A/N: I'm not too crazy about this chapter, but if I stop right here and let myself get into a slump, it's going to be hard to get back out of it again. Also, I want to finish this fic as soon as possible.

Chapter 19: Duty and Devotion

By the time Quistis climbed out of bed the next morning, she was beginning to think she had completely lost her mind. She had, after all, kissed Seifer. The kiss wasn't what bothered her so much as who it miraculously landed on. That combined with the fact that she'd thought about it through most of the night was particularly disturbing. Even as she awoke, stretching her arms above her head in the comfortable (but slightly short) bed, she caught herself licking her lips and grinning.

She had no idea what had gotten into her. Everything had changed after the storm they had gotten stuck in. Seifer was suddenly sweet, even affectionate. And that, above all, was completely un-Seifer.

Quistis climbed out of bed and dressed, mentally preparing herself to handle the coming day. Her plans for the day were to find passage back to Balamb; the sooner they were back at Garden, the better. Everything was falling apart, nothing was going the way she had intended for it to. Even in her wildest dreams she'd never imagined anything like her trip out of Trabia would occur.

Edea was already up and busy by the time Quistis finally left her room. She'd spent quite a bit of time trying to convince herself that Seifer would just forget about the little goodnight kiss she had given him. It hadn't been much of a kiss anyway.

She shook her head, knowing that she was doing nothing but lying to herself. The both of the knew what that kiss was, although she was very reluctant to admit it. In the short amount of time that she had spent with Seifer, he'd somehow managed to endear himself to her. She was fond of him, actually more comfortable in his company than almost anyone else's. There was something blatant and honest about Seifer. He always let her know exactly what he thought of her, and because of that she always knew exactly what her standings were.

"Good morning," Edea smiled brightly as Quistis entered the kitchen. A very young boy was sitting on the floor in the corner playing with a matchbox car. Completely engrossed in his activity, he didn't even notice when Quistis entered the room.

"Morning, Matron," she smiled back, pausing to look out the window. The day was bright and sunny, the morning light able to make the grass appear even more green than usual. She was only moderately surprised to spot Seifer and Faber out in the said grass.

"They're very close already," Edea announced, seeing the direction of Quistis' vision.

"I noticed," Quistis nodded, watching the two interact from her hidden vantage point. They were sitting cross-legged in the grass, facing one another. Seifer was waving his hands franticly, the features of his face vibrantly alive as he relayed some dramatic story to the youngster. She couldn't help but crack a smile at the sight they presented. She had never seen Seifer interact with a child before, and it had never really occurred to her that he might ever chose to spend time with one. Faber and Seifer seemed to have a special sort of bond between them, one that was completely effortless on both of their parts. The little boy had taken to him upon first sight.

"Seifer acts tougher than he is," Edea replied, busying herself with breakfast.

"I have to take him back to Balamb." Quistis knew that Edea meant well, but she needed them to both be on the same page. Nothing could change the fact that Seifer was a criminal. Perhaps if the charges were dropped, or he were pardoned things could be different. But, the situation remained inevitable and irreversible. No matter how Quistis felt about him personally, she was still the servant of justice.

"I figured that you would," Edea sounded disappointed. Quistis immediately felt shame at hearing that tone in Edea's voice. She had been trained in childhood to respond to it, and the conditioning that she had been put through kicked in full force.

"It can't be helped," she shook her head, needing her mother to understand.

"Do you think he's guilty?" Edea asked, pausing her busy hands long enough to look up at Quistis through a cloud of dark hair that had fallen across her face.

"There's no denying what he's done," Quistis pointed out.

Edea didn't continue the debate, but her point had already been proven. Down in her heart, Quistis didn't really believe that Seifer deserved what was probably coming to him. He simply wasn't the same man. She, above all people, could testify to that fact. Still, changed or no, he'd done some awful things in his time. Maybe in a twisted way they were justifiable, but personal growth didn't wipe away the past.

Still, she glanced out the window. The picture he presented with Faber belied any misdeeds he may have committed. As much as he could have, Seifer looked like an angel. His halo was evident in Faber's glistening eyes.

"Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes," Edea announced. "Would you go get Seifer in?"

"Sure, why not?" Quistis shrugged. All Matron ever seemed to ask her to do was deliver messages to the beloved Seifer.

Running a few fingers through her hair first, she stepped out into the warm morning. The air smelled sweet, a gentle wind carrying the scent of flowers from a nearby field. The same breeze pressed her skirt against the front of her legs as she walked.

"So anyway..." she caught bits and pieces of Seifer's story as she came into earshot. "The monster was towering above me, and all I had was my gunblade. I knew my first hit had to count, so I took a second to get a good shot." He paused, looking up as Quistis approached.

"Morning," she offered, feeling a little uncomfortable with his gaze on her. She knew what he was thinking about, and at all costs she wanted to derail his thoughts from the track they were obviously on.

"Morning," he replied. Faber, perhaps sensing the sudden raise in tension, grew immediately uncomfortable.

"Breakfast will be ready soon," she announced, much to Faber's relief. She got the feeling that he didn't like her very much. The child didn't have any particular reason to dislike her, not as far as Quistis could tell anyway, but every time she came within feet of Seifer, Faber would get suddenly tense.

"What're we having?" Seifer asked, a low smile riding his lips.

"How should I know?" Quistis asked, shrugging her shoulders.

"Well, you were just in there," he pointed out.

Edea had been cooking when Quistis walked in, but her attention was diverted by seeing Seifer and Faber out the window. In short, she hadn't paid the least attention to what Edea was doing once Seifer came into view. The other woman could have been hacking up a wriggly little blood soul, and Quistis would have been none the wiser.

"Probably cereal and muffins," Faber offered. "That's what we have every day."

Quistis was somewhat preoccupied as she watched Seifer offer the little boy his hand. She liked him, more than she thought, and she was torn between leaving him with Edea and taking him back to Garden. She'd told him back in Timber that he didn't have to come with her, but that had been a momentous moment of weakness. She hadn't thought of the moment since due to his refusal to run. He'd seemed ready to face whatever he had coming. The question, she realized, wasn't so much what Seifer was willing and ready to face, but what would she be able to put him through.

He was still Seifer, that was evident. But was he any longer the sorceress's knight? It seemed to her that he had already served his punishment through years worth of banishment and running. That hadn't seemed like such a horrid life until she'd lived somewhat in it.

"Let's go see," Seifer grinned down at his charge.

"Alright!" Faber gripped Seifer's hand tightly as they passed by Quistis on their way inside, leaving her standing alone behind them. Perturbed by being ignored, she watched them go. Seifer was still talking eagerly to Faber, who was listening as if no one else existed in the world. It was strange to watch them together. She had never seen him interact so well with anyone, not even his posse. In the day that had elapsed since they'd arrived at the orphanage, Seifer and Faber had become the best of friends, even brothers. She doubted anyone had ever broken through to the ever caustic Seifer quite so quickly.

Crossing her arms across her chest, Quistis huffed and made her own way back into the house. When she walked in everyone else was already seated at the long table, digging in to the breakfast Edea had made. Faber had been correct in his guess. Plates of muffins ran down the middle of the table, and all of the children already had bowls of cereal that they were busily eating out of. The room was quiet aside from a short verbal spat between two of the children and the crunch of chewing.

Seifer's head sat above everyone else's, and Quistis made a bee-line to sit next to him. She felt no desire to sit in between two snotty, bawling children. Aside from that, she was still a little on the upset side that he wasn't paying as close of attention to her as she figured he should have been. She had kissed him after all. Didn't that deserve just a little bit of attention and discussion?

She seated herself next to him, trying her best to act as if nothing were wrong.

"You eat too much sugar," she told him, feeling a slight amount of satisfaction from the criticism. At that moment, he had been pouring sugar on top of some already sweetened cereal, and he paused to look at her.

"No I don't," he replied, but stopped pouring on the sugar anyway.

She grabbed a muffin off a plate and jammed a butter knife into it, sawing away at the innocent little breakfast food.

"Something wrong?" Seifer asked, watching her maul the muffin.

"Of course not," she replied. "What could be wrong?"

"Oh...I don't know..." he leaned back in his chair and grinned at her. "Maybe you're having second thoughts?"

"I'm taking you back to Balamb," she barked, sending him a stiff look.

"I wasn't talking about Garden." He arched an eyebrow at her. Quistis stopped in the middle of buttering her muffin and gazed around the table. Everyone was absorbed in their own affairs, and the only one paying any attention to either Quistis or Seifer was Faber. He was like a horrid little stain that just wouldn't go away.

"Then I can't imagine what you were talking about," she evaded.

"Oh...I think you know." He had his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, and he was smiling. Quistis frowned. Wasn't this exactly what she had just been wanting? The same thing that she had been hoping to avoid as she climbed out of bed? She couldn't understand why she was being so fickle.

"I'm not having any second thoughts," she finally replied. Really, at that very moment, she wasn't. All things considered, she had rather enjoyed their little kiss (both of them). Telling Seifer that she was regretting her decision would only make her seem weak.

He laughed lightly to himself and went back to eating.

Quistis finished her breakfast as quickly as she could and excused herself. She had a lot to get done, and Seifer was becoming an ever larger distraction. The more she was around him, the more she started thinking of him in kinder and kinder terms. It was incredibly easy to forget who he was and what he had done when he was playing with children.

Trying hard to work through her very confused feelings, she walked back to her room to get enough money to pay for transport back to Balamb. She knew that rates would skyrocket if anyone knew that she was transporting a prisoner. And because Seifer was such an infamous criminal, she had a feeling that finding a ship to take them would be difficult.

She sighed, digging through her bag for the envelope of gil she had picked up on their way out of Timber. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, counting out the money when Seifer walked in.

"You know," he leaned against the door frame, "I'll go back to Garden whether you take me or not."

"Why?" She looked up, surprised not because he had followed her but that he had been able to do so without his shadow, Faber.

"You saw what life has been like for me," he shrugged. "I don't want to go on like that anymore."

"Nice to know that you've become such an upstanding citizen, Seifer," she rolled her eyes. "If you're eager to go back, it's only because you think it will benefit you in some way."

"I never said that it wouldn't." His smirk was gone, but she still was getting the feeling that he was poking fun at her.

"You have to stay here, today," she announced. "I'll have to pay double if anyone down at the docks sees you."

"Not a problem," he shrugged. "Wouldn't want you to go broke taking me in."

They had been so comfortable with each other up until the kiss. It had complicated things, and all of the tension was back. She didn't know how to act around him, wasn't sure whether or not to hate him or love him. She was torn, and it was making her indecisive and snappy. For his part, he was being remarkably well behaved.

"I'll be back sometime in the evening." She went to push past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"What happened?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You and me...we were getting along so well..." He was uncomfortably close. Quistis fought the urge to run away. Eventually, she would have to face the confused feelings that Seifer brought about in her. She just wasn't sure that she would like what she saw when she did confront them. They had known each other since childhood, and never really gotten to know one another at all. Now that she could see past the teasing and rude demeanor, she was finding out that a not so bad guy existed within him. One that, Hyne help her, she liked.

"You're not tied up," she pointed out. "I don't see what you have to complain about."

He frowned deeply, lines etching slowly across his forehead as he did so. At the same time, his grip on her arm increased.

"We're going back," he started, "and it would look bad if you were being nice to me. If you can't stand the thought of loosing face because of me, just tell me now."

"You're my prisoner. I'm not supposed to be nice to you."

"Right...duty calls," he snorted.

"I'm a SeeD, Seifer," she shrugged. "I follow orders without question. That's why you never became one."

"Because I think for myself," he added bitterly. "You said you weren't having second thoughts. Is Cid having them for you?"

"That has nothing to do with my mission," she shook her head.

"It has everything to do with your mission," he retorted quickly.

Maybe it did. Maybe she was failing her mission simply by becoming too involved. Two of her strongest senses were lashing out at one another, and she honestly wasn't sure which one of them to follow. She could show mercy and help Seifer, or she could do her duty. Could she do both? She didn't see how. Yet, he told her that regardless of whether or not she took him, he would be going back to Garden. That said, it was feasible to say that her mission was already completed. Which left the other alternative.

"If it makes any difference," she offered, "you're not who I thought you were."

He let go of her suddenly and walked away, leaving Quistis more confused than she had been before. She wished that they could go back to either hating each other as they had in the Trabian tavern, or back to the peace they had shared during the days following the blizzard that had just about taken her life. He'd saved her then, and she felt guilty for not attempting to save him in return.