Thanks,
Phoenixcadet
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Chapter 4--Friends, Foes, and Inbetweeners
"I still don't believe it. I just don't believe it. Why, Irvine?" Selphie said.
"We don't know. He won't talk to any of us. He won't tell us anything," Irvine said to her. It was night again in the infirmary. They stood out in the hallway outside Zell's room.
"None of us understand why, Selphie," Squall said. Rinoa stood by him, clinging to his side. "Like Irvine said, he won't tell us anything. The best thing for everyone to do is to go to bed and see what happens in the morning. I'll stay here."
"You can't stay again, Squall. You stayed last night. I'll stay this time," Rinoa said. Squall looked down at her.
"I already told you, Rinoa. I'm staying here. You can stay with me, but I'm staying here," Squall said.
"Fine, then. I'm staying, too," Rinoa said defiantly, looking up at him.
"If anything happens, let me know," Irvine said. "I'll be back here in the morning."
"So will I," Selphie said. "And Quistis, too."
"You guys go on to bed. Me and Squall will stay here for the night," Rinoa said.
Irvine, Selphie, and Quistis walked through the door out of the small hallway and it slid shut behind them. Rinoa and Squall entered Zell's room. They stood over the bed, looking down at him. He was curled up in a ball, asleep. The IV in his left arm was gone.
They sat down next to the bed and watched him sleep.
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Rinoa was asleep on the small couch that had been put in the room. Squall had slept in the chair, despite its being totally uncomfortable. Zell was awake long before they were. He tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail. He lie gazing at the ceiling for a while, listening to Squall and Rinoa sleep.
The sunlight had just begun to peek through the blinds and land on the wall opposite the window. Zell sat up and looked around the room at Rinoa and Squall. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked down at the bed once more. Why were they doing this? Staying up all night for him? It didn't make sense.
Squall groaned from the sunlight in his face. He blocked the sunlight with his right hand and shook his head, trying to wake up. He looked over to Zell.
"Awake already...?" he said, twisting in the seat, stretching his back.
"You didn't hardly get any sleep the other night over me, so I let you sleep. How you survived that chair, I'll never know," Zell said, almost smiling.
"Hungry?" Squall asked, getting up and stretching again.
"No."
"Are you sure? You haven't eaten anything since......" Squall trailed off, not wanting to mention anything about what had happened.
"I said I'm not hungry."
Squall sighed. "Alright......"
Zell pulled his knees up to his chest again, and put his head down on them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Squall sat back down and put a hand on his shoulder.
"You alright....?"
"............no."
"......I wish you'd talk to us, Zell. We can't help you until you talk to us," Squall said, taking his hand off Zell's shoulder and looking at the floor.
"Who told you I wanted help....? If I wanted help, I would've asked for it," he said quietly.
The silence in the room would've crushed them both had it not been for Squall's reply. "We just want to know why, Zell. We never thought you'd do something like this. We never knew you *would* do something like this." Zell looked over at him angrily.
"What? You think just because I act up and get in trouble all the time, that I don't have feelings?? You think that you're the only one that's ever had any kind of pain?? Loneliness?? Fear?? Heartache?? You never knew because I didn't want you to. Nobody talks about me that way and I don't want them to. I don't want everyone to know. No one knew, Squall, not even Ma and Pa. Especially Ma and Pa."
Once again, silence. It was broken by the sound of Rinoa waking up. She sat up on the small couch and smoothed her hair back. "........Good morning....." she groaned, looking up at them both. She stood up and stretched until Squall thought she would break in half.
"Sleep well?" Squall asked her as she walked over to him.
"I slept fine. And you?"
"We have to get a cot in here: sleeping in that chair is holy murder. But, I guess I slept okay. It's the after-effects of sleeping in the chair that'll get me in the end."
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They decided to search Zell's room later in the day, for things that he might have used to hurt himself in the past. Irvine and Selphie rummaged through his closet and in boxes. Selphie glanced over at Irvine.
"I don't think we should be doing this, Irvine. I mean, it's just.....wrong to go through someone else's stuff without permission," she said. Irvine paused a moment. He didn't look up.
"I feel the same way, Selphie, but what if he has a gun in here or something....? If he has something in here he can hurt himself with, we have to get rid of it. I don't think you'd feel too good if he shot himself, do you?" he said as he continued to go through the boxes.
"No, I wouldn't, but......I still think it's wrong. Did you find anything?"
"Nope. Just CDs and folders......Hey, look at these drawings......" he said, pulling out of a large box pieces of sketch paper. He held a few up for her to look at. One was an elaborate drawing of a ruby dragon
"Hey, a ruby dragon!! Did Zell draw these....?" Selphie said in awe. Stating the obvious, down in the bottom right hand corner of each sheet, was Zell's name in slanted letters and under it, a date.
"Let's see what else he has in here," Irvine said, pulling out some of the larger boxes from the bottom of the closet. ".......He sure picks good subjects to draw, huh, Selphie?" he said, holding up a large detailed drawing of himself with his shotgun. They continued to go through the pictures one by one, each of something different. One was a drawing of Balamb Harbor and another of the Ragnarok.
"Hey, it's me!!" Selphie squealed, holding up a close-range drawing of herself with her nunchaku. Selphie gasped. ".....ohhhhhhh! Look at this one......." She held up a picture of Squall and Rinoa on the Ballroom Terrace together. They faced each other, smiling with the moon in the background.
"Wow, these are really good," Irvine said. "We'd better put them back. He might get mad at us."
"Yeah, I guess so....but aren't these just great?! It seems to me we're finding out a lot about Zell we didn't know before," she replied, putting the drawings back in the boxes and sliding them back in the closet. "Maybe we should take him a sketchpad and some pencils to the infirmary, huh? What do you think?"
"That's a good idea. It couldn't hurt, could it?"
"Let's go see what they have at the art store in Balamb. I'm sure we'll find something there," Selphie said. They got up and left the room to go to the parking lot. If they had only checked the very back of the closet............
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In Balamb.......
"I got a bite, ya know!!!"Raijin shouted, standing up on the dock. He proceeded to reel it in.
"Don't let it get away, I haven't eaten in days!!" Seifer yelled from the end of the dock. Fujin stood next to Seifer, her gray hair glinting in the little sunlight there was. The clouds in the sky clearly showed there was something coming. "At this rate, we'll never get anything to eat. I ran out of money days ago,"Seifer sighed, shaking his head. "I'll have to admit, though, I can't ever catch anything when I try."
"AFFIRMATIVE."
Seifer turned to Fujin with one eyebrow raised. "Are you sure you don't have at least *one* Gil...?"
"NEGATIVE," She answered truthfully. "NO MONEY."
Raijin screamed. Seifer and Fujin looked at him. He was standing up, holding the fishing pole. The pole shouldn't have been able to bend that far and not break.
"Help, ya know!!! It's huge!!"
Seifer supressed a grin as he and Fujin ran to help him reel it in. It had been days since either of them had eaten anything. Seifer grabbed the pole to try to straighten it and keep it from breaking. Fujin put her hands around Raijin's waist and tugged him backward with all her might.
"PULL!!!!!"Seifer yelled at them. They were so busy they didn't notice the two people coming up behind Raijin. They managed to pull the large fish almost all the way out of the water when.....
"You guys are the sorriest bunch o' fishermen I've ever seen."
Fujin was startled and let go of Raijin. He stumbled forward into Seifer and they both went crashing into the water. Seifer gasped as he came up to the surface for air. He spit out a mouthfull of water. He looked up on the dock angrily.
"I'm gonna kill you, Kinneas!!!!" he practically screamed. Water dripped off his nose; had it not been for the angry look on his face Selphie would have burst with laughter.
Fujin turned to Selphie who was standing next to Irvine, looking down at Raijin and Seifer.
"NO FOOD. DAYS," She said.
"Ohhh.....We're sorry we snuck up on you and made you lose the fish," Selphie apologized. She looked up at Irvine. "We'll make it up to you. We'll buy you something to eat at the Harbor Restaurant, *won't we*, Irvine?" she said, jabbing him in the ribs.
He looked down at Seifer and Raijin as they pulled themselves out of the water and onto the dock. He didn't like Seifer and wasn't about to forgive him anything, but he thought that they owed them something for making them lose the fish. ".......I guess so,"he said reluctantly. "Whaddaya say, Seifer? Let us buy dinner?"
Seifer thought the offer very appealing, but normally he wouldn't accept it. Had he been alone, he probably wouldn't have. He couldn't decline; it wasn't his just his own stomach that was hungry. Raijin and Fujin were just as hungry as he and he had no right to decline an offer that included them.
".......Sure. Just as long as you don't think I owe you nothin' in return," he said with a smirk on his face.
"No, this is on us. You don't owe us anything," Selphie said. Seifer was standing on the dock now, completely soaked. Irvine would've laughed, but decided against it, seeing as how he didn't have his shotgun with him.
Fujin looked Raijin over and smiled. "FUNNY."
Raijin started down the pier, mumbling to himself angrily.
Seifer gazed down at his clothes. "Great. No money, no extra clothes, no car..... What else could happen....?"
A blast of thunder made everyone jump. As if on cue, it immediately started to rain. Irvine, Selphie, and Raijin ran down the pier. Seifer only looked up at the sky and then hung his head low and started walking with Fujin. "I had to open my mouth, didn't I, Fujin? {sigh} Well, at least I'm already wet. NOW it can't get any worse."
A flash of lightning struck the water in the distance, followed by another deafening blast of thunder. He looked up at the sky once more and started to run down the dock after Selphie, Irvine, and Raijin. Fujin quickly followed, looking back at the dark sky. "Alright, I'm going!"
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They were on the closed in porch of a small restaurant; it had been a house, but was bought and turned into a restaurant. It was pouring rain outside their small sanctuary while they ate.
Raijin ate his clam chowder quickly. He looked at Irvine and Selphie. "Thanks, ya know!!!I owe you one, ya know!"
Fujin, who sat across from him at the small table, kicked him. "QUIET!"
He reached down under the table and rubbed his shin. "OWWWWWW.....!!! Fujin, what was that for??!"
"QUIET!!" she said and Raijin quickly scooted out from the table against the wall as she tried to kick him again.
Seifer looked up from his plate of barbequed chicken for the first time to look at Raijin. "RAIJIN DODGED DELIBERATELY,"Fujin said.
"N'no, didn't!!!"Raijin yelled through a mouthfull of chowder.
Seifer rolled his eyes and went back to eating. Fujin finished her bowl of soup and sat up straight. "OTHERS, WHERE?" she said to Selphie.
"They're......at Garden," she replied. Seifer looked up from his plate.
"You're not telling something, messenger girl. What's going on?" he asked, sitting up straight. He studied Selphie and Irvine as they exchanged glances. "C'mon!! Out with it!"
"Irvine, do....*you* wanna tell him or....."
Irvine leaned back in his chair and glared at Seifer. "Selphie, I don't think Seifer has any business knowing."
"WHAT HAPPENED?"
"C'mon, ya know!! What happened?! It's still our home, too!" Raijin complained, a mouthfull of chowder slurring his speech.
"Are you sure you want to know?" Irvine said, leaning forward on the table.
"CONTINUE," Fujin said.
"Zell tried to kill hisself," Irvine said, and leaned back in chair.
Seifer nearly choked on his food. He finally got it down and looked Irvine square in the eyes. "He what??! Chickenwuss tried to kill himself? Why?"
A gasp came from behind the group. They all turned around to see Ma Dincht standing in the doorway of the restaurant. The screen door was about to fall off its henges, but none had heard it open. She was covered from head to toe in a yellow rain slicker, carrying plastic bags with food inside. She covered her mouth with her hand.
".....What....?" she whispered. "....Zell...He what...?"
Selphie stood up. "M'Mrs. Dincht.....?! I-"
"Selphie, Zell tried to.... what--how...? Why...?" she said.
Irvine stood up and walked over to her. He looked down at her; he was much taller than she. "Mrs. Dincht...."
"You tell me the truth, Irvine. Did my boy try to kill himself and we weren't told?"
".....We would've told you, ma'am, but....he didn't want you to know...We were afraid to tell you because, well....." Selphie stepped in between them.
"He made us promise not to. We were afraid to say anything because if we'd told you and you went up there to see him......he'd know one of us told. The last thing he needed was to be lied to." Selphie looked down at the ground. "We're sorry, Mrs. Dincht......He put us between a rock and a hard place. I.....hope you understand....."
"Is he okay....? That's all I care....is he okay, Selphie? How did he do it?"
"He.....jumped out of a tree in the training center.....He's got a few broken ribs, and a bump on the head, but....he's gonna be okay," Irvine said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Zell'll be fine, ya know!" Raijin said, jumping up from his seat. "He'll come back and be regular Zell again, you wait and see, ya know!"
Fujin stood up and kicked him hard in the back of the knee. "QUIET!!!!" she roared.
"OWWWWWWWW!!!!! Dang it, Fujin!! Why you have to kick me all the time???!!" he cried angrily, rubbing the back of his knee. Fujin reared her leg back, as if to kick him again. "OK, OK, OK!!!!! I'll shut up!!!"he said, falling back down in his chair and scooting away from Fujin as far as he could.
"Irvine.....if me and Pa can't go see him.....will you...let him know we love him? You don't have to let him know you told us, just let him know, somehow that we love him. Could you do that for us....?"
"Of course, Mrs. Dincht," he replied.
"Call me Ma," she said to him. "I understand. I won't come up there to see him." She smiled. "That boy and his privacy.....I don't know what I'll do with him. Did he say why he did it?" she asked, the smile disappearing.
"That's what we were about to get to when you came out here," Selphie said. "We don't know why. He won't tell us anything....Ma. Except Squall.....and he doesn't tell Squall much. The only thing he tells the rest of us is to leave or he doesn't say anything."
"If he says anything, you let me and Pa know, alright?" Ma said.
"We will," Irvine said.
"Hey, Irvine, we'd better get going back to Garden," Selphie said. "The other's will be worried about us," Selphie said, tugging on his arm. He looked down at her and back at Ma.
"She's right. We'd better go."
"You take care o'yourselves and my boy, you hear? You're always welcome in my house. You stop by whenever you get the chance," Ma said. "Now....I gotta go tell Pa at the house....He'll have a fit that we weren't told, but don't worry. I can keep him under control."
With that, she pulled on her hood and tied it so it would stay on. She walked out the door and down the street. She waved to them and they waved back.
Seifer stood up. "We'd better get going."
Irvine turned to him with one eyebrow raised. "With us? To Garden? Somehow, I don't think so."
"You gonna stop me, cowboy?"
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That's chapter 4. What's gonna happen next? I've got a few ideas in mind for chapter 5, but you let me know what you want to happen.At least one reason why Zell tried to kill himself will be revealed,probably more. How does Seifer act towards Zell? Callous? Do Squall and Seifer have a face-off? Does Seifer get to see Zell at all? Let me know what you think.
Oh, and here's a question:Should Zell die in this story? I've been toying around with the idea, but I don't know.Killing a character is a touchy thing. DON'T answer this question on the reviews page, okay? I'm gonna do what the majority says and I don't want anyone to know what the ending will be until we get there.That's the only thing I ask: don't answer on the reviews page.This story's nowhere near the end, don't worry.Stick around for chapter 5, which is, as of right now, untitled.
Thanks,
Phoenixcadet