FFVIII: Origins (4)

[edenbound]

Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII
Pairing: Irvine/Selphie, developing Seifer/Squall, developing Quistis/Rinoa
Warnings: Angst
Chapter: Four
Rating: PG
Summary: Just one stop along the way.

“Selphie, s’too early.”

“Nuh-uh, princess, we’ve got to get an early start.” Selphie bounces a little on the end of Rinoa’s bed, effectively completely disrupting any attempts at getting back to sleep and looking overly happy about it. Once Rinoa sits up, she gets off, grinning at her. “Wake Quisty up for me, will you? She’ll be easy to wake, but I want to go see Irvy.”

Rinoa smiles sleepily and nods, running her fingers through her hair. Selphie is gone almost immediately, leaving Rinoa to stretch and yawn and get her eyes clear of sleep at a slower – more civilised – pace. She’s never understood how Garden managed to train all of them into getting up at ridiculous times of morning and not complaining about it when they did. After a moment, she gets out of bed, wincing at the cold air from the wide open window – another SeeD tactic to wake lazy civilians up, she’s sure.

“Quistis?”

“Mmm?” Quistis' voice is thick with sleep, but she's already stirring, stretching out. Rinoa wriggles her toes, snatching the duvet off her own bed and wrapping herself in it as she goes to close the window.

“Selphie says it's time to get up.”

Quistis made an indeterminate sound, sitting up a little and glancing at the clock. “It's early, for you.”

Rinoa huffs softly, closing the window with a small thump and then sitting back on her bed, shivering despite the duvet wrapped around her, still cosy with warmth from her body. “That’s probably why Selphie felt it necessary to open the curtains, open the window, and bounce on my feet until I woke up.”

Quistis stifles a laugh and she rolls her eyes, sticking her tongue out at the blonde.

“It's not funny.”

“Of course not,” she agrees, slipping out of bed and kneeling down to rifle through her bag in search of clothes and her hairbrush. Rinoa sighs and follows her example after a moment, still wincing as she sheds her warm shell of duvet.

“Guess what, guys?”

Quistis looks up at Selphie's bright, pleased face and raises an eyebrow slightly. “I have a feeling you're going to tell us anyway and I don't think Rinoa is awake enough yet for guessing games. What is it?”

Selphie huffs softly but crosses the room to drag things out of her bag, kicking the door shut behind her. “Well... since Irvine and Zell were sharing a room with Seifer and Squall last night, they were worried they'd fight or something. Or Irvine was, anyway. Zell was more worried that Seifer was going to fight with him, probably. Anyway...”

“It went okay?”

Selphie raises an eyebrow at Rinoa's unexpected interest, and then nods. “Yeah! Apparently they were playing – they had a pillow fight, all four of them, how come we didn't do anything like that? – and after Seifer just apologised. I never thought he was the kind of guy who could, you know. No regrets and the present is all that matters, stuff like that.”

Quistis laughs. “Seifer is full of surprises; even if you have some grounds for saying you know him. I taught him and I can't claim to know much about him. Squall probably knows him best.”

“That doesn't really make sense.”

“You heard of the old saying, 'know your enemy'?” Quistis shrugs. “They know each other, as well as anyone knows them, and probably, like I said, better.”

“I never thought about it that way,” Rinoa says, slowly, and then shrugs. “So they’ve made friends? Agreed not to fight?”

Selphie nods a little, grinning. “That’s really going to make this whole thing easier, isn’t it? Or at least, less likely to end with us breaking up a fight between them and taking one of them to hospital because of it. Or both of them. Wasn’t that the idea when you wanted me to put them in the same car, Rin?”

“Kind of,” she says, finding her brush and busying herself with brushing out her hair, finding all kinds of knots in it and wincing a little, focusing on that as the other two start to get ready. She wonders what Squall is thinking, how he feels about being friends with Seifer, and hopes that this is the first step of a few more for him. “I thought they might end up being a little more than friends, though.”

“You mean lovers? Seifer and Squall? Hang on, wait, is that why you broke up with Squall? Because he's gay?”

Rinoa sighs softly. “Yes, he is gay. It took him a while to figure it all out, I think. It wasn't really messy, I think I more than half suspected it already. What's it they always say, 'all the nice guys are gay'? Don't say anything about it to him, please. I don't know if he'd actually want you to know. He wasn't really happy with telling me.”

Quistis makes a thoughtful sound, nodding slightly. “I never really thought about Squall dating anyone, before you, I mean. I taught him and... Well, I thought I had a crush on him but he wasn't at all interested in me. I thought he might be asexual.”

“Because anyone who isn't attracted to you must not be attracted to anyone?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I'm used to getting some interest.”

Selphie laughs again and then turns to Rinoa, raising an eyebrow at her. “I don't get it, though. Seifer and Squall? How's that going to work? They've been fighting most of their lives. I still can't remember most of the stuff that happened at the Orphanage and even I remember that they were always fighting, always bickering.”

She shrugs again. “Like Quistis said, they know each other. I think they suit each other – and I’ve dated both of them, so I do know what they’re like. I think they’ll be perfect together if only they can put aside their differences and resolve their difficulties and just stop being too stubborn for their own goods.”

“What about Seifer, though? I don't think he's gay.”

Rinoa shrugs slightly. “I don't either. I didn't really date him long, all things considered, so we didn't, you know, do much? So I have no idea if he's at all attracted to women, really. But I'm pretty sure he is attracted to Squall, judging from what he said to me when I suggested it. I think he's probably bisexual. Anyway, I think this is going to work out.”

Selphie looks doubtful. “You really think so?”

“It’s worth a try, right?”

“What is?”

Rinoa jumps a little when Seifer sticks his head around the door and huffs softly at him. “You should knock first, Selphie and Quistis are –”

Seifer makes a face when he registers how little all three are wearing and winks at Rinoa. “Ew. I think I’ll go away now. I’ve definitely learned my lesson. That is way too much skin on show.”

They can hear him complaining about 'shameless hussies' to Zell in the next room, interspersed with moments when Zell obviously gets less tolerant of being called Chickie. Selphie huffs softly and puts a hand on her hip. “I’m not exactly ugly, you know. Seeing me in my bra and knickers can’t be that bad an experience. Irvine certainly seems to enjoy it, anyway.”

Quistis rolls her eyes. “I think Rinoa's wrong, he is gay.”

“He dated Rinoa.”

“So did Squall.”

Selphie thinks about that for a moment and then shrugs, laughing. “Poor Rinoa, always turning her boyfriends gay. And being so nice to them afterwards, even trying to get them together. You’re a saint, Rin.”

She shrugs as well. “They never did anything wrong and they could never be happy with me, I wasn't right for them and I think we knew that before we even tried, in both cases. But I think they could be happy with each other and since I’m fond of them both… it’s hardly saintly to try and do my best to get them together. I mean, I will be expecting at least a commendation if I get them together, but…”

“Still,” Selphie says, shrugging slightly, “it is pretty nice of you to try to get them together when they're both grouchy old grumps who apparently ignored a mutual attraction in favour of fighting each other for years. I mean, geez.”

Rinoa laughs. “I suppose so.”

Quistis looks up at Rinoa and smiles slightly. “I never realised you knew that you and Squall weren't meant to be. Before you broke up with him, I mean.”

“I wanted a fairytale,” she says, quietly, “I wanted to be protected, to be safe. I don't want it like that anymore. I mean, I love to be with him, on this quest with him, but it's not all about him, and it never should have been. Still,” she says, suddenly smiling, “I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it while it lasted.”

Selphie grins. “I like you better now.”

“Me too,” she says, glancing at Quistis. But Quistis doesn't say anything.

---

She smiles when she sees them, shading her eyes from the sun and looking them over, her tone gentle, her words teasing. “What do you lot want?”

“Matron,” Seifer says, quietly. For a moment Squall's afraid he's going to freak out or something, flashback to the memories of the war and all the horrors Squall is sure he suffered, under the eyes of a woman who looked as if she was the only mother he'd ever known. It has to be hard to forget, Squall thinks. Suffering like that at all, let alone with the vague memory of waking up from nightmares to that face, sympathetic then and turned dark and horrible. But Matron smiles and Seifer smiles and all of a sudden they're hugging, like they've never been any other way, and Squall feels so relieved he might be sick.

“It's good to see you again, Seifer,” she says, softly, just for him to hear.

For a moment she feels the irrational urge to never let him go, to keep him close to her. To keep him safe, as if she could do that now when she failed so miserably before. She can feel tenseness in him that she hates, knowing she’s caused it, simply by looking so similar to the way she’d looked when she was a puppet and Ultimecia had pulled the strings. But there’s comfort in it, too. Seifer’s hug is careful and tentative, but warm. She knows he’s forgiven her, never thought there was anything that needed to be forgiven. There’s something about that idea that makes her smile, something given that’s better than any material thing.

They part smiling, and Edea remembers why she always did love Seifer, even though he was a pain. His smile is honest, open; she never knew why he hid it away and used a smirk instead. She puts a hand on his arm for a moment, looking him over, and then smiling a little more. “Smile like that more often, okay?”

“I’ll try,” he replies softly, bending for a moment to kiss her cheek lightly. “It’s good to see you, Matron.”

He steps away and she resists the urge to frown, turning her attention now to the other children. Children, she thinks, but they’re not children anymore and haven’t been for a long time. Squall is less serious than the last time she saw him, at least, a smile on his lips – perhaps amusement, but it looks more like relief. She catches his eyes on Seifer and smiles one of those smiles that all mothers have. Knowing. Oh, so knowing.

Quistis. Selphie. Irvine. Zell. The first calm and cool and collected, Selphie grinning like it’s a party, Irvine smiling in that lazy way that Edea has no doubt has stolen many hearts – and lastly, Zell, looking just a little tense, relaxing when he catches her eyes and she smiles at him. She hugs him first.

“Is everything okay?”

“Just fine,” he tells her, squeezing her tightly. She’s used to Zell’s hugs by now, since she became herself again, and she just squeezes back until he lets go, letting her step back. And then Selphie dives on her, her hug greedy and tight in almost the same way as Zell’s, so that Edea has to smile, holding the girl close for a moment.

“Everything going well, Selphie?”

“Perfectly,” the bouncy girl assures her. She, like Seifer, kisses Edea on the cheek again before pulling back, grinning at all and sundry. Edea notices Rinoa, then, hanging back – not exactly shy, but tentative all the same. She smiles at her; too, regretting that most of the experience Rinoa has had of her has not been of her. There're things she'd like to tell the young sorceress, but...

Squall moves a little closer, hesitant, as if almost afraid to touch her. She gives him a moment and then moves closer herself, putting her arms around him and pulling him to her, so that his cheek rests against her shoulder. “You've been so brave,” she tells him, quietly, “I'm so proud of you. You've been strong on your own.”

“I never needed to be,” he says, sighing a little.

She nods. “But still, you were. You've done wonderfully. Now you have friends – hold onto them, Squall.”

“I will,” he says, smiling self consciously. His eyes flick over to Seifer for a moment and Edea holds back a moment of almost childish glee. She's wanted them to be friends for as long as she's known them, since Squall first sulkily rejected Seifer's friendship.

“Him especially,” she says, and regrets it, but Squall just smiles.

“I will.”

Quistis comes to her then, the hug restrained and adult for a moment, giddily childish for the moment after that. Edea holds her carefully, amused by the contrast of eagerness and restraint, fragility and strength. She knows Quistis well even now, the way she is always devoting herself to duty and responsibility and always wanting more, and only sometimes, just sometimes, reaching out to take what she wants. “It's so nice to see you, Matron.”

“What is it you're wanting and not getting this time?” she asks, softly, as Quistis begins to disengage. For a moment, she almost expects that flicker of the gaze – from her face to the face of someone Quistis wants. But it doesn't happen. Quistis just smiles and shrugs.

“For me to know, Matron.”

“I hope I will find out.”

The hug with Irvine is brief, and Edea finds herself immensely glad for him, for them all, happy or at least on their way to it, grown up or at least mostly there.

“What are you all here for, then?” she asks, when she draws back, looking around at them all. “I'm here to get away from Garden – as far away as I can – and here you all are, coming to me.”

“It's not them you were avoiding,” Rinoa says, quietly. She smiles a little, shrugging. “That's obvious enough from the happy greeting you've given them.”

“No. But what they stand for...” Edea shrugs, a movement that is strangely graceful, as if an awkward movement wouldn't fit on her slender frame even now, as she gets a little older, a little less regal. “That I don't need to have anything to do with now. My turn to affect the world is gone now.”

“It's never entirely gone,” Seifer says, and then laughs. “But you've formed us all and sent us out, for good or for bad, so you've made your mark on the world.”

“None of my mark has been bad,” Edea reminds him, knowing that he still struggles with that. Why was he chosen? What did he do? Was he, somehow, at the core of him that even he denied, evil? Was it all his fault somehow, some way? She knows that he still can't sleep some nights because of that question. She knows that he still struggles with it, staring at his ceiling, staring at the walls, wondering if he should be counting cracks in the ceiling of some damp prison cell.

He doesn't reply aloud. He just shrugs a little, looking away from her. She catches Squall smiling at him and has to smile herself at the little dance between them, their little game of push and react. She hopes it'll end in a truce, this time, instead of one of them winning, always winning.

“Anyway! You wanted to know why we’re here, right, Matron?” Selphie grins a little. “We’re on a quest this time – not quite as momentous and world changing as the last one, you’re probably glad to know. We’re searching for our parents, whoever they might have been. Since Squall managed to find Sir Laguna and he wasn’t even looking, we thought that if we tried…”

Edea frowns a little. “I certainly think it’s possible for some of you, but I don’t advise you all to. You might find out things you don’t want to know, uncomfortable things. I don’t want any of you to get hurt. It’s better to be happy and not know than to know and feel bad about it.”

Zell raises an eyebrow. “I think I’d rather know, personally.”

She eyes him for a moment and then nods, taking a deep breath. “Some of you have your real surnames, others were from the people who found you or adopted you. Zell, your surname wasn’t Dincht when you came to me. I can find your father’s details for you, but I don’t advise you to go.”

“I’ve come this far, I have to know,” Zell says, shrugging slightly, without a second thought. Edea bites her lip, hoping he won’t regret that – clinging to the reminder that he won’t blame her for what happens, no matter what does happen.

“I’ll find those for you a little later. I have a file with them in. Quistis… I met your mother, once. She only told me that she’d come a long way and that she needed to leave you somewhere. Somewhere…” Edea pauses as she remembers that face, like Quistis’ face and not like. “Somewhere safe, she said.”

Quistis looks a little pale. “Do you think she was in trouble?”

“I don’t know. I do know that Trepe was your father’s surname. She was quite clear about that.”

Quistis nods, shifting slightly and looking away, as if she’s trying to process that information. Edea remembers the desperation in that woman’s eyes, her refusal to talk about anything, the way she had said that it would be dangerous and the way the woman had laughed, the way she’d said she could take care of herself that had left Edea with no doubt that the woman would get where she wanted to go, wherever that might be.

The strength of the mother has, at least, come out in the daughter. Edea glances at Seifer, feeling an ache of worry for him, knowing how he must be feeling about this. He always dreamed of his parents coming to get him. He’d tell her about what his father must have been like, and she’d tell him what little she knew. That he was a soldier, a good one, who’d gone to war to help provide for his family. A good man. She’d always been sad that she knew little more, and now she is even more shamed by it. She’s always had so little to give Seifer, and she could’ve had more.

“I don’t know much about your family, Seifer. I know what time they came from and that you, too, have your father’s surname. I never met your mother, but a friend of mine was friends with her and from all I heard she was a good woman. She didn’t... from what I know of her she would never have abandoned you.”

Seifer nods slightly, taking a deep breath. “Any leads you have for me would be appreciated.”

“I’ll do my best,” she promises.

“What about us?” Irvine asks, softly, his arm around Selphie. Her head is against his shoulder and it makes Edea sigh to see them. They were always together, back when they lived in the Orphanage. Always together, and otherwise alone. Selphie had been crying when she first arrived at the Orphanage, and Irvine had put his arms around her, told her that it was better to smile, with a wisdom Edea hadn’t expected from one of the kids under her care. If you don’t laugh, he’d said, you have to cry. You’ve got to let it out somehow.

“I’m sorry,” she says, hating it, “I don’t know anything about your parents. I’m not even sure where you were found. The people who brought you both to me – at different times – didn’t say. They were in a hurry to go.”

Selphie tries not to look too disappointed. Edea sees it, and wants to hug her, hold her, and take that place of mother again in her heart. But she has Irvine for comfort, his arms tight around her slender body, and so Edea leaves them be, turning to the others.

“I’ll do what I can and look in my records for anything I can find that might help you. For now… would you all like a drink?”

Seifer follows her into the kitchen as she goes to get drinks, the other kids – but not kids now, of course – filing into the main room and finding places to sit. For a while, he doesn’t speak, and Edea puts the kettle on and pours juice and digs out the sugar, listening to the vague drone of voices from the other room, feeling Seifer watching her.

“Will you forgive me for everything that happened to you?” she says, finally.

“Was there ever anything to forgive?”

She puts the milk down and he comes around the kitchen counter to hug her again. For a while, she lets him just hold her, her face against his shoulder, lets herself imagine that it is just her and him, just herself and her son.

Finally, she pulls away, wiping her eyes a bit. The kettle has boiled. She pours drinks, and Seifer carries them in to the others.

---

Rinoa watches Quistis for a moment, staying in the shelter of the door and eyeing the way the wind whips her friend’s hair about. She looks lovely like this, she thinks, cold and alone and perhaps a little fragile, and completely lovely. For a while, she stays still to watch her, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Finally, though, she steps out of the relative warmth of the doorway, letting the door close behind her.

“It’s a windy day,” she says, quietly. “Don’t you want to put a coat on or something?”

Quistis looks up, obviously startled – although Rinoa suspects that she did realise she was being observed. Squall always knew, whether he bothered to talk to her or not, when she was watching him. She knows somewhat of the instinct herself, that crawling feeling on the back of her neck when she knows someone’s eyes are on her. But SeeDs have developed it to an insane level, she thinks.

There was no way Quistis really didn’t know she was standing there. She’s shivering a little, now, but her smile is warm when she turns to Rinoa. “I’m not that cold.”

“You SeeDs are all the same,” Rinoa says, without really meaning to. “You always seem to deny when you really want or need something. Like it’d be a weakness to give into it, even just once in a while. Squall is the worst, of course, but all of you, even Selphie and Irvine, do it. I’ve never understood it.”

“Military discipline,” Quistis replies, simply. Her eyes are still far away, Rinoa realizes, full of thought. As if she was looking for something in the storm – waiting, perhaps, for answers that never come. Rinoa remembers nights like that spent in the cold – wrapped up in a coat, of course, and with Watts or Zone always with her – nights spent trying to figure out what to do. What she, herself, really wanted or needed to do in a certain situation.

“Military discipline,” she repeats, sighing softly.

“We’re all soldiers. We need to be trained to deal with even extreme circumstances. Cold is nothing to a soldier. Selphie and Irvine can do it as well as the rest of us, when they have to, it’s just they don’t tend to. Maybe they just never had as much reason to take the training as far as the rest of us. Either way, I’m used to this.”

Rinoa smiles gently. She wants to say something about how alone, how unhappy, Quistis must have been, but she hasn’t the words for that or the understanding. She knows that Quistis would only shrug, perhaps roll her eyes, and ignore her. Make her feel like an undisciplined child again. She hated that. She hated that the most when it came from Quistis. So she keeps her words simple, quiet, ignorable. “You’re shivering, Quistis.”

Quistis laughs softly, rolling her eyes. “It doesn’t negate my point, you know.”

“You don’t have to act tough all the time, is all I’m saying,” she says, shrugging slightly. For a moment they stand in silence, both shivering now as the cold wind teases its way in through their clothes. Rinoa doesn’t want to move, somehow, despite that.

“Don’t you want to go inside?”

“I will in a minute.” Rinoa takes a deep breath, pushing her hair back a little and turning into the wind so that her hair isn’t constantly blowing into her mouth. “How’re you feeling? I mean, we’ve got leads for Seifer and Zell, and a bit of one for you.”

“Curious. And,” she shrugged, “worried, as well, I guess.”

“Try not to worry about it too much. Try and just, you know, enjoy it. Appreciate the fun in all of it and don’t hope for too much. I mean, it’d be great to find your family again, but it doesn’t seem all that likely to happen.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Rinoa smiles again, trying to urge Quistis into a less thoughtful, less melancholy frame of mind. “I’m glad this isn’t all serious like the fight against Ultimecia was. The fun parts are more fun now, and the serious parts, well, less serious.”

Quistis nods slightly. “I suppose you would find it fun. You haven’t really got anything at stake.”

“You haven’t either. Nothing to lose, anyway.”

“Is that what you think?”

Rinoa stays quiet for a moment, wondering what Quistis means. It’s true that, perhaps, Quistis might have something to lose, she realizes. Childhood dreams about her parents, perhaps, or some kind of knowledge that she could be something more. Maybe she’ll find out that the parents she imagined, the kind and loving parents, abandoned her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, finally. Quistis shrugs slightly.

“It’s not like fighting Ultimecia,” she says, softly, “but it does seem a little more hopeless.”

Rinoa has to laugh. “Oh, Quistis, are you mercenaries trained to be pessimistic as well as heartless and too tough for your own good?”

She regrets the words as soon as they’re out of her mouth. She doesn’t believe that any of them are heartless, and certainly not Quistis. She’s seen Quistis alive with emotion, alight with laughter, flushed with victory, and with her eyes full of tears at a needless death. She’s seen her at the depths and heights, seen them all feel and laugh and live and love like everyone else. She hates herself for saying something as stupid as assuming that they’re heartless.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Quistis shrugs slightly, her eyes now a little pained. “I’m sure you’re right, to some extent.”

“Quistis –”

“I’ll come in soon. In a minute. You’d best go in and get warm.”

Rinoa flinches a little, imagining that as a kind of reprimand. She’s been shivering more in the last few minutes than before. Finally, she looks away from Quistis and nods, moving to go inside. Quistis stands out in the cold for a moment longer. She realizes that Rinoa is hurt, that she feels criticized. She clenches her fists.

“Why can’t I ever say the right thing to her?”