Her byre was wreathed in daisies.

He staggered the few steps from bed to half-bath, falling to his knees -- two bright points of pain -- beside white porcelain. His stomach roiled.

She’d always loved flowers. Daisies in particular.

Acid crawled into his throat, clawing into his mouth to pour out strings and spatters. He hung there on his arms for a moment, just breathing, mouth gaping open and head down. His hair hung in his eyes.

Spring daisies, hard to find this early in the year. Pale blue, with sun-yellow centers.

His stomach roiled, and his back arched with the force of it; he sobbed, panting, as one surge eased only to give rise to the next. His skin flushed pale; he rubbed his sweating forehead into the crook of his elbow. A tear dripped into the fouled water, and he gagged.

She’d looked asleep. Just asleep. Just ...

He heaved again, his knees collapsing him like a broken puppet; he ended on one hip, legs sprawled inelegantly to the side, barely clinging to the rim with a white-knuckled grip. Nothing came up. A thread of black oozed from his parted lips. He bucked, coughed, and spat a crimson gobbet of blood.

His bare skin was clammy against the tile. He shivered, rubbed his cheek against the cool porcelain, needing the feel of it on his fevered skin.

She burned on their beach in a pyre.

And he heaved again.

"Hey Selphie," Irvine said quietly, approaching their Commander’s door on catfeet, cafeteria tray in hand. "How’s he doing?"

"Not good," Selphie said from her perch by the door. She stretched soundlessly, without her usual mewl of contentment, and levered smoothly to her feet. "He hasn’t moved, it doesn’t sound like. He certainly didn’t ask for anything."

"Of course not," Irvine said bitterly, staring at the door as though he should be able to see through it. "Want to wager on him eating this soup?"

"What kind?" Selphie asked, some of the humor creeping back into her voice.

"Tomato basil," Irvine replied, twinkling one eye at her.

Her face fell. "Not a chance," she said sadly. "He probably wouldn’t eat anything red right now."

Irvine didn’t answer for a few minutes, still staring at the door. "He might," he replied after a time. "He just might."

"Irvine?" Selphie asked, looking adorably confused. "Do you know something, sugar?"

"Maybe," Irvine said cryptically, before keying the door. It shushed open flawlessly. At least something was working right.

"If you’re not out in four days, I’ll send in the search party," Selphie whispered loudly.

"Gee, thanks," he returned; then he let the mirth drain away, and stepped inside the Commander’s Deluxe Dormitory Single.

It was spotless.

Irvine, who’d expected mass property destruction, or at least a bachelor’s dust, glared at the offending couch -- slipcovered -- and tiles -- sparkling. It looked as though . . . as though no one lived here.

"Squall?" he asked, stepping forward so that the door shushed shut behind him. It was a tiny apartment, where could the other man possibly be?

He wasn’t in the kitchenette, though the refrigerator was open and milk had puddled on the floor, pooled around a crumpled plastic container. Irvine grimaced, set the lidded soup on the dust-free counter, and stepped gingerly around the mess to thoroughly check the tiny alcove for body parts. The search was only half in jest.

"Squall?" he called again, crossing the living room in quick strides now that he knew where the other man must be. There was only one room left unchecked. Squall had to be ... He wasn’t in the bedroom.

"Hyne damn it, Squall, where are you?" Irvine whispered, staring at the unmade bed with some dismay. Perhaps they’d moved his room too quickly after she’d. Perhaps he’d needed to let go on his own terms.

Perhaps he was being a complete fucking idiot.

"Squall?" Irvine yelled, his Galbadian drawl emerging as he became frustrated. He would be mocked for this later on, he knew, but damn the man! Where was he?

Only later would he wonder why the sound of running water had gone unnoticed for so long.

He was staring at the bed, a lost man, searching the folds and crumpled sheets for the meaning of his Commander’s life. A useless exercise. When water pinged in nearly new, aging pipes. Distinctive sound, one not easily forgotten.

His head came up, cocked so that the brim of his hat funneled the sound, amplified it, and led him quickly toward the tiny in-suite bathroom. He tried the door, locked. The quick entry of Squall’s passcode, and he stepped through into--

Squall was sprawled across the tiles. For an instant his pale, naked body looked dead, and Irvine staggered, hand going to his throat as he saw Squall breathe, just the tiny lifting of his too-visible ribs, but he was alive, and he was on the floor and naked and had he been throwing up?

"Squall?" Irvine asked, stepping through the doorframe so that the door hissed shut. The toilet stopped running: it had been flushed recently, then. Squall didn’t respond to his name; he gleamed with fever-sweat, and his skin was streaked with his own blood and inevitable spatters of bile. "Squall ..." Irvine sighed, kneeling next to his friend, placing a single sun-browned hand on the pale stretch of back.

Squall stirred, coughed into the crook of his elbow. He groaned weakly, head coming up as he began a weak scrabble for the toilet. Irvine caught him, hoisted him up so that he could heave into the bowl, rather than around it. The fragile ribs shuddered beneath his hands, brown fingers spread broad across skin gleaming with sickness and grief. Irvine closed his eyes to the sight, wishing he didn’t have to listen to Squall’s dry, desperate heaves.

"Squall," he murmured, blinking violet eyes at the sweat-soaked hair, the shivering flesh racked with cold. Squall could be going into shock. He could slip into hypothermia, lying on the cold tiles. He could . . . Irvine shut his eyes determinedly, thrusting his knee under Squall’s shuddering belly to help support the weight. Squall gagged a final time, and was still.

Irvine’s brow wrinkled. "Squall?" The other boy didn’t stir. His head lolled to the side, revealing an oblique profile of cheekbone and closed eyelid. Irvine smoothed back the tangled chestnut hair, running his thumb along the plane of the vulnerable left temple. "Squall, what are you doing to yourself," he whispered, not expecting an answer and therefore not surprised when he received none.

Squall moaned, eyelid fluttering aimlessly as something of consciousness returned. Irvine pulled the weakly struggling body in tighter to his chest, securing Squall when he would have slipped back to the cold tiles.

"Hyne," Irvine growled, settling his arm around the curve of bared ribs, feeling corded muscle flex beneath his hands, warm skin, too warm for having laid on that damn tile, so thin the bones seemed almost to push at the pale skin, and over all the sour smell of bile and the copper hint of fresh blood. "Hyne damn it, c’mon!" he continued, one arm slipping a little in drying sweat as he struggled to stand.

Squall coughed, head hanging. Irvine grimaced with effort as he pulled Squall mostly to his feet, like arranging a puppet, dead weight and no inclination to help. He was sagging in Irvine’s grip, fever riding high in the pale flush to his thin face.

Irvine stopped trying then; his violet eyes hardened to chips of mica, blankly reflective of nothing as he wrestled his weakened friend into the narrow shower stall, barely large enough for both of them. Squall mumbled something unintelligible, eyes flashing silver as Irvine, face blank of feeling, settled him against the cold acoustic tiles. A shiver took him, slumped there, and Irvine stepped back, smiled grimly, and flipped on the water with one long arm.

It came out ice cold, as always, and Irvine hastily wrenched aside the showerhead as Squall thrashed himself upright, eyes wide and staring, blind with the fever. He made a sound like keening, and his head hit the tiles. "Shit," Irvine muttered, stooping into a crouch and pulling Squall back into his arms. Trembling now, Squall burrowed into the warmth; the shower rattled ineffectually against the far corner, spattering them with a lukewarm spray. The water beaded quickly on Squall’s naked skin, dampening his hair and darkening the occasional streak of blood to crimson.

Irvine grimaced. Water began to soak through the front of his vest, the heavy silk sodden against his breast, rapidly leaching any warmth he’d carried with him. Squall rolled his head restlessly against Irvine, scrubbing his tangled hair across the purple silk as he tried to hide in Irvine’s arms.

Irvine sighed, glaring down at the back of Squall’s head, the tangled hair, pure hatred beginning to bubble beneath his breast. Water from the showerhead pattered at his hat brim. His eyes were cold, and filled with unshed tears.

"Stop this," he said, voice low. Squall didn’t seem to hear him, and he shook the other boy. "Stop this! Stop it, just stop trying to die, you fucking idiot!"

Squall’s eyes rolled silver.

The shower rattled against the tiles.

Irvine froze, fingers buried in the cords of Squall’s shoulders, exposed musculature like bird’s wings.

"Oh Hyne," Irvine whispered, staring down at his friend, fully realizing only then exactly how ill Squall had become. Fever raised the only color in his thin face. Irvine blinked away sudden wetness, watching the deeply-shadowed eyes. "Oh Hyne, Squall, what have we done to you?"

He pried his fingers loose gently, settling the lolling head back against his chest as he squirmed into the shower behind Squall, pulling the Commander into his lap and yanking the showerhead out of its bracket to sheet away the vomit and the blood and the cold echo of his words.

He hadn’t meant it. Really. He squeezed his eyes shut, lathing warmth over Squall’s chilled skin. It went on like singing. Squall’s head rolled against his shoulder, and the water shushed quietly over their bared flesh and his soaked jeans. Like singing.

Tears ran unnoticed down his cheeks, and his head tilted instinctively to hide his eyes behind his hat brim.

"Ir ..." Squall moaned, hand clenching weakly at Irvine’s arm. Irvine caught Squall’s wrist with his free hand, holding him still as he ran the spray down one splayed-out leg, then the other. "Irvine . . ." Squall whispered, voice raw and broken.

"Shh," Irvine hushed him, pressed a kiss to dripping hair, settled him more firmly into the curve of his arms. Squall flailed one arm, turned his head and bared the long line of his throat, and was still. "Shh ..."

Water pattered down on them, rattled on the tile. The fluorescents flickered and buzzed in the wavering cloud of steam. The water slowly ran lukewarm, then cold. Squall shivered.

Irvine started. Squall slid down his chest as Irvine sat up, and he caught the shuddering Commander with one strong arm as he reached for the faucet, turning off the shower with a knocking creak of the pipes. Irvine hefted the sagging body up, held lean and shivering against his side, and caught a corner of the towel draped over the hangbar by the sink. It was a handtowel. He grred, ran it down Squall’s breastbone to no effect, and stepped determinedly out of the shower, dragging the Commander with him.

Squall didn’t protest as he was toweled dry. Irvine propped him on the closed lid of the toilet seat, dried himself perfunctorily, and then ran the warm, damp cotton down Squall’s legs and arms, scrubbed at his hair, then enveloped his torso with the terrycloth. He turned the motion into a hug, pulling Squall again to his feet and half-dragging him into the tiny bedroom.

"I can’t do this anymore," he sighed, half to himself, as he lowered Squall’s slack-limbed body to the bed, sprawled careless like a dead thing on top of the tangled sheets. The towel was thrown to the floor as useless, and he hauled Squall fully onto the narrow mattress and wrestled the sheets over his damp, naked skin. "I can’t," he whispered, staring blankly at Squall’s restlessly tossing head, slumping as he spoke to sit beside his friend on the mattress, narrow and hard and thin. His hand flung out to catch his weight, landing on Squall’s hip, thin and hot even through the sheet, even though Squall was shivering.

"Hyne damn it," Irvine sobbed, feeling the bones of his oldest friend, and the fever-heat and the scent of his grief still heavy in the air, pain blooming in his chest and he just crumpled forward, despair tearing out of him with a low sob. "Don’t, don’t, please," he managed, nearly incoherent, face pressed to Squall’s belly, soft and flat and shivering slightly with the fever. Another sob wracked Irvine, and he stopped even trying to speak, concentrating instead on pushing it down, shoving it down, making sure there was nothing ... just nothing at all.

Eventually nothing. And worn out with trying, he slept.

Of course Selphie made good on her threat.

The sun had caught him full in the face when she entered the front room. At some point during his sleep he’d slid down to the floor, and she found him stretched out there beside Squall’s bed, stretching carefully with one hand attending to his water-damaged, slightly crumpled hat. His face was tear-stained and weary, and his clothes had obviously gotten very wet and dried on him. His silk vest had leaked violet on the floor tiles. He grinned up at her sheepishly.

"Irvy, what-" she began, but he shushed her rapidly.

"Shh, not now, kitten," he whispered. "Squall’s asleep." And he pointed to the front room, only climbing to his feet when she’d wrinkled her nose at him, shrugged, and marched about-face into the main room. Irvine creaked as he moved. And growled, to hear evidence of his own aging joints. He really did feel horrible, and needed to take a piss, but Selphie was waiting to hear why he’d fallen asleep on Squall’s floor. He looked down at Squall, who hadn’t moved since his last memory; the Commander was a huddled curve beneath the sheets, pale and thin and undeniably tragic. His shivers had stopped, at least.

Irvine smirked at his own neverending concern, feeling some odd, black self-loathing well in his heart as tears rose behind his eyes. He forced them down, and turned resolutely from the bed and its sleeping master. This shouldn’t matter to him. Squall needed to grieve, what cared he if that grief proved destructive and potentially deadly and--

His heart stuttered at the thought. He had to fling out a hand to grip the doorframe as he passed, a slight stagger but nothing that slowed him down. He would get through this, and so would Squall, and there was nothing of Rinoa’s suicidal idiocy in any of the Orphanage gang.

"Irvine?" Selphie’s voice stopped his thoughts, brought him out of that well. He blinked at her, head coming up quickly into the brighter light of the front room’s single picture window. "Irvine, what happened in here? What’s wrong with Squall?"

Irvine bit his lip, and shuffled reluctantly to the couch, pulling her down to sit with him. His vest had wrinkled as it dried, and chafed beneath his damp jean jacket, and his jeans rubbed wet on his bare flesh. Selphie’s eyes were uncommonly serious, and he began, "Squall’s in a real bad way, sugar, and--"

"I know that," she interrupted, bouncing a little in her seat. "I meant what happened with you? You were just going to drop off the soup, and you never came out, so something must have happened with Squall, right?"

"Right," he confirmed, feeling dazed. He’d forgotten the damn soup, just like he’d forgotten Selphie’s presence as watchdog just beyond the outer door. "I found him just about passed out on the bathroom floor, sick as all hell." He settled back against the cushions, feeling the ache of sleeping on tile in his bones. He sighed. "I don’t know what to do for him anymore, ‘Elph. I don’t even know how to try."

"Squall ..." she said faintly, staring at the closed door of his bedroom like the man might die at any time. "Irvy, what have we been doing?" she asked, turning her intent gaze to Irvine’s downturned profile. "You give him soup, and we watch him, but what have we really been doing? I think he needs."

"What?" Irvine asked when she trailed off, his spine straightening unconsciously.

"We need to think about why he was with her in the first place." His Selphie was not the forgiving sort, that was Hyne’s own truth.

"He was hurting over finding out about Laguna," Irvine said slowly, remembering that ‘hurting’ was an understatement, remembering the naked pain and confusion in Squall’s storming eyes. "She talked to him." His head fell into his hands. "I couldn’t get him to talk to me, so he talked to her instead. He talked to her ..."

"And they were inseparable after that," Selphie said, bitterness overriding her usually generous nature.

"Damn it," Irvine muttered, remembering a decision made how many months ago, a decision made half-drunk in a Dormitory Single after Squall’s unforgettable explosion during the Celebration. Unforgettable because who forgot a single instant of Squall’s life? Explosion because this was Squall, after all. Celebration, capital ‘c’, because they’d saved the world, and what other celebration could have the same meaning, after that? It was just the Celebration, just as it was Squall’s explosion, a tantrum to rival any of Rinoa’s to hear the younger cadets speak of it. Even to Irvine, and he’d watched Squall stalk grim-silent through the laughing crowds; not an explosion, but in terms of Squall Leonhart ... for whom everything was legend.

"Irvine?" Selphie’s voice surprised him, drug him from the depths of bitter speculation; his head came up suddenly with her voice, and he felt another tinge of deja vu for the Celebration, a twinge of muscle memory as he focused in on her wide green eyes. "Irvine, what’s wrong?" she asked. "What’s really wrong?"

"It’s my fault," he whispered, staring at her with the truth naked in his eyes. "I should have been able to help him. I tried, I almost got him to talk to me, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and on top of that I let her just waltz into his room like it was her own, and now he’s in there killing himself for missing her and--"

"Irvine, no," Selphie said quickly, catching him as he would have jumped up -- to pace or flee neither could have said. He stared at her hand, white against his tanned skin, but a healthy, glowing, gold-kissed white, and Hyne even that caused a flash of Squall’s pale flesh. "It’s not your fault," she continued earnestly, tugging him back into place with largely unsubtle movements. "You couldn’t have known, we still don’t even know why, it’s not ... oh, Irvy," she said, voice breaking. "I’m sorry, you’re not, I’m sorry."

"What for?" he whispered, voice caught in regret. She was crying.

"It’s been all about her, and him, and never your pain, and I know you’re hurting, Irvy, I’m sorry we never seem to care, but Squall’s just so fucking lost and you seemed okay most of the time, and you were good for him, and--"

"Okay," he said, cutting her off with a near-laugh. She sniffed, and he sighed. "I’m not hurting, not like Squall. And I don’t feel neglected, sugar." He managed a real grin for her as the tears eased. "I feel downright loved most of the time. I just get frustrated over moody in there ..." His brows lowered. "I know he’s hurtin, sugar, and I feel sorry for him, I do," he mused absently, drawl deepening as he thought out loud and her eyes regained something of their usual spark and his hat gave up the ghost. He dropped the crumpled thing at his feet. "But I don’t understand him, ‘Elph, I don’t get why he hurts this bad over what’s happened."

"It was a lot for anyone, Irvine," Selphie said gently, following his eyes to the door. The fact that it was closed seemed suddenly symbolic, and she shivered lightly. "He just feels things harder than most people."

"Yeah," Irvine said slowly. "I guess that was part of how he defeated Ultemecia."

"We helped," Selphie said quietly. "He’s always been moody," she continued, her voice louder and closer to happy than Irvine felt comfortable with. "You just have to give him time, is all."

"He’s killing himself," Irvine said, staring at that damn door. "We talk like it’s a passing thing but he could die of it ..."

"Then shouldn’t we do something?" Selphie prompted.

"I try," Irvine snapped. "I try, and I do what you’re supposed to do, and I offer sympathy and I don’t push him and I bring him fucking soup like that’ll cure the ills of the world and none of it works. It’s supposed to ... None of it ..." His anger died in the returning surge of fear and Selphie grabbed his hand in both of hers.

"Push him!" she yelled, grabbing his jaw and pulling him forcefully back to her. "You’ve been coddling this, this ... fuck, we all have, and he’s in there not moving because of it! Push him, Irvine. You did it all through the War, you made sure he got through and you pushed him to do it. You can’t ... We’ve been helping him kill himself, Irvine," she said, sounding so sure of it that Irvine felt the pain prick somewhere in his lungs, stealing his breath. She wasn’t crying now, or uncertain, or the least bit cheerful. His eyes were wide, his soul striped and spotted but bare; all the masks had fallen away. "Push him," she finished, softly, her voice never more final, never more sure.

"I ..." he began. The sun was bright, though it felt late, his soul tired. The door to Squall’s bedroom hissed open,. Squall glowered at them, holding himself upright with one hand, leather jeans loose about his narrow hips, looking too thin and sweated-out and angry. "Squall?" Irvine said, like a man coming out of a dream.

"Irvine," Squall rasped, low and broken and monotone. His eyes glittered, but it could have been fever.

Something within Irvine snapped.