By RobertDogwood@aol.com
Edited by Vick330
Chapter Three
Walls Have Ears
Ashley Wentworth did make an appearance at the Garden on Sunday as he promised, and came on every Sunday after that for a month. It just so happened that Squall was gone on assignment on each of those days, and consequently knew nothing about Rinoa's visitor. Nobody dared inform him of the situation, mostly because no one was suicidal enough to bring the Commander bad news if they didn't have to. Squall had recently grown so frustrated in general, that he nearly raged out of control over even minor discrepancies.
The irony was, despite what everyone else in Garden thought, that the ebony-haired woman was ambivalent in her feelings towards Ashley. Rinoa did not find the blond man particularly physically attractive, and had not given him any indication that she did.
Still, Ashley continued his visits. What reasonably attractive young man, after all, doesn't believe that he can't win the heart of a beautiful young woman? A woman who finds him intellectually stimulating at that?
And that was what drew Rinoa to Ashley like a moth to a flame. He was witty, charming, soft spoken, highly educated, well read, polite to the utmost and the bottom line was he made her laugh; something which was a rare commodity in the time she spent with Squall.
She loved the hours she spent with her new friend, and looked forward to it all the week. No one in Garden had even spoken with her concerning him, so in turn she had never explained her position, but everyone thought the Commander's woman was being moved on behind his back. And the rumors were beginning to grow.
Predictably, the undisguised gossip reached Squall's ears. One morning in the corridor outside of her dorm room, when he arrived to escort her to breakfast, the introverted man angrily confronted Rinoa about her new boyfriend. As there were many young women SeeDs and students present in the hallway, Rinoa was left badly shaken and embarrassed from the incident...and bitterly resentful too.
Damn him! she later thought passionately. Who is he to tell me what to do?
The entire affair drove a further wedge in their relationship. And it finally convinced Quistis and Selphie that something needed to be done immediately.
One evening Quistis was in her room, sitting behind a small table, and grading a pop quiz she had given the day before on the proper care of Guardian Forces. That was when Selphie came to visit her blonde friend, with the firm intention of talking about what had become Garden's main gossip.
The brunette flopped on her back across the young instructor's bed and inquired, "So Quisty, have you given any thought as to what we're going to do to bring Squall and Rinoa back together?"
Quistis glanced up from grading her test papers and smiled at her smaller, energetic friend. "Yes, I have. It's completely out of the question to approach it with Squall. He's been so out of control lately, we'd be lucky if we aren't demoted."
"So that means," Selphie concluded, "that we work on Rinoa to discover what caused this to happen in the first place."
"That's right," the blonde woman nodded. "Tomorrow afternoon in the baths. Rinoa's gonna meet us there."
"And then she's gonna come clean," Selphie punned.
Rinoa was already lolling in the warm water of the bath, when Selphie and Quistis entered the room.
Dropping the towels they were wrapped in, Quistis inquired, as she and Selphie stepped down into the water, "Been waiting long?"
Rinoa lazily shook her head. "Nope."
Quistis began the planned conversation. "Rinoa, there's something I've been meaning to ask you."
The hazel-eyed woman suddenly became alert. There was something different about the tone of Quistis's voice. Something cunning.
Consequently she was not completely caught off guard when the blonde instructor continued, "Are you and Squall doing okay?"
"Yeah, what's up with you and Squall?" Selphie chimed in.
The blonde instructor glared at her diminutive friend, who had previously agreed to allow her to handle the questioning. Selphie lowered her eyes to the water to avoid Quistis' staring. This interaction did not go unnoticed by the subject of the investigation.
"Everything's fine," Rinoa answered. "Why do you ask?" The midnight-haired woman had found that reflecting a question with a question could be beneficial in keeping an unwanted interrogator off balance.
"You mean you're not going out with that Ashley dude?" Selphie interrupted again.
Rinoa smiled broadly and answered, "Certainly not. We're just friends."
Quistis glanced at her shrewdly, and ascertained that she had lied about the first question and told the truth about the second. She could tell by a certain look that came in Rinoa's eyes, and the manner in which she held her mouth before answering. The blue-eyed woman now had her friend in her sights and she wasn't going to allow her to escape.
Quistis stated, "Rinoa, Selphie and I both know fully well why you and Squall dropped from sight, on the night the Garden celebrated our return from time compression."
Rinoa blushed. "I don't have any idea of what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do!" Quistis contradicted. "You know exactly what I'm talking about and you also know what went wrong, and I think it's connected to why you and Squall are so far apart today."
"I don't have to stay here and listen to your prying into our personal lives. What's private stays private, Miss Trepe!" Rinoa expounded, beginning to stand up from the bath.
"Rinoa, do you still love Squall?" inquired the blonde woman gently.
"I...think so." Rinoa's voice faltered.
"You're not sure anymore?" Quistis exclaimed, shocked and dismayed.
"I'm leaving," the brown-eyed woman announced, beginning to step out of the bath.
"Rinoa!" Quistis cried. "If you don't tell us what's going on, it could get Squall killed."
Rinoa retorted, "Oh give me a break!"
"It's true!" Quistis insisted.
Intrigued despite herself, Rinoa sat back down in the bath and replied, "Do tell."
"Alright," Quistis responded. "Something happened that night that caused Squall to lose confidence in himself."
Rinoa just nodded, and the blonde woman resumed her explanation. "Squall is not good with failure. He never was, he just never failed very often, thank Hyne. Right now his self esteem is so poor, I'm afraid he doesn't trust himself anymore. He's behaving out of control. He stays so frustrated that he's off balance all the time. That's not a good combination for a man who faces others in physical combat to the death - no self esteem, high frustration and low anger control and being off balance."
The instructor could see in her friend's eyes that she was getting through to her, and so continued her speech.
"It could get him killed, Rinoa. You've got to tell us what happened that night," Quistis entreated plaintively.
"Alright," Rinoa acquiesced to the almost tearful pleading of the blonde instructor. "But you've got to promise me that you won't tell another living soul. It would just kill Squall, if he ever knew I were telling you all."
"Okay," Quistis quickly agreed. "Sure," Selphie replied.
Blushing from revealing such intimate secrets, even to her close friends, Rinoa, half glancing away, confessed, "That night Squall was premature, if you catch my meaning."
"Aw, is that all it is?" Selphie questioned. "That happens all the time."
"Not to Squall it doesn't," Quistis explained.
"And now let me take an educated guess," Quistis stated.
Rinoa nodded.
"Your relationship has grown worse and worse since that night," Quistis conjectured.
Rinoa nodded and replied, her voice barely audible. "Yes. But if what you say is true, Quistis, then what can I do to reach him?"
"I'm not quite sure yet, but I'll get with you as soon as I come up with something."
After the three young women finished their personal bathing, they stood up to leave.
Selphie exclaimed, "Swear to Hyne it will stay in this room."
The three women said "A-men" and then left the bath together.
But the sensitive information had already left the room. Unbeknownst to the three women in the bath, a young blonde SeeD named Ai was in the dressing room and overheard the entire conversation. When she realized they were leaving the bath, she quickly redressed and fled the dressing room just seconds before the trio entered.
