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To Candyce and all other Quiefer fans: I hope this makes you happy =D I'll add on, as you can probably guess. This is a start ^_^V
To Jenny: Thanks for the idea about sloth-pace XD

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Rinoa was curled up on Squall's bed, leaning against the corner of the room. She had stopped crying, and was growing even more content with the thought of seeing Squall the next day. Her gaze floated upward, her eyes noticing the perfectly-pressed SeeD uniform hanging from the wall.

"Now, I remember that uniform," she whispered in the silence of the room. "He wore it at the SeeD ball when we first met...I should be getting one myself since Cid and Edea made me an honorary SeeD." She smiled at the thought of fighting beside her beloved out in the field. "...Field...I have to go there tomorrow, so I may as well rest up."

She folded back the blankets of his bed, and climbed over them. She then pulled the blankets over herself, turned over, and went to sleep. Her dreams were of a blooming field of flowers...

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Laguna held onto her tightly, a grip so strong that it almost hurt Raine, but she didn't care. After all that time, waiting, she was finally with the man she loved...Her only worries were about her son who, as Ellone explained, left for a place called Balamb Garden a few minutes earlier. She had just missed him...

She wondered what he looked like now. Does he look like his father? How tall is he? What does his voice sound like? Does he have a family of his own? Thousands of questions filled her thoughts, but she tried to focus on that moment, that embrace...

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"Where is Ellone?"

"Um...Mr.Leonhart, Miss Ellone is in the President's office."

Squall headed in that direction.

"But you can't go in...the President is having a meeting with--" the secretary pleaded to no avail.

Squall pushed open the door, and found Laguna holding some woman. Ellone was crying in a chair nearby, but noticed his entry.

"...Squall? But I thought you..." Ellone spoke quietly.

"What happened here..?" Squall asked, puzzled.

"Hmm..?" the woman muttered, then turned around and gasped. "You...you're Squall?"

Squall's eyes widened when he finally saw the woman's face. The same face he saw when Ellone sent him to the past, just slightly more aged..."Raine?"

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The day was passing by at a sluggish pace.

Or perhaps at the pace of a stoned sloth... Quistis thought to herself. All her other friends either run off or unaccounted for, she was forced to endure the pain of having to sit next to *him*. She sipped lazily at her drink, giving thanks to heaven and Hyne for the caffeine and alcohol it was created from. Soon, she would be too buzzed to care about anyone else.

"See, this isn't so bad, now, is it?" Seifer said quietly and gave her a smirk.

"If you keep talking to me, I think it'll get worse. I thought I told you I wanted to be alone." Quistis took yet another sip of the bubbly blue fluid from the tall, narrow glass in front of her, never once taking her eyes off the ice floating near the rim of the glass.

"It seems to me like you've wanted to be alone for the past two years, Miss Trepe."

Quistis stopped drinking or a moment, and set down the glass. "How do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean. After you got your instructor's license, why did you--"

"Stop, Seifer." Quistis glared at him. "You damn well know why."

"Yes. Because of rumors. I still don't know why you chose to believe them over me."

"Because it seemed truthful. You disappeared for two days, as did she, and you both came back to Garden on the same day. And then you had no aliby to cover your ass. What was I *supposed* to think?"

Seifer began to glare at her. "Well, first off, Fujin would have probably bit it off before I got to touch her..."

Quistis' eyes widened.

"...and, secondly, a little known friend of hers, named Raijin, called her and invited us on a fishing trip! Now, I was the only one who could drive back then, so I *had* to go with Fujin!! She was one of my best friends and--" he stopped.

Quistis relaxed her eyes again. "And, what?"

Seifer shrugged. "...And I cared about her. I thought it would be fun for all of us to go fishing...I was even asked to bring you along, but I knew you despised the idea. Besides, if word had gotten out beforehand that we were going to be gone in FH for a couple days with someone outside of Garden, we could have gotten expelled! And...I wanted to pick something up for you in Fisherman's Horizon, so I didn't want to tell you where I was going...I guess I kinda screwed things up by trying to *not* screw things up..."

Quistis blinked. "I'd say."

Seifer shrugged again. "Well, since I'm actually here with you....I might as well give you this..." He pulled out a shimmering object on a chain, and set it on the table in front of her. "I don't know why I held onto it for all this time, not like I ever had a chance to change things. Maybe I was just hoping for one someday."

Quistis cocked an eyebrow slightly, and took the object into her hands. It was a small, eliptical form forged from gold. There was a seam running through the center of it, so she opened it gently with shakey hands.

"I guess you can keep it if you like. To remember better days. Heh..."

A picture was on each half of the locket. The pictures were the ones they had taken a week before he went to FH in a little Balamb City photo booth. Each picture had both of them in it, one shot of them smiling, giving a "victory" sign, the other of Seifer giving her a kiss on her cheek..."Seifer, I'm.....I......."

"Don't worry about it, Quistis. It's all in the past now. I'm over it, you know?" He stood up from the table. "Speaking of Fujin and Raijin, I think I should go talk to them. I'll see you around." He waved, and began to walk away.

Quistis stood up. "WAIT! I....."

Seifer stopped. "Hmm?"

"I...I wanted to say that....I..." she felt her face grow warm, and she turned her back to him. "I'm sorry. I...I should have thought things through. I was just...young, and I just got my license and--"

She felt strong arms around her. "It's okay."

Her eyes began to tear up. "I...I've been regretting that day ever since. Every day I saw you...I couldn't help but feel...."

"Quistis...." he turned her around to face him, "...I said it was okay."

She looked up into his eyes, those eyes she missed so dearly. "...Seifer..."

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Day quickly turned to night in Esthar, as things tend to do on the other side of the world from Balamb. Squall decided to stay the night at the palace and leave in the early morning, telling everyone he had to meet someone very important the next day. True, he could bare to stay a few hours in Esthar the next day and make it there with time to spare, but he reassured everyone that he would return to Esthar afterwards. What Squall didn't tell them was that he was going to go to the Garden in the morning, when it was nearing 10:00 at night in Balamb, to get Rinoa and tell everyone the good news. True, he could have sent a video message earlier that day to tell everyone about Raine, but he was certain they were all asleep from a long night of partying.

Ellone had retired to her room early that day, complaining of headache and fatigue, thinking it best to isolate herself if it was a virus so she didn't make others sick.

Laguna had insisted that Raine stay in his room that night, telling her it was for her "own safety" since the room was heavily guarded. Raine knew the truth, though. He was just afraid that she would leave him again. But she didn't want to leave him. She couldn't live without him like that, not again. When she was in that machine, her only thoughts were of her family, especially of her husband...

Raine inched even closer to the sleeping form of Laguna, and allowed her mind to fall asleep.

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*You act as though you have a choice in the matter*

I do have a choice, though...

*No. You think wrong, girl.*

No, I can choose...

*I made you. So soon you forget that I can break you just as easily...*

But I...

*It's not your loss. Do it.*

...you need me to live, you know...

*And if I chose to end your life, I still win. You have no choice but to do as I say.*

...but the choice is still mine...

*fool...*

...I choose not to do this...

*I thought you cared about him...*

..Him..?

*If you don't do this, it will break him...*

But if I do this, it will still break him...

*Then do it, and keep your life.*

But, I....

*A life taken...*

...Hyne...

*...in return for your own...*

...forgive me....

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AuthorNotes:

Okay. And from here on out is where the rating for this story may be changed. Maybe. It was kind of PG-13 for a little bit of language and content, but depending on how I write this....*cackle* ph34r 7h1s s70ry.