A/N: Well, it's a day short of record time, but it's long so I hope you'll all forgive me. ^^v
As usual I own nothing. I believe I forgot to mention that last chapter, so this disclaimer goes for both chapters. Suing me would gain Squaresoft approximately three pennies plus some dryer lint.
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~Hourglass~
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10:05 AM
(He said)
I freeze. Completely. Shut down, locked up, awareness shunted sideways as I frantically try to reassess, get some grip on the situation.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
And with that single realization everything's changed, what I thought was true no longer is. Perhaps the rest of the world is unaware, but she and I are cut off, freewheeling through time, unconnected. Foreknowledge rendered useless in one stroke. Everything is different now. There was a path to tread, a familiar encounter to re-enact, leading to a predictable outcome. A life-altering meeting in a comm tower in Timber.
But now the path has been yanked from beneath us like a tablecloth by a ten-gil magician. Abracadabra and it's gone, everything I knew that would help me change what I can't let come to pass. I stand before Quistis now empty-handed, as lost as she is, like everyone else in this time, with no idea what the immediate future holds, but worse, because a change in words won't alter destiny. Unless I face Ultimecia nothing will change except the participants. And now I don't know how to get there.
We need to get back on track.
What happened before? We spoke. I left. So simple, but now impossible. Our words have changed. So will my departure.
I force myself to breathe deeply. I'm not sunk yet. As long as I board that train to Timber, as long as I make it to the comm tower in time, there is still a chance of saving this. My goals change, narrow. The 10:54 from Balamb is the limit of my aspirations. I can still make that.
And now the possibilities are crashing through my head. I can change things here, now. Without altering a predestined meeting. What happens in this little room, cut off from the rest of the world now by more than simple stone walls, has no bearing on anything. I need not hurt her. Things can be... different.
I glance up from my introspection to see her eyes resting on me, beautiful sapphire awaiting a mocking retort. No, Quistis. I'll never scorn you. I can step closer now; a thousand things are running riot through my head. Hyne, I've waited two years for this, changed time and space and destiny for this moment, and when I finally get the chance I don't know what to say.
I have just an hour. The clock is ticking, can I do this in time? Can I make her understand in sixty precious minutes what it has taken me eighteen years to realize? Destiny and love make strange bedfellows. Yet on some level she must know already. It all comes back to time. So much of it wasted, so little left. An error in timing can blow this entire scheme.
"I'd never accept anyone else's."
Please understand what I'm trying to say.
10:06 AM
(She said)
And what exactly is that supposed to mean?
He's supposed to snap back, he's supposed to be smug, he's supposed to tell me he doesn't need anyone to rescue *him*. Not the Great Seifer Almasy.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's decided to dispense with the script.
Whose line is it anyway?
He moved closer to me... in more ways than one. What is he doing? This isn't like him, this is so completely out of character it's not even rumor-worthy. Seifer Almasy is not supposed to admit he needs help from anyone, anywhere. Ever.
But he's willing to accept mine.
What makes me so special all of a sudden? Why would he accept something from the useless, mediocre former Instructor, whom he's gone out of his way countless times to ridicule and belittle, that he wouldn't touch were it to come from anyone else?
I don't know why he's suddenly reaching out to me but I desperately want to reach back, to save him from where I sense he's headed. Perhaps it's not too late. Sudden, revitalized hope catches in my throat, it's *not* too late. He can still stand proudly at the graduation ball. Still tell me my teaching made some difference in his life. I don't care if they never give me back my license if only I know it was worth it in the end.
"Was it?"
I didn't mean to say that out loud.
10:07 AM
(He said)
Was it what? Why? I don't understand what she's asking me but I know what she wants, what she's reaching blindly for. I always know but I was too proud, too self-reliant to do anything before this but brush aside her outstretched hand. Reassurance, appreciation, worth. And I can do it. One simple, little word is all it takes.
But where a second ago I had a thousand inane phrases littering my mind now it's blank, and even if it weren't I can't seem to remember how to talk anyway. I can't let her hang, I can't stop from moving even closer. Her breath catches, she's confused, I don't blame her. It's like I'm on tracks, rolling forward, inexorably. I brush her arm and it's amazing, wonderful, I don't even know why. It's so innocuous it's sensual. I want to reassure her, we weren't close but I try for the friendly touch, try not to scare her, oh Hyne I can't even think straight. The feeling is the same as it was the first time I slid down this slippery slope head over heels. Two figurative years removed from this time I'm falling in love with her all over again, and at the worst possible time. I want to just be with her, not doing or saying anything, not even thinking. Whenever we do that there's trouble, an argument, we 'have words', but in the silence we can forget and be ourselves. One day I want to stand with her on the beach, hold her in my arms as the tide rolls in, watch the sky fill with stars, see her bathed in the moonlight, beautiful and ethereal and mine. The moon is a rock and the sky is full of deadly hardware, but oh Hyne, how beautiful anyway.
10:08 AM
(She said)
I'm trembling, he must be able to feel it. I would break out in goosebumps if the room weren't suddenly twenty degrees to hot. I'm not used to this, I've never felt this, he's never done this before. What if he had? What would have changed?
He moves his hand back abruptly, hesitating for a second, and I shiver suddenly, feeling far too cold without his warmth. Instinctively I want him back. He's watching me closely, almost warily, as if he's afraid of what I might do. I don't even know what I want to do. If anyone else had done that I'd have shied away, left, but the only direction I'm interested now is closer to him. It's unexpected and dangerous and exciting all at once.
10:08 AM
(He said)
I never thought she'd look at me like that. She has the most beautiful bedroom eyes. How is it that no one ever noticed? Do the Trepies count? Never did I let myself dream she would gaze at *me* with that look in her eyes. I don't think she even knows it's there herself, and sure as hell she doesn't know what it does to me. It always seemed so unreachable. Even at the height of Ultimecia's power, when I slept alone at night with only her promise that one day soon I'd have her. I didn't find out until too late that I never needed the sorceress at all, that Quistis was waiting for me to come to her all along. But I still never dared to dream. After what I've done I never felt I could.
But suddenly, now, I feel I can.
10:09 AM
(She said)
I feel like a *teenager*. Theoretically I am one but I've never acted my age; I was the responsible one, the mature one. Becoming a SeeD at 15 and an Instructor at 17 meant by necessity foregoing youth. No hanging out at Balamb clubs, no giggling over popcorn in dorm rooms, no lingering in the secret area after curfew for a stolen kiss and a moment of togetherness. Not even a crush, except on Squall, but then every girl in Garden had a crush on him at one time or another, and that never made me feel this way. I've knows Seifer for years but somehow this is completely different. It hit me like a punch to the stomach the second his fingers brushed my arm, a whammy of attraction I'm completely unprepared for. I feel like singing, like grinning uncontrollably, like running the Garden Festival Committee... like I'm young, giddy and in love.
How long does it take to fall in love? You'd think it's a gradual process but I'm terribly afraid I just did, and with the last person I would ever have suspected.
Well, they do say opposites attract.
Maybe it's been happening, without my knowing it, for years.
And then he kissed me.
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I'm evil ) I hope this wasn't too sappy. as that's not the point, but this *is* a Seiftis, after all. Many many huggles to everyone who reviewed me! I'm stocking up on pickles for my next writing binge. Oh, and I want to try writing something for the Seiftis contest. It looks like so much fun; after I read the phrases and objects I just couldn't resist. :)
Review me! *puppy dog eyes*
As usual I own nothing. I believe I forgot to mention that last chapter, so this disclaimer goes for both chapters. Suing me would gain Squaresoft approximately three pennies plus some dryer lint.
---------------
~Hourglass~
---------------
10:05 AM
(He said)
I freeze. Completely. Shut down, locked up, awareness shunted sideways as I frantically try to reassess, get some grip on the situation.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
And with that single realization everything's changed, what I thought was true no longer is. Perhaps the rest of the world is unaware, but she and I are cut off, freewheeling through time, unconnected. Foreknowledge rendered useless in one stroke. Everything is different now. There was a path to tread, a familiar encounter to re-enact, leading to a predictable outcome. A life-altering meeting in a comm tower in Timber.
But now the path has been yanked from beneath us like a tablecloth by a ten-gil magician. Abracadabra and it's gone, everything I knew that would help me change what I can't let come to pass. I stand before Quistis now empty-handed, as lost as she is, like everyone else in this time, with no idea what the immediate future holds, but worse, because a change in words won't alter destiny. Unless I face Ultimecia nothing will change except the participants. And now I don't know how to get there.
We need to get back on track.
What happened before? We spoke. I left. So simple, but now impossible. Our words have changed. So will my departure.
I force myself to breathe deeply. I'm not sunk yet. As long as I board that train to Timber, as long as I make it to the comm tower in time, there is still a chance of saving this. My goals change, narrow. The 10:54 from Balamb is the limit of my aspirations. I can still make that.
And now the possibilities are crashing through my head. I can change things here, now. Without altering a predestined meeting. What happens in this little room, cut off from the rest of the world now by more than simple stone walls, has no bearing on anything. I need not hurt her. Things can be... different.
I glance up from my introspection to see her eyes resting on me, beautiful sapphire awaiting a mocking retort. No, Quistis. I'll never scorn you. I can step closer now; a thousand things are running riot through my head. Hyne, I've waited two years for this, changed time and space and destiny for this moment, and when I finally get the chance I don't know what to say.
I have just an hour. The clock is ticking, can I do this in time? Can I make her understand in sixty precious minutes what it has taken me eighteen years to realize? Destiny and love make strange bedfellows. Yet on some level she must know already. It all comes back to time. So much of it wasted, so little left. An error in timing can blow this entire scheme.
"I'd never accept anyone else's."
Please understand what I'm trying to say.
10:06 AM
(She said)
And what exactly is that supposed to mean?
He's supposed to snap back, he's supposed to be smug, he's supposed to tell me he doesn't need anyone to rescue *him*. Not the Great Seifer Almasy.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's decided to dispense with the script.
Whose line is it anyway?
He moved closer to me... in more ways than one. What is he doing? This isn't like him, this is so completely out of character it's not even rumor-worthy. Seifer Almasy is not supposed to admit he needs help from anyone, anywhere. Ever.
But he's willing to accept mine.
What makes me so special all of a sudden? Why would he accept something from the useless, mediocre former Instructor, whom he's gone out of his way countless times to ridicule and belittle, that he wouldn't touch were it to come from anyone else?
I don't know why he's suddenly reaching out to me but I desperately want to reach back, to save him from where I sense he's headed. Perhaps it's not too late. Sudden, revitalized hope catches in my throat, it's *not* too late. He can still stand proudly at the graduation ball. Still tell me my teaching made some difference in his life. I don't care if they never give me back my license if only I know it was worth it in the end.
"Was it?"
I didn't mean to say that out loud.
10:07 AM
(He said)
Was it what? Why? I don't understand what she's asking me but I know what she wants, what she's reaching blindly for. I always know but I was too proud, too self-reliant to do anything before this but brush aside her outstretched hand. Reassurance, appreciation, worth. And I can do it. One simple, little word is all it takes.
But where a second ago I had a thousand inane phrases littering my mind now it's blank, and even if it weren't I can't seem to remember how to talk anyway. I can't let her hang, I can't stop from moving even closer. Her breath catches, she's confused, I don't blame her. It's like I'm on tracks, rolling forward, inexorably. I brush her arm and it's amazing, wonderful, I don't even know why. It's so innocuous it's sensual. I want to reassure her, we weren't close but I try for the friendly touch, try not to scare her, oh Hyne I can't even think straight. The feeling is the same as it was the first time I slid down this slippery slope head over heels. Two figurative years removed from this time I'm falling in love with her all over again, and at the worst possible time. I want to just be with her, not doing or saying anything, not even thinking. Whenever we do that there's trouble, an argument, we 'have words', but in the silence we can forget and be ourselves. One day I want to stand with her on the beach, hold her in my arms as the tide rolls in, watch the sky fill with stars, see her bathed in the moonlight, beautiful and ethereal and mine. The moon is a rock and the sky is full of deadly hardware, but oh Hyne, how beautiful anyway.
10:08 AM
(She said)
I'm trembling, he must be able to feel it. I would break out in goosebumps if the room weren't suddenly twenty degrees to hot. I'm not used to this, I've never felt this, he's never done this before. What if he had? What would have changed?
He moves his hand back abruptly, hesitating for a second, and I shiver suddenly, feeling far too cold without his warmth. Instinctively I want him back. He's watching me closely, almost warily, as if he's afraid of what I might do. I don't even know what I want to do. If anyone else had done that I'd have shied away, left, but the only direction I'm interested now is closer to him. It's unexpected and dangerous and exciting all at once.
10:08 AM
(He said)
I never thought she'd look at me like that. She has the most beautiful bedroom eyes. How is it that no one ever noticed? Do the Trepies count? Never did I let myself dream she would gaze at *me* with that look in her eyes. I don't think she even knows it's there herself, and sure as hell she doesn't know what it does to me. It always seemed so unreachable. Even at the height of Ultimecia's power, when I slept alone at night with only her promise that one day soon I'd have her. I didn't find out until too late that I never needed the sorceress at all, that Quistis was waiting for me to come to her all along. But I still never dared to dream. After what I've done I never felt I could.
But suddenly, now, I feel I can.
10:09 AM
(She said)
I feel like a *teenager*. Theoretically I am one but I've never acted my age; I was the responsible one, the mature one. Becoming a SeeD at 15 and an Instructor at 17 meant by necessity foregoing youth. No hanging out at Balamb clubs, no giggling over popcorn in dorm rooms, no lingering in the secret area after curfew for a stolen kiss and a moment of togetherness. Not even a crush, except on Squall, but then every girl in Garden had a crush on him at one time or another, and that never made me feel this way. I've knows Seifer for years but somehow this is completely different. It hit me like a punch to the stomach the second his fingers brushed my arm, a whammy of attraction I'm completely unprepared for. I feel like singing, like grinning uncontrollably, like running the Garden Festival Committee... like I'm young, giddy and in love.
How long does it take to fall in love? You'd think it's a gradual process but I'm terribly afraid I just did, and with the last person I would ever have suspected.
Well, they do say opposites attract.
Maybe it's been happening, without my knowing it, for years.
And then he kissed me.
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I'm evil ) I hope this wasn't too sappy. as that's not the point, but this *is* a Seiftis, after all. Many many huggles to everyone who reviewed me! I'm stocking up on pickles for my next writing binge. Oh, and I want to try writing something for the Seiftis contest. It looks like so much fun; after I read the phrases and objects I just couldn't resist. :)
Review me! *puppy dog eyes*