Recovering The Satellites
I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
'The Pirates Of Penzance' -Gilbert And Sullivan
Chapter Six: A Model Major General.
"I resign." said Quistis.
Squall stayed silent. He certainly didn't look surprised. In fact, Quistis decided, he did not look surprised in the least. It was as if he'd expected her.
She tried again. "I resign."
Still no response.
Quistis began to feel rather foolish. She blinked. The room around her was too bright, evening sunbeams shafting through arrangements of shades and blinds to turn the glass-walled office into a prism. Light shafts illuminated the strip of red carpet with its untidy arrangement of chairs, glinted on the frames of photographs and gleamed on the enamelled surface of Quistis's instructor badge, which lay on Squall's desk.
Quistis caught sight of the tiny glare out of the corner of her eye and sighed quietly. A few seconds ago it had seemed like such a good idea to rip her badge off and throw it onto Squall's desk. After a minute of Squall's best stare, her gesture didn't seem so clever. Melodramatic, maybe, self-indulgent, certainly, but not smart. Not exactly typical of her thought processes.
Hyne, Seifer's obviously having a bad influence on me….
She folded her hands miserably and tried to ignore the prickle of sweat in the roots of her hair.
Squall was still looking at her, as if he was expecting something. Quistis folded herself back into her chair, her hands clasped so tightly the pad of each finger dug into the skin between her knuckles. She fixed her line of sight thirty centimetres from Squall's left ear and cast her mind back ten minutes, blinking as the last rays of the setting sun scored her glasses.
Ten minutes previously, second floor classroom…
"How well did I do?"
The SeeD in charge smiled at Quistis in a way which she probably meant to be reassuring. "You did well. Very well, in fact."
Quistis smiled politely. She had never had any problems with passing exams. Real life, she'd learned, was much harder. "I've got a new assignment?"
"Yes. It's not exactly what you're used to, mind, but we had very few vacancies. Just bear in mind that it's temporary. I'm sure you'll be found something more suitable in a few months." the SeeD said. She held out a shield-shaped pin badge and a long white envelope, both embossed with the Balamb logo. Quistis took it, frowning slightly at the mention of temporary and more suitable. She'd been secretly hoping for some advanced classes, something to test her skills.
"What do you mean, more suit-"
They were interrupted by a reluctant knock at the door. It was almost too quiet to be a knock, the surreptitious sound of somebody hoping that no one would hear him.
"Enter." the SeeD called out.
Quistis could have sworn she heard a groan from behind the heavy classroom door. She put the letter down, expecting a lost, maybe slightly bashful first year student. She was only partly right.
"SeeD Dincht?" the examiner said in surprise.
Quistis raised one eyebrow as Zell sidled into the room. He looked rumpled, as if his clothes had dried while he was wearing them. His jacket shoulders, usually neatly starched to display his sergeant's patches, slumped as if he had a Ruby Dragon pulling on each coat sleeve. The tips of his shaggy bleached hair were brown and singed.
"Zell?"
Zell looked at his feet. He spoke to the room in general, his words an indistinguishable mumble. "Squall wants to see you, QT. I've got to get you. To take you to his office. Uh, now."
Quistis tucked the white envelope into her belt. She pinned the badge to her lapel. "Now?"
"Y'ss."
"Do you need me to stay longer?" Quistis asked the SeeD supervisor. She'd been hoping to discuss her new assignment, talk over some lesson plans, but if Squall really needed to talk to her then plans and preparation would just have to wait.
"We're all done here, Instructor. Congratulations. Your lessons start tomorrow."
Zell bounced nervously on the balls of his feet. He looked utterly miserable. "Quistis, come on..."
"I sent you some copies of last year's class texts in the internal mail. Just as long as you cover everything on the curriculum, you can teach what and how you like."
"But surely-"
"Quistis! I'm already late-"
"Yes. Okay." Quistis said without conviction. "I'm almost sure I'll be fine-"
Zell nodded at the other SeeD, threw a sloppy salute and virtually dragged Quistis from the classroom. Instead of taking her straight to Squall's office, or leaving her to find her own way, he stopped at the next empty classroom and dragged Quistis inside.
Quistis looked at her watch. "I thought you said Squall wants to see me?"
"Does." Zell said, reluctantly."…only.."
Quistis firmly detached Zell's hand from her sleeve. He looked almost lost, standing slumped against a table with his arms folded across his chest. He stared at the floor. Quistis checked her watch impatiently and then began to tap her feet, one at a time and then both together. Zell didn't appear to notice. "Only? Only what?"
No answer. It was like talking to Squall, Quistis thought grimly. "You said we needed to get to the meeting?"
"Only there's something I've gotta tell you first." Zell said. He shrugged unhappily and looked up at her. His face was bright red and parts of his eyebrows had vanished, giving him a strong resemblance to a worried tomato.
"Are we having a problem with the Bombs in the Training Centre again? I heard a first year student got set on fire last week."
"Nope."
Quistis's mind jumped to the most obvious conclusion. "Is everyone okay?"
Zell nodded.
"What in Hyne's name is this about, then?"
Zell told her.
He told her that events had taken a not entirely unexpected turn for the worse. He told her why, and how, and who had been watching. He told her that she was expected right now in Squall's office, and had, in fact, been expected there for ten minutes because it had taken himself, Zell Dincht, nearly an hour to pluck up the courage to come and get her. He told her she must have been mad and asked her if she had had a mental health examination recently.
Quistis ignored him. Beyond her ice-cool exterior and an inner core of pure panic she knew exactly what she had to do. The brand-new pin badge burned on her lapel, a simple enamelled circle in Balamb's black, white and blue.
She left Zell in the empty classroom without a second glance.
Quistis sighed for the third time that morning.
Squall said nothing. He flicked through some sheets of paper.
Quistis waited. After a few more seconds she returned her gaze to Squall's ear, choosing the right ear, for variety's sake. He had quite nice ears, she decided. She wondered how long it would take her to pack all of her things. Not long, probably. She didn't own much.
It must be a record. My own personal worst. Quistis Trepe, latest promotion: Instructor, second class. Term of residence, ten minutes and…oh, about forty-seven seconds...
She watched as Squall picked her badge up and turned it over. He put it back on top of his polished walnut desk and then placed one finger on top of it and slid it back towards her, eyes framing a question.
Quistis pushed her spectacles up with her hand. She reached across the desk and slid the badge back to Squall, watching his face as she did so.
Squall's expression wasn't judging. It wasn't anything. There was no hint of condemnation or censure. Somehow, despite all odds, it just made Quistis feel worse. Her sense of faint unease with Seifer back in Esthar had blossomed into full-fledged guilt in the hothouse environment of the Garden.
She was beginning to get a headache.
"You don't want to be an instructor?" Squall said, finally. "I thought you'd be pleased."
Quistis sighed for the fourth time. "I'm resigning as a SeeD. Not just as an instructor."
"You can't." Squall snapped. He spoke it as if it was a rule, no, a commandment, engraved two inches deep in a marble slab on a sacred mountain.
"Look, just fire me. Please." Quistis said. The words hurt and she coughed them out of her mouth like chicken bones while the black hole in her stomach grew deeper with guilt and dread. "Get it over with."
"Why?"
"Well, according to regulation 314, (part b) you really have to. Sir."
Squall's expression erased itself for a second. He slid the SeeD manual onto his lap and surreptitiously began to hunt through its pages.
Quistis took pity. "Regulation three-hundred and fourteen. It's the rather ambiguously worded rule about SeeDs being found unworthy of the trust placed in them by Garden. Sir."
"Don't call me sir."
"The rather ambiguously worded rule about SeeDs being found unworthy of the trust placed in them by Garden- Squall."
Squall ran a finger down the lines of text. Quistis watched.
It was beginning to dawn on her that she hadn't really thought this through. In all of her imagined scenarios, none had ever ended with Squall simply saying "No." He would say "You've disappointed us all." He'd say "You really should have told us sooner." Then he would say, "Are you sure?", and she'd say "Yes.", and then she would leave.
Squall looked up from the manual, eyes sharpening. He said "Where will you go if you can't be a SeeD and you can't stay at Balamb?"
Quistis couldn't help noticing that their conversation seemed to have deviated from her carefully planned script. Instead, Squall was asking difficult questions.
"I'll find something, Squall."
Squall cleared his throat. He closed the manual he had been reading and stowed it away in a desk drawer. "You're worth anybody's trust. Your last mission was a success. Your objective was to assess a potential threat. Not only did you evaluate this threat to the best of your abilities, you defused it. You found a missing person who all the Gardens have been hunting for two years. You went beyond the call of duty. The circumstances don't matter."
"They do matter." Quistis said without conviction. Her cowardly voice, the one which told her it was all right to stay in bed until seven-thirty instead of getting up early to exercise and catch up on her office work, was telling her that she maybe didn't deserve to be fired.
"Not to me. Someday I'd like a full mission report, one with everything that happened in that hospital, but that's as far as it goes."
"I don't understand." said Quistis. "I didn't tell Garden that Seifer was alive. I had three weeks in Trabia. Anything could have happened."
"But it didn't." Squall leant forward. He picked up the badge and spoke as if to himself. "Hyne. I though Seifer was going to be the one who overreacted. Goes to show you never can tell."
Quistis, for the first time in her life, had absolutely nothing to say. She felt vaguely insulted, but, most of all, relieved.
Eventually she gathered her thoughts together enough to speak. "What are you going to do?"
Squall's silhouette was dark against the setting sun. "Nothing."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Why?"
Squall closed his hand into a fist. He set the badge on the back of his right hand and flipped it absentmindedly from one knuckle to another until it reached his thumb. Then he started it all over again. "I already explained this to Almasy. You're adults. As long as this doesn't get in the way of any of your SeeD work, I'm happy." The badge made one final circuit of his knuckles before he flipped it back onto the desk. "I'll just let it run its course. "
Quistis felt obscurely deflated. "But- I let my personal life get in the way of my job!"
"When was the last time you let your job get in the way of your personal life?"
"I let Garden down." she countered.
Squall looked up, shadowed eyes narrowing. "So you quit? What will you do then?
"I told you," Quistis lied. "I'll be able to find something."
Squall continued. "We can't waste your talents. You're a good fighter and a better teacher. I can't fire you. "A small smile. "Even if you want me to. I can't afford the waste."
Quistis just looked at him. She felt emotionally exhausted, having expended double the mental energy in thirty minutes that she usually spent on her emotions in a week.
A small part of her felt ashamed and foolish for having wasted Squall's time.
Squall frowned, watching her expression. "Oh, for Hyne's sake, consider yourself formally reprimanded, if you like. That is it." He picked up the badge from his table, reached across the desk for her hand and placed the badge in her palm. "Don't lose it."
Quistis closed her fingers over the tiny disc of metal. "Really?"
"Yes. Unless you've got anything more to say."
"I do have a question." Quistis said as she pinned the brooch back onto her lapel. She fastened the clasp neatly over the tear she had caused by ripping the badge off.
Squall watched her. "Go on."
"Why did you make me an instructor again?"
Silence.
"It's been two years."
Squall leaned back into his chair. He reached under his table to flick a switch and lights sprang to life around them to illuminate the dusky room. "Xu persuaded me. And it's not as if you aren't ready. I thought you deserved it, for all the work you put in on this last mission."
Quistis blushed, unsure what Squall was implying, if indeed he was implying anything at all. "I did everything I could to continue my mission as normal. Given the circumstances."
""I believe that."
"Why?"
"Because you always do." Squall said. He smiled faintly and glanced down at his desk. There were two stacks of paper there, an in-tray and an out-tray. The out-tray was the size of a slim novel. The in-tray was the size of a phone directory. "No more. I mean it. I'm not letting either of you go. And I really have more work to do. I'll see you around. Good luck with your new job."
Quistis nodded in response. She snapped off a perfect salute, something that she rarely bothered with, and walked out along the red carpet to the hall. She was only halfway to the door before Squall's voice stopped her. "Quistis."
"Squall?"
"I sent him to finish off that paperwork in the dorms. Just thought you'd like to know."
Quistis blushed deeply, glad that the subdued lighting hid her face. "Thanks." she said, and left.
She was stopped by another shout just outside the office doors.
"Hey! Quistis?"
Quistis turned as slowly as she could manage, hoping to give the impression that she was busily on her way to something more important. Like Squall's voice, Xu's was instantly recognisable. And Xu would have Words. Xu always had twice as many words as anybody else.
"I heard a surprising rumour today. But I'm hoping it's not true."
Quistis turned around with a heartfelt sigh. "This wouldn't be the rumour about, say, the hotdog stealing monster?"
"It wouldn't." Xu replied. She regarded Quistis with a speculative glace as the taller SeeD seated herself in front of her desk.
"All right." Quistis held up a finger. But I need coffee first."
"Your wish is my command," Xu reached behind her and flipped the switch of a tiny percolator sandwiched in between the computer monitor and the fax machine. She waited until the water boiled and the percolator emptied itself with a noise like a caterchpillar with acute constipation, then poured the thick liquid into two cups. She handed Quistis a chipped mug reading 'Mercenaries Do It for Money." and peered at her over the computer screen. "And now, we need to talk. What were you thinking?
"Xu-" Quistis said..
"Can I say just one thing?"
"Yes." Quistis took a large gulp of coffee to fortify herself. Belatedly she realised that her body language was far too defensive, and unfolded her arms, trying to cultivate a relaxed, open body posture. It didn't work. She was far from relaxed.
"Why? Ending the world apart -he's just not your type, and we both know it."
"He's got good points." Quistis said.
"Yes" Xu said reflectively. "Seifer does have his good points. Unfortunately they're so overshadowed by his character flaws it's like comparing a salt cellar with the yearly net production of an Esthar Lake sodium mine."
"He does have good points."
"Really? What? I guess he's waterproof."
"Xu, everyone is waterproof. It's not much of a life skill."
"Flame retardant?"
"Now you're just making fun."
"I'm serious. In fact, I'm thinking that I should find out."
Quistis drained her coffee in one gulp. "Be serious…"
"You've dated lots of nice guys before."
"Yes. Lots of nice guys." Quistis said in a cold tone of voice. It said this-is-not-going-any-further. It said this-conversation-is-ending. Right now.
Xu didn't appear to notice. "Please don't tell me you've finally got a taste for a bit of rough." She finished her own coffee, took Quistis' empty cup and refilled the percolator. "It's not that. Look. I've dated 'nice' men. They were all polite. Endlessly polite. They asked before they kissed me, they held car doors open and paid for my drinks. But whenever it came to a fight they all thought I needed protecting. I don't want that anymore and I never needed it. Even when I was sixteen, I never needed it. Ever since the wars, men talk to me just because I'm famous."
Xu frowned. "They talk to you because you're blond and pretty. Being famous is merely an extra, I assure you." She handed Quistis her second mug of coffee. "So that's the reason? He doesn't treat you differently just because you're famous?"
"I doubt he's noticed."
"He's too arrogant." Xu muttered. She seemed to be turning something over in her mind... " "He's annoying, Quistis. It's not the Middle Ages any more. You don't just need a dick and a big sword to rule the world."
"Xu." Quistis said. Her tone of voice had dropped a few degrees below freezing, and this time her friend respected the hint.
"So you chose him just because he doesn't care about you?
"No. I chose him because he does." Quistis said. "Look, I'm not justifying this to you. I don't have to."
"It's got to be said."
"Yes. But not again. Not for the second time this morning. I know what I'm doing."
Xu looked genuinely interested. "Who was the first?"
"Zell."
"Hyne, Quistis." Xu said. She looked vaguely sympathetic. "Look, any fool can see it must mean something, or you wouldn't be sitting here defending him to me. Seifer's fairly simple. If he's around you without picking a fight for more than five minutes, that means he likes you. Fine. But that doesn't change the fact that he's a sword-swinging gung-ho war-hawk who'd hit the bottle and porn magazines like a flash if he didn't have fighting to keep him occupied…"
"And you don't like him." Quistis said. She felt faintly pleased that she'd finally got Xu to use Seifer's first name rather than just calling him 'Almasy.' It was a minor victory. She had a nasty feeling it would be the last point she'd score in their conversation.
"And I don't like him." Xu said. "But you knew that already."
"He grows on you."
"Yes, like some kind of parasitic fungus."
Quistis thought of Seifer. He was probably a mistake, but somehow it never mattered. She smiled.
Xu finished off her second cup of coffee. "I'd be happier if you were dating Selphie. Irvine, too, for that matter."
"Consecutively, or concurrently?"
"Either. Both. Does it matter?"
"I should hope so. Look, is it just the Knight thing that's bothering you? If it is, I don't know whether he knew what he was doing."
"You don't know?" Xu said slowly.
"I don't think he knows."
"Great. Mental problems on top of everything else. This is looking more and more like a bad idea."
"It's not a bad idea." Quistis said. In fact, she couldn't remember having made a conscious decision to continue their relationship at any point. Around Seifer, things just happened.
"If it was anybody else, it'd be a really bad idea. But this is you, Quistis. You don't make mistakes. You don't do mistakes. Especially not mistakes like Seifer. To him, SeeD's just a licence to kill."
Quistis frowned. "That's not true."
"No? Have you asked him?"
"I don't need to ask him."
Xu backed off a little after that and the topic of their conversation turned to more pleasant things. Quistis managed to extricate herself after several more minutes.
She opened her assignment as soon as she was out of sight of the office. That was the first thing she did. The second thing she did was frown and bite her lip, before reading the entire letter over very carefully.
She said a rude word in the privacy of her head and walked down the corridor to Seifer's dorm room. Her speed changed as she got closer, slowing from her usual swift businesslike stride to a casual walk and then to something only slightly faster than a shuffle.
Finally Quistis gave up entirely and hovered in the main hall a few metres from the dorm turnoff. She chewed her nails, and tried to make some sense out of the emotions in her head, grading them in order of intensity, strength and rarity. There was an odd relief that everything was out in the open. It was covered by a faint sense of dread, because sometimes in battle when things revealed themselves you found out exactly how big they really were.
Underneath the feelings of relief and dread there was a childish kind of anger that things hadn't worked out exactly the way she wanted them to. The outcome of her interview with Squall had been so different from what she'd been expecting that she found it was taking her a while to adjust.
Quistis took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes for a second and then put them back on again. She smoothed down her hair, then whistled up Shiva from deep inside her brain and let her ice over the inappropriate emotions, sealing them away for a while.
Finally she squared her shoulders and marched down the corridor to the dormitories to look for Seifer's room.
It was not the easiest of places to find. The Garden authorities had wisely placed him away from all of the younger and more easily impressionable students, which meant that it was a long walk down a narrow corridor lined with nearly identical dorms. Those closest consisted of the odd post-graduate student, a few SeeDs assigned double rooms out of personal preference, and a class-full of cadets close to graduating, whom Quistis assumed should be able to look after themselves.
She reached the door - pale grey laminate, identical to all the other student dorms except for the number, which was 24602- and swung it quietly open.
The window was open onto the gathering evening, probably to release any lingering fumes of cigarette smoke. Despite the more-than-adequate ventilation it smelt of cheap tobacco, indefinable maleness and socks, with a vague scent of vile aftershave. Mixed, the scents emitted a strange and nasty blend. The aftershave was a puzzle to Quistis, as she'd never seen Seifer wearing any.
Seifer was working at a desk as she entered. Balls of crumpled paper in a rainbow of colours dotted the tiles around his feet. He cursed, threw another sheet of paper out of the window, and then looked up. His hands were stained with ink, as if he'd at least tried to work.
Quistis imagined the landscaped Garden grounds strewn with ink-stained forms. "I talked to Squall." she said, careful to keep any hint of blame out of her voice. That could come later.
Seifer looked at her for a long moment. Quistis held his gaze with the ease of long practice, and it was Seifer who caved in first. "Yeah, you don't need to say anything. It's my fucking fault. Mine and Dincht's..no, more like Dincht's, then mine. Shit. I didn't mean to." His hands twitched and then stilled, searching for cigarettes and lighter. "Guess he told you what happened."
"He did." Quistis said. Seifer seemed, not more relaxed, that was wrong, but less volatile that she had expected. She sat down on the bed, which creaked a protest.
Seifer must have interpreted her expression. "Got nothing left. I already took it out on Dincht."
Quistis remembered Zell's attitude of terrified embarrassment. No doubt he'd been expecting her to shout at him too. "He looked like you had."
Seifer grinned. It was a sharp grin, and it faded quickly. "Squall too, huh?"
Quistis nodded. "I did get the feeling he wasn't too surprised."
"Yeah. Didn't seem too disappointed, either. Fuck, he was weird. Started grilling me on the sorceresses in the middle of asking me whether I was dating you. It's like, the guy knew the two things I least wanted to talk about, and he asked me them both and I just had nothing to say."
"It was the same with me. It's just his way."
"He was cold as fuck before. Clever, though, now. He's changed."
"He has." Quistis agreed. She remembered the challenges Squall had faced, piloting the Garden through the aftermath of the Sorceresses' War. He'd dealt with the Trabian rebuilding, Galbadian's lingering resentment, and their sudden rush of new post-victory contracts with style and ruthless efficiency, proving once and for all that he did not take after his father. "He has."
They both looked at each other for a moment, each aware that they hadn't really discussed anything, and both made a independent decision to avoid the subject.
Quistis spoke first. She forced a lighthearted tone into her voice. "And besides, you know what they've done? They made me an instructor."
Seifer almost looked relieved. "I know that. Thought you were pleased."
"I am, but, not this." Quistis said. She hooked the crumpled envelope from her belt and unfolded the paper inside, smoothing it out. "I don't have any experience."
"Bullshit. You've got loads of experience. Hyne, if you can teach Squall and me, you can teach anyone." Seifer said. He pushed his pen away with no sign of reluctance, giving up Xu's forms as a lost cause. "So what've you got? Post grads, advanced classes, exam cramming?"
Quistis sighed. She passed the sheet to Seifer and sighed harder as ink stains immediately transferred themselves from his hands to the paper, visible only as indigo patches in the fast-darkening room. "Nothing so easy. I'm teaching first years."
"Doesn't sound so bad."
"It's basic stuff. Boring. I won't know what to do with them. I'm bad with kids."
"Don't ask me." Seifer said. He folded the form and handed it back to her. "They won't even let me near them."
Quistis knew automatically who he meant by they. Always the same now. Garden.
"Hyne, I'm tired." she said, changing the subject. It was an invitation of sorts, and Seifer, always with a keen eye for the main chance, came to sit beside her on the bed. He put one arm around her waist, Quistis drew her knees up to her chest and they both sat back against the wall.
Quistis drowsed for a while, her back bony and cold against the wall. She shifted, moving into Seifer's body for comfort. He was uncharacteristically quiet, the air between them heavy with things never said, but she knew that he wasn't asleep.
The room was full dark before either of them spoke, and it was Quistis who broke the silence.
"Come to bed."
"We're in bed."
"Mine is bigger."
"What's wrong with here?" Seifer said. His posture shifted, becoming more inviting.
Quistis sighed. "It smells."
Seifer never needed much of an invitation to spend time at Quistis's slightly more luxurious room with its en-suite shower and double bed, and so they left shortly afterwards.
Quistis turned into the main corridor automatically, forgetting their surreptitious habits of the last few days, and Seifer either didn't remember or didn't care enough about what people thought to notice. They were halfway around the hall before she began to feel slightly uneasy. There weren't many people around, but those few who were ignored them so ostentatiously that Quistis knew they was being watched.
Nobody said anything apart from Seifer, who began relating, at top volume, a complicated and obscene urban myth she'd heard years before, the kind that usually floated round Garden.
Quistis didn't really listen, but she was grateful for the effort. Her own subliminally silent whisper called up Shiva, and the ice GF lent her her own cold strength. The shatter of ice crystals drowned out her own self-doubt.
What are we doing? It's like I'm spending time trying to convince people, and I can't even convince myself.
Most of the time.
Quistis junctioned herself to the GF all the way to the lift door before she let the magic fade with a sigh. She felt cold, one of the more unpleasant side-effects of the Guardian Force. Seifer was watching her carefully in the glass of the lift doors, frowning. Quistis gave him her most reassuring smile.
It must not have worked very well, because he immediately moved closer, looking at her carefully, as if she was about to explode, and then he bent slightly down and moved his head to the side and kissed her.
Quistis responded automatically, first out of shock and then out of enthusiasm. She felt warm, all in a rush, and slightly tingly in all the right places. It had been a good idea to invite him back, she decided, and fast on the heels of that thought came one that she was getting paranoid about this whole arrangement, that she just needed to relax.
Seifer drew back and she looped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him harder. He responded with a shrug and greater enthusiasm.
Quistis could understand the enthusiasm, but she was slightly puzzled about the shrug until the lift doors opened and a load full of final-year students exited.
Seifer ignored them all.
He reached over and kissed her in front of everybody, and Hyne it was a turn-on.
Just let them say she's not mine now. Hands off, Trepies.
Her lips were cold as ice, and just for a minute Seifer could have sworn that he saw Shiva looking out of her eyes, but he dismissed the idea out of hand. Who in their right mind would junction a GF inside Garden?
Quistis didn't pull away until all the students had left, most shooting horrified glances in her general direction. There was a kind of nervous defiance to the gesture, as if she was trying slightly too hard. Seifer didn't mind. He told himself that she'd had a shock, that Squall had freaked her, that she was still thrown out of whack by her new assignment.
Anyway, she seemed fine when they were both in the lift. Relaxed. Chatty, even. So normal that he almost forgot about the ice GF.
They walked to Quistis's room in a nearly comfortable silence. She opened her door with a blue-striped keycard and let them both in. It was Seifer's first visit in a state that actually allowed him to take much stock of the surroundings, and he looked around with interest, comparing Quistis's ultra-neat study to his own dorm room.
He found it strange, in a way. The room was far too clean by his standards. The only human touches were those which strict usage allowed in a chilly world of duty and routine. A dog-eared journal wedged under one table leg. A can of oil on the table itself. A few paperback novels, arranged by size and colour. The desk and chair were the only items that actually looked used. Seifer had very little imagination, but he could see her sitting there, night after night, busy chasing figures down, running them to ground patiently, in orderly form, just like she hunted monsters.
They sat, Quistis with her legs neatly crossed in the swivel-seated desk chair, Seifer lounging on the bed. Given the heat of their kiss in the hall, Seifer had half-hoped for a rerun of the previous night, but as he looked at Quistis he got the feeling that it hadn't been that kind of invitation. The expression on her face reminded him of that one night in Trabia after Garden had been bombed, when she'd asked him just to sleep with her, and he had. Her eyes looked just the same, slightly out of focus and strangely dissociated from reality.
She didn't say anything. Seifer was notoriously bad at silences. He looked round the room for something to say that wasn't 'Fuck, this room's boring' and then Quistis spoke.
"Have you seen anyone apart from Zell since you came back? I know Fuujin and Raijin wanted to talk to you."
"Saw them. Xu, Irvine, Selphie, even." Seifer said, then sighed. "I saw Rinoa. And Squall, of course."
"They've been together since the wars. She thinks they're in love." Quistis said noncommittally.
"Must be. He gets this sickening look on his face whenever he talks about her. Unfreezes." He made a face. "It's like a damn puppy."
Quistis smiled. "They've been like that ever since..well, you know when. I think it's sweet. Slightly revolting, sometimes, but sweet."
Seifer remembered Squall's silver ring on the chain around Rinoa's neck. "Did they ever bother to get married?" he asked. It wasn't something he'd thought about at the time. There was nothing unusual about Rinoa wearing a wedding ring around her neck rather than on her ring finger. It was a fairly common habit in SeeDs, one which decreased the risk of getting your fingers cut off in a fight when your rings snagged on weapons or clothing.
Quistis looked up sharply, maybe remembering that Seifer had once dated Rinoa. "They're not. As good as, really, but no." She sighed. "I don't know. It seems so simple for them. For example, what are we really doing here? Sometimes, I don't know, it's like I'm trying to convince other people that we're really serious, and I can't even convince myself."
Seifer began to have a bad feeling about this. If anything, his pride felt more bruised than anything else. He'd always been better at actions than words, so he reached across the narrow strip of carpet that divided them, drew her down onto the bed beside him and kissed her neck, anything to make himself forget the doubt in her eyes. Anything to ensure the next words out of her mouth weren't 'and it's been fun-but..'
When the hell did I start needing this? Not you as well, Quistis. I thought you knew. I thought it was all right, that you didn't just look at me and see two years ago.
Guess I was wrong.
He thought for one minute that she would ask him to leave, but then she turned in his hands and kissed him full on the lips
Or maybe I was right after all
He forgot all about it then and only remembered a couple of hours later, when he lay in bed with Quistis beside him, sexy as hell in one of his T shirts and a pair of pink knickers.
If she was still sore about the wars if she thought we were wrong together, she wouldn't have done that, would she?
Or that?
Sure, we're strange bedfellows, but it works, yeah, it damn well works…
Quistis woke very early in the morning. For once, it wasn't Seifer's fault. She'd opened a window earlier in the night and forgotten to close it. She lay back in the bed and listened to the dawn chorus, hoping that Seifer was asleep. He wasn't the easiest of people to sleep next to, but the three weeks in Trabia had gotten her used to sharing a bed. His sleep patterns were…erratic, to say the least. He twitched like a wet dog in his sleep with impeccable timing, usually when she was just drifting off.
But at least he doesn't snore, Quistis thought, counting her blessings. Their enthusiastic bout of divide-and-conquer sex seemed to have laid her fears to rest, and for once she had slept easily.
She was thinking how she enjoyed watching him sleep when he turned over and said
"Been awake for long, Quis?" in a voice that didn't sound at all drowsy, and she realised he hadn't been.
"Sleeping well?"
"Enough."
Quistis shrugged and rolled over onto her front. Seifer seemed to need about three hours of sleep a night to function normally. She was almost coming to accept his erratic sleeping patterns as the norm. It led to some unusual midnight conversations.
Strangely enough, it was usually Quistis who initiated their insomniac talks. She found it nearly impossible to go straight back to sleep after she'd been woken up, especially if Seifer was in bed with her and not sleeping himself. Tonight was no exception, and the topic of conversation certainly wasn't new either. Ever since their time in Trabia, when she'd learned that Seifer had memories of their childhood together that hadn't been erased by the GFs, she'd been hungry for first-hand memories of her own. Something always kept them from discussing the topic in the morning. It seemed too…private, somehow.
Their talks always started with the same words. Do you remember?
"Do you remember the summers? Back in Centra with Matron?"
Seifer thought for a minute, as he always did. "Was a long time ago. Used to make boats out of driftwood."
"The sails were…blue."
"Right. An old tarp got washed up one day."
"The coast always used to catch the driftwood."
"Damn handy in winter. What about the storms? Strong enough to blow the whole damn place down"
"I was never scared, though."
"Me, neither." Seifer said, as if it was obvious and he hadn't been five years old at the time.
"It always seemed as if Edea would protect us."
"Guess she did."
"Yes. Did you know the only reason she took Ultimecia's power was to save us from the sorceress?"
"That worked out." Seifer said sarcastically.
"You know, it did." said Quistis. "It really did. I think she felt sorry for Ultimecia, as well."
"Matron was always a soft touch. Look where it got her."
"She deserves a happy ending, Seifer."
"Don't start."
"Please visit."
"I'm not going. It won't make her happy. It'll just fuck her up even more." Seifer said, and changed the subject. "What's the place like now?"
"Wrecked." said Quistis, not entirely happy with the switch.
"So how's she live there?"
"In the old lighthouse. Cid made it more comfortable for her." Quistis said. In fact, they'd all helped, taking loads of furniture from the mainland and salvaging whatever they could from the wrecked main buildings. She lay in rumpled sheets in the darkness and remembered those sunny days, pleased that she could.
Seifer said nothing else. Quistis remembered something that she'd much rather have forgotten. "To him, SeeD's just a licence to kill." Xu had said.
"That's not true."
"No? Have you asked him?"
"I don't need to ask him." Quistis had told Xu, but she went ahead and asked him anyway. She could almost hear Seifer's scowl.
"SeeD?"
"Yes. What do you think of SeeD?"
"SeeDs?" He paused for a moment. "Squall's an uptight asshole. Zell, complete fuckwit. Selphie's just obsessed with sex, and Irvine's obsessed with her.."
Quistis smiled, safe in the knowledge that Seifer couldn't see her. "No! I mean SeeD. As a whole."
"Damn soldier farm. I dunno…..freedom, I guess. You know what I found out, travelling through all those little cities? Everyone's scared. They're waiting, is all. Waiting for all the big strong SeeDs to come slay the monsters, sort their problems. If you can't fight, you can't go out the fences and live to tell the tale."
"Is that why you wanted to be a SeeD?" Quistis asked curiously. She'd been expecting some offhand answer along the lines of 'good money' or possibly 'legally sanctioned violence.'
"I never wanted to be a SeeD." Seifer said. He rolled over and raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her. ""I wanted to be a knight. Stupid, huh?"
"Careful what you wish for." Quistis said, trying to keep her tone light. Whatever adrenaline surge had woken her, it was fading now. She snuggled back down in the curve of Seifer's arm. It was too warm for snuggling, but she didn't care. Seifer lay back down beside her and they slept together as if they'd been doing it a lot longer than only three weeks.
Seifer left early the next morning, timing his exit to coincide with Quistis's new assignment. Xu had called earlier on that evening, before Quistis had come, to leave him a timetable of sorts. He had been assigned to the engineering section for most of the slots, though there were a fair amount of free periods mixed in. Seifer was still trying to decide whether or not it was worth the trouble of actually sticking to a schedule for once in his life.
There was no news yet of the classes Squall had mentioned. Seifer couldn't work out whether that was a good or a bad sign. For that matter, he couldn't understand why Squall was going out of his way to get him involved in engineering. Leonhart would have to change his ideas fast if he thought that Seifer intended to be stuck in some garage all his life.
Seifer shrugged. He didn't much care what Leonhart wanted him to do. Just because he was the Commander of Garden didn't mean that Seifer had to do anything that he said.
He told himself that he was visiting the garage because he was in the mood for weapons, that was all. Weapons were predictable. They didn't ask you questions or try and talk about your feelings. You put them somewhere and they stayed there until you picked them up again.
He reached the garage and walked in through the ENGINEERS ONLY door. The room was empty, but he felt at home straight away. Like the training yards, the workshops were places where things started and finished, only the 'things' were weapons, instead of fights. It reminded him of the place he'd lived before the orphanage, though he couldn't remember why.
It must be 'cause it's such a fucking mess…
Something touched the back of his head very gently. Seifer shivered, and looked up. He flicked a stray leather strip away with one hand, and fended off five pounds of assorted ironwork with the other.
His first impression of the room had been a chaotic mess, with a rather low ceiling. On further inspection, the roofspace was actually quite tall, Seifer estimated, twenty feet straight up. It just seemed lower because of all the things hanging from it. There were swords and guns and weapons of different shapes and sized, some antique, most just knackered. Strips of leather, ropes and cords, lightbulbs on long pieces of flex, ancient yellow miner's helmets hung amongst tools of every shape and size, more tools than you could possibly use. There was one long rack of chains, sorted by diameter, and next to that, a bundles of what looked like dried Marlboro tentacles. There was a hooked pole leaning up against the wall that he guessed were used to snag some of the items down.
The swords he'd noticed on his earlier visit had vanished, replaced by a pile of unpleasantly waxy-looking bricks.
Seifer ducked his head to avoid premature decapitation, then moved over to examine the pile. He poked one, carefully. It went squish.
"What are you doing?"
Seifer spun, simultaneously wiping one hand on his trousers.
It was only the SeeD. Closer, she looked older than he'd thought in the Quad, a good fifteen years older than he was. Her hair was prematurely grey, with only a few strands of its original colour. She wore a vest under a dark boiler suit, its sleeves knotted round her waist.
"Squall sent me. Said you guys could teach me something."
"I don't know about teaching. We've got work needs doing. Not teaching."
Seifer shrugged. So did Deft.
"But ours not to reason why with the commander, I guess. It's true we could do with a hand here and there." She pointed to the dimmed forge fire in the centre of the room, its embers dead. "Or you could sort out your own project. Something useful."
Seifer grinned. "So when do I get to make swords?"
Deft looked at him as though he'd just requested a Bite Bug in a bun. "You don't."
"Why?" Seifer said.
Deft frowned. She settled back onto a pile of scrap iron and shifted slightly as it settled under her weight. "Because it takes too long. And we don't need swords. We have spare swords. We need sensible things, like rifles. They're what most of the students are using nowadays. Even better, make some valves for the sewage system. Archimedes screws. Ventilation fans. Cogs. Gears. Not swords. They're too hard." She looked at him. "I don't suppose you actually know how to make any of those things?"
"No."
Deft looked like someone making the best of a bad job. "What can you do?"
"Fight." said Seifer.
"Useful things. What can you make? If you can make swords, that's fine, don't get me wrong. If you can make anything even vaguely useful, well, that'd be even better."
Seifer's dreams of actually getting his hands on functioning weaponry were fading fast. He clutched at straws. "How long does it take to learn how to make swords?"
"That depends on who you read." said Deft. She pointed at a book one of many stacked randomly on the shelves among jars of nameless organs. Vadi's treatise, Cold Steel, says you have to spend a week sitting under a waterfall wrapped in a Chocobo hide before you even touch the steel. The Lotal school recommends a whole winter's meditation up a mountain somewhere in Trabia." She pointed at another book. "Of course, we've lost so much history. Old texts aren't always reliable. For instance Godfrey's book Knighthood and Battle advises the quenching of the steel with blood, but I, personally, have found it makes hopeless swords."
Seifer chose to interrupt the rant. "So, a long time, then."
"Yep."
"There's no chance I could-"
"No. Of course, if you persevered for, say, twelve months-"
"What then?"
"You would be merely very bad."
Seifer scowled. "So what the fuck am I supposed to do?"
Deft gave him the bright and sunny smile of someone who had already had a very long day. "There's always broken weaponry. Separate the bits we can use from the bits we can't. Or go sort through the magical items. I need nineteen steel pipes, a bag of screws and a water crystal, and I need them yesterday." She interpreted Seifer's scowl. " Or, hell, go and make a better mousetrap or something. Anything." She was being facetious, but Seifer interpreted her comment literally.
"How?"
"Sort through the slush pile. Find something you can use." She stood up and pointed to the pile of scrap metal that she had been sitting on for the last five minutes.
Seifer scowled in her general direction. Everything on the pile looked far too worn to be of any use. "Where do you get all of this crap?"
"We have an electromagnet in the trash chute. It's amazing what perfectly good things people throw out."
Seifer looked at the lump, which seemed to consist mostly of old coathangers. "Uh, yeah."
He was five minutes into poking at the pile of rusty, welded metal when the garage dor opened and a couple of other people walked in. The first was an old man, medium height, grey heir, walking with a limp. Seifer's gaze immediately slid past him to the second person who was a girl a few years older than he was. She was not unattractive, and, he realised as he looked down, very, very pregnant. Both were dressed in the same stained dark boiler suits as Deft, and both ignored him completely. The old man sat at a tiny workstation over on the opposite side of the room. He started to feed punched cards into a tiny machine. The girl avoided Seifer as best she could, though her size and the confines of the tiny room made it quite difficult.
Seifer returned his attention to the pile of metal, which seemed slightly more interested in him than the new arrivals. He continued his search for something useful. Useful, and sharp.
He reached into the pile and took hold of a metal chair leg, moving it from side to side to loosen the nest of tangled rubbish around it. A pull loosened it, and he weighed it in his hands thoughtfully, before deciding it didn't offer much scope as a weapon, a mouse trap, or, come to that, anything much. Reaching to the back of the bin, he paused, discovering that the removal of the bar had stirred the junk pile up a bit. One shiny item stood out among the rust.
It was small and carefully constructed out of fine silver wire, tiny cogs and metal plates with six thin legs. Seifer wondered what it did. It didn't appear to be too badly damaged, save for a long scrape along one side and a heel-shaped dent in one end. Seifer pulled it out from the rubble, ignoring snapping and pinging noises. He wiped grease and flaked rust off its surface, rubbing harder as a logo began to appear under the grime. A familiar logo. Odine brand.
Seifer had heard through the grapevine that Odine was a slimy little motherfucker, but he was the best inventor in the business. Good make, he thought. I can use this. As he turned to place his prize on the corner of the dead forge behind him, and accidentally knocked elbows with the girl. She glared at him. Seifer reckoned himself a connoisseur of glares, or he would if he had know how to spell it- from Xu's best stone cold icy glances to the I-hate-all-you-soldiers stare of the average Estharian. It was a good glare, but he'd seen better.
He attempted conversation, pointing at her swollen abdomen. It was a mistake.
"So, is that a baby?"
A second glare. This one conveyed the opinion that there were things in the jars around the wall which were smarter than Seifer. "No. It's a tumour."
Her comment killed the conversation extremely effectively. Seifer figured that that was kind of the point.
At least it meant he didn't have to worry about making polite small talk. He reached round her, picked up the Odine machine and moved to the only spare seat in the place, next to the veteran. He had examined it for all of ten seconds before the geezer said to him. "Not very polite, are you?"
Seifer wondered if the old man had heard the curses that he'd been muttering under his breath at the machinery. "I haven't even said anything." he pointed out.
"When I was a young man, it was polite to introduce yourself."
Seifer poked one of the legs on the Odine machine. It jerked spastically a few times and then fell off. He dropped the device, irritated. "Fuck, I can't win with you guys, can I?"
Silence. The girl still ignored him. The old man went back to feeding cards into his machine.
He tried courtesy. "I'm Seifer. Who the hell are you, anyway?"
He thought that he wasn't going to get a response until the old man turned round, so slowly that Seifer fancied he could almost hear the creaking. "I am Chy, and the young lady is Shirin." he said, speaking with a faint accent Seifer couldn't quite place. It took him a few seconds to work out that it was the same as Deft's. The accent… and the machinery. FH. Had to be.
"You're from Fisherman's Horizon."
Chy looked at Seifer with a milky gaze that indicated he might not have shit for brains, after all. "Indeed. Refugees from Esthar, many years ago. Your Commander tendered out an open contract."
"He's not my commander."
The mechanic carried on as if Seifer hadn't interrupted. "Are you aware of the Arrangement?" he said. The last word definitely had capital letters.
Seifer picked the intricate metal leg from the table and tried in vain to stick it back on. A few blue sparks jumped from tiny severed wires buried deep within its metal tendons, burning his fingers. "Nope."
"Balamb wants to map the mechanisms of this shelter. It's a great undertaking, and very important."
"Can't you just buy a map?"
"Sadly, no plans exist. We don't know how it flies, either. We just know it does."
Seifer mentally interpreted. "Squall pays you to find out how this thing flies?"
"Yes."
"It's been two years." Seifer said.
Chy gave a little nod of his head, as if to indicate that in the grand geological scheme of things, two years was nothing. "Indeed. Our work would be faster if Commander Leonhart would let us dismantle the core mechanisms. He's concerned about the possibility of minor complications when rebuilding."
"So it might not work when you put it all back together?" Seifer said. He felt he was beginning to get the hang of the engineer jargon.
The old man snorted. "There's a reasonable chance of average function after plans are completed."
"How reasonable?"
"Forty seven percent. Of course, we'd require at least six months to disconnect the components, draw plans, reassemble the mechanism etcetera. The whole operation shouldn't take more than eighteen months."
"So you'd need a year and a half of downtime to get it working again, and you're only half-sure you can?" Seifer said sarcastically. "That's good."
"It is." agreed Chy, quite seriously.
Seifer privately thought that Squall was either extremely brave or extremely stupid to let the engineers within touching distance of the Garden's engines.
"Less than eighteen months." A new voice cut in. It was Shirin. Her hands were oil-stained from whatever small task she'd been working on, and she smelled of fresh wood shavings. "We'd have gained technical experience we would have gained by dissembling the machinery. We could hire trained staff from FH. Their crews have worked on this Garden before. Twelve months, tops." She reached for a couple of books from a nearby shelf and began flipping through the pages.
Chy considered. His eyebrows met like mating caterpillars along the ridge of his nose. "With the new computer technology…"
Seifer realised that he was in the presence of obsession. Strangely enough, he began to feel quite at home.
He left the workshop a couple of hours later, knowing a lot more about the internal workings of Garden than he had ever wanted. The new information led him to wonder exactly how he'd have planned the Galbadian assault, if only he'd have known. They might have won.
Scary thought, that.
It was nearly lunchtime, so Seifer went straight to the canteen. He looked around for Fuujin or Quistis or Raijin as he entered, but bumped into Irvine and Selphie instead. They were waiting at the end the lunch queue, punching each other and chatting. Those two just couldn't snog quietly like normal human beings, they started fooling around, knocking things over.
Seifer grinned and went over to join the lunch line. Normally he would have automatically pushed to the front but by the look of the food on offer, he didn't exactly want to hurry.
Irvine noticed him first. Seifer could tell. The sniper gave him a polite nod and said "Hey there." but his body language turned slightly more protective. He wore a faded pair of fringed jeans and a T shirt with the slogan 'Legend' on it, and a single arrow. Pointing downwards. Seifer could tell that it had been a gift from Selphie. Nobody else other than the Trabian SeeD would buy an item like that, and nobody except the Galbadian would actually wear it.
Selphie happily leant across Irvine and gave Seifer a little wave. She seemed to have forgotten everything about Quistis, Seifer or both. Seifer put it down to GF use or some heavy medication. Sometimes Selphie's ability to forget and forgive amazed him.
She smiled. "Hi. Settling in okay?"
Seifer muttered something.
Selphie smiled brightly in Seifer's general direction. She turned back to Irvine and continued with her conversation. "Like I said, I think Matron enjoyed our company. I think we should go visit her more often."
Irvine seemed to think that her idea was a good one. "Yeah. Edea's not all…"
Edea…..
The cafeteria around Seifer faded out. The tables disappeared, as did the walls, replaced by singing, cheering people celebrating in the frenetic way of those who knew their houses would be destroyed and the taxes raised if they didn't look damn happy. People surrounded the float, the triumphal arch of Dollet in front of them. Another relic from the pre-Lunar Cry period, the Centra era.
Seifer was vaguely watching one of the dancers and wondering how the hell her costume stayed on when he felt the dry taste of magic in the air and his attention snapped back to the sorceress.
He looked up just in time to hear a sharp retort and recognised it instantly as a rifle shot. His sorceress raised her hand just in time to cast a Protect shield, which indented, but held. There was a tiny tinkling noise as the spent bullet dropped down, hit the floor and rolled from the float onto the road. It echoed in the sudden silence.
A few seconds after Seifer, the crowd began to work out what had happened and the screaming started. The civilians were frightened, terrified that they would be either blamed or shot.
Seifer raised his sword and moved to Edea's side, ready to protect her. He scanned the melee as people ran for cover. The few members of the crowd who stood their ground looked away, afraid to meet his eyes. He realised that they were the wrong side of the gates now, trapped, but Edea was calm. She looked up at the clock, and among the bright horses and trumpets of the flashy carousel on top of the building Seifer caught the flash of a tan leather coat.
So it was him. I always thought it was….
The cafeteria materialised around him again. Seifer blinked and realised his knuckles were blanched white, gripping the stainless steel edge of the counter so hard he half-expected to see imprints of his fingers in it when he took his hands away.
Irvine was still completing his sentence. He didn't appear to have noticed anything unusual. "-not okay. Edea-"
Seifer grabbed his shoulder, spinning him. "Says the assassin."
Irvine frowned. "What?"
"You tried to kill her. Don't think I've forgotten that." Seifer snarled, shaking. He could almost feel Edea, miserable, alone, and frightened. There was somebody that she was scared of, and he knew that it wasn't Irvine, but he couldn't stop himself.
Oh shit, I think I'm going crazy….
Irvine frowned. "What?" He looked confused, as if he thought he hadn't heard Seifer correctly.
"You tried to kill her."
"Kill who?"
"The sorceress."
"You tried to kill me." Irvine pointed out. "Don't think I've forgotten that, either"
Seifer scowled at the Galbadian. "Weren't you supposed to be on my side anyway?
Irvine jabbed one finger at Selphie. "Weren't you supposed to be on her side anyway?" Whatever impulse had made Seifer remember the wars was fading. "I'm on my side. That's all anyone is. And if they say different, they're lying."
"You're on Quistis's side, too." Irvine said, reasonably.
Seifer's mood shifted down a gear, temporarily disarmed. "Well, yeah, but.." The Galbadian sniper was still using that fucking reasonable tone of voice, which pissed Seifer off.
"All I was saying, was, we went to visit Edea last week. There was some craft hanging around. We scared it off. You got a problem with that?"
"You look like you need to get some sleep." Selphie said brightly. Her tone was cheerful, almost teasing, as if she'd forgotten the accusations and the spilled food.
"Maybe you're right." Seifer muttered.
"Quistis keeping you up at night?"
Irvine and Seifer both ignored her. "What were you saying?" Seifer asked. "Some fuckup with Edea?"
"We saw a strange boat around. Estharian, it looked like."
Seifer frowned. "Estharian?"
"Know anything?"
Shit, no, I haven't even been into Esthar. Can't even leave this place now. What've they got to do with Centra?"
Irvine looked thoughtful. "Maybe nothing. Maybe..I don't know." He picked out some food and turned to sit down. "Don't worry about it."
"Want to eat with us?" Selphie asked him.
"Uh.." Seifer tried desperately to think of an excuse, looking frantically around the room. He noticed Raijin and Fuujin taking seats over the other side of the canteen. "Thanks for the offer, but nah."
"Okay, then." Selphie said kindly. She gave him a strange look, but by then Seifer was well on his way to joining his posse, and didn't notice in the slightest.
Selphie knew that everything had been forgiven since the wars, but sometimes she worried about Seifer, in spite of the whole sleeping-with-Quistis thing. Just for a minute there, in the food line, he'd looked weird, kind of dreamy, like in the wars. And then he'd said that strange thing to Irvine before making his excuses as soon as Fuujin and Raiijin entered the room.
She watched as he slid into a seat opposite Raijin and Fuu, saying something which made them both smile.
"What was that about?" Irvine asked her as they sat down.
"Hyne knows." Selphie said. "I hope Quistis is in a more stable mental state, or it's never going to last."
"You think it will?"
"I think it might."
"Worst kept secret in Garden." Irvine said reflectively. "What was it, three days?"
"About that." said Selphie. "But if you really think about it, I worked it out ages ago. I knew she was dating him in Trabia."
"You didn't."
"Almost. It could be a blessing in disguise, though. Quistis needs to get laid…and face it, he's easy on the eyes…"
Irvine looked thoughtful. "But they always used to hit each other."
"Exactly. It's like foreplay. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."
"But Squall and Seifer used to duel….Oh, Hyne. Please tell me that wasn't foreplay."
"See, that's where the metaphor breaks down…." Selphie said. "We need a new one, I know! It's like one of those movies."
"What movies?" Irvine asked sceptically
"The kind where aliens and humans forge bonds of friendship across the species barrier."
"It is kind of inexplicable, isn't it?"
"The truth..it's out there…" Selphie said. She turned back to her meal, humming a merry tune in between mouthfuls. Buy the end of lunch it had turned into whispered words, and then into a little song.
"He was a boy, she was a girl-
Can I make it any more obvious?
He was a jerk, we thought she was gay
What more can I say?"
She tapped out a rhythm with her knife and fork on the table, pleased with her improvisation. Irvine tried to hide a smile under his coat collar. Seifer heard a snatch of song from across the room, and scowled.
"He wanted her, she'd never tell,
Secretly she wanted him as well
And all of her friends, they blow a fuse
They had a problem with his attitude." Selphie sang, improvising rhymes as she went along. She popped the last bite of food into her mouth between verses.
"He's a dictator boy, she said see you later boy
He wasn't good enough for her
He's just a waste of space, she's got a pretty face…"
Across the room, Seifer punched the table top. "I'm going to kill her."
Fuujin tried hard to hide her smile. "WON'T."
"Maybe I'll just rip her tongue out.."
"NOT ALLOWED."
It's not like anyone won't notice." Raijin said quietly, He'd been wisely silent throughout their whole discussion.
"ACCURATE. TUNEFUL. AMUSING."
"Perjurous." Seifer snapped.
"Boss, harsh, yeah, but I can see the point, I mean, I did think she was gay when I first met her."
Fuujin kicked him under the table. "RAIJIN, SHUSH."
Seifer gave him a filthy look, and Raijin shut up, bashfully. They watched as Selphie finished the song and cleared her plates from the table.
"FOOD, AWFUL. AGAIN."
"Yeah."
Quistis gave the food counter a disgusted stare as she entered the cafeteria. Maybe she'd just have a salad.
She brushed past Irvine and Selphie on the way out. The cowboy raised his hat and said "Hey, QT!" in a voice which sounded so laid back Quistis worried about his vital signs.
Selphie touched her arm "So you're sleeping with Seifer Almasy." she said in a light conversational tone.
Quistis sighed. "You know, do you?"
"All of Garden knows."
"Great."
"So, it's definitely true…"
Quistis lost her patience, and didn't bother to look for it. "Well, I've done many things with Seifer, and sleeping is probably one of the least interesting of them, yes."
"You might want to be careful there."
Since meeting Xu, Quistis had had several encounters with the more obsessive Trepies. The threshold of her patience had been considerably lowered. "Look, I have had this lecture so many times. I don't want to hear how this cannot possibly work. I don't want to hear about what he did during the wars because I already know. And I certainly don't want to hear any jokes about lapdogs because frankly, they're just NOT FUNNY."
"Ouch." Selphie said. She looked sympathetically at Quistis. "You must have had it bad."
Irvine seemed to have something on his mind. "He's not a lapdog." he said. "More like a wolf. And wolves that don't run with the pack go a little crazy, out there on the plains. I don't want you to get bitten."
"Thanks for that piece of advice." Quistis said sarcastically.
Irvine tipped his hat. "No cost."
She walked past them both and into the canteen when she joined Seifer, pretending to ignore any accusing silences from the more obsessed Trepies. The posse made her welcome, carefully skirting round the topic of their relationship, and after she'd eaten, Quistis went back to her office to finish up some work.
That was pretty much the pattern for the next few days. Quistis worked long hours and when she wasn't working she shared her bed with Seifer. He was working in the garages, putting in some long hours, too. She'd wake up to find him lying next to her, hands knotted behind his head, working on some small pointless task or sitting on the edge of her bed, shoulders slumped and hands balanced on his knees, a perfectly straight line of smoke rising from the cigarette held in his left hand. They didn't talk much. They didn't have time.
Neither of them had intended to make the subject taboo. It just happened.
The Gilbert and Sullivan title song is for Squall and for Quistis. Either, or both. And as for Selphie's song, that's to be sung to the tune of 'Sk8ter Boy' by Avril Lavigne. This formatting is really pissing me off. I'd just like it to show the way I wrote it, on Word. With cute ltitle stars for point-of-view changes instead of crappy lines and single spacing. Anybody who can help with the above, please let me know.
Long time no update, but I've just taken my written finals. Anyway, this chapter turned out a bit Dawson's Creek-y. It was originally much less conversation-focused, but I had to swap quite a lot into the next chapter as it was getting too damn long. Next chapter: Seifer vs. Zell: the rematch, Laguna, the Estharvision Song Contest, and an inventive method of vermin control.
Reviews:
Altol: liked the new ch of F&I. Lots.
Anonymous. Ta, Mystery Man, (or woman)
Ardwynna Morrigu: Zell and Seifer together are just two very tall adolescents.
Breaker-one: Thanks loads for all your reviews. They make me smile.
Cyberwing: No. She didn't.
Ghandi-Owns-You; yeah, I missed a gag there, but I though rule 69 was cheesy enough to make up for it.
Ghost140: I hail from Notttingham, UK, home of Robin Hood and his merry men. To pre-empt stalkers, no, I don't live there at the moment.
Jack Hanek: Yeah, I hated Zell in the game. I never could get his limit break to work properly. He works in the story though.
Kit Spooner. I likes my plots. I'd like to be an original author one day, and fanfiction allows me to get clichés out of my system in a readymade world.
Mana Angel: that sense of 'finally washing out and hanging to dry the dirty underwear you've been hiding under your bed' is exactly what I was aiming for.
Melete: Alan Moore comics aren't that great, I just like Vendetta. But I can't wait for Sin City to hit the UK.
Nezsa: updates will continue: can't guarantee when though. I wouldn't say I have a life, but I'm having to work hard at the moment.
Nynaeve: I just couldn't imagine Quistis taking the news any other way other than 'OMG, I have betrayed Balamb in some subtle way, I must resign.'
Seatbelts: Squall is surprised, he just hides it well.
Seventhe: Laguna is appearing later. With Zell, he's another one who's grown on me (get it off!)Your new ff7 stuff's really enjoyable.
Sheep the Adventurer: Zell's hair is really a separate small organism which just happens to live on him.
Sickness in Salvation: Yeah, the cliffhanger wasn't as cliffhanger-y as was implied.
Superviolinist; I hope to God your exams were less stressful than mine. There were people sleeping under the tables in the library.
signing off
kate