Chapter 7 –Seifer Part II: The Lost Boy

I.

~ My last mission ~

"I guess I'm not the only one who's not looking forward to this mission," Rinoa smiled.

Quistis sniffed in a manner that could be taken for agreement but returned to watching the landscape in silence.

Rinoa had been watching her former Instructor stare out of the window for the past few hours. They had hardly started their mission and already the woman looked like she had seen it all. Throughout the entire train journey, while Zell and Selphie argued possible theories for Cid's kidnapping, she had remained firmly rooted in the leather-lined chair, comfortable and still, like one who doesn't expect to ever rise again.

Rinoa knew nothing about their former teacher. She had heard her name often enough on the lips of students, both in adoration, but just as often in pity. And since no one spoke to Balamb Garden's resident black sheep, Rinoa never found out why.

However the one thing she did know was that Quistis could teach anything to anyone. She had a way of filtering through the levels of resistance of the most stubborn kid and reach that hidden desire for knowledge. And once she found it, she would nurture it until that desire was satisfied. It wasn't hard to see why she was so prized in the eyes of the students.

Yet looking at her, withdrawn into her corner seat, gazing quietly at the passing landscape, she didn't appear like someone who felt loved. That at least that was something they had in common.

Rinoa walked over to where she was sitting and took place in the sofa opposite hers. This sudden intrusion into her personal space seemed to shock Quistis awake.

"I know how you feel," Rinoa said.

Quistis' head snapped up and raised an eyebrow. "How I feel?"

"Yes," Rinoa replied, "I know what it feels like to give up on something."

"Do you now?"

She hesitated. "Yes I do. It feels like nothing you do matters anymore. You could live a hundred years or die tomorrow, and you wouldn't care either way."

Quistis stared at her former student. "And what have you given up then?"

Seifer's face flashed across her mind, wearing his eternally disappointed look as he said his parting words. With a sigh Rinoa drew up her legs on the sofa and hugged them close to her breast. She had never told anyone anything about her past before. Even Cid just got the bare bones version of her encounter with Seifer. No one had been interested.

"My home," she said. "My place in life. There was someone once, but he left. It didn't seem like it at the time, but it's sort of clear now . . . everything ended for me the day I let him go. When I came to Garden it was too late."

The older girl nodded. Yes she had heard this story before. The lofty reality of Garden proved to be a poor exchange for some past summer fling? It was so trite, she almost didn't want to think the word. Typical.

So Rinoa didn't care for the place that had taken her in. Even after being admitted despite her lack of any relevant skills and her shockingly public adoration of a notorious terrorist. Still, it wasn't enough, was it? Quistis wondered if the Headmaster knew that his excessive fondness for the girl was entirely one-sided.

"You still think I'm silly, don't you?" asked Rinoa.

"Hmmm."

Rinoa smiled wryly. Fair enough.

"What about you then, what have you given up?" Rinoa returned the question.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Quistis said, turning away again. "I haven't given up on anything."

They continued in silence for a few minutes. Selphie was on the floor, sorting her cards. Zell did every stretch in his work-out bible. The sun marched its way up higher and the world swept by. Rinoa continued to watch Quistis from time to time, saw the woman stare at her own reflection and in the hours that passed, Rinoa wondered what it was she saw.

There were many things she wanted to ask her, so so many things. But there was no mistaking the distance. Quistis simply did not like her. Not many people in Garden did . . .sure . . . but her old Instructor seemed to harbour more than the usual superficial hostility towards her.

At every encounter, she was reminded of Quistis' last and only private words to her.

You loved him

Of course it was about him.

It was time. It's been a year already. Time to grow up and face the details, the facts of this unnamed tragedy that had happened on someone else's stage. If she didn't ask now, she would never have the nerve to ask again. It had to be now, there was no way she could step foot in Timber again without asking. You can't leave a place and not learn anything when you return.

"Tell me about the last mission you went on," Rinoa asked bluntly.

Quistis looked up again, looking slightly puzzled, irritated. "My last mission? Why?"

"Please tell me," Rinoa insisted. "I need to know what happened on that mission."

Zell paused mid-push up and Selphie looked up from her magazine.

Quistis shook her head and was about to turn to the window when she felt a hand press on hers. It was a gentle pleading touch, its urgency mirrored in the girl's brown eyes.

"Yeah," Zell said, , who crawled closer from his place on the carpet, eagerly, as though anticipating a bedtime story. "Let's hear it.

What did they want from her?

"It wasn't even a real mission," she said, "Just a SeeD exam, maybe more dangerous than usual, but still, just an exam."

"What was the brief?" asked Selphie.

"We had to work with a rebel organisation in Timber," answered Quistis. "It turned out that . . . well . . . one of our team members was working with the Galbadians and he was sent to sabotage the mission."

"Hmph," growled Zell with distaste. "That imp."

Seifer, Rinoa thought. They were talking about Seifer.

How many times had she turned around whenever she caught the echo of that name in common room whispers. In hallways, quads, study rooms. How many times did she stop listening at the mention of his name? And how many more times had she entered a noisy room suddenly vacated of all sound and only the echo of a dead boy's name left hanging in the air.

And how she had wished for a little bit more. More of the story. Just a little bit more of the man.

Yet she had received a detailed mission report from Cid. Kind man that he was, thinking it would help with the pain. What did she do with all that information? Surrendered it to the dust at the bottom of her wardrobe.

To know and not know, a state of utter delusion. And so exhausting to maintain.

"The day before President Deling's forces had uncovered two of Timber's biggest resistance units," Quistis continued. "They were the heart of Timber's resistance. There was going to be a victory ball right after their execution. The geniuses in Galbadia decided they were going having the party in right there in Timber. There was even talk of any remaining family members being forced to attend.

"Evil bastards," exclaimed Selphie, horrified.

Quistis shrugged. "So four of us were supposed to kidnap the Galbadian General. He was scheduled to address the troops in Timber.

"A sister organisation of the rebels, the lesser known Woodland Crows, hired us to kidnap the General before the ball, so they could negotiate the release of the rebel prisoners before their execution. We were on the way there, when one of our number. . . –"

"Say his name" Rinoa said, "it's okay."

Quistis nodded. "Seifer," she said after a pause. "Seifer Almasy."

"Yeah, the biggest show-off this side of the universe," Zell added helpfully.

"He was initially assigned to a different squad," Quistis said, "but he insisted on joining mine. I thought at first it was because he fell out with one of his team members. Yet he didn't seem much happier in my group. On the train he continued to be obnoxious to everybody. Well, to me at least."

"Hmph," snorted Zell.

Quistis paused, suddenly unnerved by her last memories of Seifer. She had never been able to quit the sting of his last words. The dreams were the worst at first. Outwards she was survivor, broken and improperly remade . . .sure . . but a survivor foremost. It was only when the dreams took her back, shackled naked to the events of that day, that she knew the lie for what it was. There was no surviving a failure like that.

There was no surviving Seifer.

Quistis got up from her seat suddenly, her face feeling hot, her palms a little clammy. Every time her thoughts got like this, she was plagued by other thoughts.

Thoughts far worse than any of Seifer's crimes.

"You're a survivor," said Rinoa, oblivious as always. "I could do with tales of courage to calm my nerves. Won't you tell us?"

Quistis glanced at Rinoa. It sounded like she had never heard this before. How long had she been working on that question?

Why now?

"Courage?" the older girl said, pausing at the word, thinking. "I don't think there's a person in the world who'd describe me as courageous that day."

"How else would you describe yourself?" Rinoa asked.

"Blind."

II. One Year Ago – another train to Timber

~ And I always win ~

The mission was a map. Life was a map. That's how she saw the world. No numbered lists of objectives for her….life was not some errand list scribbled on a post-it note. It wasn't about individual tasks, it was the number of stops you had to make before reaching your destination. Life was a journey etched on a map that was as detailed as your dreams needed it to be.

Seifer, Fujin, Rajin and even the General were all dots on a map in her head. Without looking she could calculate their steps, predict their location. This train she was currently on was a precision grid made up of points that needed covering and points that needed to be avoided. The zig-zag curve of where her mission would lead her was so clear, she wondered if the others saw it like she did, as a glorious red line with a sharp arrow at the end.

Quistis always knew where she was going. Girls like her don't get lost.

Even as a child, homeless and sneaking into soup kitchens ahead of the line, she had known where she needed to go next. Weeks before she had seen silent men and women in clean clothes moving through the crowd, inspecting a child here and there. She recognised their position on the map from the way they moved, from the discreet notes scribbled down when they thought no one was looking and from their nice clean shoes that were so different from the regular volunteers. She had known who they were and what she needed to say to get to her next destination.

Balamb Garden

A to B to C, that's how the world worked.

Now she was here on this train and today's mission marked another major destination. She saw the beautiful neon sign flashing a large S on her map, lighting the way ahead to a glorious title.

SeeD

"We're almost there," she said to the others. "Get ready."

She knew the purpose of every one of her team mates; knew the location and importance of their positions. No surprises on her big day.

Rajin and Fujin were the next best thing to a dream team. They had trained together. They had seen her lash out against a dozen T-rexes and had caught gaps in her attacks with their own weapons. It was a dangerous way to train, of course – depending on people like that. Yet team choreography was sublime when executed, it made her feel of the world and part of something better.

"This mission is beyond shit," a young man observed sagely.

Today however, another had forced himself into their perfect, even-sided triangle.

Quistis glanced away from the window for a second to look at their happy new gatecrasher. A tall, blonde, prickly boy leaned against the wall, reading a map. He was dressed in his familiar dark trousers and vest, and over it all the same white long coat.

Seifer Almasy.

Most days she could ignore him. His chatter would crowd the background noise and the nonsense of his words turned his voice to fluff. But usually, through some ungenerous cosmic arrangement, he would show up unexpectedly and create havoc in his wake. Lying and cheating were forms of grand entertainment to him. Worse, he was dreadfully undisciplined.

At first Quistis offered to help him study, those early optimistic days when she thought the troubled boy just needed a little encouragement. Seifer had been very pleased with this arrangement.

Then when she refused to do all his work for him, he started stealing her assignment papers with alarming and expert regularity, pickpocketing her homework out of her bag or going all home-invasion on the girls' dormitories, rifling through her drawers to get at her notes. All to avoid troubling his eyes with something as mundane as books and facts.

That was Seifer Almasy. The biggest nuisance of her life.

Sometimes she wished there was someone who could have shaken him up. A mentor maybe or even an enemy. Maybe he needed someone to measure himself against, some aspiring rival he could better himself against and unearth that deep raw potential she sometimes caught a glimpse of. As it was, he was just lazy kid, unremarkable and unrealised … simply coasting through life's journey without ever looking at a map.

Quistis had no time for people like that.

"No one asked you to come Seifer," Quistis pointed out.

What was Cid thinking, allowing him on her team?

Luckily she had seen very little of Seifer lately, Quistis had almost begun to hope that this was the end of their chaotic acquaintance until he showed up this morning … as annoying and cocksure of himself as before.

For some reason he had insisted on a transfer to her mission. Understandable of course. Quistis managed to get picked for the best mission of the year. It was as a surprisingly important one. Those who succeeded bagged bragging rights for the rest of the year.

She had gone to Cid the night before. She knew the Headmaster always wanted SeeD to be more daring and she definitely did not agree that he was as reckless as some of the Instructors thought he was and she was oh so grateful to be picked. Only could he maybe please reconsider about Seifer?

The Headmaster had nodded and listened to her reasons, and then promptly overruled her on the matter.

Figure it out Quistis, Cid had said.

Quistis seemed entirely alone in her objections. Fujin and Rajin seemed okay with him for some reason.

Seifer grinned. "I couldn't stay away from this hot three-way you guys have been planning without me. Dibs on Fujin."

The usually stoic girl resolutely turned away, not blushing, not blushing.

No surprises there, Quistis thought. In class, whenever she thought no one was looking, those bright green eyes of Fujin's would burn into the back of Seifer's head. Crushes didn't come bigger than this.

Fujin didn't like discussing it, so Quistis never found out what was so special about a committed loser like Seifer.

"Well it's not too late Seifer," said Quistis, "you can always leave if the mission is beneath you. After all, it's not like you can steal my homework today. You'll have to think for yourself. Can you do that?"

Seifer's face fell at this, his expression going blank. "Dooh" he uttered piteously, with his face looking slack-jawed, dumb and helpless. "Think, miss? Wha' is think?"

He grinned when she rolled her eyes.

"It's just so tacky" Seifer continued airily, studying the map again, "Jumping on the train like that. Like bloody monkeys. They'll see us coming a mile off. Who in Garden thought of this stupid idea?"

At this Fujin suddenly shot him an angry look. "SHUT UP."

Quistis blinked at her. "What would you do then?" she asked, turning back to Seifer. "Sneak on board like ninjas?"

"Yeah, why not," he said, pausing to think on the idea: "Maybe build some sort of replica carriage, switch them over or something and connect to the real train. Then simply stroll in and take our prize."

"You'd build a whole train?" asked Rajin, sounding impressed.

"Quistis ain't the only technical genius around here," he shrugged.

"Hm, sounds like someone has been doing a little thinking," said Quisis. "Thought gunblade-first was more your style?"

"You don't know me very well Miss Trepe," he yawned. "Don't care about gunblades. Sometimes it's better to fool the enemy. Keep them comfortable. Whatever it takes. The only thing that matters is coming away with the win. And I always win."

"Always?"

He stared at her. "Always Quistis."

"You've changed Seifer," she said, watching her former tutoree with a curious expression

"Maybe after the mission you can watch me change again," he offered.

"Oh you're such a child," she sniffed, annoyed again. "Why don't you go build model trains and let the grown-ups do the thinking. Everybody, get in position. Five minutes to carriage sync."

Rajin and Fujin assumed their positions at the far end of the train, ready to jump out of the open windows on to the General's train. Seifer however lingered for a few moments.

"Why aren't you moving?" snapped Quistis. "It's almost time."

"Hmmm."

"For goodness' sake," she said, her mind screaming in frustration at the presence of him. "You're something I really don't need today."

"And what's that?"

"A distraction."

He peeked down. "Can't help the size I'm afraid."

"You're disgusting," she shook her head.

"And a little hot?"

Suddenly she looked up to him. "Please Seifer," she said, appealing to the boy she sometimes saw during their lessons. The boy who when the moment was wrong, occasionally swallowed his insults. The boy who listened sometimes and sometimes understood far more than she ever expected to teach him. "Please don't ruin this for me."

He still didn't move from his place. Leaning against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his grey trousers, his gunblade idling against the door beside him, he looked like he had all the time in the world.

"Seifer you have to do something. Do something with yourself, with your life. Have a destiny. Know where you're going."

"And you always know where you're headed?"

She paused. "Yes, always"

"Where are you going now?" he asked, his expression strange, watchful.

Quistis sighed. "I am going to Timber Station Seifer, to take part in a little thing called the SeeD Exam."

"And then where to?"

"And then, on to SeeD."

"On to SeeD," he mumbled, looking down for a beat. Quistis watched the boy change before her. Some dark thing was gathering in his face, and Quistis saw the Seifer she knew disappear. It was an unsettling blankness on a face that had never once before dropped the smirk, the me-against-the-world attitude or his cruel cocky mirth.

"I'm scared Quistis," he said simply, not looking scared at all. His face was even, matter-of-factly. Quistis went cold inside.

"Seifer Almasy," she said sternly, "is not scared of anything

"Hmmm."

"The Seifer I know . . .," she started when he interrupted her.

"The Seifer you know?" he said quietly, drawing a little closer. "Tell me about the Seifer you know."

This was also new, the acid in his voice. She had never seen Seifer angry before. Fury didn't suit him. Careless was his thing.

The girl stepped back, moving away from the change in those eyes. She could see the fury pulse through him, see it tighten and lock that jaw into a predatory, battle-ready smile. She could feel that contempt and anger move into her like ice, like an unstarted war.

Something in him was boiling and brewing to some ugly completion.

Then, just like that, he sighed.

"Who cares," he said suddenly deflated. His eyes lost their steel and his gaze drifted away from her, past her through the window. Her ire died down a little, a little frozen at the sight of so many unknowns, so many changes in a boy she thought would never change. He had never been so unfocused, so lost in the moment.

Her hand reached for his shoulder. "Who cares about what?" she asked, more gently.

"Friends, loyalty," he said, shaking his head vaguely. "Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do."

"Seifer are you alright? You're not making any sense."

His green eyes snapped back to her, to the hand on his shoulder and immediately the real Seifer flooded back. He shrugged off her hand.

"Oh Miss Trepe," he exclaimed, looking scandalised.

Quistis stepped back, startled.

"I had no idea I had you that bothered," he said, affecting a titillated expression, "Do you need a quiet corner to tickle that itch Miss? We'll turn around … won't we, Rajin? Give our a boss a minute to collect herself."

Rajin grinned behind her. She hadn't heard him leave his spot. Seifer strolled to his own position by the middle doors. He winked at her.

Bloody child, she thought again.

III.

~ Do you hate him? ~

The version she told the other SeeDs was simpler.

They were in a carriage and Seifer acted weird. He pushed her out of way, knocking her out and proceeded to stab Fujin's eye out. He got out and Rajin tried to stop him. Seifer then locked two girls in the train.

It was most she could bring herself to say about those last few moments.

How could she tell them that despite what he had said to her only moments before, it was Fujin who first noticed what Seifer was about to do. Rajin who drew his weapon in tandem with the grey haired girl, while Quistis – their fearless leader – slumped dazed on the floor nursing the ache at the back of her skull. She had done nothing. The succession of cuts and stabbings and battle fury slowed down and time dilated across the seconds into a painful eternity in which Quistis just watched.

Fujin stabbed him. Twice in the leg and he screamed, but his hands remained free and she never saw how he wrestled the knife out of Fujin's hands and when she realised what was about to happen, Quistis closed her eyes and never saw that awful aim of his and how deep it landed in the girl's skull.

She only heard the screams.

With Fujin down, Seifer slid out of the carriage through the open door, Rajin flew after him and somewhere atop the thundering train, a short battle raged, because when Seifer's face reappeared in the open doorway, he was alone.

The final new face she saw on Seifer was a bloody one. It matted his yellow hair to a dark rust, it caked his cheeks with the death of Rajin and then he smiled. She saw the blood in his bared teeth, this mad expression of surprising gentleness and horror.

Smiled, like she wasn't about to die too.

She would never forgive him for this, this smile he saved for last. Then he said it.

Goodbye Quistis

Goodbye like they would see each other again. Goodbye like he didn't have what remained of Rajin coated on his forehead and she slipped into an unholy rage. Quistis rose to her feet, ready to kill him, but it was too late.

Long too late.

The door was locked.

"I could hear him enter the security codes," she continued to the others, "that's when I realised I couldn't open the door. Meanwhile the train buckled and screeched. That's the sound it makes when it changes tracks. He was leading us away from Timber Station. I tried to get the door open with everything I had. I tried frying the control panel from the inside. Nothing worked and the train was gathering speed. It went past every station and eventually, past a junction with a sign saying 'unfinished track'.

And we were on that wrong track."

So wrong

"It was only a minute or so before we were about to derail into open sea," she said, "that I remembered that there were generic override codes under the carriage. That was my specialty. I had always preferred technical intelligence work over combat. It was something I wanted to practice but Garden never approved. Anyway, two of us survived. I managed to release the door. Fujin was severely injured, but I had to throw her off first. Then I jumped just before the train drove off the cliff. "

"Oh my god," whispered Selphie.

"And Seifer?" Rinoa said his name quietly, uncertain.

Quistis blinked. She had almost forgotten who had asked for this sordid story.

"He never got off. I saw the train race towards that cliff end, and when it fell, so did Seifer."

"How did you get back," asked Selphie.

"It took us half a day to find our way out of that forest and to a working phone. At some point I was sure I had lost Fujin. But somehow she made it. We got picked up by Garden transport and returned to Balamb, injured and without Rajin. However, Garden ruled that our conduct was still open for assessment. Fujin flat out failed the mission.

"What? Why?" asked Zell, looking puzzled.

Quistis shrugged. "You're not meant to leave one of your eyes behind during Garden missions."

"Is that the girl you were talking to this morning?" Rinoa asked.

"She now works as an administrator in Galbadia Garden. I only passed because I saved our lives. They gave me the Instructor's job as a reward, because they concluded I was … better suited for off-field work."

The actual wording on her record had been: Grossly unfit for SeeD operations.

Her application for a position in the Intelligence department was also rejected, despite her exceptionally high grades in this field. After a while, she had taken to her new teaching position very well. She enjoyed her part in forming excellent mercenaries. She liked to think that someday, something she taught them would turn out to be the one piece of knowledge that could make a difference between life and death. In her own way, she was helping them to remain safe, increasing their chances of survival just that little bit more.

And now she was fired from her position as Instructor and sent on a 'low-priority mission with uncertain chances'. There was a part of her mind that flirted with paranoia, imagining Cid and the Garden board convening about the most effective way of disillusioning Quistis Trepe. But she was kidding herself, she never held that much regard with the board. It was more likely that to them, she was no more than a number on the staff register.

"So there you have it," Quistis said finally. "Not much courage."

"Do you hate him?" Rinoa asked quietly.

"Hate?" Quistis contemplated the word and held it up to all she felt. Yes she hated. Deeply and without reserve. But it was her own weakness she hated. Her own failure.

"Perhaps," she said simply. "Mostly confused I guess. Seifer was always provocative and testing, but he wasn't the calculating devious sort. I never understood why he did it. He was always honest, brutally so. Always said what was on his mind, whether you asked about it or not. I could never have imagined him sitting on such a big secret."

"He was a prick," Zell said, his face screwing up in disgust at the memory of Seifer. "Prickliest sort of pricky prick you can find. Would do anything for a bit of attention and power."

Quistis rolled her eyes. "You only dislike him because he used to tease you."

Zell jumped up with indignation. "No way, I could've taken him on anytime. The way he strutted his bleached ass around the place, ugh, pathetic really."

Quistis shrugged when he walked out of the SeeD lounge, dramatically slamming the door behind him.

And so ended the story of Seifer and all she knew of him.

It was Rinoa who felt the most unsettled. The person who had meant so much to her, the boy she hardly knew at all, was so despised by those who knew him well. But did they? Quistis' story seemed to be about a different boy. A colder boy. The kind of boy who could walk past a burning house, past a screaming mother and never once stop to help.

The Seifer Rinoa knew was a nobler creature. A hero with eyes brighter than the justice he served. Brighter than the world he lived in. A man who had to try, even if there was no hope. She never forgot that he almost got killed for trying to save a family he didn't know. He was the boy who stopped.

Could there really be that many sides to a person? If that was the case, how could you possibly ever get to know anyone? How could you ever truly trust a person? Maybe he was just a boy who sometimes helped, sometimes didn't.

Maybe he was just a boy.

"You know," Rinoa said hesitantly after a while, "I think you should head this mission. I'm no leader, I'm afraid I can't do it."

Quistis sniffed indifferently. "It's not my concern. The extent of my role in this mission is to assist you, should you require it. That's it. I'm sure you'll do just fine."

With that, the older woman turned her head to the window once more and was soon lost in her own reflection. Rinoa withdrew quietly, her head down and moved to the other side of the lounge.

Quistis sighed as she stared listlessly into the distance and she remembered how the hour had started.

It feels like nothing you do matters anymore.

Two blue rain-splattered eyes stared at her from behind the clear window glass. Liar they called her, softly, knowingly. Of course she had given up on something. The only thing that truly mattered.

It was her life and theirs, the moment she had voted yes.