When the evening falls
and the daylight is fading
From within me calls
Could it be I am sleeping?
Chapter 9: Daylight Fading
Quistis sat in her office, swiveling back and forth in her chair and tapping her fingertips across her knee. Her legs were crossed, and every time she swung her chair to the left, the toe of her boot would thump against the desk, creating a steady beat to her impatient fidgeting. Blankly, she stared at her computer screen which was blazing with the Balamb Garden insignia. The hand that wasn't wearing through the taunt skin across her knee was hovering near the phone, waiting for it to ring. She hated waiting for people to call her back. Thump. Thump. Thump.
"Come on, Cid," she sighed and rolled her eyes. "You don't need to look over every single detail, just okay the roster so I can get on with my life." She'd spent the better part of the morning finalizing the newest SeeD roster, adding in new specs for the newly admitted SeeDs from the last field exam. She'd sent the updated file up to Cid's office over an hour ago to be approved, and only a few minutes ago had impatiently phoned him to find out when he'd be done, only to be told quite curtly that he would call her back in a moment. She glanced at the clock at the bottom corner of the computer screen and sighed -- a moment had passed many moments ago.
Her hand shot past her phone and latched onto her Balamb Garden coffee mug, which she had filled with water to calm a sleepy early morning jitter that had been bothering her since she got up. Sitting back in her chair, she titled it to her lips for a cool, soothing drink, and as if by magic her phone rang. "About time," she muttered and reached for it. "Balamb Garden, this is Quistis Trepe."
"Quistis...hey." It was a woman's voice, not Cid. "This is Selphie."
"Selphie," Quistis frowned and set her mug down. "What's up?" She had sent Selphie to Trabia to fetch the remains of Darshan Zinnovy in the Ragnarok. Her job was to soothe the situation, replace the downed SeeD, and bring the body back home. Quistis failed to see how any part of her task warranted a call back to Garden. And the fact that she was now calling was worrisome.
"Well..." Selphie hesitated. "I'm in the Esthar Hospital."
"You're what?" Quistis' back went starchy.
"No...no!" Selphie said quickly. "I'm standing in the hospital...I'm not...being hospitalized or anything. When I got here, Bella Cevario had been attacked. She's okay, but her jaw is broken. The doctor in Ekalaka gave her some pain killers, and we flew her down into Esthar. I talked to the doctor about hurrying her through...and they're taking her into surgery in a few minutes."
"Surgery?"
"Her jaw is pretty bad," Selphie sighed. "They need to take out some of the bone fragments, and they're going to have to wire her jaw shut."
Quistis rubbed her forehead with her palm. "Selphie, we need to get a report out of her ASAP. Her partner died, and we need an official report how."
Selphie let out an exasperated sigh. "I know that, but she can't exactly tell me anything with her jaw wired shut, and she's out of it from the pain killers. I tried getting her to write out a report on the way here, but she couldn't do it. I can't get anything strait out of her."
"Damn it," Quistis turned in her chair to face her computer and opened the file to fill out an official field incident report. "How about the EPD guy? Was he there?"
"He's here with me," Selphie replied. "Want to talk to him?"
"Yeah, put him on."
There was a short, muffled exchange, and Quistis could hear the creak of plastic as the phone was passed along. Finally, prefaced by a short breath, a man's voice came on the phone with a firm, "Hello?"
Quistis looked at the mission file and found the right name. "Hello, Patrick Lee?"
"Yes."
"This is Quistis Trepe, I talked to you before about arranging for SeeD to assist you with your investigation."
"Oh. Right. Hello, Miss Trepe." Talkative guy. She supposed he was probably used to asking the questions rather than answering them.
"Were you with the two SeeDs when Mr. Zinnovy died?" she asked hopefully.
"Yes, I was with Bella."
"Wonderful," she hovered her fingers over her keyboard. "I need to ask you some questions about your case and Darshan's death, if that would be alright."
"I'd be glad to help," he answered. "If it will get that monster captured."
Seifer awoke to a commotion, not quite sure where he was or how he'd gotten there. He looked around the darkness around him, thinking for a disturbing moment that maybe he'd died. But then, lurching to the forward part of his brain as if it had never been missing, the memory of his trek to the boat overtook him, and he looked up at the cargo crates in front of him with realization. Underneath him, he could feel the slow rocking of the ship, and he knew that they'd come into a harbor. Wherever they were, it was Seifer's stop.
"Get those things off deck!" one voice bellowed along with footsteps thundering by the cargo hold where Seifer had ferreted himself away.
Something was going on, but he didn't have time to investigate what it was. Instead, he decided to take perhaps the only opportunity he'd get. Stiffly, he pushed himself up onto his feet and climbed back over the create he'd been laying behind. The front of the cargo hold had been emptied of one crate -- or perhaps it had never been there to begin with, Seifer wasn't quite sure -- and the door was hanging open to reveal a darkened hallway beyond. Seifer peeked around the corner before stepping out, and as he started up the set of wooden stairs that would take him up onto the deck, he became more aware of just how frantic the sailors were.
One ran by screaming, clutching at the red knit hat on top of his head. His features were blanched, and he didn't notice the emerging Seifer. In fact, none of the sailors seemed to. All was chaos on deck, and everyone was yelling.
"Over there!"
"Somebody chase them back below deck!"
"Don't run from them!"
"God damn it! Get out of the way!"
Slinking quickly across deck, Seifer quickly made his way to the side of the ship. He grabbed onto the round metal bar that ran the length of the side, and before hurling himself over, looked back behind him. A few men ran by, but only one stopped to look at him. The moment of eye contact was fleeting, and Seifer doubted that he was very recognizable in his current state. But, to be safe, he swung his legs over the side and crashed down through the air into cold sea water. He went under for a moment, submersed in a slower, quieter world, and heard two muted thuds somewhere off to his right. Not sure what they were, he surfaced, and cast his gaze around for shore.
Chagrined, he turned and looked up at the cobalt expanse of Balamb rising on the horizon. The ship bobbed behind him in the harbor, and he was sitting between the carrier ship and a Garden attack vessel. After staring incredulously at it for a moment, he got his bearings and began swimming, knowing exactly where he needed to go. On the far side of the docks was a long, ungroomed beach that was rarely frequented, and the perfect place for him to think about what to do next. Once upon a time, it had been his place. His and...well, he didn't want to think about that.
Hand over hand, he swam, his strength renewed by his long sleep. And he wondered if he'd really woken up at all, or if he was just dreaming. Balamb had, for so long, seemed so far away. It was a place he couldn't hope to return to, the Eden he'd been thrown out of for his sins. But stumbling in the darkness onto a ship, he'd suddenly awoken to find himself back in the very place he'd once called home. And nothing about it had changed. Above him, gulls cried out, and the sun shone brightly on the happy little town. Even the water seemed warm compared to the months he'd spend in Trabia. He missed the heat, and the sunshine, and the relaxation of a long day on the docks in boring little Balamb.
He came around the bay and let himself wash up onto the rocky beach, choking on some salt water as the wave he was cruising with broke and threw him onto land. The beach was littered with little black rocks and broken bits of shell, which Seifer nostalgically picked up and inspected before peeling off his soaked coat and shoes, laying them out in the sun to dry. And, as Seifer peeled away his shirt to relish in the warmth of the sun, he finally allowed himself to think about her, and to consider the possibility.
He was back in Balamb, and Quistis was in Balamb.
Almost as soon as the thought entered his head, he groaned and pushed it away. Who was he to think that maybe she would take him back, or that any of them would? Especially now. Especially since he was now as much a monster in form as in thought. He couldn't ask any of them, her especially, to forgive him. And he didn't deserve to be forgiven anyway. He was Ultimecia's knight. He'd betrayed them beyond repair, even going so far as to reach across the seemingly insurmountable barriers of time to do it. He'd turned against them for a woman he, by right, should have never even known. And he still remembered the look in their eyes when they saw him. Squall had been impassive, as usual, showing nothing. But when Quistis had spotted him on the other side, he remembered the wide shock in her eyes. She'd stood for a moment, back behind Squall with her whip hanging limply in her hand, as if she couldn't believe he was there. He was bad, sure...but she'd never suspected. And he supposed it was an extra jolt to her that he was her own student.
He reached up and rubbed his eyes, wondering why his thoughts were so centered on Quistis.
She was the only real women in his life anymore. He'd tried to have relationships. A few women in Trabia...but they hadn't worked out. More than that, he'd killed them. He cringed, knowing he couldn't do that to her. They'd been together as long as he could remember. The one and only constant presence in his life was her. Longer than Edea, and even longer than Squall, she was there. She had a special place as so many things to him. A sister, and even once upon a time as a friend and companion, and once an object of desire, before Squall had gotten in the way and he'd made a treacherous pact with Rinoa Heartilly.
Not for the first time, he wondered how his life would be different if he'd never met her.
Sitting up, he swept his hair away from his eyes, and he thought about Quistis. About the fleeting moments he'd spend with her and the desperate way he wanted to bring all of that back, if just for a moment. She was the one his mind latched onto, and he turned to look in the direction of Balamb Garden.
It couldn't hurt to see her just once before he left. Just once, to indulge himself just a little, before plunging back into the misery that had come to dominate his life.
Quistis hung up the phone and sat back in her chair, not sure what to think. Patrick Lee had been very forthcoming with information, but what he had to offer only seemed to complicate things further. Crossing her legs, she leafed through the notes she had made during her conversation with Lee and made an attempt at putting it all together.
There had been three murders in Trabia, all in the same basic area. Two women and a man, all killed in the same way, apparently by the same beast. A monster which, according to Lee, was quite a brute. They had found a rather large dent in a bathtub at the latest scene -- she ran her finger down her notes -- in the house of a woman named Patricia Marin. The man had been the only one to put up a fight, and they had found hair and skin samples on him and under his fingernails, presumably from the body of his attacker. Lee had also surmised that the monster, whatever it was, did not seem to have a home range or a den, and it did not kill consistently, which meant it wasn't hunting for food. Darshan had been the monster's unlucky fourth victim.
A local had sighted a strange creature in the woods, and Bella, Darshan, and Lee had gone to investigate, at which point they had split up. Bella and Lee had been alerted by Darshan's screams, but by the time they had made it to the scene, Darshan was already dead and the monster had fled.
Quistis took a drink of water.
Bella, according to Lee, sat for a short while before taking off into the trees after what she claimed to be the monster. Together they chased something which Lee never saw, until they came upon a second body. This one, however, was alive. Bella and Lee took the man back into town, where the doctor came and checked on him shortly and then left. According to Lee, the man slept through the night, and the next morning Lee left to go check in with his department, and came back to the house to find Bella on the walk and the door locked behind her, her jaw broken and unable to tell him what had happened. Presumably, she'd been attacked by the man they had picked up, as he had mysteriously vanished.
Once Selphie arrived in the Ragnarok, they spent a few hours flying reconnaissance over the forest looking for any trace of the man before taking off for Esthar to get Bella the medical help she needed. Which brought Quistis up to date, and not quite satisfied. Something about it all bothered her, and she knew some important part of the puzzle was missing. But what really bothered her, more than Darshan's death and Bella's injury and their inability to capture the monster, was Lee's description of the injured man they had picked up in the forest. One particular detail had stood out to him, and it stood out to Quistis as well.
The man had had a gunblade.
The gunblade, because of it's difficulty, was strictly a Garden weapon, and there were very few Garden students (or ex-students) who had ever picked it up. Combined with Lee's physical description -- big guy, blonde hair, scar down the bridge of the nose -- Quistis was lead to a name she hadn't thought of in a long time.
"Seifer." She said it out loud to herself, closing her eyes as the last syllable rolled off her tongue. What did he have to do with all of this? She had no doubt that he was somehow involved. He was always involved. It was like being plunged headlong into the past. She looked out her office window at the afternoon sky and allowed herself to think back on the man in question.
She'd know Seifer her entire life. To say that his betrayal during the war had shocked her was an understatement. He'd been her student, and through his assignments and field exams, when she'd accompanied him alone to places like the Fire Cavern, she knew that he had potential. Possibly even more so than Squall, although at the time she would have been hard pressed to acknowledge that. As children they had been...she searched her hazy mind for specific memories. A small smile cracked her face, and she laid her head back. They had been partners in crime. Seifer was the bully, and Quistis was the bossy one. Together, they were a force to be reckoned with, and as the ruling party among the orphanage gang, they'd found it easier to get along and consolidate their powers than bicker over turf.
A flash of guilt assailed her as she recalled all the ways they had conspired to force the other kids to do exactly what they'd wanted. Until she'd gotten adopted, anyway. And then she'd found herself at Garden, and found both Squall and Seifer there, too. But things had changed, and she wasn't part of the close knit group anymore. So she'd satisfied herself with achievement.
She knew that Seifer had been troubled, but she hadn't really wanted to peer past that. Squall, with all his mystery, was infinitely more appealing, and she'd focused strictly on him up until Rinoa arrived on the scene. Still, knowing Seifer for everything that he was, she'd still been surprised to find him on the side of evil, and presently wondered if she was still underestimating him.
Plagued with distraction, Quistis got back to work. As usual, she worked long into the evening, knowing she was missing out on very little as far as her social life was concerned. Work was her life, and it was that attitude that had gotten here where she was. She didn't have the luxury of a rich father like Rinoa to support her as she prowled the world on a never ending holiday. Quistis only had herself, and she worked to inject some sense of purpose to her life.
When red and yellow cascaded through her window from the setting sun, she finally put away all her files and clocked out, having added more overtime for pay that she wouldn't spend. Her back sore and her legs stiff, she walked down to the Garden parking lot and checked out a car. It was Friday, and she always treated herself on Friday. Taking the car keys from a fresh faced cadet who recognized her as part of the administration, she climbed into the car and slammed the door closed behind her.
She got to Balamb just as the evening was thickening and the lit up signs of shops and stores began to glow. Parking near the docks, she climbed out and stretched with her palms pointed to the sky. A soft groan escaped her, and she swept her hair down out of her clip, leaning back against the car for a moment as she massaged the back of her scalp. Her usual fettuccini alfredo dinner was waiting for her, and her usual waiter (a twenty something man named Brett who Quistis recognized as a once upon a time but failed cadet from Garden) would be waiting to seat her in her usual place. She walked lazily down the main street, and loosened her uniform from around her throat. Dreamily, she considered the conversation she and Brett would have as she walked into the restaurant, just as guarded and overly sweet as it usually was, and she wondered if she should try asking him out once just to see what would happen.
But she knew that wouldn't happen. If he said no, it would ruin her entire routine, and she didn't want to give up the comfort of their weekly meetings quite yet. No, she'd let him move first.
Distractedly, she came up to the restaurant she was meaning to go to, and cast her gaze up and down the street to look for oncoming traffic. Sprinting, she jaywalked across the street and leapt up onto the curb, dodging past a blonde man who was standing looking in the window of a shop.
"Sorry," she muttered as she hit his arm, dropping her hair clip. She bent over to pick it up, and when she righted herself again, he was already a few paces away, going down the street with his hands shoved in his pockets toward the harbor. His longish blonde hair curled around his collar, and his broad shoulders stretched the material of his shirt. Privately, Quistis leaned to see past a person who stepped in between them, and took a longer, appreciative look at the stranger's body. Then, shaking her head pleasantly at herself, stepped into the dimly lit eating establishment to find the genial, brown eyed Brett waiting for her.
"Evening, Quistis." He smiled broadly. "Right this way."