It should have been easy to adjust to the slower pace post-war, paperwork and meetings a welcome break after sleeping on the fly and waking up with injuries of unknown origin from successive battles, but it isn't. By the end, Squall had looked forward to the downtime – surely pencil-pushing was less strenuous than the struggle they'd just been through, but it wears on him, and Squall spends more time in his office than he ever spent on a battlefield.
He misses fighting after a while, and the appeal of a desk job wanes as the work continues to pile on, a never ending, mentally draining stack of paper that has no bottom. Just when he thinks he's cleared one pile, another appears in its place, and Squall wonders how anyone can stay sane with a job like this.
But it's nice to have someone waiting for him at the end of the day. When Rinoa's there, she brings food and waits up for him, but this week, she's in Timber, in talks with Galbadian officials and city leaders and Squall finds himself working longer hours, forgetting meals because Rinoa's not there to remind him that the paperwork will keep till morning.
Squall is given Cid's old quarters, a spacious and comfortable space that is less like a dorm than a luxury apartment. All his things were moved in earlier in the day, but If Squall had his way, he would remain in his dorm room, since he doesn't see himself any different than a regular SeeD. Cid has assured him that it's a perk of the job and gave him no choice but to accept.
Squall does not want to be headmaster, or even the commander, which is a title Quistis and Xu made up on the spot after Cid dumped the job in his lap. He's not even sure he wants to be a SeeD anymore, not only because of Rinoa, but also because at the ripe old age of eighteen, Squall Leonhart is tired.
But if he's not a SeeD, what else is there? SeeD is all he knows, his skill set specifically designed for intensive mercenary work – leadership, fighting, strategy, battle, killing.
Without Rinoa around, an early death would be a foregone conclusion. Before her, he never questioned the path he was on, never believed there might be some other future waiting for him. Truthfully, he never expected much.
Now, he has too much hope, for too many things a man in his position had no right to hope for. He'll be lucky if he sees his twenty-fifth birthday, and the family he thinks about on the fringes of sleep a pipe dream he never asked for. But he thinks about it more than he'd like to admit, that and all the other possibilities he never allowed himself to consider before, and he wonders if it isn't time to fight a different sort of fight.
He's all too aware of how easily things could go wrong. Should Galbadia perceive a threat from Timber, he might be forced to commission SeeDs to aid them, in direct opposition to the one person in the world who has given him that hope. It's a fear that keeps him awake at night, with Rinoa gone and in the middle of the chaos that the Galbadian continent has become since Vinzer Deling's untimely end, and what little sleep he gets is uneasy.
A glance at the clock tells him it's late – well after ten, and his last meal was a quick breakfast of plain toast and coffee. He has an early start in the morning, just like every morning, and he reluctantly leaves his work unfinished.
As he wanders his new quarters, he takes in the cozy living room and full kitchen stocked with appliances he doesn't have names for, and he feels lost.
There's too much space.
Its too quiet.
He's accustomed to the sounds of other people in the hallways and on the other side of the wall, the tick of water rushing through pipes beneath the floor and the mechanical whir of electronic doors opening and closing as cadets and SeeDs return from missions and studies and training sessions. Here, there's no muffled conversation, no laughter or heated disagreements, no knocks on doors at all hours, just the silence.
In that silence, Squall's thoughts are too loud, and there is nothing to block out his own inner narrative as he climbs into a bed that's far too big, with a brand-new mattress that's far too soft, and he lies awake and thinks of Rinoa.
It's been two days since he last heard from her, but that isn't unusual. They're both busy, sometimes late into the evening, and for now, there's nothing they can do about it. Once life settles, if it ever does, they'll have a conversation about where to go from here, but until then they both must deal with the frequent separation and comfort themselves with the knowledge that it isn't forever.
As hard as Squall tries, he can't sleep in this bed or in this room, or even in this apartment. As insane as it sounds, this place is... oppressive and the walls are closing in on him, inciting memories of the heavy, boiling sky in Time Compression.
Squall opens the window to let in the air, in search of something familiar in this foreign space, and returns to the bed. The breeze is cool but not cold and brings with it the scent of rain. It calms some of his unease as he listens to the deafening silence around him, but doesn't chase it away entirely.
He fought and defeated Seifer, Edea, Omega, Ulitmecia – and Squall Leonhart is afraid of a room. It's so stupid, he laughs at himself and brings a hand to his forehead.
But it's one of those things: the more he thinks, the worse it gets.
It occurs to him, it isn't the room itself that bothers him. On the road, there were plenty of nights spent in large hotel rooms in various cities all over the world. Unfamiliar places with unfamiliar smells and beds too big to be truly comfortable. On those occasions, Squall was far too tired to care, and the sounds of his team settling in for the night were familiar enough that the doubts he has now were never an issue.
Here, he's alone and cut off from what he's used to, from the dorm's nocturnal cadences. There is nothing here to connect him with the life he knows, nothing that tells him he's home or that he's where he belongs.
Eventually, he gets up with the notion of going to the training center until he's worn himself out enough for sleep, but instead, he finds himself at the door of his old dorm room, key card in hand. He's not even sure it's going to work, but when he slides it, it gives a soft beep and the light turns green as the lock disengages.
Inside, it's just as he left it. Regulation sheets and blankets freshly laundered and tucked neatly around the mattress, the shelves bare of belongings, the closet empty and waiting for the next occupant to make their mark upon the room. It still smells of gunblade oil, leather, and this is a scent he didn't even know he'd missed until now.
As Squall inhales the comforting and familiar odor, his anxiety wanes. He shouldn't be here, but he climbs into the narrow bed and tucks the blanket around himself and sleep is no longer an elusive thing he can't quite catch. It isn't long before he drifts off to the sound of muffled voices on the other side of the wall, shuffling footsteps out in the hall, and the occasional whoosh of air conditioning through the vent in the floor.
For the next three nights, Squall sneaks down to his old room, finding comfort in those smaller quarters that he can't quite manage upstairs, no matter how hard he tries. Each night, he expects the lock to deny him entry, but the soft beep welcomes him home every time.
He can't keep this up forever. Eventually, Xu will assign the room to its next inhabitant, and Squall will be forced to confront the silence again.
On the fourth night, Squall is woken by a soft touch on the shoulder and his name whispered by familiar lips in the darkness. There's an old saying that one risks their life waking a dozing SeeD, and it isn't untrue, but he knows who she is before he even comes fully awake. He grasps her hand and pulls it around his waist, a soft hum in his throat as she curls up beside him in the narrow bed.
"You're back early," he murmurs into her hair.
"I missed you," she says. "I took the last train out instead of waiting till morning."
"How are things in Timber?"
"We're making some progress," she says wearily. "But mostly, it's going a lot slower than I hoped."
"Negotiation takes time," he says. "Better than the alternative."
"True," she says. "So... What are you doing in here? I thought you moved into the executive suite."
"I did."
"Why aren't you there?" she asks, "I figured I'd find you all stretched out on that nice, big bed. Imagine my surprise to find you here in this tiny, cramped little toddler bed."
Squall chuckles and brings her a little closer, his cheek pressed against her collarbone, and he sighs contentedly as the scent of gunblade oil mixes with her perfume. This is what he knows.
"Habit," he admits. "Didn't feel right."
"What do you mean?"
"Too much space."
"So you came back here?" she asks. "Your new closet is bigger than this whole room."
"Exactly," he says.
Rinoa is quiet for a while, and her fingers thread through his hair eliciting a shudder of drowsy pleasure from him. He's almost asleep when she speaks again.
"I read a thing about people who grow up like this," she says, "or who spend too long in prison or in hospitals. How they become acclimated to the routine and the communal living to the point where it's tough to function outside of that..."
She lets that hang between them for nearly a minute, as if she's lost her train of thought.
"And?" he prompts.
"Your whole life, you were groomed for leadership," she says. "Given responsibilities well beyond what most people your age are expected to accept, yet... They house you like you're one of many..."
"That's because I am," he says and props his head up on his hand and wonders where she's going with this. "Just because I somehow started this whole thing doesn't mean I deserve any more than anyone else."
Rinoa's hand comes up to caress his cheek and even in the dark, he can see the sadness in her expression. He doesn't understand why she seems to pity him, but then again, she does that a lot. All the things he's missed out on, all the experiences he didn't get to have as a child are a source of never-ending sympathy that Squall finds a little baffling.
"It's just, people aren't meant to live like this," she says. "Not for long, anyway."
"It's what I know."
"Exactly," she says and sits up to press her back against the headboard. "But, there's no warmth or love here. Places like this are meant to teach you that your identity is insignificant, that you're just another spoke in the wheel."
Squall doesn't disagree and he has no reason to. He agrees with her, but unlike Rinoa, he sees no problem with it.
"Hmm."
"What does that mean?" she asks. "What are you thinking?"
"A wheel can't turn without spokes, Rin," he says. "I know you don't understand why I'm more comfortable in a closet like this -"
"No," she says and presses her fingers to his lips. "That's the thing. I get it."
"Then why are we talking about it?"
"Because you feel like you don't deserve a space of your own," she says. "That upsets me."
"A made-up title doesn't make me any more deserving than anyone else," he says.
Squall sighs and sits up, wedged into the corner where the walls meet so he can look at her. She means well, and to some degree she understands his reasons for being here instead of upstairs where they're not squeezed together like this. He's also seen her former bedroom on the Forest Owl's train car, and the canopied princess bed in her father's mansion and knows how cramped it must seem here.
He lifts a hand and gestures around the room, unsure of how to articulate his thoughts.
"Would you believe this is home to me?"
"Of course I believe you," she says. "I guess I just didn't expect you to be so attached."
"...I didn't either," he admits. "How long are you back for?"
"We reconvene in a week," she says. "I hope you don't plan to make me sleep in here until Xu kicks you out."
She doesn't seen his frown, but laughs anyway because she's right, and she knows it That was exactly what he planned to do, but as her hands find his face in the dark, Squall realizes how ridiculous it is.
It's just a room.
"Why don't we go back upstairs," she says, "and see what we can do to make it feel more like home?"
There is a split second of panic, but as she takes his hand and tugs him to his feet, fear melts away under the force of her reassuring smile.
Squall shows her his new quarters, and pays little attention to the plans she makes to improve the space. The sound of her voice kills the crushing silence and the walls don't feel so far apart anymore. He's too startled by the thing he's just come to realize as she moves about the space and opens cabinets and drawers in the kitchen.
It's not the room, but what the room was missing.