if nothing else
(remember this)
She remembers thinking, don't let this go --
The cabin was dark, lit only by the control panel and the stars, lots of tiny pinpricks of light, serving more to throw everything into shadow rather than light it up. She was standing in the doorway and all she saw was space, all this distance, all this time, all this -- all this everything laid out before her and it wass so beautiful and so -- so -- She could hardly breathe, or think, or speak.
It felt like -- It felt like something was under her skin, in her bloodstream, dancing across her nerves. It was power, this inexplicable, uncontrollable, terrifying power, like she could move the world out of orbit and toss it into the sun if she wanted to. There was someone on a radio, a crackly voice, staticky. She couldn't hear what he was saying, just inflections, surprise, horror, happiness... She stood in the back, unwilling to know what was being said. It wasn't really important. She'd heard that tone before.
Inevitability.
It seemed like life had been a long string of inevitabilities since she commissioned SeeD. This had to happen -- no way around it. She had to escape Timber and then she had to go to Galbadia Garden and then they had to go to Deling City to assassinate Edea and then they had to -- everything. It was all so absolute. There was no room for choice.
The stars were so pretty from there. They were so clear and sharp and close that she could really almost touch them.
She heard the last word from the static voice -- sorceress. Squall turned and looks at her and she couldn't bear to look at the stars anymore.
She met his eyes, and decided to make a choice.
The world looked so small from that distance, so insignificant. Like she could hold it in the palm of her hand if she wanted, reach out and grasp the entire world between her fingers -- like anything, anything, everything she wanted and everything that inevitability had taken from her or told her she shouldn't have -- anything was possible. From that far up, she was in absolute control of the future. It was an illusion, she knew, even then, but she had that moment -- and she won't ever have a moment like it again.
Squall turned off the gravity and motioned to the seat next to him.
She sat -- wait, no, that's not right.
It's so strange -- she can recall exactly what she was feeling and thinking up in the Ragnarok, but she can't remember what she did.
The GF, she thinks, and then -- No!
She didn't take the seat. She -- she floated, the Zero-G. She -- she can't remember what she did. What did he say?
Just stay close to me -- No, because that was, that was in Deling City, she knows, because she can remember the clock. She remembers the metal floor, the cold, the lights of the city, the taste of blood in her mouth. She remembers standing in the deck of the Ragnarok, she remembers the exact way the stars sparkled and the way they reflected off the floor of the bridge -- but his voice.
All she can remember is static.
A crackly voice -- Rinoa, the sorceress?! -- and Squall turning to look at her, probably wondering whether or not to believe it. She remembers that conviction in his eyes, the way her heart seemed to leap into her throat, the soft sort of light on the control panel. She jumped -- she -- she --
She can't recall.
This all occurs to her in Fisherman's Horizon -- a year to the day after, well, after something fantastic (the concert, she thinks, Selphie's concert, and then feels cheated, because she can remember a stupid concert but not --)
She's standing on the edge of the ocean, facing the city. Forgetting the moon over the water and the beauty of the night sky, all she can think of is the way that oxygen tasted in that space suit -- the ozone tang, the sterile, overtreated taste of an illusion much better than reality. The city is beautiful from here. The way it just shines into the night, all color and light and sound. It doesn't matter what the song is -- it always sounds off to Rinoa, and yet it always seems right that way.
She closes her eyes and blocks it all out, tries to remember. The smell of oxygen and plastic, the weightless feeling of freefall, the texture of Squall's coat -- the scent of leather, of -- of -- Tears prick at the back of her eyes. This can't be happening to her, it can't be.
"Are you coming to the concert?"
She jumps and turns, and he's standing right there, in his formal SeeD uniform (no, she thinks, no, he's supposed to be in that stupid furry leather jacket, not -- ). He looks a little worried, a little nervous. She forces a smile and takes his hand. "Yeah, just -- "
The darkness behind his eyes tells a story she doesn't think she wants to hear. Something about memory, and choice, and ineviability. Something about the way the lights of the city look like stars and the stars don't look like anything. Something about dreams being more than truth.
" -- The stars look so pretty from here, don't they?"
All she hears is static.