A/N: This is not related to The Successor. Noelle has just kind of become the forever name of any potential Heartilly-Leonhart child, regardless of post-game universe.
This story is for Emerald-Latias, since I do occasionally try to follow-through on writing fic based on crack!conversations we have...even if I am incapable of writing completely lighthearted fluff, even when I try. XD
Squall still wakes up early on the weekends.
Rinoa never asked him to, and he never said that he would. But as time moved and their routines developed, when the cries rang out in the early hours of morning, he would get up, and she would pull the covers up to her chin and fall asleep for another hour or two.
He wakes up early, and when she wakes up there is coffee waiting, a bright face smiling at her, and Squall, his projects for the day already planned out. When she is halfway through her first cup of coffee he kisses her, and laces his running shoes, and it is her and Noelle, alone for the next hour. It is Rinoa's favorite time of the week, Saturday mornings. When the work week is behind her and time with her family is ahead.
Noelle asks for crayons today, and Rinoa pulls them out of their hiding place and tells her she has to be careful not to break them, and they both laugh, because crayons are reserved for mommy-time, and they draw together for awhile, and then play with blocks, and then share a cup of yogurt on the couch. It is not long before Squall is home, sweat soaking his shirt and hair in his face. Noelle shrieks when he enters and runs towards him, and Rinoa watches him carry her into the kitchen, studies him as he fills a glass with water and drinks it down.
He looks tired, she thinks, and she frowns. He finishes his water and looks past Noelle's flailing arms and catches her eye, and she switches to a smile, and walks into the kitchen to refill her coffee. She is quickly led out the back door and into the yard, and the lazy quiet of the morning is officially broken, into a day of projects and errands, of games and nap-time battles and pieces of dinner thrown onto the floor.
They lay in bed later, reading beside each other, and Rinoa thinks of how tired he looked earlier. She wants to bring it up, but Squall looks towards her when he realizes she has lowered her book, before she is able to speak.
"You're going to sleep?" he asks, and she pauses, the words caught in her throat.
She leans towards him instead, sliding her hand gently across his hip. "I don't have to," she says, and kisses him deeply.
He lays his book on the nightstand and reaches for her, but Rinoa pushes back, presses him against the mattress in clear indication that this is all about him, and she wonders if their lovemaking is still as healing for him as he once told her it was.
They both fall asleep almost immediately after. She tells herself she will let him sleep in the next day, but of course it is the same.
.
Elections are coming soon, and Rinoa works longer and longer hours. She is thrilled, more than she can put into words, with the direction Timber is moving, but it wears on her, the time she is away from her family. She has not touched the dishwasher in over a week, and can't remember the last time she helped with a load of laundry.
She comes home one night well past Noelle's bedtime and Squall is sitting out back, drinking a beer and staring into the yard.
"Everything okay?" she asks.
"I might sand down and paint her swing set the next time you're home," he says. He hands Rinoa the beer bottle and she takes a sip and passes it back to him, and sits in a chair beside his.
"Does it need it?"
"It will. I'd rather do it before the weather changes, so the wood has fresh stain on it going into winter."
Rinoa looks into the yard and then up at the sky. The late summer air is thick, and the moon is shining against the deep blue sky of twilight.
After several minutes of comfortable silence, Squall asks her about work, and Rinoa starts a story from the day, and then another, and she passes him her enthusiasm for the momentum of her party's movements, and it is nearing midnight before they finally walk inside.
Rinoa looks out their bedroom window into the backyard while she listens to Squall brushing his teeth, and thinks of her time away from home, and feels torn in two, in wondering if it is worth it, these sacrifices they have made. Once it was Squall who would come home to find her sitting, quiet and alone, coming up with projects to help her keep her sanity while she waited for Noelle to finally come. He worried about her then, as she worries about him now; of what the periods of isolation were doing to her, and to them, before he was ready to make the choice that would keep them together.
I need to know, he would always tell her. I need to know what Garden knows. I need to make sure they don't decide to come after you before you have a chance to become…to become the threat they think you could be.
He has never said it and Rinoa knows he never will, but she also knows that Squall wonders sometimes what Garden is doing without him. If Xu, or Cid, or anyone else still there is watching them, waiting for Rinoa to show any sign of instability, any reason for them to take action. That when he says he is thinking about swing sets, he is also thinking about days when he did more than chase a toddler around the back yard and take care of a never-ending series of chores.
"Everything okay?" Squall echoes her question from earlier when he walks into the bedroom, and Rinoa turns from the window. She recalls several weeks back, when she noticed how tired he looked, and how that has not improved.
"Are you happy?" she blurts out, and walks to the bed and climbs in. Squall stares at her for a minute, confused, and she gestures beside her for him to lay down. "I just mean… It's so hard for me, being away from you…but I'm so, so grateful for what I'm able to do. But as happy as I am for what we're doing right now, that I'm living this dream I've had for so long… I just remember how lonely it was, those last couple of months before Noelle was born, when I had to stay at home and you were still at Garden. And you've been doing it for longer than that now, and I just… I want to know if you're happy. If what you gave up is worth it."
Squall stares at her just long enough to make Rinoa turn away, and worry that she has said the wrong thing, crossed some line.
Instead, he reaches for her hand and threads his fingers through hers, and squeezes.
"Rinoa… Nothing about my life has made sense to me since you asked me to dance nearly ten years ago. And there are a lot of times even still I just wonder how I ended up here. But Rin, what did I give up? A life of nearly getting killed?"
"Well, adult conversation, for one."
He turns to her and raises an eyebrow, and Rinoa smiles, and shakes her head.
"Yeah, yeah. You don't exactly miss that part of your job."
"I only miss one part of my job, Rinoa. SeeD was never my dream. We talked about this-"
"-when we decided I would stay at work."
"And I meant it. We both know I never came home from work as happy as you were tonight."
"Did you ever even come home from work happy?"
"Case in point."
They laugh, and Squall settles into his pillow and turns out the light, and Rinoa pulls her hand away from his so she can cuddle more closely against him.
"I just…want to make sure. That you're okay, with swing sets, and dirty dishes."
"I'm okay with that. I promise."
Squall kisses the top of her head, and Rinoa smiles, and closes her eyes. Just as she is falling asleep, she hears Noelle cry out once in the monitor, followed by the sound of her shifting in her crib, before falling silent again.
"Noelle said 'I love you' today," Squall whispers against her hair, and Rinoa wraps her arm more tightly against him.
"Finally," she says.
"And we're lying here together. I haven't given up anything."
.
They celebrate the night of the elections. Ellone has come to Timber to watch Noelle, and they come home, tipsy and elated. Rinoa's cheeks hurt from smiling, and at least once during the night she has thought about the times she joined Squall at Garden events, and how forced they always felt.
"It's so different, on the other side," he says on the way home, echoing her thoughts. "You're so much better at standing in front of the cameras than I ever was."
She laughs and teases him, and when their cab drops them off they walk quietly into their home. They sit in the living room with Ellone for a little while longer and she fills them in on her evening, and they talk about theirs. When Ellone leaves it is after midnight, and they are both exhausted.
Squall is in Noelle's room when Rinoa finishes getting ready for bed, and she stands in the doorway and watches him kneeling beside her bed. He adjusts her blanket so it is more securely around her, and slips her milk cup from underneath her elbow with a stealth she never can seem to manage, and her heart swells. It was never planned, him staying at home. Never something they discussed, until he told her one night how much it scared him to think of a mission going wrong, of leaving her and Noelle alone.
She is sometimes jealous of the bond the two of them share, of the time they spend together. Sometimes wonders if, even after the joy and accomplishment she felt tonight, she wouldn't be happier at home.
But then Squall turns, and she sees his face when he looks at their daughter. All of the fatigue that worries her is gone, the lines softened into nothing but love, and she knows he is right.
They have given up nothing.
And they have gained everything.