They were all a bunch of nervous wrecks by the time Quistis returned to the waiting room. Squall practically pounced on her - well, practically for Squall - demanding, "How'd it go?"
"They understood our situation," said Quistis, and Rinoa watched her carefully. Quistis tended to be more Professional when the news was bad, and she was being very Professional right now. "And Balamb Garden is safe. The attack on the president in Timber was classified as an independent action. There was an official notice from the Galbadian government saying that Balamb Garden is not being held responsible."
"So, Seifer's taking all the blame?" asked Zell, and Rinoa felt her stomach tighten.
"The trial's over," said Quistis, still in that professional tone, "and the sentence has been carried out..."
That was all Rinoa really needed. "...He was executed?" she asked, and then answered her own question because she didn't want to hear anyone else say it. "Of course he was. He attacked the president. He sacrificed himself for the 'Forest Owls'..." Watts and Zone were not going to like this. But - it would be public knowledge soon, wouldn't it? If it wasn't already. And she swallowed as she looked at her own thoughts. Seifer was dead and she was thinking about public relations. These people were rubbing off on her.
"It was your group that got Seifer involved in all this," Quistis pointed out. "You're a resistance faction, right? You must have been prepared for the worst. I'm sure Seifer was prepared, too. So don't think of it as Seifer sacrificing himself for you. I'm sorry. I guess that wasn't much consolation."
No. No, it wasn't. She swallowed. Quistis probably couldn't help being Professional right now, she told herself. There was probably a course for it. Squall was a furry-coated statue in the corner, that probably proved it. She didn't feel much like moving herself, but that was because she couldn't. Someone had put lead in her stomach. She was vaguely surprised she wasn't crying. Maybe relieved. These SeeDs didn't respect tears very much. She just let the others talk around her while she worked on breathing.
"You really hated Seifer, didn't you, Zell?"
"Yeah, but... He was from Garden...He was one of us. If I can, I wanna get revenge."
"I don't have any good memories of him. I've seen some troubled children, but he was beyond troubled. Well, he wasn't really a bad guy."
She didn't mean to interfere, or butt in, but her mouth was running on autopilot. "I...really liked him," she admitted, realizing Zell would probably never trust her again. But it was true. "He was always full of confidence, smart...Just by talking to him, I felt like I could take on the world."
"Your boyfriend?" asked Selphie, rather more shrewdly than Rinoa had expected. Or was ready for.
"I don't really know," she admitted. "I...I think I was in love. I wonder how he felt...?" He'd been so...bright. And kind of full of himself, but it had been a good thing. You didn't have to prove yourself to a guy who wasn't really measuring what you were doing anyway. Not like these people she was with now, so good at making her feel small, and stupid.
"Do you still like him?" asked Selphie, in a tone that said she'd be surprised if the answer were yes.
"If I didn't, I wouldn't be talking about it," Rinoa pointed out, wondering what on earth these people went through to react so weirdly. And then, again, looked at herself and her own thoughts. He's dead now. "It was last summer...I was 16. Lots of fond memories..." He'd dated her as if it were the greatest honor she'd ever get in her life, and somehow managed to be charming enough that she was willing to agree. Strong, confident...all she had to do was follow along and the Forest Owls would bring freedom to Timber.
It had made sense at the time. But now...he'd fought, and died, and nothing had changed, and the world felt colder.
"What's wrong, Squall?" asked Quistis, breaking into her reverie. Rinoa looked up, heart still full of memories and grief, and saw Squall's expression contorted with rage.
"I won't have it!" he snarled, and it cracked through the room like a whip.
Rinoa flinched as if struck - honestly it felt like she had been, as if her grief itself was offensive to him.
"W-What?" stammered Zell, as Selphie demanded, "Are you mad?" and if Rinoa's stomach hadn't been full of lead she would have backed away from the snarling captain.
"I'm not having anyone talk about me in past tense!" Squall snarled, and stormed out.
Rinoa just stared after him, and her only real consolation was that everyone else was, too. You? Talk about you? she thought, trying to calm herself down from the startled panic at being that near his explosion.
The others slowly returned to their ...chatter. Rinoa put her face in her hands, to hide her tears, and wished she were somewhere else. Anywhere else but in this room full of SeeDs, in this school for SeeDs, who treated dying like an excuse to fight or a stack of paperwork. She would have repeated to them, Seifer's dead, but she already knew what their response would be: we know. In that tone that suggested she was a fool for thinking she could fight to make the world better without somebody dying along the way.
Of course she'd known that. But she hadn't expected the first casualty to be her own first love. To judge by the talk of the others around her, that wasn't meant to be a mitigating factor. Either she was strong enough to do the job or she wasn't.
She got up after a while, her face feeling hot and puffy from the tears, and went out into the hall to find a bathroom. Some of the students gave judging looks as they saw her, and she tried to ignore it. Tried, too, to ignore the memory of her own words just a few hours before, asking the others to treat her as if she were a SeeD, too. When she found the bathroom she knew she was hiding there. Cold water on her face to cool it, patting herself dry with far more ceremony than was ever required. She felt very alone. The only SeeD that had thought she was worth any time or consideration was a failure in the eyes of other SeeDs, and it made the entire building feel harsh around her.
She stayed in there for a good hour, hiding in the stalls when anyone came. Until she felt she could walk out without ...without seeming weak.
Squall was waiting for her in the hall when she stepped out. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked only marginally less angry than when he'd stormed off. "We've been waiting for you," he said shortly, in a tone that made very clear how much he didn't appreciate her foolishness wasting his time. "We've got a new mission."
"Already?" Rinoa blurted without thinking. "But you're all Seifer's -" friends? Were these people really any friends of his? Had he had friends?
Squall didn't give her the time to finish, anyway. "We're SeeDs," he snapped, apparently meaning SeeDs didn't need time off for personal loss. Or that SeeDs didn't have friends.
She could believe that, at least. Still raw from the news, Rinoa still had more than enough sense of self-preservation to stop herself from smacking a man who could break both her arms without trying.
So this was the world now, she realized as she fell into step behind him. It was what she'd asked for, when she hadn't known what she was asking. She'd wanted to be like Seifer. Bright and charismatic and confident and capable. And Squall was going to make sure she was, if he had to drag her over broken glass to do it.
As Squall picked up the others, and she overheard phrases like 'hiding in the bathroom', she tried not to think too much whether all the bright and feeling people washed out of SeeD by execution. It wouldn't improve her odds any.