fourteen
Squall Leonhart's return to Balamb is heralded by Garden vehicles, blocking off the main access road into town. He slams on the brakes, and the sedan lurches sideways, shuddering to a stop. The horn is impressively loud, so Squall keeps his palm pressed against it for a good ten seconds.
One of the cadets ambles over, stern-faced as she raps a gloved hand against the closed window. She calls, "Road's shut down. Turn your car around."
Squall rolls down the window with a press of a button. "Move the trucks," he says, and all of the authority that he has cast away comes back in full, brutal force. He recognizes this SeeD- she used to be part of his security team, before Xu turned on him.
"Comm-" She stops herself before the word slips out, but just in time. "Sir, I can't let you through."
"Report."
"I can't give you that information. Sorry. You'll have to turn around." She looks apologetic in the way that only soldiers can, the expression that says, just following orders, now get out of here before I shoot you.
Rinoa is playing with a lock of her hair when Squall glances over at her. She drops her hands, narrows her eyes, and like that, there is a shift in the air, electricity on the wind and a rumble underground. The SeeD puts her hand on her baton, dropping into a reflexive defensive crouch.
"Move the trucks," Squall repeats; the threat hangs there, looming. Distantly, there is the boom of thunder, and the earth shakes again. He can feel the vibration through the soles of his feet. "Don't make me do this, Jansen," he adds, desperately. "Please."
He can see the war in her thoughts- regulations versus old loyalties, and somewhere there is still a bit of humanity left in her that SeeD hasn't carved out. Jansen backs off.
"Let 'em pass!" she yells.
"Thank you."
"Don't get yourself killed," Jansen tells him.
The trucks move out of the way, clearing a path, and Squall hits the accelerator. Ahead, there is a blooming cloud of smoke hanging over the tiny town. How many are dead? How many more are going to die before the day is over?
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Rinoa twisting the lock of hair around her fingers again, and her expression is blank.
xx
-and then Seifer is aware that he might be screaming, thrashing against Rai's arm, because there is no way, no fucking way she is dead, because that doesn't happen. He's supposed to save her, riding in there like a knight on a goddamned white horse-
"No, no, no, no, no-" He shoves Raijin's arm away, twisting it in a defensive maneuver that elicits a yelp from his friend, but it doesn't matter, because she is in there, she is dying.
(she is already dead)
"Seifer!" His friends are yelling after him, because this is the single most stupid thing he has ever done, but all he can do is run toward that building, now, while it's just barely standing.
There is a bright blast around the edges of his vision all of a sudden, and Seifer's pace speeds up. Someone, probably Fujin, has hit him with a haste spell, and he thanks her silently as he sprints toward the warehouse, covering his head as glass and shrapnel fall from the sky. The temperature increases dramatically the closer he gets to the warehouse; when he sucks in breath, seeking out fresh oxygen, the air sears his lungs. His exhalation comes out as her name.
Seifer barrels through the skeleton of the entrance. The building groans, shuddering, threatening to collapse entirely.
"Quistis!" he yells, "Answer me!"
There's nothing, not right away. Not the whisper of her words in his mind, not even a faint susurrus of her heartbeat, nothing to give away her position. She's dead, a voice taunts him. Dead dead dead.
No. That's not possible. He will not fucking believe that.
There is a sudden scalding pain along his leg, and when he looks down, flames are creeping up his pants. He beats at them, frantically, tearing off his destroyed coat to subdue them, and when he comes up victorious, he tosses the coat away. It collides with what used to be a potted plant, and the fire devours it.
Seifer is yanking up the collar of his t-shirt over his mouth, clamping his hand across his nose to hold his mock-mask in place, when her voice stirs around the edges of his mind, faint, so, so faint.
here-here-here-over here-
He follows the sound to the left, where the smoke is unbearably thick. "Quistis-" He coughs, choking, and has to drop the shirt collar long enough to hock up a mouthful of gray phlegm, spitting it onto the soot-covered linoleum floor. "Quistis!"
-seifer-
There is the shrieking of metal, the horrific dying wail of architecture. Every iota of common sense in his body tells him he has to get out of here, but he won't.
Not without her.
"QUISTIS!" Her name rips from his lips in a roar. He can't see through the massive clouds of smoke, not enough to judge if there's anyone left alive, but there is the subtle wink of blue in response, far away down the end of the corridor, and Seifer runs to it.
xx
well, she always knew she was going to hell.
the fire wraps around her, a cocoon, keeping her trapped
in here, alone, alone, with the skeletons of what used to be
people.
someone is yelling her name.
(it isn't real, quistis, it isn't real)
and then there are hands on her, tugging her up
out of the frozen, fiery embrace, picking her
up from the ground like she weighs nothing.
quistis, quistis, quistis
there is the groaning of fatiguing metal, and
she thinks they are flying.
xx
She is alive.
Curled up fetal at the heart of a nest of bones and skulls, people flayed free of their skin. What has she done?
He grabs her arm, pulling her to her feet, and Quistis hangs loosely from his grip, unable or unwilling to walk. To run. To escape.
Somewhere alarmingly close by, there is another blast, part of the building collapsing under its own weight. Seifer gathers her up into his arms, wheeling around back down the corridor. His lungs burn with the extra weight in his arms, and the journey of fifty feet takes an eternity.
The one clear exit they had is gone, the door frame splintered apart into a six foot wall of flame. Seifer spins wildly, looking for another way out, anything, a window, a secret tunnel- something.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Quistis stirs, coughing into his shirt.
"Is there another exit?" he demands, his words raspy-hoarse from the sheer amount of smoke he's managed to inhale. Her eyes roll up at him, slivers of blue. She is terrifyingly pale in the firelight. He shakes her more forcefully than he intended, his entire body on edge with the force of the haste spell. "Quistis- did you see another way out?"
A chunk of burning ceiling drops and he reels back, narrowly avoiding the whole mess. They are trapped, and he would kill for a Protect or a Shell or something.
closeyoureyes.
"Hey! Quistis!"
Her hand spiders up his chest, fisting into his shirt.
closeyoureyes.
"God, wake up, you have to answer me-"
His lungs feel like they are collapsing. The smoke is thick, impossible to see through- they're screwed, utterly, completely screwed. This isn't how he pictured the end.
(It should be in a battlefield, with Hyperion in his hand, glory hanging around him like a well-earned cloak. It should be with him wrinkled and old, with Quistis by his side.)
close
your
eyes
When it comes, the pain is unrelenting, burning straight down to his cells. Is this dying?
This is the end of everything.
This is the rush of static, and this is the blistering silence.
This is where his story ends.
He doesn't understand.
xx
when he opens his eyes, there is only a blinding white light, unbearably hard to look at.
somewhere overhead, a seagull cries out, and he thinks maybe he smells the salt of the ocean.
it is too much to comprehend, though, so he surrenders, giving himself back into the cool embrace of oblivion.
it's better there.