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The President’s private airship, EAF-1 “Storm Chaser”, breaks through the thick cloud cover above Balamb Island and begins a steady descent through the drizzle and toward the landing pad just adjacent to Garden. Ellone leans against the window, her nails tapping a restless staccato against the glass as she watches the ground draw closer.
“Home” is a strange concept for a girl who spent half her life on a boat. Is it Winhill, the little house by the pub, her parents’ graves? Is it Edea’s cottage, the lighthouse, the memories of childish laughter and fireworks by the sea? Is it Esthar, her uncle’s smile, the soaring towers and graceful skyways?
She’s not sure. Maybe it’s none of them, maybe all, maybe something completely different. She doesn’t know anymore.
At least her brother doesn’t have that problem-- a million others, sure, but not this one. Home is an easy concept for Squall. It’s Balamb Island, dark green under the grey clouds racing through the sky. It’s Garden, gleaming white and gold against the fields and trees as the airship lowers onto the tarmac. It’s--
“Ellie?” Her uncle’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts, and she turns, meeting Laguna’s broad smile with one of her own. “Ready to go?”
“Ready as ever,” she says, hooking her arm into his as they head to the bay. “How much did Kiros yell at you about dropping everything in his lap with no warning?”
“Aaah--” Ellone barely suppresses a giggle as he makes a face and scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, yeah, I got in a little trouble-- pretty sure it’s nothing I can’t wiggle my way out of with enough cute baby pictures, though,” he adds with another wide grin. Ellone can’t help the happy little bounce in her step at the reminder of the reason they’re standing on a rainy landing pad, half a planet away from the Presidential Palace.
It’s not even as if it’s the first time she’s been “Auntie Ellie”-- Soren calls her that, after all, and so does her friend’s little girl back in Esthar. And she loves it, all the fun of playing with the kids and none of the hassle of actually being a parent. On the other hand, she’s not going to even try to pretend that it’s not different this time.
The others, they’re her friends-- close friends, precious friends, but friends. Squall’s her brother. And when he’d called Laguna first thing in the morning Esthar time, all it had taken was one sentence-- “Doc says we’re cleared for visitors, wanna come meet your grandkids?”-- to get them on Storm Chaser and in the air within an hour.
It’s different this time, and so she’s waiting for the hatch bay to lower onto a wet concrete pad on a drizzly island, on the other side of the planet from the bed she woke up in this morning, with a feeling like happy fizzy bubbles in her chest.
“Nervous?” she asks Laguna, but she already knows the answer. It’s in the rapid tap-tap-tap of his foot against the metal floor and the restless twitch in his fingers, easy as if he’d said it aloud. He laughs a little, shaking himself to loosen up a bit.
“Lil’ bit, yeah,” he says, watching the walkway lower onto the ground to reveal a Garden-standard car ready to take them into the complex; a blast of cool, damp air smelling like ocean and metal rushes in, pushing her hair back from her face. “Oh well-- nervous never stopped me before. Shall we?”
They pull into the parking lot, darker even than the stormy grey outside, and Elle almost jumps out of the car before it stops. “Quisty!” she calls, running over to the blonde woman walking toward them.
“Welcome back,” she laughs, catching Ellone in a warm hug.
“Missed ya,” she says lightly, squeezing her tight.
“Missed you too. How was the trip?”
“Boring, up until the end,” Laguna says as he comes up to the two girls. “Flying in a storm isn’t my favorite way to spend my time.” Quistis laughs, hugs him as well, and leads the two of them into Garden’s warmly lit hallways. There’s something about this place, the plants along the waterway, the golden light, the sound of voices and the occasional happy laughter floating in from all sides. More and more, as the years pass, Garden feels like a home-- not hers, but someone’s. It feels strange to describe a military academy as cozy, but it’s the word that Ellone wants to use.
“I’m not gonna argue with you on that,” Quistis says, “it makes me queasy too, to be honest. At least you--” She stops short as they turn the corner toward the second level of dormitories, eyebrows raising. Ellone comes up behind her to see an older gentleman in a dark military jacket. “--Grand General Caraway?”
“Miss Trepe,” the current leader of Galbadia nods politely to Quistis, half-turning back to his conversation with Irvine before doing a double-take at the sight of Ellone and Laguna behind her.
“Fury!” he says with a smile, striding forward toward the other man.
“Laguna,” Caraway replies, his voice somewhat warmer now. He holds out one arm for a handshake, but moves it just in time to avoid jabbing the other man in the stomach as Laguna opts for a bear hug instead. The two SeeDs, on the other hand, seem to be having an entire conversation using only eyebrows and exaggerated facial expressions.
“Are we not supposed to be here at the same time?” she whispers to Quistis, and the other girl sighs.
“Well… I suppose it’s more efficient this way, just a bit more complicated.” She looks back to the two world leaders standing in the hallway, already genially debating the virtues of travel by train versus that by airship, and sighs. “A lot more complicated,” she adds.
“Story of your life,” Elle murmurs, getting a quick chuckle out of Quistis. One more quick eyebrow-and-funny-face exchange, and Irvine rolls his eyes at the two girls before clearing his throat.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, gentleman, but I don’t believe either of you would’ve come here on such short notice to stand around arguing in the halls,” he says with a diplomatic little smile. “I’m sure you’ve got other things you’d rather be doing?”
Two minutes later they’re on the top floor, and a quick knock on a sleek steel door is answered by a torrent of barking from the other side. “Some things never change,” Caraway murmurs under his breath, and Ellone notices a small, strange little smile on his face.
“Easy, Angelo--” Rinoa’s voice is muffled slightly, but she can hear the laughter floating on the words. There’s a few keypad beeps and a click of disengaging locks, and then-- “Hi!”
The woman standing in front of them isn’t the elegant sylph in the pretty dress from last year’s midwinter ball, and she’s not the cheerful, friendly young doctor in Garden’s infirmary, and she’s not the intimidating fighter on a battlefield. She’s got bags under her eyes and her long hair half fallen out of a bun, a soft blue sweater, a dog toy in one hand and Angelo’s collar in the other. Rinoa’s just a young mother right now, tired but happy, and the sparkle in her smile puts the happy fizzy bubbles back into motion around Ellone’s heart.
“Pardon the chaos,” she’s saying as she moves aside to let them all in, “we haven’t exactly had time to-- down, girl, they’re okay-- to do much cleaning lately.”
“She’s... not exactly happy about us, is she?” Laguna says, tucking his hands in his pockets as Angelo continues to stare doggy-daggers at them, and Rinoa sighs.
“She’s always been protective, but since we brought the babies home…” She shrugs. “We’re working on it, and I can put her in the bedroom if she gets too intense.”
“That’s good,” Ellone says, holding her arms out for a hug. Rinoa squeezes her close, stronger than she looks, and her blue sweater is soft as clouds under Ellone’s hands. “I’d tease you about getting enough sleep, but--”
“Yeah, you try that with two newborns in the house.” She laughs against Ellone’s shoulder before stepping back and pulling her hair down to redo her bun. “That whole ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ thing is a scam, by the way.”
“I’m surprised Angelo didn’t wake them,” Caraway says quietly; there’s something else layered behind that careful smile, something that Ellone doesn’t know him well enough to decipher. “When you were that size, you’d wake up to anything louder than a whisper.”
“I guess that’s the upside of all this rain-- if they learn to sleep through a Balamb thunderstorm, they can sleep through just about anything.” Rinoa’s expression is just as complex as her father’s-- tentative reconciliation layered onto old resentment, stale anger a dark swirl through newfound joy.
“There’s really only one thing that always sets them off,” says another voice, deep and resonant, to her left. “And that’s when the other one starts fussing.” Squall, like his wife, looks deeply exhausted, but he’s smiling-- still a new enough development that Ellone always has to stop and notice it-- as he comes over to join them in the entryway.
“Sounds rough,” Laguna says, and oh, the layers upon layers of emotion on his face, open and obvious.
She knows he regrets never getting to really be a father-- regrets leaving Raine, regrets not coming back with Ellone, regrets believing the men who told him his son was stillborn. Eighteen years’ worth of regrets, and she worries that some of them run too deep to be resolved.
“It’s like a chain reaction of crying babies,” Rinoa says, moving them all through the moment, and Ellone takes a second to be silently grateful for her before moving to hug Squall.
“Oof-- hey, I need those ribs uncracked,” he grumbles, but his arms are warm and strong where they rest around her shoulders.
“Tough, I need hugs,” she sasses back, getting a giggle out of Rinoa next to her.
“You’ve been here for two minutes and the two of you are already gan--” He cuts off sharply at a sound from what Ellone still thinks of as the guest room, then sighs. “Well, it was a nice quiet hour while it lasted.”
She realizes then that it isn’t the guest room anymore-- that’s the nursery now. And that means that little noise was--
“Alright, time for some introductions,” Rinoa says brightly, and the bubbles in Ellone’s chest are like ping pong balls bouncing off her ribcage. “Everybody on the couch.”
“Don’t wanna take chances on leg cramps, after all,” Squall says with a wry little grin over his shoulder as he follows Rinoa into the nursery, and Laguna huffs and crosses his arms in mock offense.
“I’m quite past that now, I’ll have you know,” he says, dropping gracelessly onto the couch; Caraway takes the other end, and Ellone plants herself between them. Angelo, having apparently decided that anyone who gets hugs from her humans has to be alright, trots up to her, setting her head in Ellone’s lap and looking up at her with big, pathetic puppy eyes.
“Hey there, girl,” she says softly, scratching behind the dog’s ears. “You’re already a very good guard dog, aren’t you…”
“Out of curiosity, Laguna,” Caraway says quietly, “did they tell you the names they chose yet?”
“Nope, not a peep.” Laguna sits back, draping one arm over the back of the couch. “Said they wanted to do it in person, for some reason.”
“Hmm.”
“You?”
“No, and I got the same explanation about wanting to tell me in person. I wonder…”
“I mean,” Laguna shakes his head with a rueful smile, “dunno about you, but I’m not about to turn down an excuse to get away from my desk-- especially not if that excuse involves grandbabies.”
“Just so you know,” Rinoa says from the other side of the room, “there’s a betting pool going on whether you all cry or not.” Ellone turns in her seat, and-- oh.
Oh. Oh oh oh.
There’s a little bundle of grass-green blankets in her arms, with a tiny face-- wee button nose, little eyes closed tight. Behind her, there’s a tiny head of dark hair on Squall’s shoulder, coral blankets, a wee little fist curled in his sweatshirt. She looks up, meets her brother’s eyes, and he smiles at her, warm and easy.
The bubbles are like bowling balls now, slamming against her ribcage and threatening to break out and splash giddy laughter all over the room.
“Who’s feeling brave?” he asks, voice low and gentle, and Ellone grabs her uncle’s hand.
“You got dibs,” she says, squeezing lightly, and Laguna’s answering smile is a little wobbly. The regrets are still there, ever-present under the surface, but piece by piece, she can see them falling away.
She hopes that, even if he never really got to be ‘Dad’, maybe being ‘Gramps’ will speed that process along.
She watches Squall put the baby girl-- yes, this one’s the girl, a little pink onesie barely visible in the folds of blankets-- in his father’s arms, and wonders if it’s the first time Laguna’s ever held a newborn. “Watch her head,” he says quietly, one hand lingering for the slightest moment over his father’s before he pulls back, sitting back on one heel and watching.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Laguna whispers, his voice almost breaking. “Hey there.” He brushes one knuckle feather-light across her cheek, and Elle catches her breath when the baby’s eyes open, pale blue and unfocused. “Nope. No, not gonna cry,” Laguna says, but the catch in his voice betrays him. “Noooooot gonna cry.”
“I won’t say anything if you don’t,” Caraway says from Elle’s other side, and she looks over to see him undeniably misty-eyed. The baby boy in his arms yawns and arches before settling back down as Laguna chuckles.
“Deal,” he says, wiping at his eyes with the back of one hand.
“So,” Caraway asks Rinoa, now sitting on the floor in front of him, “are you two gonna tell us their names?”
Rinoa’s smile is bittersweet as she looks up at her father, some of those old grievances falling away as she watches her father and her son. She’s silent a moment longer, a tiny half-smile playing around her lips, before she speaks.
“Jacen,” she says, barely more than a whisper, and Caraway freezes for a second.
He looks back up at his daughter, the shock on his face softening to surprise, then to a poignant mix of gratitude and grief and love that makes Ellone’s breath stick in her throat.
She’s heard that name before somewhere, she thinks--
“Family name?” Laguna asks Squall under his breath, and he nods.
“My brother.” Rinoa’s eyes are still fixed on her father’s face, her smile growing slowly less tentative, and Ellone remembers.
Back then, she’d looked up Julia Heartilly, trying to find out what had happened to the beautiful pianist her uncle had been so fascinated with. She’d found the legend behind “Eyes on Me”, the love story with Caraway, the birth of their daughter--
And then a son. A son who had been in the car with his mother that night.
“I-- oh, Rinoa.” Caraway is openly crying now, and he leans forward slightly, places one hand on his daughter’s shoulder. She covers it with her own, and smiles at her father with tears in her eyes.
Ellone can’t watch anymore without crying herself, and she glances back at her brother. He’s watching his wife, soft and caring, one hand light against her knee. It still pulls at Ellone’s heart sometimes, seeing him with her-- seeing him this happy.
There’s too many things making her teary, too many bubbles of love and tenderness and joy knocking against her heart and sticking in her throat. It’s all too much, but she doesn’t want it to ever end.
She realizes too late that instinct runs deep, and Squall can feel her eyes on him. He looks over at her, at Laguna, at his tiny daughter staring up at them.
“Squall?” Laguna’s voice is barely there, just an exhale with a shape, and Ellone holds her breath. Squall looks between them, and there’s something pensive in his smile.
And she knows. She doesn’t-- but she knows.
“Her name’s Raine.”
The bubbles are wrecking balls now, and she doesn’t have it left in her to hold them back. Ellone pushes herself off the couch, dropping to her knees and hugging her brother with a sob. He catches her, tucks his cheek against her hair, and lets her cry.
“You--” Laguna chokes on air, and she doesn’t have to look back to know he’s crying too. “Well, that explains why you wanted to say it in person.”
“Family?” Caraway says quietly.
“...My mother.” Squall’s voice is quiet, but it’s another wrecking ball of emotions rolling through Ellone’s chest.
Raine. Raine. Gods, she’d be so proud…
“You little…” she mutters tearily against his shoulder, thumping one fist against his chest. He laughs, hugs her closer, and Ellone feels Rinoa lean against her side. “And yeah, dad, that’s why we wanted to do this in person.”
Home is here-- is this, is them, she thinks, a fleeting moment of clarity against the roiling sea of emotions in her chest. Ellone briefly remembers watching the ground rise up to meet her, wondering what home really meant to a vagabond orphan. It’s not a place, maybe, but a feeling instead.
And surrounded by family, by hope, by love, maybe that’s her home after all.