(Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or its characters. This is just for fun.)

Chapter 12: Hot Dog Hero

Rinoa poked at her sandwich and some more dark jam oozed out over her already sticky fingers. She stared at the misshapen and sloppy sandwich and sighed. It wasn't her best effort. It was a mess, and she was surprised at herself. How could anybody mess up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

This was Gladio's fault.

No, he hadn't made the sandwich for her, but her lunch making that morning had been rage fueled. And that WAS his fault. She couldn't believe her cousin Gladio had moved in next door at her father's bidding. Did everybody think she was a child?

She took another tiny bite of her sandwich. Peanut butter and blackberry jam smeared across her cheek. She chewed angrily. The sandwich was smooshed and it had uneven filling. It was very unappealing. And it was served in a little plastic baggie, which didn't help either. The whole thing was both wet and dry at the same time. She never knew what the next bite would hold. It seemed flavorless, but maybe that was because she could barely muster up enough enthusiasm to finish it.

Thinking of Gladio was sapping her appetite. Her jaws clenched together at every bite with more force than necessary.

Maybe more appetizing food could lift her foul mood. Maybe she could bring in something for lunch that she could microwave. She could bring in something that would send its aroma throughout the office, inflicting her lunch choice upon everybody else's senses, because apparently people were okay with that here. She'd already had to deal with a certain coworker who loved to bring in his leftover Balamb fish and stink up the entire office.

Or maybe she should just try going out to eat more often. Although who knew if she'd run into Gladio at lunchtime. If she stayed in this break room, she was relatively safe from Gladio, and by extension, her father.

She looked over at Zell, who was eating several hot dogs with abandon. Little snorts and grunts of happiness would come out of him every few seconds. Now there was a person who knew how to make a lunch he'd enjoy. He'd unpacked his lunch and microwaved it until it was very hot. Then he'd taken it out and set it down at the little table where she was eating with Selphie. Now the entire break room smelled steamy, meaty, and hot doggy. It was like a hot dog sauna in there.

Needless to say, it didn't go very well with her lackluster smooshed and lumpy peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwich. She set her sandwich down on her plastic baggie and sighed.

Zell turned towards her and said, "Hey, wanna bite? It's great." He clearly meant what he said by the bright expression in his baby blue eyes. He wanted to share the wealth.

Rinoa looked at the half eaten hot dog in Zell's fist. It was gnawed meat dripping with mustard. She was touched by his intended generosity, but each bite mark was wet with saliva. She'd never had half-eaten food, and she didn't think she was going to start now. But it was the thought that counted.

"No, I'm fine," Rinoa responded was a small polite smile.

"Hey, do you want one of my cookies?" Selphie asked her. She leaned towards Rinoa and pushed her little sunflower themed retro lunch box closer to her.

"No thanks," Rinoa said to Selphie, who kept nibbling on her package of mini cookies like a chipmunk. She'd been taking tiny bites out of each mini cookie like it was normal sized. It was taking her a long time to finish them.

Selphie reached out and dropped a small envelope in front of Rinoa. It plopped down by her lunch bag unceremoniously. For a second Rinoa didn't know if it was meant for her.

"Go on, open it up," Selphie said coolly while continuing to eat. Rinoa reached for it, but Selphie spoiled the surprise suddenly "It's a party invitation," she blurted out. She started to smile and dropped her indifferent attitude. "Don't bother RSVPing. It's a party being held in your honor. So you HAVE to come."

"Uh, what?" Rinoa asked while peering down at the pastel colored envelope. It wasn't her birthday. Why would a near stranger give her a party? "Okay?" she said.

"Great!" Selphie said while settling back into her lunch with a renewed industriousness. It was going to take her forever to finish it if she kept taking tiny bites. But she couldn't imagine not taking tiny bites when she was eating tiny food.

"Hey Rinoa, don't let her distract you from your lunch. Food is important," Zell said. "Gotta keep your strength up Rin," he said while stuffing an overlarge bite of hot dog into his open mouth. He started chewing happily, but it suddenly looked like he had bitten off too much to chew. His eyes bulged and watered. He kept chewing and struggled to keep the hot dog in his mouth, not wanting to waste a precious bite of hot dog goodness.

That would be his downfall.

He went from struggling to keep the food in his mouth to struggling to get it out of his mouth. Soon muffled sounds came out of him.

"Zell, are you okay? Are you choking?" Rinoa asked with concern. She dropped the invitation and pushed her food away from herself.

Zell's face started turning red and his eyes watered. He looked pleadingly at Rinoa and then Selphie.

"He's fine." Selphie said while looking down at her lunch. She picked up another raspberry and popped it into her mouth before continuing. "He always looking like that when he's eating." She didn't bother looking up at him once as she individually examined each raspberry.

Rinoa looked at Zell while he kept pointing at his throat and making gurgling noises.

"No Selphie, I think he's actually choking!" Rinoa said, starting to panic.

Selphie stopped eating her lunch and took a careful look at him. "AAAAAAH!" she screamed. "He's totally choking! What-do-we-do-what-do-we-do? HELP! HELP!" she screamed while she jumped up and clapped her hands together.

Rinoa popped up from her seat and stuck her head down the hallway. "HELP! Somebody help us! Zell is choking!" She gripped the door frame tightly and looked back at Zell. He was in obvious distress. Selphie had gone over to him and started hitting him on the back as hard as she could. The food wasn't becoming dislodged. Selphie's hitting only seemed to hurt him. Rinoa kept yelling for someone.

As each second without help stretched, Rinoa thought that maybe she should take a first aid course in addition to taking a self defense course. She'd add it to her growing to-do list for the new responsible adult woman she was trying to become. She should check out the local community center for classes. But even if she signed up for a class later today, that wasn't going to help Zell right now.

She yelled for help again.

Within moments Seifer came running down the hall. Seifer wasn't Rinoa's favorite person, but she smiled when she saw that help was on the way. Maybe Seifer would know what to do. He barged into the break room with a smirk on his face and skidded to a sudden stop. His leather bottomed shoes squeaked on the worn break room linoleum.

"Ha, Dincht is gonna die!" Seifer laughed. Rinoa's eyebrows shot up off her head in disbelief at Seifer's callous attitude. "Killed off by his legendary love of hot dogs," Seifer said seriously this time. "A fitting end." He nodded.

This was not helping.

"That's not funny!" Rinoa yelled at him. "He needs help. HELP! SOMEBODY HELP!" she cried down the hallway. The situation was escalating quickly. Where was Quistis? She seemed to be the most competent person in the office, but she was often unavailable.

Rinoa ran to grab the phone off the wall and started dialing 911 herself. Her sticky and shaking fingers mashed the buttons, but the phone call wasn't going through. Maybe she dialed incorrectly in her hurry. She hung it up and dialed again, more slowly this time.

Wait, did she have to dial out first before dialing 911? She was panicking and couldn't remember. Did she have to hit 9 first, or was it 1? She was the receptionist. This was something she should know! She continued to try.

Squall heard Selphie's screams from down the hall. He didn't catch what was being said, but he noticed that Seifer had gotten out of his seat and bolted out of his cubicle.

While Squall was wondering what all the commotion was about, he heard Rinoa's raised voice screaming for help. For some reason he imagined her badly hurt from a lunchtime mishap. That didn't seem likely and he wasn't sure how she'd even do that, but he worried anyway. Maybe she'd cut herself while slicing a bagel and needed him to drive her to a doctor. He could help wrap the wound and reassure her while on the way to the emergency room. He'd stay by her side as the doctors and nurses did their work. Then he could take her home for the day and stay for a while to make sure she was okay.

Wait, what if it was worse than that? Squall's imagination sprang to life again and his heart lurched in his chest. He could just see that huge leather clad muscle man, 'Angelo' showing up at Rinoa's workplace unannounced. That seemed like a jerk 'marking his territory' sort of move that a guy like that would do. Maybe Rinoa had told him not to come, but he showed up anyways. Maybe he was hassling her right now in the break room because she'd tried to end their relationship. Again. She'd looked hostile towards him before. There was trouble brewing, surely.

He heard another call for help.

Wait, what was he still doing sitting in his office chair? Maybe Rinoa needed Squall's help right now! He didn't know what he could do, but he'd figure it out on the way. He jumped up and ran down the hallway after Seifer, leaving his office chair spinning behind him.

Squall's shoes padded down the worn high traffic carpet as he neared the break room. A multitude of possible scenarios flitting through his mind in an energetic frenzy. Which one would confront him when he got there?

When he got into the break room he didn't see anything he'd imagined. There was no hulking Angelo or a bleeding Rinoa next to a partially cut bagel. He just saw Zell choking with Selphie hitting his back. That wasn't a rare sight in Squall's opinion. He noticed that Seifer stood by laughing while Rinoa had tears forming in her eyes while she held onto a phone. Squall was relieved that Rinoa was okay and that Angelo was nowhere to be found, but he quickly assessed the situation. It looked more serious than normal. Zell's face was turning colors now. He needed help, and fast. He could worry about Angelo later.

Squall swiftly pushed past Seifer, more roughly than needed, to get to Zell. He made Zell stand up. Selphie quickly stepped aside. Squall wrapped his arms around Zell's torso and made a fist. He firmly pressed his fist into Zell's abdomen with a quick upward thrust. Despite Squall's efforts, Zell continued to choke.

The adrenaline was thrumming through Squall's veins. All he could hear were little screams and Seifer's jack-ass laugh. He kept working on Zell with all of his strength. It was frantic and it felt like time had slowed down.

Suddenly he heard a wet sound as Zell expelled a chewed up piece of hot dog. It went flying, seemingly in slow motion, and cart wheeled through the air before it finally landed on Seifer's neatly polished leather shoes.

Squall hadn't been aiming, but if he had, he wouldn't have been able to get a better target.

"Damn!" Seifer exclaimed while kicking it off his foot. The food chunk went skidding across the linoleum floor and came to rest beneath the legs of the break room table.

The room was silent except for Zell's heaving gasps.

Selphie stared at Squall in wonder. Her mouth hung open. "That was super duper awesome!" She started slow clapping for him. Clap. Clap. Clap. The loud sound rang echoed in the bare room.

Nobody joined her.

"Oh!" Rinoa exclaimed, breathless from terror. She dropped the phone and quickly turned her thoughts to Zell. "Zell are you alright?" Rinoa asked while running to his side. She patted him gently on his back.

Zell nodded his head while gulping down fresh air. A big smile of relief spread over his face. "Thanks man, I owe you," he said to Squall. He tried to shake his hand, but Squall resisted. Zell slapped him on the back instead.

Rinoa turned to look up at Squall. "Thank you so much." She clutched at her chest. "How'd you know how to do that?" she asked.

Squall pointed to the worn and dusty poster on the wall that described how to aid a choking person. It came with simple to follow graphics. Hadn't anybody heard of the Heimlich Maneuver? And more importantly, couldn't anybody here read and follow directions?

"Is that new?" Selphie asked while pointing towards it. "I don't think I've ever seen that before."

New? Squall couldn't believe that. Were people here not very observant of their surroundings?

"That poster has been hanging there for as long as I've worked here," Squall said. He was pretty sure workplaces were required to display these sorts of emergency posters in break areas. Hadn't anybody else ever noticed it? It was clearly old. It had faded colors and curled up edges.

Irvine suddenly appeared at the doorway. "Hey guys, I just got out of the bathroom and I heard all this screaming. I was wondering where y'all went to. What's goin' on here?"

"Hey Irvy, guess what?" Selphie asked while spinning around. "Squall saved the day. Squall is a hero! A HERO!" She tried to slow clap again, but it didn't catch on.

Squall sat back at his desk, pretending to work. The office had calmed down in the afternoon after Zell's near death experience, but Squall was filled with excitement and energy still. It wasn't every day that he had an adrenaline rush at work, although it was becoming more and more common lately.

He shook his hair out of his eyes while typing and raised his eyebrows in astonishment. He couldn't believe that all of those boring lunch breaks where he'd done nothing but stare at that old emergency poster had actually come in handy. He had the graphics on that stupid poster memorized. He never figured he would use that knowledge someday. He mostly had stared at it to avoid looking at any of his coworkers and avoid conversations. He'd stare at it and pretend like he was deep in thought about something important and work related. A slight look of annoyance made him look serious and productive. It was a fabrication of course, but nobody else knew that. It put up a wall around himself so he could be alone and unbothered.

What if he didn't want to wall himself off anymore?

Squall thought of Rinoa. He tried not to smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched, aching to betray his feelings. He couldn't help but puff up with pride at the look Rinoa had given him in the break room. Her eyes were gleaming with joy. She looked at him like he was some kind of heroic knight in a fairytale when he'd expelled that disgusting little piece of hot dog from Zell's throat. Magical.

He would die if anybody knew how much her look pleased him, but his heart swelled at it anyways. Selphie had insisted that he was a hero, but he could write that off as one of her many exaggerations. But the look on Rinoa's face couldn't be explained away so easily. Rinoa was proud of his actions and his cool-headedness under pressure. He felt foolish, but her look did make him feel like a hero.

Squall Leonhart. Hero. He liked the sound of it.

Squall shook his head and snapped out of it. This wasn't a fairytale. He wasn't a knight and Zell certainly wasn't a princess or damsel in distress.

He mentally congratulated himself on helping his fellow coworker and decided to stop thinking of it from this point forward. He had work to do. Heroics were no longer required of him.

But he couldn't help but fondly remember the relief on Rinoa's sweet face. She'd certainly seemed much more at ease and happy to see him than she had when she'd been with Angelo in the park. Maybe Squall was her type of guy. Maybe they were a match. He smiled to himself and continued to type.

His eyes flicked to the small invitation that had been placed on his desk earlier in the afternoon. Selphie's flowing handwriting had crossed out Squall's name and had rewritten "HERO" on his invitation in large upper case letters. A small trail of glitter had leaked out of the tiny envelope. Normally that would have annoyed him, but today was special. Weeks from now, when he would still be finding trace amounts of glitter in his work space, he'd be reminded of today with a smile.

He reached out and opened the invitation again. He glanced at the glittery embossed words complete with pastel colored graphics of rounded balloons and multi colored confetti.

"First Month Anniversary Party for Rinoa Heartilly!"

He looked over at the address he presumed was Selphie's home. It was next weekend.

"Be there or be square," she added at the end with a flourish of a gel pen.

He normally wouldn't think of going to something like this. He wouldn't give it a moment's thought. But normal wasn't happening anymore. He felt like he was in some kind of strange parallel universe where he could be a whole new person. He tapped his fingertips on his desktop.

Maybe. Maybe he could go.

Author's notes: Siobhane came up with the idea for this chapter. She thought it would be funny if Zell choked and Selphie started freaking out... and the rest wrote itself.