Author's Note: This was previously published in my personal website under the name Megumi-sensei. I am organizing all my fanfics into one site, so I have moved it here. No part of this fanfic's text has been edited, in order to preserve the words as I wrote them when I was young, naïve, and tormented.

I'll be here….
Why?
I'll be waiting ….
For what?

The sunlight burned his eyes; he turned away from the window to look at her. It was enough, one look, to send him into his usual silent reverie, but today it was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Squall? You home or what?" Zell called gruffly.

The echo of a sigh bounced off the walls before he opened the door. "Selphie. Zell." He stepped back. "Come in."

Selphie forced a smile - kind of strange, for smiles came to her naturally. "Been a long time, huh?"

Squall nodded slightly as he carried a small basin of water and a towel. "So what brings you two to Balamb?" he asked as he entered Rinoa's room.

"Just wanted to touch base," Zell replied, hands thrust into pockets. "And visit old friends."

"Oh, let me," Selphie offered, taking the washbasin and towel from Squall, and sitting down beside Rinoa's bed to wash her face and hands. He was almost shaken by the familiarity of the action.

"Thanks," he murmured, stepping back into the den to find Zell staring out into the little garden at the back of the house.

"Will you look at that," he pointed, little amazement in his eyes. "That tree out there was just a sapling the last time we went here, eh, Squall?"

"A long time, as you said."

Zell paused a while and looked the former SeeD in the eye. "You could just be kind and let her off easy, you know."

His eyes flashed fire. "No, I won't. I can't."

"It's been a year, Squall. Let her go. Pull the plug."

"No." He hadn't waited a year just to give up now. But a year ago he hadn't needed to give up on anything.

She ran out to the takeoff area with an eager grin on her face, as though she were going to some party, instead of heading off to war. For a moment she turned around to wave goodbye to him. "Don't worry. I'll be fine!" Rinoa hollered, her voice reduced to almost nothing by the noisy aircraft preparing to leave.

"I won't!" he shouted back. It was almost a lie. She made him care too much.

Rinoa smiled and nodded, then rapidly made a signal with her hands. Squall wished he had the grace to blush at the meaning of her action. "I love you too," he signed back quickly, mortified by the looks on the faces of all the others already on board the attack ship.

She gave a short laugh, shiny dark hair blown about her face before she entered the plane. Then, she was gone.

And he was all alone again.

Not that he minded being alone, he was used to it. Just that, when Rinoa was with him, it made him want to fear solitude. He shrugged. "There is nothing to fear but fear itself," he quoted, then chuckled to himself. His boots crunched the gravel as he walked home.

The shrieking ring of the phone roused him from sleep. "Ugh," Squall grunted, rolling over to pick up.

"Sir, Informant Terpe speaking. We've received a message that Miss Rinoa has encountered an accident..."

He was shocked to consciousness."What? What do you mean?"

"They were pursuing marauders through a gorge near Trabia. The cliff caved in-"

"Is Rinoa all right? Where is she?"

"She's alive, sir. The rescue team sent her to the main Trabia hospital."

"Thanks," he muttered, putting the phone down and trying to dress in the dark.

Wait. It seemed like hospitals always made people wait. Squall almost jumped up when the doctor entered the room.

"You can see her now. But you might have to prepare yourself," the doctor cautioned, pushing the ICU door open. He stifled a gasp upon seeing her. She still looked like the girl he knew, rosy lips in a smile, save for the countless noisy, blinking machines wired to her that never seemed to disturb her peaceful sleep.

"It's lucky that she made it alive in that rockslide. Almost all of them died. But she's had damage to the cerebro-spinal area-"

"She's comatose, isn't she?" he cut in.

The doctor nodded. "It's only the machines that keep her vital organs going. They might return to functioning on their own, but beyond that, it's uncertain as to how much she can recover." He pushed the door open again. "And even if she did, we suspect her memory may have been damaged as well."

"But she could recover," Squall argued.

"Remote, but possible." The doctor placed his clipboard on a table. "Does she have any family or relations around here?"

"None. Why?"

"Well, in cases like these when the patient is in a coma, we give the family an option to . . .turn off the respirators and other aids. Only if they think that it would be best. It's entirely their decision."

"And you wouldn't try to convince them so?"

"No. In the end it will be they who will turn off the switch. Or the family may choose to take care of the patient at home, to see if he recovers."

"But Rinoa has no one."

"Ah. And how are you related to the Miss?"

"Me?" Squall blinked. "I-I'm a friend."

"Then she has you, if you'll chose to take the responsibility."

Was he?

"How soon can I bring her home?" he asked.

He tucked the sheets around her. Nice and warm. He leaned back in his chair and looked at her sternly. "Well, Rinoa, you've got us both into a royal fix this time. You shouldn't have left, you know. You wouldn't have ended up like this if you hadn't gone. What have you got to say for yourself?"

He crossed his arms and fell silent, as though waiting - no, willing - for a response. The silence was broken only by the soft sound of her breathing. There was no flutter of thick lashes on her rose-touched cheeks, no flash of pearl smile, just her breathing, and the slight hum of the respirator.

With an anguished sigh he knelt by the bed and took her hand. "I'm sorry, Rinoa." He bit his lip. "I never thought I'd be the one to ask you to speak." He pressed her hand to his face, knuckles brushing against his scar. "Please, won't you say something? Just one word, or as many words as you like!" He lifted his eyes to look around the room. "This room...it shouldn't be so quiet, with you in it." He took a breath to clear his murky thoughts. "Maybe.. I'll be all right, on my own, don't you think? Maybe." The tiniest tear burned in his eye. "Rinoa, it's too quiet here and I'm so alone! It's so empty. You're here, but it's so empty."

The sun was fast disappearing behind the mountaintops.

"I'm sick of being alone."

All these years I've been living on my own, living for myself. In the end, don't we all end up by ourselves? But she depends on me. No, wait, that's not right. I'm the one who depends on her.

"Don't you feel sorry for her, living in a state like that ?" Zell asked.

"I would be much more sorry if she were now six feet underground, of my own doing," he answered defiantly."I'll go before Rinoa does."

"And what if all your years of wasted waiting are just useless?"

"How can you be sure?" Squall replied in a half-angry, half-sad tone."How do we know that one of these days, she'll wake up? How will I forgive myself when I find that I gave up on her today, but if I had waited a day more, her eyes would have opened again? I have to wait, because I have to KNOW!" He slumped into a chair. "I'm the only one she has now, Zell," he managed in a broken voice. "I believe she'll wake up someday. I wouldn't have taken her in that day at the hospital if I wasn't sure she was going to recover."

"She will, Squall," Selphie added softly as she entered the room and took his hands. "I'm sure she will."

Squall looked up at Zell. "They took her off the respirator last week. Soon she won't need the other machines anymore. She's still fighting."

"She's a stubborn girl." Zell ran a hand through his spiky hair. "I'm sorry, man, talking about her like that, It just seems like a waste of life, lying there, not being able to do anything." He sighed. "Well, who knows? Maybe she'll surprise us all one day."

"She's always full of surprises."Selphie stood up. "Guess we'll go now. Wanna go into town with us, Squall?"

"I..." He turned hesitantly to Rinoa's room.

Selphie smiled, this time with no effort."Don't worry, she'll be fine."

He stood up and went to her bedside. "Rinoa." Did her eyebrows move at the sound of her name?

"Rinoa, I'm going out for a while, okay? Just a little while." He turned towards the door. "Don't you dare wake up while I'm away. I want to be here when you open your eyes."

He groped for the light switch. The darkness in the room turned to light. "Rinoa. I'm here."

He sat in the chair, by her bed. "I wish you'd gone with us. It was fun in the town proper. And can you believe it? Zell still hasn't grown out of his addiction for hotdogs." He sudddenly stopped and smiled. "It's weird. Now I'm doing all the talking for you. Well." He gazed at her features, made translucent by the moonlight entering the window. Selphie had done a good job of brushing her hair. Her face was still peaceful in sleep, unchanging, eyelashes painting her soft cheeks. One year could have been one day.

I'll be waiting here, so when you come back, you'll find me.

"It's your birthday tomorrow, remember? Zell and Selphie said they'd drop by again. Would you like that?" He clasped hands with her. Did he imagine that slight pressure of her fingers on his own?

I promise.