Chapter 10: There Are No More Messages
"Laguna, this is delicious," Rinoa said, her mouth still slightly sticky-full of potatoes and gravy. "I had no idea you could cook like this."
Squall pushed peas into a straight line on one side of his plate.
Laguna beamed. "I don't cook much," he said, blushing a little bit, "but Raine taught me the basics. Pub food, you know, meatloaf, and I make a mean stew, too."
Squall concentrated on bisecting his line of peas with the remains of his mashed potatoes.
Rinoa glanced at him. It was the kind of glance Squall could feel on the side of his head. He ignored her, choosing instead to create a second line of peas perfectly perpendicular to the first.
"So cooking runs in the family," Rinoa said, loudly and a little meanly. "That's good to know."
"...Whatever."
Laguna chuckled as he raised his glass. "It's alright. I'm sure there wasn't much call for cooking at Garden."
Squall glared so hard at the peas on his plate that Rinoa would honestly not have been surprised if they burst into flames. Or crumbled directly into ash. She restrained herself from the urge to kick him in the shin, thinking that perhaps it'd be better if she waited until he put down the fork.
"So," Laguna said, ever-cheerful, "I set up some rooms for you guys on the third floor. Rinoa, if you hate any of it, yell at Kiros, and he'll fix it."
She smiled at him in a strained sort of way. "Thanks, Laguna. I'm sure it's all fine. We appreciate it."
Squall's fork clattered against his plate, and his chair made a violent scraping against the floor as he stood. "I'm going to bed," he announced, and left before either his father or his girlfriend could say anything.
xx
Selphie sat down at her computer and stared at the screen for a little bit.
SelphieTilmitt, welcome to trabiagarden at GNet, her Inbox blinked at her. 3 unread messages.
She opened it up. One was the daily Trabia Garden Missive, a newsletter she'd founded back when she was... young. One was a notice about her combat bonus from the last mission. The last one was probably garbage. She didn't click on any of them.
Instead, she opened a new note. Hi, Irvy, she typed, carefully. I miss you. I miss everybody.
She stared at the screen for a little while, and then deleted the entire thing. Hi Irvy! How's my favorite good-looking cowboy?!
xx
Squall's definition of "going to bed" was certainly out of the ordinary, because five minutes later had him stalking down the mostly empty street just outside of the palace. He hunched his shoulders, shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, and scowled.
"Squall?" Ellone's voice stopped him, and he slowed his pace only a minute amount as her car rolled up next to him. "What are you doing?"
He shrugged.
"Are you alright?"
He shrugged, harder, and kept walking.
"Squall." Ellone's voice was soft, kind, and utterly un-ignorable. Squall stopped.
"Get in the car," Ellone said. She gestured towards the door. "I promise I won't take you back to Laguna just yet."
Squall did.
There was a long moment of silence. "I imagine you don't want to talk about how you feel," Ellone said conversationally, driving rather haphazardly around a corner and through an intersection, "so I won't ask you that. But I really don't know much about what actually happened. Can you fill me in?"
xx
The Timber University Libraries were some of the most impressive libraries in the world, and their librarians all had degrees in a multitude of subjects, with dozens of official-looking letters trailing after each name like a bizarre alphabetical parade. Quistis frowned slightly at the display. How was she supposed to know which ones were legal experts?
Some small part of her brain thought wistfully of finding Seifer and running him through with the handle of her whip. Hyne, she missed the Training Center already.
"May I help you?"
Quistis turned around. She'd dressed down today, hoping to look less like a military outcast and more like a humble student. "I need help with - a research paper," she said slowly. "I'm looking for someone to help me find references in international law."
"Right." The tiny old woman turned to the list. "Dr. Kao should be able to help you. Third office, on the left."
Quistis nodded, thanking the woman and heading down the path that she had been shown. She hadn't even managed to turn down the hall when someone stopped in front of her.
"TREPE."
She blinked, and then looked around the large stack of books now hovering in front of her. "Fujin? Why are you here?"
Fujin nudged Quistis' ankle with her boot. "PAYS THE RENT. MOVE."
Quistis shut her eyes, briefly, and tried to count to ten. She'd forgotten that Seifer and his cronies had come to Timber. How had she forgotten that all-important fact? Why did Timber have to have the most extensive library of law in the world?
The fates were laughing at her, she was sure of it.
At least Fujin had a job.
"I'm looking for Dr. Kao," Quistis said before she could stop herself.
Fujin's eyebrow rose over the stack of books in her arms. "WHY?"
"I-" She shrugged. "I need to look up some hearings on international law." The pause was ugly. "I'm looking for a loophole. Something I can take to court, something that might apply to Garden Code."
Fujin's gaze was hard and stern, but she set the stack of books down on a nearby table. "HERE."
"I don't want to interrupt," Quistis said hastily. She was certainly in no hurry to take Fujin's help, no hurry to resurrect her acquaintance with anything having to do with Seifer Almasy.
"MY JOB," Fujin said with a shrug, gesturing for Quistis to follow.
Dr. Kao's office was crammed into the corner of the building, and the first impression that Quistis got of it was that Fujin had actually led her to a broom closet. She turned to confront the smaller woman, but Fujin had disappeared just as quickly as she had shown up, and so Quistis stood in the doorway and looked at something that could almost be interpreted as a desk, if one removed the seventeen-inch high stacks of paper on top of it.
"May I help you?"
For the second time that day, Quistis turned around and very nearly bowled someone over. She grimaced at the feeling of hot coffee splashing against her arm, and wiped it off with her other hand. "Dr. Kao, I presume?"
The man whom she had bumped into smiled at her half-heartedly, righting his cup of coffee and making an effort to brush some of the liquid off of the stacks of papers he held. "That'd be me. Did I get any on you?"
Quistis shrugged. "I'm fine."
Dr. Kao inched past her and dumped the papers onto one of the stacks on his desk. "Margaret said some young woman was looking for me. I'm going to assume that she meant you, Miss--?"
"Trepe. Quistis Trepe."
He raised an eyebrow, and Quistis sighed.
"Instructor Trepe, then," he said. Quistis stopped herself from rolling her eyes, and instead smiled politely with a nod, indicating that he was, in fact, correct with the title, even if she didn't have a Garden to teach at anymore. "It's a shame about Balamb."
"Yes."
"How can I help you, then?" Dr. Kao picked up his coffee, sipping it as he looked at her over the rim of the cup with dark eyes. "It's not every day I get a SeeD in my office."
Quistis resisted the urge to sigh, loudly and dramatically. "I'm looking for some legal references," she said. "International law, dealing with contracts to institutions like Gardens." She skipped the ugly pause this time, deciding to attempt a smile instead. "They said you might be able to help me ...?"
"Ah, yes," Dr. Kao said, looking absurdly interested. "Is there - is there something wrong?"
"No," Quistis lied. "Nothing wrong. I'm just doing research for - for Galbadia Garden. That's all."
xx
Irvine sat in Galbadia Garden's public computer lab, glaring at the screen as it refused to accept his login for the sixth time.
"Oh, I see," Baron said, peering over his shoulder. Baron was G-Garden's resident networking nerd, and he'd risen to SeeD candidacy almost on his computer skills alone; even soldiers needed good techies from time to time. "It still thinks you're enlisted at Balamb."
"I know that," Irvine gritted out. He resisted punching the screen. "How do we tell it that..." That Balamb Garden was dead. "That I'm here now."
"Usually we'd call over and have their database make a swap," Baron replied, tapping his chin in thought. "But obviously that won't work."
Irvine said nothing for a very, very long time.
"I'll have to log into the mainframe and see if I can get around it," Baron said finally, rising to leave. "Until then, I'm sorry, but you're locked out. I can make you a temporary login if you'd like."
"That'd be great," Irvine said with a smile he didn't feel.
xx
Even the bars in Esthar didn't feel like bars. Squall stared into his drink--it was the first time anyone had ever asked for his identification, and he'd nearly been denied because the idiot behind the bar couldn't figure out simple math. He'd forgotten for a minute that it wasn't Wendigo's, where people knew him, as awkward as that was. At least he could get a damn drink without wanting to punch someone in the face.
The beer here wasn't any good, either. He shoved the mug away from him; it glided further than he had anticipated, thanks to the absolutely smooth tabletop, and so he caught it just before the drink upended itself all over Ellone's coat.
He scowled at the mug, and was fairly certain he'd kill without qualms for the Training Center right now.
Ellone came back from the restroom and sat down across from him, spinning her straw in her brightly colored drink. "Don't like it?" she asked, nodding toward his beer. Squall shrugged, lifting the mug and drinking anyway. He resisted the urge to make a face. "Esthar's not exactly known for their alcohol," his sister continued, chuckling a little. She smiled at him, and Squall set the mug down.
"I keep waiting for Quistis or Xu to call," he said abruptly. "Because they need me back at Garden."
Ellone nodded.
"Or," Squall continued, idly turning the beer mug on its bottom rim in front of him, "for Zell to show up with a black eye, meaning I have to go figure out which one of Garden's many orifices he's stuck Seifer into this time." He took a sip. "Something. Anything."
Ellone smiled, a little. "It's perfectly natural, Squall. Everybody-"
"Everybody what?" Squall's voice rose at a sharp little angle. "Everybody loses their home? Everybody gets their shit taken away from them? Everybody loses everything in their life that matters?" For extra emphasis, he drained half his glass in a single gulp. The remaining stain-colored liquid looked up at him, tauntingly.
"I understand. It's always hard when-"
"You understand." Squall choked a little on something: half-laughter, half-beer. Rinoa didn't get it: she'd left her home. As had Laguna. They got to choose, and had chosen to - to abandon. "That's the problem, Elle. Nobody understands it."
"Squall," Ellone said, with that warning tone to her voice he recognized even through the murky haze of his memories. "Do you really think I don't know what that's like?"
Her voice was laced with it - years alone on a white ship, running from everything that mattered, wanting her mother and uncle and home so very badly - and all too late Squall recalled that Ellone's particular power was to remember.
He sulked into his beer, instead. He still thought he deserved a little sulking time.
"Besides," his sister continued, forcing a little too much care into her voice for Squall's liking, "you still have us. Laguna and I. Rinoa." She smiled a little more, encouragingly.
He finished off the end of the beer, and scowled. "Rinoa doesn't have any idea what it's like," he pointed out, aloud this time. Rinoa never understood SeeD in the first place, he chose not to say.
Ellone reached across the table and put her hand on top of his gently. "Maybe not, but at least she came with you to Esthar. She loves you enough to do that. She didn't just turn around and go back to Timber."
Maybe she should have. He didn't say that, either; but they both heard it.
Squall jerked his hand out from under her grasp. "I need another beer," he said, and slid out of the booth.
Ellone sighed, and looked out the window to Esthar's busy streets, stirring her neon-colored cocktail distractedly.
xx
The horizon just looked damn wrong.
Zell slowed the motorboat a little, eyeing Balamb Island from far away. It felt sort of like a punch in the gut - a bad punch, from somebody like Squall, who could put a lot of force behind it. It wasn't exactly unexpected: he'd known it was coming. But still, the flat line of land only punctuated by Balamb Town's squat buildings, with no bulbous structure and glowing rings behind it...
A punch in the gut from Life. Life, while Junctioning Eden.
Zell was almost glad to come on it like this: alone, in a boat, with nobody to see him. Because he felt a little like crying.