Quistis lay slumped on the sofa half asleep staring down at the floor, slowly breathing in and out and moving her hand along the floor trying to find her glass of vodka. Her hand reached it, but spilt it, the new carpet ruined. Quistis rubbed her eyes and sat up as Squall came in to the room. He was probably going to be furious.
Squall looked down at the stain on the carpet, he had a grim look on his face, he sat down next to Quistis and held his head in his hands.
"Rinoa's not looking good. She's turned really pale and cold. I don't know what to do, I don't know what's happening."
Quistis managed to compose herself and said: "It's okay, Squall. She'll be alright. Things like this happen, they've happened before and they'll happen again, there's nothing you can do about it, your helpless, I'm helpless, we're all helpless inside this huge machine, this huge machine that is dying slowly."
Squall didn't say anything for a few moments. He thought about what she had said. On one hand, she was right, there was nothing he could do, but on the other she was being a cold hearted insensitive bitch who only wanted to get back at him because he chose Rinoa instead of her. He looked into her eyes but couldn't see the Quistis he used to know, she wasn't there anymore, she was still in Balamb Garden along with the rest of the SeeDs. Her eyes seemed empty, there was nothing in her voice, it was if her soul had fluttered out of her body when she left the Garden and now she had nothing left. Squall looked back at the stain on the carpet, he reassessed the situation.
"Well, I'm not helpless anymore because I'm not alone anymore, I have all my friends and I have a desire to live now, one that I never had before. I now live without regret, without fear, without self-doubt, helplessness, and anxiety, but with hope, a hope for a better future. That's my dream and I'm going to stick with it right to the end. You should understand, Quistis, you've been in a similar situation yourself."
"Yeah, right, keep dreaming, pal because this is real life and life sucks. Zell's taught me a lot over the past few days."
"Zell? Why are you taking him so seriously?"
"He is a very wise man, Squall, a very wise man. You should learn from him Squall, not two dollar sluts like Rinoa who think they're such smart-asses. She doesn't know what life really is, she's living in a fantasy and she's brainwashing you Squall, you need to get back to reality and you need to get back to it now. I'm as sorry and as surprised as you were to see what happened to Rinoa last night, but that doesn't stop her from being a manipulative bitch."
"That's way too harsh, Quistis, that's way too harsh. I'm a free man now."
"A free man? There's no such thing. You're all there thinking your life is so great when really it's a load of shit. If this is your fantasy, then count me out, but let me warn you that it will be your final fantasy."
"I can't believe you, Quistis, I thought you were my friend, I thought that I could confide in you, but I guess I was wrong."
"You can confide in me, Squall, now give me a kiss sweetheart."
She drew her mouth closer to his and closed her eyes. Squall smelt her breath, she had clearly had too much to drink. Her mouth got closer and closer with each passing moment. He had been thinking about this for years and now that moment had finally arrived he didn't want any part of it. Squall moved out of the way and looked back at Quistis. She had hit her head on the other end of the sofa and was half unconscious.
She was murmuring something under her breath but Squall couldn't hear it and he left the room without looking back again.
Squall went up to his room, Rinoa still lying cold on the bed. Irvine and Selphie were sitting around her, they had grim expressions on their faces and Squall feared the worse.
"How she doing?" he asked.
"She's getting worse," said Irvine. "She was murmuring something a few hours ago but now, nothing."
"I dunno if she's ever gonna wake up," Selphie said, a tear in her eye as she spoke. "Squall, this has all gone wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!"
"Yeah, I know," Squall said. "It's not supposed to be like this. Damn, it's all my fault."
"It's not your fault, Squall," said Irvine. "There was nothing you could do, she just reacted to something. The best thing you could do for her and to everyone else is to stay calm and try and figure out what caused this."
"That's easy for you to say, you're not stuck in the middle of this situation, that's not your wife lying there. You can talk all you want, but you don't know what it's actually like."
Irvine replied: "If it was my wife, or any of my friends, Selphie for instance, I'd try to do the best for them, I wouldn't just hang around like you. You've been through this before and you took the initiative of taking her to see Ellone so why not now? What's changed so drastically that you don't want to save Rinoa? It makes you a bit of a goddamn hypocrite actually and so sick of your whining and complaining, you stupid bastard."
"Hey, at least I've acknowledged my faults and accepted them for what they are, but you, you're the hypocrite, hiding behind this macho man image. That goes for you too, Selphie. Every time, you knock me for the way I am, just because I'm a little introverted, shy or just a down right unlikeable sonofabitch, but I never go up to you and knock you for all it. We all may be a little confused and lost after the Garden closed, but who made the most of it and who came running back for help? Don't you sit there and think you're interested in talking to me about my problems because you all know that if I weren't leader you wouldn't so do that, you're just trying to suck up to me and doing a lousy job at it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta take care of my wife."
Irvine and Selphie were stunned as they saw Squall walk across the room in a furious rage, pick Rinoa up aggressively and carry her out of the room.
Irvine suddenly composed himself and said: "What the hell are you doing? Where are you taking Rinoa?"
"Where she can sleep easily and not have people like you making her life hell."
"You can't just take her away like that, she's sick, she shouldn't be moved."
"That's never stopped me before," said Squall looking down at Rinoa. "Come on, Rinoa, we're going home."
"Where?" screamed Selphie.
"Somewhere away from you people. Somewhere I can get away from that slut, Quistis, you two jackass' and that other one."
"Zell?"
"Yeah, that's him," said Squall. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got places to be."
He left the room. Irvine and Selphie didn't try and stop him but all the time they had in the back of their minds that this was a grave mistake. They just couldn't figure out what made Squall snap like that.
"I'm going after him," said Selphie getting to her feet.
"No, don't bother," said Irvine. "He's not gonna listen to you, he's obviously in his self-important, obnoxious mood again, except it seems to be worse than last time. He seems to be possessive as well. There's no point talking to him, better let him cool off for a while."
"But he might hurt Rinoa."
"No, I don't think even Squall would do that deliberately. Squall and Rinoa'll be okay soon, you'll see, and then everything will be back to normal."
"I hope you're right, Irvy," said Selphie. "I hope you're right."
"It's okay, Selphie, we'll be alright, no matter what happens, we'll always remain the best of friends because we're stronger than Squall."
"Yeah,"
Irvine leaned over and gave Selphie a hug and squeezed tightly only wishing in the back of his mind that it could be more.
As Squall carried Rinoa out of the house, he looked back and saw Quistis asleep on the sofa. He smiled. Maybe she was right after all, he thought as walked out.
It was midnight and Squall still wasn't back. Quistis was worried that he may have left forever. She was sitting round a table with Irvine, Selphie and Zell.
"What's gone wrong?" Quistis asked. There were blank looks on everyone's faces. They knew something was up but they didn't want to bring up what they thought from fear of what the others may think.
"What are we doing here?" asked Zell after a long silence.
"We came here to see Squall and Rinoa," Quistis replied.
"Yes, well that seems to have gone according to plan since Squall isn't here and Rinoa's in a coma."
"I'm really worried for her, I hope Squall hasn't done anything stupid."
"Stupid?" Zell said. "Squall? When was the last time Squall did anything stupid?"
A long pause. "I'm being sarcastic, by the way. If it weren't for us then Squall wouldn't have been able to do anything, he's not capable of doing anything on his own even though that's what he says he can do. He's obviously just a hypocrite, a liar, and a definite stupid SOB. How can he even think of running off with Rinoa like that with her in that condition, he's gonna kill her."
"I suppose this means that he's through being the leader and we're through fighting," Quistis said. "Welcome to never ending cycle of life."
"No," said Zell. "I'm not going to give up. I didn't come all this way and give up a life at home with my Ma so I could be shafted like this. It's not going to happen. I'm gonna tell Squall how it is."
"Be careful," Selphie said. "In the mood he's in, he'll probably snap."
"Don't worry, I'll teach some sense into him."
"Um, I think I should do that," said Quistis. "I think I can make him understand better and be a little less threatening."
"You mean by asking to sleep with him?"
"What?"
"Nothing," said Zell. "Only joking."
They heard a noise coming from outside.
"What's that?"
"I'll go and see," said Quistis.
She got up, walked to the door and opened it. There standing was Squall holding Rinoa in his arms. It was pouring down with rain and they were both absolutely soaked. The look on Squall's face was so blank, it was mindless. He was shivering convulsively from the cold and Quistis looked at him in dismay.
"Where the hell have you been?" Quistis said. "We've all been worried sick."
"Sorry, I've just been doing some thinking."
"Some thinking? For the love of Hyne, we've all been worried sick."
"I somehow find that hard to believe."
"You can't do stuff like that to us Squall, you just can't. You can't do it to Rinoa either, it's not fair."
"You can't just come knocking on my door either and demand to stay here. I never said you could, you know, it's just that you think it's your right."
"Squall, it's time to grow up and stop being such an immature jackass. Now is the time to work together and help us rebuild ourselves, let's rebuild our army and fight for the future."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah."
Squall walked past Quistis leaving the door open and took Rinoa to the room and laid her down on the bed. He then went down where everyone was waiting for him. They all gave him harsh glares.
"How could you take Rinoa out in weather like this?" Quistis asked.
"I just had to get away from it all," said Squall. "I thought I was retired, but obviously you people seem hell-bent on preventing that. Why did you come here anyway? Was it purposely to try and break up our marriage, it seems that way to me Quistis. Obviously it made Rinoa's powers go all strange as well."
"That couldn't have been our fault," said Irvine. "Now you're just being paranoid Squall, there's now way we could have triggered off that out burst. We were as shocked as you were."
"Yeah, but you don't have to deal with it like I do."
"She's our friend too, you know," continued Irvine. He tried to move closer to Squall, but he pushed him away.
"We want to go back," said Quistis. "Like the glory days. Where we would fight together and it'd be great and now we don't have that, we don't have anything. We want to go back Squall, we want to continue fighting, but we need you."
A long pause.
"I'm sorry," said Squall. "I can't do that."
"What?"
"I can't do that anymore, I've got a new life here. I love it here, I'm not going back, I've got too much to lose now."
"How selfish can you get?" Zell said.
"I'm not being selfish, I just feel that it's time to stop seeing that there's no point anymore now that Ultimecia is dead."
"Yeah, but,"
"No, it's not going to happen, I'm not gonna fight anymore and that's the end of the story."
"If that's the way you want it," said Quistis. "Then fine."
"And just to prove it, here,"
Squall dejunctioned his GF's: Quezacotl, Siren, Cerberus, and Eden. They all looked on as he held the tiny crystals in his hands.
"Fine," Quistis said. "If you want to be like that so be it."
Quistis then dejunctioned her GF's: Shiva, Leviathan, Tonberry, and Doomtrain. The others followed her example until all the GF's were just crystals in their hands. They then threw them on the floor.
"I guess we're not fighting then," said Quistis.
"Suits me," said Zell.
"I never wanted to go back anyway," Selphie said.
"Good," said Squall. "Now I can throw these away for good."
He picked up the tiny crystals and threw them out the window. They scattered on the ground reaching as far out as the train station. Squall was glad that they were all out of sight and he rubbed his hands together.
"Okay, guys, what do you want to do now?"
The others were all down stairs arguing about the GFs, but Zell was upstairs alone in the dark thinking. He could hear the incessant bickering from downstairs, it was disturbing his quiet and he didn't like it. Zell had had enough of all the arguments. He was sick to death of everyone's moaning and complaining so he looked out of the window.
There he could see a tiny purple spot in the distance, it was circling around Esthar. It must be big if I can see it from all the way over here, Zell thought. The annoying chatter from downstairs wasn't going to go away any time soon so he laid down on his bed, closed his eyes and tried to forget about it all.
Through his mind he could see the purple dot swirling round in his head, it was getting bigger and bigger, it engulfed his vision. The voices in the background were fading slowly and soon were gone. Zell was now unconscious to what was going on around him, he was on a journey far away and his mind was meandering through misty pathways crawling through the desert.
Zell's eyes sprung open. It was still dark and the purple spiral in the sky was still going round Esthar, doing nothing but going round and round. Damn Squall, Zell thought, this is all his fault.
He cursed to the ground and sat back down on his bed holding his head in his hands. He could hear all the noise coming from downstairs again, it was eating away at his flesh. Damn Squall, he thought again, this is all his fault.
Squall looked down at the stain on the carpet, he had a grim look on his face, he sat down next to Quistis and held his head in his hands.
"Rinoa's not looking good. She's turned really pale and cold. I don't know what to do, I don't know what's happening."
Quistis managed to compose herself and said: "It's okay, Squall. She'll be alright. Things like this happen, they've happened before and they'll happen again, there's nothing you can do about it, your helpless, I'm helpless, we're all helpless inside this huge machine, this huge machine that is dying slowly."
Squall didn't say anything for a few moments. He thought about what she had said. On one hand, she was right, there was nothing he could do, but on the other she was being a cold hearted insensitive bitch who only wanted to get back at him because he chose Rinoa instead of her. He looked into her eyes but couldn't see the Quistis he used to know, she wasn't there anymore, she was still in Balamb Garden along with the rest of the SeeDs. Her eyes seemed empty, there was nothing in her voice, it was if her soul had fluttered out of her body when she left the Garden and now she had nothing left. Squall looked back at the stain on the carpet, he reassessed the situation.
"Well, I'm not helpless anymore because I'm not alone anymore, I have all my friends and I have a desire to live now, one that I never had before. I now live without regret, without fear, without self-doubt, helplessness, and anxiety, but with hope, a hope for a better future. That's my dream and I'm going to stick with it right to the end. You should understand, Quistis, you've been in a similar situation yourself."
"Yeah, right, keep dreaming, pal because this is real life and life sucks. Zell's taught me a lot over the past few days."
"Zell? Why are you taking him so seriously?"
"He is a very wise man, Squall, a very wise man. You should learn from him Squall, not two dollar sluts like Rinoa who think they're such smart-asses. She doesn't know what life really is, she's living in a fantasy and she's brainwashing you Squall, you need to get back to reality and you need to get back to it now. I'm as sorry and as surprised as you were to see what happened to Rinoa last night, but that doesn't stop her from being a manipulative bitch."
"That's way too harsh, Quistis, that's way too harsh. I'm a free man now."
"A free man? There's no such thing. You're all there thinking your life is so great when really it's a load of shit. If this is your fantasy, then count me out, but let me warn you that it will be your final fantasy."
"I can't believe you, Quistis, I thought you were my friend, I thought that I could confide in you, but I guess I was wrong."
"You can confide in me, Squall, now give me a kiss sweetheart."
She drew her mouth closer to his and closed her eyes. Squall smelt her breath, she had clearly had too much to drink. Her mouth got closer and closer with each passing moment. He had been thinking about this for years and now that moment had finally arrived he didn't want any part of it. Squall moved out of the way and looked back at Quistis. She had hit her head on the other end of the sofa and was half unconscious.
She was murmuring something under her breath but Squall couldn't hear it and he left the room without looking back again.
Squall went up to his room, Rinoa still lying cold on the bed. Irvine and Selphie were sitting around her, they had grim expressions on their faces and Squall feared the worse.
"How she doing?" he asked.
"She's getting worse," said Irvine. "She was murmuring something a few hours ago but now, nothing."
"I dunno if she's ever gonna wake up," Selphie said, a tear in her eye as she spoke. "Squall, this has all gone wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!"
"Yeah, I know," Squall said. "It's not supposed to be like this. Damn, it's all my fault."
"It's not your fault, Squall," said Irvine. "There was nothing you could do, she just reacted to something. The best thing you could do for her and to everyone else is to stay calm and try and figure out what caused this."
"That's easy for you to say, you're not stuck in the middle of this situation, that's not your wife lying there. You can talk all you want, but you don't know what it's actually like."
Irvine replied: "If it was my wife, or any of my friends, Selphie for instance, I'd try to do the best for them, I wouldn't just hang around like you. You've been through this before and you took the initiative of taking her to see Ellone so why not now? What's changed so drastically that you don't want to save Rinoa? It makes you a bit of a goddamn hypocrite actually and so sick of your whining and complaining, you stupid bastard."
"Hey, at least I've acknowledged my faults and accepted them for what they are, but you, you're the hypocrite, hiding behind this macho man image. That goes for you too, Selphie. Every time, you knock me for the way I am, just because I'm a little introverted, shy or just a down right unlikeable sonofabitch, but I never go up to you and knock you for all it. We all may be a little confused and lost after the Garden closed, but who made the most of it and who came running back for help? Don't you sit there and think you're interested in talking to me about my problems because you all know that if I weren't leader you wouldn't so do that, you're just trying to suck up to me and doing a lousy job at it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta take care of my wife."
Irvine and Selphie were stunned as they saw Squall walk across the room in a furious rage, pick Rinoa up aggressively and carry her out of the room.
Irvine suddenly composed himself and said: "What the hell are you doing? Where are you taking Rinoa?"
"Where she can sleep easily and not have people like you making her life hell."
"You can't just take her away like that, she's sick, she shouldn't be moved."
"That's never stopped me before," said Squall looking down at Rinoa. "Come on, Rinoa, we're going home."
"Where?" screamed Selphie.
"Somewhere away from you people. Somewhere I can get away from that slut, Quistis, you two jackass' and that other one."
"Zell?"
"Yeah, that's him," said Squall. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got places to be."
He left the room. Irvine and Selphie didn't try and stop him but all the time they had in the back of their minds that this was a grave mistake. They just couldn't figure out what made Squall snap like that.
"I'm going after him," said Selphie getting to her feet.
"No, don't bother," said Irvine. "He's not gonna listen to you, he's obviously in his self-important, obnoxious mood again, except it seems to be worse than last time. He seems to be possessive as well. There's no point talking to him, better let him cool off for a while."
"But he might hurt Rinoa."
"No, I don't think even Squall would do that deliberately. Squall and Rinoa'll be okay soon, you'll see, and then everything will be back to normal."
"I hope you're right, Irvy," said Selphie. "I hope you're right."
"It's okay, Selphie, we'll be alright, no matter what happens, we'll always remain the best of friends because we're stronger than Squall."
"Yeah,"
Irvine leaned over and gave Selphie a hug and squeezed tightly only wishing in the back of his mind that it could be more.
As Squall carried Rinoa out of the house, he looked back and saw Quistis asleep on the sofa. He smiled. Maybe she was right after all, he thought as walked out.
It was midnight and Squall still wasn't back. Quistis was worried that he may have left forever. She was sitting round a table with Irvine, Selphie and Zell.
"What's gone wrong?" Quistis asked. There were blank looks on everyone's faces. They knew something was up but they didn't want to bring up what they thought from fear of what the others may think.
"What are we doing here?" asked Zell after a long silence.
"We came here to see Squall and Rinoa," Quistis replied.
"Yes, well that seems to have gone according to plan since Squall isn't here and Rinoa's in a coma."
"I'm really worried for her, I hope Squall hasn't done anything stupid."
"Stupid?" Zell said. "Squall? When was the last time Squall did anything stupid?"
A long pause. "I'm being sarcastic, by the way. If it weren't for us then Squall wouldn't have been able to do anything, he's not capable of doing anything on his own even though that's what he says he can do. He's obviously just a hypocrite, a liar, and a definite stupid SOB. How can he even think of running off with Rinoa like that with her in that condition, he's gonna kill her."
"I suppose this means that he's through being the leader and we're through fighting," Quistis said. "Welcome to never ending cycle of life."
"No," said Zell. "I'm not going to give up. I didn't come all this way and give up a life at home with my Ma so I could be shafted like this. It's not going to happen. I'm gonna tell Squall how it is."
"Be careful," Selphie said. "In the mood he's in, he'll probably snap."
"Don't worry, I'll teach some sense into him."
"Um, I think I should do that," said Quistis. "I think I can make him understand better and be a little less threatening."
"You mean by asking to sleep with him?"
"What?"
"Nothing," said Zell. "Only joking."
They heard a noise coming from outside.
"What's that?"
"I'll go and see," said Quistis.
She got up, walked to the door and opened it. There standing was Squall holding Rinoa in his arms. It was pouring down with rain and they were both absolutely soaked. The look on Squall's face was so blank, it was mindless. He was shivering convulsively from the cold and Quistis looked at him in dismay.
"Where the hell have you been?" Quistis said. "We've all been worried sick."
"Sorry, I've just been doing some thinking."
"Some thinking? For the love of Hyne, we've all been worried sick."
"I somehow find that hard to believe."
"You can't do stuff like that to us Squall, you just can't. You can't do it to Rinoa either, it's not fair."
"You can't just come knocking on my door either and demand to stay here. I never said you could, you know, it's just that you think it's your right."
"Squall, it's time to grow up and stop being such an immature jackass. Now is the time to work together and help us rebuild ourselves, let's rebuild our army and fight for the future."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah."
Squall walked past Quistis leaving the door open and took Rinoa to the room and laid her down on the bed. He then went down where everyone was waiting for him. They all gave him harsh glares.
"How could you take Rinoa out in weather like this?" Quistis asked.
"I just had to get away from it all," said Squall. "I thought I was retired, but obviously you people seem hell-bent on preventing that. Why did you come here anyway? Was it purposely to try and break up our marriage, it seems that way to me Quistis. Obviously it made Rinoa's powers go all strange as well."
"That couldn't have been our fault," said Irvine. "Now you're just being paranoid Squall, there's now way we could have triggered off that out burst. We were as shocked as you were."
"Yeah, but you don't have to deal with it like I do."
"She's our friend too, you know," continued Irvine. He tried to move closer to Squall, but he pushed him away.
"We want to go back," said Quistis. "Like the glory days. Where we would fight together and it'd be great and now we don't have that, we don't have anything. We want to go back Squall, we want to continue fighting, but we need you."
A long pause.
"I'm sorry," said Squall. "I can't do that."
"What?"
"I can't do that anymore, I've got a new life here. I love it here, I'm not going back, I've got too much to lose now."
"How selfish can you get?" Zell said.
"I'm not being selfish, I just feel that it's time to stop seeing that there's no point anymore now that Ultimecia is dead."
"Yeah, but,"
"No, it's not going to happen, I'm not gonna fight anymore and that's the end of the story."
"If that's the way you want it," said Quistis. "Then fine."
"And just to prove it, here,"
Squall dejunctioned his GF's: Quezacotl, Siren, Cerberus, and Eden. They all looked on as he held the tiny crystals in his hands.
"Fine," Quistis said. "If you want to be like that so be it."
Quistis then dejunctioned her GF's: Shiva, Leviathan, Tonberry, and Doomtrain. The others followed her example until all the GF's were just crystals in their hands. They then threw them on the floor.
"I guess we're not fighting then," said Quistis.
"Suits me," said Zell.
"I never wanted to go back anyway," Selphie said.
"Good," said Squall. "Now I can throw these away for good."
He picked up the tiny crystals and threw them out the window. They scattered on the ground reaching as far out as the train station. Squall was glad that they were all out of sight and he rubbed his hands together.
"Okay, guys, what do you want to do now?"
The others were all down stairs arguing about the GFs, but Zell was upstairs alone in the dark thinking. He could hear the incessant bickering from downstairs, it was disturbing his quiet and he didn't like it. Zell had had enough of all the arguments. He was sick to death of everyone's moaning and complaining so he looked out of the window.
There he could see a tiny purple spot in the distance, it was circling around Esthar. It must be big if I can see it from all the way over here, Zell thought. The annoying chatter from downstairs wasn't going to go away any time soon so he laid down on his bed, closed his eyes and tried to forget about it all.
Through his mind he could see the purple dot swirling round in his head, it was getting bigger and bigger, it engulfed his vision. The voices in the background were fading slowly and soon were gone. Zell was now unconscious to what was going on around him, he was on a journey far away and his mind was meandering through misty pathways crawling through the desert.
Zell's eyes sprung open. It was still dark and the purple spiral in the sky was still going round Esthar, doing nothing but going round and round. Damn Squall, Zell thought, this is all his fault.
He cursed to the ground and sat back down on his bed holding his head in his hands. He could hear all the noise coming from downstairs again, it was eating away at his flesh. Damn Squall, he thought again, this is all his fault.