There was an ethereal feel to moonlight, Rinoa mused, as she propped her middle section up to better watch the patterns of lights and shadows that the moon casted on Squall's unmoving form. Shifting closer to him, kicking her left foot free from the tangle of covers their previous activities had provoked, she hovered over him and felt the beginning of a smile tugging from the corner of her lips at his relaxed façade. The ever present frown was missing, making him look younger, reachable, warm… an image far from that of the callous SeeD commander that confronted the world every day with his hard stare and his cold demeanor. Always in check, always in control. Always ready for things to make a sudden turn for the worst.

Squall's body was marred with scars that told a hundred of stories of training, battles and pain. From the thin, long, white line on his left leg that he got when he still was trying to master that deadly gunblade of his (a careless move, Quistis had told her, don't ever mention it to him, a swing too wide as he was trying to show off in front of Seifer) to his most characteristic one, the duel scar on his face.

He was normally sparing with words, but that was taken to the next level whenever she tried to bring up the topic of scars. Maybe he considered the injuries of the past as failures. Hell knew he was proud enough for such a ludicrous standpoint. Or maybe he was just not in the mood (never in the mood) to tell stories (be them about his past or about any other topic). Maybe he deemed the stories his body told too personal to share, even with the person closest to him.

Rinoa spread his fingers over Squall's naked torso and lightly caressed the skin till she reached his left shoulder and the scarred tissue that covered the place where the icicle had speared through his flesh (and she still remembered the gory scene down to the smallest detail; it was printed in her memory cells, including those agonizing seconds afterwards when a battered Seifer had loomed over Squall's unmoving form, waiting for instructions from his mistress, and she had feared the worst).

Squall opened his eyes at her feathery touch, but the commander didn't look at her in the moonlight bathed bedroom. He closed his eyes and abandoned himself to sleep once again, making Rinoa's heart skip a beat with emotion. How could he trust his naked, asleep, vulnerable self to her (and that was an amazing and moving feature coming from such a feisty and wary individual) and, at the same time, how could he be so aloof and guarded, and not trust her with his inner world, his inner self, just yet? (and that was so frustrating and, and… discouraging).

She sighed and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. Her eyes traveled the ups and downs, the curves and plains on his chest and arms to find more scars drawing random patterns in his smooth skin: marks left by puncture wounds, scratches, tears and rips, gunshots, burns… clear signs that the commander had been involved in too many battles and that he had been in the way of too much wild and powerful magic (really, he was in every team they formed, leading, forcing them to keep on moving, keep on progressing, always one fight more, another step ahead on the road, another enemy down, one more to go, and so on and so on, to infinite and beyond).

She compared the burn scar she held on her left forearm caused by an ultima spell (easy to identify as ultima seemed to burn in waves, making the burn deeper in the center) to the one she found over his ribs, on his right side, and she thought that the scars matched. One mystery solved, a hundred (too many) more to go.

And those were just his visible scars. The ones that affected his mind and soul… those were imperceptible, if you didn't count on the wonders (ha!) they had worked on his personality. The damage to flesh was always ostentatious. It was difficult to miss the blood with its scandalous bright red color, difficult to conceal the pain that ended up manifesting in choked cries of pain and ragged intakes of labored breathing. It was always alarming, but reversible (in most cases anyway). But Squall's inner scars were so deep, and so ingrained in him, and so indisputably him that, even though still a functional, working and able human being, he was walking on his shoes so emotionally stunted that it didn't fail to awe Rinoa with his pretenses on normalcy. Even when it was not every day that she bumped into one of those annoying and heartbreaking particularities of his, she was (everybody was) aware that Balamb's resident lion wasn't your average guy next door… man, mercenary, SeeD, ...whatever.

He was so deceivingly normal most of the times, that those little reminders of his actual (and still burning) pain, never failed to shock Rinoa, rendering her speechless, always afraid to blurt out the wrong word and worsen things up. She still had to find the secret formula, the magical pass she needed to perform to make everything better for him, to work that pain out, heal that deep reef in his spirit that could allow him (them) to finally move on.

Laguna was part of the equation, but neither she, nor Ellone had been able to bring both of them any closer. Laguna had made a feeble attempt at communication, but Squall was way too intimidating, (and cold, and curt, and no-nonsense, and…) and the President of Esthar already was coming from a weak standpoint in his acting role as the missing parent who had flourished in life without the load of being a single father.

Squall hadn't even tried.

She dozed off while still hovering over him, but she had the presence of mind to catch herself before she fell square on his chest. Curling up against his side, she sighed, feeling somewhat saddened by her reflections on the man she had come to love so much, feeling helpless at her own incapacity to help him overcome… himself.

It had seemed possible after Time Compression. The following days had been filled with the excitement of victory, the joy of life, the relief of survival. He had looseneda lot those days, he had smiled, he had shared his time and some of his worries with his friends and with her.

She fondly remembered that late reunion the day Seifer was allowed back to Garden (his future still uncertain) when they had all shared memories and their personal intakes on the events that took place during the Sorceress War. There were moments of sadness, moments of laughter and moments of deep introspection, and Rinoa had felt touched when she had seen the emotions flicker, grab and take hold of Squall numerous times. It was the one and only time his walls had been down, his true self exposed before their friends.

However, Squall had reverted back to his old self too fast, too easily. Spontaneously. It was like if an announced fall from grace had publicly taken place, and all their friends had assumed it as something meant to be, unavoidable, like passing seasons, or like rain in the middle of spring. Nature's doing.

Dark, aphatic, silent Squall was the norm. And wasn't the tormented, cold-blooded commander a great part of his unfathomable charisma? (a 75% had Selphie said, blaming another 15% on all that black leather covering his finely sculpted body and the remaining 10% on his cuteness whenever his social incapacity put him into an embarrassing situation) Wasn't the tough SeeD commander, the epitome of the mercenary profession, the one who had raised awed whispers worldwide, even from military sources, part of the charm? Wasn't his strong front, his undaunted demeanor while facing the worst odds, the always in place façade of professionalism the qualities that others admired in his appointed role of world hero?

Yes, yes and yes.

However, she got glimpses of another man, more open, more reachable, falible from time to time. Squall was human, after all.

She knew he hated paper-cuts with passion, maybe because they painfully reminded him that he wasn't wielding a gunblade but boring himself to death with administrative tasks. His left shoulder dislocated easily. He preferred his food warm or directly too hot to eat. He felt comfortable with her on her lap, but only if she wasn't in the way of his wielding arm. He preferred kissing over hugging and when he was engaged in lewd activities he had a tendency to let his mind drift away of the task at hand if the foreplay took too long. He walked, breathed and lived on high standards. Both for himself and for everyone around who dared to make contact with him, be it by word, letter, message in his inbox, eye contact or whatever. It would make him unbearable if he weren't so silent all the time. Thank Hyne, for he rarely spoke his mind out.

And how could such a social misfit inspire the respect Squall so easily elicited in others? Maybe it was a mix of coolness, professionalism, fighting abilities, and that calm demeanor of his (maintaining his cool while everybody run around Garden in panic had been inspiring for the many cadets and SeeDs that had bumped into him during the attack to the facility. SeeDs do recognize a leader when they see one). Again, the fact that he didn't speak out loud whatever came to his mind, was of great help. Squall's mind had a tendency to snark, irony and negativity, judging both people and situations with a severity that placed him directly in the opposite extreme from charming. It made her ponder which was Squall's actual opinion on her. The one without the security filters.

She must had drifted off somewhere between her musings on how could Squall, with his dangerous and cold aura, lure chocobos in to let him ride them (a great mystery of nature! Chocobos were supposed to have instincts, after all). She dreamed, although she couldn't remember anything but a lingering sensation of content. And then she woke up at the feeling of Squall's lips tracing her neck, stopping to pay attention at the scar she bore on her left clavicle. It made her wonder if this was his way to let her know that he was aware that she had been tracing his scars during the night. Letting the fingers of her right hand tangle in his unruly locks she muttered a lazy:

"G'ning."

She felt him smile briefly against her skin, amused by her poor articulation. His smile was a rare gesture that never failed to increase her heart rate even if she couldn't directly see it. And then Squall's hand, whose heated kisses made it clear to Rinoa that he was intent in starting something, caressed the skin between her breasts. She was about to mock him for missing on such an easy target when she realized, as his hand continued his derive down her body, that the location he was targeting was strategically more important. Leonhart, straight to the point, over and out.

"Squall…" when those deep blue eyes of his fell on hers she let herself drown in them for a second, knowing that he wouldn't mind if she left her thoughts unvoiced (figures!). His expression was relaxed, contented, as his hand stopped over another scar, this one on her hip. It was a profound scratch she had gotten after falling over a bunch of pointy rocks when a Marlboro sent her flying, blinded, muted and poisoned. She catalogued the shock she had felt upon impact as one of the worst she had ever experienced in her life.

Squall descended to catch her lips and kissed her slowly, trying to coax her in the same mindset than his. Rinoa's hand fell from his hair to his neck to bring him closer to her mouth. As she deepened the kiss, she felt another scar there. It was a burn scar created by friction one time that Seifer had grabbed the chain around Squall's neck and had pulled forcefully. She didn't know if it had happened during Squall's imprisonment in the D-District prison or in the mid of one of their many quarrels during the war.

And, to belie one of the most spread myths in Garden: no, Squall didn't sleep with his jewelry on. No earrings, no rings, no Griever pendant.

He didn't sleep embracing his gunblade's case either.

It was early in the morning, she could tell by the faint light entering the room. Squall had a tendency to wake up unnecessarily early so he could pay a visit to the training center before anything (may that be breakfast or work). Letting out some steam first thing in the morning worked wonders on his personality, but the setback for Rinoa was… this. The commander had a fetish with her sleeping form. It had leaded (just an example among millions) to him waking her up when he came home late yesterday night, and it had leaded to the same occurrence now (and, oh, it was a common happening, and as far as she didn't ever object any sexual intercourse with her husband, she sure as hell wasn't a morning person).

Maybe he just adored her relaxed, vulnerable and quiet self. And the quiet, did she mention the quiet? All right, because, truth be told, she didn't do quiet often.

So, it was retaliation time.

"Squall…" she started again. There was no reply from him, not even a pause in his nuzzling and kissing. Good, because she wasn't aiming for that "I was talking to Aileen yesterday."

That got his attention. His eyes flickered to her face for a moment. That counted as a full retort, in Squall's silent language.

"You were featured in the cover of 'Galbadian Pulse' again. She left you a message, with a link to the digital version." Squall shook his head lightly in a negative to let her know that he hadn't gone through his messages yet. It wasn't a surprise for her, as Squall hardly ever got the time to check his inbox (it was a task too far down on his priorities' list). Aileen should had marked the message as important if she wanted the commander to read it "They wrote an article about the SeeDs in Balamb Garden being part of the Galbadian operative forces, just because. And about Esthar funding the research on a collaborative project, involving both nations and Gardens, exploring the possibility to join GFs to bio-drones."

Squall's only reply to that piece of info was a grunt.

"You weren't quoted in the whole article, but still the fact that you were featured in the cover is seen as an attempt of the Galbadian propaganda to legitimate…" his mouth on hers effectively shut her up and it was so obvious that that had been his intention that she couldn't help but laugh into the kiss.

She complied to his desires and to her own need and for the next minutes she voiced naught but her pleasure and her appreciation to Squall's ministrations.

However, as she laid down, enjoying the afterglow, attentive to any noise coming from the spare bedroom where their baby laid, hopefully asleep (thanks, Hyne, their one year old angel was a heavy sleeper. He probably inherited that treat from his mom), it was Squall's turn to surprise her.

"Tomorrow I'll be going on a field mission, well… sort of"

It wasn't a common occurrence nowadays. Squall had gone on missions maybe twice this year, monsters' raids in both occasions, teaming up with newly appointed SeeDs to help them to get some battle experience. And only because in both occasions Quistis had been down with the flu, so he had played the role of a substitute instructor.

"Seifer passed his written test" this was privileged information, she doubted that Seifer knew the results already "He will be taking his field exam, probably next Monday, and as the only gunblade specialist in Garden I was appointed as his examiner."

"Will you be the one to evaluate him on his competence with a gunblade?" Rinoa saw him nod, with a stern expression in his face that she couldn't interpret "We should be planning a graduation party, then."

"If it were only about wielding a gunblade, I'd say yes to that graduation idiocy." Rinoa couldn't help a smile at that "But I don't know how good Seifer will be dealing with my orders. And not just that… we both have our personal way of mastering our weapons. There are things that Seifer constantly does with Hyperion, that I loathe."

Trust Squall to be that passionate about… gunblades. The only topic he could talk about for more than five minutes without straining himself.

"I'm taking a shower. Wanna join?" he asked, his eyes showing the barest hint of mirth.

She made a show of laying her eyes on the alarm clock sitting on the nightstand.

"Maybe later, commander. The clock hasn't ticked Heartilly's hour yet."

He got up from bed, his hand caressing her spine as he left. Rinoa smiled in contentment before she dragged the rumpled sheets up to cover her body. She probably should get up and shower, change the soiled sheets and get started with the day as well.

Yeah, she should.

She stretched languidly, a muffled yawn escaping her as she repositioned herself, hugging the pillow and burying her face in it. She must had drifted off the second she settled herself, because she woke up when he heard Squall talking on the phone. After a few seconds listening to his monosyllabic answers (No. Yes. Don't. What? Sure. Bye) she disentangled the sheets from her legs kicking here and there, and made her way into the bathroom and directly into the shower.

She came out feeling refreshed and ready for the new day. She stepped into the bedroom with a towel attached to her body and as she was picking up her clothes from the wardrobe she noticed that Squall had already taken care of the dorm, changing the sheets and making the bed. She was already fully clothed and combing her wet hair when Squall came into the room, dressed in jeans and a black tee, holding Ryon with one arm as he tapped a message on his phone with his free hand.

"Ma!" the boy cheered, holding his arms towards her.

"Come here, cutie" she smiled as she took the little boy in her arms, and filling her cheeks, she blew air in his cheek in a quite sonorous kiss.

Ryon laughed and Rinoa saw Squall smiling as well.

"Aw, look, Ryon. You made daddy happy." she teased.

"Appa!" the boy exclaimed in delight.

Squall snorted, put down his phone, and leaned in to drop a kiss over Ryon's head and a soft peck on Rinoa lips.

"I have to go." He deadpanned, ignoring the smiles the cute pair where throwing at him. Not totally, though, as Rinoa could see one end of his mouth quirking up subtly.

"Love ya." She said, and held their kid's hand up to wave him goodbye.

He replied with a nod, jacket already in his hand, and with a few large strides, he was out and gone for the day.

"Daddy left for work?" she spoke absent-mindedly as she busied herself around the kitchen. "Yes? Maybe he'll be back for lunch, Ryon, and we can bully him till he tells us how his morning went." She couldn't find coffee, not even the smell of it, and she wondered if Squall had eaten anything for breakfast. In the sink she found out Ryon's used plate "Oh, you already ate, darling, how long have you been awake? Uh? It's mommy's turn to fill her stomach, then."

Leaving the little boy in his playpen, she prepared some coffee and then sat down in the couch near the baby. Pulling her legs up and under her, she took the mug in both her hands and contemplated her child with a fond smile. Ryon held no resemblance whatsoever to her or to his father. The baby was a miniature carbon copy of Fury Caraway, a fact that Rinoa found in equal measure both ironic (why, destiny, why?) and disturbing (when the baby scowled the gesture sent chills down her spine). Caraway wasn't her favorite person in the world, euphemistically speaking, and she hated his very bones, in plain language. And it was not better for Squall. Her father had the dubious honor of being the only person that the commander, and that was a quote, "was allergic to".

"Daddy has a sense of humor, after all." She smiled to Ryon who had diverted his attention from his moomba-racing toy when he heard her speak "Let's wait and see who your little brother or sister looks after. Shhhh, it's a secret. Don't tell daddy yet, okay?"

She wondered if Squall would have a mental breakdown if their second child looked after Laguna.

This fic is a prelude for "El examen". Sorry, that fic is in Spanish. I was intent in translating it but lost my spirits after the first 500 words.