Blond Silence

Chapter five and a half

ACK>>> the formatting on this chapter got terribly messed up! faints but it's back and so is my regular beta.

I know him. He smiles so brightly at everyone, except me. I wish I'd seen him with pink hair; that would have been something. I wish he'd smile at me. I wish there was a me left to smile at. I died, in that alley, as he bled. What was left of me died. He speaks with his hands, his eyes. Irvine tells me he laughs now. He tells me Seifer cried. He also tells I'm cold. But he doesn't even really know me anymore.

"Can I help you, Mr. Leonhart?" a nice looking young woman with bright pink hair asks as I step into the medical clinic.

I nearly bolt. It's the pink hair that holds me. My jaw locks up on me though and I can't really ask her if she's Seifer's therapist, if she can teach me to sign. I can just get a book. It's not like he wants to talk to me anyway. Seifer's got that other guy he likes. He doesn't need to talk to me.

"Mr. Leonhart?" She stood, slender and rather exotic looking.

She's looking at my eyes. Gods, why do people look at my eyes? It's not like gray is an exciting color. I wasn't always this quiet either. He used to make me talk, when we were boys, irritated me so badly that I'd just talk to make him be quiet. He was the only one that talked to me when I got to Garden. He used to make me feel like the rest of the world didn't matter, like it was just him and me, and whatever homework had been the event of the time. Irvine made me
remember too, so long ago and hazy, about how Seifer was when he was just a boy, laughing and teasing me. My silence started when he was taken to Garden without me and it was only growing worse now. One of these days I'll just slip away and no one will miss me because I'll have been too quiet for anyone to know I was here.

Her fingers rose and moved, dancing slowly in patterns like magic, but cleaner, no energy draws, no danger.

I wonder what people would do if they saw I was empty? "How do you do that," I ask.

She smiles. I hate her. It's so sudden and so dark and I hate myself. I'm dying. I see him fall again and again when I close my eyes. He didn't make a sound then either. I'd shot him. He should have screamed. I'd waited so long to have him back, kept this little flame burning in the bottom of what I call a soul, just waiting for him, and he... I killed him while he was just protecting me. This woman had given Seifer his voice back, a voice of some kind anyway, after what I'd done. I should love her. I don't.

"It's a kind of language. Come. I'll show you a few words."

Maybe, just maybe this burning is that flame coming back. I want to hear Seifer's voice, even if it's just his fingers. "I want to learn." It's my voice, but it hardly feels like myself.

I haven't wanted anything since I spoke at his trial. I haven't felt anything since he was pronounced innocent.

"Good. Can I call you Squall? Come, sit down."

How can she be so nice to me? She just doesn't know, that's all.

I find myself sitting though and hoping she can do for me what she did for Seifer. 'Give me my voice back,' I want to ask. Give me myvoice back and I don't care if you want to look at my eyes. "How quickly can I learn this?"

"How quickly do you want to?"