The call came two weeks later, on the first day of spring.

They were at the park, after a late breakfast ("Brunch," Rinoa had corrected him. "If you're given ballroom dancing lessons, I know Garden taught you dining habits of people who can afford to rename their meals."). The sun broke evenly that morning, and now, nearing midday, Rinoa watched the thin sliver of moon though the bright green buds on the trees, and thought she felt a sense of sadness flowing through it from so many thousands of miles away.

"It's the sun's turn now," she told it. "It's your time to rest. Thank you for keeping us safe."

She took a few more moments to watch, and wondered if she could remember a time when the moon lingered, on the day spring came. She decided it was not true sadness, but a melancholy feeling; as the days grew longer the moon would have fewer hours to bathe the world in her own light, but more time to see through the eyes of the sun. She mourned her time missed in the last night she held dominion, but was glad to bear witness to the return of her lover.

I know the feeling, Rinoa thought.

She looked away from the sky to an open space where Squall had been throwing a ball for Angelo, and frowned. Angelo was still running happily back and forth, but Squall was on the phone, and his body language was stiff. A chill ran through her, and Rinoa fought back a surge of nausea.

"No," she said, and waited to walk towards him. Surely, this was just an annoyance. Something he could handle over the phone, even if he'd rather not have to deal with it. Or something easy, and she could come along as well. Since his return home on her birthday he'd only had to leave again once, and it was only to return to Balamb for a few days, and she went with him. She still hated to leave him, to say goodbye when he left for the better part of the day, but in the airy room of the Balamb hotel, against the sounds of the sea and without so much of them in every room, on every wall, the way it was at home, she could bide her time with far less anxiety.

So maybe it was Balamb, again. Maybe it was Trabia, and she could visit Selphie. Or maybe…

She sighed. Angelo was running towards her, and Rinoa knelt down to greet her.

"It's bad news, isn't it?" she asked, and Angelo rubbed her head against Rinoa's arm in response. "That's what I thought."

She stood, and they walked slowly back towards Squall. He still had his back to her, and was gesticulating wildly with his free hand, but he grew still before she caught up to him. He dropped both hands and his shudders slumped, and when he finally turned she was ten feet away, and everything she needed to know was written all over his face.

He shook his head and started towards her, and the nausea rose again, along with a crippling fear, and in that fear, she knew. This is it. This was the call they'd known would come, the contract they were never going to avoid. "Squall…"

His lips were drawn into a tight line, and she could feel anger pulsing from him before he'd even reached her. When he did, he opened his arms and she leaned into his embrace.

They stood there, silent. He rested his chin on top of her head, and she could feel his eyes trained at some point in the distance, listened to his measured breaths. She closed her eyes, and tried not to imagine what he was about to say.

"When?" she finally asked.

"I leave tomorrow morning," he said.

"Tomorrow-"

"Rin." He loosened his arms around her and leaned back, and she looked at his face, and the fear grew stronger. "The team leaves tomorrow afternoon. Xu wanted me there today and I refused."

"I bet… I'm sure she took that well."

"Exactly like you'd imagine. But there's… I had a bargaining chip. It's not just when we leave. We're going to Centra-"

Her heart froze-

"-and there's no way of knowing when we'll return."

.

If she dreamed that night, Rinoa did not remember.

They woke early, and were quiet in the dark hours before sunrise. Squall got dressed and double checked his bag, and Rinoa made coffee, and they tried to pretend like it was a normal mission. He would only be gone for a couple of nights, and they would be able to check in with each other, and then he would be home, and they would put it behind them. In the year they had lived in Timber, that was their routine. It might not get easier, but there was a small comfort in knowing what to expect they had ignored until now.

Squall dropped his bags by the front door, and Rinoa met him in the living room and handed him a mug. The house always seemed darker in early morning than it did at night, and their eyes met in the dim lamplight. He looked exhausted, and Rinoa saw worry in his eyes, worry she did not usually see before he left. She reached up and brushed her hand against his cheek, and he sighed.

"I wish I could say something," he said. "I wish I knew enough to have something to say."

"I know."

He took a sip of coffee and set the mug down on the end table, and drew her towards him. Pressed against his chest she measured her breathing against his heartbeat, and it reminded her of weeks ago, laying in bed, and hearing the same sound as she fought the same feeling of helplessness.

"Your dreams-" she started, and then paused. What about them?

"They're dreams, Rin."

"But what if this time…this time is different. What if they aren't dreams? What if they're predictions?"

"Will knowing that now change anything?"

"It will…"

He tightened his hold around her, and she tried to relax, to lean into his emotions. If she could feel what he was feeling, maybe she could hold onto that while he was gone, draw them out and lay beside them at night when he wasn't there.

At first she felt only her own concern, and wondered if any chance of reaching through to him was stuck on the knot in her throat, and the tightness in her chest. And then-she found him. She felt fear, along with anger and regret. But mostly, she felt love. She felt it running through him, moving between them. It was powerful, and threatened to take hold of her, suffocate her. It was the love she felt for him multiplied, made stronger in their embrace and in the knowledge that it could be months before they could hold each other again. She closed her eyes and let it envelope her, and when it became too strong for her to feel like she could hold any longer, she gasped, and as she did, Squall's hands moved from her back as if burned.

She stepped back and he stared at her, wide-eyed, and slowly placed his hands against her shoulders.

"What..?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It was you," she said. "I think."

"Me?"

"I wanted to… I tried to feel what you were feeling. It was so strong…"

"That wasn't just me. I felt it…I felt the change. It felt like… Well, like my skin was gone. Like everything inside of me was free to move into you. Like we were air. And then you-"

He pulled his hands away and held them, palms up, and she could see bright red lines running over them.

"Squall…" she reached for his hands, and stopped, and stared at her own. The veins on her fingers pulsed brightly, fading even as they watched. He took one of her hands in his, and traced the lines with one of his fingers.

"They're warm," he said. He brought his free hand to her face and brushed aside her hair, and looked at her, brows furrowed.

"My eyes?"

"Normal," he said. "They're normal. They're yours."

She let out a breath, and fell against him once again, not, this time, out of desperation, but relief.

"I don't want to leave you," he whispered into her hair, sincerity rough in his voice, and Rinoa blinked back tears.

"I don't want you to leave."

"I'll call, as soon as I get to Balamb. And again, when I know what communication will look like. Rin…"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me…you'll leave, if you need to. Go see Selphie. Or Ellone. Even Zone, as much as I hate to say it. Find someone. I can't…I can't think about you here by yourself. Not knowing what it's like for you."

"Squall-"

"Please, Rinoa. I need to know you'll be okay."

"I'll…"

She felt the barriers between them fading again, and wondered, how could he expect her to make that promise? She wouldn't be okay without him. Not when she needed him to breathe.

But it could be weeks, if not months. And in that time…

"I'll call someone," she finally said. "So at least I'm not alone."

"Thank you."

He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, and she reached her arms behind him and pulled him in. The kiss burned, and she welcomed it. She wanted it to burn an impression that would last through his time away, that would stay with her like a brand. The kiss burned, and it brought fire into her veins, and she tasted need on his lips, felt it in his touch. He reached one hand into her hair and slid his other up her shirt, down her back and under the waistband of her pants, and she gasped, and pulled him closer.

"You'll miss your train," she whispered into his ear, grazing it with her teeth, and brought her hands around to his belt.

"No, I won't."

He pinned her against the front door, and in moments thrust inside her, and all the longing, all the build-up since he got the phone call yesterday, they took out on each other. It was anger, it was passion, and it was a reminder that they were all that existed in the world, and in the climax Rinoa knew, knew, this was not the end. They would see each other again, and it would be soon. There was too much between them, for the world to keep them apart.

She told him that. Twenty minutes later, standing on the train platform in the same thin pants and t-shirt of his she'd pulled off the floor that morning, she leaned in and whispered it in his ear before he stepped onto the train that would carry him away from her.

He gripped her hand, and paused, and looked at her, their faces flat in the gaslight of the station lamps.

"I believe you," he said.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

And with a last, soft kiss, he disappeared on the train. She stayed on the platform until it pulled out of sight, and drove in silence back to their house. The sun was rising when she got home, and when she opened the front door her eyes swept over the dim grey of their living room. Squall's coffee mug was still on the end table where he'd left it, cold and mostly full. She felt tears in her eyes and shook her head, and stepped forward to take the mug-and stopped.

On the carpet beside the table, exactly where they had stood when she felt the lines between them dissolve, were two sets of scorch marks, in the perfect shape of their footprints.

Anyone who participated in/read the submissions for Where I Belong may note that my participation in that was pretty high-especially compared to The Successor challenge last month, where I barely scraped out a single one shot. I also started working on The Successor-my story, not the challenge-that year, only to find out less than a week after I posted the first chapter that I was pregnant (which I kind of suspected at the time but figured I'd start the story anyway).

Apparently, that's a thing for me. Because I started this story near the end of July, and less than a week after the first chapter, got confirmation that I had in fact, once again, found inspiration to start a new full-length story immediately following the conception of a child. (Insert "well my husband is a writer" jokes here). So-surprise! The reason I didn't do much for this year's challenge, and why I went over a month without an update on this, is because my brain lately has been completely occupied by first-trimester ickies, with the added fun of already having a toddler. But if I was able to complete one story during pregnancy and having a newborn, surely I can do it again...right?