The Truth is realized in an instant; the Act is practiced step by step.
- Zen saying

After he had finished bandaging her arm, he had left Quistis sitting on the examination table and began searching through cabinets, shelves and lockers looking for something that didn't belong.

When he had first taken a look inside of the infirmary, it had looked ransacked, like someone had torn everything apart looking for something. It didn't seem to fit in his mind, because he had yet to run into any more survivors, and Quistis had told him it had looked somewhat decent when she had been there earlier that evening. But now, examination tables had been upturned, a bed lay on its side while a couple of mattresses were scattered in different parts of the room, most of the pieces having been torn apart. Broken glass was almost everywhere on the floor, and he had found a couple of broken bottles of antibiotics on separate shelves, along with a mess of other chemicals.

Having taken in the sight, he had hoped the anti-virus – if it was even in this room – had remained intact.

Thankful that he still had his gloves on, he searched through the broken mess, looking for something he had no physical description of. He didn't even know if everything in the movie had been accurate. The people coming back to life, the dogs and the Licker creatures had been verified, but there hadn't been a sign of anything else related to the stupid movie. He remembered the antidote being green, but he didn't know if that information was even reliable.

The silence was stifling. He was a quiet person by nature, but the silence was driving him into thinking which, in turn, was forcing him to overanalyze the situation. He hated thinking too much, and he couldn't afford to over estimate or under estimate anything given the circumstances. Thinking back on what Selphie had told him, he took in a deep breath, hoping he didn't startle his former instructor too much. "Selphie asked me to tell you that she was a hypocrite."

He heard movement from behind and knew that he had gained Quistis' attention. "I don't know what she meant exactly, but her exact words were 'I'm a big fat hypocrite'."

Quistis didn't say anything for a moment. The only thing filling the silence was the occasional crunch of glass beneath his feet as he moved to inspect another section of the room. Finally, Quistis did speak. "She was talking about earlier, when she found out I was infected. She told me not to give up, just because there was some kind of virus that would turn me into one of those things. She was so insistent about it. But somehow, I don't think of her as a hypocrite. She probably wouldn't have been able to get out of there anyway."

Squall didn't answer back, recalling to memory her last words. She had told him if she attempted to leave, the Licker would have gone after the both of them. She was probably right, but he still felt as though there could have been something he could have done to get her out.

Survivor's Guilt, Squall thought to himself grimly, trying to dismiss the thoughts even as he analyzed them. Survivors of difficult circumstances always wonder why they were the ones left and if there could have been something done to save the others.

That was exactly how he felt. Everyone else had been either left behind to die, or sacrificed themselves in order to save their comrades. Squall could count on both hands how many times he had nearly been killed or even considered taking his own life during this entire experience, and yet he was still there. Quistis and Laguna had fought for their lives, depending on their own skills to get by and he himself had been rescued by an outsider who, by all rights, shouldn't have even stuck around in the first place, but had because of him.

Some leader I turned out to be, Squall thought to himself with bitter sarcasm. Despite his wishes, everyone had looked to him for a decision, for a way out of this mess and he had failed each and every one of them. Now, only one member of his team was left, and she'd be dead too if they didn't find the anti-virus. Nicholas had no combat experience whatsoever and could barely shoot a gun from what Squall had seen so far, and Laguna had been out of the field for so long he didn't know how much longer he could hold those things off him. It was a wonder how no one else had managed to get infected.

By all rights, I shouldn't be alive, not now. I just got lucky at each and every turn. My luck won't hold out forever, and I might even end up getting the others killed.

He finished checking the counters and shelves and tried to open one of the cabinet doors, only to find that it was locked. He searched his pockets for a moment before remembering that his combat knives had all been inside of his jacket, which he had lost when trying to escape those things. Struggling to remain calm and fight off the frustration that was trying to take over, he turned to look at the blonde SeeD. "Do you have any combat knives left?"

Quistis nodded hesitantly and pulled one off a belt loop that normally would have held her items pouch, holding it out for him to grab while gripping the sharp side of the bladed weapon. Squall took it from her, careful not to cut her before returning to the cabinet and working on prying the doors open.

"I don't trust him," Quistis finally blurted out after a moment, and Squall, who hadn't been making much progress on the cabinet anyways, stopped what he was doing and turned to stare at her for a moment.

"Trust who?"

"Nicholas."

Squall was at a loss for words and Quistis took the opportunity to continue. "I don't know why you don't feel he's a threat and, as you would normally point out, it's none of my business. But I just can't find it in me to give him a chance. I think he might be up to something."

"Like what?" Squall noticed that there was irritation in his voice and wondered how he had let it slip.

Quistis seemed to have noticed the tone as well and hesitated in her answer. "I just find it odd that he would come here after escaping from a building full of those things in the first place. Wouldn't the logical thing be to secure a route out of the city and take it before it was too late?"

"He said he found a way out of the city," Squall said, turning back to work on the cabinet. "A transport. I don't know where, but that's what he told me when we ran into each other."

"That makes things even stranger," Quistis argued and Squall resisted the urge to hang his head, even though he knew she wouldn't see him. "If he had a way out of the city, why didn't he take it? Why damn himself by sticking around here?"

Squall bit his lip thoughtfully, for once cursing Quistis' high-level of intelligence. He was running low on things to tell her. He had agreed with Nicholas that now was not the best time to explain that this was the man who had told him seemingly ages ago that they were related. At the same time, he wanted to tell her, on the off chance that they were already too late, but he didn't want to complicate things even more than they already were. Finally, he was able to force out an answer. "He said something about wanting to search for survivors."

The excuse sounded lame, even to his own ears, but it was the only thing he could come up with. Mentally apologizing to Quistis for having to lie to her, he hoped that she would drop the subject.

"I just wanted you to know," Quistis said after an uncomfortable moment of silence. He could hear the disbelief in her voice and was grateful she didn't pursue it. "Laguna doesn't trust him either."

"Well good for Laguna," Squall said, noticing that he was finally making some progress on the metal object. "Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of being picky at a time like this. Whether either of you trust him or not, he's here and there's strength in numbers."

The combat knife finally propped open the cabinet door, nearly breaking off as a result and dragging Squall out of his mental musings. Placing the weapon into a loop on his belt, he easily opened the door, and searched the contents, pulling out and setting aside items that were blocking his path.

"Are you angry with me?" Quistis asked after a moment passed between them.

Squall sighed out of frustration, but continued his search regardless. "No…" he answered after a moment.

"Then why are you snapping at me?"

Frowning after a moment, he took a second to analyze the actual question itself. He hadn't been aware that he had snapped at her, and considered the reasons himself. The initial situation was making everyone tense, and the guilt he was feeling from the loss of his friends wasn't helping things. On top of that, there was apparently discord between the few survivors remaining, and eventually it would be up to him to resolve it. The last one was responsible for his current frustration.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. "We don't have time for this," he finally said after a moment's hesitation. "You may not trust Nicholas, but regardless of that we all need to co-operate. If we can't put aside our differences, it's going to get us killed."

Just as he was about to move on from the cabinet, something inside caught his eye. He leaned in further, both of his arms reaching into the cabinet as he pushed other chemicals and curative items aside. He didn't doubt Quistis was wondering about his sudden trailing off, but he didn't want to get her hopes up.

Finally he saw it, five thin cylindrical objects stashed at the farthest end of the cabinet. He was able to reach one of them, and he grasped the object in his gloved hand before pulling it towards him, examining it up close. It looked exactly like the one that was in the movie, small and thin, almost fitting in his hand, but not quite. The liquid within was green, placed in twisting curving tubes that crisscrossed in the illusion of a DNA strand.

Placing it carefully onto the counter so that it wouldn't roll off and break (he remembered how fragile the containers had been), he quickly reached in as far as he could to retrieve the remaining canisters.

"Squall?" Quistis asked tentatively.

Squall didn't answer her. He was too busy concentrating on stretching his arm as far as he could in order to reach the last canister, his fingers barely touching the object. Finally, he removed the three he had managed to grab a hold of and placed them next to the first one he had pulled out, and reached into the cabinet once again, nearby banging his exposed shoulder on the metal of the object as he did.

"What's going on?" Quistis asked again, just as Squall was able to guide the object towards him. He grasped it firmly in his hand before pulling it out and turning to face the former instructor.

"The anti-virus," Squall answered, smiling despite himself. "I told you we'd find it."

Quistis stared at him, not at all grasping what he was saying, but a moment later, her features shifted from confusion to relief. Squall couldn't blame her.

Upon moving from the cabinet, he noticed something else and, upon reaching in once again, he recognized a needle that would house the anti-virus. It was capable of injecting the required fluid into an infected person, or anything else for that matter. He remembered it from the movie and now possessed no doubt that it would fit.

"It looks like Zell really was right about the movie," Squall said as he approached the blonde woman, placing the anti-virus container into the needle. "So far everything has panned out."

"Except for one thing," Quistis said, even as Squall prepared to administer the shot. "What if it doesn't work?"

"Well, then we're all dead," Squall deadpanned. "It's our life line – the only thing that can keep us from turning. If it doesn't work and any of us becomes infected, then we die, it's as simple as that."

Neither spoke for a minute, causing a tense silence that they were eager to disrupt. Finally, Quistis did. "Then I guess we'd better hope it works."

Squall nodded in response before searching through a cabinet located on Quistis' left hand side for something to swab her arm. He came back successful, swabbing her arm with a cotton ball before administering the shot. The liquid drained from the clear tubes within the canister.

As Squall sterilized the needle and located a small side bag that he could carry the remaining canisters in, Quistis replaced the button up sweater she had picked to cover her sleeveless arms with, waiting patiently as he carefully filled the bag before snapping it shut. "Now what? We need to find a way out of here, right?"

"There's an exit through the sewer system, but other than that I have no idea," Squall stated, pulling the strap of the side bag over his left shoulder. "From what Nicholas told me, the front doors are pretty much overrun with those things."

Quistis frowned. "You know I'm not quite looking forward to sewer diving. No offence, but you still smell of sewer water."

The dark haired SeeD mimicked her facial expression, wondering how many showers he would have to take in order to forget the entire ordeal. "Like I said, we don't have the luxury of being picky, now do we?"

Before Quistis could answer, a loud banging sound could be heard from outside the infirmary. They would have exchanged glances, except Quistis didn't know exactly where Squall was. "Do you think they found us?" Quistis asked when a full minute went by.

"Maybe," Squall shrugged. It was a possibility. Their luck couldn't possibly have held any longer than it already had. "I'm going to go check it out."

Quistis nodded in response and Squall quickly made his way through the ruined infirmary, trying to make as little noise as possible, but given the broken glass on the floor, it wasn't nearly as quiet as he would have liked. He would have to bend over for the LDA, but he didn't have time to draw it, so instead he grabbed a hold of the combat knife he had borrowed from Quistis before turning the corner and looking out into the hallway.

Upon seeing what had caused the noise, he released the breath he hadn't been aware of holding. Laguna was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily and Nicholas lay on the ground, having knocked a garbage can aside, the contents strewn about on the floor. Both of them looked a little more disgruntled than they had when he had left them alone, almost as if they had gotten into a fight.

We don't need this, he thought to himself even as he turned back and whispered to Quistis that those things hadn't found them. Neither man appeared to have noticed him just yet, but when spoke, his voice gained their attention. "What the hell are you two doing?"

He could feel his patience slowly ebbing away, but he fought to hold onto it. He couldn't afford to lose his temper.

Laguna jumped when he heard his voice and Nicholas quickly pulled himself from his sitting position on the ground, dusting himself off and trying to making himself appear as professional as he had before the teenager had left them alone. "If Quistis and I could hear you out here, what makes you think that those things couldn't? We don't have time to be fighting each other."

"Thank goodness you came and broke up the scuffle," Nicholas said before Laguna could even make a sound. He suddenly pointed over towards the President, his voice taking on an accusatory tone. "He was just in the midst of attacking me."

"You're the one who attacked me!" Laguna shot back. "I just asked him a couple of questions, he didn't like it, and I thought the subject was dropped until he came after me with his bare hands. I kicked him offa me so he'd quit choking me."

"I did no such thing!" Nicholas shouted out, sounding outraged. "I come here to help you find your comrades and this is the thanks I get? Suspicion boarding on outright aggression. You bloody right tried to knock my head off its shoulders."

"Because you were trying to kill me!"

"What happened?" Quistis' voice drifted from behind him but before Squall could answer, both Laguna and Nicholas pointed at each other and shouted at the exact same time.

"He tried to kill me!"

Quistis blinked in confusion, struggling to stay upright from her leaning position on the doorframe and Squall very nearly let his head drop into his hands. Both of these men, who were older than either SeeD, were arguing and fighting like a couple of kids. Not only that, but the noise was loud enough to lure any of those things right to them. It was the equivalent of showing them a sign that read 'we're over here' if they could even read.

One of them is lying, Squall thought to himself. But unfortunately, he couldn't do anything about it since he wasn't there when the initial fight broke out. He'd have to depend on hearsay and he hated the idea of it. And sorting out the problem would waste more time; time that was too precious to waste.

He knew Laguna enough to understand that he wouldn't attack without a reason, but on the other hand from what he had seen, Nicholas didn't know how to defend himself, let alone fight. He could barely shoot a gun! It didn't seem likely that either of them would have started a fight, but at the same time they had but he didn't know which one.

If this is how Quistis feels whenever Seifer and I fought, I understand how she felt, even if we didn't blame each other for starting it.

Ridding himself of the thought, he frowned thoughtfully. He couldn't ignore that someone attacked the other, but he couldn't do anything unless he could figure out who was lying.

Each had elucidated what had happened, but neither one was willing to relent who had actually started the scuffle, and he didn't have the time to sort through it. He'd have to make a decision, before those things showed up again.

Why is it always up to me?

"I'm willing to let the whole situation go," Nicholas suddenly broke in, appearing to have calmed down. "If he is nowhere near me for the duration of the search."

"Fine by me," Laguna stated evenly. "I won't go anywhere near you if you don't try to kill me!"

"You're the one who tried to kill me," Nicholas said, whirling to face the other adult.

"That's not how I remember it."

"Of course you'd say that! You don't want them turning on you just because you allowed your dislike of me to cloud your judgement for one significant second."

Laguna blanched at the words. "Hey, I may not like you, but I would never –"

"But you did, and that's what matters," Nicholas cut in. "You don't like me, you don't like the fact that I'm travelling with any of you, and you decided to take me out. What were you going tell them? That one of those things sneaked up behind me and killed me?"

"What I've noticed while acting as the President," Laguna replied hotly. "is that the people who are guilty of the crime are the ones to speak up and deny it first."

"Sure, use that age-old excuse."

"But it's true."

"So says the politician," Nicholas shook his head. "We don't have time to be arguing, so just admit you tried to kill me and let us be on our way."

"I'm not in the practice of admitting to acting out when I didn't," Laguna said almost heatedly. "Besides, I'm not the one who went all defensive when I was being asked questions like 'why are you here?' or 'why didn't you try and find a way out of town?'. I find it funny though. You said you found Squall in the sewers, right? There's about two levels of sewers under the Presidential Residence, and they're designed in a kind of maze, almost like this entire city. What are the odds that you would find him through all of that?"

"I already told you that I wasn't planning on answering your original questions at this present time," Nicholas shot back. "You should have accepted that, rather than attack me.

"Secondly," he said before Laguna could interrupt. "I have a PDA, which helped me navigate the sewers. True that it was one in a million chances that I would find Squall, but we've all managed to be lucky thus far, wouldn't you say? I also managed to acquire a few traces of weaponry from solders and security guards around my workplace, which served their purpose for when I ran into those things. Though I don't possess any militia training whatsoever, I do know the basics of holding a gun."

"I'd say our luck increased when we ran into you," Laguna pointed out. "The zombies didn't even see us while you were around."

"That's not entirely true," Nicholas interjected. "Remember the room that exploded? We ran into quite a bit of zombie activity, did we not?"

"But after you took over navigating the halls," Laguna argued. "We didn't run into a single one. That's what? A one in a million chance? You'd have better odds getting struck by lightning."

"My colleagues always told me I was a lucky person," Nicholas said. "Perhaps my luck hasn't quite run out yet."

Laguna laughed bitterly. "Yeah, right. I fell off three cliffs in my entire life, and I'm still alive. That's lucky. You happening to escape the building you were in, navigating through Esthar's sewer system, which is probably infested with rats and infected personnel without becoming infected yourself…"

"I do have guns and ammunition," Nicholas interrupted.

"Not to mention find one of our comrades," Laguna continued as though the other man hadn't said a word. "And find a way into the Residence, finding the rest of us,"

"That was him," Nicholas said, gesturing towards Squall.

"Without getting yourselves killed by those things sounds more to me like calculation and strategy than luck," Laguna concluded.

"Do you have a point?" Nicholas asked.

"Only that it sounds like you sort of orchestrated this whole mess."

Squall noticed a ghost of a triumphant smile cross upon Laguna's features, and had to admit he deserved to feel proud of himself. He had come up with good points, and counterpoints to pretty much everything Nicholas had said. However, the arguing and counter pointing only made him even more uncertain. He didn't know what to believe, what he wanted to believe. Not anymore.

"For Hyne's sake!" Nicholas shouted after a moment of silence. "Just admit that you did it! What are they going to do to you?" He gestured towards Quistis before briefly gesturing towards Squall as he continued to speak. "She can barely stand let alone fight back, and it's not like his magic is very effective when he can barely sustain a proper spell. They can't do anything to you, so just admit to it already."

The triumphant look was replaced by a confused expression. "Huh? What about Squall's magic?"

Squall frowned, but not at the knowledge that the others now knew what he had been keeping quiet. He had been alone during that endeavour, no one had been around to see it. And he sure as hell didn't tell Nicholas about it.

So how had he known?

Putting the knowledge that Nicholas knew something he shouldn't together with all of the points that Laguna had made with Quistis' own explanation towards the strange man, and he realized that Nicholas' alibi fell apart. The only question that ran through his mind was how he had gotten from the cafeteria to the sewer before him, but thinking back on it, Nicholas had been able to make himself appear as a teenager when he had tracked him down seemingly years ago. Squall hadn't been able to recognize him then, seemingly through a trick or disguise, but if he could make himself appear much younger than he actually was, then wasn't it possible that he could have just materialized from position A to position B and just so happen to find him? Kind of like a Sorceress, but that would mean Nicholas also possessed magic that he hadn't utilized since he had met up with them.

Squall's thoughts turned dark upon realizing that everything Nicholas had told him up until that point had been a lie. But if he had lied about important details such as the reason he was here, why he hadn't immediately looked for an escape, or why those things weren't attacking them as frequently as they had been before this moment, then it was possible Nicholas had lied about a transport leaving the city.

If he lied about everything else, could he have lied about what had been said all those days ago?

Anger and hate began to boil inside of him, much like when he had discovered NORG had planned to sell his entire team out to the Sorceress just to keep himself alive. It was threatening to boil past the surface and consume him, forcing him into a rage that he hadn't felt since then, or since he witnessed Seifer handing Rinoa over to Adel inside of the Lunatic Pandora.

He couldn't allow that feeling to possess him, not this time. The survival of himself and the remaining survivors was at stake. If he surrendered to those feelings now, it would put him in a state where logic no longer mattered, and they would need all the help they could get if they planned to escape the building with their lives.

But that didn't stop his hand from reaching towards his belt, where the lone combat knife – the same knife he had used to pry open the cabinet and get to the anti-virus – sat, idly waiting to be used. He didn't feel the weight of the handle in his grasp, his fingers tightening around the object before he withdrew it from its makeshift sheath and threw it, missing Laguna's face by several inches and imbedding itself into his target – a man he no longer saw as an ally – and watched in a detached state as the now still corpse fell backwards, landing onto the tiled floor behind him.