Chapter Text
CW: mention of suicidal ideation
Winters in Esthar were not quite what Quistis Trepe was used to having spent the better part of her childhood in the tropical climate of Balamb. Even with the wealth of technology that for so many years had shielded the capital city from harm’s way, Esthar’s scientist had never quite found a way to manipulate the weather. At least in the city proper the heated paths and skyways shielded against the cold - outside of the city was another story entirely.
Quistis stood bundled against the wind, shielding her eyes against the sun as the rocket base in the distance readied for another launch. In the four years since Ultimecia had been dealt with, the former lunar gate had been partially converted into a base for launching space expeditions. While tensions remained between Galbadia and Esthar, things were considerably calmer than they had once been and the world had turned from focusing on war to focusing on progress.
“I wish they’d launch the damn thing already.”
Beside Quistis stood Zell Dincht, covered head to toe in absurdly puffy clothing, shivering against the wind, his face partially obscured by the fur hood of his coat.
“You could have watched from inside the base,” she offered.
“Squall told me to stick with you. I think he was worried I’d get lost otherwise.”
Quistis had been surprised to see Zell when he arrived. Of course, she knew Balamb Garden had representatives aboard the scheduled flight and Kiros had sent her to greet a delegate from Garden, but she would have expected Squall to send Selphie, who was used to the cold and usually the first to volunteer when travel was involved.
Zell was perhaps the most ill-equipped of Squall’s confidants to deal with the cold. Quistis offered him her thermos and he shook his head, holding up heavily mittened hands.
“Couldn’t open it anyway.”
Laughing, Quistis unscrewed the top and passed it to him. He took a gulp, shouted, and dribbled half of the hot coffee down his chin.
“Damn!” He hissed. “Warn a guy.”
“There was steam coming off of it,” said Quistis.
“There’s steam coming out of my mouth when I talk! How am I supposed to gauge how hot something is in this cold?”
The ground shook beneath their feet and Quistis turned her gaze skyward once more. “That’ll be the rocket.”
“Thank Hyne,” Zell muttered.
The shaking intensified and suddenly a bright light and a huge cloud of exhaust filled the sky several miles out from where Quistis and Zell stood watching. The rocket ascended into the sky at a breakneck pace and they watched as it climbed up, up, up until it disappeared from sight.
“Well there you go,” Zell held his hands up. “The rocket did what it was supposed to.”
Quistis’ phone chirped and she opened up her messages to find a single word from the comm team at the lunar gate:
“Success.”
“They’ve breached the atmosphere,” Quistis breathed a sigh of relief. “We can head back into the city.”
Zell was already running, albeit awkwardly in his cumbersome clothing, to the vehicle awaiting them a few hundred yards away.
It had been three years since Laguna offered this job to Quistis, three years since she’d left behind everything she had ever known and moved across the world for a fresh start. At the time, it felt like what she needed. Her entire life had been spent in the shadow of her own success, trying to keep up with the expectations thrust upon her.
And then she had been part of the team that helped save the world as they knew it.
They had been hailed as heroes, thrown parades, given medals by heads of government, offered their pick of any possible posting they could imagine. But when the excitement died down, Quistis found herself feeling like the odd man out.
Of course, she had grown to love and care for the others after all they had been through and a solid year-long celebratory tour. She was especially fond of Rinoa, who she felt a sisterly affection for. But when the dust settled, it was clear that everyone had found their niche except for Quistis.
Squall could have lead the entire Galbadian army if he’d wanted - and it had been offered to him - but he chose to take over Garden in Cid’s stead and steer the education and policies in a new direction. Rinoa had stayed with him, opening a new division of Garden dedicated to honing the skills of magically inclined individuals - particularly young girls who might harbor the powers of a sorceress - to help guide them down a path of using their magic for good.
Selphie and Irvine remained in Balamb as well, settling into a house in town and working as instructors at Garden. Zell took over as the head field agent for SeeD as Squall’s work required his constant presence at Balamb.
Quistis had barely entertained the thought of staying on as an instructor, though Squall had offered her a generous salary and her pick of missions. She had tried and failed once as an instructor and after all she had been through, she preferred to try something new.
It was while Laguna - President Loire - was visiting Garden with Ellone a year after Ultimecia’s defeat that he struck up a conversation with Quistis and offered her a role in his cabinet. She wasn’t even sure what to call herself at that point: part presidential aide, part military liaison, part field agent, part spy. She did what Laguna asked of her and she found the work fulfilling.
Still, she often missed her friends. And they so rarely found time to talk to one another, let alone see each other. This was the first time Quistis had seen Zell since she left Balamb.
Inside the car, Zell held his face in front of the vent as it pumped out hot air.
“How do you handle these winters, Quis? I can’t wait to get back to Balamb and stick my toes in the warm sand.”
“You get used to it.” Quistis shrugged, keeping her eyes on the road. “Plus I have a fireplace in my apartment.”
“Selphie said you’ve got a pretty sweet set up here.”
Quistis nodded. “It’s comfortable. I’ve thought about getting a cat or something. It gets lonely sometimes. But then I’m not home often enough for a pet, I think.”
“What, no boy toy to keep you warm at night?” Zell chuckled and waggled his eyebrows.
Quistis snorted, rolling her eyes. “As if I have time.”
“You don’t need that much time,” said Zell, pumping his hips and fists in a suggestive and childish gesture.
“I’ll tell Miko you said so.”
Zell’s face fell. “I was only kidding!”
Quistis laughed, a deep genuine laugh the likes of which she hadn’t in a long time. “You know, I missed you, Zell.”
“Yeah?” Zell smirked. “We miss you back at Balamb. But I don’t blame you for leaving. Esthar’s got way more going on. The most exciting thing that happens in Balamb is leaving it.”
“I should get back for a visit sometime. I’m just always so busy…”
They spent the remainder of the car ride back into the city catching up on lost time, and when they arrived back at the Presidential Palace, Zell stayed for a formal meal with Laguna and his other aides. Any time Laguna was around, it was difficult to get a word in edge wise, but Quistis enjoyed the evening drinking wine with Zell and reminiscing about what amounted to their ‘glory days’. So much so that she was genuinely sad when he left on a flight for Balamb the next morning and she found herself alone once again.
There wasn’t much time to dwell over her loneliness though, because Kiros called her into the office bright and early with a new assignment.
“Quistis, doing well despite the flowing wine last night I hope?” Kiros raised an eyebrow.
Quistis nodded. “You had an assignment for me?”
“Straight down to business like always,” Kiros chuckled. “No time for pleasantries with Drill Sergeant Trepe.”
Quistis flushed. “I’m sorry, I-“
She had always been awkward at best in social situations. She was especially awkward with Laguna, Kiros, and Ward, who simultaneously acted as her superiors while also operating on casual and friendly terms with her in any given situation. After her strictly regimented upbringing at Garden, it was hard to get used to such a laid back attitude. In fact, how Laguna managed to run an entire country still eluded her.
“Don’t worry about it.” Kiros waved a hand dismissively. “Laguna has something he wants you to look into in Dollet.”
“Dollet?” Quistis was intrigued. “No trouble brewing I hope?”
Tensions between the Dollet Dukedom and Galbadia were still high, with frequent border disputes and a chilly political air between them.
“Hopefully nothing. But we’ve had some concerning reports and we want to make sure we head off any sort of international political incident.”
“What do the reports say exactly?” Quistis asked.
“We think Seifer Almasy is hiding out in Dollet.”
Seifer Almasy was having a shit week.
Or a shit year.
Possibly a shit decade, but he was only twenty-two so that might be calling it too early.
It was a long drop from the top and he hadn’t exactly stuck the landing. It was hard to fathom that four years earlier he had been the most powerful man in, if not the world, then certainly at least Galbadia.
Now, as he lay slumped against a fountain in the city square, reeking of stale beer and cigarettes, he didn’t recognize the face he saw reflected in the rippling water below him.
“Look at you now, Almasy,” he sighed. “Waste of fucking space.”
He dunked his head in the frigid water and came up spluttering, but the shock tricked his body into sobering up, if only a little.
“Fucking dignified.”
Dollet was at least nicer than the other shitholes he’d been living in since the SeeDs defeated Ultimecia and Seifer became a de facto war criminal. He wasn’t even sure how many people might be looking for him - probably every country if he had to guess. All he knew was Raijin had been the one to tip him off to the fact that there was a warrant out, so he had run.
And running was all he had done for the last four years. Aliases. Stolen money. Lingering depression spiraling into a reliance on the only thing that numbed the pain for a few minutes.
Oh how the mighty had fallen.
The lowest of low points came when he hocked the Hyperion for money to spend on booze. That had been back in Timber. He hadn’t stayed there long.
Where did he plan to go after Dollet? Maybe he’d hitch a ride on a fishing boat on its way up to Trabia and live off the land for a while.
Or maybe he’d throw himself overboard and be done with the whole fucking affair.
That was probably the worst part of this entire miserable situation: he was too much of a coward to just off himself and be done with it. He knew what was waiting for him if he got caught: at best he’d spend the best years of his life locked in a solitary cell at D-district prison getting the shit beat out of him by the same prison guards he’d ordered around four years earlier; at worst they’d stand him up before the firing squad.
Running continued to remain preferable to death, even if the difference was marginal at best.
What Seifer needed at that moment was a shower, a shave, and a bed to rest in for the night - preferably in that order. He turned out the pockets of his tattered duster and found a whopping ten gil to his name; his bank account had been emptied long ago.
“Ten gil,” he scoffed, knocking one of the coins into the fountain and wishing he had the guts to fucking kill himself. “Wouldn’t even buy me a beer.”
For a while he had taken jobs as a mercenary. Even with peace settling over the world, there were still people who wanted others to do their dirty work for them and acting as a mercenary wasn’t any different than what the SeeDs did, no matter how much they tried to delude themselves into thinking otherwise. Unfortunately, as Seifer’s mental health began to tank, so did his physical health. A beer belly had replaced the impressive set of abs he once sported, his arms lost their tone once he no longer had a gunblade to swing around, and his hair had grown long and disheveled.
Maybe if he just slept against the fountain he’d freeze and nature could take its course.
“Hey, you! What are you doing loitering around?”
Seifer groaned and looked up to find a city police officer approaching him. Didn’t they have anything better to do in this Hyne-forsaken city than harass a vagrant?
“What’s it to you?” Seifer belched. “Or isn’t this public property?”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean you can make your bed here.” The office got closer and frowned at him. “You again, huh. What was the name again?”
“Denton,” Seifer lied.
“You keep running afoul of us and you’re gonna get yourself kicked out of Dollet, Denton.”
“What a shame that would be,” said Seifer, slumping against the cool stone of the fountain and closing his eyes.
A sharp kick to his ribs forced them back open.
“Get up and get out of here!” The officer barked.
“Yeah? And where the fuck am I supposed to go?”
“Not my problem, Denton. Get out of my sight before I put you in jail.”
Jail, at least, meant a bed to sleep in. The typical protocol since he arrived was a night or two in a cell to sober up and then they’d toss him back onto the street to make room for someone else causing trouble.
So Seifer did what he most certainly should not have done. He stood up, stumbled forward, and shoved the police officer into the fountain.
What ensued was possibly the shortest chase in police history. Seifer waited until the officer climbed out of the freezing water, coughing and spluttering, before he took off running down a nearby alleyway. The officer caught up to him in a few long strides and slammed him into the ground, skinning open his chin on the pavement.
“That’s it, you’re coming with me Denton. And don’t think you’re getting off so easy this time.”
Cold metal cuffs locked around Seifer’s wrists and then it was a long walk down to the police station where they threw him in a cell with a solitary cot and a ratty blanket.
Lying back on the cot, filthy and still bleeding, Seifer closed his eyes.
“Home sweet home.”