~*~
“Zell?” I called as I entered deeper into the Training Center. He had a late make-up class, or so said the note on his office door.
“Over here, Meg!”
I dropped my purse and homework from Seifer onto the ground near the heavy-duty metal doors of the main section of the Training Center and hurried forward, walking quickly and sometimes giving a few steps of more run than walk. Zell looked up from studying a sheaf of papers--likely his newest submission to Combat King--and set it immediately aside when he saw my expression.
“Hey. What’s the matter?” he asked, stepping forward and accepting my tight hug.
I closed my eyes and sniffed out, “Zone’s being sent to Deling Garden.” Only criminals and disciplinary cases were sent there. It had been dubbed ‘reject region’ by every SeeD and candidate in the Garden Network.
“What? What the hell for?”
I slightly shook my head. “I don’t know. All I got was ‘treachery against Garden’ before Seifer came out and called me on hacking the Network.”
Zell pushed back, eyes wide as he stared down at me in shock. “You what?”
“You heard me. I hacked the Network trying to find out what happened and why they’re sending Zone to Deling for something he couldn’t have done--He’s a Timber Owl, Zell! There’s no way he’d do something like ‘treachery’ against Garden. Not when he’s one of the ones who helped you and Squall out of Timber when you were first starting out in your fight against the Sorceress Treachery goes against everything he believes in So it couldn’t have been him And I wanted to try and find something that woul--”
“Sally, Sally. Sh sh sh sh. It’s okay.”
I blinked. “Okay? It’s not okay! He wouldn’t do this!”
Zell’s expression grew serious and he shook his head. “Sally, you can’t--you can’t say ‘he would’ or ‘he wouldn’t’. You don’t know. You’ve only got the report, and there’s a lot to everything than just paper.”
“Bu--”
Zell shook his head as he said “No, Sally. Sure, it sucks, but you don’t know. And until you do, you can’t question anything. You’ve got to leave it. Seifer wouldn’t send him there unless he had a damn good reason for it.”
I lowered my gaze as I bit my lip, tears dripping down my cheeks to the grass at my feet. Reluctantly, I gave a slight nod.
Zell released a long breath and then pulled me into a tight embrace. “Dude, Sally. I’m really sorry about Zone.”
I closed my eyes and sniffed, wrapping my arms around him as he kissed my temple. So was I. This--it was so different than the Zone I had come to know. So different than the Zone I’d urged Quistis to email. I had always thought of him as a hero. One of the good guys. I sobbed, my shoulders shaking as I mourned the loss of one of the world’s ‘knights’ while asking a seldom answered question: Why...?
Life's Lessons on Stress Page 12
