We Don't Have Much Time Chapter 8, a final fantasy viii fanfic

This chapter didn't come easily for me because I had to debate whether or not I should do what I have done. I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 8

As they walked out into the time compressed world, Squall and the others couldn't believe what they saw. The environment around Edea's house was completely different. The dark waves of time compression made it look like it could have been midnight. "What time is it here," Zell asked.

Ayleia looked at her watch. "It's two thirty-seven in the afternoon," she replied.

"Ayleia, does it always look like this?" Rinoa asked.

She shook her head. "Not always," she told them. "Sometimes the sun comes out and it looks normal. It can sometimes last days at a time, but that's a rare occurrence. The waves usually block out the sunlight, so sometimes it's hard to differentiate between day and night." She walked a little further toward what used to be the beach and looked down. She let out a gasp and stepped back.

Selphie and Irvine saw what she was looking at. The body of a young man in a White SeeD uniform lay at her feet. He looked to be about nineteen and his face was twisted in pain. "Look," said Quistis, "there are more."

They looked around as the beach became almost like a cemetery. Bodies of SeeDs and SeeD candidates from all the Gardens and the White SeeD ship had appeared all around them. Some of them were wounded and others looked like they had been hit with Death spells or energy balls.

"They're future SeeDs," Squall said, kneeling over another body. "Don't you see? We're fighting across generations."

Ayleia looked up as a wind began to blow. "Look. Her castle…"

They all looked in the direction that she was pointing. Floating in the sky was the largest and scariest looking castle any of them had ever seen. Statues of horrible looking creatures seemed to stare back at them as they looked at the castle. The top of the clock tower looked like it had wings and it looked as if some of the lights inside were on. Huge chains kept Ultimecia's castle anchored to the beach.

"Her castle is creepy looking," commented Irvine.

"Yeah, well it suits her. Ultimecia is kind of creepy herself," Ayleia said.

"How do you know," Squall asked. "Have you seen her?"

"No," she answered, turning to face them. "But I've heard her. I didn't tell you where I was going when I left you, but I guess now is as good a time as any. I went to see my mother."

"You what!" they all said in unison.

She tucked that annoying stray curl behind her ear. "Yeah, I went to see her on the day she died. I wanted to know what happened," she explained. "By the time I got there, she had sent everyone in the village away to keep them safe and, after my father took me away, it didn't look like she was up to fighting Ultimecia, so I just wanted to encourage her to fight. She did. Ultimecia herself said that no one else had ever challenged her like my mother did," she told them proudly.

"She didn't see you?" Quistis asked.

"My mother made me hide in the bathroom because she was afraid Ultimecia would kill me," she replied. "After Ultimecia killed her and left, my mother's body was gone, but she told me to finish what I started."

"Well, if we're going to finish what you started, we have to get moving," Squall said putting his hand on her shoulder. She nodded.

They walked to the edge of the beach and saw that one of the wide chains attached to the castle was hooked right in front of them. Looking down, they saw that a time wave was also right below them.

Ayleia cautiously stepped onto the chain. Looking forward, she could see that it was a long way between the beach and the castle. She turned and faced them. "This is the only way to reach the castle. But you have to be careful," she instructed. "If you fall, you'll be swallowed by this time wave and there's no telling where you'll go."

They nodded and, one by one, they carefully stepped onto the chain and made their way toward the castle.

The chain seemed to go on forever when Rinoa noticed things that looked like doorways on the left hand side of the chain. "Ayleia, what are those," she asked.

They stopped and looked at them for a moment. After a couple of minutes, Ayleia realized what they were. "These are gateways," she said.

"You mean time portals," Quistis asked. "But wait, the portal you fell out of looked different from these."

Ayleia looked at Quistis. "My portal was created by a spell," she explained. "These are much different. While they are set to your time, it's almost as if they're set at random. It's a coin toss as to where you end up. When I cast my spell, I gave specifics as to where I wanted to go."

"So you're saying that we can go back to our time," Irvine asked.

"Yeah, you can go back," Ayleia told them. "But since time compression has begun, you won't be able to go into any of the cities. Things as you know them don't exist anymore."

"Basically, going back to our time is pointless right now until we kill Ultimecia," Squall said flatly. Ayleia nodded.

"Pretty much," she said. "We've lingered here too long. We need to keep moving."

Almost three quarters of the way to the castle, a strong wind began blowing around them. Before anyone could react, they heard Rinoa scream as she was knocked off of the chain.

"RINOA!" Squall yelled, diving after her.

Ayleia watched this scene in horror. She knew they would need them both if they were going to fight Ultimecia. "Keep going toward the castle," she said quickly, keeping her eyes on Squall and Rinoa. "But don't go inside. Who knows what's in there."

Quistis nodded. "Be careful," Zell told her.

Ayleia jumped off the side of the chain. She saw where Squall and Rinoa had fallen into the time wave so she had a pretty good idea how to position herself so that she would land close to where they were.

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"Rinoa," Squall called out. He'd only just landed inside the time wave. The hallway he was in was almost completely dark and it was difficult for him to see.

He had only walked a few feet when he heard someone behind him. He drew his gunblade and turned around. "Who's there?" he asked.

"Put your gunblade away, Squall. It's only me," he heard Ayleia's voice say. He could tell that she was several yards behind him.

"I can't see," he replied, lowering his weapon.

"Hang on," she said. She put her hand on the nearby wall and said, "And then there was light!" Squall jumped as a fire ball shot from her hand and lit up the long hallway.

"Is that better," she asked. He nodded and sighed. "I haven't been able to find Rinoa yet," he said.

She walked toward him, closing the distance between them. "It's okay," she said. "I know that she's somewhere close by, but I'm not sure where."

"Are you sure," he asked, noticing the way the fire flickered in her eyes.

She nodded. "Don't worry, Squall. We'll find her," she reassured him.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, but since this time wave is surrounding it, I think it would be a safe bet to say we're in the dungeons of Ultimecia's castle, somewhere in the past."

"Figures," he said. "Well, let's go. The sooner we find Rinoa, the sooner we can get back to the others."

"They should be fine," she told him. "I made sure they know not to go inside the castle until we got back. I don't know what kind of security she has in there."

While they walked down the broad, long hallway, Squall began to realize that they knew very little about Ayleia. She hadn't told them much about herself other than that she was a sorceress who wanted to save her family. He knew that there was something about her that matched him and he found that appealing, but he knew little else about her. His curiosity about her had gotten the better of him and he figured they were on much better terms than they were when she dropped into Laguna's office, so he decided that maybe he could ask some questions.

"Yes, we are on better terms, Squall," she said. "So what do you want to know?"

He'd forgotten that she could read a person's thoughts. "You can read minds, so why don't you tell me," he answered.

She shrugged. "It'd be kind of stupid for me just to keep reading your thoughts and answering your questions aloud," she said. "Besides, I prefer two-sided conversations."

"Okay," he said. "I was just realizing that you haven't told us much about yourself. I'm just wondering what you life is like in this time."

She smiled. "I knew one of you would ask me that. Honestly, I thought it would have been Selphie," she told him.

He nodded. "Well yeah, she has taken quite a liking to you," he replied, "especially after the Mrs. Moogle's cake."

She laughed. "It was pretty good!" she said. "So you really want to know what my life is like?"

"Yeah, you seem to have drowned yourself in learning how to use your powers," he began. "And, judging by the outfit you conjured up and the way you fought Adel, I'd say you learned how to use them pretty well. I guess I'm wondering if you did anything else."

"You mean did I have a life outside of my studies?" she asked him.

He stopped. "I guess that's what I'm asking," he replied.

"Well, you've been to Winhill," she said. They started walking again "There isn't much to do there, but I did go to Deling City occasionally. And I even had a boyfriend for a while." Her mind went back to Ethan and the sadness she saw in his eyes when she drove him away.

"You actually found the time to have a boyfriend?" he asked her.

She smiled at him. "Squall, I may be a sorceress devoted to learning how to use my magic, but I'm also seventeen years old," she said. "When my dad and I first came to Winhill, Ethan's parents were the first to welcome us, so we spent a lot of time together. We played together as kids and then when my father died, Ethan was there for me," she explained, "He's the only person that I told that I was a sorceress. He even saw my dad's letter, my necklace, and the journals. After I started studying, he came to see me everyday. I actually gave him a key to my house! Sometimes he would actually convince me to get out of the house and have lunch at the pub. We were very much in love," she recalled.

"Were?" Squall repeated. "What happened?"

She sighed. "I was close to the end of my studies and I had begun working on getting back to the past to help you guys," she said as they turned the corner. "I started to get worried that I would hurt him with my powers, so I broke up with him. Even then, he would still come to see me. But I knew that he needed to be away from me because he would try to convince me not to go through with my plan."

"What did he say when you told him what you were planning to do?" he asked.

"I never told him. He came by late one night and I told him that he had to stay away because it was getting too dangerous," she recalled. She told him about the conversation she had with Ethan. "I knew that he wouldn't stay away, so I had to do the one thing I was afraid would happen."

He stopped and looked at her. "You used your power on him," he said.

She nodded. "I knew that he wouldn't stay away from me for any other reason," she said sadly, looking down at her feet.

Squall started to realize what it was that attracted him to her. There was a lot about her that he could relate to. He tilted her face up toward his. "I understand why you did what you did," he finally said, running his other hand through her hair. "You sacrificed a lot to come and help us. You saved us and I appreciate that."

Ayleia closed her eyes. She had not felt a connection to another person like this since she fell for Ethan. She had put her attraction to Squall out of her mind because she wasn't sure what would happen to her when they destroyed Ultimecia. Besides, he's in love with Rinoa, she thought.

"Squall," she said softly, opening her eyes. "What about Rinoa?"

"Right now, this isn't about Rinoa," he told her. He started walking her backwards toward the wall.

"But you love her," she said. She was trying her hardest to fight what she knew was about to happen.

He locked his eyes on hers. "I care about Rinoa," he said. "She opened my eyes to a side of me that I kept hidden from everyone, including myself. So I owe her a great deal and I don't want anything to happen to her, but I don't love her." He slowly removed the clip from her hair, letting it tumble down to the middle of her back. His hand let go of her hair and started moving down her back.

"You don't love me either," Ayleia pointed out.

"Maybe I do," he whispered in her ear, "and maybe I don't. What I do know is that I want you." The sound of his voice and his breath in her ear was sending chills down her spine. His mouth moved from her ear and started down to her neck. He is not making this easy for me, she thought.

He could feel her temperature rise. "Squall, you have to know that there is no certainty about what will happen to me once Ultimecia is dead," she told him. "I don't know where I'll end up."

"Don't really care about that at the moment," he replied. His lips moved back up toward her face and found her mouth.

Screw it, she thought to herself. Before she realized what she was doing, she grabbed him by his jacked and pulled him in closer. He deepened the kiss and she turned them around so that his back was against the wall and then they sank to the floor.

She pulled away from him for a moment, just long enough to summon a beautiful palate with silk sheets for them. She turned back to Squall and smiled as she kissed him again.

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"I've never been with anyone before," she said, looking up at him.

He looked at her. "Not even Ethan?" he asked, kissing her again. It got sweeter every time he kissed her. She pulled back and rested her head on his chest.

"No," she replied, listening to his heart. "I wasn't sure what would happen if I was ever with anyone, and I didn't want to take any chances."

He stroked her hair gently. It felt like silk running through his fingers. "Well as you can see," he told her, "I'm perfectly fine and nothing's wrong."

She looked up again and smiled at him. "Yes, you are perfectly fine," she said. She suddenly became serious. "But we've lost track of time. We still need to find Rinoa."

He groaned inwardly. He'd almost forgotten what they were there to do. "Yeah," he agreed. "I suppose we better get moving." As they grabbed for their clothes, both of them were surprised to find nothing but air. Looking over to the side, Ayleia gasped.

They were floating five feet off the ground.

"Floating," she said. She looked at him and blushed. "We're floating!"

Squall looked at her. "Can you get us down?" he asked, trying not to be distracted by the way her hair was draped over her bare shoulders.

She nodded and mumbled an incantation that gently lowered the palate onto the floor. She wrapped part of a blanket around herself as she stood up and started to get dressed. "We still have a long way to go," she said, putting her pants and boots on.

"Do you have any way of finding Rinoa a little faster?" he asked. He had dressed quickly and decided to help her with the blue corset she was pretending to have trouble with.

She adjusted her necklace as she allowed him to fasten the hooks. "When we fought with Adel, I talked to her telepathically," she told him. She shivered when his fingers not-so-accidentally brushed against her torso. "I guess I could try that again."

He finished helping her with the corset and brushed her hair away from her neck. "Whatever works," he replied, pulling her into another kiss.

"But first," she said, "there's something that I have to take care of." She turned around and thepalate disappeared with a wave of her hand. She turned back to him to see his questioning look "It would look strange to find something like this in the bowels of some creepy castle," she explained.

He grinned. "You're probably right," he said. "Okay, let's find Rinoa and get out of here."

She closed her eyes. "I hope this works," she said. Then she took a deep breath and began to concentrate.

She'd been wandering the hallways for what seemed like hours. Rinoa couldn't believe that she had lost her balance and fallen into the time wave. She saw Squall jump in after her but had no idea where he ended up. She was starting to think that she'd never find her way back to him. Squall, she thought.

She noticed that he'd begun to act strangely after they met Ayleia. Anyone who paid close attention could see that they were attracted to each other. When they were going over the plan to fight Adel aboard the Ragnarok, it seemed to Rinoa that he only kissed her to convince himself that he loved her. And then it took a long time for them to come back to the cockpit afterwards. What were they doing? she asked herself. She didn't like the way he stared at her when she challenged Seifer either. It was like he was intoxicated. Then watching them when they were deciding whether Seifer should be taken into custody was enough to make her sick. Before Rinoa could do anything, Ayleia Charmeling had become a threat to her relationship with Squall.

She had just turned a corner when she heard Ayleia's voice in her head.

Rinoa? Ayleia said

She stopped. Ayleia, where are you?

Apparently in the same time you're in, thank goodness. We were starting to worry that we wouldn't find you!

Who's we? Rinoa asked, already knowing the answer.

Squall is with me. I found him not far from where I landed in the time wave. Are you okay?

Rinoa closed her eyes. She tried her best not to imagine the worst.

Rinoa? She heard Ayleia say.

Rinoa opened her eyes. I'm fine, she lied.

Where are you? Ayleia asked.

I'm lost in a hallway.

Stay where you are, Ayleia instructed. I'm going to send a ball of light to you. You can follow it to us and then we can get out of here.

Okay.

As she waited, Rinoa wondered if she should confront Squall and Ayleia with their attraction. She knew that Ayleia could very well take Squall away from her. But she had to hang on to the hope that once they killed Ultimecia, she would most likely disappear from their lives. It wasn't that she didn't like Ayleia; after all, she had saved them. But the thought of losing Squall was almost unbearable to her. We'll just have to wait and see, she thought.

Ayleia opened her eyes and looked at Squall. "It worked," she said.

"That's good," he replied. "What happens next?"

She threw a yellow energy ball. "That ball will find her and then lead her back to us," Ayleia said. "We'll leave when she gets here. I'll just float us out."

"Float," he said smiling at her. Laughing, she gave him a playful shove.

He studied her face. Maybe I have fallen in love with her, he thought. His mind wandered back to what she told him earlier. "You have to know that there is no certainty about what will happen to me once Ultimecia is dead. I don't know where I'll end up."

"Ayleia, where and when were you born," he asked.

She looked at him in bewilderment. "Trabia," she answered. "In a village about four hours east of the Shumi Village almost two years from now. Why do you ask?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Just curious," he said. "I never got the chance to ask you that."

"What's on your mind, Squall?" she asked.

He pulled her into his arms. "I'm just hoping that I won't forget you if you disappear when this is over," he whispered in her ear.

"No matter what happens, you'll remember me," she replied. "Killing her won't change the fact that we met. But I'd rather just worry about now."

He pulled away from her and kissed her softly. He started to say something when Ayleia noticed the light from the energy ball she sent to find Rinoa speeding toward them.

"It's time to go back," she said, looking at Squall. "Don't worry. Everything will work out like it's supposed to."

Rinoa walked up to them slowly. "Sorry it took me so long," she said, looking at Squall.

"Forget it," Squall replied, "let's just get out of here."

"If we go back to where I found Squall," Ayleia said, "I can get us back to the others."

Rinoa looked at her blankly. "Have you two really been looking for me all this time?"

Ayleia was taken aback. "Yeah," she answered uncomfortably.

"Um, okay," Rinoa said. "Well I guess we should get going."

Quistis hadn't stopped pacing. Selphie and Irvine sat on the steps of Ultimecia's castle watching her. Zell stood at the edge of the chain searching desperately for a sign of Squall, Rinoa, and Ayleia.

"Quistis, would you please stop pacing?" Irvine asked.

She stopped and looked at him, "I can't help it," she said. "It's been two hours and we haven't seen them."

"Ayleia's with them," Selphie said, standing up. "They'll be alright."

Quistis began pacing again. "The longer Ultimecia's alive, the more time compresses. We need them to hurry!"

"We're hurrying!" They heard a voice call from the chain. Zell looked to see their three missing friends carefully making their way toward them.

He backed up and let them approach the castle steps. "Took you guys long enough," Selphie said. "What happened down there?"

"I couldn't find Rinoa in the time wave," Squall explained. "We landed in the same place, but we were separated."

Ayleia sat down on the steps. "I found Squall first," she said. "We were in the castle's dungeons. It took some time getting around down there. We ended up getting lost ourselves for a little bit. So I contacted Rinoa telepathically to make sure that she was there, too. Thankfully she was and so I sent an energy ball to her and it led her to where we were waiting for her."

That's when I saw you kiss Squall, Rinoa thought. "I'm sorry I fell into the time wave," she said apologetically. "We've lost a lot of time and we need to get moving." She glanced at Ayleia who was looking back at the castle. "Ayleia, what are you thinking about? I can't read a person's thoughts like you can."

Ayleia, now standing, was putting all of her hair up as she surveyed the castle. "I'm debating whether or not we should split up or if we should go through the entire castle together," she said, not looking back at the others.

Why? So you can have some more alone time with my boyfriend? Rinoa thought angrily.

Having heard Rinoa's thoughts, Ayleia turned around and shot her a look. Rinoa, we'll all discuss what happened later, but for now, we need to focus on the task at hand.

Fine, what do you suggest? Rinoa shot back.

"What do you think we should do," Zell asked.

She turned and looked at them. "It's probably best that we stay together. I don't think it's a good idea that we go wandering through this place separately," she told them.

"You're probably right," agreed Quistis.

"Like you said before, we don't know what kind of security system Ultimecia has in there," added Irvine.

"Squall, what do you think," Rinoa asked. They all noticed that he'd been particularly quiet.

He looked at each of them and his eyes finally settled on Ayleia. "It sounds like the right thing to do," he finally said. "Let's get moving."