Rinoa groaned under the weight of her box, moving down the hall to a students double room had proved more annoying than exciting. But Xu said that she couldn't keep her rooms if she was prepared to act like a real student in all other respects, it just wouldn't be fair. Rinoa was the first to agree with her and Irvine had whined a bit at first, but she expected that it was only for show. So here she was, lugging her boxes into her new room, until she had come to packing it up, Rinoa had never realised how much crap she had accumulated in the year after Ultimecia' s time compression. She looked at all the other students finding their room reassignments as much of a pain as she was. It was the beginning of a new term and everyone was being reordered and rescheduled, and generally being annoyed by the administration. She looked across at her room mates bed and sighed, whoever it was gonna be, she hoped they didn't snore. Squall had a box under each arm when he came round the corner of the doorframe. His usual cold expression was tinged by a gentle smile.
'I think that's the last of them.' He told her and she sighed, flopping herself onto her bed. He smiled and sat next to her, she looked at him and slid her hand into his. He looked at her, slightly embarressed but not tearing away. That had always been the hardest part for him, learning to control his embarressment. Rinoa was never too sure what she had done to deserve him, she must have been a saint in a former life. There were times, like this one, where it felt right just to be there, together. She would miss him not being in the room next to hers, but it wasn't as if they lived that far away. Just across the quad.
'Hey...' Came from the doorway, they looked up and saw Zell standing in the doorway. 'I scabbed your room number off the garden files... nice place.' He said with a grin. 'Settled in?' He asked and she nodded.
'I could have used you around earlier.' She told him pointedly and he shrugged with a self deprecating grin.
'Well you know, I figured that you and Irvine were starting something new and it was a whole big thing to you... and ... well... I didn't want to help you move.' Rinoa grinned wryly. He came in a sat on the opposite bed, at that moment a girl around Rinoa's age walked in, they all looked up at her and she stared.
'I... I'm sorry, I guess I got given the wrong room assignment.' She said and went to walk out the door. Rinoa bounded up.
'No, it's okay, you probably haven't, hi I'm Rinoa... I'll be your room mate.' The girl stared at her with a slight frown, it wasn't everyday one of the Garden's living legends made herself known to you, she looked around the room at the other two and went pale.
'Um...' She said. 'I guess, I'm Willow Cheliah.' She bit her lip and put down the box she was carrying. Zell and Squall stood up and made their excuses. Willow watched them go with a kind of awe. Rinoa smiled at her.
'Need some help?' She asked gesturing to her boxes. The girl frantically shook her head.
'I couldn't ask you to do that.' She said and Rinoa began shifting her feet.
'Um... I know you know what I am... but I'm just like any normal person. A little on the embarressed side right now... but...' She stopped as Irvine came bouncing in.
'The Irvine has landed.' He grinned at her and tipped his hat back on his head. 'Your room mate? Hi, I'm Irvine.' Willow's head spun to him and she covered her mouth in surprise. 'Ahhh.' He looked at Rinoa. 'You see my room mate was warned who he was going to be sharing with... I see Xu didn't extend you the same courtesy. Don't worry, you'll be a bit 'rabbit in headlights' for a while but me and Rinny are real nice people.' He nodded and grinned at her, she sat down and sighed.
'I'm not sure I can cope with this.'
'You know that's what I said to her when she suggested this.' Irvine said indicating Rinoa.
*
Rinoa frowned at her timetable, she was sure that it had been formed just to torment her, she had three hours, three hours, count them, of weapons training this afternoon. Then over the next two days it was a constant round of biology, physics, chemistry and geology, allegedly to raise affinity with GF's, the more you know about a particular element the more likely you are to be compatible. She sighed, she had snaffled Cactuar off of Squall last night, they weren't supposed to be issued with GF's until five weeks of training and even then they had a long series of tests to ascertain your affinities. Irvine caught up with her when she around five yards from class. 'Whatcha upto?' He asked. 'I have battle strategies.'
'Me too. Advanced battle strategies no less.' She shook her head. 'Is it just me or do we seem to be going back to basics?' He grinned.
'It's only fair, the others had to go through this. Anyway we have a bonus, if it's Quisty teaching then we can fire spitballs at her from the back of class.' Rinoa laughed as they walked through the classroom door. They walked into a loud classroom that got quietly very, very quickly. They stopped staring at the students staring at them. Rinoa stepped behind Irvine.
'Hide me.' She said and he turned to look at her with an outraged expression. He grabbed her hand and dragged her to two empty seats.
'The trick is to act nonchalant.' He said. 'Although you failed that test within two seconds of walking in here.' Xu walked in and looked around at the quiet class.
'What happened in here?' She asked. 'Did somebody die?' A riffle of sound sped round the class. Xu looked up at the pair of them. 'Oh...' She rolled her eyes. 'First class of the semester and I get stuck with you two.' Irvine grinned at her lazily and Rinoa went red. 'Anyway onto the tutorial... Lights please.' Then the slide show started.
*
Rinoa and Irvine were the last people out of the classroom, they stared at each other in a mute kind of horror. 'Urgh... I feel violated.' Rinoa said leaning against the wall.
'Heh, do I sense the aftermath of an extremely boring tutorial?' It was Selphie, she bounded up to Irvine and planted a kiss on his cheek.
'Surely there are laws against that kind of torture?' Irvine asked her.
'You'd think...' Selphie said evilly. 'And just think another five weeks to go before you can actually put this 'training' to good use.' Irvine gave her a filthy look. He turned to Rinoa.
'What you got next?' He asked. She fished out her timetable that had aquired numerous doodles during the two hour lecture.
'A full three hours of weapons training.' She said with a groan.
'Looks like we'll be splitting up then... I got geochemistry.' Selphie nodded at them both.
'You won't be split up much I don't think, Irvine I expect you'll be stuck into earth sciences more than Rinoa because of your affinity with the Brothers. Xu reckoned you'd be more suited to chemistry Rinoa, studying water and particularly ice because of Shiva, she's also sticking you both in medical classes for status changes.' Rinoa watched Selphie suspiciously.
'Did you have a hand writing out timetables?' She asked, Selphie blushed. Rinoa continued. 'I knew it... I thought they were uncannily evil.'
'Xu reccomended to me that you both needed a challenge, you do sort of have a 'been there, done that' sort of situation. So I basically cut out any classes that started with 'an introduction to' or ended with '101' I had your timetables all mapped out.' A look passed between Irvine and Rinoa, it was Irvine that spoke out first.
'Do you want to kill her or shall I?'
'Be my guest.' Rinoa said as they both advanced on the now smirking SeeD. Selphie saw the intent in thier eyes... she ran.
Author's note~ More chapters to follow... possibly at a later
date... I'm moving house at the weekend *hooray me*