10


The first thing I remember on waking up was the sound of the monitors giving off a soft, steady beeping sound. Very soon after that I could make out voices, although it took me another moment before I could understand them.

"... told you already, she's going to be fine," Dr. Kadowaki's voice stated firmly. "Provided, of course, she gets some rest." There was a hum of voices; I recognized a couple in the din including Irvine and Zell's but couldn't make out any actual bits of conversation.

"Well, yes," and here the doctor's voice hesitated, "we're doing the best we can, although the injuries may take a wh--- MIS-ter Almasy, just what do you think you're...!"

I blinked my eyes open just as a tall sliver of light appeared about ten feet in front of me. Immediately realizing it was the door opening, I nonetheless shut my eyes and brought my hand feebly up to my face. There was a faint resistance, and seeing a small tube shift across my stomach realized I was connected to an IV.

"She seems fine to me," I heard Seifer's voice comment dryly, and looked up to see his silhouette in the doorway. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded, apparently looking at me although it was too dark to see his expression. There was something different about his wardrobe though...

"Quisty!" More silhouettes appeared then Seifer was shoved out of his nonchalant post as the rest of the group flowed into the room. Someone turned on the lights, momentarily blinding me.

"Zell," Dr. Kadowaki snapped, "shut those off right now."

"No, it's okay," I managed to get out, my voice somewhat croaky. The lights were still turned off, but I could see several faces around my bed giving me anxious looks. For some reason this annoyed me and I sat up, saying, "Seriously, guys, I'm fine..."

A wave of dizziness hit me and my vision blurred. "Well," I conceded, falling back on the bed, "maybe not totally fine."

"You ran completely out of energy, plus took one nasty blow to the head," the doctor stated, gently shooing away a couple of people to get to my side. Checking my pulse manually she added, "Then you had to pull that limit break stunt when you barely had anything left in you to work with..."

"That was so cool Quisty," Selphie interrupted, practically hopping in place. "You just pointed at the dragon and FWISH, it disappeared!"

"Yeah, that was pretty awesome," Irvine agreed. "You didn't tell us you'd learned another limit break though."

Memories of the fight returned to me, and I suddenly felt uncomfortable discussing the situation. I didn't understand it enough, myself, to be able to talk about the experience so changed the subject. "Glad to see you two are okay," I said.

Selphie just shrugged. "We just needed some rest and a few healing spells, and we were as good as new."

"How about the two cadets?" I asked quickly, a bit fearful my 'limit break' would be brought up again.

"The doctor said Marie's going to be all right," Zell replied. "Ivan needed a minor surgery and will probably have to go through physical therapy to use his left arm again, but he's good too."

I nodded and was about to ask them what happened after I passed out when I heard three voices cry out in unison, "Instructor Trepe!" Selphie, Irvine, and Zell quickly made room as three Trepies ran full-tilt to my bedside, their faces full of fear and concern.

"Hi guys," I said, giving them a small reassuring smile.

"They got here about the same time we did, and haven't left since," Zell supplied, sharing an amused glance with Selphie that I wasn't sure I appreciated. It's not my fault I have a fan club.

"We were so worried, ma'am," Sandra stated, wringing her hands. "When we heard you'd collapsed like that after saving those cadets, and had to be rushed to Medical..."

I opened my mouth to tell them it hadn't been me alone who'd defeated the dragon but right then Myla let out an anguished, "Oh, Instructor!" and threw her arms around my neck. I let out a little whoosh of air and turned wide eyes to my three friends, silently pleading for help. They, however, seemed quite amused at my discomposure. Some friends they were, I thought darkly.

"The doctor told us you'd be fine," Marcus said softly, "but we wanted to wait around to make sure. Just in case she was only trying to make us feel better."

"Well," I stated, giving a small shrug, "as you can see I'm fine. Nothing a little rest won't cure."

They breathed a collective sigh of relief, and the worry left their faces. Really, I mused, as much as I might silently complain, they were a nice bunch to have around. Each had their own personalities: Sandra tried to copy me and was generally more stoic, quite the opposite of Myla who generally was a great deal more showy. Then there was Marcus, being the only male in the group and something of a mixture of both in personality. Far from being a major annoyance, the Trepies provided a constant amusement to my life.

Ah, hospital bed contemplations. The bane of every sane mind.

Marcus managed a small smile. "I'm glad about that. It's just, what with Squall, we were worried..."

"Squall?" I shot a questioning look at Selphie and was surprised when she wouldn't meet my eyes. A pained look stretched across her face and my throat constricted as I demanded, "What about Squall?"

--0--

There were several machines going next to the bed: a heart monitor and a ventilator were the most recognizable, but there were several others whose functions I wasn't aware of. Connected to all of them, looking extremely pale in contrast to his dark hair and suddenly achingly thin, lay Squall.

Nobody said anything, just sat there in the room in silent vigil. Rinoa sat closest to the beside, holding Squall's right hand in both of hers. She was staring into space, her eyes having an unfocussed quality as if she wasn't there but traveling around somewhere in her mind.

Selphie broke the silence first, tentatively asking, "Anything?"

Rinoa's eyes slowly refocused, and a tear made a wet track down her cheek. "I can feel him in there," she whispered, "but I can't do anything to help him. It just won't come, no matter what I try."

I heard Zell mutter a curse and kick the doorway, albeit softly, but nobody reprimanded him on it. Irvine let out a low sigh, then quietly excused himself and left the room; Selphie, giving Squall an anguished look, followed him outside.

For my part I just stared at the wall opposite Squall's bed, doing nothing. Perhaps I could have tried to comfort Rinoa, if by doing nothing more than laying a hand on her shoulder but" it just seemed wrong to me somehow, trying to comfort someone when you yourself were in such need of the same.

"The rails pierced both his chest cavity and his abdomen," the doctor had told me when I'd staggered out of my room, refusing to return until I'd known the truth. "His heart, thank Hyne, was missed but one rail managed to nick his inferior vena cava, one of the main veins to the heart, and puncture his lung completely. The other rail practically obliterated one kidney, and both the liver and the gall bladder were..." She'd trailed off as I'd staggered, nearly going to my knees as I'd struggled to take in the words.

An expert team of doctors had been immediately dispatched from Dollet, arriving within an hours time by special SeeD transport and Nida moving the Garden itself much closer to the city. They'd set to work immediately on B-Garden's commander, who had been in stasis just barely for the short time. They'd almost arrived too late; Squall had gone into cardiac arrest at least twice before dubiously stabilizing enough to begin reconstruction on his damaged organs.

Cid had taken the initiative to also inform President Loire of what had happen, and the other man's response had been immediate: another six doctors, arguably the best on the continent, had arrived within four hours of the President being notified. Laguna had also promised to be there as soon as he could, and had sent both Kiros and Ward ahead of him.

All of this in the twenty hours I'd been out. He'd been carted out of the operating room less than a half hour before I'd awaken, and from what little I'd heard he would still need at least one more surgery for further reconstructive purposes as well as to remove several small equipment that had been inserted into his body to aid in its semi-normal function.

Rinoa had been virtually comatose during her boyfriend's various surgeries, and hadn't left his side since he'd left the operating room. Upon returning from Balamb and hearing the news, she hadn't gone into the hysterics I would have expected but had sat in the waiting room, pale-faced and hollow-eyed.

From the moment he'd been returned to her side she had been attempting to heal him using her inherent sorceress powers. Nothing she had done worked, though, and I'm pretty sure I know why. Magic in the form we all were able to draw on and use was dependent on the ability and knowledge of the wielder. Anyone who knew how to draw magic could do so, but no matter how much is drawn, it did not give them the sudden ability to use that magic. The deployment of the spells themselves, such as in battle, had to be learned as well as the many specific properties that went along with individual spells. For example, a Fire spell needed the user to do little more than imagine a ball of fire enveloping their foe as they tapped into the drawn energies, whereas a Shield spell required visualization of a barrier around the one receiving the spell, just how that shield was supposed to around that person, what it prevented, etc. In essence, some knowledge of how the spell worked was needed to allow the magic to flow correctly and do its job.

The same thing was the case with Rinoa. She had heard the list of ailments Squall had received, but unlike how a doctor would perceive them she didn't grasp the full anatomical significance of each part. She knew his lung was punctured, but never having seen one repaired she would have no idea how to fix it. Same went with the kidney, liver, and various other organs that were damaged: not knowing how they worked, operated, and normally functioned she'd have no idea where to start, no knowledge for the magic to utilize. Perhaps if one of the doctors had Rinoa's ability, or if she'd had some of their knowledge...

I wasn't thinking about any of this as I sat in that room, however. All that was running through my head was that we'd almost lost him. The only man I had ever loved, whom I couldn't say for certain I didn't still love even from afar, and he'd very nearly died mere yards away from me on that arena floor. The realization that I had been so close while all this had happened was enough to keep me nearly as catatonic as Rinoa.

"Quistis?"

Blankly I looked up at the sound of my name and saw Dr. Kadowaki standing there. She beckoned me and I reluctantly rose, giving Squall one last look before stepping outside.

"Cid's asked me to bring you all together up in his office," the doctor murmured in a soft voice. "Said it's pretty urgent, or he wouldn't be calling you at a time like this."

I nodded dully. "Tell him..." I paused, then continued, "Tell him I'll be there as soon as I can."

Nodding slowly the doctor turned to go, then paused and turned back to me. Placing her hand on my shoulder she said softly, "He's going to be all right, I promise."

"Can you promise that?" I whispered, still looking through the door into that room.

The doctor had no reply to that; she just gave my shoulder a small squeeze, then went to relay my message to Cid.

I don't know how long I just stood there, alone, before I heard someone come up behind me. "Are you all right, Quisty?"

I had never, as far as I could remember, heard Seifer speak in that tone of voice. It was low and soft, lacking absolutely all its normal mocking qualities. Indeed, it almost sounded like someone else entirely. "How do you think I'm doing?" I murmured, eyes shifting out of Squall's room and across the main waiting area I was in now.

There was a long silence, for which I was grateful. He was just there, standing next to me quietly as I tried to compose myself. Finally, he asked in the same soft voice, "Is there anything I can..."

"Please Seifer," I said, holding up my hand to stop him, "I can't do this right now." Looking back, I know I would have said the same thing to anyone who had approached me right then. It was simply that I wasn't in the mood to talk or be comforted at that moment; allowing the doctor's had drained my patience for the exercise. I certainly hadn't meant it as a stab at Seifer, but unfortunately he took it as such.

"Fine, Instructor," he stated coldly, stepping away from me, "I'll just leave you here with your prescious bo..." He stopped what he'd been about to say, then continued, "I'll just leave you alone." And with that he stalked off out of the clinic.

On top of everything else, I really hadn't needed that. A fight with Seifer always drained me, and right then I had no energy left to give. Strange though, having him there... it had been nice to be around someone who didn't make empty promises, who hadn't tried to hug me or make me talk about my feelings. I'd been somewhat at peace with my worry for those few moments before he'd started to talk and I had, at least to his mind, told him off. Any comfort I might have derived from him, however, had been summarily snatched away by his parting words, leaving me totally empty.

Mindful of Cid's request. I slowly turned around and headed out of the hospital wing, back to my quarters to freshen up before heading to the Headmaster's office.