Blah, same Disclaimer as usual. Not mine.

Seifer was in shock. Zell was already below the water, barely a splash to indicate where had hit. Others were already searching with floodlights and spells, leaving Seifer to think.

Was it his fault? He had startled Zell when he came out onto the balcony, he knew. He had seen Zell sitting there alone when he went by in the Ragnarok. He had surprised Zell, and Zell had fallen. But why the hell had Zell been up there?

Seifer turned to leave the balcony. To join the search going on below, when he saw the envelopes. A pile of them, weighted down with an empty wine bottle. He picked one up. It simply said "Ma" on it. He looked at the next. Cid. Irvine. Quistis. …Seifer. He ripped open that one, and unfolded the paper.

By the time he was done, he didn't know whether or not to be pissed at Zell, or pissed at everyone else, he just knew he was angry with someone. Zell had committed suicide, and it was his, and everyone else's fault. When the door began to open, Seifer grabbed all the envelopes, and shoved them into his trench coat pocket. He didn't know if he'd tell the others about them.

"You. What the HELL did you do to him!" Squall. Of course it would be Squall. When Seifer didn't give a reply right away, he quickly found a blade pointing at him. "What? Did you think it would be funny to push him over? Or did you shove him and he just 'accidentally' went over." It took a moment, but Seifer realized Squall was blaming him for causing Zell to fall. Of course he was, Seifer thought. So he quietly reached down, and picked up his gunblade. He parried the first strike just in time.

It was like a dark mirror Seifer thought as he sought to disable Squall without harming him. Squall was fighting with extreme passion, while he merely felt…detached. Interesting.

The fight was broken up by whip that wrapped around Seifer's blade, pulling it out of his hand, clattering to the ground, as Irvine held Squall back. "That is quite enough" Quistis snapped. "We're landing in Balamb soon…and we haven't found any trace of Zell. We need…we need to tell his mother."

"I'll go" Seifer and Squall both spoke in unison. Seifer didn't know why Squall was insistent on doing it, but he knew why he was. He didn't say aloud that Zell had asked him, in the letter, to deliver his Ma's personally.

Seifer loathed his dress uniform. He hated the purpose of wearing it even more. He carried the framed uniform stiffly, Zell's dress SeeD uniform pressed and cleaned before being folded into its own glass coffin. They never did find the body. His one strand of good mood was the unspoken agreement with Squall. Once this business was done, they would fight it out. Whoever one would simply tell the Garden a monster got the other one. They would know, but nobody would say anything about the truth.

Squall knocked on the door. After a few moments, it opened, and Seifer could see that Ma Dincht had just come back from doing groceries. "Good day, ma'am." Squall could sound polite when need be.

"Oh, Zell's friends. I'll be just a moment, tell him to show you into the living room, and he should know better than to kno-." He voice stopped when she saw the framed uniform, and the expression on the face of the two SeeD officers. "I…I always feared this day…I…I" She stopped slowly, the tears welling in her eyes. "Sit down, please…"

As they moved onto the couch opposite the now weeping woman, Seifer knew what he had to do, and began to reach for the envelope in his chest pocket. Then the door swung open, and a soaked, and disheveled looking blonde stumbled in, managed to mumble "Hey guys" and pass out, face first, on the floor.

AN: Again, thanks for the kind reviews, but please, some criticisms. I can't improve until I know what I do wrong.