"Do we really need the binoculars?" Zell asked. "We're like, 10 feet away."

Rinoa elbowed her friend and took the binoculars back. "Aren't you a paid soldier? Aren't you trained for espionage and stuff?"

Zell scratched his head and continued crouching behind the palm plant. "It's different in the field. And we're not supposed to spy on our comrades."

Rinoa sighed. She should have done this alone. She and Zell were hiding to scope out the Garden mail room. She had no time to get a source among the staff and so she would have to figure out the timing perfectly from her current vantage point.

The mail carrier would arrive at 9 AM with the giant bag of letters and packages direct from the Balamb post office. She would make it inside by 9:02 and have everything emptied out for the mail room staff by 9:06. The staff would then start putting things in the student boxes at 9:08. Squall would be there by 9:09, if last month's timing was anything to go on. Glancing quickly at her watch, Rinoa smiled at the 8:59 looking back at her.

"He's not going to be happy about this," Zell told her. "And if he finds out I'm involved…"

"Hyne, you really are a chicken," she snapped at him with an annoyed glare. Shoving the binoculars back in his hands at first sight of the mail truck out at the front gate, she stuck her tongue out at him. "All you have to do is distract him if you see him coming."

Zell shrugged. "But I don't like coming between a man and his mail."

Rinoa watched the mail carrier lug in the giant bag of letters, knowing that somewhere inside was her target. She'd had all month to practice Squall's signature, and she pulled the paper from the pocket of her jeans.

I hereby authorize Rinoa Heartilly to pick up my mail today.

-Squall Leonhart, Commander

She'd probably overdone the Commander thing. The 'd' was a bit flowery for Squall's usual handwriting, but she had her charms to make up the difference. The mail carrier and mail room staff greeted each other warmly as they began dumping out the bag on the table inside the room. She rose to move over, but Zell's hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her back down.

"No, wait!" he whispered harshly, gesturing over his shoulder. Standing over by the fountain, just out of sight was Squall. Damn it. He was tapping his toe nervously and biting his fingernails. "What are we going to do?"

Rinoa racked her brain. Think, she told herself, think think think! She bit her lip and cursed her bad luck. Squall wouldn't surface from the bloody magazine for the next week. Her boyfriend's obsession with the Weapons Monthly publication was bordering on the obscene.

He claimed that it wasn't obsession. He was just a long-time subscriber and called it "devoted readership" rather than facing reality. Rinoa had endured this for the past several months. The new edition would arrive, and Squall was all but dead to the world until he'd read the thing from cover to cover. He even read the advertisements with the greatest of attention. He kept back issues in plastic sleeves and had them organized by volume and issue number in case he wished to refer to an older issue.

Just last month, he'd moved a picture of the two of them on vacation in Dollet into his desk drawer in order to set up a new display for the current issue. So rather than a photo of them, there was now a moisture-sealed Weapons Monthly inside a locked Lucite case. When he'd started discussing track lighting options with the man at the hardware store last week, Rinoa decided then and there that it was time to act. She would not lose to a magazine, for Hyne's sake.

Zell had to come through for her. She pulled her wallet from her pants and handed Zell a stack of bills. "That will buy you hot dogs for the next several months. I don't care if you tell him that I went all sorceress crazy and burned Esthar to the ground. He cannot get to the mail, do you understand me?"

Her friend's eyes nearly popped from his skull. "Whatever you say, Rin." Zell bounded out from behind the plant and raced over to where Squall was waiting like some junkie for his next fix. Rinoa took a deep breath and waited until Zell started flailing his arms spastically. She grinned as Squall tried to get around him to move forward to the mail boxes, but Zell was doing marvelously.

She watched Squall's face turn red with anger. Whatever Zell was telling him, it was a doozy. Squall pinched the bridge of his nose and started grumpily arguing back, but she couldn't hear the conversation. Rinoa saw the mail carrier depart for the entrance, and she had mere seconds now. Hopefully Squall wouldn't notice her sneaking out from behind the palm to queue up at the desk.

The mail clerk gave her a strange look. "Hey Rinoa, can I help you with something? We're getting everything in the boxes now."

She smiled her sweetest smile and passed the paper across the desk. "The commander's a bit busy this morning and asked me to get his mail."

The clerk nodded. If he would only look about 20 feet to his left, he'd see smoke pouring from Squall's ears at Zell's elaborate ruse. "That time of the month already?" The clerk barely glanced at the forged paper and moved to the table behind him. "You know, Rinoa, I've never seen someone so obsessed with a magazine before."

He placed the Weapons Monthly down on the counter along with a few random bills and those annoying credit card offers. She grinned. "I don't understand it myself, Sam. Thanks so much." She picked up the magazine and other envelopes and hurried away, hoping that the students arriving at the mailboxes would hide her escape.

But before she could make it to the elevator, she heard an almost unrecognizable shout. "Rinoa! Run!" she heard Zell scream, and she took off. She hadn't had time to plan an escape route, and now she was stuck between charging footsteps and the large Garden fountain.

"Heartilly!" Squall barked behind her. "What the hell are you doing?" Her last name. Now she was in trouble. She clutched the mail against her chest and turned around, taking a measured step back towards the fountain with every advancing step of her now livid boyfriend. She'd have to take some of Zell's money back now, the traitor.

She held her chin high and took another step back as he approached, his fists clenched in anger. "I just thought I'd pick up your mail for you. As a gesture of kindness."

"Oh really?" he asked, a dark edge to his voice. "Then can you explain why Zell just started yelling at me about a children's hospital burning to the ground in Deling City?" Now that's one she wouldn't have thought of. She'd let Zell keep the gil.

Rinoa cleared her throat. "Well, you see Squall…" Her legs connected with the edge of the fountain, and she had nowhere to go. Inspiration struck. Squall stayed a few paces away cautiously as she set the other mail down on the ground beside her and kept his stupid magazine in the crook of her arm. He was probably freaking out internally about the non-existent oils and dirt in her hands smudging up the damn cover. She watched his eyes bulge as she dangled the magazine behind her, the bubbling fountain ready to gobble up its contents. "I didn't want to have to do this."

"And…and you don't have to do this, Rin," Squall muttered then, the anger quickly turning into panic at the thought of his precious Weapons Monthly being lost to the depths of the Garden fountain.

"Oh really?" she spat. "You have a problem, Squall, and that problem is Weapons Monthly!" She shook the magazine and watched Squall's horror as the inserted ad cards fell out and fluttered into the water.

"Please, Rinoa. What did I do to deserve this? Just give me the magazine, okay? Did I forget your birthday or something?"

She scowled. "You forget a hell of a lot more than my birthday when you're engrossed in this stupid thing. It's…it's like this is your form of pornography!"

"Take that back!" he shouted. "There's a piece about the newest gunblade model in that issue. Not to mention the latest reviews of blade sharpeners, and so help me Hyne, if you drop it in the water…"

"What?" she shouted. "What are you going to do about it?" Rinoa was amused to see a small gathering of students now observing their quarrel. She knew that they'd be on her side. It was no small secret at Garden about Squall's magazine collection. Rumor had it that the Commander slept with a first issue Weapons Monthly under his pillow. It wasn't true of course – he'd sooner die than risk wrinkling the pages.

Squall finally noticed the crowd gathering, and he stepped forward. "Rinoa…"

She moved the magazine away from the water but poised her fingers on the cover, ready to rip it right off. "Not another step, Leonhart."

He was really struggling. The Commander couldn't exactly endure much more humiliation in front of the students, but Squall was stubborn and hated losing. "What do you want?"

"I want you to stop."

"I'm not canceling my subscription," he argued back, crossing his arms like a little boy.

"I'm not asking you to. I just want you to stop. With the vacuum sealing and the acid free storage boxes and the temperature-controlled off-site unit you want to buy and the damned track lighting. It's a magazine, for Hyne's sake!" Rinoa could hear the chuckling of students around her, and Squall's face turned scarlet in shame. "And…and I want the picture of us back on your dresser!"

Squall glared at the crowd of students. "Don't you all have class to attend? Do I need to write you all up?" The kids scampered off at his harsh tone, and finally, it was just the two of them in front of the fountain. "Look, I know I get a little bit into…"

"A little bit?" she screamed. "You smell the pages!"

"Rinoa…" She tore the corner of the cover by just a millimeter, and Squall let out a heartbreakingly noisy howl. "Stop! Stop stop stop, please stop!"

She ceased her tough love. "Do we have a deal? You keep your subscription. You read it, that's fine. But the creepy compulsive storage ends. We have a library here, and they have back issues. And you pay attention to me on magazine day. I'm not going to sit and watch you read. Do that on your own time."

His eyes were tearing up, and she almost regretted having to bring him so low. "Fine. Just…just hand it over, okay?"

"Promise me!"

He couldn't stop staring at the miniscule tear in the paper. "I promise." She held the magazine out, and he snatched it from her. "I'm going to go read this now, do you object to that? To my eyes scanning the text and increasing my knowledge, Rinoa?"

She beamed at him. "No, of course not. But no smelling pages, no reinforcing the binding, no plastic sleeves."

He held the magazine gingerly. "Whatever, I don't do that stuff." She raised an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe once in a while."

She was starving. Her stake-out had made her ready for a big breakfast. She moved to head over to the cafeteria when he gripped her arm tightly.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Rinoa jerked her thumb to gesture behind her. "Um, I need food?"

"Well, it will have to wait," he told her and began dragging her over to the elevator. "You're getting a detention."

"A detention? What? You're not my instructor or my parole officer or…"

He finally smiled after enduring all her cruelty. "You took mail that wasn't yours and probably forged my name to do it."

Damn. He pulled her into the elevator, and she sighed. "So what's my punishment then?" she inquired, linking her fingers with his and leaning against him in hopes that it would somehow involve disciplinary action on the desk in his office.

Squall grinned wickedly. "Heartilly, you are going to know more about blade sharpeners than you ever wanted to." She pouted as he cracked open the magazine and began to read. "Now, BladeCo has this great new one with a stainless steel handle and dual reinforced…"