Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"There it is!" Selphie yelled as the group crested a hill a few miles from the rebuilt Trabia Garden.

"And now it knows where we are, too," Squall grumbled as he readied his gunblade. "Thanks, Selph."

"Let's get this over with," Zell commented as he bounced in front of Squall. "It's cold out here."

Squall didn't reply - he was too busy looking at the monster. It was definitely unique enough that he was glad Trabia Garden had called him out specially. The thing had apparently already injured several of their students and they wanted it quickly exterminated.

"Try to draw from it," Selphie suggested as she waved her nunchaku around to try to get its attention. "Zell and I will hold it off. Maybe it has a GF within it or something."

"Do you think it's from the Lunar Cry?" Zell asked. "What is it?"

"I don't know," Squall said with a frown. He cocked his gunblade. "I'll try to draw. But... I'll shoot if you two have any trouble."

"Us? Trouble?" Zell said with a grin. "You're talking to professionals."

"Professionals who aren't wearing long pants in the snow."

"Oooh, not fair," Selphie declared.

The monster attacked.

Squall was surprised at what he found when he tried to draw from the beast - he could hear Shiva whispering to him but he couldn't understand her. There was just power but he kept trying even as Zell pummeled the creature. Whatever spells he was receiving, he was compressing and compacting and holding inside until the monster managed to knock Selphie down.

She staggered up, but not before Squall unleashed a volley of slashes and shots.

The beast went down almost immediately, twitching for a second before stopping.

"So what is it?" Zell asked as he kicked the thing.

It turned to dust and crumbled into a tiny pile a second later, before Squall could even open his mouth to gape.

"Dust," Selphie said with a frown. "What kind of weird creature does that?"

"Something magic," Squall said. "But there's no way to know when it was created. Unless another one turns up, I don't think we need to worry about a sorceress."

"We should report back," Zell said. "Mostly because it's cold out here."

"So did you get anything from it?" Selphie asked. "Spells?"

"Something," Squall admitted. "I just don't know what."

"Why don't you try casting it?" Selphie questioned.

"Not out here, not without knowing what it does," Zell said as he bounced around in front of her. "We were all taught that years ago - never unleash anything that you don't know what it is and aren't sure you can do anything about."

"Zell," Selphie said sharply. "Different Garden... But yeah, you're right."

"Shiva hasn't complained too much," Squall said. "But she's probably just enjoying the weather right now and not worrying about all the magic I've given her. I was expecting someone to get injured."

Selphie pointed at her leg. "Totally freezer burn."

"Pants," Squall suggested. "Seriously, I have no idea why I'm the only one dressed for the weather."

"I still want to know what you managed to draw," Zell said. "Is Ellone still in Balamb with her White SeeDs? Maybe she and Rinoa could take a look at it."

"If anyone asks again, I'll cast it on them," Squall warned.

For a few minutes, they walked in silence.

"Hey, Selphie?" Zell asked once Trabia Garden came into view.

"What?" Selphie replied.

"Does the cafeteria have..."

Selphie hit him with a snowball.

"Hey!" Zell tried to lob one back but missed and hit Squall. A handful of students saw them approaching and came running over.

But by then, the fight was on.

"You'll be right back," Squall whispered softly as he un-junctioned Shiva. He knew the summon spirit was upset, but Rinoa was not like Ellone and couldn't just pop into his head to see what was rolling around in it. Ellone said that she'd spent quite a bit of time talking to Shiva and that neither of them knew what the mysterious spell was.

Still, Rinoa had insisted on giving it a try. Squall didn't mind - Rinoa had more than a few back-memories of various sorts of magic that definitely weren't her own and he hoped that something might seem familiar to her.

During the time Ellone had spent with Shiva, Squall had been unconscious by necessity. However, with Rinoa, he was awake and sitting anxiously beside her while she frowned and puzzled.

"Ah... no," she muttered. Squall rubbed his temples. He felt ridiculously empty. His head was clear and crisp and he felt like new-fallen snow except without the delightful ice that he normally was comforted by. Strange, really, how he had gotten so used to having another creature living within him, feeding on his memories as he happily gave them. While many of the other SeeDs unjunctioned their GFs for shared use, Shiva belonged to him alone. And he was fairly sure that she felt the same way.

...in love with the voice in his head, he thought to himself as he glanced over at Rinoa again.

She was wincing and shaking her head.

"Sorry, sorry," she murmured as she began the process to return Shiva to him.

The familiar fullness was wonderful and Squall smiled for a moment before turning his attention to Rinoa. He could hear Shiva very softly saying something, but the words were muddled and unclear. Maybe someday he'd really be able to hear her, but the sacrifice...

"I think you should cast it," Rinoa said. "Maybe in the Training Center or something, where no one's going to get hurt if it's a massive fireball spell or something really strange."

"Not alone," Squall said firmly. "I'd want you there, and Ellone and probably Zell and Selphie since they want to see."

"This evening?" Rinoa suggested. "When the Training Center is empty of students..."

"Sounds good," Squall replied. "And if you'll excuse me, I have a report to begin about the entire expedition, including Selphie's freezer burn and the snowball fight and the auto-pilot acting up on the way home, even if Zell managed to fix it."

Rinoa smiled.

Squall was just happy to have Shiva back where she belonged.

"Stand back," Squall said as he prepared to cast the mystery spell. "All I've managed to learn about this is that it has some sort of echo effect."

"Echo effect?" Selphie asked. "Like how?"

"I don't know," Ellone said from beside her. "All I could get from it was that it was some sort of loop or repeat or echo. And that might just be an after-effect, not what it actually does. It might be a series of fireblasts, for example."

"Well, now's as good as time as any," Zell commented.

"We're all ready," Rinoa said. "I have a selection of water-based spells."

"I have electrical spells and fire magic."

"I've got healing and about everything else," Selphie chirped. "You're covered. Go for it!"

"Fine," Squall said as he took a deep breath. Shiva was saying something. He was tempted to summon her instead in hopes that she'd tell the others what she was trying to tell him.

He cast.

Throughout his entire body, he felt the spell like a ripple. It coursed through him and back out, streaking along invisible lines until it faded. But there was no visible effect. In front of him, the dim vegetation of the Training Center was unchanged.

"Er, Squall?" Selphie asked a few seconds later.

"I don't know," Squall replied. "I felt it, but it didn't do anything. It wasn't a healing spell or a speed spell or anything."

"Something happened," Rinoa said in a strange, detached manner. "Something happened..."

"I agree," Ellone stated. "There was some effect but it doesn't seem to have altered anything. I think it's something best left alone."

"I'll remove the spell in the morning," Squall said with a nod. "And I'll put it in the vault where no one can get to it. Maybe at some point I can take it to Esthar and see what their scientists make of it."

Everyone nodded, a little disappointed that nothing truly exciting had happened.

"Are you feeling okay?" Ellone asked as they stepped into the hallway.

"Fine," Squall said. "A little silly, though."

"If anything - anything at all happens, I want you to come to me," she said as she pulled Squall into a rather undignified hug. "If Shiva isn't upset by it and if you're feeling okay, I'm going to try not to worry, but..."

"Everything's fine," Squall said. It really was - Shiva's chatter had died down and he thought that she might possibly be relaxing for the first time in a very long time.

"Then get some rest," Ellone said with a smile. "You have that report to finish tomorrow, don't you?"

Squall frowned. Yes, yes he did. And he was not looking forward to it because now he had to add in several paragraphs describing the very unexciting spell that did nothing.

Once back in his room, he didn't give it any more thought.

But as he was falling asleep, he thought he heard a very distinct voice...

"Fifty-three..."

Chapter Text

"Fifty-three?" Squall asked himself as he yawned and stretched. It was still dark, and he didn't know why the number was on his lips.

Wait - that was the sum of the mystery spell that he'd drawn from the mystery creature that had turned to dust when it had been killed... minus one. Because he'd cast it. He'd be locking up fifty-three applications of a spell that did nothing once he got dressed and had breakfast.

But who had said it - someone had said...

"Shiva?" he asked out loud. But there was no reply. She was there, and she was... smiling. She was watching, almost amused. Squall wasn't used to her being so docile.

He knew he had heard her voice.

"Oh, fine," he grumbled as he pulled off his sleep clothes and headed for the shower.

He turned the water on and closed the curtain, choosing to stare at himself in the mirror for just a second. Everything else seemed normal - hair sticking up all over from being asleep, scar where it was supposed to be, ears on the correct sides of head... Nothing to worry about. And he felt fine - a little hungry and a little not-quite-awake but that was perfectly normal.

After locking up the mystery spell and reporting in to Ellone, he'd finish the report and maybe head in to Balamb to look at a few possible gunblade modifications and order some office supplies - they were perilously low on staplers for some reason.

The water was the perfect temperature when Squall climbed under it. He had the wonderful feeling that it was going to be a very good day.

A half-hour later, dressed properly in his uniform and with a cup of coffee in hand, Squall passed Quistis in the hallway.

"Good morning!" she said as she waved.

"Morning," Squall replied with an echoing wave.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she said as she stopped. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"What happened to your aide?" Squall asked curiously. Ever since Quistis had returned to teaching, she'd been running an intensive honors course and part of her stipulations involved having an aide available for assistance grading papers.

"She sprained her wrist against a pack of Grats," Quistis explained with an eyeroll. "At least you never did that. But she can't do any writing for at least another week."

"I should be free this afternoon," Squall said before he'd fully thought about it. "Bring me a stack and I'll work on them."

"History of political strife on the Galbadian continent?" Quistis questioned.

"Sure," he replied. He didn't really need anything from Balamb, after all. Other than staplers.

"Thanks, Squall - er, Commander," she said. "Knew I could count on you."

"Yeah... Have you seen Ellone? I need to let her know that there weren't any strange effects from that spell."

"Haven't seen her," Quistis answered. "But if I see her, I'll let her know that you're looking for her."

"Thanks," Squall said. And then he headed off down the hallway to his office. In order to put something into the vault, he had to fill out paperwork. And then file that paperwork with his report on the Trabia mission. He'd probably have to get statements from Ellone and Rinoa about the mysterious spell. He wondered if he'd need a comment from Shiva, even if she wasn't talking.

Unlocking his door, he wondered if he even knew where the vault paperwork was. As often as someone had inquired about finding him a secretary, he always refused. If he really needed something, he'd call Xu. Xu knew her way around his office as well as he did, and she could probably do something about the staplers as well.

Squall set his coffee down on his desk and started in the first file cabinet.

An hour later, Squall had papercuts on three of his fingers and his coffee was long-since cold. He'd been through every file cabinet in his office, both his desk drawers, and was beginning to contemplate if such a form really did exist or if he was just making it up for the sake of his report.

When in doubt, he figured, call Xu.

Xu answered her phone on the third ring. Within a minute, she arrived, located the form, and was on her way.

And Squall still had cold coffee. But he couldn't complain - Shiva had begun to softly speak to him and it put him at ease.

Just as he touched his pen to the form, there was a knock at his office door.

"Come in, Sis," he called. No one else he knew would knock, after all. Xu hadn't even said a word to him other than 'here'.

"Quistis said you were looking for me," Ellone said quickly as she entered and closed the door again. "Are you okay?"

"I think so," Squall replied. "I don't feel weird and I slept okay. Xu just came and found a form for me and didn't say anything about me suddenly growing horns."

"You'd be cute with horns," Ellone said with a giggle. "So you just wanted to let me know you're okay?"

"Actually, if you wouldn't mind writing out a statement for the report I have to write about all of this..."

"Can I sit at your desk to do it?" she asked, interrupting.

"Sure," Squall said as he stood and began to walk around the desk. "I need to un-junction Shiva and..."

He frowned. Ellone frowned.

"I can't," he said. "I can't remove Shiva."

"Echo," Ellone said in a hollow voice. She seemed to be looking more through Squall than at him. "Whatever that spell was, even if it didn't do anything, it needs to run its course. Then you'll be able to remove Shiva, but the spell will be gone."

"Then I don't need that form Xu found for me," Squall said. He was not happy about letting a random unknown spell run its course even if it didn't seem to be doing anything. He didn't like that it was so personal, at least.

"If you need more pages," Ellone said as she snapped back to her normal composure, "Zell is going to draw a picture of the monster so I can take it to the Estharian scientists and scholars. I took a look at it in his memories, but I can't very well drag those in to show off."

Squall chuckled. "It'll fill space."

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Sis. I promise that if anything happens, you'll be the first one I call."

Ellone nodded and seated herself at Squall's desk. "Can I use the back of this?" she asked as she held up the vault form.

"Yeah. Where will you be if I need you?"

"Same place I was this morning - the library. You don't have many high level books, but I have a few clues, at least," Ellone explained. "Now let me do some work."

Squall frowned. He still had a half-empty cup of very cold coffee to contend with, along with a mystery spell that was echoing around inside of him and...

Well, Shiva wasn't ready to comment.

Squall found himself all but forgetting about the mysterious echoing spell as he sat with Quistis, grading papers. He found that he knew the material well enough to mark anything he thought was fishy and then Quistis could fill in the details and make the little red-pen notes about what exactly was wrong.

And she'd brought food with her, which was rather nice since Squall had completely missed lunch while trying to sort out an argument between students. He'd come across them on the way to the cafeteria and that had been that - he'd spent almost an hour listening to both sides of the problem and then made a ruling - a good one, at that.

Though Quistis probably wondered why he was practically inhaling the small plate of cheese and crackers that was probably a gift from one of her students. He wouldn't mind an apple the next time, too...

"Next time, you're coming too," Squall said as he picked up another paper.

"Huh?"

"When there's a report of something truly strange," Squall continued. "I want you on my team."

Quistis blushed.

Squall went back to grading. He hadn't meant it that way. He never meant it that way and he was fairly sure that Quistis was thoroughly aware that he'd come to the conclusion that as much as he liked girls, his body rejected the idea of trying to be intimate with them.

One of the things Squall had utterly forgotten about was Selphie planning yet another festival. After spending three hours of his evening hauling around wood for a stage, Squall was fairly sure they should just invest in a permanent one. It would be so much easier than these ongoing projects, if there was actually room for it without ruining...

He just couldn't bring himself to follow that train of thought. He was tired and the nagging feeling of things not being quite right was finally beginning to really get to him.

Hastily he changed into his night clothes and crawled into bed, closing his eyes and wishing for sleep.

"Fifty two..."

Squall sat straight up in bed and reached for the light he hadn't even originally bothered to turn on.

"Shiva?"

But he was alone and Shiva was silent. Frowning, he turned the light back off and rolled over onto his side, staring at the wall in the dark until sleep finally washed over him.

Chapter Text

"Fifty-two," Squall grumbled. The day before had been fifty-three, and the number had meant something... It was still dark as he yawned and stretched, finally remembering as he sorted everything out in his head.

"Fifty-two! It's going down!"

He just didn't know what 'it' was exactly - the number of days til he could un-junction Shiva again and be rid of the spell that would be gone at that point anyway. There wasn't much sense to it, but that was to be expected - nothing really seemed to be ordinary when it happened to him.

"Shiva?" he questioned, wishing she'd say something. She was there, smiling and amused, which just felt odd. Quiet, content, and Shiva rarely went together. "I know it was you."

Grumbling more with sounds than words, Squall began to pull off his sleep clothing. A shower sounded really nice, especially after all that construction the night before. Generally his junction kept him free of minor aches and pains, but he still expected to feel a little stiff. But there was nothing. Other than the mystery spell, he felt rather wonderful.

He turned on the water and closed the shower curtain before peeking over at his reflection in the mirror. No scales, spots or horns, though he supposed if Ellone wouldn't mind horns, he wouldn't either. Everything was normal - hair sticking up a bit from being asleep, scar across his nose in the same direction as normal... Truthfully, Squall was a little hungry and a little still-not-awake, but that was to be expected.

He didn't even know what was on his agenda for the day - probably looking over other requests for work and assigning teams. He didn't even want to think of the unfinished report on Trabia - that could wait until Zell drew the monster and copied the sketch for him. Maybe he could get to Balamb for those gunblade modifications. And the staplers, unless Xu knew of a stapler stockpile somewhere else within Garden.

Squall was surprised that the temperature didn't need adjusting when he climbed under it. Usually he had to fiddle a bit or someone upstairs would also be showering and hot would mean cold or cold would mean hot. It seemed like it would be a rather nice day.

Half an hour later, in full uniform and with his usual cup of coffee in hand, Squall smiled when he saw Quistis in the hallway.

Again.

"Good morning!" she said as she waved. Squall noticed she was wearing the same thing she had been the day before. But he was as well. He always wore a uniform, after all. For all he knew, Quistis had cornered the market on dominatrix-pink.

"Morning," Squall replied with an echoing wave.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she said, stopping. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"Huh?" They'd already talked about the spell, and the papers. Quistis frowned.

"You know, the spell from last night," she said. "Rinoa said to let her know if you're acting funny, because there might have been some invisible side-effect..."

"I'm fine," Squall said quickly as he forced a sip of coffee. "Just need a little more coffee. I feel fine. Or I will, once I wake up."

"You sure?"

Squall nodded, trying to remember what they'd talked about the day before.

"Isn't your class aide supposed to be helping you?"

"She sprained her wrist against a pack of Grats," Quistis said with a slight eyeroll. "At least you never did that. But she can't do any writing for at least another week."

"Come by this afternoon," Squall said, rather sure he had figured it out. "Bring a stack and I'll give you a hand."

"History of poitical strife on the Galbadian continent?" Quistis questioned.

"Yeah. I think they'll be a piece of cake." After all, he'd already gone over them once. But there went the staplers.

"Thanks, Squall - er, Commander," Quistis replied. "Knew I could count on you."

"Yeah... Have you seen Ellone? I guess Rinoa was concerned, but I want to tell Sis first that there weren't any strange effects from that spell..." Other than the apparent time warp. But he'd done time warps before, after all. He could deal with a time warp. He might even dance through it.

Pieces began to click together in his head...

"Haven't seen her," Quistis said. "But if I see her, I'll let her know that you're looking for her."

"Thanks." Squall headed down the hallway, trying to disguise the faintest hints of a smile with his coffee. He was just thankful that he'd figured it out so quickly, before he could panic. If that was really what was going on, after all.

But it was an echoing spell, and something was counting down repetitions.

He was stuck in the same damned day.

"Maybe," he said to himself. "I'll see tomorrow."

When he got to his office, he called Xu to inquire about staplers. Within a minute she'd appeared, piled a dozen on his desk, and exited, all without a word.

Ignoring the Trabia report, Squall got a headstart on his other paperwork. Even if it would be undone the next morning - er, the next repeat of the current morning, he would at least know what was going on. And he had time to kill until Ellone knocked.

He was just finishing his second paper airplane when there was a knock at his office door.

Stuffing the planes quickly into a drawer, Squall called for Ellone to enter.

"Quistis said you were looking for me," Ellone said as she closed the door behind herself. "Are you okay?"

"As far as I can tell," Squall said. "Quistis caught me half-awake, but I don't feel weird and I slept okay. Xu brought me some staplers earlier and didn't say anything about, um, growing horns."

"You' d be cute with horns," Ellone replied, giggling. "So you just wanted to let me know you're okay?"

"Well, I do need you to write out a statement for the official report, just about your interpretation of the spell."

"Can I sit at your desk?"

"Sure," Squall said. He did need a bit more paper for airplanes and there was a file-drawer of that. "The spell is already taken care of, but I do need to find a few forms and I've never been good at finding anything in the file cabinets. Do you think Cid made all these forms?"

"Made all of... I don't know. You should ask him next time he calls. I have to fill some of these out too and it's a pain..." Ellone admitted as she switched places with Squall.

"What have your SeeDs been doing, anyway?" Squall had only skimmed those forms.

"Basic mechanical training," Ellone reminded him. "Our mechanic was injured and I appreciate you letting us borrow your facility and your instructors."

"For you, anything, Sis," Squall said. "You were in the library this morning, right?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Ellone asked, looking up from where she'd been writing.

"Good guess? I thought you might be looking up information on that creature," Squall said. That had been close - one little poke to confirm had almost given too much away.

"You don't have many high level books, but I have a few clues, at least," Ellone said. "Zell's going to sketch out the monster so I can send it to Esthar. I took a look in his memories, but I can't very well send those."

Squall turned enough so that he couldn't be seen and he smiled - that was the entire conversation they needed to have.

Ellone finished quickly and gave him a quick hug in parting.

"Well, Shiva, am I doing okay?"

She chattered for a moment, but nothing in a language he knew.

On his way to the cafeteria, Squall ran into the same group of students arguing over whose turn it was to listen to the new Aching Need CD that one of them had bought and was letting everyone borrow. He grabbed it away and handed it to the girl with the red hair. Tomorrow, or, next repeat, he'd give it to someone else.

And he managed to get both a hot dog and a bit of non-dried macaroni and cheese. Though he certainly wouldn't snub Quistis and her snack.

"Next time there's some weird mission that I get to go on, you're coming too," Squall said as he neatly put the stack of draft-read papers down in front of Quistis.

"How'd you...? I mean, thanks, um..." She blushed. Obviously he was going to have to find a better way to phrase 'you're a good teammate and I bet you're sick of teaching. We should go kill things in a platonic way because I can't get it up when it comes to naked girls even though I really, really tried.'

Actually, he could probably eventually say that.

"They're easy reads," Squall said. "But higher level than I ever had to do. You're going to have a good class."

"You know all this stuff anyway."

"I like to read. When I have the time."

On his way back from dinner, Squall managed to snag Zell and tell him Selphie was looking for him, even if she wasn't. And without having to do any heavy lifting, he found himself back in his room, finally picking up the novel that Cid had given him at least a year before. He had all the time he needed to finally get through it - it might even be good.

Finally, he changed into his night clothing and settled into bed.

"Fifty one?" he asked the darkness as he rolled over.

"Fifty one..." Shiva's voice echoed in his mind.

He had no trouble getting to sleep.

Chapter Text

"Fifty-one, right?" Squall said as he rolled over. He knew what time it was without looking and it was still dark. He stretched, yawned, scratched, and headed for the shower. "You going to say anything?"

He could almost see Shiva smiling, her arms wrapped around her body, sitting and watching as if she was far too amused.

"Yeah, I know. Let's see how today goes and then we'll change the routine a bit. Maybe I'll go back to sleep or something. Make a few more paper airplanes, um..."

He frowned.

"Maybe I can learn to have some fun."

Grumbling under his breath, he began to undress. He did need to shower, after all, mystery echoing spell or not.

Quickly he turned on the water and closed the shower curtain. The temperature would be irritatingly perfect in just a minute. He made a face at himself in the mirror and jumped up and down once. Sticking out his tongue, he saw that it was free from purple spots.

No horns, either. But his hair was sticking up a bit and he was a little hungry but that was about it. Slightly more awake than the day before, at least. Though coffee sounded wonderful.

Maybe he could just take off to Balamb, staplers be-damned. He wanted a new modification on his gunblade based on something he'd seen in a magazine. Maybe he'd just buy a new gunblade because everything would reset overnight. He could finally have everything he wanted, if only for a few hours.

Devious ideas began to form in Squall's mind and Shiva began chattering excitedly.

"I wish I could understand you," Squall said as he got into the shower. The water was in fact perfect. Again.

Not bothering with his uniform, opting instead for his casual leather and white t-shirt, Squall was halfway through his second cup of coffee when he came upon Quistis in the hallway.

"Good morning!" she said, waving. Still wearing pink, and holding the same paperwork.

Yes, it was definitely still the same day.

"Morning," Squall said. He waved, almost without thinking.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she said as she stopped. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"Because your aide broke her wrist, right? Why don't you bring those papers by this afternoon and I'll help you out. They're the History of Political Strife on the Galbadian Continent ones..." Squall thought that was everything. "I'm on my way to see Ellone in the library - let her know I'm fine and that dud of a spell didn't do anything to me. Yet."

"Yet?"

"No horns, right?"

"No horns," Quistis said flatly. "See you later then."

Squall nodded and kept going. Knocking on the door to Xu's office on the way, he didn't wait for her to answer and instead yelled inward about needing staplers sent to his office.

Something hit the door as he closed it. Probably a stapler.

He kept going, right to the library where Ellone and two of her white SeeDs were pouring over a pile of textbooks.

"Morning," he said as he walked over.

"Squall! Are you okay?" Ellone asked quickly, standing up and looking him over.

"As far as I can tell. No one's mentioned that I've grown horns or anything. I slept okay. Xu threw a stapler at me," Squall said. He was rather proud. In a few days, he'd have the day's conversations down to single sentences.

"You'd be cute with horns," Ellone replied with a small giggle. "But watch those staplers."

"Anything for you, Sis," Squall said. "Just wanted you to know I'm okay."

"How'd you know I was here?" she asked. She hadn't stopped staring at him.

"Didn't," he said quickly. "I, uh, am going to give Quistis a hand grading some papers so I wanted to brush up on last century's Galbadian civil strife."

"Let me know if you feel odd at all," Ellone said. "Especially when you remove the spell to store it."

Squall nodded. He'd cross that bridge later in the day. For the moment, he had a book to find and ignore, and then he had a date with a few paper airplanes, the new Aching Need CD, and Quistis' giant pile of term papers.

"Do I really have to do this fifty more times?" Squall asked the empiness of his room as he stumbled in well after eleven. Instead of being caught by Selphie, he'd been grabbed by Nida and asked to help construct a night repair mission for the White SeeD students.

There was no response. Shiva was quiet. He tried to remember when he'd first started hearing her, but he didn't have an answer. She'd either taken that memory or it was on such a routine day that it hadn't been worth thinking too much about. Maybe it had been so slowly that he hadn't realized she hadn't always been there, talking to herself or to him in the language that must belong to her kind.

"I wish I could understand you," he lamented. "I think we'd have a lot to talk about. We've been through a lot together. If I liked girls, I'd marry you. Seifer would laugh and call us both 'The Ice Wife' or something."

Suddenly there was chatter. He must have made her laugh. Or woken her up. He'd often thought it must be boring being cooped up most of the time with little to do. He didn't know if she could talk to any of the other summons who were (or weren't) junctioned elsewhere.

"I hope you're agreeing," Squall said with a yawn. "I don't think I want to be awake for the reset, so I'm going to go to bed."

Slowly he changed into his night clothes and settled into bed. Barely awake, he barely processed the voice as it spoke:

"Fifty."

And then he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

"Fifty," Squall grumbled as he stretched, scratched and yawned, almost at the same time. "Why did I have to draw that many times from that stupid random magical monster? This is worse than a bad movie plot. But I've done the time warp before..."

He knew it was early, and dark, so he stumbled to the shower without even thinking about it. Maybe he wouldn't take a shower on the next repeat. Maybe he'd just wash his hair, which he knew was sticking up.

No horns. Maybe he could find some fake horns... No, he didn't have enough time to do it because he didn't have an option on when he woke up.

"Shiva?"

Just a happy, amused feeling engulfed him in response.

"Fine, fine," he said as he turned on the bathroom light and headed over to the shower. He just turned on the cold tap - might as well do something different. And then he stepped right in without checking his reflection.

The water was, as a welcome change for all of about half a second, ice cold. Jumping back out, Squall stared at his own reflection for a second before laughing and reaching to turn on the warm water as well.

"That Aching Need CD was pretty good," he said to himself. "Should see what else the students are into. I've never followed that stuff, but they seem to know what they're doing."

He was certainly more awake than he had been for the last few tries at the morning, though coffee still sounded really good. Maybe with a bit of sugar.

About forty minutes later, Squall found himself heading towards his office in a white t-shirt and a pair of dress pants. He had put just a bit of sugar in his coffee and was on his second cup when he saw Quistis approaching.

He made a mental note to get her something not-pink for her birthday.

"Good morning!" she said, waving.

"Morning," Squall replied, giving her the usual wave.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she said as she paused. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them...

"...every waking hour, they'll never get done." Squall finished with her in perfect unison. "You're predictable too, sometimes."

Quistis frowned.

"Well I'm sorry that my aide broke her wrist while fending off a pack of Grats that had attacked some younger students!" she exclaimed. And then she stomped off down the hallway.

Squall took a sip of his coffee. He felt a little guilty about making Quistis angry, but it wasn't permanent. It wasn't even temporary. It was utterly fleeting and he could be sickeningly sweet another day.

And he'd saved a few minutes of conversation.

On his way to the library, he actually popped into Xu's office and looked around. He had to admit that he didn't visit her very often - usually she came to him with piles of paperwork and everything else.

"Morning," he said as he took a sip of his coffee.

Xu looked up, somewhat confused.

"Is there something I can help you with, Commander?"

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Squall asked. "I just grabbed some coffee but there were a ton of Everything Bagels left."

Xu stared for a few seconds. "Are you feeling okay? I heard that you tested out an unknown spell last night..."

"Feel great," Squall said quickly. "I just thought you might like breakfast. I know you come in early just to get a start on my backlog."

Blinking and rather speechless, Xu got to her feet, smoothed her skirt and nodded.

It was nearly lunch time when Squall and Xu left the staff section of the cafeteria. Honestly, Squall had never bothered to really connect with his very skilled right-hand woman and he now totally regretted it. He was already a little upset that none of what they'd talked about would ever be remembered by anyone other than him and that was even negotiable given Shiva's habit of eating the more tasty of his memories.

"Yes, you," Squall hissed once he was alone. He still needed to find Ellone and there was no time like the present, though he supposed an entire day of dodging her could be interesting as well.

Shiva was quiet.

"What, is it so wrong that I'm going to do things completely different?" he asked. "Get used to it. I have forty-nine more trips through this and if I have to keep going the same way every day to get to the same conclusion, I'll go crazy."

Silence.

"Whatever."

When he got to the library, Ellone was still there, albeit with only one White SeeD beside her.

"Sis," he said as he approached. "Sorry to keep you waiting, but I'm fine. No weird after-effects unless I've grown horns in the last few minutes."

"No horns," Ellone said with a giggle as she looked up. "You'd look cute with them, though."

Maybe he'd try a tail next time. Or a third eye.

"Anyway, if you get a chance and you don't have to do it today, I just need a short statement about your analysis of the spell," Squall said. "Do it tomorrow, if you're in the middle of something."

"I can do it today," Ellone replied. "I'll stop by your office later."

Squall nodded and took that as a cue to leave.

On his way back to the cafeteria, he quite literally ran into Nida, who had his hands completely full. Parts scattered everywhere and Squall winced.

"Night mission for the White SeeDs, right?" he asked as he scrambled to pick things up.

"Yeah. How'd you know?" Nida asked as he tried to gather everything together.

"Ellone must have mentioned it," Squall tried, hoping it sounded good.

"I'm just stumped on how to do it," Nida admitted.

Squall smiled. They'd come up with a brilliant idea the night before.

"I've got just the thing," Squall said as he gathered half the parts into his own hands and marched off towards the garage. "Follow me. This'll only take a few minutes and you'll have the perfect test."

Nida didn't say anything, though Squall was expecting the words 'mysterious spell' to pop out of his mouth at any moment.

"Okay," Squall said to himself - and Shiva - when he got back to his room for the evening. "Made Quistis mad, but I can fix that tomorrow... Got to know Xu, told Ellone everything was okay, helped Nida, sent Zell to help Selphie, broke up the Aching Need fight... Didn't do a shred of my own work, but it doesn't matter because it would just be undone..."

Shiva chattered for a minute and Squall nodded.

"I'm always going to miss something and I can't well make myself a list the night before," he said. "I suppose by the time this is over, I'll just get everyone's problems solved and actually have some time for myself. Unless I just want to use the next repeat to read a few books."

He paused as he began to undress.

"Could always feign horrible, spell-related disease and stay in bed."

Somehow, he always knew when Shiva was downright chiding him.

"You're no fun sometimes," he said before frowning. "And neither am I."

He finished changing into his night clothes and grabbed for the book Cid had given him.

"I knew I forgot something," he grumbled as he tried to remember what page he'd been on. "I'll have to write Cid a nice note about this and pick up something for Matron. Once time straightens out, I mean. No sense in doing anything tomorrow - er, next repeat."

Shiva didn't say anything, but Squall wasn't expecting anything from her.

Instead he read for the better part of an hour, finally only turning off the light when midnight approached. He still wasn't sure he wanted to be awake for the reset, if he could be.

Closing his eyes, he waited for Shiva's voice, crystal clear and full of promise.

"Forty-nine."

And then sleep claimed him.

Chapter Text

"Forty-nine," Squall said to himself as he did his usual bit of yawning and stretching. Apparently that was one thing he just couldn't change, because he was never quite awake enough to consider it.

"Next time there's a weird spell, I'm drawing three of it. Or less."

The thought of going through the same day again wasn't as interesting as it had been the day before. He wondered if he could take care of everyone's solutions in the morning and then...

Nah. That wasn't even worth doing. He was going to Balamb.

But first, he figured he did need to at least take a shower.

Pulling his night clothing off, he thought it might be interesting to go to sleep naked to see if he woke up clothed. The thought of ice cold water was not appealing, so he simply turned the taps to where they needed to be for nice, warm water and stepped back to look at his reflection in the mirror.

Still no horns, nor a third eye.

Getting into the shower, Squall leaned back against the wall and just stood there. Some of the things he could possibly do with his repeating day were so completely off the wall that he'd never consider actually doing them. Except none of this was actually happening - or, it was but it wasn't. It would be wiped completely clear at midnight and would start over.

Shiva started chattering.

"Either give me ideas or be quiet," he muttered as he straightened up and started to wash his hair. "We're going to Balamb today. I'll buy you treats."

He did know her happy noises rather well.

Instead of heading towards his office or anywhere near Quisits, Ellone or Xu, Squall took his cup of coffee and headed towards the garage area. He wasn't even going to bother signing out the car - he was just going to take it. After all, it would be totally unstolen next time around and no one would be any the wiser.

The nice thing about most of the Garden cars was that they were totally unmarked and were of various makes and models. Cid had gotten them all second-hand, according to some of the paperwork Squall had found at one point. That wasn't to say there was a thing wrong with them - after years of mechanical classes, they were in excellent condition. Besides, being in a slightly older, nondescript vehicle made it much easier to arrive places undercover. And for group missions and times when a 'military look' was necessary, there were the trucks as well.

Squall stared for a minute, trying to decide which car he wanted to take. He'd worked on a green mid-size the most as a student, though it was mostly enough that he could change tires or do basic engine work if it was ever necessary - he hadn't taken any of the more advanced repair classes because he didn't think he'd ever need them. And so far, he hadn't.

There wasn't anyone else in the garage when he headed over to the key board and grabbed the keys for a red convertable. After all, no one was looking and he was doing the sorts of things he wouldn't normally do just because, well, he could.

Shiva began chattering again in her usual, faint way.

"GF Goodies," he reminded her as he opened the car door and eased himself in. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually driven anywhere, and after starting the engine (and buckling his seat belt), he decided that it didn't really matter and probably just involved something silly like dinner at Zell's Mom's house.

He rolled down the window as he left the garage and breathed in the air - all these repeats of the same day and he never really got outside, other than helping Nida with the White SeeD training and that had been far too rushed to enjoy. There were probably entire weeks that he never left the confines of Garden. Maybe he could urge the students to go outside more, though he assumed that they made their own trips to Balamb and, well, wandered around outside now and then.

The trip to Balamb wasn't actually a long one - took only about ten minutes by car and that included finding a parking space in the shopping area that didn't involve parallel parking. Not necessarily that he couldn't - Squall just preferred not to. And besides, the best parking space he could find was right in front of the weapon modification shop and they had angled parking that was both easy to enter and exit, something that Squall had always found somewhat amusing. After all, what mercenary who needed quick weapons mods had the time to bother with parallel parking?

Squall grabbed his gunblade and crawled out of the car, remembering to put the window up and lock the doors as afterthoughts. Maybe he did need to get out and drive more often. They'd taken a plane to Trabia, with Selphie piloting, and he'd mostly poured over the reports that Trabia had sent and played cards with Zell. Couldn't really roll down the windows on a plane and let the wind mess up one's hair, after all. And Zell hadn't lost too horribly, so it was a nice challenge that took enough of his time that he wasn't bored.

The sun was sinking low on the horizon by the time Squall turned around and headed back to Garden. He had his own Aching Need CD to listen to for the next few hours, had eaten really, really good food and had made a half-dozen ridiculous and extraneous purchases, all on credit. Everything would simply reset, things would disappear, and it would be as if he hadn't done anything at all.

If he had to keep repeating the same day, Squall was damned determined to do a little something special with each passing day. There were plenty of things to try, people to get to know, places to visit. He could probably even get to Esthar or Galbadia or back to Trabia if he wanted for at least an evening or afternoon. The possibilities were limitless - or at least limited to the course of a day for the next forty-odd days.

Squall sped up a little, pushing the engine just a bit harder than he had been. And then sped up more, because the road was clear and he'd turned his headlights on and he was probably just going to go crazy but he was going to have fun doing it.

Yes, he was going to have fun.

Turning up the sound system, he put the pedal to the floor.

The hallways were oddly devoid of both students and staff as Squall hauled his things to his room. Either something awful had happened or Selphie had rounded everyone up to help her.

Finally, just before he got to the hallway his room was in, Squall ran across a lone student who was sitting in the hallway, arms around her knees as though...

She looked up when he approached and a second later flung herself at him, grabbing his coat and sobbing.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked as he gently let his bags drop quietly to the floor.

"She... she... Huh?" the girl looked up, revealing a tear-stained face. "You weren't...?"

"I took a personal day to have my gunblade modded in Balamb," Squall admitted. He tried to pry the girl away from him but didn't have much luck. "What happened?"

"You've got to head down to the clinic," the girl stammered as she finally let go. "Miss Tilmitt was working on some scenery with some students and one of them lost her balance. Miss Tilmitt tried to save her, but they both fell from really high."

Squall's stomach dropped out on him as he put together the pieces. Every single day he'd either helped Selphie or sent Zell to go help, which had relieved the situation so that no one was placed in hypothetical harm's way. Selphie was... well, probably dead and it was because he hadn't been there.

Shiva began chattering at him and he frowned. He wanted to yell at her, say all sorts of things like that she should have known or sensed something but how could she? She wasn't even a part of this world.

"I need to go," Squall managed as he gave the girl what he hoped was a comforting pat on the shoulder.

And he ran like he was fairly sure he'd never ran before. Even if Selphie was dead this time around, she'd be fine in the morning and he could just assign Zell to help her immediately after getting up which would take care of that except Zell and Ellone probably needed to interact and...

"This can work," he said more to himself than to anyone else living in his head as he turned the corner near the clinic. And that was where the people began. There were candles everywhere and finally, in the midst of it all, Squall saw Xu.

"Where were you?" she hissed as he made his way over. "We were looking for you all day. Ellone was near out of her mind - she thought you'd just vanished in your sleep because of some wacky spell."

"Xu," Squall said as calmly as he could. "You know how sometimes people say that everything will be okay and you think they're being idiots and want to smack them?"

Xu looked at him and nodded.

"Tomorrow, everything will be right back to normal."

"Forty-eight"

Chapter Text

"Forty-eight," Squall mumbled as he groped around at the bed beneath him. Definitely his room. He yawned without meaning to. It made him feel a little better, really, that he wasn't waking up in the clinic, because that would have meant that Xu really had punched him and knocked him out cold.

Well, she had, but she hadn't. He knew now, however, that she had a terrific right hook and could go against Zell any day of the week.

Squall chuckled for a few seconds before letting out a sigh of relief. Selphie was safe, somewhere, as well. He really did need to remember to assign someone to help her. Or just do it himself as an apology for things that hadn't really happened.

And he hadn't gotten to do anything with his new, temporary stuff.

Was this the day he wasn't going to take a shower? Squall stretched and headed towards the bathroom anyway. He was fairly sure that he had to take a shower in order to be sure he was really still repeating things.

Shiva started chattering happily in his head as he looked in the mirror.

"Yes, I know you're there. Did you like the treats I bought you yesterday?"

Happy. He could feel the sheer happiness radiating out from her.

"I'm glad you aren't being reset like everyone else," he commented as he turned on the water. "Maybe because you were a part of me when I cast the spell. It is attached to you, after all."

He paused, thinking for a moment.

"It isn't hurting you at all, is it?"

There wasn't a response.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Squall said as he climbed under the water. "If it does, try to figure out how to let me know. I'll try harder to do something - I'll tell Ellone about the repeat and see what she thinks, if she even believes me."

He leaned back against the wall and let the water pour over him for a minute. The day needed to be fairly normal, with all the normal interactions and such. He needed to be sure to take care of Selphie, talk to Ellone, and maybe help Quistis. He could drop off breakfast for Xu and find Nida to explain the night repair training. And he could do it all quickly, if he really wanted to. There had to be something new to add to the day that wouldn't start rippling things off in directions he wasn't sure he wanted to explore.

Coffee in hand, he had just dropped off breakfast to a very surprised Xu when he saw Quistis in the hallway, wearing her traditional pink.

"Good morning!" she said as she waved. Same paperwork in hand, demeanor friendly. Definitely a new, same day.

"Morning," Squall said as he waved back.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud." She stopped and looked him over. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"Your aide broke her wrist..." Squall said as if he was actually trying to remember. "Why don't you bring everything by my office this afternoon and I'll help you out. They're the History of Political Strife on the Galbadian Continent midterm papers, aren't they?"

"Did I tell you that much before?" Quistis asked incredulously. "Or did that spell make you psychic?"

"You told me about a week ago," Squall fibbed. He knew he'd talked to her then, but most of it was a little fuzzy. Shiva chattered something and he assumed that was her way of saying that yes, that memory had been tasty.

"Right," Quistis said. "Thanks. I'll take you up on that."

"Well, I'm off to see Ellone. I think she said she'd be in the library," Squall continued. "Need to tell her that the spell didn't make me grow a tail or horns or anything."

"No scales?" Quistis questioned. "Remember when Rinoa accidentally gave Zell scales?"

Squall sighed. He remembered.

"And all because she though Zell was spending too much time staring at you," Quistis said before clamping a gloved hand over her mouth. "Er, I mean..."

Squall raised an eyebrow. "Normally I'd discourage this sort of conversation, but since I had to write up a report on that..."

"That's really about it," Quistis said nervously. "For all I know, Zell wasn't staring at you, he was staring at the wall on the other side of you. Or your earring was crooked. Or anything. But Rinoa took it as a threat to her claim over you, which she doesn't even have now, and figured out how to give him scales."

She shook her head. "Probably more about Zell than you wanted to know."

"It's okay," Squall said. Well, that certainly made things interesting. He wondered if Zell suffered from the same condition he did - Zell was certainly attractive and would be a suitable partner. And he could find out without real life penalty thanks to the looping nature of his current life. "That was nearly a year ago. Though I can't say I'm happy with Rinoa at the moment."

"Don't get mad at her," Quistis said. "She's matured since then."

"I know."

"Anyway, I have class and you need to go see Sis," Quistis continued. She offered a wave and headed off down the hall. "See you."

Squall wondered where Zell would be in the middle of the morning. He had Ellone to take care of first, and a call to make to Nida if Nida was around and call-able. Then he could find Zell and maybe see just what Zell had been staring at.

With Ellone and Nida taken care of, Squall swung by the stage-in-progress to see if Selphie was there. Thankfully she was, as alive as she'd ever been on any other day where she wasn't dead.

"Squall!" she called from on top of a scaffold. "You came to help me?"

"Not right now," Squall admitted as he watched her scramble effortlessly down. "I'll send Zell to help you later. Have you seen him?"

"He was heading to the Training Center," Selphie replied with a smile. "You doing okay?"

"No horns or a tail," Squall said as he turned to go. "And be careful, would you?"

"Always am," Selphie chirped. "Most of the time."

Shaking his head as he left, he hoped that he wasn't rippling things off to an early conclusion.

Finding Zell in the Training Center was easy enough - all Squall had to do was follow the howls of a T-Rexsaur in agony. Zell had just finished the beast off when Squall arrived, which was fortuitous because he didn't have anything with him other than Shiva and she would have been a very special kind of overkill.

"Not bad," Squall said as he stepped up next to Zell. "Just practicing?"

"Yeah," Zell admitted. "Felt good to get out and fight that weird thing the other day."

Squall nodded - Zell had a point. That was probably why he'd gone off the day, er, repeat, er, whatever before for gunblade modifications. Deep inside, he liked a good fight.

"What are you doing here?" Zell asked.

"I ran into Quistis in the hallway," Squall said. "Said good morning, told her that useless spell hadn't caused me to grow horns and she mentioned that time Rinoa accidentally gave you scales..."

"Coud we not go there?" Zell asked, looking down. "That was..."

"Apparently you all lied to me," Squall continued. "Quistis said it was intentional and Rinoa didn't like you looking at me."

"Er..."

"Why were you looking at me?" Squall asked forcefully. He reached to cup Zell's chin and force his gaze upward. Normally he'd never do anything like this, but knowing that if it didn't work, it was free from repercussions, well, it was worth doing. He had power - he just chose not to use it. Normally.

"I... was... I was just thinking that your hair had gotten longer," Zell admitted, fidgeting. "Looked nice on you. Look, guys don't say this kinda stuff if they don't want to get beat up."

"Who would be able to beat you up?" Squall asked as he stepped a little closer to Zell. "Other than Xu?"

"You, probably," Zell said. "Squall, I..."

Squall kissed him.

And Zell didn't do anything. Not at first, at least. He just kind of stood there for a few seconds before grabbing Squall's jacket with both hands and holding on tight. Then he kissed back, awkwardly and without opening his mouth. It was just lips touching and holding, pressed together by both of them.

"Squall," Zell murmured when they finally both drew back a bit. He didn't let go of Squall's jacket.

"Yes?"

"Really?"

"Yeah," Squall replied. He thought it might be a good time to kiss Zell again, except Zell was too busy hugging him. Thankfully they were very, very alone in the expansive center. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"Me?" Zell asked as he bounced back and looked up at Squall. "What about you?"

Squall shrugged.

"Not the easiest thing to bring up, I guess."

"But you just brought it up," Zell insisted.

Squall shook his head. "No. Quistis did."

"I should thank her," Zell said, smiling.

"Actually, I should. I'm supposed to help her this afternoon with some papers," Squall admitted. He wasn't entirely sure what to do next - probably kiss Zell again. Or ask him to lunch or something. He supposed he could always screw it up and get it next repeat but that wouldn't be any fun.

"Oh..."

"But that's after lunch," Squall said. "We still have plenty of morning left. Want to find another T-Rexsaur? I only have magic, but..."

"That's probably best," Zell replied with an almost sheepish look. "We probably should be a little, um, careful."

Squall made a mental note to eventually grab Zell and kiss him in front of a bunch of people. He'd probably end up with a black eye.

Indeed, he was fairly sure that he was slowly going crazy.

Turning to head back towards the entrance, Squall wasn't surprised by the pack of Grats that wandered out onto the pathway. He kicked one and Zell was right behind him, taking care of them before he could even ready a simple ice spell.

Shiva chattered loudly and for a split second, Squall wanted to tell her to shut up. And then he remembered.

"I have another question for you," Squall said as they walked onward.

"What?" Zell asked almost nervously.

"Could you give Selphie a hand with her scenery tonight?" Squall questioned.

Zell's face fell. "Er, sure. But... you wanted to ask me that?"

"Since earlier," Squall said. "Before I ran into Quistis. I suppose I could ask someone else, thought. Nida's busy with the White SeeDs and Quistis has her lesson planning. Irvine is still on that mission in Esthar. Maybe Xu could do it... She's as strong as you are if not stronger."

"Hey, I can do it," Zell said quickly. "I just thought maybe..."

"Come over after," Squall said with a smile. Even if it was only for a couple of hours and even if he had no clue what he was doing, he was sure that they would enjoy one another's company.

"Yes, sir, er, Squall," Zell replied with a smile.

And then they found their T-Rexsaur.

Squall wasn't entirely sure how many times he'd already gone over the same papers, but he didn't mind. The work was quick and easy and Quistis hadn't commented on his unnatural speed with them. Maybe she thought he was just really well-read on the source material. He just found himself remembering where most of the mistakes were.

Even though he'd managed to catch a quick lunch, he was grateful that she'd brought the same little cheese and cracker plate with her that she always did. Something about the little things in the middle of the day staying constant made him feel a little better about what was going on.

"How come you decided to bring a snack?" Squall asked as he set down a stack of papers.

"Huh?" Quistis said as she looked up. "Oh, actually one of the students brought them for me just before I headed here and since there was enough for both of us, I figured I'd share."

Squall nodded. Made enough sense.

"I was just curious. I thought you normally got apples."

"Apples," Quistis said in a tired voice. "And pears and oranges and once, a watermelon..."

Squall chuckled. That sounded like something to remember.

"You're lucky it doesn't happen to you," she continued. "But I guess all that fruit is good for me."

"I missed you in the field the other day," Squall said after a minute. It was true. He had always liked having her at his side.

"Really?" she asked. "I..."

"You've always been there for me," Squall admitted. Might as well say it. He could probably tell everyone everything. "And... thanks for telling me about Zell and the scales this morning."

Quistis frowned. "That...?"

"I went to talk to Zell about it and he confirmed everything," Squall said. "I'm not going to waste my time with confronting Rinoa - I know she's well past it, but... I think Zell and I have plenty of new things to talk about.

Pausing with a piece of cheese at her mouth, Quistis broke into a smile.

"You - You're... Well, that explains a lot!"

"Give me another stack of papers, would you? You've got some good students this time around," Squall instructed. Probably better to divert.

"Of course, sir," she replied as she handed over a pile. "And I'm rather proud of them myself. They'll be ready for every bit of testing we can throw at them."

"That's because they have a good instructor, Quistis."

Finally making a reaonable bit of progress in the book that Cid had given him, Squall had completely lost track of time and was genuinely startled when his door's buzzer rang. He could understand why Cid had given him that particular book - it was something he could lose himself in and normally he was not a large fan of fiction.

There was no point in marking his place, but he did take a look at the page number just in case he got back to it during the next repeat or so.

Shiva commented madly as he went to the door but he tried to ignore her.

"Please, let me try?" he whispered as he put his hand on the knob.

She promptly shut up and put out a few waves of contentment before doing what she could to make her presence little more than an afterthought.

"Hey," Zell said when Squall opened the door. "I was expecting a real workout with Selphie but it wasn't bad."

"I helped Nida with a few things," Squall said as he stepped aside to let Zell in. "But for the last hour or so, I've been reading. Cid gave me a book... quite awhile ago and I've been trying to finally read it."

"I didn't think you actually had free time," Zell said as he looked around. "Man, when's the last time I was over here? At least a year ago."

Squall closed the door and locked it. He knew for a fact that nothing had changed in that last year. His living space was small, cramped, and consisted mostly of a place to sleep and dump off his few belongings. Following Zell's gaze with his own, he spotted one thing that had been replaced, at least.

"New coffee maker," Squall pointed out. "This one's black, the old one was white."

Zell chuckled. "But no posters or pictures or knick-knacks - even if men don't have those things. I mean, you could at least have a picture of a car or plane or something."

Squall shrugged. "Get me one?"

"I could draw you something," Zell said. "That reminds me - I need to draw that monster tomorrow. Ellone wants to send a copy to Esthar to get their opinion on it."

"Oh?" Well, he hadn't heard this from Zell's point of view yet. Might as well. It would save time later.

"Yeah. She popped into my head for a look earlier but she can't very well send my memories," Zell explained. "And apparently she's not much of an artist."

Squall smiled. "You want a drink?"

"Sure," Zell replied.

Things were certainly awkward, if nothing else.

"I think I just have soda," Squall said as he headed toward the kitchen area, past the new, black coffee maker. "And hey, make me a copy of that drawing for my report?"

"I can do that," Zell said. "You need a statement?"

"Nah," Squall said. "I was there and I'm the one who drew from that thing. Didn't end up with scales, though."

There was a bit of silence as he retrieved two mostly-clean glasses and poured red soda into both of them.

Zell had settled onto the stiff, low sofa that had come with the room and was looking at his hands.

Squall sighed mentally. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he should have figured in that two boys who knew nothing of romance would obviously be failures at small talk, dating, or even whatever they were supposed to be doing. Fooling around. All their crazy teenage hormones had been channeled into killing.

"Here," Squall said as he set Zell's glass down in front of him. "I'm sorry there isn't much here to do."

Zell shrugged. "You don't even have a TV."

"There's a radio in the bedroom," Squall said. "If it's important, Xu or someone will let me know about it. And we get the Balamb newspaper."

"You should really get a TV," Zell continued before downing half of his glass in one go. "That's one of the things that people do."

"You wanted to watch TV?" Squall asked.

"Well, no," Zell admitted. He looked up at Squall and smiled. "Have a seat."

"In my own place?" Squall questioned with a slight smirk as he sat. "I don't know."

This time, Zell kissed him. Zell kissed him hard, forcing his lips apart with his tongue and burying one hand in Squall's hair while the other slid down his back. Squall was momentarily surprised but he responded, letting Zell kiss him and slowly kissing him back. He slid a hand up Zell's chest, double-checking that the lack of breasts wasn't a bad thing.

Shiva made a quick comment but it wasn't anything worth listening to.

And they kept kissing - and talking and drinking the rest of the bottle of soda that Squall had until Squall glanced at the clock on the coffee maker during one of his trips to the kitchen and realized that it was ten minutes to midnight.

"Zell," he said half-panicked as he popped back into the main room. "It's almost midnight."

"Oh," Zell said as he glanced at the watch Squall hadn't even noticed he was wearing. "I should probably go."

Nodding, Squall headed over to the door and undid the lock.

"Come over tomorrow?" he asked. There wouldn't be a tomorrow, but Zell didn't need to know that."

"Yeah," Zell said as he kissed Squall one last time and then headed out.

Almost too quickly, Squall locked the door again and ran towards the bedroom, changing quickly to his nightclothes and ignoring the fact that he really, really needed to masturbate.

"Sleep!" he cried as he pulled the pillow over his head. At least he always woke up well rested.

"Forty-seven."

He slept with a very slight smile on his face - for all of half-a-minute, at least.

Chapter Text

"Forty-seven," Squall repeated as he stretched. Yawning, he crawled out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. Even if he was the only one who remembered Zell's hands on his body and Zell's mouth against his, it was okay.

He turned on the shower and stared at himself in the mirror for a few minutes. "I am so pathetic."

Shiva launched into a triade on something and he brought his hands to his ears.

"Not just yet," he said with a shake of his head. "I'm not awake and I'm... you know, maybe I need some alone time. As in, me and my hand."

Shiva simply did something akin to a giggle and headed back to her afterthought space. Squall frowned. Either no one else was as... in tune with their GF or they just didn't talk about it. He could well imagine everyone dealing with invaders in their headspace driving them near mad but no one saying a thing about it because they didn't want to be the only one.

He chuckled as he climbed into the shower and let the water wash over him. And he didn't even think about what the day would bring.

Squall thought he'd done fairly well with the day, but that was mostly because Zell was starting to inch a hand down into his pants and everything was beginning to spin.

And then it struck him - if Zell was there with him, no one was helping Selphie. He'd gotten all caught up in what he wanted and hadn't remembered to ask someone else to take over stage material duty. He'd meant to ask - He'd meant to ask everyone, actually, but he hadn't.

"Shit!" Pushing Zell off of him, he scrambled for the door and ran.

"Squall?" he heard Zell call, confused.

"Come on!" Squall yelled, not bothering to slow down. He wasn't sure if Shiva helped him with speed but it certainly felt like it.

Why hadn't she said anything? Would he have listened? Shiva began chattering loudly and Squall mentally chided her. He made it to the makeshift stage just in time to see one of the students climb up near where Selphie was.

"Aaaah!" Her hand caught on a nail that hadn't gone in all the way. She railed back without thinking and began to wobble.

"Hang on!" Selphie cried as she reached out. And Squall ran.

He thought he'd made it. He heard a cracking noise. Something felt heavy. Everything felt dark.

"That was either exceptionally noble or exceptionally stupid."

"Did Xu punch me?" Squall asked as he sat up. His head felt remarkably clear. And he was naked. Very naked.

"No," the voice replied. A moment later, Squall could see her - Shiva, beautiful as she stepped through the void that seemed to have formed around them. "Xu didn't punch you."

Squall shook his head. "I'm dead."

"Mostly, yes," Shiva said. "If you woke up, there wouldn't be anything I could do for you. You'd probably never walk - maybe never speak again. Your kind is so fragile."

She knelt down beside him and kissed his forehead. "Are you cold?"

"No," Squall said. "I'm not... anything. But I am naked. You're probably used to that."

"Contrary to what you think, I don't spend all of my time watching what you do," Shiva replied. She stepped back, bangles around her arms and ankles jingling together as she moved. And she spun, pulling ice and snow from the void and making it into a tapestry that she handed to Squall in the form of a robe.

"What do you do, then?" Squall asked as he stood and took the robe.

"I create," she said with a smile. "And I destroy. I try to find comfort in containment."

"I..."

"Squall, I chose this path knowing only that I would eventually be bound to a human who would do great things."

"Shiva..."

"You are interesting and I enjoy my time with you," she continued. She began walking and Squall followed a step or two behind. There was no wind in the void and he could hear her perfectly. Somehow, he did not feel as though he should walk at her side as an equal. "I do not regret a thing."

"But you're always..."

"I wish you could understand me," Shiva said with a sigh. "I would tell you so many things. I'm always sorry to take your memories."

They walked in silence.

"I keep them," she said after a moment. "I keep every single one. Your youth, and Edea and Ellone and everything that is only white space to you... I keep every single one."

Squall felt himself tearing up. He... didn't cry. He wouldn't. A tear began to slide down his cheek.

"You know, when we're finally released from this spell, I'm going to have to take every single memory of what happened," Shiva said without pausing to look back. "I can't let you keep them. I'll lock them away and..."

"But what about Selphie?" Squall asked.

"Squall, you never know what's going to happen next," Shiva replied. "What if you save her today only for her to fall tomorrow? Would you feel any different? You can't prevent every bad thing that's going to happen to your friends."

"I know that," Squall said firmly. "But..."

"I'm not entirely against you exploring your options for the next forty-six repeats of this day." Shiva raised a hand to brush away her hair, sending dozens of bangles clattering together. "But I don't know if I can watch you do some of the things you've thought about and seriously considered."

"Because you'll remember," Squall stated. It made sense. If she consumed his memories, then... All of it would be inside of her.

"I'll remember forever," Shiva said.

"Can I keep anything from you?" he asked curiously, almost catching up with her.

"Would you want to?" she asked in response, looking down at him. He'd never realized that she was so tall.

"Touché. I'll just pretend you're my icy conscious then..."

"I'm your everything," Shiva said with a smile. "I'm keeping you alive til midnight."

"Forty-six?" Squall asked. "I wish there was an easier way to speak to you."

"You just need to learn to listen," Shiva said. She kissed him on the lips softly, chastely, and then stepped back. "Forty-six."

Squall bolted upright in bed, thrashing at his covers and gasping for breath.

"Shiva?" he asked. "Forty-six, right? I'm alive?"

There was a happy chattering, but he still couldn't make out words.

"Thank you," Squall whispered before pulling the blankets back over himself and trying to settle back to sleep.

Finally, after an hour of staring at the wall, he succeeded.

Yawning and stretching, Squall did his best to roll over and go back to sleep, shower be-damned and coffee be-damned and breakfast for Xu and seeing Quistis in the hallway and everything else be-damned.

He slept without dreaming.

Finally, when he did wake up, it was to weight on his bed. Groggily he opened his eyes and glanced down. Ellone was sitting beside his feet, one of the library's books in her hand.

"Oh, so you can wake up," she said with a smile as their eyes met.

"I didn't sleep well," Squall said. It was definitely the truth. "I didn't think anyone would mind if I slept in."

"Actually, everyone was getting worried," Ellone admitted. "Anything spell-related?"

Squall shook his head, trying to hold in a yawn. He stretched.

"Are you sure?"

"Do I have horns or scales or something?" Squall asked in return. "I feel fine."

"No horns," Ellone replied. "But you'd be cute with horns."

Squall smiled.

"Why didn't you sleep?" Ellone asked a few seconds later. "Worried?"

"Weird dream," Squall said. "I think. I don't really remember. And then I was just staring at the wall for awhile."

"I can put you back to sleep if you'd like," Ellone commented.

"Why don't you lay down too?" Squall asked as he glanced over at the empty side of his bed. "Relax a little."

"You're either sick or crazy," Ellone said with a giggle. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"I am," Squall said. "But... you've been here for how long and we haven't spent any time together. Let's just lay in bed and talk."

"Okay, so far the spell has made you totally, um... passive and friendly," Ellone said as she circled around to the other side of the bed. "I should probably keep an eye on you."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth," Squall commented. He wondered what Ellone would do if he tried to explain was going on.

Shiva chided him, but not loudly - more of a 'you know, this is only temporary...'

Well, in the long run, it wasn't going to mess anything up.

"And what is that?" Ellone asked as she settled in.

"Well," Squall said with a smile. "See, um, once upon a time the spell really did do something but I have no way to prove it."

"So what amazing thing happened?" Ellone questioned.

"I've been reliving the same day over and over," Squall said. "But everything resets, so I can't prove anything."

"Of course," Ellone said contentedly. "Very creative. So what have you been doing?"

"You don't believe me?"

"Squall, even considering time compression, there's no possible way for that to happen," Ellone explained. "So no, I don't believe you."

"Quistis has a pile of papers to grade, she might have tried bribing someone with cheese and crackers to help her, Xu likes bagels, Zell likes me, Nida's working on something for your White SeeDs, and you spent the morning in the library," Squall said as he ticked things off on his fingers. "And if I don't ask someone to help Selphie with scenery, a student will slip, Selphie will try to catch her, and at the very least, Selphie will die."

"That's not funny."

"Never said it was," Squall said. "But that's later. Want to go back to sleep, Sis?"

He felt really, really awkward doing it, but Squall managed to stay in bed and read.

Just pages away from the end of the book that Cid had given him, there was a panicked knock at Squall's door. He frowned - apparently he was the interfering force when it came to Selphie.

Crawling out of bed, he wondered who had come to rouse him. He was not expecting Ellone, out of breath and clutching her chest.

"Squall," she said as she looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "I went... I got there... I saw..."

"Don't worry," Squall said as he offered her a hand. "It's okay. Everything isn't really happening. In a few hours, it'll all reset and I'll make it right."

"You'll make it right," Ellone repeated. "You're... You weren't lying."

"I'd never lie to you, Sis," Squall said before helping inside.

"But I saw..."

"It's okay," Squall said. Ellone collapsed half on top of him on the sofa. "It's okay."

He closed his eyes as he held her, letting her cry.

"Forty-five."

Chapter Text

"I hate this," Squall said as he stretched. At least he was in his bed again. "I hate all of this."

Shiva began her running commentary.

"I don't get it. I'm listening and I just don't get it," Squall said. He brought his hands to his ears. "Just... be quiet."

She complied, but he could feel her disappointment.

"I wanted to have fun with this," Squall said as he got out of bed and stumbled towards the bathroom. "Or figure out how to have fun, at least. Yesterday wasn't any fun."

He turned on the water in the shower and stepped back to look at his reflection in the mirror. Horns would be better than having to spend the next forty-five days repeating the same damned day.

"I don't want to do this," he mumbled as he stepped under the water. "I just don't..."

"Well you have to."

Squall froze.

"Shiva?"

Soft chattering, nothing more.

"I know," he said as he reached for the soap. "I know."

About a half-hour later, wearing his full uniform and with a cup of coffee in one hand, Squall found himself walking through the hallway, just like he usually did. And he saw Quistis before she saw him.

"Morning," he said with a slight wave.

"Good morning!" she replied, waving back. "Hey, I'm sorry to hear that spell was a complete dud. It could have been really interesting. But I had to work on grading papers - been doing it for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"If you need a hand, stop by my office after lunch," Squall said. "And maybe bring an apple?"

"Bribes," Quistis commented. "Fine. Thank you."

"Anything but my paperwork," Squall replied as he headed off down the hallway. He had to get a bagel for Xu and then find Ellone. Maybe he could kiss Zell and wrangle up someone to help Selphie. Anyone.

Maybe he could help Selphie instead of putting it off on everyone else. He could help Selphie and Nida and Quistis and Ellone and... himself. At some point, he had to help himself.

He still hadn't finished the book, either.

Stopping by the cafeteria, Squall grabbed a bag of bagels and headed off to visit everyone he could think to visit - Xu, Ellone, Zell, Nida, Selphie.

Xu's office was the first stop on his list. He knocked once and then opened the door.

"Morning," he said as he entered. "I brought you an Everything Bagel with light cream cheese."

"What do you want?" Xu asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," Squall said as he pulled a bagel and packet of cream cheese from the bag. "Little bird told me you skipped breakfast again to try to catch up on the paperwork neither of us can ever catch up on."

"Thank you," Xu said as she took the bagel. "I meant to get something, but... Well there are new arrivals to take care of and a housing change request form and there was a spat among some of the younger teens yesterday and... it just goes on. I don't know what Quistis and I were thinking when we decided to be your administration - especially since she went back to teaching. Now I have..."

"I'll find you an assistant," Squall interrupted. "I didn't know you were so swamped."

"You never stop by. I just drop papers off to you."

"Sorry," Squall said. "I've been neglecting a lot of things. Just wrapped up in my own little world, I guess."

Xu shrugged and started spreading the cream cheese on her bagel using one of her fingers. "It happens. But sometimes you need to wake up and realize you're not the only person in the world dealing with stuff."

"Well, maybe today I am," Squall said with a smile.

"Weird after-effects from that spell?"

"Does everyone know about that?" Squall asked.

"Well, considering you, Zell and Selphie went on a mission, yes, everyone knows. It's been a constant source of speculation. And then a bunch of you disappeared into the Training Center last night..." Xu trailed off as she took a bite.

"Total dud," Squall said. "But it did get me thinking about things."

"Like bringing me breakfast?"

"Yes. But I have more bagels to deliver," Squall said as he headed for the door. "No crumbs on my reports."

"Yes, sir, Commander, sir," Xu said with a wink. "Have a good day."

Squall headed down the hallway, trying to decide who to find next. Selphie sounded like a good bet. And just before he turned the corner and the area where she was building the stage came into view, he had the best idea he'd had since sometime earlier in the morning.

"Selphie!" he called, waving. "Want a bagel?"

"Wha--? Squall, did that spell make you nice or something?" she asked as she skipped over to him. "Where's my favourite ice queen?"

"I just asked about a bagel," Squall replied flatly.

"Much better," she chirped as she took the bag and dug around in it. "Thanks. You came here just to give me a bagel?"

"Actually, I have an idea, but I need to talk to Nida first," Squall admitted. "I think he was planning to do a night repair scenario with the White SeeDs tonight - maybe he can work something in with your scenery building."

"How did you know what I had planned for tonight?" Selphie asked.

Mentally, Squall kicked himself until Shiva spoke up.

"You told me when we were in Trabia. You were going on about the productions you helped put on there," Squall fibbed. She had definitely done the latter, but not the former.

"I don't really remember," Selphie admitted with a frown. "Guess Siren grabbed that little bit when I wasn't thinking about it. Maybe I came up with the same idea twice! Wouldn't that be fun? But I usually write things down, just in case. Of course, in Trabia I wouldn't have been able to write it down because we were on a mission and were out in the snow... Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Fine," Squall said. "Total dud of a spell."

"Drat! I wanted it to do something really cool - I mean, last night I wanted it to blow things up and everything! You could have grown some scales or something," Selphie considered.

"Horns," Squall said. "I was hoping for horns, if anything."

"You'd be cute with horns," Selphie commented before taking a bite of her bagel. She mumbled something to him with her mouth full and Squall just waved.

"More bagels to deliver," he said as he left. "Expect Nida and the White SeeDs at some point."

And he went off to find Nida, who was obviously next in line to be bribed with food.

Squall ticked every little detail and meeting off on his fingers - Xu needs an assistant, Nida has night plans and will help Selphie, Selphie has help needed, Ellone knew he was safe, Zell had been invited over for reasons unknown that he accepted anyway, and... He had one bagel left.

Rinoa.

Mostly Rinoa divided her time between Garden and Timber, teaching one class per semester and trying to weed out any SeeD candidates with sorceress potential - just in case. She visited Esthar quite often as well. But when she wasn't doing anything... Well, Squall wasn't sure what she did most of the time.

He found her just outside the main doors, playing Triple Triad with a handful of students.

She looked up just as he approached, smiling her usual bright, vibrant smile.

"Rin, can I speak to you?" Squall asked as he offered her a hand. "And would you like a bagel?"

She giggled and gracefully retrieved her cards. "Another time."

"Another time," one of the students said with an echoing smile.

"Are you okay?" she asked Squall once they were back inside. "I mean, the spell yesterday and..."

"I'm fine," Squall replied. "I just felt like causing panic by bringing everyone bagels. Apparently I haven't done a thing for anyone this year."

"That's not true," Rinoa retorted. "You help Selphie and take students through the Training Center and help Doc and a billion other things."

"Then what's so unusual about the bagels?"

"Maybe we take you for granted," Rinoa admitted. "I don't know. But you're always there if someone needs you - or you've figured out how to have someone there."

"I need you to be there for someone," Squall said. "If you can."

"Who?" Rinoa asked. She took the bagel and smiled. "Everything."

"Everything," Squall echoed. "They're Xu's favorite, which would be good to remember. She's the one I'd like you to help. She needs an assistant, at least part time."

"I'm free until noon," Rinoa said quickly. "I mean, if that's good."

"I think it'd be great. Can you start tomorrow?" Except there was no tomorrow, of course. Squall mentally kicked himself again - he thought he'd been doing so well.

"Of course!" Rinoa chirped. She took a bite of the bagel. "Do I get an assistant?"

"Not yet," Squall said with a smile. "Want to grab lunch in about an hour? I'm meeting Quistis in the afternoon to help her with some term paper grading, but we haven't really talked lately. I'd like to catch up."

Rinoa nodded, her mouth full.

Quistis had brought him an apple. A sweet, juicy delicious apple. He spent more time eating the apple and enjoying it than he had so far on marking papers, but Quistis hadn't noticed. She had her head down, feasting off her own cheese and cracker tray - obviously she'd been so busy that she'd skipped lunch.

"What happened to your aide?" Squall asked as he circled a couple of false facts and set the paper down. He knew he'd forgotten to ask earlier and it seemed like the proper conversation.

"Broke her wrist," Quistis explained. "She was helping a couple of younger students practice on some grats and things went... stupid."

"You could have asked for help sooner," Squall commented. "Next time, ask for help sooner. That way you can go on missions to Trabia with me."

"You wouldn't want me along," Quistis said with a shake of her head. "Not your dumpy old instructor."

"For a dumpy old instructor, you get given some nice apples," Squall replied. "Besides, I still consider you a valuable part of my team."

"Squall..."

"I missed having you out there, yelling at me not to draw some weird mysterious spell without knowing what it did even though it ended up not doing anything..." He leaned back and picked up another paper. "Could you bring me more apples?"

"I heard everyone else got bagels from you."

"I'll take you to an early dinner," Squall said with a smile. "And then Zell is stopping by.

"Oh?" Quistis nearly dropped a cracker. "Zell..."

"Ever since that incident with Rinoa and the scales, I've sort of thought that maybe he..." Squall trailed off, far too amused by the varying expressions crossing Quistis' face.

"You... You're... You mean..." Quistis started laughing. "Well that explains a lot!"

Squall marked a few things on the paper. He really did have most of them memorized already. Quickly he thanked Shiva for not eating any of those memories yet - they were coming in exceptionally handy.

"Good luck," Quistis concluded with a wink and smile.

"You know, I probably shouldn't have said anything."

"Dinner will keep me quiet," Quistis said before grabbing another piece of cheese. "At least until tomorrow or whenever one of you two appears with a giant hickey or something."

"Men don't do that," Squall said. "I hope."

"Okay, now this might be bordering on too much information, but... you haven't..."

"No," Squall said. "I've tried with girls but... No."

"Normally you wouldn't admit to this," Quistis said as she leaned closer. "Was it a truth spell or something?"

"It's not the spell," Squall said flatly. "I don't know why I just told you that. Because I trust you, I guess. You're one of my best friends."

"I'm going to get you another apple," Quistis said, mock-standing. "Because you weren't saying ridiculous things when you had your mouth full."

Squall shook his head and kept grading.

"I meant that 'good luck'," Quistis said a minute later.

"I know."

"There's at least one helpful book in the library, you know."

Squall frowned.

"I'm not sure... Well... I mean..."

"I'm not suggesting you two ravish one another until sunrise," Quistis said. "Take some time and figure stuff out. But if you need it, there's a book in the library. And the internet, too, no matter how much you dislike logging on to any terminal here because Selphie's set every home page to your fa-"

"Quistis," Squall warned. "I think I should be getting you an apple."

They both started laughing.

"Zell?" Squall asked as soon as he'd closed the door to his room and had locked the door. "Can I kiss you?"

Zell went pale for a few seconds before dumbly nodding. Apparently apples weren't necessary to shut him up.

And Squall kissed him, pinning him against the wall and almost expecting to get punched. But Zell did nothing of the sort. He simply moved into the kiss and slowly responded, letting his lips part as Squall pushed onward.

They both forgot to breathe. Squall pulled back and started chuckling.

"Squall?" Zell asked. His face was bright red, tattoo aside. "What was that for?"

Squall shrugged. "Just an idea I had."

"Could you have it again?"

Nodding, Squall pulled Zell over to the sofa and sat down.

"You sure?" Zell asked. "This is... This isn't from that spell, is it?"

"What if it is?" Squall asked as he began to push a hand up under Zell's shirt. "Is it such a bad thing?"

"I can't take advantage of you if you're under the influence of some weird spell," Zell said as he pulled back and stood up. "Squall, you're my friend. I can't..."

"It was a joke."

"Are you sure?"

Shiva was laughing and Squall knew she was laughing. Inside, he was laughing a bit too but mostly he just... wanted.

In a second, he had Zell down on the floor, mouth on his as he pinned the fighter down. Zell didn't struggle but he didn't respond.

"Squall, you're scaring me..."

Squall gave up, picking himself up.

"Go," he said as he gestured towards the door. "I have a book to finish anyway."

It didn't matter. It wouldn't matter. He could try again. But he felt really, really silly as he heard the lock click behind Zell as he left.

"Laugh all you want," he said to Shiva. "This is just some lesson I needed to learn. You sure I can't keep any of these memories? I mean, I am learning..."

"Ideas," came the response.

Squall nodded. He could keep the ideas, but not the distinct memories. Xu needed help, liked bagels, etc. That was a pretty good deal, actually. His head would be full of useful things and he'd just assume they were rescued fragments from Shiva's feast.

He sighed. He needed a cold shower before he even thought about finishing that book.

"Forty-four."

Chapter Text

"How do I know I'm not just imagining you?" Squall asked as he stretched, yawned, scratched and rolled out of bed into an unceremonious heap. "I mean, that I've not just made up my own little head-voice for you and am listening to that?"

Shiva didn't say anything, which neither proved nor disproved any point either of them may have had.

"Yeah, I thought so." He didn't know what he thought. "So what should I do today?"

No answer.

Heading into the bathroom, Squall glanced in the mirror. No horns, scales, kitty ears, measles, or new grey hairs, despite being fairly sure that if he should be developing anything, it would be grey hairs.

He turned on the water and waited a minute for the water to warm up. He wasn't quite ready to face Zell again. There were only so many times he could fall off the same damned horse. Maybe it just wasn't worth it. Maybe, for as tolerable as dating Zell would be, it just wouldn't work out and this was an early clue.

Stepping under the water, he tried to fathom all the possibilities for things he could do that wouldn't just be repeats of the same damned things he was always doing with the day. He already knew how to solve every problem other than his own (though he'd forgotten about the kids with their Aching Need CD - maybe someone else had broken that up). There had to be something to do.

"Shiva?"

Still no response.

"Very funny. What would you do if I slipped and cracked my head open on the towel bar?"

Finally, some chatter.

"Thought so."

Once through the shower, he dug around in his sparse dresser for his Triple Triad deck. He was fairly sure that between Rinoa and himself, they could clean up.

Halfway through the evening, Squall decided what to do with the next day - he'd just help Selphie.

Rinoa was leaning against him, sorting through the cards she'd won. No one was bothering to come up and challenge either of them anymore - they really had cleaned up.

"We should do this more often," Rinoa remarked. "I'm sorry we just didn't work out as a couple, but you're still fun to be around."

Squall almost smiled.

"I mean it," Rinoa continued. "Why do you think I stay here? It isn't the food."

That made him chuckle. But it wasn't quite what he wanted to hear.

"I thought you'd decided that you have a purpose here," Squall said bluntly.

"I do," Rinoa replied as she shifted and sat up, meeting Squall's gaze with her own. "But there's a difference between having a purpose and enjoying it."

"I suppose."

A very daring student came up to them, holding out his own deck.

"I think I'd like to try," he said as he stared at Rinoa.

She smiled and nodded before looking at Squall one last time.

"Still, we should do this more often."

Squall nodded and watched her play for a few minutes before he was challenged himself.

He fell into bed at what he thought was a reasonable time. Without the book to read, he felt a little odd. He wasn't sure any extra sleep carried over at all, but he really didn't want to be awake at the reset point. Just the thought of that sounded dangerous.

So he'd help Selphie. And maybe he could take a day to clean out everything old and nasty in the Training Center. With Quistis and maybe Xu. Because Xu had a mean right hook and she was probably even better with a weapon. The problem was the he wasn't sure he could add anything in or out of his spell collection, which might make for at least one awkward moment if they all lacked decent spells.

But the worst things in there were the handful of monsters imported from Esthar and they could handle those.

His eyelids were growing heavy. He wondered if he had any other books around to get through.

"Forty-three."

Squall yawned and stretched, trying to decide what to wear to spend the entire day with Selphie. Normally he didn't put any amount of thought into his wardrobe, but if he knew he was going to spend the day hauling things around and generally getting covered in debris, he planned for it.

He stumbled towards the bathroom, barely remembering to turn on the light before turning the taps on the shower. Stepping back, he stared at himself in the mirror. He needed a haircut.

"If I get a haircut, will my hair be back tomorrow?" he asked. "Or a tattoo? Or nipple-rings? Not that I want nipple-rings."

No answer.

"I could dye my hair blond."

Nothing.

"Maybe I do want nipple rings."

He got into the shower.

"No, no I don't."

He paused.

"But I could."

About a half hour later, wearing old, paint-splattered jeans and one of his usual white t-shirts, Squall had a cup of coffee in his hand as he made his way towards where Selphie was setting up the scenery and stage and whatever else she was doing for the production of... He'd never asked. He actually had no idea what she was working on. Xu had been the one to go over all that paperwork and Selphie was always mostly responsible with everything so he never audited it. He just signed the checks and never questioned.

Maybe he should find out what she was actually doing.

He grabbed some bagels on the way.

Selphie flopped down down on the middle of the stage.

"This is so great," she said as Squall walked over to stare down at her. "Hey, I can see right up your nose."

Squall stepped back.

"Nothing freaky, don't worry," she said with a giggle. "I can't believe that just the two of us got all that done."

"So what exactly is the idea behind all of this?" Squall asked as he sat down beside her. He'd started to figure it out, but mostly he'd been nailing and hauling wood around.

"Okay, I found a book in the library about old superstitions and rituals and stuff," Selphie explained. "Some of it is sorceresses and stuff, but there's ghosts and faeries and all sorts of other things."

"Okay..."

"We're going to decorate things all creepy, like an abandoned house, maybe, though has any of us seen an abandoned house that wasn't in a movie?" Selphie questioned. "Oh well, doesn't matter - they're probably not as creepy in real life as in the movies. Maybe we can get someone to run around with an axe and try to scare people, um..."

"Selphie..."

"Right, so we're going to do some skits and stuff, and have a costume contest..."

"Everyone's going to dress up?"

"Yes!"

"And when is this happening?" Squall asked. He really did need to pay more attention to the social aspects of Garden. He just didn't normally get into them at all.

"Next weekend," Selphie explained. "A bunch of students are supposed to come after class to help with everything you just helped me with, so I think we can start painting and stuff."

"Tonight?" Squall unfolded his legs and lay back beside Selphie.

"Yeah," Selphie said. "Will you go into Balamb and get paint with me?"

"Sure," Squall said. "You driving?"

"Of course, Commander! Let's take something sporty!" Selphie sat up, pumping a fist. "Wait, do we have anything sporty?"

"We do," Squall assured her. "Can we make another stop while we're there? Shiva had to put up with that useless spell and I'd like to get her a little something."

"Aw, the Ice Queen has... wait, hold on... The Ice Princess has... No, I have to call you 'Ice Prince' for it to work, don't I?" Selphie asked with an evil giggle. "You really know how to ruin a joke."

Squall brought up one of his arms to cover his eyes.

"Wake me when its over," he mumbled. But inside, he was actually having fun. And Selphie had been filling him in on all sorts of interesting things that were happening all of Garden. Obviously he didn't let enough interesting gossip into his life - not that he normally would. But maybe he could - it was an option. He wouldn't have known where Seifer, Raijin and Fuujin were otherwise.

Until Selphie had said their names, Squall hadn't thought about either one of them in quite awhile. Sure, he thought about Seifer in a non-distinct sense every morning when he looked in the mirror but that wasn't so much a thought as a generality of being. He was there, his scar was there, Seifer made the scar but that wasn't worth the time to think about.

Seifer had left, and that had pretty much been that. It was a good decision and as long as Seifer didn't regret it, then it wasn't a big deal.

Besides, Seifer actually sounded happy. There was something to be said for that, because a few years ago, Squall would never have associated 'Seifer' with 'happy' unless it had some sort of negative adverb shoved in.

"You're no fun," Selphie said as she rolled over and flopped half on top of him. "We're so gonna have fun with this."

"We?"

"Yeah, you volunteered to help with everything."

"I did?" Squall questioned. "I don't think..."

"I'll even help you make a costume. I don't think we need to do all creepy things, but just something different. I want to be an evil nurse or something, all covered in blood with a big ol' needle. And maybe earrings with little skulls on them..." Selphie trailed off as she sat up again. "I should make a list before either of us forgets all of this stuff."

"You have a junction in?" Squall asked curiously. Most of the current instructors and older operating soldiers had them, but there weren't always enough to go around and aside from Shiva, he generally thought that they were common property.

"Siren," Selphie replied. "Didn't see any reason to let her go yet, I guess. I think I work a little quicker with her around."

"I've been with Shiva for so long that I don't know what I'm like without her," Squall admitted. "We're a team."

"Which is why you're gonna buy her treats," Selphie said with a smile. "I'll get something for Siren while we're out, too."

She got to her feet and stood over Squall. He could see right up her skirt, but he didn't comment on that.

"Come on, Commander, let's go!"

He figured he'd remind her about various abandoned houses they'd visited while she drove.

Squall flopped into bed thoroughly exhausted. He'd wanted to buy a book or two, but it wouldn't have done him any good and there was no way he could fit book shopping into every single day just to finish a story or two. He had to have something around. People liked to give him things but he mostly just put them in cupboards in the tiny kitchen area because he never cooked. Pretty much he just made coffee and sometimes bought a bit of cereal in case he woke up at night. The fridge probably contained a half-jar of mustard, some baking soda, and something Rinoa had given him which should have been thrown away a year or so ago. He hadn't wanted to touch it. And if he did it at present, it would only reappear to be disposed of again.

Which was about the silliest reset-related thought he'd had all day.

"Forty-two."

Chapter Text

"Forty-two," Squall mumbled as he scratched his stomach. "Why couldn't I have drawn, like, six of that stupid spell? Why?"

He felt frustrated. He was frustrated. It was the perfect day to head to the Training Center and kill everything in sight.

He'd almost forgotten that halfway through the morning, Zell would appear and he'd have to figure out what he was going to do in any given direction. Maybe they could just fight as a team, like they had just two (of Zell's days, at least) before.

He'd just finished off his fourth T-Rexaur when he saw Zell rounding the far corner of the path. Pausing to sit beside his kill and clean the blood from his gunblade, Squall waited for Zell to greet him.

"Yo!" Zell said as he ran over. "You do that alone? What are you doing out here anyway?"

"Needed to blow off some steam," Squall said. "And besides, after last night, I kept thinking that I haven't been in here in awhile."

"I'm the one who keeps stock on our monsters," Zell said. "I can give you a basic run down, minus one T-Rexaur."

"Four," Squall said. "How many did we have?"

"Four," Zell replied with a sigh. "I'll have to order more."

Squall chuckled. "Well, then I suppose it's safe for the students to work their way through to the far deck, then. I haven't been out there - for any reason - in awhile either."

"I don't know if anyone still patrols it," Zell admitted. "Maybe Xu?"

"Xu spends all day doing paperwork," Squall said. "I know, I know, I'll get her an assistant. I just need to get to tomorrow to get everything in order."

"Get to tomorrow?" Zell asked as Squall stood up and stretched, tucking away his gunblade.

"There's only so much I can do with today," Squall said. "But I can enjoy it."

"You sure that spell didn't make you a little fuzzy in the head?"

"Not at all," Squall said as he gestured for Zell to follow him. "Let's do a patrol and then get lunch. If you want to spar against something, I'm available."

"I'd just assume take you up on lunch, sir," Zell replied with a smile.

"What is this?" Squall asked himself as he began to dig things out from the cupboard where he generally dumped everything people gave him. He had no idea how many years worth of stuff was down there, but it was certainly a disaster. From gifts from students to things from even Ellone, he'd just piled it with intentions to do something with some of it.

Zell had been right a few repeats before - his place really didn't look like he lived in it at all and as far as he knew, he'd have the same quarters for quite awhile - standard staff quarters but still enough. He had the small kitchen area, the bathroom, the bedroom, and a sort of everything room with the sofa and coffee table and bookcase that was empty other than some dust.

There was an analog clock on the wall, batteries long dead and permanently saying it was a little after six. It was right twice a day and he didn't look at it when he did have it.

And on the other wall was a sword he'd been given in Esthar - it was mainly hung up properly because there wasn't room for it in the cupboard.

He grabbed a handful of paper towels and went to wipe off the bookcase. Quistis had given him that when she changed rooms. She'd probably tried to give him some books as well, which was what he was looking for.

The first thing he'd found was just a simple and awful knickknack - probably from Selphie. From Winhill - she'd had a mission there. Maybe she thought it would mean a little more to him than it did. The thought was certainly a happy one. He set it on top of the bookcase and went back for whatever was next.

Maybe people just didn't know what he liked. It made sense - he didn't really know what he liked, other than peace and quiet, some semblance of order, and having time to himself. He didn't get most of those, so maybe settling for books and knickknacks would be okay.

He kept digging, sorting through years of birthday gifts until he found a box of books off to one side. Knowing full well that it was a wasted effort (but one that took time, which he had in spades), he began to shelve them all. He'd pick out one to read on the next repeat, perhaps, now that he knew where they were.

When he was finished, he leaned back against the wall and sighed. Why hadn't he done any of this sooner? Was he really so detached still? It wasn't a good feeling, even though he knew he'd made progress - and not just in the last few repeats of the same damned day.

"Is this it?" he asked. "Some stupid lesson that maybe I opened up a bit but I'm still some sort of unfeeling robot?"

There was no response.

"I'm going to bed," he told the empty space as he stood up and marched toward the bedroom. He didn't turn on the light because he knew the walls were bare and all he had besides a mirror on the back of the door and his gunblade were the digital clock radio and lamp on his nightstand.

He pulled the covers over his head quickly, not bothering to even consider the time. It was probably early. But he was tired and besides, the sooner he fell asleep, the sooner everything would be over.

"Forty-one"

"What if I cast the spell again?" he asked the bathroom mirror when he walked by. "Probably wouldn't help - might even make things worse. If I even can cast it. But... there are definitely less of it floating around."

He reached over to turn on the water and then let his eyes wander up to the shelves where kept his meager towel collection. How many towels did people have? He had three. Three was a good number, because the same one could be used for a couple of days. Or fifty-some, because time kept resetting and even if he wore it around all day and rolled in the mud, he and the towel would be a fair bit cleaner in the morning. He'd still have his residue from the day before and the towel... Well, it was always hanging on the towel bar beside the sink so he'd used it at least once but he'd been in Trabia... The little details always seemed to escape him, though he wasn't sure if it was Shiva's doing or just that there was no reason to commit them to memory to begin with. Probably a little of both, depending on the situation.

Shiva started chattering away in his head and it certainly seemed more like words he could understand but it still seemed like she was yelling them from downwind of a fan or something - there was a distinct barrier that was keeping him from making distinct words from her sounds.

"You're welcome to my memories," he told her as he stepped into the shower. "Try to leave some of the good stuff, like tying shoes and whatever, but the rest, well, things about towels or how long that stuff has been in my fridge or whatever, that doesn't really matter to me.

"I'm learning things," he continued as he started to wash his hair. "Like, how to deal with people I deal with all the time but in a friendly way. Maybe I've taken everyone for granted now that we're not off trying to save the world and all of that. Maybe I've been so wrapped up in myself that I haven't looked around me to see what's going on with everyone. I need to be more involved. So now that I know all of this, can I please just jump ahead to when this all ends so that I can begin the process of taking care of everything? I know how to do it all right."

He paused.

"I think."

Shiva didn't say anything, but he could sense her.

"I know, I know, spells don't work like that."

About a half-hour later, he had a cup of coffee in his hand and was heading towards his office when he saw Quistis coming from the other direction.

"Good morning!" She waved, and Squall smiled.

"Morning," he said with a slight echoing wave.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she commented before stopping. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

Squall frowned for a moment.

"Want me to work on them?" he asked. "Just drop them by my office and I'll take care of them."

"Huh?"

"They're the Galbadian Political papers, right? No problem. I could grade them in my sleep. After all, we were both there for quite a bit of it," Squall said.

"What do you want in return?" Quistis asked curiously.

"Come patrol the Training Center with me this evening in a total non-romantic non-date way," Squall said. "Though I will take you for a lovely dinner in the cafeteria if you'd like. And an apple."

"An apple?"

Squall nodded. "It's a deal then."

And he headed off down the hallway, leaving a very confused Quistis standing there, watching him go.

The problem, Squall noted, with trying to help everyone with everything, was that it just wasn't possible. He'd finished Quistis' papers, but he'd had to make his visit with Ellone far too short. Technically he couldn't help Xu, because it would just seem like he was ignoring his own paperwork mess. He was, but that was only because he could do it all he wanted, it would just respawn upon the next repeat. He couldn't hang out with Zell in the Training Center with or without romantic attraction because then he'd even have to skip most of his bagel missions, which he hadn't done anyway. Rinoa and cards were a great combination, but they interfered with helping Selphie not sacrifice herself. And doing anything with Nida and the White SeeDs would interrupt any reading time or room-cleaning, not that he really needed to clean so much as make the place look like a human actually lived in it.

There was no way to find the actual 'right' course for the day.

Leaning back in his desk chair, he realized that might be part of it too. How many times had he kicked himself for one silly little miss on behalf of himself or another member of his team? Sometimes he could let that sort of thing go, but sometimes it just ate at him even though there was no way to go back and change things.

"Great, we have a sorceress concerned with character building running around Trabia," he grumbled as he looked up at the ceiling. "Not fair."

Shiva jabbered something and Squall froze. It seemed a little clearer than even in the morning, but certainly not all the way there yet.

"Almost," he told her. "But I suppose I should be more worried about lunch than what's going on in my head."

He'd decided to help Nida again, after helping Selphie for a bit and doing dinner and the Training Center patrol with Quistis. All he'd really missed was Rinoa and he was fairly sure she'd be interested in helping Selphie if he'd only remember to ask her to help Selphie - if he could remember where she was. Rinoa seemed to appear in different spots depending on his own actions - maybe she was in the most direct path of influence, which made sense since he was still, technically, her knight. His actions would affect her. For all he knew, even what he said to Quistis directed her flow. Maybe whether or not he scratched his stomach immediately upon waking up...

Maybe he could test the theory just a little, but it would require at least a day to set up. And dinner plans, or something.

Or he'd have to find her after dinner after not interacting with her all day, ask what she did all day, and then do things different and find her again... He'd not paid much attention to the science of experimentation - he'd been more concerned about practical things like learning how not to get shot.

After changing into his night clothes and flopping into bed, Squall found himself staring at the ceiling. He didn't really want to know how everything worked. It didn't matter to him. Except it did, because he did want to know.

He rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head.

"Forty."

"About time," he muttered. "About time."

Chapter Text

"Twenty days left," Squall told the mirror as he stared at it. "I've survived an entire month of this same stupid day without horns, scales, being killed more than four times, being punched more than a half-dozen times and I almost, almost managed to get past a first handful of kisses with Zell. That actually doesn't say much about me, does it?"

"So what are you going to do today?"

"Well, Shiva," Squall began as he got into the shower, "I thought I'd start off with a nice hot shower. Maybe I'll shave my head again. That was kinda funny. Then I'll grab a round of bagels for everyone and brighten days or something. I could go on a stapler hunt or announce over the public address that I'll give fifty gil for every one that people bring me. I bet I could fill my office with them and just tell everyone to stop back tomorrow for their money. But everything will reset. You know, I almost want to try being awake just to see a giant pile of staplers vanish."

He laughed. He knew he was toeing a dangerous line between sanity and whatever came after sanity. He was off in his own little world.

"Or maybe I'll stay in and say I have a headache. None of that sounded like a good idea," he continued. "I know where all of those books are and I could probably get through one if I read all day. I'm going to have so many notes to write when time straightens out. Maybe they'll send me more. Maybe I can put aside some time to read every day - reading about people who don't exist is helping me relate to the ones who do."

He reached for the shampoo and started to wash his hair.

"I've lost it. I'm going to spend the day on the sofa, reading. The door will be unlocked, but I'm not going anywhere."

Not surprisingly, Ellone was the first one to pop her head in.

"Squall?" she asked as she stepped in and closed the door. "Are you okay?"

"Just a headache," Squall replied. "I took something. But the thought of paperwork and going through the unjunction process to remove the spell just didn't sound like it would help me any."

Ellone nodded as she glanced around for a place to sit down.

"Here," Squall said as he scooted into a sitting position, leaving room on the sofa for her to sit.

"Would you like me to tell everyone to leave you alone for the day?" she asked as she reached over to feel his forehead. "You feel a little warm, too. Maybe that's just from being up in Trabia - you might be fighting off a cold."

"I was the one wearing pants," Squall commented. "If anyone should have a cold, it's Selphie and Zell. Do you have any idea why even their uniforms are altered to look like their preferred every-day attire? It's just not right."

"You're the commander," Ellone reminded him. "Do something about it."

"Nah," Squall said. "They're my friends, too. If they want to do silly things, they can do silly things."

"And that's probably why you're the commander," Ellone said as she leaned back. "Mind if I stay for awhile? We haven't had much of a chance to talk. Though maybe it's better if I put you to sleep first."

"I don't mind," Squall said as he set down his book. "Might be nice. And you're right, we haven't had much of a chance to talk since you've been here. I haven't even had time to meet the students you brought."

"If you're feeling better, maybe we can have dinner with them," Ellone said. "They have a night repair mission with Nida and that will pretty much finish up what they need to learn here."

Squall nodded as he heard Ellone begin to cast her spell.

"What is going on in here?"

Squall blinked a couple of times - either Ellone wasn't feeling exceptionally creative or the best thing she thought to help him involved making his head space look just like his barren sitting room. Except it wasn't exactly barren. Instead, it was a composite of the last month's worth of the same day repeating over and over, piled up to make an utter disaster of memories and emotions and thoughts and plans.

"Um..."

"No wonder you have a headache," Ellone said as she produced a broom from some sort of magical space and began shooing everything away until there was only the beginnings of clutter peeking around the edges. "You need a serious memory clean-up in aisle five."

"I can explain," Squall said as he flopped down on his mental sofa. "You didn't believe me at first the last time I told you, but now you can see it..."

"See what?" Ellone asked. "It's like there's an echo in here that..."

She froze mid-sweep and looked at Squall.

"You're in a time-warp?"

"I've spent the last month reliving the same day over and over again," Squall explained. "Because of that ridiculously stupid spell. I can't unjunction it and I can't re-cast it and every time I just try to stay in bed, you come and find me. And if I do stay in bed, Rinoa is irritable all day, Selphie dies while trying to save a student, Nida and your White SeeD students have a disastrous class, Xu doesn't get breakfast, Quistis' stress level overloads and Zell... You know, it's weird that one of the people who's closest to me has a completely normal day without me in it."

Ellone frowned.

"I can see why I wouldn't believe you without proof, because that sounds crazy. Really, really crazy."

"I spent two weeks of today finding out what changes depending on what I do - it affects Rinoa the most, because we're connected," Squall continued. "If I spend the day with her, however, other things begin to skew off in other directions. In a way, it's been fascinating. Except it's driving me crazy."

"Everything re-sets?" Ellone asked. "It must, if... Selphie..."

"Don't think about it," Squall said. "She's really easy to save as long as you don't try to actually be the one to catch her. That just ends up breaking your neck and talking to Shiva until the reset happens."

"Shiva..."

"She's in it with me," Squall said. "She's probably around here. I can hear her sometimes, talking. Not much of a conversationalist, but she snarks a bit in the mornings to get me out of bed, at least."

"Squall, if I didn't know about that spell, I'd say you'd completely lost it. But given your previous experience with all sorts of sorcery, time compression and everything else, you're a prime candidate to come through something like this and be sane," Ellone said as she sat down beside him, crossing her legs and thrusting the broom out as if she was daring any mangled mess of memories to come and bother them.

"I don't know," Squall admitted. "But being able to tell someone helps."

"That's what sisters are for - poking around in your head when you're asleep," Ellone said with a smile.

"I'm not sure normal sisters do that," Squall replied.

"Do you know any?"

"No."

"Well then, let's just pretend it's as normal as you getting stuck in a repeating time-loop," Ellone said. "So other than figuring out how your sleeping habits affect everyone around you, what have you been doing?"

"Huh?"

"If everything resets, you should at least be doing all sorts of odd things you'd never normally do," Ellone explained. "Run around in drag, or kiss Quistis or... oh, I don't know. Nice, non-Squall things. I think I'd borrow one of your uniforms to see how I looked... Whoops."

"You want a SeeD uniform? I can..."

"Yours," she said. "I didn't mean to ever tell you that, but... well, I won't remember doing it, right?"

"You won't, and eventually, I won't," Squall said. "Shiva told me that she wouldn't let me remember all of this once it was over."

"Smart spirit," Ellone commented. "And we totally got you off topic - I want to know what you've been up to."

"I've just been spending time with everyone," Squall admitted. "I've spent a couple days playing cards with Rinoa, and almost every day helping Quistis grade papers. I can do all of them in about an hour now because I've seen them so many times. Um..."

"Let's do something crazy today, then," Ellone interrupted. "Something neither of us would normally do. No one will remember... Even me... But you will, for awhile."

"What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know," Ellone said, poking at one of the stray memories trying to skitter across the floor. Squall wasn't sure whether or not Ellone could tell exactly what it was, but it looked like something happening to Selphie.

"As long as I have someone help Selphie," Squall said. "Or we both go help her. But we have all afternoon."

"I can make lunch," Ellone said. "And we can figure it out."

"Make lunch?"

"Don't you have anything around to make?"

"I promise you, if you look in my mind-fridge, it probably looks just like my real one. Unless we're having baking soda and mustard on moldy something-or-other, I'd suggest we hit the cafeteria." Squall chuckled. "Actually, I wonder what's in my mind-fridge. Maybe it's full of..."

He didn't get to finish his sentence as he was dragged back to consciousness with only a sad look on Ellone's face.

"Sorry," she said as he blinked a few times. "I suppose I should have let you check your mental fridge. Maybe it's full of interesting things."

"Doubt it," Squall admitted. "Probably just the mind-mustard and half a bottle of soda."

Ellone started giggling. "Mind mustard," she echoed as she stood.

"Okay, I'm sorry I said it..."

"Don't be," Ellone interrupted. "I like that. I wish I could go inside my own head and poke around. I'm sure my mind fridge is filled with all sorts of interesting things... Cookies from Matron and fancy leftovers from the dinners Uncle Laguna and I get dragged too... I don't know how he ever gets through them without me."

"Awkwardly," Squall suggested with a slight wince.

Smiling, Ellone nodded. "He's like that even when I'm there."

There was a pause.

"So... lunch?" Ellone asked. "You don't really have a headache, do you?"

"No," Squall admitted. "Not really. But I suppose you'd let me put on something a little dressier if I'm going to escort you around Garden...?"

"Of course," Ellone replied with a smile.

"You too," Squall said. "I have more than one uniform. If I'm going to dress up, so are you."

"I didn't mean..." She frowned and glanced away.

"Yes, you did," Squall said. "And besides, no one will ever remember."

Nodding, Ellone slowly began to smile again. "Okay. Promise not to laugh?"

"Promise not to laugh if I can show you how to do your hair properly?" Squall asked. "There's supposed to be an actual protocol for it, but no one follows it. Just something that looks good in the books, I suppose."

"You think I'd know, for all the time I spend with the White SeeDs," Ellone said softly. "But I'm more of an escort to them than any sort of... authority figure. Just like they escort me, I suppose, because I'm not supposed to travel by myself."

"Ellone, you'd be a terrible weapon in the wrong hands," Squall said. "So would Rinoa, which is why she has the same guidelines inflicted upon her."

He had not quite used the word he wanted to use.

"Inflicted - that's it exactly," Ellone said. "But I suppose it's okay, in the end. I mean, I know what I'm capable of and... Well, best not think of that."

"Haven't you ever wanted to cut loose?" Squall asked her as he pulled her into his bedroom and opened the closet doors. "Today would be the day. You can do everything you've always wanted to do and it won't have any effect on anything in the end."

"No," Ellone said. "Not like that. We can run around all dressed up and play pranks, but I couldn't hurt anyone or go snooping around in heads I absolutely have no right to be in."

"And that makes me respect you all the more, Sis," Squall said as he handed her one of his uniforms and gestured towards the bathroom.

In a full uniform and with her hair up properly (Squall did find her a copy of the illustration, just so she knew he wasn't just playing with her hair because he could), Ellone was enough to make him do a double-take each time he glanced in her direction. It was almost impossible to believe they weren't genetically related - they looked like siblings. But without his mother, there really wouldn't be any way to figure out Ellone's exact relation, if there was one. He'd never gone looking for his mother's side of the family, and never intended to.

"You look amazing, Sis," he said as they headed down the hallway towards the cafeteria.

"I know," Ellone replied a little stiffly. The male version of the uniform was a little tight on some of her more curved areas, but nothing that looked too forced. And he'd probably pulled her hair a little tight, but that was also part of the point - not supposed to have stray curls while gunning down an oppressive regime or random terrorist. "You've told me, ah, three times already."

"You're not going to remember anyway."

"Quit reminding me," Ellone said. "Or keep doing it, if I lose my nerve. This whole 'do anything' concept is just..."

"And I've already been through a month of 'do what you feel day'," Squall said. "It's not hard. But I wish it would be over. It is a little boring not being able to move on."

"What are you going to do tomorrow?" Ellone asked as they arrived at the cafeteria. Heads turned in their direction but Squall didn't outwardly respond. Inwardly, he smiled, but outwardly, he...

"Oh, it's fish sticks or mac-n-cheese," he said as if he somehow didn't know. "Go on ahead of me."

"When we're sitting," Ellone said, " I want to know."

"What if I haven't thought about it?" Squall questioned. He had, a bit, but not enough that he had any definite plans.

Together they gathered their lunch and headed to the small, sequestered staff area that was thankfully empty except for a couple of the younger students' instructors who were so busy with their own conversation that they barely glanced at Squall and Ellone when they entered.

"Okay," Ellone said as they sat down. "What do you have planned?"

"We haven't even finished planning today," Squall said as he poked at his fish sticks. He'd gotten completely and utterly tired of mac-n-cheese about a dozen repeats ago and as much as he didn't really like fish sticks, they were an acceptable meal. "What makes you think I have ideas for tomorrow?"

"I don't know," Ellone said. "Just think you would."

"Probably just the usual," Squall admitted. "Get up, shower, run into Quistis, stop by Xu's office, find you... And see what happens from there. Maybe I'll help Selphie or maybe I'll have Zell help Selphie. Or Rinoa. I have started to enjoy spending entire days playing Triple Triad with Rinoa."

Ellone laughed. "I'm glad you still get along with her so well."

"Why wouldn't I?" Squall questioned with a shrug. "She's useful and easy to work with."

"Well, when people break up..."

"You say that like you date a lot," Squall interrupted. "Do you? You've never mentioned anyone."

"For me, it's difficult," Ellone said with a frown. "Generally, everyone I come into contact with knows that I have a special ability and are intimidated by that. So... finding someone who wasn't afraid that I'd do odd things to them or poke into their business - well, it isn't easy."

Squall nodded. He'd never thought about it, but he could really understand how that would be a damper on any relationship. Maybe that was why Rinoa was staying single. That or no one else met her princely standards.

"I did date an Estharian soldier for a few months," Ellone continued. "He was really nice, but I don't spend most of my time there and I couldn't imagine asking him to wait around for me, or even worse, follow me. He's... partly-converted which might seem a little odd to you, but..."

Squall raised an eyebrow. He'd always wanted to learn a little more about Esthar's unique cyborg soldiers.

"Tell me whatever you'd like," Squall said. "You won't remember that you told me and... I won't remember much, in the end."

"Not over lunch," Ellone replied with a giggle. "If at all."

The idea of finding out more about Ellone's love life flew straight out the window the second Selphie arrived in the cafeteria.

Within seconds, she'd rushed over and was fawning over Ellone.

"You're so cute!" she exclaimed as she circled around. "We need to get you a couple pistols or a whip or something so you'll totally look like you can rain black death over the terrain!"

"I... I think I'd be better with administrative work," Ellone said with a half-smile.

"Like Xu?" Selphie asked. "You know, she's got a wonderful record. She's fierce and skilled and keeps Squall in line."

"Perhaps," Ellone replied. "Though I can't help but wonder why we have to keep training these children to follow after us as ruthless soldiers."

"It's what we do," Squall said. "It's not that we aren't working for peace. We assist with negotiations and squash rebellions and whatever as well. Do you think I like this? And besides, we need to be ready in case another sorceress appears."

"I suppose you're right," Ellone admitted as she poked at her lunch with her fork. "It would just be nice to have a world without fear."

"Today, you do," Squall said with a knowing smile. Ellone smiled back quickly before glancing over at Selphie.

"Squall said you were working on a big project," she said. "I'm sorry that I haven't had a chance to come take a look."

"It's okay," Selphie said. "As long as you're here when it's done - we're going to have a big creepy costume party. You should wear what you're wearing now because it's shocking, if nothing else. Maybe get those pistols and... wait, you could just borrow Squall's gunblade and we could draw a scar on you... The effect would be near perfect."

Squall chuckled. "I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I could watch myself walk around all evening."

"Well, we could dress you up like a sorceress or something and..."

Thankful he wasn't drinking, Squall managed his way through a good dozen expressions.

"No," he said flatly. "Not a chance. Creepy as it would be, just no."

"You're no fun," Selphie said. "I'm going to dress up as something really scary, like, um, Quistis on a bad day."

"Well, if we're doing that, I suppose I could be Xu when I haven't finished paperwork," Squall said. "I thought you wanted skeletons and ghosts and stuff."

"I do," Selphie said. "Hey, how do you know that?"

"You told me in Trabia," Squall 'reminded' her. "Remember?"

"Nope. Nothing new about not remembering though," Selphie admitted. She'd made a little pile of her fish sticks.

"Isn't that hard on you?" Ellone asked. "I've always wanted to ask... And do you forget simple little things?"

"I'm not sure," Selphie said with a wink. "I don't remember forgetting anything."

"Selph..." Squall warned.

"What?" Selphie asked. "It's all in good fun. I mean, we do what we have to, right? And there's a little side-effect. It's worth it to keep everything the way it should be."

"It's a little odd when someone reminds me of something I just can't remember," Squall said. "Simple little things, like going into Balamb and having lunch with Irvine before a mission or something... He'll remember it and I won't. Or we'll both think we did something, maybe, except we're not sure because it's hazy."

"Just don't forget me completely," Ellone said as she stared at both of them.

"Well, we have all afternoon to make memories," Selphie said. "Lots of them, involving mostly you two helping me a bit just maybe?"

"Definitely," Ellone said quickly. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do, as long as my SeeDs are well taken care of."

"I'm sure they're in good hands," Squall said. He reached over and touched her arm as a bit of a reminder that just because they knew the potential outcomes of the day, no one else needed to.

"I know," Ellone said with a soft smile.

"Great! I want to show you everything," Selphie said. "Ellone, this will give you so many ideas of things you can do with the group you work with. Because keeping morale high and having lots of fun is super important!"

"As is them not thinking their commander is off his rocker," Squall added.

"If it's all in good fun, they'll understand," Selphie retorted. She knocked her fish stick pile over.

"We'll meet up with you in a bit, then," Ellone said as she began to stand. "Squall and I did have a few more things to do today but we can squeeze them all in quickly."

"Of course, go have fun," Selphie said with a wave. "But don't forget me, okay?"

"Never would, Selphie," Squall replied as he got out of his chair as well. "Don't worry."

"Okay, maybe I didn't want to try this," Ellone stammered as a very confused Grat stared at her. Squall was happy that all of his other magic spells worked properly because if the Grat hadn't been confused, it might have tried to stumble into one of them and leave a bruise.

"Go on," Squall said. Shiva was happily chattering in his head again as he watched Ellone stare down the grat, gunblade in hand.

"I mean, how do you even lift this thing?"

"Just go up and poke it," Squall said. "Don't even worry about pulling the trigger. Just use the sword part."

"But it'll die. I'm not sure I want to do that."

Squall tried not to roll his eyes. It was a Grat. They practically respawned. Actually, he was quite sure that there was a healthy colony over on the far west side and that was what was happening to any T-Rexsaur remains that weren't cleaned up right away.

"Bop it on the head and I can heal it after," he tried.

"I don't know."

The grat stumbled off. So much for trying out actual weaponry.

"I'm a failure," Ellone said almost with a smile.

"You know, you could kill it today and it would reset and be alive tomorrow," Squall reminded her.

"I forgot," Ellone admitted as she handed the gunblade back to him. "It isn't easy to remember - that this is all real but it isn't. I don't like to think about it. I mean, at this time tomorrow - er, today but, um - when this comes around again for you, you won't be with me and I won't be with you and everything will be really not like this. It's weird. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with it."

"We can just go help Selphie and not think about it," Squall suggested. "Let's go back to my room and change, okay?"

Ellone nodded and reached for Squall's hand when he offered it.

Squall fell into bed absolutely exhausted. Ellone had stayed with him until well after eleven thirty and she only left when he explained that thus far he hadn't been awake for the reset and really didn't want to be awake for it if he could possibly help it. And she'd had only one request for him - to say something about the weather in Winhill, which was apparently something she liked to check online but no one knew that she did so. She also liked to check the fanpage that Selphie maintained for Laguna, but that didn't need to ever be mentioned again.

Maybe that was why Selphie was so fond of Ellone - Laguna information. Squall shook his head before burying it under a blanket. It wasn't worth thinking about. He needed to get to sleep.

"And you?" he asked in a hushed whisper. "Did you have fun today?"

There was nothing more than a feeling of contentment from Shiva until he truly began to drop under.

"Nineteen."

Chapter Text

Should I start counting down?" Squall asked himself as he crawled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. "Should I do something silly? Should I stay in again? I don't know."

He turned on the bathroom light and headed straight for the shower.

"I'm completely out of things to do, you know," he said to himself as he turned on the water. He didn't even think he was talking to Shiva as much as he was just talking to himself. He wondered if his mood was starting to reset - was he always so grumpy in the mornings? He didn't know how to wake up chipper.

"Could go after Zell again," he said. "Check the weather in Winhill, and see if by starting early I can perhaps get a little farther than awkward kissing. I thought adults just got it over with quickly."

He paused. He wasn't actually talking to anyone.

"Fucked, I mean," he said. Normally he didn't swear - there wasn't reason.

"Fucked." It felt kinda good. He felt like a thirteen year old. A crazy one.

He got into the shower and swore again, but mainly because he slid a bit and crashed his elbow into the wall.

Completely side-tracked, Squall found himself in a deep conversation with a couple of female students about the musical merit of the Aching Need. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as he'd grown more and more fond of their music and he certainly understood their choice in names, especially as Zell bounced by on his way to lunch.

"Gotta go," he said to the girls, both of whom nodded.

"Catch ya around, Commander," one of them said with a smile. "I'll give you a CD with those live songs on, okay?"

"Sure," Squall said, a little disappointed that he'd never actually get it. But he had better things to do, like follow Zell.

"Hey," he called as he caught up to the blond.

"Can't chat," Zell said. "I heard a rumor that there are hot dogs today."

"Fish sticks and mac-n-cheese," Squall corrected. "You heard wrong."

"How do you know?"

"I just do," Squall said. "Maybe I approved the menu or something. I don't know. But trust me on this. There's no need to rush."

Zell smiled. "Okay. Sure."

"So what are you doing after lunch?" Squall asked. Zell had probably just come from the Training Center - he looked a little rumpled around the edges.

Zell shrugged as they entered the cafeteria. "I don't know. Haven't thought about it. Usually I help with some of the junior classes in the afternoons, but since we weren't sure how long we'd be in Trabia..."

"Cancelled all week," Squall finished. "I knew that - I'm the one who opened up our schedules, though mine is closing back in again."

"Speaking of which, how are you feeling?" Zell asked as he received a plate of mac-n-cheese. "No weird after-effects of that spell?"

Squall shook his head and pointed at the fish sticks.

"Nothing. Kind of disappointing, actually. I was rather hoping to wake up with horns or scales or something," he said as they headed off towards the staff area.

"I've had scales," Zell said coldly. "Wouldn't recommend them. Do you have any idea how much lotion they required? In places I never would have thought would ever need lotion."

Squall chuckled as they sat down.

"Rumor has it that Rinoa did that on purpose," he said without quite meaning to. He'd have to watch that once time straightened out - he'd gotten far too used to just saying things whenever it seemed like a good idea. Or a bad one.

"What?" Zell asked, leaning forward. "I mean, um, part of me has always thought so but I've never really done anything to her. Not on purpose at least. I like Rinoa."

"Don't hold it against her," Squall said quickly. "She's grown up a lot since then."

"I know."

"So, what were you up to?"

"Practice," Zell said. "No point in stopping. I don't want to get rusty in case weird things strike Trabia again. Actually, it'd be nice to go out to Esthar and just find some big bad awful thing that their army guys can't handle and show off..."

"Next time Laguna asks for support, you'll be first on my list," Squall said, mentally asking Shiva if she'd not touch that memory at all - it would come in handy because Esthar still intimidated a lot of working SeeDs.

"As long as I don't have to sit through any official dinners," Zell added. "Do you remember that last one?"

"It was long and boring," Squall recollected. And it had been in their honor, though he wasn't sure why. "But Laguna isn't behind any of that - apparently Esthar custom is to bore important guests half to death and then get them lost in the city."

"Sounds about right," Zell said before he shoveled about half of the contents of his plate into his mouth. "Hey..."

"What?"

"They should cut up pieces of hot dog and put in here," Zell said as he pointed down at his mac-n-cheese with his fork. "Seriously, it'd be really good. I'm going to go suggest that right now before I forget."

And with that, Zell was off. Squall hated to see the wasted effort, but really it wasn't hurting anything either.

Zell had been exceptionally easy to get naked. The problem was that he was naked in the shower and Squall was sitting out in his sitting room, pondering the bare wall and wondering if anything would manage to happen or if the afternoon would be as disastrous as it usually was. Sure, adults got the sexual impulses out of the way quickly, but he hadn't even managed to tell Zell that the attraction was rather mutual. Still, if he had to deal with awkward sex, it might be better if it would be something that neither of them would end up remembering when it was all said and done.

He had half a bottle of mustard in the fridge, a bottle of soda, and some baking soda... He couldn't even really offer anything else, other than coffee. And Zell probably didn't need any more caffeine than his already mysterious intake.

The shower turned off and a minute later, Zell had emerged from the bedroom wearing only the towel. Squall blinked. Maybe he was going to get seduced. He could stand to get seduced, he guessed. Maybe. Well, it was worth a try, in the end.

"You've got a way better bathroom than I do," Zell said as he circled around. "Gotta cool down after that."

"I always just thought it was poor ventilation," Squall admitted. He looked over at Zell and patted the space beside him. "Have a seat, though. Un-melt, or whatever."

Zell shrugged and sat.

Squall sighed inwardly.

Might as well go for it.

"You still interested?" Squall asked as he continued to look at the wall.

"In what?" Zell asked.

"Me."

"Huh, I-" Zell stopped and shifted. "Hey, I... Um... Well, that's to say..."

"Because if you are, go ahead and kiss me. You're already naked, so I assume that'll make things easier."

He was expecting anything but the reaction he got. Another false start wouldn't have surprised him. A smack, a punch, anything other than Zell's mouth on his, Zell's body half on top of him already. Squall kissed back quickly, letting his hands find smooth still-damp skin. Something had obviously been perfectly correct because this hadn't happened yet. Maybe it was the shower.

"You turn into Ell or something?" Zell asked as he shifted them so that he was mostly laying on top of Squall along the length of the sofa. "In the shower, I was thinking... Well, waste of time now but..."

Squall kissed him, pulling their mouths together and pushing his tongue into Zell's mouth. Zell didn't protest. Squall wished he knew what to do next. They could fumble through it. Maybe Zell knew. He hoped Zell didn't know. He wasn't sure why, but the thought of Zell with anyone else was a little alarming. Zell just seemed so...

Zell was reaching to slide a hand up under his shirt and Squall just stopped thinking about everything.

He froze when Zell's hand did slide upward, more out of surprise than anything else. He hadn't expected things to go so well.

"You okay?" Zell asked softly. He shifted, sitting up so that his legs straddled Squall's lap. Squall could see Zell's arousal beneath the towel and he was sure he was quite obviously erect himself.

"Yeah," Squall said. "I just wasn't expecting... But I'm not complaining, either..."

"Sorry," Zell said as he scrambled backwards. "We can, kinda, cool off..."

"I don't want to," Squall said. "Neither do you."

Zell nodded. Apparently speaking the truth worked.

All afternoon.

Chapter Text

"Eighteen," Squall said to himself as he stared upward at the dark ceiling of his dark room. "Eighteen."

Compared with fifty variations on his day remaining, eighteen sounded wonderful. But everything had reset and his previous day getting to know Zell was now completely void of existence, except in his head. It wasn't fair - he wanted to see what would happen. He wanted to know if it would work out.

And chances were, he thought, that if he ever tried anything like that once time straightened itself out, he'd only meet with disaster.

He rolled over and crawled out of bed, turning on his bedroom light before stumbling through the bathroom to turn the shower on first, then the light.

"Lame," he said to his reflection in the mirror. Still no horns, no scales or anything else. He stretched and then scratched his stomach. "Really lame."

"Day off?"

"I take every other day off," he told Shiva as he shook his head. "Maybe I just do some work today, like it's a normal day, and see what happens."

Shiva didn't respond - she only retreated a bit to her usual spot, resting comfortably as Squall got in the shower.

"What do I do if I see Zell?" he asked as he washed his hair. "Smile and wave, I guess. I wish I'd cast the spell on both of us. I could stand being stuck on repeat with him."

He paused.

"I mean, if it worked. For all I know, we're a million times better as friends," Squall said as he began to rinse himself off. "I probably shouldn't view Garden as a dating pool anyway. In fact, I probably shouldn't. No one has managed a successful romance around here other than Cid and Matron and you know what, Shiva? I would hardly classify that as normal."

Shaking his head, he finished washing and turned off the water.

"Normal, normal day..."

A half hour later, he had a cup of coffee in his hand and was heading towards his office. No breakfast for anyone else or anything - just himself and his coffee. He was going to have a normal day. One without a stapler, he realized just before he saw Quistis coming his way.

"Good morning!" she said, waving to him with one hand. She had a thick folder of papers in the other, tucked against her side.

"Morning," Squall replied with a quick raise of the hand not clutching his coffee.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she said as she stopped and gave him a once over. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"I remember seeing the incident report for your aide," Squall replied. "Why haven't you asked for help?"

"Pride, I guess," Quistis said as she shook her head. "I'm supposed to be able to do everything, remember?"

"If you need a hand, stop by my office after lunch and I'll help you," Squall offered with a soft smile.

Quistis smiled back. "Just don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Not a problem," Squall said. "What's the subject?"

"History of Political Strife on the Galbadian Continent," Quistis replied. "One of your favorites."

"I should brush up," Squall noted. He needed to hit the library to see Ellone anyway. And tell her the weather in Winhill, which he quickly needed to check on. "I'll stop by the library and grab a reference."

"Good luck," Quistis said. "They're probably all still checked out. Or at least the ones with the newer updates."

"Quistis, I think I know about the newer updates. We were there."

She smiled. "I know. And you should see how wrong these papers get it anyway."

Squall shook his head as he headed off. He could check the weather on the internet in his office (as much as he didn't like turning his computer on - it always led to more work that he didn't mind doing but didn't necessarily want to do in the first place because it just kept appearing. That and everyone sent him really silly e-mails that he most certainly wouldn't pass on even to people that he didn't like). And maybe grab a stapler from Xu or have a stapler thrown at him by Xu...

Ellone was easy to find, though in a different part of the library than he'd remembered her being in, if he could even trust his memories. The past month's worth of days were jumbling together worse than he thought they should be, though technically they were the same day over and over - there was really no reason to expect to be able to tell any of them apart.

"Hey, Sis," he softly called as he stepped up behind her. She was bent over a table, apparently showing something in a large book to one of her students.

"Squall!" she turned, smiling. "You feeling okay? No weird after-effects from that spell? I'd meant to try to stop by your room this morning but..."

"No worries," Squall said. "Do you see horns or scales?"

"You'd be cute with horns," she said as she looked him over. "No problems, then?"

"Nothing," Squall said. "And in case you were too busy to check this morning, it's supposed to rain in Winhill today. No storms - just a nice soft rain."

Ellone's face went through a multitude of expressions before finishing on a puzzled smile. "How did you...? Why...? Thank you."

"It's a long story," Squall said as he turned to go. "Just wanted to let you know that I'm okay. And grab a book, actually, which is why I was here."

"Yeah..." she said, obviously still a little stunned. "Thanks..."

Squall headed off to the political reference section and found the book he remembered using when he had to write a very similar paper for Quistis. It certainly wasn't very current, but the current stuff, well, had left a bit of a lasting impression on him. And besides, it was all still being written, anyway.

For some reason, doing paperwork was far easier when it would accomplish absolutely no useful purpose. Squall felt like he was flying through it and much to his amazement, the same stack that would have taken him all day was done in only a couple of hours. Which was fine as he'd completely missed lunch and found himself happily waiting for Quistis to arrive with whatever snacks she was going to bring.

Luckily, she was right on time, bearing a pair of luscious ripe apples and a tray of cheese and crackers.

"I hope you don't mind helping me eat this," she said as she entered, an almost apologetic smile on her face. "I keep telling them not to bring me candy, so they've been bringing me things resembling real food. I almost want the candy back, but that was just giving me a big butt."

Squall chuckled.

"Sorry," Quistis said quickly. "Probably too much information."

"Nah," Squall said. "You're a teammate - sometimes when you're close to someone, you get to say all the kinds of things you'd never say to anyone else."

"You sure you didn't get zapped by that spell?" Quistis asked. "That was somewhat un-Squallish."

"Actually, it's a response to some of Selphie's revelations in Trabia," Squall replied. There was a grain of truth in that. "And it just felt normal. Besides, who else do we have to talk to?"

"Good point," Quistis said as she set everything down on the low coffee table that was flanked on either side by leather sofas. She flopped onto one and pulled her boots off. "Now, let's get these stupid papers taken care of."

Squall was amused to see Quistis of all people making herself comfortable. Usually Quistis maintained her uptight persona through the whole day. He half-expected her to let her hair down, but that would have been too much. Maybe he wasn't the only who'd been zapped by the repeat spell - maybe they were all repeating without telling one another. Except Quistis hadn't been there.

"Afterward, we should go take care of a few Grats or something," Squall said as he sat down across from her and grabbed an apple. "Just to make sure neither of us have gone soft."

"I doubt you have, Mr. I-Just-Killed-Some-Random-Beastie-In-Trabia," Quistis shot back.

"I wish you'd have been there," Squall said. "Just like old times."

"'Old Times' weren't that long ago," Quistis said as she handed a paper over to him. "Just mark the stuff that looks off."

"Ever wonder what we're supposed to be doing now?" Squall asked as he took the report and began to look it over. He could probably recite half of it from memory, complete with errors, if he wanted to. "Now that things are calm..."

"They don't stay like this forever," Quistis said. She took a piece of orange cheese and put it on a cracker. "But yeah, I know how you feel."

"Maybe we could go to Esthar for a couple weeks, get a ship big enough to live in... We could go out and hunt down whatever's left from the Lunar Cry," Squall said. "Or find that weird island."

"You think you just want senseless action?" Quistis asked. "Or a larger machination full of intrigue. Something to be sorted out. I don't think you'd be happy without a grand plot to foil in the end."

"What do so-called heroes do with their time?" Squall asked. He made a few marks on the page and flipped to the next one.

"Ask Laguna," Quistis suggested. "Though maybe you're a little young to run a country. Maybe you should make a movie, become an almost respectable journalist, and vagabond around for awhile. Then you can claim Balamb as your own and turn it into a nation-state where everyone wears black leather and mopes in bed on their bad days."

"Haven't done that in years."

"To quote: 'Whatever'," Quistis said with a devious smile. "I'm just trying to help you answer your own question."

"I know."

They worked in silence for a few minutes, Squall alternately staring at the ceiling and at the paper he was supposed to actually be reading instead of just making marks on it where he knew the errors were.

Certainly he didn't expect a physical relationship - with anyone - to help take care of the strange emptiness he felt. And it was probably more than just a lack of excitement. Sure, he'd had a really good time tracking down that beast in Trabia but without any knowledge of what it was or where it had come from... Hey, wasn't that what Ellone was supposed to have been looking at in the library? But she'd been... no, she'd probably already done that and he'd probably totally distracted her with the bit about Winhill...

"Squall?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks."

He looked over at Quistis. She had a smile on her face and looked the most relaxed he'd seen her in ages.

"Really. I don't think I've so much as talked to anyone in ages. Certainly not anyone from fighting Ultimecia," she admitted. "It's nice to know I'm not alone. Maybe that's why Selphie keeps so busy. Maybe it's why we all do."

Squall nodded.

"We should have a get-together or something. Where everyone can come. Maybe Seifer and Fuujin and Raijin, too. They have to feel even more isolated," Quistis continued.

"We can do that," Squall said. "Why didn't you bring this up sooner?"

"Why would I have?" Quistis asked. "Before your little trip to Trabia, what was the last thing you did with either Zell or Selphie?"

Squall opened his mouth to speak but he didn't have an answer. Just like he had no idea how swamped Xu was with work or what Selphie was doing with her morale-raising events, he had no idea if or when he communicated with anyone about anything that wasn't work-related and even then... No wonder he'd been getting so many strange comments when he actually did things for people or with people or did anything that didn't involve paperwork or hiding in his blank, dull room with his collection of things he didn't even look at.

And for some reason, having a nice voice in his head had struck him as strange...

"I don't know," he admitted. "I just don't know. I've been thinking about that, too. Maybe that's why I offered to help you even though I don't like grading papers. It's just that... Cid left all of this to me to take care of for him and I get bogged down with all the paperwork even though he never did. He was always around and checking on us and he knew everyone by name. I'm lucky if I know a third of everyone by name and that's only because I had to sit in on detention that one time..."

"This wasn't supposed to be a guilt trip," Quists said quickly. "I just meant..."

"But you're right," Squall interjected. "You're absolutely correct. Everything you've said is the truth and I've just been missing it because I'm stuck in my own head and forgetting how to look out again."

"Read this one," Quistis said as she handed him a paper. It wasn't one he'd seen before and once he started reading, he saw why Quistis had kept it away from him.

Paragraph after paragraph and all of it was about the near past, about his own activity and that of the SeeDs who had been with him. Parts were wrong and parts stretched the truth, but overall it painted a very real portrait.

Finished, he set the paper down on the table beside the mostly-eaten cheese and cracker plate and looked at Quistis.

"These kids think you're a hero," she said. "You need to be their hero whether you want to or not. Even if it's just doing little things."

"Tomorrow," Squall said with a slight chuckle as he kicked back and grabbed another paper. "You too, right?"

Quistis laughed. "No heroes today. Maybe you're right. I mean, we need a day off now and then, too..."

"No skipping class," Squall reminded her. "In fact, shouldn't you be..."

He hadn't even thought about it before, but didn't she need to be in class? As many times as they'd repeated the day, it had never quite popped into his head that there might be a little more to her being there.

"Pre-testing stuff," Quistis replied. "I left a note on the board with which online lessons and testing I wanted everyone to go through. And when they were done, they could go. I left enough to keep most of them all hour."

"I remember that," Squall said. "Boring. Finished it in ten minutes and wandered back to my room to polish my gunblade and..."

Quistis started giggling.

"Oh, not you too. Selphie always giggled when I said that." Squall complained as he rolled his eyes. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

"It's still funny," Quistis said. "In the totally inappropriate, not supposed to act like a twelve-year old kind of way."

Squall sighed. It was kinda funny, in the totally inappropriate, not supposed to act like a twelve-year old but doing it anyway kind of way.

"We should have dinner or something," Squall said after a moment. "Then go help Selphie with her big project. Have you checked in on it yet?"

"Er... No?" Quistis said, glancing away. "Okay, I'm guilty too. We established that we all are, right? I mean, we all told Seifer and his lot that they were always welcome here but have they ever stopped by? No..."

"They have their own lives now," Squall said. "Maybe it's better for them."

"Maybe," Quistis replied. "Maybe they're free of this. We were some of the first... But what happens to the ones who burn out or don't make it? We're going to have to create a support network for them. We're making soldiers but the world doesn't always need soldiers. How are these kids supposed to fit into normal society?"

"Awkwardly," Squall said. "But let's get through these papers or they'll never get done."

Quistis nodded.

"What are you two doing here?" Selphie asked as she bounced over to the pair.

"He's an exceptionally cheap date," Quistis replied. Squall winced.

"We're just... I don't know what we're doing, but we've come to help you," Squall said as he eyed the half-built stage. "Looks like you're making some progress with your whatever-it-is."

"We're having a creepy festival," Selphie said. "You know, like a haunted house or something. Scary things."

"I like it," Quistis said. "As long as you don't scare the younger kids."

Selphie shook her head. "We're planning it so actual scary things don't happen til after their curfew. There might even be a murder mystery if someone can write it. And we find someone to play dead."

"I'll do it," Squall said without thinking. He was getting way too used to committing to things he was never actually going to have to do.

"What?" Quistis asked. "You?"

"Trying to be more involved," Squall replied. "I mean, if that's okay with Selphie."

"Totally!" Selphie chirped. "But if we're gonna talk, we should do it while working. We need to get most of the framing done tonight because we're behind to begin with, and there's only so much time before we have to start decorating, too."

Quistis nodded. "What should we do?"

"Okay, to start with..." Selphie began, pointing off in every direction.

"I know," Squall said in response to Shiva's happy chirping. "I know. When she was eighteen, she was just as awkward as I was, but now she's starting to pick up a lot of grace and charm. Her fanclub is only going to get bigger. But... I seem to like boys. Or just not like girls, which ever it is. And Quistis is a girl, whether I like it or not. I probably had all the same thoughts that you did."

He flopped onto his bed after changing, mostly exhausted and quite a bit dirtier than he'd usually prefer to be when going to bed but since even his dirt level would reset, he just didn't care about it.

Pulling his blankets over his head, Squall couldn't help but let his mind wander to the days he had left. Plenty of time to kill, but nothing compared to what he'd started with... He'd read every book he had around and had started a few in the library. He had a potential romantic interest though 'romance' was not at all the term he'd use. He'd learned how to fix strained relationships and how to pay attention to the people around him. He'd learned that there was only so much he could do as a single human. He'd learned that he was a lasting hero, at least to some people. And he'd decided, as opposed to learned, that Laguna was doing pretty well with the lot he'd been cast in life.

"Seventeen."

He wasn't sure if it was his own voice, her voice, or both together.

Chapter Text

"Where do you want to go today?" Squall asked as he crawled out of bed. "I don't feel like staying in. I always stay in. If we spend the morning in Balamb, I'll still be back to make sure things go according to... whatever. And I totally forgot about about Nida last time around. I feel a little bad about that but mostly disappointed that I somehow forgot him. I haven't spent the day with him yet but he's probably just doing systems maintenance for this whole place and that's about the last thing I want to do..."

There was a bit of indistinct chattering, but Squall couldn't make any of it into anything other than random sounds.

"I suppose I could go help him. I don't like going down into the basement levels of this place though," Squall admitted. "Even if they're no longer occupied except for those stray moombas that Selphie brought home that one time... Hey - why isn't Selphie having her creepy festival down there?"

He paused in front of the mirror, looking for horns or scales. Then he reached over to turn the water on.

"Maybe it's too scary for the little ones," he decided. "Or Selphie. But I can run the idea by her, find out what she really thinks, and maybe we can incorporate that in a bit. If she wants a murder mystery, that would be the place to do it."

Squall hopped into the shower with a smile on his face. Yet another thing worked out, even if he couldn't put it into motion properly for another two and a half weeks. When he got to the real version of the day, he'd be so busy his head would be spinning. But it would be worth it.

Just over thirty minutes later, Squall had a cup of coffee in hand and was heading towards his office. Somewhere he had to have the maintenance schedules for the place and he was absolutely not about to wander around down there without having some basic idea where Nida might be.

He saw Quistis coming and felt a little bad. He wouldn't be able to help her and he couldn't think of anyone who really could. Except...

"Good morning!" she said as she waved to him.

"Morning," Squall replied. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," Quistis replied with a tight smile. "Sorry that new spell was a complete dud, though. I would have liked to have been there, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them..."

She sighed without finishing the sentence.

"These the 'History of Political Strife on the Galbadian Continent' paper?" Squall asked. "I know your aide was injured... Um, I don't think Rinoa is terribly busy today. Why don't you ask her to assist you? I can't think of anyone who knows more on the topic."

Quistis's face turned into a huge smile. "That's right! Good idea. That's obviously why you're the Commander."

Squall blinked. More than a month of the same damned day and he'd just now thought of using Rinoa to take care of the task.

Regaining her composure, Quistis offered another wave. "Have a good day, sir."

"You too," Squall replied.

One day of creepy maintenance to go...

Most of the days he'd had so far, Squall didn't think he would mind potentially repeating if the opportunity arose. Maintenance to Garden, however, was simply as boring and as creepy, somehow at the same time, as he had imagined it to be. And Nida's explanations of what things were and what he was doing to them... even more boring. And creepy. He hadn't even realized it, but Nida had begun to pick up a bit of the creepy from the lower levels and was embracing it.

He did rather like the idea for Selphie's festival, though, and was hard at work conspiring with her on how to set something up when Squall had parted ways with him. And yes, he'd gotten the White SeeD training ideas in rather early so they weren't a worry at all.

The rest of the day, Squall had spent reading a book he'd gotten from the library. He'd asked the girl with the pigtails, who he didn't think was the previous girl with the pigtails and was curious if the head librarian just really liked that hairstyle and suggested it to her minions, what books were good and she'd given him one that was downright silly. The fake memoirs of a fictional character. Maybe it said a lot about the world he'd been ignoring or something, but in the end, Squall just found himself suspending his disbelief and going along with it. The anecdotes were good and the wording was pleasant and conversational.

"Do you read what I read?" Squall asked Shiva. He didn't get much of a response, but he wasn't sure how he'd interpret anything he would get. Part of him wanted to render himself near-death just so he could talk to her again, but he knew that one wrong move would really kill him and... Well, he didn't know if the spell would keep working without anyone for it to work on.

The thought was not a pleasant one.

"I guess you probably only take the time to pay attention when it's interesting for you," he said as he crawled into bed and turned off the light. "I can respect that."

He yawned and rolled onto his side, pulling the blankets up over his head as he did so.

"Sixteen."

"Sixteen," Squall said as he crawled out of bed, stretching on the way. He yawned, a little unsure of just what he wanted to do. Going right back to bed sounded like a good idea, but he'd just done that. He considered spending the day telling everyone's fortunes, but that wouldn't work because every motion he made changed things. By not interacting with Rinoa, he knew that she would have a couple of students yell at her and she would sulk all evening. Maybe he could prevent that for the day. They could play cards again or something. Maybe go into Balamb with the stipulation that they had to be back before dinner, just to keep Selphie safe (though obviously he couldn't say exactly why).

"I don't know," Squall said to his reflection as he stomped through the bathroom, turning on the water and then stepping back to see if his reflection had an answer for him. Instead he only stared back at himself, free of horns, scales, and with a very familiar scar that looked a bit like it was actually starting to fade.

"I suppose I could always activate the steering equipment and take Garden for a spin," he said with a smirk. Part of him almost wanted to do it, except that Nida was the pilot, he was not. Selphie would probably be a good substitute, but he wasn't sure about trying to pull her away from one project no matter how much fun randomly driving around with a giant military academy sounded.

Shiva began chattering in a scolding way. Apparently he wasn't supposed to cause that much mischief.

"But we could go to Trabia or something and look for another stupid repeat monster," he said as he got into the shower. "If I ever find that sorceress, I am going to give her a piece of my mind. And probably a bullet hole or two."

Again, Shiva chattered, a little closer to words this time but not close enough that Squall could understand her.

"What, friend of yours?" Squall questioned as he reached for the shampoo.

"It was a monster of olde..."

Squall froze.

"How old?"

"I do not know," Shiva said, and continued on but it simply became chatter in Squall's mind and he shook his head.

"I can't understand," he said softly. "I'll figure it out. Maybe Ellone will figure it out. I just have to get past it being today so that we can do something. If there's anything to be done. I hope there's something... Quistis is right. I want a grand scheme to foil. I want to stop a corrupt empire.

"I just want something to do."

He continued washing his hair.

"I wonder what I'd be doing with a normal job," he said. "Probably something boring. I don't know what I'd be good at. Not a journalist or anything. Probably not politics - they aren't interesting outside of being paid to care about them..."

He sighed.

About a half-hour later, he found himself yet again walking towards his office, a cup of coffee in one hand as he tried to shake away the last dregs of sleep.

He almost walked right by Quistis, not because he wanted to but because he was trying to make something out of the chatter that Shiva was filling his head with.

"Good morning!" she said with a slight wave.

"Morning," Squall said in response, stopping and staring at her. Still in pink, clutching a thick binder of papers against her side.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she said as she looked him over. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"It's okay," Squall said. "I mean, if I'd ended up with horns or scales or something, then you could really be sorry that you weren't there."

Quistis frowned.

"You need help with all of that?" Squall asked as he pointed at the folder. "I can't finish the report on Trabia until I get statements from Ellone and Rinoa, so I have some time this morning..."

"Afternoon is better for me," Quistis admitted. "I can just set those classes up to do console work and maybe I can bring a snack. I have a couple of apples leftover from yesterday... At least my students make sure I get a proper amount of fruit in my diet."

Squall chuckled. "Afternoon it is."

"Thanks, Commander, sir," Quistis said with a wink.

"And hopefully your aide will get her cast off soon," Squall said as he offered another slight wave and headed down the hallway.

He wondered if she'd still bring the cheese tray.

If he asked Xu about staplers, Rinoa would be in her makeshift office area, which mostly consisted of a desk, a couple chairs, and piles of documents which were either scattered or pristinely neat, depending on Rinoa's mood. And since Rinoa was the one to find, obviously he needed to query Xu.

Knocking on Xu's office door, he didn't wait for her response before stepping in.

"Morning, Commander," she said with a terse grin. "Did you need something?"

"When's the last time you took a day off?" he asked as he eyed the stapler on her desk. He didn't actually need it for anything.

"I can't say I remember," Xu admitted. "Perhaps when we had that storm and everyone had to gather in the center of Garden?"

"That wasn't a day off," Squall said with a frown. "That was a natural disaster."

"Oh. You're right."

"You should take tomorrow off," Squall stated as he turned to go. "Just... as a thank you for everything you do."

And she didn't even throw the stapler at him.

"Where did you get this?" Squall asked as he looked at the GameStation sitting in Rinoa's room. Staying in her office hadn't lasted long once he'd mentioned going in to Balamb. But she had to change first, which Squall understood because there was always a certain stigma about going into Balamb in anything with SeeD insignia on it. So he'd followed her back, promised not to peek, and sat down to stare at her latest acquisition.

"Oh, I borrowed it," she said. "I'm not very good, but I'm almost through Final Fantasy VII right now. Someone recommended the story to me and I wanted to give it a shot."

"You're playing GameStation..."

"What?" Rinoa asked. "You think I can't? I wish I had borrowed a fighting game. I could probably beat you. Maybe."

Squall chuckled. "I didn't say that you weren't any good. I just didn't expect to see a GameStation in your room."

"You want to give it a shot?" Rinoa asked as she sat down and reached for a controller. "We can go to Balamb another day. I want to show this to you. I was kinda thinking you're like the main character but he's more of a jerk than... Whoops, not to say that you're a jerk but anyway..."

She turned the power on. Squall began to wonder why this hadn't come up before. Probably because he hadn't asked. Or that could have been what Rinoa was talking to the group of female students about all along, all those times he hadn't been able to get close enough to figure out what they were discussing. A video game...

"You know, I think you'd really like this," Rinoa said as the beginning of the game loaded. "It's all about taking down this big evil company and stuff. World politics. Evil empires. And sort of an inner-struggle thing, too."

"You're playing a game about real life?" Squall questioned.

"Not really," Rinoa said as she chose to continue her saved game. "See, there aren't any sorceresses, but there is a girl who has special power so it's kinda the same. And everyone can use magic if they've equipped these, ah, things. Same with GFs, which aren't GFs."

She paused and frowned.

"Kay, maybe it is about real life, but it's not set in our world, just one kinda like it."

Squall shook his head and leaned back.

"Show me," he said.

Squall grumbled under his breath as he made his way back to his room. He'd only just remembered to go save Selphie and was kicking himself for getting there with only about a minute to spare. Normally he was so much more responsible. But he'd really liked the game Rinoa had and between the two of them, they'd spent all morning and afternoon playing it, aside from a couple hours when he'd zipped back to his office to help Quistis. Rinoa had been right about the game's main character, too - Squall did feel a bit of an odd kinship with him if only because of the accidental leadership role. Main character was an utter jerk at times, too, but that was mainly because Rinoa seemed to like making him into a jerk by picking the responses that would emphasize his, well, jerk-like nature.

Now he wanted a GameStation. He'd need a TV to go with it, and probably some games. Maybe Zell and Rinoa would help him pick things out. He was fairly sure the GameStation would play CDs, so he could listen to the Aching Need CDs he wanted on something better than the tinny radio he had in his room that he normally used just for local weather reports and definitely not for music that made him alternately want to dance and then slam his body into things.

And books. Though Rinoa's game had been much like an interactive book.

He wished he could make a list, but it would just vanish upon the reset. No use in that. Hopefully Shiva would let him hang onto his wants for long enough to actually buy a few things. Certainly he had more money than he knew what to do with - his Garden salary was more than generous and he'd long-since started just putting it in the bank and forgetting about it. Normally he just bought coffee, socks, underwear, and shampoo. Other than that, he could either get it around Garden for free or he just didn't need it.

"Stupid sorceress," Squall grumbled as he began to pull off his clothing. "Teaching me how to have a life and actually enjoy it."

Shiva laughed and he knew damned well that she was laughing.

"Yes, I know, you probably think it's a good idea," Squall said. "Did you see the little Shiva in that game Rinoa had? She looked kinda like you. Is that what you do when I'm not around?"

He chuckled and put on his night clothes.

"A little over two weeks of this madness left," he said as he shrugged on the same raggedy white shirt that he pulled on every night. "You know, once it's over, I might just miss it. But not all fifty-odd days of it. Getting to fix things, though, is sort of... liberating. I don't have to worry about screwing up, because I can always re-do it. Normally... a screw-up is forever.

"But I don't want to find myself wishing for this. Because I've spent this entire time wishing for it to be over."

Shiva chattered something and Squall got into his bed.

"Yeah yeah, I know. Fifteen."

"Fifteen."

And he slept quite well.

Chapter Text

"Okay. Blank slate again," Squall said as he stretched. He stared upward in the darkness for a couple of minutes before sitting up and scratching his stomach. "I'm stuck - what should I do? I could go after Zell again. That actually works out if I make an all-day project of it. But somehow the thought of starting over after... it's just not right. I shouldn't have done that."

He got to his feet and headed towards the bathroom.

"Fifty-four chances to keep screwing this all up," he grumbled as he turned on the light and headed for the shower. Turning on the water, he let his hand run under the tap as the water went quickly from cold to almost too warm.

"I wonder what anyone else would have done," he said as he stepped back and began to take off his night clothes. "What do you think, Shiva?"

She chattered for a moment before pausing as if she wanted Squall to speak.

"Zell first," Squall said as he got into the shower. "Um... once he realized it, he'd find some way to find Seifer and do minor evil. Um... maybe try to go after me like I've gone after him. You know, that'd be kinda funny, because he'd probably have the same luck with me that I've had with him - like a one in ten chance of things going right at all and then feeling totally awkward about it."

Squall chuckled. The more he thought about it, the more he could picture it - after all, until Quistis had let it slip about the incident with Rinoa and the scales, he'd never even suspected. So if Zell had come up to him and tried to flirt... Zell probably had in the past and he just hadn't noticed. Half the time he didn't notice when girls tried to flirt with him.

He shook his head. He'd learned way too much over the last several weeks of repeating the day. He was almost happy at the thought of unlearning some of it.

Shiva chattered for a moment, as if she was agreeing.

"Okay, who's next?" he asked. "Nida? Nida would just keep doing everything the same, save for the one day he decides to drive Garden to Trabia and I end up trying to shoot him or something because I figure he's possessed by a sorceress or something completely off the wall. Then again... I don't know. It would certainly liven things up around here. But the vibrations... last time we moved Garden, everything fell off every shelf in the entire place and I didn't think I'd ever stop hearing about it."

Shiva laughed.

"Laugh all you want - you weren't on the receiving end of about a thousand pages of itemized damages," Squall said. "I can show you that - I can read it and try to make you pay attention..."

He grabbed for the shampoo.

"No, I don't want to even bother finding it. It's probably in a box somewhere, maybe in Xu's office."

Shiva chattered and Squall tried to think of who would be next.

"Selphie?" he asked. "Okay, she'd wear something different every day, walking around in her underwear at least once and trying to convince other people that they were dreaming. Um... You know, I think it would work. If it was Selphie, I mean. She'd be able to convince people that they were the ones dreaming and that they must have some pretty messed up fantasies if they were picturing her naked."

Squall shook his head, forgetting that it was covered in suds. Little foamy bubbles hit the side of the shower.

"No, I'm not going to try it," Squall said before Shiva could throw in a response.

"Other than that," Squall continued as he moved to wash his hair, "Um, she'd play pranks, start silly art projects, make costumes. She'd have the time of her life."

He frowned. "Why couldn't it have happened to her? Next time, she gets the weird spells and I'll go with batting the darned thing around a little.

"Then again, would she learn anything from it?" Squall asked himself (and Shiva). "Probably not. She'd just have fun. I feel like I'm stuck learning... everything. At once."

"This is it," he said to himself as he stretched and crawled out of bed. "Finally. Today's the day."

Somehow, the thought that he was on the final day of his repeat-spree was almost sad. He'd gotten entirely too used to it being the same day over and over and over again and the thought of something completely new happening in the future was almost a little overwhelming.

He yawned and stumbled towards the bathroom, a little surprised that Shiva hadn't commented. He could feel her there, but she was quiet. Maybe she was going to let him go this alone.

It made a good bit of sense, really. He had to make all his own decisions today - and the right ones, because he knew quite well what the outcome would be otherwise.

"No horns, no scales, no summons, no re-dos," Squall half-sang to himself as he turned on the bathroom light and went over to turn on the shower taps. He knew he had about a minute until the water was the right temperature, but he didn't bother looking in the mirror. It didn't matter. He knew what he looked like and he knew that it probably hadn't changed - or that it couldn't really change. Instead he tried to start making a list of things to do.

He had to run into Quistis, and offer to help her. That always turned out well. Then visit Xu and take her breakfast. He could call Rinoa while doing the paperwork that he actually needed to do, get Rinoa to help Xu... Ellone would appear after that, they'd talk and then he could go find Zell. He'd drop a slight hint to Zell and then ask Zell to help Selphie. After that, he could grab a light lunch and wait for Quistis. Once that was taken care of, he could spend some time making his room into something livable. Then he could drop by the garage and help Nida with plans for the White SeeD repair training.

Squall climbed into the shower. It was pretty easy, actually.

Somehow, it all seemed to be pretty easy. Probably just because he'd done each little thing at least a dozen times before.

"Well, you ready to move on?" he asked as he grabbed for the shampoo. "I'll miss today, a bit."

Silence.

"Not much, actually."

About a half-hour later, Squall was wearing the better part of his uniform as he headed towards his office. He'd skipped the jacket for the time being - it was a nice day, after all, every version of it, and he wasn't worried about looking proper since it was an otherwise uneventful day.

He'd just taken a swallow of coffee from the cup in his hand when he saw Quistis approaching. She did seem to wear a lot of pink, Squall realized as he thought back to days beyond the repeating one. Maybe she always shopped at the same place.

"Good morning!" she said with a wave. Her face brightened into a smile for just a split-second.

"Morning," Squall replied, echoing the hand motion.

"I heard that spell was a complete dud," she said as she stopped. She frowned. "Sorry I had to miss it, but I've been grading papers for the last week and if I don't keep grading them every waking hour, they'll never get done."

"Your aide was injured, right?" Squall asked with a bit of feigned concern. "I remember seeing the report on that - something about rescuing younger students from a confused grat?"

"Something like that," Quistis replied almost bashfully. "I can't believe how work has gotten away from me."

"What papers are they?" Squall asked. "I think I'll have some time after lunch if you'd like a hand grading them."

"History of Political Strife on the Galbadian Continent," Quistis said. "Your favorite?"

"Not too bad," Squall replied. "So you'll let me help?"

"Only if you don't tell anyone," Quistis said with a smile as she headed on down the hallway.

Squall doubled back to the cafeteria. He'd almost forgotten Xu's breakfast.

With a bagel in hand, her door was his next destination.

He knocked, waiting a few seconds before opening the door.

"Morning, Xu," Squall said as he stepped inside. "Have you had breakfast?"

"Didn't have time, Commander," Xu replied as she looked up.

"I brought you an everything bagel," Squall said as he walked over to her. "Do you think you could find me a stapler later? The one from my office has vanished."

"...sure," Xu answered as she took the bagel and looked at it as if it was some sort of illusion.

"Thanks," Squall stated as he looked around. "You look like you need an aide. I know Rinoa's generally free in the mornings and she has experience with secretarial work, kind of. I'm sure you could teach her."

"Sir?" Xu questioned uncertainly.

"Just trying to make your job a little easier," Squall said. "And remind me to give you an extra week's vacation next month. We can discuss the details over dinner... maybe next week?"

"Sir, I know you had an experience with an unusual spell last night and..." Xu began, only to be interrupted.

"I know," Squall interrupted. "I didn't really sleep. Instead I thought about all the things that would happen if something had happened to me and I'm just trying to make sure everyone is set, just in case."

"Um, have a good day then? I'll bring that stapler by in a bit," Xu commented as she began to spread the cream cheese on her bagel. "And thanks."

Squall let himself out and then headed for his office. The paperwork would be a cinch, he knew, and then he'd just wait for Ellone - wait, he had to call Rinoa...

Quistis was set, Xu was set, Rinoa had happily accepted the position as Xu's assistant and Ellone hadn't made more than a few comments when Squall had explained that he was suffering no odd effects and would like a write-up of her impression of the spell as soon as possible so he could finish his report.

Every bit of paperwork on his desk was in the 'out' box. He'd stopped by the Training Center and flirted almost covertly with Zell.

He had even made his way to lunch early, grabbing the choicest selections of what he'd been eating for the same damned almost two months of his life.

Now, he was just playing solitaire on his computer and waiting for Quistis to bring him a snack and some papers that he could quite literally fly through. Then off to find Nida and see what Selphie was up to. He had a few books to borrow from the library...

There was a knock at his door.

"Come on in," he called as he minimized his game and headed around to take a seat at one of the low black leather sofas that had quite honestly come with the place and were not his doing even though everyone assumed that they were. He was fond of them, however, so it wasn't a big deal.

"Thanks for the hand, Squall," Quistis said as she entered. In one hand she had a plate of cheese and crackers and in the other, a fat file of paperwork.

"Thanks for letting me help," Squall replied. "It's not going to damage your pride too much, is it?"

Quistis shook her head. "Not at this point. At this point, I think I'd take help from Selphie."

She paused and set everything down before seating herself.

"No offense, I mean."

"None taken," Squall said as he reached for the exact same handful of papers he always reached for. "Not exactly apples..."

"At least they've stopped with the chocolate," Quistis said. "I'd put on almost ten pounds before I got them to stop bringing me junk."

"You don't have to eat it all yourself," Squall reminded her.

"I know that now." Quistis laughed and grabbed a paper herself. "Well, here's to misguided youth and mangled history."

"Of course," Squall said. "And afterward, perhaps you'd be willing to escort me to see how Selphie's doing with her current idea?"

"Her haunted house?" Quistis asked. "I had to hear all about it before you went to Trabia. Sounds like a nice enough project, but..."

"It's a fun idea," Squall said. "I think the students will like it as long as it isn't too scary for the younger ones."

"You're worried about scaring..."

"I have very vague memories of Seifer scaring the both of us with ghost stories he was making up on he spot," Squall reminded her. He didn't know if she'd actually remember, but it was worth a shot.

"Sounds like Seifer," Quistis said with a sigh. "But I don't remember. Don't you ever get sick of not remembering things?"

"Yeah," Squall said. "Sometimes I feel like I'm repeating the same day over and over without ever remembering it."

Shiva chose that moment to laugh and Squall had to look down to the paper he was holding in order to keep his own straight face. Maybe he'd loosened up too much.

"Am I dead?" Squall asked as he looked up at Shiva. He was naked again, and flat on his back.

"You're asleep," Shiva replied as she spun a quick robe from the shimering ice that surrounded her and dropped it down to him. "Walk with me."

"Asleep - so you've been able to..."

"No," she interrupted. "This is taking a lot of power. This is taking most of your memories - the ones I don't wish you to keep anyway. I'm sorry, but I have to..."

"I know," Squall said. "All of them..."

"Most of them," Shiva corrected as Squall stood and wrapped the cloak around himself.

"Zell?"

"You know the answer to that," Shiva replied almost sadly. "You need to be true to both of you. I could have stopped you then, but I chose not to - this is who you are and you've needed to learn. There weren't consequences for him, but for you..."

"I know," Squall replied. They began to walk towards a bleak white horizon. Snow began to fall around them, but it was not cold. Squall was not cold. "I know. And... even earlier, I kept looking at him and thinking that I should be kissing him, touching him and..."

"I'll take that and keep it safe for you," Shiva said as she reached over to rest a hand on his shoulder. He had never noticed how tall she was. "You don't have to worry about it. If it's meant to be, it'll be even when you wake and tomorrow is a new day."

Squall tried to smile.

"And everyone else..."

"Squall, you make your own choices and affect lives. It's a responsability you need to learn to live with, not just in the heat of battle but outside as well during times of peace," Shiva said. She looked down at him and smiled. "I believe in you."

"Makes one of us." Squall glanced downward, at where his bare feet were walking through weightless, temperatureless snow.

Shiva chuckled, a surely odd noise from the summon spirit.

"Squall Leonhart, who fought a great sorceress without looking back..."

"I think we all agreed that we're soldiers and peace stinks," Squall said. "I know, I know, doing what we need to every day and all that, but...

"Am I even going to remember this conversation?"

"No," Shiva replied. "You aren't. Is that a bad thing?"

"I don't think so."

"Selphie is safe."

"I know. That's good to know," Squall admitted. "I can't imagine what I'd have done if something had happened to her on today of all... todays. I'd blame myself forever, even after you took the memory of why I blamed myself. I'd just know, somehow, that it was my doing."

"You can't protect everyone," Shiva stated.

Squall frowned. "Not making me feel better."

"Would Selphie want you to protect her?" Shiva asked. They kept walking.

"No," Squall said. "And I've ordered her into some amazingly awful places without a second thought. She's a soldier and she enjoys what she does. Her life is full and she's happy."

"Exactly."

"Would you let me keep one thing?" Squall asked. He wanted to touch Shiva back and see if she was as cold as she looked or if she was just the same non-temperature as everything around them.

"What is that, Squall?" Shiva asked.

"The weather in Winhill," Squall replied.

Shiva nodded.

Everything went black.

Squall woke up in a cold sweat, clutching his blankets. He rolled over to look at his clock - it was after midnight.

"Tomorrow," he rasped as he scrambled out of bed and raced for the light. "It's tomorrow. It's tomorrow!"

The clock in the kitchen - the one he never used - it had the date on it. He raced for the kitchen, forgetting to turn on a light and that he'd left debris all over the floor. Tripping and falling, Squall just laughed. And he lay there in the dark, pain racing momentarily through his leg before he mumbled a healing spell.

Then he laughed as he got up and turned on the light. There were books everywhere. He'd just plowed into them and the knick-knacks and everything else. Stuff he'd left laying out the day before.

Because it wasn't the same day.

Because it had been the same day?

The thought struck Squall as odd. He'd had a dream but he didn't remember it and the feeling that he'd done this all before was fading. He'd had a very normal day - productive, but normal. Nothing odd had happened. Nothing odd had been happening, really, other than that weird creature in Trabia.

Feeling around for the mysterious spell that he thought he'd drawn from the beast, it was gone. There was only space, and Shiva, and his other spells. But Shiva was little more than a thing he knew he had with him. Somehow he'd always expected a little more than an occassional chatter or warm feeling. However, that was all. It wasn't like she spoke to him.

As he picked up the books, he wasn't even sure why he was awake. But it did seem like a good idea to read more and make the room a little more like a normal room - like a home. He needed to loosen up. Someone had told him that. He just didn't know how. But maybe he did. Maybe...

It was going to be a long day. But it was a different day, Squall thought for a reason he didn't really understand.

And he would enjoy it.