Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Push The Limits Arc ❯ Mislaid Plans ( Chapter 2 )

Author's Notes: All Final Fantasy stuff/characters are not owned by me and all rights apply to the lucky bastards who do own them. I don't make a damn thing off this except for gratifying my own sick and twisted pleasures. Push The Limits is by the band Enigma from the album Screen Behind The Mirror. All rights for the song belong to them.

 

Leia Avenrose rocks as my beta for this. Kisses, babe.

 

~ indicates character POV

** indicates internal conversation.

// indicates emotions/feelings.

 

Push The Limits

Basic instincts, social life.
Paradoxes side by side.
Don't submit to stupid rules.
Be yourself and not a fool.
Don't accept average habits
Open your heart and push the limits…

 

Mislaid Plans

 

~Squall~

 

Seifer sat next to me and burned, literally, with anger. I was being consumed with an icy rage. How dare Odine do such a thing to us? Why would he do such a thing? What was going to be the outcome of this? How could he have made us pregnant? Why would he make us pregnant? What was I going to do about carrying Seifer's baby? What was he going to do about carrying mine? My thoughts circled around my head like a demented grat.

 

I didn't know how I felt about it. Shocked; yes. Horrified; most definitely. Happy; too soon to tell. Scared; unbelievably. I wasn't surprised that I wasn't getting much of anything from Seifer on the baby front. He was avoiding even starting to contemplate it. It was to be expected. It's how Seifer dealt with a lot of things; ignore it until it was impossible not too.

 

I almost wished I had the luxury of thinking like that.

 

//ANGER, VENGENCE, KILL// Seifer sent in waves that I was doing my best to ignore. It wasn't working. His volatile emotions were feeding my own, pushing my own anger higher. Only my better control over my sending of emotions kept me from falling into the feedback loop of shared explosive powers.

 

**I'm going to fuckin' kill that little shit when I get my hands on him** Seifer growled in my head.

 

**Not until we find out how and why he did this** I warned with an icy calm that belied my true anger.

 

Seifer sulked and glowered at me but eventually agreed. He was mad but not stupid. Very creative ideas were running through his head of how he was going to torture Odine into revealing the purpose of this. Some of them were quite interesting and I had to wonder at the dark twists of his mind to even think of something like that.

 

The air ship landed at Odine's facility we both marched to the doors. The guard on duty took one look at us and moved hastily away. Lab techs scattered from us as we marched down the halls. Seifer stopped one of them and demanded to know where Odine was. The scared tech stammered out that he thought Odine might be in his office and fled as soon as he could. Seifer let an evil smirk slide over his face.

 

“What should I break first on the little fucker? Fingers? Nose? One of the big bones like an arm or leg?” he asked casually as if commenting on the weather. I wasn't fooled by his voice. He was fuming and wanted to yell with his rage.

 

We stomped through the little waiting room, cowing the secretary into silence by our appearance alone. The door to Odine's office crashed open from the boot Seifer used to open it. Subtle isn't he? Odine looked up startled, and a little annoyed, at the disruption. His expression turned to one of fascinated interest when he saw the flames licking Seifer's skin and the frost coating mine.

 

“How delightful! What brought this on? Are you two feeling particularly stressed?” he asked as he pulled a notebook and pen from his pocket.

 

“Stressed? You made Squall and me pregnant!” Seifer yelled, finally giving way to his rage.

 

“You know? Interesting. How did you find out? Are either of you suffering any symptoms such as vomiting, nausea, dizziness, tiredness?” Odine asked he began scribbling furiously in his notebook.

 

“That's all you have to say? `Interesting?' I'll show you fuckin' interesting, you sick shit,” Seifer ground out as he advanced on the scientist.

 

Odine looked up again and seemed to finally realize that he was in mortal danger. He gave a frightened little squeak and moved from his chair faster than I would have believed possible. He ran to a corner of his office, scooped up a little plastic box and pressed a button. A low hum filled the office and he visibly relaxed before smiling at us like a demented cherub.

 

Seifer snarled and pointed a finger at Odine. Blue-green flames shot out at the scientist and bounced harmlessly off of a shield. Seifer bellowed with rage and charged the little man. He drew back his fist and aimed for the head. The shield hummed louder an instant before it collapsed with a pop and Seifer's fist connected with Odine's jaw. The scientist had a moment to look startled before his eyes rolled back in his head and he folded to the floor.

 

//SATISFACTION// flowed from Seifer.

 

He began viciously kicking the unconscious man. I walked over to the little box that had fallen from Odine's grasp and stomped on it. It made a high pitched shrieking noise and black smoke curled from its crushed remains. I looked over at Seifer and sighed in annoyance.

 

**You keep that up, and you'll kill him before we can question him** I said even though I wanted to help Seifer beat Odine to death.

 

**And that's a bad idea `cause…** Seifer kicked Odine again.

 

**Because he's probably the only one who knows what to do about us being pregnant.**

 

That stopped him. He glowered at the scientist before moving away from him. I crouched down next to Odine and slapped him hard across the face. His eyes fluttered but remained closed. I slapped him again with more force and was rewarded with a groan. One more vicious slap had him blink his eyes open and moan as the pain of Seifer's brief beating and my hard slaps rushed into his awareness.

 

“We have questions. How you answer will determine if you live or die. Understand?” I asked coldly.

 

Odine nodded, pain, confusion and fear in his eyes as he continued to lie on the floor. I dragged a chair close to him and took a seat. Seifer began to pace back and forth, glaring at Odine with murder in his eye.

 

//KILL, ANGER// came from Seifer; the brief kicking of Odine having done nothing to calm his anger.

 

“First; how and why did you make us pregnant?” I asked with an icy calm that was all the more frightening for its lack of emotion or mercy.

 

“I heard President Loire say he was sad that he'd never have a grandchild to bounce on his knee. He didn't have me killed after the war and I was grateful for that. I wanted to pay him back for sparing my life. I thought giving him another life would show just how grateful I was. You weren't both supposed to become pregnant,” Odine rambled as he stared up at me before continuing.

 

“And there has never been a pregnant sorceress. Something, I don't know what yet, just doesn't allow for it. But with you two, you both have a small measure of sorceress power. This was an excellent opportunity for me to see if you could become pregnant so I could study what kind of affect the presence of sorceress powers would have on a fetus.”

 

“You did this to pay back my father for not killing you and as a science experiment? What about me? Did you even think what I'd feel like? What this would do to me? What about Seifer and how he would feel about this?” I asked in a deadly bitter voice as even stronger anger began to creep over me.

 

“I knew from the information I had you two fill out; I know that you two are Knights to each other. You are completely devoted to each other. The data I collected supported this. Because of this devotion, I assumed you'd want to have his baby once it was too late to stop it. You weren't supposed to find out so soon.”

 

“What did you mean we weren't both supposed to get pregnant?” Seifer asked, finally speaking from between clenched teeth.

 

“I intended only for Squall to become pregnant. He seemed the more mentally stable of the two of you and better able to deal with a pregnancy. I didn't foresee Squall penetrating you after you had penetrated him. All the data I had indicated that you were the dominant one,” Odine said to Seifer, clearly puzzled that Seifer had allowed me to top him.

 

“You sick fuckin' bastard. You did have cameras set up in that dining room! I knew it.” Seifer began to advance on Odine, ready to start beating the scientist again.

 

“It was necessary to make sure that the drugs in the food and wine took effect and triggered the spell that made the pregnancy possible,” Odine explained in a rush as he tried to make himself as small as possible to avoid Seifer's wrath.

 

“A spell? I knew it,” I muttered as the anger continued to build in me.

 

“A spell and science if you want to be exact. How else was I supposed to get a man pregnant?” Odine said as if explaining things to a stupid child. He almost looked like he was getting ready to start a lecture on what had been involved in getting us pregnant.

 

If Seifer had been angry when we first came into the office, he was enraged now. He pulled Odine up by the front of his lab coat and shook the little scientist like a rag doll. Odine cried out in pain and tried to pull Seifer's hands from his coat. I was tempted to let Seifer snap Odine's neck from the force of the violent shaking but I still had information to drag out of the scientist.

 

**Don't kill him yet. I'm not finished with him** I did my best to rein in my anger.

 

**What more can this sick fuck tell us? I'll let you help me beat him to death. You know you wanna** Seifer said as he shook the sobbing Odine again.

 

“When were you going to tell us about the babies?” I asked.

 

“About the fifth month. I didn't think you would want to abort a viable child and you would have felt it move by then. Since you are both so obviously upset over this, I can abort the fetuses now. I could have you both in and out of surgery in a little over an hour,” Odine babbled, trying to calm us by eliminating what he saw as the main source of our anger.

 

“I would want to keep the aborted fetuses for study though,” he added.

 

The anger in me broke loose at Odine's casual mention of aborting our babies. I punched him as hard as I could in the face, startling Seifer and making Odine cry out in pain. Seifer's grip on the scientist slipped and Odine dropped to the floor. I kicked him in the ribs once and was aiming another kick when Seifer wrapped his arms around me from behind.

 

**Let me go. I'm going to kill him** I snarled at Seifer as my control broke and a wave of killing frost flowed out of me.

 

**Easy, babe. Didn't you say you had more questions for him? You wouldn't let me kill him not five minutes ago. What set you off?** Seifer asked, his anger immediately restrained to deal with my sudden outburst.

 

**What set me off? He just offered to kill our children or weren't you paying attention?** I hissed as I struggled to break free from Seifer's arms.

 

**I heard him. It might not be a bad idea, Squall. I really don't want to experience the joys of being pregnant. I don't think I'll ever be ready to be a mother**

 

**Not a bad idea? You'd let this twisted fuck kill my child?** I shouted, unable to believe what Seifer was saying. My rage spiked even higher and ice crystals began to fall softly in the room.

 

**It's just a collection of cells right now. It's not like it's a real person**

 

I struggled in Seifer's arms, heartsick and angry at what he was saying. When he only held me tighter, I put to use some of that extensive SeeD training I had. I stomped on his instep and threw back my head to catch him a hard crack on the chin. He swore loudly and loosened his hold on me long enough for me to ram an elbow into his ribs and squirm away.

 

“Squall,” Seifer growled at me in warning. I could feel the fiery force of his anger turning from Odine and focusing on me from what he saw as an unprovoked attack.

 

I gathered all the emotions I was feeling at carrying his child and the pain at the thought that he would be so quick to give up mine. I hurled it at him in a tightly controlled stream that he couldn't avoid.

 

//FEAR, ANGER, PAIN, CONFUSION, PRIDE, POSSESSION, HAPPINESS, LOVE, WONDER//

 

His eyes widened and he sucked in a sharp breath. His anger at my attacking him died quickly as I continued to bombard him with all the confused, complex emotions I was feeling.

 

**Shit—you really want this baby** Seifer had a tone of puzzled wonder in his voice.

 

**Because it's ours. I don't think I ever considered termination once the doc confirmed it. It's more than just a collection of cells to me; because it's a part of both you and me. I can't kill our child, Seifer**

 

**I don't think I can do this, Squall. I hate Odine and what he did to us, but you know he's right when he said you're more mentally able to handle this kind of shit**

 

**I'll help you. I am your Knight. I am your anchor. I won't force you to go through with the pregnancy. I won't have you resent a child and me because I made you do something you didn't want to do** I looked into his eyes and said the hardest thing I'd ever had to in my life.

 

**The choice is yours** I had faith in Seifer to make the right decision for both himself and us.

 

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and snapped my attention to Odine trying to crawl away while Seifer and I had our attention elsewhere. I growled low in my throat and was on the scientist in two strides. I hauled him up to his feet and threw him into the nearest chair. I smiled coldly when he gasped and clutched at his sides. He gave a wet sounding cough and pink tinged spit dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Either Seifer or I had broken some ribs; probably pierced a lung from the blood-speckled spit on Odine's lips. I hoped it burned like frozen fire.

 

It made me feel slightly better and helped to gain back some of the control I had let slip.

 

“We're going to talk about what happens now. I want to know what to expect for the next nine months, and how, exactly, you plan on making sure that these babies come into the world healthy and perfect. Anything goes wrong—anything, and this little beating is going to look like a walk in the park,” I said as I leaned over him, letting ice crystals fall over his prone form.

 

“I can't guarantee something like that. There are a myriad things that could go wrong with even a normal pregnancy,” Odine stammered as he struggled not to cough in my face.

 

“Then you had better be extra cautious,” I snapped.

 

Odine swallowed hard and darted his gaze between Seifer and me. When he saw that neither of us was going to cut him any slack, he started to tell us about what could be expected from a normal female pregnancy and how much of ours would likely be the same as that. I paid close attention to what Odine was saying as well as made plans in the back of my head to get my hands on as much information on pregnancy as possible. I had the feeling we were going to need it.

 

 

~Seifer~

 

I listened to Squall grill Odine with half an ear and let my mind wander over what I was gonna to do about being pregnant. I was blown away with the emotions Squall had already attached to the baby. I couldn't call it a thing if he had already made up his mind to keep it. There would be no changing his mind on that idea either. That was crystal clear from the feelings he had sent me. I was still tryin' to sort out all the different emotions he had sent me about having my baby.

 

He was scared. I got that feelin' clear enough. Bein' pregnant scared him. Birth scared him. Just having another life completely dependent on him for everything terrified him. He was mad too. Mad at Odine for doing this to us and now, mad at me for even entertainin' the idea of stopping my pregnancy.

 

There was another feeling he had sent as well. Wonder. A little part of him was pleased beyond belief that he'd have my baby. Our baby, I mentally corrected myself. That was how Squall saw the baby; as ours. I have to admit that I felt a nice little stab of male pride that I had managed to get the love of my life pregnant. It tied him even closer to me. Why the thought of Squall feeling the same kind of pride towards knockin' me up didn't make sense to me was something I didn't really understand.

 

It was probably because I was the one I saw as being the “guy” in our relationship. Squall would kick my ass seven ways from Sunday if I ever said somethin' that stupid out loud to him. I couldn't help it. Squall was beautiful. I was handsome. You could mistake Squall for a chick with the right clothes. I'd be a guy in drag. A good-looking guy in drag; but still a guy in a dress.

 

I didn't know what I was gonna do about the baby I carried. I didn't think it would upset Squall as much as it did to consider aborting. After being with him, inside his head for almost a year, you would think I'd learned something about Squall. He loved me more than his own life. When I stopped to think about it, it made sense that he'd feel the same way about a life we created together.

 

This was so completely fucked up.

 

I was both horrified and terrified at the thought of going through a pregnancy. I wasn't really sure what it all involved, but men just weren't designed to have babies. There was a reason for that. Women were much better equipped to deal with all that crap. Not to mention the talk that was going to begin when we started to show. That was going to be a freak show all by itself. Even if we managed to hide our pregnancies from everybody, how were we going to explain comin' back to Garden with two newborn babies to raise?

 

How were the babies supposed to be born? It's not like we had the right plumbin' for that. I still didn't even know how the babies were survivin' inside us. How were we supposed to take care of them after they were born? I'd never held a baby in my life and I don't think Squall had either. I didn't even want to think about changin' a diaper. Had Squall even thought about any of this shit?

 

**Seifer, we're done here for now. We're staying the night and Odine is going to have some techs run tests to make sure everything is fine. He's going to forward our medical files to Doctor Kadowaki and send one of his techs back to Garden with us**

 

**So we can kill him now?** I said as I let the slightly panicky thoughts of dealin' with a baby slip away in favour of killing the cause of our problem. Oddly enough, a great deal of my anger had bled away with the knowledge that Squall wanted to have my baby. I still wanted to kill Odine though.

 

**No. We'll need him later. You can punch him again if you want though**

 

I smirked, walked over to Odine and plowed my fist into his face. The force of my punch knocked Odine backwards out of the chair Squall had thrown him into. He lay sprawled on his back, tears of pain flowing down his face and mixing with the blood from his newly broken nose. Squall stood next to Odine and gave him the smile of a stone-cold killer before viciously kicking Odine square in the nuts. The scientist screamed in pain and clutched at his groin.

 

“I'd suggest you stay the fuck away from me, Seifer and our babies unless we specifically ask for you. Got it?” Squall spat in a voice colder than I had heard from him in a long time.

 

Squall's eyes had turned the deep blue of ancient ice and his skin was as white as the fine dusting of ice crystals that coated everything in the office. He was still supremely pissed at Odine but he had it under control. The sight of him in his icy rage entranced me. He passed beautiful into glorious when he was mad.

 

Odine had curled into as much of a ball as he could and was dragging in painful breaths. He was sobbing as he nodded and looked at Squall and me with abject fear in his eyes. He may have been oblivious to most things, but I think Squall and I had gotten through to him. He was going to make sure he was nowhere near us, ever.

 

Squall stalked from Odine's office and stopped at the secretary's desk. He demanded a room for me and him for the night in his Commander's voice and the woman jumped to obey. I'm sure her co-operation was also due to the fact that she had probably seen and heard all that had taken place in Odine's office through the busted door. A tech showed up in record time and showed us to a room much nicer than what we usually got when we came to the facility.

 

I sat on the bed and watched Squall stomp to the window and press his head against the glass. The pane immediately frosted over and he growled in frustration but remained where he was. I could feel the mixed up emotions comin' from him and knew he had to be really upset to let them leak from him like that. I rose and went to him; putting my arms around him and restin' my chin on his head. It was a good thing I was immune to his ice magic or I would have gotten serious frostbite just from touching him.

 

**I'm so fucking angry at Odine and scared about having a baby. I want to kill something** Squall said in that deadly cold voice of his.

 

**Well, you said we'd need Odine later, so I guess he's not on the short list. They probably have some monsters around this place. We could go kill some of those** I offered, thinkin' that idea had a good deal of appeal to me too. I still had some anger burnin' away inside me.

 

**With what, Seifer? I didn't think to bring Lionheart and you didn't bring Hyperion**

 

**I think I could rip apart some monsters with my bare hands right about now. Then there's the fire and ice magic we're generatin'. We could see what happens if we used that like an offensive spell**

 

**A day ago, I would have jumped at the chance to try it out. I can't do that now and neither can you. We can't take the chance that we'd get hit and the babies hurt. We're going to be desk-bound until the babies are born, Seifer. No more all out practices with gunblades either**

 

**That fuckin' sucks, Squall** I grumbled, not wantin' to remind him that I hadn't decided if I was gonna keep the baby.

 

I held him as we stared out the window together. I still hadn't figured out what I was gonna do. It made more sense not to have the baby. Neither one of us was ready for a child. Neither one of us had any idea how to deal with a baby never mind two. It was when I was thinkin' of trying to manage two newborns that a truly terrifyin' thought occurred to me.

 

“Squall? Since we got pregnant on the same day, what are the chances that the babies would be born on the same day? Because we're in each other's head, wouldn't labour starting for one of us start labour in the other? Won't we feel each other's pain as well as our own during labour?”

 

Squall sighed in annoyance. “Weren't you listening to the questions I was asking Odine?”

 

“Not really. I knew you'd fill me in on the important stuff later.”

 

Squall blew out a breath in irritation, “Yes, labour in one of us would probably start labour in the other and we would share each other's pain. Birth will be by C-section obviously. Odine said he'd make sure that the operations were performed at the same time to minimize stress on the babies and us. Does this mean you've decided to go through with the pregnancy?” Squall asked with a hopeful note in his voice he couldn't hide.

 

“I'm still tryin' to decide. This is a huge decision, Squall. I don't want to fuck it up. I need to be sure.”

 

Squall stiffened in my arms and I felt him mentally pullin' away from me. The temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees easily. He wasn't shuttin' me out; he was just keeping me at arms length mentally; getting' ready to deal with the pain if I decided not to have his baby. His pullin' away hurt and even though I sorta understood why he was doin' it; that didn't make it easier to accept. He let me continue to hold him but the comfort and closeness of having him in my arms was gone. It was like holdin' a beautiful statue made of ice. Maybe things would be clearer for me in the morning.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------

 

I lay on the gurney nervously. It didn't matter that the tech was a very nice motherly lady who hadn't batted an eye when told to do an ultra-sound for pregnancy on two men. She had parked us beside a water cooler and told us she expected us to each drink at least one litre of water in the next hour. Then she said we'd have to hold it until the test was done. I thought she was on crack to suggest it.

 

Squall just nodded and started to drink.

 

I was wearin' one of those paper gowns that leave you feeling more exposed than if you were bare-assed naked. Squall was standin' next to the gurney watchin' everything intently in his own paper gown. I still wasn't sure how he had managed to get me to volunteer to go first. Probably by tellin' me I could piss as soon as the test was done. I felt like I was gonna burst if I didn't go soon. I didn't know how women put up with this kind of shit.

 

I jumped a little as the woman squeezed out some cold gel onto my still flat belly. Okay, this was fine. I could do this. She picked up a tool and started gently spreading the gel around with it. I was fine with that too. It felt a little ticklish. Then she started pressin' down on my belly while movin' the wand back and forth. I gnawed on my bottom lip at the pressure on my over-full bladder. I was gonna embarrass myself if she kept pressin' down like that.

 

//SUPPORT, LOVE// Squall sent me. He was still a little distant but I never doubted that he was there for me or that he loved me. I was grateful for the sendin'.

 

“Let's see what we've got here. Ah, here we are,” she said softly as she ran the wand over one spot repeatedly.

 

Squall and I looked at the monitor. I couldn't make anything out. It was all shades of grey to me. I frowned and turned my head tryin' to see what she saw. The woman seemed to be use to this reaction and froze the picture and let up on the pressure on my stressed bladder, for which I was thankful.

 

“You're not far along. According to the records, you're just shy of ten weeks. Here is the head and the back. It's not very developed at this stage but it does have the beginnings of recognizable features,” the woman said as she pointed to the screen with a pen.

 

I stared at the screen tryin' to see what she was pointing out. I growled in frustration and felt the beginnings of fire magic race through my system. Squall placed a hand on my shoulder and I immediately felt the coolness of his mind bank the fire of mine. Maybe I was trying too hard to see somethin'. Maybe it was like one of those freaky 3-D pictures Zell had that you needed to relax your eyes to see properly.

 

I took a deep breath and relaxed under Squall's hand. I let my mind drift a little as I stared at the image on the screen. I felt my heart stutter when it suddenly came sharply into focus for me. It was weird looking with a huge head and tiny body, but it was definitely a baby. The woman resumed the ultra-sound and chatted conversationally with Squall when she realized she wasn't going to get a response from me. I watched in fascination as she moved the wand around and took different views of the baby. I could barely believe I had this inside me.

 

“How big is it?” I asked hoarsely.

 

“About the size of your thumb. In a few more weeks we'll be able to tell the sex, if you want to know.”

 

She made a few more passes of the wand before putting it away and wiping the gel from my belly and announcing we were done. I switched places with Squall and watched intently as she repeated the procedure on him. Now that I knew how to see the grainy image as a baby, I was easily able to see it when she pointed Squall's out on the monitor.

 

Squall was looking at me strangely as we left the ultra-sound room. I had been quiet since seeing the image clearly and I wasn't letting him in my head as I thought about what seeing that image meant to my continuing the pregnancy. Seeing it drove home the point that I really was carrying Squall's child. Before seeing it, it had just been something I was told; an abstract concept.

 

Back in our room, I lay on the bed and sunk into the depths of my brain. Out of respect, Squall didn't try and follow me but left me to my own thoughts. It was one of the things I loved about him. He knew when to push me and when to leave me the fuck alone.

 

This was one of those alone times.

 

I thought about all that I had been through both by myself and with Squall. I thought about my connection to Squall and his to me. I thought about how much I loved him and would do anything for him just as he would do anything for me. Squall said he wanted me decide on my own to have his baby or not. Did having his baby fall into the do anything for him category?

 

**Why do you have doubts about the child you carry, Malice?** asked a deep voice that I instantly recognized as Bahamut.

 

**I don't have doubts; I just don't fuckin' know what to do. It's not like I ever thought I'd be faced with this kind of decision**

 

**Do you doubt the child belongs to the Lion?**

 

**No. I know it's his. Only Squall gets my ass. That's not the problem. And did any of you no-account GF's know about this?**

 

**We did not. We have never encountered something like this before in all the time we have existed. If the parentage isn't the issue, then why are you still conflicted? Do you no longer love your Lion?**

 

**Don't be stupid. I can't stop loving him and you know it, you smart-ass dragon. I'm not ready for this. I've barely accepted that Squall loves me like he does and that I love him back. Now I'm going to have a whole `nuther person to love and care for? What if I fuck it up? What if this kid hates me? What if I scar him for life by just bein' who I am? What if he's disgusted by the relationship Squall and I have?**

 

I heard a deep coughing sound and it took me a minute to realize that I was being laughed at. My temper flared and I wanted Bahamut to step from the shadows of my mind so I could pop him a mean right hook. Not that it would do much, but it would make me feel better.

 

**No one is ready for parenthood. Not even when it is planned. These are just excuses you're hiding behind. Follow your heart and push the limits of your soul. You have more to give than you believe possible**

 

I felt Bahamut sink back into the depths of my brain after having said his piece. I almost always felt like I was 8 years old again and had just been reprimanded by Matron for some stupid stunt, after talking with Bahamut. It sucked and made me mad but he was always right. I swam back up from the depths of my mind and blinked my eyes open; my decision made.

 

**I'm keepin' the baby, Squall, and I'm an ass**

 

//JOY, RELIEF, LOVE// came from Squall in an almost overwhelming rush. He must have been really uncertain about my decision to send me so much so fast. He had better control than that. I wasn't complainin' though.

 

**I've always known you're an ass. You're not doing this for me are you? I don't want you to do that, Seifer**

 

**No, I'm not. I'm doin' it `cause I can't kill our child anymore than you could. I'm scared shitless that I'll fuck this up but I have you to clean up my messes so I figure I'm golden**

 

Squall snorted at that but I could feel the relief and joy from him at the news that I was going to have his baby. The love was there, too, and I snuck into his head to really bask in the warmth. I know he felt me there but we both pretended that he didn't notice me tapping into the main vein of his feelings for me. Hyne above but I loved this man for understanding me when half the time I didn't understand myself.

 

 

~Viljo~

 

The building wavered in my vision for several seconds before I was able to bring it into focus. Almost as soon as I brought it into focus, it started to slide away from me again. I was feeling light-headed and starting to become disorientated from blood loss. I needed to get to someone in charge and tell them what had happened. I staggered up to the entrance, hoping the guard on duty wasn't the kind to shoot first and ask questions later.

 

The way my day was going, it wouldn't have surprised me if he did.

 

It seemed that my luck had finally taken a turn for the better when the guard yelled for a doctor instead of shooting me on site. Maybe he thought it would have been a waste of ammo considering the amount of blood I had covering me. I was hustled into the facility and soon had more hands on me than I thought were necessary. I needed to tell somebody what had happened before I either passed out or died.

 

Time was a critical factor.

 

I was sure I was hallucinating when I saw Squall poke his head between all the bodies surrounding me in a medical tizzy. I flailed my arm out and managed to grab his wrist, surprised that he was real and not a figment of my imagination. I hung on with every bit of strength I had, grinding the bones in his wrist together with the force of my grip.

 

“They took her. I couldn't stop them. They left me for dead and took her,” I gasped, trying to stress how important it was for Squall to gather up some SeeD's and go find Rinoa.

 

Squall frowned at me and shoved some of the doctors away. Seifer showed up a few minutes later and looked down at me, amazement plain on his face that I was still alive and conscious.

 

“You look like shit, Viljo. What T-rex used you as a chew toy? Where's Rinoa?”

 

“Rinoa's taken—ambushed … can't feel her … not dead—blocked,” I said in a slurred voice as blackness began creeping in at the edges of my vision.

 

I heard both Squall and Seifer swear.

 

They were probably the only two who would know what I was talking about and the danger that was suddenly dumped into our laps. If I couldn't feel Rinoa in my head, she couldn't feel me in hers. Her anchor had just been ripped from her and now there was nothing to keep the darker powers of a Sorceress controlled. The next Sorceress war might have just been started by people too stupid to realize what they had done.