Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VIII is property of Square Enix.
Catching Lilies
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1. Irvine thinks that Selphie has a beautiful smile – he just wants to take a camera and capture her mid-laugh, but he'd never admit it because looking at that glitter of light would be admitting his fear of the darkness all over again.
2. Quistis doesn't believe in religion or anything spiritual or life after death, so she thinks that maybe, she should start living her life as if every tomorrow were to be her last. But she's Quistis so she doesn't, and instead waits for something big to happen.
3. Selphie loves to eat popsicles because she remembers Irvine saying that he likes raspberries.
4. Sometimes she dreams of flying and the world underneath her fingertips, and sometimes she dreams of nothing at all – either way, she presses closer against Squall's side and traces patterns of color behind her eyelids until his breathing lulls her back to sleep.
5. Zell is slightly irritated to see a white trench coat at his usual fishing spot, but lets it go after a while and puts his fishing bucket on the other side of the dock. There's plenty of fish to go around, he thinks, and casts his line.
6. Seifer doesn't think he ever realized how calm Balamb could be, and a small part of him regrets it.
7. It's a long time before Squall accepts any of Laguna's insistent calls, but when he does he's somewhat surprised at how heartfelt the other man sounds. He doesn't think that it's fitting for the President of Esthar.
8. He wants to know what his mother was like.
9. It's a bit awkward between Edea and Ellone when they meet again, but Cid chases away the ghosts as he embraces them both with tears in his eyes.
10. Selphie complains about how Irvine still sleeps with his gun within arm's reach, jokingly, and Rinoa laughs and tells her Squall does the same.
11. No one actually expected Zell to get the courage to ask the girl in the library out, so all were surprised when he burst into the cafeteria, shouting, "She said yes!"
12. Rinoa remarks idly about Squall proposing, and he sprays coffee all over Angelo. The dog isn't very happy about it, and neither is Squall, but Rinoa just laughs and goes to get the paper towels.
13. Quistis never expected to get drunk. She never expected to wake up to Seifer Almasy beside her, either.
14. She wonders if this is the "big thing" she was waiting for, and reminds herself again why she doesn't believe in God in the first place.
15. "I wonder who Ultimecia was," Selphie says to Irvine one day, and the pencil in his hand wobbles.
16. Ellone isn't afraid of the future, because she's seen it all – she's afraid of breaking down and telling it all to someone else.
17. Irvine saw Rinoa, once, when they were kids – his foster family went to pay their respects at Julia Caraway's funeral, and he remembers the little girl sitting at the very front dressed in black, clutching at her father's hand and crying.
18. Selphie never tells anyone that during their fight with the Sorceress, Siren whispered one name in her ear when they killed the Guardian – "Griever."
19. Everyone assumes Ellone doesn't hate Ultimecia because she was Edea, and she doesn't bother to correct them.
20. They don't remember it, but Selphie made Squall promise to marry her when they were four.
21. Rinoa loves Squall's pendant, and muses on how nice it would be to have one made of Angelo.
22. Edea remembers everything in her life, up until Ultimecia awakens. Then she's floating in space, dreaming, and her detachment is the thing she hates most when she's herself again.
23. Rinoa is scared that if she ever had a daughter, the girl would inherit her powers. Then she pauses, and begins to wonder if Julia ever had a trace of sorceress power in her blood.
24. Zell doesn't tell anyone this, but when Matron smiles at him as he runs to the cafeteria checkout line, he think of cold nights in the Orphanage under the moon, roasting hot dogs at a small campfire.
25. When he is old, Squall looks up into the sea of stars from Garden's floors and feels an odd sense of abandonment and the sensation of remembering something dear.
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AN: I like Zell fishing at Balamb. It's a nice picture.