Disclaimer. Squaresoft owns all these guys and places. I don't mean to infringe you guys so........ just chill, eh???
I feel absolutely lousy, damned summer colds, and I am currently combining chicken and mushroom pasta and a rum-pineapple cocktail and it isn't working very well, as well as the fact that as I write this it's 23:04 and I got up to go to work this morning at 06:02. oh, Please read the rest of the fic before flaming me okie?




The Longest Road.


"The life so short, the craft so long to learn."
- Hippocrates.





Chapter twenty; News.




"Good morning Doctor." Squall said as he entered the infirmary. He nodded to a young girl in the first cubicle, a student in one of Zell's martial art's classes, noting the injury the doctor was tending across her knuckles.

She noticed his interest and said: "Got caught without my tape on the way back from a trip from Balamb when I ran into a grat."

Squall nodded. "Next time stick to the road."

The doctor finished her work and shooed the girl out of the room. "I was going to call you Squall..."

"You know me, I like to take my status reports in person." He shrugged.

"Not about the reports...." She slammed her fist on the bedside table. "For god's sake Squall forget protocol for two minutes. This is about the blood tests we conducted."

"Oh, that." He seemed a little subdued.

"Yes Squall that." Her face was the very image of concern. "The virus. Now sit down."

He did as told, seating himself in front of her desk. He held his head high, awaiting news that he had a gut feeling was going to be bad. "Well?" He asked.

She took the seat opposite. "Squall. We managed to refine enough of the virus to determine it's action.... It identifies and attacks only specific DNA sequences, in this case, it seems to be that of your son and therefore both yours and..." Her voice failed to speak Rinoa's name. "As they are similar. It attaches to the lymphocyte bodies until it becomes activated, then it slowly but surely it destroys each cell it can find."

"So this means...," He prompted.

"Squall, you speak as you find, so I'll do the same for you. A cure is highly unlikely. This virus will prove to be fatal."

Squall nodded, surprisingly calm with respect to the news he had just received. He closed his eyes for a moment to search his soul for how he truly felt, but no matter what path his thoughts chose all he could see in his mind was the image of Zell sitting on their bed with Ayden that morning almost crying just because Ayden had called him "Unkle Zell."

"How long do I have doctor?" He asked, storm grey eyes flickering up to register her reaction.

"We can't say. Anything from months to years.... It all depends on when the viral bodies become active. You're taking this very well commander." She stated.

He stood, the very image of uncaring. "I've been waiting to die ever since I made SeeD doctor, no, I've been waiting to die ever since I started at Garden. The SeeD who mentored me when I started here died on a mission on his eighteenth birthday, a week after I'd met him. I never expected to live longer than he did..... How many people know this?"

"Myself and the senior SeeD lab technicians."

"Doctor, I want no one else to know about this okay?" He cast her a very stern look. "Unless I become a danger to Garden, you will say nothing. If anyone has to know I want to be the one to tell them."

She nodded. "Yes Squall."

He turned and left.




Outside, he clenched and unclenched his fist, feeling all the muscles tighten beneath his skin. The very blood supplying those muscles would some day become poisonous, and steal his life away. He decided that the paperwork awaiting his return to the office could wait and took a walk around the garden.


In the library, he found the first of his friends. A girl of short stature and with a pleasant demeanour that was almost as bright as her green eyes. She was wearing a headset and a microphone, speaking into it as she moved in a set pattern of attack defend attack, the most basic of mantras and a second nature in her advanced experience with the nunchukas.

"Practice makes perfect." Squall whispered with an unfamiliar fondness for the small girl. He turned to walk away, taking a moment to try and discover what she was doing, only to find that the computer she was speaking to was programming the Festival section of BG-net.


Another familiar voice sounded from the training center. Quistis lead a small procession of young students out of the training centre nodding to Squall as she passed at the same time as reprimanding a youth who from both her tone and her words he guessed had put the others in danger due to reckless action.

"Been there done that." he whispered. Quistis Trepe had always been meant to be a teacher, it was in her expression, her mannerisms and even her walk. One seven year old girl reached up and tucked her hand into Quistis' and she smiled in response. He continued on his way.


In the car park, he found Irvine instructing a young girl in the finer points of the usage of a shot gun and as Squall entered he looked up. Winking he demonstrated his Shot limit ability leaving the girl astounded and Squall wondering if he should drag Selphie there to see them together.


As he walked through the halls, stopping off to take a look in the dorms and cafeteria, wondering how many of his SeeDs had been hurt that morning on a mission.

Then he wondered how long he'd thought of them as his SeeDs and not Cid's. When he'd started thinking of the students and SeeDs as his kids.


In the quad he found the biggest of his kids leading a martial arts class.

Zell quite simply shone in his role of teacher. As he took the twelve or so pupils through a variety of moves, one flowing smoothly into the next with incredible silent concentration.

Squall hardly dared believe that this beautiful and absolutely silent man was his lover. Although his love for Zell was so deep a part of his soul that he could not imagine life without him, he sometimes wished he'd be quiet for just a little while. Squall valued silence as equally as gold when with Zell.

Sweat shimmered over the muscles of Zell's bare chest as he demonstrated a punch that had enough force to break a brick wall or crack steel armour.

Squall lifted his hand up, half-meaning to wave to him and yet pushed the gloved fingers through his hair nervously. Then he started for his office with out seeing the blonde see him and frown, wondering why he'd been there.


He neglected to switch on the harsh electric lights as he entered the office and instead lit an old fashioned oil lamp perched on his desk, looking rather odd beside the computer, a height of technological advancement. The soft glow seemed a little more natural and he slumped back on his leather chair that creaked thankfully under his weight.

With a pile of contract folders awaiting his approval, he should have been doing work but simply couldn't bring himself to pick them up.

He balled his fists, fingers hot tight and tingling in leather gloves and wondered why he wasn't crying. A year before he'd been so afraid of dying and having everyone talk about him in past tense but no longer cared that much. He'd heard his father speak of Raine as thought she still lived and breathed and Squall himself still thought of Rinoa as that bright and vibrant teenager and not the pale silent figure lying as though asleep in her silk lined coffin.

He had only one regret, that in a few weeks, a few months or at most a few years, he'd leave Zell Dincht and Ayden like everyone Squall cared for had left him. Squall's darkest fears were coming true......





Authors notes, yeah yeah you can chuck a review in here calling me whatever you want but I knew this was coming a long long time ago. Controversiality is my speciality (I even got censored on the sixth form newsletter!) I feel really ill and I still have to write between watching Gundam Wing, Digimon and every other available manga cartoon on british telly.

C ya sweeties........................................................................................... Go read my next chapter!

luv darksquall.