Disclaimer: I don't own FF8 or Bring Me to Life by Evanescence.
A/N: This is set during Squall's walk to Esthar with Rinoa in a coma and focuses on his thoughts and feelings during this time.
Bring Me To Life
By Evanescence
"Squall, I'm sure there'll be a lot of difficult things that you'll have to deal with from now on. We were talking about that, and saying how you'll try to handle everything on your own."
Am I that easy to read?
Am I really that obvious?
All I can hear is her voice in my head, haunting me with every step I take.
"What a great night. Great music…good looking guy. Not only is he good looking, he's the sweetest guy…a great listener. "Right now, he's seriously thinking about what I said. He's shy and doesn't say anything, but I know."
How? How did she know?
How can you see into my eyes,
Like open doors?
Leading you down into my core,
Where I've become so numb.
To tell the truth, it frightened me. I'd only just met her, and yet she seemed to know everything about me. So many people have tried for so long to get to know me, and she just waltzes into my life and completely figures me out. Sometimes, I began to wonder if she knew me better than I knew myself.
And now I know.
She saw a side of me I didn't even know existed.
Look at me now. I've just walked right out of Garden, leaving everything behind, abandoning my home and my duty and everything that had once been important to me.
And why?
Because of her.
She found a way in, showed me the person I was inside. And now she's gone.
I feel like I'm all alone again, that frightened little child who cried every night, waiting for his sis to come home.
Without a soul,
My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold.
Until you find it there and lead it back home.
I guess I began to take everything for granted. I started to think that maybe she wouldn't leave like all the others, maybe she would always be here for me. I know that I didn't show it, but I relied on her. It…comforted me to think that, if I could ever muster the courage to talk to her properly, she would listen.
But I was a fool.
I couldn't tell her how I felt. During the concert, she told me that it could be the last time that we were all together. She practically pleaded for me to express my feelings, but I gave her the cold shoulder, acted as if I didn't want to be with her. What if she thinks that I don't like her? I mean, look at her. She seems so lifeless, her occasional, shallow breaths the clue I have that she isn't dead.
What if she never wakes up?
What if I never get to hear her voice?
What if I don't get a chance to redeem myself?
I need to tell her the truth. Without her, I'm dead inside.
Wake me up,
Wake me up inside.
I can't wake up,
Wake me up inside.
Rinoa, please come back to me. I need to hear your voice.
I want to hear your voice, Rinoa.
Save me,
Call my name and save me from the dark.
Wake me up,
Bid my blood to run.
I can't wake up,
Before I come undone.
Save me,
Save me from the nothing I've become.
Why have you done this to me Rinoa?
Before I met her, life was so simple. I cared about my job, not about my friends. How can one little dance with a stranger have done this to me? I let her in for that one brief moment, and she stayed in my heart. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't keep her out. I became used to her being a part of my life. I didn't realise it, but she was my life. Is…is my life. She isn't dead.
I can't give up hope. It's all I have left. Together, we've been in many hopeless situations before. I was there for her in the Deling parade, and I'm here for her now. I won't let her down, not after all she's done for me. She never gave up on me, she believed in me. Hyne, she even saved my life back at the prison, and most of all, she gave me hope. Hope that I could be free from the person I was. Hope that I would find something to fight for, something to believe in.
I had started to live again.
Now that I know what I'm without,
You can't just leave me.
Breathe in to me, and make me real.
Bring me to life.
And now she's taken all that away from me.
I'm left with that same feeling of loneliness I experienced as a child, the same feeling that I'd done something wrong, that everything was somehow my fault. This was how I must have felt when Sis left, but back then, I was only young and was able to forget. Now, the pain that courses through my blood is unrelenting, the wound in my heart still open. I feel as if I'm slowly dying, being dragged inexorably towards the darkness, calling her name as I fall.
Why won't she answer?
Wake me up inside,
Wake me up inside.
Call my name and save me from the dark.
Bid my blood to run,
Before I come undone.
Save me from the nothing I've become,
Bring me to life.
I need to save her as she saved me.
She made me realise how worthless my life was before. I wasn't fighting for anything, I was just fighting. It was a way of life for me, nothing more than a way to survive. It was all I had ever known. These hands had never loved, only killed. She made me see that I needed something else, something to take away that empty feeling that ebbed within me. I was so blind not to realise what was right in front of me.
It was her after all. I fought for her, I fought for my friends, and now, I'm fighting to bring her back. It's about time I did something for her. It's about time I stopped taking lives, and started saving them. I need to make a new start with my life.
I've been living a lie, there's nothing inside.
Bring me to life.
This time, I'm not fighting for money. I'm not fighting because I was ordered to. I'm fighting for us…for all of us. I'm fighting so that, after all this is over, we can go back to our lives and maybe just behave like teenagers for once. But most of all, I'm fighting for her. I'm fighting to hear her voice again, to see her smile, to feel her hand caressing mine once more as it did when we danced. I want to be close to her again. I need to be close to her again.
Frozen inside without your touch,
Without your love, darling.
Only you are the life among the dead.
I never admitted it to anyone, but I wouldn't have traded that one dance for the world. I was someone who always shied away from human contact, and yet there I was, holding a complete stranger in my arms in front of hundreds of fellow SeeDs. Something had happened that night to change me, there was just something about her. When she left me, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to see her again, I would never even know her name. I moped for days, just thinking about our meeting, wondering if I meant anything to her, or whether I was just "the best looking guy" there.
That was why I was so shocked to see her again. I froze in my tracks as soon as I laid eyes on her. I couldn't move, I just stood there whilst she threw her arms around me, muttering about how happy she was that SeeD was here. I have to admit, it hurt me when she said that. She was only pleased to see me because I was a SeeD. It felt as if I was nothing to her. That's why I pulled away.
In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have done that. It made things much more awkward between us. In the beginning, we did nothing but argue, due to a great deal of bruised pride on my part. If I could change anything, it would have been that. I hated the fights we got into, but we were both too stubborn to back down.
All that's inside, I can't believe I couldn't see.
Kept in the dark, but you were there in front of me.
But soon, things began to change. She opened my eyes to the world and people around me. When she criticised me for not offering any friendly words to Zell, it made me see just how cold I was towards them. I was glad she spoke out, nobody else would have dared to. She showed me who I was, and she made me change.
I've been sleeping a thousand years, it seems,
Got to open my eyes to everything.
Without her, I'm not complete, I only realise that now. I can't go on without her, I can't fight without her by my side. She gives me the confidence I need to continue, and the strength I need to believe in myself. I don't know what to do without her.
Without a thought, without a voice, without a soul.
Don't let me die here.
There must be something more.
Just as my feeling begin to grow, just as I find something worth living for, it's ripped from my grasp. Am I destined never to be happy?
Bring me to life.
"Please, Rinoa, don't let me go on like this. I…I don't want to be alone anymore. I need you. Please come back to me, I need to tell you how I feel. I need tell you."
I've been living a lie,
Bring me to life.
"I love you."