Thanks to my reviewers for their compliments. I hope you like this instalment as much as the previous ones!
Part 4 – The Arctic Breeze of Surprise
He hadn't even noticed he'd fallen asleep until he woke with a start. Someone had slammed a door.
"Now, now, Mr Almasy. No need to be so jumpy. It's just your breakfast."
Groggily he looked up at the uniformed person in front of the old-fashioned cell door. Instructor Trepe gave him a quick smile and nodded to the tray on the table next to the barred door. Ah yes, the detention cell. His mood plummeted at the recollection of this week's events.
"I'm not in the mood for jokes, Instructor," he growled, rubbing his neck and face in an attempt to wake himself up.
"You never are, unless you're the one making them," she commented lightly. "Now, do you want to eat or not?"
Seifer snorted, but remembered the rules of imprisonment. He nodded gruffly and stepped back from the door, as he knew he was supposed to.
The instructor took her cue and opened the cell door. She put the tray on the floor and exited without turning her back at him. He then waited until he heard the electronic lock snapping the steel bar door in place before moving to pick the food up. All exactly according to prison protocol. After all, they were both professionals.
But unlike he had expected, she didn't leave him alone after securing the cell. She just stood there, watching him. He eyed her in return.
"What'cha looking at?"
"You."
"Why?" He gave her a vicious little smirk. "I though you had a crush on the Leonheart kid."
All the recognition she gave the comment was her head turning just a bit to hide the faint blush on her cheeks. But it was all he needed, and he felt pleasantly self-satisfied about his honed skills of observation.
She recovered quickly enough. "Hardly," she stated, although with little conviction. "I was just looking at you, wondering how an able cadet like yourself manages to throw away all his opportunities on a whim."
He swallowed the bite of bread he'd just taken and pulled his lips in a snarl.
"There's a big difference between a whim and a conscious and well-considered decision."
"So you're saying you had a reason to abandon your position and your team to go chasing after some monster?" It wasn't a question. She gave him a small humourless smile. "I'm sure the Court of Inquiry will be interested in your version of the story."
"I highly doubt it," he snorted in reply. "Everyone in this Garden wants to see me off to the proverbial gallows for all this, whether I deserve that or not."
She raised a questioning eyebrow in return.
"What?" he demanded indignantly. "I was right about the Galbadians' business in Dollet! And since Garden had no clue until I told you lot about the Tower, I don't think treating like a criminal is much of a way to thank me for saving the Faculty's political face."
"Regardless of any of that, you also were out of line, Almasy. Big time! And as for thanking you, I think I saved your face when I arranged for you to be allowed to attend the graduation ball the other night." She paused for a moment, apparently to see if her words had any impact on him. Then she sighed.
"You do realise that I could have let them drag you off in chains, publicly, like the rest of the staff wanted to."
He shrugged and gave her a cold glare. "Wonderful, I got to go to the ball that wasn't for me in the first place. That made up for every accusation you lot threw at me, that did." Fact was that he was grateful, but he'd be damned if he ever let her know that. As she had just admitted, he had a reputation to keep up.
"Sarcasm is the only art you ever mastered in this school, Seifer."
He snarled slightly, but otherwise ignored the obvious insult and redirected his attention to his food.
Instructor Trepe shook her head with a faint smile. "Your attitude will catch up with you one day, Almasy. Or rather, it already has. If it hadn't been for your head-strong desire to do things your way, you wouldn't be sitting here eating the cafeteria's 'breakfast grande surprise', but you'd be doing what you always have wanted."
He gave her nothing but an incredulous look.
"Well, of course you'd have to work with Squall and Zell again, but I reckon you wouldn't mind that if you could be on a mission for Ms Heartilly's Forest Owl movement. After all, she did ask specifically for you."
Seifer almost choked on his coffee.
"What! Rinoa? You're saying she actually had the guts to ask Garden for SeeD support?"
"She did. Apparently, some Garden cadet had told her that that sort of thing was what SeeD was for."
He groaned. "You're telling me that she got Headmaster Cid to make good on a non-committing promise that I made her a year ago between the drinks and the bed sheets?"
"Not just the Headmaster. After all, it's Squall who's heading the three-men team Cid gave her..."
Some days it just isn't worth getting up… He swallowed the bitterness of the facts she presented to him, trying to brush it off.
"If you're trying to make me jealous, it ain't working."
"You're a liar, Seifer, and we both know it. Fact remains that right now, you're sitting here on your behind, while Squall's out there, liberating Timber."
He froze, despite the sudden rush of adrenalin that her words triggered.
"Their mission is to liberate Timber?"
The instructor pursed her lips. "They'll be helping the Forest Owls until their goal has been achieved, so, effectively… yes, it is."
"And… you left me here?"
She gave a short chuckle. "Of course you couldn't be part of the mission, no matter what the Heartilly girl asked. You're in the disciplinary room pending a Court of Inquiry, remember?"
"Like that's going to stop me!" The bars shook violently as he threw his full weight against the door.
Alarmed, Instructor Trepe stepped back. "What do you think you're doing?"
He smashed into the door again. Bits of plaster were shaken loose from the ceiling.
"Instructor, don't you get it!" he exclaimed angrily. "They could be facing the whole damn Galbadian Army! And all they send are three rookie SeeD?" His lips pulled into a snarl and a hint of red flames flickered in his pupils. "Dammit, I'm going to Timber!"
At the next impact, the cell door broke out of its hinges.
Aaaaaaaaand he's off!Please R&R. No writer can improve theirwork without feedback, people!