Author's Note: Well the majority of the reviews I got were comments on my use of the word "deflowering". Hehe.Well, what can I say. I'm a unique gal.
I'm on the line
One open mind
This is my
4 leaf clover
-Tears For Fears
Chapter 1 -- One Open Mind
Squall pushed his glasses to the bottom of his nose and pushed his fingers into his eyes. All he ever did was read stupid shit nowadays, about mind expansion and philosophy. Selphie would generally comment on his reading material, or she would just ask if he really did, in fact, need glasses.
"Well I do," he would reply.
Although he seemed sure, Selphie figured it just made him feel smarter. Which, it did.
"Squall…" Selphie would begin.
He would never utter a peep, and would instead merely give her a cold stare.
"You're really dumb." She would then get up and walk away, happy with her last word.
"Alright!" Selphie yelled to the small group of students before her, running her fingers through her hair. She had shaved it a few weeks before, and it had now grown back a bit, and hung over her eyes. "We have a plan, Squall and I, so you kids can go home for the time being. It doesn't involve you.
The kid's voices broke into angry objections and hopeless sighs.
It took Squall a minute to realize what Selphie had just told them, and when he snapped into it, he pushed her out of the way and took the stand.
"Hey! She didn't mean that!" He turned around and stared her down. "Selphie, go fuck yourself?" he would say, in question form, expecting her to leave.
She clenched her teeth together. "I'm as much in this as you are," she mumbled, so nobody could hear her. "We agreed on this. We're messin' with Caraway's daughter."
"I never agreed to that," Squall said, turning red, and growing angry. "I never agreed to that," he repeated. "Maybe I didn't make it clear to you."
Selphie shrugged her shoulders. "It's a good plan, and if you're rejecting it, you're missing out on a huge opportunity to screw with Caraway big time," she paused for a minute. "I'll tell you what. I'll start, clearly and officially working with these kids on a real, major plan. But in the meantime, you do that other plan thing that we talked about. At least try. If it doesn't work, so be it. We can just continue on with this plan. Hey you know what? You have a week. That's all. If you don't get it done, that's that."
Squall didn't say anything.
"I'm being fair here!"
He still remained silent.
"Alright then! That's that. Our plan is the plan. Good work soldier," she said, holding her hand out to Squall, ready for a shake.
"Selphie?" Squall began.
"Yeah?" she questioned.
"You're a moron."
It was a usual night. A normal night. Quiet and lonely. With the occasional pop in of Selphie. Squall sat in his junky room, old pizza boxes scattered around, and a broken heater letting off a horrid stench. Nothing new.
But for some reason, this night, was a new night. The beginning of a beginning, Squall soon realized. He sat back in his chair, putting his feet up on his desk.
"Deling city," he said aloud. "No. No way."
No way what? he asked himself.
"No way is it hard to get into," he told himself. "I can easily get into that mansion."
He stared at the wall and suddenly realized that he was actually making actions toward the stupid plan of Selphie's. However, the more he thought about it, the more he started to like the idea of it. There wasn't much in it for him, but the root of every father's corruption, is in fact, the corruption of their daughter. When the life of an authority figure at home is messed with, or anyone's home life at that, changes are made. Changes for the worse in their case. In the case of the anarchists? Pure benefits. And Squall knew it.
He smiled at the thought of different things he could introduce his daughter to. Drugs, sex, and most importantly, anarchy. As soon as Squall could plant things in this girls head about her father and the government, only good could come out of it. 17 is a tender age, an age where girls are more influenced by friends and boyfriends than their fathers. Hands down. It didn't matter what kind of girl she was, all girls were like that.
"All girls are the same," he told himself. But as soon as he said it, he chuckled at the thought of Selphie, with her flowing skirt, combat boots, and crazy untamed hair.
He grabbed a pencil from a nearby cup on his desk and impatiently whacked it against the desktop.
"Shiitttt. I don't know where to start." He grabbed a piece of paper and started writing mindless thoughts on it.
"I don't know what day it is. I don't know what month is. And I don't really want to, either. Tomorrow I'm catching a train to Deling City. I don't know what time it will depart. and even if I did, I still wouldn't catch it, because I pretty much have no idea what the hell time it is right now, let alone what time it will be when I wake up in the morning. I don't even know how the hell I'm going to get into that mansion. You know what? In general, this is a shitty plan. Why the hell am I-"
"Squall," Selphie's voice yelled, cutting through the silence, and cutting off Squall's writing. It near scared him half to death, and in anger, and rammed the pencil point into the desk so hard that it broke.
"What," he said tonelessly.
"Open the damn door!"
Squall threw his head back in frustration, and lazily got up out of his chair. He turned the knob of his door, and slowly pulled it open so he was looking down at Selphie's bright face, and tired, red eyes.
"Quistis Trepe!" she squealed, and hopped into his room giggling.
"Yeah? What about here?"
Selphie rolled her eyes and sat on his bed. "Okay, she's tied in with Garden somehow?"
Squall paused. "Yeah, Selphie, just a little bit, seeing as how she's an ex-instructor and newly acclaimed SeeD.
"Whatever," Selphie said. "Well anyway, she clearly dislikes me a great deal, but she really likes you, even though she hates you right now. But she is worried about you, and she's coming over here tomorrow."
Squall's eyes widened. "What did you say!"
Selphie fell back on his bed and sighed. "You heard me smartass. She's coming here tomorrow. And you know whyyyy?"
Silence.
"Squall? And you wanna know whyyy?" she said in a cute tone.
"Why Selphie, why? Why is Quistis Trepe coming over here to visit me tomorrow?"
Selphie giggled and rolled off the bed. "Because she is willing to help us out here!"
With that said, Squall was completely intrigued. "What are you talking about? Quistis Trepe, would never. Never in a million years. Help us out with something like this."
Selphie smiled and winked at him. "Well apparently, she has taken a turn for the worse, and has decided to help us out with this one."
Squall wasn't sure what to say. He wasn't sure if Selphie had gotten Quistis's message clearly, either. "Selphie, I know you're trying to help, but I think you may have misinterepreted Quistis's intentions."
Selphie scoffed. "I'm not stupid! Plus, what is there to misinterpret? 'Tell Squall I'll be there tomorrow, I can help you guys out with this one', she said. Wow. Bet I screwed that one up," Selphie said with sarcasm, giving Squall a dirty look.
"Chill out, Selphie. I'm sorry. It's just, really unlike her."
Selphie shrugged. "Maybe she's starting to see the better side of things? Maybe, we, are the beginning of a revolution, Squall."
For the first time, Squall could take Selphie seriously. Maybe, just maybe, this whole thing Squall had going on would start to grow. And once it started to grow, Garden population would start to decrease. When the Gardens started to lose people, they would eventually lose themselves. No Gardens, no SeeDs, no fighting.
Quistis Trepe had grown wiser in her years. Though she was only 18, she had a quick wit, and fighting skill of a genius. She had talked to Squall's little 'buddy', Selphie Tilmitt, on the phone last night.
"He's probably having casual sex with her," she mumbled to herself with a smile. She was inside Squall's ratty apartment building, which had a vile stench to it, along with cracks in the ceiling allowing water droplets to get in. How could Squall have done this to himself?
She held a small piece of notebook paper in her hand, which held his phone number and room number on it. She had gotten this information through Selphie, who she had located from Zell Dincht, who was one of her only acquaintances during her short time at Garden. She must have really hated it if she dropped out so quickly. Quistis couldn't imagine anyone hating Balamb Garden.
Unsure, she started to walk up the loud stairs, a bit nervous that she was going to get harassed by some loser, much like Squall Leonhart. Of course, she doubted he would ever harass anyone.
Once she was at his front door, she nervously knocked, not really sure what to expect. She hadn't seen him since he left Garden, and even then he seemed like a bit of a mess. When she heard someone moving around on the other side of the door, she grew even more nervous.
The door quickly opened, and in front of her stood Selphie. She looked different from her Garden days. At least, from what Quistis had seen of her. Her hair was much shorter, like a little boy's, and wildly hung around her head. Her clothes were wrinkled, and everything about her looked unkempt.
"Quistis!" she questioned, excited.
Quistis nodded, a bit unsure as to why Selphie had opened the door.
"Squall!" she turned her head back into the room, calling for him. "Get up! Quistis is here!"
"If this is a bad time-"
"No, no, its fine!" Selphie assured. "He's just lazy. Don't worry about it. Anyway, come in, come in!"
Selphie was the most energetic person Quistis had seen in a long time. At Garden, it was recommended that students are cool and collected, and Selphie didn't seem to have that ability down.
"Do you want some tea? We've got this like crazy sedative tea with like kava kava in it. It tastes really bad and you have to drink it cold but it calms you down," Selphie said as she walked into the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets.
"No thank you, I'm fine." Quistis wasn't really up for being in a ratty apartment so early, not to mention talking to someone whom she barely knew. The couches also looked too dirty to sit on, so she just stood in the center of the room, awkwardly.
"I'm sorry about the delay of things, Squall isn't normally like this. He's probably just out of it from all the tea."
From the sound of it, it was as if these two treated tea like alcohol.
"Squall!" Selphie chanted. "Get your ass up! We have company!"
Silence.
"Let me go get him," Selphie said, and she hurried off and disappeared into a small room. Seconds later she came back out, and behind her, stood Squall.
Quistis's mouth dropped open at the site of him. But she quickly smiled again, at the sight of an old friend.
"Hi, Squall," Quistis said nervously.
He didn't reply at first. He was a wreck. His hair was shoulder-length, and he had grown a little bit of a beard. He wore a plaid flannel shirt, and black sweatpants. He honestly just didn't care about his appearance.
"Hey," he said, and he walked over to the couch and plopped himself down on it.
"I'm sorry this is such short notice," Quistis began.
Squall didn't seem to have a very good attention span, and he looked over Quistis's shoulder at Selphie. He mouthed the word "tea".
"Sorry. Continue," he said.
"Oh, alright. So I'm a bit unsure, what exactly do you have going on here?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.
"We're an anti-government faction. Simple as that. Filled with young anarchists who don't care about anything but destroying the government. A bunch of Garden drop-outs. Its still small, but we're growing."
Selphie giggled in the background.
Squall rolled his eyes and continued. "Selphie being one of them. She doesn't live here, but she never leaves." Squall paused. "I don't think she likes being alone," he whispered.
Quistis nodded. "I know, Selphie explained that all to me, but, I mean your plans as of now, regarding Caraway."
Squall exhaled. "Not Caraway directly, his daughter."
Quistis nodded again. "You're trying to get a hold of his daughter but you aren't sure how, right?"
"That's right," Selphie cut in, handing Squall his tea. No steam rose out of the mug, as it was cold. Quistis could smell it from where she sat, and it wasn't pleasant. She didn't understand what Selphie and Squall could possibly get out of it.
"Alright, well. I'll be honest. I'm not huge into the anarchy deal you two have going on here, but I'm going to help out with this. Rinoa's…Oh, did you know her name? It's Rinoa, just to let you know. And, well, Rinoa's father wants to send her to Balamb Garden." Quistis let out a sigh. She looked un-amused and stressed.
"Quistis, if you don't want to be any part of this, we aren't making you," Selphie coaxed, putting her hand on Quistis's shoulder.
"No, no. It's my problem. I'm willing to help you out. As long as, obviously, it stays top secret. Because, well, otherwise, I could easily get kicked out of Balamb Garden. As you may know. Now, where was I?"
"Rinoa's father wants her to go to Balamb Garden," Squall reminded her.
"Right then. In order for Rinoa to be prepared, and with all the money Caraway has, he's hired a SeeD to train her. He wrote Cid, actually. It's a simple request, no specific person, just any SeeD."
Squall started to realize where she was going. "Cid put you to the job?"
Quistis shook her head. "No. Actually, a transfer student from Gabaladia, who arrived a few weeks ago and passed the SeeD exams, was hired. He starts the day after tomorrow, I believe. That Caraway sure is persistent."
There was a moment of silence.
"So, where are you going with this?" Squall questioned, a bit confused.
"Irvine Kinneas is his name, and, well, I talked to him today. He's a crazy character, that one, very adventurous. So he agreed to participate in this whole thing."
Both Selphie and Squall didn't really understand, and just stared blankly at Quistis.
"Squall will be taking Irvine's place, under the identity of a SeeD from Balamb Garden. I don't think it matters if they know your name, because Caraway obviously wouldn't know the difference."
Selphie bounced up and down in excitement. "This sounds so official! We're becoming more and more official, Squall!"
Squall, on the other hand, didn't sound very excited. "What are the chances of Irvine getting caught?"
Quistis chewed her thumb nail and crossed her legs. "He says he doesn't care. That if he gets caught he'll join your group. But obviously, it would still matter, to both you and I. I should hope. But I'd say our chances are slim. I would be more worried if Caraway kept a constant contact with Cid, but he does not. So I think we're safe."
Selphie brought her fingers to her chin. "But wait! Irvine can't just stay at Garden during his supposed 'Rinoa lessons', right? So where is he going to go?"
Quistis shrugged. "It doesn't really matter, as long as he stays away from Garden. Perhaps he can stay here for a few hours each day?"
Selphie smiled. "Alright I'm satisfied now."
"Selphie, stay serious," Squall snapped at her.
"Serious, Squall?" She looked down at what she was wearing. "Clowns can't be serious."
Author's Notes: -falls over-
