Author's Notes – Fair warning, this is a modified NaNoWriMo story. As I've never done NaNo, my main goal is writing every day and posting when I have enough content for a chapter.

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Squall's closed fist didn't have the chance to connect with the door's surface before Quistis opened it and ushered him into her apartment. It was a small mercy that she let him cross the threshold at his own pace instead of yanking him in, however. While he was used to long nights, it was another thing altogether when he was summoned across town at 3 am when he was in a rare deep sleep.

As he took a step to the side and shucked off his shoes, she darted around him to lock the door. The click of the lock mechanism served as her cue.

"I may have figured out why some files start with ECC instead of ORF." she prefaced.

Had this been Selphie, he would have unlocked the door and walked out. While this was not the kind of news he wanted to hear at this hour, there was always a method to Q's madness. And, unlike their mutual pint-sized friend, the aforementioned method was not pure, chaotic glee.

"Realized how stupid ORF sounds as an acronym?"

The blonde let a long drawn out sigh as she walked across the living room to the light grey couch opposite the doorway. Squall did not follow suit. Too many bad memories were inextricably linked to instances where he sat himself on the matching loveseat in the corner furthest away from the entrance. Thankfully it was still 3 am and Quistis knew better than to pry at this hour and circumstance.

"I wish it had to do with a flash of self-awareness, but no." she lamented. "You remember the comment Selphie said a few months ago? About how her cases seemed to be less predictable yet somehow more manageable in some bizarre trade off?"

"I don't."

The blonde let out another sigh and pushed her glasses up with her index finger.

"Regardless, I'm just going to cut to the chase here. I don't think ECC stands for Esthar Cerebral Center like we'd presumed after I cross referenced a good sample size of your active cases with mine and Selphie's. When I looked at the logs for the intake dates, there was no date cutoff from the files that began with ORF versus ECC like I was expecting though the ECC cases didn't start appearing until last year."

Squall crossed his arms. "So you dug deeper and finally found a pattern."

"Yes. When I gathered up all Selphie's ECC files, I asked Selphie if all the unusual events she'd experienced were all from these people and most of them were. I picked her brain a little further for the ones she'd been assigned Level 3 and Level 4 observation with and most of them have all told her an anecdote or two that seemed inconsistent with the subject's case profile. This leads me to believe some different method is being used for treatment."

Squall's focus drifted towards the stack of neatly-arranged red files on the black coffee table in front of the couch. In spite of his stomach's newfound residency in his throat, he crossed the dark hardwood flooring to take a seat next to Quistis. It didn't take a genius to see she wanted him to review his own files like Selphie had. This assumption was proven correct when she said nothing when he began to flip through his manila folders.

The lingering question regarding the importance of doing so at this ungodly hour was still a mystery, however.

One by one, he quickly leafed through the contents of each file on the faintest possibility that there was something — anything — that could be gleaned from his Level 1 and Level 2 grade assignments. After the tenth and final folder, he turned towards Quistis.

"I'm not sure what you were expecting me to say here. I wasn't hired for integration-caliber observation reports."

"I know you wouldn't have much to go on but you do have the most ECC's out of all three of us. Have you noticed any kind of difference with the rate you're reporting to the lab for behavioral issues?"

"…Nothing recent is coming to mind so I guess so." he conceded with a shrug, putting the folder in his hands back onto the stack on the table. "What kind of treatment are you assuming ECC stands for?"

Quistis shook her head. "Not a treatment per se, but rather a person - E. C. Caraway. A nom de plume for a script doctor from Galbadia who self-published her first novel around the same time the files with the ECC ID sequence started appearing."

Squall tossed her a level look.

"Don't worry, I didn't call you here for a coincidence. I'm getting there." she assured. "When I was picking Selphie's brain for commonalities, she mentioned that there were a few instances with the older cases where the subject would mention something that didn't make any sense to her. When I asked or specifics, I realized it was because the comments were based on western Galbadian cultural norms and experiences I was familiar with but would be completely foreign to someone Esthar-born like Selphie. It was still strange that people with a similar background to her would be mentioning these things as if they were lived-in experiences instead of something they just looked up on the internet though so we did a little search and came across this."

On the end table beside the arm of the sofa closest to her, Quistis picked up a blue file and plucked out the first few papers to hand to him. The top page consisted of a hodge podge of screenshots of a social media fanpage with posts dating up to six months ago. Squall's eyes were drawn to the photo of a woman around his and Q's age — if not a little younger — with black hair, dark doe eyes and a fair complexion wearing a blue scarf and light grey coat. She sported a warm smile, left hand clutching the handle of a hard shell, cherry-red suitcase – the post's caption on top read, 'All packed up and ready to go on an research adventure for my new project. See you around, DC! :)'

The posts on the bottom showcased pictures of her en route in planes, trains and various pit stops until an all-too familiar sight on a post – Esthar's main intake gate. Squall looked at the second page and immediately singled out one backdrop amid all the others – his mother's retro café in Neo-Esthar.

"Selphie found the webpage you're looking at by pure luck and I did some sleuthing to find more info on her. In short, while her pen name is derived from her legal name, Elizabeth Christine Caraway, she generally goes by Rinoa Heartilly in most of her private accounts and personal life. She's 27 and the only daughter to Fury Caraway and the late Julia Heartilly." Quistis supplied. "The more recent posts suggested she's due to leave the country in about a month, give or take."

"There isn't hard evidence linking her to the cases. And even if there was, why does it matter?"

It was her turn to shoot him a level look. "The last page you didn't look at has a picture with her Dr. Jenkins in plains clothes, captioned, 'My project partner,' dated a few months back." she replied in a noticeably-clipped tone. "And you know why it matters Squall. I think she has a right to know what it is she's doing if the lab is taking advantage of her. We all had the luxury of choosing what we were getting into."

"Even if we knew with absolute certainty that she accepted freelance work without knowledge of the true intent, she's from Galbadia - they don't have the advanced neuro-technology there. Anything we'd say would sound like the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist. It's not worth the added risk - especially when there's not enough time to begin with to assess what she does and does not know." he countered.

"Squall, I know that. I'm not asking you to risk everything on principle. I just…want to say we tried." she said. "If it's too risky to out what we are, we could settle for getting her to stop before any damage can be done."

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't ignore her request. In the two years he'd known her, Quistis had never made pleas like this. Never had this kind of madness with no method besides calculation. It was positively beyond odd and possibly out of character. Then again, in their line of work, no one was immune to the occasional existential question and pondering various views on morality.

Perhaps Quistis was simply overdue for a crisis of conscience.

"Fair enough. Considering the hour, I want answers to two things before I'm crashing on the couch." he told her. "One – was there a reason this couldn't wait? And two - why me?"

"Honestly…when Selphie but two and two together about Rinoa, she told me she wasn't on-board with this plan to tell her because she thought it would do more harm than good. The reason why it couldn't wait is because even though I said it looked like she'd be here for another month, I think she might leave sooner."

She plucked out a few more papers from the file and gave them to him, pointing to the top screenshot.

"When she got here, she was posting a lot about the sights and sounds of the usual historical and tourist hot spots but the more recent updates have been infrequent with undertones suggesting she's burned out and likely miserable. I know you don't have a lot of high level observation cases under your belt but my workload is too heavy to do it myself."

Squall looked at the screenshots below and he'd be lying if he couldn't see the descent she spoke of himself. If he had to wager a guess, the research wasn't going well since she looked nothing like the denizens of Esthar in dress — most of her outfits in the pictures looked like things that would have been popular 10-15 years ago here — though she could possibly pass for someone of the northern Neo-Esthar region with her fair complexion. In their line of work, the greatest asset an Observer could have was a wealth of knowledge of human biases and reactions to use to deal with people, the most valuable being their own shortcomings.

Estharians were notoriously-xenophobic by nature, treating people like idiot tourists in the best of scenarios. Six months as a social pariah when someone was naively expecting open arms would be a culture shock.

He gave Quistis back all her loose-leaf pages which she neatly slotted back into the folder and put it back to the nightstand table.

"I'll see what the RR Café staff knows about her to start. How do you want me to approach this with her?"

"Make her fall in love with you." she jokingly replied with a sleep-drunk giggle out of nowhere.

"Not exactly an option when we have lifers and my mother at the Café who have embarrassing stories to fire at will to sabotage any attempt nigh-instantaneously. Or my general pleasant disposition." he dryly pointed out.

"You forget that you're very easy on the eyes to people who haven't heard you talk. Use that." she ribbed. "Alternatively, if you want an actual constructive suggestion for an excuse to interact with her, my personal go-to trick is to ask for a small favour. It's been scientifically-proven that it builds trust in someone because there's a natural instinct to not fail and it makes people like the asker. You could do something like ask her to watch over a laptop or something like that."

She leaned back into the sofa and crossed her arms lightly, her line of slight not focused on anything in particular.

"As far as the approach, I think it doesn't matter what it is so long as you give her a reason to stay." she suggested, still staring off into space. "As counter-intuitive as it would be given our goal, I think the best solution would be to help her with her research. You can mostly be in public places so this shouldn't seem invasive and if she is lacking human contact, it might cloud her judgement enough to accept."

"That might make it harder to reconcile should this work and she can be informed about the grave implications of her ghostwriting."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. You said it yourself, we don't have the time." she said, lackadaisically tilting her head to the right to look over at him. "I know this is just my doubt making me ask you to state the obvious at this point but…you have the same opinion as me about this, about her?"

"I do." he replied without hesitation. "But I think the rational part of your brain knew that before you called me at this ungodly hour."

A hint of a smile appeared on her face. "The non-rational part of my brain thanks you for answering me anyway."

And with that, she nearly leaped off the couch to speed walk out of the living room and into the short hallway bisecting the right wall. Squall presumed she was fetching the spare comforter set and as many pillows she could grab from the hallway closet to transform the sofa he was still sitting on into a makeshift bed.

As he waited, Squall made a mental checklist of everything he'd have to do tomorrow.

His Observer schedule was lightened considerably by some recent case level augmentations and relocations that reassigned a number of his cases to other Observers, Quistis and Selphie included, so his weekends were generally free by happenstance for a little while now. He wasn't strapped for Gil by any means but things were becoming a little tight so perhaps he could kill two Chocobos with one stone by picking up a few back of the house managerial shifts his mother had been unsuccessfully able to fill since Xu left. Three considering Selphie's Observer districts were nowhere near Neo-Esthar.

Yes, this was the best plan, he decided, fishing out his phone to set an alarm 8 hours from now and placed it overtop of Rinoa's file. He'd read those in the morning to read over coffee and eggs when Quistis would be already gone for the day, busy battling wits and trading barbs with Seifer Almasy somewhere. Even after a few months since she'd first mentioned him, Squall still hadn't figured out if he was a high level case of hers or just a professional nuisance that she kept on crossing paths with - not that it really mattered because she'd never outright tell him which it was.

Though he could still hear Quistis rummaging in the distance, Squall decided to lay down on the couch instead of waiting for her to bring the blankets and pillows. The fact that Seifer Almasy had warranted an actual thought in his brain and not an instinctual eye roll was the telltale sign he was sorely sleep deprived and in desperate need of rest – a plight Quistis would surely understand.