Writing this chapter, I finally "got" where this story is going, or so I hope. This chapter is short, because it's really a kind of linking piece between the first three chapters and the last three.

I'm hoping to finish this fic in three more days. We'll see.

Thanks, as always, to reviewers. It's always a bonus to hear that people enjoyed my story, even if the majority of people don't leave reviews.


I hate dreaming. It's like my dreams are trying to tell me things I really don't want to know. Or think about, anyway. Tonight I dreamed of him. That's why I'm here, in the training centre. Hoping to get some training in without his presence doing anything more to me.

But there's something in the mindlessness of fighting here that just makes me think more. Step, slash, step back, slash, and move on. Step, slash, step back, slash, and move on. There's too much of a rhythm to it, a rhythm I fall into too easily after years of fighting here. And I used to come here to fight, and think, so it's no surprise that when I come here to fight, but not to think, it doesn't help.

And it has me thinking what Seifer means to me. What we are to each other. I've always known we aren't just rivals, and I've always known we're not quite friends either – it's more complicated than that.

Step, slash, step back, strike. Move on.

I've always thought about how he affects me. How he pushes me on to do things. To become as good as I have with a gunblade. To master two-handed gunblade wielding to rival his one-handed, because he said I'd never be good enough two-handed. Well, those weren't the words he used – but the general idea was there.

And now he's pushing me to take this… chance I have, this chance to know the man who… my father. Why? Obviously, this time, there's a purpose – he's not just tormenting me.

Does he want me to open up as much as everyone else does?

Step, slash, slash, step, slash, defend, slash, strike, pause.

My rhythm broken, I step back, putting Lionheart away and going to sit down. Obviously I can't do anything right until I've thought this over. But why do I even need to think it over?

I've come to the conclusion previously that I do care about Seifer, and that very deeply, and not just as a friend or a fellow student or even someone I grew up alongside. But I've never been able to answer my question: why? Why not as a friend? Why not as a perfect rival? Why as this type of confusing… wanting?

I want to open up to him. I think I always have, but as much as I've wanted to, I've known I can't. He's not my friend, he's my rival, and he can't know such things about me.

But… maybe he's not just my rival now. I've been refusing to admit that he's changed but he has, obviously he has, or he wouldn't care so much about me and my father and what happens between us.

Maybe… I could open up to him, just a little, and see how –

No. That's dangerous. I know I shouldn't. Things are fine as they are. Perfect, even. I'm cold, I'm ice, and that way, no one can hurt me. He can't hurt me.

There's a treacherous thought that maybe, maybe he can hurt me. It hurt when I struck him, my blade forming that track through his face, marring him forever. It hurt because I didn't want to hurt him. And it hurt to fight him, face him, see him trapped within his own mind, doing what the sorceress wanted. It hurt to see him bend to her, when he had never bent to anyone before.

It hurt to watch him a slave, knowing that he has always been his own man; knowing that his freedom was all a part of his pride and arrogance.

I don't need to open up to him to care for him; to be vulnerable to what happens to him. He's already in my heart, but I need to open up so he knows it.

No, where did that thought come from?

I need to go and sleep. No doubt lack of sleep is stopping me thinking properly. And maybe now I've trained a little, I won't dream any more.