Reposted with corrections

Chapter 10

"Now, Ms. Tilmitt, tell me, what do you see?" a man with thick glasses that magnified his eyes inquired.

Selphie stared at the piece of paper with a giant blot of ink in the center. To her, it clearly looked like a blot of ink. No more, no less. But he wouldn't be satisfied with that answer. She'd already tried that. He had merely responded with, "Look beyond the blot."

She continued to stare at it, and when she still couldn't make anything out, she sighed and said, "…A bunny?"

The man nodded and laid the paper down on his stained mahogany desk, then held up a new inkblot. "And this?"

Her brow creased with concentration. She squinted at the picture, and even tried crossing her eyes to make out any kind of shape. Still, it remained just a black splatter across a white sheet of poster board. "A flower…"

With a final nod, the man set down the last inkblot and crossed his hands over the top of his heavily polished desk. "Very well; now we're going to try another test."

"Another one?" she whined.

The council was nothing like she had expected. Then again, she hadn't seen anyone except for this man. She heard Quistis talk about meetings with the council time and time again. Typically, it consisted of all of the Rank A SeeDs and Headmasters of each of the designated Gardens. Together they would discuss current world events and crises, and they made the final decision of whether or not SeeD would act. Only during very chaotic or very dangerous situations would the council act on its own. Everyone had a specialized job they were expected to do, and Selphie had yet to be appointed one. To do so, she had to take several aptitude tests. They wanted her to be matched up with something that she would be good at.

"I'm going to say something, and you just say the first word that comes to mind."

"Oh, well that's simple enough," she smiled. She should be good at this.

"Mission?"

"Trains!" she exclaimed. That was always her favorite part of leaving on missions, was riding the train. The doctor wrote something down on his pamphlet.

"Peace?"

"Happiness!"

"Nerve?"

"Pain," she grimaced.

"Heresy?"

She chuckled uneasily, "Sorceress."

"Serious?"

"Squall."

The doctor looked up at her momentarily, and when she realized what she said she blushed a bright red. He chuckled to himself and wrote something down on the pamphlet.

"Tedious?"

"War," she sighed.

"Negotiation?"

"Fisherman's Horizon!"

Once again, the doctor looked up at her, seemingly intrigued. "Well, you see, last year when we went to Fisherman's Horizon, the Galbadian army was taking over the city and the mayor was certain that he could talk them into leaving."

"Did it work?" the doctor chuckled.

"No."

The man cleared his throat and pushed the glasses further onto his nose. "Home?"

"Garden."

"Oppression?"

"Unfair," she said quietly.

"Trouble?"

"Help."

"Telephone?"

"Pizza."

Now the doctor placed his pad of papers down. Selphie smiled weakly. "Sorry, I guess I'm getting sort of hungry." After all, he had been running tests on her all morning.

"That's understandable," the doctor smiled, taking his glasses off and pocketing them in his white lab coat. "I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that you're done here."

"Really? No more tests!?"

"No more tests."

"Booyaka!" she exclaimed. In one motion, she jumped out of her chair, punched the thin air and stopped herself short of doing a victory dance.

"Yes. You'll need to stop by the office again before the meeting with the council. Your test results will be in, and your Rank A job will be assigned to you."

"Okay."

She beamed and shook the doctor's hand. He opened the door for her and as she was walking out, a woman at the front desk called to her. "Excuse me, miss. Are you Ms. Selphie Tilmitt?"

"Yes, I am."

"I have a message here for you from a Squall Leonhart." The secretary looked at a sticky note that she had written on. "He went to go rent a car and he'll pick you up at noon."

Selphie nodded and checked her watch. It was a quarter until noon, so she had about fifteen minutes to kill. With nothing better to do, she sat down in one of the squishy waiting room chairs and picked up an old Timber Maniacs magazine, automatically scanning through it to see if Laguna had written any articles. When she didn't see anything that interested her, she discarded it and picked up some other reading material.

A steady flow of patients came in through the entrance and would always shoot her some of the strangest looks. She was, after all, dressed in her SeeD uniform, sitting in a waiting room, reading old issues of Vogue magazine.

As she was reading some article about how 'yellow is not the new pink', a loud revving sound came from the street. Two children sitting in the seat next to her turned around and looked out the window. "Wooow…" the little girl said, her mouth agape.

"That's so cool!!"

"Not a bad looking guy either…" an elderly woman chuckled over her magazine.

Out of curiosity, Selphie turned around as well to see Squall sitting on a motorcycle, removing his helmet and shaking his dark hair back to normal. She laughed aloud and ran out to him. "A car, huh?"

"Well, I tried. The only ones they had were family sized and expensive to rent."

"Okay, one question!" Selphie held up a finger and started to laugh again. "How's Quistis going to fit? Is she going to sit on the handlebars?"

"She's not going to be here until the meeting tonight. Maybe they'll have some cars in by that point."

"Or she'll have to rent her own motorcycle," Selphie laughed again.

"Here, I picked out one I thought you'd like," Squall said. Selphie looked confused until he reached into one of the saddlebags and pulled out a bright pink helmet.

"Wahoo! That's awesome!" she exclaimed. As she was clasping the helmet to her head, a thought hit her. "Squall, have you ever driven a motorcycle before?"

"There's a first time for everything, right?"

The color drained from her face and she was sure that her eyes were on the verge of bugging out like in the cartoons, when she saw something in his eyes change. "I have, don't worry."

She hit him on the shoulder, "Don't scare me like that."

"Couldn't help myself."

She finished fastening the helmet and uneasily got on the backseat of the bike.

"Where do you want to go?" Squall yelled over the loud hum of the motor, he himself strapping his helmet back to his head. Before she could answer, he revved the engine up again and stepped on the gas.

She hugged tightly around his waist as he took off down the street. "As long as we're back here before the meeting so I can get my job assignment, I don't care where we go," she yelled back.

"Alright," he yelled, popping a wheelie.

Selphie squealed and tightened her grasp around his waist. "Then I have an idea of where to go."

Deling City was, by all means, not the greatest city for tourists. There was not much to look at there, and being there several times before didn't help increase the splendor of it.

"Wait, Squall!" she shouted, pounding her fist against his back to get his attention. "Can we stop at the inn first?"

He nodded in response and turned down the street to park in front of the Galbadian Hotel. She jumped off the back of the bike and quickly unfastened the helmet, held it under her arm and ran through the automatic glass doors. Squall followed behind her at a much slower pace.

They stopped in front of her room and she ran in as fast as she could, closing the door behind her. In a hurried frenzy, she threw off the abstract SeeD uniform and pulled on her favorite yellow dress instead. Before leaving her room, she reached into her suitcase and pulled out a video camera, then hid it behind her back as she walked out of the room.

"Ready to go?" Squall asked standing away from the wall he was leaning up against.

"Yeah!" she exclaimed.

When they made it back to the motorcycle, Selphie slipped the camera into one of the saddlebags without Squall noticing, then she proceeded to put on her helmet and situate herself on the back seat once again.

"The meeting starts at five, right?" Squall asked loudly as he started the engine up again. Selphie nodded. "We'll head back around four then."

"Where're we going?"

"You'll see," he shouted, turning onto the highway. The roar of the engine got steadily louder as Squall speeded down the road. Selphie held tightly around Squall's waist as the bike continued to accelerate. Her chestnut colored hair blew wildly as the wind hit her face and stung her eyes. She closed them tight and hid her face behind Squall's back.

"You couldn't get one with a sissy bar, could you?" she yelled over the loud engine.

"Didn't have 'em, otherwise I would've."

She felt the bike heave to the right and start slowing down. She lifted her head and opened her eyes to see them riding down an exit ramp. Now, she realized, that she had no idea where they were anymore. She could only hope that Squall did.

Selphie could no longer see Deling City. As they continued down the road, the highway continuously got smaller and smaller until it disappeared as well. Even the road they were cruising down, Selphie noticed, was getting steadily thinner. Finally, it emptied itself onto a dirt road.

Trees and grass now substituted pavement and concrete. The two passed many park benches and picnic tables as they continued down the road, leaving a brown cloud of dust in their wake. They were probably on the bike for a total of an hour before he pulled off the road and parked in the grass near a small stream.

Selphie jumped off the back of the bike, took off the helmet and smoothed out her hair. Squall did the same, then removed his boots, rolled up his jeans and walked out into the water.

When he set foot in, he stood frigid in his spot.

"Cold?" Selphie laughed.

"I'll say." He slowly continued his progress through the water until he finally sat down on a giant boulder.

Now, beaming with excitement, Selphie pulled out her video camera and turned it on. She held it to her eye and panned it around the area. "This is me, Selphie, with my video journal for the day!" she exclaimed. "This is day one of me officially being a Rank A SeeD! As I wait for some specialists to decide my line of duty, I am in the middle of nowhere with my Commander! Say 'hi' to the camera, Squall!"

Squall boringly looked over to her and her camera, rolled his eyes and said, "…Whatever."

"Typical Squall," she laughed to herself. "Anyway, Quistis is going to show up later. She was doing something back at Garden and she couldn't be here until the meeting tonight. I had to come early because I needed to take lots of aptitude tests for a special job. Squall came with me as my chaperon/chauffer, since he has a license and I do not. More on that subject later." Selphie paused for a moment and thought of what to talk about next. "This," she pointed the camera at the motorcycle, "Is our mode of transportation. Squall claims there weren't any cars left, but I'm sure he just couldn't help himself. Besides, according to the old woman at the doctors office, and I agree, he looks right sexy on this thing."

"What?" he asked from his boulder.

"Nothing!" she said quickly, smiling around the camera. When Squall directed his gaze back to the stream, she smiled slyly then turned the camera around so that it was filming her face. "Shh! We won't ever tell him," she giggled, then continued with her narrative of the day.

"We're staying in the Galbadia Grand Hotel. It's uber expensive, but the great part is, Garden is paying for our rooms! And this time around, they're separate, which is pretty cool. But we have to pay for everything else."

She quickly turned off the camera, then bent down to remove her own boots. Still holding on to the camera, she stepped into the water as well. The cold liquid against her bare skin sent shivers up her spine. "Wow! It is really cold!"

"What, did you think I lied?"

"No. But I didn't expect it to be this bad!" She looked down at her watch and decided to take it off, she didn't want it to be ruined by the water, after all. She threw it on the grass next to her brown boots.

Next, she switched the power back on her camera and walked awkwardly over to where Squall was sitting. "The water here, is very…cold…to say the least…" she was saying.

"Why are you filming? Who's going to watch it?" Squall asked, leaning back onto the rock.

"Well, I don't know. I've come to terms with the fact that my video journals aren't going to win me the Nobel Prize or anything. But fifty years from now when I'm old, ugly and wrinkly, I'll look back on these and remember how life used to be."

Squall thought for a moment and decided he didn't know what to say in response. Instead of saying anything, he searched the water for a good skipping rock, then he casually threw it and watched it skip several times downstream.

"Oooh, lemme try! I've always wanted to try to do this!" she yelled, holding the camera, still on, over her head as she walked awkwardly over to his boulder again. The rocks at the bottom of the stream were slippery from all the algae, and as she was nearing him, she slipped and went toppling forward.

Squall lunged forward to try and catch her, but didn't have to move very far. Her head hit against his chest and his arms wrapped around her in an instinct to break her fall. However, her bare knees scraped against the side of the rock.

She breathed in sharply, "Ouch!"

"You okay?"

She looked down at her knees, now scraped and bleeding, "I'll be fine." Grimacing, she sat in between his legs on the giant rock and hugged her legs to her chest. Then, much like a child might do, she started blowing on her scrapes. When she was satisfied, she carefully lowered her legs and leaned down to pick up a rock to skip. She threw it at the water to see it land with a loud plop. "If only Rocks were here, he'd enjoy this too." Then, remembering that her camera was still on, she held it to her eye and looked through the lens as Squall successfully skipped another rock down the stream. "I left Rocks back at Garden with Nida. Cid wouldn't let me bring him with me. Poor puppy probably misses me."

"He'll be fine," Squall quietly reassured. Selphie turned her head to see him looking down at her, his mouth was not smiling but his eyes were. She returned the smile and went back to filming.

Since she had nothing left to say to the camera she shut it off and set it in her lap. "Hey, Squall, what kind of jobs to they administer to Rank A SeeDs?" she asked, leaning up against him.

"All sorts," he sighed.

"Like?" she prodded. "What's your job?"

"I have two."

"Two?"

He nodded.

"What are they?"

"Combatant and Commander."

"Oh, I should've guessed," she laughed sheepishly. "What about Quistis?"

"…Instructor."

"I knew that!" she proclaimed. "I swear I did."

It was silent for a while except for birds singing somewhere in the trees and the steady flow of water beneath them.

"What kind of a job do you think I'll get?"

"I don't know. These doctors and specialists take a lot into consideration when appointing the jobs. I don't know what they look for exactly," he admitted. "Some of the jobs are…" he thought momentarily and slowly started to list some, "Combatants, negotiators, intelligence experts, spies, instructors, hackers, commanders…" he stopped. "Hyne, there's too many to list off."

"Hm…" Selphie looked ruefully down at the water and picked up a new rock. Again, she tried to skip it only to watch it drop pathetically back into the water. The feeling she had at that moment was too complicated for words. It was a mixture of apprehension and anxiety. While she wanted to know what they assigned her, she dreaded that it might be something extremely dangerous.

"You alright?"

"Yeah."

"You got quiet all of a sudden."

"You of all people, Squall, should be used to silence," she chuckled.

Squall merely shrugged, still leaning back on his arms. She wanted so badly for those strong arms to be around her, but she said nothing. Instead, she pretended to be interested in a crimson butterfly that landed on her thigh. She cupped her hands around the small insect and lifted it up to her eye level. Squall even leaned over her to look at it as well.

The butterfly slowly lifted and lowered its wings, then flew off in a flash of red wings.

"Well," Selphie started slowly. "Today I have learned that I am incompetent ink blot determiner, and an awful rock skipper."

"It's because you're doing it wrong."

"The ink blots or skipping rocks?"

"I can't help you with the ink blots, but I can teach you to skip rocks."

"Really? Do it then!"

"First of all," he said, sitting straight up, "when you throw the rock, don't just chuck it directly at the water. Throw it across the surface." His tip was followed by a very confused look from Selphie. "I'll show you." After he found another flat rock, he demonstrated what he meant.

"Oh. I think I get it now." Squall handed her a rock and she threw it the way he did and it skipped just once on the water. "Wahoo! I did it!"

"You're getting the hang of it."

"It's because I'm so awesome," she whispered with a smirk.

She tried a couple more times, but the most she ever got the rock to skip was twice. By the time she finally gave up, Squall had retreated to the grass again and was laying with his hands under his head, staring up at the sky.

Tucking her camera under her arm, Selphie stumbled out of the stream as well. When her feet hit dry land, she shook the water from them and sat in the grass. Her skin felt cold to the touch, and she couldn't put her boots back on while her feet were still wet. While waiting to dry off, she looked at the sky as well.

It was such a nice day. Big puffy clouds were suspended in the blue oblivion that was the heavens. After studying one cloud in particular for a while, she nudged Squall in the side and said, "Do you know what that one looks like?"

He grunted for a response.

"A turtle," she smiled. She then turned her head to the side as if to come up with something else, "…with wings."

Squall sat up and looked at her bewilderedly, "Turtles don't have wings."

"It's…an…angel turtle…" she said finally, still squinting skyward.

"Turtles can be angels?"

"If they're very good turtles throughout their life and never bite anyone," she answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Whatever," he muttered, lying back down.

"Well, Mr. Cloud-Interpreter, what do you think it looks like?"

"A cloud."

"Aww!" she slumped down on the ground beside him and propped herself up on her elbows. "Come on! You're no fun! You can do better than that!"

He was silent as he looked at the cloud, watching it move and slowly morph into new things. "It's a…" he squinted momentarily, "…decapitated Wendel…"

"That's…nice…" she said slowly. She turned her head to see for herself and found that it kind of did resemble a headless Wendel. "You're a sick and disgusting person, Commander Leonhart," she laughed.

"I try," he mumbled, lying back down. She knew that he had to be tired, she was too. The time change from Balamb to Deling City had a difference of five hours. They had to leave at what was Balamb's night time to arrive in Galbadia in the early morning. Neither had gotten much sleep on the train. Some of the gears needed oil and the mechanical noises were overwhelming.

Selphie's nerves were shot, however, and even though she really wanted to sleep, she knew she would probably be unable. As Squall dozed peacefully beside her she looked back at the sky for a while. She noticed that in the distance the clouds were getting darker and thicker. Picking up her camera, she filmed it and said, "Selphie's weather prediction: Rain showers tonight with a slight chance of misfortune at the meeting." Heaving a great sigh, she put it back down and looked around.

Next, she busied herself with making necklaces and tiaras out of clover that was growing in a patch nearby. When she grew bored of that, she began sticking flowers in Squall's hair. While he was asleep, he wouldn't mind.

It just as she was weaving a dandelion into his brown hair, that a red sports car pulled off the side of the road, causing dirt and gravel to fly everywhere. Squall shot up from his slumber, flowers falling out of his hair and onto his shoulders. Selphie quickly discarded the last of the flowers, hoping he didn't realize they had been there.

"Who the hell-?" Squall was saying to himself. Just as he was standing up, the shiny red door flew open and out stepped a very peeved looking Quistis, pulling off her sunglasses and flipping her long blond hair to the side.

"I thought I'd find you two here. What were you doing?"

"Making bracelets…" Selphie cooed, "Do you want one?"

"Oh, is that what they call it nowadays?" Quistis smirked.

Squall rolled his eyes and made to sit back down when Quistis grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him back up. "What are you doing?"

"Catching up on sleep," he answered.

"Really? Because…" she paused to push up her sleeve and check her watch, "we have approximately seventy five minutes to get to the meeting."

"What?!" Squall and Selphie both shouted simultaneously.

"It takes an hour to get back into town!" Selphie shrieked. "And I need my uniform! And my job assignment!"

"Sounds like we're going to be late," Squall grumbled, reaching down to pull on his shoes again.

Selphie looked at him in awe, "Apparently you've never driven with Quistis."

With a devious smile, the Instructor replaced her sunglasses and said, "Let's get a move on, folks."

After Squall and Selphie got situated, they jumped back on the bike and followed Quistis back into town. The woman sure could drive like a maniac when forced to. Still, even after all the laws she managed to break while driving, by the time they got into Deling City, they only had a little over twenty minutes to get everything accomplished.

Squall dropped Selphie off at the clinic she had spent her entire morning at. "I'm going back to the hotel to get the uniforms, so I'll need your key!" Squall shouted over the motor as Selphie got off. "I think we'll all be taking Quistis' rental into the meeting. So we'll pick you up in a bit!"

Selphie nodded and dug through her purse to give Squall the keys to her hotel room. Squall pocketed it, then with a rev of his engine, he was gone again. She ran into the clinic and up to the front desk.

"I need the results of my tests earlier this morning," she told the receptionist.

"Name, please," the woman said sweetly.

"Selphie Tilmitt."

The woman thumbed through a stack of manila folders before pulling out one in particular near the bottom of the pile. "Here you go. The bill will be sent directly to the Headmaster of which Garden?"

"Balamb," Selphie said breathlessly. She had already recklessly thrown open the folder and was searching for the document that would tell her what job she was assigned. Just as she was walking to the door, she found what she was looking for. What she saw astonished her.

She didn't even want to think of it.

In scrawling handwriting on her test sheet, the doctor had written many comments such as, "Good social skills. Excellent people skills." In big bold typed letters at the bottom of the sheet, she read 'NEGOTIATOR'.

Negotiator? Of all the jobs they could give me, I get negotiator?

In a daze, she continued to look through the papers in the folder. "Training required:" one sheet in particular said, "1) Self defense training 2) Counseling training…"

One thing that really caught her attention was the bolded letters on one of her information sheets that said, "WHEN AT WORK, NEGOTIATORS ARE TO BE UNARMED."

Her mind must've been all the way in Esthar, because at that moment she didn't realize that Squall and Quistis were honking at her in Quistis' rental car. She knew that her mouth must've been hanging wide open as she walked to the car, still dazed and slowly got in. As soon as she shut her door, Quistis sped down the street.

She felt fabric hit her in the face, and some distant voice say 'Hurry up and change.' Then, another voice accompanied it, saying, 'I brought your packet from Cid too.'

She shook all the thoughts from her head.

"Did you hear me?" Quistis half screamed, "You need to change! Now!"

At that moment, the world that had previously seemed like a jigsaw puzzle to the younger SeeD was slowly starting to come together, and things were starting to make some sense. Squall and Quistis were both sitting in the front, looking straight ahead. Quistis seemed tense and determined, and as always, Squall remained unreadable.

As quickly as she could, Selphie changed into her SeeD uniform. It was rather difficult to do in the back of a moving vehicle. As she adjusted her skirt, she asked, "Hey, you guys, I have a question. On a scale of one to ten, how dangerous of a job would negotiator be? Ten being the wor-" But before she could finish her statement, Quistis threw on the brakes, causing Selphie to go flying into the back of Squall's seat.

Several cars honked and swerved around the red sports car, stopped firmly in the middle of the road. "Negotiator?!"

Selphie turned a bright red. Squall also turned in his seat to look at her. "Hey, no peeking!" she squealed, turning his head forward again.

"Hey! Lady! What the hell do you think you're doin'!?" some man hollered through his open window at Quistis. The blond turned around, and flipped him off, then without warning stepped on the gas again, this time throwing Selphie back against the back seat.

"Hyne, Quistis! You drive like a psycho!" Selphie screeched.

Quistis however, wasn't paying much attention. She was shaking her head and muttering to herself. The mantra she was repeating sounded a lot like, "What the hell is wrong with them?" Sometimes, she would add in more profanities; sometimes, she'd stop herself mid-sentence and start over again.

"I knew it; it's bad. It's really dangerous, isn't it?"

Quistis continued mumbling to herself, and Squall remained silent. He appeared to be chewing on his lip and rubbing his temple.

Now completely finished changing, Selphie looked out the window at the buildings blurring past them. She was only brought out of this by Quistis hitting the steering wheel several times with her closed fist, every once in a while, accidentally hitting the horn.

Now there was no doubt in Selphie's mind. She probably had one of the most dangerous jobs they could have offered. The car was eerily silent the rest of the trip to the building the meeting would be held in. Finally, the tires screeched to a halt in front of a giant building, and everyone stepped out, still not talking.

Briskly, they walked inside. After sneaking a look at Quistis' watch, Selphie saw that they were indeed late. Ten minutes late, to be exact. And from the looks of it, no one was happy about it. In the back, she could see Cid stop his pacing, shake his head, and sit back down. Quietly, the three slunk over to some empty seats and sat down.

Martine was standing at a podium, glaring them down as they seated themselves. "As most of you know," his venomous voice drawled, "We are here to greet a new member of the council. Ms. Tilmitt, how nice of you to show up. Maybe, you could start by telling everyone why you and your friends from Balamb are late?"

Several SeeDs snickered and there was a faint chorus of "Ooohs." Martine waved his hand over the small audience, and the taunting stopped.

Selphie looked nervously at Quistis, who also seemed to have turned a pale shade of white. Heart pounding much faster than what was considered normal, Selphie stood up, clicked her heels together and saluted him. "Sir!" she shouted, "I am sorry sir, for appearing tardy to my first meeting. I was careless and lost track of time. I promise it will not happen again!"

Martine studied her from over his beak-like nose, his beady eyes boring holes into her skin. Still, she kept herself at salute, knowing full well not to move until he told her to. "At ease," he said, still keeping his eyes on her. She relaxed her posture, but remained standing. His eyes still fixed on her, he yelled, "This is Ms. Selphie Tilmitt of Balamb Garden. She passed her A Rank test yesterday, and has been appointed as the council's newest negotiator."

At the mention of this, everyone mumbled amongst themselves. She couldn't catch snippets of what they were saying because she was trying with all her might not to listen. Already she was scared out of her mind about what she may have to face up to in the near future.

Martine waited for it to quiet down. "You may sit."

She was never so glad to do so.

She felt herself slink back into her chair. All she really wanted to do was curl into a ball and disappear. Several SeeDs had turned from where they sat to look at her with a sense of dignity, or maybe even pity. She couldn't tell, and she tried her best to not think too much into it. Quistis nudged her in the side and leaned in to whisper, "You handled that really well." That had made her feel a little better.

Martine started to say something else, but a younger man stepped up behind him and tapped his shoulder. "I'll take over from here," he said, just loud enough for Selphie to hear him.

The Galbadian Headmaster gave Selphie one last look of disgust then sat down. "This meeting was not only called to welcome our newest member," the young man was saying. "But there has been some trouble in a town near Trabia…"

Selphie leaned over in her chair and whispered, "Who's that?"

"That's the Esthar Garden Headmaster."

"He's young! He can't be much older than us!" she exclaimed quietly.

"He was the Commander of Galbadia Garden," Squall said boringly.

"Yeah," Quistis whispered, "They originally asked Squall but he didn't take them up on the offer."

"I didn't want to be any closer to my father than need be."

"Now, if everyone would please turn to the second packet, you can see the opposing side's argument…" The three stopped their quiet conversation and looked back at the man at the podium. Quistis frantically flipped to the designated page and immediately began to follow along, so Selphie decided to do the same.

After the meeting, Selphie was very happy to find herself sprawled out on her comfy bed at the hotel, hugging an overstuffed pillow to her chest, and merrily flipping through the channels. That had been the longest meeting she had ever experienced in her lifetime, and Quistis' words of, "Wow, that wasn't nearly as long as last time," haunted her.

Ten o'clock at night. A five-hour meeting, and it wasn't 'nearly as long as last time'? It was insanity, she thought.

Suddenly, an annoying ringing interrupted her thoughts. She leaned over and picked up the cell phone sitting on the bedside table, and immediately recognized the phone number.

"Hi, Nida!" she exclaimed, muting the television.

"I was just calling to ask about your first day, and a certain someone wanted to say hi to you as well," he laughed, and she heard a bark come from somewhere in his room.

"Oh, tell Rocks I said hi. Has he been a good puppy?"

"I would hardly call him a puppy, but he's been fine. So, come on, tell me, how'd it go today?"

"Oh, it was awful…" she muttered, rolling onto her stomach.

"Awful? Aren't you being a little modest?" he laughed again.

"Well, let's see….I had to take a series of tests this morning, I was assigned a very dangerous job, I have to go to training for the next few weeks, I scraped my knee on a rock, AND I was late to my first meeting."

"…Wow…it sounds like you did have a pretty rough day."

She blew the bangs out of her face, and nodded, though she knew he couldn't see.

"So, training, huh? What kind of training?"

Grunting, she pulled herself up and reached for the packet of papers and flipped through them until she had found what she wanted. "Self defense and counseling training," she announced, throwing the packet back down against the comforter.

"Self defense? Counseling? Exactly what job did you get?"

"Negotiator," she half whined.

"Aw, come on, that's not…that bad…" he said, trying to make her feel better, and failing miserably. "There's worse…I mean you could be…a suicide bomber or something…"

"Yes, Nida….because they hand out those types of jobs."

"You never know," he chuckled. "Well, who's your trainer? Did they tell you?"

She glanced back down at the papers now littering the bed. "His name is Seth Sevacas…well, the self defense guy at least."

"Sevacas? Hmm, he sounds familiar…" Nida paused a moment. "Oh yeah! He was Zell's martial arts trainer! I've heard some interesting stories about him."

"What kind of…. 'interesting stories'?"

"Oh, don't worry about it. They're just rumors I'm sure. But even so, Zell's been working down at his studio for training to take over once Seth retires."

"Good, at least there'll be a familiar face."

"Yeah, see? No harm done."

"Well, anything interesting happening at Garden? Anything I need to know about?"

"Oh, yes! That's the other reason why I called you! I had to forewarn you, Cid pulled a Parent Night on us, and as always, my parents want to adopt you. They were wondering if you wanted them to double as your parents too again."

"No, that's fine," she sighed. "I feel bad asking them to do that every year. Quisty and I will probably go do something else together."

"It's not like they mind."

"I know, but still. You know what they used to let us do back at Trabia Garden? Those without parents asked the older SeeDs to go around and see their progress. It was a cool system. There was this one girl who was just like an older sister to me."

Nida was silent for a bit, but then he finally said, "You know, that sounds like a good idea. Maybe I'll try to get Cid to reinstate that here at Balamb."

"Yeah, it was a much better feeling than knowing you're one of the few students that aren't going to have a parent coming."

"Very interesting."

"Anything else worthy of mentioning?" she asked, checking the time. "I better get off soon, it's late and I'm tired."

"Oh, yeah. Rinoa took the SeeD written entrance exam."

"Really? How'd she do?"

"Psh, she passed with flying colors. She's been trying to talk Cid into letting her enter SeeD without taking the field exam since she traveled around with you guys during the whole time compression scare."

"Is he going to let her?"

"Maybe. But I bet he'll come up with a pre-requisite for her to do to make up for it."

"I see, well, that's really cool. But I'm going to go now. I'll see ya tomorrow when we come back."

"Alright. Rocks says goodbye too."

Smiling, she clicked her phone off and promptly turned the volume back up on the television, though when she decided that there was still nothing on that interested her, she resorted to sitting outside.

It was raining, a slow steady drizzle, and now that it was nighttime, Deling City had turned into a beautiful luminescent city. The streets were lit up with lamps and everywhere shops were aglow, letting each passerby know that it was there.

It was a bit chilly outside for the skinny, pajama clad girl, and once she saw lightning in the distance, she knew that she had had enough. She briskly walked inside and got under the warm comforter only to notice that on the bottom right hand side of the television screen was a small map with several colors splotched on it. Above it in bold black letters it said 'Severe Thunder Storm Warning'.

"Oh no," she breathed, flipping to the weather channel.

A man in a suit was pointing at a huge map of Galbadia. "Several thunderstorms are moving in the direction of Deling City and surrounding areas. Flash flood warnings have been issued, as well as a tornado watch for residents of Deling City."

"That's just great…" she groaned, burying deeper under the covers.

The thought of lightning after her elevator incident was frightening enough, not to mention the fact that she had always been uncomfortable during storms. "It's just a warning," she said to herself, "Doesn't mean that it will happen."

And as if some deity were doing its all to contradict her, the entire sky flashed a bright yellow and was followed by a clap of thunder. She almost jumped completely out of her skin at the sound and immediately ventured around the room, looking for a flashlight in case the hotel was to lose power. When she realized that all they had to offer was a Bible, she was a bit disappointed.

Another crack of thunder shook the room, and she hugged onto her pillow even more tightly. That one landed close by, she just knew it. "…beware of golfball size hail…" the weather man was saying…but before he could say anything else, another boom sounded, and the power went out.

Selphie shrieked and ran out of her room as fast as she could, quickly grasping the key upon leaving. She felt her way down the hall until she found the room neighboring hers, the one Quistis would be staying in.

"Quisty!" she whispered loudly, banging on the door.

A moan was all she got as an answer, and she could hear the springs in the Instructor's bed squeak as she switched positions.

"Quisty! Let me in! You know I hate thunderstorms!" she said, a little louder this time.

No answer came from within Quistis' room. Selphie knew that as professional as Quistis looked while she was awake, she was about as attentive as a log when she slept. While a meteor couldn't wake her, once morning came, her alarm clock could.

Thunder struck again and with a loud squeal, Selphie banged her fists even harder against the wooden door. This time she did get a response. It sounded as if Quistis had thrown a very heavy, and possibly large, object at the door.

The lights flickered back on. Selphie glared at the light fixtures on the ceiling and reluctantly made her way back to her room, still shaking. She knew that Quistis was not going to wake up and let her stay with her for the night, and it was entirely too awkward to show up at Squall's door with a pillow asking to stay there. That is what she first thought. When she was nearing her room again, a blinding flash of light entered through a window at the end of the hall, and she saw the thunder strike outside. The sound was deafening and the entire hotel shook.

With an undignified scream, she ran in the direction of Squall's room and incessantly pounded on his door, crying, "Let me in, let me in, let me in!" in a very desperate voice. She heard the bedsprings groan as someone got up from the bed and the sound of someone lumbering for the door.

Very slowly the door opened and she saw an outline of a man, but this man was not Squall. He was entirely too thick to be Squall. He leaned up against the doorframe and said, "What're you doing here at this time of night little missy?"

Selphie made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a squeal and shakily started backing up. Somehow she managed to get turned around in the hallway and now she had no idea where she was, or where she should run should she decide to dash back to her room, and the fact that everything was pitch black didn't make matters any better.

"S-Sorry to wake you, sir. I have the wrong room."

"Selphie, is that you screaming?" she heard a wonderfully familiar voice ask from behind her. She turned around to see a different outline, this one she was almost positive belonged to Squall. Lightning flashed again, briefly lighting up the hallway and she saw much to her liking, that it was indeed him. But as always, lightning is accompanied by thunder, and as soon as the loud boom resounded, she jumped and dashed into his open room.

"Wha-? Selphie?" he turned and walked into the dark room, closing the door behind him. With the next flash of lightning, he was able to make out a lump under the blankets of his bed, trembling.

With a sigh, he sat down on the foot of the bed and pulled the sheets away from her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, I t-tried Quisty, b-but she wouldn't w-wake up…" she stuttered

"You've never been this bad about storms before…"

"You've never been stuck in an elevator with a lightning spell out to get you…" she mumbled into the pillow she was still holding.

He sighed and leaned back, "No, but then again, I've never cast a thunder spell in a stalled elevator."

She blushed a furious red and buried her face back into her pillow. "Thanks for the sympathy."

When she felt his hand mess up her hair, she grumbled a few incoherent things to herself and looked up.

"Whatever, I guess I'll sleep on the floor."

"No! That's unfair!" she complained and desperately leaned forward to wrap herself around one of his arms. "I promise I'll leave as soon as the storm goes away! Just please, I don't want to be alone during the storm."

Whether he smiled out of pity, sympathy or amusement, she had no idea. But indeed, one corner of his mouth curled up to form an expression that was alien to his features. "Yeah, well I'm glad you find it so funny, mister," she finally said, smiling back and leaning against the headboard of the bed. The lights flickered momentarily due to another strike of lightning, then went back off.

"Be right back," Squall said quietly. He walked to the bathroom and came back with a candle, lightning it with a book of matches the Hotel provided.

"Yay! Light!" Selphie exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "How many of these do you have?"

"Just one," he answered, placing it on the table beside the bed.

"How long do you think it'll last?"

In response, he merely shrugged. Now with the flickering candlelight in the room, Selphie saw that Squall had probably been sleeping when she came screaming down the hallway and she felt really bad for disturbing him. He was wearing a pair of pajama pants, a white tank top, and his hair was a bit disheveled.

"I wonder how long the storm is going to last?" Selphie asked aloud.

Squall got off the bed and walked to his suitcase on the other side of the room, taking the candle with him. He pulled a deck of cards out of one of the pockets and sat down on the floor. Selphie plopped down from the bed and sat beside him, dragging her pillow and one of the sheets with her.

"Whatcha doin'?" she murmured, tiredly leaning her head on his shoulder.

He placed the candle down on the floor and instead of answering her directly, began building a card castle. "Ooh, I've can't do that without knocking it down," she giggled. "I've tried but it kept falling over."

"It's not hard," he said quietly, "You just have to be careful."

"Guess I'm not careful enough," she said, watching him cautiously stand the cards up.

Thunder struck close by again shaking the room, causing Selphie to jump and what was built of the card castle to fall. Squall murmured a profanity under his breath and started building the castle anew. Selphie could already tell, they were in for a long night.

Quistis awoke to the sound of the telephone ringing. Blindly, she fumbled around on the table next to her until she finally picked it up. "Yes?" she asked, her voice croaking.

"Good morning, this is your seven o'clock wake up call," a chipper voice spoke.

"Thanks," she muttered and hung the phone back up. She lied in bed a few more minutes before sitting up, rubbing her eyes and putting her glasses on. She squinted at the digital clock in the room to see that it was blinking at 2:46. "Must've lost power last night…" she yawned. Now that she could see, she got dressed and brushed her teeth.

She walked down the hall to Squall's hotel room. Knowing him, he was probably still sleeping, and he always left his door unlocked in case of emergencies. She threw open the door and prepared to call out "Wake up!" in a sing-song voice when she saw the two sleeping figures on the floor, with a half-built card castle in front of them. A candle was still burning on the floor nearby them. Smiling, she tiptoed in and blew it out, thus preventing a fire hazard. She'd have to scold him about that later.

Still trying to remain as quiet as possible, she ran out of his room, got her camera from her room and came back. She took several pictures of them sleeping on the floor. It was too adorable for her not to. Squall's arm was unknowingly draped over Selphie, and Selphie's head was buried into his shoulder.

Laughing to herself and her disposable camera, she ran back out of the room, silently shutting the door behind her.

When Selphie awoke in the morning, two thoughts were going through her head. Thought number one was that her back hurt really badly; she realized the hard way that sleeping on floors isn't too great on the spinal column. Thought number two was that Squall's arm was heavy.

Thought number two hit her much harder than thought number one.

Her eyes shot open to see Squall still sleeping, and his arm laying over her. She had no idea when she had fallen asleep the previous night. Hell, she had no idea when the storm had stopped, or whether or not it had actually ever stopped.

"Shit. I'm sorry, Selph…" she heard a voice say groggily. She looked up and her eyes automatically met with Squall's. He removed his arm and placed one of his hands over his forehead.

"Commander Leonhart, I feel taken advantage of," she said sarcastically, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Sorry," he said again. Then, grunting, he stood up. His walk was a bit funny since he was still so groggy. She watched him walk to the door, then he said, "Shit…" again, only this time a bit louder.

He was reading a note taped to his door.

Selphie got up and walked over to read it as well.

Hey you two lovebirds!

Has anyone ever told you two that you're adorable together? We were supposed to leave for Balamb by eight, but I decided I didn't want to wake you two. Don't worry about it. Hope you slept well last night!

Oh and don't worry, I won't tell anyone…

- -Quisty

It was silent for a few moments, then they awkwardly looked at each other. Selphie was blushing again. "I'm going to get dressed…" she said quickly, then grabbing her key and pillow, dashed down the hallway.

"I'll meet you down in the lobby in thirty minutes," Squall called after her.

After many delays, Selphie finally found herself walking down the familiar halls of Balamb Garden. It was a good thing that Squall had parked the motorcycle in a parking garage, otherwise it could've been really damaged by the storm. But because of this, and because Quistis left them early, they had to walk to the garage he had used.

They returned the motorcycle and bought train tickets back to Balamb. Several hours later they were back at home sweet home.

As Selphie dragged her suitcase boringly down the hallway to her dorm, she noticed something a bit peculiar about it. She saw a single white envelope protruding from the crack between the door and the wall. When she reached it, she yanked the envelope out. Just as she was getting ready to open it, a cry of, "Welcome back!" interrupted her

Rocks and Nida came stampeding down the hall at a tremendous speed. "Hey baby!" Selphie cooed, bending down to pet her dog on the head. She opened the door to her dorm to let Rocks in. "You want something to drink, Nida?" she asked, walking in.

"No, I'm good. But you know what you said about how parent night was like in Trabia?" she nodded. Nida laughed half-heartedly and motioned to the letter she was holding in her hand, "Funny story…"

To be continued….

Gothic Rikku: We have yet to upload the picture Bree drew of Sae and Arisu. I'll get on that soon. But, unfortunately, the devious duo and Renee was exempt from this chapter, but then again, so was Roxanne. Lol. They'll be back next chapter, I believe....

Clad Magi Gar, Elcyion Pitye: Ah, so you're fellow Naruto fans? Yes, it was inspired by the Naruto chuunin exam, but we tried to make it to where it wasn't COMPLETELY like it.

Ezri-Candy: Heh, funny story… You see, that was all my fault with the formatting. I was so tired when I posted, I completely forgot to transfer it to HTML format. And I uploaded it at as Word document instead. Grrr. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID ME! (-Anna)

A/N: Hi everyone. This chapter wasn't as long as our previous chapters, hehe, aren't you proud of us? Well, school is starting up next week (Monday is registration!), and because Anna is going to have to balance out work, school and writing, updates (if at all possible) may grow even less frequent than they already have been. There shouldn't be too long of pauses between chapters, and as always, everyone is welcome to email us if they have any questions. Especially if you're like BreeAnne and think because someone hasn't updated in a couple of weeks, that they're dead… Hehe.

Please leave us some reviews! Flames and feedback are always appreciated! And so is constructive criticism!