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1.
By the way Zell was looking out the window of the train— his tattooed face mushed up against the glass pane like a flattened loaf of bread— you would have almost forgotten Balamb Garden was under threat. At any second now, Sorceress Edea could send a missile and their school would burn like an overcooked S'more— but that didn't seem important to anyone but Squall at the moment. What was important to them?
The stars.
Squall was not all that impressed. Stars were a phenomenon that tended to happen when the sun went down. If he missed his window of opportunity to see them tonight, there stood a pretty good chance he could see them tomorrow. However, no one else in the train car seemed to share that belief. Now that they were far away from the light pollution of the city, stars seemed to have taken on an entirely new life for them, crisp and clear, twinkling like a gauze of shattered diamonds over a blanket of endless night.
Irvine twisted in his seat to get a better look, a bittersweet smile spreading underneath the shadow of his hat. "Selphie would've loved to see this."
Squall suppressed a grumble. Ever since the party divided up, that was all Irvine could talk about. 'Selphie would've loved to see these stars.' 'Selphie would've wanted to ride this train.' 'Selphie would've liked the cushioning in these seats.'
Whatever. If they were all focused on the sky, then at least no one was paying attention to him.
Or so he thought.
Directly across the train, Rinoa kept to the corner of her seat, uncharacteristically far from everyone else. Her arms were crossed and packed close to her body, her knees facing sideways, her posture as stiff as the gel holding Zell's hair together. Her small, round face scowled off into the distance, reading strongly of 'Do not talk to me' and 'Leave me alone or I swear…'
She was copying him. Mocking him.
Overly conscious, he untangled his arms and pressed them against his sides, curling his gloved fists against his legs.
She did the same, petite hands forming pale balls on her denim skirt.
He crossed his arms again and turned to the opposite side.
She shifted positions at the same time, mirroring the gesture perfectly.
"Stop that-"
"-Stop that."
His eyes widened briefly, blinked, then stared at her. Were they really playing this game? They were seventeen, not seven. Maybe the train needed to stop at a sandbox to drop Rinoa off.
Without warning, Rinoa crossed over and sat next to him, her hands folded delicately behind her back. Her bare shoulder pressed against the leather of his jacket. "Now you know how ridiculous you look when you sulk," she said.
How ridiculous he looked? He said nothing. Instead, he looked ahead and pretended he couldn't see her smiling in his peripheral vision.
"Why aren't you looking out at the stars?" she asked, tilting her chin towards him.
"What is there for me to look at?" He continued staring ahead at the spot where she had been sitting before. Irvine had a point, the cushions on this train were actually quite nice.
"There's plenty to look at," Rinoa shifted and kneeled in the seat, looking out the window. Squall tried to ignore the way her elbow pushed on his shoulder for support. "Catch a falling one and you could even make a wish."
"Wishes are for children," Squall nearly sighed. "Besides, I think I remember making one once— it didn't come true."
She turned her head and stared at him, her brown eyes studying him, glancing down, then up at him again. "Then I'll make a wish for you. One I know will come true," she looked back out at the sky. Even from the corner of his vision, he could see her face glowing in the moonlight, burning bright like a comet,
"I’ll make a wish that one day, you’ll smile."
2.
Free-floating in space, stars were as terrifying as they were beautiful. They shined not only in shades of white, but also blues, sulfuric yellows, and burning reds— their numbering so infinite, they seemed more like clouds than individual pricks of light. And yet still, they were so far away.
When looking at the sky from the ground, he could tell that space was vast. Now that he was lost in its dark matter, he felt like he was staring at the face of Hyne. The world they lived in seemed infinitesimal, especially when dangling underneath his feet.
Who would lead SeeD when he was gone? What was he even doing here?
Even if those responsibilities had been shoved onto him without his consent, he had managed to keep everything together, hadn't he? He was the calm, rational one. And yet he threw on a spacesuit to save Rinoa with no means of them returning to base. Even with Irvine screaming what he already knew— that this mission was suicide.
Since when had he allowed his emotions to make decisions instead of his brain? Just what had changed to make him so reckless?
He was beginning to think like her.
But was that really a bad thing?
In his mind he could see Griever in Rinoa's hand, her finger running over the ridges in the ring's design. "Who knows?" she had said, "Maybe I can become like a lion, too."
He needed to get to her. He needed to tell her she already had that courage.
Rinoa wasn’t afraid to laugh. When she did, she did it so hard that the air left her lungs, it made her body tremble. One time she had even hiccuped. When she saw his eyebrow raise after, she smacked his arm with all her pathetic might. Even though she was a pacifist, she wasn't afraid of being angry.
She wasn't afraid to cry, either. When she did, a small pinch would form above her nose and her brown eyes would grow heavy. It made Squall feel like he should do something for her— maybe hold her— if only he wasn't so much of a coward.
Rinoa was the one with the strength of a lion, all he had was the pride.
He had wished on stars once. When he was little, he had wished for his big sister Ellone to come back. He often wondered where his father was, and how his mother could be in a happier place, if only that place didn't include him. Eventually, he realized no one was coming to kiss the scratches Seifer had caused by pushing him into the ground. Crying was useless. He figured that if he kept to himself, then no one else would be important. If no one else was important, then there was nothing to be lost.
He wouldn't lose Rinoa. Even if catching her meant nothing without a way to return to safety. In the icy, endless emptiness of space, he would not let her be alone.
Before he met her, he was content not to wish on stars anymore. Never wishing meant he would never again be disappointed.
Rinoa wished on stars, even if the wishes didn't come true.
3.
Squall was never much for parties, but he did like to breathe, and defeating Ultimecia was like letting go of a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. It was strange not to be under threat— not to be fighting for whatever cause would fatten their paychecks most, or against Sorceresses that could bend time itself to their will. They deserved this little break. They deserved to celebrate victory, to live as teenagers for once. He never thought he would say it, but he deserved that, too.
‘There's a grumpy old man living behind your eyes,’ Rinoa had teased once, ‘You need to kick him out.’
And maybe— at least for one night— he would. Not that he would go out onto the dance floor by himself or anything. There was no need to get that crazy.
It was a good thing that the battery had died on Selphie's camera. If it hadn’t, he might have stood there with it, watching Rinoa on the balcony for far too long. Later, when Selphie sat them all down to watch the disk, there would have been some explaining to do, along with cat calls that he could live without. He wanted to keep his relationship with Rinoa as private and personal as he could, but considering what kind of friends they kept, he knew that might be difficult— or impossible.
He returned the camera to Selphie, almost relieved to tell her why his turn with it was over. "That's ok," she said cheerily, "I've got eight more batteries in my dorm."
He told himself he wouldn't sigh. That was something old-man-Squall would do.
Finally free of the camera, he walked to the open doors that led onto the balcony. Rinoa turned to face him, her mouth spreading into a smile. "There's a meteor shower going on," she told him, and as he drew closer, he could see she was right. "It's just like I dreamed we'd promised, except," she took his hand by the edge of his fingers and tugged, "you're here."
"I said I would be." He put his arm around her. Showing affection like this no longer seemed so foreign to him. He'd grown fond of the way her head fit in the crook of his shoulder, of the soothing heat of her body and her breath whispering across his neck.
"So here we are, watching the stars." Rinoa picked her head up and looked at him, tilting her face toward him expectantly. "What do you think of them now?"
More stars fell, trailing across the glass reflection of her eyes like burning embers. He wondered what he was supposed to tell her, because saying the word ‘pretty’ was obvious.
He remembered floating with her in space and thinking how chaotic the universe was. Of stars of infinite balls of boiling gas, torching entire planets for daring to stray too close. Of how, in any infinitesimal second, an asteroid could fall from the sky and there would be nothing, nothing to say that humankind had ever built, had ever loved, had ever lived. Still, the universe was every sense of the word ‘awe,’ both its fear and enormity.
Who could say why the sun spread its light over the moon, or why the moon fell into orbit and formed the rhythm of the tides? And how did just the right kind of stardust fall to the world for Hyne to give each human breath?
He wanted to explain to Rinoa just what it meant for all the stars to fall into place. To tell her she'd given him the faith that somehow, they always would. He couldn't put it all into words. Instead, he pressed his lips against hers and let her feel.
"I got my wish," she whispered as they broke away, putting a finger to his lips.
Softly, she brushed over the line of his mouth from corner to corner, tracing the curve of his smile.