Disclaimer:lets do this crazy dance once more. i dont own ff8 dances

Note:well heres a new chapter, this time rinoa pov. Am glad some people are liking the story. thanks to r, draven nightly and kitcatpadewac for reading and reviewing hope you guys still like were its going. And thanks to wayne for all his help with this part of the story. enjoy y'all xx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bright sunshine leaking in through the gaps in the blinds woke Rinoa early the next morning. Opening her eyes she had a temporary moment of panic, were she forgot where she was as she glanced around the unfamiliar room. But after a few seconds her brain woke up and she remembered. She was in Balamb garden. Pulling the covers up around her she realised it was really the first chance she'd had to think everything over. She blinked up at the ceiling the events of the past few days running through her mind. She'd finally gotten up the confidence-not to mention the money- to run away and gotten on a train to Balamb. 'Didn't turn out to well though' she thought to herself as she remembered how she'd gotten off of the train and somehow ended up in a forest. 'still no idea how that happened'

She thought back to pushing her way confusedly through all the trees and how she could swear she heard footsteps behind her. Then she was grabbed and she remembered how these 4 guys had pushed her around, took all her stuff, her bags and clothes, all her money, everything out of her pockets and even pulled the rings off her fingers. Rinoa reached up and touched her neck. They'd taken her chain too. She didn't actually remember them taking that- she'd tried particularly hard to hold onto it, but by the looks of things she failed. That was the worst thing she'd lost. Everything, her clothes and the rest of her jewellery could be replaced…everything except that necklace. It was her mothers ring, and when her mother died 2 years ago she had given the ring to Rinoa, but it was too big so she put it on a chain and for the two years since then she hadn't taken it off. But now it was gone. 'I can't believe it' she thought sadly. Thinking about it made her want to cry and she swung her thoughts back to what else had happened. She had given the people who grabbed her everything she had but they still refused to let her go because -as she remembered one of them saying- "they were going to have some fun". Rinoa shuddered as she thought of that moment, and how terrified she'd been. She had pretty much figured that these people were either kill her or just plain abuse her. She had no choice but to try and run. She thought back to how hard at had been to stay focused and steady running while she was petrified, blinded by tears and being chased by two of these guys. Then she had been saved and her thoughts drifted to the person who had saved her.

'Squall' she thought to herself 'I owe him my life. But he's kind of…strange. Kind of quiet and distant. Cute though. No damn it Rinoa focus!' She thought back to when he had been trying to get information out of her. 'He seemed so serious. Standing arms crossed over his chest, serious tone of voice, serious expression. He seemed so …detached' But Rinoa remembered how she thought she had seen a flicker of concern in him, something in his icy blue eyes that he hid behind his long brown fringe. 'Damn it focus!!' she scolded herself again when she realised she'd spent the last few seconds thinking about Squalls fringe.

She got her thoughts back on the track of recounting the events that her lead her up to this moment, just so she had them all down straight in her head, as the whole thing had been a little strange. She thought about meeting the Doctor and Cid and how she'd decided to stay at Garden, as it seemed pretty cool and there were a lot of other people her age there. And once again her thoughts drifted, this time to Seifer. She couldn't help a huge smile breaking across her face when she though of Seifer. She'd spent most of yesterday been shown around Garden by Seifer, well shown around in the respect that she had followed him all day as he went about his business pretending like she wasn't there most of the time.

'He's just so confident and attractive and……attractive" she though to herself with a little giggle. As the day had gone on yesterday, she'd only found herself becoming more and more attracted to Seifer. Being around him all day, she had discovered he was actually quite smart, funny and very popular. Everyone seemed to know who he was. A lot of the other students seemed to like him and those who didn't seemed not to because they were intimidated by him 'maybe because he's on the disciplinary committee' she thought to herself. Last night she had had the privilege of meeting Fujin and Raijin, Seifers closet friends who made up the disciplinary committee with him, and joining them as they stormed around garden making sure no students were violating the curfew. But she knew there was something else, another thing about Seifer that intimidated people a little, something that Rinoa found quite thrilling. He had an edge. 'He's kind of……a bad boy' she thought to herself feeling a little school -girl-crush-ish . Rinoa had always had a thing for Seifers type. Not being to confident in her self she found people like Seifer who had so much confidence amazing. Plus I had such a strict father, with so many rules it's not surprising the rule breaking bad ass type seems so cool' As she was pondering this there was a knock on the door that pulled her out of her thoughts. She jumped out of bed and opened the door. On the other side she saw a young brunette girl about her age smiling brightly at her.

"Morning" the girl said cheerily "I'm Selphie"

"Hey. I'm Rinoa"

"Well see, I was thinking. I mean you just got here right? So I thought maybe you might need to borrow some clothes and stuff as you don't have any of your own stuff" She handed Rinoa a pile of folded clothes and some shampoo and toiletries. Rinoa was struck by the kindness of this girl. She seemed so warm and friendly.

"Wow! Thank you. Um you want to come in?" Rinoa asked thinking it might be good to make as many friends as possible.

"Sure!" the girl beamed stepping into the room. "Thanks. Oh by the way…" she gestured to the pile of clothes "I didn't know what your favourite colour was so I brought lots of colours for you. You can borrow as much stuff as you like. But I was thinking it would be totally fun to go shopping one day!"

Rinoa was starting to really like this girl already. And she liked shopping "yeh. That would be cool"

"So" Selphie said "have you decided what you want to study here. Are you gonna become a SeeD cadet?"

"Train to fight? Uh-uh. I don't think so. I'm not exactly tough. What do you do?"

"Well I'm a SeeD cadet!"

Rinoa was taken aback. This girl was shorter than her-and Rinoa was pretty short herself- and was so thin and so smiley that Rinoa could just not have guessed she was a trained fighter. Almost as if she were reading Rinoas thoughts, Selphie laughed "tee-hee. Don't worry I get that a lot. I don't look like your average warrior."

"Well it's definitely not for me" Rinoa said "I was thinking maybe being a med student, but I don't really know"

"Well I'm sure Cid will give you plenty of time to decide. But you like it so far?"

Rinoa nodded enthusiastically "It's really cool. And everyone's really really nice"

"Oh yeh. I saw you yesterday with Seifer. Is he showing you around?"

"yeh. He seems cool"

Selphie gave a nod and a knowing little smile

"I met other cool people too. I mean I met um Fujin and Raijin and you of course and that guy Squall"

Selphie nodded "well I'm kind of new here. So I don't know everyone too well. Then again Seifers kind of hard to miss. Well I'd better get to class.By the way, my rooms 212 if you ever feel like chatting. Well bye"

"Bye. And thanks for the stuff" Rinoa said as she shut the door behind the girl. She couldn't help but smile, she was really liking it so far here.

She glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 10.15am. She was supposed to be meeting Seifer at 12 by the directory. She decided that since Seifer had shown her the basic way around garden yesterday she would go for a little wander before she met him. But first she took all the toiletries Selphie had given her, and headed for a nice long shower…..

Rinoa was lost. After she'd showered and put on some of the clean clothes Selphie had lent her she'd gone for that little walk around garden and ended up very very lost.

The hallways were practically empty, Rinoa remembered Seifer telling her he had class this morning so she figured that's were most people were. Rinoa was starting to get pretty scared. The Hallways hadn't seemed so big yesterday.

"Damn it" she muttered to herself. She stood in the hallways feeling helpless, when she heard footsteps. She turned around and saw a person walking towards her. When she saw who it was her heart did a tiny jump. It was Squall. She seemed to keep bumping into him for some reason. Not that that particularly bothered her. She kind of liked him. 'There's definitely something about him. It's probably the fringe' she told herself. "Hey Squall!!" she called out running over to him……………..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

more coming soon. keep reading and reviewing xx