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Entry tags:
FFVIII: Visitation (2)
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Main characters: Quistis, Squall, Irvine, Selphie
Referenced characters: Zell
Pairings: Quistis/Selphie, Irvine/Selphie
Contains: Angst, deathfic
Rating: PG
Summary: Selphie is supposed to be dead, but her ghost disturbs Quistis' sleep. Pairings and warnings are by chapter.
"I want to go to the place where Selphie died."
Squall looks up, blinking like an owl for a moment. Quistis smiles a little and forces herself to relax a little, realising that just charging into Squall's office and disturbing him the minute she has free time is a little rude. And really, she shouldn't be rude, all things considered. Including the apparent insanity of the request. She takes her time picking a chair, sitting down, folding her hands in her lap. She sits up straight and tries not to appear like a woman possessed.
"I'm sorry... I've just been thinking about it a lot. And you said you wanted to help..."
He straightens up, pushing his work away in an obvious effort to clear his mind. His eyes are immediately on her, then, calm as always but a little warmer than they used to be. "I don't think... Tell me what you want to do."
"I want to go to Selphie's last known position. Complete her mission. Find... find whatever there is to find. Her body. Some sign of how she died."
"Why?"
"Because I hate not knowing."
Quistis looks down at her lap, waiting, not wanting to watch Squall's expression as it flickered through the stages of his thoughts. It is that simple. Selphie is gone, and, ghosts in the night or not, Quistis still doesn't know why. She has no direction for her rage, and no real focus for her grief. She wants, she needs to know. Set the ghost to rest, somehow.
Squall speaks as if thinking aloud, reciting the statistics as if they're burned on his memory. "Three SeeDs were sent on that mission. Selphie was in command of the squad. It was supposed to be a simple mission; reconnaissance."
"I know."
"Somehow, I lost three of my SeeDs on that mission."
Quistis looks up, surprised by the sound of pain his voice, surprised by the way he said it. 'My SeeDs'.
"I lost a friend, too. But there's no profit for Garden to send three more SeeDs. Only the chance for more potential loss. We had to return the fee we were paid for that mission and our reputation suffered."
"Finding out what happened to them doesn't count...?"
"Quistis..." Squall sighed softly, shaking his head. "We might be able to claim the fee if we get the mission completed, but there's no guarantee. We sent three top SeeDs out there and none came back. Another three might just meet the same fate."
"You talk about it as if it's inevitable."
"I think it is."
"I'll go alone."
Squall stands up, and Quistis stands too, putting her hands on his desk for support because she is shaking with the tension, with anger, with a sudden cold sick fear. He doesn't reach out, he doesn't lean closer, just shakes his head. "I'll have you confined to quarters."
"Let me go. Send six SeeDs! Send nine! There's a profit in it, even for you, Squall. There's regaining our reputation. There's the chance to find out what happened and come to terms with it. There's a chance to bring a body back for a funeral."
"There's a chance they're still alive," he suggests, quietly, "but it's not a big enough one."
She knows there's no chance that Selphie is alive, but doesn't say that. She leans closer, clenching her fists. "Please, Squall, see it my way. I... I need to do this. I need to set Selphie to rest properly. I need... closure."
"You loved her, didn't you? As more than a friend, I mean."
Quistis closes her eyes. The tears prick at her eyelids and she spends a moment standing there, straightening up, bringing herself back down and under her own control. "Yes," she says, so simply, and she wants to cry even more at finally admitting it aloud.
"I'll think about it."
She opens her eyes, a little surprised. She realises that she expected him to say no from the start, that she never expected to convince him. That even though she's desperate for the closure of it, she knew from the start that Squall would think it was mad. She meets his eyes steadily, nods slightly. "Thank you."
"Don't hope for too much," he warns, with a tiny smile; a sad smile, but it's a smile and she takes it to heart.
-----
Quistis stares into the cup of coffee. Others around her are eating, talking, chattering even, happy and carefree, thoughts far from the three SeeDs lost to who knew what. But she can't stand the thought of food right now. The coffee is about as much as her stomach can stand and even that is too warm, a heat in her belly that contrasts sharply with the numbness that has been growing in her since that night...
"Hey, Quisty." Irvine's voice is quiet, still pained, and as he drops into the seat opposite her the grief is still too evident in his eyes for his smile to be as charming as usual. "Heard about your mission. From Squall. He says that if you go, you can pick the SeeDs to go with you... will you take me with you?"
She wants to say no, for a moment. She wants to be selfish and damn it all, damn the way he used to walk around with his arm around Selphie's waist as if it were easy and simple and natural and as if it meant nothing, and damn the way he smiles sadly now and the way he barely got out of bed for days after the news, and damn the way he's suddenly the new improved non-flirting Irvine Kinneas.
Instead, she nods. "Of course, you... you have more right than I do to go on that mission."
"I don't know..." He sighs, reaching to steal her coffee and staring at it for a moment before finishing it off for her. "Maybe I don't. I mean... I didn't even think of going after her. Finding out what happened. And yet now I think about it, she deserves that. You know?"
"Yeah, I know."
They're silent for a moment, and then she finds a smile, motioning to her empty cup.
"Aren't you going to do the gentlemanly thing and get me more coffee? Especially considering I just agreed to let you come on my special mission."
His laugh is thin, but he laughs, and he gets up with a mocking little bow. "Of course, my lady. How could I be so rude?"
It's almost pleasant to be with him now. If things were different and Quistis really felt that way about any man, she might have liked Irvine more than she did, felt amused and charmed by his flirting, been more ready to forgive his faults. And now that Selphie was no longer a warm, living issue between them, the ache of her jealousy eased a little. It was easier to smile at him, to banter with him, as friends.
Although Selphie does still remain between them. Quistis stares down at the table as she thinks of that, wonders if Selphie goes to Irvine when she fades away. Wonders why Selphie's ghost comes to her at all, if it's some kind of pity or... or if her misgivings and cold thoughts are right, and Selphie's ghost is only a dream, only a delusion of an over-wrought and grieving mind.
"Is something wrong?"
His concern hurts, too, and Quistis shakes her head quickly as she takes the coffee from him. "Nothing."
The coffee is bitter with only a hint of milk and sugar. Perfect.
-----
"You mustn't go!"
The ghost's urgency wakes her, the cold hands on her body all of a sudden like sudden spikes of ice ripping through the fog of a sleep spell. Quistis has felt that before, when she was fighting, and the similarity nearly has her reaching for her whip until she realises what it is.
"Selphie?"
"Who else? Quistis, you can't go, you mustn't."
Quistis sits up, wrapping the sheets around her, too sleepy to be graceful. She combs her hair back out of her eyes and considers cutting it for the millionth time. "Mustn't go where...? You're not making any sense, Selphie."
"You mustn't go to the place -- you know where I mean and you know why you can't go! How could you try and persuade Squall to send SeeDs? You know that they won't come back either. You won't come back. I -- you won't come back to Garden. There's no reason for you to go, nothing to be gained!"
Selphie is frantic and Quistis thinks that she makes no sense with her tripping and stumbling words.
"Selphie... I have to go, and you know why I have to go, too," she says, quietly, rubbing sleep from her eyes and stretching a little, looking up into the pale face. "You sound like Squall all of a sudden, talking about things being gained."
"Because he's right!"
"Why mustn't I go? Tell me the real reason."
Selphie stops. All of a sudden, she stops. She's suddenly calm and cool again, ghostly pale and barely there. She sits down on the end of Quistis' bed with a sigh, looking down at the floor. "You'll be in danger," she whispers, and Quistis waits for more, but she doesn't seem ready to elaborate.
"Why will I be in danger? What from?"
"I can't tell you."
"Can't or won't?"
"Can't," Selphie says, but the stubborn set of her jaw, so like and unlike Selphie's living expression, says won't louder than words. Quistis is reminded of Selphie's tantrums, few and far between as they'd been, when she was small. She also remembers her fierce determination in the face of the odds, the dedication to the fight, the smile on her face even as they fought Ultimecia. All the things that had made Quistis fall so hopelessly in love with her.
It reminds her of that, but it isn't that, exactly. It's firmness surrounded by fear, and though Selphie was afraid often she'd never let that rule her before.
"You never used to think about gaining things," she whispers softly, "it was just about what you thought was right."
And Quistis thinks that going to find out how Selphie died is right. So she takes the lesson from Selphie-in-life and lies down on her side, facing away from the cold presence. It seems to get colder, and she curls up, pulling the sheets around her more securely.
"You're an idiot, Quistis Trepe," Selphie says, and that Quistis feels her pull back and pull away and get colder and then fade, and the tears on Quistis' face are the only warm thing in the room.
-----
Quistis is woken early the next day and told to go and see Squall, and she dresses faster than she remembers doing before, getting herself into comfortable mission clothes, sure that Squall wouldn't summon her so urgently if she wasn't to go on the mission. She brushes her hair and ties it back and is ready for action quicker than she's been since the end of the war.
And he doesn't disappoint, already up and fully awake and sitting at his deck working when she walks into his office. He barely greets her, just nods at her slightly, scrawling his signature onto another official form.
"You have the mission."
"Tha -- "
"But you also have a lot of things to consider." He looks up at her through his bangs, and the smile he offers is encouraging and half shy, despite the finality and command in his words. "You are not to try and do too much alone. Your primary task is to find out what happened and locate the bodies, if necessary. You will not attempt to complete their mission unless there is little risk involved."
"Understood, sir," she says, body tense, trembling with all the feeling. Regret. Relief. Sadness.
"You're to assemble your team of five other SeeDs and leave by sixteen-hundred hours."
And it's as simple as that for Squall, mission parameters and then her team. The day until sixteen-hundred is a whirlwind of action and Quistis barely thinks of Selphie, somehow, caught up in it. It's probably better that way. Irvine and Zell and three other tough, battle-tested, rank twenty-five SeeDs. They have one of Garden's airships to use, even, and Irvine and Zell admire the Estharian design as they get in, and a while it's almost normal.
It's almost normal and right until they really start thinking about their mission, and then a quietness descends, taking them all by the throats and hearts and preventing speech and smiles.
Main characters: Quistis, Squall, Irvine, Selphie
Referenced characters: Zell
Pairings: Quistis/Selphie, Irvine/Selphie
Contains: Angst, deathfic
Rating: PG
Summary: Selphie is supposed to be dead, but her ghost disturbs Quistis' sleep. Pairings and warnings are by chapter.
"I want to go to the place where Selphie died."
Squall looks up, blinking like an owl for a moment. Quistis smiles a little and forces herself to relax a little, realising that just charging into Squall's office and disturbing him the minute she has free time is a little rude. And really, she shouldn't be rude, all things considered. Including the apparent insanity of the request. She takes her time picking a chair, sitting down, folding her hands in her lap. She sits up straight and tries not to appear like a woman possessed.
"I'm sorry... I've just been thinking about it a lot. And you said you wanted to help..."
He straightens up, pushing his work away in an obvious effort to clear his mind. His eyes are immediately on her, then, calm as always but a little warmer than they used to be. "I don't think... Tell me what you want to do."
"I want to go to Selphie's last known position. Complete her mission. Find... find whatever there is to find. Her body. Some sign of how she died."
"Why?"
"Because I hate not knowing."
Quistis looks down at her lap, waiting, not wanting to watch Squall's expression as it flickered through the stages of his thoughts. It is that simple. Selphie is gone, and, ghosts in the night or not, Quistis still doesn't know why. She has no direction for her rage, and no real focus for her grief. She wants, she needs to know. Set the ghost to rest, somehow.
Squall speaks as if thinking aloud, reciting the statistics as if they're burned on his memory. "Three SeeDs were sent on that mission. Selphie was in command of the squad. It was supposed to be a simple mission; reconnaissance."
"I know."
"Somehow, I lost three of my SeeDs on that mission."
Quistis looks up, surprised by the sound of pain his voice, surprised by the way he said it. 'My SeeDs'.
"I lost a friend, too. But there's no profit for Garden to send three more SeeDs. Only the chance for more potential loss. We had to return the fee we were paid for that mission and our reputation suffered."
"Finding out what happened to them doesn't count...?"
"Quistis..." Squall sighed softly, shaking his head. "We might be able to claim the fee if we get the mission completed, but there's no guarantee. We sent three top SeeDs out there and none came back. Another three might just meet the same fate."
"You talk about it as if it's inevitable."
"I think it is."
"I'll go alone."
Squall stands up, and Quistis stands too, putting her hands on his desk for support because she is shaking with the tension, with anger, with a sudden cold sick fear. He doesn't reach out, he doesn't lean closer, just shakes his head. "I'll have you confined to quarters."
"Let me go. Send six SeeDs! Send nine! There's a profit in it, even for you, Squall. There's regaining our reputation. There's the chance to find out what happened and come to terms with it. There's a chance to bring a body back for a funeral."
"There's a chance they're still alive," he suggests, quietly, "but it's not a big enough one."
She knows there's no chance that Selphie is alive, but doesn't say that. She leans closer, clenching her fists. "Please, Squall, see it my way. I... I need to do this. I need to set Selphie to rest properly. I need... closure."
"You loved her, didn't you? As more than a friend, I mean."
Quistis closes her eyes. The tears prick at her eyelids and she spends a moment standing there, straightening up, bringing herself back down and under her own control. "Yes," she says, so simply, and she wants to cry even more at finally admitting it aloud.
"I'll think about it."
She opens her eyes, a little surprised. She realises that she expected him to say no from the start, that she never expected to convince him. That even though she's desperate for the closure of it, she knew from the start that Squall would think it was mad. She meets his eyes steadily, nods slightly. "Thank you."
"Don't hope for too much," he warns, with a tiny smile; a sad smile, but it's a smile and she takes it to heart.
Quistis stares into the cup of coffee. Others around her are eating, talking, chattering even, happy and carefree, thoughts far from the three SeeDs lost to who knew what. But she can't stand the thought of food right now. The coffee is about as much as her stomach can stand and even that is too warm, a heat in her belly that contrasts sharply with the numbness that has been growing in her since that night...
"Hey, Quisty." Irvine's voice is quiet, still pained, and as he drops into the seat opposite her the grief is still too evident in his eyes for his smile to be as charming as usual. "Heard about your mission. From Squall. He says that if you go, you can pick the SeeDs to go with you... will you take me with you?"
She wants to say no, for a moment. She wants to be selfish and damn it all, damn the way he used to walk around with his arm around Selphie's waist as if it were easy and simple and natural and as if it meant nothing, and damn the way he smiles sadly now and the way he barely got out of bed for days after the news, and damn the way he's suddenly the new improved non-flirting Irvine Kinneas.
Instead, she nods. "Of course, you... you have more right than I do to go on that mission."
"I don't know..." He sighs, reaching to steal her coffee and staring at it for a moment before finishing it off for her. "Maybe I don't. I mean... I didn't even think of going after her. Finding out what happened. And yet now I think about it, she deserves that. You know?"
"Yeah, I know."
They're silent for a moment, and then she finds a smile, motioning to her empty cup.
"Aren't you going to do the gentlemanly thing and get me more coffee? Especially considering I just agreed to let you come on my special mission."
His laugh is thin, but he laughs, and he gets up with a mocking little bow. "Of course, my lady. How could I be so rude?"
It's almost pleasant to be with him now. If things were different and Quistis really felt that way about any man, she might have liked Irvine more than she did, felt amused and charmed by his flirting, been more ready to forgive his faults. And now that Selphie was no longer a warm, living issue between them, the ache of her jealousy eased a little. It was easier to smile at him, to banter with him, as friends.
Although Selphie does still remain between them. Quistis stares down at the table as she thinks of that, wonders if Selphie goes to Irvine when she fades away. Wonders why Selphie's ghost comes to her at all, if it's some kind of pity or... or if her misgivings and cold thoughts are right, and Selphie's ghost is only a dream, only a delusion of an over-wrought and grieving mind.
"Is something wrong?"
His concern hurts, too, and Quistis shakes her head quickly as she takes the coffee from him. "Nothing."
The coffee is bitter with only a hint of milk and sugar. Perfect.
"You mustn't go!"
The ghost's urgency wakes her, the cold hands on her body all of a sudden like sudden spikes of ice ripping through the fog of a sleep spell. Quistis has felt that before, when she was fighting, and the similarity nearly has her reaching for her whip until she realises what it is.
"Selphie?"
"Who else? Quistis, you can't go, you mustn't."
Quistis sits up, wrapping the sheets around her, too sleepy to be graceful. She combs her hair back out of her eyes and considers cutting it for the millionth time. "Mustn't go where...? You're not making any sense, Selphie."
"You mustn't go to the place -- you know where I mean and you know why you can't go! How could you try and persuade Squall to send SeeDs? You know that they won't come back either. You won't come back. I -- you won't come back to Garden. There's no reason for you to go, nothing to be gained!"
Selphie is frantic and Quistis thinks that she makes no sense with her tripping and stumbling words.
"Selphie... I have to go, and you know why I have to go, too," she says, quietly, rubbing sleep from her eyes and stretching a little, looking up into the pale face. "You sound like Squall all of a sudden, talking about things being gained."
"Because he's right!"
"Why mustn't I go? Tell me the real reason."
Selphie stops. All of a sudden, she stops. She's suddenly calm and cool again, ghostly pale and barely there. She sits down on the end of Quistis' bed with a sigh, looking down at the floor. "You'll be in danger," she whispers, and Quistis waits for more, but she doesn't seem ready to elaborate.
"Why will I be in danger? What from?"
"I can't tell you."
"Can't or won't?"
"Can't," Selphie says, but the stubborn set of her jaw, so like and unlike Selphie's living expression, says won't louder than words. Quistis is reminded of Selphie's tantrums, few and far between as they'd been, when she was small. She also remembers her fierce determination in the face of the odds, the dedication to the fight, the smile on her face even as they fought Ultimecia. All the things that had made Quistis fall so hopelessly in love with her.
It reminds her of that, but it isn't that, exactly. It's firmness surrounded by fear, and though Selphie was afraid often she'd never let that rule her before.
"You never used to think about gaining things," she whispers softly, "it was just about what you thought was right."
And Quistis thinks that going to find out how Selphie died is right. So she takes the lesson from Selphie-in-life and lies down on her side, facing away from the cold presence. It seems to get colder, and she curls up, pulling the sheets around her more securely.
"You're an idiot, Quistis Trepe," Selphie says, and that Quistis feels her pull back and pull away and get colder and then fade, and the tears on Quistis' face are the only warm thing in the room.
Quistis is woken early the next day and told to go and see Squall, and she dresses faster than she remembers doing before, getting herself into comfortable mission clothes, sure that Squall wouldn't summon her so urgently if she wasn't to go on the mission. She brushes her hair and ties it back and is ready for action quicker than she's been since the end of the war.
And he doesn't disappoint, already up and fully awake and sitting at his deck working when she walks into his office. He barely greets her, just nods at her slightly, scrawling his signature onto another official form.
"You have the mission."
"Tha -- "
"But you also have a lot of things to consider." He looks up at her through his bangs, and the smile he offers is encouraging and half shy, despite the finality and command in his words. "You are not to try and do too much alone. Your primary task is to find out what happened and locate the bodies, if necessary. You will not attempt to complete their mission unless there is little risk involved."
"Understood, sir," she says, body tense, trembling with all the feeling. Regret. Relief. Sadness.
"You're to assemble your team of five other SeeDs and leave by sixteen-hundred hours."
And it's as simple as that for Squall, mission parameters and then her team. The day until sixteen-hundred is a whirlwind of action and Quistis barely thinks of Selphie, somehow, caught up in it. It's probably better that way. Irvine and Zell and three other tough, battle-tested, rank twenty-five SeeDs. They have one of Garden's airships to use, even, and Irvine and Zell admire the Estharian design as they get in, and a while it's almost normal.
It's almost normal and right until they really start thinking about their mission, and then a quietness descends, taking them all by the throats and hearts and preventing speech and smiles.
no subject
I like how Quistis is aware of the distance and not-distance between herself and Irvine, the jealousy and the familiarity. I also like how you have Irvine being kind of a changed man with Selphie gone. I think it realy works.
no subject
I can't wait to see how people react to the plot twist. ;) That's coming up next chapter. >D
no subject
Yay for plot twists!