**A/N- I'm a risk taker so spare me the flames, unless you feel it is something that needs to be stressed.**


Seifer Walked up and down the hallway, back and forth. He would have actually stood in front of the directory but he didn't want to actually make her think he was eager to go to lunch with her. He had never felt like this around a girl before and now just actually thinking about her made his heart falter. He stopped walking and sat down on a bench, rubbing his head in his hands. He sure would have liked a cold shower right about now. He tapped his boot on the ground and looked back up to see Zell air punching his way towards him. He hadn't changed, him and that stupid looking tattoo on his face. He remembered when Zell had the guts to get it. He had the insane idea that girls actually liked stuff like that. His mother cried when she had saw the "damage" that her son had done to his face and beat Zell with one of her wooden spoons. Seifer still couldn't remember the event without smirking. Zell crawled out of his house with welts all over his arms as Seifer, Fujin and Rajin stood outside on the cobblestone sidewalk and gawked with laughter. Those were better times, it was before he went to Deling and met that silly girl and when everything was perfect. Squall was still "in his shell." As Quistis liked to call it. He was always the emotional hermit. Even when they were all back at the orphanage he used to hide behind Ellone and cling to her like some sort of parasite. Seifer himself had been glad when Ellone left because now Squall had his own chance to grow some balls of his own instead of acting like a punk. But after Ellone left Squall went and leached on to Matron and she babied him up. He looked back up to notice that Zell had stopped running and now was air punching right in front of him. Zell stopped when he saw that Seifer was now paying attention to him. "Waiting for a train Dincht?", Seifer as he took a glance towards the directory to see if she was there yet.
"............,"Zell just stared at him, like he was waiting for Seifer to jump up and attack him.
"What? If it's not important you can leave me alone."
"I'm supposed to tell you that Cid is looking for you." He said, looking back to Seifer and looking back over to the directory. "What exactly are you looking at?." He asked squinting even thought the directory was actually a few feet away.
"Your Mother," he retorted as he stood up and began to walk towards the stairs. Zells' face turned a bright crimson as he reached his fist up and waved it in the air. He hadn't completely changed. He looked back over to the directory and back over to the stairs trying to decide which was more important.
"Are my orders immediate Chic-...Zell?," He asked turning around to look at Zell once again.
"I don't know...Cid just said 'Tell Almasy to report to my office'," Zell said, while sticking out his chest and doing his always-corny impersonation of Cid.
"This is great now I'm Cids' bitch," he mumbled underneath his breath as he began to walk up the steps as Zell began to follow. He had to go see what Cid wanted Cid was more important than some girl was. When they got into the elevator Zell pressed the special code and they were soon on their way up to Cids' office. Seifer looked down and watched the directory shrink from his sight. When they reached Cid's office Zell shot by him in one of his frenzied rushes to be first out of the elevator. Seifer walked in behind him, contemplating what this meeting was supposed to be about. He saw Cid standing up and looking out of that window. Didn't he ever get fed up with the same scenery? He didn't really have a job seeing that all of the Garden Staff ran the place. All Cid did was sigh and watch the window all day, that was when he wasn't acting like he ran the place and busy kicking students out.
"Well good afternoon Mr. Almasy," take a seat. He motioned to one of his chairs as Seifer looked over to see Xu standing with a folder in her hands. Cid looked back to Seifer and rubbed his hands together. "Mr. Almasy, how would you react if you got a chance to become a valid SeeD sooner than you expected?."
"I'd ask you what's the catch."
"Hmm, eager for the chance to serve your country I see" Cid responded as he motioned for Xu to hand Seifer the folder.
"We have a special assignment for you. There is a SeeD exam that is supposed to take place tomorrow morning. There is a special student that needs some safekeeping throughout the exam. The student's father is a very, very prominent figure in political society and he has offered to become head benefactor to Balamb Garden if his daughter is kept safe and alive throughout her exam."
"So you want me to be some inexperienced SeeD candidates bodyguard?"
"No Mr. Almasy, our client is a very smart intelligent and talented young woman who I think will become a high-ranking officer one-day. That is if you accept this mission and do it properly."
"Why me Cid? How come you didn't choose a SeeD for this sort of thing?"
"Because Seifer, this is your chance to add merit to your name, and I know that you would like to become SeeD."
"And from previous circumstances you are a pretty good bodyguard," Xu chimed in as Cid looked to her and frowned and Seifer bit his lip before he voiced aloud what Rajin told him Xu was also good at.
"I wasn't a bodyguard, I was a knight and that was a completely different thing. I was under the control of Ultimecia."
"That's the problem Seifer not a lot of people think you were, if it wasn't for me then you probably would have been executed by now. You have now idea how many people want to see you dead!" Cid scolded Seifer as he banged his hand on the table. Now he owed a favor to Cid because Cid had spared his life. How kind of Cid but Seifer wanted to die a long time ago, like when he had found his mother in the kitchen dead when he was only just seven. Her long golden hair matted with her warm fresh blood. His mother was his only family and now he was suddenly being shipped off to some goddamn orphanage full of kids. He hated to see them smile or hear them laugh because no matter how hard he tried he couldn't smile or laugh to. At least half of those kids never knew their parents so they didn't have to deal with the pain or the anger or the frustration of forgetting someone they loved so dearly. Now at the age of eighteen the only memory he had of his mother was her dead body on the kitchen floor. Not of her cooking in the kitchen like Zells' mother often did but just lying there, limp and lifeless as he cried those empty tears and screamed for her to come back. He swore to Hyne that one day he would probably forget her name to....Ariella.
"I'll take it." Seifer grunted as he turned his head to look out the window to notice the sunset and the soon coming onslaught of darkness that would fill the sky.
"Good choice Mr. Almasy," Cid replied as Xu smiled to Seifer and he stared down at the folder in his hands. It was her case file, whoever she was her name was Klaer because that was all that was written on the file OPERATION:KLAER. Maybe he would run into Angelica tonight if he didn't go straight to his dorm like he planned. Or maybe he would see her tomorrow at the Exam. He needed something to lift up his spirits but he knew from personal experience that alcohol was never good on the night before a Field Exam.
He woke up early and decided to go do some battles in the training center to break Hyperion back in. He had just got it back a few days ago when it had been delivered to him at the Garden. They had taken it away when he had been exiled because they considered him a threat when it was in his hands. He liked how they thought of him as a threat but he didn't like all the attention that he received when people recognized him. One time a kid had run up to him and asked him for an autograph.
"Your my favorite Sorceress Knight," The small kid chimed happily.
"I'm nobody's' favorite kid," He responded just scribbling a few circles onto the paper. He was just a little kid what difference did it make if it was a signature or not.
He had finished off seven Grats without the help of any GF's and was hoping that he wouldn't run into any T-Rexuars. He didn't like fighting those things alone, even though he considered himself to be good enough to do everything else.
He walked back to his dorm room and gathered up a towel a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo before he walked back out and down the hallway to the men's bathroom. He always hated the fact that in the dormitory there was one big bathroom for the men and one big one for the women and a single bathroom with only just a toilet located in the hallway. Maybe when they got that new benefactor he could add bathrooms to all of the dorms. He walked past the urinals where squall was looking at himself in the mirror when he noticed Seifer walk by. Seifer often wondered whose bright idea it was to put a long mirror on top of the eight urinals that sat in a row beside each other on the wall. But Squall looked at himself in mirrors all the time now, so he did a double take and nearly caught himself in his zipper when he was trying to rush out and see if that was really Seifer Almasy, walking around the bathroom with a towel around his waist. Yeah Quistis had told them that he was back and Zell had told him that he ran into Seifer and had to escort him to Cids' office but Squall had always been the type of 'I'll believe it when I see it' person. How was he supposed to approach Seifer, should he even approach Seifer? What should he say? 'Hey Seifer how's it going, I'm screwing your ex-girlfriend', or 'Guess what Seifer, I'm not a virgin anymore and guess who took it?' But he didn't want to seem too crass. He had grown an awful lot of courage since the Ultimecia thing and not everyone was proud of it. He watched Seifer walk over to a sink and a set of mirrors and take out some shaving cream and begin to shave. Squall decided to double think before he approached him due to the fact that he had sharp object in his hand.
"What is it Squall?" Seifer spoke up, as he focused on the mirror and ran the razor along his chin. He had seen Squall at the urinals seven minutes ago taken a leak and had known it was him right away. Who else uses two belts to hold op one pair of pants that fit tightly already.
".... Nothing I just wanted to say Hi...how's it going?"
"Decent, and you?" Seifer tried to be s nice as possible without sounding too god damn perky.
"Never been better." Squall smiled as he thought about Rinoa. Seifer looked to him and rationalized the awkwardness of the situation. Here stood Squall Leonheart, the man who single handily took his dashing good looks by swiping him across the face with that thing he called a weapon. And taking his girl, his pride and his dignity all in the matter of a month and everyone expected him to be on his best behavior. Why did he come back to Balamb? He should have gone to Galbadia with Fuu. They had loads of real fighters there. Seifer wanted to kick his ass right there in the bathroom but he was supposed to meet in the lobby in an hour and if her really wanted to kick Squalls ass he wanted to do it in front of Rinoa.
"I have to go now," Seifer told Squall, walking past him and gathering his stuff heading for the door. As the brown headed boy stared back at him in disbelief. The power of influence works in wondrous ways.
Seifer was about to head out to the directory when he noticed the sealed manila envelope that held the case file. 'A good SeeD always does their homework.' he remembered one of his instructors saying to the class on one of those random occasions when he didn't use class time as a rest session. So what? He'd look at the file on the way to the mission. Why did he need to know every fact about some broad he just had to look out for? She picked up the file and pushed it into his pocket as he realized that hardback book that Angelica had thrown at him was still in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it once again before placing it on his desk. And shoving the folder into his pocket. He headed to the directory and was all but not surprised to see Quistis, Xu and Headmaster Cid there.
"Why hello Quistis, seeing you again brings back old memories." Seifer grinned to her as she looked at him, shaking her head and rolling her eyes as usual.
"Quistis will be your liaison for the Exam." Xu chimed in happily.
"SeeD, Instructor, SeeD now Liaison? Quistis, when will you learn to hold down a steady job?" He sniggered as Quistis clenched her teeth and growled at him. "Hmm.you are an animal, who turned you out after I left?" He replied before Quistis lunged at him but pulled back as Cid turned around and began to talk to the three.
"It seems everyone is accounted for but Angelica. Quistis, have you seen her this morning?"
"Yeah, she was in the Training Center this morning. And I -"Seifer tuned Quistis out as he was Angelica walking down the hallway with a group of girls, he looked back over to Quistis as he saw her walk over to Angelica and drag her over to the group.
"Why nice of you to grace us with your presence Angelica," Cid beamed as his gave Angelica a smile and a prod. "I expect you and Seifer to come back as SeeD."
"I will Headmaster but maybe you shouldn't think so highly of Seifer he is very good at disappointing people." She looked to him and rolled her eyes as Quistis Smirked and Xu turned away to play a quick game of Triple Triad with one of the girls Angelica walked with. Seifer bit his tongue as he looked back to Quistis with a bitter face.
"Have you two met before?" Cid asked, eyeing Seifer down. He was well known in the women department for sleeping around.
"No, it's just from what I hear Seifer is not very good in the leadership department." Seifer was really about to blow his top. He was letting this girl talk shit about him and Quistis was standing there getting a kick out of it.
"That is why I made you squad captain Angelica."
"Me....?" She looked at Seifer and Quistis rather stupefied.
"Yes, now you must take the car to Balamb, the assault boat is probably waiting for you."
Seifer hated the cheesy display that was being put on but he really didn't have a say in the matter. But Angelica sure did look hot when she was pissed. In the car to Balamb Seifer opened the manila envelope and looked at the file and looked at the picture on the front. It looked just like Angelica...it was Angelica, Angelica Klaer to be exact.
"Yeah this mission is going to be a shit load of fun" Seifer mumbled sarcastically as he looked out of the window to the Balamb coast.

**Like it or not? R&R**