Chapter 10

With one eye, Seifer peered through the spotting scope of the sniper rifle he was given to execute his mission to assassinate the president. For the last two weeks under Raven's careful watch. They had found the perfect stake out spot that would give them a clear shot at the President and allow them a quick escape. But escaping wasn't Seifer's plan.

Even with Raven watching his every step like a hawk, Seifer, with Zell's help, managed to get the intelligence they received back to Garden. If everything went as planned, the police would be able to get to the Resistance before attempted the assassination occurred. Seifer glance down at his watch. There was still fifteen minutes before show time.

Seifer did not bother to turn around when he heard light footsteps come up behind him. These footsteps have been following him around for the past two weeks.

"Come to check up on me, Raven?" he asked still looking through his spotting scope.

Seifer suddenly felt something cold and hard pressed against the side of his throat.

"I know who you are," Raven hissed into his ear.

Seifer remained cool even when he realized that Raven held a knife to his throat.

"Of course you know who I am. You've been stalking me for the last two months," Seifer said coolly.

"Don't play dumb, Almasy. You may have changed your appearance slightly, but you're not an easy person to forget."

"I'm flattered. You think I'm Seifer Almasy."

She pressed the knife harder on his throat. "Don't fuck with me. You are here to ruin my group. I won't have that," she growled. "Tell me what your plans are."

"Look, you've been watching my every move for the last two months and you are assuming that am Seifer Almasy and betraying you. What proof do you have?" He felt point of the knife on his neck lessen for a second. He took that moment to react. With a quick sweep of his arm, he elbowed Raven hard in the gut causing her to double over and drop her knife. He quickly grabbed her knife and pulled her head up by her long black braid and placed the knife under her throat.

"I don't like it when people sneak up on me with a knife," he snarled. "If you think that you know who I am. Then you should be very afraid, because Seifer Almasy will hurt you."

Seifer look into Raven's icy stare. "It's too late," she said. Then Seifer saw what she meant. Four big burly men that had been designated as Raven's bodyguards entered the empty room.

"Is it smart to threaten me, when I have the knife to your throat?" Seifer said tightening his grip on her. Then another man came in with a gun pointed at Zell's back. Seifer resisted an urge to curse under his breath.

"Let me go and I'll let him go," Raven bargained.

There was still at least five more minutes before they had backup arrive. Seifer would have to stall for five more minutes.

"You are using Zack as leverage?" Seifer scoffed.

"I believe this Zack is not Zack, but Zell Dincht also a SeeD," Raven said.

"Really? You think this chicken wuss is a SeeD? And I thought you were a smart woman."

"If you want to kill him, go ahead. I'm not letting you go, Raven. No one puts a knife under my throat and gets away with out an apology." He pressed the tip of his knife deeper on her throat. Raven gave out an involuntary whimper as she felt the tip of the knife prick her skin.

The police needed to get here soon. Seifer didn't think he could stall them anymore. Zell had to go and get himself caught; and now they were quickly running out of time.

"Did you hear that?" One of the guards as another.

"It's too late now, sweetheart," Seifer whispered to Raven.

Finally the doors burst open as the police made their move to surround them with guns pointed at them.

"You're all under arrest!" they called out.

Seifer raised his hands up in surrender. It was about time. Tomorrow he would be on his way to find Quistis, no matter what Squall said. His mind was made. He was going after her.

Quistis was still counting the money from the cash register when she heard a knock on the store door. She was about to point to the closed sign on the door, when she realized that it was Paul at the door.

She quickly finished counting the batch of money in her hands and wrote down the figure on the sheet and went to unlock the door for Paul.

"Paul, what are you doing here?"

"I heard that Lynnette was letting you close the store by yourself today."

"I know, can you believe it? I've only been working here for a couple weeks and she wants me to close the store unsupervised already. I'm afraid I might mess up or forget to do something," she said.

"I'm sure you'll do fine. Lynnette really likes you and she trusts you to do a good job closing the store by yourself," Paul assured her. "Anyways since you were here alone, I thought I'd come by and keep you company and maybe walk you home."

"You know you don't have to," Quistis said as she returned to counting the money on the counter.

"I know," Paul shrugged, "but I want to."

Quistis rolled her eyes. "Well, I still need to count the money then put it in the safe. I should be done in about fifteen minutes."

"Sure, no problem, I can wait." He placed the bag of groceries he carried on the floor.

"What's the bag of groceries for?" Quistis asked in between counting the bills.

"I'm going to make you dinner tonight," Paul said picking up a copy of the daily newspaper and started to read the headlines.

"Dinner?" Quistis looked at him with a raise eyebrow.

"Don't worry. I fed it to my students once, and they are all still alive," he said starting to read the front page of the newspaper. "Galbadia had its yearly festival to commemorate the end of the Sorceress Wars this past weekend."

"Really?" Quistis wrote another number down on the sheet before she looked at the article that Paul pointed to.

In the cover picture, Quistis saw Squall and Rinoa standing on the stage next to president. Quistis remembered the one year when they all stood there as a team, being honored with their achievement of saving the world. Now they were lucky if they could get one or two of the original team members to show up.

She glanced through the front page and another picture down on the bottom of the paper caught her eye. The headline was about an underground rebel faction known as Darkness was crushed over the weekend and a picture of the rebels being taken into custody was displayed. Quistis looked closer at the picture. One of the men in the picture looked familiar.

"Seifer?" she absent-mindedly whispered.

"Excuse me?" Paul asked.

"Oh nothing, that guy there reminded me of an old friend," she said pointing to the picture.

"Is that so?" Paul asked taking the newspaper and taking a closer look. "Is it your friend?"

"No, that's not him. He has a prominent scar on his face, but his guy does look a lot like him. But it's not him and he wouldn't go and join an underground rebel faction." At least she hoped it wasn't him. If it was Seifer there had to be a good reason why he was pictured with the rebel faction. It was most likely part of a mission. Whatever it was, she was no longer part of that life. For some reason the thought of that made her sad. She quickly shook the thought out of her mind and stuffed the rest of the money into the cloth deposit bag locked it and went to the back of the store to put the money away in the safe.

She came out minutes later with her purse in hand.

"Okay I'm ready to go. So what are you planning on cooking for me tonight?"

Paul quickly put the newspaper back on the rack and gathered the grocery back in his hands. "How does pasta sound to you?" he asked with a smile.

"Sounds good," Quistis smiled as she turned off the lights and locked the door to the store.

After the bust Seifer spent most of the day in jail giving reports and relaying other information about Darkness. By the time he was released from duty and reached Balamb Garden, the sun was setting. Instead of heading straight for the showers then his dorm, Seifer headed straight for the elevator, up towards the third floor into the headmaster's office.

Without warning Seifer pushed the door open and stalked into the office again.

"Seifer, you need to stop barging in like this every time," Squall said obviously irritated.

Seifer ignored Squall's comment. "I finished the mission. Now I'm going to go and find Trepe."

"How are you going to find her when a team of SeeDs can't even find her?"

"Because the pansies you sent to look for her are useless and they don't care enough to find her. I'll find her," Seifer said with determination in his eyes.

"We've done everything to find her we even checked her accounts to try and trace her. You have to remember she is a professional, and she obviously doesn't want to be found," Squall said trying to explain their failure in find Quistis.

"Nothing stays lost forever," Seifer growled, "and I'm going to find her."

"You can't," Squall said bluntly.

Seifer glared at Squall, "And why the hell not?"

"Because you—"

"Don't even say it." Seifer dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope and tossed it onto Squall's desk.

"What's this?" Perplexed Squall opened the envelope.

"My resignation letter," Seifer said. "You're not making me wait another day. Trepe has been missing for nearly five months. And I'm going to find her. Even if I have to knock on every door, I'll find her. Have a nice life Leonheart." He stalked off again and slammed the door behind him.

After a quick shower, Seifer went back to his dorm and started to pack all his belongings. In a couple hours, Seifer was done packing everything in his room, which wasn't much. He didn't know where he was going to go, but he knew that Garden no longer welcomed him.

He pulled out of the parking lot and headed for Balamb. He might as well start with the closest town to him.

"Dinner is served!" Paul announced as he brought out two plates of pasta from the kitchen and placed them on the table.

"Smells great," Quistis said sitting down at the table. "I hope it tastes as good as it smells," she teased before taking a bite.

Paul was about to join her at the dining table when he stop in mid thought. "I almost forgot. Be right back," he said and went back into the kitchen and came back with two wineglasses and a bottle of red wine.

"Would you like some wine?" he asked.

Quistis shook her head. "No, thank you. I can't."

"You can't or you don't drink?" Paul asked puzzled pouring himself a glass.

"I can't," she repeated.

"Are you allergic to wine?"

"No, at the moment I just…can't," Quistis hesitated. "I'm sorry I should have told you this before."

"Tell me what?" Paul's eyebrows furrowed in concern.

Quistis let out a breath. "I'm pregnant," she finally said.

"I see," Paul said taking a gulp of wine as he let the news settle in.

"I'm sorry. I know I should have told you this from the beginning, but you were just so kind to me and I didn't want to hurt your feelings. I…I was wrong to wait until now, and I'm so sorry. If you want to leave or if you want me to leave, I'll go. I'm so sorry," she apologized.

Quistis felt guilty. Over the past couple weeks they had become friends. At least Quistis hoped that they were only friends, but she also feared that Paul might have considered her more than a friend.

"No, you don't have to leave," Paul said. "Is this the reason why you came to Winhill?"

"It's one of the reasons," she said vaguely.

"If I may ask, where is the father?"

Quistis took another deep breath. "The last time I saw him. He was away on a…business trip, but that was before I found out I was pregnant."

"He doesn't know?"

"No," she shook her head.

"Were you planning to ever tell him?"

Quistis felt even more terrible. For the past several months she had been trying to avoid the confronting question of if she should tell Seifer or not. Now the question she dreaded was asked and she didn't have the right answer.

"I don't know yet."

"Kristy, I've only known you a short time, but I like you. I really like you. You are definitely one of a kind. I've never meet anyone like you. To be honest, it doesn't really matter to me that you're pregnant. I'm sure you will be a great mother. My main concern is do you still love the father of your baby? If you do, you should tell him," he said.

Still. The word caught Quistis completely off guard. It had never occurred to her that she might even love Seifer, and she didn't blame Paul for assuming that she and Seifer had been involved in a relationship. She didn't fit the typical one night stand description. But now that Paul had brought the question to her attention was it possible that the reason she felt guilty for being around Paul was because she had feelings for Seifer? Was it because of her feelings for Seifer, that she only considered Paul a friend?

She started to think back on her reasons for leaving Garden. She knew she was searching too hard for a simple answer. She was afraid of being rejected again. The last time she tried to talk to someone, he shattered her heart and now he was happily married. She couldn't know what Seifer's reaction would have been. Seifer was the complete opposite of Squall. He was unpredictable. She was never really sure what he would do. Maybe she should have talked to him first.

"I'm sorry." Was all Quistis could say to Paul as she kept her gaze on the plate of pasta in front of her.

"You know what? Forget about it. Everyone is allowed to have some sort of secret. Right now we have this delicious dinner that is going to go to waste," Paul said trying to ease the tension in the room by changing the subject.

"Please eat," he urged her.

Quistis obliged and tried to eat, but she had lost her appetite. But she ate anyway since she needed to eat for the sake of her baby.

"This is really great Paul. You should cook for me more often," she said trying to lighten up the mood.

"Anything for you, Kristy, Anything," Paul said with a sad smile.

Quistis was glad when her dinner with Paul was finally over. He was kind enough to stay and help her clean her kitchen before he left, but at that time she wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

For the last hour she sat by her phone, asking herself is she should call Seifer or not. Finally she picked up the phone and dialed the familiar number to Balamb Garden.

"Hello, Balamb Garden," the operator answered with an overly cheerful voice that reminded her of Selphie.

"Hello, I'm looking for a Seifer Almasy," Quistis said, hoping the operator was someone she didn't know.

"May I ask who is speaking?" the operator asked.

"This is…Kristina Dent. I meet him at a bar and he gave me this as his contact number."

Quistis could here the operator scoff and she was sure the operator was rolling her eyes at her. "I'm sorry you just missed him," the operated replied.

"I see. Do you know when he will be back?" Quistis asked.

"No, you misunderstood. I mean you missed him. He no longer works here anymore," the operator said.

"Excuse me?"

"I mean," the operator spoke slower in a patronizing manner. "He just resigned and no longer works or lives here anymore."

Quistis was getting annoyed by the operator's tone. "What do you mean by 'just' resigned."

"He resigned a couple hours ago and he just pulled out of the parking lot."

"And did he leave any alternate contact information?"

"Sorry ma'am, no. Thank you for calling Balamb Garden. Good bye," the operator said and immediately hung up on Quistis.

Quistis sighed. She couldn't believe that she had literally just missed him. Now that she had finally decided to tell him about her pregnancy, there was no way she could contact or find him. Fate had a terrible way of toying with her.