Disclaimer: My lawyers have just informed me that I don't own FF8 or any of it's characters.

Author's notes: I had to repost. Something was screwed up the first time I posted.

Fatal Misunderstanding

Chapter.1

BEEP!, BEEP! ,BEEP!!

The shrill sound of his alarm clock jarred him awake at six o'clock. Groaning, Squall shut it off and looked over at Rinoa. She was sleeping peacefully, and he decided not to wake her. After all, she didn't need to wake up until eight, since her first class wasn't until nine thirty.

Squall smiled, remembering how happy his girlfriend had been when she had not only been made a SeeD, but also been given her instructors license. She now taught advanced magic, and History of the Sorceress. Squall, on the other hand, taught gunblade skills to the five students who had decided to learn to use the complicated weapon. He was also commander of the Garden, meaning he had to be up early to be sure everything was going as planned.

He got dressed, ran a comb through his hair, and then headed down to the cafeteria. As always, Zell was there waiting for him. "Hey Squall," the martial artist shouted from across the cafeteria, "We still on for the training center?"

Squall nodded at him and grabbed some food from the counter. Looking around, he saw that none of his other friends were around, so he went to sit by Zell. "I thought you didn't have to teach until eight," he remarked, "Don't tell me you got up this early just so I could kick your ass."

Zell smirked. "Nah, I promised Kia Monroe I'd help her work on her skills before class. She has a lot of talent, her worst problem is balance. I swear, that girl is the clumsiest person I've ever met."

Squall smiled. Since he had let Zell take over hand to hand combat classes, there had been a rise in student visits to the infirmary, but Zell had become a popular teacher, and totally devoted to his students. Squall could name at least four girls with a crush on him, and quite a few boys who had tried giving themselves tattoos on their faces. Then again, there were just as many people who admired Squall, but he chose to ignore them.

Quistis came to their table then and greeted them with a tired groan. "Uggg... I don't wanna work today," she whined, "I was up all night arranging to have twelve Trabia students transfer here for their SeeD exams. Squall, can I quit?"

Squall pretended to consider. "Hmm..can the Headmistress of Balamb garden quit, therefore leaving me with the responsibility of finding a new one, and taking over in the mean time? Umm.. No."

Quistis sighed. "Oh well, I tried," she said, trying to sound upset. Everyone knew Quistis loved her job at Headmistress of the Garden, and did a much better job of it than Squall would have.

When Cid had turned the Garden over to Squall, the antisocial teen had tried running it for only a week before appointing Quistis. She dealt with discipline, announcements, and students, he dealt with SeeD, from everything to dispatching them to help in other countries, to the SeeD exams, which had gotten harder since the defeat of Ultimecia. Irvine and Rinoa had been made SeeDs, and almost all of his friends were instructors, except Irvine, who chose to stay as a simple field SeeD, and obviously enjoyed it. Squall finished his coffee and stood up. Zell followed him. "See ya Quisty," Zell said over his shoulder, "Gotta go let Squall get acquainted with my fists."

The two guys headed for the training center. When they got there, Squall pulled out his gunblade and Zell slipped on his gloves. They ignored the group of about ten students who had shown up to watch. Squall didn't fight as well as he could have. He knew that, with a weapon like a gunblade going against nothing but fists, only a weak warrior would use their gunblade to it's full potential. When Zell surprised him with a kick to the head, Squall retaliated by slashing at him in a smooth upwards movement. A huge rip appeared in Zell's shirt, but Squall was careful to not even scratch the skin. As Zell ripped his shirt off to fight better, Squall heard the sighs from the girls in the audience. He glanced quickly at his watch, and saw that it was already seven. He jerked his eyes back up just in time to see a fist coming straight at his face. Without thinking, he blocked it with his gunblade, then followed through on the move and threw Zell to the ground.

"I almost had you," Zell sighed, "You lost your concentration, but nice recovery."

"Yeah," Squall replied, "We should hit the showers, I have less than half an hour before I have to brief some SeeDs on a mission." He held his hand out to pull Zell up, and immediately found himself face first in the dirt. "Dirty trick," he told Zell, trying to look annoyed but failing, "You'll pay for that tomorrow Dincht."

Zell only shrugged and left the training center, leaving Squall to brush off the dirt and tell the students to either start practicing or leave the training center.

When Squall entered his Dorm, Rinoa was still sleeping. He walked into the bathroom for a shower, flinching at the temperature. The hot water had been screwing up lately, so that sometimes it would be freezing, and sometimes there would be a sudden rush of scalding hot water, but this was ridiculous. He turned the water all the way down, so that it should, according to common sense, be freezing, but it wouldn't get any colder. The heat was almost unbearable, but he put up with it long enough to wash his hair, then jumped out, and felt his legs and arms get goose bumps as his hot body hit the cold air of the dorm. He changed again, thankful that he had bought another pair of leather pants last week, since the pair he had been wearing had gotten a lot of dirt on them when he fell, and walked over to the bed.

Leaning over, he shook Rinoa's shoulder. She rolled over, and looked at him. "What time is it?" she asked.

Surprised that she hadn't greeted him with her usual joking complaint about waking up, he took a moment before replying, "five after seven. I know it's early, I just wanted to say have a good day. You'll meet me for lunch, right?"

"Probably," she replied, then asked, "Did anyone call last night?" He shook his head, and she said, "Ok then, well, see you at lunch," then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Squall left for the mission briefing, trying to push her lack of enthusiasm to the back of his mind. Maybe she was just a bit sick, or hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Either way, Squall shrugged it off. He had work to do.

End of Chapter.1

Pointless babble: Well, I've been having a great day. First, I got up to go to work (volunteer work at a pet store actually) and realized my shoes were soaked, thanks to my ever so kind friend throwing them in the ocean yesterday. So I threw them in the dryer. They weren't dry in time for work, so I had to wear these beat up dirty sneakers that were practically falling off my feet. I got to work and just to make my day perfect, I find out that the new owners decided to get rid of volunteers, and it's my last day. There was nothing to do, so I came home. Then I realized that my shoes still weren't dry, and the dryer was a mess. I hadn't realized there was sand in them too. SO I cleaned the dryer, and went to check on my reviews. SUPRISE SURPRISE! NONE!!! (well, except some I got three days ago) I checked my stats and realized that, although I had uploaded five chapters, it only said there were two. SO now I'm reposting. Thanks to the 6 people who reviewed my story, you're all cool. And sorry, for complaining, I'm just having a real crappy day.

Author's notes: I'll have the first five chapters posted by tomorrow at the latest. then I can finally start on ch.6