Headmaster Daniels had a sad smile on her face as she stepped forward to shake Cid's hand. "It's good to see you again," she said. "I wish the circumstances were better."

"So do I." Cid's clothes looked even more rumpled than Nida remembered, but his smile actually looked genuine. "Still, I'm glad to see your Garden is safe. Even if I'm a little surprised to see it sitting on my lawn."

Trabia Garden was just visible through the window, resting on the courtyard in front of the library as a crowd of students milled around it. Reflected light from its ring, which was spinning a bit more lazily now, danced over the walls and ceiling of Cid's office, giving the room a sort of underwater feel.

"Yes, I suppose I should explain that." Headmaster Daniels was a tall woman with greying hair and the straightest posture Nida had seen, but nothing about her looked severe. Indeed, Nida got the impression that she was the most personable of Garden's three headmasters. "I'll admit I was a bit shocked myself."

"I take it Selphie and Irvine managed to warn you in time," said Quistis. Between her, Xu, Rinoa, the rest of the Timber Team and a few Trabia Garden students who hadn't been introduced yet, Cid's cavernous office was almost starting to feel crowded; but so far, the others had been letting the two headmasters talk.

Selphie chose the moment to jump in, too. "I was really worried!" she said, hopping forward from where she'd been standing with the other T-Garden students. "It took a super long time to get across the ocean. But as soon as we got to Trabia, we rented a snowbike, and we made it to Garden in no time!"

Daniels nodded. "Selphie came racing straight over the bluffs. I suppose it's lucky I never managed to discourage her from that habit." She smiled for a brief moment. "Obviously, our first thought was evacuation. But Lank here had another idea."

One of the T-Garden students, a dark-haired kid in a well-worn uniform, nodded. "Every now and then, you'd find really old books in strange places. One of them had all these diagrams of what the building looked like before it got converted into Trabia Garden. It said there was this whole other level underground, and all the pictures called it a 'shelter.'"

"Of course," said Cid, a distant look passing over his face. "Before they were remodeled into the Gardens as we know them, these buildings were shelters during the time of the Centra. When we moved in, they had been abandoned for so long that I could never learn any details. But I always wondered how these structures had managed to pop up in places all over the world."

Daniels nodded. "Honestly, I expected it would just be some sort of bunker. But Lank thought there might be some sort of defensive mechanism, and Selphie insisted we take a look."

"It was kinda scary," Selphie added. "Plus it was really dark, and half the machines were frozen. I was worried we wouldn't get any of it to work in time."

"We were lucky," said another T-Garden kid, clad in black overalls and a green sweater with the sleeves rolled up. "Selphie had all this high-level magic, so we could melt the ice and jump-start the machinery. And when we did, it's like the whole place just came to life."

"That part was REALLY cool!" said Selphie, taking over the narration again. "We were on this platform with a bunch of controls, and the whole thing just started to rise! Next thing we knew, we were all standing in the Evaluation Room, and the whole Garden was transforming!"

"Selphie took the controls before we even knew what was happening," said Headmaster Daniels. "And a good thing, because the missiles arrived only moments later. If we'd remained where we were for a few more seconds…" She stopped herself. "Well, I don't need to explain that here."

"I wonder…" Cid was looking out his window again, either at Trabia Garden resting in the courtyard or the ruins of Balamb Garden all around it. "Could Balamb Garden have transformed as well? Might we have avoided this fate if we had been a little bit quicker?"

"There's probably no way of knowing." Daniels stepped up next to Cid. "Our equipment may have been preserved by Trabia's cold climate. There's no telling what condition yours would be in."

Cid nodded. "I just wish we'd had the chance to find out."

Nida felt like his mind still hadn't processed half of the information it had been given in the last half-hour. He'd gotten so used to thinking that all three Gardens had been lost, and just the revelation that one of them had not only survived, but could fly and was parked just outside the entrance, felt like it could take the better part of a week to get used to by itself. He hadn't thought much about Selphie and Irvine; and when he had, he'd assumed….

"Wait a minute," he said, surprising even himself. A second later, every eye in the room was on him, and he gulped. "That policeman, in Dollet. He said you two had been captured."

"Nope!" said Selphie. "They tried to get us when we were taking a boat, but I just turned the engine up to max, and we RACED out of there!"

"It was close," said Irvine. "They took some pretty good shots at us."

"They must have been talking about someone else," said Quistis.

The room was silent as that sunk in. The moment was broken when Rinoa jumped up from her seat, suddenly wide-eyed, and dashed out of the room without a word.

For a second after her exit, the others just stared. Then Xu frowned.

"We still have a few students unaccounted for," she said. "But from everything I've been able to learn, Fujin and Raijin never got back from Galbadia Garden."

The others looked at each other. "Oh," Quistis said.

Seifer didn't pack heavy. He had his gunblade, his maintenance kit, some travel food, and a pack with some potions and a tent. His charge card had just enough money for the train from Balamb, assuming it was running, though he hadn't decided whether or not to take one of the transport skiffs instead. Either way, it would be a long trip to reach the D-District prison, but he'd figure out the details on the way.

His first step was getting out the door. It helped that he hadn't really bothered to unpack, so all the gear he'd taken with him to Timber were still sitting on his desk. It was just a matter of making sure he remembered everything.

That was taking longer than it should. Seifer couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing.

When he'd left for Timber the first time, he hadn't had to think nearly this hard. Back then, he hadn't taken anything besides his gunblade and the train fare. He couldn't figure out what was making this time so different.

Except for just about everything.

Hell with it, he decided, grabbing his gear and fixing his gunblade to his belt. If he'd really forgot something, he'd figure it out on the way.

He made it as far as the dorm's common room, where Rinoa was waiting for him.

"I knew it!" She had her hands on her hips, and the imperious look that had probably convinced the Forest Owls to start calling her 'princess.' "You're about to run off on your own again, right? Were you even going to tell us first?"

Seifer forced himself to look away as quickly as possible. "I'm done wasting time here," he said, trying to step past her and escape down the hall. She just fell in beside him instead. "When that policemen told me they'd captured two kids from Garden, Instructor and Whatshisname decided to just run home, and I should've known better. They've held me back long enough."

"Seifer, just wait a second. The desert prison is a fortress. You can't just rush in without a plan."

"I'll figure something out!" he snapped. "I'm tired of sitting around! I'm not gonna waste any more time while Fujin and Raijin rot in jail!"

He'd made it a few more steps before he realized Rinoa had stopped. She was standing frozen in the middle of the hall, regarding him with a quizzical expression, and Seifer had managed to take all this in before he realized that now he'd stopped, too.

And before he could do anything about it, Rinoa charged. "THAT's the Seifer I remember!" she exclaimed, and the next thing Seifer knew, her arms were around his neck and he had to stumble backwards to avoid getting knocked over. "I knew you were still in there somewhere!"

"?" Seifer's head tried to catch up with the conversation. "W—wait a minute…"

Rinoa stepped back, hands on her hips again. "Obviously we've gotta go save Fujin and Raijin. They're your friends, and we can't just leave them in a Galbadian prison. But just because you care doesn't mean you're in this alone. You've got friends here who are willing to help, if you'd just give them a chance." Her eyes shifted focus to something over his shoulder, in the direction of the main hall. "That's right, isn't it?"

"'Friends' is putting it a bit strongly." That was Trepe's voice; Seifer turned and saw her leading a small procession of kids up towards them. There was Zell, plus the two other SeeDs from this year's class — the tall kid and the Trabia girl — and the sniper from the Deling City mission. Trepe had that annoying tiny smile she got when she was trying to be your big sister. "But yes, I think that's absolutely right. We've spent enough time here, wallowing in our misery."

"Yeah, man!" Zell exclaimed. "I mean, Fujin and Raijin were always givin' me trouble 'cause of Disciplinary Committee stuff, but they're still our fellow students! We can't let Galbadia lock them away!"

"I know you like to take care of things by yourself," Rinoa said, stepping up beside him. "But we're in this together now. Seifer, you've always wanted a chance to make a difference, but that means what you do is going to affect a lot of other people. What I was doing in Timber, with the 'Forest Owls'…and everything that happened after we captured President Deling…and then the mission to assassinate the Sorceress…every choice we make is going to change the world around us. And that's why…we can't afford to be alone anymore."

Seifer set his jaw, since he couldn't seem to force a response through his head. He couldn't very well look away, but seeing Rinoa's eyes kept bringing back memories he didn't want — her waiting trapped in the attic of that house in Timber, diving into his fight with Trepe at the edge of the woods, or in Garden's infirmary covered in other people's blood.

"And think about it practically," Trepe said. "How are you going to get all the way to the desert, much less inside the prison? The Galbadians will probably be watching the ports, and there's no telling if the trains are even running? The trip could take days, even if you don't run into trouble." She folded her arms. "On the other hand, there's a flying academy parked in our yard that would probably get you there a lot faster."

Seifer really hadn't thought of that; his idea had been to take a boat to Dollet and then probably rent a car. He looked at the others, who all looked back at him, and realized his plan had already failed. The anger had completely faded away; but so had the haze that had seemed to hang over him ever since he'd seen those first missiles fire into the sky.

And when he looked back at Rinoa, something else occurred to him.

"You know," he said, "D-District is the Galbadians' facility for holding political prisoners. That means your father's probably locked up there, too."

She clearly hadn't been expecting that, and it set her back a bit. "I…suppose so," she said. "We've always had our differences, but…I never wanted him to be imprisoned. Especially not for trying to stop the Sorceress. Do you think we can get him out, too?"

Seifer wasn't sure if she'd set up the question on purpose, but he couldn't have planned it better. "Why the hell not?" he asked, and the grin almost came by itself. "I bet those Galbadians won't even know what hit them."

Around then, Seifer noticed that everyone was smiling at him. And not the sort of condescending too-polite-for-smirks that Trepe would get; instead, they all seemed…friendly. Happy, even. A second later, Seifer realized there was probably one on his face, too.

Make a new dream, huh? he thought. Well, I can work with this.