Well, well, look who decided to post an update XD Tadaaaa! Happy Halloween!

I am soooo sorry it took me this long to update! Classes are eating my brain o.O I feel like a zombie.

Jennypen: Lol I hope it didn't ruin your day! I can't say that this is a warm fuzzies chapter, but it's a lot less depressing than the last one XD And yes, Sephiroth needs to get his buttocks kicked. Too bad he's alive in KH -.-

TriforceBrave: Aww! Well, I'm glad people got emotional over it and I wasn't the only one in tears XD I felt like a wuss there for a while . . . And I'm sorry it took so long to update! I hope it's worth the wait :)

Evil StormSister: I'm so glad you liked it XD You're always so great with the constructive criticism! Thank you for helping me improve :) And on the long death scene, I kind of intended it to seem like things slowed down. Basically, Squall's world just came to a screeching halt and I wanted to emphasize that. Maybe it was too much, though? And, unfortunately, I've mentioned a few times that Laguna was his father, but that would have been neat! Bah, now I want to rewrite things XP

KMSaum: Thank you for all the help! I used, like, all of your suggestions XD I liked the one about Lea. It was very fitting ^-^ I'll be messaging you after this.

To all who call for Sephiroth's blood: unfortunately, he is alive in Kingdom Hearts and Squall can't kill him *pouts*. Or . . .can he . . .? Bwahahaha!

Special thanks to KMSaum! She is a brilliant beta and a brilliant writer. Go check out her fics!

Squall knelt on the floor, bruised, bloody and exhausted. His body had failed him and he no longer possessed the ability to move. His muscles burned and his wounds seeped blood on the cold metal floor. The worst pain, however, was the sharp ache in his heart.

He stared up at Sephiroth with weary eyes. The general in return regarded him with a considering look as he held Masamune to his throat. The sharp blade opened a small cut that streamed blood down his neck.

Surely that had been enough time? Irvine, Selphie and Cloud should be safe now. He could die now, when he had nothing more to lose.

He wouldn't fail anyone ever again.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Squall rasped, cradling his bleeding arm to his chest. He somehow managed to summon a smile to his lips, but it wasn't the mad one. It was an empty, knowing smile. "Go ahead."

Sephiroth's own smile graced his features. "You are worthless to me dead."

Squall's heart sank. Those were not words Squall wanted to hear. If he didn't die, then he'd have to live.

Live knowing they were all dead.

"Kill me while you can," Squall hissed. "I won't rest until one of us is dead."

Sephiroth's cold laugh echoed through the corridor. "Your wrath is the least of my concerns. What I'm interested in right now is your heart."

"You can have it when you cut it out of my corpse," Squall snarled, though it sounded more like a hiss. He didn't even have the strength to voice his anger anymore. His vision was starting to blur around the edges, too. It wouldn't be much longer before blood loss and exhaustion caused him to pass out.

"Hmm. Perhaps you have not felt the full weight of your despair after all," Sephiroth considered.

Please.

"Today is not your day to die, Squall Leonhart."

Please let me die.

"You'll see me again when your misery overwhelms you."

It already has.

And like a shadow, Sephiroth disappeared into the darkness. There was no sound but his own gasping breath and the beat of his heart.

His heart. The cause of all of this.

Squall's eyes slowly drifted up from the floor to rest on the bodies. Zell. Always vibrant and lively, ready to tell a joke or get into a brawl. Quistis, with her authoritative manner and her quiet wisdom.

Laguna. The one that smiled and could think up a silver lining for any situation. Always forgiving and open, even when Squall was closed to his efforts. Always loving when Squall was unlovable. The last of his family.

Dead.

It was a long time before Squall was able to move. When he finally did, he dragged himself across the floor, leaving a smear of blood in his wake. He made it to Laguna's side and put his head on his father's chest.

It was strangely cold and silent.

The tears came unbidden.

"Squall."

He wasn't moving this time. He wasn't going to open his eyes.

"Squall!"

It made no difference, now.

There was more screaming, but he didn't listen.

He drifted.

Zack raised a weary hand to rub his eyes, trying to coax them into focus. The sooner he finished this paperwork, the sooner he could leave and get home to his wife. No doubt she'd need some help with Cloud and Squall to look after . . .

He started to read again, slowly trying to make sense of the first sentence. Finally, on the third try, he pushed it aside. There was no point in this, now. Coming into the office on an evening like this, on a day like this, was pointless.

He couldn't get the sight of them out of his mind . . .

Zack filed away the reports, donned his weapon and left his office. Maybe Cloud would be awake by now. He would need to see a friendly face when he came to. Squall might need someone to talk to, as well.

With that thought as motivation, Zack made his way though the halls for the officer suites. When he turned the corner, though, he almost ran right into someone.

"Squall," Zack said in surprise. At the sight of him, though, his tone turned cautious. "Squall, you shouldn't be out of bed. Aeris didn't let you leave, did she?"

Squall looked at him as if he just noticed he was there. "Zack?" he asked. His voice was the same timbre Zack might have expected a lost child to posses.

"Yes, it's me," Zack responded. He took a moment to regard Squall. The man had dark circles under his glassy eyes. He was pale, his hair mussed and clothes disheveled. Bandages wound around most of his visible skin and disappeared underneath his clothing, some colored red with blood.

More disconcerting than anything, though, was the look he was giving everything around him, as if he couldn't really process it. Lost was a good word. He didn't look at all like the brooding, contemplative warrior Zack had come to know.

"Have you seen Lea yet?" Zack asked, hoping the familiar name would jar some kind of reaction out of him.

Squall just blinked. It didn't even look like he was listening anymore. What was wrong with him? It was like nothing was really getting through . . .

Maybe a more familiar name? "What about Irvine? Or Selphie?" Zack tried, hoping the names weren't too close to home.

The names seemed to stir him into focus again, for his eyes slowly slid to Zack's face. "Are they dead, too?"

The question completely disarmed Zack. "What? No, Squall! They're not dead!"

"Oh," was all Squall said. He made no move to keep walking. He just stood there, his eyes wondering to view the carpet under their feet. Zack noticed that his feet were bare.

Memory loss related to the event, emotional numbness, severe difficulty concentrating; all were symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. But what of this sudden change in personality? Could it be some kind of coping mechanism? Zack had never seen anyone change so completely and so suddenly before.

But unless Squall tried to hurt himself or someone else, it was much too late to be calling in the psychiatrist. Besides, Aeris could probably sedate him and they could see how he was doing in the morning.

Like a good night's sleep could fix this.

"Come on, Squall. You need some sleep," Zack said, placing a hand on Squall's shoulder.

Squall glanced at it, seemingly surprised it was there. "Laguna does that," Squall commented, his voice barely audible as if he were lost in a memory.

Zack's heart clenched. "He did, didn't he? Let's go."

Zack slowly guided him back through the halls to the suite he and Aeris now shared with three wounded men. It was surprising how much their home had changed in the past few hours. The place, though still homey, now possessed an almost bleak atmosphere that even the cheery yellow curtains and fresh flowers on the table couldn't quite fight off.

Aeris met them at the door, looking relieved at the sight of Squall. With only a quick smile of greeting to Zack, she ushered her charge inside and to bed on one of the couches. Lea had been moved to other sofa, while Cloud, his injuries being the greatest, took the bed in their bedroom.

Lea, though, wasn't on his designated couch. He was sitting up at the table, a half-eaten sandwich sitting on the plate in front of him. He watched with an almost cat-like gaze as Aeris injected a sedative in Squall's arm and wrapped a blanket around him.

Then his eyes went back to meet Zack's. "Evening, General," he greeted in a tight voice Zack couldn't make sense of.

"How are you feeling?" Zack asked, removing his Buster sword from his back and placing it by the door.

"Better, actually," he said. "I think Cloud's awake."

Zack immediately turned and went to the bedroom door. He knocked quietly, more in warning than anything, then went in.

Cloud was just a small lump under the covers, the sheets rising and falling with his steady breathing. All that could be seen of him were a few stray locks of blonde hair poking from underneath.

And that wing. It extended from underneath the covers and over the side of the bed, as if Cloud were doing his best to separate it from himself.

"Cloud?" Zack asked, taking a seat by the bedside. "You awake?"

"Go away, Zack," Cloud's voice murmured from inside the sheets. He sounded exhausted and in pain.

"That's not any way to greet your friend, Cloud," Zack admonished lightly, careful to mask his concern. That didn't sound like Cloud at all. Granted, Cloud had just been through one of the worst things imaginable, but Zack would have expected crying. Not . . .this. "How do you feel?"

"I asked you to leave."

Zack frowned. "Cloud, I know you probably feel a bit lost right now¾"

"You don't know anything."

The venom in Cloud's voice completely caught Zack unawares. "Cloud?"

There was a slow, measured sigh from underneath the linens. "Just . . .leave."

Zack stared at the lump in the bed a moment longer before saying, "Alright, Cloud. Me and Aeris are here if you need anything, okay?" He stood up and made his way to the door. Cloud said nothing as he left.

Zack shut the door behind him and leaned against it with a weary sigh. Two of his good friends were hurt in ways Zack couldn't even imagine, and he was powerless to do anything about it.

And he couldn't help but feel that it was his fault.

"Zack?"

He looked up and forced a wide grin on his face for Aeris, pushing off the door and holding his arms out to receive her. She gave him a soft, knowing smile and obligingly wrapped her arms around him. "Did you get anything done? You weren't gone that long," she said into his chest.

"I figured you could use some help around here," he said, glancing from Squall out cold on the couch, to Lea, who seemed to be finding the remaining crust of his sandwich particularly interesting.

"I think everything should be fine for now," Aeris said, backing away to look up at his face. "How was Cloud? He wouldn't say a word to me earlier." Her beautiful face was lined with worry.

Zack couldn't meet her gaze. "I don't know. He asked me to leave."

"I'm worried about him," she confessed quietly.

"Me, too."

"Do you know what happened?" she asked after a long silence, her grip tightening a bit around his biceps.

"All I got out of Irvine was 'Sephiroth,'," Zack said, spitting the name. Maybe that was why this situation seemed so surreal. Sephiroth had been someone Zack had trusted and looked up to, only to find out that Zack and his friends were little more than a science experiment to him.

Soft lips on his jarred him from his thoughts. Aeris pulled away before he could properly return the gesture, though. "Why don't you sit down? I'll get you something to eat." She turned around and went back to the kitchen.

Zack took a seat at the table across from Lea. As he sat down, the redhead looked up.

"What now?" he asked, almost casually. But the inflection wasn't right for it to simply be a casual question.

Zack couldn't decipher the motive behind it, though. And there was no harm in answering to a man that had already proved his loyalties.

Zack shook his head. "I don't know. By the time I got down to the basement, Xehanort and his crew were gone. Sephiroth, too. Half the base is out scouring the town for them now." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Ansem's declared them outlaws and put a price on their heads, but that probably won't do any good. They're probably half-way to another world by now."

"Any ships missing?" Lea asked.

Zack shrugged. "Not my department. Admiral Highwind doesn't like to share his shortcomings with me, either. I'll probably find out tomorrow when I go to meet with Ansem."

Lea seemed to mull the information over for a bit before saying, "Do you think Sephiroth's going to show back up?"

"Not if he has any sense of self-preservation," Zack said with a glare.

Lea smirked. "Plans for vengeance?"

"You bet your life there are," Zack growled.

"I think there's a line." Lea glanced down at his crust, checking his progress as he slowly destroyed it between his fingers.

Zack watched him for a while, then finally asked what was on his mind. "How do you fit into all of this?"

Lea glanced up and arched an eyebrow, asking him to continue.

"You show up, a guy with no history, no identity-"

"You looked?" He didn't sound all that surprised.

"I had someone look into it for me. What's your connection with these people? How do you know all of these things you shouldn't? Who are you?"

"It's no surprise they erased all of my records," he said, his eyes back on his food. "Wouldn't want someone to come looking for me in the middle of their work."

"What are you talking about?" Zack asked.

Lea's reply was forestalled as Aeris returned and set a plate down in front of Zack. She sat down beside him and the focus was on Lea once more.

"Do you know what a Nobody is?" he asked, abandoning his bread and leaning back in his chair in a slouch.

Zack and Aeris glanced at each other, then back at Lea with a negative reply.

"Well, then, let's start at the beginning," he said. He tilted his head back and spoke to the ceiling. "I grew up in a little town a few miles from here. Armer. Well, my parents died when I was too young to remember, and my grandmother took me in. She died when I was about eight. We didn't have an orphanage or anything like that, and a few months on the streets did a number on me. One night, I got into a brawl with a guy twice my size at a homeless shelter and got thrown out. My injuries combined with the weather basically killed me."

It took them both a moment to process that. "You're . . .dead?" Aeris asked.

Lea smirked, leaning up to look at her. "Close to it. You see, Heartless aren't the only things that can cause you to loose your heart. The simple things, like hatred and despair, can do it, too. Not only did Lea die, but he made a Heartless and a Nobody to go with it.

"So, now I was homeless and starving, and heartless," he continued, again tilting his head back. "Somehow I made my way to Radiant Garden. Some guy took me in and let me work for my room and board, I made a friend, life went on. Until I had a run in with Xehanort."

"Xehanort?" Zack asked. "What happened?"

Lea leaned up to give him an irritated look. "If you'd stop interrupting, I'll get to it." Zack obediently shut up and Lea resumed. "He had apparently been digging through some medical records in Radiant Garden and found mention of some guy without a heartbeat. With all of his research about hearts and stuff, well, this was just too interesting to pass up, I guess. He looked me up and came knocking."

Lea leaned over and put his head in his hands. "Like an idiot, I believed him when he said he could get my heart back. Just, 'Sign here, fill this out, and ignore the fine print,'. I went with him. Didn't see the light of day for six years."

Zack's mouth went dry. Six years in the possession of scum like that? He could only imagine what Lea must have gone through. But he wasn't going to press for elaboration. Not with his wife in the room, anyway. "Then what?"

"One night, when they thought I was too sick to move, I got out. They got cocky and left the cell door unlocked. I hid out in some dusty corner of the castle for a while until some kid found me. Isa got me out of there and took care of me until I got back on my feet."

Lea lifted his head and grinned. It was nothing if not mad. "And that's when I made it my life's goal to take them out."

As unsettling as the look was, Aeris thought of a more unsettling notion. "Was Ansem involved?" she asked quietly.

The grin slid off of his features. "Never saw him down there. He probably didn't know."

Aeris sighed in relief. After that, though, a stiff silence fell over the table.

"You should get some sleep," Zack finally told Lea. "You, too," he added to Aeris. "These next few days are going to be interesting."

Squall listened quietly with only faint interest as voices murmured in the background. If he tried hard enough, he could make out the owners of the voices, but he wasn't really trying that hard. He vaguely felt the vocal chords in his throat hum a response, but he wasn't sure what he said.

He didn't really care, either. He was content here. There were no demands, no responsibilities. He could pass the time with mindless thoughts and careless muses until he drifted into unconsciousness, then awake and do it over again. Nothing mattered anymore. Even his nagging conscience required no more than a gentle dismissal before he was left in peace again.

"Then what?"

The voice startled him so that he jumped and whirled around. He was no longer in the nothingness that was his metal reprieve, but he was in his dorm room, back at Balamb. The bed was made, several personal items were strewn here and there, and bright, indefinite light filtered in through the window. He couldn't make out anything beyond the panes, except more light. The room rang with an empty hollowness.

"And then what?" the voice repeated.

Suddenly, on the bed, sat a girl. She looked as if she had been sitting there the whole time, with her dark brown eyes trained on him and a curious look on her face. Dark hair fell down her back and her delicate fingers clutched at her blue sweater.

The most beautiful sight Squall had ever beheld.

"Rinoa," he whispered.

Well, we got to see Lea again! And we found out what some of his creepin was about. And Rinoa! I love Rinoa ^.^

Next chapter, methinks we shall find out what Xehanort and his croonies are up to. Hopefully it won't take forever for me to write.

Personal Note: I would again like to thank those of you that are and have been praying for my granddad. He's been doing better recently, and the chemo seems to be working. Of course, we know it's not going to cure him, but God has blessed us with more time :) Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Hope all of you have a wonderful Halloween weekend! Go carve some pumpkins and watch scary movies! Looking forward to seeing you next chapter!

God Bless,

-RainFlame