Dreaming of Summer
Day 119:
Quistis Trepe walks across the campus of
A gentle rise leads to the top of the earthen embankment that runs
the circumference of the grounds of the Garden, remnants of the crater that the
Galbadian missiles blasted during the attack on the Garden. During the
renovation of the school, trees had been planted at regular intervals; each of
them seeded using Esthar's advanced technology to temporarily accelerate
growth. The tree that Quistis has chosen to sit under is less than eighteen
months old yet already rises to over twenty feet, branches spreading wide to
provide shade in the late summer heat. Quistis sits down under the tree and
opens her laptop, powering it up and calling up her wireless link to the Garden
network. Her fingers fly over the keyboard, entering codes that her status as
Head Instructor entitled her to. Within half a minute she has accessed the
contract status files, where current on going SeeD contracts were monitored.
The only one she cares about is SeeD's primary concern, the Esthar contract.
The Esthar Government has contracted the bulk of SeeD to help deal with the
hordes of monsters unleashed on the already hostile plains that surround the
hidden city during the Lunar Cry. Dozens of new species of monster had fallen
from the stars during that apocalyptic moment, and SeeD was best equipped to
deal with this unknown threat. Or at least, Quistis thinks, that's the theory.
She takes a deep breath and pulls up the latest casualty figures for that day's
operations, dreading what she will read.
She reads the list of wounded first, sparing her the most
potential horror, going through lists of names of SeeDs injured in battle with
monsters from beyond the sky. Not finding his name there does not bring her
comfort. She sighs and turns to the thankfully shorter list of those killed in
action, reading each name there letter by letter, as if the name she seeks is
hidden somewhere in each letter. The name is not there. She reads the list
again, and again, as she has ever since Alpha Platoon, Bravo Company, Sixth
SeeD Battalion, mustered out into battle one hundred and seven days ago,
desperate to be certain.
His name is not there.
Quistis closes her eyes and rests her forehead against the liquid
crystal display of her laptop. "Eric," she whispers, relief flooding
her.
Day 10:
It is the resumption of her teaching schedule that begins it for
Quistis, although the feelings were already there, buried, she realizes, in the
morass of denial that serves her as a defense.
As Head Instructor, it is her job to personally conduct, at least
in part, the orientation for all SeeD candidates either new to the Garden
system or to
He's so small, Quistis thought, studying the youth who sat, ramrod
straight, in the seat across from her.
He was actually a little bit taller than she was, but in terms of
his build, he was whipcord thin, hardly the sort that one expected to wield any
kind of weapons. His hair fell into his face in such a fashion that it gave him
an air of being fragile, as if he would break if too much pressure were placed
on him. His eyes, she was forced to admit, were beautiful, and she imagined
that the girls here would quite heavily pursue him. Assuming he was not already
with the raven haired, loud-mouthed girl who went everywhere he did, irritating
people at a range of one hundred feet. The Disciplinary Committee, Quistis
suspected, was going to have its hands full with Aiko Hayashibara. "Eric
Alfredsson," she began, looking at his file on the monitor of her desktop
computer. "Weapons classification, edged weapons, specializing in swords.
Magic classification is Alpha user, Junction and GF skills very high."
"Yes, ma 'am," Eric said calmly.
Cool customer, she thought. "You were born in Galbadia, in
"Thank you, Head Instructor."
"I'm not that much of a stickler for details, Eric. I don't
care if you call me Instructor Trepe, or even by my name if you're comfortable
with it."
Eric thought about it. "I think I'll stick with Instructor
Trepe, ma 'am. I'm not terribly comfortable with being informal with my instructors."
Which was true, Quistis knew; Eric had only come out of his formal
shell to any extent by the time he had graduated, the night that he had
surprised her at the Nest by coming to find her. He had been perfectly formal
with her, calm and level-headed, until they had gone to Dollet after Aileen
Navarre, which was when everything had gone odd. She remembers the way Eric had
dealt with her with a professionalism that bespoke of his discipline, and,
strangely, the thing that had most impressed her was the only thing that broke
his discipline: how he dealt with Aiko.
Day 119:
Quistis closes the casualty report and accesses her e-mail in-box,
not shocked to find seven different ones from Selphie Tilmitt -the girl lives
on-line since she and Irvine split up, Quistis knows-and rather surprised to
see one listed under "Aiko 0121". Puzzled, Quistis selects that one,
and reads it, smiling unwittingly.
To: Quisty
From: Aiko
Re: He's gonna kill me!
Quisty!
Hiya! We just debriefed from the last operation that we're
assigned to, so that means tomorrow we move out to Esthar and the Tilmitt
(groan) flies us back. He'll kill me for this, but Eric is so excited to be
going back-I swear he's never acted like this before. Hope you can handle him…
Later!
Aiko
Quistis deletes the mail, out of a sense of honor toward Aiko. She
hadn't thought much of Aiko until the affair in Dollet, where while she was the
weakest of the three SeeDs there, she had fought as hard as Eric and Quistis.
Now she did not quite consider Aiko to be a friend, but the possibility was
there. It is widely held in SeeD that Eric's devotion to Aiko will cost him as
a SeeD, yet Quistis does not agree. Eric and Aiko were two parts of a whole, a
friendship rare in the world between two teenagers of the opposite sex, and
without Aiko, Eric wouldn't be the same. Even if they had hidden secrets about
their power from SeeD.
Day 21:
Squall Leonhart has a tendency to make certain that the love of
his life, Rinoa Heartilly, wasn't around whenever he had to do something
unpleasant. As Combat Master of SeeD, he makes so many unpleasant decisions
that Quistis wonders whenever he and Rinoa find time to be together. Then she
it occurs to her when it can happen and she locks that thought away. Squall
sits behind his desk, a place that Quistis finds does not suit him, and his
manner is as stern as ever. "Quistis, what do you propose that we do to
Eric and Aiko for what they did?" he asks.
Now that's a loaded question, Quistis thinks. "I assume you
refer to their hidden powers. Aiko's teleportation and Eric's energy
deathblows." Squall nodded. "And what's the issue?"
"Quistis, they hid their true power from us. Who knows what
else they're hiding?"
Quistis has already considered this, and in fact knows that Eric
is hiding things from them. During the confusion of the day that they had
chased Aileen Navarre around Dollet, Quistis had asked Eric a question about
his family. In the course of his answer he had said that his mother was dead.
Later, wrapped up in the confusion that Aileen's presence had caused in her,
she had unwittingly asked about his mother again. This time he had said his
mother was alive. Quistis had not realized what he had said until Eric had
already left, but she knew that there was reason to doubt Eric. But still ….
"You should have thought of that before you sent them to Esthar,
Squall."
"I sent them to Esthar to attempt to quantify their power,
Quistis. Seifer and Zell are down there, and can handle them if they can't be
trusted."
Quistis glares at Squall. "Damnit, Squall, Eric and Aiko
risked their lives to help defeat Aileen, and this is how you repay them?"
"Quistis, I have all of SeeD to consider. They helped you,
that's true, yet…"
Quistis stands up. "I can't believe you. The Garden Masters
strip-mined my mind and hid it from everyone and all you can care about is
playing by their rules!"
Squall seems taken aback by Quistis' vehemence. Privately, Quistis
is as well. "Quistis, this isn't easy for me to say…" he offers.
"I'm sure it isn't, Squall." Inside, her thoughts are a
maelstrom of confusion. I should agree with him totally, she thinks. Eric's
power is dangerous, and he has lied to me, about his mother. Yet part of her
rages at what Squall is saying. That rage causes her to lash out. "Well,
if it's powers that we don't know the limits of, guess we had better send Rinoa
down there next."
Squall jumps to his feet. " I don't think I like what you're
saying, Quistis."
"You aren't supposed to. Just don't think you're fooling me,
Squall. I can understand how it's easy to be selfish."
Squall thinks about it. "And what are you being selfish
over?" he asked, logically enough.
And for that Quistis has no answer.
Day 119:
Quistis is brought from her reverie by the roar of the scramjet
engines of the Ragnarok as it soars overhead, the pilot, most likely Selphie,
putting the crimson aerospace craft through a roll as it passes over the
Garden. She knows that the Ragnarok, refitted as a troop carrier for sixty troops,
is delivering the current crop of SeeDs to the Esthar camp and bringing back
those who have completed their four month tour of duty to Balamb. Most of those
returning will probably go back to Esthar, due to the size of the threat of the
monsters. This thought saddens Quistis.
She wishes that she had not said what she did to Squall, to say
that his love for Rinoa blinded him to the potential threat the young sorceress
could pose. She knows better than that, how much it bothers Squall that Rinoa
could become an enemy, and yet she still said it. She worries about the little
things as much as she does the major issues, always has, and in many ways, it's
the little things that cut deeper with her. Quistis sighs, knowing that sooner
or later she will have to face Rinoa, face her with the knowledge that she cast
such aspersions on her. She finds that she is at times hard on Rinoa, perhaps
because she is a trained soldier and she will always view Rinoa as an amateur.
The small part of her that still nags at her over the fact that Rinoa broke
through the shell that Squall had built around himself tries to say something
about that, but she quiets it. Squall is not a concern now.
Eric is.
Day 76:
It is actually a conversation with someone who isn't there that
helps Quistis make some sense of the emotions that are raging within her.
Xu has been with the Esthar contingent since the contract began,
which has deprived Quistis of one of her closest friends and one of the few
people that she can actually talk to about herself. She realizes now that Xu
filled the void that had entered her life when Aileen had been killed, although
she did not realize until recently that there had been a void. Xu contacts her
infrequently via video messaging, usually when Quistis is working in her office
after classes. She is doing just that when the monitor of her computer lights
up with a message notice. Quistis takes the message without paying it much
heed, and so is a bit surprised when Xu's image pops up on her monitor.
"Hey, Quistis," Xu says, "still working hard?"
"Trying to," she admits, removing the glasses that she
so rarely wears. She rubs her eyes and says," How's it going?"
"It could be better," Xu admits. "The monsters here
are so much stronger than most-it's like that place you guys found, the Island
Closest to Heaven. Everything is a Level 100 monster."
"Sounds rough. How's Zell holding up?"
Xu smiles. "Oh, you know Zell. He thinks that every problem
can be solved my hitting it really hard. Seifer's lucky-he's got that hot shot
Alfredsson kid running point for him." Something must have changed about
her expression, because Xu suddenly leans closer to the screen, positively
beaming. "Ah-ha, so it's true, isn't it?" she says.
"What's true?" Quistis asks, going on the defensive.
"I had heard that someone had melted your heart, a swordsman
of amazing power. Didn't put much credence in it, since you're so duty bound,
yet that look you gave me when I said his name…" Xu giggles. "Good
for you!"
"Back up, Xu. You're getting a little ahead of yourself. It's
true that Eric helped me defeat poor Aileen, but come on, we aren't an
item." She tries not to think about the kiss they shared the night before
Eric shipped out for Esthar, or the quick little kiss he got in before she
could quite stop him. She tries not to think about how she had laid awake that
night, her very blood boiling, wishing that he was there with her. "Eric's
a friend, and I owe him my life. Nothing more."
Xu considers this. "Quistis, you still can't lie to me. You
can do it to other people, even yourself, but I always see through you. Now,
tell me what you're really thinking."
Quistis sighs. Xu is a friend-for some reason, as dearly as she
cherishes Selphie and Rinoa's friendship, she can't talk to them about this-and
she finds she needs a friend at the moment. "Xu," she begins,
reluctantly, "it's just that the whole Aileen business took two days! Oh,
I was Eric's teacher for months, but I didn't treat him any differently than his
classmates. And suddenly he's all I can think about, and he's been gone for
months and all I do is think about him. I check the casualty reports every day
scared I'm going to see his name there and I can't figure out why." The
last came out in a single breath, her heart emptying as fast as she speaks.
"I really don't know him, Xu. Why do I care so much?"
Xu considers it, then says, "I would like to welcome you to
the human race, Quistis Trepe."
"And just what does that mean?" Quistis asks, a bit
stridently.
"It means that you're attracted to Eric Alfredsson. You got
close to him and found something you liked and you are scared that he'll die or
come back with a girlfriend…am I right?" Quistis nodded. "Thought so.
You always magnify and internalize the little things."
"Little things? Xu, I've never felt like this before! How
could it be little?"
"Quistis, I can't really explain it, but look-I think your
problem might be that you're mistaking desire for love. I see it in your eyes,
girl-you are seriously attracted to this guy. But you've twisted it up for some
reason and you think it can't be love if you hardly know him. Well, Quistis,
love has to start somewhere. Attraction is the foundation of love, the thing
that draws one's eye-but it doesn't always mean love. Wanting to jump Eric's
bones doesn't mean you have to marry him."
Quistis blushes. "Xu!"
Xu sweeps in for the kill. "So you do want to jump his
bones!"
Quistis fancies that she is bright red from head to toe. "Xu,
stop it!" Xu is grinning ear to ear at her. "Look, Xu, I already
talked to Eric about this. He was the one that admitted there was some kind of
attraction, but it was too soon to get into it."
"Oh, so basically, you overreacted again, didn't you,
Quistis?"
"Not completely. I-I can't explain it to you. Let me explain
it to Eric at least, okay?" Xu agrees, and after a few more moments of
inconsequential conversation, she signs off, leaving Quistis alone with her
thoughts. What they are she keeps to herself.
Day 119:
Quistis looks around and realizes that the sun is beginning to
fall towards the horizon, which means that she has been out here, lost in her
thoughts, for quite some time. She closes her laptop and rises, stretching her
arms over her head. Tomorrow, she thinks, tomorrow is the day. She walks down the
hill and into the campus, her wait nearly over.
Day 120:
Eric Alfredsson's day begins with Selphie Tilmitt greeting him
with far too much enthusiasm as he, Aiko Hayashibara, and Kai Hallen board the
Ragnarok at Esthar Airstation.
Not that Selphie is not normally enthusiastic; in fact, she is the
living embodiment of energetic, a hyper-cute fireball who is always in motion,
always "up" if you will. She is waiting for them at the head of the
rampway, dressed in her normal mode of a way too short dress and knee high
boots, although things have changed in the past four months, Eric sees. Her
hair has developed enough blonde streaks that her hair seems to have changed
color, and she seems to be letting it grow straighter, getting rid of the
little "wings" she once had. Eric finds he approves. "Hi
there!" she says, giving all of them a wave. "Hey, Kai, "she
cries, immediately disproving Eric's theory for why Selphie is there: confusing
both him and Aiko, she gives Kai a hug that practically cracks the youth's spine.
"I've seen you on so many screens I never thought I'd really see
you!"
Kai seems nearly mortified by the attention as Selphie releases
him. "Uh, hi, Selphie. Yeah, I guess I did see you a lot when I was
sending all the combat reports to the computers at Balamb-you're always
on-line."
"Well, I'm a busy girl, you know." She turns towards
Eric. "Hi. You're Eric, right. That Eric." The way she
emphasizes "that" reconfirms his theory of why she is here.
" Which Eric is that?" he asks guilelessly as a few more
SeeDs straggle into the combat bay of the Ragnarok.
"Oh, you know," Selphie practically sings. "Don't
worry, I'll get you back soon enough, killer." She playfully digs an elbow
into his ribs, then walks away in her going everywhere at once manner.
Aiko sighs. "Lord I hate that girl," she says to no one
in particular.
Eric is about to say something when he notices that Kai is
watching Selphie with an expression of what Kai probably hopes is well-hidden
interest. I misread him, Eric thinks. He wasn't mortified by Selphie hugging
him-he was scared to death. I think Kai has a crush on somebody. Well, good
luck, kid, he thinks. "Come on, guys. Let's get settled in. Still got to
fly to Balamb Garden."
Aiko smiles. "Where destiny awaits," she intones gravely,
eyes sparkling with mirth.
Eric is sitting on one of the combat bay's benches about an hour
later, his sword, Grieving Angel, laying on top of his duffle bag at his feet
when Aiko, who has been wandering the Ragnarok, most likely against
regulations, sits down beside of him. "Hi, Eric-getting nervous yet?"
she asks him.
"What do I have to be nervous about, Aiko?"
Aiko leans closer to him. During her stay at Esthar, she has cut
her long hair to a length more manageable for combat, and strands of it fall into
her face. "Eric, I've known you since we both were nine, and you
absolutely can not lie to me. You're going to Balamb to see Quistis."
"I'm going to Balamb for R&R, not just for Quistis."
Eric closes his eyes. "Yes, you know I want to see her again. But I don't
have a thing to be nervous about. This is just like a battle-keep your mind on
your objective and you'll be fine."
Aiko looks around and makes certain that none of the forty SeeDs
returning to Balamb with them are paying attention to their conversation before
she says, "Little brother, if you think love is like war, you should be
nervous."
Aiko rarely calls him "little brother" these days; the
circumstances under which she started calling him that are long gone now. She
usually only calls him that now to catch his attention. "And what exactly
do you mean, Aiko?"
"I mean that war is about defeating the opponent. Love is
about surrendering to a person, war's diametrical opposite."
Eric considers this. "In what way?"
"Perhaps surrender is the wrong word, Eric. In combat, you
cannot accept the situations that the enemy places you in. In love, you have to
accept that the person that you love is a different person, one whom you have
to accommodate." Aiko leans back. "Or some thing like that."
"Aiko, I don't love Quistis."
"Didn't say you did. But you could love her. You got severely
attracted to her in Dollet."
Eric thinks about it, thinks about how every night, as he slept
the sleep of an exhausted warrior, the last thing that he saw was Quistis, and
how she has assumed an importance wholly at odds with the amount of time that
he was involved with her as a comrade. He remembers the rumors that had sprung
up when he had been seen with her at the Nest the night of the inauguration
party, and how they had seemed to come true in a day. Mostly, he thinks of the
kiss that they shared the night before he had left for Esthar, the one Quistis
had asked for and that he would have given her anyway. "I could fall in
love with her, Aiko. She's so beautiful, not that beauty is everything."
"Speak for yourself, hotshot," Aiko says, batting her
eyelashes at him.
Eric presses on. "She-there's this girl inside of her, a
little lost and insecure, and she hides it so well. And when I saw it in her, I
just felt this urge to protect her."
"Oh, dear, Eric. If you go in there telling her you want to
protect her, you'll come back with your heart in a sling. Girls like Quistis
hate to admit their weaknesses."
"And you know this because you're like that?" Most
people think of Aiko as being a force of nature, a wild, unstoppable joker and
the definition of confidence. Eric knows better. "Look, it's probably a
moot point anyway. I'm three years younger than her- "
"Two years and seven months" Aiko corrected. "Kai
pulled her file for me once when we first got to Balamb. Her birthday's in
October and yours is in May."
"Whatever." Eric lets a touch of exasperation come out
in his voice, and Aiko decides that she's pushed him far enough. "And I've
been gone for four months. Whatever we felt for a moment probably died weeks
ago."
Aiko playfully musses his hair. "Whatever happens, happens,
right? Just remember that I'm here if you need me."
"Thanks." And the thing is, for almost ten years, Aiko
has been there for him, just as he has been for her. With them, those aren't
hollow words. They are silent on the subject of Quistis for the remainder of
the journey to Balamb Garden; Eric in fact sleeping for the last hour they are
airborne. He has not been a soldier for long, yet he has already learned to
sleep whenever he finds the opportunity.
Eric realizes that things are not going to go normally when he
spots Rinoa Heartilly, her dog Angelo beside of her, waiting on the edge of
Balamb Garden's airfield. She is scanning the crowd of SeeDs as they disembark
from the Ragnarok, and Eric is not surprised when her eyes find him. "Oh,
damn," Eric says as Rinoa and her pet begin walking over to them.
"Well, well," Aiko says, "the princess herself. Didn't think she
slummed with us grunts."
Eric shoots Aiko a glare as Rinoa stops in front of him. Angelo
eyes Eric warily, as if uncertain of his intentions towards his mistress. Eric
lifts a hand and gently pets the dog on his head. "You shouldn't pet a
strange dog, you know," Rinoa says.
"He's supposed to be pretty well trained, Miss Heartilly.
Thought it was worth the risk." Judging by how Angelo's tail is wagging,
it seems that Eric has won the dog over. "What does the Combat Master want
with me?"
Rinoa appears genuinely confused for a second. "Squall? Oh,
no, he didn't send me. This is my own business."
"You go, lady killer," Aiko whispers in his ear.
Eric sometimes wishes Aiko was not so sarcastic. This is one of
those times. " And that would be?" he asks Rinoa.
Rinoa leans closer to him, her hands clasped behind her back.
"I bet you're going to go see Quistis, right?"
Aiko stifles a laugh behind her hand. Eric decides that he needed
to stay in bed today. "I may be," he replies with some dignity.
Rinoa's smile could have lit a dark room. "Thought so.
Anyway, at this time of day, Quistis lately has gone to the same place. Every
day for weeks, actually. And it's not her usual one, either."
"Really," Eric says in a tone bordering on boredom.
"Really. She goes to the hill behind the Garden, overlooking
the, ah…oh, yeah, the maintenance buildings on the north side of the
campus."
"And how do you know this?"
Rinoa takes a step back, seeming a little embarassed. "Uh,
well, one day I followed her. Just a bit concerned, that's all."
Eric finds that Rinoa is being terribly endearing. A great many
people in SeeD aren't fond of Rinoa, for a variety of reasons, chief among them
the fact that she is a sorceress. Some people hate her simply because, as far
as Eric can tell, she's a nice person. Eric finds this ridiculous. "Well,
thank you, Miss Heartilly. I suppose I can look into it." Aiko snickers at
this. Eric turns and hands her his duffle bag. "Could you take this to my
quarters, Aiko?"
"Do I have to?" Aiko whines.
"Don't make me make it an order."
Aiko takes the duffle bag. "Well, okay. But only because I
like you." She slings Eric's bag over her shoulder and walks off with the
sort of attention getting strut that makes men worship her. Or so she says.
"That's Aiko Hayashibara, right?" Rinoa asks. Eric nods.
"I'd heard she was a handful, but I didn't believe it." She turns to
Eric. " Well, I gotta run-can't spend all my time helping the lovelorn.
C'mon, Angelo." She runs across the tarmac of the airfield, escaping
before Eric can make any sort of reply. Eric watches her go and wonders, not
for the first time, what can possibly happen next.
Eric walks out between the two maintenance buildings and at once
feels as if he has just walked out into the field of fire of a sniper.
Quistis is there, sitting beneath one of the trees that were
planted by Esthar during the accelerated rebuilding of the Garden complex; his
keen eyes discern that she is wearing her teacher's uniform, which he supposes
is a good thing. Since he is in uniform, perhaps he can maintain a professional
manner, even though his heart is beating so fast that he feels as if he might
faint. Of course, he thinks, she looks rather nice in her uniform, so perhaps
this is a no-win situation. He realizes that he has stood motionless, beneath
Quistis' gaze, for over half a minute, and he sighs. I'm one of the strongest
fighters in the world-Seifer himself said so, he thinks. Why am I so scared?
That thought sets him to moving up the hill, the weight of Grieving Angel over
his shoulder pressing on him like the weight of the world. He reaches the top
of the hill and for the first time in one hundred and twenty days, speaks to
Quistis. "Hello," he says, somewhat anti-climatically.
Quistis peers up at him and smiles. "Hello, Eric. How did you
find me out here?"
"Ah, well, I'd rather not say. Someone did point me this way,
but I'd like to keep their identity a secret."
"Must have been Rinoa. I saw her following me a few weeks
back-she tries hard but she's not much of a soldier."
"The world has enough soldiers," Eric says
philosophically.
"True." Quistis pats the ground beside of her with a
hand. "Are you going to stand all day, Eric?" She hopes that the calm
veneer she is projecting will hold, because she is resisting an urge to leap into
his arms and cover his face with kisses. Somewhere she fancies she can hear Xu
laughing.
Eric undoes the belt that holds the sheath for his sword and lays
it down on the ground, then sits beside of Quistis. Her presence, so close to
him, threatens to overwhelm him. How? He thinks. How did I get so fond of her
when she wasn't there? He opens his mouth to say something casual and cool and
is therefore surprised when he says "I missed you."
"Did you now?" she replies, glad that he started it off.
She can see that he has been gripped by the same confusion that felled her,
that filled her heart and drove her to desperately checking the casualty lists.
She finds this pleasing.
"Yes," he says, not looking at her. "When we were
in battle, when we fought the monsters, all I thought about was fighting. I was
trained to fight by my father before I joined SeeD, so that's nothing new. But
when the day was done, when the de-briefings were done and the reports all
filed, all I could think about was you. What you were doing, where you were,
all of it. Just…thinking about you. And I tried to tell myself that I had no
reason to do so, that what we felt at most was a physical attraction, most
likely caused by the stress of that day, but I couldn't convince myself of it.
You have driven me crazy for four months and I wish I knew why."
Quistis looks at her feet, her toes making nervous patterns in the
grass. "Maybe it's because the same thing happened to me. When you left, I
said to myself 'All right, Quistis, he's gone, so you can get on with your life
and see what happens when he gets back.' Only it wasn't that way, Eric. You
kept getting into my head, and I did my best to deny it. I couldn't reconcile
the fact that we barely knew each other personally with the fact that I was scared
that you would die in Esthar. That's why I started coming up here, because I
wanted to read the casualty reports and if you had been hurt or killed, I
didn't know how I'd take it." Eric seems stunned. "I have had a lot
of time to think about this, Eric. Probably too much. I'm afraid of all the
implications of becoming so attracted to you so quickly, and of becoming so
fond of you when you were gone."
Eric nearly jumps out of his skin, hearing the same thought he had
just had being spoken by Quistis. "I think I understand," he tells
her. "And your conclusions?"
"I was afraid to let it become what I think it might become,
that I could dare to love you." That was what she could not tell Xu, the
thought that had haunted her for all of Eric's absence. It isn't being
attracted to him, she thinks ,that bothered me. It is the fact that it could
lead to love. "I thought in terms of attraction, in terms of time that we
knew each other, of how we met. But what I decided was that I was going to open
my heart to you…and I was scared that you wouldn't feel the same way." She
raises a hand as if to interrupt a thought. "I'm not saying I love you,
Eric. I'm just willing to entertain the possibility. And if you don't want
to…."
Eric leans over, his hands going to her face, and he kisses
Quistis for an answer. All told he thinks it's a good one. He breaks the kiss
and says " I think you're saying you want to get to know me better,
right?"
"That's what it boils down to. I guess I do overreact to the
little things." She rests her head on his shoulder. "Eric, what was
your first impression of me? The first thing you thought?"
"You probably don't want to hear the real first thing I
thought," Eric admits.
"Never give a girl a line like that. She'll bother you until
you give up and tell her what she wants to hear."
Eric sighs. Me and my big mouth, he thinks. He takes a deep breath
and plunges in. "Well, it was when I met you in your office. What I
thought was 'So, that's the legendary Quistis Trepe.'"
"I like the sound of that. So what was so bad about
that?"
"The rest of my thought. Which was 'man, she's got a killer
body."" Quistis laughs. "Well, uh, you do, you know."
"Thank you." She kisses his cheek. "You want to get
going? You just got home, you know."
Eric got to his feet, collecting Grieving Angel before offering
his hand to Quistis, pulling her up beside of him. He has dreamed of this day,
dreamed of summer and coming home to Quistis, that he can't help but wonder if
he's still dreaming. As they walk down the hill, Quistis asks him "So,
what do you want to do tonight?"
Eric smiles. "I have some ideas but they're probably
premature, aren't they?"
"Bad boy." They walk out between the buildings, Quistis
still holding his hand. Eric lifts their joined hands and says, half in jest,
"You know, when people see this, they're likely to talk."
Quistis leans over and kisses him. "Let them talk, Eric. Let
them."
And for once Eric finds he does not care what people say.