Alright, here's the second chapter. I'm hoping to keep them coming regularly and that I've done the characters justice.
.02.
The next morning in Esthar, Laguna was making arrangements to visit Deling. Political leaders the world over had expressed an interest in meeting to increase relations between the countries.
"Ward, which tie should I be wearing with this?" asked the president as he stared into the mirror, suddenly wishing he'd agreed to hire someone to dress him.
Ward shrugged, "Whatever one is on the top when you open the drawer."
"No," Kiros sighed, "You can't decide that way. It might be the Moomba tie."
Laguna pulled the drawer open and looked inside, "How about the Moogle one?"
"Please, Hyne, no..." came a female voice from the door. "If you wear a themed tie, I will personally see to it you're all assassinated." The body of the voice pushed in and brushed her lips along Ward's cheek. "Uncle Ward, no bandannas at the political banquet." She plucked the offending garment off his head before he could stop her and headed to Laguna. "Wear the blue tie with the light blue diagonal pin striping."
Laguna looked for the tie before obliging the teen. He checked himself in the mirror. "Hey, not bad," he said to his reflection.
"Well, I'm not a miracle worker," the girl replied.
"Layla, where's your mother?" Kiros asked.
She pushed her red hair over her shoulder and smiled at him, "At our house, waiting for you to ask her to accompany you to this Lunch."
Ward laughed and slapped his knee. "That's my sister. Stubborn as all else."
"You should go before she gets annoyed with you for having made her wait and says no out of spite," Layla advised.
"Yes, well..."
"Laguna, I wanted to let you know that there have been some problems in Deling recently. The bodies of three men roughly your age have been found," she explained in a worried tone as she showed him some articles she'd printed out, "and it seems the murderer takes a souvenir. Every body was missing it's..."
"Oh Hyne," Laguna groaned, "Somebody is killing men and cutting off their..."
Layla nodded.
Kiros looked at an article. "Perhaps we should only attend lunch and then come straight home. I know we'd planned drinks in the city, but there are plenty of good pubs here in Esthar where nobody wishes to mutilate our genitalia."
"That's what I was thinking," Layla added. She looked at her uncle with her blue-green eyes and waited for him to promise they'd come straight home when it was over.
"Fine. We'll drink here, but don't worry kiddo, we're not about to lose our lives or genitals, we're ex-military."
"So was victim number two. He was a war veteran and a friend of General Caraway. If you're in Deling and a friend of the General and you still manage to get murdered, I'm willing to bet the killer is extremely dangerous."
"Enough with the mission briefing, this is a banquet. We'll come home as soon as it's over and I don't want to hear any more about genitalia," Ward sighed, "Especially not from my teenage niece. It's weird."
"Fine, but be careful. Kiros, call my mother. She's already dressed so just invite her and apologize for the short notice. Laguna, Edea was called about an hour ago and she'd like you to arrange for some bonding time with your son."
"Of course. I just don't want to force him."
"I know that, but crazy thought... visit him and tell him that. Maybe he'll open up a little."
Ward laughed, "What are we going to do with you?"
"Allow me to enrol in the SeeD program?"
"No."
"It's a logical political move. Come on."
"No."
Balamb Garden was already awake when Squall finally awoke the next day. As it would happen, extensive meetings were exhausting. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked at his SeeD uniform which had been pressed and hung in a garment bag on the wall. Quistis had told him last night he'd be expected at the press release for the announcement about Xu's promotion which would be made after lunch.
He looked at the clock. It was already eleven thirty. He slowly dragged himself to the bathroom and turned on the shower, leaving the door open. SeeD dorms were private anyway.
Just as he'd finished putting the shampoo into his palm he heard his phone. Selphie had very kindly shown him how to customize the ring so he could identify who was calling. The waltz told him it was Rinoa and he knew he should answer, but she'd understand. He had already poured the shampoo.
The song ended and he continued massaging his scalp, letting the suds slide down over his shoulders and venture along, making little trails over his skin.
He felt the heat of the shower slowly tease the stress out of his muscles and toyed with the idea of staying until the water got cold, or seeing if he could last until the water got cold, but his phone interrupted before he could explore this thought further and the waltz played again.
Ignoring it without any guilt this time, he tilted his head back to let the water wash away the shampoo and its soapy trails.
Rinoa was sick of waiting. Squall had promised he'd eat with her before he went to the press release and she knew there was no way he couldn't hear his phone.
Scowling, she stomped down the hall to his dorm room and punched in the all access key code she'd spied Cid using when he'd locked himself out of the third floor office. She smiled when it worked and the door slid open to reveal Squall's room. It was incredibly standard. The plain bed clothes and desk were nice enough, but left the room looking like it wasn't lived in.
Hearing the shower, she understood why he hadn't been picking up and decided to wait for him. He wouldn't be that long. Guys didn't spend long in the shower.
She found a picture on the desk, the orphanage gang as children, undoubtedly given to him by Matron. It occurred to her that they needed to get a picture together. His gunblade was rested on the display mount on the wall above the desk. She ran her fingers over the handle. Squall didn't like people touching it.
In front of her, his cell phone flashed a light to remind him he'd missed a call. She opened the phone to delete the notification and found her own face as the background. She'd done that herself. Squall wasn't particularly interested in customizing his electronics.
Curious, she opened the call history. Her, her, her, Chinese takeout in Deling, Cid, Her, Irvinne, Quistis, Quistis, her, Quistis... she could account for every one of these calls because they coincided perfectly with things she knew he'd be doing.
She opened the text messages and was a little surprised by the number of sent messages. Squall rarely text her. The entire list suggested he spent a great deal of time messaging a girl named Layla. They were general messages. She checked the most recent one.
'No. Work stuff. Mayb Sat night?'
Intrigued, she went to the received folder to see what this Layla could have said that would have to wait until Saturday.
'U avail Thurs?'
Now more than a little annoyed, she checked the message Layla had sent before that.
'lol.I dunno. How bout "luv u"?'
Before she could check back any further she heard the shower stop and flipped the phone shut.
Squall emerged from the steamy shower and found Rinoa in his room, holding his cell. She looked pissed. Probably because he hadn't been picking up. He opened his mouth, but she just threw the phone at his chest and left.
He picked it up and opened it, but the screen gave no hint about what had made her angry. She couldn't have been that upset about him missing her calls. She clearly knew he'd been in the shower. Damn women and their ridiculousness.
Grumbling, he changed into his uniform and headed for the elevator. As the door closed, he wondered how Rinoa had got in. She didn't have a key card. He groaned and headed for the cafeteria. He didn't really have time to deal with this.
Quistis was already in Cid's office, going over the final paperwork with Xu while they crammed muffins into their mouths. When Squall walked in she could tell he was troubled despite his poker face. He brushed off her attempts to pry and she gave up. He was probably still tired.
"Congratulations," he told Xu.
"Thank you. Seriously. I'm really excited."
"Well, just try and keep your cool during the conference. Otherwise we'll get to read all about how nobody thinks you're ready because you were like a little kid high on sugar," Quistis teased. She offered the smile to Squall as well who ignored her and stared out through the window. He opened his cell phone and started typing.
"You send a lot of texts Squall; you should consider getting a phone with a QWERTY keyboard. It would make it easier," Nida said as he joined them.
Squall looked from his phone to the boy and back again. "...a what?"
"It's when the phone has a keyboard that looks like a tinier version of the one with your computer. It makes texting so much faster. Every letter has its own key. You could type at least twice as fast if you had one. I've been telling the headmaster this for ages."
Interested in this, Squall tore his eyes from his own phone to look at Nida's.
While the techie was showing him the messaging system, his phone trembled and beeped. Ignoring Nida once more, he opened the simple flip phone and read the new message.
'Expecting Layla?'
It was Rinoa. He frowned at the screen and replied.
'Yes.'
Had he mentioned Layla trying to reconnect him with his father? He didn't think he had, but maybe... Layla was also desperately trying to persuade her family to allow her to join Garden.
When his phone beeped this time, it was Layla.
'Srry. Ur dad was going to wear ugly tie. Wut's up?'
'Np. Bout 2 announce nu headmistress.'
'A woman?'
'Yep. Wut's he need a tie 4?'
'Political lunch in Deling.'
'U nvr answrd bout Sat.'
'Gonna get ever1 2 visit Balamb on Sat.'
'K. Call u l8er 4 details.'
Squall closed his phone for a final time and looked up to see Rinoa looking at him. "You've been texting for nearly half an hour. Were they all to Layla? Who is she?"
"Yes, they were all to Layla. She's from Est – "
She didn't let him finish, instead she slapped him and fled. He touched his face and realized exactly what was wrong. Suddenly, he was furious. She had gone through his phone!
"Squall?" Quistis asked cautiously, "What's going on?"
He was too busy being angry to hear the question. When Cid arrived, Squall followed him out with Xu and Quistis to the awaiting reporters.
"You don't have to tell me what's wrong, but are you okay to do this right now?" Quistis whispered urgently from beside him.
"I'm fine," he replied.
The announcement ended and everything seemed to have gone well. Squall hurried back to his room and called Layla from the landline.
"Good afternoon," she said.
"Hey."
"Uh oh, what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Don't lie."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Girlfriend problems?"
He hesitated. "How'd you know?"
"A girl called here earlier to call me a home-wrecker. I didn't recognize the number, but seeing as the only person I talk to who'd be calling from a Balamb number is you and you aren't a girl, I just assumed."
He felt humiliated and was sure he should apologize, but nothing would come out.
"Anyway, if you want to talk about it, I'll listen, but if not I'm not going to force you."
"That's nice."
"Glad you like it, I stole it from your father. He does want to see you, but he's kind of paranoid you'll reject him and if he finds out I went behind his back to contact you... Well, I'll lose my unofficial job as his assistant," she trailed off before saying, "Edea called me this morning. She told me to remind Laguna about getting in touch with you. It seems like the two of you are ready. I've worked a visit to Balamb into the weekend itinerary under the pretence that you've named a successor to Martine and the president should meet her."
He remained expectantly silent.
"Chatty as ever. I worked really hard to pull this off you know. We'll be there in the morning. I'm bringing along my Uncle and Kiros. If anyone is going to convince my Mom that I would be safe there, it's them."
Squall smiled. "What about your unofficial job?"
"Maybe I can pull my connection with the Commander to get a similar job at Garden?"
He lay back on his bed and put an arm under his head, just listening to Layla go over the things she thought he might like to know for Saturday. They booked a lunch for the President and his companions to eat with the teens who saved the world.
After that, there was little else to say and Squall returned the phone to the cradle and lay in afternoon sun that leaked through his blinds, considering the admittedly exciting possibility of really meeting his father. Actually speaking to him. The man could be a total idiot, but that didn't mean the thought of having his father in his life wasn't an enticing one.