The diner was nearly empty, but he was there. Waiting.
"Hi."
Her voice was low, barely audible over the early morning news. She was wearing a long coat over dark jeans and a simple felt hat. She looked nice.
"Uh..."
"Remember me?"
She had always been pretty, but in the same sly way of some oil portraits eager to melt from their canvases.
"Uh..."
She sat next to him and glanced at the menu sticking to his table. The plastic pages separated with a hiss, their surfaces gummed with old syrup. Of all the places she could have chosen to meet him, a greasy diner in the rough part of town wasn't one that he thought she'd choose. She must have been disgusted by the options because she placed the menu back on the table and lined it perfectly along the edge.
He watched her rub her fingertips together once, twice, slowly, as if trying to fuse them together. She smiled and asked, "Is your coffee good?"
It was a very pretty smile.
"Uh, yeah. It's good."
She leaned on one hand, her elbow on the menu.
"Then I'll have that too."
He wasn't surprised to see the bony waitress shuffling to their table with a steaming pot of coffee. They had good service here, even if it was a shithole for truckers and addicts. During his wait, the craggy old woman had kept his cup full, roughly muttering that he reminded her of a boy she once knew. He had dark hair too, though she figured it was as gray as her own by now. Though she was kind enough, he was distracted by a crusted clump of spittle caked in the corner of her mouth.
Pathetic.
The poor dumb broad probably looked at the door every time the bell signaled a new customer, hoping that it might be her lover. He thought it likely she'd die with a tray on her hip, afraid to retire and risk missing his return.
Their cups were filled and she limped back to the kitchen, picking up a few plates and a dirty ashtray to carry to the dishwasher.
He added sugar and stirred while he watched his companion dive into her coffee. Quick sip, blow. Quick sip, blow. He was fascinated by a quicksilver gleam of moisture on her lips before she licked it away.
"I'm glad you responded to my message. I was afraid you wouldn't remember who I am."
The speakers in the ceiling were old. Both could hear the buzzing static when the newscaster stopped for breath.
...unknown assassin thwarted the authorities near the Trabian presidential residence, escaping in a...
She was waiting for his answer. It hadn't been a lie. She was terrified that he wouldn't remember, even though his acceptance of her invitation was a clear indication that he did.
"Of course I do. I gave you my ticket..."
He had thought himself a little in love that day.
She closed her eyes then and sipped her coffee, lost in some memory. Overhead the news crackled in and out.
"And I never repaid you for your kindness."
She had blisters on her fingers. He could see the clear fluid just below thick layers of skin on her right hand. When she opened her hand to reach for her cup, he saw a dark red streak on her palm, but it was hidden again even as his brain processed its appearance.
"Y-you never had to..."
He was blushing and he knew it but he couldn't help it. The thought sickened him.
...claim to have video evidence of the meeting, which would violate the terms of the peace treaty signed just last year at the council for...
She quietly listened to the news while he composed himself, a grim smile on her lips. "Do you mind if I ask why you did that for me?"
"What? Why I gave you...?"
The waitress refilled their coffees and quickly retreated to the kitchen. Neither paid her much attention.
"Mhm. After all, you didn't know me."
He would never admit to her that he imagined himself in a trench coat when he forced her onto that train, just like in the movies. He would never tell her how he hated himself for cowering in a bathroom while he retched and drooled into a stinking piss stained toilet. He would never tell her that he wanted to tell her more than what he said.
"Well..."
She was looking at him, the coffee pushed aside and forgotten.
... as the body of the fourth missing senator has been found floating in the...
"Well?"
Waiting again. The weight of it was crushing his chest. "I don't really know. You just seemed kind of..."
"Kind of what?"
...chaos in the capital as another explosion rocks Deling City...
He picked at his fingernails, ashamed of the quiver in his voice.
"Heh. You were just really pretty and I wanted to be noble."
...released after she was able to provide two alibis, though both are now missing and she is again sought for...
He could see dark circles under eyes bright with shock. The effect was startling, exhilarating.
"Uh, yeah. I kinda wanted to impress you, but a ticket was all I could offer you, so..."
She blinked and the madness was gone, though the blue remained to remind him of what had just appeared.
...absolute panic in the streets as the gil hits an unprecedented low...
"So you gave me a train ticket."
She was trembling, so he gently took her hand. So lost was he in his own daring that he didn't see her shoulders shaking from laughter until he risked a glance at her face.
"Well, I guess it's kind of pathetic, 'specially when you compare it to..."
The raw flesh on her palm was sticky and warm. Whatever she had done to injure herself, it had happened within the past few hours. She gripped his fingers and pressed them to her lips.
...negotiations ended in bloodshed after the Estharians fired on the Galbadian diplomatic aircraft...
"Do I seem pathetic to you, asking you to meet me like this?"
The waitress was pathetic, but not her. Never.
"What? No! I just meant..."
...disappearing much as they did during the First Sorceress War...
Blood welled up between his knuckles as she tightened her grip. "That was the first time anyone had ever done anything for me. Just...for me."
...rumors that the general's daughter is allied with a terrorist group that is led by the son of the Estharian president...
He heard her voice over the radio, though just barely. It was as if she wanted him to listen to the news instead of her. "It meant the world to me."
...have increased with the reports that Galbadia is now training suitable candidates for what is widely believed to be the prelude to war...
The waitress came with their check, staring hard at Quistis.
"Since you gave me the world, I want to give your world back to you."
...ing to our source, it seems that her strangled body was found in the bedroom of General Caraway, though the military continues to deny that her...
"Don't worry. Kat volunteered and I made sure she felt no pain. She was going to off herself in a suicide raid anyway, so I suggested this to her instead."
Stunned, Zone turned her hand over so he could see the lacerations in her palm. They were deep, though all very narrow.
Quistis was rather proud of herself. Strangling that girl with a wire plucked from the piano of the general's beloved wife seemed like poetic justice. It was by far the most satisfying thing she had done in the past year for the Resistance. Her hand was sore, but she needed to leave some evidence for the Galbadians to show to Balamb. Let the Galbadians find her blood on the general's mattress. Let them threaten SeeD. Let Balamb defend her contractual allies. Let them prosecute while their general's daughter held such power over her boyfriend.
Moving world leaders to destroy Galbadia was as easy as moving cards on a Triple Triad board.
Zone's mouth fell open.
"Y-you did that?"
"Among a... few other things."
She wanted to give him the world in exchange for a simple kindness. Zone was touched. He had never dreamed that revolution could be so beautiful. Brave now, foolish for asking but not caring anymore, he melted with her.
"If you're not busy tonight, would you like to have dinner?"
"No, I'm not busy." She laughed. "Well, not tonight, at any rate. Dinner sounds marvelous."
Note: Did anyone pay attention to what Quistis says after the party has boarded the train out of Timber? She says that she intends to pay Zone back for giving her his ticket and Rinoa suggests that he likes dirty magazines, to which Quistis replies, "I'll keep that in mind." I think this was a way of dismissing Rinoa so she could think about what Zone's sacrifice meant without distractions. She wouldn't buy porn for someone that had risked his life and freedom for her, especially since she had just lost everything precious to her.
And as for Zone in the trench coat, I can't be the only one that was reminded of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca when he sent Quistis on that train, can I?