Selphie had other plans. "I'm sorry Irvie," she'd moaned. "I'm auditioning bands for the Garden Festival all afternoon long and then I have to get Cid to approve a budget and all that stuff. And I still have to find time to meet the new cadets and give them the tour and assign them to their rooms. I'm sorry, Irvie, I wish I could go but I can't!"
Ever since Cid made Selphie crowned princess of student affairs, she'd been nothing but busy. It was starting to get on Irvine's nerves that she never had time for him. Everything else came before Irvine, it seemed. New students. Room assignments. Training center expansion. The Garden Festival. At first he'd been all right with it, since Selphie seemed to dominate most of his time, whether he liked it or not, and it gave him a chance to do the things he enjoyed doing without Selphie tagging along. After a while, though, he'd started to miss spending time with her. He missed the way she looked at him when they were alone together. He missed being able to make her laugh and take her out to dinner. There was no more time for that anymore. The Garden Festival was in a month, and it occupied every single spare moment of her time.
Irvine realized on that afternoon, though he loved her, he needed something more, and that something more was her time. And time wasn't something she was able to give him. With Selphie, it seemed it was all or nothing. Either she was into it or she wasn't, and it seemed she could only be consumed by one passion at a time.
Obviously, Irvine wasn't her passion of the moment.
She must have seen his disappointment. "I'm really sorry, Irvie. I'll make it up to you. Promise."
"Yeah, sure, whatever," he muttered, borrowing Squall's pet phrase, and walked away from her feeling rejected and lonely.
He started to wonder what had happened to him. Until Selphie came back into his life, he'd fancied myself as a ladies man, and it seemed unusual that a guy like Irvine would devote himself so completely to one girl. Sure, he looked at other girls - a guy can't help it, you know, but he never thought about running around on her. Before Selphie, he'd never been able to commit himself to one and one only. But then, Selphie was his first love. He'd loved her since childhood. Even if she'd forgotten all about him in later years, he'd never forgotten her and he'd never stopped loving her.
Frustrated and a little hurt, he headed for the quad to watch the eye candy walk by in their little cadet uniforms. He was angry with Selphie and looking for a way to get back at her for being so absorbed with her work, even if his pursuits amounted to little more than looking, in his mind he was justified. No harm in looking.
The quad was nearly deserted, much to his chagrin. Then he remembered what a nice day it was outside. All the girls were probably at the beach or sunning themselves on the back lawn of Garden. Determined to do something, anything other than mope about Selphie, he turned for the door but as he did so, he heard the soft sound of a girl weeping. Quietly, as if the girl didn't want to be heard. He looked around but didn't see anyone. To Irvine, a crying woman was a prime target. They were vulnerable, in need of comfort and very receptive to sensitivity from a guy. He thought he'd hit pay dirt.
"Hello?" He called, peering around the quad in search of the girl.
The sound stopped, but he'd already located the source. He stepped forward and pushed back the fronds of an overgrown palmetto. She sat behind it on the ground with her face pressed into her knees and her body shook with silent sobs.
"Rinoa?" he asked, surprised to see her there. His quest for vengeance against Selphie's neglect was forgotten in that instant and he knelt down beside his friend, bothered by her tears. Irvine had never been able to stand the sight of a girl crying, especially not a girl who happened to be a close friend of his. "What's wrong?"
"Everything!" she moaned into her legs.
"It can't be that bad," he said and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders. "Tell me what happened."
"He's a big meanie! That's what happened."
He couldn't help but chuckle at her explanation. Leave it to Rinoa to be dramatic.
He heard the sound of voices approaching and glanced around. We were hidden from the view of others, but should we chat about our problems, we'd be heard, no doubt. "Hey," he said, "I was gonna take Selphie to the beach but she's too busy and I'm feeling a bit lonely. You feel like taking a drive? I know a nice, quiet beach where nobody goes."
She looked at him for a long moment, then wiped away her tears. "You guys are having problems too, hunh?"
"You might say that," he said. "Now, you go on upstairs and get
your bathing suit on. It's a nice day outside and I don't plan to
waste it."
There was no one at the beach when they arrived, just as Irvine had suspected. Rinoa seemed relieved to see that it was deserted and she relaxed a little. "This is nice," she said and looked around. "I never knew there was a beach here."
Irvine smiled. "My little secret."
"This is one I think we should keep to ourselves," she said and slipped out of her pale blue sun dress, revealing a skimpy black bikini that reminded Irvine that he was still mad at Selphie. He found himself staring as she laid out a straw mat, then had to kick himself for ogling his best friend's girlfriend. He couldn't help himself, however. He'd never noticed before how attractive she really was.
"So, you wanna tell me what's going on?" He asked as he leaned back on his elbows and stared at the horizon so that he didn't stare at Rinoa.
"It's just . . ." she said, searching for the words to explain her dilemma. "He's just so . . . emotionally closed off. And he's always working. We never do anything, never go anywhere, never have any fun. It stinks!"
She'd just expressed what Irvine had been feeling about Selphie, and he suddenly felt a little less alone. At least there was somebody who understood what he was going through, and though it didn't make him feel any better, it did make him see that he wasn't the only one that felt neglected. "Rinoa, I understand completely. Sefie and I haven't had any time alone since Cid put her in charge of student affairs. She's consumed with it."
"Yeah," she said with a nod. "That's the word. Consumed. Squall's consumed with the budget and assignments and overhead and . . . ."
"Selphie's got the Festival Committee and that athletics thing . . ."
"Acquisitions and the state of world affairs . . ."
"Flowers, unicorns and rainbows . . ." he added with a grin.
She laughed at this and shook her head. "Squall, I can kind of understand," she said. "He's never been the type to let anything go, but I'm surprised at Selphie. I thought you two were the most emotionally outward couple there was."
"We were," Irvine agreed. "But that changed when she started this job. I thought her excitement over it would wear off after a while, but it didn't. It only got worse, and I'm getting tired of being put off, you know?"
"I know exactly how you feel."
"Don't get me wrong. I love her. I guess I always have, but . . . I don't want to play second fiddle. It's not fair to me."
"You're not going to break up with her, are you?" she asked, alarmed.
"No, nothing like that. I just want her to be less obsessed with work."
"Ditto," Rinoa said and sighed. "Work is all Squall thinks about."
"Sounds like the two of them should hook up," Irvine joked.
"Irvine Kinneas, that's not funny!" Rinoa cried and threw a handful of sand in his direction.
Maybe it wasn't funny, but it got Irvine thinking. There they were, two attractive people who deserved to be treated well, and the were all but ignored by the people they loved. It was sad really. Rinoa was a nice, if not somewhat emotional girl, and she was so devoted to a guy that paid no attention to how much she cared. Squall might have been Irvine's friend, but he felt like smacking him for not realizing what he had.
They didn't talk for a while, they just lay there in the sand, soaking up the afternoon sun in a comfortable silence. Irvine was glad that he'd decided to bring Rinoa with him, glad that he didn't waste the day sitting around feeling sorry for himself. He was still ticked off at Selphie, but at least he wasn't stewing about it all by himself or risking her wrath by flirting with the cadets.
"Thanks for bringing me here," Rinoa said. "I feel better."
"Me too," he said honestly. "And any time you need to talk, I want you to know you can come to me."
"Same goes for you," she said. "Any time."
"You wanna take a dip in that great big pond over yonder?" he drawled.
"It looks cold," she said, eying the water with suspicion.
"Chicken?"
"I am not chicken!" she said, indignant.
"Well, then," he said, "Let's go."
The water was a little chilly at first, but after a few moments, it didn't seem so bad, so Irvine ducked under and swam out a ways. It felt nice after sitting in the sun for so long. It was refreshing enough to wash away his frustration with Selphie, he just wished that he'd been able to bring her along. He knew how much she would have enjoyed it. But at least he'd made Rinoa's day a little bit better.
Rinoa was a little more reluctant to get it over with and was inching into the water a bit at a time. Irvine paused to admire her figure for a second. She was slender, lean and had quite a nice shape. But a second after he realized how attracted he was to her, he felt a pang of guilt stab at him. He remembered the unspoken rule that you don't eyeball your buddy's girl, no matter what she looks like. And the other rule that made Rinoa absolutely off limits, forever. Even if they were to break up, she was still off limits. Never mind the fact that Irvine had a girlfriend. A girl he adored.
He had three good reasons to quit staring. Try as he might though, he couldn't stop looking at her.
Thank Hyne she didn't notice.
"You're supposed to chew before you swallow, chicken-wuss," Seifer said with a smirk, though he was as grossed-out as the rest. "Oh, wait. I forgot. Chickens don't have teeth."
Zell made a face and then lunged at Seifer across the table. "I've told you a thousand times. I am NOT A CHICKEN!"
Seifer scooted his chair back and chuckled as Zell slid across the table and onto the floor.
"Graceful, aren't we?" Seifer said and got to his feet. "By the way, chicken-boy, thanks for ruining my appetite."
"Just wait Seifer. One of these days, I'm gonna get you back," Zell called after him as the tall gunblader walked away chuckling to himself. Then, Zell stalked off in the opposite direction, but not before snatching the last hot dog from his plate and stuffing it down his gullet.
"You'd think after four years he'd get over it," Rinoa said to Irvine as she put her fork down.
"You'd think," Irvine replied and pushed away his half eaten dinner. "But it makes for great entertainment."
Rinoa smiled, distracted by something. "Does it ever bug you to see Seifer back?"
Irvine hadn't really ever thought about it, so he just shook his head. Seifer had a pretty bad reputation, and he had been Ultimecia's Knight, but Irvine didn't think he was such a bad guy. Irvine considered him someone you want to have on your side when the going got rough. Irvine actually kind of liked him, even though a lot of people are afraid of him. He suppose they had a good reason, but he prefer to give Seifer the benefit of the doubt.
"I don't know," Rinoa said, "I guess I'm just not used to seeing him here."
"You'll have to get used to it," a voice behind them said. It was Xu and she appeared to be all business. "I need to see the both of you in my office ASAP."
Squall had made Xu mission commander about three years before, after the amount of requests for SeeD operatives had become too much for Squall to handle alone. Since then, missions had been handled with efficiency and expertise, thanks to Xu's skill at selecting people who knew what they were doing. Xu made it a point to know everything about the skill levels and abilities of all active SeeDs, and thus eliminated the shipment of random operatives that might or might not be suited for the job.
In the last few years, SeeD had branched out and started accepting missions that did not necessarily involve conflict. Some were rescue missions, some amnesty, and some had even required a bit of manual labor. Rinoa had the idea to initiate a political science department to train future ambassadors and politicians, a program that stressed such things as proper budgeting, the art of negotiation and placed particular emphasis on ethics, something that was greatly lacking in certain areas of the world. Her program had just recently seen fruition and seemed to be on the right track, though Squall had questioned Rinoa's definition of 'negotiation' in the beginning. Her buddies in the Forest Owls told had everyone tales about Rinoa's idea of negotiating. At seventeen, Rinoa had been on the verge of becoming a terrorist, the way they told it, even if her heart was in the right place at the time. It had probably been in her best interest that she'd hooked up with Squall and the others when she did.
All this change had been good for SeeD and for Garden. Enrollment had never been higher and their instructors were turning out top rate SeeDs by the dozen. Several additions had been made to the main structure, and Garden had acquired a hundred more acres of the land outside the main campus. Where Garden used to see two or three graduates per exam, there were now twelve to fourteen.
Rinoa and Irvine exchanged glances as Xu walked away. It had been a while since either of them had been on a mission, so Irvine figured one of two things must have happened. Either the situation was really serious, or Xu was short on manpower. Irvine hoped it was the latter.
"What did she mean by that?" Rinoa asked as she got to her feet.
"I don't know, but I don't think I like the sound of it."
"I understand that the three of you are SCUBA certified, am I correct?" Xu asks as she sits.
The trio nodded. SCUBA certification was a SeeD education course offered by Garden, not a requirement, but a post graduation elective. The three of them had taken the same class a year ago, but this was the first time they would actually need the skill. Irvine was excited. It was so seldom he was able to go diving, something he didn't think he'd enjoy but had ended up loving. He planned one day to take a trip to Centra and dive the underwater caves and maybe go swimming with the people-friendly nurse sharks that schooled there.
"Good. This mission will entail something of that nature. I don't have many details at present but you are to assist our clients in retrieving the remains of several individuals lost at sea last week. If that sounds like something you can't handle, please speak now," Xu said and eyed us, her gaze lingering on Rinoa the longest. For some reason, Xu had never liked Rinoa much, even though Rinoa never did anything to make Xu dislike her.
Irvine didn't exactly like the idea, but it wasn't something he would get choked up about either. He'd seen thousands of dead bodies in his twenty one years. A few more wouldn't make much of a difference.
Seeing that no one was about to back down, Xu continued. "There will be six of you. Irvine, you will be the mission captain. Nida will head up one dive team, Irvine you'll take the other. Beyond that, party distribution is up to you."
Irvine noticed that both Rinoa and Seifer were a little miffed that neither of them were given a chance to prove their abilities as a leader. He wished she had chosen someone else. He'd never been much of a leader. There was too much responsibility involved in that kind of thing for his tastes. He'd much prefer to be responsible for himself and himself only. However, the mission sounded simple enough, if not a bit gory, and would probably only require minimal leadership on his part.
So why did he have a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach that this mission wouldn't be quite what it seemed? He hoped he was just being paranoid and decided that he was just nervous because it was his first mission in a while. Even if anything went wrong, he'd have at least three skilled fighters on his side, and with odds like that, he should have felt more confident.
"Meet the rest of your team in the garage in one hour," Xu said and
passed a large manilla envelope marked 'Confidential' Irvine's way.
"Some reading material for your trip. Hope you like ships."
"Hey babe," he said as he approached. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her on the cheek.
"Hi Irvie!" Selphie said, looking up at him and she flashed a cheerful grin. She pointed to the young man and said, "This is Lozono Dumas. He's gonna play the festival."
Irvine extended his hand to him, though he couldn't make himself smile. "Irvine. Selphie's boyfriend."
"Nice to meet you," Lozono replied and took a step back. Irvine felt a particular pleasure in having intimidated Lozono enough to make him back up. He had no business touching Selphie, and Irvine intended to let him know it.
"This year's festival is gonna be the bomb!" Selphie said. "I wish we had a festival every day."
Irvine smiled at her and shook his head. "Hon, if we had a festival every day you wouldn't even have time to sleep. As it is I hardly see enough of you now."
"I'd gladly give up sleep," she said with a wistful grin. "Just imagine. Every day, games and cotton candy and music and talent shows and lotsa fun!"
He noticed she didn't mention anything about him. That hurt. She was so consumed with this festival thing, it was truly all she thought about. Annoyed with her, Irvine pulled away. "Hey Selph, I just stopped by to let you know I'll be gone a few days."
"Did you get a mission?" she asked, not even noticing that he'd let her go or that his attitude had changed. She stared up at the stage and watched a pair of young men fiddle with the wiring. "Hey, fix the lights first!" she called out to them.
"Yeah, I got a mission," he told her and crossed his arms against his chest. "You gonna give me a kiss good bye or are you too busy?"
She flashed him a guilty smile and gave him a peck on the cheek. That was it. Irvine had expected her usual ferocious attack but a peck on the cheek was all he got, and that upset him. "Dinner when you get back?" she asked, still watching the technicians on the girder above the stage.
"Sure," Irvine muttered and walked away without saying good bye. It was then that he seriously began to think about leaving her. He loved her, but couldn't deal with being virtually ignored in favor of some stupid festival. He was glad it made Selphie happy, but there came a point where she should have been able to disengage herself from her work and do something else for a while. She ate, slept and breathed the Garden Festival and it was becoming too much for him to handle. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life taking a back seat to Selphie's latest passion.
He decided the best course of action was to take the next several days to think long and hard on what he should do. He didn't want to make a decision based on his emotions, he wanted it to be logical and well thought out.
From the look on Rinoa's face when Irvine arrived at the garage, she'd just endured something similar and she could only shake her head at him when he questioned her. She didn't feel up to talking about her situation any more than Irvine did. It made the ride to Balamb Harbor unpleasantly quiet. Everyone in the car picked up on their dour moods and remained silent, even Seifer. Unfortunately, with nothing but the scenery to occupy the time, the trip seemed much longer than it actually was.
As they boarded the Lonely Pandora, the vessel that would take
them to their destination, Irvine had no idea that they were about to embark
on the most terrifying mission of their lives.
A/N: Ok guys. Take it easy on me. This is my first fan fiction, so I hope it's at least intriguing enough for you to want to read more. I've been lurking around here for a while, reading and learning how its done. I'm not sure if I've done a good job or not, so I'd appreciate some feedback. I know it kind of starts off with some cheese, but the cheese is important to later events. Trust me. It won't be all cheese. Promise.
This is a re-write of what I posted a couple of days ago. I've changed formats a bit, opting to write in third person because i was having too much trouble with only writing from Irvine's perspective. I hope I've fixed the problems with this first chapter...thanks to PodSara for giving me a hand with that.
So, about this fiction. This will eventually turn into a FF7 cross over, probably by chapter four. I'll warn you in advance, there are some off the wall parings coming up, stuff I've never seen done before, and I hope I don't get flamed for it. I like the traditional parings well enough, but I wanted to try something that's not done as often. One of them, I don't think I've ever seen on this site or any other, and it will be interesting to see the reaction it gets. That is, if anyone's bothering to read this. So far it's not been well received.
Help me out guys. Review me, CC me, give me some feedback.
Thanks! Charlie.