The town was a cluster of some five hundred individuals by a rail station that most trains would roll straight past without a second thought. There were only two — one a passenger train that came every day, one a freight train that came twice a week — that would actually stop at this sleepy east Lanker community, and most of the traffic involved farm goods being sent into the city to be sold. Though it was technically part of the territories annexed by Galbadia during its invasion of Timber, the occupants did not particularly care whose flag was flying from their courthouse, as national politics concerned them little and no soldiers, Timber or Galbadian, had ever found cause to linger there for long.
The fact that it was just about everything that Squall could have hoped for was mostly luck; he had become so desperate that he probably would have marched straight into Deling City, had that been where he found himself.
"Can you help me?" he demanded while barging through the doors to the local clinic. "She needs medical attention, right away!"
There were two individuals in the waiting room, a young man and older woman, both dressed in hospital garb. For a moment, they just stood and stared at him; and Squall wondered if the Galbadians might have already warned them to be on the lookout for someone in a fur coat carrying a Sorceress. But if they had, it was too late to do anything anyway.
"She needs food; she hasn't eaten in days, and she's really weak, and —" Squall caught himself in midsentence; beyond 'she was tortured by government scientists', he really didn't know what else was wrong with her. "Please, just help her!"
The two attendants glanced at each other, then back to Squall. "Uh...," the young man said, "...what's your...name and —"
"Follow me," the woman instructed, starting for the door marked PATIENTS. Squall needed no further invitation.
The woman led him down a short hall to a care ward with two dozen or so beds lined up against each wall; most were unoccupied, though here and there one would have curtains drawn around it and the beeping of vitals monitors came from within. "Just set her down there," she said, pointing to the nearest bed to the door as she picked up a telephone on the wall and dialed a number that Squall didn't bother to observe. "...Amey? It looks like I sent you home too early; a patient just came in. ...Yes, right away; I'm sorry if I interrupted your supper. ...Oh, good. So you'll come right over, then? ...Wonderful. Goodbye." She turned back to Squall. "I'll have to ask you to wait outside now," she said.
Squall caught himself before refusing; it was best, he reasoned, not to make any more of a scene than he had already. "Will she be all right?"
"I'll have to examine her first," the woman said. "I'll tell you when I know. Please, wait outside."
Hesitantly, Squall nodded. At a loss for anything else to say, he awkwardly backed out the door; and, ignoring the fact that the young man at the desk was clearly staring at him, he took a seat in the corner of the waiting room.
For the first time since he had taken Rinoa from the DSRC, everything seemed to be standing still. The arrival of another young woman, who hurried through the door towards the care ward with only a single quick glance at Squall, demonstrated that time was in fact progressing forward at a reasonable pace; but Squall had some difficulty accepting that, after two straight days of running, he suddenly had nothing to do.
He could eat, he thought. Having not eaten in two days, one would imagine that he would be starving by now; and without the GFs shoring up his physiology, he almost certainly would be. Yet for all he knew about the dangers of becoming physically dependent on the GF, Squall couldn't bring himself to get any farther from Rinoa than he was at that instant. Simply having her out of his sight was already beginning to weigh on him.
Now that he had time to start thinking about things, Squall did begin to wonder how much he could trust these people. This town was part of Galbadia; would they discover his or Rinoa's identity, and alert the G-Army? Would he be able to fight his way out in his present condition if they did? Where could he go, so that the Galbadians couldn't follow him?
It didn't fully register to him how tired he was until he noticed that the clock on the opposite wall had jumped from 20:08 to 21:13 in what seemed like the space of only a few moments. Alarmed, Squall sat bolt upright, resisting the urge to dash into the care ward and make sure that Rinoa hadn't been taken away while he was dozing off. His action seemed to draw the attention of the other individual in the room; this was not the young man whom had been there before, but the young woman who had hurried into the care ward an hour and a half earlier. Frowning at him, she opened a small refrigerator and produced a bottle of soda.
"Here," she said, offering him the drink. "I'm sorry; we're out of coffee, so this is all we have."
Squall did consider the possible range of ulterior motives she could have for offering him the drink, but not for long. Seeing it caused him to realize just how powerfully thirsty he was. "...Thanks," he muttered, taking it and fumbling with the cap.
The other woman hesitated. "She...the girl you brought in, uh, with you, we think she'll be okay. It looks like she's just exhausted, so all she really needs is rest. Dr. Wayfield wants to do a few more tests on her tomorrow because of some kind of weird readings we get from her nervous system, but they shouldn't be any big deal."
Squall nodded, sinking back into his seat. His relief was short-lived, however, as a new thought jumped to mind. "How long?" he asked, before he could think of a more coherent way to phrase his inquiry.
"We'd like to keep her here for the rest of the week, I'd guess," she replied. "Though you'd have to ask Dr. Wayfield to be sure." She sat down next to Squall, with a somewhat concerned expression. "Are you all right? No offense, but you look like you carried her all the way from Esthar."
"I feel like I did," said Squall, rather than clarifying his actual point of origin. "...Do you have anything to eat?"
She nodded, rising again. "I can run over to the general store and get something, no problem." Turning to do so, she paused. "I'm Amey, by the way."
Squall nodded, for a moment thinking about introducing himself in turn. "...Nice to meet you," he said.
Amey's eyebrows twitched, but she didn't force the issue. Flashing a friendly smile, she turned and left Squall completely alone in the waiting room.
It was well past sundown, but no one of the SeeD team felt at all inclined towards rest. Even if they had, the dozen-strong force of Galbadian soldiers would have put an end to such ambitions quickly enough.
"Registry DSRC-024," reported one of the soldiers, examining the ship's identity number. "She's the one, all right."
"Any idea how long it's been here?" Quistis asked.
"Given the distance we are from the facility, it would've taken about six hours to get here, minimum." The soldier glanced over the vehicle again. "Engine looks like it was getting pushed pretty hard, so that seems like a fair bet."
"So he probably came ashore sometime yesterday morning," said Nida. "There's no town nearby; which way do you think he headed?"
"Well, he's been to Winhill before," Quistis mused, "so he might have headed west for that reason. There isn't much else in the southwest part of the continent; it'd be a good place to hide."
"If I wanted to hide, I would've headed for Centra," Nida observed.
Zell was pacing. He'd been doing that pretty much constantly for the past few hours, even on the transport at sea; pacing, shadowboxing, even fidgeting when he'd had to sit down. He honestly felt as if he might explode if he didn't keep moving. Explode and probably kill somebody, most likely the nearest man in a Galbadian uniform.
Man I can't believe we're doing this, helping the Galbadians hunt down Squall instead of helping Squall and kicking their goddamn asses back to Deling City or better straight to hell for what they did to Rinoa — He threw a wild punch at nothing at all. Keeping in motion didn't do much to stop the thoughts careening through his head, but it seemed to make him feel a little better. And random physical outbursts could usually interrupt his train of thought for a moment or two.
A second later, he realized that Paige had been standing not too far away from him at the time. Although he hadn't been in any danger of actually striking her, she did recoil at his action.
"Um —" Zell quickly attempted to gain composure. "S-sorry."
Paige smiled, faintly, for just an instant; but she still looked a little frightened.
"I was just...gettin' kinda carried away, there," Zell tried again. "I should've been payin' more attention; I just —"
"I-it's okay," Paige interrupted, haltingly. "I mean, I know how bad this all is, and..." She trailed off. "So...don't worry about it."
Zell frowned; an alternate explanation for Paige's expression was beginning to dawn for him. "Hey, you okay with all this?" he asked. "I mean, it sure is something, for your first mission 'n all."
She sighed, starting to sit down before she realized there was nothing to sit on but damp grass. "It feels like I've been a SeeD forever," she said. "...and I've just forgot all the stuff I learned...how to handle situations like this. Except really, I-I never knew how in the first place."
Zell knew this was the time to be sensitive, to reassure her somehow. He could remember on his own first SeeD mission, when they had just barely escaped from Timber and it had seemed like the Galbadians might attack Garden because of his stupid gaffe; and where he had drawn his assurance from that everything could still turn out all right.
"Hey, don't worry!" he said confidently. "Just follow Squall's lead, and everything'll —"
He cut himself off. Oops.
An uncomfortable silence followed, which was eventually broken by the entry of another figure into the discussion.
"You know, I never could get what the deal was with Squall," Karenna said, joining the two of them. "I mean, everyone in Garden admires him, but since I met him all he ever did was stare at the wall, or the floor, or a nearby rock, or something. Kinda left me wondering if he could care less about any of us."
"Hey, he's just got a lot on his mind lately!" Zell said, immediately defensive. "I mean, if the Galbadians captured my girlfriend and started doin' all sorts of experiments on her, I'd —" He cut himself off again, as he realized that his girlfriend was standing right in front of him and bearing a slightly wide-eyed expression.
"Well, yeah, no kidding," said Karenna. "But this must've been sort of an issue in the Ultimecia campaign, and I keep hearing how he did a pretty good job leading you guys through that. Now it seems like the most responsible thing he did was when he run off so you guys wouldn't take the fall for him."
"You callin' Squall irresponsible?" Zell demanded. He tried not to be too annoyed, because Karenna was Paige's friend, but his efforts at self-control were meeting with only moderate success.
"What did you want Squall to do?" Paige asked.
Karenna shrugged. "I dunno. Something inspirational. Something leaderlike; you know, something. I mean, he did that sort of thing a year ago, right?"
Paige nodded. "Yeah. I mean...when he had to."
"But now, he barely even talks to you guys. I mean, ever. And when he decided to rescue the Sorceress — uh, Rinoa — he didn't say a word to anyone. I mean, he could've at least discussed things with us before he went and beat up you and Quistis."
"Squall must've known what he was doing," Zell insisted, though not as forcefully as he thought he should. To his surprise, he was actually finding himself doubting Squall on that particular issue himself.
The younger SeeD looked noncommittal. "Well, I guess a leader's got to make quick decisions; and I'm sure to Hyne I wouldn't have known what to do if I were in his shoes. Still, if somebody's leading me, I kind of have to trust that he knows where he's leading me to. And I'm just not sure Squall does."
"Maybe he just didn't have a choice," said Paige. "He's just doing what he has to."
"Yeah!" Zell jumped at this idea. However, somewhere at the back of his mind, the thought began to nag at him that, for whatever reason, there might be something dangerously wrong with the notion.
"All right, let's move out!" Quistis called, ending the discussion. "If there's no sign of Squall at the port, we'll check south Lanker; and hopefully he didn't head west." The SeeDs and Galbadians began to pile into the half-dozen all-terrain vehicles that had been given to them for the mission. "Let's see if we can make up for the lead he's got on us. Come on!"
Glancing at each other, the three SeeDs hurried to join them. Zell offered Paige what he hoped was a reassuring clap on the shoulder as he jumped into the back of the transport; and she smiled, somewhat less faintly, in return.