Summer passes without much notice in northern Trabia. The snow is piled just as high as it was when they were here so many weeks ago, and the only difference, as far as Quistis can tell, is that they days are growing shorter by the hour.
She always loved winter missions, before. She can't remember her adoptive family but wonders now if they didn't live somewhere cold, if she hasn't often sought refuse in the quiet monochrome of the snow covered forest. A place where she can hide. A place where she can find a stillness she could never manage at home.
Here, everything is on pause.
Not, she thinks, unlike herself.
In her cadet days, she and Xu took advantage of the time after training was over to sit behind a wind bank they made out of dragging fallen tree limbs, and would prop their feet up in front of a fire that danced off the ice and snow around them, thawing out their toes while they waited for that holy moment when the percolator started bouncing. When they could breathe in a cup of too-strong coffee that was always the best they'd ever tasted. When Xu would lean her head on Quistis' shoulder and they looked up together, and watched the stars come out through the gaps in the trees.
Now, she drinks something that tastes like roots, a tea from the Shumi as a parting gift, and her feet are much colder than they used to be. Zell is comfortable now, laying inside a tent under one of the Fira blankets she and Squall insisted they bring despite the protests from the other guys that they wouldn't be necessary.
"I'm worried."
Rinoa waits until she is halfway between the tent and the place where Quistis sits staring into the fire to talk, and her voice is quiet and small.
"His fever is stable. He'll make it, until they get back."
"I'm not worried about Zell."
If she looks directly into the flames, Quistis can almost imagine she is here for pleasure. That there is no injured comrade in a tent a few feet away, no civilian-turned-Sorceress shivering beside her, looking more like the love interest in a movie than a woman at war.
"You're worried about the others? Selphie knows the terrain here pretty well, and Squall's been up here at least a few times as a cadet. It's a requirement for SeeD."
"It's just…a feeling."
Quistis fights the urge to roll her eyes, but there is that nagging voice telling her she should take Rinoa seriously. Too many years already as a SeeD, and seeing what happens when someone ignores their gut instinct. Too keen an understanding as a woman. And then, the Sorceress thing, which none of them really understand quite yet…
"Okay," Quistis says, and looks away from the flames. In the growing dusk Rinoa's face is cast in grey, but the severity of her features gives Quistis reason to frown, and she turns her attention to the rest of their party, somewhere else in the wilderness. They aren't due back for at least an hour, but maybe Rinoa is right. Quistis has, after all, underestimated her before. "What kind of feeling?" she finally asks.
Rinoa starts, and looks down at her. "I don't know yet. But something's wrong. Is that the tea from the Shumi?"
And just like that, they are different people again. Quistis nods, and when Rinoa asks for a taste she hands her the mug, and then watches as she prepares a cup of her own. Rinoa makes a couple of attempts at small talk which do not stick. They each check on Zell. An hour passes, and then two, and then there is the silent moment under the rising moon when they look at each other and wonder what to do next.
"Squall and Selphie—"
"Know what they're doing, I know. And we can't leave Zell alone, but…"
Rinoa looks east, down the path the others walked when the sun was still high.
"Rinoa, no."
"We don't know what happened to them," she says, her tone defiant. "They could be in trouble. They could be hurt. They could—"
"They could have gotten delayed, and are waiting until the sun comes back up to travel. Which is the right thing to do." The smart thing to do.
"I can handle it, Quistis."
"A Trabian winter? Alone? After dark? You'll die, Rinoa."
"No I won't—"
"Yes, you will. And I will not have that on my conscience." I will not have Squall hang that over my head the rest of my life.
Quistis can see the anger in Rinoa's eyes in the firelight, but she concedes, and storms back into the tent where Zell is sleeping. Quistis shivers, and when several minutes pass and Rinoa still has not emerged, Quistis sighs. There is a second tent left behind by the others she quickly throws together, though she doubts she will get any sleep, and she sits beside the dying fire wrapped in the second Fira blanket, angry, hungry, and missing Xu and their days as cadets more than she can say.
The moon has moved halfway across the sky when Rinoa finally comes out the tent, bleary eyed, and wrapped in the standard issue Garden fleece they took from Zell when his fever got too high. Quistis starts awake beside the dying fire, and when they lock eyes, she sees apology in Rinoa's face.
"You're right," Rinoa says. "And I know better. But…"
"I know," Quistis says. She drapes the blanket over Rinoa's shoulder and they stand together in the dark. Quistis starts to raise a hand to the fire but Rinoa stops her, and with a slight wiggling of her fingers, the coals spring to life.
"I need the practice," she says, and, after a pause. "It's so different now."
They drag a stump into the flames that will burn for the better part of the night, and Rinoa offers to take watch so Quistis can get some sleep. She doesn't want to but agrees anyway, if for no other reason than to avoid conversation.
She has spent many nights sharing a tent with Zell, each of them always the odd man out, whether due to Squall's mistrust of Irvine, her own discomfort with Rinoa, or later the growing romance that was no longer a secret to anyone. But now she worries for her friend, for the heat he is producing, for his labored breathing, even under the sleep spell that should be helping him through the worst of the dragon's venom. Quistis lays a hand on him and watches the gentle green of healing magic sink into his chest, knowing it won't do much but finding small comfort in doing what she can. She falls into a fitful sleep, warm under the blanket and beside her friend's feverish body, and does not wake again until sunrise.
Gift!fic for sissyhiyah, because she is awesome and when we can't disappear into the woods together for some snow hiking, I can write about it and pretend.
This also seems to be a rare instance where I had an idea of a one-shot and it got away from me. Usually I end up with about half the word count I'm anticipating, but this will have at least one more part.