Memories had been haunting Squall for the better part of his life. Often they were not even fully remembered, dreamlike images of the orphanage, his early years at Garden or the hectic events of the Third Sorceress War. Or the day he had learned that Cid and Edea had died, and he had felt more alone then than ever since the day Ellone had left the orphanage. The GF were making the details fade and specifics blurred, but the images and the feelings remained as strong as ever.

But lately, Rinoa had been taking the lion's share of his thoughts. The few short weeks they had been together seemed to have left an impression stronger than anything else in his life; enough that he had endured a year of waiting with the unflagging hope of seeing her again. Especially since her capture, his thoughts had barely been able to focus on anything else.

And now she lay not a meter behind him, yet barely registered as an afterthought. Now it was Quistis whom Squall couldn't get out of his mind; and his memories were only a few hours old. It seemed that he would never be able to escape the look on her face when he had finally defeated her, and the disbelief that was still in her eyes. It would have been bad enough that she probably thought he'd betrayed her; but even at the end, she hadn't been willing to accept it. Squall was certain that she had been trying to understand with her last conscious thought.

But it was true. Squall had betrayed her, betrayed them all. Not to the Galbadians, or anyone else; but he had turned his back on his companions without so much as a word. He knew that he had acted in the best interests of Garden, but in doing so he had broken the trust of his friends and assaulted them to boot. No matter how he attempted to rationalize his decision, the memory of the look in Quistis' eyes was enough to drown out any such thoughts.

When Squall first caught sight of the Winhill shore on the horizon ahead of him, the morning sun still hung low over the sea. Forced for the moment to live in the present, he found a rocky, deserted beach and ran the Galbadian hovercraft straight up out of the water without even slowing down; he kept going northward, uphill as far as the vessel could take him. He then shut the engine down, then slumped over the controls, panting as if he had been holding his breath all the way from Battleship Island.

For several long minutes, he just sat in the operator's seat, within sight of the coast and in the massive shadow of Shenand Hill. The sun was up now, but the sky was becoming cloudy and a dreary mood fell across the land. Squall had no difficulty in sharing it; all the thoughts that had simply cluttered up his mind while he was fleeing across the sea at one hundred fifty kilometers per hour could no longer be put off for him to avoid thinking about.

Where can I possibly go from here? he wondered. In escaping the Galbadians, he had very effectively burned all his bridges with SeeD as well. Even assuming the others could forgive him for what he had done to Quistis and Zell, he could not jeopardize Garden by seeking shelter there now. He had to go into hiding, somewhere the Galbadians couldn't possibly find him.

He had no idea where such a place might be.

Fishermans Horizon would probably take him in, he thought; but FH was hardly secure from the Galbadian microscope. He could attempt to take refuge in Trabia, perhaps with the Shumis; but he was presently in South Winhill, and he doubted that his stolen hovercraft's fuel supply would last quite long enough to propel him halfway around the world.

And there was Esthar. Laguna would take him in, no doubt; but Esthar was also quite far away, and he knew of no means of entry save walking across the Horizon Bridge — an experience that had been grueling enough when he'd only had to cross half of it.

Shaking his head, Squall shed the safety harness that had held him to the hovercraft's seat, then turned to do the same for Rinoa. Her condition had not improved since he had removed her from Battleship Island; she appeared conscious in that her eyes were open, but they did not seem to see Squall or anything else, and she seemed entirely too weak to move.

"Rinoa?" he asked, still hoping that some acknowledgment would be forthcoming from her. "It's Squall. You're safe now. I've got you away from those Galbadian bastards, and if they come for you again, they'll have to deal with me first."

His words provoked little response. Rinoa's eyes fluttered slightly, and that seemed to be the extent of her range of motion.

"Rinoa, please tell me you're going to be okay," Squall begged. "Say something. I just need to hear your voice."

Rinoa's eyes fluttered again, and her lips parted sluggishly as if she were trying to remember how to use them. Still, she uttered no sound.

"Oh god, Rinoa," Squall whispered, feeling a sudden need to embrace her. "What did they do to you? I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I'm sorry I couldn't prevent this." He discovered that his whole body was shaking now, and tears were stinging his eyes. "It'll never happen again. I won't ever leave again, Rinoa. I promise."

He could not discern any clear response from Rinoa at all.

It only dimly registered in Xu's mind that it was nearly dinnertime, and she had therefore been holed up in her office for a good twelve hours, with only her aborted breakfast to provide a brief respite from her work. This wasn't too unusual in and of itself nowadays, so it was rather the nature of her work that she gave the most concern to.

What she knew was that Galbadia's armed forces had gone to National Alert Condition 3, and a half-dozen of SeeD's joint contracts with Galbadia had been canceled; nearly twenty SeeDs who had been working directly with Galbadian forces were already on their way home. While this was good news in itself, it also meant that Galbadia distrusted Garden enough to give up SeeD assistance on a number of operations that had been termed "of extremely serious concern to Galbadian security" when SeeD had first been requested. It also made her concerned for the fate of the teams that were not being sent home.

The remaining SeeD deployments were all in areas like Dollet or the Dingo area, well away from Galbadia itself. Xu guessed that the intent was to keep SeeDs away from the Galbadian homeland, perhaps in preparation for a propaganda campaign to demonize Garden or simply to prevent SeeD from moving directly against the Galbadian government. Also, the teams were all operating close to or under the supervision of far superior Galbadian military forces, who might have orders now to capture or eliminate the SeeDs if they were given any cause to.

She didn't know what had triggered all this, and she could only guess that the Galbadians hadn't made the whole thing up, because they probably wouldn't have bothered going to all this trouble if they had. She didn't know how much danger Garden was in, or if she should expect Galbadian reprisal sooner, later, or at all. And she didn't know how she could possibly do anything from behind a desk here in Balamb.

There was a knock on the door, and Lauren stepped in. "You wanted to see Linnis before she headed out?" she said.

Xu nodded, remembering that there was something she could do. "Yes, I did. Is she here now?"

Lauren nodded. "She's right outside."

Xu nodded again. "Please."

The other SeeD exited, then a slim, sandy-haired girl stepped into the office. "Linnis Cochran reporting, ma'am," she said, saluting.

Xu stood and returned the salute. "I'm sorry to take up your time when you're just about to depart, Linnis, but I have additional orders for you."

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

Xu nodded. "You could say that, yes. I doubt I have enough information myself to explain very well, but Galbadia is claiming that one of our SeeDs on deployment to an undisclosed location has turned against them and gone rogue. They're not releasing any details whatsoever, but I think they believe it was part of some larger plot by Garden."

Linnis was immediately concerned. "Are they going to do something?"

"I really don't know," said Xu. "They could be. That's what I need to speak to you about. I'm not in contact with our SeeD team, so right now all I know is what the Galbadians tell me. And as you can guess, they aren't being particularly talkative."

"...And you want me to get answers for you." Understanding was dawning in the SeeD's face.

"Right now, I'm most concerned about Galbadian retaliation. They're sending home all the SeeD teams who might be able to pre-empt such a move, but yours will still be heading to Dollet without any declared change in mission." She sighed. "I don't know if you'll be able to find out anything, but if they decide to attack Garden, we'll need all the warning we can get. So I want you to collect all the information you can, without doing anything that's too suspicious. Report back whenever you can, and if you find information that Galbadia is about to attack, you should take whatever steps you can to protect Garden."

Expression grim, Linnis nodded. "Got it."

Xu stood and saluted. "Good luck. I know you'll do your best." As the other SeeD turned and stepped out of the office, she quietly added, "And let's all hope that our best is good enough this time."