Convergence [3]: Brainstorm

A/N: Thanks so much for the views and feedback, everyone! I'm surprised and overjoyed that some of you remember me after all this time. I hope this will live up to your expectations. :)

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After informing Laguna about the SeeD soon to visit his nation's ports and going over their Timber travel plans, Squall called Rinoa into the parking lot. It seemed right - quiet, still, unused, the best kind of private meeting place: no one else was interested.

Yes, Squall was paranoid, but his surroundings were spinning far enough out of control to give him no choice.

While Rinoa sat on an old cement bumper-curb, twirling a lock of hair against her lips, Squall relayed to her everything he had already told Seifer and Zell. When he was fininshed outlining every problem without adding any solutions, he stood silently, arms crossed, staring at the paint stripes on a far wall. Squall was waiting to be scolded; he couldn't look at her.

"Sit down," Rinoa said, patting the cement ledge beside her. Squall didn't think before obeying. Rinoa leaned her head on his upper arm. "We'll never know everything," she mumbled into soft leather, "So at this point, it's not about planning anymore. It's about attitude." At that, she brightened, sitting up straight.

"I don't know what you mean."

"I don't think you realize the kind of fuel I'll be getting from you, and from Seifer. It's like a super-junction - with the good effects, but none of the bad."

"Guardian Force harnessing is a technology," Squall cuontered, unsure whether Rinoa would agree, "While Sorceress-Knight connections are natural, from Hyne. Of course the technology's not going to be perfect. They're still working out the -"

"With a GF, you get to choose when to let it go, but since it never becomes a part of you, it does damage while you keep it. It's a foreign body, an invader." Rinoa spoke slowly, as though carefully measuring her words. Her goal was to explain by revisiting relevant points they already agreed upon, not to argue. "But our connection? It becomes us, as part of who we are, and while it's practically permanent, it's also totally, completely safe."

As a Knight, Squall's ability to cast magic was almost as strong as Rinoa's, without the aid of a GF. He learned that long ago, but he had always continued to use Shiva regardless. Whatever was technically true, Shiva was more a part of him than Rinoa had ever been. Squall couldn't help that.

"When I get in there," Rinoa continued, excitement glinting in her eyes, "I'll be sharper than ever. I'll have the concentration, memory and creativity of two extra minds - just hanging out in the background, you know? - keeping me sharp, propping me up. I've never been so ready think on my toes. Well, maybe one other time."

Rinoa sounded almost as though she had finally grown enough to be worthy of a SeeD ranking. Would Squall make it honorary, or make her take a few tests? Would she even care to join, assuming Ebony Rapture didn't offer something better? He tucked the thoughts into the back of his mind.

She was reminiscing, now. "When I first junc'ed up with Zone and Watts, I picked up a book on the algebraic elements of late Centra tech, finished it that night, and the next day, I used what I learned to repair an antique laser gun Watts' father left him. So don't worry about me."

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Running was a healthy pastime.

Squall huffed to deflate a mild cramp. He reveled in the opportunity to think in simple, endorphin-laced sentences as he made laps around the Ragnarok, visiting most rooms and circling the mini-hangar, again and again and again.

Running was good for stress relief.

His breath kept time with his steps.

His thoughts remained pleasantly bite-sized.

Before leaving, Squall had managed to squeeze into a spare pair of Zell's running shoes, with permission. Aware that sitting still and letting his mind run laps instead would make the mission too difficult, Squall brought an extra change of clothes in cotton, and was moving before the ship reached cruising altitude.

Zell's shoes were like trampolines.

Running was practically effortless.

Impressively, even Seifer managed to leave Squall alone for the first ten laps. Yet, half an hour in, Squall found Seifer sitting on the rail of the bridge across the hangar, right near an area where, were they to look closely enough, they might have found a spot of their own pearly-white biological graffiti of a few days' past.

Seifer watched him come in, watched him make his way to the bridge, and appeared to engage willingly in an inevitable game of chicken. Still, Seifer allowed Squall a gap between his knees and the opposite rail, so Squall kept up the speed of his strides despite knowing that just as he passed, Seifer could stick out a leg or jump to his feet really fast and -

Thump. Seifer caught Squall forcefully but gracefully, considering Squall's velocity. Squall pinched his lip between a lower tooth and Seifer's collarbone, and swore. "Get out of my way," he mumbled, only half-meaning it.

"Nice shoes." Some of the violence left Seifer's arms, so that Squall was no longer captured, but held.

Now that his momentum was gone, Squall quickly lost the energy to fight his way out of this. "Thanks."

"I didn't know you were a jogger."

"I'm not."

"Mm, but Zell is, isn't he? Thought you might bring him along in spirit after leaving the rest of him behind?"

Squall stepped back to make his scowl visible, and Seifer's hand left the top of his ass. Squall's body was cooling down, and he suppressed a shiver. "I thought I'd test his methods. Are you accusing me of something?"

Seifer cleared a drop of sweat from Squall's temple with the gloved back of an index finger. "Are you feeling defensive?"

"It's hard not to, around you. But look, I thought I already told you - if either of you wants anything to do with me, you'll have to put up with my feelings for the other. I can't help it - that's the way it is. Okay?"

"I'm not jealous. I just wanted to spark convers- ugh." Seifer stepped back once, squinting, as though fighting something that pained him.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Seifer blinked a couple times. He smirked, but his eyes were glassy.

Squall squinted suspiciously at him. "Are you sure?"

"Of course. I'm just worried about Timber. Just like you."

It was more than Seifer usually gave, so Squall accepted it. He sat on the railing, a little slouched, inviting Seifer to sit beside him with his posture. When Seifer did, snaking an arm around his waist, Squall finally allowed himself to shiver against the contrast of Seifer's warmth. "What if we don't get her back?"

Seifer's fingers dug into Squall's hip, punishing him. "She has a wire. She'll be fine. And if she's not, we'll know soon enough to be able to do something about it." Seifer ran his free hand down his face, pulling on his cheeks, showing the pinks of his lower eyelids - and revealing how bloodshot his eyes were. "So how about a little optimism?"

"What do you need my optimism for?"

"I don't know how well I can take anything else right now."

When Rinoa found them, positioned like mirror images with their feet hooked over a low bar for stability, Seifer's coat hung on Squall's shoulders. She leaned against the steel opposite them and handed Squall his other clothes, folded in pristine squares. He took the pile and held it on his lap. "Fifteen minutes," she said.

Rinoa looked like a china doll, with perfect skin paler than usual, her expression blank. It was the kind of blank expression people got when hidden fear accumulated in their bellies. Squall had seen it on her before, in time compression, in a memory of that years-ago castle which always seemed inexplicably linked to the present.

"All wired up, my lady?"

"I managed to get it all taped on. Squall's dad helped me with the areas I couldn't reach. What a gentleman." She added, "Are you feeling okay, Seifer? You don't look it."

"Neither do you."

"Neither do any of us," Squall concluded.

They sat there, looking at one another, for a long time.

"Care for some audio?" Rinoa offered, holding out a hand. Each Knight plucked an earbud from her palm. "Testing?" They nodded, each with a hand to an ear, and another long pause followed. "I'm only scared because you are," Rinoa accused quietly, her face just a tiny bit green. "Stop it."

The three crashed into a strange, impulsive sort of hug, and stayed that way, propping one another up like the poles of a teepee, until the Ragnarok began its descent.

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Timber looked the same as the last time Seifer saw it, except for the extra blur of pain haloing its edges.

Seifer had taken six of Squall's extra-strengthers that morning. Six, and they barely seemed to have an effect.

It was getting worse. It would not be getting better. Seifer tried not to think about it much beyond that, though he did wonder whether it would always be better than the alternative.

Back on the Ragnarok, Seifer had discovered why Zell had been so keen on giving him a hug goodbye - in a waist-height inner pocket of his coat, Seifer found a small handful of painkillers in a plastic baggie with a note.

'You're a fuckin' suicidal psychopathic retard. - Zell'

Unwritten were the words, But I'm not gonna let you get distracted from what you have to do. Seifer would have found it sweet, if he didn't know Zell was only doing what he could to protect Squall and Rinoa.

Rinoa, a distant pinprick down a long, battered street, said tinnily into his ear, "I'll be on the swing in the playground. Try to be discreet."

"If you want to be discreet, stop talking to yourself so much," Squall replied, a hand at his ear. Something creaked in the earbuds - a swing chain, probably. Rinoa seemed to have gotten the message.

The sun had been excruciatingly warm on their walk to the half-dead city, but now it was beginning to set behind Squall and Seifer, so that their heads stretched to meet Rinoa and their footsteps leapt whole abandoned cars. A hiding spot would have to come to them before sunset, because sunset was when the monsters would come out to take their Sorceress away.

Seifer faltered a step, unnoticed by Squall. That thought - such a dramatic, posessive thought - belonged to something much older than himself.

"I wish I hadn't left Angelo behind," Rinoa mumbled. "I've never been here without him."

"You think they'd let you bring a pet?" Squall asked.

"Maybe."

Both men spotted their hiding place at the same time - an old library, structurally intact, but with evidence of attempted arson around the edges.

Broken windows and a dangling gutter showed it to be abandoned. Inside, the carpet squished, and the dank smell of decomposing paper smothered. Yellow-orange sunshine sliced through the cracks of a boarded up window, painting Leonhart like a tiger.

A stripe across Squall's eyes turned his pupils to pinpricks, so when Rinoa cleared her throat over the airwaves, he jumped, easily startled in his temporary blindness. Seifer felt a laugh form in is belly, but didn't let it escape.

Just like elsewhere in Timber, the inside of the library was bluegreen, the carpet and walls matching the color of water, the shelves partially-tarnished copper, stocked with browning books. The way Squall was glowing against the backdrop, anyone to pass a window would see him easily.

Seifer gestured at the stairs - maybe they'd find a good spot up there. Squall nodded and followed him, and after circling the sunken center of the floor, found an east-facing window. Seifer knelt on a soggy teddy bear - this had apparently once been a children's area - while Squall pulled up a white, excessively-lathed wooden chair.

Timber looked like Hyne had taken a two-century-old country village in one hand and a pile of modern Estharian architecture in the other, and bashed them together as hard as he could. Asymmetrical bluegreen monoliths sprung from between brown thatched rooves like grass from dirt.

The city never had managed to fit in with itself.

This was why, Seifer realized thankfully, most of those thatched rooves were caved in and flattened - giving himself and Squall a satisfying view of the schoolyard a block away, and the little speck that was Rinoa swinging timidly on the playground.

It would be at least half an hour before dark. While Seifer enjoyed the view and the fresh air (especially nice contrasted with the library's din), they wouldn't entertain him for long.

"I'd like to see you with a pair of those daggers," Seifer mused, gesturing at Rinoa with his chin.

Squall didn't move any muscle but his tongue to ask, "Pardon me?"

"It's high time you adopted at least a slight wardrobe change. The twin holsters would frame your ass nicely. Especially in red."

Absent-mindedly, as though subsconsciously worried it might disappear, Squall caressed the grip of his gunblade. He didn't seem offended, as Seifer had hoped, but thoughtful, tolerant. "Don't you find them a little girly?"

"Sure." Seifer smirked, standing to search for a chair like Squall's. "I find your ass a little girly, too."

Squall looked like he wanted to laugh, but didn't quite make it. Seifer placed his newfound chair to the other side of the window, backwards, where he would have to lean to see Rinoa, and sat with the back between his legs.

"Does it make you feel like more of a man, sitting like that?" Squall asked.

Seifer was surprised - was Squall teasing him? "Only if I'm naked."

"So you consider choosing a whole new weapon to be a 'wardrobe change,' huh?"

Seifer thought on this. Squall had a point. "Okay, just the holsters, then. That's the important part."

"Why are you here?"

Seifer tripped over his own tongue, catching up with the derailing of their banter - Squall always had been an errant conversationalist. "What do you mean?"

"Why did you come with us?"

"To protect the Sorceress."

"And before, when you first came with me to meet Rinoa, why? Why are you helping us manage Ebony Rapture? Why do you give a shit?"

Seifer eyed Squall suspiciously, looking at him through the corners. "Are you trying to start a fight?"

"No, I'm honestly curious."

Because you asked me to. Seifer waited for his silence to grow heavy before breaking it. "I only have one home, Squall."

Squall's eyes lost their focus momentarily at the response. He nodded thoughtfully, then looked out the window. "Me too."


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