The reason I don't affix a specific date or time-elapsed bit somewhere is that I honestly don't know how many chapters this is going to run to yet. It won't be fifty!

Sorry the update is slightly late today. I've been busy... er... sleeping.

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Fifty Days

Chapter 10: Secret Keepers

"Squall, Quistis is here to see you," Rinoa's vice chimed through the intercom cheerfully.

Squall gladly put down the stack of papers he had on his desk and pressed the button to reply. "Please send her in," he said calmly. How can she stay so happy buried under all this? Normal Garden paperwork was bad enough. Missions, results, graduations, problems, all of it seemed to come through here, and the funds that had to be transferred to Trabia were not making things any easier.

The doors swung open and Quistis calmly walked into the room.

"Squall," she said formally.

Squall leaned back, his body glad at the chance for any moment not involving his writing hand. "Quistis. What's up?" he asked.

"I would like to resign my position at Instructor at Balamb Garden effective after the end of the current academic year," she said formally.

Squall blinked. "Why?"

Amazing how easy the words came once you had some experience saying them. "Because in less than two months I will be dead."

She got exactly what she had been expecting. Nothing. Not a word, not a sound came from Squall's throat for one whole minute. Then;

"Are you sure?"

She almost laughed at him. "Yes." She raised her hand to stave off the next question. "There's no cure."

Squall leaned forward, oblivious to his back screaming at him. "Are you sure?" he asked again.

"Odine is my doctor. If he can't figure it out, I don't think anyone else will."

"I'm… sorry," he said slowly. "I don't know what else to say."

"Saying you'll accept my resignation would be a good start," Quistis said slyly.

Squall nodded. "Of course. I mean…" He frowned. "At the end of the academic year?"

Quistis' expression became deadpan. "I have one last thing to take care of."

Squall looked at her for a few seconds, and then nodded. He understood. "Sure. So do we all." Standing, he walked around his desk and embraced her. "It isn't fair," he whispered.

"So I've been told. Kidding!" she said quickly, when she saw the look on his face. She pulled away from him. "Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself." She stepped backwards and went to walk out of the office. "I'll see you around," she said. Striding from the room, she didn't look back, and left Squall standing there staring after her. Sitting back down, he tried to focus on the paperwork in front of him, but couldn't. he slammed his fist down on the desk, in anger and frustration.

"Damnit!"

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Quistis walked past Rinoa as she left, and caught her as she was looking up from a stack of shredded trees.

"What'cha talk about?" the young sorceress asked, possibly the only person in the world who could write fill acres of forms with a smile.

"Just some technical crap, not important. You know how the Faculty Staff are," she said dismissively.

Rinoa laughed, that musical laugh that had the ability to melt the coldest heart. "I hear that. Oh! I hear you're doing well with Seifer. What's your secret?"

"Bore him to death."

Rinoa laughed again. "Should have tried that the first time, may- Oh! I'm sorry!" she said quickly.

Quistis smiled. "It's OK. I got over losing my license," she said. And she had. When the horizon is so much closer, everything comes into perspective.

"You'll get him this time," Rinoa said encouragingly.

"I know," Quistis replied simply, and started the walk back to the elevator.

The doors closed, blocking her off temporarily from the rest of the world. The mask she had been wearing fell, and she felt tired. She leaned back against the wall, and popped a single painkiller into her mouth, feeling it's soothing effect run through her body, banishing the pains, at least for the time being. She checked the digital clock some Faculty person had decided would look good inserted into the elevator, and sighed.

School time…

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Seifer was waiting for her in the Library when she came in. He turned even before she got within a dozen metres.

"Good morning Instructor. Losing your touch?"

One look told him that simple taunts were not going to work today. "Sit down Seifer," Quistis said calmly. She pulled out a chair nosily and sat without waiting looking at him. "Did you read those books I set you?" she asked, fully expecting an answer of-

"Yes."

-Not that. OK. She raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised. Pleasantly, for a change. So you can tell me-" She asked a complicated question about the mechanics of the junctioning system he couldn't possibly know if he didn't read the books. The answer came after three seconds thought, equally as calmly as her and the reply was textbook. Quistis asked a few more, and Seifer rattled off the answers like he was a born encyclopaedia. He smiled.

"Surprised?"

Quistis smiled at him. "Actually, yes," she admitted.

Seifer leaned back in his chair, arms linked over his head. "I just needed the right teacher," he said calmly.

Quistis snorted. As insults went… "I was your teacher the last time as well," she said simply.

Seifer recovered magnificently. "Are you sure there aren't just two of you?" he asked.

Soon enough there isn't going to be one of me.

"Eh?" Seifer asked, puzzled.

Quistis blinked. "What?"

"What do you mean?" Seifer asked again. "You just said something about not being one of you."

Quistis waved it away as casually as possible. "Just mumbling to myself. Now, since you seem to have those books pretty well-" Did I say that out loud? Ooooh crap...

"No, wait. Trepe, what the hell is going on?" he asked, growing more irritated. "I saw those pills you're taking, and Xu was almost crying when she came out of your dorm last night! What the hell is going on?"

Quistis froze, but only for a second. "That's none of your Hynedamned business Cadet Almasy," she said.

Not this time. "I think it is. I'm sure Commander Puberty would be interested to know that one of his favourite instructors is becoming a regular little junkie," he said, and smiled.

Quistis sighed. Oh, the hell with it. She stood and turned her back on him, walking away. "He already knows, Seifer," she said sweetly.

Seifer jumped up and followed at a same distance. "Oh, and did the good leader have anything to say about having a druggie on the staff?" he asked sarcastically.

Quistis kept walking, and didn't turn. "Seifer, if you used your eyes instead of your mouth for once, you might have seen the label on the damned bottle!" she said, losing her temper.

Seifer didn't stop walking, but he did stop talking. Not for long though, as he remembered what the bottle had been of. "So, you got a little sprain fighting a Grat or something? I thought you were tougher than that," he said, changing tack instantly and smoothly.

She had had enough. She stopped and turned. "I'm dying," she said.

Seifer grinned. "Sure, and Squall's thinking about doing something sensible for once," he said. Quistis just stared at him and shook her head once. "You're kidding," he said dismissively.

"No, I'm really not," she said.

Seifer looked into her face, and remembered the look he had seen in her eyes. "You're not," he said.

"And before you ask, no cure. I'm sure you won't ask whether there's anything you can do for me, so don't bother."

"…" Seifer was actually speechless.

Quistis laughed at him. She actually laughed at him. "No witty comeback this time? Why not, you laughed at other people's suffering before, why not now?" she said savagely.

Seifer took a step back. "I don't… I mean… I don't know what to say," he said lamely.

Quistis sighed. "No, you never did, did you?" she said sadly, and turned to keep walking, leaving Seifer standing in the Garden hallways, staring after her again, like he seemed to find himself doing more and more often, for a variety of reasons.

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Quistis told herself not to look back as she walked away, Seifer staring after her.

"Quistis wait!" he shouted after her.

She smiled. He called me Quistis. "What?" she shouted back.

"Wait up!"

She stopped and turned to see him running towards her, skidding to a halt. She frowned. She'd walked farther than she thought.

Seifer got his breath back. "What do you mean dying?" he asked.

She felt like screaming at him. "As in death you idiot. What do you think I could be talking about?" she asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Seifer stopped. "Sorry," he said.

Quistis blinked. "What?" she asked.

"I said…"

"I heard what you said, I just don't believe it. What are you apologising for?"

Seifer shrugged. "It's tough luck, is all. What is it?"

Quistis took in that statement. Makes a change. "I don't know, and you know what, I really don't care. Please, you can study on your own, the books are on the table." She turned to walk away again, but an arm on her shoulder stopped her.

"Are you sure you're taking this entirely seriously?" Seifer asked with no small measure of incredulous tone in his voice.

Quistis smiled and placed a hand against his cheek. "Seifer, trying to be worried on my account is sweet. Don't bother," she said.

Seifer would have spluttered if he knew how. "I wasn't! I mean, I…"

Quistis sighed. Now as good a time as any… "Seifer listen. Just pass the SeeD exam and get in this time. You could have done it years ago if you had made the effort." Her eyes mock-flared. "So you're damn well gonna do it this time."

Seifer stared into her eyes. For a second Quistis was sure he was going to say something stupid, but instead he brought his feet together and snapped off a perfect SeeD salute.

"Yes sir," Seifer said, then resumed his usual cocky stance, and turned to leave. Quistis watched him go and smiled.

"Nice to know you have some common sense," she whispered to his retreating back, and turned to go back to her own dorm.

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Seifer collapsed o his own bed. He immediately stood up again and started pacing around the room.

Trepe is dying?

He shivered slightly and brought his coat up further around himself.

For most of his life- scratch that, for all of his life that he remembered, Trepe had been pretty much always there during their mutually forgotten and recently remembered childhood, at Garden as a fellow student, and then – still at Garden – as an untouchable beauty everyone had looked up to but no-one had ever touched, including him. His inner conscious, occasionally jerked into life, spoke up.

And now you never will. Stupid. You might have had your chance in the past if you'd been that little less self-absorbed for even a second.

She started it. It's her fault-

Her fault she was better than you? You remember you're graduation ball. I know you do. So does she probably. And you had the perfect opportunity, and then your ego kicked back in. Nice going.

"Damnit!"

Seifer would not have been surprised if he ever learned that squall had exactly the same reaction. Quistis had often commented that they were both alike in more ways than martial. He had always denied it, and then shot back some remark at her. That had been pretty much all he had ever given her. Sarcastic remarks and put-downs.

It's a hate-hate relationship.

It could have been different…

Stop living in the past. She hates your guts.

Seifer forced himself to stop pacing and sit down on his bed. Even then he found the need to run the Hyperion around, giving his hands something to do. He recalled her hand against his cheek, and the smile on her face as he had tried to think of something to say that wasn't predictable or corny.

Just pass the SeeD exam and get in this time

Seifer had caught the unspoken words. Please. For me.

He finally lay back on his bed and tried to get some sleep. She still cared, even if she didn't actually know it. That was good for a smile.

Not much good though.

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So, he knows now. Yup.