"Squall, may I talk with you please?" Quistis asked, her head poked round the door of the swanky new office Squall had been awarded with his new title.

"Commander." He said bluntly, not even bothering to look up from the paper work he was squinting at. Quistis raised her eyebrow, but let his cheek slide. He might have been right, but he didn't have to be so sharp about it.

"Sorry, may I talk with you please?"

"I'm busy."

"It's important."

"Whatever."

"Great." She said, coming fully into the office and shutting the door behind her. His eyes flicked up briefly and she detected a hint of annoyance. "I'd like you to sign a petition to have Seifer's trial revised. It's a-"

"What?" Squall had stopped his work to look at her properly now, both eyebrows raised. He almost looked like he didn't believe that she'd just said what she'd just said.

"Seifer's trial was unfair." She said, walking forward to drop her portfolio on his desk and push it towards him. He didn't touch it. "The verdict was unfair. I'm pushing for a revision of the evidence and his sentencing."

"On what grounds?" His eyebrows were down and in a firm line. This was a topic she had been expecting resistance on – lord knows everyone else had bitten her head off about it, why shouldn't Squall?

"Firstly, that all the evidence wasn't properly examined. And secondly, the jury and court members were emotionally compromised at the time of the trial."

"Bullshit." He said, neglecting to pronounce the 'T' as he turned back to his paperwork. She knew that signal; not making eye contact meant that the conversation was over and she was meant to salute and leave. It was the way he had always gotten rid of people he didn't like - everyone - but it had become more pronounced since his promotion. She betted he didn't give Rinoa the cold shoulder.

"No, not bullshit, Cadet." She hissed, pushing her portfolio across the table and shoving all his papers and office stationary into his lap. She grabbed his collar and pulled him forwards until their noses were almost touching. His eyes narrowed and she knew it was more the name that got him this time than the proximity. "This is fact and I mean to leave this room with your signature on the fucking paper, alright? If you've got a problem, we can take this to the training centre and you can see just how much your attitude means to me. Don't forget who taught you to fight in the first place and don't you dare pull that superiority shit with me little brother, because I will tear you apart. Don't get cocky and don't be so fucking vain. Also; Spit. Your. Tees."

Squall's expression darkened a shade further and it looked for a moment as though he might attack her back, but instead he asked, "Why does it matter?"

"It matters," Quistis said, letting go of his collar and straightening up, brushing her hands down her uniform to eliminate the invisible creases. She walked around his side of the desk and leant over his shoulder, opening the portfolio. "Because I believe he is innocent and has been done an injustice in being locked away for something I don't think he can be held accountable for."

Squall looked at a picture of Seifer atop the Sorceress' float in silence. The man in the picture looked vicious, slightly mad and a little tiny bit like Seifer Almasy. He had a huge smile on his face; all his pearly whites gleaming in the lights of the parade and his skin seemed to glow. He looked like how Squall felt on a Monday morning. But he looked very little like the bully who was Seifer Almasy; the smile was flat, where his curled at the edges, slanting like a wolf's with it's hackles raised.

Quistis continued, spreading the pictures and several photocopied pages - from what looked like highly important documents - across the table so that he could see them better. She picked up one of his hands and folded the fingers around a piece of paper, then held it in front of his face for him. "I believe there is a level of possession that goes on between every Sorceress and her Knight, from the moment they meet until the moment one of them dies. I also believe that this level of possession increases the more time the Knight and Sorceress spend together. Are you following this, Cadet?"

He nodded, gritting his teeth and ignoring the name.

"Good. That means that you are being possessed by Rinoa, just in the same way that Seifer was possessed by Ultimecia and Adel. His level of possession was much stronger though, I think you'll agree, and we can therefore say that because it happened so immediately he had no control of his own body during the time of his possession, right from the moment he came into contact with Ultimecia.

"Odine's book on possession clearly states that a body under possession has no control of his or her actions and has very little will to break out of the possession. Being as Seifer was so close to Ultimecia so much of the time, the power of her possession over him wasn't given enough time to get weak enough for him to try and challenge it. If this is the case then Seifer cannot be held accountable for his actions and his trial is therefore wrong. I can only assume the result was manipulated by the jury.

"Now then, the piece of paper you have in your hand is an extract of the current Balamb judiciary constitution. Please pay attention to the line 'Where a judicial associate is deemed to have been effected by the crimes of the accused, they are to be deemed emotionally compromised and must be removed from the trial.' This means that anyone who lost a loved one, lost their home, had their beliefs challenged or took a personal opinion because of the war, cannot be allowed on the trial. I think it's fair to say that everyone in that court room was there because they wanted a piece of him, thus making them emotionally compromised and the results of the trial must then be vetoed."

Squall frowned at the paper in his hand and shook his head. "There is no evidence to say that-"

"I have evidence." Quistis cut him off, producing another piece of paper and holding it in front of his nose. But she wouldn't let him touch this one. "It says that you were on that jury. And you were certainly emotionally compromised. In fact I'd say you still are." She folded the paper and tucked it safely in her pocket. Squall returned to examining the papers in front of him. "Any evidence of a single person from the deciding party being unsuitable for the jurisdiction means that trial is eligible for revision. And trust me when I say that all of you are unsuitable for deciding a man's fate."

"Whatever." Squall murmured.

"So you'll be signing the petition?"

"No."

She sighed. Did it always have to be so hard? Rinoa was a much easier target for this sort of thing; she wasn't nearly as stubborn a mule as her boyfriend.

"I don't want this to come to violence, Squall." She said calmly, standing up straight and folding her arms over her chest. "So just sign the paper. It's right in front of you."

Indeed it was. Unsurprisingly, there were very few names on it although the date of creation detailed a few days ago and Quistis was nothing if not industrious with her work. What was surprising however were the names on the list. He was expecting Quistis' name and even Raijin and Fuujin. But Rinoa was not someone he had expected to feel any sympathy towards the traitor – it was for her safety that he had put the man away in the first place – and he would have eaten his hat before he'd thought Xu of all people would think him innocent. It seemed there was a little more truth in Quistis' promises of violence than he had thought. Nothing short of a threat and a damn good thrashing would have made Xu sign this bloody sheet.

He raised an eyebrow as he noticed his match box sat in his lap. He had half a mind to burn the papers.

"Get this thing out of my face, Instructor." He said, sweeping the whole lot off the table with his hand – in much the same way she had upset his work – "And didn't you have something important you wanted to talk to me about?"

Behind him, Quistis' breathing stopped for a brief second and he thought she might be agonising over the mess he made of her 'evidence'. But like many a time before, he was wrong.

"Yes, I wanted to talk about your next medical appointment." She said cheerily. Before she smashed his nose off the desk.

"I don't blame her."

Squall's face immediately contorted into an expression of mingled anger and disbelief, but Rinoa didn't let him express his disagreement, tweaking his nose into a better position and muffling his yelp of pain with a wad of tissues as she mopped up more of the ensuing blood waterfall.

"What if it had been me possessed by Ultimecia? Would you just turn me away?"

Of course not. It was a stupid question and she darn well knew it. But still, it paid for being said out loud. Squall rolled his eyes and tried to remove her hands from his face, as loving as she could be, right now she was just being plain horrible. She swatted his hands away and gave his nose another re-adjusting tweak, watching with guilty satisfaction as his eyes watered.

"You know the verdict was unfair and personally, I think you should support Quistis' endeavour."

He shook his head slightly as Rinoa tilted her head on the side, appraising her work. "I carbd subbord 'er. She's nudds!"

"Honey, really?" Rinoa frowned, using her best no-nonsense tone and giving him her scariest glare. Which wasn't all that frightening in the grand scheme of things. "You never think about these things do you? Seifer is going through the same thing you and I are going through now. He is no different from us!"

"He is dibberend! I'm nod a psycopad and you're nod a homicidal maniac! We're compledely dibberend!" He was glaring at her. She hated that expression. She cast cure on him a little stronger than was entirely necessary and narrowed her eyes as the static crackled across his face. "And if it was you, of course I would have signed that paper. I just don't see why Quistis has to go and get herself involved in something that doesn't concern her!"

"I think it's fair to say it obviously concerns her." Rinoa said, folding her arms and raising one eyebrow in an unimpressed arch. Squall stood up from where she had previously pinned him – one of the sofas in his office – and went to the window to check his reflection. His nose was still perfect. Thank Hyne.

"I mean it doesn't involve her."

"Of course it involves her, Squall! She is as much involved in this as you would be were I the one locked up for eternity."

"You and I are together though, Rinoa." He had fallen into a patronising tone and she wasn't sure she liked that. In fact she was sure she didn't like it at all. "I'm entitled to be involved in cases of your confinement and subsequent death."

"Wow," She drawled, her other eyebrow joining the first in a race towards her hairline. "Don't I feel special?"

Squall nodded, rubbing the sides of his bridge in inspection. It was as if that bitch had never even touched it. Thankfully there was nothing his Rinoa couldn't fix. "You feel special to me."

At any other time it might have been sweet, but this was not any other time and she was determined not to be swayed from her anger by pretty – if ridiculously rare – compliments. She might be a hopeless romantic, but that didn't mean she didn't know when to be a little manipulative at times.

"Haven't you ever thought I might be missing something though?" She asked, gearing herself up to burst into tears at the appropriate moment. Despite it all, she didn't believe that Seifer could do all that by himself. She had dated the guy for heaven's sake and he had never seemed any different from any other fun-loving teenager she had ever met. Other than Squall and maybe Quistis. But they didn't count. They weren't fun-loving at all.

"No. Of course not." Squall said, turning to give her a brief glance before going to sit as his desk and re-arrange his office stationary. "You're all I ever looked for. And I'm glad I've found you."

"But what about Quisty? She's more perfect than I am." She brought out her puppy dog pout, the one that always worked on her father so it had damn well better work on Squall.

"No one is more perfect than you are." Squall said, carefully making sure that every pen was in line with the edge of the desk and in height order. Rinoa hadn't moved from her place on the floor and she was now fiddling with the edge of one of the arm cushions. He glanced up at her, watched her for a few seconds when she didn't reply, then asked carefully, "Something the matter?"

"You only think that because you love me. What if Quistis is only doing this because she loves Seifer?"

Squall was – for a second at least – flabbergasted. Quistis? In love with that ape? Over his dead body maybe, but not at any other time, surely? "I- What? She hates him! We all do! Why would she love him?"

"Then what else would you call this?" She had tears in her eyes now, little diamonds of feeling that she was preparing to shed for Quistis and Seifer. Good lord.

"A sense of sisterly duty?" Squall suggested, stolidly ignoring the impending catastrophe and prodding at his nose again. The twitches hadn't yet subsided and he ended up poking himself firmly in the eye. "Becoming prematurely senile? How the heck would I know?"

This was the moment that Rinoa had been waiting for and she turned the waterworks on full blast. "You don't know because you don't care about them, do you?" She wailed, rifling through her arsenal of pitches to find the right level of hysteria with which to burst his ear drums. "If you cared about them then you would sign that petition! Accept you were wrong! I don't want you to become some hard-headed stoic! I've dealt with enough of that from the people I love already!"

She got to her feet and approached the desk, eyes bleeding emotion as she half begged, half demanded, "Why can't you just accept that Quistis is right?"

He didn't reply. He only stared at her in surprise as she sniffled a moment longer, then turned for the door. "I'll hear your decision tonight, Honey." And then she left and Squall merely sat there and gawped at the shut door.

After a little while, he got up from his desk and walked to the window, both hands clasped behind his back and his right eye watering like mad. Rinoa was rarely anything but calm and considerate and if she ever became genuinely upset over something, it was a messy and uncomfortable affair. What had just transpired had certainly been an uncomfortable affair. He sighed and rubbed at his scar, careful not to catch either eye this time.

In the good year and a half that he had known Rinoa, he had only seen her truly upset 3 times, this most recent occasion making the third. He had sworn to himself that the second would be the last. Stopping this hurt was as simple as writing his name on a sheet of paper but for some reason he didn't want to do it. Writing his name on the paper would mean that he agreed with Quistis, which ultimately meant that he had forgiven Seifer and was perfectly content for him to roam around in civil society, fate of the world be damned. Which of course he didn't, hadn't and wasn't. It caused quite the problem.

And then there was the case of his feelings. Or lack thereof. He had always maintained that he did have feelings -thank you very much – and that he had merely neglected to show them before. But no matter how much Rinoa wanted him to feel sorry for Quistis and sorry for Seifer and admit that he was wrong and play nice and happy, he couldn't. He might have feelings, but they only reached so far.

Which brought about another problem. Quistis' feelings for Seifer. It was something he had never even considered and the more he thought about it, the more absurd he found it to be. He had known Quistis from the moment he had entered the orphanage all those years ago and since then he had been her constant muse. She used to try and entice him into playing in the sand with her, building sand castles and just generally spending time together. He always refused, regarding her with the same cold gaze he reserved for those pretty enough or smart enough to rival his own looks and intelligence. But her attention was perpetual.

It had changed of course the second Seifer set foot through the door and instead of trying to play with Squall, Quistis seemed to spend the vast majority of her time beating Seifer off with a sharp stick. Invariably she was beating Seifer off of Squall, but she still went and got the stick with the intentions of touching Seifer with it. When Zell had asked why the stick was so long, Quistis had replied that she didn't want to get any Seifer germs and the case was laid to rest. But it didn't stop her trying to hit him all the time. Now that he thought about it, in the short time that they had had Seifer in their midst compared to the times when he wasn't, the unruly boy seemed to have soaked up more of Quistis' attentions than when she was forcefully trying to give then to Squall.

Perhaps back then there was a little truth in Rinoa's words. But not now, not after Seifer had betrayed them all and started a war against his home and his people. He was hated and despised by all of them, including Quistis. Squall knew he would never forgive Seifer, he hadn't after the cranberry incident and he certainly wouldn't now. The others all felt the same way. It was too much to forgive.

He sighed and lifted the latch to open the window, letting some much needed air in to freshen the room. Rinoa's perfume was mixing with the remnants of Quistis' and it was making him feel a little light headed. The fresh air filled his lungs and he nodded slowly. He had always been a selfish basterd, but if you were going to change then there was no time like the present. Still, he thought as he wandered back to his desk and picked up the phone, punching in the extension number for Quistis' dorm-room; it didn't mean he had to forgive Seifer in person. This was merely to please Rinoa and shut Quistis up.