Things start to look better in this chapter so enjoy. Sorry this took so long I had it all written in my notebook but then I never typed it up. Also sorry Irvine's part is really short I couldn't think of anything to do for him, Rinoa either.
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~Chapter Four~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Balamb Garden~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zell was given two options one was to go to jail and the other was to go with Headmaster Cid to Balamb Garden. Almost immediately after Zell had been arrested Cid had shown up at the police station. He bargained with the police and eventually they agreed that instead of going to jail Zell could go to the Garden. Amazed at his luck Zell sat quietly beside Headmaster Cid as a car took them to the Garden. When they arrived a Garden Faculty member showed Zell to his room and explained his class schedules. Zell only half listened he was still surprised and happy to be free of the threat of imprisonment.
The next morning Zell woke up and tried to remember where he was. Not his home, not jail, then he remembered Balamb Garden. Smiling to himself he got dressed in a uniform that had been issued to him by the Garden. As he left his bedroom he saw that his roommates door was closed. He wondered for a second who it was but then decided he was hungry and so he stopped caring about his roommate.
Although Zell's day started out well enough he soon learned that life at the Garden was harder than he thought it would be. The first thing that went wrong on his ever so long first day was he was late for class. Next he had to relearn karate moves in training. And finally he had to end his day without any hotdogs for he was to late for there to be any left.
One of the hardest new things for Zell though despite what is mentioned above was that he had to follow a whole new set of rules. There was a great difference in the rules of living on the street to the rules of living in the Garden. Plus he wasn't exactly a full time Garden trainee yet. He was sort of on probation. He couldn't do anything wrong in or outside the Garden for some time or he would be given back to the police. The hated thought of being sent to the police kept Zell in line. He no longer got in trouble for stupid things. Only on thing he really had to watch out for was his temper. It almost got him in trouble his first month at the garden but he soon learned to control it.
Within the time of two months Zell settled into the Garden and it's routine. He got to his classes on time and had just started learning new things in training class. The only thing that he stilled failed at was getting hotdogs. It seemed to him that they were impossible to get. The second he entered the cafeteria was the second the last hotdog was taken. He assumed he was cursed, made to forever be without his beloved hotdog when a ray of shining hope came his way in the form of a young girl. Her name was Morgan and every once in awhile she would save Zell a hotdog. She also followed him around quite a bit. He was a little creeped out by her but always accepted the hotdog gratefully.
Morgan wasn't the only friend Zell had. Over time he had collected a rather large group of friends. Life to him seemed almost perfect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Galbadia Garden~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quistis walked down the hall quickly she was meeting her partner today. Nerves took over her body she didn't want her partner to hate her. It wouldn't be good to have to work with some one that's hates you. She had also heard around the Garden that her partner to be was mean. Horrible images of this evil child filled her mind. The closer she got to classroom door the more she thought of her partner as a monster not a human. The closer she got to the door the more her palms started to sweating and the weaker her knees got. Finally she reached the door. There she had to collect herself for a few moments. She opened the door and slipped inside making almost no noise. Her instructor looked her and said, "Quistis I would like you to meet your partner. This is Seifer." Seifer stood about three feet away from Quistis with his I don't care look on. Quistis slowly carefully extended her small hand. Seifer looked at it for a minute then decided to shake it. Quistis breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't so bad.
"Well now that everyone has their partners we can start our serious training." the instructor said. Soon everyone had their practice weapons out and was practicing together. At first Seifer's fighting style amazed Quistis. She had been reading books on fighting the week before she left but to actually fight it was totally different. It also was different from all the practicing on the dummies they had been doing. To actually practice against a human was very hard. A human blocked a doll didn't. Quistis never landed a hit on Seifer that day.
Towards the end of class one thing was starting to bother Quistis. It was that Seifer hadn't talked to her the whole time they had practiced. All the other teams had talked. Worry filled Quistis again. Her partner really didn't like her.
Weeks past and she and Seifer barely ever talked except when she was helping him study. He never talked to her when they practiced fighting. At first Quistis thought it was because she was so bad at fighting he didn't want to talk to her. She soon learned that it was just because he always concentrated so hard while fighting. Every time Seifer didn't speak to her she thought she did something wrong, things were odd for her. Finally she didn't care anymore. If the silence between Seifer and herself was interfering with her lesson she would just have to ignore it. So now instead of caring if she had done something to upset Seifer she started to concentrate on fighting better. She made a very large improvement after that. Even Seifer noticed and told her so. Now that she had made an improvement she decided that it was time to make Seifer improve his studies. She set a strict study plan for them and made sure Seifer learned it all. This tactic proved very useful to both of them. They were the top students in their classes and all the studying seemed to help calm Seifer's anger down. They still didn't talk much but it was a slight improvement over before.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Trabia Garden~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The cursed room that Irvine stood in seemed to grow more like a prison each second. His father really had sent him away. Even after many tears from his mother his father still hadn't relented. So here he stood alone in his side or the dorm room. Now being shipped away by his father should have had some affect on him. It was just the opposite. He didn't care at all. It didn't matter to him where he was going to spend the next years of his life. It only mattered that he was away from his dad. For a while Irvine had been getting in more and more trouble. This caused his father to yell at him constantly.
As much as he had tried Irvine couldn't make himself mad at his father for sending him away. It was going to be much better here at Trabia Garden. He was going to learn how to use his gun better. He didn't know why his gun was so important to him but he realized it was going to be his way of life. A sharpshooter, yes that's what he wanted to be. Maybe he had watched too much television when he was younger but in his mind the men that carried a gun always got the girls.
Girls didn't quite matter to him yet but he knew one day they would so he might as well practice with his gun now so when that time came he would be prepared. One thing he didn't like about Trabia was how it was so into the arts. Nearly everyone helped out with the Garden festival and tons of others were in bands or did some other type of art. Irvine wasn't good at any type of art it bored him really. Finally not to be an outcast he took up guitar lessons from his older roommate. He got relatively good at it but it still didn't interest him. Neither did the Garden festival which people tried to get him to join regularly. All the students when they weren't planning the Garden Festival they were planning another event to have. It got excessive but eventually Irvine joined in. The Battle of the Bands was his first major planning event he did. After that he eased up on the art stuff and went back to learning fighting. Life was peaceful now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Deling City~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With her mother being in the hospital more Rinoa was forced to spend more time with her father or by herself. When she was with her father she was bored out of her mind. There was nothing to do with him or and anywhere he took her was stupid. Besides even if there was something interesting she wouldn't of cared about it. She was too worried about her mother. Julia had been in the hospital for almost a month now. The doctors said she'd be out any day now but they had been saying that for a while now. While the thought of her mother coming back from the hospital was optimistic the reality that she wasn't was depressing.
Rinoa didn't like to be sad but she didn't like to be forced to be happy either. Instead of focusing on her emotions she focused on her Blaster Edge. She had become a pretty good fighter. Unfortunately for her she couldn't concentrate on fighting which cause her some minor injuries. The minor injuries started to build up until finally her father forbid her to use her weapon. It wasn't ladylike anyway he said. Now with nothing to take her mind off her mother Rinoa started to mope around the house. The more she did that the more her father tried to take her places with him. Not out of concern really just out of the fact that if he took her places it would look to others like he was trying to cheer her up. Appearance was a very important thing to her father.
Sick of always being dragged around with her father Rinoa started visiting her mother more. The hospital was a horrid place to Rinoa. It smelled funny and she hated seeing her mother in the hospital gown. It was so unlike her mother's usual outfits. Everything at the hospital was completely different from everything at home.
At long last Julia returned home. But she returned home a different woman from the one that went away. This new Julia was sick of pretending. She was sick of being smothered. So instead of taking it anymore she decided to leave. She took Rinoa with her leaving behind General Caraway. He made lame excuses to his friends and covered up the truth of his wife leaving because it would have been bad on his image. After she was gone for some time Rinoa started to wonder if her father even missed them. Her mother and her father had not spoken to each other since Julia and Rinoa moved to Timber.
Once Julia and Rinoa moved in Timber Julia took her maiden name back. The last name Caraway would connect her to General Caraway who was not a much liked figure in Timber. Galbadia had taken over Timber a long time ago but the residents there were still bitter about it. Everyone in the town was part of some resistance group. That was one reason Julia wanted to move there. In her own way moving to a town that hated Galbadia was like showing her own loathing of it, and showing her rebellion to her husband. Rinoa fit in perfectly fine in Timber. She disliked Galbadia and her father as much as everyone else did. She too had taken her mother's maiden name. No one ever knew that she was related to anything Galbadian.