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Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them and filling an emptiness we didn’t even know we had. —Thom Jones
---
Angelo was off, conducting her regular inspection of the Timber Owls’ train, when she caught a whiff of the same scent she’d picked up the night before. An unknown person, hiding in the fibers of Rinoa’s favorite cocktail dress.
Magnanimous Angelo was excited to meet this man since it seemed as though her favorite person enjoyed his company. She searched her toybox in the train’s control room and retrieved a ball-ish hard rubber frog. Her favorite. A high honor.
She happily padded into Rinoa’s suite on the back of the train where she was in the middle of a conversation with a man in a furry jacket. He didn’t seem like too much of a threat; he did not have a beard and he wasn’t carrying any mail.
“That’s too bad…” Rinoa was saying until she noticed her dog approaching.
She crouched down to Angelo’s level and gave her some quick scratches behind her ears.
“Let me introduce you!” Rinoa beamed. “Angelo, this is Squall…”
Rinoa motioned for Angelo to come close to the man and so she did. Happily, she pushed the toy into his leg.
“Squall, this is my partner, Angelo!”
This ‘Squall’ person took a step back.
Angelo assumed he didn’t realize she wanted to share her toy, so she tried dropping it on his boots.
While Rinoa explained all the tricks her dog was capable of, Angelo continued to attempt to give her toy to Squall, going as far as nuzzling his gloved hand and barking.
Rinoa giggled.
“I think she wants to play with you!”
Squall folded his arms.
“…I’m not a dog person.”
Angelo wasn’t sure what that meant, but she didn’t like his tone or body language. She whined.
“Oh…” Rinoa said, sounding both surprised and sad.
She turned back to her partner.
“I have some important work to do now. Be good, Angelo."
Rinoa left the room, but the strange, unfriendly man lingered. Angelo gave him one last hopeful gaze, but he ignored her.
As long as Rinoa liked him, she would give him a chance.
---
That Squall guy had been mean to Rinoa. He’d yelled at her. Now Rinoa was upset.
Angelo decided she was not going to be nice to him anymore.
So, when he stood near Rinoa at Chief’s house, she growled at him.
Squall recoiled and gave Angelo a what’s your problem?! stare.
“I don’t think she likes you…” Selphie said under her breath.
“Whatever…”
Later, at dinner, Angelo made her rounds at the table, begging from each person in turn. She heard Selphie say her name.
“Psst, Squall… You know the way to a woman’s heart is through her dog, right?” Selphie whispered. “You should give Angelo some food! Be her friend!”
Angelo walked between their chairs and sat expectantly.
“…I’m not giving her anything from the table. You can’t reward this behavior.”
“Oh, I thought you said you weren’t a dog person,” Rinoa said, giving Squall the stink-eye from across the table. “Now you know how a dog should be trained? Please enlighten me, oh knowledgeable SeeD.”
Squall stood up and left the table. Selphie passed Angelo a piece of bread.
Angelo felt victorious.
---
They had been sitting in the forest for a long time, and Angelo was getting antsy. There were a lot of things to smell and monsters to fight, but Rinoa insisted on calling her furry friend back to her. For some reason, three of the humans decided to take sudden naps, and Rinoa and Quistis were staying put to watch them.
They weren’t watching them too closely though.
“"Umm...Squall..." Rinoa mumbled when he finally woke up. "I think I may have said too much. I'm sorry."
Squall waved off the words and then started patting his pants’ pockets.
“Is something wrong?”
“I… I think I dropped my Triple Triad Cards?”
He did not drop them. But he would find bits of them, hours later, when Angelo threw them up on the floor of the waiting room of Galbadia Garden.
He was not very happy about that.
---
Caraway’s Mansion was not a place that Rinoa liked, but Angelo did not mind being back in a house that had sushi for her in the fridge and Rinoa’s big pillowy bed to sleep in.
But when Rinoa snuck out, Angelo had to follow her.
The night only got worse from there. When the creepy bird woman lifted Rinoa off the ground, Angelo snarled and barked incessantly. She launched herself at the lady in black, teeth bared. Somehow, she managed to stop Angelo in mid-air, and the dog watched in horror as Rinoa disappeared onto the balcony.
When the spell broke, Angelo fell to the ground. She wasted no time and went to find Rinoa.
Two big lion-lizards had converged on her owner. Rinoa was on the floor and trying to crawl away, but Angelo could tell from the smell of her stress hormones that she wasn’t capable of fighting back in the way she normally could.
Angelo leaped between the monsters and Rinoa, giving them a low back-off! growl.
Before Angelo could attack, one took a clawed hand and slashed violently at her body. She went sliding across the floor. The gash hurt more than anything, even more than those times at the vet.
She tried to get up, and Rinoa called for her, over and over. But she just couldn’t seem to lift herself. Her side felt hot and damp and it stung, and she just wanted to groom herself, but she couldn’t reach. And she needed a nap, so badly.
She couldn’t help it. She closed her eyes.
“Angelo… come on, Angelo…”
It wasn’t Rinoa’s voice she heard, but she was trained to come when her name was called.
She opened her eyes.
Squall was sitting in front of her. She began to lift her head. Then, confused as to why he was waking her from her nap, she tilted her head.
“She’s awake,” Squall said with a nod.
Angelo was apparently lying across Rinoa’s lap, because when he said that Rinoa pushed her face into Angelo’s neck. Her face was wet.
When they all started moving again, Rinoa held onto Squall’s arm and thanked him for many things, including “saving Angelo.”
She almost regretted eating the cards. But dogs don’t tend to regret things.
---
Angelo didn’t know how she felt about living in Balamb Garden, but it was a little better than the train.
When she first arrived, there were people running all over the place. She tried to chase them. There were tons of monsters, so she was busy. And then the whole place shook like an elevator and there was a loud boom that made Angelo run off and hide beneath the desks in the library.
Then they had to fight this stinky yellow guy and biting him tasted awful.
Now that things had calmed down, Angelo had things she liked and disliked about Balamb Garden.
Among the dislikes, there was no sushi in the cafeteria. The beds were small, so Rinoa had to get comfortable before Angelo could lie down. Even then, the girl was pushing her over at various points in the night. In most places, the floor was slippery, and she had trouble running on it. And outside of the training center, she had to be on-leash.
Plus, all of her toys were back in Timber.
But she liked the water that was always next to the walkway in the main hall, even though Rinoa told her not to drink it. The cafeteria floor was laden with snacks, and students were constantly trying to pass her treats, too.
When she used the “Search” command in the training center, she always found interesting, good-smelling things. One time, she brought Rinoa a dino bone, which she refused with a loud “ew!” Squall took it from her, though, and thanked her for it.
Outside of Garden, Angelo usually roamed by herself, but here, Rinoa had to give her intentional walks. It was nice to have the company, and sometimes Rinoa would bring Squall too.
Angelo noticed that her owner was smiling a lot around Squall, even when he didn’t smile back. Rinoa wanted to spend a lot of time with him, and Angelo decided to give him another chance.
One day, after a training session, Rinoa and Squall were sitting on a bench. Angelo went to Rinoa for attention at first but then pawed at Squall.
“She wants you to pet her,” Rinoa smiled. “Please? She just started warming up to you.”
The man sighed but did put his hand on her head. Angelo moved in closer.
After a few moments, Angelo walked and angled her body so that Squall was forced to pet her haunches instead.
Rinoa laughed.
“This is a good sign! If you’re doing a good job, she tries to get you to pet the butt.”
Squall didn’t show it, but Angelo’s nose knew he was relaxed and happy at this moment.
One afternoon, Angelo wriggled out of her harness and explored Balamb Garden on her own, off-leash. She came upon Squall in the library with his head in his hand and could tell he was stressed.
Without Rinoa there, she wasn’t sure how’d he’d react, but she decided to try anyway. She placed her chin on his thigh and looked up at him.
He did not look at her, but he did start rubbing her neck fur.
“…Thanks, Angelo.”
---
Trabia was cold and Angelo loved it. She bounded through the snowy landscape and then rolled in the soft white stuff. Zell tossed her tiny snowballs, and she caught them in her mouth. She took wide, manic, sprints in circles; something Rinoa called “zoomies.” But she was overjoyed! She hadn’t been in an open space like this for a while. Plus, the whole world was edible water, and what could possibly be more exciting than that?
Eventually, her paws got cold, and she found the humans standing around, looking glum. She saw a basketball next to Squall and barked playfully at it.
He looked at her, then down at the ball, and then at her again. Rinoa looked like she was about to tell him to please play with her but without prompting, he gently kicked the ball in Angelo’s direction, and she chased it down the court.
When the group returned to Garden that night, they warmed up by sitting together in front of a fireplace in a dorm common room. Angelo wanted to be helpful, so she decided to sit on Squall’s feet. It didn’t take long for her to lie down and fall half asleep.
Then, the group began to stand and disperse.
“What am I supposed to do?” she heard Squall ask helplessly, once it was just her, her favorite person, and Squall in the room.
“Probably die here,” Rinoa laughed.
---
Rinoa was asleep for a long time.
At first, Angelo was allowed to stay by her side in the infirmary. But as Angelo got more and more worried about her owner, she started trying to wake Rinoa by pushing her hands with her muzzle and pulling on her clothes with her teeth. She cried at Rinoa’s bedside for hours.
When Squall came in for a visit (Angelo appreciated that he was the only human who seemed as concerned as she was), the white-coat woman handed him Angelo’s leash and told him, “No animals in the infirmary.”
Squall kept up with the same routines that Rinoa had with Angelo, but they were both just going through the motions, their heads hanging low. Every so often, Squall looked into Angelo’s eyes and said nothing. Something was on his mind, but she had no way of asking what it was. It was weird, but she liked the attention.
Squall was reluctant, but ultimately, he allowed Angelo to sleep in his bedroom. Of course, Angelo was not interested in sleeping on the cheap dorm carpet (she was sad, but still had standards), so she jumped into Squall’s bed. He didn’t seem to have the energy, or desire, to push Angelo off. She curled tightly into the small of his back. He woke up a lot earlier than Rinoa, but she still slept better there than she did on the floor of the hospital room.
Angelo gave up on eating her kibble and had no interest in begging. She plopped gloomily at Squall’s feet while he was sitting in the lunchroom. He was trying to force himself to eat, too.
Zell walked in and sat across from him.
“Yooo! You got a hot dog?!”
Squall shrugged.
“Lucky… Man, your jacket is covered in dog hair.”
Squall shrugged again.
Zell asked him questions about a bridge, and FH, and Esthar, to which Squall gave minimal answers.
After a few minutes, Squall said her name, and she sat up and looked at him. He offered her the last piece of his hot dog.
“You have to eat,” he told Angelo when she did not immediately take the food.
Gently, she took it from his palm.
“She gets some hot dog before I do? Seriously?!”
Squall shrugged once more.
---
The next morning, Squall woke up extra early. He made an effort not to wake Angelo, but she was a good guard dog, and always aware of her surroundings. She watched him from the bed, head between her paws as he crossed the room, filling a bag with supplies. He was doing the kinds of things Rinoa did before she left on a trip. Angelo wasn’t having it.
Squall set down his pack and went to brush his teeth. Angelo decided to move and sit on top of the bag instead. That way, he wouldn’t forget the most important thing he had to bring.
When he came back and saw Angelo there, he sighed, resigned. He let the dog follow him out of his dorm and didn’t bother with her harness or leash.
Angelo didn’t want Squall to leave her behind, so she was extra good and stayed at his heel. She sat patiently outside the infirmary’s door when he asked her to. When he exited, he was carrying Rinoa on his back. Angelo did not understand it, but if it meant she could personally watch over her favorite person, she didn’t mind.
“It’s a bit far, but we’ll make it,” Squall said as they left Garden that morning.
Angelo thought he was talking to her. She’d go anywhere if it meant Rinoa would wake up.
They walked on the bridge for a long time before taking a break. As the sun set, Squall put Rinoa down against a low wall, and he sat on the other side, looking out over the ocean. Angelo rushed to Rinoa and tried to wake her by licking her face. She was hopeful.
It did not work.
Angelo lay across Rinoa’s lap and quietly whined.
“What do you think?”
Angelo raised her head and tilted it.
“To tell you the truth, I worry too much about what others think of me. I hate that side of me…”
She didn’t know what he was saying or to who, but she sensed he needed comforting. She stood and put her front paws up on the ledge Squall was sitting on and headbutted him softly until he started petting her.
He continued to talk, “That’s why I didn’t want anyone to get to know me. I wanted to hide that side of myself. I hate it. ‘Squall is an unfriendly, introverted guy.’ It made it easy for me when people perceived me that way.
“That’s a secret between you and me. Got that?”
Squall looked back at unconscious Rinoa when he said it, but Angelo decided she would keep the secret, too.
They walked through the night and to the end of the bridge together.
---
Angelo did not like the weird man in a collar who Squall left Rinoa with. She stayed glued to her owner’s side in the Presidential Palace.
When people came to take Rinoa somewhere else, Angelo got mad and tried to bite them. An aide grabbed the dog and held tight to her as they loaded Rinoa into a car. It sped off, and Angelo was released. As soon as she was free, she zoomed through the Palace and conned her way through a door to chase the scent of the car over the Great Plains of Esthar.
She followed Rinoa’s smell into a busy, noisy building. Normally, she would have avoided going somewhere like that, but she was desperate to catch up.
She saw Squall and ran to him and barked in urgent confusion, a fresh panic. Then she cried, wondering if he, too, was going to leave.
Calmly, he crouched to Angelo’s level and looked into her eyes.
Somehow, she knew this meant he was going to take care of Rinoa. She just had to trust him.
Angelo let them leave her sight.
---
Angelo did not want to go into the big red thing, but Selphie was trying to push her onto the ship anyway.
“Come on, girl!” Selphie said as she strained against Angelo’s grip on the soil. “I think Rinoa is in there!”
At the mention of Rinoa’s name, Angelo bounded up the gangway. When she reached the top, she looked back at Selphie and woofed as to say come on, hurry up!
A door slid open to a room filled with chairs. Squall was inside, and upon hearing Selphie calling his name, he stood and looked back at them both.
He looked very sad, and Rinoa was nowhere to be seen. That devastated Angelo.
Exhausted and disappointed, she lay down in a corner and fell asleep.
---
“Angelo.”
Angelo blinked her eyes open and saw Squall, bent down in front of her. He had a look of determination only matched by herself when she was trying to learn a new trick.
“Let’s go get Rinoa.”
Angelo’s ears perked up higher than they had in days. Squall didn’t need to tell her twice; she jumped to her feet and began scrambling toward the exit.
Angelo gave several scary scientists low growls as Squall went in to get Rinoa. When one of them tried to grab her by the scruff of her neck, she snapped at them.
Once Squall had Rinoa, he told his friends to run ahead, and Angelo obliged, sprinting down the steps and jettisoning herself into the torso of an unsuspecting Esthar soldier on the way.
She made it outside and waited.
She waited a few minutes. She decided to sit pretty and stare hard at the door. Usually, if she did that, she would be given the thing she wanted most.
The doors flew open, and Angelo popped up onto her feet. Zell came through. Then Quistis. Then Squall. And behind him…
“Angelo!” Rinoa shouted as she ran to her dog.
If Angelo had a tail, it would have been wagging hard. But her butt waved in excitement instead.
Angelo went toward Rinoa and when they met in the middle, Rinoa fell to her knees. The dog put her paws on Rinoa’s shoulders and kissed her owner with gusto, just so happy she was okay.
“I think she missed you,” Angelo heard Squall say.
---
As far as Angelo was concerned, everything was right in the world. She started eating and begging again. Zell slipped her a stuffie from the Esthar pet shop and she shredded it with glee. She was ready to run, and fight, and do tricks. Whatever Rinoa wanted. She was just so glad to have her back.
They landed in a pretty place that smelled of brackish water and flowers. She did small circles while following her comrades on the stone. She went exploring and found herself standing by some fallen pillars on a piece of foundation next to a seemingly endless meadow.
She heard Squall coming and turned to give him a joyous pant. He looked rather serious, though, as he often did.
With a small smile, he leaned down to look at Angelo in that thoughtful way. She cocked her head in response.
He was probably still worried about Rinoa. She did smell a little different now, and Angelo didn’t know why. But Rinoa was just Rinoa.
But Squall wasn’t a dog. So perhaps he didn’t understand that as long as your favorite person is okay, everything would work out in the end.
---
It had been a busy day and everyone on the big red thing was stressed, Angelo could tell. Before bed, she went to each person on the ship and gave them some attention. It was part of her job, after all, to keep all the humans upbeat and ready to face their challenges.
She had given almost everyone a goodnight visit when she found Squall in the hangar.
He had his hands and the tips of his toes on the floor and alternated between bringing his torso close to the ground and using his arms to bring it back up.
Angelo thought this looked like a play bow. She moved in front of Squall and play bowed back, sending her backside high in the air. She tapped her paws on the floor expectantly.
Squall did smile at her, but he did not start playing.
She was not willing to give up. She retrieved one of the tennis balls she’d stashed nearby and went back, dropping it on the ground in front of him. The wet ball nearly rolled into his face.
“Okay, okay…” he said, abandoning whatever his strange and boring not-play activity was. He threw the ball across the hangar and Angelo went after it.
Rinoa came down the stairs.
“Am I hallucinating, or are you playing with my dog?”
“I was doing pushups and she thought it was playtime.”
Rinoa laughed.
“She’s never wrong about these things…”
Angelo brought the ball back but didn’t drop it. Instead, Squall had to wrestle her a bit to tug it out of her mouth.
Rinoa sighed.
“Mr. I’m-not-a-dog-person… I’m loving this side of you.”
He tossed the ball again. Angelo caught it on the second bounce.
“We just had some time to get to know each other… that’s all.”
“I’m glad Angelo had the company.”
Angelo was very glad too.
---
One minute, Angelo was doing her “Wishing Star” move on a strange space beast with a woman hanging from it. The next, she was in a terrifying place, completely empty, absent of smells, running beside Rinoa. Then, she was standing in the middle of that flower field beside her favorite person.
Rinoa looked around. She smiled down at her friend.
“We made it, Angelo!”
They walked back to the old stone house and waited. Slowly, all the usual suspects arrived. First Zell. Then Quistis. Selphie and Irvine arrived together.
Then a long time passed.
The sky darkened and a rumble of thunder frightened Angelo.
“Where’s Squall?” Rinoa asked her friends.
Angelo could tell her owner was very scared.
“I’m going to go look for him.”
Despite the threat of rain, Rinoa set back out into the field.
Angelo went to follow her.
“Sorry girl, you need to stay here.”
“Stay” was always Angelo’s least favorite command.
Even though there was a scary storm, and rain began to pour on her, Angelo lay on the stone patio, watching the flower field, waiting for any sign of her owner’s return. The others tried to get her to move inside, but she was told to stay, and stay she would.
The rain slowed and eventually stopped. Rinoa and Squall were both still gone.
It was quiet and still.
Angelo perked her head up. Something had shifted, she could just feel it.
Then, distantly, the sky began to brighten, and a sunbeam burst from the clouds.
Angelo decided she had waited in a “stay” for long enough. She started running toward the sunbeam.
She went faster than her paws had ever carried her. Faster than she had been during after-bath zoomies, faster than when a pizza was dropped on the floor. She knew she needed to find them.
When she caught sight of Rinoa’s back, she slowed her approach. She could sense that Rinoa was physically okay, but something was wrong.
Angelo whined a question.
Rinoa turned.
“It’s okay, girl… you can come over.”
Angelo could see now that Squall was drawn into Rinoa’s lap. He did not look good. He did not sound good. He did not smell like he was well, either.
Unceremoniously, Angelo shoved her head beneath the hand he had draped over his chest.
She was very grateful when she felt his fingers move.
She looked back at his face and could see his eyes were just barely open and he was giving her a weak smile.
“He’s going to be okay,” Rinoa told her.
Unable to contain her excitement, Angelo crawled up to start licking his face.
Both her favorite person and second favorite person were okay. Everything would work out in the end.