Disclaimer: I do not own FFVIII or any of the charactors presented therein, nor do I own rights to the names Squall Fujin Siefer, or the names of any of the Squarenix charactos represented, I do not have the permission of Square to write this story and I recieve no profit from it's distribution, are you rreally still reading this, I have one question, why?

He listened, and hung on every word, simple sentence she spoke, conveying her meaning in the shortest terms possible. It was a slow process as she began to have to pause every few words to compose herself as she was reaching the current events he had sat stock-still. His mind reeled with what he heard it blew his mind what he was hearing…. What the man he had considered his enemy had said… and the feelings insinuated behind that. He felt his chest get a bit tight, his eyes focusing painfully into her head, her eye closed and diverted, he guessed she must be ashamed at her capture, it hardly mattered…. This changed a lot, and it brought something to him he had not expected, Sympathy. There was no way he would allow it to show, he could not conceive of the idea, but it was there boring into his soul, all he did was take a deep breath and continue to absorb her words. He began to pick things up slowly, her inflection showed over the seeming monotone and her slight body movements filled in the subjective matter she relayed as though merely giving a report. He sat nearly as motionless as her, leaning forward on his hands elbows on his desk, waiting as she seemed to be wrapping up.

"I understand."

She just nodded; well, she had been speaking for a solid hour now, definitely more words than he had ever heard her speak at one time. She had only ever spoke in single words or phrases at their longest. He had to sit up and lean back in his chair still serious, not taking his eyes from her as he did so. He took a few long moments to soak in the information and consider his words very carefully.

"it is my decision as Headmaster and Commander of Balamb Garden to allow you to stay here, you will be tried for your crimes, obviously. However, in light of the current situation I suspect we can be lenient." He thought he botched it by the stern look on her face that merely nodded once, always business first.

&8&

She told him everything, all that had happened since they had again found Siefer and joined him, every once of information, and she just watched the stoic, cool face of the leader, she was growing more and more sore of the throat but spoke every relevant detail until the present, everything. She had bared her soul as best she knew how, and now she could only wait as she watched his eyes bristle with thought and emotion, slowly she became nervous…. .what would he do now…. She bit her bottom lip discreetly as he sat up and stared at her hard, she could feel panic rise, her stomach churned and rippled despite being empty and her mind raced but on the outside she remained her cold calm self stoic and silent as always.

When he spoke she braced for the worst she tensed for the blow that was sure to come… had he said what she thought she had heard? Could that even be possible coming from the pragmatic and by-the-book Squall she had known… she stared openly and uncharacteristically showing disbelief but she swiftly composed herself and nodded slowly still a little startled, truly an uncomfortable feeling.

&8&

He saw that incredulous stare cross her face in that split moment and he knew he had hit the mark, one internal pat on the back later he leaned back in.

"We will find out if you are truly as reformed as you claim to be. Naturally you will kept apart as you can guess, we have work to be done everywhere." He swiftly had realized that coming out and telling everyone was strictly out of the question, they would mob and she would be lynched in the quad. He was hoping that this would solve the problem at least temporarily. This would be truly tricky business. He would have to prepare the Garden and gauge the reactions beforehand with his current knowledge, this was going to be interesting… but in the meantime he had to think of something to do with her between now and then. There was a long road ahead.

He reached to the speaker on the desk and depressed a button, then letting go waiting for the come back

"yes sir?" he depressed the button again "I would like you to come in here, I have special plans for this." "yes sir."

The two Garden Faculty from earlier entered and took up stance at either side of Fujin, she looked nervously from one to the other covertly and took a deep breath. Squall sat up, put on his strongest face and spoke in his most assured tones again donning the mantel of leader.

"she is to be treated as a guest, however, keep her away from the Students. I fear they may act brashly if allowed to know that thier Former enemy is on board" he took great pain to stress the word former to them.

"otherwise she is to be made comfortable, short of giveing her weapons. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir." The faculty members both bowed slightly at the waist and the neck.

&8&

She was awestruck, he was going to let her stay? that was the last thing she expected, she was truely relieved when the cuffs were removed, she was feeling herself overcome from the inside at the unexpected result, it was beyond her hopes that she would be she could not say anything at first but after a moment of simply stanidng there silent like some sort of mechanical warrior, she found it in her to speak.

"Thank You."

A/N: Thank you again to my Loyal Reviewers, Varientskies (with all my other stories so dark and serious I figure I need a little WAFF now and then), Mare-Mare (I have no idea which lines you are talking about, Please tell me, you have me a little wierded out!) . Seriously, I feel guilty about going more than two days without SOMETHING. god .> how pathetic am I man... ::mumble mumble:: Well, I'm better than those authers who make thier fans wait a month in between chapters right? heh... I hope I am.