"I quit."

"You've quit five times, now."

"Yeah, but now I quit for real. Galbadian rules are stupid."

"We didn't make these up, you know."

"Yeah but you still play with them."

"Fine. Do what you want. Where'd Selphie go anyway?"

"In the hall."

Irvine and Zell looked away from their table when Rinoa answered the question, and she shrugged, and waved a hand towards the compartment doors. "She's been out there for awhile."

"Oh. Guess we were pretty into the game," Irvine grinned, and Zell scowled at the size difference in their decks. "Hey, you'll figure it out. I hear you've got some pretty incredible card players at B-Garden though, hard to believe you've never seen this rule before."

"Yeah, incredible. We also play fair."

"Sure you do. I'm gonna go check on Selphie."

Irvine made sure to grab the larger of the two stacks of cards on the table as he walked past it, and Rinoa could have sworn he winked at her on his way out.

The door closed, and she stared at her hands, wondering if there was a polite way to ask Zell to go with him. The silence between them dragged on loudly, endlessly, and she found it hard to believe it had only been a couple of days since she'd been asking about-

"So umm... Have you played before?"

"What?"

"Triple Triad. Cards? You know-"

"-Oh! Umm... Just a little. Zone tried to teach me a few times. I'm not very good."

"Irvine just kicked my ass at this, I think we might be on even ground. Come on."

Zell started reshuffling the cards he had left, laying five on either side of the small cabin table. "Well?" He gestured to the chair opposite himself.

"You..." she started, and looked towards the door. "Surely their meeting will be over soon."

"Quistis only confiscates cards when we play them in class, I don't think you have to worry about her right now. Let's go." Zell leaned back, studying the cards he'd flipped, and Rinoa stared at him in absolute disbelief. Quistis? That's who he was thinking about? He and Seifer nearly got into another fight over coming back to Garden on the same vehicle, and he was making jokes about Quistis?

"Rinoa?"

"Zell-I'm really sorry, but now doesn't really seem like the time."

He leaned forward. "Rin-Can I call you Rin?"

"Rinoa."

"Fine, Rinoa. What else do you want to do right now? Xu's got Seifer and Quistis locked tightly into a debriefing session, Irvine's... Well, who knows what he's up to, but I don't think it includes either of us, and the snack car is closed for another hour. We can play cards, or you can sit over there and think some more, and I'm pretty sure that's not going to get you anywhere."

"I'm basically a prisoner of war right now. Since when do my captors let me join in recreation?"

"You're not a prisoner. You asked to come with us."

"Before. I asked to come with you before. Now I want to go home, and you won't let me."

Zell sighed, and Rinoa thought for a moment she might be lucky enough that he would leave the train car and let her be alone. Instead, he walked over and took the empty space beside her.

"Rinoa-"

"I guess I didn't realize when I signed that contract that if something happened to your squad leader I became property of Garden. I didn't sign anything specifically with Sq... With him."

"You aren't Garden property." His voice caught slightly, and he leaned back.

"Well it feels that way. Squall spends all of his time bossing me around, and the second he's gone the rest of you shove me on one of your trains and tell me I'm not allowed to go home? I didn't pay enough for you to be worried about losing-"

"You aren't Garden property, Rinoa. We are."

"What?"

"Squall... He was good, okay? And I'm not just saying that because I had my nose stuck up his ass. We've been in the same class for a long time now and I've spent most of that time completely jealous of the guy. We all figured he'd end up running this place one day, and really, I wanted him to. Squall was the sort of person you just…followed, you know? He was-"

"Stop talking about him in past tense."

"He is past tense, Rinoa. Whatever that little outburst of his was about, he is. That's what I'm trying to say. We're the ones who are property. You get to talk to Cid, probably sign a few privacy statements, and go back to Timber with a security detail until this blows over. The rest of us? Edea's still there. We know things. Who do you think have to be the ones to kill her? Garden's not going to involve anyone they don't have to in this. What do you think Seifer 'n Quistis are in there talking about right now?"

Rinoa picked at a stray thread on her boot, and frowned at some dirt flaking under her shoelaces. She brushed at it, and jerked her hand back when she realized she was brushing away blood.

"What?"

"I- Nothing."

"You can talk to us, you know."

She rubbed her fingers together. She knew blood didn't dry red, but... It had been so different when it splashed across her. Whose blood was this, anyway? Seifer's? Hers? Squall's? It could be anyone's, even one of the monsters they'd run into. That was a lot easier to stomach, but something told her it probably wasn't the case.

"Rinoa-"

"Just leave me alone, okay? I'm not going to talk about Seifer, so stop trying."

Zell paused, and turned to face her fully. "I wasn't asking you to."

"You've all been asking, ever since you found out we were together."

"Well, we talked about plenty of things before that."

"Yeah, and that's my point."

"To be fair, and at the risk of pissing you off, by that point all we were really getting from you was that, who your father was, and the...tension, or whatever, between you and Squall. Seifer seemed like the safer topic."

"I can see where talking about the mission, yourselves, or even the weather would have been completely off limits."

"You talked to Squall."

"We argued. He was an ass." Is. Was. Dammit. Rinoa turned away, and dropped her head against the arm of the love seat. She was not going to cry, not over him, and certainly not in front of Zell or any of the others.

"I-Sorry. He was my friend. I think, at least. I don't know if he really had friends, but I do, and I considered him a friend even if he didn't feel the same. Honestly in all the years we were in school together I think the person he seemed the most relaxed around was you, and you didn't even know each other. Maybe that's why we're all interested in you and Seifer, seeing as the two of them tried to kill each other every chance they got-"

"-That is like, the third time you've made a comment like that. Are you that insensitive, or do you just have a horrible sense of humor?"

"It's a turn of phrase. And yeah, kind of lives we live, not really something you think about. You don't want to talk about him in past tense, but you seem more upset over this than anyone."

"My contract-"

"-Sent us to Timber. Garden sent us to Deling City."

"I need to step out for a minute," she said, and crossed to the door before he could respond. Selphie and Irvine greeted her as soon as she opened it, and stared for just a moment. Irvine nodded and smiled, but Selphie only managed to pull a look of fake sympathy, not quite masking the distrust. "Sorry... I-" she scrambled for an excuse.

"Down the hall, " Irvine supplied, and pointed towards a small lavatory door. She would thank him later, but now she only blinked, and walked down the hall with intention.

The room was smaller than she expected for a SeeD train, and she leaned heavily against one wall, seeing herself in the mirror for the first time since leaving her father's house.

She had deep scratches across one shoulder reaching almost to her neck from the Iguions, but her lip was not as swollen as it felt. Her eyes were heavy and dark, and her hair was tangled, a large chuck of it caked together with what she could only guess was more blood.

"You're a mess," she told herself, and turned on the sink. The water would not heat, but the cold almost felt better, forcing a sense of focus and closing up the parts of her that were still trying not to cry. Seifer would be out of his meeting soon, and then they could go to a separate cabin and he would explain what happened and everything would make sense-right?

Would he be mad at her, for fighting with Squall? For dancing with him that night? Maybe.

He would be mad if he knew how much you wished it was Squall you could go talk to right now.

"Shut up," she told herself. "He's dead. And he's an ass. And Seifer's your b... your boyfriend. Stop... crying," even at a whisper, her voice was trembling, and she splashed more water across her face. "Stop..."

It did no good. Rinoa shut the water off and sat on the small commode, and wept.

.

The grinding of the train woke her up, and Rinoa squeezed her eyes shut fiercely, not even aware she'd fallen asleep.

Her surroundings were foreign, grey and small, and she quickly realized she was still in the lavatory, and then just as quickly remembered why. How long had she been in there? Her eyes felt more swollen then they had before, and she couldn't breathe through her nose. Sitting up, her head immediately started to pound, and her left arm was dead asleep from serving as a pillow against the hard plastic sink.

Why hadn't anyone come looking for her?

Probably because of the way she'd left. At least Zell had the decency to recognize that she didn't want to talk. Or, she suspected, Irvine did, and kept anyone from going after her. Out of everyone in the group she was quickly leaning towards him as the only person with any sense of privacy. Something almost patriotic flickered inside of her towards Galbadia, and she ignored the irony that she had sought out the Balamb SeeDs because Galbadia was her enemy.

Funny, how that still made more sense to her than just about anything else until now.

And why hadn't Seifer come for her? Surely they were done with their meeting. She wondered if he and Zell were fighting again, or if that officer-Xu, her name was?-had separated him from the rest of the group. In the small time from the basement to the train, before she had wordlessly summoned Seifer and Quistis into a different car, Xu had seemed cold enough to make Squall look warm and inviting, but at least she had treated all of them the same.

Almost. Her only bias seemed to be towards making Rinoa particularly aware of her status as an outsider. She wished Xu had separated her from the rest of the group. As much as she wanted to talk to Seifer, she dreaded it just as much. But he was the lesser of all the evils, and at least he was familiar.

A course of guilt ran through her over her actions in the basement, clinging to him, defending him, when really-why?

Because he was familiar. Because Squall wasn't there. And why in the name of Bahamut did that even matter? And why, why couldn't she seem to let go of it?

The train groaned and lurched again, and she winced at the pain in her still-sleeping arm, but managed to stand. A final glance in the mirror showed she looked only marginally better than she had before. She'd cleaned up most of the blood, save for what was in her hair, but her eyes were puffy and red to the degree she'd never be able to hide that she had been crying.

Well, whatever. So what if they were all robots who didn't care that their friend-someone they all claimed to respect so much-died violently in front of them. She wasn't a robot, and if they wanted to judge her for that, maybe it would just get her back to Timber that much sooner.

"Get in the car, and leave your emotions here," Xu had barked at her.

"No," she said. "I won't. They come with me." She nodded at herself, and opened the door.


Another short chapter, but I'm trying to pace myself so I don't run out of pre-written content before I finish writing this and have to lag between updates.

Thank you as always to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!

On a note not specific to this story, I'm putting Dissolve on hiatus for a bit until I can finish writing it. This will continue, however.

Now-go forth, and be glad that 2016 is almost over! May you find love and light in whatever holiday(s) you celebrate!