Chapter Two: Trial And Error

She eyed him warily, just waiting for him to leap out of the bed, to slaughter her. She shook her head, chasing away the evil thoughts and sipped quietly at her ice water. She leaned back and rested her head against the wall, closing her eyes for a brief minute, exhaling softly… She was so tired…

"Quistis."

Her eyes shot open and she tried to leap to her feet but she collided into something and fell back into her chair. She kicked out her legs but Seifer caught them in his hands. She looked up at him, panic in her eyes. Think, Quistis, think! But before she had time to think, he dropped his hold on her legs and swayed backwards dangerously. He made it back to the bed, just in time.

"What's… What's wrong with me?" He asked, his voice groggy and rough. He rubbed at his head, his forehead wrinkled in what appeared to be pain. "I can barely see and I feel so dizzy…" Quistis sat upright slowly, cautiously. He described the effects of the tranquilizer perfectly and she knew that he had failed the term that she had taught them about the tranquilizer used in the Training Center. So, it wasn't an act. She still reached for the knife on the table and tucked it into the back of her belt.

"You were tranquilized when you tried to steal the car from the Parking Lot. I had to keep the SeeD from doing only that and not killing you as well." She sighed, looking at her nails nonchalantly. "It seems that they were sure that you were trying to attack me so they took it upon themselves to kill you. But I stopped them. I told you I'd take care of getting the car, idiot…" He tried to stand again but he stumbled. Quistis found herself running to catch him before he hit the ground. He wrapped a grateful arm around her shoulder as she led him back to the bed.

"You really should rest a while so the drug can wear off. It should take about fifteen more minutes or so." He nodded once before laying on the bed, an arm over his eyes, blocking out the light that streamed in through the window above the bed. Quistis closed the blinds and he muttered a soft thanks. In a few moments, his eyes shot open and he bolted upright, looking around at the dorm around him.

"Why aren't I in the detention center?" He asked, looking around, confused. His eyes finally settled on her. She had a smug look on her face.

"Because I broke you out of the detention center so that you could play hero. Remember?" She said. He stared at her, and she stared at him. Then they both broke into soft laughter. "Now get some sleep, I have a class to teach. I have to teach one last class so that the SeeD don't think that I'm hiding anything. They all assume that you are on your way to the prison as we speak." He nodded and laid back, pulling the blanket over his face. "Seifer?" He pulled the covers down, and looked at her in the faint light of the room. "Don't do anything stupid, please… Don't make me a fool…" She whispered. She climbed to her feet and left the room, making sure to lock the door behind her. Out in the hall, she rested her back against the door and closed her eyes, sighing.

She really hoped that she wouldn't go to the classroom and come back to find half of Garden destroyed…

xxx

Seifer climbed to his feet. He had slept a good two hours and Quistis still wasn't back yet. He groaned, yawned and stretched his sore muscles. When he climbed to his feet, he got dizzy and he grabbed onto the dresser for balance. When it wore off, he opened his eyes and looked at what lay beneath his fingers. It was a small spiral notebook, with a black cover and her name spelled out in silver crystals. He grinned to himself. Of course a romantic like Quistis would have a journal! He looked towards the door. He climbed to his feet and pressed his ear to the door. He didn't hear anything so he came back to the bedroom, grabbed the journal and fell back onto the bed and got comfortable. He opened the small notebook to the first page.

Dear Diary,

Today was great! Matron took us all to the beach and we walked along the beach barefoot. The water was cold when it splashed against my feet but it was so much fun! Irvine was messing Seffie, by chasing after her, wanting to hold her hand. Zell kept pretending he was fighting the waves, and Seifer kept messing with him, calling him 'chicken' because Zell kept running away whenever a big wave splashed on the beach. Squall was behind everyone and Matron kept checking on him, making sure that he was okay. I tried to talk to him but he wouldn't talk to me. It made me wanna cry… He misses Sis. We all do but I just want to make him happy again…

Seifer turned the page, after scanning the date. That entry was over ten years old! Damn, Quistis, you really don't let things go, do you? He flipped back towards the end of the journal for a more recent entry.

I think it's over. I can't chase him anymore. Ever since she stepped into his life, he's farther away from me than ever. I've been by his side since we were kids, helping him and trying to care for him in every way possible and she just walks into his life and turns his head. And all she is doing is causing all of this trouble for everyone. I'm so sick of everything. It's just not fair…

"I always knew that Lionheart was a selfish loser." Seifer growled, before shrugging off the brief anger that clouded his mind. If he was going to play hero alongside Squall, he had to put away the resentment he felt towards his longtime rival. He had to show the world that he was a changed man, that he had learned from his past. And for the world to forgive him, he had to learn to be forgiving himself. He yawned and stretched for a minute before turning back down to the small notebook. He flipped to the last page. He was surprised at her handwriting. Instead of the smooth, cursive writing visible in all the other pages, this handwriting was scrawled hurriedly, with several scratch-outs. He leaned forward, reading anxiously. The entry had been written the day before.

You won't believe what happened just a few hours ago. Seifer returned to Garden. That snake had the nerve to try and attack me. He claims that he wants to change his ways but… Can I trust him? We all thought we could before. And look how quickly he turned on everyone. Rinoa still held her faith in him during the war. She may not be my favorite person but… Does anyone deserve to see a side of the person they love that they never want to see? I think Seifer might -

Seifer jolted as he heard the key slide through the lock in the door. He scrambled to his feet, frantically searching for a place to put the journal. He quickly stuffed it between the mattresses, straightening just as she walked in the door. He grinned nervously, his hand scratching at the back of his head. Quistis eyed him curiously but before she could question him, the papers slid from her arm and splashed across the dorm floor.

"Dammit." She muttered quickly, dropping her purse on the table before dropping to her knees to pick the papers up. She tried to scoop them in a single pile but a breeze wafted in through the window, causing the papers to whirlwind over her head. She looked at them, hopelessness in her eyes. Her blue eyes dropped from the papers above to Seifer. He shrugged before catching the papers and handing them to her. "Thank you." She mumbled, stuffing them quickly into her binder before they could slip out again.

Seifer shook his head. "No, thank you…" She glanced quickly up at him before turning away to walk into the kitchen. As she stepped into the doorway, she looked back over her shoulder at him.

"We leave tonight. Midnight. We better get some rest before we leave; it's going to be a rough journey to Esthar." He nodded, grim seriousness in his face. This was it, this was his one last chance at redemption. And hopefully he wouldn't screw it up this time around.

xxx

Her eyes traced over his sleeping form. Her eyes took notice of his haggard skin, the thinly traced scars, and the apparent loss of muscle mass. She rested her eyes on his face, trying to understand what lay inside his head, why he suddenly had a change of heart. What had made him able to break free of Ultimecia's hold on him? What made the puppet decide to finally cut the puppet strings?

At this point, surprisingly, Quistis's concern wasn't with where his loyalties lied. She was concerned with how he would fare in a battle against the very one that had enslaved him, and turned him against those he had ones that were almost like siblings to him. He was definitely out of shape, could he survive? Quistis jumped when she realized that Seifer's eyes were now open and he was staring back at her.

"Sorry…" She mumbled quickly, throwing aside the blankets on her bed and lowering her feet to the floor. She walked past where he lay on the living room floor and vanished into the kitchen. She tried to calm herself down. She busied herself by digging a glass out of the dishwasher and breaking the ice free from the ice trays. She cast an uneasy glance over her shoulder and realized that he now stood in the doorway. He moved so quietly, like a shadow in the dark of the night.

"What were you thinking about me?" He asked, emotion unreadable in his voice. Quistis glanced at him briefly as she held the glass under the faucet. Her eyes fell to the clear stream of water as she stood silent. "Do you not believe me? Not trust me? What is it?" A tinge of anger and annoyance brushed the edges of his voice. She shook her head before tipping it back and downing the glass of water. She turned to look at him.

"How will you do it?" Quistis asked, turning the focus back on him. "That's what I don't understand. I don't really care where your loyalties lie right now, Seifer. I know that if we get there and you turn on us, that I'll be the one punished but I don't really think I can just sit around here anymore. Who knows? You might even kill me before we get there. But what I want to know..." She rested the glass on its side in the sink and breathed deeply before turning her crystal blue eyes up to look at him. "How can you be so strong? How is it that you can go back and fight the one that had hurt you so much? How can you do it? Aren't you afraid that she'll do it again?" Her voice had dropped to a whisper, like she was afraid that Ultimecia would be able to hear her if she spoke too loudly.

"Do what again?" He questioned, resting his head against the doorway. "Enslave me? Make me a fool?" He shrugged. "There's always a point where you must make your own decisions. I know I'm putting myself at risk by going back and trying to fight that damn witch but what choice do I have? I can either turn back and fight or I can keep running for the rest of my life." He laughed. "You know me better than that, Quistis. Do you really think I would run from a good fight?" She smiled sadly.

"That's what I'm worried about. Squall would be a good fight, Seifer..." She walked past him, reaching out to touch his arm in comfort as she walked by. "Let's go, Seifer. Let's finish this. We both need closure in our lives."

xxx

The ride to Balamb City was a quiet one. Being an Instructor, she was automatically granted access to the PArking Lot. When they creeped into the Parking Lot, they found the SeeD that had attacked Seifer earlier sound asleep. They had easily snuck into a car and took off into the night. Not a word was spoken until they arrived at the gates to Balamb City. They parked the car and climbed out, and their eyes met over the roof of the car. Quistis frowned, tilting her head to the side as if to question, "What?" to Seifer.

"What made you decide you wanted to help me?" He asked, rubbing his arms. His breath was visible in the cold air of the night.

She shrugged. "Everyone deserves a second chance." She smiled briefly at him and turned to head down the cobblestone street, her heeled boots clicking and reverberating on the walls of the homes on either side of her. Seifer watched her, still standing beside the car. She stopped, and turned to look back at him. "What is it?"

He shook his head. "Not everyone deserves a second chance. Not Squall." She frowned, confused. "You shouldn't leave your heart so exposed; you're only hurting yourself. You deserve so much more than you let yourself have, Quistis."

She sighed. "We all have secrets, Seifer. And secret agendas in this battle. What happens happens." She stepped down the stairs and knocked briefly on the door of one of the homes and was greeted warmly by a hug from Molly Dincht, Zell's mother. "Are the bags ready?" Quistis asked, beckoning Seifer to follow her into the warm home. Mollly nodded, pointing to the duffel bags near the windows.

"Quistis, keep an eye on Zell for me." Molly murmured, holding Quistis's hand tight in her hands. Quistis nodded, a sudden weight in the pit of her stomach. You can imagine and plan and scheme and devise but real battle is so much different. You can't plan how much blood will be loss, or how many nightmares you'll have afterwards. you can plan on how to keep from falling, but you can't always keep the scars from forming. Molly turned her green eyes to Seifer. "Let me talk to him." Quistis nodded. Molly motioned to Seifer and he trudged after her up the stairs to Zell's bedroom.

Seifer, after overcoming the shock of the neatness and organization of Chickenwuss's bedroom, sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands. "I don't know if I can do it. No one else believe in me. So how can I believe in myself?" Molly sat next to him and rested her hand on his back.

"As a mother, I know what a young man goes through. Zell was the same way. One Christmas, the first after his grandfather had passed, Zell was bound and determined to fix the shingles on the house. Usually he would help his grandfather by passing them up but he had never been on the roof before. I told him to get the neighbor to help him, told him that he could pass the shingles to our neighbor but he threw a fit.

'Grandpa and I always did them together! Not Jack from next door! Grandpa and I are going to do it together today, like always!' He had screamed at me. I could only stand and watch as he grabbed the ladder and quickly scaled it to the roof and began hammering shingles. At one point in time, he dropped the hammer after slamming his thumb and it slid halfway down the roof. He reached out to grab it and... Well, he slipped and fell and was hospitalized for a while because he broke both of his arms."

Seifer looked up at Molly, who smiled at him, with a mother's sadness. "He only wanted to prove to me that he was capable. That he had grown up after his grandfather passed on. He never meant any harm in his actions. But harm did come of it." Seifer shook his head, climbing to his feet and began to walk out. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her.

"No harm will come out of this, Molly. I've come to save the world. I'm not the villain anymore." She nodded, and he turned his back on her, marching down the stairs. He grabbed the duffel bags and went out the front door without a word to Quistis, who just followed him. They quickly boarded the mdinight train and were on their way to Esthar, each lost in their own thoughts, their own secret agendas.