A light fog had rolled in during the night, covering the landscape in a pale haze that made the world seem to end at the Garden's broken walls. Rinoa wondered if that could help explain the mood that had descended over the place: Students who had been working hard to keep themselves busy, from clearing rubble around the collapsed buildings to stuffing themselves before the cafeteria food went to waste, were now wandering aimless through the ruins.

She guessed the previous evening's confrontation with the Galbadians had been a kind of turning point as well, showing them just how powerless they were. Cid had still not emerged from his office, and even Xu was looking more and more run down. Rinoa was having a harder time avoiding the thought that she was witnessing the end of Garden.

After a glum breakfast of packaged food, she found Seifer perched atop a pile of rubble in the remains of the Quad's stage area. He had his gunblade laid across his legs, and was scrubbing at the blade with one of the coarse canvas sheets he kept in his coat. She knew he'd noticed her, but his attention stayed on the gunblade as as she made her way up the debris.

"What's up?" she asked, dropping down to sit beside him. "I haven't seen you in a while. Off fighting the bad guys, right?"

Apparently not, judging by the way he tensed at the words. The blade of his weapon had what looked like layers of blood, slime and some kind of webbing dried on it, and Seifer seemed to be making slow progress clearing it off. She wondered if he'd been out fighting monsters all night.

"Wanna talk about it?" she tried, managing to predict his reaction this time. "If you don't, maybe you could show me T-Rexaur. You promised, remember?" She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and craning her neck to look up at him. "I'll even scream really loud, and call for my hero to come save me."

That got Seifer to look up, abandoning the gunblade long enough to glare at her with tired eyes. "What do you want from me?"

Rinoa sighed. Ever since appearing in Timber with President Deling as a hostage, Seifer had seemed almost completely different from the lively, grinning boy she'd met last summer. What she really wanted was to get that guy back.

"I looked for you, you know," she said. "When I came to hire SeeD for the Timber liberation mission. You said you'd show me around Garden, when I came."

Seifer made a noise, returning his attention to his gunblade. "I wasn't going to stick around and watch while they paraded all the new SeeDs in their fancy new uniforms, right after they stole my dream." After worrying at one of the last patches of gunk on the weapon, he threw down the rag and made a frustrated swipe with the gunblade. "And you know what they did the next day? They called me to the Disciplinary Room, like I was just some offender. I had to sit through hours of interrogation about the field exam. Like denying me SeeD status wasn't enough."

"What happened on the exam?" Rinoa had heard a bit of the story from Nida and Zell, but not the part that was probably important right now. "You went to Dollet, right? You caught the Galbadians restoring the communications tower."

"Only 'cause I took initiative." Seifer launched himself to his feet, slinging his gunblade over his shoulder and rocking the weapon back and forth. "If it wasn't for me, we'd have had no idea what that invasion was about. If Garden hadn't been so caught up with its own bureaucracy, we could have stopped them then and there."

Frowning, Rinoa stood up as well. "You know, if the Galbadians hadn't been able to get the communications tower working, then President Deling wouldn't have come to Timber for the broadcast. And then you couldn't have come and captured him for us."

Seifer scoffed. "They almost didn't even tell me if Cid gave you the contract. And when I asked them what the hell they were thinking, sending three rookies against the whole of Galbadia? They said, 'It's none of your concern.'" With a shake of his head, he turned away again.

Rinoa got the impression that she wouldn't be getting through to him this way.

"You've changed, Seifer." He turned back around at that, but she spun away, pacing in a circle at the perimeter of the rubble. "The guy I met last summer didn't spend all his time fuming about what other people did to him. He always had some great new plan. Even when he didn't, he'd say, 'Just leave it to me,' and somehow he'd find a way." She stopped, pivoting to look back at him. "We were sneaking around, posting copies of Anarchist Monthly on alley walls, before you came along. You made me believe we could be a real resistance."

Judging by the look on his face, Seifer wasn't quite sure whether to be annoyed or not. "So what the hell am I supposed to do?" he asked. "Whatever I try, things get more messed up than before."

"I know." Rinoa could hardly offer much advice on that point. Usually, he'd been the one with the encouraging words.

Then it came to her. "…Remember when you taught me how to fight? You said I should stick to ranged weapons, because I hit like a girl." She smiled, remembering the tone in Seifer's voice when he'd been instructing her, and the mess she'd made out of his training regimen. "But you also told me that the little battles don't matter in the end. They're just how we get ourselves ready. Because we're doing something BIG. And as long as we keep striving for that goal, we can't really be defeated."

Seifer actually did smile at that, but the expression had a distinctly wan overtone. "Yeah. And what do you do when someone else takes that goal away from you?"

Rinoa thought she was finally starting to understand. "You mean that other guy? Squall?"

Just hearing the name prompted a sort of growl from him. "You know the worst part?" Seifer swung out his gunblade, sighting at an imaginary opponent for a second with his finger on the trigger. Then he lowered the weapon and clipped it back to his belt, jumping down from the pile of debris. "He never even cared. It was all about proving something to himself. And now he's got everything I ever wanted, and he humiliates me at every turn, and he still doesn't care. He's off in his own little world, and to hell with what happens to the rest of us."

By the end, he had walked right past her, glaring off across the countryside beyond the Garden's ruined walls. At the edge of one of the craters, she could see a pair of students fighting what looked like a Grat. According to Seifer, the creatures had never been found outside the Training Center, at least before this week. Briefly, she wondered how many more monsters the Galbadians would release on the world before all this was done.

"Look," she said, taking a step into Seifer's peripheral vision. "I don't know Squall. But I know your dream wasn't about blowing up schools or torturing your friends. Building a world where people die or live in fear…that's everything we fought against in Timber. And if that's what Squall took from you, maybe it isn't worth having."

"You're missing the point." Seifer didn't look at her.

"No, I'm not." Rinoa folded her arms. "Maybe things didn't work out the way you expected. That doesn't mean they can't work out."

Seifer didn't answer this time. Sidling up to him, she slipped an arm around his. Seifer only flinched a little.

"I'm sorry you lost your dream," she said. "But…maybe you just have to find a new one."

The junior classmen bounded out of the Garden transport as though they were off on a great adventure, not being moved to temporary housing because their dorms no longer had plumbing. Quistis had seen a few arrivals by now, and not all had been so energetic; plenty of kids had friends in the infirmary, or still buried under the rubble. This group, though, had taken to their ride like a summer field trip. She supposed there were worse ways to handle the news.

"Make sure you don't leave anything behind," she reminded them. "This car's going straight back to Garden."

Balamb had no orphanage — Balamb Garden had served that function for more than a decade — so everybody knew this could only be a temporary arrangement. But Quistis hadn't heard anyone suggest a workable permanent solution.

After seeing the children to a house along the town's main road, she paused to take a breath. The street was full of kids now, the way the Quad would be on the last day of summer when all the junior classmen were coming to terms with the fact that a carefree chapter of their lives was about an end.

A familiar, agitated voice from one of the nearby houses drew her attention, and a crashing noise quickly followed. She stepped in the open door to see Zell crouching protectively over an overturned box that had been trying to contain a miscellany of personal effects, including a full-sized punching bag, a blue T-board and at least two combat rifles.

"That is AWESOME!" said one of two youths whom Zell was trying to shoo away from the box. Quistis wasn't sure if he was pointing at the T-board or the rifles. "Can I try it?"

"Hands off!" Zell exclaimed. "This stuff's MINE!"

"Why don't you kids go take a look at the room now?" A kindly woman whom Quistis guessed was Zell's mother took charge of the children, herding them around the box and away up the stairs.

"Man…" Shaking his head, Zell knelt and tried to stuff the items back into place.

"Need a hand?" Quistis asked, although it looked like what he really needed was a second box.

"Ma's letting some junior classmen stay in my room," Zell replied, trying to right the box again. "So I've gotta move out all my stuff. I mean, I know they can't stay at Garden anymore, but — arghhhh!" One of the box's corners seemed inclined to stay crumpled, and the whole thing nearly spun out of Zell's hands before Quistis jumped forward to catch it. One item, a framed photograph that had been precariously perched near the top of the box, tumbled out and rapped against the floor, leaving a crack across its pane.

"Take it easy." Quistis retrieved the photo, examining the damage. The frame looked intact, and the picture itself — showing a middle-aged man in a Balamb army uniform — seemed fine. "It's all right. These are hard times for everyone."

Zell shook his head. "I knew this was gonna happen! I mean, I know they've gotta stay somewhere, but…" He dropped to the floor, shaking his head.

"It's good that they're still upbeat about this," said Quistis. "Their lives are changing in ways they can't fully understand. A lot of them came to us as orphans not so long ago, and now they've lost their home again."

"Yeah, I know." Zell paused, scratching the back of his head. "Arghhh! The hell is Squall thinking, doin' this to Garden?" Especially if Edea founded the place!"

Quistis shook her head. "Clearly, we don't know the full story yet. But for the time being, we need to focus on things that are within our control." Easy words to say, she thought, though her mind wasn't really behaving any better than Zell's. After another second, she decided to change the subject. "Who is this?" she asked, holding out the photo. "Your father?"

"My granddad." Zell hesitated after he said that, a shadow passing over his face before he took the photo. "He played a big role in the last war."

"He was in the Expeditionary Force?"

Zell nodded. "He was actually a teacher before all the fighting, but after Esthar attacked, they put him in charge of a whole regiment. He was right there on the front lines for some of the biggest battles." After staring at the photo for another moment, he set it down on the floor in front of him, slouching a bit. "He's the person I look up to the most. He wasn't just strong. He knew when to attack, when to retreat…Any kind of situation, he maintained his composure and stayed cool. I kinda wish I knew how he did it."

Quistis nodded. "I take it he's not around anymore?"

He just shook his head. Then, after staring at the photo for another moment, he snatched it up and jumped to his feet. "…What are we going to do now? We're going after Squall, right? And now we've gotta get Ellone back, too! What's the plan, Instructor?"

To Quistis, it felt like she'd lost her Instructor's license a lifetime ago, although it had really been barely a week. Plenty of students still used the title out of habit, or because they honestly hadn't heard, and Seifer did it to needle her, but Zell was the only SeeD who still did it.

"I wish I knew," she said. "What are you going to do with all this?"

Zell shrugged. "Take it back to Garden, I guess. Ma's gonna need all the space she can get around here."

"All right, then." Quistis laid a hand on the box to steady it as Zell placed the photo back in. "Let's take care of this, for a start."

Nida had thought he'd adjusted to seeing the Garden in ruins. But he hadn't visited the Library before now, and for some reason, it was all coming back. Seeing the toppled bookshelves covered in rubble, or the columns that jutted up into the sky because the walls and ceilings had collapsed around them, was somehow even more disturbing as his first sight of the half-destroyed building.

It began to dawn on him just how much time he'd spent in the place, reading or studying or tutoring Lauren. Their favorite desk was still there, he saw: Second from the right, between the overturned plant and the pile of broken wall.

A pair of girls were picking through the rubble around the bookshelves. Collecting the books, Nida realized. Several boxes had been placed in the least damaged section of the room, and the girls were busy retrieving the surviving volumes of the library's collection. It looked like they'd been trying to clear out the rubble by hand, and so they hadn't made a lot of progress.

The nearer of the two girls had to actually look up at him before he recognized her. A bandage covered one side of her forehead, her uniform jacket was torn at the shoulder, and her hair was tied in only the loosest possible approximation of her usual pigtail. She had the haggard, red-eyed look of someone who'd spent a lot of time crying, and very little time asleep. When she saw him, she made half a smile for about a second, then went back to boxing the armload of books she was carrying.

"Need a hand?" he asked, stepping up after a second's hesitation.

Paige nodded. "Thanks." Nida knelt down, and she carefully transferred the top half of her stack to him. "We're trying to recover as many books as we can, before it rains or anything. But with everything else that's going on, the library isn't much of a priority."

Nida knew what she meant, and felt a little guilty that he hadn't come by sooner. "I hadn't thought about that," he admitted. "Suppose I wouldn't have made much of a librarian after all."

"I guess they had you busy doing SeeD stuff, right?"

Her tone was unreadable, so Nida just nodded. "For all the good it did. The surveillance system is back up and running, but I don't think the Galbadians were that intimidated."

Paige didn't reply, focusing on packing a couple more books into a nearly-full box. While she was, the second girl arrived with another stack. "Hey, Nida," she said, picking an empty box in which to deposit them.

"Hi, Mel." At the start of the year, when Nida had decided not to rejoin the Technical Committee, Mel had tried to recruit him into the Library Committee instead. He'd never quite been sure why, since otherwise they hardly ever spoke; and today was no exception. By the time Nida noted that she looked almost as disheveled as Paige, she was on her way back into the rubble for more books.

It took him another moment to realize what was wrong with the scene. "…Where's Kat?" he asked, glancing at Paige and hoping he was guessing the answer wrong.

Paige looked away again, and Nida followed her gaze to the one pile of rubble that had clearly been disturbed. "…It took us a whole day to get her out," she said, voice hollow. "At first, we didn't even know where to look. We were sure she didn't make it. Then we heard her." She glanced down at her hands, and Nida noticed the callouses and tiny cuts on her fingers. "We were at it all night. I think Zell must have picked up half the wall by himself. When we reached her, she was passed out, and…." She shook her head. "I feel like we should be with her, you know. Just in case she wakes up. But…Dr. Kadowaki said we couldn't do anything. And someone should take care of the books."

Nida tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. A bird chirped down at them from atop the broken wall, where it seemed to be at work building a nest.

"I should've been here," he said. "I bet if Zell had been at the missile base, he could've just punched the launchers and made them land in the ocean."

Paige blinked at him. "I'm…kind of glad he was here." Then she glanced away; he thought he caught her blushing under all the grime on her face. "—You don't really think it was your fault, do you?"

"Everyone keeps telling me I did fine," Nida said. "As well as anyone could expect. And I know I asked for this kind of responsibility when I applied for SeeD, but…" He shook his head, dropping back to sit on the floor. "I'm not cut out to be an action hero. I think I'd have done a lot better if I'd just stayed here at Garden."

Paige shook her head. "You'd hate yourself for that." She dropped down to sit opposite him, and looked him straight in the eye. "We didn't even know anything was wrong until that broadcast of the parade. And even after…I never knew what was going on. When the fighting broke out, it was just a lot of shouting in the halls. And when the missiles…" She stopped, her gaze drifting somewhere else until she shook her head and pressed on. "Everyone was screaming and running around. We had no idea what to do, or where to go. And I just kept thinking, 'Why is all this happening?' I could have died without ever knowing."

It was Nida's turn to look away. She caught his gaze again by leaning forward, hugging her legs. "Even if you didn't succeed, at least you had a chance. And if it wasn't enough…it was still more than most people could do, because they weren't even there. I think…sometimes it just matters if you try."

They sat staring at each other for a moment that dragged on long enough to be uncomfortable. Mel returned with another pile of books, deposited them, and left again without a word. Nida tried to think of something to say, but his mind felt completely derailed.

He finally snapped out of it when all the birds took flight. In addition to the one he'd seen before, at least a dozen had apparently been resting on top of the walls; and given the way the Garden's luck had been going, their sudden departure seemed like an ominous sign.

A second later, his ears weighed in, as a low metallic hum began to rise in the distance. "Do you…?" he started to ask, but Paige had clearly heard it too. They stood, trying to guess which direction it was coming from.

"Guys?" Mel was apparently well ahead of both of them; she stood in the doorway of the library's emergency exit, waving them over. "You've gotta see this."

Based on Mel's expression — not fear, more like some mixture of confusion and disbelief — Nida didn't even bother guessing what he'd find when they stepped outside. Even so, he wasn't prepared for what he saw coming out of the receding fog.

It was about the size of Balamb Garden's central building, shaped a bit like an upside-down wedding cake and painted in shades of pale green. A silver, spinning ring was anchored around its center level, and the whole thing was gliding a good fifty meters above the ground.

A crowd was quickly gathering as it approached, passing straight over the perimeter fence and coming to a stop over the open courtyard before beginning to descend. Everyone seemed too confused, or transfixed, to be concerned.

"Wait," Paige said, tugging his arm. "Doesn't that look like…?"

Nida realized that he recognized it, too. Its shape had changed a bit from the pictures, and it shouldn't be hovering in the air, but there was no mistaking the architecture, the pattern painted on the walls, or the design of the spinning ring.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "That's…Trabia Garden."

They stared at the building for another moment, as it settled towards the ground. Late-morning sunlight gleamed off its ring, throwing patterns across the grounds and giving it an almost angelic look, and a draft of artificial wind blew over them.

"Hold on a second," said Mel. "Trabia Garden can fly?"

Nida shook his head. "I mean, I guess so. But…it's news to me."

"Heey!" Trabia Garden was still a good fifteen meters off the ground when a girl in familiar yellow overalls appeared, leaning out of the main doors on the lower level. "Is everyone okay? We came as fast as we could!