Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 8. This fic is not for commercial purposes. It is not to be distributed without the consent of Berlin'sBrownEyes, and if any of you even care, read onwards.

Note: The opening and closing paragraphs are written in third person. The rest is in first person from Squall's POV. Happy reading.

-Semblance of a Smile-

by

Berlin'sBrownEyes

It was a termination, an end. It was a feeling crushed perhaps before its time. In time it might have, under certain fanciful, utopian conditions, become something beautiful. It was a silent farewell, one not uttered from lips and larynx, but from the palpitating abomination commonly confused as the heart. It wasn't one of those picturesque partings that close with a kiss and a promise, no. And it wasn't a valediction caused by some fantastic ironical plot that fate had fabricated, which would eventually, under even more ironic circumstances, bring them together again. Love has no luster, no sentiment. It cares not whom it ensnares. It isn't an ideal, a fairytale and by no means does it always end happily.

A cool breeze ran it's long invisible fingers through my naturally unruly hair. I was standing on the balcony, escaping the loud and cheerful conversation of the capacious ballroom behind. It was a time of drunkenness and celebration—for everyone else, that is. The night's veranda naturally seemed more inviting.

I could see the stars so vividly, a welcoming contrast to Timber's smog infested "air" that I had been forced to breathe for the weeks previous. An acute form of Smoker's Hack was proof enough that I needed a change.

Timber's liberation had, although meant freedom for its previously oppressed citizens, produced innumerous problems for Balamb Garden's employees—particularly their overworked, underpaid commander, yours truly. More trivial but also more persistent, they were springing up in a matter of days. No, not financial or technical complications, it was a personal matter in fact, in an area of my life that had been formerly unexplored: a branch of the social life known as romance.

I didn't want to feel the way I did; in truth, I did not want to feel at all. For me, feeling nothing meant not feeling pain. To be independent from emotion, I thought I could be free. But as I stared into the forbearing eyes of freedom, I saw, behind the ice water flowing within those veins that keep cool the frozen vacuity of its ribs, that my fancy of freedom had become a headlong spiral into the pit of my loneliness' slavery, shackled by the unfeeling chains of truth.

I hadn't noticed her standing next to me, gazing up at the same blanketing darkness, the myriads of twinkling lights. Who would have known I held the brightest one? I felt her hand touch mine. I acknowledged her presence by stealing a glance from her soft brown eyes and was welcomed by her smile. I hastily averted my gaze. I was not in the mood for challenging her charming sensitivity.

"I'll be going home soon; my train leaves tomorrow at seven. ...I'll miss you." How unjust to kill the silence with such words.

There were so many things I wanted to say, but I could say nothing at all, as was often my curse. She must have seen the familiar despondency reflected in my eyes, for she reached to hold my face in her saintly hand.

"But I know you will not miss me. You can't miss what you don't need, and I know as well as anyone that Squall Leonhart does not need an—"

I pressed a gloved finger to her lips to quiet her. I lifted her chin so that I could look directly into her eyes. "Would you stay... if this were different... if I were different?" A puzzled aura danced in her eyes before she melted into a smile.

"The world can try to change you, but only you can make the choice."

"You-you want me to... change?" I released her chin.

"No, I don't want you to change, not unless you do. I love you, Squall, you, not who you could become. I accept your vices as well as your virtues."

"But you're going to leave anyway, aren't you." It wasn't a question.

"Do I have a reason to stay?" she chided.

Am I not a reason?

"No, I guess you don't have much of a reason to stay. You don't have a life here; and my contract is fulfilled." My tone was a detached one, one that I didn't mean to show, not to her. But I couldn't fight what was only natural for me.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean for that to sound like it did," her eyes fell from my face to her shoes, "I just don't want to get in your way, Squall. You've got a career here, and I can't ask you to make any sacrifices on my account." I silently understood, making no objection.

She took my hand and led me back into the congested festivities, bumping past smiling faces with champagne glasses. I was hesitant at first, but as soon as I concluded that we were not staying, I was contented with walking her though the white double doors and down the hall towards her room.

The hallway was dark and abandoned except for one flickering fluorescent light that cast our shadows along the walls and tile flooring. The clicking of my boots only obtruded the awkward silence. I don't know how she smiled though it.

Arriving at her door, I watched her fumble with her purse to retrieve her card key, and fought the urge to relocate the lock of hair that had fallen obstinately across her eyes. Instead I just looked at her and... I just looked at her. And for a moment I could see beyond her beautiful face that she was just as beautiful on the inside, and that this woman cared about me. This woman loved me.

"Squall?"

My eyes snapped back to hers in sudden alarm as my reverie crumbled. She had caught me... ogling. But her eyes forgave my mental vacation; they drew me in like a moth to flame, of which her fire could not burn me, but assuage my thirst for feeling.

"Did you say something?"

She rolled her eyes and started laughing at me while I just stood there like an idiot.

"I said goodnight, Squall." She shook her head with that teasing smirk on her face as she had one hand on the doorknob behind her.

"Oh. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"You'll see me off?"

"Yeah... Yeah, I guess I will."

She stood on her tiptoes and placed her hands on my shoulders so she could place a quick kiss on my cheek. "Tomorrow?" she asked.

"Tomorrow," I said.

I watched her door close one last time. My boots clicked down the tile hallway one last time. The fluorescent light flickered one last time. Then I was left in the dark with my head bowed and my hands in my pockets.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow came sooner than expected. I nearly missed her train this morning. I felt a sprinkle of water on my face and looked up at the sky. It was starting to rain. I checked my watch and ran through the station, casting courtesy to the wind along with an occasional elderly man's newspaper.

I was about to verify the train schedules at the ticket booth when I saw her. She was handing her ticket to the man at the door.

"Rinoa!"

I saw her looking around so I know she heard me, at least faintly. I forcefully pushed the innocents aside as I made my way towards the train.

"Rinoa Heartilly!"

That caught her attention. She whipped her head around. She was looking straight at me. She smiled and waved but was quickly rushed into the train for the sake of the grumbling passengers behind her. Under different circumstances the scene might have been comical.

I got as close to the train as physically possible, right next to her window. I pressed my hand to the glass up against hers. And for the first time I realized that this was it, that I might not have another chance. Looking in her eyes brought about a feeling that I couldn't explain. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to... smile. I wanted it to last forever, and at the same time I wished I had never felt it because for the rest of my life, there will never be a moment as good as this one.

"Please stand behind the white line, sir."

But I would have to watch that moment ride off into the rising sun without me.

Was it a goodbye? No. It was not. Goodbyes are forever, aren't they? And the future remains blank until we fulfill it. So when forever comes, then will be a time of such frivolous words. As I watch her train diminish from sight, the horizon devouring every last broken dream, I regret now that our parting had been so solemn, lacking in all sentimentality to the point where one would think it doesn't matter to me, that I don't care. The pain in her eyes had blinded me to the point of numbness that I could not realize my own suffering, until by far, it was too late. My mind is haunted by the kisses she had never given me, by the words I never heard, by all the memories that we never made.

I cannot hear my thoughts telling me that I shall never see her again above the beating of the animated blackness within my chest. And so it is with my lips that I confess that I love her. Her train is gone, and I know she cannot hear me, but I say it aloud; I scream it. The heavens will still know that I love her if she will not hear it.

And I say it not for her, but for myself. For she knew I loved her before I even knew what love was.

I take one last look over that track, the last echoes of a whistle fading from hearing distance and I look at it not as an unhappy ending but a beginning. I look not on what could have, or should have, but on what did. She did do something... something for me, a change that only an angel's touch could give—a beautiful, wonderful something; and it would be a sin not to pursue it, to deny myself this one chance of happiness.

Clashing thunder chased a streak of lightning across the splintering sky. And as the rain promptly permeated the thinness of his attire, his lips curved every so slightly into the semblance of a smile...

(A/n): Oh, I'm sorry. Were you expecting a happy ending? Well, it was sort of happy, wasn't it? I didn't completely crush all the Squinoa fans, did I? I don't have anything against the pairing, (it is in fact my favorite FF8 pairing), but with Squall's personality, I just can't imagine him being with anyone. It's practically written across the scar between his eyes: Squall Leonhart, loner for life.