A/N: Hello, I'm alive! Next chapter will be up shortly as well. Will be responding to all reviews directly, so feel free to ask questions :) Will try to post more regularly than, oh you know.. every few years.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is currently affecting my writing style! I'm looking forward to the next chapters :3, things finally start getting interesting. And they're already in queue and being edited. :D
Please R&R!
A Complete 180
Morning rolled in and the smoke-like sleep reluctantly eased its heavy grip on Lina, just as unexpectedly as it had come. She fluttered the fog from her eyelids and wiggled her toes under the sheets, still tingling and numb.
Last night, she thought as she stretched herself out like a cat, what happened? Zell had brought back a full plate stacked with hotdogs and roared in laughter when her jaw hit the floor. She recalled that hearty laugh of his. The two sat cross-legged on the floor, as if a ready-stance, eating—Zell, stuffing one serving after another into his black-hole of mouth and Lina, trying but failing miserably to match his pace.
Lina glanced up. Zell was still asleep, on the couch, plopped on his belly, his face burrowed deep in his pillow, his arms locked tightly around another. His lips were curved in a catlike smirk, chest rising and falling in slumber. Lina felt a grin creep onto her face.
How was it these last few weeks working with him, Lina's feeling towards Zell had made a complete 180? What had changed? When he was around, she was inexplicably content.
Oh crap, she suddenly thought. I was supposed to be a Selphie's last night..
Lina snatched up the nearest sheet of paper and a pen and scribbled: "Zell, I'm sprinting to Selphie's. Won't talk to strangers, promise! –Lina" She slipped the note next to his cheek and swiftly slipped out the door.
No Seifer in sight. She dashed down the hallway and into the girls' dormitory. Luckily, Selphie was home, and in the mood for any and all visitors not by the name of Irvine Kinneas.
"He flirts with other girls ALL the time! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?" was the first thing Selphie said as she opened the door. Lina didn't even have a chance to respond. Sporting a black T-shirt and dark tinted jeans, Selphie was too distracted to notice that Lina wasn't being delivered by another SeeD. "I saw him yesterday with some brunette junior in the cafeteria!"
Selphie had a propensity to blow things out of proportion. "What'd he say about it?"
"That she's a sharpshooter asking about his guns! Disgusting!" Selphie tossed her hands into the air in frustration. "I HATE boys! I hate them! I hate them!" Lina nodded and pumped a fist with Selphie's chant in support. "And get THIS. Later, I saw him getting cozy with some blonde girl at the front gate!" Lina squinted her eyes in thought, she was pretty sure she'd seen Irvine with the same girl yesterday; he'd introduced her as a fellow Galbadian Garden student visiting for the day. Unfortunately, Lina knew there was no point in investing time in Irvine's defense at this point—she'd just have a word with him later.
Lina yawned and stretched her toes out across the floor. For some reason she couldn't focus on the conversation. Her thoughts went back to the night before, the sound of Zell's goofy laugh, the smell on his sheets—
"Whaaat are you smiling at?" Selphie demanded. The smile immediately receded, a defense mechanism.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said quickly. "I was just thinking about my project.."
"Oh, I'm sure. That's the crush smile. You have a crush."
"That's ludicrous, what the hell is a 'crush' smile—"
"It's Zell isn't it!" Selphie grinned wide. Lina flushed red before she could control it or question why. "I knew something was up when he called me last night! What'd you guys do during your sleepover." She winked.
"I fell asleep during our sleepover, studying. Shocking, I know," Lina retorted.
Selphie opened her mouth to tease again, but a knock interrupted her. She sprung towards the door with a spritely leap. Saved, Lina thought to herself and sighed quietly in relief. Selphie swung the door open. She suddenly become cold and quiet again as she saw Irvine framed against the morning light in the doorway, nervously glancing from Selphie to Lina and back to Selphie.
"Hey Selphie," he said in his usual rich tenor, though slightly more sheepish than normal. Selphie crossed her arms and said not a word. "I'm supposed to pick up Lina for a while." Like a piece of luggage, Lina mused to herself. She propped herself up and gave Selphie a tight hug before following Irvine into the hallway. The door slammed promptly shut behind them.
"You okay, cowboy?" Lina gave him a light pat on the back and tried on a smile to cheer him up.
"What did I do..?" Irvine asked aloud and tossed a hand up in frustration.
"What haven't you done yet?" Lina suggested. Irvine turned a sharp look towards Lina, then watched the ground and mulled over her words in his head.
Zell was exhausted. Sure, he slept fine, but geez, editing papers until midnight really took it out of him. He felt like he could go for a couple runs in the Training Center to wake up a bit. But first things first: food. He stretched his arms out and took a deep breath as he headed for the cafeteria, wondering if it'd be ridiculous to have hotdogs for breakfast—
BUMP.
He was rattled in a collision with another body. Books scattered across the floor.
"I'm so sorry!"
He recognized that voice.
"Oh hey Sadie, how you doing?" he said as she plucked up her books from the ground in a scurrying motion before Zell could oblige to help. She snapped back upright to gaze at him with her bright brown eyes.
"Z-Zell! I'm o-okay," she smiled at him, her lip twitching a bit with anticipation, or nerves, or some mixture of the two. She was dolled up, the lines of her eyes more defined, her lips covered in a nice deep red. Her hair looked different too, though Zell couldn't put his finger on it, curlier, softer than usual, he guessed. It was nice. "I was wondering what you've been up to, and why you haven't been coming by the library more often, even though I see you have one of our books," she motioned towards the book in his hand.
"Oh, this isn't mine," Zell said. Lina'd left it last night—rather, fallen asleep with her cheek pressed against its worn pages, her mouth slightly ajar in a funny shape. His smiled widened at the thought, but when he glanced up, his face dropped; Sadie looked horrified—the flirty smile gone from her face, replaced with a solemn expression.
Zell shifted in his spot, racking his brain for conversation points to ease the awkwardness of the moment. Nothing.
Still as statues, they stood until the distant sound of laughter ringing in the hallway broke up the tension. He recognized Lina's laugh, cheerful as always, filling the walkway with the marvelous warmth of her voice. A second later, he saw her and Irvine strolling leisurely in their direction.
"Truth is the truth, Lina, you laugh, but I've got my sights set on just one lovely lady, the rest just follow me round," Zell heard Irvine say as they approached.
"It's the cowboy charm you got goin' on," Lina joked back in a bit of a twang in her tone. She pretended to knick the front of her imaginary cowboy hat with an index finger. Irvine heaved a throaty laugh.
"Lina!" Zell called as they approached. She glanced up at the sound of her name, a wide smile washing over her face—that is, until she saw Sadie's gravely pale complexion next to Zell. "You forgot your pillow yesterday." He tossed her the book.
She caught it with a free hand, her lips curled back into a smirk. "Ha-ha very funny," she said. "Did you get my note?" She tried not to notice Sadie's darty eyes jumping urgently between the two of them.
"Yep, defying Commander's order, tsk tsk. Definitely a good SeeD candidate," he joked. Lina's jaw dropped in feigned disdain.
"Well," she said with a huff. "I only asked because I was afraid you'd drooled all over it before you got the chance to read it!"
"Hah! Touche!" he chortled. Lina pressed her lips tightly together to contain her smile though Zell could see it written all over those bright eyes of hers.
Irvine was silent, stoic as possible. Sadie had made no movement or noise, petrified, rooted in confusion over the subtext of their conversation. The awkwardness was heavy in the air, like everyone's breath was held, waiting for the next noise to carry them on. Lina glanced nervously at Sadie—whose piercing gaze was glued to Zell—quickly back at Zell, then to Irvine, then mumbled, "Well, we'd probably better get going."
"Oh, where you headed?" Zell asked, as if he couldn't feel the heaviness hanging in the air, or had chosen to ignore it.
"Meeting down at the Quad, 'member? I'm meeting Selphie early to… talk," Irvine said. Then he gave Lina a little pat on the top of her head, "And it's my turn to babysit this one."
"By babysit, he means I'm going to play mediator," Lina grinned, and stealthily hooked a hand behind Irvine elbow and began to pull him gently away from the scene. Zell said he'd meet up with them later as they headed out. Sadie still stood as a statue in the example place and position when the conversation had left her.
"Uh...so...what's up?" He said.
In the Quad, Irvine and Lina found themselves a cozy little bench across from the entrance, and sat, waiting for Selphie's arrival. Lina thought about the encounter earlier, the awkwardness of the four of them standing there. She pulled her legs up onto the bench with her, sitting cross-legged and perched her arms across her knees in thought.
"So… what happened back there?" Lina asked. Irvine, whose face was bent with concentration, loosened up a bit and chuckled softly, but he didn't get a chance to reply. Selphie came trotting into the Quad and Irvine bolted from his seat to meet her. Lina looked her from her seat and watched from afar, Irvine throwing his arms animatedly in the air, Selphie exaggerating attempts to ignore him.
So absorbed as was she into their miniature performance that she didn't notice Zell slip in through the back entrance and insert himself by her side.
"Hey," she flinched at the noise. Zell chortled at her reflex and she couldn't help but grin.
"Everything alright with Sadie?" she asked.
"Don't worry about it," Zell shrugged. "Nice job mediating."
"I know, I'm quite the charmer, aren't I?" Lina responded, but opened her mouth to follow up on her question. She turned her gaze to him and her breath was cut short. His eyes, a deep shade of blue carried a perplexing expression that enthralled her.
No words came.
A squeal interrupted her thoughts, and she turned just in time to see Selphie jump into Irvine's arms in glee. She grinned at the sight as the others began to file into the quad. Lina glanced back up at Zell, but the strange expression on his face was gone. She let the thought of it disappear as well. No use pursuing.
Squall marched to the front of the group with his usual blank expression on his face. He let out a sigh before he proceeded to speak.
"I called you all here today because we're approaching a decision on the next step," he said, struggling with mild exasperation in his tone. "I've discussed it with the headmaster, the Esthar president, and a close group of council.." at this mention, Quistis gave a curt nod, straightening her posture in her spot, "..we're headed for time compression."
"What's that?" Selphie asked. Squall furrowed his brow in apparent irritation—how to explain this?
"I'll act as a vessel," Rinoa said, taking a timid step next to Squall. She pivoted on her heel her face the team, the hem of her pink patterned sundress whirling with the momentum. "for Ultimecia to possess. Ellone will send her consciousness to the past. As a distraction."
A heavy silence crowded over the lot of them. Squall turned and faced Lina.
"Have you seen Seifer at all?" he asked.
She shook her head.
Squall nodded, "He's with Ultimecia. We don't know what his motives are, so we'll continue to have your activities supervised by SeeDs." Lina nodded. "Unless…" Squall mumbled to himself. "Unless we tried to draw him out."
"Bait?" Zell said, the anger of his voice booming into the conversation.
Squall sighed heavily. Overreacting as always, he thought to himself. "We're unsure if his actions are part of some espionage plan orchestrated by the Sorceress. Trapping him would mean interrogation and getting ahead of his plan."
Zell grumbled. Quick as his temper was, he'd always staunchly stood behind Squall's decisions. "It's dangerous for Lina," he muttered, his ears red with anger. Selphie and Irvine, now huddled together in the corner squealed with delight. Zell looked sharply in their direction.
"I'm not saying it'll be successful," Squall said curtly, then glanced at Lina. He recalled Edea's words the days she'd stumbled into the group. What was so important about this girl?
Zell opened his mouth to retort, but Lina quickly said, "Squall. I'll think about it." Zell let his jaw relax, still scowling.
Squall nodded, his expression blank as ever. "Dismissed," he said, turning slightly on his heel towards Rinoa. The lot of them idled about for just a minute, then went their separate ways. Zell followed Lina back in the direction of the dormitory.
"Are you really considering it?" He asked.
"I don't know," Lina sighed. "I'm just trying to help. Rinoa's doing so much."
"You're not Rinoa," Zell said. Before she could respond with something stupid, he skipped a step ahead of her and stopped her progression down the corridor. "Just be safe, okay?" His motion startled her. A serious air lingered in wake of his words, his body facing her, arms open, imploring almost.
Lina dipped her head in an awkward nod, as if caught off guard with his frankness. She brushed past him down the hall and he quickly followed suit, shortly arriving in front of his room. He fumbled with the key for a moment before they both filed in.
Lina unpacked a large stack of architecture books she'd set aside earlier and pulled out a large piece of plyboard onto his desk. She'd had the opportunity to go back to her room, shower and change into a white tank top, plain black cardigan and jeans, over which she wore a familiar pair of suede oil gray boots Zell had noticed the other day. She tied her hair into a quick, messy pontytail as she grabbed some sray cardboard and gluesticks and set them onto the desk.
The next step of the project, aside from the paper, was to build a to-scale model of Garden. What this had to do with being capable of being a SeeD, Zell and Lina both had no idea.
"This'll be a piece of cake," Zell said, lacing his gloved fingers and pulling them forward into a nonchalant stretch that made Lina grin. "I can finish this in one night."
"Lies, she replied, throwing him an incredulous look.
"Nope! I'm good with my hands," he said, baring his teeth in a wide grin. "You just take care of the math-y stuff." Immediately, a mental image of fractions and proportionality calculations flashed in her head, but the thought disappeared as she shook her head.
"If you finish this in one night, I will buy you hotdogs for a week," Lina said. Zell's ears perked up at the mention of the wager—and hotdogs.
"And if I don't?" he challenged.
"You," Lina shrugged. "Owe me dinner.
"Deal." They shook on it.
Lina wasted no time diving into the books and looking up dimension of Garden and calculating the scale measurements to be used in the model. Meanwhile, Zell cut the pieces of cardboard into small chunks. She stole a couple of furtive glances in his direction from the corner of her eyes as he worked. She watched his fingers work deftly at carving out the board, exerting power and control over the pieces. He wasn't bluffing, she thought, I'm definitely going to lose this bet. She found herself blushing at the thought; there was something inherently attractive about a man being good with his hands.
Hours passed as they diligently worked at the model. The sun fell beyond the horizon and the sky turned dark. Yet, they pushed on with their work with the natural lighting.
Unfortunately, halfway through the model, they ran out of adhesive. Night had past fallen, and buying another pack at a nearby store was out of the question. They took the opportunity, instead, to take a break.
Lina plopped herself down on the floor, Zell followed suit next to her, and the two stared blankly at the ceiling, exhausted.
"I'd rather do Fire Cavern," Lina sighed and Zell chortled.
"Yeah, well Fire Cavern is a cakewalk compared to this shit," Zell said. "But with Garden mobile, it probably won't happen."
"Too bad, I'd be done in five minutes," Lina joked.
"Five? No way," Zell propped himself up on his arm. "It took me six. You'd be at least nine."
Lina propped herself up as well to match his stance and furrowed her brow at him. "You doubting me, Zell Dincht?"
After a moment, Zell curled his lips up into a mischievous grin, "Maybe." He said this mostly to get a rise out of her. He liked when her eyes lit up as they did, fiery with challenge.
"You won't be after I kick your ass in a few runs at the training center," she said.
"Hah! Bold statement!" he exclaimed. "I'll take you up on that! Raincheck though. I'm exhausted and hungry. Want some hotdogs?"
"Is the cafeteria still open?" Lina asked. Zell glanced up at the clock on the wall and nodded. "Okay, well then… I'llraceyou!" She jumped up onto her feet and jet out the door.
"HEY!" Zell shot up from his seat too and chased after her.
Not long later, the two of them were back in Zell's room, sprawled on the floor once again, this time in a food coma. They were quiet, feeling comfortable with the silence; Lina's thoughts were swirling around in her head, and before she could stop herself, she found herself breaking that silence.
"I had a strange dream last night," she said before she realized she'd said it out loud. When she did realize, she momentary worry, that he'd be frightened away with the topic; on a meta level, she subconsciously knew he was someone she didn't want to scare away.
"What about?" he asked, and the warm tone in his voice calmed Lina down a bit from her fleeting fear.
"A memory, I think," Lina started slowly. "I stood in a forest with some kind of bracelet on each of my wrists. I tried to take them off, but they wouldn't budge. I remember feeling really happy—then suddenly so sad and alone," she rubbed her wrists with her hands, as if recalling the hefty weight of the bracelets.
She glanced at him meekly, sharing a dream felt dangerous intimate and she felt without defenses to his reaction. His gaze was calm and serious as he asked, "What do you think it means?"
"Wish I knew," she muttered in frustration. Zell tried to imagine—but couldn't fully empathize with being incapable of comprehending his own memories. It wouldn't been more than frustrating, he imagined, like watching a film in a foreign language and struggling to keep up. He thought for a long moment before attempting to respond.
"I used to have dreams about my real parents, good dreams and nightmares. I'd tell Ma about 'em and she'd just smile and say 'that's lovely' or calm me down," he said. A childlike smile crawled onto his face as he was thrown back into the memory. "I realized I hurt Ma when I told her about the memories—she felt less like my real Ma—which I never felt. I noticed and stopped talking about them to focus on the present and future instead."
Lina blinked, "Are you saying I should keep it to myself?"
"Nononono!" Zell said quickly and Lina snickered. "You're mean." He gave her a jokingly dirty look. She snickered again. "What I mean is that it's also important to focus on the future. The past is done, don't' let it bother you so much before. You have awesome things to look forward to for the future. You're smart, funny, and unrelentingly sarcastic. I like that," he said. "I'm glad to be with you during it."
Lina smiled; she suddenly realized that warm feeling that she only felt with Zell was the retreat of her aloneness. Even around friends, Selphie, Irvine, or the others, she still felt the glaring aloneness in her chest, like she was only half a person—lacking something-but with Zell, the feeling seemed to disappear.
"Thanks Zell," she smiled, blushing just slightly. Zell noticed, he grinned back. She struggled to change the subject instead. "You know what?" Lina gave him a playful mischievous look. "You owe me dinner."
Zell laughed, "Hah! Well if someone had picked up more glue in the first place, I think you would owe me hotdogs for a week. I'd say that's sabotage."
Lina's jaw dropped in an exaggerated manner. "Excuuuuse me?" she laughed and Zell delight at the ringing sound of it. He pushed himself up by his elbow and looked down at her, his smile warm.
"How about, I take you to dinner anyway," he said, lowering his tone. "In the city, not the cafeteria. A nice dinner, when all this is done." Lina sat up. She could almost feel his breath on her cheek. She shivered at its touch, feeling her own breath leave her chest in a huff. She felt the familiar pull of his closeness, like they were star orbiting one another, their gravity pulling each other close. Wouldn't it only be a matter of time before they collided..? His blue eyes were calm and serious.
She caught her breath again before responding.
"Sure," she said.
Fin. Next chapter is where good stuff happens :3 R&R please!