Quistis heaved a sigh for what seemed like the millionth time that night. The walk to her room seemed endless. Even reaching for her keys seemed like a chore. She pressed her forehead up against the door, enjoying its cool surface against her skin. On her way out of the ballroom, she'd noticed happy couples leaving, arms entwined. Such a simple joy – getting to go to a dance with someone, getting to leave with someone – seemed forever denied to her.
Seifer and Zell, she noted, had already left. Her first instinct said that they'd gone out, to a club or restaurant, to continue their celebration. Her second – more accurate – instinct, guessed that they'd rejected that option and stayed in to continue their celebration.
She entered her room, not bothering to flip on a light. Quistis could navigate her room in the dark, let alone by the moonlight drifting in through the window. As she made her way across the room, she let one hand linger over the surface of her beloved books. Bookshelves dominated the walls of the room, ordered in a rigorous system that she alone understood.
The moonlight fell on her bulletin board, one of the first things Quistis put into place when she moved back to Balamb Garden. A collage of sorts, the board contained various reminders of people and places she liked to keep close to her. A picture of Balamb Garden, just so she could always keep the place in her mind. A charcoal drawing of Irvine's, depicting the orphanage and lighthouse. A set of photographs taken at a booth in Deling City, where she, Selphie, Irvine, and Zell had all piled inside and taken picture after picture until Selphie found a set she liked. A drawing from Seifer's psychological profile, one he'd made at age seven, and which Quistis had rescued from the incinerator: it depicted Seifer, wearing a huge golden crown, standing with one foot atop the body of the young Zell. Meanwhile, all the available blank space in the drawing consisted of a horde of worshippers lavishing adulation on Seifer. Below the bulletin board, on top of her dresser, Quistis kept the rose that Zell had made her as a birthday gift. He'd fashioned it out of sheet metal, and presented it to her in a bouquet of live roses. Finally, a picture of Squall, taken one day when Selphie ambushed him with her new camera.
As she moved across the room, Quistis couldn't help but stop in front of the mirror. The image of the girl there hypnotized her and her mind started reeling with the questions she wanted answered.
She wondered what Squall saw in Rinoa that made her more attractive. She wondered why she'd loved Squall for years, but Rinoa had captured his heart in one dance. She wondered, and then hoped, that he had nothing more than a superficial attraction to Rinoa, because then, perhaps, she could forget him. Inside, though, she rejected this notion – in the host of adjectives describing Squall Leonhart, "superficial" had less relevance than "effervescent."
As Quistis changed out of her dress uniform, she couldn't help but think back to that night years ago. She remembered the pain she felt watching Squall dance with the mysterious raven-haired girl in the white dress: Rinoa. That night, the same night Cid relieved Quistis of her duties as an instructor, she'd tried to confess her feelings to Squall. But the ice never melted, and she'd never gotten the chance. In the so-called "secret area," the place within the training center where couples went to spend time together after curfew, he'd stood there like a statue, dispassionate and disinterested. Quistis wanted nothing more than for Squall simply to look at her, to let her see behind those stormy eyes and learn his secrets. That night, in a flash of inspiration, she'd seen the truth – Squall's standoffish demeanor transcended mere introversion. It came from pain, from a wound so deep that he couldn't even bear to acknowledge its existence.
Quistis turned on her stereo and pulled out a CD that she'd made years before. The disc contained her medley of "self-pity songs," every track on it calculated to wrench her heart even more than the one before it. She put the CD in and pressed "play," curling up in a chair next to the window. The sky outside seemed black and enormous, and she found herself aware of just how alone she felt. It filled her with terror.
Nothing had come out of the night when she tried confessing to Squall, other than the stirrings of romance between Squall and Rinoa. All throughout their battles against the Sorceress Ultimecia, Quistis stood by, watching the entire situation unfold. Every time Rinoa flipped her hair or gave Squall a playful shove, or engaged in any flirtatious behavior, Quistis felt it stab at her like a knife. Rinoa's appearance had done more than bring out Squall's romantic side. It made Quistis mad with jealousy. She hated her own immaturity for it, but every time she saw Rinoa hanging on Squall, she wanted to scream. When Rinoa fell into her coma, it tore Quistis apart to see Squall so anguished, but some sick part of her hoped the coma lasted, so she could have Squall all to herself.
Many people thought that Quistis had emotional shields to rival Squall's, that she had no emotions. In truth, Quistis felt things just as much as everyone else did, if not more so. She just buried them inside her, masking her own pain in cool professionalism.
Even now, years later, as she contemplated these feelings, Quistis felt guilty for them. Whether or not Quistis liked it, Squall and Rinoa cared about each other and, more than that, Squall seemed happy for the first time in anyone's memory. And no one could honestly consider Rinoa any kind of horrible person. In truth, she always acted out of compassion, and did her best to look out for her friends, Quistis included. Though Rinoa didn't grow up in the orphanage with the rest of them, she fit into the group, and Quistis did count Rinoa among her friends.
When Quistis closed her eyes, she imagined herself on the terrace with Squall. She could still feel the gentle pressure of his strong arms enfolding her and feel the soft caress of the breeze against her cheek. Again, she saw the starlight gleaming in the depths of his turbulent eyes. In her mind, though, the embrace didn't have to end. In her mind, one look filled her painful silence. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, he quieted her with a kiss. His kiss tasted of fire and carried with it the urgency of years, a desire that said he, too, had waited for this moment. They stayed like that, close, holding each other, long after the dance finished, Not until the sun started to rise did they return to their senses, and when they left, they left hand in hand.
Quistis had a thousand such "memories" of times that she and Squall had spent together, conversations they'd had, kisses they'd shared, the first time they made love, and any number of other fantasies. Of course, none of them had ever happened. Squall haunted her every waking moment, and to him, she existed as nothing more than a comrade-in-arms..
A knock at the door stirred her attention. "Who is it," she asked, not caring if her voice reached the door.
"Xu."
"Come on in."
Xu stood in the door, still in uniform, lines of worry etched on her face. "I saw your hasty exit from the ball and wanted to make sure you're okay." After entering the room, she turned on the lights and closed the door behind her.
"Well, if you consider the fact that my one true love is practically engaged to another woman, then I'm swell." Xu's gaze traveled to the stereo, then back to the wan face of her friend.
"That bad, huh?" Quistis nodded and, without leaving her chair, held her arms out for a hug. After a moment, Quistis sat back, sniffling. Xu smiled and handed her some tissues before taking a seat herself. "You want to tell me about it?"
As she had done so many times in the past, Quistis told Xu all the details. The two had spent many long nights discussing their respective romantic problems. Though Xu's affection had fallen on different men before (including an embarrassing childhood crush on Raijin -- a fact that mortified Xu in retrospect), Quistis's attention never wavered. Seifer enthralled her, she knew, by the sheer force of his personality, and she enjoyed Zell's lighthearted company, but neither one of them compared to the brooding Squall.
Before either woman knew it, several hours passed.
"Thanks for listening, Xu," Quistis said, reaching for her friend's hand across the table.
"No problem," Xu replied. "Are you feeling better?" Quistis nodded and mustered a weak smile. Both Quistis and Xu had the sudden impulse to yawn, an urge they could not fight.
Laughing, Xu started to rise from her chair. "Well, I suppose that's my cue to leave." At the door, she turned again and looked into her friend's eyes. "You sure you're going to be all right?"
The patter of rapid steps coming down the hallway cut off Quistis's reply. In curiosity, Xu swung the door open to find Selphie standing outside -- clad in flannel pajamas colored red, blue and green, with bunny slippers to complete the look -- fist poised to knock. She wore a backpack and had managed to lug two pillows and an enormous sleeping bag down the hall. She beamed a smile at the baffled duo, made her way past Xu without waiting for an invitation, and began unfurled her sleeping bag on the floor. The surreal nature of the scene, and its rapidity, left Xu and Quistis with nothing to do but stare.
"Umm...Selphie?" Quistis began, once she'd found her voice.
"Yes?" Selphie looked up, unaware that her actions might seem out-of-the-ordinary.
"What, exactly, are you doing?"
Selphie peered at her sleeping bag, almost as if she had never seen it before. Then, with glee in her eyes, she turned to Quistis. "Well, you looked so sad when you left the ball that I thought you could use some cheering up. So you're having a sleepover. Xu and I will have you feeling ten times better by morning." She looked at Xu. "Close the door, please. You're letting in cold air from the hall." Selphie's tone left no room for argument. Dumbfounded, Xu swung the door shut.
Having finished with her sleeping bag and arranged her pillows, Selphie crawled beneath the covers, and started pulling things out of her backpack. "See? I brought videos, and popcorn mix and..." looking up, her face registered surprise. "What are you two doing just standing there? Quistis, you throw the popcorn in the microwave. Xu, you go change and get your stuff. You can come back when you've finished."
Selphie didn't sound bossy in the least. In fact, the more she talked, the more she infected the other two women with her enthusiasm. A sleepover seemed like a very good idea, and Quistis realized that she could use the company. As usual, Selphie stood ready to care for her friends before they even knew they needed help. Even so, Xu felt the need to challenge her authority.
"And what if I don't come back? What then?"
"Then," Selphie replied, reaching into her backpack, "Mr. Squid will come and hunt you down." With this, she pulled out a stuffed octopus from her bag and propped it up next to her pillow. As a child, she'd loved the octopus above all other toys, and she still kept him in her bedroom.
"You do know, Selphie, that Mr. Squid is an octopus and not a squid? I mean, you know that, right?"
"Silly. Mr. Squid is his name. It's not the name of his species. Now you go change. So Quistis, what happened with Squall at the dance?"
Shaking her head, Xu headed down the hall, hurrying a little so as not to incur the wrath of the dread Mr. Squid.