That night, Rinoa dreamed of flying.

The air was cold and crisp against her skin, and she stretched her wings out and beat them into the wind. They sounded like strength, and every movement felt like power.

She was flying over the sea, endless blue stretched out in every direction. The depth of the sea spoke to her in color, now darker, now lighter, hyphenated by the cresting of so many waves. She circled and dropped, let her feet touch the water, felt it thread through her toes, and she gave a great beat with her wings and watched the ripples pulse around her from the force she created, and rose again.

She moved through the air without fear, and marveled at the feeling of freedom. She shared the sky with no one; even the clouds had taken their leave. The blue of the sky stretch and dipped and met with the sea, different shades meeting at the horizon. It reminded her of the white nothingness of Time, only this was her domain, and there was nowhere she could not fly.

Until, she grew weary. Until the water no longer looked peaceful, and the sky began to press against her, pinning her to the center of this world of blue, the white fingers of the waves calling her, reaching for her. She was tired and thirsty, and knew she was starting to panic. What had been freedom, was now a trap. She flew in what she hoped was the same direction, and fought the feeling that she was moving in one hopeless, horrifying circle.

And then, she was falling. Too exhausted to beat her wings any longer, Rinoa fell towards the sea, towards a place of darkest blue. She wanted to cry out, but could not muster the strength to open her mouth, wanted to cry, but the tears stalled.

She pulled her wings feebly against her body, and braced herself, opened her eyes to meet her fate head on…and watched, as what she thought was sea foam transformed into sails, what she thought was shadow into a small boat.

"Help…" she whispered…

...and too weak to slow herself down, Rinoa crashed through the deck of the sailboat and watched, through the growing darkness of the sea, the boat as it followed her into the water, and with it, the shape of a man.

.

She awoke coughing, and felt Squall stir beside her. In his sleep he took a few rapid breaths, and reached towards her. She coughed again, and looked around the darkness of their room, and felt for a minute like she was still in her dream, and their bedroom lay at the bottom of the ocean. She drew in a deep breath, if for no other reason than to prove that she could, and turned back to Squall.

"Hey," she whispered. "Squall." She moved her hand against his face, and paused when her fingers brushed against his hair-wet, and from more than just sweat from the humid Timber air.

"Squall," she said again, and leaned down and lay against him. She let the wet strands of his hair slide through her fingers, and kissed his shoulder, his chin, and placed a gentle kiss against his lips and gave him a gentle shake. "Wake up."

"Hmmm-"

"Squall?"

"Ri…"

He jerked awake, and she pressed her weight more tightly against him and whispered into his shoulder. "Shhhh. It's me. It's me."

"Rinoa-? What happened? Are you okay?" His voice was a mumble, and she watched the panic in his movements subside, sleep threatening to pull him back in.

"I'm fine," she said. "Just a bad dream. Squall… your hair-"

"In a… shipwreck."

"What?"

"'was…dreaming. Think I was in…a shipwreck."

"Your hair is wet."

"Mmm. Strange." He slid his arm around her and pressed his fingers into her back. "You're okay?"

She felt herself grow smaller in his embrace, safe and finally sure the dream had ended. She sighed, and started to relax. "I'm just…scared."

"I'm here, Rin," he said. She sighed again, and he kissed the top of her head. "You can sleep now. I'm here." She kissed him, and turned so she faced away from him, and he curled up behind her and pulled her close. She clung to his arms, and felt his thumb rubbing small circles over her hand.

"I know," she finally said. "I'm sorry for waking you."

"'s'okay." He buried his face into her neck, and Rinoa felt his breathing slow again, and it was soothing, and she felt herself relaxing against the rhythm, in the warm safety of his arms. Soon, she was asleep, and she did not dream again.

.

When she woke the morning sun lay slanted across the bedspread, and Squall was awake beside her. He was sitting up, a cup of coffee on the table next to the bed, and frowning at the screen of the tablet he held. He glanced down at her when she moved, and she watched his frown turn slowly, if not into a smile, into something warmer, something Rinoa knew as a look of love.

"Hi," he said, and brushed one of his hands against her face. She smiled against his fingers, and pulled herself up just enough to give him a kiss before sinking back into her pillow.

"Good morning. How long have you been awake?"

He looked like he was going to answer and paused, and Rinoa saw something in his face that brought a heavy feeling into her chest. She reached over and brushed her hand against his, and Squall clasped it, and sighed. "A few hours."

"It's wasn't-"

"Your dream? No," he said. "Not yours, at least."

She frowned, and pushed the covers back so she could sit up, and turned towards him. "You had one too?"

He nodded, and clicked the screen off on the tablet, and lay it down beside him on the bed. Rinoa felt his grip tighten around hers, and she moved so she could lean against him. He kissed the top of her head and pulled his hand away from from hers to wrap around her waist, and when he did not elaborate, she lay with her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, trying to memorize it, as she so often did after he had spent time away from home.

Finally he said, "It's one I've had a few times. I just…haven't told you."

"Squall-"

He shook his head. "You…you have enough dreams, Rin. Without sharing mine."

"You share mine, though. Literally." She tilted her head up to his. "That's not fair."

"No, I guess it isn't. But-"

"I mean it. Don't…" She paused, and took a breath, surprised at how upset she felt herself becoming. Because she was-worried? Squall had dreams before, dreams she could not see, but that woke him, panicked and sweating. Some he told her about-nightmares from the war, of the men he'd killed, of Edea's ice. Some, she knew only from the way he would cling to her, reach for her, desperate for any connection that proved she was still living and breathing beside him. He watched her more closely, after those dreams, and Rinoa often got the feeling he was making sure she didn't fade away.

But those dreams, she knew. She always knew, whether he talked about them or not. She looked at him and he was still watching her, waiting for her to finish a sentence she wasn't sure she'd meant to start. She let her head fall back to his chest, and said quietly, "Don't hide things like that from me. We don't…we can't."

"I know. And I'm sorry It's just that…this isn't a normal dream."

"Like my dreams are nor-"

"I know, I know. I heard it as soon as I said it." He smiled, and she wrinkled her nose at him.

"You're not off the hook for keeping this a secret that easily, you know."

"I know." He leaned down and kissed her forehead, and then continued. "I just mean, comparatively speaking. But it's a battle dream. I get them…usually after missions. Occasionally about the war, but usually about whatever job I just did, and that should be all that it is, but…"

"…but?"

The heaviness in her chest pressed harder against her, and in the pause before Squall continued she focused again on his heartbeat, counting them, feeling hers fall in and out of sync, willing it to ease her anxiety on whatever he was about to say.

"I need to bring something up that I don't want to, and this is why I haven't said anything to you before, so please know it's not because I'm keeping secrets. But you…"

She took a breath. "It's okay, Squall." It's okay.

"Since you inherited the succession, you can use source magic."

"Right."

"But you can…hone it. Give up parts of yourself, give up control, in order to become stronger. Like the berserk spells we ran into with a few monsters, only-"

"Only far more terrifying." She shivered, and he held her closer. "And not something I can easily come back from, or anything that can be nullified with para-magic."

"Exactly. And in my dreams… I think that happens. To me. Not with magic, obviously, but I remember these missions, and it doesn't matter if they require action or not, but in my dreams I just…lose myself. I can see it happening, but I have no control. One minute I'm there, as myself, and the next I'm destroying everything and everyone around me. It's…"

"…awful." She spoke in a whisper, her voice caught, as the feeling in her chest moved into her throat.

"And I didn't want to tell you, because I didn't want to…to remind you."

"But Squall…" She blinked, and glanced down, struck by images from the war she'd rather not remember. She feared it, that loss of control, feared what could happen someday yet to come, more than she relived it in dreams, and he had been…

He moved his thumb in circles where it rested against her, and she pulled him closer, so he was no longer propped against the wall, and wrapped both her arms around him and held him tightly against her.

…he had been living it for how many nights, while she slept dreamlessly beside him.

"How long?" she asked.

"Since the war."

"And you never told me?"

"I never wanted to… Rin, I remember the few times you did that. And how awful it was for you. I didn't want to bring it up, to make you…I couldn't ask you to remember that, if you were able to find distance."

"But it's happening to you-Right beside me. I should know about that."

"It's not actually happen-"

"If it's waking you up, it's happening." She loosened her embrace and leaned back so she could look at him, study him. His eyes were wilder than normal, lacking that stabilizing force she was used to when they caught each other's gaze. Wilder, and vulnerable.

Like mine, she thought. Or like he'd told her hers could be.

"Squall… You know as well as I do that dreams are just as bad as real life sometimes. Your hair was probably still wet when you first woke up, wasn't it?"

He reached his free hand to his hair, and then sighed. "You win," he said, and Rinoa shook her head.

"How often?"

"It varies. The longer I'm gone, the more likely it seems to be, though."

"So it's your version of moping around the house. I'm not sure which is worse."

"I don't think it's a joke, Rin. And you know the time isn't easy for me, either. I got a nasty email from Xu this morning about this last one. Seems Quistis has 'concerns.'"

"…should she?"

He didn't respond at first, and Rinoa looked towards the tablet.

"I don't know," he finally said. "It's just…not getting easier, leaving. I thought coming out here, getting away from Garden's shadow it might be, but…"

"You said yesterday...you feel like my missing parts go with you. This is what you meant?"

He nodded.

She looked at his chest, pictured the blood moving through his heart and the steady sound it made, and thought of how much her own heart hurt, knowing he would leave again, next week, next month, whenever the next contract came. At how hard it was, even saying goodbye for a few hours. For as much as she hated waking up alone, she sometimes wondered if it wasn't harder waking up beside him. Apart, she could try and numb herself to the pain of his absence, even if it took so much of herself away. But together, she felt certain sometimes she would burst from the intensity of desire, of needing to be as close to him as possible.

"It seems like we should be getting used to it by now, doesn't it?" she said quietly.

"Yeah."

"Are we…really supposed to, though? I mean, it's not like either one of us has a basis of comparison."

"No," he laughed. "That's definitely true."

"So maybe this is normal. Even without the…things that make us different. I don't know. It's hard for me to imagine, loving someone this much, and being comfortable with you being gone. What would the point really be, if we were supposed to just kiss each other goodbye, and be completely okay going to bed alone at night?"

"I think the point would be we get through the day without missing each other so badly it's all we can think about. That it's…that it's not physically painful when you aren't around."

"Well that's just boring," she said, knowing they both knew she didn't mean it. The emptiness of the last few days nudged at her, along with the feeling that she should be able to see her friends, pursue her own interests. The bookstore opened two months ago and she kept telling herself she should get a part time job, just to get out of the house, but when it was hard to motivate herself to take a shower in Squall's absence, she couldn't see how she manage to go to work. Much less leave him, if she picked up a shift on the days he was home.

"You'll tell me though, the next time?" she asked. "I'm not an expert on interpreting dreams, but I'm starting to feel like I might be on having them."

"I'll tell you," he said, and reached out and grasped her hands, and leaned in and kissed her forehead. "Want me to go get you coffee? Or do you want to come downstairs? I have a call with Xu in an hour, but I'm all yours until then."

"I'll come down," she said, and he nodded and slid towards the edge of the bed. He kissed her again before picking up his coffee mug, and she watched him stand, followed him as he walked the length of the room. He paused in the door, and turned to look at her.

"…What?" she asked, when he did not move.

"You. Just…I never get tired of seeing you like this."

She felt her lips turn up into a shy smile, and after another moment, he turned, and Rinoa heard him on the stairs. A door opened and closed, and a minute later Angelo padded into the room, and took her spot on the floor on Rinoa's side of the bed.

She flopped back onto her pillow, and lay for a few minutes, taking in what Squall had just said, her own dream still fresh in her mind. She thought of the night before-of the simple magic before they fell asleep, and reached for her necklace, listening to the clink as the rings fell against each other.

Engaged?

He hadn't mentioned it since waking, but then, neither had she. Rinoa slid two fingers through each of the rings, and thought about the significance of both. Neither ring was ever meant to be hers, at least not at the time they came to her. And yet, they had become talismans. On the rare occasions she swapped the necklace out for something more formal, she still kept the rings somewhere on her person. Without them she was exposed, though to what she could not say.

She dropped the rings and splayed her fingers out in front of her, and wondered. Did she want a new ring? Did she even need one? She'd worn a symbol of commitment around her neck for most of her life, had worn his symbol since he was still avoiding eye contact.

She thought of their conversation last night, when the night was warm and they were the only thing that mattered. Of him curled around her after she woke from her nightmare, even of this morning, and the longing she had to be as close to him as she could, to feel his blood pumping in her veins. Cocooned together, they created more than a ring could ever represent. In his embrace, she felt her pieces connect, all the rough edges smooth into a quiet whole, and all the aching she felt when he wasn't there faded away. The world could turn to chaos around them, and in his arms she would still be able to drift peacefully off to sleep.

She didn't need a ring to bind her to Squall; all she had to do was take a breath. The bond was already there.

Sorry for the delay in updating! Part of it was working on a Zell-centric piece for The Successor challenge, part of it was that August was an absurdly busy month, but most of it was that this story is turning out to be kind of a challenge to write! I'm about to hit my busiest time of year at work, but I will work on this as often as I can since I really want to tell to story.

i also realized while editing this that I am a terrible Rinoa-writer in that I chronically forget about Angelo! So I ret-conned her into the last two chapters. She doesn't really have a role in this (that I'm aware of at least), but I felt bad once I realized I should have at least acknowledged her... I think the inclusion of Angelo is the litmus test for whether the writer is a dog-owner or not!

Thanks to everyone who has left feedback so far!