Archive of Our Own ^beta

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He hated to carry others’ burdens.

Rinoa maligned the thought of uselessness more than anything; despised the notion of being helpless to aid others or unable to fulfill her purpose in the world. She fancied herself a guardian angel— but without wings to keep itself afloat above flames, a heavenly protector merely becomes a sacrificial lamb.

Everyone had a limit. Squall figured he knew that better than anybody, constantly shouldering the weights thrust upon him and making a regular habit of snapping under that pressure. Yet to see the one glimmer he could always lose himself in faded from Rinoa’s eyes and drained of the youthful pep that seemed to always follow her...

Selfish, so very very selfish — but she’d earned the right to be a little self-centered, hadn’t she? All that she should have devoted to herself had been partitioned off for those around her, leaving not a single bit of regard for her own well-being. Rinoa thought it bratty to pursue that belief or hold herself under such a pretense of entitlement, but acted on those ideations in spite of it: her face nestled against his chest with arms folded across her stomach, hiding away her fatigued grimace from the world around her. Those who relied on her didn’t need to see her like that.

In an instant Squall felt the weight transfer from Rinoa to himself, greeting the familiar experience of another’s problems becoming his own. He always carried through and helped to the very end, no matter how much he maligned it or how badly it ate away at him. With Rinoa though, it was different. He curled his arms around her to hold her close — not because she demanded it, but because he wanted to. Rinoa released a little sigh of gentle exhaustion as she siphoned what comfort he could from his hold, shutting her eyes to bask in it and escape from her reality. His fingers took slow, deliberate strides through her black tresses, and his chin tilted downward to rest atop her head.

Rinoa’s pain was Squall’s now — but it wasn’t a burden whenever it was for her.

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She hated to see him like this.

Not like Squall was ever particularly expressive or known for an outwardly pleasant demeanor, but like anybody he had nuances in how he expressed himself. Rinoa had come to be able to read those signs better than anybody, if only for the unfortunate reality that nobody else had bothered to learn the language.

He had a pattern: seated near his desk, back turned to their bed with his head tilted slightly towards the window. His arms crossed lazily somewhere between his chest and his lap, and his fingers laid loosely upon the end of either leg. That omnipresent frown was clear as ever, but with a few subtle amendments: his brow furrowed at an angle in tandem with a focused squint, and his blue eyes met with the matching skies with a vacant intensity. Rinoa had never seen somebody look so passionately at absolutely nothing before she had met Squall.

Powerful as the sorceress may have been, she couldn’t read his mind: she crept behind him and leaned forward to let locks of black hair fall over his head, gently tickling the back of his neck. As he glanced upwards to greet her gaze she flashed a little smile — and for an instant his thoughts stopped, all the noise within his head suddenly silent. That was Rinoa’s magic, in a sense: nobody else could convince Squall to simply stop thinking and spare himself from the torture of his own company. Her smile faltered as she rest a hand upon his shoulder, squeezing as a modest display of her support. “What’s wrong...?” Rinoa spoke with a half-playful singsong, cheerful as ever in spite of Squall’s dour mood.

In truth he knew precisely what was the matter; having mulled over the rabble of his own mind obsessively for hours now. But in eighteen years of life ruled by social isolation and riddled with the hammered-in stoicism of his militaristic upbringing, Squall had never once learned how to simply speak his mind and express himself. Whereas Rinoa filtered her personality and heart into all she did, it was a labor for Squall to even find unison between thought and words.

“It’s...” His hand affectionately grazed the back of her own for a moment as his facial expression grew troubled, pausing in an attempt to bring light to the enigma trapped in his throat. In an instant the thought was lost, and he then released his touch to dismissively gesticulate as if batting the problem away. Frustrating for the both of them, surely, but what good would it be to try and speak to a wall?

“...it’s whatever.”

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In hindsight, he could clearly identify the first time that he felt love for Rinoa.

Not that at the time Squall knew it was love, or had much of a conscious frame of reference for what love even was. It began with something as simple as unfamiliarity, the ironic polar opposite of the intimate fondness that had begun stirring within his chest: as a soldier Squall had little chance to bear witness to elegance, nor the emotional headwidth necessary to appreciate beauty in its simplest form. He was a soldier, first and foremost. Not a commander, not a specialist, not anybody or anything even remotely special: merely a pair of boots on the ground who did what he was told, and that directive could often simply be reduced to destroy. Squall knew nothing but the gunblade and the damage that it wrought, the cold congratulations for a job well done from his superiors, the empty sense of fulfillment that came with the knowledge he had done exactly what he had been instructed to do. Nothing more, nothing less — a SeeD always followed orders, after all.

Like clockwork, shifting between moments of destructive ennui and introspective turmoil as the pressure pressed down further on his chest, threatening to crack every one of his ribs and suffocate him — but that moment was different. The feeling last only a split second, but he’d remember it for the entirety of the events that followed and recalled it often over the course of the next few months. If he had hesitated to glance over even a moment longer, he would have missed it. Squall’s eyes had become all but fixated on the shifting cyclical motions of Balamb Garden’s engines whirring to life, quietly taking in the marvel of modern engineering as it propelled itself across its namesake’s lush landscape. Flocks of birds crossed paths with the Garden as it slowly crept southwards, and one of them shed a feather that fluttered through the air and towards Squall’s right. As he followed it with his eyes tresses of black crept into his peripheral vision, and natural curiosity turned his head so that he focused on the source of that momentary distraction.

It almost felt perverse, to voyeuristically feast his eyes on Rinoa’s moment. The childlike wonder she displayed at the Garden’s display of technological achievement contrast Squall’s burnt-out pessimism at every turn; it seemed as if Rinoa had waited her entire life for that very moment. In a way, that assumption was correct: much of a weakness as Rinoa’s naivete and youthful spunk could be, it enabled her to find joy in the simplest of things. The Garden’s maiden voyage was something new, a first experience, something to be cherished and fondly stored within her memories like any other. She’d placed her hands on the railing and leaned over to take in the landscape, to watch in awe of the engine’s turbines spinning beneath her, to feel the wind blowing through her hair and deafening her with its howls. As the birds passed by Rinoa turned her head upwards to watch them, only to find herself blinded by her own hair after it had been tossed by the wind. She raised a hand to tuck several locks beneath her ear and kept her fingers there as she gazed up into the sky, watching the birds disappear into the distance. Her grin grew so wide it overtook her entire face, and her eyes slowly shut in reverence of the moment, of the feeling. That moment would never come again, there would never be another time just like that one, and a memory wouldn’t be the same as being there, so she took in all that it had to offer.

Squall was transfixed. He thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

That honor was quickly trumped by what he witnessed next, of course: as Rinoa felt prying eyes glued to her she turned her head towards Squall, taking a few seconds to register the fact that he’d been gawking the entire time. Her eyes peeled open to confirm her suspicions, and as she registered the eye contact Squall saw it. Rinoa stared in blank amusement for a split second, as if still preoccupied with the moment, before her face lit up in raw endearment and adoration. While her smile lost its overjoyed edge and shrunk slightly, there was a sincere warmth in it that suggested a contentedness or intimate comfort that she could find in only one person. Rinoa’s overtly-expressive mannerisms and facial features contrasted Squall’s so heavily: while he struggled to delve into his thoughts and always ruminated over them with a blank, stern expression, Rinoa could say so much with simply a look. It just so happened that this time the look on her face captivated Squall like nothing else had in his entire life; elicited feelings that he’d never felt before. His stomach churned, his nerves tensed, he forgot to breathe for a second. It made him happy to look at Rinoa in that state. More shockingly, it made him happy to have Rinoa look at him like that. It was the first time he’d ever felt such strong affection, and the first time he’d ever felt it directed at himself.

Her head tilted back and slightly towards the side in Squall, letting that familiar gaze stand strong for a second or two before she broke it and turned back to stare off the balcony. The entire exchange lasted less than five seconds, but it only took that long for it to burn into his mind. The imagery, the sight, the sensation — but all of it paled in comparison to the feeling. Squall couldn’t identify it, couldn’t even begin to make sense of what Rinoa made him feel or why she made him feel that way.

That feeling was something just for Squall. Something special, something unique, something nobody else could ever have and something Rinoa would never give to anybody else.

By the time that he would come to just realize what it was, it would be too late for that epiphany to hold any value.

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It was the little things, thought Rinoa.

The innocent joy of harboring a crush, of falling in love brought endless promise. That was what made those first few weeks of getting to know Squall so exciting; every little detail or habit that she noticed was so new. She’d badgered him to show him Balamb Garden’s canteen, and then insisted that they share a meal together — under the guise of wanting a tour of Squall’s home, place of learning and place of work all at once, but truly simply wanting an excuse to spend the day in his company.

“I always sit here,” he had nonchalantly declared. “Why here?” Her query came before Squall had managed to finish his thought, taking him off-guard and leaving him somewhat slack-jawed as he found his focus completely stilted by Rinoa’s sudden interjection. The way he blinked twice and tilted his head, the dumbfounded noise as he delved into his mind to find a satisfactory answer, the way he shifted his weight in his seat. “Uh— I like the view from the window, I guess. Something nice to look at while I’m thinking.”

“Do you not really talk to people?” He shook his head and re-affirmed his stony default expression, something Rinoa had become all too familiar with in her endless study of Squall’s face. “Not really. There are a few people I’ll sit with — Zell, Quistis. Selphie sometimes. But I don’t really talk a lot.” Rinoa tilted her head to the side. “Why not?” The way he tightened his lips in thought and glanced out at Balamb’s skyline in the distance, as if illustrating his daily lunchtime routine for her. The way he tapped his fork idly against his plate to fill the silence between words. “I don’t have much to say. It isn’t a big deal, I’m just thinking.”

She cracked a wide, playful grin. “That means I must be a really big deal to get you to talk right now, huh?” The way he widened his eyes and stumbled over his words, before quietly scoffing and murmuring a phrase Rinoa had by that point become all too familiar with. “Whatever...” Rinoa responded with a wordless giggle and silenced herself by shoveling her spoon into her mouth, evidently satisfied by her ability to get under Squall’s skin and tease him. Nobody else could do that, a fact she took a sense of smug pride in.

It was the little things — the little things you don’t realize you’re going without until you feel them for the first time, thought Squall. Something as little as someone caring about the little things.

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It’s the way that Rinoa lets her eyes squint and her nose scrunch up when she laughs, it’s the little bits of cheer she always manages to pepper into the darkest moments. It’s his arms around her waist so that her warmth can remind him that he’s still alive, it’s the way she turns the bed into a mess of covers and crumpled pillows as she gracelessly sleeps.

”I’m in love with her,” Squall thinks.

It’s the way that Rinoa steals his jacket and smiles as she nuzzles into the oversized fur around the collar, it’s how she quietly confides in him her fears and worries when she won’t let anybody else see her frown. It’s the way her thumb affectionately grazes over his scar as if it were any other facial feature and not an ugly reminder of the past, it’s the way she fusses over and adjusts his hair’s styling, playfully teasing him for insisting on such a fancy, overcomplicated haircut.

”She’s in love with me,” Squall thinks.

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There was no such thing as good and evil — only two sides with opposing viewpoints at odds with one another, “enemy” and “ally” subjective perspectives equally applicable to one side its opposite. The belief had long been internalized by Squall as objective truth, a means to rationalize his instinctive lack of thought brought about by his training as a SeeD. He was not an arbiter of right and wrong, but a mercenary paid to support a group of people who believed what they did to be correct.

Still — rife with cognitive dissonance and prone begrudging acceptance of circumstances that worked against his favor as ever, Squall couldn’t help but feel a particular disdain for Galbadia. The bulk of Squall’s time as a SeeD as well as his training up to his inauguration had been fighting against Galbadia, leading his mind to default to the country and its military forces as an enemy. Moreover, and something that Squall would be more hesitant to consciously acknowledge, the circumstances that had once driven his life into disorder and turmoil — as well as those of the ones Squall held dear — were almost exclusively wrought by Galabadia’s eternal lust for power. Even the hardiest of flesh would begin to scar against repeated slashes, and the distaste for the country lingered long after the end of the Sorceress crisis and the decompression of time.

He presumed the same sentiment of Rinoa: the way that her nose scrunched upon hearing mention of her home country’s past pursuits, how she would impassionately speak ill of the military complex that her father found himself at the head of, all of her efforts in the Forest Owls during her career as an insurgent... it all pointed to squared-off disapproval of her home country. Rinoa didn’t have a bone of hate in the entirety of her body, but what little malice she could carry seemed to all be rooted in her home... or so Squall thought. At first her insistence that they take a trip to the country’s capital of Deling (“For real this time since everything went wrong the first time you came here!” Rinoa had brattishly whined) puzzled him; left him curious as to why she wished to expose him to a place she fought to distance herself from.

She dragged him this way and that across Deling’s winding inner-city streets; holding his hand to lead him through crabs to one landmark or another, or to expose him to some aspect of Galbadian culture or another. “I know this city like the back of my hand,” she had bragged while shooting a smug, playful grin at Squall. “Look, see that pet store...? That’s where I bought Angelo! My dad was so mad about that...” A pout as she receded inwards, only to bounce back before she found herself lingering too heavily on the topic of her father’s treatment. “Oh, that restaurant is my favorite...! Have you ever had the West Cactus? Come on, it’s our specialty, you have to try it...”

“I thought you didn’t like it here,” Squall stated bluntly. He certainly didn’t — or at least he had convinced himself he didn’t. His candidness cut through her enthusiasm like a gunblade firing on impact, and her smile dropped back into that youthful pout. “I mean...” Rinoa began, before hooking her arm around Squall’s and holding herself closely against him, as if pleading for his approval or the security of knowing she wasn’t being judged. “...whenever I talk about how I don’t like some of the stuff Galbadia does, it’s... usually the military stuff, you know? And a lot of that is because of my dad, which...” She squeezed more tightly as frustration mounted, and in an instant Squall understood. It was easy to pin her country as a scapegoat for her malign towards her father, just as easy as it was for Squall to pin the crimes of the military on those whose only sin was being born there.

“Yeah,” he admitted — begrudgingly, it may have seemed, but that was simply Squall’s nature. Comfortable as he was around Rinoa, it still didn’t come easily to admit mistake. “You don’t need to say any more, I think I get it.” A little smile crept back on Rinoa’s lips, and she planted her head right against his shoulder. “I was hoping you would. In spite of everything that’s happened, and all the stuff that my dad has done or put everybody through... and put me through, to boot. This place is... well... it’s the place that kind of made me who I am. It’s been there for me when nobody else was, before all of this. It’s... home, you know?”

He tilted his head and paused to contemplate it, his facial expression growing vacant. For Squall, home was nowhere — all abodes ephemeral, any sense of true belonging lost long ago. Maybe with Rinoa at his side he could find it.

Squall nodded a little and tilted his hand so that it rest over hers, hooking to hold her fingers over the curl of his arm. “I guess. Now come on,” he said with a quiet smile growing on his face. “You’re not going to talk up that cactus dish and expect me not to want to try it, are you...?”

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Squall liked to act like didn’t much care for being doted on — he grunted and winced as Rinoa fretted over his newest set of wounds, slices of red that marred his face and provided his old scar some temporary company.

Rinoa found it charming, the way he lowers his brow and departed those sharp eyes of his as she stuck a plaster over the fresh cut along his jaw.

She hypothesized that it was his military bearings coming through; that hatred for perceived softness he’d no doubt come to associate with the fallacy of weakness. Maybe it was that baggage of his nipping at his ankles and telling him that being as sensitive as he was was something to be ashamed of.

Maybe it was just him being a stubborn ass like usual — but she didn’t mind. It was what made him who he was.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught the facade drop as she removed her hands and looked away, that steel expression of his melting into fresh-grown wool. He didn’t look like a lion anymore; now just a kitten purring and praying for fingers underneath its chin. She took her sweet time fishing another bandage out of the kit, prolonging that neediness if only to savor the sweetness of seeing Squall at his most genuinely himself.

Rinoa looked up, and in the nick of time his face re-assumed that that trademark stoic. She’d already seen it, though: Squall isn’t fooling anybody... especially not with the way he tilted his head towards her so that she could tend to his split-open eyebrow.

After taping it shut she planted a kiss on the side of his forehead, smile growing by the second as she waited for his reaction. Rinoa got exactly what she was seeking: his icy exterior melted like it was exposed to open flame, fading away as if she wasn’t looking right at him. The arm around her hips squeezed a bit tighter, and she let out a giggle to showcase her satisfied amusement.

“Love you,” she whispered, and it took Squall a full second to echo it. “...I love you, too.”

Even then, he was surprised to find that he meant it.

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Rinoa shut her eyes and receded into her own mind, intent on navigating to the back of her psyche and reaching between distant memories. After an errant, imprecise grasp or twos she found her: the Guardian Force that SeeD had entrusted her with and (loosely) trained her how to use, having stressed it as a vital combat asset in their ongoing effort.

Given the meager selection that was placed before her, she picked Siren — the Guardian seemed to take a particular liking to her cloud-headed manner of thinking, and Rinoa was charmed by Siren’s angelic motif. She resided in Rinoa’s head and communicated through chillbumps and hairs standing on end, sensations failed by words and relying on sheer intuition for her messages to be comprehended.

With her latent connection with Hyne the need to use a Guardian Force to junction and use magic became redundant; yet Rinoa still kept Siren close at all times. Two reasons: she enjoyed the company and appreciated the thought she would never truly be alone, and to summon her Guardian angel’s might.

Fingers loosely grasped the two rings strung around her neck and gingerly squeezed, focusing all that she had on herself and exerting the energy stored within her consciousness. Her mind exposed itself to the world, and Siren spread her wings as she faded into reality and gave birth to her song. The Guardian’s voice soothed the cries of the Sorceress’s enemies, who fell silent and split themselves asunder in reverence of the temptation embodied before them.

Siren had left an empty space in Rinoa’s head, and it felt like a gap between her teeth. The spot where the Guardian had junctioned itself to her mind was now bare, but had once stored a memory.

How much more would Rinoa forget?

Her childhood was already beginning to fade like a quilt in the sunlight, complete with torn seams and holes in bleached fabric. She could scarcely recall singing by her mother’s side at the family piano, and the first time her father had yelled at her was merely a blur. She didn’t remember the name of the store she had impulse-purchased Angelo at, nor why she chose that particular name.

Siren returned to Rinoa’s mind and filled that space again, which had begun to widen and widen as the Guardian grew in strength. Wide eyes nervously set across the battlefield, savoring the present lest she lose the image when the future would come and leave it all in the past. When it would all eventually leave her, she wouldn’t even notice it’s absence.

She caught a glimpse of silver out of the corner of her eye — blurred steel connected to long strands of black leather. Slick squelching as blade met flesh, and the deafening pang of gunfire acting as fanfare for the thick odor of gunpowder.

The monster that Squall had engaged in melee with fell dead at his feet, and he promptly slung the Gunblade over his head to rid it of any mess before propping it on his shoulder. For a second or two Squall simply wasn’t there, eyes growing solemn as he silently gazed out at the ocean that surrounded the three of them. Blue meets blue, Rinoa thought.

After finding himself in his lost thoughts, Squall turned to glance over at her. It was like instinct, to check and ensure that she was okay, and his stern expression softened as he saw she was in one piece. Something close to relief, though he never really looked at peace.

Rinoa’s heart fluttered and her stomach twisted into a knot. That never got old.

She squeezed the rings for dear life and tugged gently at the chain they were suspended from, the little beads digging into the neck of her neck.

Never, she thought. I’ll never, ever, ever forget this.

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Squall's a messy sleeper. Rinoa thinks it's cute, not that she'll ever tell him about his nocturnal habits.

Lazy mornings like these are her favorites: nothing but a bed, and Squall, and Angelo curled up in a ball between them. She can lay there for hours, just watching him, and every toss and turn and every direction his hair gets further tousled in. Sometimes she gets woken up by his incessant shifting and fidgeting in bed, but she doesn't dare complain. He'll get in his head about it, he won't stop apologizing... sometimes it's annoying, but it's a part of Squall like any other, and something she's grown fond of.

He's facing her now, with his head angled downwards at his chest and his arms crossed in lieu of the blanket. The locks of brown hair that he fusses over and keeps so meticulously kempt are a mess all over his face and the pillow, lying parallel to the angular slash of his scar. She can count the scars and pockmarks on his chest (nine of them, with hopefully none more to come) and outline every imprint of his muscles on his torso. They grow taut sometimes while he's sleeping, like he's exerting himself in a dream. The big dummy can't even let himself rest when he's sleeping...!

He shifts and roughly turns onto his back. Angelo whines, her slumber having been disturbed by the sudden rocking of the bed. Squall's back is facing her now (four scars, the giant one on his shoulder having a twin in his chest) and his face is hidden from sight, but that face is burned into her memory now. A rare moment of calm, but his brow remains furrowed and tense as ever. It's a learned expression, a part of his military bearings and the natural affect SeeD's institutionalization has hammered into him.

She closes the distance between herself and Angelo, and between Angelo and Squall. Her arms hug them both close, anchoring onto him like she can keep him still. She shuts her eyes, face in his back and Angelo's head under her chin, and drifts back off to sleep. They share a dream, quiet and serene.

Squall doesn't twist and turn anymore.

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Rinoa wasn’t cut out for long weeks on the field — at least, that’s what Squall thought. He knew every piece of his equipment in and out and exactly where it was, and when to use it, and how to make the most out of it.

Rinoa had a duster, a blaster and a dog.

When she got thirsty she would beg him for a drink from his canteen, and it would only take three tries before he would relent. He swore she only did it to get on his nerves — or maybe just to have an excuse to talk to him.

They sat on the edge of Fisherman’s Horizon, Squall’s legs dangling over the edge and Rinoa sitting crosslegged as they gazed out into empty ocean air. The canteen was passed back and forth as they drank together, Squall rationing his water in quick, short sips and Rinoa downing great portions in long gulps. She probably got half or more of it, and Squall had only enough to keep his throat dry.

He tasted something sweet on the lip of the container when he drank — something her lips left. Gloss, lipstick, some sort of dainty frippery that was so far removed from his world that he couldn’t comprehend it.

SeeD was deployed the field, during global wartime, and yet Rinoa still insisted on prettying herself up.

He couldn’t comprehend her, but he couldn’t imagine going on without her.

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He looks so strong — eyes on the horizon when he thinks anybody is looking, and fixated on everybody else when he thinks he’s out of sight. There’s a scowl as permanent as the scar above it, and equally as much of a relic of past pain.

She looks so happy — locked in perpetual cheer with arms spread wide to accommodate those in need, perfectly poised to provide the endless support she’s never known. When she smiles it’s magnetic; she knows this, as that way people will be drawn to her and not leave.

He’s good at hiding it, she thinks — and so is she.

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To him, it is a sign of rejection.

It permanently brands him as what he is: damaged goods, a machine born and raised to fight and be fought, doomed to endure pain and wear it proudly as if it doesn’t weigh him down in the slightest. It is a permanent sign of Seifer exerting his will over him for no other reason than that he could, further establishing to Squall that callousness will always dominate over compassion. When he takes revenge and leaves Seifer with the same burden, it doesn’t feel good. All he’s doing is bringing more pain into the world and hurting somebody else. It’s not in his nature to act out of malice, and the thought haunts him for weeks afterward. They’re both marked for what they are: broken, failed by the system that raised them, and cursed to be unable to live without the mark it left upon their souls.

To her, it is simply a part of him — no less, and no more.

Just because Squall wears his burdens a bit more proudly doesn’t mean that he has any reason to be afraid of them, so thinks Rinoa. He doesn’t judge her for her own fair share of scars, figurative as they may be, or frown upon the ethereal wings that sprout from her back. Sometimes it feels as if Rinoa will be crushed underneath the weight of what she must carry, as a woman and as a witch, but Squall loves her all the same and happily shoulders his share of the weight.

They are both a little broken, and that’s okay. They can piece themselves and one another back together in due time, and they will grow stronger for having been shattered once before.

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"People think I don't notice, but I do."

She speaks with a furrowed brow and the beads of her eyes constricted into tiny pewter pebbles, nose tightened just enough to make her lip curl just upwards. Her arms lay crossed over her stomach, and she sits with a noticeable slouch in the Ragnarok's passenger seat.

Squall glances over, eyes flicking up-and-down to gauge her emotional state from her posture and body language — something he thinks he's always been good at. Skill or no skill, it isn't difficult to discern that Rinoa is uncomfortable. Upset with something. Maybe him; it wouldn't be the first time.

"Notice what?" He hesitates enough to make himself sound as if he had to catch up with the conversation and wasn't overthinking every syllable, every wrinkle in her face, every twist and turn of her body.

Rinoa just shrugs her shoulders and turns away, eyes settling on the clouds soaring past them. En route to Fisherman's Horizon for something or another that Quistis needed, departing from a visit to Balamb Garden to resupply. The mundanity of these chores has left them with a somewhat rare opportunity: to simply sit down and share a conversation. With Selphie at the helm of the ship it shouldn't take too much longer before they touch the ground, so Squall savors each moment for all it's worth.

Even the mildly unpleasant ones.

He's overthinking again, but luckily Rinoa has taken just as much time to process and word her own thoughts. She sighs through her nose, almost a pout, and speaks: "That they think I'm stupid or annoying for being the way I am. I notice it all the time — it's, well, it's hard not to notice when my dad has treated me like this since I was a little girl."

Squall winces. He was guilty of the exact same crime whenever they first met, and didn't make even the barest effort to hide it. What would have happened had she not decided to put up with him? Where would they be now, and where would she be...?

"...sorry," he says, out of habit, and then carefully drapes a leather-clad arm along the armrest. "Both in general and, uh... because I did that too. Months ago, when..."

"When we first met," she concurs, and then frowns as if she's caught a whiff of something foul. "I remember. It's not like I can help it, but if I complain about everything it's not gonna do any good. I try not to let people take advantage of me, but if I can help somebody or make them happy then..."

"You can't help it." He nods, she nods. For all of the misgivings he might have incurred in the past, Squall understands — because he's looking straight into a mirror.

"...I'm not mad at you for doing that, if that's what you were wondering." She glances over at him and flashes that little smile. His heart skips a beat, because he's a child and a beautiful girl smiling at him still makes him melt. Good grief.

"I get it, like I said. It just makes me a little more happy that you paid attention enough to care."

The smile drops. "Most people don't, but I do, even then. It's all I know how to do."

He thinks about Selphie's earlier proclamation: everybody, love and peace. Understanding — the world could use a little more of that, for her sake, for his, and for everybody's.

Hell, he could use a little more of it, himself.

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She is needy, though she will never debase herself by dignifying her needs with words. Rinoa craves the electricity between them; magnetized to his side and recharged by an arm 'round his bicep or a head on his shoulder. Squall is never quite sure what to do, always under the assumption that whatever he does is simply not enough - all the love in the world, not a single action nor word worthy of representing it, not a spacewalk nor a simple reassuring glance. He will never accept that oftentimes she is satisfied (elated, exuberated, ecstatic) by the mere fact that he is there at all, never asking for more than his company and for him to accept her forfeiture of agency. She will become small, voiceless, unable to give for a time.

And then she will rise from the ashes, wings spread out and ready to take to the skies once more.

He is needy, and it is a pain in the ass to accept that. It is enough of a hassle to walk himself through his own struggles and verbalize them (still doesn't like to talk about himself or his feelings, though now not for a belief that he cannot) without the extraneous burden of admitting something so childish, so weak. More often than not, Squall repeats Rinoa's voice in his head before he is able to give rise to his own: You missed out on all the good things in life. You've missed out on so much. He is unaccustomed to it, and likely always will be - but he needn't go without. The conversation rarely lasts for more than a few minutes at a time and Squall is almost offhand in how he lends voice to his struggles, worrisome of the weight it may place on Rinoa - but she always knows what to say, even if it is nothing at all. Sometimes he craves the scarcest commodity in a lifetime of solitude: sometimes he just wants somebody to listen. Sometimes he just wants to be heard.

And then he will lick his wounds and reclaim his pride, stalking forward into the world with his head held high.