Chapter Eleven
Somewhere a Clock is Ticking

If they didn't stop bickering soon, he swore to Hyne, he was going to start slashing freely with his gunblade. They had just reached Balamb, and had learned that the next boat to FH didn't leave until the next day at noon. Needless to say, Squall was not in the best of moods as they made their way to the hotel.

Didn't Irvine and Selphie realize that there were other things at stake here? Like Rinoa's sanity for one. He knew what that monster of a doctor had done to her before … no telling what she horrors she was being made to endure now. The thought of anybody else touching Rinoa made his blood boil; the thought of a sadistic madman touching her made him murderous.

"Squall, are you okay?" Irvine asked as they walked through the quiet streets of Balamb. Squall didn't say anything. Irvine shrugged and turned to Selphie, trying to start a conversation with her for what seemed like the 80th time since they'd left Garden. "Guess he doesn't feel like talking right now."

"What makes you think I do?" Selphie remarked irritably. "I told you I didn't have anything to say to you before, didn't I?"

"But, Sefie …" Irvine said.

Squall exhaled loudly and pushed open the doors to the Hotel. He paid the concierge enough for two rooms and thrust one of the keys roughly into Selphie's hands. "Deal with this by tomorrow morning or I'm leaving you both here," he said coldly before turning to walk to his own room.

Once inside, he slammed the door shut with such force that it shook the room, and probably the adjacent ones, too. He didn't care. It didn't matter. Let management come and tell him he was a disturbance … let them. He could barely see through the red in his vision.

How could he have let her go? He could've argued with her … he could've followed her. He should've. If he had … he could have protected her. That was his job wasn't it? He was her fucking knight, wasn't he? Angrily, he yanked off his leather jacket and threw it across the room with a growl.

Some knight I've been, he thought miserably, sitting down on the edge of the bed and putting his head in his hands. He didn't know if he had it in him to cry, but damn it, he was supposed to be with her right now. Lying next to her in his bed, just breathing her. Making promises that were silly and serious all at the same time. Knowing that she was safe with him.

She was safe with him, damn it. Why couldn't he just keep her with him? Why did something always have to try and keep them apart?

Well, not any more. To hell with SeeD, to hell with it all. He was a SeeD only because it was the only thing he'd ever known. But he was done with it. When he got her back, they were going to Winhill. They could live in there, where it was safe and quiet. Where nothing ever happened. It would be nice there. Peaceful. Squall was ready for some peace. And Laguna would give him the old house if he asked for it.

Sighing in frustration, he removed his boots and lie back on the bed, lacing his fingers together behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling, and hoped with every piece of him that Rinoa was okay. Closing his eyes, he prayed that sleep would come easily that night.

He had just started to drift to sleep when he heard her. Squall!

He sat up straight in bed, and though he knew she wasn't there, he still looked for her. "Rin?" he said.

You can hear me?

"Yes," he said, hoping that he wasn't actually losing his mind.

He swore he heard he sigh with relief. Okay, then. I was just checking.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, although he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.

No.

Squall shuddered and jerked awake. A dream. It had only been a dream. But somehow … he didn't think the message had been wrong.

xXx

She woke up, her eyes moist with tears, wishing she could have stayed asleep. Even if she was only dreaming, it had been nice to hear him again. And he'd been so concerned. It always floored her, how somehow she had gotten cold-as-ice Squall Leonhart to care.

Damn it … she missed him.

At least she was in her own room again. All it had taken was her throwing up on Cyrus once for him to rush her back into her own quarters, cursing violently and tossing her roughly into the room. He had locked her in, telling her she would be sorry for this later on.

And she knew that she would be. But right now, she was just glad to be alone. She hadn't gotten any peace for the last few days, for Cyrus always needed her for one reason or the other. None of the reasons were pleasant. They all involved her being exploited and used in some way.

Lying down on the cot gingerly, so as not to cause herself any more pain than was necessary, she wondered what Squall was doing now. She had fallen asleep, thinking of him, and had dreamed that she was speaking to him. It had seemed so real. Too real to be a dream, but too incredible to be anything but.

They couldn't … really be communicating that way, could they? She knew that Ellone could do it, but Elle was special. Rinoa was hardly gifted like that. And she was pretty sure Squall didn't possess that kind of ability.

It was just wishful thinking, she thought as she closed her eyes again.

She dreamed about the flower field, the cherry blossoms flying in the air, as they stood, hand-in-hand, and looked out over the meadow.

"When you find me," she heard herself saying. "You'll bring me here, won't you?"

"Is this where you want to be?" he asked, squeezing her hand gently.

"Yes," she breathed. "You'll be here, too, right?"

"I'll be here. Waiting for you." He smiled at her then, and she smiled back. Closing her eyes, she whispered the next words to herself.

"I promise."

xXx

He woke up screaming her name. He'd had the dream again, about time compression. But this time, she hadn't saved him. She hadn't been there. As soon as her helmet shattered, she had shattered along with it.

"Rinoa!"

Breathing heavily, and drenched in a cold sweat, he stood up, and paced around the room. Willing the nightmarish image of her shattering into a million pieces before his eyes away. He was shaking. Hyne, if something happened to her … he would never forgive himself for as long as he lived.

If something happened to Rinoa …

Since he was up, he showered, dressed, and made sure that he had everything prepared for the trip to FH. It would take less than six hours to get there from Balamb, and he was planning on wasting no time once they got there.

He only hoped this wasn't some wild goose chase -- that they weren't wasting precious time with this Drea in FH. And that she really did have something to do with everything, because right now, Squall needed someone to be mad at.

Someone besides himself.

He met Selphie and Irvine at the harbor a little before eleven that morning, and he eyed his comrades carefully. They hadn't said anything all morning, and he only hoped that it meant that they had decided to give up talking altogether. One could always dream.

They boarded the ship, the S.S. Beacon, shortly thereafter, and Squall immediately headed for a secluded corner of the deck, staring out over the water. His expression and body language let anyone know that this was not a person interested in idle chatter.

His dreams the previous night had only caused him more inner turmoil. Rinoa was not doing well. Of that much he was certain. What if they were already too late? He continued to stare out over the sea, and hope to Hyne that he would get to her in time.

Who knew what was happening to her right now? Was he beating her? Doing his "experiments"? Or was he just raping her? For no reason other than that he could? Squall's hands formed into fists and he had the overwhelming urge to just start punching things.

"Squall?" Selphie's voice was tentative as she approached him, a few hours. "Are you okay?"

He mumbled something unintelligibly under his breath, and she furrowed her brow. "What was that?"

"I don't want to talk right now, Selphie," he said through clenched teeth.

"Well, we're almost there, that's all," Selphie said cautiously, hoping that the Commander wouldn't snap at her.

Irvine had walked over. "Yeah, I'd say we're only, like, a half-hour from FH now," he added.

Selphie shot him a withering glare. "Bet you can't wait to see your girlfriend, can you?" she snarked.

"Sefie," Irvine said sadly. "I've already apologized for that … like, a hundred times, at least!"

"Oh, and that's supposed to make it all go away, huh?" Selphie snapped. She was on her tiptoes, at her fullest height, and was jabbing her finger into his chest angrily. "It doesn't work like that, Irvine! I was willing to give you everything and you threw it away. For some redheaded floozy, who might be the reason that all of this has happened in the first place!"

Squall, who had put his head in his hands when the confrontation had begun, could take no more. He jumped up out of his chair and glared at the pair of them. "For the love of Hyne, will you please shut the fuck up?" he barked. "I appreciate that you have problems. But right now, I don't give a rat's ass. Because right now, there are bigger things to deal with. Rinoa is in a lab with a doctor who is performing all kinds of sick and twisted experiments on her. A doctor who is raping her.

"Do you understand, even a little bit, that for once, it isn't about you? We're not back at Garden any more, where the most important thing is who's-dating or who's-fucking-who. We might not be going back to Garden at all! This is what's real, this is what's important now. And the more time you two waste arguing, the less time there is to be thinking about what we're going to do once we get to FH and beyond! We need a plan. And if you really want to be here, start acting like it!" His eyes were flashing, the stony color of granite, and his mouth was set in a very firm line.

Selphie's green eyes were wide with shock, and Irvine looked chagrined. Squall was just about as mad as they'd ever seen him. He certainly had never spoken that much at any one time before, as far as they knew.

"You're right, Squall," Selphie whispered. "We're being stupid. I'm sorry." She wanted to cry. She'd had no idea what exactly had been going on with Rinoa … because she hadn't even once bothered to ask. She could've asked last night for more details, but she'd been too worried about being mad at Irvine to even think about anyone else.

"Yeah, me too," Irvine mumbled humbly, his head bowed in shame. "But … why waste time in FH … why not just go straight to Esthar?"

"With no leads?" Squall questioned, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Look, this girl might actually have some useful information. If she doesn't, we'll go to Esthar then. Maybe Laguna knows something. But we're not going to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to question a suspicious person who may or may not be responsible for a good portion of what happened."

"You're right," Irvine said. "It's just …" he looked at Selphie tentatively. "She just seemed, like, so normal."

Selphie sighed in exasperation. "Was she supposed to wear a button that says 'Hi, I'm a psychopath who steals people's memories! Ask me how'?" She looked at Squall quickly. "Sorry," she muttered.

Squall took a deep breath. "Look, Irvine, all right. She seemed normal. But right now, we have to go on the fact that you were with her the night of my birthday, and you were unaffected by whatever it was that incapacitated the rest of us."

Irvine finally conceded. "All right."

Squall sighed and sat back down, going back to ignoring everyone around him. They'd be in FH in about fifteen minutes, and then maybe, just maybe, they would finally have some answers.

xXx

Thirty minutes later, they were following Irvine through FH. He finally stopped at a small, modest wooden house, right on the waterfront. He knocked on the door, and was surprised to find it open.

He pushed it and walked into the main room of the house. The smell that greeted them upon entering was overpowering and fetid. "She does a lot of experiments. She's, like, a scientist," Irvine explained.

The place appeared to have been ransacked. There were several sheets of paper with writing all over them strewn about the room. The furniture was all overturned or in other such forms of disarray, lamps were broken, china was shattered.

"Drea?" Irvine called out. "Are you here?"

Selphie moved about the room, her green eyes scanning everything carefully. Her gaze landed on a sheet of paper and she gasped. "Oh, my Hyne!" Her hand flew to her mouth and she held out the paper to Squall.

He took it, his brow furrowed. At first it appeared to just be a torn page from a diary. It was dated August 21st. It listed things she needed to buy at the store, and an appointment with a C.B. the next day, at the FH Hotel. But then came to several lines near the bottom, and he felt his heart speed up.

"I've finally gotten hold of the Malboro tentacles I need for Perdita Memoria, thanks to C.B. Can't wait to get it finished. I just need to get a bit of I.K.'s hair. I can do that tonight, when he comes by, though. Once it's done, I'll be able to use it at that horrible Garden. He'll have no choice but to leave that wretched place behind and stay here with me! I've already told him he's more than welcome here … and when he realizes that nobody knows who he is, the rest will be easy …"

Selphie was blinking rapidly, and Squall looked like he was holding live ammunition. "Perdita Memoria?" he asked no one in particular.

"Whatever it was, it was meant to be used on everyone at Garden …" Irvine added, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"To make us forget you," Selphie added, but there was no hint of animosity in her voice. "She wanted you to leave Garden and stay with her."

Irvine took a deep breath. "She'd hinted at it, several times, but, like jokingly. I had no idea she was serious about me actually living here with her."

"She was more than serious," Squall added. "She was obsessed. But who's this … C.B.?"

"Cyrus Blakeslee," Irvine whispered, picking up another piece of paper, this one dated August 7th.

"Met with C.B. today. He's a doctor from Esthar, he used to work with THE Dr. Odine! Very interested in my work. Offered to fund me, and help me with my supplies. He seems especially interested in Perdita. Says he is working on a project that it might come in handy for. Of course, I offered to help him any way I could. I've only been working on the Perdita for about a month now, so it was nice for such a big-shot doctor to tell me it had potential, already! When he asked if I had a specific target in mind for the Perdita, I told him no. I didn't want to jinx it, should something go wrong. He seemed pleased. Told me to let him make the initial decision. I agreed, of course, but I'm still planning on using it for I.K. -- he IS the reason I created it, after all. I just won't tell C. …"

Selphie's mouth dropped. "Where is this girl? Where?" she demanded. "I'm going to kill her myself. It's her fault. Everything."

"Selphie, what are you …?" Irvine trailed off.

"Didn't you pay attention in any of your classes?" she asked. "Perdita Memoria… it means lost memory." With that, she went stomping through the house.

Squall looked livid. "So … your normal girl really is a psycho," he said sharply to Irvine, motioning for him to start looking through all the other papers for more hints.

But they found nothing else pertaining to the doctor or Perdita. Only regular diary pages, dealing with ordinary, every day things. Whoever had torn this place apart had been thorough. Now if they could just find Drea herself … and confront her. She could fill in the blanks for them …

Selphie's scream from the back of the house caused both men to take off at full-speed toward her. When they reached the back bedroom, it became apparent that the putrid scent permeating the house wasn't from one of Drea's experiments, but from Drea, herself. Irvine gagged and had to turn around. Selphie had already vomited in the corner of the room.

Drea was lying on her bed, covered in her own blood and other bodily fluids and excrement. She'd been disemboweled.

"He killed her," Squall said hollowly. "Because whatever this Perdita Memoria was …"

"He only wanted to use it against Rinoa," Selphie said weakly. "I found this … beside her …" She started to gag again, and turned away from Squall quickly so she wouldn't throw up on him.

"C.B. says we can rule the world together … if we bring back the Sorceress. He says there's a Descendant of Hyne (whatever that is) at Garden, and he wants to use Perdita to get her. Says it's imperative to make the PM work for a Rinoa Heartilly. So I'm going to the party for their Commander tonight, hopefully I'll bump into her … I don't know. C.'s idea seems a little scary. I'm starting to get a little worried. But I think that tonight will also be the perfect opportunity to try it out the version I made for I.K. I'm not telling C. But I'm not waiting any more, either."

Squall's fist bunched around the paper. "How did he miss this one?" he wondered. It seemed to have quite a lot of damning information on it. It didn't matter. They had it, and from it, they could deduce what had happened. The only thing they didn't know was exactly how the Perdita Memoria worked. He was no longer sure that mattered.

What mattered was, Drea had messed up. Because somehow, by using it on Irvine as well … she had unwittingly given Rinoa an ally.

And when Cyrus had found out … he had killed her, or had her killed. Chances were good someone else had done the job. Squall had a feeling that Cyrus would not have left such crucial bits of evidence lying around had he been here himself.

Of course! he thought suddenly. He came to Garden to get Rinoa … and he sent someone else here to kill Drea.

Squall took a deep breath. "The other page says that Blakeslee worked for Odine. We're going to Esthar to find out what Laguna knows about this guy." He turned around and headed out of the house and marched resolutely for the harbor.

Hold on, Rinoa. Please, just … hold on.

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A/N: Whew. The chapter that just kept going! XD BUT! We have progress! Lots more to come, I assure you. Thanks to everyone who's been reading this, it really does mean a lot to me. Hope you enjoyed this one!