C A N C E L
-irishais-
"I-W-I-L-L-N-E-V-E-R-L-E-T-Y-O-U-F-O-R-G-E-T-A-B-O-U-T-M-E"
—Message broadcast in radio static by Sorceress Adel
There.
Over there, just beyond the arm of the sofa, resting on the small end table. She studies it carefully, watching, waiting, her fingertips splayed out against the soft beige microfiber.
It shifts, just an inch, then two, then jumps at her.
She catches the remote control in one hand, deftly snatching it out of the air, and the pulsing behind her eyes subsides, the itch sated for now. Galbadian Hospital starts in five minutes, anyway.
Rinoa sips her drink, and flips on the television.
xx
Float, she whispers, and the spell drifts out of her fingers, as lazy as she feels.
The bedding lifts itself up from the pile, and when she narrows her eyes and concentrates, she makes the fitted sheet work its way around the mattress, settling in place just as the water stops running in the bathroom, and Squall exits.
He looks at the bed, and at her, and doesn't comment about the lack of swearing that usually accompanies the task.
"Help me," she commands, and shakes out the flat sheet. When it's smoothed down into place, it's already taken them five extra minutes than the first layer had. She flops down face first onto the neat bedding and sighs.
"What?" Squall asks.
"Oh, nothing."
xx
Quistis gives her books upon books, emails her articles almost daily, all things about source magic and paramagic, blue magic versus "sorceress abilities." It's enough to put her to sleep in front of the computer; Rinoa finds her eyes drooping closed on more than one occasion. But she smiles, nods, and sometimes just says that it's on her list of things to read, whenever Quistis tries to follow up with conversation.
It's not GFs and drawn spells sorted out in her brain, where she has to learn an exact system; a place for everything, and everything in its place. She occasionally accompanies Squall down to the requisitions room, where they give him a flat black circle like an electrode, a GF on a sticker. He puts it behind his ear—his beautiful eyes go flat and blank when a GF worms its way into his cortex, and for a moment, he is not himself, he is something other. Something bigger.
But she is that way all the time.
xx
Control, Squall emphasizes. Control.
But her limit break is the very opposite of control, she argues, and he shakes his head.
xx
The dreams creep into her head slowly at first, so subtle she doesn't really perceive them as dreams, just colors, just red and black and searing yellow. But they don't stop, and soon, she sees pictures in the colors: a castle, crumbling to bits, Edea's face, Squall, in that stretch of lost time, where he was dead.
When she wakes up, Squall is already sitting upright in bed, staring at her with that look on his face, and she can feel his thoughts, a hesitant invasion of her mind. It's the only thing he's ever not sure about when it comes to her, to this bond.
"What were you dreaming about?" he asks, finally, his brow furrowed, trying to concentrate on pictures that are even now slipping out of her mind.
Can't you see?
xx
She visits Edea, because the older woman frightens her.
"It is a lot to get used to," Edea says sympathetically, and pours her some tea (always tea.)
"Do you miss it?" Rinoa blurts, her cup shifting a little in her hands, spilling the light herbal brew onto the floor.
The woman smiles, and there is a bit of sadness in it. For a moment, Rinoa almost regrets asking.
"Sometimes, I still think it's there, and it's just out of reach."
It's not an answer.
xx
The morning dawns bright and clear, and at 0500, Squall Leonhart leads a small squadron into the foothills of the Trabian mountains, seeking out a band of raiders. The contract is supposed to be wrapped up in a week.
"Don't go," she says, because she says it before every mission. He's the commander; he doesn't have to be out in the field. It keeps him sane, though, to do this job the way he had intended on doing it.
There is...something wrong. Something different about this time, though, even when he kisses her temple and gives her his half-smile that is as good as anyone's grin.
"I'll be back," he promises her.
He comes back in a box.
xx
Sneaking down to the tiny Garden morgue is something Rinoa never pictured herself doing, and yet, here she is, creeping down the stairwell like a ghost. The door isn't locked. No one would come down here in their right mind.
There is a square of eight stainless-steel drawers on the far end of the room. She knows which one it is without knowing how, and when she slides it open, a hiss of cold air escapes.
Even dead, he is still so serious. She knows from Kadowaki's report that there are seven bullet holes scattered across his body. She does not try to find them all.
"Squall," she whispers, curling her fingers around the edge of the steel slab. "Squall, you have to come back."
She reaches for the magic, where it sits inside of her chest in a bright-hot knot, waiting to be drawn upon. The spell trickles up her veins slowly, slowly. Control, she can hear him telling her. Control.
When she lets it go, the Life spell hovers in the air for half a second, a sheen of twinkling stars that spread out in a brilliant blanket over his pale corpse. She watches as it settles into his skin, the pinpricks of light glowing brightly before they go out. She waits, she waits, for something to happen, for him to shed this unlovely chalk-pallor of death.
She waits, she waits.
Nothing happens. Her desperate (pleading, begging) thoughts in her head go unanswered, unheard.
xx
Magic, he whispers to her one night, his voice rumbling-soft as he strokes her hair, isn't all happy endings.
xx
They bury him in a flower field in Winhill, next to his mother's grave. She weeps bitter saltwater tears.
Later, when she is alone in the darkened dorm room, the silence threatens to smother her.