Author's Notes - Crisis averted! Can you tell I am a happy camper? I hope you can 'cause I am. ^_^

Many thanks to those who effectively made sure I didn't have to follow through with that threat. I really didn't wanna have to stoop that low but after having reviews in the past explicitly wondering about Rinoa and then having no comment when I actually had a chapter with her in it…well, it kinda made me worry that a pattern was developing here and I had to put my foot down.

Unfortunately, I have the tendency for assuming the worst in instances such as these when people say nothing. Irrational, I know.

…But in any event, Chapter XIII! It's got some fun bits in it. Blame my tendency for not being able to stay serious. :D

Also, after a lot of thinking, I'm going to be switching the fic's rating to M when I post the next chapter. It's nothing gory or extreme, just think along the lines of Ashbear's later works. Besides, my potty mouth probably warrants it anyway. :)

So…getting to the actual point, if you don't normally check for M rated fics, you might want to put this under story alerts.

-—-—-—-—-—-

Chapter XIII — Unearth

("Answers don't find themselves.")

-—-

Saturday, July 10th (Noon, Day 3)

"Rinoa says you've been experiencing random, stab-like pains in your stomach lately."

It was just shy of noon and Squall hadn't even been awake for a full five minutes when Dr. Kadowaki had come up to him and said this. Though he was still groggy, it didn't dull the significance of the comment any.

The sorceress didn't have confidence that he would tell her himself.

And he couldn't blame her; he never did explicitly promise her that he would despite all the obstacles she pointed out.

Rubbing a palm against the side of his itchy face, he groggily replied, "…I don't think it's directly related to the shooting."

Dr. Kadowaki looked at him skeptically. "If it's not, I'd like to know what you think it is related to then."

"It…" he paused, trying to find the words to begin this without sounding completely insane, "…might be related to Rinoa's powers. I'd have to talk to Cid to confirm my suspicion though."

"You're going to have to give me more than that if you expect me to let you leave." she curtly told him.

"…So Rinoa didn't tell you anything?"

"She may have, she might not have. Either way, I want to hear it from you, Commander Leonhart."

As stubborn as he tended to be, Squall could recognize that there was a time and a place for being obstinate. This wasn't one of them. And short of denying Irvine the details of his and Rinoa's personal life when the cowboy had asked, or at least when he'd thought that had been the intent of his question, Squall had a feeling it'd be a long time before obstinacy could be an option and not simply the harbinger of potentially-dire implications.

Needless to say, it innerved him.

"…Those stab-like pangs I felt in my stomach always coincided with whenever Rinoa had torn her stitches. It could be possible that this is a defense mechanism to protect her from pain but…I'd need to confirm my suspicions with Headmaster Cid."

"Has this happened before during the sorceress war?" she curiously asked. He shook his head.

"No, that's another reason why I need to speak with Cid. I've seen Rinoa in worse pain than she has been here and yet it's only happened in the past few days. There might be a specific trigger and I wouldn't know the full implications of this."

"Alright. I'll phone his office and bring the headset to you should he be available."

After he gave her a nod, ignoring the fact she'd previously hinted at the possibility of actually leaving, the doctor walked over to her desk and punched in the extension number he knew all too well. It wasn't long after he must have picked up on the other end.

"Hello Headmaster, do you have a minute?"

Dr. Kadowaki turned silent, presumably to listen to the headmaster's reply.

"It's about Commander Leonhart, something he needs to ask which relates to him and Miss Heartilly—" Pause. "You'd rather speak with him in person? I don't see what difference it would m—" She abruptly cut off her own sentence. "I see. Alright, I'll arrange for someone to escort him to your office."

The doctor hung up and looked at Squall. "I know you overheard all that, but he wants to discuss this in person among some other things he didn't want to elaborate on over the phone in an hour. I'll arrange to have someone bring you there just to make sure no complications occur."

"I can see the level of trust you have in me clearly knows no bounds." he deadpanned.

"If by 'knows no bounds,' you meant, 'approximates the distance I could throw you,' then yes." she wryly replied. "In all seriousness, this is just an added precaution in the event that you experience some kind of medical issue outside the infirmary. I trust you won't actively attempt to escape supervision?"

Squall furrowed his brows. "It's not like I could wheel away fast enough…"

"…I dunno Squall, you do have a knack for miraculously managing to disappear at a moment's notice." a third voice quietly interjected. He didn't even need to have visual confirmation of the person to know who it was; he'd recognize Rinoa's brand of lighthearted quips anywhere.

Then he saw her frock-clad and non IV pole-attached figure poke past the wall and cabinets dividing their rooms with a weak smirk tugging at her lips. "I think she has a perfectly valid reason to ask." she teasingly added.

It was so hard not to say something back at her to effectively jumpstart another episode of bantering which had become a habit for them in the past year or so, but he managed to hold his tongue. Once again, there was a time and place for everything and this wasn't it.

He'd be damned if this simple action on her part didn't ease his mindset a little, however.

"Rinoa…" Dr. Kadowaki chided, causing Rinoa to look at her instead of Squall, "as much as I appreciate you humorously validating my question to our dear commander, there'd better be a more legitimate reason you're out of bed."

"…There is." she mumbled. "I was just about to go to the bathroom and take a shower since I couldn't take one yesterday."

"Fair enough."

Without wasting any time after the exchange, Dr. Kadowaki proceeded to walk around Rinoa and towards the aforementioned cabinets closest to Squall's bed, plucking what seemed to be two sets of folded sheets, one was a red plaid and the other being black, from its shelves from his viewpoint.

Out of nowhere, the sorceress started giggling. Needless to say, the other two occupants in the room, three if one assumed Addison was within earshot range despite not being visibly present, were left slightly flummoxed. Luckily, this was remedied as Rinoa was quick with an explanation.

"Sorry. I know those are probably loaner clothes so he doesn't have to wear a gown out there but…Squall wearing a buttoned plaid shirt just doesn't compute in my brain. It basically short-circuited itself immediately after trying to mentally picture him in it…hence the giggling. Um, I'll just go now…"

Now that he paid more attention to what Dr. Kadowaki was exactly holding, the folded pile being loaner clothes made more sense than bedsheets, given that the black thing below the folded plaid shirt didn't really look like bedsheet-material now that he thought about it.

Even still, it was the lesser of two evils so he carefully put it, plus the black thing that ended up being a pair of cotton pants with an elastic waist, on without a single word after the doctor had handed it to him.

Sometime later when Dr. Kadowaki had her back turned while confirming details with Selphie, the only available candidate due to everyone else's incompatible schedules, and Rinoa had come out of the bathroom altogether after presumably finishing her shower, the sorceress shot him an amused look from across the room, complete with a Cheshire grin.

Naturally, he countered with an unamused stare back at her and, even though he did not believe that their bond could foster telepathy between them, the commander was damn-well certain she knew of how much he wanted to burn this shirt right now.

This hunch was more-or-less confirmed when she slowly mouthed, 'I. Bet. You. Hate. Looking. Like. A. Lumberjack. Right. Now.'

-—-

Partly inspired by Rinoa's teasing and partly incensed by his itchy face, not to mention literally pushed by Selphie, Squall had gone to his dorm to take care of a few things in order to kill time before he was due in the headmaster's office in half an hour.

Though her immediate reaction of, 'No offense Squall but, you reaaally need to do something about that scruff — you look so weird!' upon seeing him for the first time in two days was classic Selphie, it was quickly plain to see that she was still not her normal self. Once they'd reached his dorm, somewhere she'd never been — though she had been in his double dorm back in the day, instead of poking around like he'd anticipated, she pulled out the sole chair he had by the small table in the main area and listlessly plunked herself down on it without a word, looking rather drained. It was strange sight to see to say the least.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Squall dragged himself to his bedroom first to look in his drawers for something to wear, the main criterion being that the said piece of clothing was anything other than what he was wearing now. Digging through the folded pieces of clothing though he knew he didn't have anything that would match the relative dressing ease that a button-down shirt would provide, Squall settled on a black tank top, figuring the lack of sleeves to contend with would be easy enough to put on.

It wasn't until he'd already undone the buttons single-handedly that something important had dawned on him; the button-down nature of the shirt made it easy to put on but it wouldn't change the difficulty in taking it off since the sleeves were fitted.

Ugly plaid shirt – 1, Leonhart – 0.

Even still, he'd be damned if he'd let the thing get the better of him. He carefully pulled down the right side below his affected shoulder with his left arm, alternating with the left side. Once the whole thing was below his shoulders, he grabbed the center of the shirt to pull it down manually since merely shrugging it off wasn't an option with his paralyzed side. With a bit of tenacity and wriggling, it was finally off and Squall wasted no time in pitching it onto his bed. Good riddance.

"Wow. I didn't think you'd be able to pull that off. Literally!" Selphie's voice echoed from behind him. Reflexively, Squall turned around only to have the petite brunette casually point at his right arm a few seconds later. "…I would have offered to get that shirt off you, but I kinda didn't know your one arm was that bad."

"…It's fine, don't worry about it."

"So…um, did you need help with the other one?"

"No, I can do it myself." he told her, sliding his right arm through one of the tank top's arm holes and proceeding to poke his head and other arm through the other holes right after, admittedly doing so quicker than he'd planned to just to prove his point. Selphie sighed.

"Ok, Mr. Stubborn, I get the point." she said, walking over to the bed to pick up the now-crumpled plaid shirt and giving it to him.

Squall tossed her a quizzical look. "…Why are you giving this back to me?"

"Because I think it'd look nice if you wore it open with that tank top underneath. Besides, you look like you're trying to sexily rob a bank with all that black on. The plaid shirt'll give you some colour, plus it can cover up your shoulder bandage."

…Sexily robbing a bank? Though he did indeed wonder how one sexily robs a bank, Squall wasn't gonna touch that with a ten foot pole. And so, he shut up and just put the damn thing back on to appease her and avoid further general weirdness.

The ensuing silence was marvellous. So was the freedom to wheel into the bathroom and set out what he had actually intended to do in the first place.

Standing up and heavily leaning against the counter to look at his bathroom's mirror once he was in there, he could see why Rinoa and Selphie had both reacted the way they did. Since the last time he'd seen his own reflection two days ago, the stubble had turned into the beginnings of what looked like a very patchy beard — one that he was not the least bit sad in seeing gone after a few minutes despite all the tiny nicks and cuts he'd earned in the process. As ludicrous as it sounded in his own head to be romanticizing something like this, the mundane annoyances and trivialities of normalcy were a welcome change.

After cleaning up as best as he could, Squall carefully lowered himself back into the chair and headed out of room and back into the main area where Selphie was waiting.

"We can leave now." he told her.

"Could I…just use your…bathroom real…quick first? It's… kind of…an emergency." she asked in response, looking rather twitchy all of a sudden as if something had instantaneously come over her. With his suspicions stemming from what Irvine had said the other night in the back of his head, he nodded straightaway.

Unsurprisingly enough, she bolted into the bathroom with her hand covering her face. Having failed to completely shut the door closed behind her, Squall surmised that it would be only a matter of time before he'd hear the sound of her experiencing a bout of—

…blowing her nose loudly into paper tissue?

The commander had to shake his head. Go figure.

-—-

Ten minutes later, Squall found himself alone with the headmaster in his office, Selphie having been temporarily dismissed by the older man immediately upon arrival. Not wanting to waste the man's time with questions concerning why he wanted to see him in person as opposed to speaking with him over the phone, he cut straight to the chase.

"Lately, I've felt like my stomach was going to be stabbed during two instances where Rinoa had torn her abdominal stitches. Is this kind of link possible?"

Adjusting his glasses, the headmaster nodded. "It is. Like particularly-strong emotions can be sensed through the sorceress-knight bond, so can pain if the bond becomes strong enough. As you can probably imagine, it only goes one way so Knights can absorb the pain and protect their sorceresses from any severe bodily harm that they may endure to ensure their survival. Fortunately, it's only the sensation of pain that's transferred and not the wound itself. It also doesn't extend to naturally-occurring medical problems."

"I'd understand this happening when we were shot but…this was just Rinoa tearing her stitches." Squall countered. "She was going to be fine both times."

"I should have clarified. Typically, this event begins to occur whenever the sorceress experiences pain strong enough to potentially trigger fainting. So, if she has a low pain threshold or is susceptible to fainting, that could explain it."

"It's probably because of the amount blood involved. Rinoa's always been prone to fainting at the sight of blood." With his follow up question answered, the commander went on another tack. "So…is there a particular criteria for the bond becoming strong enough? Or is this just a matter of time?"

After a slight but noticeable pause, Cid shook his head. "There…is nothing concrete in terms of necessary milestones, I'm afraid. All I could tell you is that time is not a factor and it depends on the type of connection fostering the sorceress-knight bond. If the fostering element is strengthened enough, you'll get to this point. If it's weakened enough, then the reverse also applies."

"Makes sense." Squall mused aloud. "So…is there anything else I should know about?"

For the first time since their meeting, Cid cracked a smile. "The importance of resting and fully co-operating with your doctor and those in charge of the investigation."

"…That wasn't what I meant and I'm sure you were aware of that Headmaster."

"You're correct, I was. Even so, I want you to seriously consider this Squall." he told him. "I know this may prove to be a difficult time for you right now, but you can't let personal matters or pride get in the way. Despite what anyone might have led you to believe, this was an unfortunate random event where you two were merely the victims, not the instigators of it. No more, no less. If you fear retribution for anything you might say in relation to Rinoa, just remember that."

"…So we don't have to worry about telepathy or anything of that nature in the future?"

Cid lightly chuckled. "Fortunately, no. You might feel like it's there once the emotional link becomes a little more refined, but there's no actual telepathy to worry about. If that were the case, many a sorceress and knight would go insane from the constant intrusions." he explained. "Ideally, the bond's purpose is to benefit the sorceress by endowing her knight with enough added information to help him protect her better. Give too much information and the brain becomes overwhelmed, the resulting indecision helping no one."

Squall nodded. "Thank you for your time Headmaster."

The headmaster gave a short nod back and the 19 year-old was free to go. Just like that. No reiterations of advice, no final parting words. It was strange, but Squall recognized that sometimes, silence held more power than spoken words could ever impart.

-—-

After what felt like an eternity waiting for Selphie to come back to escort him, Squall eventually made it back to the infirmary alone; his escort had informed him about a Garden Festival-related meeting she had to preside over in a few minutes and didn't stick around once he went through the door. Wheeling himself closer to his alcove, it wasn't long before he caught the sight of Dr. Kadowaki and Rinoa once more, the former by the backroom and the latter inexplicably sitting at the foot of his bed, legs crossed and her arms resting in her lap, thumbs twiddling and eyes focused on her feet.

"…Hey." he softly said to catch her attention.

Then her eyes caught sight of his form and it was like her whole body suddenly jolted awake and rid itself of all signs of boredom.

"Hey yourself," she parroted, the corners of her lips pulling upward, "thought you were gonna burn that shirt."

He gave her a one-shoulder shrug as he approached the bed's left side. "Didn't have any Fire magic on me."

"Well, it looks nice like open like that." she complimented, scooting off the bed to give him room. "Did Cid have any answers for you?"

After he locked the chair and transferred himself back onto the mattress once more, he nodded. "It's more or less what we thought. The bond transfers some of the sensation of pain to me as a defense mechanism to keep you from fainting in potentially-dangerous situations. I can't transfer pain to you and it doesn't happen with natural causes like general health problems and afflictions. I don't physically receive the corresponding wounds either."

Rinoa jokingly crinkled her nose. "Damn. I guess I'll still have to suffer through the nuisance of paper cuts."

"Did he say anything about the trigger of the transference?" Dr. Kadowaki interjected, finally coming into view from the latter half of the infirmary.

"No, there was nothing specific he could say." Squall answered. "All he said was it depends on the kind of connection the bond's fostered on. If the connection becomes strong enough, whatever it is, this starts taking effect. It'll also stop if it's weakened enough."

"So nothing quantifiable like an explicit action or…?"

"…It didn't sound like it." he curtly offered. "I wouldn't be able to pinpoint the start of this even if I wanted to given how the mechanics work."

Right then, Rinoa looked at him. "I hurt myself really badly in May when I fell off my bike and landed on a bunch of glass shards in the park." she told him. "It hurt like hell and Zone said I blacked out really fast from nerves because there was a really big piece in my arm. So maybe this is something really new?"

"…Probably is." he mumbled in agreement, his mind suddenly fixated on a particular detail.

The month.