Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long to be put up, but I've been really busy recently. I will try to get the next chappie up as soon as I can!

Alix awoke the next morning in the dormitory Quistis had kindly allocated for him just a little way down the corridor from Lianne's. Quistis had insisted he stay - apparently, all Squall needed was some time to think, and then he would listen. Alix wanted to believe this, but he had no idea how the whole thing would turn out. His first instinct was to go and speak to Lianne, until he stepped out of his dorm door and looked across the corridor out of the window, and saw the early morning sun. He sighed. He didn't want to risk waking her up if she wasn't already awake. That wasn't the way to handle things. He closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled the smell of the early morning air. And just a split second after he did this, the sound of running feet coming towards him made him open his eyes sharply. But before he had time to react, the person had collided with him, and they had both fell to the ground.

Alix scrambled to his feet and immediately went on the defensive, as he had been brought up that way. He looked at the girl, still sitting on the floor, cursing. "Again... how many times in one day..." then she turned her bright green eyes up at him. "Hey, sorry, pal."

Alix let down his guard and ran his hand over his brown and blue spikes nervously, embarrassed to have been scared by her. He grinned, "That's okay."

He watched her pull herself to her feet, her red-brown hair fell into her eyes, and she pulled it away, giving him a broad smile in the process. He noticed her Garden uniform; she was obviously a student here. She studied him for a second, her head on one side.

Alix felt a little uncomfortable under her stare, and just smiled nervously, until she said. "Heeey... you're Alix, aren't you?"

Alix nodded. "Yeah. But... who are you?"

The girl smiled, again, her green eyes sparkling. "I'm Leali Kinneas. I'm Lianne's best friend. She told me about you."

Before Alix could say anything else, a short note of a woodwind instrument echoed down the corridor and filled the air. The notes continued their crescendo, rising like that early morning sun.

Leali stopped and listened thoughtfully, and watched Alix's reaction, the confusion was fairly obvious on his face. He was about to ask what the beautiful sound was, when Leali spoke. "The princess is awake."

"What?" Alix looked puzzled still.

"Lianne, silly! She's playing her clarinet." Leali laughed. "She plays this piece every morning."

Alix nodded as he understood. So now he knew she was awake he could go speak to her.

"You probably shouldn't interrupt her though." Leali said, as if reading his mind. "She can get kinda... emotional when she plays this piece."

"What is it?" asked Alix, out of interest. The sounds of the piece were still echoing around the corridor and into his eardrums. The notes filled his head, as confident and powerful as the strong colours now sparkling from the sun.

"I don't know what it's called." Leali said, listening too. "But I think it's supposed to represent Timber's independence. You know, the rising and falling thing."

"I see."

"Well, Al, I gotta split. I got training with my dad. He'll kill me if I'm late."

"Okay. See ya around, Leali."

"Yeah, catch ya later!"

Alix watched Leali leave, then turned to walk towards Lianne's dorm. He knew now not to disturb her; but to be honest, he didn't want to. Those notes were played with such passion and sounded so amazing, all he wanted to do was listen. He sat down outside Lianne's door, leaning against the wall, closing his eyes and letting the music wash him over like water. When the piece reached its dramatic climax, and the last strong notes faded away around him, he awoke himself from the kind of dream-state he was listening in, rose to his feet and knocked on Lianne's door.

It was a while before she answered. When she eventually did, she peeped through a small gap that she opened in the door. Her eyes seemed slightly red, as if she had been crying. "Oh! Hi, Alix." She said, obviously not expecting his visit. She turned her face away and cast her eyes to the floor, hoping he would not see her weakness at that moment.

Alix however, did notice this, but neglected to mention it. He knew it probably wasn't a great way to pursue the conversation he was hoping to strike up. "Good morning." He said a gentle smile on his face. "I heard your music. You're a good player."

"Oh... erm... thank you." Lianne blushed, still averting her gaze.

He smiled at her for a few more moments, then said, "Listen, I meant to ask you about your dad. Have you spoken to him recently?"

Lianne though back to the conversation she had had with her father the previous night. She saw no need to tell Alix about it. It didn't concern him anyway. She turned the conversation away from this subject - well, sort of.

"No. I'm guessing he didn't hear you out yesterday?"

Alix shook his head solemnly. "'Fraid not."

Lianne sighed heavily. "I didn't think he would... D'you know what? I think we should go speak to him one last time. And his time, we'll make him see sense, even if it's the last thing we do."

Alix could see the determination building up inside Lianne, and panicked, not wanting her to get out of hand. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Lianne..."

"Are you kidding? I thought you were all for this! After all, it's your message we're trying to get across here!" Lianne raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah, but I don't think Squall will be ready to listen."

"Oh, come on!" Lianne said, pushing her way out of the door, closing it behind her, then grabbing Alix around the wrist and dragging him up the corridor towards her father's dorm. "You'll never know until you try, right?"

As Alix watched her knock on Squall's door, he felt a wave of gratitude towards her. He hadn't expected her to help him get the message through to Squall, but he now realised that he would not be able to do it without her. He smiled to her, and she returned it, as Squall opened the door.

"Dad? Can we speak to you again?" Lianne said.

Squall's gaze drifted across Alix, an unsure look on his face. He let his stare fall to see Lianne still clutching Alix's wrist.

Lianne watched her father carefully for a few seconds, wondering what he was looking at. Then she realised, and dropped Alix's wrist as if it were white-hot. "So, is that a yes?" she said, hastily, trying to make him forget what he had jut seen.

Squall nodded, and stepped back to let them both in, giving Lianne a disapproving look as she stepped inside. Although his relationship with his daughter may have improved substantially since the previous night's conversation, Squall still felt as though he could not trust Alix. He felt as if the minute he turned his back Alix would be plotting death threats for him, or something. Squall knew he might just be being paranoid, but he knew at the same time he was going to have to drop his paranoia sometime soon, and learn to trust Alix. After his dream last night, Squall figured what Lianne and Alix wanted to talk to him about, and knew how he was going to tackle the situation.

"So you're still talking about stopping Seifer and the Galbadian Army, huh?" Squall's question was directed at Alix.

Alix looked at little uncomfortable in the situation. He had been planning to tackle Squall on his own a little later in the day, giving Squall time to think things through some more; and for himself to come up with what he was going to say. "Well I was hoping to talk to you about that..."

"What are your plans for stopping the army?" Squall asked, urgency in his voice.

Lianne's eyes lit up and she smiled at her father with a surge of pride towards him. He was coming round.

Alix considered Squall's question, then, thinking some more, he realised that Squall was actually interested, and there was a faint glimmer of hope that Squall might now listen to everything he had to say. Alix smiled too, and searched his mind for the plan he had been formulating carefully in his mind for the past couple of days. "Well I think that first move we should make is to the Galbadian headquarters based in Deling City..."

"Squall, we need you on the bridge immediately, please." Quistis's urgent tones over the intercom cut Alix's speech short.

Squall was already half-way out of the door. "I'll be right back."

Lianne jumped up and grabbed his arm before he could leave the door. "Wait! We're coming with you."

Squall was just about to argue with her, then he recalled the urgency of Quistis's voice. "Fine, just hurry up."

Lianne signalled for Alix and all three of them exited Squall's dormitory. A few minutes later, after a walk in silence, they all arrived at the bridge. During the ride in the lift, Alix found he could no longer look Lianne in the eye. Every couple of seconds she was turning her head to smile at him. And every time this happened Alix just looked away, feeling a little flushed. But at the bridge, everything else was forgotten as they stepped into a room full of serious and anxious faces.

Cid, the Garden's headmaster, began to speak as soon as Squall was present. He didn't seem to notice Lianne and Alix follow Squall in.

"Squall, we have an urgent distress signal from Esthar City. They're under attack from the Galbadian Army."

The reactions from Lianne and Alix were almost the same. The realisation hit them both at the same time, and their minds started racing, the shock visible on both of their faces.

Squall's reaction was less easy to see. As soon as Cid said these words a torrent of thoughts filled Squall's head, but he pushed them away immediately, in order to focus on the matter at hand in it's full clarity.

Cid continued. "They are requesting the help of SeeD. They're running into a lot of trouble."

"And lets face it, they've gotta be in some major trouble if they're requesting for outside help." Xu said. It was true, Esthar had always been such a secluded and independent city. For them to require help came as quite a shock..

"We received the distress signal about half an hour ago, from the mayor of the city." Cid explained.

Squall nodded. He knew the mayor of the city was no longer Laguna Loire, but was a young man by the name of Dylan.

So many questions were spinning in Lianne's mind, and she could hold them back no longer, even though she had promised herself to stay quiet during this briefing. "But don't Esthar have their own army they can fight back with?"

Squall shot her a dark look, and Lianne knew she had to stay quiet.

Cid, realising she was there, answered her question. "Well it seems even the Esthar forces haven't been enough to hold off the Galbadians."

"And SeeD can?" Squall raised his eyebrows.

"But of course! We're not called an elite mercenary force for no reason." Cid smiled.

"Are you going to send out the whole unit?" Squall asked.

"This is where we leave it up to you, Squall." Cid said. "After all, you still are the leader of SeeD."

Lianne looked up and studied her father's face carefully. She could tell he wasn't enjoying this responsibility, but the look on his face told her he was already planning the battle strategy.

"Should we call up Zell, Irvine and Selphie?" Quistis asked Squall.

Squall folded his arms and nodded, deep in thought.

Quistis sent a message to her three friends over the intercom, and just a few minutes later they joined them on the bridge, wanting to know what was going on. After Cid had explained it to them, they all turned to Squall to hear the plan.

Squall looked around at them all with his ice-blue eyes, and then slowly, carefully, he began to speak. "We will dispatch the entire SeeD unit to Esthar, but for a small number who will stay here and protect Garden from a possible attack from Galbadia.

"You think they'd attack Garden?!" Zell exclaimed

"It's always a possibility." Squall said, still calm. "When they see its SeeD who's attacking their forces, they might retaliate. But I can't see an attack on Balamb being very big- they'll probably leave all their main troops in Esthar, as that seems to be their goal. So we'll only need a small unit of our own to combat them. The rest will to go Esthar."

Cid nodded in approval. "Very well. How will you infiltrate Esthar?"

Squall opened his mouth to explain the next phase of his plan but before he had chance to say anything, Alix began to speak. "Squall? Could I just... erm, speak to you for a couple of minutes?"

Squall looked frustrated, but nevertheless, took Alix aside and they spoke together in hushed tones. Lianne watched them carefully, trying to figure out from their body language what they were talking about. But it was impossible to tell. She gritted her teeth in annoyance as the both came back over.

"Gather the unit we will be deploying to Esthar in the briefing room." Squall said. "Alix has a plan."