Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

V. NUVOLE BIANCHE

“I think you may be ready to play your mother’s song, my dear.”

Myrtle’s words almost make Rinoa choke on the hot tea she’s drinking. The rain gently patters against Myrtle’s living room windows, and Rinoa tightens her grip on her cup. “You think so?” she manages to choke out, and Myrtle nods, pushing a saucer with tiny biscuits towards her pupil.

“Yes. I want you to practice a little more on some specific things before we start with that one. But I think you are ready.”

Rinoa takes a biscuit from the saucer and nibbles on it, thinking that she may be ready from a technical standpoint, but she’s not so sure to be ready emotionally. The idea of touching her mother’s music, unraveling the notes, making them physical and real has never seemed such a daunting task as it seems now. Her mother’s message. She has waited more than three years to reach this point. She feels like she has reached the top of the mountain, only to realize she has several more to climb.

“I’ll prepare some exercises you can do until the next lesson, while you finish your tea,” says Myrtle, pushing the saucer towards Rinoa once again. There’s a kind of knowing smile on her lips, a smile Rinoa doesn’t understand, but she is so engrossed in what’s going to happen that she doesn’t investigate further. She nibbles on a couple more biscuits, and when there’s a knock at the door, she finishes her tea in haste. Her husband has come back from Dollet, and she smiles at him when he enters the room. Myrtle discreetly excuses herself to retrieve the score with the practice exercises she prepared.

“Everything ok?” he whispers, feeling the small flutter of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

As he slips one arm around her waist, Rinoa inhales his scent of mint. “Yes. It’s just the rain. You know how I am when it rains,” she lies, and he gives her a look that’s only half-convinced.

“Here,” says Myrtle, and Rinoa accepts her exercises, putting them away neatly in her bag. “See you next week!”

Her mind is elsewhere, as she follows Squall towards their car. She smiles a little when he squeezes her knee while driving, feeling her turmoil but letting her deal with it as she prefers.

This is not how she expected to feel, back when she was nineteen and she found a few sheets of paper with her mother’s last song on them. She expected to feel much more excited, maybe moved to tears, even though she promised Squall she wouldn’t cry. She expected to feel elated, accomplished, and proud.

She doesn’t feel like that at all.

She feels anxious, she feels humbled, and she feels terrified.

Squall’s warm hand is a comforting weight on her knee, and when he suggests they stop to pick up some Balamb fish for dinner, she just nods, and she wanders through the store as he waits for their order. She doesn’t understand herself, right now, she doesn’t even stand herself because she feels so stupid, because this is what she wanted the most and she should be screaming in excitement, and yet she is paralyzed in a fear she cannot recognize, she cannot understand, and yet, it’s a fear she cannot ignore.

He is respectful enough to let her deal with whatever she’s feeling on her own terms.

But later, when she sinks into his arms on their sofa, the rain still pattering against her window, she can’t help herself. “Myrtle says I am ready to play my mother’s song,” she starts, and she feels a little shift on his chest, his finger grazing the nape of her neck, his lips pressing against her forehead.

“That’s good, right?” he says, squeezing her a little tighter.

“Yes. No. Hyne, I don’t even know anymore,” she says, hiding her face against his shirt. “What if I can’t understand it? What if I get it all wrong?”

“You’re such a pessimist,” he jokes, and there’s a light teasing through the bond. “You’re the one who told me there are no guarantees for the future. But maybe it’s ok. You will learn your mother’s song. You’ve been working on this for almost three years now.”

“Maybe that’s it,” she sighs. “Maybe it was ok because I felt I was working towards it. But now… I can’t even imagine being able to play that piece. And I don’t know if I deserve to understand her message.”

“Why not?” he asks.

And just like that, she crumbles.

Squall keeps holding her close to his chest, letting her cry as he slowly caresses her back. When she calms down a little, and her sobs turn to a slight hiccup, he pushes her away from his chest and glides his fingers down her cheek. “You always think you’re not enough,” he whispers, and she closes her eyes, her chin trembling with another onslaught of tears barely repressed. “But you are. You are more than enough. You’ve been working on this for three years now. You had determination, and resolve, and you achieved so much already. You deserve to understand it, Rin. And I’m sure you will.”

She doesn’t say anything. She just lets him hold her and drive away her fears with the force of his admiration.

Only later, when she lays in bed with his arm across her waist, lazily playing with his hair, she thinks that he may be right, after all. Music has always been something between her and her mother; the pause that made her feel like the silences were meaningful, the arpeggios fluttering in the air around her, the melody that conjured a cold winter snow, or a mellow spring morning. Everything was born from her mother’s fingers, back then, and she remembers how free she would feel when her mother sat at the piano and gave an entire new life to the instrument using only her elegant, slender fingers.

She is famous for a song about a love long lost, she is praised because she managed to push love and gentleness and caring and longing into a melody universally recognized. And Rinoa wonders what’s hidden in those music sheets that she has so carefully preserved, until now.

Gently, trying not to disturb Squall’s sleep, she moves his arm from her waist. He settles on his back, with a deep sigh, and she slips out of bed to open the top drawer of her dresser.

The music is staring back at her, but it doesn’t look so daunting anymore.

Nuvole Bianche.

Silently, she takes the score to the living room, setting it on the piano, and looks at it like it’s the first time. At nineteen, she looked at this same score and cried out because she couldn’t understand her mother’s last message to the world; at twenty-two, those are not black dots with no meaning whatsoever anymore. She knows about time signatures, about rhythm, about pauses, and about chords. She knows everything she needs, but she doesn’t know what the title means.

It takes only half an hour of searching through the net to find that the title is apparently old Centran for white clouds. She remembers, unexpectedly, one afternoon in the rose's garden, lying on the grass with her Moguri plush, on a fluffy light blue blanket her mother had insisted on because she would ruin her brand-new dress with its daises print, otherwise. She remembers being a kid without a care in the world, listening as her mother played inside the music room, and watching the clouds above her head, pure white against the clearest blue sky she has ever seen. She remembers the exhilaration of watching those clouds move in the sky. She desperately wants to feel like she did that day, at four: happy, cheerful, carefree, and tranquil.

And maybe that’s her mother's message, and for once, looking at the score of her last song unlocks something raw and tender and so, so ethereal deep inside her core.

When she slips back into bed, Squall rolls over, opening his eyes for a split second and then pressing against her, and she lets herself sink into his warmth.

And this is what she felt at four, lying on the grass as white clouds moved upon her head: happy, tranquil, serene, and finally, nineteen years later, she feels light.

There was a time when the sky felt suffocating.

She was fine when she was with someone; she was even better when she was with Squall, and his presence felt strong by her side, in her soul, in their Bond. He was down-to-earth enough to make her feel anchored, and the stars were not as scary, and the sky was not as infinite, and the space was not as cold, if he was at arm’s reach.

But then, when she was alone, she would wake up to the sound of her own sobs, choking for air and reminiscing that single moment in time when she felt Ultimecia finally leaving her body and letting her out to die, alone, in the cold light of dying stars, with the roar of thousands of monsters ringing in her ear, with crushing guilt poisoning her soul, and the space helmet feeling hotter while her heart raced faster. In that single moment in time, when air was not enough for her starving lungs, facing her own mortality, there was Squall in her mind, and there was her mother.

Those first few weeks are in the past, and she has been doing better, as her wedding night has proved, but when she lies down on Balamb’s beach, one unusually hot late April day, she doesn’t know what to expect. Myrtle has told her she needs to learn solfège, because she feels like it’s better if she does it on her own. And she trusts Myrtle, so when Quistis and Selphie come to pick her up for a short shopping spree before going back to Garden, she follows her friends while softly repeating in her head the first few bars of her mother’s song, the ones she knows best, trying to follow the mental score unrolling in her head.

When Selphie suggests they stop by the sea to watch the sunset, she complies, taming her still somewhat present fear of skies, and when she’s settled on the cold sand, her hand resting on her messenger bag, Selphie a sunny presence on her right, Quistis a calming one on her left, she opens her eyes and looks at the sky.

It’s a majestic blue, with all sorts of white clouds sprinkled on it. She listens inside of her, watching as the clouds move upon her head. She has always thought there is something melancholic in her mother’s song; something nostalgic of times long gone, maybe reminiscing on a lost love that could be, but wasn’t meant to be. A love that never quite withered, poured into sound for everyone to hear. Maybe that’s what scares her the most – this kind of nakedness that feels so deep, so raw, so profound, so irreversible.

A soft wind coming from Centra blows over the beach, making their skin tingle with a pleasant warmth, pushing a cloud up above. It’s almost like they’re sailing in front of their eyes.

“In Trabia, white clouds are good omens,” says Selphie, giggling, as she opens her arms wide, like she’s trying to embrace the entire sky.

“Everything’s a good omen in Trabia,” remarks Quistis, who’s lying in a much more dignified way.

“Yeah, don’t start with a lesson of yours, Instructor Trepe. I know perfectly well why they’re white! Still, it’s a good omen and I think we should make a wish!”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Seph,” says Rinoa, watching as the setting sun paints the sky a soft hue of pink and lilac.

“That’s not how any of this works!” laughs Quistis, and Selphie giggles, moving her arms and legs to draw a sand angel on the beach.

“Who cares? Rinoa makes wishes on shooting stars, you make wishes on dandelions and I make wishes on white clouds. You should all listen to me and make a wish too. You never know how much good luck you may need!”

Rinoa figures it can’t hurt to try, and she fixes her eyes on a cloud slowly gaining color. She wishes hard upon it, pouring all her desire to understand her mother’s message, to feel it in her fingers, to pour it into her music, and as she feels her throat tighten around a knot of longing, of absence, of a love still raw and unfinished, some rays of the dying sun spill around the cloud’s edges, lining them in pure silver. It is so simple, and it is so powerful.

“Aaaah! Look!! The silver lining! See? I told you it was a good omen! It means wish granted!” squeals Selphie, rolling onto her stomach to embrace Rinoa, still puffing a giggle into her hair.

On her other side, Quistis sighs, playfully rolling her eyes. “Whatever you say, I bet if it started to rain, you’d say it was a good omen too!” she teases, and she shrieks when Selphie throws some sand in her lap.

“I bet I know what you wished for!” she jokes, bursting out laughing when Quistis’ cheeks grow red.

“We’re not talking about that!” says Quistis, rolling over to and almost wrestling Selphie’s arm away from Rinoa’s waist.

“We’re not talking about that yet,” adds Rinoa, and she lets her friends press against her, as the sun sets at the horizon, and a cloud moves in the sky, light and soft.

They dissect her mother’s song as if it’s a fine specimen to examine and understand.

She sometimes feels wrong, because this is not how her mother’s music was supposed to work. But Myrtle insists that’s how they must do it, and Rinoa acquiesces, thinking that this is for a greater good. After all, says Squall one evening, when he watches her as she’s sitting at the kitchen table, making yet another copy of her mother’s score, it’s not that much different from all those exercises she must do to strengthen her abilities. She is learning all the tools she needs to do her mother’s song justice, and she shrugs, muttering an agreement.

Still, there is nothing in her solfège that makes her think of fluffy white clouds, or that dreamy afternoon in the grass, or that afternoon on the beach, with her friends, when the sky was blue and friendly and peaceful. She presses on, tackling the first few bars over and over, and after dinner, she sits at her piano and exercises so her fingers can be precise and swift, over and over. Repetition seems to be the key and she continues dissecting her mother’s song and continues exercising her fingers with a new determination, applying solfège to the exercises too because Myrtle insists it’s the foundation of what they’re going to do later.

But it’s hard.

And it hurts, physically and otherwise.

First, her fingers are too slow, and every time she tries to pick up the tempo to match the rhythm of her mother’s song, she messes up something. It may be a scale she knows so well she could play it with her eyes closed. It may be a chord she has been working on for days. It may be her pinkie being too weak, or her index being too eager, or her thumb suddenly losing its ability to pass smoothly. Whatever it is, she makes so many mistakes that frustration threatens to spill out of her in an angry cry. Yet, she perseveres, because she promised Squall she would not cry out of frustration, and because nurturing and caring for the melody in her hazy memories has been her mantra since she started this journey.

Tears have nothing to do with it, she tells herself. Resolve does. Love does.

So, she keeps playing those exercises until she feels like she’s driving herself crazy. They are incredibly monotonous and tedious, but she needs them, and she studies hard. Squall often comes back home to long strings of notes played in every possible key, until her fingers are quick and precise and a little hurting. She keeps apologizing to Squall for such a boring practice, but he shrugs with a smile, telling her he kind of likes it, like he did when she played two notes on repeat for what seemed a small eternity, at the beginning. He tells her, once again, that this is the foundation she needs, like he needs the patterns for fighting with his gunblade.

At least she’s doing something more artistic and enjoyable, he jokes, and she laughs, soaking up his admiration for the way she’s tackling this huge challenge, and letting it smooth the creases her mistakes are drawing in her soul.

Then, it’s the solfège. She can’t get it right for the quicker part of her mother’s song, especially when the left hand joins in and she’s lost. Myrtle is always there to correct her, and sometimes she looks a little troubled herself, and Rinoa is torn between the relief that it’s something hard for such an expert pianist too, and the worry that her mother’s message may be lost forever, after all. She barely resists the temptation to play the first bars anyway, even though she’s not ready for the rest of the song, and keeps exercising on those boring strings of notes because she’ll need her pinkie’s strength, says Myrtle, look at this note right here, see how you need your hand to open on the keys? And your fingers must press the key right, too. And look, here, you need a strong hands’ independence. Trust me. You’re not quite there yet.

Strength, patience, and control.

She walks back and forth in her living room, applying everything Myrtle tells her once a week, listening to the songs she gives her to exercise on so she can later tackle her mother’s most difficult passages, and she slowly transitions from reading the music to a tentative applying of the correct pitch.

She finds herself kind of singing her mother’s song.

The result is so moving she often has to stop and center herself again. There is so much in her mother’s song.

So much pain.

So much longing.

So much acceptance.

So much love.

So much peace.

She sometimes wonders if she can give back her mother’s music to the world with the same lightness, and intensity, and serenity she feels when she reaches the breeziest passages, and she takes a deep breath one day, during one lesson with Myrtle, before managing the entire solfège of the song, from start to finish, without a mistake.

“You’re ready, dear,” says Myrtle, and her grey old eyes sparkle with the same kind of excitement she sometimes sees in Selphie’s.

She can’t help hugging the old woman with a small squeal of triumph, her throat suddenly closing around a tight knot of pride and incredulity.

No tears. Only resolve, strength, patience, and control.

And love.

Rinoa doesn’t understand, and it’s frustrating.

Myrtle told her to start slow, and gently pick up the tempo. And Rinoa does.

She starts practicing with one hand only, slowly, and then picks up the tempo when she can play the song without mistakes. She still does the exercises for her fingers’ strength and agility, she still solmizates the song when she feels like there’s something wrong in the way she plays, and she still continues to play her mother’s song in that dissecting way they’ve been using.

She feels like a character in a book she read, once; a giant looking into a small world of tiny human beings, his enormous eye frightening and mysterious. She feels the same – her curious eye peering into the inner workings of her mother’s art, trying to pry out of it the way to make her message alive again.

There are times she thinks she’s doing ok.

There are times, though, when she thinks it’s all for nothing – because her pinkie is not so strong, even after all that practice, and her index is still too eager, and her hand doesn’t open enough on the keys, and she struggles with things that she tackled without a problem the day before.

Such is the life of a pianist, says Myrtle when she vents her frustrations, and Rinoa sighs, and does the exercises again, and starts again her practice with the right hand, until the song flows out her fingers like the half of a code she’s decrypting.

Then comes the left hand, and the same frustrations, and the mistakes she thought she overcame. And then, once again, she keeps persevering, finding some inner strength and some inner patience and some inner resolve that compound her resolve into achieving what she once thought impossible.

There are long weeks of Squall listening to her practice, the pieces she can play, and those that are still shattered in front of her. There are long weeks of hand massages and soft comforting words. There are long weeks in which she soaks up all the admiration he can pour into the Bond, to cement her will even more.

She will play this song. Resolve, strength, patience, control, love, and all.

Then when she’s finally done with both the right hand and the left hand, Myrtle says she needs even more patience, because now comes the difficult part. The two halves of the code need to be glued back together.

And that’s what she doesn’t understand, and it’s frustrating, because this is what she has been doing for three years and a half, now, and she knows that this is how she’s supposed to study, and she did it already with several songs, and yet her fingers don’t cooperate and she feels like she’s back at square one, with no progress at all.

In late September, when it’s still pleasantly warm outside despite the heavy downpour on Balamb Isle, she sits at her piano and tries again. She’s alone at home, because Squall is on a mission and won’t be back until tomorrow, and she can berate herself as much as she feels necessary when she does wrong.

She takes a deep breath and starts.

First, she plays the chord progression, over and over and over, and over again for good measure, until the very backbone of the song flows from her fingers with the rich smoothness it’s meant for. Then she adds the melody line, slow and delicate, trying to make it breathe, like those breezy passages that almost choked her with their intensity when she tried to sing them. She slowly builds her confidence until she feels ready to try and play the song with its intended tempo, with both hands.

She doesn’t realize Squall has come back early from his mission; he is clouding the Bond to surprise her, and when he enters the apartment, he hears the song she’s playing.

He stops by the door, leaning against the doorframe to listen as she plays. He knows it’s her mother’s song, and for the umpteenth time, he feels like she’s playing the warm breezes of Balamb Isle, gently blowing on the sea surface, and making clouds sail peacefully in the sky. Then the music reaches a crescendo and somehow Rinoa’s fingers are not quite ready for that part. She hits a wrong note and then lets out a frustrated growl, giving way to a cacophony of vexation.

She turns abruptly and jolts a little when she sees he’s there. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,” she says, blushing under his stare. She was not counting on being caught in doing that.

“Thought I’d surprise you,” he says, moving closer to her and taking her in his arms. “Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m too stupid to play it,” she says, angrily drying her tears with her fingers. She’s mad at herself for her mistake, mad at him for coming back early, mad at Myrtle for telling her she was ready for the song. She is not ready. The song is too difficult, the time signatures are too much, the intensity is too strong and the melody is too, too beautiful for her to stand it.

It hurts.

“You are not, and you know it,” says Squall, and she growls under her voice.

“Stop pretending I’m good enough,” she hisses, trying to push him away. He lets her go, sighing, and watches as she takes the score none-too-gently from the piano and shoves it into a drawer of their living room cabinet.

Then he lets the Bond speak.

The fluid melody smelling of Balamb Isle and its breezes flows through them, and the peacefulness of some white clouds sailing the light blue summer sky deflates her anger. She hides her face in her hands, and cries again.

“I can’t play it,” she whines, and she lets him hug her, hold her against his chest, his finger slowly lacing through her hair, massaging her scalp in that weirdly comforting way of his.

To his credit, he lets her cry, even though that’s not what she promised at the beginning. The way she played the song still resounds in his mind, through their Bond, along with everything he felt while listening, and she slowly calms down, shaking her head with a small laugh because that’s her mother’s message, probably. Something calming, something peaceful.

Ashamed all of a sudden of her reaction, she takes a tiny step back and looks at him. “Not the welcome I wanted to give you,” she jokes, and he dries a tear still stuck in her eyelashes.

“You can always make it up to me if you want,” he jokes back, and she laughs, forgetting her frustration and anger and letting him comfort her, as he usually does, as he always does. What would she do without him, she thinks, and he smirks, capturing her lips in a kiss, and she surrenders, letting herself drown in his love.

“Can I ask you something?” he says later, as he lazily traces idle symbols with his fingers on her naked back.

“What is it?” she replies, just as lazily, enjoying the afterglow of their lovemaking. She doesn’t think she ever told him how she adores making love to him when it rains, because it somehow makes her feel safer, in a weird way she can’t explain.

Squall props himself on his elbow, and stops touching her. “Are you still sure you want to play your mother’s song, Rin?”

“What? Why do you ask?” She sits up abruptly, covering her breasts with the sheets, and looks at him with wide eyes.

He feels her mess of emotions: bewilderment, confusion, shame, inadequacy. He sits up too, and tries to take her hand, but she doesn’t move. “It’s not what you think,” he starts, immediately realizing it’s not helpful. “It’s just…” He runs a hand through his hair, down his face, trying to find the right words to fix the mess he unwittingly created with his question. “It doesn’t seem it makes you happy anymore, Rin.”

“That’s not true,” she says, her voice trembling a little. But she won’t cry, now; she will be strong and determined.

“Are you sure? You look more frustrated than ever. When I came back you were so angry you shoved the score into the drawer. I’m not asking because I think you can’t do it, Rin,” he says, trying to take her hand again, and she surrenders, letting him pull her into his arms. “I just want you to be happy and… I just don’t know anymore. You used to find joy in playing,” he concludes, and she hides her face in his chest. He sighs, pulling her back down on the bed, and for a few moments, they lay in silence. He is about to say something when she sighs and moves away from him, tracing the Griever tattoo on his arm with her fingers.

“It hurt when you got this, right?” she says, and he looks at her, not really understanding where this is going.

He might as well answer, though. “Yeah.”

“But it was worth it, because it meant something to you.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what’s happening to me, Squall. Playing her song sometimes hurts. Sometimes it’s frustrating. But it makes me happy, because it’s worth it.”

He says nothing, scooting closer to her to take her chin with his finger and plant a gentle kiss on her lips. “Promise you’ll tell me if it doesn’t make you happy anymore?”

“It won’t happen,” she replies, and he presses against her, holding her close.

“Then it won’t be difficult to keep the promise, right?”

Rinoa laughs, brushing a lock of his hair away. He is still watching her as he takes her hand to kiss her wrist, and she says, almost hastily, before changing her mind, “Do you want me to play the song for you?”

“If you want,” he replies, and she disentangles from his embrace, slipping her panties and his shirt on. “That’s my shirt and I wanted to wear it,” he says jokingly, locating his boxers and slipping them on, too.

“Too bad,” she shrugs, and she disappears into the living room.

She has already pulled the score out of the drawer when he joins her, and she looks at him, nodding with her head towards the place next to her on the piano bench. There are several things that are distracting for Squall, considering the sensual haze they were immersed in; how she is naked under his shirt, and how warm her skin feels against his thigh, and how plunging the neckline of his shirt becomes when she’s the one who wears it. How sexy she is, when the sleeve of his shirt slips down her shoulder, and she lets it be. How her long black hair cascades down her shoulders, brushing against her hips. How inviting her neck is for a kiss, maybe a slight bite.

“Behave,” she whispers, and then she adds, “I’m gonna start playing, now.”

And she does, and as her fingers press gently on the deep notes of the first bars, she lets him feel how she feels; sometimes accomplished, sometimes humbled, sometimes proud, sometimes scared. She lets her memory wander, first to a carefree afternoon at four years old, when she lay on the grass, on a blue blanket, with a daisy dress and the feeling that clouds, up in the sky, were moving for her only. Then, to a serene afternoon on Balamb’s beach, when the setting sun spilled its light over some pure-white clouds, lining them in a spectacular, simple yet powerful silver. She lets the emotion flow through her fingers into the melody, and when she reaches the part where her left hand gets confused and makes mistakes, she simply stops playing and turns to look at him.

“Why did you stop? It was incredible,” he says, furrowing his brow.

“I struggle with this part,” she says, following with the tip of her finger the line of notes she still cannot play.

“How so?”

“Mh. Probably hands independence. My left hand can play it just fine when it’s on its own, but when I play with both hands… the left one wants to join the fun the right one’s having, and messes it up right here,” she replies, tapping a specific note on the score.

He snorts. “You? Struggling with independence?”

“Oh, hush,” she giggles, and then she closes her eyes when he threads his fingers through her hair to draw her closer and kiss her temple.

“You struggled with independence once, in the past,” he says, as she leans against him to enjoy his affection. “But eventually, it came, right?”

She gives a small, sheepish laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, eventually Timber became free.”

“Then trust your hand. At least this time I won’t have to battle a zombified body double,” he jokes, and she snorts a surprised laugh, as he stands and picks her up in his arms to carry her back to bed. She lets him finally bite that kiss on her inviting neck, and as his hand snakes under the shirt to roll her panties down, she takes his face in her hands and presses a chaste kiss on his lips, full of such gratefulness, such love, he has to stop and lean his forehead against hers.

“I have something to confess,” he says. He moves his hand away from her thighs, leaving her panties half-rolled down, and adjusts his position next to her. “This was my last mission. Come next month, I won’t be Balamb Garden’s Commander anymore.”

She widens her eyes and opens her mouth in muted surprise. She knows they discussed his retiring, and moving to Balamb City and then maybe, if magic allows her, start a family of their own, but she never expected it to happen so soon. “Are you sure?” she simply asks, and he nods, a beautiful, serene smile illuminating his features.

And when she feels his peacefulness, she realizes that maybe this is yet another part of her mother’s message. Love through healing. Love through music. Love through acceptance.

And the serenity that comes with it.

In the last few weeks, Rinoa has watched the clouds countless times.

She has watched them through their windows at Balamb Garden, for the last time, and she has watched them once again in their quaint house near the beach, in the quietest part of Balamb City. She has watched them and noticed how dark and heavy with rain they were, and she has seen them cleansed back to white after a downpour. She has seen them on the sea, painted with the delicate colors of sunrise, and she has seen them turned to vibrant hues of red and orange and violet by the setting sun. She has seen them dark blue during a squall on the sea, and she has admired how they could become a rich light blue, circling a silver lining of light. She has admired them through the leaves of their garden trees, and she has learned how light can play through them, change them, and morph them.

Clouds have become as meaningful as stars, in her life, and she blames her mother’s music for that. She thanks her mother’s music, for that.

So when she finally realizes she has read the test right and that magic has definitely allowed her to have a little family with Squall, she goes to lie down on the grass of their garden because she doesn’t know how she feels.

She is scared, because they are so young, and she thinks they are so traumatized, and she doesn’t know if they can be good parents.

She is elated, because in the hidden depths of her soul, the ones even Squall can’t access, she had already made peace with the fact that she couldn’t bear any children.

She is worried, because she doesn’t know how Squall will react and even though she is sure he will be as happy as she is, amidst all the confusion, there’s a tiny speck of worry that creeps into her mind.

And she is so incredibly sad because her mother is not here to rejoice with her, and this closes her throat into a knot of pain that makes it difficult to breathe.

It is so right to be pregnant, so wonderful and unexpected and welcome and scary, and it is so unfair not to have her mother by her side.

So she cries, looking for comfort in the clouds sailing through the leaves of her trees, the light pouring gently over her, depicting a mosaic of shadows. Then she dries her eyes, goes back inside, sits at the piano, and plays.

With her eyes closed, she follows the score behind her eyelids; the one she solmizated for so long before truly getting its hidden mechanics, the one she played over and over with her right hand only, the one she played over and over with her left hand only, the one she still can’t quite play with both her hands together without hitting the wrong key here or there, or struggling with a rebel finger, or a weak pinkie. She follows the score and lets the music run through her arms, down to the tip of her fingers, and she imagines some white clouds puffing around her keys, and when she reaches the faster part, the one her left hand always messes up, she lets herself feel, and the frustration and the anger are no more.

She is crying, when she hits the last key with a trembling finger, and a gentle clap comes from the door behind her. She turns around and looks at Squall and she bursts into a joyous cry, mixing laughter and tears that she tries in vain to dry.

“It is a beautiful song. Sorry for listening like that,” he says, scratching his neck. “I couldn’t help myself.”

“I am pregnant,” she confesses, laughing and crying again, and he looks at her with wide eyes.

“You sure?”

“I just took a test, we need to check with Dr. Kadowaki, but… I don’t know, maybe it’s a sign?”

He sits on the little bench next to her, his elbow accidentally hitting a few keys. She laughs, and she cries again, and when he holds her tight and silences her laughter with a kiss, she realizes that this is the first time in almost eighteen years that her mother’s piano has played Nuvole Bianche as it was meant to.

With peacefulness, with happiness, and with love.

Rinoa giggles, as little Aria kicks against her belly. Squall is kneeling in front of her, tying her shoes since she can’t reach her feet anymore, and he smiles a kiss against her navel.

“Ready, you two?” he asks, standing up, holding out his hand to help her to her feet.

“Yeah, I think – ouch, don’t think so, gotta pee,” she says, and he watches as she waddles to the bathroom, shaking his head. Rinoa’s entire pregnancy so far could be summarized as yes, I am ready -ouch no wait, I gotta pee, and he feels a little guilty about her discomfort, but it’s such a miracle and such a gift that he can’t help feeling also a little proud. And a whole lot thrilled.

When she comes back into the bedroom, she gives him a strained smile. “Guess we can’t wait anymore, right?” she says, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

“You don’t have to play the song if you don’t want to. There’s still time,” he says, reaching out to touch her cheek.

“I can’t keep pushing it back though,” she says, pressing her thumb against the aquamarine eye of her Griever wedding band. “They both know there is a song of my mother’s that I’ve been learning to play. I want our friends to listen to it, too. And I feel like it’s time, now,” she concludes, running a hand on her pregnant belly. “For some reason, I want to do it while pregnant.”

“Can’t argue with the pregnant lady then,” he jokes, and she laughs, bumping her belly against his stomach.

“You can’t keep repeating that,” she gently scolds him, and he smirks.

“Of course I can. Best Irvine advice ever,” he says, leaning in to press a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Let’s go get you father, now. Then I’ll go fetch Laguna and some Balamb fish for dinner. Will you…” He pauses, tilting her chin so he can look into her eyes. “Will you be ok with your father?”

“Does awkward as hell count as ok?”

He shrugs. “It does with Laguna,” he answers, and she playfully hits his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’re strong and determined and you achieved so much. Your father has to see that.”

One hour later she is sitting in her living room, on her sofa, rubbing her belly to calm her baby down, since it seems like today Aria likes to dance on her bladder. Her father is sitting in front of her, rigid in his armchair, clearly embarrassed and not knowing what to say. Their relationship is not as sour as it was back when she was seventeen, but it still hasn’t softened enough for the silence to feel comfortable and normal.

All of a sudden, Caraway clears his throat, and Rinoa raises her eyes, looking at him, a little curious. “Does it kick a lot?” he says stiffly, pointing with his finger to her pregnant belly.

Rinoa gives a tender laugh, with another caress to her belly, a little foot pressing under her fingers. “She is a rambunctious one,” she says, an almost dreamy expression on her face. “She usually calms down when her daddy cuddles her though. She is getting so big!” She giggles again, hiding her mouth behind her hand. “I guess she takes after her father. I’m the short one of the couple, and she looks so long in here. Guess she needs to stretch her limbs from time to time. Right, little one?”

Caraway says nothing, and just watches his daughter turn into a mother before his eyes. The way she talked about Leonhart hasn’t been lost on him, and once again he realizes how different the young SeeD – or ex-SeeD, he guesses – is from the impression he got of him back on that fated evening in Deling City. Leonhart is daddy, even before his daughter is born, and for the umpteenth time, he realizes he has always been father, even when Julia was by his side, guiding him into fatherhood. There’s truly no way to redo it, to do better, to truly become daddy, like Julia was mummy. There will always be a barrier between him and his daughter, and no matter how he tries, now, to make up for the time lost to her stubbornness and his overprotectiveness, he will always feel like he should have done more.

Rinoa raises her eyes and looks at him. “Do you want to feel?” Then, without waiting for his answer, she stands up, struggling a little without help, and comes closer, taking his hand and pressing it on her belly, and for a moment that feels infinite Caraway just feels his granddaughter kicking hard under his hand. He swallows a sudden tight knot in his throat, and he’s about to say something when the front door opens and Squall enters with Laguna, followed by Angelo who happily trots inside and rubs against Rinoa’s legs.

As her dog flops down in her doggie bed near the patio door and the men greet each other, Rinoa excuses herself to the bathroom. Pregnancy works great as an excuse, right now, because she needs a few moments to collect herself; first her interaction with her father, and now the idea of playing her mother’s song are melting together into a huge knot at the base of her stomach. Wincing, she leans against her sink and draws in a long, deep breath, over and over, until everything is still and clear around her.

She can do it.

Her mother deserves it.

Before having the chance to change her mind, she exits the bathroom, smiles at Squall who looks at her as soon as she enters the room with an inquisitive little smile, and she nods, sitting at the piano.

“There is a song my mother wrote right before passing,” she says, even though it’s not needed. “I’d like to play it for you. It’s called Nuvole Bianche.”

There is some ruffling of fabric while the men sit down on the sofa, watching her. Squall’s encouraging wave of love and admiration washes over her, and she looks at him with a reassuring smile. Then, in silence, she positions her hands on the keys, closes her eyes, calls for an image of the white clouds moving over her head, the day she learned they were expecting Aria, and starts playing.

The introduction to the song is deep, and Laguna holds his breath, letting his mind be guided by the music. It almost feels like hearing Rinoa playing for the first time; as her fingers hit the notes precisely, something is stricken inside of him, and a calming breath escapes his lips. He hadn’t expected such a deep reaction, but something knots at the pit of his stomach, at the base of his throat, an eerie emotion he cannot recognize, just feel. He is not sure he won’t be a crying mess, at the end. The song is slow enough to let the emotion settle, light and vaporous, and yet so, so deep. It’s airy and tight.

Then there’s a pause, and they all hear Rinoa breathing deeply, exhaling just before starting the next part.

Laguna doesn’t think another chord inside of him could be stricken so deep, in a way so painfully beautiful. The melody calls for everything that was right, in his world, when he was young and full of dreams, before all the losses, all the hardness, all the difficulties life threw at him. He lets his soul weep on the deep notes as the higher, breezier ones glide over his wounds and give him memories to smile about. The kite he flew with his father, when he was a child, and the way it danced through the clouds, up in the sky, and his father’s deep laughter, his mother’s gentle smile as she watched them, and how life seemed so easy, like being a cloud moved in the blue by a slight breeze. His toes wiggling in Galbadia’s sand, as he and his mother let his father’s ashes be washed away by the tide, as he wished, is a memory that hurts as deep as those deep notes giving a backbone to the song, but then there is another memory, just as deep, just as painful for the love it emanates: his toes wiggling in the sand as he built his first sandcastle, his father teaching him how to make it sturdy, her mother collecting random shells to decorate it. He realizes how it is all so intricately intertwined – the pain, the yearning, the happiness, the warmth. Somehow, through his first love’s delicate melody, he realizes that there was a lot of pain in his life, but there was a lot of love too, and he can’t help but think this is her message – that sometimes we lose someone we love so deeply, so inexplicably, and the longing for what could be and yet wasn’t meant to be is love persevering, its root planted in our soul, making us tender and vulnerable, and at the same time strong.

Then, as the tempo of the song picks up, his memory follows the path of love the melody has been subtly paving.

His parents slowly give way to his adult life’s memories; meeting Kiros and listening to the tragic story of a love blossomed in the desert and lost through the sea, its only remnants an earring constantly tingling, as the laughter of his late wife; meeting the gentle giant Ward is, and his big, warm hands protecting his friends from the chill of the night, deep in Timber’s forests – and oh, how he misses his voice, how he still feels guilty, sometimes, when his friend can only rumble through his stomach; listening to Julia’s delicate way of playing the piano, while admiring her elegant features, soft under the dimmed lights of Galbadia Hotel’s bar, and thinking she was as beautiful as pink roses, as elegant as red wine, as graceful as her long pianist’s finger creating melody out of wood, hammers and strings. And then, meeting Raine, the way she could be soothing and scolding at the same time, the way she helped him through his healing, the way she made him fall in love with her, along with little Ellone. And then meeting Squall, feeling his throat tighten because he looks so much like his mother that it’s like looking at a ghost, somehow, and his mannerism, and his smile, and his nose, and his laughter are so much Raine that he could close his eyes and fool himself into thinking she is by his side, once again.

Squall told him the title of the song means white clouds, and he can see why Julia chose that title. The melody is breezy, calming, speaking of serenity and love, and in the moving acceptance of what has been lost, what could have been lost and wasn’t, and what will forever be, he feels like he finally found the meaning he has been looking for: let himself enjoy the present, let life flow around him, and skim over the pain gently, like a soft, puffy cloud high in the sky, letting itself sail on the wind, because lightness is on the other side of depth, and Squall’s comforting hand on his back is the future carved in second chances.

There’s another pause, and the melody seems to start back again. Caraway listens to those deep chords, shaken from his reverie by the short silence and his daughter’s even breathing, and slowly lets the song crumble his defenses. For the first few minutes, he has been completely in awe of Rinoa: of who she has become, the kind of woman she has blossomed in, the strength and determination that were just a seed when she left the mansion, all those years ago, and that are now so deeply rooted in her. He realizes, with a kind of small sob, that it’s thanks to Leonhart’s efforts in supporting her in whatever she wanted to do; and he vaguely remembers a late afternoon in his study, after a mission report, when Leonhart asked for Julia Heartilly’s music books, as a present to Rinoa for her birthday, and how he gracefully accepted his no, simply telling him that Rinoa was her own person, that she was doing this for her mother as much as for herself, and that he may realize, one day, that in trying to keep her on a tight leash, forcing her to come back to him, he would lose her. How that tiny crack in their relationship could open up to become a rip, or let the light filter inside and become the ground for something different. Something that could be born now, as he watches his pregnant daughter play the last song his late wife has ever written, on the piano he sold, all those years ago, because it was painful to see it; and the little red heart on its otherwise immaculate white leg is a testament of Rinoa’s bond with her mother.

Then, as Loire’s breathing becomes the kind of labored breathing of a man who’s crying, he lets his mind wander, following the pattern his wife has carved out of music, the pattern his daughter is giving back to him, now. He finds himself in the corner of a little bar in Deling City, enamored in a woman dressed in red as fine wine and smelling of the most fragrant roses, observing with jealousy and longing how she played for one soldier only; and he remembers the shyness that slowly melted away, when the soldier didn’t come back and Julia’s eyes became hollow and pained. He remembers how he loved her out of her pain, accepting he would never be like her first love, knowing he would come second, and it was ok, if it meant happiness would touch her eyes again. He remembers how difficult it was, to be Julia Heartilly’s boyfriend, and then fiancée, and then husband; how slanderers would say he was just a replacement, and how Julia’s eyes, in the dark, sparkled for him only, because he was second choice, but he was a choice that encompassed everything. And he remembers how Rinoa came screaming into the world, and suddenly summer had another taste, and the sky was a different blue, and everything was much more colorful, much more loud, much more full.

Another pause. Julia used those pauses so much, because sometimes silence is much more meaningful, Fury, she would say, and he realizes now how true it is. Rinoa is slowly wrapping up the song, and Caraway thinks her mother would be so proud of her. As he slowly takes in the powerful image of his daughter, happy and pregnant, playing her mother’s piano for him, he realizes that this was probably Julia’s last message to him, through a song she couldn’t play: don’t let the past hold you back, glide over the pain, and soar over happiness as the gentle, iridescent rainbow cloud she once compared to Rinoa.

On the last note, slightly higher than the rest, he finally gives way to tears.

As Rinoa turns, her eyes settle on Squall, with his encouraging smile, then on Laguna, still a little shaken, and then Caraway. She stands up and goes to sit next to her father, encircling his back with her arm, leaning her cheek against his back.

“Your mother would be so proud,” he whispers, but loud enough for Squall to hear and smile at her. A gentle wave of told you so! passes through their Bond, and Rinoa smiles at her husband, as she tries, without much success, to hold back her tears. “I am so proud of you, Rinoa.”

And for a moment, everything is alright in Caraway’s world.

“Better?” asks Squall as he drapes a blanket over his wife.

“Much, thank you,” she says, as he sits behind her back once again, pulling her against his chest as she awkwardly adjusts the blanket around their legs. Angelo, sleeping at their feet, huffs as the blanket hits her head, and Rinoa giggles, snuggling closer to her husband. His arm comes to hold her around her shoulder blades, and his other hand sneaks under the blanket, settling on her belly. He puffs a laugh against the shell of her ear, as little Aria gives a kick, almost acknowledging her father’s caress.

“You feel happy,” he states, matter-of-factly, as a deep wave of satisfaction circles through the Bond.

“I am. I truly am happy,” she says, moving her hands so she can hold his. Then she laughs, shaking her head a little. “What will I do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just… I’ve been studying to play my mother’s song for so long, and now that I’ve managed to play it, I don’t know what to do next.”

“Is this a bad thing?” he asks, gently, his thumb moving against their daughter’s kicks.

She opens her mouth to answers, but then she closes it again, choosing to think about it a little more. Is it a bad thing? No, she guesses. All she wanted was to play her mother’s song, to understand her last message to the world. In exchange, she got to learn so much – about herself, about her friends, about Squall, about Myrtle, about Laguna, and about her father. About everything. She learned about dealing with pain, about healing through it, about accepting it, and conquering it.

She thinks pain has to mean something. She thinks it can’t be just pain, stabbing and all-encompassing. She thinks you can carve gentleness out of it, and give it back to the world, in the form of a soft song, or of a random act of kindness to strangers.

She thinks love is never lost.

“Maybe I’ll compose my own music,” she says, finally. “Leave a message for little Aria, too. It would be lovely, don’t you think?” She pauses, and then she squeezes his hand, adding, “If she wants to play too, of course.”

“Yeah,” he whispers, rubbing his nose against her cheek. “I’d like that.”

As her husband holds her close, Rinoa looks at the sky. The moon gently shines through a dark cloud, and a silver lining slowly appears, detailing the soft contour of the cloud, painting it in a shiny, gentle light, as soft as the last note of her mother’s last song.

And she smiles.

THE END

In her yellow dress, Rinoa twirls and twirls, laughing, picking up some flowers from the sea of daises that seemingly bloomed overnight in Caraway Mansion’s garden.

Caraway looks at his daughter, without understanding how such a lively, happy, free-spirited creature has come from his loins. His life is all things military, rigid and stern and disciplined, except for the incredible love he feels for his wife, and this child they created out of nothing into rambunctiousness, loudness, laughter, and freedom.

He hears his wife’s steps behind him, and he almost apologizes; he has the utmost respect for his wife’s music room and for her time with Rinoa, but he heard her laughter from his office, and he couldn’t resist coming down for a cup of coffee and a stolen glance through the music room’s door. He was greeted by his daughter joyfully dancing in her reign of flowers, where she is the little queen of all things beautiful, and magical, and colorful.

Julia laughs, and even her laughter is musical, soft, and tingling like a high chord of notes she called arpeggio, once. Her slender arms come to circle his waist, and he knows she is standing on the tips of her feet, to peer over his shoulder at their daughter. “Music,” says Julia, “rich, full of feeling, not soulless, is like a crystal on which the sun falls and brings forth from it a whole rainbow.”

Caraway makes a sound. “Did you become a poet overnight, too?”

Julia laughs again, moving to stand by her husband, pressing against his side, and leaning her head against his shoulder. “This was Chopin, silly,” she says.

“Your favorite pianist,” he says, and she nods, satisfied with the fact he remembers what she loves.

“I think she is ready, Fury,” she continues, and she steals his cup to sip his coffee. He should scold her, but he doesn’t – the way she’s looking at him manages to disarm him every single time. “She is curious, and I think she has some potential. I think she could be like that crystal Chopin was talking about. Can you imagine the music she could create?”

Caraway says nothing, and looks at his daughter. She is still twirling amidst the daises, singing a song he has never heard because she has probably come up with it in the last few minutes, and he tries to imagine the music she could create.

Rich.

Full of feeling.

Not soulless.

As amazing and breathtaking as a rainbow brought forth from a crystal.

“She could fill the entire sky with rainbows if we let her,” he says, as he watches Rinoa again. All he knows is that his little girl rocks his entire world every day in a million different ways, and she has already filled his skies with rainbows, and it is amazing, and it is breathtaking.

“And can you imagine how wonderful that would be?” asks Julia, her eyes fixed on little Rinoa too.

No, he can’t, but he can’t wait to find out.

“Fine,” he says, circling his wife’s waist with his free arm, and squeezing. “Teach her to play the piano. But don’t force her, ok?”

“Never,” says Julia, standing on the tips of her feet to kiss his cheek. She too looks like a little girl, right now, and Caraway smiles a little, his hand falling from his wife’s waist as she steps out in the garden, picking up their daughter and squeezing until the little girl shrieks out a joyous laugh.

“Guess what?” asks Julia, caressing the little girl’s face.

“Tell me, mummy!”

“Your father said you can learn to play the piano!”

They squeal together, and then Rinoa kicks until her mother puts her down, laughing, and Caraway only sees a dark-haired little cannonball in a yellow dress launching herself against his legs.

“Thank you, daddy!” she squeals, and he picks her up, holds her close, inhales her comforting scent of child and daises and warm sun on cotton fabric and of rainbows about to explode everywhere in his skies.

And for once, he can be daddy.