Revelation

By Laguna

Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII

Pairing:

Rating: R/angst

Summary: Laguna Loire is wounded.

Revelation
by Laguna

Kiros was sitting in a quiet restaurant in Esthar, biding his time with a small glass of soda and some breadsticks. He looked up as the door opened and Squall walked in.

"Ah, good afternoon. I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

Squall sat across from Kiros. "Now, what is it you wished to speak to me about."

"Your father is alive."

Squall blinked. "What? Then why didn't he come for me? Why did he leave me in that orphanage?"

"You were better off there." Kiros admitted.

"Why? Is he cruel? Violent?" Squall's emotions ran unusually high. He couldn't help it. He had spent his whole life getting used to being alone. Now he found out he didn't have to be. That he
had a father who, apparently, didn't want him.

"No no no! He is nothing of the sort." Kiros assured the young SeeD. "He wanted you to be safe. What place would be safer for you that with Edea Kramer? She was a known Sorceress who was loved and respected. Besides, you needed friends, people your own age to grow up with."

"Get to the point," Squall growled. "Where is the son of a bitch?"

"Standing behind you."

Squall turned, angrily, ready to give whoever had put him through a lifetime of hell a good yelling-at.

Laguna Loire simply stood there, eyes brimming as tears fell down his face. "I'm... I'm sorry. Forgive me?"

"I hate you." Squall said simply. "As far as I'm concerned you died when I was a baby. Why didn't you stay dead?"

Laguna was stricken. He turned, silently, and walked out the door, his heart shattered.

-Part 2-

Kiros glared at Squall. "That was uncalled for."

"He ditched me." Squall refused to back down. He hated Laguna more than he had hated any man.

"He saved your worthless life." Kiros glared. "Do you know what he went through day after day? Do you have any idea how much he missed you? There wasn't a single night he didn't come to me and cry on my shoulder. How *dare* you treat him like you just did. Everything he's done, the Shumi village, the imprisonment of Adel, he did for you and Ellone. But maybe he shouldn't have done all that. Maybe he shouldn't have befriended the Moombas who were so helpful in your battle with Ultimecia? Maybe he should have kept you both with him in Esthar and tried to raise you by himself while running a small country? Maybe he should have just handed your head to Adel on a silver-fucking-platter?"

Squall's expression slowly changed as he listened to Kiros. Was all of this true? He tried to think of something that would convince him otherwise. But the facts spoke clearly. Laguna Loire did not lie and neither did Kiros.

Squall was about to make a reply when they heard a noise outside. Jumping to his feet, he ran outside.

Laguna was lying on the sidewalk, curled up in pain. Blood mixed with the falling rain and rain down a nearby drain.

"Laguna!" Kiros ran past Squall and knelt by the injured President. "Sir, can you hear me?"

Laguna winced in pain and curled up more tightly.

Kiros looked up "Squall, get over here! *Now*." He looked back down at Laguna. "I'll get help. Squall, keep an eye on your father until I get back."

Squall knelt by Laguna. He knew what he had to say, but his pride held him back. The rain made the blood look more plentiful, so he didn't know how much Laguna was losing. Would the man
die before Kiros returned?

Would he die before Squall could make up for what he had said?

-Part 4-

There was a crowd of reporters already there when the helicopter made its descent toward the President's private hospital.

"Shit," the pilot growled. "Don't they know how much danger they're putting him in? He landed the helicopter and opened the doors. Squall helped them to move Laguna from the helicopter and onto the gurney that had just arrived.

"Is he going to be all right?"

"Can you tell us what happened?"

"Mr. Leonhart, is it true that you're President Loire's son?"

~Thank Hyne,~ The doctor thought as the crowd of reports turned their minds from the injured, possibly dying, President and began to focus on the young man now revealed as Laguna's son.

Seeing an opportunity to help the man who's life was now in danger because of his harsh words, Squall nodded. "Its true." he told them.

This pulled the few remaining stragglers over to the group that was floating around Squall.

With the crowd no longer a problem, the doctors raced Laguna into the operating room..

"Get him on the table, " the head surgeon ordered, his voice leaving no question as to his authority. "Restraints. " he said as soon as he saw what he was dealing with, a fragment of bone that was lodged, just so, in Laguna's femoral artery. The broken bone was, he knew, important, but the arterial damage had to be handled first. "I don't want him moving so much as an inch."

~Its a miracle he's still alive,~ he thought. ~If that bone fragment was a little further in or out he never would have made it here.~ "Arterial clamps, now!" He leaned back out of the way for a mere second to allow the clamps to be put into place. He was working against time, now. The artery had to be repaired fast. Too slow and President Loire could die, or at least lose his leg. Another assistant dabbed the sweat from the doctor's forehead, making sure to keep out of his way. With the utmost care, the doctor began the painstaking procedure of repairing the damaged artery.

*****

Squall was in the cafeteria, listlessly stirring a styrofoam cup full of coffee. The reporters had finally left just five minutes ago. He was sure they hadn't gone far. He could picture them. or rather their faces on the bodies of vultures, flying around and around the hospital, waiting for news on the President.

-Chapter 5-

A quick examination revealed the damage to Laguna's artery to be too jagged to repair properly.

"I'm going to do a femoral-popliteal bypass," the head surgeon told his team. "It's our best chance of saving him. "I need a scalpel, whole blood, and someone get those damned reporters away from the door. We need to be able to get that blood in here without a hassle. I'm not going down in history as the man who let Laguna Loire die."

*****

Drinking the room-temperature coffee in a single gulp, Squall crushed the styrofoam cup and tossed it into the trashbin. He wanted to know how his father was doing. The man had been in surgery for hours.

Leaving the cafeteria, he found that he was not the only one. Several new reporters had joined the original cluster.

Selphie, Quistis, and Irvine were there, too.

"Major Bummer 'bout Sir Laguna," Selphie moped. "I hope he'll be all right."

"It's my fault," Squall put his face in his hands. "If I hadn't opened my big mouth and said such cruel things to him, he wouldn't have run out of that restaurant. Gods, I told him I wished he was dead. What if he dies now because I said that? What if I just murdered my father?"

"Your father's been dead for years," Quistis reminded him.

"Laguna's my father," Squall corrected her.

"Way cool!" Selphie cheered. Her look became more solemn as she remembered why they were at the hospital "He's gotta live! Squall can't find out he's got a wicked cool dad like that and then
just lose him again."

Squall walked away from the two groups and walked toward the door of the operating theater. He was half-way down the corridor when one of the doctors came out.

"You're his son?"

"I am," Squall nodded.

"Good. Come this way." he lead Squall to a room a few doors down. "Do you know your blood type?"

Squall shook his head.

"Damn, we'll have to do a screening," the doctor took a needle from his supplies. "Remove your coat. Roll up any shirt sleeves." he gazed at the tattoo on Squall's abdomen. "When did you get that?"

"When I was sixteen," Squall replied.

The doctor nodded. "Right," and took a sample of blood from Squall's arm.

"He's going to die, isn't he?" Squall asked.

"Not if we can help it," the doctor shook his head as he drew blood from Squall's arm. He ran a blood type test and frowned at the results. "Damn," he said. "We can't use your blood. If we can just find someone else with his blood type..."

"What is his type? I'll ask the others."

"I need to run tests," the doctor explained. "There's a lot we need to account for. RH-factors, antigens, and so on. We can't risk losing a patient, especially one as valuable as Laguna Loire." He turned and left the room while Squall busied himself with putting his coat back on.

The others were brought into the room and each was asked to give a sample of blood so that it could be tested.

Kiros had blood factors that made his blood unacceptable for donation. Selphie and Zell both had the same blood type as Laguna, but Zell's RH factor was incompatible with Laguna's blood, and Selphie had another reason she couldn't donate. She would have to have a long talk with Irvine. It seemed that nobody in the group could give the blood needed to save Laguna.

Squall stalked out of the hospital and drove to the diner where Laguna's accident had occured.

"Seifer. O negative."

Squall turned and saw Fujin and Raijin standing nearby. "What did you just say?"

"She was sayin'," Raijin explained. "That Seifer's got O negative blood."

"Where is he," Squall didn't care that Seifer and he had a long history of animosity between them. A life was hanging in the balance. The life of the President of Esthar.

The life of his father.

END PART 5