Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII, any characters within or placed involved. Original characters and places are my own.
Chapter VII: Unexpected Disaster
Seifer winced and tried to pull his head away from Selphie but was stopped when the medical thread ran out. It was currently attached to his eyebrow.
"Stop that or you'll pull the stitches out." Selphie chided. She turned him to face her again, a look of delicate concentration on her face. Sometime during the fight Seifer had received a cut that ran straight down the right side of his forehead to intersect with his eyebrow.
"Yes Ma'am." Seifer teased. She gave him a frown but her eyes twinkled with humour. There was silence for a time as Selphie continued her meticulous efforts on Seifer's gash.
As the adrenaline slowly ran out of Seifer's system he realized how tired he was. He began to feel the many bruises he knew would show up tomorrow morning. His muscles were sore, not just from the fight but from the frustration of the case.
Now that the fight was over, reality began to sink in. The night had been hard on him both mentally and physically. Part of his mind wasn't letting him review the gory scene of a few hours ago. Hurray for natural defence, he thought bitterly. It was at that point that he realized that maybe he couldn't think clearly because he was so tired. It didn't happen often but Seifer was perhaps too tired to think.
"Thank you for earlier." Selphie's voice was a mere whisper. She moved back from him, now done with the stitching. "I guess I kind of lost control. It's just that he was being such a jerk and…" She stilled as Seifer took her hand.
"Don't worry about it. I've been itching for an excuse to go a few rounds with him." The blonde smiled wearily.
"You're such a hothead." The forever rambunctious girl- woman Seifer reminded himself- punched him lightly on the shoulder.
Seifer let out a surprised sound.
"Hmmn." Selphie pulled back the mesh shirt, inspecting the offending wound. "Look at that bruise. And I thought you were a better fighter." She laughed, a sound reminiscent of small bells chiming on a sweet summer's night. That's when the full force of Selphie hit Seifer. There she sat, perfect in every way. She was kind, compassionate, and emanated the absolute joy in life.
Seifer sat back with a grin of pleasure as she began to rub salve onto his wound.
* * *
"Yes, that's right." Squall mumbled tiredly over the phone. He had been up since 5:30 making phone calls and pulling strings. And all to make sure that political toes were not stepped on beyond repair. It wasn't just the orphans that went to Garden, no, everyone who wanted to go would be accepted. That meant that kids with rich and powerful Daddies came too. Most of the time they were spoiled and were used to getting everything their way. It was usually beaten (though not literally) out of them during training. Scrubbing toilets alongside everyone else tended to bring down inflated egos. But, as always, there were the few that fought it until the bitter end.
"All right, bye." Squall hung the phone up and heaved a sigh of relief. It seems that even the most rigid of parents didn't mind having their kids' stuff sifted through if it meant being cleared of any connection to a serial murder case. In fact, it went a lot smoother than he thought it would. But who am I to complain? He went over, poured and mixed himself a coffee when a knock came at the door.
"Enter." Two female students came in. Squall vaguely recalled their faces, something about festivals. They saluted in unison and remained at attention. "At ease. So what brings you here?"
"Well Sir," began the brunette, "Lydia and I have been very troubled by the recent events and we have been noticing that the students are highly nervous." She continued when Squall nodded. "Well, as you well know, we're on the executive committee of the Garden Festival Committee. As you may also know, SeeD Tilmitt had an… altercation with another SeeD last night. We were thinking that we could have a small scale festival next Saturday to raise the morale of the students, and of course to bring up Selphie's spirits." The second girl nudged her with her elbow. "I mean SeeD Tilmit's spirits."
Squall immediately opened his mouth to say no but closed it again right away. His first thought was that it was too risky, too many students out in the open. But maybe, just maybe, that's what it would take to flush out the killer. They had been getting no where by just analyzing the crime and tailing probable suspects. This opportunity would be too great for the killer to pass up. Squall could see to it that certain precautions were met to insure vigilance in all parts of Garden.
All the while the students wouldn't know. Hopefully, the killer wouldn't either. "Permission granted." The girls gave each other a high five. "Now return to your duties, I expect you'll be busy." With an exuberant salute, the girls left.
Wait a minute, altercation? Squall had been so busy scheming that the Selphie incident slipped past his radar. What kind of altercation? Just then, he walked in the door, or so he assumed.
"Seifer, don't you knock anymore?" Squall said dryly. "And what the hell happened to you anyway?"
"Don't start with me, I have more important things to do than bicker with you. And I got in a little scuffle." He helped himself to the seat in front of Squall's desk and promptly put his feet on it as Squall gave a sarcastic grunt. "Found something out last night."
Squall's heart skipped a beat, and not just because Seifer put his feet on his desk. This better be good, he fumed in his head.
"Arrest Denman. I heavily suspect he's been trafficking Chocobo Dust in Garden, or at least he has it here." Squall's former rival leaned back casually.
"What makes you think so?"
"He bought a package the size of your coffee cup for 15 000 gil last night."
"And how would you know the size and price of such things."
"None of your business." Seifer's eyes narrowed dangerously as his gaze cut into Squall. He rose from his seat and made towards the door before the other man stopped him.
"There's going to be a trap set for the killer on Saturday." The blonde turned and gave him a dubious look. "Garden Festival Committee is throwing a party and I figure we'd set the trap then."
"Hunting people." Seifer gave a humourless chuckle. Squall didn't even hear the whisper of "again" as he left.
* * *
Selphie sat in the evidence room and looked over the same documents for seemed like the hundredth time. It didn't matter how many times she had read everything, there was still the one piece of evidence that was missing. There was always one piece missing. Just when they thought they had a break in the case, it would only end up complicating matters. The one thing they had failed to notice that would bring this case to an end dangled antagonizingly out of reach. Oh Hyne, why can't we find it! Selphie had never failed before and this was a serious blow to her.
Before she could sink deeper into self-recrimination the phone rang. "Hello, Selphie Tilmitt."
"Miss Tilmitt, this is the Deling City coroner's office." Her heart beat a little faster. "This call is regarding the autopsies of the… victims."
"Yes, did you find anything?" She heard the desperation leak into her voice.
"Yes we did Ma'am. It's that," the voice over the phone swallowed loudly. "the girls weren't raped."
"What?" Selphie's mind couldn't comprehend this one small fact. She had seen the photos, she'd seen the bodies. How could they have not been raped?
"It's that it was really more of a mutilation. We found fingernail scratches."
Selphie held the phone, not saying anything for so long the voice called her name. "I'm here, thank you. Anything else?"
"No that's it. Just, just make sure you catch this bastard."
"We will. I'll follow him into hell if I have to."
* * *
Half an hour later both Selphie and Seifer were outside Denman's dorm with two uniformed police officers and Officer Leon in tow. They had been trying to peacefully get Denman to open the door for five minutes. It started with the offender just trying to ignore his uninvited guests but it had quickly escalated to a shouting match. The students of Garden were certainly getting their fill of entertainment for the weekend. Seifer banged on the door again.
"Open the door!"
"Fuck off!"
The vein in Seifer's head pulsed. "Open the door now or I'll break the fucking thing in!"
"Just try it you cunt!"
Seifer snapped, and so did the door. Everybody rushed into the door only to be greeted by a handgun toting Denman. There was a communal stop.
"Not so big now, eh fuckers." The young offender taunted. "Kneel on the floor." He motioned with the handgun. "Now! Hands behind your heads."
Seifer and the others slowly got to their knees; he never broke eye contact with Denman. Leon was to his right, and Selphie to his left. This had possibilities.
The ex-sorceresses knight resisted putting his hands behind his head. This only enraged Denman tenfold and he crossed the distance between himself and the resistant member of the unexpected group. Exactly as planned.
The butt of the gun came crashing down on the side of Seifer's face and as his stitches broke, blood spattered. Panicked people are so easy to manipulate, he thought when his head cleared. The barrel of the gun pressed against his forehead shakily.
"I'll kill you." Denman's eyes projected hatred and no small amount of panic.
"Pull the trigger." Seifer growled. "If you don't pull the trigger I'm going to hunt you down and kill you slowly." His opponent's eyes clouded with hesitation and that was all it took.
Leon sprang from his kneeling position and chaos erupted. The gun went off wildly shooting three times before flying across the room to crash into the opposite wall. People screamed and bodies writhed in pain. A maelstrom of noise and action filled the room in a split second. Seifer watched as Officer Leon smashed Denman's face into the floor several times before pulling his arms behind him to put the handcuffs on. The sickening wet snap that came from one of those arms told everybody in the room that bones had been broken.
Seifer's hand came in contact with warm blood, and looking over, he realized it was Selphie's. She was holding her left arm with a shocked expression on her face. A thick trial of blood wound it's was down her body to pool at her feet. Blood spurted around her fingers before she took them away and stared at them, her eyes not believing what they saw.
"Shit." He quickly applied pressure to her open wound, remotely hearing Leon scream something about his sister to Denman, all the while bashing the fool's face into the floor. He surveyed the damage: another officer was shot in the thigh but was being attended to by the remaining officer. Within seconds four students and a SeeD flooded in the door dividing in half to administer first aid.
The SeeD pushed Seifer away from Selphie as he began the treatment. The wet thunking of Denman's face to the ground made Seifer turn. Leon wasn't stopping with the face pounding, even though the offender was unconscious and bleeding heavily. He wrenched the out of control officer off the mutilated youth and swung him around.
"Enough!" He shook Leon to bring him out of the killing mode.
"My sister! I'll kill him!" Leon wasn't even making sense so Seifer backhanded him across the face. Suddenly Leon went dead still. "Fuck." He gulped in air. "You can let me go now." As rational thought slipped back into his eyes, they widened. "Fuck."
Seifer let him go and knelt beside Selphie, worry finally overriding instinct. Her eyes were glossed over, even as the SeeD finished the patch job. He tenderly touched the side of her face, and her eyes darted to his and took a second to recognize him. When she did, she collapsed into Seifer's arms.
* * *
When Selphie finally swam through the darkness into consciousness, she found she was in the infirmary. The familiar scent of antibacterial scrub assaulted her nose as she regained her senses. Her eyes strained to focus on a blonde figure beside her.
Seifer.
"Glad you're awake." The smile he gave faded the worry out of his eyes. She felt his hand wrap around her own.
"Why am I here?" It was taking a lot of effort to speak.
"You got shot."
Selphie pulled up pain riddled memories. The gun at Seifer's head, her own fear, a flash of mass, the piercing sensation, screaming (was it her own), chaos. She had been shot. The blood was still seeping through the bandages on her upper left arm. A small confused noise came from her throat.
"Denman!" Selphie tried to sit up but Seifer held her down softly. "What happened?"
"You lost a lot of blood. The bastard made a lucky shot into the main artery in your arm. After that you went into shock and subsequently passed out from blood loss. Don't worry, Denman is in custody." A grin that had nothing to do with humour and everything to do with vengeance crossed his face. "After that little incident and the kilo of Chocobo Dust found in his room, he's looking at the death penalty."
"He's just lucky you didn't dish it out." Squall walked into the room and smiled at Selphie. She noticed an unsaid warning passing between Seifer and Squall. "Once you got carted out of the room Seifer nearly killed Denman. It took four people to restrain him."
Seifer didn't even have the decency to blush. "It's not like I was the first one to try." The other man shrugged.
"When can I get out of here?"
"Once you drink this." She was handed a cup of coloured liquid and eyed it suspiciously. "It's the stuff they give you when you donate blood." Conceding defeat she drank it in one gulp. Slowly she sat up and swung her legs over the bedside.
"When you have an extra minute make a report and send it up to my office." With that Squall walked towards the door, turning to them over his shoulder. "I'm glad you're going to be all right." He then promptly fled from the room, masterly avoiding any touching moments.
"We best be off too." Selphie tried to stand up but her knees buckled on her and her vision went black. As her vision cleared she realized she was in Seifer's arms.
Again.
They stood there in a quiet (if unexpected) embrace for a moment. A breeze whispered through the open window, sending a sweet scent into the room. Seifer looked down and brushed her fringe off her forehead.
"Don't worry, I'm with you."
~* * *~
Note: Finally! Another chapter done! Whoo-hoo! Anyway, the reason (excuse) for this one taking so long was that I had to move… to another province. Then I had to wait for about three weeks for internet! That and I haven't had a weekend alone for a month since all my friends insist on visiting me. ALL THE TIME. But that's cool.
Big news for dedicated fans: a new fic is in the works regarding Seifer. It's his life after the end of the game, I allude to it in this one but I never go into specifics. It ought to be a good time, I plan on going into the underworld of humanity for the new one. I'll start it once I finish this one.
So remember to review, it keeps the updates coming a little faster!
Jade_ice17@hotmail.com