He was alone, but he pulled out a picnic basket large enough to feed ten people, and set it on the ground. As he did so, a hefty shotgun was briefly revealed beneath his old brown trench coat. He moved with quick, sure movements, an air of anticipation around him - and an air of sorrow. He'd agreed to come alone, but he knew his wife would have loved to see this. He wasn't even permitted to bring a recorder along so that she could watch the events later.

Once he had matters arranged to his satisfaction, the cowboy put his palm before his face and then threw his hand out before him. "Shockwave Pulsar!" he said, in a voice of command.

A great gray lion like beast with gray-feathered wings burst from a white-energy circle on the ground. It, too, threw out a huge steel-clawed hand, from which six white spheres emerged. It then launched itself skyward, disappearing in a flash back to its own realm.

The six white spheres resolved themselves into six teens, each seeming no older than fifteen, but somehow acting older. The cowboy tipped his hat to them, and indicated the picnic spread.

"Figured you'd be hungry, not having paid us a visit in a while," he said. "I'll understand if you don't want to talk right now."

And indeed, the teens did not look happy. All were downcast, and one girl was crying. One of the boys looked at the others and took the initiative.

"Sorry, Irvine," he said. "It's one thing to leave home, but another to be forced out of it."

"S'okay, Taran," replied Irvine. "I'd be a bit upset too. But they had to let you go - you're already five years behind, and the world is waiting for you."

"Waiting for us to what?" snapped another boy. "I don't like this at all. There's no place for us here." The wind picked up a little as he spoke, but one sharp glance from Taran and it died back down again.

"We'll manage, Gwynt," said Taran tiredly. "So we're a little different. So what?"

Irvine cleared his throat. "Sorry to interrupt, guys, but y'all do have lunch waiting. Griever said y'all should come back to an empty place, so you can decide what you want to do."

"Griever doesn't really trust us," said the one girl with brown hair. "Love us, yes - but not trust. That's why we're out here, and not in a city somewhere."

Irvine hid a frown; of all the children, Daear was still the most worrisome. "Trust is earned, Daear," he said. "How could you earn trust if you stayed in its world? You already know it can negate your power there. No temptation."

"Shouldn't a father trust his children?" asked Daear quietly, with a disconcertingly level and direct stare.

Irvine shrugged. "Don't take it personally," he advised. "Squall has never trusted anyone he wasn't forced to. And the last time he did, the results weren't the best - at least, not from his viewpoint."

Gwynt nodded slowly. "I get that, even if she doesn't," he said. "But still - what do we do now we're here?"

"I'd like to see Balamb," said the boy with the darkest hair. "Zell thinks I would get along great with his son Kiel. Can I go to Balamb?"

Irvine grinned at that. "Noddy, you'd get along great with just about anyone," he said. "But you'd have to watch out for Bella. She's still kinda touchy about you six."

In the back, one of the twins finally managed to get the other to quit crying. Irvine had finally learned to tell them apart; Cariad was the one with the softer heart and finer sensibilities - and was therefore probably the one crying.

"Don't be too upset, little heart," he said - using her family nickname. "It's not forever, you know."

"B-but I didn't want to go!" wept the girl, causing her twin to send Irvine a dirty look.

Irvine took the weeping girl in his arms, and gave her a little hug. Cariad was very definitely the most insecure of the six, always needing reassurance. "It's okay," he said into her hair. "I'll take you back to visit them every weekend for as long as you like, how about that?"

"They...won't mind?" sniffled the girl. Irvine laughed.

"No, of course they won't mind. Good grief, girl, did you think they sent you back because they didn't want you or something?" When she nodded uncertainly, he rolled his eyes. "Okay, I'll grant you that your dad is about the must undemonstrative guy a person could hope to meet, but even you should know better than that. You guys are twenty years old, for Hyne's sake. But you're physically only fifteen." He tweaked Cariad's nose. "Which probably explains the hormone attack, yeah?" he teased. "Anyway - the longer you stay with them, the bigger the difference between your brain and your bodies will get. They had to let you go before it got too severe. So I don't want to hear any more of this desertion talk. I'm the one that's got Rinoa bawling in the back of my head the entire trip home."

The entire group - aside from Cariad - laughed a little at that. Rinoa had gotten very motherly with them over the past decade, enough to where they did tend to think of her as their mother. And at last, they did attack the contents of the picnic basket.

"So, what do you guys think you'll do?" Irvine asked after a while. "I can take any of you that wants back to Garden with me, you know."

Taran brushed light brown bangs out of his eyes and looked at the others for a moment. "I don't think any of us are going to Garden," he said slowly. "No offense, Irvine, but..." he shrugged. "Dad's still kinda messed up from Garden, or at least it looks that way. We've got enough problems as it is without adding to it." He paused. "And...there's the Guardian Forces. I don't think we want to try junctioning Guardian Forces - and we'd have to do that if we went to Garden, wouldn't we?"

Irvine thought about that. Seifer was a very active Commander, and Guardian Forces were once again in popular use among the SeeD - the advanced junctions in particular. "Yeah, I guess you would," he said. "You could always take up combat instruction at the new Garden in Trabia, though. They're still short-staffed there."

"No," said Taran, and none of the others disagreed.

Gwynt looked up from a leg of cold chicken and said, "We could always split up. They're looking for six people. If there's only one or two of us, maybe we won't be found."

Irvine had to agree to that. "Seifer knows you six are coming back, and probably knows I came out here to do that. But if you split up, I don't think he'd recognize just one of you - well, aside from Taran here. He never got sent to the past, so he never saw Laguna when he was young, so Noddy's safe enough. But, the thing is...could you guys work alone? You're still only fifteen physically, and you don't have SeeD training."

Gwynt grinned, an evil grin. "Not...exactly...true," he said. "Dad didn't want us to be SeeDs, but he's not real keen on us being monster chow either. I think we could probably outfight a Balamb cadet if we had to. And that's without calling on the special stuff."

"Yeah, don't worry about that," said Noddy confidently. "We can take care of ourselves. So, we each split up. I'll take Balamb!"

There followed a quick rush as the others laid claim to parts of the world, giving Irvine a brief shudder - for all the world it sounded like six conquerors laying down territories. In the end, Nodwydd got Balamb as he wanted, Gwynt took Esthar City, Daear took Deling City, and the twins decided to move to Winhill.

"And you, Taran?" asked Irvine. "Where will you go?"

Taran looked up at Irvine with serious gray eyes, a mirror image of Squall at that age. "I can't go anywhere inhabited," he said. "I look too much like him. Daear can get away with it - she's a girl and people won't make the connection. I can't take the risk - not with my power."

Irvine frowned, but had to agree. Taran really did look exactly like Squall; enough so that it was easy to believe he'd had no mother at all. On top of it, he had his father's quick mind and serious temperament. Anyone who had met Squall as a cadet would make an instant connection on meeting Taran. Only Taran had one thing Squall hadn't had - the power of Quezacotl as part of his being. Taran's power was the most dangerous of the six. "So where will you go, then?" Irvine repeated.

"Centra," said Taran quietly. "I'll make my way down to Edea's old orphanage. Doesn't matter who's in charge there, they won't be really up to date on current events and probably won't know what Squall looks like. I can live down there without much trouble happening, I think."

"Seifer might find you there," warned Irvine. "The orphanage is the only inhabited part of the whole continent."

Taran shrugged. "If I see a sign of visitors, I make tracks," he said simply. "There's a whole continent down there that practically nobody's explored. One person can hide down there pretty good, I think."

Irvine nodded. "If I may offer an alternative, though - may I suggest FH? Good neutral territory, not a lot of visitors."

The boy shook his head. "Can't. First - they know Squall pretty well there, he's been through a few times. Not recently, sure, but people would remember if they saw me. Second - that whole town is wired. None of us has that great of control when we're angry. The first time someone got on my case, I could short out the whole city. I've got to go someplace uncomplicated, where Seifer can't find me. That leaves out Timber and Winhill - the only relatively unadvanced cities. No, it's got to be Centra."

"All right," said Irvine. "You win. Sefie thought you guys might split up, so she sent a present for y'all. Hang on." He got up and rummaged in the back of the jeep, bringing out a dusty hard-sided case. Opening it, he pulled out seven electronic notepads.

"Taran, these are solar powered, and you'll note yours has a nonconducting case just to be on the safe side. These pads will let you send each other letters, no matter where you are. The seventh is for Sefie and me - if you want to visit your dad, you can get ahold of me this way and I'll arrange it. That way you don't have to lose touch with each other. Unfortunately, there's no way to encrypt stuff you send this way, so I'd recommend using codenames for any proper nouns, and code phrases for anything that might tell Seifer where you are. If Squall taught you SeeD stuff, you should be able to work that out all right." He looked at the six faces watching him, and decided that he didn't need to give them further details; Squall had indeed taught them well.

Cariad's twin Chwaer handed her pad back to Irvine. "I'm going with Cariad," she said, "So I can use her pad. Give this one to Zell's son, please? He doesn't have to use it, but we'd all like to say hi. We know what we owe him." And at that, the others immediately nodded agreement. Once, after Daear had attempted to use her power on Zell (having learned she couldn't use it on Squall or Rinoa), the six had seen Squall get absolutely furious - enough in and of itself to make all six want to dive for cover. In his anger, Squall had told them that they owed Zell for their lives; that had Zell not chosen to face death as he had, Squall would probably have decided the six were too dangerous a group to let live. Therefore, giving Zell grief would only make Squall regret that choice.

He'd cooled down later, after he'd seen the effect such a statement had. He'd apologized for scaring them - however, all six children were bright enough to notice that he didn't say he hadn't meant it. It had made a lasting impression on them; their father had a limit to his patience, and 'playing rough' with Zell would push him past it. Things became very polite after that. The six knew now that they knew Zell better than his own son did. Now, back in the world, they wanted to make up for that. Irvine couldn't really fault them for it, and agreed to take the pad to the boy.

"Why is Seifer after us?" asked Cariad. "We aren't doing anything to anybody."

"It's a little complicated," said Irvine. "First, you're all technically Garden cadets - that's where your records are, listing you as wards of Balamb Garden. Doesn't really do to have Garden Cadets outside of Garden, so Seifer will want you there for training. Second - the same thing Squall's afraid of. Somebody could get their hands on you out here, force you to use your power for them. Now, I trust ya - as Squall must by now, or I don't think he'd have let you go - not to go taking over the world. But Seifer's not one to take those sorts of risks, not anymore. You guys will have to hide your differences as much as you can, or some stupid Mayor or President is going to look at you like a dog looks at a fresh T-bone steak. That's another reason for the pads - if one of you goes quiet, the rest of you will know something's up. You six are gonna have to look out for yourselves day and night."

"So what else is new?" groused Gwynt. "We can do it, though."

The meal was finished, the gifts distributed. "Well...I probably ought to head back to Garden," said Irvine. "Just so you know...Winhill's due south of here, Deling City is north-northwest, and Noddy you're going to have to catch a ship from Dollet. Kill some monsters on your way - that'll give you some items you can sell for the gil to buy passage. Gwynt, you can hike across the Horizon Bridge, that's east of here - when you reach the coast you should be able to see it. You should hunt monsters too; not a lot to eat on the Bridge." He turned to Taran. "I wish I could give you some good way to get to Centra, but there isn't one. Head south past Winhill, and if you can try to build yourself a boat. If Gwynt is willing to go with you, it'll be easier; you can make a sailboat and he can blow you to Centra, and then use the boat to head on to the Esthar shores."

"Yeah, I'll go with him," said Gwynt. "That'd be fun, just sailing the whole way. And the food'd be better than going across the Bridge, too. Noddy can go with us - I can drop him off at Balamb before heading on to Esthar easier than he'd be able to fight his way to Dollet."

Noddy and even Taran smiled, startling Irvine. Taran was enough like Squall that his smiles were rare - but they still happened more often with the son than the father. Irvine had never yet seen Squall smile, though he was reliably informed that it did happen. "Good luck then," he said to them.

He gave each one of the six a farewell hug - they knew him pretty well by now, as he'd visited fairly often. And he waited at his jeep until all six were out of sight - Daear heading north, the twins heading south, and the three boys heading east.

Good kids, he thought, a little sad to know he probably wouldn't see any of them in the waking world again. You two did a good job with them. I don't think you've got any cause for worry.

There are still their children, and their children's children, said Griever. We may have merely postponed the inevitable.

Well, aren't you just a barrel of sunshine, teased Irvine. Seriously - don't worry. If you've just 'postponed the inevitable', as you put it, then I think you've postponed it a good long time. And if the inevitable you're thinking of really does happen, well - you'll be around for it, I'm sure.

Zell misses them, said Griever inconsequentially. But he's very proud that they thought to give a notepad to his son. Bella is still against the boy joining you in Dreams, isn't she?

'Fraid so, said Irvine. He's pissed as hell that she wouldn't let him come to Garden to become a SeeD like his hero dad. The kid's only ten, so there's still time for her to change her mind, but I think he'll have to move in with Noddy or something if he wants to become a SeeD. And wouldn't that make sparks fly; Zell's son following your son to get into Garden - even though Noddy won't fight. Bella's got one helluva grudge against you, Squall. I don't think even Zell could talk her out of it.

I wish I could believe that I let them go because I knew they'd never be any trouble, came Squall's thought. But this is too...personal...for me to be sure.

Squall, did anyone ever call you a worrywart? laughed Irvine as he started up the jeep. Really - yeah, they were a bit spoiled when you got your hands on 'em, but right now they do you proud. And if, some few hundred years down the line, your descendants cause trouble...well, I bet Ultimecia's great grandparents would kick themselves if we knew who they were and could tell them what their descendant will get up to. It's no reflection on you if that happens, Squall. Anyone has the capability to go bad - even you, even Rinoa. It's called 'being human'. Get used to it.

In his mind there echoed the growling rumble that was Griever's laughter. Irvine grinned, and gunned the motor as he headed back to the Garden.