I love the Quistis and Seifer chapters, don't you? ;) I obviously don't own the rights to either Quistis or Seifer, or any of the other original Final Fantasy 8 characters, locales, etc. That having been said…enjoy! And please review!
She looked at her hand, visibly trembling, even under the heavy glove that she had donned. She wasn't sure if it was trembling from her nerves, or from the fact that she was attempting to resist the strong urge to scratch every inch of her body that was touching her uniform. It seemed to her that the Galbaldians made their uniforms the most uncomfortable things to wear on purpose. She looked at one of her comrades, and glowered at him, knowing two things. The first being that he was smirking under his helmet even though she couldn't see it through the helmet, and the second; that he couldn't see her glare, although he probably assumed the expression onto her face in the first place. Pausing to think, Quistis realized that Seifer had most likely never seen her smile. Thinking even further she wondered when the last time had been that she had truly smiled and enjoyed herself. She sighed and looked at Rajin. She could only imagine the twitching on his face, and the incredible control he was having to exert to pretend to be unconscious. Fujin simply stood at Seifer's side, her head turned towards the windows, not really looking at anything in particular passing by, but just looking. Quistis closed her eyes and sighed. She had known that someone on the exam would have picked up a passerby, even if it had been the enemy. And they weren't necessarily posing as the enemy. Not of that particular mission anyway, Quistis thought to herself, having no love lost for Galbaldia.
"So, my dear Instructor, what do we do now?" Quistis put her hands up to her head and groaned. It was as if she could hear Seifer's dripping, acidic voice in her head right now, taunting her, pushing her to find a plan. 'Well I don't have one Seifer! So go away!' she thought in her head.
"Instructor?" she heard his voice inquire once more, "INSTRUCTOR!!!" Quistis's hands moved from her head to directly over her ears to block out the sound. Now she knew she was going crazy. She looked over at Seifer to glare at him. To her surprise, he was looking directly at her. His eyes looked into hers and then rolled in exasperation. He made a tapping motion on his helmet and then placed his hand over his mouth as if he was talking into a walkie-talkie. Quistis felt as if she had been slapped in the face. 'No wonder I couldn't reach him,' she quickly thought to herself, 'If I was always acting this stupid.' She looked over again at Seifer who was still looking at her as if to say, 'Come on, what are you waiting for, idiot?" Quistis shook her head and fumbled around her helmet for a switch. She located it near the chinpiece and softly switched it on.
"Well it's about time you figured out the com system," Seifer's taunting voice filled her ears, "And you call yourself an Instructor."
"Can it, Seifer," Quistis clipped, "If it weren't for me you wouldn't have a chance at getting anywhere hear Balamb." She expected to hear Seifer's nasty retort, telling her that she was wrong. Instead her ears rang with the sounds of silence for a few seconds and then,
"So what's the plan from here?" Quistis paused, still surprised at his abandonment of yet another chance to make her look foolish. After quickly collecting her wits, she realized that she didn't have anything to tell him. She supposed that they could come in as wounded, like some of the cadets and SeeDs on the train, but she knew that Doctor Kimuri would make them identify themselves. If their identities were detected before she talked to the Headmaster… Quistis shuddered. She didn't want to think about what would happen to her if she was caught traveling with the Garden's most wanted fugitive, not to mention what they would do to Seifer himself. She was suddenly struck with a wave of pity for Seifer. She felt like telling him that she was glad that he was coming back to Garden to finish what he had started, to become a SeeD.
"Instructor?" Seifer's voice buzzed into her ears again. Quistis shook her head.
"Seifer?" she asked, not waiting for him to reply. "Why do you want to go back to Balamb?" There was a long pause, and Quistis looked over to see Seifer shifting in his seat, uncomfortably.
"What do you care?" his voice asked darkly. "You just can't wait to get rid of me can you, Instructor." Quistis clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. How dare he lash out at her like this when she was doing everything in her own power to help him.
"That's not what I said at all, Seifer!" she said, making sure to keep her voice down. She looked over into his eyes and nearly squirmed away from him in her chair at the sight of the fire blazing in them. Instead, she kept her cool exterior that she had had years of experience to maintain. 'No one else would have held his gaze,' Quistis told herself triumphantly.
"You just keep your filthy nose out of it, Instructor," Seifer hissed.
"Fine then," she retorted in a huff. Then she continued, "And for the last time, Seifer, and I'll say this slowly so you will understand. I. Am. Not. Your. Instructor. And I will not be your Instructor. In fact, I feel sorry for the person who will be your Instructor. Oh, that is, if you even get back in." The pointed words rolled off of her tongue with ease, each designed to hurt more than the one previous. At the flicker in his eyes, she almost regretted saying him, but then remembered how immature and despicable Seifer really was. Seifer would always be Seifer.