concoursec | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Character(s): Quistis, Squall
Location: Squall's office
Rating: PG?
Open/Closed/Finished: Closed
Summary: After arriving back from a mission and reading the newsletter, Quistis has much to talk to Squall about.

Quistis usually dreaded the day that the newsletter within the school came out-- while the articles regarding world matters were often times informative, it was usually nothing she hadn't heard firsthand from Cid or Squall. The gossip column was always a joke; the school lacked a real journalism class that taught the proper ways of writing, and it was more than obvious with the excessive usage of punctuation that blemished the pages.

As she had been gone from the school for the past several weeks on a mission to Esthar (no doubt because Squall didn't want to deal with Laguna himself), Quistis was quite surprised to come back and read the headlining article of the newsletter. A possible missile test... had Cid and Squall known? A part of her was a bit hurt that she hadn't been informed of such a vital piece of information if they did know; was it because she was proving to be incompetent and they didn't feel as though she should be involved in such matters?

And then there was that little blurb about Seifer...

Having sent a private message to Squall to make an appointment to meet with him, Quistis arrived at his door no later than a half hour or so after receiving his reply. Her knock on the door was a curt one; she wanted to get to the bottom of all this, and figure out exactly what kind of position they were in and how it could affect the school.

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The entire reason for why Squall had sent Quistis off to Esthar in the first place had been exactly because of that, he didn’t want to have to meet with Laguna himself. Sure he could have made the trip there himself and asked Quistis or someone to join him as a means of ‘back up’ … but he would never exactly go there on his own. Squall knew that Quistis would be able to deal with Laguna; he wouldn’t have to worry about his old man trying to pick her up or trying to be cute. He knew that it was always business, business, business, and more business between them.

Not that it even mattered…

Hearing the sharp rap of knuckles against his door, Squall spared it a glance through his bangs. He had an idea of who it was visiting him at this time of the day while everyone else was enjoying their morning classes. “It’s open,” he called, not moving from his desk, striking off his signature on the documents laid out in front of him.

After hearing the permission to enter the office, Quistis swiftly did so, a newsletter folded neatly in her hand. It only took the blond a couple of strides to reach the desk situated on the other end of the room, but when she did she promptly lifted the newsletter so Squall could see exactly what she was referring to.

"Did you know about these missile tests?"

Again Squall glanced up through his bangs to look at the headline of the main article. He set his pen down and straightened, head lifting. “We didn’t ‘know’ about them until they were brought to our attention by a pair of cadets days later.”

"A pair of cadets?" Her brows lifted in surprise at his words. "How did a pair of cadets find out about missile tests by Galbadia?"

"They were on a field trip for Survival Skills out at Lallapalooza Canyon. Galbadia was using the area to run tests on their missiles from what their report read."

Squall looked down to the folded up newsletter on his desk and then back up to her.

Quistis took a moment to consider his words; so it had been cadets of their own who had made this supposed discovery, on a school trip no less. But did they see wrong?

"Have you done anything to investigate further to check whether or not these rumors are true?"

"What makes you think they would lie about this? They have nothing to gain in lying." Squall straightened up in his chair, absently nudging his pen to roll off to the side.

"It's not a matter of whether or not these cadets are lying," Quistis reason, her brow quirking at Squall's response. "It's a matter of whether or not these cadets mistook what they saw or heard."

"They recalled everything that was said between the soldiers to the Headmaster and myself." He met that quirk of her brow with an unblinking, impassive look.

"We did send a team out, though. They came back empty-handed, but I wouldn't ignore what the cadets told us."

Quistis gave a small, thoughtful hum as she thought over his words. It was unsettling, of course, the news of these missile talks-- but while they were just rumors, there was also more pressing matters in the newsletter than needed to be discussed.

"What are we going to do about Seifer? With his presence in Garden clearly announced in the publication, I wouldn't doubt it that Trabia, Galbadia and Esthar will find out that here's here soon."

Count on her to want to discuss Seifer...

"It's not going to be good, that's for sure." Squall lowered his eyes to the top of his desk in thought. How many times now had he thought about this particular situation? The consequences of housing a criminal of war, and on a more personal level, a traitor.

"Do you think they'd press charges against him?" Quistis wondered out loud, her eyes lowering to the ground as she crossed her arms over her chest. It was a heavy price, housing a wanted criminal in their school, especially when they were supposed to be on neutral grounds. "If they want to press charges on him... what will you do?"

"It's bad enough that we're harboring him to begin with."

Squall leaned back in his chair, eyes averting to the side. Garden is supposed to be neutral in all of this; we have more important things to worry about other than Seifer being charged...

His eyes dragged back over to where Quistis remained standing, a thoughtful expression on her face. She seemed just as lost in thought as he did.

No matter what happens the Headmaster won't let Seifer go so easily either. We're standing at a lose/lose.

"Have you talked to the Headmaster about the matter?" She knew that Cid respected Squall's input on matters-- he was, after all, appointed Commander of Garden at such a young age on Cid's good faith. But even she could recognize that it was probably a lost cause to try and discuss Seifer's presence in the school with the Headmaster. "Maybe you--"

But before she could finish the statement, Quistis knew something was wrong. She couldn't quite pinpoint it-- it seemed as though everyone around her hand slowed down, the entire room tilting as a sense of vertigo overcame her. Even though she was standing completely still, the strange experience had her taking a staggering step forward, her hand reaching out to clutch at the back of the chair situated before Squall's desk.

Squall had been about to respond when he caught the unexpected and jerky movement across from him, leaning forward now in his chair. The sight of her hand grabbing onto the chair didn't escape his attention, now attentive and on her. "...Quistis?"

He stood from his chair and slowly came out from behind the desk, watching her the entire time.

What's going on..?

Her vision swam for a few more seconds before everything seemed to finally right itself. Blinking almost owlishly to shake off any possible lingering dizziness that might be clouding her mind, Quistis then stared down at the seat she was holding onto for a few brief moments before she caught the movement of Squall walking from around his desk and towards her in the corner of her eye.

"It's nothing..." She had been in the process of righting herself when her words trailed off as a crimson droplet fell onto the seat. Brows furrowed in confusion, Quistis immediately brought a hand up to brush at her nose, where she immediately spotted the smear of blood along her fingers when she brought them away to inspect. What was going on...?

"You're bleeding," he pointed out, eyes dropping to the droplet of blood on the seat and snapping back up to where it was smeared on her fingers. "That's not just 'nothing', Quistis."

Squall moved in closer, eyes rooted on the blood marring pale skin. He was beginning to wonder the same thing.

The sight of blood usually never bothered her, not when she had apprenticed with Kadowaki for a semester in her free time and had numbed herself down to the sight of blood-- it was rather common in their line of work. But for some reason the light smear of bright blood against her finger had Quistis feeling quite uneasy, though she tried her best not to let it show.

"I'm sure it's fine," Quistis mumbled, words slightly obscured with her hand now pressed to her nose. Quickly she reached for the box of tissues sitting on top of Squall's desk, holding it to her nose to catch the blood.

Seeing blood wasn't new to any of them, or at least it shouldn't have been after everything they'd gone through and the injuries each of them had sustained.

Squall watched the crimson spread along the tissue as it was caught. She should either sit down and wait it out, or at least see Kadowaki...

"Is this the first time it's happened?"

It can't be that dry in here.

Quistis shook her head as she tilted her head back just a touch to help with the nosebleed, her eyes drifting up towards the ceiling momentarily.

"No, this hasn't happened before," Her reply was muffled due to the tissue pressed to her nose. "Hyne, I can't even remember the last time I had a nosebleed."

Squall stayed close, leaning back into the desk, palms braced against the edge. He watched her while she dealt with the nosebleed. It must have been years then, or maybe when she was a kid...

He wasn't about to bring up the fact that he'd woken up a few times already in the past month alone with blood dried over his upper lip and cheek, the pillow caked with dark crimson. How it had even been possible, to sleep so heavily that a bleeding nose couldn't wake someone?

"How do you feel now?"

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