In Who's Name? Chapter 6: Quistis Past, a final fantasy viii fanfic

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Characters and universe borrowed from Final Fantasy VIII. Not owned by Gold.

This entire chapter is really a flashback to the past, hence it's in italics. The title is 'Quistis Past' and there's no grammar error about it. It isn't about Quistis' past; it's about Quistis in the past. So instead of calling it 'Times Past'—about her memory of the times in the past, I decided to call it 'Quistis Past'. I wanted to call it 'Things Fall Apart', after Chinua Achebe's book of the same name, but thought that I would need it for a more drastic chapter in future.

I've been very encouraged by the reviews—reviews really make a writer happy, and it's worth it to slave over a story knowing that it makes people happy to read it. I'm so glad! Thank you all!

Oh, before I forget—thank goodness Korea drew with the USA! I'm so relieved! Of course, I'm supporting Korea and Japan this World Cup—I'm Asian, see, Chinese, to be specific, though not from China. By the way, did anyone notice that the Korean goal-scorer was really good-lookin'? ^_^

Title: In Whose Name?

Part 6: Quistis Past

A YEAR AND A HALF AGO

She sat silently. The news had come two hours ago and still she remained in her position without moving. Time Compression was a bitter thing. In Time Compression, you learned too much. You learned your history, your life—and the history of others. Caught in that—that thing, her breath squeezed out of her at alternate turns and twists, afraid she might never escape, she had nevertheless broken free. Been set free. She, and the others, had returned, lives intact and, for the first time in so long, memories intact—even the memories they had lost with their SeeD training.

They had known each other so long ago, as the closest of friends in an orphanage—the orphanage they had all grown up in. The orphanage that Cid Kramer, headmaster of Balamb Garden, had lent his name to; the orphanage whose mother figure was the warm-hearted Edea. There had been seven of them, seven boys and girls, who would grow up one day to break the world and heal it. Did Edea know? She must have feared it—feared something.

Ellone. She was the one whom they had first looked upon as their older sister, although she was closest to Squall. The girl with strange, time-linked powers, who had left the orphanage early and left her, Quistis, to cope with the others.

Squall Leonhart. He was so emotionless and nothing could touch him, save Ellone and Rinoa. Not even she could touch him, and she had tried. She had loved him and guarded him, and she had been afraid—afraid for him, afraid that one day, he would walk away and never come back, and that she had let him lose himself when she could have brought him back. But she had not been the one with that power. Like the others, he had forgotten. He had forgotten the boy who knew him best, and was his closest friend and fiercest rival all rolled into one. Seifer Almasy. Squall had other friends, though none were as close as he and Seifer had been. They argued as much as they agreed, and it was always a constant source of dispute whether they were best friends or best enemies.

Seifer, with that attitude that had been a part of him since his childhood. It was an attitude, however, that did not surface except when he was in a very bad mood, which was about half the time. He would then adopt the philosophy that had to do with making the whole world feel as badly as he did. In his better moods, Seifer Almasy was cool and untouchable, something like Squall in his SeeD days, but more human and, somehow, more attractive. Unlike Squall, he had seemed more of the earth—Quistis had never, in her wildest nightmares, imagined that he of all of them would be the one to walk away, and lose himself…

She shied from the pain and turned her mind to other things, her head in her hands.

There was Irvine Kinneas, calm, pleasant, charming—and he suited that cowboy hat he now wore. He was a charmer even then, knowing how to play the ladies and win them to his side with his smile, his eyes, and the dramatic, courtly gestures. Beneath the demeanour of the ladies' man-to-be had lain a warm-hearted little boy whose easy smile and thoughtfulness won him friends.

Then there was Zell Dincht, a cheerful, impulsive, open-hearted little chap whose love for eating hotdogs stayed with him all the way, and who only lost his cool around Seifer—pretty much everyone got cross around Seifer, anyway…

Selphie Tilmitt made up the sixth member of their group. In a way, she was Zell's female equivalent—chirpy, bright, sunny, always cheerful—and even Seifer couldn't get her down when he was in one of his moods.

Finally, she, Quistis Trepe, the serious one—even more serious than Squall, who was merely emotionless—made up the final member of their circle. She had tried to take Ellone's place, but she had failed and everything had fallen apart. Squall withdrew into himself and she tried to draw him out, tried to bring him back, but she couldn't. Seifer, annoyed because she seemed to care more for Squall than for him, lost his temper with both of them. As Squall turned even from him, Seifer's moods grew steadily darker and more frequent. He even drove Quistis away with harsh words and actions, and never let her get within five feet of him—and they had been fairly good friends before, even if they did scrap with each other a good deal. Seifer argued with everyone…

Quistis closed her eyes.

That was how it had begun, with her trying to take Ellone's place, to help her friends. That had been her first failure, a failure she never wanted to see repeated. Squall had changed, Seifer grew bitter and cold, his attitude becoming his character now, Irvine drifted away, Zell was adopted somewhere, Selphie went on her own merry way…and she, Quistis, unable to handle Seifer, threw herself into trying to reach Squall, hoping that if she could bring him back, Seifer would naturally be less of a headache. But she had to leave before she could succeed and the memory of her failure had made her set her teeth. She was only a child then, but she swore to herself that Quistis Trepe would never again fail at anything. SeeD at fifteen, instructor beloved by tens of students before she was eighteen—nobody would ever associate the name of Quistis Trepe with failure.

And even without her memories, she seemed to have picked up on Seifer and Squall when they were her students, and tried to succeed in what she had failed years ago.

But did they remember?

Did anyone remember?

She should have tried harder to guard Seifer, because he was the one who had walked away and she had been unable to bring him back. But the solution, she had always thought, lay in breaking through Squall's walls.

Slowly, Quistis rose and walked over to her door. She turned the knob, walked out, and shut the door behind her. She walked on, not really thinking where she was going, and took the elevator, which stopped on a certain floor. Still she walked on before she came to a stop outside a particular door. She stared at it. Should she knock? Slowly she lifted her hand. Slowly the door opened before her.

"Quistis?"

Why did the Headmaster look like that? As if—as if he had aged twenty years overnight. She'd never thought of it before, but like them, Cid Kramer, too, had suffered. What had it cost him to be separated from his wife all these years?

"I'm…I'm looking for Matron…"

"I'm sorry, Quistis. They—just told me—she—she's been in a—car accident…I'm going to her now…"

"Let me come with you, Sir…"