Which, in a sense, it was. Here were the holding cells, where students who flagrantly disregarded the rules - and were still in one piece - were kept until Kadowaki judged them fit for release.

There were no trials, in the Gardens. The Disciplinary Committee was judge and jury. Kadowaki took care of sentencing.

She unlocked the door to one of the cells, took a seat on the bench. She knew this boy, just as she knew every other student in Garden - and she knew enough not to fear him. He would stay here until she verbally granted him permission to leave. It was his way of dealing with the world. Right now he was refusing to acknowledge her presence - curled up against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees, forehead resting on the kneecaps. With his dark hair, gloves, and the black and silver cadet's uniform, he was almost invisible in the shadows.

"Why did you do it, Squall?" she asked gently. "It isn't like you to beat another cadet so badly."

No answer. For all the response the figure gave her, it might as well be a store dummy sitting there.

"You'll stay here until you talk to me, you know," she commented. "It is Seifer's opinion that you be expelled. Jonathan will take weeks to recover, and you know what the rule is regarding severe injury to another cadet."

To her mild surprise, Squall raised his head. Far from being resigned, there was cold fury in his eyes. "Good," he snapped.

Kadowaki blinked. For Squall to be angry enough that it showed on his face, he might well be dangerous. Prudently, she moved to close the door. Those on the other side would hear nothing - the cells were soundproofed so that the wails of younger students locked up here alone wouldn't disturb others. The idea was to force a misbehaving cadet to truly think about their actions - isolated from the rest of the world, they would have no means to distract themselves from the reason for their presence here. She sat back down. "Tell me."

Gray eyes narrowed, calculating but still quite furious. "No."

The doctor considered that. Squall had unbreakable pride and legendary stubbornness. He probably would be content to be expelled - or kept down here alone - rather than be forced to speak, and she knew he didn't really want either. Like many students he was an orphan; if he were expelled, at the age of fourteen, chances were high he'd end up a rent boy somewhere at best, or homeless and wandering at worst. And although Squall made a great show of being a lone wolf, Kadowaki knew him well enough to understand that if he really were kept here in solitary confinement his mind would snap in the solitude - his own thoughts driving him crazy.

Perhaps he had a reason not to want to speak? "Why?" she asked eventually - understanding that Squall preferred a direct approach.

He evidently hadn't been expecting it from her, though - he blinked. "Off the record," he said at last.

"You know I'm not supposed to -"

"Then you can go on being curious," he snapped, and put his head down again.

Doctor Kadowaki was taken aback. He'd been down here before, as had Seifer and just about every other cadet at some point - it being natural for children to push at the boundaries of their existence. But never before had he tried this - tried to set the rules of the encounter. Always, before, he had simply told his side of the story and accepted whatever punishment Kadowaki deemed appropriate without complaint.

He was quite perceptive, though. She was curious. He'd been alone down here for two days, and apparently it hadn't even taken the edge off his anger. If he saw Jonathan right now, she was quite sure Squall would go on trying to kill him. No-one, not even Seifer, had ever managed to so thoroughly enrage Squall. She could not ask him to trust her. She knew without trying that he would refuse - would accept expulsion rather than explain himself. The question was - did she trust him?

And the answer there could only be, 'yes'. She did. He was only fourteen, but he had never really been a child. If he wanted his version of events off the record, he probably had a good reason for it. He didn't know Cid kept an eye on him, didn't know that she could explain anything away to the Headmaster. She could do as he wanted and receive no especial condemnation for it.

"All right," she decided. "I'll play it your way - off the record. But I want to know the full story, do you understand? Or else I'll have no choice but to stand by the Disciplinary Committee's verdict." She pulled out her pocket recorder, switched it off - and to make sure he believed her, removed its battery pack and set it down in front of him. Trust came to Squall as easily as bicycling came to fish, and Kadowaki wanted to know the truth.

At last, Squall uncurled from his defensive position - and, as she expected, double checked the recorder to make sure it didn't have a secondary power source and wasn't on. Then he motioned for her to stand up, gray eyes as flat and hard as the cold stone walls. He wished to search her.

For a moment, the Doctor was tempted to refuse - after all, he was the prisoner here, and she the jailer - but it didn't matter. She hadn't had any other recording devices on her, and if it convinced Squall she was playing fairly...she submitted. Slender, long-fingered hands in soft black gloves lightly patted her down, made sure she had nothing else hidden on her person. He did locate a tranquilizer gun, but he handed it back to her without comment.

Kadowaki suppressed the urge to laugh. Here he was, a veritable prisoner - and when the means to his freedom was handed to him he simply handed it back. He wasn't interested in his freedom, it seemed. Only in what he had said - that his 'confession', as it were, remain off the official record. Perhaps he really did want someone to know, after all.

The idea that he would refuse to try to escape simply because in his mind there was nowhere to run to never occurred to her.

Satisfied, he returned to his corner - as far away from Kadowaki, and the door, as possible. He curled up again, this time watching her carefully - his chin resting on arms crossed over his knees. His quicksilver stare was very cold, very direct, and she got the impression that he was judging her. After a while, he blinked.

"You know about the Winhill mission," he stated, as though he expected that of course she would know.

He was right, too. "Yes," she agreed. "I saw the reports. A successful mission."

"I was...wounded," he continued. "Took shots just about everywhere. Mostly in the left shoulder and the right leg, though. Gunblade got in the way of most of the rest."

"That's fairly typical for a first fight," commented Kadowaki.

Squall narrowed his eyes. "If you want to know, shut up." He paused, making sure the Doctor quite understood him.

In fact she was biting back a smile. Oh, he'd make an incredible leader, this one would. If he could get through this incident, anyway. She nodded, completely unoffended. She'd dealt with Squall far too long not to trust him when he was being serious.

"I lost a lot of blood, Quistis told me," he continued after a while, his voice coolly impersonal - as though he were relating events of long ago, that happened to someone else. "She cast a lot of cures on me after the battle, Zell got me to the rental car. I don't remember a whole lot of the trip back. Zell told me I passed out. When we reached Dollet, Quistis bought a lot of cures and practically poured them down my throat. I suppose they helped - at least, I didn't feel lightheaded any more. But I did feel...not there." He paused, thinking. "Like being wrapped in cotton, or sitting in a glass cage. The world went where it wanted to but I wasn't a part of it."

Shock, thought Kadowaki. And blood loss. Disassociation. Damn - I knew I should've checked over all the cadets the minute they got back! But she said nothing. If she spoke, it was quite possible Squall would not continue - and she needed to know what had happened to get him sent down here. Cid's heart would break if he were forced to expel Squall for this.

"When we got back to Balamb, Zell got word of a 'blood party'. You know about those?"

Kadowaki blinked. "I've heard of them," she said flatly. "Usually the next morning when some cadet is in a coma from the drugs." Blood parties were wild, chaotic events held by upperclassmen for the newly blooded juniors, the ones who had just survived their first real battle. The administration never knew about them until afterward - the oldest cadets were adept at using their educations to ring the parties in walls of magical silence, and making sure only a trusted few knew about them far enough in advance to stop them. Young, freshly blooded boys were dropped in a wild social situation filled with any drugs the upperclassmen could get their hands on, with no supervision. More than one boy who had survived his first battle did not survive the blood party afterward.

Squall nodded. "Zell heard the word 'party' and got the idea fixed in his head that this would be a good thing for me. I wasn't up to arguing with him, so we went."

Kadowaki kept her face in its 'doctor's mask'. Squall's voice betrayed uncertainty - eagle-eye hindsight dissecting the decision to attend, seeing if there had been enough evidence at the time to dissuade him. She noted that he was no longer looking at her - instead he was staring fixedly at some random spot in the air between them, eyes unfocused.

"There was something loud and blaring on the radio - punk, I suppose, as it was a little familiar. Zell likes to listen to punk in the mornings. There were trays of pills...I left them alone, I felt strange enough already. I picked up a can of beer - I don't know why - and tried to find some out-of-the-way spot where I could wait until Zell had had his fill of fun and I could go to bed. He did what he usually does - got right in the middle of the mob. I didn't see him after that."

The impersonal nature of Squall's recital was fading, the Doctor noted. The closer he got to whatever had set all this in motion, the more emotion crept into his voice. Right now he was sounding puzzled, and a little dreamy.

"I sipped at the beer, but I kept feeling more and more distant. Like I was looking at everything from an adjoining room, hearing everything through a wall. I didn't feel anything at all. Somebody took my arm..."

Squall shook his head then, as if chastising his own stupidity. "I think anyone at all could have taken my arm just then and I'd have followed them around like a puppy." He sounded bitter, and a little angry. "I swear I don't remember a damn thing after that. Someone took my arm, I think we left the party - and that's all I remember."

But if that were truly the case he would not have asked for this recital to be off the record, Kadowaki knew. So it was not the end of the story. She waited, watching him. That cold, killing fury was back in his eyes now - and creeping into his voice, too, though he tried to keep it steady.

"The next morning...I was in my bed. Someone's arms were around me - I thought maybe for a minute -" he stopped himself, began again. "Somebody's arms were around me - someone I didn't know. Some guy I didn't know. And I was...sore." He noted Kadowaki's questioning expression, snapped that stone-cold glare on her. "Just...sore, Doctor. In my room. In my bed, and Zell could walk in any time. I suppose I should be grateful he found a girl that night and stayed in her room."

"And that is why you almost killed him?" asked Kadowaki. "Because of what you suspect happened? I suppose I should tell you Jonathan's report is that you invited him back to your room, and that subsequent events were entirely consensual."

That quicksilver gaze could turn a basilisk to stone. "I remember no such thing, Doctor. What I told you is what I know."

And the rest of what you know you won't tell me, is that it? thought the Doctor. I think I understand now. "We're off the record," she reminded him, "so - if you please - satisfy my curiosity. You didn't attack Jonathan just because you didn't agree to sleep with him, did you?"

"If you're asking did I beat him because I found out I'd had sex with a guy, no," said Squall flatly, but that edge of anger was present. "I beat the shit out of him because I didn't fucking agree to it, and the bastard knew I was too far out of it to fight at the time."

"That was not what I asked," said Kadowaki firmly. "I asked if that was your only reason. Was it?"

Squall seemed to deflate then, and sadness was in his eyes as he quietly admitted, "....no."

Only one word, but it made things much clearer to the experienced Doctor. "You know Zell is straight, don't you?" she asked sympathetically.

Sadness abruptly disappeared behind the Wall, and a coolly impervious expression dominated Squall's face now. "Yes, Doctor, I am aware of that. We are not here to discuss my roommate."

Kadowaki stood up, and nodded. "Quite right, Squall. We are not. Well, you've been down here two days already - I consider that punishment enough for the time being. However, I suggest that you seek out the remaining gays at Garden and come to an arrangement with them so that this does not occur again. Your actions have caused quite a stir in their little community, and I don't want to see further trouble if they decide to take vengeance on Jonathan's behalf. Jonathan...well, we'll see. I doubt he'll want to come anywhere near you again, but it's going to be up to you to diffuse the situation. I'll do what I can to pry a few more facts out of him. In the meantime you are to avoid him completely."

She opened the door. "You are released to your quarters, Squall," she said. "I'll take care of things with the Headmaster."

Squall uncurled from his corner and strode out of the cell without a backward glance. Kadowaki retrieved the pieces of her recorder and sighed. Of the two cadets, she was far more inclined to believe Squall than Jonathan; though both might have been telling the truth, Jonathan was known to tell lies of convenience on occasion. Squall really did deserve some punishment for injuring his partner the way he had, but given his utter ineptitude in social situations Kadowaki felt that ordering him to deal with every other gay man in Garden personally probably covered the bill. And it would prevent repetitions.

Such a complex little boy. He hadn't beaten Jonathan for being taken advantage of - though ordinarily that would be cause enough. He'd beaten Jonathan because - by doing so in Squall's own room - there had been the risk Zell would find out that Squall's cover wasn't entirely a fabrication. That Squall really could be attracted to men as well as women. And if Zell found that out, the relationship he shared with his roommate would be forever altered.

Possibly for the better, Kadowaki knew. Zell was straight but he was honest, and after he'd been given time to adjust would probably worship Squall as much as he ever had. But Squall was not the sort to ever take that risk, not willingly. Unable ever to win love, he had no desire to risk the worship that was all he ever might achieve. Kadowaki wondered if Squall really understood the object of his affection. Probably not - understanding other people's motives was always Squall's weakest suit.

She stuffed the pieces of the recorder in her pocket, and followed the slightly built cadet out of the lower levels, trying to think of a way to settle this. There wasn't anything she could really do about Squall's outburst, she knew. It hadn't been prompted by outrage, but by fear - and Squall never ran from things he feared. No, he charged right in and tried to control them.

Who was right? Jonathan's version of events had Squall doing the inviting, and everything above board. Kadowaki wished Squall hadn't gotten quite so enraged - they'd had to pull him off of Jonathan, and it had taken several cadets to haul him down to the cells. If he hadn't been so obviously wide awake, she could have taken a blood sample for drugs. Now she would never know for sure what had caused Squall's blackout - the lone drink he had nursed could well have caused the distancing effect and the blackout he'd described, given the wounds he'd had earlier in the day and Squall's low alcohol tolerance. At the same time, Jonathan noticing Squall's preoccupation so quickly and drawing him away from the party indicated the possibility that the older cadet had helped things along. It was not unusual in the least for cadets at a blood party to have events similar to Squall's. The older cadets tended to regard it as fair payback for the effort of throwing the party in the first place.

She made it back to the Infirmary and locked the door of her private office, where she could give vent to her frustration. Damn those stupid parties! Squall was not the only cadet to have come out of that in worse condition than he went in. Two cadets were dead of drug overdoses - probably due to blood loss, vulnerable in the same way Squall himself had been. And no way to shut them down - SeeD cadets were remarkably ingenious at keeping them out of sight of the authorities until too late. And what could she tell the Headmaster? Squall had insisted his report be kept off the record - no doubt so that Zell wouldn't get word of it.

Well. That left one other cadet to talk to. Now that she had a clearer idea of events, she could probably get to the bottom of this...and his report wouldn't be off the record at all.

Squall wended his way back to the dorms, thinking.

He hadn't understood it himself until Kadowaki asked him the question - You didn't attack Jonathan just because you didn't agree to sleep with him, did you? - but now he did. He'd never been so angry in his life as he had when he'd realized that the arm around his body had belonged to no one he knew. So long - he'd made it to fourteen without winding up in someone's bed, which was practically a record in Garden - and to have lost something precious without remembering how or why or if he'd really done the inviting after all...

Abruptly he realized he didn't care about that at all. Zell wouldn't hear about it - not all of it, he was sure of that - so he wouldn't have to deal with his roommate freaking out...and that was really all that mattered. Jonathan might have gotten his pretty fuck for a night, but he'd be looking at the Infirmary ceiling and getting his lunch through an IV for at least a month yet. He wouldn't try it again - and he'd probably spread the word so no one else tried it again either. Squall was already good enough in combat that most cadets didn't want to take him on, even in groups. It wasn't so much Squall's skill, which still needed work, but the fact that he didn't, ever, give up. To fall was to die, and Squall hung onto life with a fierce, unbreakable tenacity. Even if he were overpowered and rendered unconscious - the only way to defeat him - when he woke up the fight would continue. In the end it just wasn't worth it. There were easier targets elsewhere.

He was almost there now, bootsteps eerily silent along the tiles, old habits dying hard. Seifer liked to ambush him in the training center, stepping silently allowed him to turn the tables.

But his steps were not all that was silent. There was nothing in him now. Not rage, not fury, not anger, not confusion, not hurt. They were down there, down in the cells, with the words of the confession no one else would ever hear. It wasn't even being wrapped in cotton, as he'd been after the battle. He wasn't...alive. He could think about recent events but not care about them. They had happened to someone else, a long time ago, and didn't really matter. He glanced at his black-gloved hand as he reached for his door, vaguely surprised that he couldn't see through it. The door registered against gloved fingers as soft pressure, almost as though - were he so inclined - he could walk through it.

There was nothing in him at all.

"Hey, Squall, where ya been?" chirped Zell as he walked in. Zell was studying, it seemed, in his favorite position - flat on his back with his legs stretched up the wall, head tilted back over the side of the bed so that his hair was apparently obeying gravity for a change as he held a book to his face. Occasionally he'd reach overhead and pull a nacho out of a nearby bag. "Ya haven't been home for days, baby!"

Mental blocks processed the sentence with the habitual rider "he has no idea how he sounds", but Squall found he no longer needed them. "In the cells," he said, almost in a monotone.

"Got into a fight at the blood party?" asked the blond. "Bet the other guy looks worse than you do. Next time stay away from the red pills, yeah?"

Squall gathered up a robe and his shower kit. Two days without a shower was quite long enough. "I'm not going to another one of your 'parties', Zell," he said flatly. "I don't do well at them, and don't enjoy them. You go, if it makes you happy."

He examined the kit meticulously, making sure he had all he needed to get really thoroughly clean. Perhaps, if he turned the hot water on full, he would be able to feel it? Did he want to feel?

It was worth a try, perhaps.

The door clicked softly as it closed, and Zell went back to his studying.