Rating: R

Disclaimer: Everything here except the plot belongs to someone, and that someone is…*drum roll*… Squaresoft.  The lucky devils.

A/N: I'm new to writing fan fiction of any type, so please be nice.  I'm sorry if the characterisation is not up to scratch.  (Although in places the characters are meant to be unpredictable.)  Give it time and it'll hopefully improve over the next few chapters.  Oh and Seiftis fans…this one's for you.  

Lest We Forget

Chapter 1: Déjà vu

"A remembrance of a memory already forgotten."

She woke gradually, painfully, with a matting of what felt like dried blood on the side of her head and eyes that didn't seem to want to open.  It was perhaps half a groggy minute more before she was conscious enough to realise that her eyes were in fact open.  The darkness was simply a matter of her face being pressed too closely against what felt and smelt like leather.  It was soothingly warm and she was…she was floating?

Disorientated, it took a while longer to realise that someone was carrying her.  The strong arms cradling her frail body evoked feelings of security and belonging such that she had never experienced in her cold existence - Quistis Trepe, child prodigy and Balamb's youngest ex-instructor was an object of much admiration, but the detachment endowed by such an idealised position prevented many from knowing her personally, and those who did, had not loved her in the way she so desired.    

Drawing her face away from the warmth required considerable effort.  She was tired.  Her vision cleared, eyes reluctantly cooperating as she struggled to focus on the blurry face inches above her own.  Square jaw.  Tanned skin.  Scar.  A relieved sigh left her lips.  Squall had saved her.  Squall always saved her, even at the orphanage.  She sunk back into the comforting warmth, letting it envelope her as she lost herself in her vague childhood memories where a dark haired boy always caught her when she fell.

***

They made a strange sight as they hurried through the plains surrounding Balamb Garden.  Stranger still as they were running deeper into the monster infested areas away from the secure confines of the Garden itself.  She needed its state-of-the-art medical facilities, but he knew they could not go back.  His arms were already beginning to ache from carrying her for so long.  Sweat dripped from his forehead, mingling with the drops of rain that were just starting to fall.  They needed to find shelter quickly.  She would not last long outside in her condition.  Neither would he for that matter. 

Plodding through the mud, he was interrupted by the welcome sight of a cave.  Cautiously approaching it, he discovered it to be dry and abandoned.  He kneeled and gently laid her down on the floor.  His trench coat was quickly bunched and slid under her head as a makeshift pillow. 

He stroked the stray blonde strands of hair away from her pale face.  Hyne, she's pale.  The wounds on her legs and arms had stopped bleeding, but the deep gash in her back still oozed vermilion.  Their frantic escape had reopened the wound, and he tried to staunch the flow of blood using torn pieces of cloth.  So far, he had been successful, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her, somewhere, somehow.       

Her eyes fluttered open, revealing sapphire blue orbs, and a moan tore itself from her clenched teeth.

"Squall?"  The tone was painfully hopeful.

"Is that my name?" he asked, hesitation and trepidation obvious in his voice no matter how hard he tried to hide it.  She might not have been fully awake and was probably calling out to some childhood sweetheart who she dreamt had saved her.

"What do you mean is that your name?  Stop playing around Squall," she uttered irritably, turning her face to look piercingly at him.  She gasped, shocked.  Even in the dim light, the figure kneeling beside her could never have been consciously mistaken for Squall.  Square jaw.  Tanned skin.  Scar.  And that was where the resemblance ended.  Blonde hair was never a Squall feature.  It was…

"Seifer," greeted Quistis coldly.  "What are you doing here?" 

She had quickly curbed her disappointment at not seeing Squall.  It was dangerous to show weakness to anyone, especially Seifer. 

"Saving you it would seem," he replied.  Seifer.  So that's my name.  For all of her ingratitude, she had provided him with a piece of his identity – a starting point.

"I didn't need your help," she bit out, careful to enunciate each word clearly.  Quistis tried to get up, but the pain drove her back down again.  Grimacing, she looked at the floor, refusing to meet Seifer's emerald gaze and the trademark smirk she was sure would grace his otherwise stony expression.  She braced herself for another wisecrack.

"Who am I?" he muttered, seemingly to himself.

The question took her by surprise.  She tore her gaze away from the floor and looked at him, amazed.  His brow was furrowed and he looked deep in thought. 

"Who are you?  You're Seifer Almasy, ex-Balamb SeeD cadet and head of the disciplinary committee, later traitor and Commander of Galbadian forces during the last war.  Otherwise known as the Sorceress' Lapdog," she sneered cattishly, at odds with her usually calm demeanour.  "After all you've done, you're finally having an identity crisis?"  She looked at his tortured expression and immediately regretted snapping at him so viciously.  "I'm sorry, no one, not even you deserved that."

"It's okay.  I take it I'm generally hated then.  So, Seifer Almasy, hmm…what did you - I do?" his tone was weary, resigned.

"You really don't remember?" she ventured, curious.

"Nothing.  I only have these images of blood and echoes of a woman's voice in my mind.  And…I…I just can't place them." The frustration was evident in his voice.

"Images of blood?" Quistis asked, unconsciously tilting her head slightly to one side.  "That pretty much sums up your entire life Seifer."  She was goading him, intending to provoke him into making a mistake and revealing his deception.  He had always been pretty volatile. 

"Yes, that is my life, because that's all I know of my brief existence at present, or until you choose to enlighten me, Instructor." he growled.  

"How did you know I was an instructor?" Well, ex-instructor, she added in her mind, satisfied that he had made the mistake.

"You bloody well act like one.  I've only known you for 3 hours and I already think you're a stuck-up prude," he yelled.  Then his anger abruptly dissipated.  "I keep having this feeling that I should know you, that I've known you for a long time, perhaps all my life."  He glanced at her questioningly and then suddenly grinned.  "And you were always so stuffy."

Quistis was torn between the desire to slap him and the urge to believe his sudden vulnerability.  Hyne, this is probably the first and last time Seifer reveals his thoughts to me.  A sharp pain sliced through her mind, interrupting her thoughts.  Gingerly, she examined her injuries and quickly cast curaga on herself.  The minor wounds on her limbs healed rapidly, the skin stitched back together by the glowing blue light.  The gash in her back stopped bleeding, but was too deep to heal completely.  It would heal naturally with time.  

"Why didn't you cast curaga?" she demanded, annoyed.

"I didn't know how," his curt rejoinder brought them back to his present predicament.

No matter how much she wanted to believe that he had intentionally let her suffer, she knew it would get them nowhere.  "Thanks for helping me," she ground out, loathe, as she was to depend on anyone.  She quickly added, "This doesn't mean that I believe or trust you."

"Wouldn't have it any other way."  His infamous smirk accompanied this declaration.

Quistis felt strangely cheered by this, as if she had long missed Seifer's familiar rapport.  She pushed the disturbing thought to the back of her mind, blaming it on his currently disconcerting behaviour.           

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Cave, northeast of Balamb Garden," he replied. 

"We'll just report in to the garden then.  Cid will help us." Quistis interjected, silently cursing herself for almost mentioning Squall.

Seifer shook his head and continued evenly without missing a beat.  "We should be safe from any SeeD pursuers for tonight."

She stared aghast at him.  Was Seifer kidnapping her?  Her hand inched towards the chain whip that hung customarily from her belt.  His hand closed over hers and she hurriedly looked up at him.

"No, I'm not kidnapping you.  They're pursuing both of us.  You did something.  I saved you, free-of-charge.  Now we're both in trouble.  Maybe I should be the one saying thanks.  Who says you can't get something for nothing."

This was too much to handle at once.  Garden was after her?  Cid, Matron, Squall, Selphie, Irvine, Zell, even Rinoa were…?  This was probably a misunderstanding.  She would clear it up immediately.  She voiced her doubts to Seifer.

"You're welcome to return to the danger zone, Instructor, but don't expect me to haul your cute butt out of there."

Her hands itched to slap him, but she resolutely clenched them into fists at her side.  She wasn't going to allow Seifer to get to her. 

"Stop calling me Instructor.  It's Quistis.  Just Quistis."  Yes, just Quistis was all she'd ever be to those who actually knew her - dull, boring, bossy Quistis, who was too mature and responsible for her own good.  As far as she could remember, she had been determined and focused.  She knew what she wanted from a young age – a SeeD career and love, but both had so far proved elusive.  No doubt she was a respected member of SeeD - regardless of Seifer's description of present events – and she had friends who had gone through time compression with her – but who were now against her – she knew she was far from satisfied.  She mentally shook herself.  These dark thoughts would scarcely help the already bleak situation. 

"Hey Quistis, you still with me?  You're not trying to communicate telepathically with Garden, are you?  It might blow that pretty head of yours." 

Yes, a very bleak situation indeed.  Stuck with a Seifer who possessed no guilt, but still showed signs of his resilient charm.  Amnesia or not, he was at his grating best.  "I'm going to take a walk," she mumbled out, bracing herself against the cave wall and shakily standing up.

"Yes, why don't we all go and see the local flora and fauna," Seifer replied sarcastically.  "We might even provide dinner."

"Shut up Seifer!  I'm not asking you to come along.  Hyne, I thought people with amnesia were quiet and insecure," she angrily retorted, walking to the cave entrance. 

"Guess not, Instructor.  I'm going to sleep, so when you come back, try to keep it down."  He laid on the cave floor with his back towards her. 

Glad to see some things never change.  Amnesia hadn't caused him to undergo a complete transformation.  She was hard-pressed to see whether it had changed him at all. 

Quistis checked that her chain whip was in its usual position next to her hip, within easy grasping distance in case of emergencies.  Too bad Seifer had not constituted one such emergency, well not yet anyway.  She glanced back longingly to where he slept so peacefully.  It must be nice to have no memories, to be free of life's sorrows. 

Stepping out into the cool night air, she wished she had borrowed his trench coat.  If nothing else, the disappearance of his favourite garment would have evoked quite a reaction.  Scouting the dark terrain for any monsters, she trudged wearily in the direction of Balamb Garden, in search of the truth for her sake and, although she would never admit it, for Seifer's. 

A shadowy figure trailed behind her, inconspicuous in the concealing darkness.  It noticed how the moonlight lent her blonde hair an otherworldly reddish tinge, like a halo of blood.  It quickened its pace.  The moon was full, but there were no stars that night.       

A/N: It's not what it seems, so don't jump to any conclusions just yet.