Workings of a Happily Ever After, The

  ~*~

  Zell positioned his tray of lunch beside mine and sat down at the table in the Deling Garden cafeteria. Then he nudged his chair closer and sat, pressing his knee against my leg as Jaxon sat across from us. Our table was in the back corner of the cafeteria, safely away from the candidates and students that continuously looked over at us with glares and occasional rude gestures. I kept my gaze away from everyone, which was hard to do when I was so curious to see everything.

  "I've been on everyone's shit list since you and Marshal came," Jaxon told Zell and me. Then he motioned behind him to the several men and ladies that sent us glares. "They didn't like me before, but since you and your fellow SeeD buddy came over and pushed them around?" Jaxon scoffed. "They hate being held responsible for their life choices, you know."

  "Tough shit." Zell looked beyond Jaxon to the few that continued to glare and held their expression gaze for gaze. "If they're going to choose to be screw ups instead of pulling their head out of their ass, they get put on a shit list of their own. No skin off my ass one way or the other."

  I cleared my throat and lowered my gaze to my plate of food that suddenly didn't look very appetizing.

  Zell sent me a glance and then gave my leg a nudge with his. "Sorry, kitten."

  The softness of his tone drew my eyes, and I smiled and nudged him back. "It's all right. I'll just have to work a little harder at the 'censor' part."

  Zell smirked and Jaxon sounded a slight chuckle. Zell picked up his sandwich. "You're in a better mood than usual, Jax. You get to beat the crap out of someone?"

  Jaxon's smirk became more wry and. . . tortured, which made me change how I watched him. The way he stared down at his food reminded me a lot how Zack had looked after his first marriage ended. It had been a messy divorce, with Zack losing custody of his little girl, too. And all because she thought Zack was having an affair, which he hadn't been. He just loved his job at the TV station.

  "Nah," Jaxon finally admitted. "Just doing what I can to get by."

  "I've heard that before. Usually means doing something stupid."

  I kicked Zell under the table. He nearly choked on his bite of sandwich as he sent me a 'What?' look.

  Jaxon waved a hand at me. "Don't worry about it, Sally. Zell and I have an understanding. A 'no shit' understanding."

  "Yeah," Zell said with his mouth full. "He doesn't take my shit and I don't take his. It works better that way."

  I reluctantly smiled. "I guess you and Zell have known each other a while?" I probed carefully.

  "Not really. I've known Janine and Selphie longer, being from Trabia you understand. Zell and I just hit it off." Jaxon leaned back in his chair while pushing his tray of lunch away. He crossed his arms. "Bored at the same time with the same twisted sense of humor. Drove the Instructor mad."

  "Instructor?" I asked, sending Zell's snickering form an arched eyebrow. "What Instructor? When?" I smiled. "What happened? Tell me, tell me."

  Zell motioned to Jaxon with his sandwich. "You tell it better," he said, mouth full yet again.

  Jaxon smirked and then focused his unusual blue eyes on me. "Have you heard of those series of weapon forging seminars that have become so popular lately?"

  I nodded. "I wanted to go to the last one, but they're for SeeDs only and I hadn't graduated yet."

  Zell nodded in agreement and swallowed his bite of sandwich. "Yeah. We won't even be able to go to the one coming up because we'll be on our honeymoon."

  Jaxon's smirk widened a bit. "I'm sure you'll be otherwise engaged to miss it."

  I flushed and motioned toward him. "So you went to one of those together?"

  "Not necessarily together," he said, eyes showing amusement and making my blush grow darker. Zell continued to chuckle beside me. "We met there, had seats together, and had the same idea at the same instant to cause a general commotion throughout the seminar. All five days."

  My jaw dropped. "What did you do?" I asked, voice hushed. I couldn't imagine the possibility. It was so... not me.

  Jaxon looked to Zell. "What was it? A sledgehammer?"

  Zell choked on his bite of sandwich, nodding as I reached over to pat his back and help him breathe.

  "What was a sledgehammer?" I queried, completely lost.

  "The star of the videos we had to watch throughout most of the seminar. I swear these videos were aimed at junior classmen. Anyway," Jaxon actually grinned, his blue eyes twinkling, "Zell and I started doing voiceovers that were usually completely opposite to what the lesson plan was. Had the entire lecture hall in an uproar. What was that one that had them falling out of their chairs? The sledgehammer wanting to have the anvil's baby?"

  Zell howled while nodding, my hand pausing mid-pound on his back as I stared at Jaxon Crest in dumbfounded silence.

  "And that other one." Jaxon snapped his fingers several times as he looked up at the ceiling in concentration. "What was it. It's on the tip of my tongue... Oh! The anvil having the affair with the water bucket and the sledgehammer finding out about it and... and... what did he do? Get his sword from the forge fire? And it broke?"

  I blinked, giving a twitch and looking beside me when Zell actually fell out of his chair, still howling with laughter.

  Jaxon smirked as he focused on me. "I think the video was talking about improper forging or something." He regarded me a moment. "I guess you had to be there," he said.

  I'm sure it was as hilarious as Zell made it look. And I felt bad for not laughing. So, I smiled. "I'm sure it was very funny."

  Jaxon shrugged and adjusted his crossed arms. "Eh. More to some than others." He briefly pointed to me. "Funny was that story you did of the Fire Cavern exam."

  "Fi--Huh? What story?"

  Zell struggled back up into his chair. "Oh come on, Meg. You know. The story you told me in the cafeteria after you beat Squall's score."

  I flushed as I faced him. "Zell, you didn't!"

  He grinned. "I didn't what?"

  "You--" But with him grinning at me in his usual adorable fashion and the memory of how much he'd liked the story... I giggled and gave him a soft shove. "You big goof." Then I focused on Jaxon. "I'm glad you liked it."

  Jaxon looked at his watch. "Well, I better get back to work." He stood and motioned to us. "Feel free to look around. Zell, you know where it's best not to go, so show her the place and then get the hell out of here. Wouldn't want you to get addicted to the place and take my job."

  Zell scoffed. "Keep your job."

  Jaxon smirked. "No. That's the whole point of the transfer papers." He presented me his hand and gave mine a firm but gentle grip. "Nice to meet you, Sally. Hope to get to work with you one of these days. I'm sure it will be fun."

  I smiled up at him. "Nice to meet you, Jaxon, and I'll do my best to get SLC Seifer to take a serious look at your application."

  "Really?" Jaxon said, eyebrow lifting in surprise. "Wow. I appreciate it. I've heard you're his favorite."

  I flushed. "I'm not his favorite."

  His lopsided and boyish smile returned. "Right. He just lets everyone actually have a weekend off every week. And three weeks’ vacation for a honeymoon," he continued as he moved away from our table. "And their choice of assignments. And special equipment for their desk."

  I giggled and shook my head as I watched Jaxon exit the cafeteria. Then I focused on Zell, who watched me while munching on the rest of his sandwich. "What a nice guy. He reminds me of Marshal and Zack."

  "Yeah. He's a cool guy; had shit for a history, though. SeeD gets a lot of those."

  I moved my focus back to the cafeteria doors that still swung a little from Jaxon's exit. "What happened?" I looked back to Zell. "Is it okay to ask?"

  Zell shrugged. "I guess, but he doesn't talk about it, so I'm not really sure. I don't ask, either. He'd tell me if it was something I needed to know." He set aside the corner crust of his sandwich and dusted the crumbs off his hands. "I figure it has something
to do with the missile attack. Everything seems to figure into that damn day. Actually has me feeling sorry for Seifer. He gets a lot of shit from people because of it."

  Zell stood and lifted me to my feet. "Come on. I want you to see the elevated track. It's in the training center and is about the only cool thing in this place. Then we can go and say 'hi' to Rinoa on the way back from the jeweler's."

  "Okay." I fell into step beside Zell as we headed for the exit, his fingers and mine interlaced, and tried to ignore all the glares and grumblings of the candidates and 'disciplinary delinquents', as Seifer called them. "They don't seem to like us very much," I whispered.

  Zell frowned and looked back behind us at the multitudes of eyes that watched us go. "Screw 'em all. Like I said, they put themselves on this shit list."

  We pushed out from the cafeteria into the corridor beyond. "Do we have time to look for Zone? I don't think he put himself on that list."

  Zell's face relaxed into a smile as he looked down at me. "Okay, okay. We'll look for Zone as I'm giving you the tour. But if we don't find him, I'm not looking anywhere special for him. His loss. You can send him an email or something."

  "Okay."

  And as we headed toward wherever Zell took me, I was struck again by the extreme differences between Balamb Garden and Deling... and made myself a mental note to send Zone pictures of home.