Note: About the character, Jorge—please do not mistake his manner of speaking for a condescending stereotype. FF8 featured English, Japanese, Latin, and French, as well as incorporating elements of various other cultures (Kiros' attire being of particular note) in its ethnic spectrum. When I thought up Jorge, Squall's gunblade student, I decided to try adding a little additional depth to his character by making Spanish his first language. As someone who took only two years of high-school Spanish, I have very limited knowledge of the language, and Jorge's linguistic nuances are based largely off what I have been able to glean from listening to the way Mexican-American kids in high-school talk. That being said, Jorge's character is still developing, and, due my decided lack of knowledge on the subject of Spanish, I may make some major errors in his dialogue and the inflections in his English. For this, I sincerely apologize. I hope no one takes offense in light of my own ignorance.

II

Reality Check Bounces

--

"I want to see you clearly

Come closer than this

But all I remember are

the dreams in the mist..."

--

"That's it," Squall finished, setting his half-finished glass of ice water down on the black-topped coffee table in front of him. "That's all."

The 'Administrative Recreation Center'—or, as it was more commonly and less formally known, the Teacher's Lounge—floated in weighty silence. The sofas surrounding the coffee table in the center of the room were mostly empty, having only four occupants; Squall and Rinoa sat directly across from Edea and Headmaster Cid, who was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, his bristly chin cradled thoughtfully between his thumbs.

"What does it mean…?" Quistis, the only other person in the room, turned away from the window, though which she had been watching the all-encompassing grey cloud roil and twist.

Two days before, on their way to pick up some passengers from the port city of Dollet, Balamb Garden had become enveloped in a sudden cloud of grey mist. The Garden, though insisting it was still in motion, had never reached the other side of the eerie, impenetrable vapor, and had not found land where land should have been. Squall, Xu and Cid had agreed to an all-stop until a way was found to cut through the oppressive fog.

Throughout the past day, the Garden had remained stationary, surrounded by thick, all-encompassing mist that did not actually appear to touch the mobile campus itself. Instead, it gummed the water, and perhaps the monstrous golden halo below, which was the Garden's main means of locomotion. All attempts to un-gum the mechanics had met with failure.

Squall had gone to bed that night, as had everyone else, frustrated and confused, with no answers. Now he was filled with only more questions. He waved his hand at Quistis' question, seeming unconcerned, although the same thoughts had nagged him without relent ever since he'd awoken from the violent phantasm. "Who knows? It might not mean anything. It may have something to do with this fog. It's been screwing with all the Garden's navigation systems." He looked out the window again, and this time Rinoa mirrored his example. "I don't know." Beyond the warm glow of the Garden's rings, entrapping mist as thick as smoke coiled and churned. Until now, nothing particularly unsettling had happened while Garden was mired in this strange phenomenon. 

"Then again, it might have nothing to do with it," Quistis countered gamely.

"And you are convinced," Edea put in before anyone else could speak, "that these dreams are memories of past lives?"

"They're memories of something." Restless, Squall stood up, walked away from the small gathering and stopped halfway to the opposite window. He turned on his heel to face them. His arm struck out at nothing. "No one else can think the way I do. It was a completely different situation, under different circumstances, but that guy was me." It wasn't someone else with my face pasted on. It was me…and it was real. He relaxed again. His gaze drifted to the floor, and he shook his head, motioning loosely with the arm that had violently attacked the air only moments ago. "Of course I'd never do anything like that. Not now. I understand why I was that way at one time, though."

Quistis rolled her eyes, folded her arms, and gave him a skeptical stare. "There's no evidence that any of that ever happened. Galbarira? It's not even mentioned in any history that I have ever heard of. The way you described it, it was some sort of dark metropolis. The mind is an amazing thing. It's possible you just made the whole thing up."

"Look, I know what it was. I was there."

"How could you have the same names, same appearances, and same clothes thousands of years in the past?"

Squall growled in frustration, made as if to go over to Quistis, there to give a piece of his mind to her face. "You're not getting it—"

"All right!" Cid called an end to the escalating argument, holding up his hands and then motioning for each challenger to sit down. "Ladies…Gentlemen…please. Let's dispense with the philosophical speculation for now. What's important is that it has happened. Now," he continued before anyone could object, "I feel obligated to tell all of you that this is not an isolated incident. In the past two days, I have had six such reports from other officers and students, though none were as ready to go into the detail that was presented in this case. Four of these six described the experiences as memories of the past. Whether or not this is true, it started at about the same time that we became mired in this fog."

Squall waited to see if the headmaster would speak again. When Cid remained silent, the agitated SeeD took the opportunity to talk. "So the cloud and the dreams are related."

"May I say something?" Rinoa, who had been silent as stone until that moment, lifted her bowed head to stare hopefully at the headmaster. Cid waved for her to continue. "It sounds to me like there are two possibilities. Either the dreams are memories…which would mean the cloud is some kind of time distortion, or something…or they're not, which means the cloud is directly affecting our minds when we sleep."

"Possibly when we're awake, as well," Quistis pointed out gravely.

Rinoa shook her head. "Before anyone says it, I don't think it's a weapon of any kind. I don't know why I think that, it's just…a feeling."

"Some sort of gateway?" Squall suggested. "A 'leftover' from Ultimecia's time compression, maybe."

Edea nodded. "For that matter, could it be Ultimecia, in a former attempt at time travel in the future?" She paused as she realized just how contradictory the whole sentence had been. "Or, something that she created that was already there, but we happened to miss until now, perhaps?" She sighed, her eyes darkening at the ominous nature of this worn-out subject. Even after her defeat, it seemed that Ultimecia was a common suspect these days.

"I still don't see any evidence that these dreams are in any way connected to actual events of the past." Quistis, frustrated, leered across the room at Squall. "There's not enough information to even make an assumption in that direction."

"There's not enough information to make an assumption either way," Squall returned.

"Agreed," Cid grunted. "Let's not make any judgements until we're clear on the facts at hand. We have time, fortunately, and I do not see that there is any immediate danger to anyone in the Garden. For now, you will all go on with your schedules, with an emphasis: gather as much information as you can. Talk to your friends. Send out notices to all officers and senior students. Encourage people to talk about this. I do not want mass hysteria to form as a result of a lack of information. The more we know about this, the better we will be able to sort it all out."

"I'll set up a thread in the Garden Square explaining it," Rinoa volunteered. "A lot of people sign on between classes."

"Fine idea." With effort, Cid stood up, wincing as his knees cracked. The headmaster glanced about apologetically, rubbing his head in embarrassment. "I'm getting too old for this." But he was smiling as he said it.

Edea stood up beside him, smiling as well. "When I hear someone call you 'grouchy old man,' I'll let you know."

Everyone laughed, with the exception of Squall, who smiled despite himself. It was a welcome relief to the tension that had built up in he room since they'd come here. They might not always agree on things, he caught himself thinking, but in the end, they were all friends. "The day you become as tetchy as I am will be the day I switch mindsets with Laguna. I don't think you have anything to worry about." More laughter followed Squall's straight face, though he allowed himself an inward chuckle. Maybe Laguna was a trigger-happy mass murderer in a past life.

Cid waved them all out the door. "Then let me be the party pooper. Come on, everybody out. We all have jobs to do."

A few more snickers, a couple of half-serious "yes, sir"s, and they all were filing out the door, bound for their respective posts: Rinoa had a history class; Squall needed to warm up before his morning training session with his gunblade student, Jorge; Quistis had sentry duty with Zell; Edea would be needed in the primary school classrooms, and the headmaster…well, only Cid knew what Cid had to do.

Rinoa's eyes were trained on the floor as she walked out. She hurried off toward her class, though Squall stopped her for long enough to make sure she would be all right. Reassured, he gave her a brief kiss and let her go on her way. He turned around to find Quistis staring at him.

"If you want to argue about this whole dream thing, forget it," he warned her calmly. "I'm not gonna fight about it."

Quistis folded her arms in thought. "I don't want to argue, I just want to understand." Her eyes looked to the side, as if she found something about the wall keenly interesting. Her arms unfolded and motioned with increasing fervency as she spoke. "The person you described in your dream was a ruthless, bloodthirsty killer without a conscience. I've known you for years. I'm not Rinoa, but…I can't fathom that that person was you. There is nothing in you that would ever condone or delight in the vicious murder of innocent people! Not now, not ever." She crossed her arms again, this time seeming to hug herself for the secure warmth of confidence she did not feel. "I refuse to believe that you would ever sink that low. And what about Rinoa? She would never wish death on herself or anyone else. She would never just give up that easily. It's just not her."

Squall had listened patiently, and now he could understand why Quistis had been so stubborn before. He wished he could offer her some consolation. There was none. The hard truth was that someway, somehow, perhaps at some time, he was a cruel, violent, dangerous man with little if any value for human life. It had been a crude, simple mindset, one that had almost no concept of good and evil.

What had happened in the memory as a result of those factors was tragic, but Squall felt no pity for himself or for "Riona." They had both done the best that they knew how, and, given their circumstances, the ending to their story might even have been considered a happy one. However gruesome it seemed now, to them it had been precious and loving. It had been a primal, but twisted form of love. Still, not so complicated as what Squall now understood love to be.

Quistis was right, of course. There was no part of him that would ever allow him to intentionally harm Rinoa. Not anymore. He was wiser, stronger—but he and the Lion, leader of the Pride, were still one and the same. Fundamentally, there was no difference. "We all have our dark sides, Quistis," he answered finally, rather quietly. "Some of us are more ready to face them than others." Having nothing left to say, he waited for an answer, received none, and so walked past and down the corridor, leaving Quistis to brood in solitude.

*

"You've been training with Seifer."

Squall glared over the top rim of his gunblade, slowly standing from his crouched defensive posture and lowering the point of his weapon to the ground in the same movement. He stood at the edge of an empty courtyard near the Garden's front entrance, and watched as his student of two years copied his example.

Jorge grinned sheepishly, crooking his arm and resting the dull upper edge of his own gunblade against his shoulder in a time-honored position he hoped would appease his instructor's obvious annoyance. "Just once, week ago, when 'e was here," the boy conceded, brushing sweat out of his thorny black bangs. "He taught me a coupl'a tricks."

Squall wasn't amused. He made a subtle show of his annoyance by checking his weapon, making sure all six bullets were properly seated. "We all make mistakes."

            Jorge shrugged and pretended to watch a non-existent bird fly by. "Said I should try them on you, see how is they work." He shot a slight smirk in Squall's general direction, though he didn't dare match stares with his teacher. "No say it was a complete mistake, eh? I su-prise you, yes?"

            "Yeah, you saved your own skin," Squall acknowledged reluctantly, but waved at Jorge with his free arm in a gesture of reprimand. "You also cut out too wide. If you'd been fighting in formation, you would've beheaded the rest of your squad." He allowed himself an internal grin of his own as Jorge's dark eyebrows shot up. He added ruthlessly, eyeing his shorter, lighter student with a slightly sideways, fully disapproving glower. "Believe me, that's not gonna look good on an exam report card."

            "Aww," Jorge protested, staring at the ground and trying to look as dejected as possible. "That's harsh. Give a guy a break, si? No wrong to try something new."

            "It's wrong if it means a failing grade," Squall returned flatly. "Let's do this again. And keep both hands on the gun this time. No more Seifer stuff. If there's anything new, I wanna see it coming from your head, not his."

            Jorge's shoulders heaved in a massive sigh that seemed too big for the youth's lithe frame. "Yes, sir," he grumbled with little enthusiasm, giving the equally slim and light shear trigger a test swing before taking up a ready stance before his instructor once again.

            Three more heated sparring sessions followed. All of which Jorge lost.

            Jorge finally called a rest, slouching miserably on a nearby bench. He cast a baleful scowl at Squall, the expression overcast by black hair dripping with sweat.

            Barely breathing hard, Squall met his student's stare without flinching. "Your balance is off," he commented. "You're putting too much weight on your right side."

            "I got hurt in the last one," complained Jorge, rubbing his left arm—his sword arm—and wincing in pain as he stretched it. "Hit the wall when you threw me, you saw it! Prob'ly got a bruise or something. It hurts to lean that way. Gimme a break, man."

Unmoved, Squall rested his weapon against his shoulder, his free hand on his hip. "Look, I'm not here to make you feel like a champ. If you're hurt, use a spell, fix the problem. Don't whine about it and expect me to feel sorry for you. You want my praise, you give me a reason to be impressed."

That was it. Jorge was sick and tired of being belittled when he worked so hard to get it right. Squall's blatant disregard for his injury was just the excuse he needed to pop off, and boy, did he feel like popping off right now. He'd had enough. "You know, out of all the picky instructors in 'is place," he snapped, trying to think of the worst insult he could imagine to give a teacher, "you're the worst, man!"

To Jorge's astonishment and disappointment, the judgement didn't seem to phase Squall in the least. "I didn't ask to be here," he returned calmly. "If you don't wanna train with me, opt out. I've got nothin' to lose." He watched his student fume in silence for a while. Then, when it seemed the red color had mostly receded from Jorge's cheeks, offered a slightly more empathetic answer. "I don't like being critical of your form any more than you like being pissed on. So give me a reason not to do it."

"Aah—" Jorge shook his head and growled, standing up quickly and suddenly. He turned away from his instructor. "Gustas…" Dismissively, he waved his hand over his shoulder.

It was Squall's turn to frown and snarl. "What was that?"

Jorge spat contemptuously over his shoulder. "I say you like it, esse. You like to make people feel stupid nex' to you."

"If you'd been listening…"

Squall didn't get a chance to finish. Jorge had turned around, was in his face (as much as a 5 ½-foot adolescent could get in Squall's face) and shouting so anyone who might have been nearby would surely hear. "I listen! I listen all the time. I try to do better, but it is not good enough for you. Es nada. Even when I try a new thing, and win, you say no. You trying to teach me to be as good as you, then do it!"

Squall sighed impatiently, folding his arms. It wouldn't do any good to try and interrupt Jorge's tirade. The best he could do now was just wait out the worst of the storm.

"But I cannot be you," Jorge summed up, tossing his arms in the air and backing away. "Can't be 'Squall Leonhart.' Stop trying to make me beat you at your own game, man. It don't work that way."

Squall watched Jorge sit down again, watched him slouch on the bench, watched him pretend to have nothing left to say, watched the whole scene like a bad soap opera—with no interest and even a little disgust. He'd seen a lot of students do this kind of thing to their instructors, and what astonished him the most was how easily those "professional" SeeDs took their students' words personally and coddled their "cubs" until they stopped their wailing. But he made no excuses for his actions. Gunblade training was hard work. Squall had been no more demanding of Jorge than his own—now deceased—instructor had been of him. A child's temper-tantrum was not about to change the way he taught his own hard-earned profession.

He did remember, however, that as hard as his instructor had been on him, for every point of criticism, there had also been one of compliment, however the critiques often outweighed the praise. It made sense. Squall knew better than anyone else what it was like to have one responsibility on top of another piled on one's shoulders and then have it all go wrong; it helped to know that, throughout all the mistakes, there was something that was being done right. Reflecting on the exchanges of the past few minutes, he supposed Jorge was entitled to the same encouragement. But he would not apologize. He was the Instructor, here, and there would be no question of that, whether Jorge liked it or not.

"I guess I'm not very good at giving compliments," he said at last, choosing his words carefully. "You need serious work in a lot of areas. I'll tell you something, though." He paused as Jorge glanced up at him. "If I was still your age, I wouldn't wanna meet you on the field."

The sour look on Jorge's face melted into one of surprise. "…You just saying that?"

Annoyed, Squall shot his student a savage, sideways look. "It that a real question?"

Jorge bit his lip, reanalyzing what he had just asked. "Guess it's not."

"You wouldn't be here, training with me, if you weren't good—the best." The Instructor gave the air to his side a short swipe. "I got my instructor's license because of you. You were so impressive down at Galbadia Garden, they wanted you to be a SeeD, and I'm the only one qualified to train you to do that."

Jorge's eyebrows shot up. "A SeeD?" He stared, dumbfounded, then finally managed a meek, daringly hopeful, "Think so?"

Squall narrowed his eyes, half-amused, half-exasperated that the boy had apparently not seriously considered the idea before. "Jorge, that's why people come here. Balamb Garden trains the elite. The things you've been learning from me and every other instructor are hard because I'm teaching you to fight like a SeeD, not a common mercenary. They transferred you here because they saw your potential, and knew if you ever wanted to be a SeeD as well as a gunblade artist, you'd have to start preparing now. You're fifteen. You've still got time…and you're getting the training you need, already. If you wanna go for it, it's not too late to tell them." He shrugged a little, adding, "The worst that can happen is you won't make it."

Jorge was silent, staring at the floor. For a brief time, Squall wondered if the boy had heard a single word of what he'd said.

"Even if you don't," the instructor muttered, trying to downplay his next admission, "you'd still be one of the most damn talented kids I've ever seen." Still, there was no answer from Jorge. Squall had just begun to wonder if he was getting the silent treatment when his student finally spoke again.

 "…Kin I ask you something?"

Why not? At least you won't be telling me my job that way. "What's that?"

"If I try now…" Jorge paused, as if considering carefully what he would say next. "I got five years to graduate for SeeD. Only, if I don' make it, will you still be my instructor?"

"…By then, I doubt you'll need me, anymore." I hope you won't. Squall strained to hear as Jorge mumbled something, only to realize the boy was speaking in his own language, which Squall was unfamiliar with. He tilted his head briefly to one side. "If you're talking to me, I can't understand anything you're saying."

At this, Jorge smiled a little. "Don't you SeeDs learn more dan one languages?"

"It's required that we're at least bilingual. I didn't learn yours, though. But see, you wouldn't even have to take another language course. You already qualify. That's one heavy obstacle out of your way."

The boy nodded slowly. "Know what," he blurted after a moment, "you better at compliments dan you think, Instructor. I bet you were a great teacher in a past life."

Squall was suddenly, eerily silent. A…past life? He had to remind himself, fervently, that Jorge did not know about the dream he had lived that past night. He couldn't know…and yet… A great teacher. Maybe not at the time…but I understand things now that I didn't before last night. I guess it's true. We learn more by looking at ourselves in a different light than by quoting other people's petty mistakes. For a moment—just a moment—he felt a twinge of guilt about berating Jorge about something as trivial as swordsmanship.

Jorge was sneering at him, increasingly uncomfortable under his instructor's blank stare. "What? Why you looking at me like that? Do I got food on my face or something?" He wiped at his cheek with one hand, then carefully examined his unsoiled fingers.

Squall continued to stare at his thoughts, unusually oblivious to the world around him.

"…'ey, Squall?"

Finally, the sound of his name bringing him to his senses, Squall shook off the dredges of a remembered nightmare. His answer was as blank as his expression had been only a moment ago. "…What."

"Did I say something wrong?"

Keeping his voice low to mask the sudden tremor assaulting his insides, Squall did his best to respond to a question that had no good answer. "No…no, it's just…" His hand went briefly to his forehead. "Maybe. Who cares?" He let his hand down again and matched his student's stare, his trademark scowl firmly back in place. "It doesn't matter." It was the easiest lie he'd told all year.

But Jorge continued to watch him keenly, as if suspecting his own teacher hadn't told him the whole truth. "Maybe a strange question, but…you get really messed up dreams at night?"

Squall's eyebrows shot up; he couldn't hide his surprise this time. "Lately?"

"Yes."

So he's been having dreams, too. Squall closed his eyes, thinking. Maybe that's why he's been so distracted today. Probably trying to figure out what it all means—damn it, why didn't I say something! "Yeah," was all he said. "I'm not the only one, either."

Jorge's next blunt question confirmed Squall's assumption, and suddenly brought their unspoken understanding of the conversation to a more personal level. "You think they are true?"

"…I don't know." Squall glanced surreptitiously at the wall. "Feels like it, though."

"Who knows," Jorge mused, sounding oddly wistful, "maybe it's us in the dream right now, and what looks like a dream," he added pointedly, his eyes never once straying from his instructor's, "is what is real."

Squall tried not to let himself shiver, even as Jorge's words sent a terrible chill crawling up his spine. Please…don't say things like that. "Who knows," he echoed tonelessly. Another round of uneasy quiet spent staring at his student convinced him that this training session was over. "All right," he sighed, sounding unusually resigned. "Practice is over. Go on, get outta here." He waved Jorge away, himself turning to walk slowly toward the bench at the opposite edge of the square yard.

Stunned, Jorge stood confused, uncertain if his instructor was serious, almost unwilling to dare that he was. But Squall was not given to random jokes, and as he watched the SeeD lean his weapon against the bench and ease himself down to sit on the cold, flat wood, Jorge realized something had utterly shocked his teacher. It was obvious in the blind expression on the SeeD's face—Jorge doubted Squall even noticed the fact his student hadn't left as ordered—and the deliberate, awkward way in which the man leaned his face into his hands. It was a very stark contrast to the cool, fluid aura Squall normally exuded. Jorge couldn't begin to guess what it was he had done to cause what he was seeing.

For some reason, what he was seeing terrified him.

Spooked, confused, and having no more desire to remain under the shadow of the swirling grey skies, Jorge hefted his gunblade and quickly departed the courtyard, wondering all the while if what he had just witnessed was indeed nothing more than a dream.

*

Rinoa stood in the center of the largest grassy lawn of the Quad, staring up at the sky. She looked straight into the murky grey, filling her sight with the mist, forgetting the Garden around her or the ground she stood upon.

In her hand, she held the two rings she always wore about her neck. In the three years since Ultimecia's defeat, she had never once taken off the precious decoration. Now her fingers closed around it, chain and all, and her eyes closed in tandem, to better concentrate on how the cold metal warmed quickly in her grasp.

She'd been considering dropping the necklace in the grass, just to see what it would feel like to do so. She decided in that moment she would not let go of it. Though Rinoa was not one to attach too much meaning to mere objects, Squall's ring had been a gift of life to her, and in wearing it, somehow, she had felt safe, watched over by a power stronger than any Guardian Force.

In the terrible dream she and Squall had shared, Griever had been completely absent. The talisman of strength and courage had been removed from that hopeless world.

But the love, the sensation of completion that Riona had felt when she died, had come to her nonetheless. Without reminders, or symbols, and in whatever hideous form it had shown itself, love had taken them both, without encouragement, without help.

Without looking away from the mass of grey, Rinoa put the necklace back on, sighing in relief as the familiar weight settled comfortably just below her neck. Taking it off had not been as difficult as she had thought it would, though it made her feel naked and unprotected, letting the wind chill an empty ring about her throat like a collar of restraining steel. But her feelings for Squall did not change with the removal of the necklace. If anything, the feeling in her heart grew stronger, and she felt that much more connected to him, once she had stood with the two rings resting side-by-side in the palm of her hand.

But she would never be so heartless as to drop the rings at her feet, intentionally. To do so would show too much disrespect for a love that had grown so deep, so dear, and so increasingly strong, over time. For a time, before Ultimecia's threat had been destroyed, Rinoa had wondered if her feelings for Squall would ever change, if their relationship would last beyond the desperate time that had brought them together. The very idea that it might not had brought her close to heartbreak time and again. She'd seen "perfect" couples wither and fall apart before, heard about tragic stories of love that, once having seemed so real, crumbled within its foundations and separated people in gradual, torturous collapse.

But that had not happened between her and Squall. She'd often wondered why. They certainly weren't "perfect" for each other; they disagreed on many things, and were no strangers to arguments and squabbles. Squall was often sent on missions away from Garden, sometimes for weeks at a time, and it was rare that Rinoa was allowed to come with him, and it was hard to wait for him to come home to her. She had friends, at Garden, and had just finished high-school classes. She was thinking about what kind of college classes she wanted to take. Angelo, though he was not a puppy any longer, had no shortage of energy. It wasn't like she had nothing to do. Even given this fact, though, it was hard to be away from Squall for any long period of time, and the loneliness she suffered when he was away had often been the most difficult aspect of staying with him. But, thinking about it, not even this painful fact seemed to matter, in the end. He suffered as much as she did when he was away, and alongside his frequent absences, there were just as many grateful reunions.

She believed she had an answer for herself, now. In a strange, almost disturbing way, the dream had made sense of it, for her. Even as Riona, she had loved Squall—and the Squall she had known in the dream was very little like the Squall she knew now. Ruthless, bloodthirsty, cruelly calculating. But under all that, was something else…a part of him she had somehow seen…that had captured her heart like nothing else in that nightmarish life ever had. She'd become so entangled in the need to be near his heart, semantics had become meaningless. When she had realized he felt the same love for her, she'd accepted it in an instant, despite what it would mean, never minding that he was so twisted inside, his best and only way to express his love for her was though blood and death. Regardless of who he was, or what he had done, Riona had loved him, and while she loathed his way of life, it had been her honor to let him give her everything he had…and even been surprised to experience the softest, sweetest death she could ever have imagined.

What he had become was not important. She needed no reasons to love him. He was Squall, and that was all that mattered to her.

Regardless of where he went or who he was, everything Squall did, said and thought was a source of wonder to Rinoa, and that she knew he felt the same for her both baffled her and filled her with joy. Again she clasped the rings that hung from their steel chain, and finally looked away from the sky, to the pure green grass of the recreation yard. She had donned, once again, the blue outfit she had used throughout most of their quest to destroy Ultimecia. It was even more comfortable than she remembered it, worn and faded though it had become. Once cheerfully blue as the summer sky, it was now a light blue-grey, and looked closer in color to the mist that surrounded the Garden than the brilliant hue of the noontime heavens, the likes of which she had not seen in almost three days, now.

She sighed, fidgeting. She was older than she used to be, almost twenty. Squall had crossed that milestone already. In some ways, Rinoa felt older than she was. In others, she still felt like she was seventeen. So much had happened to her in that year, she was nearly certain the mindset would never completely leave her. For this, she was grateful. She never wanted to grow up, at least not in the sense that she lost sight of love, and the joy of life. She'd seen it happen to so many people.

I believed in love, and I have it…I don't want to grow up, so I haven't…can it really be that simple?

Slowly, she sat down in the soft grass, pulling her legs up to her chest, leaning back to gaze out into the fog. Giant wisps of ethereal grey curled and turned in chainlike patterns, intangible manacles wrapped around her incarcerated home.

There are a lot of other things I have, too, that I never wanted. I didn't ask to be a sorceress…

Even now, Rinoa retained Ultimecia's power, even if she was free of the evil woman's influence. She had great power, well beyond even the extremes that Edea's strength had reached—Rinoa had received not only Ultimecia's share of Hyne's embodiment, but also Adel's and Edea's. As far as she knew, she was the only sorceress left in the world, at the moment. She didn't know of any others. She didn't always like it; though she'd become relatively used to the idea, her powers set her apart from other people, and the term "Hyne's Descendent" was one she despised, for it placed her on a supernatural pedestal that was far too high for comfort. It wasn't that she didn't accept the responsibility that came with her abilities. She could work with that. But reverence was not something she responded well to. She didn't like the idea that someone else might consider her above them.

Squall had never seemed to be affected by her in any such way—he, too, placed no political barriers between himself and his love—and the rest of Rinoa's friends had eventually gotten used to the idea, and no longer treated her with the "extra" respect they had first responded with when she had become a sorceress. She was particularly close to Quistis and Xu, and though she was not a SeeD, they recognized that she had talents, and those two were always the first to suggest her involvement in a project if it was relevant to her knowledge of Galbadia or sorceress abilities.

She watched a curl of mist tickle the edge of a sycamore sapling that had recently been planted on the end of the yard, near the fenced off edge of the Quad. She wondered how Selphie and Irvine were doing. They had gone back to Trabia Garden to help rebuild the campus. The last Rinoa had heard, there had been a possibility that the mutilated, comparatively small Garden might even still be airworthy, as the underground mechanisms of the shelter had sustained little damage from the otherwise terrible wrath of Galbadia's guided missile barrage. That had been a year ago. She wondered if anyone from Trabia Garden had been dispatched to look for them. It had been two days since they were supposed to arrive in Dollet's port. Surely someone had noticed their absence by now.

Resting her head on her knees, Rinoa smiled, letting her dark hair fall across her face, obscuring her vision of the impregnable mist. I'll bet Zone is having a fit of nausea, if he's heard about this. It would be just the kind of thing that would worry him sick.

She sat up straighter when she sensed someone behind her, releasing her knees and leaning back on her hands, looking over her shoulder and directing her warm smile at her visitor. "Hi," she said simply.

Squall nodded in acknowledgement, and walked to stand over her, beside her. He returned her stare for a time, then looked off into the grey, in the same direction she had been. The gentle wind blew his copper hair back over his ears as his icy gaze pierced the murky air. "See something?" was all he asked.

Rinoa lowered her eyes to her knees, shaking her head. "No," she said, not unhappily. "Just thinking. Mostly about you." Smiling again, she looked up to see if her words had brought any reaction from him.

A very slight smile tugged at the corner of Squall's lips, and he glanced at her.

Rinoa smirked and gave herself a point. Getting Squall to smile had become her personal little game. One that, if she really tried, she could score quite high on. "What have you been doing?" She asked nonchalantly, slowly standing up and dusting herself off. She reached for Squall's hand, pulling close to his side as he turned his head to look down at her.

He answered with equal detachment. "I talked to Xu and Nida. They haven't had any dreams, but they're both convinced that this cloud is what is immobilizing the Garden. It's generating some kind of static field that's disrupting all the systems. Whatever it is, it could be affecting us, too. Jorge, though…" He stopped. He said nothing more.

"I see." Hugging his arm, Rinoa used her weight to tug him discreetly toward her, giving him the option of either facing her or being forced to stand crookedly where he was. "I took that PR intro class you suggested, today. It was kind of fun. I liked it."

Trying hard not to smile, he turned toward her, resting his hands on her shoulders as he faced her. "I thought you might."

"Oh? How'd you know?"

"Because I hated that class." This time he did break a real smile, and this slight expression remained on his face, not too pronounced. "And I had to take the whole course."

Rinoa gave herself two points.

She giggled, smiling widely. "I guess that would be a dead giveaway, wouldn't it?"

Don't tell me you were standing out here in the cold with shorts on just to wait for me to come give you a report of my day's activities. Squall's smile took on an almost sad quality to it, as he brushed her windblown hair back into place. "My turn to ask questions."

Rinoa's smile faded a little, but didn't disappear. She knew Squall was trying to avoid some particular subject. She also knew better than to corner him into talking about it. He'd speak his mind when he was ready. "Already told you. I was thinking about you…mostly about the dream," she admitted. "Squall, am I going crazy? I'm actually starting to feel better about the whole thing… The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it really wasn't such a terrible thing, after all?" Anxious, she searched his blue eyes, seeking within his soul for understanding.

Understanding wasn't far away. "It's not crazy." His voice was lowered, but still clear to her, as the conversation became more personal. "I feel the same way." Gently, his hand slid past her shoulder, his fingers touched the side of her neck—exactly where he had made the first fatal cut in her flesh.

Rinoa shuddered and closed her eyes, chilled by the memory, while at the same time not wanting his touch to leave her. For an instant, the moment returned to her in full clarity, and she wrapped her arms around his middle, slipping her hands beneath his jacket as she had in the dream. The sensation was the same, the warmth of the embrace, which he returned, was just as precious, as it had been in the nightmare. With her eyes closed, the air so cold and Squall's presence so near, she might have wondered if she wasn't back in the alleys again, and any moment, he would draw the knife from his belt and begin his soft ritual of death.

Squall held her strongly and started stroking her hair, an action that discerned this reality from the one they had known for the weeks that had taken place last night. He thought hard for something, some words to say, and could come up with only three: "Don't be afraid."

This time, she answered, stared up at him as tears began to form in her dark eyes. "I won't be. I can never be afraid…of you."

Darkness started to become more prevalent in the lonely yard, painting the clouds a bloody tinge as the sun settled into the horizon beyond the ominous mist of dreams. In the shadows the wisps cast on the Garden's brighter majesty, Squall pulled Rinoa closer, kissing her long and full, as slowly, as gently as he had cut her.

Even after their lips parted, they stood still and silent in each other's arms, waiting for as long as death had taken to come, for the final darkness released by the setting sun.


*
Can't sleep…

He tossed and rolled and shifted in bed—or, rather, on it, as he hadn't bothered to get under the covers. He'd known from the moment his conversation with Jorge had ended that he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. At Rinoa's urging, he'd gone through all the rituals—cleaned up, dressed for bed, settled down—but nothing had been able to ease his mind to restfulness. And nothing was going to. His runaway thoughts had seen to that.

While Rinoa had already slipped off into slumber, Squall waited guardedly for something to happen, demonic fears clawing at his heart. Things like that don't just happen. Something had to cause it. Maybe it will happen again tonight… He did not want to return to the cold alleys, the dark heart of the killer he might once have been. He was very comfortable where he was, here, in Garden, with Rinoa. He wanted nothing else. No other life could replace this one. And there was always that lingering doubt that if he dreamed his way into another life again, he would never awaken from it, no matter how terrible it might be.

He growled softly, folding his arms behind his head as if it would somehow make his pillow more comfortable. He remembered a time not so long ago, when he'd had similar fears plague him every night. He used to tremble in his bed at night, horrified by a notion that endured beyond all reason, the fear bordering on phobia that death would come upon him in his slumber, the only time he was completely helpless to fight it. It was an irrational, unshakable night terror that had often visited him, having shadowed him since he was a small child. In recent years, the fear had not been as prevalent, its visits becoming more and more infrequent. He knew that this was due largely to Rinoa; for whenever he woke in the night, soaked in his sweat, shaking from the insidious chill that only paralyzing terror can inflict, she would be there; holding him, rocking him, whispering to him her love, that everything would be all right and the darkness coming for him was only a horrible, meaningless dream. Now, it was not death he feared, but another life that was and yet was not his own.

Now, more than ever, he wished he knew the difference between the dream and reality.

He looked at his bedside clock. It was past midnight. Still seven more hours until he was supposed to get up. He wanted to do something to distract him from his thoughts, while away the idleness of the night in the training center or patrolling the Garden's many outdoor walkways and breezeways. But he would not leave Rinoa alone here. Not tonight. Too many possibilities. There's too much that could go on without my being here.

He rolled onto his side, deciding to spend his time watching her sleep. He could sense no distress from her now, only the numbness of sleep and the blessed release of meaningless, normal dreams that he could not see, and doubted he could make sense of them if he could.

Despite their intimate bond, it was a rare and unpredictable privilege for Squall and Rinoa to dream together. Neither of them had any clue how to control the phenomenon, though they had noticed it tended to happen when one or both of them was in deep need of comfort or closeness. Perhaps it was the heart's way of reaching out to its mate when the mind was not conscious to tell it otherwise. Who could say? All Squall knew was that, up until now, those few and cherished dreams they shared had been wondrous things, full of happiness and free of fear.

He supposed it was just as well they should be together in a nightmare such as the one they had lived. Squall wasn't certain he would have been able to look on the "memory" in such a positive light, had Rinoa—Riona—been absent.

He slammed his eyes shut, but his attempts to block the images of that dark past only served to bring them further to light. It was not the reality of the dream that had him so unnerved; it was the possibility that he might be doomed to relive it over and over again. Enlightening as it had been, once was enough. He did not want to become the dream's prisoner. Sucking a painful breath into his constricted chest, he pushed himself into a sitting position, looked around the shadowed room, desperate for an escape from the awful scenes that would not stop replaying themselves for his mind's eye. He needed something he could stare at, something that would ground him to this place, this boring room, this coveted universe.

Or…is it all a dream?

Squall got up, scolding himself for being so foolish. If this was a dream, he wouldn't remember the other dream. He wouldn't even be thinking about dreams. If this was a dream, it should all seem perfectly normal to him…

He stalked into the small bathroom, switching on the dim mirror light and tossing a quick glance behind him to be sure the weak glow did not wake Rinoa. She remained where she was, sound asleep. He turned his attention back to the bathroom counter.

This is pointless, he grumbled internally as he stared at the sink. It's like contemplating nonexistence. The idea is freaky as hell, but when you think about it, if it really came true, you wouldn't notice or care, because you wouldn't be aware of what you were missing. His jaw clenched, Squall reached for the sink knob, fully intent on turning on the flow and splashing the cold water on his face, which felt strangely numb. He needed a shock, something to yank him out of his entangled thoughts and back into a rational frame of mind.

He missed. His fingers closed around thin air. Muttering a curse, embarrassed at himself for misjudging the short distance, Squall gave his hand a single, rough shake and reached for the knob again. Again, he missed. Snarling, wondering just how unnerved he must be to continue to fumble with something as simple as a cold water knob, he rubbed his eyes and reached for the elusive handle one more time. He stopped, halfway there, staring at his arm.

The dark brown sleeve of his leather jacket clothed his arm. A quick glance at himself confirmed that he was indeed wearing the jacket, along with the rest of his work clothes. Squall stared at himself for a moment. He thought he had changed into his night clothes just a short while ago. Sighing, he let his arms down by his sides, grumbling unintelligibly at himself. Was he so shaken by this whole situation that he was putting on the wrong clothes? He allowed himself a cynical cough of a laugh. If he wasn't careful, he'd show up at Cid's office tomorrow morning decked out in his pajamas. He looked up at his reflection, shaking his head in amused disapproval at his backward apparition.

His head stopped swaying, his faint smirk faded as he stared at himself in the mirror, stricken. And the worst part was that he could not feel his heart pounding in his ears as it should have been. Breathless, silent, he stood like an upright corpse, unable to comprehend what his eyes were telling him.

His scar was gone.

Looking back at him was a face he did not recognize. Unscathed, smooth skin was the only thing gracing the space between his eyebrows. The angry rip that had split his forehead and left his face forever scarred, had vanished like it never existed. He put a halting hand to the unmarred flesh, running his fingers over his brow, pressing hard against the skin as if he could rub off the paint that might have covered the old wound. But there was nothing on his face. No scar, no makeup—he could not even feel the invisible indentation Seifer's blade had left in his skull.

What the hell?

The words came belatedly to him. It had taken as long for him to regain enough presence of mind to accomplish a coherent thought. Squall spun around, darting back into the bedroom. Rinoa was still in bed, still sleeping. She had not moved since he had last checked on her.

He could not help himself anymore. He stormed up to the foot of the bed. "What the hell is going on?!"

His outburst had the intended effect of waking Rinoa up. Moaning softly in protest as her mind dragged her out of sleep, she turned onto her back and sat half-way up. She pushed sleep-disheveled black hair from her eyes and blinked a few times, glaring at Squall in the too-bright aura of the meager bathroom light. "Squall?,"  she hailed him softly. She yawned, trying without much success to banish the sleepy slur in her voice. "'S everything okay?"

No, he thought to her, watching her frown at this answer. "Tell me something," he hissed, not giving her the chance to tell him to go back to bed. "Where are we? Where is Garden?"

The sleepy sorceress rubbed her eyes with one arm. "I…don't know. Why are you asking me? We're in that cloud, right? No one knows where we are."

Squall's next words died in his throat. Dumbly, he wavered in place, feeling dizzy. He gestured unsteadily in the general direction of the window. "W-wait," he stammered, "…the cloud? You remember that?"

"Of course I do. What's wrong?" Having mostly thrown off her grogginess in response to the urgency in his voice, Rinoa sat up completely, resting her hands in her lap. She watched him expectantly, worried. "Have you figured something out?"

"No, I—I don't know." Chaos and frustration reigning over his thoughts, his desperation for an answer growing ever stronger, Squall walked quickly to her side of the bed, kneeling by the bedside as she slid her feet out over the edge. "Look at my face," he whispered as she met his plaintive blue stare. "Do you see what I saw when I looked in the mirror? Do you see it?"

Pushing away another intrusive lock of tangled hair, Rinoa stared at him for a few moments. Then she shrugged. "I don't understand. See what?"

"The scar!" Squall actually laughed; she was still so tired, she could not even pick up on the obvious absence of any mark on his face. "It's gone. I looked in the mirror, and it was…" His voice faded and he trailed off. His mouth simply stopped working. For a moment, he stopped heeding his thoughts, turned his attention inward, taking in Rinoa's emotions. He didn't understand what he was feeling from her. She was perplexed, worried, skeptical…

The running confusion in his head ground to a screeching halt as he realized Rinoa didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

"What scar? …Squall?"

He shook his head slowly, standing up with the same deliberate pace. He backed away from her, stopping just before he hit the wall. He sneered at her, unsure she was who she appeared to be.

Rinoa stood and stepped toward him, disturbed by what she was seeing and feeling from her knight. She stopped just in front of him, holding up her hands in a gesture of calm. "Settle down. I just didn't understand you the first time. Start over."

Squall did settle down, but it was a forced calm he did not feel. He stared into Rinoa's eyes, hard to see in the shadow. He narrowed his own, feeling a familiar coldness creep around his soul, walling up his heart, preparing him to think his next thought, while at the same time doing his best to shield it from the one person in the universe he could have hoped would understand it. He barely managed to swallow once as he realized that, this time, she would not understand. She wasn't even…

Real. This isn't real.

It was a dream. This wasn't the Rinoa he knew.

But she was. She had to be, if this dream was anything like the last. She was here, she was the same. But for some reason, he realized that it was a dream, while she hadn't the faintest idea.

"I know you don't understand," he murmured finally, glancing around the room, noting with curiosity that the walls had grown red wallpaper, and that his gunblade case was mounted on the wall like a plaque, rather than leaning against it as should have been the case. "But…whatever Squall you're used to, isn't here anymore." His lower jaw trembled as he said this. He resisted the urge to press himself flat against the window behind him. He wasn't sure how Rinoa—as she was now—would react to his cryptic declaration. The Rinoa he knew would have been horrified.

"What are you talking about?" Confused, obviously frightened and beginning to get angry amidst her frustration, this Rinoa scowled at him and poked questingly at his closed mind. "What do you mean you're not here anymore? Here you are." She gestured at the floor he stood upon.

Skeptical, impatient, demanding. Squall raised an eyebrow; she sounded like him.

He set his jaw, trying to think of a way to explain what he meant to her. He could think of only one way, but it would mean opening his thoughts up to a Rinoa he wasn't even certain he knew. But I do know her, he reminded himself. Fundamentally…she's the same person. She would understand if I showed her… He closed his eyes, knowing that she knew he was talking to himself and thankful that she was letting him do it. Just…let her feel what I'm feeling. That's…that's simple enough, isn't it?

An apologetic expression flitted past his face as he opened his mind to her again, projecting his confusion, the knowledge about their situation he held that Rinoa was so oblivious to. Calming somewhat, he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

And passed right through her.


*

           

            Rinoa jerked away just as his hand brushed her, but could not completely avoid the tips of her knight's intangible fingers. She shivered, clutching her hand to her shoulder, even as Squall stiffened and stared at it in astonishment.

            "I thought we agreed you wouldn't do that," she murmured, more surprised than angry. She bowed her chin into her chest and hugged herself for warmth and comfort. Squall had since stopped gawking at his hand, and had taken to staring at her. Uncomfortable under his gaze and upset by his actions, Rinoa inched away from him. Her rising fear was plain in her tremulous voice. "Squall…Squall, what is it?"

He was watching her steadily, glassy shock mingled with unfamiliar concern in this strangely intense look he was giving her. Softly, in a voice she could only describe as gentle, he whispered, "I can't touch you." He said the words as if he'd never said them before. She stared at him oddly. Had she not known better, she would have thought he was on some mind-addling drug. It was strange, facing him just now. The way he was looking at her reminded her of some time in the past, but she couldn't recall exactly when. She saw a reservoir of ice in his eyes, barely managing to hold back a fiery flood of emotion. It was almost…

She drew in a gasp, terrible fear crashing down upon her like so much debris. Shuddering, she barely had the chance to see the ice dam crack and split before she was swept up in the tide of Squall's rush of raw terror. With a small cry, she fell to the floor before him, drowning in the rapid current of his pain.

Squall knelt beside her, made as if to reach out to her, then stopped. No… She heard his thoughts whisper through the roar of the flood. In the room, there was a long, dead pause. In her heart, Rinoa struggled to gain her footing in the emotional undertow. Finally managing to right herself amidst the confusion, she concentrated for a moment, closed her eyes, and forcibly diverted the river of fear.

The painful tide receded. Her mind went silent.

She knelt on the floor, gulping air, her heart pounding so fast and so hard she feared it might burst at any moment. Through it all, Squall stayed beside her, mute. She finally managed to raise her head enough to frown angrily at him, her heart swelling with sadness and shock at his betrayal.

But he still acted as if he did not understand what he had done wrong. "Rinoa," he murmured, shaking his head slowly. She could tell from his eyes that the current of his emotions had not eased. "Tell me what I'm feeling from you isn't real."

It was too much. How could he be doing this to her? She stood up slowly, shaking, both from anger and from the trauma in her fear-saturated soul. "What an insensitive thing to say!" she hissed. "Of course it's real—"

"No, no NO!" Squall—or was it Squall? She wasn't sure anymore—stood up suddenly, striking out at the air in a futile attempt to push it out of his way, uncover whatever truth it was he was seeking. Shaking visibly, he came to within inches of her face, backing her further against the edge of the bed until she was forced to sit down or touch him. She fell onto the mattress, both angry and terrified. What was happening? Why was he acting like this? "Tell me," he demanded, his voice having been so plaintive and frightened just a moment ago, now was a commanding roar tainted with desperation, "why I have no scar. Tell me why I can't touch you. All of it—!" He hung over her, more enraged than Rinoa had ever seen him.

With no more than a sharp sweep of her arm and a whispered word, she threw him hard against the window.

The impact would likely have killed most human beings. Squall slammed back-first against the thick, steely glass, his head snapped against the cold surface with a thunder-like crack. But, defying the laws of physics, the window did not shatter. Squall fell into a pitiful heap on the floor, trembling, groaning…and visibly unharmed.

Rinoa stood up slowly, and approached him with as much care. He remained on the floor before her, his head down, shaking uncontrollably. She crouched beside him, treating him as she would a wounded animal; moving slowly, quietly, not daring to touch. She noticed with a hint of surprise that he had not allowed himself to fall flat on his face. As painful as it obviously was for him, he barely kept himself propped up with one arm. Even through the blockade she had put up around herself to ward off his overwhelming emotions, she could still feel the passionate heat pouring out from his soul, recognized anger, fear, pain and disbelief. But what shocked her most of all was the defiant way he had combined all of these feelings and used them to give him strength, to keep himself from collapsing.

She struggled to put a name to the sum of what she was seeing. The only word that came to her mind, was courage.

Tell me, she heard his voice in her mind. She swallowed a painful lump forming in her throat; even this voice carried unparalleled pain, the agony of one whose soul has been wounded. Please tell me, Rinoa. Tell me who I am.

The Sorceress shivered and clasped her hands in her lap, lest they tremble with the rest of her. She fought for control over her emotions, her expression darkening until it seemed her eyes could be no blacker. "You poor thing," she murmured, the astonishment and compassion in her voice belying her stony expression. "You really don't know."

Squall said nothing. He was using every ounce of his strength simply to keep from falling to the floor.

Rinoa drew in a long breath. She didn't know how what was happening was possible. She could not remember the last time she had felt such burning emotions from Squall. Not since…

Is it true? Has he forgotten everything? Maybe the cloud has something to do with it… "Squall…" she hesitated. How to say it? "Squall, you can't touch me, because…you're not really here."

She choked back a tear, forced her face to remain steady as her knight barely managed to lift his head enough to match her cold stare with one of his own—one that, had Rinoa not seen it with her own eyes, she could not have believed he was capable of. Trapped in the chill of his gaze and shaken by the intensity of his burning emotions, she made herself pour out the rest of her explanation, though her eyes did not once spill a drop. She intoned his fate as one would speak a capital verdict:

"You died, three years ago, fighting Ultimecia in time compression."