Wow, this took a while. I had an idea of what I was going to write for this one, so I began writing quickly... then I got writers block... I've been told I should put this story in the Final Fantasy Dissidia category, but I doubt anyone will read it if it's there so it's staying in FF8' Sides it's mostly focused on Squally and Rinny, so it should be fine right?

Oh Squally might a bit OOC, I figured he's the way he is in FFVIII because the people he cared about left him, and since in this he has his family, and people, I guess he doesn't have to act like that. Still moody though

Why Am I So Stupid?!

It's been three months since Caraway came to my home and took Rinoa away. Winter's almost over, and spring just came from around the corner. God, and that means it's been three months since I've had Rinoa in my arms, since I kissed her face, her lips, caressed her skin... and it's been three months since I've gotten laid!

Squall Loire is having withdrawal symptoms...

... this sucks.

All this time, I had no contact with her... I always check my phone for missed calls, I check e-mail and IM, but nothing. It's like she disappeared from the face of the earth. I tried to make contant with her, and also nothing. Why is that when you want to talk to your girlfriend she never picks up? And when you don't want to talk to her she always calls? But all joking aside it kinda makes me worry. Not to jump to crazy conclusions, but something could have happened to her right?

Anyways, new topic, I'm sure you don't want to hear about this the whole time.

Here I am at breakfast with my friends Irvine Kinneas and Zell Dincht. The main vocalist and bassist of of our band, oh and so you know, I'm the main guitarist. That's right I've been playing since I was six.

Remember how I mentioned how majority of Winhill's population was not even from here? Well same thing goes for Irvine and Zell. Irvine was fron Deling and then moved to Dollet and came here. Zell was from Balamb, he moved here with his Mom. I got to know them in 8th grade. Pretty cool guys, except for the fact they can get annoying.

Irvine is also how I got to know Rinoa. They've known each other for a while and are basicly like brother and sister. Anyways during a sophomore dance Irvine bought her as his date to make this girl jealous. Rinoa knew of course and agreed. I know what you're thinking "Geez Squall, you go after one of your best friend's girl?!" Well, not really. I was dating someone at the time, (I'll get to that later) but I spent most of the time hanging out with Rin and we sorta clicked. Now you're thinking "Squall, you unfaithful bastard!" like I said we'll get to that later.

Well, from what I did, Irvine's plan failed, but I got to meet Rinoa and I guess he was ok with it. So after that I got her number, broke up with my now Ex, and basically went with Rinoa.

Ok, now to the part that you thought I was an asshole for. Kyhlina Heartnet was my last girlfriend. She was a gorgeous girl with long flowing ruby hair, and hazel eyes and a nice slender body. Now if I'm saying these nice things about her, why did I break up with her? Well in short, she was a bitch. Simple isn't it? To make me looker better, (true fact) she was just going out with me for fun, nothing serious, and I hated that. A pure waste of my time. So it wasn't a big deal right?

Right.

Moving on.

Now I'm eating the actually good school breakfast, hearing the conversation between the two of them about the next song they want to work on.

I'm bored.

Naturally and, always, something causes me to be entertained. Today's wonderful person, is Tidus Pyre. The cheerful blond with issues that never seem to bother him. He took a seat next to me with his food and smiled his goofy smile

"Hey Squall, how ya been?"

"Fine I guess..."

Drummer of our band. Met him freshman year. He's cool too, but way too nice for his own good, but considering his condition, you can't blame him. See Tidus has no memory after a car accident two years ago. So he probably doesn't remember not to trust everyone. He gives money away to people who pretend to be poor, and pretty much helps anyone out. He would walk five old ladies across the street if possible. He's like a freakin' kid. All he knows is his age, name and who his father is, and that's because his old man told him. It was amazing when I met him and he told me he barely remembers anything. He said it with a big stupid grin, like it didn't matter at all.

For someone who doesn't have a clue, he beats a mean drum. Tidus said it just came naturally to him, so maybe he played it earlier in his life.

Tidus tilted his head like a kid, "Did ya get a call from Rinny yet?" he asked as he began to chow down on his pancakes. Tidus never met her but I guess I talked about her enough to give her a nickname.

I shook my head "Not yet."

Tidus put his fork down and stared at me with a raised eyebrow, "You're kidding right? Do you realize how long it's been?"

"No, not at all. Four months is nothing, I think I should wait a couple of years before I consider it a long time." I responded sarcastically.

"Oh.. right.. I hope nothing happened to her..." He said while eating another pancake.

If you can find someone that does more school activities than Tidus Pyre, then I'll give you 5,000 gil. This kid plays blitzball, he paints, he plays in our band, and he's in drama, ya know, like acting. Surprisingly, he's a damn good actor. Wait, why is he in drama Squall? Well kids, this is a fun story to tell, so listen up.

Like I said before, Tidus has no memory of the past, I told you all he knows, except for one thing. Tidus knows he's absolutely, head over heels, without a doubt, in love with Yuna . I'm not sure how he knows but he told us he fell in love the moment he saw her. Tidus found out she was in drama, so he joined in hoping to get to know her better, talk to her, and maybe, just maybe, get to be with her. It was a smart plan except for the drawback. Yuna doesn't talk to him, in fact she acts like he doesn't even exist. She talks to the poor guy sometimes, pretty much whenever she needs to, but when she does you can see the happiness in his eyes, it pretty much radiates off him. He helps her out whenever he can, with whatever she needs, again, he's way too nice.

Tidus also studies like it's his job. He wanted to catch up with everyone in the many subjects school teaches us. He has B's in like everything. Tidus' reasoning for all this studying is just because he lost his memory, that doesn't mean he has the right to be stupid. Interesting huh?

"Maybe you should go over there and see if she' s ok..." Tidus told me softly, while cutting a hash brown.

"I don't know if I have the money for it." I responded sadly.

"But you have money for games and other worthless things right?" A voice said behind me. I turned around to another friend of mine pop out of nowhere, seriously they're like cockroaches! It was another blond. with spiky hair, and deep cerulean eyes, that all formed his stoic face.

This was Cloud Strife. My closest friend. I've known him since 5th grade. He was the keyboardist of our band, and like everyone else, he's amazing at the instrument he plays.

"I'll have you know I haven't bought a game in two months!" I yelled back.

Cloud chuckled before taking a seat, "Your backpack is open."

"So?"

"So, leave that open and someone might steal from it."

I raised an eyebrow "What would they possibly want from my backpack?"

Cloud opened his carton of milk, put a straw in before looking up in the air "Well. your cell phone, your MP3, your PSP, your-"

"Okay, I get your point!" I called out while zipping up my backpack. "Thanks Mom." I told him sarcastically.

"Anytime." Cloud responded with a smug grin on his face.

Cloud Strife, well now he's an interesting person to talk about. Where to start, well he's the oldest out of all of us, he being 18. Cloud's got some issues too, but unlike Tidus, he definitely lets it bother him. He was fine before, up until last year, that's when his emotions went downhill. Usually Cloud's a jerk who doesn't give a crap. Now he's the guy who...

Behind us a girl was on her phone. From what she as saying one could guess she was talking to her boyfriend. How could I guess that? Well it seemed like their conversation would never end mostly because she kept repeating the words "No you hang up." ... I hate it when people do that.

It seemed like it bothered Cloud more. He got up and walked over to the girl. Cloud grabbed her cell and shut it right in her face. This poor girl looked shocked, her mouth slightly open and her eyes wide. Cloud glared and said "No, I hang up." He came back to our table and I couldn't help but laugh my ass off.

As I was saying. Cloud ... well he turned into... that.

He has a good reason reason for it though. One year ago, Cloud's girlfriend was shot down during a drive-by. Aeris Gainsborough was Cloud's sweetheart, if you will, and this is quite a story.

Aeris was walking home from Cloud's house according to him when it happened. Cloud couldn't walk her home, he was taking care of Denzel, his kid brother. Denzel was sick with the flu, Cloud's mom asked him to take care of him for a couple hours, and within those hours, Cloud had a real life changing experience..

After saying thier sweet goodbyes, Aeris made it halfway down the street before it became filled with screams and sounds of gunfire. Aeris had time to turn around before getting hit by four bullets, two in the left leg, one in the shoulder and the last one in her stomach. One of the worst things about the whole ordeal was that, Cloud got to see the whole thing, he was standing in his front door, and watched it happen. It happened so fast he didn't have time to blink. Cloud was in an extreme state of shock when he made his way to check on her.

Due to the bullet in her leg, Aeris fell over and hit her head on the sidewalk, adding head trauma and a cracked skull in her injury list. Aeris is currently in Ever Grace Hospital in a coma. She hasn't moved, said anything since, and it's driving Cloud crazy. He goes to see her everyday to see if she'll wake up.

Every.

Fucking.

Day.

Cloud skipped a couple of steps and went straight to blaming himself. We lost a good friend and our female lead singer. But enough with being all depressed,

"Well, what do you plan on doing then Squall?" Cloud asked.

"I really don't know. I could go up there, but I doubt I'll be allowed seven feet near the building. Plus there's the issue of the amount of money it would take to go to Deling."

Tidus finished his hash brown, and pulled out his wallet "Well, I could help you out if you want. I got about 30 gil with me. It costs 500 right?"

I shook my head "No, but thank you anyway." I didn't want Tidus wasting his money on me, he does it too much with assholes in school. And people say I'm not nice.

Zell just happened to chime in, I guess he finally heard our conversation. "Our little manager, or managers, should be signing us up for a gig, so you could get some money off of there Squall."

"Oh yeah, our manager is gonna get us a gig for once... I'm sure." I retorted back.

"Hey! I resent that!" A voice said behind me. I turned to look at the top of a blond head. I chuckled when I went face to face with Zidane Tribal. Our manager. "I have gotten you guys plenty of gigs!" he yelled in my face.

I pushed the runt's face away from mine. "Without Mikoto's help?" I smirked.

"You never said that, you just made it sound like I didn't help you guys out." he pouted.

"Fine, fine, I'm sorry."

"You'd better be." Zidane smiled triumphantly.

"I apologize for my brother's behavior." A small blond girl said.

Zidane and Mikoto Tribal, the monkeys as we call them; their a grade below us making them sophomores, have always been around to bother us. Well Zidane anyways. I couldn't stand him. Mostly because Zidane had a habit for stealing things! Missing money or electronics are a essential part of hanging out with Zidane. Mikoto would always tell us. Zidane really wanted to be a part of the band, and he did play a few instruments, he was really good at the bass, but Zidane didn't want to work as hard so he made himself the manager. No one complained since Mikoto does more work than him. Though Zidane has been a great help and great for comic relief.

"So what do you have in store this time o' manager almighty?" Irvine asked

Mikoto took a seat, opened her backpack and pulled out a sketchbook. She always writes notes in there. An open page of her book was filled with times, locations, and clients. Her faced seemed focused as she dicussed the terms of our contract with clubs, pubs, or sometimes bars.

"We will continue our time with the Ragatta, and the Barebosas contract too. Now our new schedule says the percent of having the opportunity to perform at Roxberry is quite high. Patrecia's are having a disco week so there is no profit to be gained there." Mikoto stated. Yeah she talks like that. The difference between Zidane and her is greatly shown.

"What about 7th Heaven?" Zidane asked taking a seat next to Tidus. "The lady there seemed nice."

Mikoto rasied her eyebrow. "That place is too small, not to mention, though it's popular, it is in fact a bar."

Tidus' turn to raise an eyebrow "What's wrong with bars? And must you use sketch paper for this?" Being an artist that bothers him something fierce.

Mikoto took at sip from her orange juice box. The monkeys love juice boxes for some reason. "Well it would be filled drunken old men who have nothing in their lives so instead of doing us a favor and killing themselves, they drink their lives away and bother others. And yes Tidus, I will continue to use the sketchbook paper for as long as I see fit."

Wow harsh.

Tidus ate a piece of bacon and sunk a bit, pouting.

Cloud looked over at Mikoto "7th Heaven isn't like that. It's a nice place, and the people there aren't poeple who drink their lives away." Cloud seemed a bit irritated...

Irvine laughed "Alright, alright. Let's talk about this later. It's too early for this shit. Anyways, we're having a meeting about this later this week so don't worry about that now okay guys?" Irvine does that a lot. Whenever there was tension between members, he'd butt in.

Mikoto Looked over at me. "Squall. Your backpack is open."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "No it's not. I just closed it" She shook her head, and pointed to it. It was indeed open. Again. With Zidane around it was a good idea to close it...

Breakfast was over, and first period was about to start. God.. I hate school. We said our goodbyes and began our journey to the rooms of torture. I made my way into Room 576... Plane Geometry.

Followed by Tidus we entered Mr. Auxder's class. First name Cid. We took our seats by Rikku Auxder. She smiled at us and wrapped her arms around Tidus. Rikku and Tidus have been best friends ever since he lost his memory, in fact she was the first to talk to the kid when he came back to school. Irvine has given Tidus the idea of using Rikku to get closer to Yuna. Rikku has informed us that if anyone messes with her "Cuz" she was gonna have to bust some ass. Meaning that was not an option for Tidus, though I doubt he would do it anyway.

Oh, and yeah, Mr. Auxder is in fact Rikku's father. Cid, the bald man with a mean temper. He's not very patient, he's rude, and has a habit of calling everyone a "dumbass"

He's cool.

Shinra's voice filled the room. "Students, I'd like to inform you that today, there will be early release. Students will leave at 10:15. Teachers will remain due to Quarterly exams."

...How convenient. Well that gives me more time to ponder on what happened to Rinoa.

10:15 meant that there would only be 2 periods today, so after math I have history... with Zidane... oh joy. He did really good in history, so he got to skip a class and now has what juniors would normally get... instead of just putting him in AP class.. he's got to bother me.

Classes are over for the day, and now we wait outside for the bus...

Alright so class with the monkey today wasn't all that bad. he only stole about four pens from the teachers. Not bad considering his record of going into the teachers desk and stealing around 21.

Goddamn little clepto.

"Okay who wants this one? It has a excellent design, with a blue gel ink inside. Bid starts at two bucks`" Oh and did I mention that Zidane likes to auction the stuff he stole?

"Well do you have that in black?" Tidus asked "I need it for inking in a picture."

Zidane shuffled through his mess of pens, pencils, highlighters,and white out.. "I should. I made sure to stock up on my blacks... huh.." Surprisingly he doesn't lose track of what he stole.

"You didn't steal that did you Zidane?" He stopped dead in his tracks, because that wasn't any of our voices. That voice belonged to Garnet Till Alexandros. This is one of the funniest things that you can see happening to Zidane. Watch as the frighted monkey stutters as he tries to break free of this unnatural situation.

"N-no I bought them for m-my...f-f-friends! Yeah! That's the word I'm looking for!" He smiled nervously at her.

"That's good, cause stealing is wrong, you know that right?" She kissed him on the cheek before running off to catch her bus. Zidane didn't move, he stood there until he finally realized what just happened, and his face became red.

"You know buddy, you really gotta stop doing that." Irvine stated. "If you keep lying like that, she's not going to like the real you if you guys start dating."

Zidane regained his posture, and came back to his senses "Look who's talking!"

"Exactly, I have experience with these things."

I had to look over at Irvine on that one. "So you lie to women a lot?"

"Only when it's needed." he replied.

Zidane laughed "So since you're such a failure at life, I guess that would make all times."

"You're the failure you monkey. Did you not notice the way you just died when Garnet talked to you? No manhood whatsoever. "

"Shut up, she's hot" Zidane responded.

"I've seen better." Tidus chimed in.

"Who? the chick who pays no attention to you?" that was a big no-no on Zidanes part, Tidus is ... sensitive... in the sense that he'll kick your ass if you upset him. Fortunately Tidus just shook his head.

"I'll forgive you due to the pen."

Zell had to jump in and stop then pointless conversation. "Hey, my bus is here. Don't forget, Espionage this weekend." he said as he stepped forward inside his bus.

Zidane nodded "I almost forgot about it.. hmmm. Think Garnet would like to come?" he said with a smirk on his face.

Tidus turned his head to him,"You're gonna invite a chick to Espionage? The one day we use to get away from girls and shit?" it seemed like Tidus and the monkeys are on bad terms today if you ask me. But Tidus was right. Espionage was the name of a Laser Tag place. It was dark, gloomy and had perfect places for shooting people. It was a good for letting out stress and distracting us from school and other sources of annoyance. Zell proposed that we never bring a chick with us after Irvine attempted to bring his last girlfriend... did not end well... so it was agreed between the guys that only the guys would participate in the joys of shooting others in a dark room with lights that can give you seizures.

"Hey Squall.. why are you taking the bus?" Cloud changed the subject. The others looked at me as well, Just as curious as Cloud was on the matter.

I sighed. "January 14th." A series of "oooh!'s" came from them in unison.

"Sorry about that man. Oh! My bus is here now. Bye guys!" Tidus waved.

Zidane laughed a bit before smirking "You gotta admit it was fun." I nodded a bit. I wasn't gonna lie. The fact that Zell decided to take a joyride with my car irritates me, but well... well the ends justify the means. the only issue was that it got into a crash because of a tree that popped in the middle of the road out of nowhere, which led to Laguna finding out, and taking my license away, and my car at a repair shop. Yeah there's only one positive in there... damnitt.

"So how long you gotta wait before you get it back?" Cloud asked.

"Hopefully next month cause that's when I'll be able to pay for it... you all owe a huge debt."

Zidane shrugged "That's fine. I can get money."

"You mean steal" I replied.

"I'm still getting it aren't I?"

There were giggles. I had to stare at my friends. They don't giggle. Men don't giggle. It's just not something the male part of the human race should never do. Which meant one thing. Fangirls. I heard Cloud slightly groan, which confirmed it. A tiny girl was surrounded by her friends and they were approaching us fast. The tiny one had her chestnut hair up in pigtails, tied with green ribbons. Her face was red, and she was carrying a little gift box. She made way over to Cloud, and held out the gift to him. A typical fangirl thing, Cloud took the little box slowly, and nodded toward her.

"Thank you." He said kindly. The girl's friends squealed and laughed. they grabbed her and began saying things like "Good job" and "See i told you he would take it." and blah blah blah. One of the many friends there made her way over to Cloud and I.

"Would you guys ever date each other?" She asked with a smile on her face.

I looked over at Cloud, I don't think I've ever seen so much disgust on his face before. Simultaneously we both shouted "NO!" Some chicks are gross.

There were a lot of sounds of disappointment that came from them. Irvine decided to become an even greater version of the ass he already was.

"Well, not yet anyways. You see Squall needs to get in touch with his girlfriend, and Cloud's girl is in the hospital. They're going to wait to tell their significant others that they hopped the fence." Cloud and I made another face of disgust. The girls cheered, smiled and giggled before leaving.

Cloud punched Irvine in the stomach. "Why would you even say that?!"

Irvine smirked. "You have to humor them."

I ever mention how much I hate buses? ...Hmmm yeah I did...Whatever.

i was at the front door when I heard Laguna's voice saying "Yeah don't worry. I promise to tell him Rinny." Rinny... that.. was Laguna's nickname for Rinoa... That name was echoing through my head for about five minutes before i finally comprehended what that meant. Rinoa was alive. She was talking to Laguna. There was some kind of connection, some kind of contact with her. Had Laguna been keeping this from me the whole time or did Rinoa just now finally contact one of us? I had to stop thinking and just get this door open.

I walked in to hear the sound of running water, Laguna was washing dishes. I took of my shoes and threw my backpack on the floor. I guess he heard it because after that Laguna quickly ran over.

"Squall my boy! Don't worry I heard that you were getting out early. The school called." Always with a big stupid grin on his face. "Oh, guess who has the best news ever?" Before I could even open my mouth "That's right! Your Daddy does!" I'll never understand how I'm related to this man... maybe I should get a DNA test.

"And your amazing news is?" I quirked. Please be talking about Rinoa you fool.

Laguna did what i did not ever think was possible, he smiled even wider, nearly blinding me with his teeth. "Rinoa called! She said that she's fine that you should call her back when you got home on this phone number!" He handed a small piece of paper. "There ya go!"

I thanked him like 50 times before, while running to, and after I grabbed the phone and ran to my room. I pressed the numbers with such an incredible speed, I swear I would win a world record. The dial ring was murder, I had to sit there waiting.

"Hello?" a voice from the other side said.

I gasped slightly, waiting to hear Rinoa's voice just to be sadly disappointed. It wasn't her. It was a rather squeaky, and high pitched.

"Rinoa?" it was a stupid question to ask. It wasn't her, and there reason to hope. What, Rinoa went through some surgery and had her voiced changed or something, keep dreaming Squall.

"Oh! You're the Knight! Don't worry she's right here." Knight? Wait she said that Rinoa ... was there.

"H-hello?"

"Rinoa?" Didn't we just go through this?

"S-squal! Hold on, let me go to a different room ok?" Her voice sounded frantic, like she was scared or something. "Ok, I'm in a room. How have you been?" Are you kidding me? She's the one that goes missing and she asks how I've been?

"Rinoa, no offense but are you stupid? I've been fine, maybe you could've known that if you, umm i dont know, answered my calls? My emails?! Where the hell have you been?!" I didn't mean to sound angry. I won't lie, I was very pissed, but i didn't want her to know.

"I'm.. sorry... after i got home... Daddy took away my phone and my computer."

"You could've used the house phone, your dad's computer, the computers at school, a friends computer or phone. goddamn it Rinoa! Fucking think!" Well forget the idea of me not trying to be mad.

"I'm ...I'm sorry I-"

"Rinoa, stop apologizing and fucking explain!" Well.. I just went in full on dick mode.

"I was trying to!" She broke in sobs after. I didn't understand what was going on, so I was pissed, but by no means did I want to make her cry. Ever.

"Rin... I'm sorry. Hey I didn't want to make you cry.. I ..."

"No..no.. it's not because of that... I understand you were very worried about me. I'm sorry, but it wasn't my fault that I couldn't contact you, my.. my father had me under house arrest or something... I.. I couldn't leave the house unless it was to go to school and even then I was picked up right as it ended and forced to stay home..."

"Damn.. your old man went over board. Why.. was he doing that?" I really didn't know what to say to that...

I heard a gulp coming from the other line, along with more crying. "Cause.. he said that he didn't want me to sneak out again..."

"That's fucking extreme Rin."

"Dad's .. been drinking.. and quite possibly doing drugs.." Possibly? "But.. what the hell Squall! I've been waiting for you and you never showed up!"

What? "Excuse me, but what are you talking about? You're the one that goes missing and you're angry at me?!" it should be the other way around!

"Did you read the note I left?!" She kinda screamed that last part.

"Yeah I read it. Why are you fucking screaming?"

"Did. You. Read. It?"

The hell? What was her issue? Rinoa's voice sounded raspy, and she still was slighty crying, but I was so lost it wasn't even funny. "Yeah i read it, The print was fucked up, but I read it."

"The print wasn't screwed up Squall.. " She sighed "I know you aren't that good with details but come on..."

"Details? Hold on a second." I got up from my bed and quickly made my way over to my homework desk. Yes i have a homework desk. It's really useful. I opened it and took out her note that was tucked in the corner. "Umm what am I supose to be seeing?"

"Squall. Sweetie. I love you but you're so stupid! Do you see the bold?"

I groaned at this woman. Yes I see the damn bold letters, not going to make a huge difference. "Hold on then" I grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper from my desk and began writing all the bold letters down. It came out to:

Squall helpDadhe'shurtingmeIcan'ttakeitAnymoreIwantoutple ase

A.K.A

Squall

Help, Dad, he's hurting me. I can't take it anymore. I want out. Please.

I felt happy. I felt relieved. I felt angry. I felt guilty, stupid, sad, humiliated, devastated, like a complete moron for not noticing it. there was no amount of apologizes I could give to make this right. I can't go back in time and fix this. I wish I could, I really did, but it's not going to happen. Not in my lifetime.

"Rinoa..." I was speechless for a while. "I.. don't know what to say...I...I'm sorry..."

"Squall don't-"

"No. Don't you give me any bullshit like 'oh it's ok, it's not your fault' don't.."

Rinoa sighed. Her voice seemed more firm, more assured of herself. "Squall. You didn't cause my father to do.. such things to me. You didn't make him do it. It isn't your fault. But, what you can do something... you can help me get out of here okay?" Her last words came out as barely a whisper. Her crying stopped, and I calmed down a bit. She was right. i couldn't change the past, but I could learn from it, to help change the future.

"Alright, I got a plan. You're old man has gotten you locked up at home right? Now how is the security around there?"

"He has guards placed in the front and back gates like always, but sometimes they're at my bedroom door. I finally got out of the house in the last month, but i still had no means to contact you. I'm using a friend's phone." Her voice was fine, normal to say the least, but I was certain that if i looked at her face, her cheeks would be stained with tears, and more would be coming down her face.

" Keep this phone with you. Ask her, bribe her, threaten her, blackmail her, beg her, beat the living shit out of her, do anything you have to, to keep this phone. Don't let the asshole see it, don't let him go near it, don't even think about it near him in case he has some crazy mind reading machine do you hear me?" A sound of approval came from her side of the phone.

Things couldn't get much worse. Well they could, but they couldn't make me feel much worse than what i feel right now. A sense of longing and regret took over me. It was much greater than my previous emotions.

"I should have been more attentive. I'm sorry Rin... I'll make it up to you..." I whispered.

A slight giggle was heard, Rinoa's normal speech and cheerfulness seemed to be coming back. "Squall... there's not much I can say to make you feel better. You can make it up to me though." Rin knew how i worked. Actions would always top words with me. Sure you can say shit, but you have to be able to back it up.

"What? What can I do?" It felt more like a plead than a question. I wanted to cleanse myself of this guilt.

"You can help me find a way to get out of here" Her words sent a spark. Electricity, and energy were good words to use to describe my rush. Immediately I was thinking of plans, ideas, operations, all that would lead to her escape. It was something I could do, and I intended on doing it.

"Rinoa, are there days when your father doesn't pay attention to you?"

"Besides ever? Well then I guess meetings." I enjoyed her little joke for a bit, but knowing that it was meant to be sour made it less favorable.

"Does he have a meeting anytime soon?"

There was a moment of silence from Rinoa's end. "... This Thursday."

"Then that's when we make our move."