Balamb Blues | When the Wind is Southerly

He hugged us.

He.

Hugged.

Us.

Three words that didn't usually belong together.

I stared down at his tousled brown hair for a long moment, before my arms closed around his shuddering back. He wasn't crying so much as hysterical with relief. Had he really thought we wouldn't come?

"Hyne, Squall, what did they do to you?" Zell asked, tactless as usual. I thought briefly of shooting myself, but I'd already learned what voicing such thoughts got you.

"You've got to get me out of here," he said into the circle of our arms, voice deadly serious. Then he pulled back, doing his best to smile. "I missed you."

"It's been a day, Squall," I said, still holding his shoulder, doing my best to comfort even though I wanted to kill something. Preferably someone, as long as they were wearing a hospital uniform.

"Hn," Squall said, pulling away to look at me. "It seemed longer."

We just stood in that little circle for a moment more, but then Zell stepped back and herded Squall to our little couch.

"Here, you take the middle," I suggested, and we sat down, me, Squall, then Zell; we stared at the window for a moment, craned out necks to look at Squall, and sighed. He continued to stare straight ahead, but a grin flickered briefly around his lips.

Abruptly he surged to his feet and crossed the narrow room to a collection of chairs. And I got my first really good look at him.

He looked horrible.

It's hard to realize how much of someone's appearance is a mask. Squall's mask had fractured, and the man beneath was ...

He was dirty. Not like he'd been rolling on the ground outside, but like they hadn't let him take a shower since he'd arrived. It probably only showed because he was usually so careful about his appearance. Well, not appearance; he's not a vain man, Hyne, I don't think he realizes how beautiful he is. But he does like to be clean, and so the unwashed hair was unlike him. And his boots had no laces. And all of his belts were gone, his jacket was MIA, and his Griever pendant was no where in sight.

I stared blankly at his chest as he settled a chair before us and sat down. Griever was gone. I knew how much that pendant meant to Squall, he'd had it all his life, even back at the Orphanage he'd worn it. For him to be without it ... And his ring! He hadn't even ceded that ring to Rinoa, who.

Yeah. He'd been right not to trust Rinoa.

"They took your ring," I said, knowing I was wrong but helpless to stop the words. And bitterness curled in Squall's silvering eyes. He looked down, then met my eyes with flashing silver.

"They were afraid I would swallow it," he said flatly.

"Yeah," Zell said, sounding equally pissed off. "We brought you flowers, but they wouldn't let us bring them up. The nurse at the front desk said she'd bring them up here, but that you couldn't have them."

"Oh, they won't let us have all sorts of things," Squall said, a dangerous smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "Toothpaste, chapstick, conditioner, shampoo, soap ... Flowers. Cardboard. Sharp sticks. Rocks."

I recalled the joke from our childhood, some nonsensical listing of improbable items, things that won't fly, that had driven Quistis crazy, flashes of some children's story we'd quoted endlessly to each other across the sand. I grinned briefly, but the smile died quickly in the grim room.

"What do they think you're going to do?" Zell asked, sounding bewildered. "Kill yourself with chapstick?"

"Can you kill yourself with chapstick?" I asked, stopping for a moment to actually think about it. I went back through the list of items in my head. "Even if you ate most of that crap, it wouldn't hurt you. What's the problem?"

"I don't know," Squall said, eyes darkening a bit as he seemed to join in our desperate humor. "The shoelaces I understood," he continued, glaring at his boots as he spoke. "A noose, or garrote ... "

"Exactly!" Zell agreed, nodding eagerly. "And if you swallow enough shampoo, it can make you sick."

"But kill you?" I concluded, rolling my eyes. "This is silly."

"Kind of insane, wouldn't you say?" Squall said darkly, eyes glittering with something like humor now. We stopped, my eyes darting to Zell's in a quick reflexive movement. Squall caught the look, and snorted.

"I figure it's all about control," Squall said, his brief euphoria fading with the words. His eyes were still brighter than usual, and I smiled a little in return, not knowing what to say.

"Yeah," Zell said, the words meaningless. We sat there for a moment, and I stared past his bright eyes to the nurse's station crammed in the north corner, the utilitarian block of plaster and Plexiglas. The stuff was far too common for my tastes. There was a clock on the wall. I watched the seconds tick by for a moment. Someone screamed, muffled, at a distance.

Squall winced. The screams continued, quieter now. "My roommate," he said. "She's been doing that all night."

"Roommate!" "She?" Zell and I yelled at the same time. "What are you talking about, they put you in a room with some random woman?" I asked. His eyes flashed; he was laughing at me, and I calmed down a little.

"It sucks," he agreed peaceably. "I have three other roommates, though I don't think the old man is coming back. They dragged him off in the middle of the night, when they brought the girl."

"Why is she screaming?" Zell asked.

"I don't know," Squall said, shrugging. "I think drugs, maybe. They tied her to the bed. She was quiet enough until around four this morning. Then she started that," he continued, indicating the piercing wails with a tilt of his head.

"Did you get any sleep?" I asked, worry shading my voice. Squall rolled his eyes. Zell seethed. "We tried to see you at the Med," I continued quietly. Squall scowled.

"The Med," he spat. "This place is paradise compared to that shithole."

I blinked. He didn't curse very often, not like me. I leaned forward as he continued.

"They stuck me in this little room all night long, with no shoes and nowhere to sit, and there was some old woman puking all night and no one would help her ..." he trailed off, looking uncommonly frustrated. There were tears in his eyes.

"They put you in with someone there, too?" Zell said, radiating outrage. His short blonde hair seemed to bristle. Squall nodded dismally.

"Kinda. There was a partition, but I could hear her, and see her. She was naked, and screaming." He laughed, though it was more like a sob. "There's always someone screaming around here."

"Hyne," I said. I think I sounded stunned. Then disbelief rose in my breast. "I don't think you're allowed to do that."

"You shouldn't be," Squall said, his voice low. His eyes had dimmed when he looked up. "I really want out of here, guys," he said, and I nodded encouragingly. "Have you heard anything?" he asked.

"They haven't talked to you?" Zell asked, shifting forward on the shabby pleather to peer at Squall's expression. "They didn't tell you anything?"

"No," he laughed. "They wouldn't tell me anything, they haven't told me anything since I got out of the cop car, just `the doctor will be with you in a few minutes' and `please wait, the doctor will be here soon', though I stopped believing them after the first few hours. I didn't even know I was being transferred until a couple of orderlies came and got me."

"They can't--" I cut myself off, pressing down the fury. It wouldn't help.

"Quistis said you have a case worker," Zell volunteered. "She said they'd arranged for temporary health insurance ...?"

"Did you sign anything like that?" I asked. "Because your SeeD insurance should be your primary."

"No," he said, then paused. "I signed a lot of things," he admitted.

"Squall!" I hissed. "What things, what did you sign?"

"I don't know!" he shouted. "This was around two or three, before they transferred me, and there were a lot of papers--"

"Two or three?" I broke in. "The nurse said you'd been transferred at two. Specifically at two. We were there, Squall, we were still there at three and there was nothing ..." Again I stopped myself, and looked away. "There was nothing."

"I know," he said. "I don't really expect you to bust me out of here," he continued with a wan grin.

"I dunno, we could rappel off the roof and come in through the windows," Zell said lightly. I laughed.

"Attack number three?" I said. I was smiling, we all were. The clock caught my eye. Eight twenty. My smile faded. "Squall," I began, my voice deadly serious. "Do you know if you signed anything that would let them keep you here, anything like a consent form?"

"Maybe," he said, his smile also fading. Zell looked slightly confused.

"Quistis didn't mention anything like that," Zell said. "She said she'd do some research, see how long they could keep you legally."

"It can't be too long, right?" Squall asked, kind of grinning desperately at both of us, a grimace.

"Visiting hours are up," a voice called from the south end of the hall. My head cocked slightly in that direction, as though that would help me hear any better, but I kept my eyes fixed on Squall. He flinched at the words, and I sighed.

"You have to go," he said, almost a question.

"Yeah," I agreed quietly. "Listen, we'll come earlier tomorrow, we didn't realize it would take so long to get through security, but ..."

"Yeah, and we'll bring you some more stuff, books, maybe cards?" Zell asked. Squall nodded, not looking up. "Is there anything you need, anything they'll let us bring?"

"Some real food," Squall said, lips quirking a bit into a small grin. "The food here sucks."

"I don't know that we can manage much, but they have those miniature candy bars," I offered. "We can sneak that in, maybe a file, some hand grenades ..."

"The chocolate would be good," he said. "I--"

He stopped speaking abruptly as an orderly approached our chairs. "Sirs, you're going to have to go. The other patients will be coming back in," the man said. He was tall, and middle aged, and the lights shone on his oily skin. He seemed nice enough, and I stood slowly. Zell stood reluctantly, fingers twitching like they wanted to form a fist.

"We'll see you tomorrow, seven thirty sharp," I said intently, desperate suddenly to reassure him before we left. "And Quistis can come tomorrow, and Selphie said she'd be in town this weekend, if you're still ..."

"Yeah," he said, smiling again, the expression still so unfamiliar that I just stood watching as Zell enveloped his too-thin frame in a last hug. I blinked, and pulled him into my arms once Zell had stepped back. Zell was sniffling. I felt the sorrow rise as I held Squall. He felt so fucking fragile ...

"Tomorrow," I said, stepping back. The orderly was standing by the door, a sort of fond expression on his face. The other nurse, the woman, had come back for Squall, and stood patiently on his other side as we shuffled slowly to the door. I turned back for one last wave, and then we were through. The door shut behind us, and locked, and we were left in the tiny square room of doors.

I swallowed. The elevator dinged. "This sucks," I said, moving woodenly toward the steel doors as they slid soundlessly open. Zell nodded his agreement.

"You wanna get some dinner?" he said quietly, staring at the numbers as they counted us down.

I realized that I hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday, and said, "Sure. Where?"

"Ma's?" he asked. The elevator stopped, and we walked slowly out into the reception area as though dazed. It was silent. Utterly silent, and the security guard had already dismantled his card table setup.

"I'm easy," I said faintly as we unclipped the green badges and slid them through to the receptionist. She was on the phone again, and waved us away. "You think she'll mind?"

"Nah," Zell said, a bit sheepishly. "She's been getting onto me about visiting more, anyway."

"Hey, at least you're always welcome somewhere," I said, a shadow of our usual banter as we passed through the glass doors and into the free night air. It was mid-October, and warm without the ubiquitous humidity of Balamb's summer months. A wind swept down from the treetops, stirring the dead and dying leaves. Our steps were heavy on the concrete walk, the concrete stairs, the echoing empty blacktop.

I led the way with longer strides than Zell would ever manage, feeling a sense of suffocation too great to allow me to slow down, and as I turned west onto Balamb's Main Stree a flame-yellow ornamental pear tree caught my eye. The warm night air flowed through the canyon of street and buildings and after that parody of a hospital it was beautiful, it was all beautiful, the tri-colored confusion of Balamb at night, the ocean-rush lost over the near hills, the dim stars, and the sleeping ornamental pear tree. I was crying.

A/N Chapter title taken from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.