A Quistis drabble for my claim at fated(underscore)children. :) Themes used were change and wishful thinking.


I used to think that one day I could get to know Squall. Get under his skin, walk around in his shoes, whatever, I thought I'd be the one who got in there. Of course, I've never been this far wrong in my life, but what does it matter? It's odd to see him smile, laugh, spend time not working, but... somehow pleasant, anyway.

It was wishful thinking, really. I couldn't have got to know Squall -- how right Seifer was, when he called him Ice Princess or any of the other nicknames he used to piss him off -- and the time would probably have been better spent doing something useful instead of dreaming of him. Maybe I'd have been better analyzing myself and figuring out why I'm masochistic enough to fall for a guy like him.

That's all changed now, anyway, and thinking about the past doesn't change a thing about my current life. Squall opened up to Rinoa, and gradually, offered glimpses of himself to the rest of us. I think Seifer and Rinoa know him best, and oddly, that doesn't make me jealous.

It did, of course. But there has been a change in me, too.

Before, I think I was lonely. I was younger than all the other instructors, and had bare months on Seifer in age. I was always closer to my students than to the other teachers, but kept apart from them by that invisible but almost touchable barrier of the authority I had over them.

Now I have friends, equals who are my own age, who can sympathise with me, laugh with me, joke with me. And steadily, I've pulled away from that crush on Squall, to a more lasting, steady friendship with him. My friends have all brought their own changes to me; Selphie with her light heartedness, Zell with his constant enthusiasm, Seifer his own brand of cynicism, Irvine with his calm acceptance of life and whatever it slings his way.

Yes, Squall has changed, and so have I.