Chapter 4

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He resigned himself to lying around the entire day. He knew that if he went back to the Quad, which was quickly becoming his favorite place to lay around, Rinoa would find him but if stayed in his room she would be there quicker than he wanted to see her again. Yet, "ten years from now would also be too soon," he thought to himself. He got up but before he left his room, he grabbed his gunblade, just in case. He knew he was on call for missions today.

He slipped through the Garden quickly using every secret hallway or shortcut he knew and made it to Cid's office a lot faster than he was thinking. His mind was still back in the Quad when Cid's office door came into his view. He watched as two little girls and two little boys chasing after a butterfly cut in front off him and walked towards the door. He suddenly looked back at the children but they were gone. He blinked.

He shrugged it off yet again and turned to ask Cid's secretary to his right if Cid was busy, but she seemed to be sleeping on her desk. He stood there for a puzzled moment, deciding whether to wake her up but thought better of it and let himself in, eyes sweeping over the plaque that read "Headmaster."

"What?" Cid asked as the door opened. His tone seemed a little annoyed. The quality of his voice changed immediately as he looked up and saw Squall.

"Come in!" Squall walked inside, without saluting or showing any signs that he was now in the headmaster's presence or anywhere of major importance but sat down like it was somewhere he had been so many times that he had it memorized.

"Same chair." Cid said smiling, looking over the top of his glasses and setting down the papers he was reviewing. He had a paternal gleam in his eyes.

"You say that every time I come in here." Squall said.

"Only because it's true." Cid retorted.

"I like this chair and if I ever hear you let anyone else sit in it I don't think I could ever forgive you." He said laughing. Cid laughed too.

"I'll be sure no one else sits there." Cid told him sternly. Walking in, you would have thought the two were best friends.

"Good, because it's my chair."

"So what's going on? I haven't had the pleasure of your company here in a while."

"Not true." Squall contradicted.

"What is it?" Cid asked.

"Rinoa."

"Ahhh, how could I have forgotten?" Cid said taking off his glasses and leaning back in his chair.

"I'm not sure." Squall said crossing his arms. "I'm sure you heard about what she did in my room this morning."

"Yes, I did." Cid said, stifling his hilarity.

"It's not funny. Whenever she's here, she is always all over me."

"Maybe that's good for a change since everything else comes so easily to you." Squall began to protest but Cid cut him off. "I know you've had to work for your position in this Garden but you do so well with where you are. She has just received her SeeD rank and for some reason she feels at home with you."

"Couldn't you just give her something little to do since she's always Ms. Happy Bumblebee zooming around?"

"What did you have in mind?" Cid asked.

"She could just be a newbie chaperone. That's simple and hard to mess up."

"That's what she was doing this morning." Cid said, smirking.

"Oh, I don't know." Squall said. "Just keep us apart." A loud beep issued from the phone on Cid's desk. Cid pushed the button and said, "What?"

"Sir, its Instructor Trepe," said the secretary's voice on the speaker phone.

"Send her in." He told her, his softening like he did when Squall entered. As she opened the door, Quistis spotted Squall and hesitated about stepping in.

"Am I interrupting?" She asked gingerly.

"No, no." Cid said. Quistis walked to the desk and handed papers to Cid.

"Here's the report you wanted." She pointed to specific points on the paper.

"Ah, my dear, you have done it again; pulled off a spectacular save. This is perfect." Quistis blushed, one of the rare times Squall had ever seen her do so.

"Thank you." She nodded to Cid and then to Squall and left quickly. Squall watched her go as Cid skimmed the paperwork that Quistis had brought him.

"She is amazing!" Cid declared, looking more intently upon her work.

"And annoying." Squall said defiantly. Cid looked up quickly.

"Ah, yes. I heard you two had a…what should we say…a spat?"

"You make it sound as though we're friends. She hasn't spoken to me as a friend since my third year."

"Well, she has her reasons and I suppose you do too. Tell me, what complaint did she have?"

"She was unconscious and I used a GF." Squall said quickly. Cid's eyebrows raised and he sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose and quickly showing his Garden knowledge.

"Well, I can't fault her for being angry because hearing you say that, you must have used it without authorization and that is a very serious offense. However, I can also see your point and I believe under section 15 of the guardian force articles of Balamb, there is a clause about using GF's without proper authorization should it be life or death."

"And you're assuming it wasn't. I had to send Zell back to alert Selphie and Quistis was unconscious. Which means, I was outnumbered at least thirty to one. It was life or death."

"And surely you know now where your mistake was?"

"My mistake? I only took over when she was knocked down. I would never have been out of range of a ship like that. She cost us the mission. We had to leave those people in danger, which is strictly against code."

"Really? I've never heard of her breaking procedure like that." Cid looked concerned.

"I know. I'm going to have to write up a report still. I haven't quite decided what to say."

"No, I don't want a report. You've reported to me quite thoroughly." Cid told him, running his fingers through his hair. "I will address those onboard. Send me their names, ranks, and SeeD numbers and I will address them myself."

"Will do. Not today though, since I'm trying to avoid Rinoa and she loves bothering me at work."

"Oh just go do it! It will take a few minutes at most and I am not a Headmaster that puts things off."

"Fine, but I really gotta go." Squall told him, standing up and stretching. "But pull something good off for me and keep her out of my way for today. It's my day off."

"You have a mission tomorrow morning and-"

"Don't let Rinoa come to that either." He said cutting Cid off sternly.

"I'll do what I can but that doesn't mean you have a guarantee."

"Alright, whatever." Squall laughed. "And you might want to get your secretary some espresso."

"Oh and by the way. I've had some phone calls about you."

"About me?" Squall said, interested. He crossed his arms and leaned on the back of his chair.

"Yes, I received two in the past week. Both were from other Gardens. One from the Headmaster of Trabia Garden and one from the commander of Karabalding Garden."

Squall was stunned. "Well, what did they say?"

"They were both thoroughly impressed with you," said Cid, smiling. "They both attended the war conference two weeks ago and saw your presentation. Feror, the Headmaster at Trabia, said he couldn't believe you were the same boy! Remember you met him in your second year when he toured our grounds? You didn't speak a word remember?"

"Yes, I do remember." Squall said, thinking about it.

"You were much quieter then. An ace at everything, flying through school, top of your class but quieter than a mute! He told me to pass the compliment on to your parents."

"What did you say?" Squall asked nervously.

"I told him of course I would." Cid smiled.

"You didn't tell him that you raised me?" Squall asked incredulously, laughing.

"No, I didn't. But keep the good work up." He told Squall's back as he left.

Squall headed to his office, as ordered and wrote the information about the mission down for Cid. Then he walked back to Cid's, dropped it off with his secretary, who was awake this time and very grumpy.

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Squall walked to the training center. He figured he could lay low there for a half an hour or so and would expect no one to find him. He liked to train so Rinoa would probably try and find him there after she'd looked everywhere else. He didn't care. He whipped out his gunblade and was making his way to his fifth battle when a class of newbies taking a tour of Garden came in. He was glad to see Rinoa was not their chaperone.

They filed in and some of the girl's began to giggle. Squall looked at them and saw they were the same girls who had been in his room that morning with Rinoa. He didn't look at them again.

"Oh hello Squall!" Someone called from the back. It was Nida, a SeeD instructor he had graduated with.

"I didn't expect to see you here." Squall said.

"Well, I didn't expect to see you here either."

"Do you think you would mind so much giving us a demonstration?" Said another voice. He saw Xu, a SeeD instructor, come into view. Squall and Xu were good friends but she was extremely close to Quistis. He shrugged.

"Sure." Some of the newbies were getting excited. Xu and Nida commentated on his battle.

"Squall is one of the top SeeDs here at Garden, so it's a real treat to watch him in training. You should all feel very lucky," said Nida and Xu kept agreeing with him. He felt a spectacle. Xu and Nida were also very good. He didn't know why they were putting him on such a high pedestal. The only reason he could think was because there were so few students to ever choose the gunblade.

Squall walked around a few minutes trying to find a good opponent, when a T- Rexaur came upon them. Some of the newbies recoiled when they saw it, but Squall charged forward.

He jumped and stuck his gunblade though the T-Rexaur's shoulder, splattering blood all over the ground. He kept doing it over again in various spots on the monster. The T-Rexaur did not like this. He started thrashing around in every direction, swiping furiously at Squall who was quite a lot faster than he was. The T-Rexaur's blood was splattering Xu and Nida and the newbies who were freaking out. Xu and Nida seemed to realize he could've taken out the T-Rexaur in one strike and began to protest.

"Finish him!" Xu yelled as Nida shouted, "Stop playing around!" Their words got tangled up but Squall understood their message nonetheless.

He ran and jumped and sliced the T-Rexaur into two pieces and it's body faltered toward the ground. It twitched a little before it and its blood vaporized.

The boy's in the class were cheering, waving their arms wildly around for Squall but the girls had mostly wore an air of disgust, and looked that if they ever had to do that it would be done a lot more gracefully. Xu approached him, in the midst of all the noise the boys were making.

"You could've finished that thing in one strike. Why were you holding back for a lot of newbies? They sure would have given you a lot more praise from them." Xu told him, so that no one else could hear her.

"Praise is not something I wish for." Squall muttered, putting his gunblade to rest on his shoulder and turning away from her.

"What do you wish for?" Xu asked pettily. Squall looked over his shoulder at her, his hair whipping into his face involuntarily. She wasn't smiling. He did not answer her but looked away. Xu squinted at him as if X-raying him. She bit her lip and walked back to the group without a word. He gave her retreating back sinister look before he left the training facility. He sank into a submissive state. He could always go to the Infirmary and pretend to be dead until Rinoa had to leave. He decided that wasn't a half-bad idea.