Important author's note and update (8-10-07):

Hi everyone, I've started this story back in 2003 and haven't updated this since 2005. Now that it's 2007, I've decided to keep my promise and continue this story. My inspiration is officially back. I just wanted to say that when I originally started this story, I had no idea where it was going to go but after brainstorming for what seemed to be a couple of hours, I've decided to keep everything in the two existing chapters how they are, with some changes in descriptions and certain events being added in. I had also changed some sentence structures and typo corrections of course (forgive me, I wrote this first chapter when I was very young). I had the intentions of changing the title because the title now strikes me as a story written by a very young, and dare I say—angsty teen. However, I didn't want to change everything and didn't want people to forget this lil' fic., so I decided to keep the original name.

I just wanted to thank all of you who have read/reviewed my story so far. It is miraculous to me that people even read my stories and I am truly grateful. Thank you all.

Now, here's the revised version and officially continued Tear Stained Heart.

Disclaimer: None of the characters in this story belongs to me, they belong to Squaresoft.

Tear Stained Heart

Chapter one: Depressed and in turmoil

Quistis Trepe stared into the windows of her small dorm. Dark clouds loomed over the vast fields of Balamb. The once beautiful cerulean skies were turning grayer by the moment, leaving a lonely, bleak, colorless hue to replace it. The sky seemed to somehow reflect what the lovely young woman was feeling at the moment.

It had been a year since she and her friends had defeated the evil sorceress Ultimecia. The group of friends that were known as "heroes" consisted of six members; Squall, Rinoa, Selphie, Irvine, Zell and Quistis. It had been a joyous day. The long hard struggle of defeating the sorceress has finally ended. She was supposed to be happy that day. A celebration had been held in the beautiful Balamb Garden ballroom, complete with elegant decorations that party planner Selphie herself had hand picked. Even Xu, the usual rumored party pooper of Balamb Garden had bought some of the decorations herself.

Everything had been beautiful that night. The stars, the music, the men dressed in elegant black suits and the women in sweeping dresses, everything seemed to come alive from fairy tale stories that Edea used to tell her about back in the orphanage. Quistis herself was wearing a dark sapphire colored beaded dress that was strapless and flowed all the way to the floor. She had found herself tripping over it frequently that night but she hadn't cared. That night she had decided to ditch her usual comfort over beauty regime and instead went for the no pain, no gain plan. That night was supposed to be special. That night, Quistis Trepe was supposed to confess her true feelings to Squall. She had decided that enough time had passed since their last awkward conversation which ended with him telling her to "talk to a wall" and her being depressed and in turmoil afterwards for god knew how long. Plus, everyone had been in a good mood and she had thought that even Squall would have lightened up to everyone else's cheerful mood. Little had she known, Squall was cheerful that night but she had no idea what he was planning.

Unfortunately for Quistis, it was right when she had come into a five feet radius of Squall Leonhart that he, seconds later, had one knee down and one millisecond later, proposed to the love of his life, Rinoa. The happy girl had accepted. Nobody was surprised. They all cheered. Quistis, who had stopped dead in her tracks, had been the first and closest person for Rinoa had run up to and hug. With salty tears mixed with mascara running down her cheeks and a glass of vodka martini in hand, Quistis hugged Rinoa back with her remaining open arm.

"Congratulations Rin! It's about time he proposed," she had said with a smirk and a wink, all the while her heart was slowly breaking inside. The blue eyed beauty continued to play the masquerade for about an hour more while she discussed the happy news with everyone else until she could not take it any longer.

Excusing herself, she had ran, no sprinted, to her dorm and cried her eyes out that night.

A week later, a photograph of Quistis hugging Rinoa that proposal night was featured in the Balamb Garden Student Life newspaper as the "most touching display of happiness for a friend" compared to all the other pictures taken of other people congratulating Squall and Rinoa. Even Selphie and Irvine's bear hugs did not make the cut.

How ironic life had been for Quistis Trepe.

Snapping back to reality while holding back further tears, Quistis continued to look out the window. She felt unloved, alone and like a failure. All her life, all she wanted was to love and be loved. She had successfully accomplished the "to love" part but the "be loved" part was far beyond her grasp and much harder to obtain than she had ever previously predicted.

Instead all those years, with the time left after studying Squall's features, she had spent every other moment studying to become a SeeD instructor. Quistis had at the tender age of 15, made SeeD rank and at age 18, made instructor. Unfortunately, she hadn't been instructor for even a year when Headmaster Cid had decided to take her instructor license away. Didn't think she had any leadership qualities they had said, Quistis recalled bitterly to herself. She remembered even trying to talk to Squall about it, thinking he would care and maybe give a damn about her feelings.

"Talk to a wall", he had said. She said it once again but this time, aloud to herself. For some reason, it made her laugh. Not the funny type of laughter but the laughter of one who had no tears left to shed, one who had no emotions left, except for laughter. How foolish was she to think that Squall would actually care about her thoughts and feelings. At that moment she felt that she deserved to feel the way she did, deserved to be unloved and to be lonely. After all, what kind of person was she to lie about her happiness of Squall and Rinoa's proposal right in front of Rinoa herself? Rinoa had always been nice to her in the past and had always been a great friend; and for that, Quistis felt guilty.

In the end, Quistis had concluded that in all areas of life which were love, career and even friendship, she had failed.

In all areas that Quistis had failed, Rinoa had succeeded. She had gained the love of a man Quistis could not. She had maintained great relationships with every one of her friends while Quistis lied beneath a façade to all of them. Rinoa even started taking classes in hopes of to further deepen her understanding for her newfound sorceress powers.

With her new pristine acceptance of Squall and Rinoa's proposal, Quistis went into a depression afterwards. She went on numerous missions, some important, some close to being pointless. All she wanted to do was keep her busy from thinking too much. Other than for missions, the young ex-instructor almost never left her dorm. None of her friends seemed to notice any difference though. Quistis always fooled everyone into thinking she was perfectly fine but tired after missions with her calm, cool demeanor. Little did they know that once she returned to her dorm, she would fall into a depressed state and spend many sleepless nights daydreaming about her knight and when he would marry another and leave her with the dragons.

A loud, bouncy knock interrupted her thoughts. Quistis looked up at the clock; she had been sitting by the window, lost in her thoughts for a few hours now.

"I'm coming," she replied while hastily wiping the remaining tears off her face. Opening the door, Trepe discovered it was the preppy girl Selphie Tilmitt standing at her doorway. The announcement speakers had been broken so Selphie was probably there to deliver her a message.

"Hi there Quistis!" Selphie chirped in her usual singsong voice.

Quistis smiles, trying desperately to conceal her tears, "Hey Selphie, um is there something I could help you with?" Thankfully, Selphie doesn't seem to notice her misery.

"Well, Cid told me to tell everyone that there is a private meeting in his office tonight. He told me it's extremely important. It starts in an hour."

"Oh, ok, Thanks for telling me Selphie, I'll be there."

Quistis is about to close the door when she notices that Selphie is still standing at the doorway.

"Is there something else that you wanna tell me?" she questions.

"Um, yeah, the meeting is about Seifer, he's coming back."

Ending Author's note:

Previous Vodka Martini reference was taken from James Bond flicks. Damn he's a sexy man. The "to love and be loved" reference was taken from our favorite Bohemian love story turned tragedy movie, Moulin Rouge. I cry to that movie even today.

Ok confession, I ended up adding and changing a lot of stuff for this chapter but hey, I love improvement and it's not like you original readers will be able to remember my old, far less than perfect chapter one predecessor anyways. So like always, review please )