Chapter 4: Recognization
He walked around in the darkness that surroinded him. Walked around in the thick, black darkness.Seeing nothing, feeling nothing and hearing only a monotonous beeping sound that was driving him insane. He had tried, but he couldn't catch its source. It was always just out of his reach, getting slowly further away from him.
He tried reaching for it once more and the darkness around him buzzed like a cloud flies at night and faded away. Then the brightness came.
Zell cracked his eyes open, everything looked slightly hazy. He rubbed his eyes and opened them again to find a white ceiling above him, held there by the familiar white walls. Great, here again...
He lowered his eyes from the ceiling and took a more upright position on the bed only to stare right into the very angry eyes of Dr.Kadowaki. His gaze lingered for a second on the wrinkles forming around those greyish eyes.
"Young man! What did I tell you! Take it easy and take the pills, doesn't sound too hard to do, but no. You run off to a mission without even taking them with you! Don't you know what kind of damage you could have caused to yourself!" She yelled at him, waveing her hands in the air in frustration and throwing him those looks that could kill a weak hearted person.
Zell flushed in embarrasment. He had forgotten about the possibility of getting damaged, but he hadn't forgotten about the pills. He had taken them before he left, even a few more than he should have so the effect would last through the whole day, otherwise he might have put the others into a danger. He knew that while fighting a monster even a headache could hinder his fighting enough to change the outcome if the others weren't prepared for backing him up. Pain from wounds did nothing to him, but aching he hated, it tended to wrap his thoughts around the ache and away from the fight.
"But I did none! See, I'm fine!" Zell replied as he rose from the bed he had been resting on. The doctor was by his side in a second, preventing him from leaving the bed and fussing about tests and stuff that Zell knew nothing about. The blond laid back on the bed willingly, he had noted the painful shiver that ran all the way through him. Maybe I'd better listen to her.
The doctor sighed, shaking her head and adviced him to move all his limbs slowly, one at a time, while she probed, poked and asked him silly questions like "does that hurt" and "do you want to continue". It did hurt, it had hurt before too, but he hadn't realized it because of the strong painkillers in his system. Zell sniffed a little as he finished stretching his left leg, ache in it had been the worst. There was no additional pain from the fall in his right hand so he quessed that the doctor must have cured it.
"Now this is why I didn't give you anything to dull the pain while you were unconcious and waited for you to wake up. I did heal your injuries, as you have most likely noticed, but I wanted you to also feel the state you have driven your body into." She looked at him like she was accusing him of a murder. "But it could be worse." She continued, her expression lightening a little. "You will be completely fine in a few days if you just let your body to heal itself properly. You need bedrest Zell and I know that even if you tried you could never keep yourself still long enough for that to happen, were you in your dorm or at home under your mother's watchful eyes." She smiled at him now and Zell somehow knew that he wouldn't like whatever she was going to say next. "So I have chosen to keep you here under my very own supervision."
"WHAT!"
-
The loud noises from the Garden's cafeteria flooded into Zell's ears and when he stepped inside he had to stop just to adjust to them. Two days in a silent enviroment did miracles to one's hearing, but even without he would have heard the familiar squealing of the brunette girl that was coming towards him with enough bounce in her steps to make a medium quality superball jealous.
"Hi Zell! Where have you been? I haven't seen you in days!"
"In the infirmary. Eating horrible food and sleeping. Hyne, I'm never sleeping again!" He grumbled at Selphie who had taken his hands and was spinning around with him, unable to keep still and effectively blocking the way for other people that were trying to enter the cafeteria. She giggled and let go of his hands when their spinning speed was still relatively high and made them both fall on the floor. Zell laughed too, not caring about the quite annoyed people that were now trying to find their ways past them or about the very imaginative curses some of them let as they passed. It felt too good for him to be out of the prisen he had spent the last few days in.
They sat there for a while before Zell desided that they had angered enough people and that he really had to go to get his hot dogs now or he would be left without again. He stood up and offered a hand to Selphie who took it - still giggling - and pulled herself off the floor too.
"So, have you eaten yet?" He asked her and waved towards a lenghtening line of hungry SeeDs and cadets, who were waining to be fed, with one hand as they started walking to take a place at its end. The brunette nodded in answer to his question, but still came along.
"They are out of hot dogs." She told her friend nonchalantly as if telling him something unimportant, like that the sky was really black, but only looked blue, and then grinned at Zell when he turned to look at her. "I ate the last one."
"You what? Selphie... You ate my hot dog!" Zell screethed at her. The girl kept grinning as she left his side to find them a place to sit while the other waited in the line. Luckily Zell had been late so the line wasn't as long as it could have been, like on a bad day during the busiest hour when the line reached long way outside the cafeteria doors. Someone really ought to reorganize the event.
When it was his turn Zell grabbed something possibly close to edible, a glass of milk and an apple – for an apple a day kept the doctor away and he really didn't want to see Dr.Kadowaki in a while –, and then he searched the cafeteria for the brunette. It was an easy thing to do and he had expected it to be so as Selphie was wearing her usual bright yellow dress and was waving her hands high in the air as soon as she saw Zell approaching.
"Wanna tell me what happened there?" Zell asked as he settled in a seat opposite of his friend, pushed his tray forward to make more room for his hands and leaned over the table as if he wanted to the conversation be a secret.
"Hm? Where? At the forest?" Selphie waited for Zell to nod. "You fainted."
"No I didn't! Only girls faint, I passed out and I meant what happened after I passed out."
"Fine, however it was Seifer who told us that, you were out cold when we saw you. He carried you from the forest in his arms and it was so romantic!" Selphie squealed in excitement. Zell flushed and was about to slap the girl on her head for even thinking something like that, but a thought that came to his mind stopped him.
"Did you find it?"
Selphie blinked at him, looking like someone had just woken her up.
"The dragon. Did you find it?"
"Nah.. we were going to wait for you to show up and then go back looking in a group, but 'cause you were unconsious we had to take you to infirmary. Squall didn't think it would've been wise to wake you up there."
"You must have at least seen it. I saw it!"
"Maybe it was just a bad dream - poor Zelly – otherwise Seifer would've said something, right?" She said and ruffled Zell's hair to comfort him.
"Yeah, a dream. But hey, you have to get going now. I bet Squall was worried too, even if he never shows it, you know." Zell waved to her halfheartedly as she went to tell their headmaster that the blond was still alive and kicking, hard.
/ Seifer must have seen it if he gor me out of the forest. / Zell stuffed rest of the food he hadn't eaten yet into his mouth, swallowed and and ran off to look for the older blond. An empty tray was left to an empty table.
/ He saw it, I'm sure of it. How could he not have when he was the one who carried me back, I could feel someone pick me up after I fell off the dragon... No way it could have gotten away fast enough to remain unseen. I just don't know why he didn't tell the others, he must have wanted all the glory to himself or something. Damn, I need to find Seifer to figure this out/
It wasn't long before Zell stopped like into a wall.
/ Those eyes. /
-
Zell hadn't found Seifer even after he had searched the whole Garden, the man seemed to have vanished into thin air, or he just didn't want to be found. Zell hadn't overlooked anything. He had searched classrooms, dorms, closets and looked under every table large enough to hide the gunblader. Before the war it would have been so much more simple. He could have asked Raijin and Fujin as they always knew where Seifer was if they weren't with him and there was no table or closet that could hidden all three, but now they weren't here. They hadn't come back with their blond friend. Maybe Seifer was visiting them?
Zell had been tempted to raid a few girls rooms while searching as well, it would have given him something over Seifer if he had caught him there. However he was forced to reconsider when he remembered what the other could do to him if Zell caught him doing something naughty. Not that Zell even had codes into the girls's rooms. So anyway, Zell had ended up in the training center. Surely Dr.Kadowaki wouldn't kill him if he beated up a few grats, after all, his bedrest was already over and who was going to tell her anyway?
It had been close to half an hour when Zell's thoughts began to wander away from what he was doing. The grats were so easy to kill these days that it required no brain activity to fight them and like the blond couldn't stay still physically, his thoughts rarely stood still either and thats what people took as stupidity.
/ So much has happened lately... / Punch, kick, few more punches, another kick.
/ Seifer... / One more gratt fell on the ground, dead as a stone.
/ I don't know what to think about him... He's a bastard, an asshole, but still... / Zell zoned out as no more grats appeared, deep in his thoughts.
/ He is... He is. /
As he was still our of it, the blond was nowhere ready for what happened next. A very large t-rexaur emerged from between the trees behind him with its mighty roar ringing in the air.
"Holy shit! How did you get here?" Zell yellet out as he spun around to face the beast. It had gotten too near too fast for Zell to lay any strong attacks on it, he could almost smell te rotting fleshbetween its enormous teeth. The blond took a few very fast steps backwards to dodge the t-rexuar's jaws and cursed as it continued to advance towards him. "I thought Squall killed all of you bastards!"
The beast stopped and looked like it was laughing at him and that made Zell furious, yet he couldn't do anything if he wanted to keep all his limbs. He went quickly through the situation in his head and decited that there would be no limbs to lose if he didn't do anything, but before he could make a move to attack there was a flash of gold and the t-rexaur went down under the sudden weight of the dragon on it.
Zell gasped. It was like the dragon knew that like its pre-historic relatives, t-rexaurs were easier to kill once they fell on the ground as they couldn't get up without spending much energy and time on it. Not that there wasn't any danger anymore as the beast still had its teeth and all, but it was slowed down and its attacks were ackward as it tried to maneuver its heavy body back on its feet.
The dragon on the other hand was quick and had nothing hindering its movement and the t-rexaur's fangs didn't even scratch it. It avoided the jaws of the beast and stayed away from its madly swinging tail that would have been able to crush half of a human's bones in a one good hit. Before the beast got even off of its back the dragon had made its choise and lunged at the t-rexaur's momentarily unprotected neck.
Blood stained the ground under the fallen t-rexaur and it roared for the last time in complete agony. It turned its massive head back towards the dragon and tried to save its own life by chasing away its attacker before it was too late.
It was already too late, Zell knew it as he watched the beast collapse when all of its life had left its broken body. Then he looked at the dragon that had saved his life once again as it stood now victorious behind the body of the t-rexaur. There was blood around its mouth and on its claws, it was clearly amused by his dumbfounded expression. Zell felt both sick in his stomach and strangely excited at the same time, a new combination for him.
The dragon backed away several steps, turned away and took off before Zell had any more time to wonder about the feeling. At that exact moment every piece of the puzzle finally clicked into their right places in Zell's mind.
"Wait! SEIFER!" He shouted after the dragon before it could escape from his sight. A second went by. The dragon almost stopped, looking straight into his eyes with its green gaze and started running even faster that before. It wasn't long until Zell was completely alone with the fallen t-rexaur.
"Seifer..." It was him, Zell was sure of it.
-tbc-
Author's notes:
One more chapter to go my dear readers and then the possible sequel. If anyone wants me to write it I'd like to know now or I won't bother, I have other things to write too. That's why this was so late too, I have had this written for some time, but I wanted to update this at the same time as I update my other fic.
About the sequel, I have already some ideas for it, but if I write it it's going to take some time as I won't most likely write it before I finish some of my older fics. I always promise to do it... but whatever. And I have another SeiferZell fic I'm working on too at this moment, so I'm going to finish that too... Seifer has a cat in it. And such a wonderful little cat it is.