“He’s a fucking idiot, and so are you for not just telling me in the first place. I’m not some fragile little child all of you need to walk on eggshells around.”
Anger, a spark that hasn’t been in her voice for weeks– she glares right back at Squall.
“So, assassinate Caraway and put an end to the whole damn thing before it even gets off the ground.”
It wouldn’t be the first time a powerful political figure had been discovered in repose of an untimely, beautifully-staged death at Garden’s hands. Hell, she’s got enough gil in her bank account right now to make it happen, without having to transfer anything from a number of offshore accounts.
She’s played this game a long, long time, after all. Killing the general would jam a big enough rock into the mechanics of this trial that they could actually get Seifer out of it.
She might not want to talk to him right now, but it doesn’t mean she wants him dead, especially not in a sham proceeding like this.
“He picked up on what we missed– the river was a good idea, and would have worked out well if we’d been able to get drones through the trees by the shoreline, but from what we could tell from what scouting we could do, there wasn’t anyone, or anything–” A pause, reaching for the cup of water, sucking down a few deep pulls to make up for the dryness in her throat at talking so much. “Nothing stood out as a credible threat. Any movement we saw was at least a mile inland– they scrambled this together after we’d decided to do it. You know that, I know that, and I was there.”
There’s a knock on the door, and one of her innumerable, interchangeable doctors enters with a handful of orderlies and a nurse bearing a syringe with a promised sedative for a very long flight, one she did not want to be awake for considering turbulence and the constant, passive shaking of aircraft through the sky versus all of her carefully put back together body parts. Xu wants to throw them all out entirely, but they descend upon her before she can, all of them offering cheerful noises that coalesce into aren’t you glad to be finally going home?
The syringe is injected into her IV before Xu can argue, but she points her left index finger at Squall, adamant in her next words:
“He came back to help me. And then he was the only fucking one of you who actually put in the effort to find me. You put me on the witness list, if nothing else, and you get him a decent goddamned lawyer. It is the absolute least you can do.”
Brow rising sharply at her insult, Squall turns his head to look at Xu, arms coming up to fold across his chest in the usual way, albeit a tad more defiantly this time around.
“It was none of your business.”
Sometimes one might think his vocabulary only consists of a couple of words that he elects to choose from, which is likely why Quistis had the impression she knew him, just because his reactions and replies seemed predictable. However, the way Squall now holds Xu’s gaze makes it clear that he is not dismissing what she said or how she might feel about it. It implies that he (much like everyone else) did not know she and Seifer were that close and, on top of it all, it wasn’t his decision to make who the tall blond decided to involve in his own fate.
He merely shakes his head, not quite knowing what to do with an angry and frustrated Xu that lacks the calculated cool he is used to.
“You know it’s not that easy.” Seifer knew. They hadn’t talked much, but Squall had felt it necessary to at least briefly check in with his former rival to assure him that they would in fact not give him up to Galbadia that easily and to prepare him for tedious Q&A sessions with Quistis sometime during this week in preparation of the trial they wouldn’t be able to avoid.
“Seifer did a lot of damage to this country and its people. If we assassinate Caraway, there will be others. And it would only rally the people that are now fighting with us against us.” - meaning: if they weren’t careful now, what little chance they have to get Seifer out of this without facing prison time, let alone a death sentence would go up in flames faster than they could summon Ifrit.
When she speaks again, Squall nods in agreement, and he rises from his chair when the knock on the door comes, closing in on her bedside before they can swarm in on her, doing something he rarely ever manages - placing a light hand on her good shoulder.
“I know. And if you can’t trust me that I’ll take care of this, at least trust Quistis. I- … we won’t let him be treated like this, we know he is better than whatever they accuse him of in the end.”
He hasn’t even admitted that much to Rinoa, and his expression closing off again right after he said what he did signifies that he wishes he had kept his mouth shut now as well, but not being able to take it back all he can do is nod again to signify that for all the bad she thinks of him, Squall is not ignorant to Seifer’s positive traits.
Deciding it a futile discussion to explain that they all had been looking for Xu and Seifer had been the one to lead them into the clearing where they found her, he instead leaves the room so the nurses and doctors can take care of her preparations for the flight back to Balamb. For whatever good it will do, considering that she will be back here soon enough to testify in court.
