed to keep her feelings and memories of Xu apart, somehow. Whenever she felt him searching, looking for her love, her desire, she gave him Irvine instead. It wasn't hard to fake, especially after the memories had come back. She had undeniably loved him, once, more than she'd ever thought she could. And it seemed to be what he expected. Then again, it was what everyone expected of Irvine. Guns and women. Selphie.
It worked.
Well, that wasn't surprising. She'd kept her feelings for Xu secret for so long, she'd got real good at it. And it seemed so far away from all this pain and dirt that it didn't seem real any more, that gentle, unambiguous, loyal love. It must have been a dream. Whatever it was, Selphie protected it and hid it, and kept it from him.
He liked Irvine, for some reason. He kept coming back to it. At first she'd thought he'd suspected something, but then she realised, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, that he just enjoyed her memories of Irvine, real or otherwise. He kept replaying the afternoon in Esthar, the softness of Irvine's hair, the gentleness of his touch, the soft wash of his tongue and the grace of his body; his hazy violet eyes in the soft light of the hotel room, the arch of his back as he came, the purr of his voice as he spoke her name.
It was easy to make him think she loved Irvine.
Chet wanted him, too.
Body and mind and spirit.
She felt like a traitor. To offer up Irvine like this, to let Chet take that beautiful body, perfect lust, tender love, that golden afternoon. Whatever Irvine had or hadn't done, however he'd betrayed her, it wasn't as bad as this.
But it was better than giving up Xu. Anything was better than that.
So she braced herself, as he came towards her, put the crystal to her heart, the vial to her lips, and made her drink.
She let the thing into her mind and offered it titbits to feed on, to distract it: she gave it Irvine, piece by piece.
* * * * * * *
Rinoa dreamed, curled in the chair in Squall's office, waiting for Irvine to wake.
She was in her father's beach house, where she'd spent so many summers as a child. She wandered through the rooms, looking for something, she wasn't sure what, but she'd left something here. She heard something that sounded like violence.
She went into the kitchen and found Seifer and Squall, fucking, not fighting… Squall was bent over the table, hot cheek on cold marble, not love, or affection, or even lust. Just power. Control. Violence. He couldn't take Squall on the battlefield, but he sure as hell could take him on the kitchen table.
Squall wasn't struggling; he wanted this.
She couldn't watch. It hurt to watch. She didn't want him to find out she was there but he looked at her, and he knew, and it hurt him, that she knew, and that hurt her back, and she couldn't bear it…
Then she was on the beach, with Irvine, just Irvine, soft wet kisses on her skin like honey… he undressed her, smiled at her with that smile that made her instantly wet between the legs, touched her with soft, gentle fingers … she understood him completely, with no doubts, she believed him and trusted him with a certainty she'd never felt before, not even for Squall.
Then Squall was there too: he was crying, so sad, so lost and frightened, it made her heart ache. She and Irvine pulled him to them and comforted him, dried his tears with their hair and held him in their arms… until he understood, until he believed and trusted them and they believed and trusted him and it was perfect.
The sea washed over them, the tide came in, and they might have drowned in their pleasure, if they'd noticed.
* * * * * * *
Zell found he could speak and think at the same time.
About different things.
He watched the faces of the cadets in front of him, keeping a mental note of who was paying attention to him and who was drifting off, frowning disapprovingly at the redhead at the back who had decided to combine class with breakfast, brushing doughnut sugar off her notebook, oblivious, presumably, to the small blob of jam on her nose. Then he recognised her: Frila. Oh well. Squall had probably whooped her ass already this morning, so no point adding to her problems. Though she looked remarkably happy, and bruise-free, considering. Even a little cute, with the jam and all.
Zell knew he was talking about junctions, about how to make sure you spread the power about, not putting all of it into your attack, or your defence, always keeping the right kind of magic ready. Apart from Frila, all the cadets were seniors, expected to become full SeeDs in the autumn graduation. Most of them had heard all this before, if only at a theoretical level, but on the whole they were gratifyingly attentive.
He just wanted to get the class finished, and go. He wanted to get moving. He couldn't stand still for another moment…
Someone had their hand raised. He nodded at them.
"Instructor Dincht? Is it true that Guardians eat your memories?"
He hated that question. It was well-known, of course, that SeeDs tended to suffer from memory-loss. All cadets were trained to keep a journal from the day they came to Garden, in preparation for the day they'd depend on them to be sure what was real and what was a hazy dream, or deja-vu, or nothing at all.
But they didn't really explain it to them, unless they asked, until they were already committed.
"They don't feed on memories," he said, his stock answer. "But as a side effect of the power they give us, we may suffer some short-term memory loss." No-one was sure, actually, if that was true, not even Xu. The Guardians claimed not to feed on memories. They didn't really understand memories, time seemed different for them, so it wasn't an issue like it was for linear beings like people.
"Can we get the memories back?"
"Yes. That's why we keep journals. It takes a while for the memories to go, and if we write down the day's events every day, we can regain approximately 95% of our memory loss, depending on the detail we put into the diaries. Does that answer your question?" The tone of his voice implied very much that he would prefer it if it did.
The cadet nodded, apparently satisfied for now. "Thank you, sir."
It was like the time Zell's little brother had asked him what happened to people when they died. It threw Zell into complete panic, he wanted to fetch Ma, get her to explain, he had no idea how you could explain death to a five-year old. But Ma was busy cooking, and there wasn't anyone else, and anyhow he shouldn't be such a coward. So he just said everyone went to another world, when they'd done what they had to in this world. He was going to say more, but before he had a chance there was a new question, 'what's for lunch, Zelly?' and that was it. And that was as it should be: surely he was too small, too happy, too safe, to really want to know about death.
Zell had always known about death.
His currently-earliest memory was of making friends with a little girl in the orphanage, whom he liked because she had cute yellow curls and cried even more than he did. He made her smile, which made him feel good; to be the comforter rather than the comforted. She'd had a fever when she arrived, and Matron had warned them all that she might not live very long. He knew what that meant, somehow, even then. So he wasn't surprised when Quistis came to him one morning, when he was playing by himself down by the sea, and explained that his friend had gone to heaven and wouldn't be living with them any more.
She'd held him as he cried, stroking his hair, rocking him gently back and forth to the rhythm of the waves.
He explained and asked questions and made them think, but all the time his feet wouldn't stay still. He paced the classroom and watched the clock.
He had to get moving. Soon. Or it might be too late.
* * * * * * *
Squall watched them sleep: Rinoa curled in his chair, twitching slightly as she dreamed; Irvine on the couch, mouth slightly open, but not snoring.
Squall sat cross-legged on his desk, waiting, frowning, hair tumbled over his eyes.
Brooding.
Thinking.
Remembering.
It was starting to make sense, a little. Gemini had offered him the name of an enemy, and he knew how to deal with enemies. Hunt it down, find its weakness, obliterate it.
His mouth formed a grim smile at the thought. Home territory, at last.
Other things were more complicated. There was something, nagging at his mind, that he couldn't grasp. Like when he hadn't been able to think about Rinoa, he kept not wanting to look at it, but he knew it was there. They were there. Ideas, memories, dreams…
The dreams. He forced himself to look, calming his mind, bracing himself for whatever horror he might find.
He watched Irvine sleep.
And he knew.
There were a lot of dreams, all different, but one of them wasn't like the others. The one that was the most difficult, the most painful, the most terrifying to look at, the one that made him want to cringe away, that was the one.
That was the one that was real.
~I don't know what you're doing in my head, but you can get the fuck out.~
~Lionhart.~
~Ether. I didn't junction you. How did you do this?~
~I am a memory of Ether. Ether is with Sniper.~
~Have you been here since we joined? That afternoon, after Irvine and Rinoa…~
~Yes. I am here to protect.~
~Protect what, exactly? Irvine? Me? Did Irvine think I couldn't cope, is that it?~
~I am here to protect.~
~Oh, no you don't. I'm tired of fucking riddles. Just tell me. What are you doing in my mind?~
~I must protect. Lionhart, Sniper, Sorceress. Together.~
~Why? Does Ether want a nice juicy threesome to feed off, is that it? Are you trying to get us to act out some sick kind of fantasy for you?~
~Love. The bond is there. It must remain.~
~Love? Not lust? Love?~
~Love, like rope, entwined.~
~Stronger than the separate strands~ I remember, he thought, Quistis told me that, before we beat Adel. Her whip was like the six of us, she said, all bound together, stronger together than the sum of our parts. I think I told her to fuck off. He winced. Poor Quistis. I was so mean to her, to all of them.
~So it did happen, then? It was real?~
~You must forget.~
He felt a rush of power in his mind.
~No! Fuck, no, please!~ He surprised himself by the force of his own words, he hadn't realised how important this was. ~Please don't. I want to remember. It happened. I can deal with it. Gods know, I've dealt with worse. I don't… mind. I just don't want you playing with my mind. Please.~
The power dissipated, withdrew.
~You must not break the rope.~
~Okay. I understand. But Irvine.. Sniper, does he remember? Have you blocked his mind, too?~
~Sniper always remembers.~
Squall's eyes widened.
~Then why… why didn't he…~
~He understands.~
~Understands what?~
~The need. He wakes soon. I am no longer needed here. I go.~
Squall watched Irvine sleep.
And remembered.