Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. I do not profit from this writing.

Author's Note: This is part of the What If series.

Prompt 010

Interruption

If Celes had gone crazy instead of Kefka.

"GET OUT!"

Twenty-year old Terra Branford ducked swiftly as a vase the size of her head shattered against the door she'd yanked shut behind her. Magic crackled at her fingertips as she fought every urge not to go back in there and wipe the floor with Celes, who was physically her match in almost every way. But no, something was wrong, and it wasn't just her attitude. It was her – everything. Everything about her was misaligned somehow, out of balance. Terra was going to try again tomorrow, as she always did, putting her misplaced anger aside for the moment. She couldn't blame Celes for acting the way she did.

She went to Kefka's room and shut the door behind herself with a click. She looked disheveled enough that he noticed, but he didn't come to greet her just yet. He was busy trying to feed her Moogle (her pet, not his – how had he gotten stuck with this task?) and losing. The creature spat whatever it was back out at him and he set his jaw in frustration.

"Here, let me," she said. She was happy to be rid of Celes for the moment. All progress had ground to a halt with her since she'd started going batty, and every day Kefka and Terra tried to work with Cid to find a way to stop it. It was getting them nowhere. She lifted the Moogle from him, making noises at it and speaking to it softly.

"Are you giving him a hard time? Huh? Are you? Are you Angel-baby?" she cooed.

Kefka brushed himself off. "Ugh, its fur gets on everything," he griped, trying in vain to wipe the white strands out of his dark clothing. He made a horrible face as he realized some of the fur had gotten into his mouth, and spit a few times as he tried to find the water pitcher to remedy his ailment.

"Stop," Terra chided. "You're acting like a child."

"Oh, that's rich coming from you," he countered, finding that pitcher and pouring water in his mouth. He spat inelegantly into a waste bin, then wiped his mouth ungracefully with the back of his hand. The Moogle was staring at him, and he narrowed his brilliant blue eyes back at it. "Isn't that thing getting old yet? It still eats like it did the day you brought him home."

"Oh, I think someone's jealous," she sang, her back to him now as she coaxed it to take a few nuts from her hand. It stuffed them into its mouth as it watched the conversation between them, totally aware it was being discussed but thrilled to be the center of attention, regardless of the negativity that the talk was gaining.

Kefka paused in mid-turn, turning his head slowly at her until he craned his neck as far as it would go. "This is my doubtful face," he informed her. "Do you see? Do you see how untrue that is?" She laughed at him, only half-glancing over her shoulder to see his display. "It's physically impossible for me to be jealous of a rat with wings," he added.

Terra smiled to herself, dancing a little in place as she played with the animal. He was totally jealous. She found it endlessly amusing, too, because the Moogle got just as jealous. Both of them vied for her attention through different methods, but they would attack each other to do it. She knew the Moogle was smart enough to get out the window when it needed to go to the bathroom; why it kept urinating directly under Kefka's desk was obviously a warning for him to stay away from Terra.

At the same time, Kefka found it in himself to subject the Moogle to multiple baths, claiming the animal smelled bad. She'd come in no less than four times the past month to find the thing shaking and terrified under the far corner of the bed that neither of them could reach after Kefka had chased it with a towel, knocking over everything of value in the room in his path.

He was behind her then, a hand on her shoulder as he rested his chin the top of her head. "How is she?" he ventured. He felt Terra stiffen slightly when he asked, and he instantly felt bad for doing it. He gave her a light squeeze.

"She's... not any better," Terra said finally, taking her hands from the Moogle in favour of crossing her arms. The creature fluffed itself and then darted down the table and jumped off, catching one of its small stuffed toys in its paws and retiring to a lump of blankets at the foot of the bed to chew on it. Terra kept her back to him for as long as it took her to sigh heavily, and then she turned to face him – although face wasn't really the word, since he was a good six inches taller than she was. She didn't mind though.

"She threw a vase at me," she ventured. "That beats staring out the window and screaming like a lunatic, right? Or arranging everything in her room from shortest to tallest? Or how about when she tried to set me on fire? Or you, for that matter?" she asked.

"Oh, Terra," he said softly.

"Oh, Terra, nothing," she said, trying to shake off the emotion she felt in her chest; that familiar seizing sensation she got when she felt like she might cry. "She isn't the only friend I have. Wasn't. I don't know." She put her hands to her face for a moment, trying to compose her thoughts. She hated it when he was around for her to get emotional. She always felt like a child. "And besides, I almost let her have it," she added bitterly. It made her feel a little better to know that despite the two fusions the Empire had pulled off, she could still put the hurt on either one of them (although Kefka wasn't as wild as Celes was, so he put up a much better fight).

"It's perfectly alright for you to be upset, Terra," he said firmly. "She's my friend, too. I trained her – how do you think I feel?" he pointed out. Kefka was shouldering a lot of the blame unnecessarily; they'd all pushed her in their own rights, but it was ultimately Gestahl who had ignored them when they told him something was wrong. And he'd made them push her harder, and now she was slipping off into insanity slowly.

She took his hands in her own, looking up at him with her lips pursed for a moment. "We'll just try again tomorrow," she said. "I can handle a few objects being thrown my way."

"Cid got the living daylights shocked out of him," Kefka informed her, drawing her arms around him for a hug. "I suspect she's going to want to leave her room eventually. The wards are only going to hold as long as it takes for her to rip through them when she decides she doesn't want to be in there anymore."

"Then we're all in trouble," Terra sighed, closing her eyes. She really didn't want to be part of the group that had to snuff Celes out. Gestahl would undoubtedly employ she and Kefka to do it, and damn if she didn't hate him for it.

"No, but then she's going to force our hand. She's not unstoppable, Terra, you and I know that; we caught it in time. Even if we were told to go harder on her, we did still hold back. Gestahl's too dumb to know that, but you know it and I know it. It's going to be difficult, and probably very painful, but we'll manage." He bowed his head to drop a kiss on her hair.

"I just keep thinking that this could have happened to you," she said, her mouth twisting into a frown. "I mean, keep thinking isn't even the right word for what I do – I can't stop. It keeps me awake at night, wondering if this is what happens to people who are fused, and if that's true than how much time do we have before you start to lose it?"

Kefka pulled away from her so quickly that it startled her, and he gave her a very severe look. "Is that what you think is going to happen? Terra, I wish you wouldn't worry about things like that. Listen, I'm a little too stable for something to just sideline me and push me off of my rocker completely. You know that," he scolded her gently.

"She was normal, too," Terra said, her eyes stinging a little as she felt that pressure in her chest rise. If she cried, she would absolutely not forgive herself. She had worked very hard to keep everyone around her under the opinion she wasn't a little girl; crying blew that theory to hell and back.

He saw that arguing with her was useless, and so he dropped down to one knee and shook her hands until she looked at him. "Stop," he said. "I hate it when you cry, it makes me feel useless. We're going to figure this out, Terra. You're strong, and I'm strong, and I'm sure we're not too late to help Celes. It's just going to take more than a few weeks of work. We've got a long road ahead of us, but I want you to understand that I'm not going to go down that path. I dealt with my demons a long time ago. You made me, if you remember." he added with a wry twist of his mouth.

Terra stared at him, studying his face. Kefka may have had his quirks, but when he wanted to be serious, he pulled it off rather nicely. She nodded. "Okay," she said softly. She loosened one of her hands from his to lay it against his cheek, where she could feel fine stubble. "My wise Kefka," she whispered, a smile breaking through her pensive and worried features. She leaned in for a kiss, but was caught in the face by something fluffy instead.

The Moogle chose that exact moment to wedge itself between them, back to Kefka as it tried to climb up Terra's chest to get to her shoulder. "Ugh, I got fur in my mouth!" she exclaimed, staggering back as the Moogle took smug victory for its timely interruption. From behind the closed door, a servant wandering down the corridor observed a cry of frustration from a male voice, but felt no need to intervene when the mirthful and rather enthusiastic laughter of a feminine voice drowned it out.