In That Cell

"Have you seen Instructor Trepe lately?"

"No, come to think of it... I heard she was away."

"I heard..."

"What did you hear?"

"I don't know if it's right to say."

"Come on, man! Just say it. Who cares? It's just a teacher."

"OK, fine. Well... I heard... I heard that the Garden staff sent her to this hospital... Up in Fisherman's Horizon."

"Why?!"

"Well... Because she had some sort of breakdown. Nervous breakdown... Or something. I dunno."

"Really?"

"I'm not sure..."

Quistis Trepe sat on a cot, her legs drawn up to her chest. Her blonde hair, usually well kempt and neat, was mussed and pushed back behind her ears, askew. She was barefoot; her character wire-rimmed frames were missing from her now-pale face. She looked nothing like the woman who had stepped off the Raganok just a few short months ago. She looked now, like a woman on the edge. Waiting to fall of the precipice of the unknown. To fall endlessly, and never look back at the pain she once knew.

The doctors were expending much time and energy on her. The institute Cid and Edea had taken her to, in her time of need, as they called it, was far away from Balamb. The swaying green landscape and the blazing gold of the sand dunes. Places she had coveted and treasured. But now, they seemed like ominous apparitions, which reminded her of times she could not return to. Much time was given to solitary confinement at the institute, and Quistis, alone in such a quiet room, had been given much time to trace and retrace her steps, and wonder how and why she had come upon her current quandary.

It was a sad story, she now knew it to be true. A story that she knew none of who knew her in her former life would believe. She buried her head deep into the scratchy cotton of the institute-issue pajamas she wore, yearning not to think back, only ahead... But her mind could not be sealed off from that painful day. That sick, heart-wrenching day.

Looking back, the whole thing had been foolish... But perhaps she was merely a fool. Maybe that was why she had edged too close to the edge of sanity. Winter was thick in Balamb, spreading frost and white swirls throughout the Garden campus. Packing had begun for the winter holidays. Quistis' students were all leaving for two weeks... Everyone was leaving for those two weeks. For an adventure, for a cheerful holiday with presents and a feast. With parents and family and friends gathered to give good wishes. None of that for her... None of that.

Sure, she could have roamed alone, across into town, or beyond. And now, in hindsight, she wished she had. Only for the sake of her sanity, if nothing else. Alienation was setting in, as it had before her adventure... Oh for those times again, when she had had a real place in the world: part of something and a cause so much greater than her small, worthless existence. So much greater than when he looked through her, and told her he didn't care.

A gate slammed shut in her mind. The flood would not come now.

Alienation, yes. It was inevitable. It would creep up upon her like the dawning of a new day, a growing dread that could not be defeated, even by the crack precision of her strategic eyes, or the razor sharp touch of her chain whip. All of the things she had been taught, and had used to defend so many others, she could not use to defend against the mortal enemy: loneliness.

She supposed that those around her had forgotten about her. She was just a fixture in a changing landscape. They had probably expected her to live and die at the Garden. Be a loyal, flat personality, offering a smile or a word of encouragement, or conversely, a terse word of anger, when the cue was given. She struggled to be rid of that stigma; that she was merely a thing to be used when needed. When called upon...

In that cell, her lip curled. That was where it had begun. When it had all crumbled around her...

The Quistis of the past had been lonely... Loneliness is worse than death, as she had once read in a dusty old book found deep in a crevice of the library. Sitting here, alone, in this cell, she wondered if that had been her ultimate mistake.

No, no, it had been too many things. The endless blanket of snow. The echoing halls, slowly emptying of people. Pacing her quarters, not knowing what to do with herself... But most of all...

In that cell, shaking hands clasped the sides of her head, protecting her ears from an internal whisper; an internal echo of those words... Oh, those words.

"Rinoa..."

"Yes, Squall?"

"Rinoa... I know..."

"Squall! Just tell me!"

"Rinoa, will you..."

No, no, no! No! She wouldn't go back. Never go back. When she had stumbled upon them... How, how, how, how had it happened again?

The Quistis in the cell breathed heavily against her cold hands, which she had wrenched from her ears, and she shivered relentlessly in spite of herself. No, no, the doctor had said going back... That would help her. Face. Face... Face...

Face what had driven her...

The Quistis in the past was walking. It had been such a cold, cold, day. Night gently set upon the Garden, the moon a mother, caressing her children with a soft, reassuring glow. The glow settled gently, against the walls, coalescing with the shadows that gathered and ran from its light. Quistis was running too. But at that moment, she knew not from what.

She was up late that night, the clock ringing one from far away. Nightmares plagued her these days. Strange phantoms crept into her head and out. Comfort was offered in the form of late-night wandering, made easy by lax security. The holidays made everyone, even the most dedicated of the staff a little heady.

The holidays brought no joy to Quistis. But no one suspected... No one cared...

Walking through those halls, destination unclear. These recent days, fast approaching the end of the year, she reminisced more of the past... The past, when she had lived for only one touch, one look, one sound...

In that cell, hands around head once more.

"Quistis..."

The past, promises of the past, and all that had never transpired. All of those things edged her closer and closer to the brink. And she had often questioned... To the brink of what? What was there to fear? She was supposed to be an "Instructor." The one everyone looked to. She was supposed to smile and scold and be who they wanted her to be.

The Quistis in the past was running now. Running to where, on that night, so long ago, she had felt at peace. The beginning of a long journey. Surely that place would make her right. This feeling, it was burrowing deeper. It was unnatural... It was evil...

In that cell, hands over eyes.

There! There! The training center... The "Meeting Place" where those students with loves and lives would gather and... feel.

I can't feel.

And who... Who... They were there... And those words from his lips, spilling. And why, oh why, did they desecrate the only sacred memory she had left? Why did she have to be stolen from, and treated like a puppet? Why was she expected to not exist? Not feel? Not have anything to her name but a worthless whip that could not defeat her greatest rival, and not keep her sane...

The world crashed around the past Quistis as she watched in horror... As it all slipped through her gloved fingers, and insanity...

In that cell, face in pillow, tears streaming freely.

Rushed in.

Oh God, they were so in love. They were to be engaged. Oh God...

Why did I ever imagine I stood a chance ?

A puppet. A smile. A harsh word. A friend when needed.

A lover? A person? Never.

Never.

"Rinoa... Will you..."

The Quistis in the past against a wall, the shadows around her, shaking her. Her skin bone cold... Never warmed by another's touch...

"... Marry me?"

A lover never.

And she had ran. She had not uttered a cry, just stumbled and tripped down dark shadowy paths. She wondered if her soul spawned the shadows... That this was another nightmare. A phantom... Everything she had once hoped, everything that she had denied, everything... Everything...

Was destroyed in those words, in those quiet shadows...

But she could not outrun the clawing jaws of fear and loneliness, and everything and nothing. The world was shaking with her steps, and her eyes were streaming seas of pain. Unadulterated and untrained, falling so swiftly...

The Quistis in the cell screamed.

The Quistis in the past fell.

A lover.

Never.

"...How do you think Quistis is?"

"I don't know... Cid hasn't said anything about her in weeks."

"I wonder why she did what she did..."

"I'm not sure... He won't talk to me about it. I was one of her best friends too... I thought that maybe..."

"Xu, you shouldn't..."

"I wasn't there for her..."

"It's not your fault."

"She needs someone. She was always alone..."

The Quistis in the cell rocked back and forth on the cot, her tears dried, but the scenes in her head had not ceased completely. Cid had found her, near dawn, shivering, near frostbitten, left in the cold night by the shattering loneliness.... She couldn't talk. Wouldn't speak. For a long time. The doctors had urged her to say something, anything, and they had succeeded in drawing a few short words from her. But nothing coherent. She was not the Quistis Trepe she used to be. She was a shell. An empty, cold shell.

Empty.

They had taken her and hoped she would one day recover. No one quite knew why she had done what she did, or why she stopped talking. She wondered inwardly if her students cared. Or if anyone cared. Especially him...

In this time spent here, she had tried to eliminate him from her thoughts. But he was the cancer in her. He would remain until she died... She wondered if it was a bad thing or not...

But she was alone. A quiet, empty being. Placed in a sad, small room. She felt like a deserted island...

She was alone...

In that cell.

"Do you ever wonder what happened to her...?"

"Squall?"