January, twenty one years past

_._

"I give up." Rinoa was laying on the couch when Squall got home, three books on the floor, and a wine glass on the table beside her.

"I gathered from the text messages you sent." Squall walked into the kitchen. He emptied the contents of his pockets onto the counter, poured himself a glass from the half-empty bottle, and walked back into the living room to join her. Rinoa pulled her legs towards herself on the couch and gave him room to sit.

"I just don't know what else I can do."

"With..."

"Edea!"

"Mmm." Squall took a sip of wine, and Rinoa reached for her glass.

"I tried calling her again."

"No luck?"

"Cid answered. He said she was too busy to come to the phone. As usual. So I asked if they would like to come visit soon, and he said no, as usual, so I asked if they wanted us to come down there-"

"I see where this is going."

"Noelle will be four months old next week and they haven't even shown any interest in coming to meet her."

"I know."

Rinoa sat up, took another sip, and gestured widely with her glass. "We can't keep the others away, whether we want to or not. My father won't leave us alone for crying out loud! I mean, it figures that motherhood is the one thing I do that finally makes him proud, but good grief, if a man I've barely spoken with since I was a kid can make time to see his granddaughter, you'd think the people who raised you could figure it out. Or at the very least, let us go down and visit them if they don't want to travel!"

"I know-"

"Not that it even does us any good when we do go down there though, you know? Cid just wants to tell stories and Edea... I just don't know what to do, Squall. It's been over a decade, and I just... I thought at first she didn't want to talk to me because it was hard, or maybe even because she felt bad, and then maybe I thought it was because she didn't want to talk about having children since they never did and she didn't want to be the one to tell me I couldn't, and then maybe because we did, but it's just... It's like there is this endless line of excuses, and I-" Rinoa took a breath, forcing back the knot forming in her throat, and her voice was quieter when she continued. "I don't… I don't have a mother I can go to for advice. I just thought... She won't help me with this gift, maybe she can at least help me with the baby. Just... How long does this have to last?" She stared at her glass, and felt Squall lean closer, watching her.

"…"

"And then," Rinoa started again, "Then, there's the fact that when we do go down there, she sometimes won't even see us. Or she'll finally join us at the end, or only at the beginning. I just... Is she okay? Has Cid said anything to you?"

"You know we don't talk unless it's work related."

"Well, maybe you should try."

"Rinoa-"

"I know, I know. But I just really... I don't know if I have it in me to keep trying like this."

Squall said nothing, and let a hand rest against her knees.

"Say something comforting."

"Cid's retiring soon."

Rinoa's eyes grew wide and she just stared for a second. "Squall!"

"I just found out today."

"I just asked if he had said anything to you!"

"Well not about Edea, no."

"That still counts!" Rinoa shook her head, torn between annoyance and amusement.

"He didn't say why, but we figured it was coming soon."

"Are they going to offer you his job?"

"They already did."

"You said no?"

Squall nodded, and Rinoa stared at him, her mind racing.

"It's administrative. He runs the school, Rin, that's it. That's how we wanted it. I'm not going to give up a position that makes it my business to know what the world is saying about you in favor of hiring instructors and dealing with Garden's finances."

"No, I get that... But if he's retiring... What if there is something wrong with Edea?"

"Then they'll tell us if they want to."

Rinoa hugged her knees to her chest, and stared into her empty glass. "What if they never want to?"

"Rinoa... Do we tell everyone else our problems?"

"Ours are-"

"Not that. Us. Our...the miscarriages. You didn't tell anyone about those. You didn't even want to see Kadowaki because you didn't want anyone we knew to know."

"They were private. And painful."

"Exactly."

Rinoa glared at him, and then stuck out her tongue. "Meanie."

"It's frustrating to me as well that they won't talk to us, but it's their choice. We might not know the full story, and it's not our place to pry."

Rinoa sighed, and after a few minutes, they heard the sounds of Noelle waking up through the monitor.

"I'll go," Squall said, and gestured for Rinoa to stay seated.

She watched him walk out of the room, and thought about Cid's retirement, and whether there was something else to it or not.

You're being ridiculous, she told herself. He was certainly old enough, and had earned time to spend with his wife. But was that everything? Trying to talk to them and being shut out wasn't new, after all. For as long as Rinoa had known them, the most open she'd ever found Cid was the night she approached him in an inappropriately short skirt with a wild-shot request for a contract. And Edea…

Rinoa often thought of the first time she met her-met her, when neither of them were possessed, and neither of them were unconscious-but especially so in the last year. In that brief exchange, Rinoa felt the gravity of what they had exchanged, and accepted her as mother. They had discussed it-sort of-in the years that followed, the power of the succession. The chain that connected them through the ages, that threatened at any moment to overwhelm, that would overwhelm without the grounding influence only another could provide. But it was there on the beach, under the threatening storm and amidst the crushing, exposed terror she'd awoken to, that Edea was her mother, her creator. Squall had saved her, brought her back fromthe void of space (from death), and he was her tether, but Edea was the bold black line that gave a horizon to an otherwise empty white space.

Was. Or at least, she should have been.

But then, Squall was right. If something was wrong, they deserved to deal with it in privacy.

She heard Noelle's murmurs grow louder on the stairs, punctuated by Squall's heavy footfalls, and she set down her glass and watched them.

"Everything good?"

Squall nodded. Noelle pressed a hand against his chin and towards his mouth, and he kissed her fingers, and stood, swaying slightly, and looked to Rinoa.

"You're right," she said, and smiled when Noelle managed to get a grip around Squall's necklace. Just go with it, she thought. It had worked so far. Had worked for Squall, who trusted Rinoa and her instincts implicitly, and reassured her daily they were doing fine.

Squall pried Noelle's fingers from his necklace and when she started to fuss he lowered her to the floor so she was facing Rinoa. A smile broke across her face and she stretched her hands out in front of her and slowly dragged her body forward across the floor, and Rinoa scooped her up and blew a raspberry into her neck. Noelle giggled, and she repeated the motion.

Noelle had two parents. Which was more than Squall had ever had, more than she'd had past a certain age, and they did not need Edea's help or anybody else to make their daughter laugh, or to be able to laugh with her, or to show her every day that she was safe and loved.

"And really," Rinoa leaned down and whispered against Noelle's forehead to a response of tiny giggles. "That's all that matters."

_._

The ride home from the airport Monday night was quiet, and Squall kept his jaw locked and his eyes on the road for most of it, fighting back the lingering nausea from the landing. He had slept-actually slept-for most of the flight, Rinoa graciously waiting until they were taxiing in to wake him, but he had also dreamed, and his dream did not protect him from the feeling of his stomach falling into his throat.

If there was ever an advantage to Rinoa's nightmares, he thought, the one two days ago had at least distracted him from that feeling.

"Still there?" Rinoa's hand lay clasped in his on the hard seat of the cab, and she brought him out of his daze with a light brush of her thumb.

"It's passing."

The streetlights moved her in and out of the shadows, but he saw her smile, and returned it, weakly.

"I tried to let you sleep."

"I know. And I did. I think I was dreaming."

She was standing in front of him, her eyes glittering and her hair black, and he could not see past her to know where they were. She stared, a smile caught on her lips like a secret. She was trying to tell him something, if he could just focus-

"Dreaming?"

And finally, after what could have been hours she spoke, and her voice was young. "Wake up."

"Yeah."

"We're almost home, baby. Wake up."

"About-oh, we're almost home."

"Home?" He blinked, hard. Real Rinoa, older, shrouded in the shadows of the cab, furrowed her brow. "Yes, Squall… Where are you?"

She giggled, and walked towards him, leaning up so their noses touched.

"Squall?"

"Sorry. It's just the landing."

Rinoa shook her head, and they watched their house pull into view as the cab turned onto their street.

Working on the project that brought air travel to Timber (and the subsequent economic surge) was the first time Rinoa had mentioned her fear of flying. A fear she'd never had before space, she'd said. Not before she woke up looking at the planet from above with no clue as to how she got there and certain she would die. Flying, having an aerial view of the ground, brought back those memories. Squall watched her watch the first airplane land on Timber soil and told her he understood.

But he would always hate the landings.

They wondered, usually while laughing, at why two people who hated to fly would make their home so far away from the rest of the world. At how they would apparently never get used to it.

Then they would come home and it would all be worth it.

"Bed?"

They walked in through the side door and Squall looked down the hall, the thought of sleep, of their own bed tempting, the early call of his return to work already loud in his head. Instead he shook his head and nodded upstairs. "Coffee."

Rinoa smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that." She pulled their suitcase a few feet into the hall and Squall watched her, as he had in the cab. She was different, and he didn't think it had a thing to do with his dream, even if he wasn't brave enough to give it voice. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, and started the slow walk up the stairs. "Still waking up."

"Liar." She brushed past him, and in minutes the smell of coffee filled the living room, giving the house the feeling of very early morning despite the fact that it was not yet midnight. In the bright upstairs light their reflections took positions leaning against something in the kitchen while they watched the coffee finish brewing. Rinoa poured them each a mug, and they breathed in the feeling of home. The warm ceramic was comforting and chased away the last of the discomfort from the flight, and Squall ventured to speak.

"You seem-"

"You were dream-"

They looked at each other and Rinoa laughed, a growing laugh that nearly resulted in her spilling coffee all over the counter. Squall pulled the mug out of her hands, and used it to lead her towards the couch. "Yes, I was dreaming," he said, settling in while she regained composure, and he warmed at the closeness of her when she stretched her legs across his. "At least, I think."

"About what?"

"You." He handed her back her mug. "You're always in my dreams."

"Very romantic." She raised her eyebrows, and they let the darkness inherent in his comment slide. "What was I doing?"

"Watching me. I think you wanted to tell me something but I couldn't figure it out. Then you told me to wake up. I don't know if we were doing anything before the staring. But you were younger."

"You're calling me old?" She pulled on a few strands of her hair. "That's not very nice."

Squall paused, and Rinoa's laugh died out, the air around her dropping, if only for a second, into the old familiar.

"Maybe a little." He reached for his own hair as if to compare. "But at least you can take a flight of steps."

"And a walk around town."

"Now who isn't being nice?"

Rinoa let her hair fall through her fingers, and Squall absently brought his hand to his leg. If taking him out of service hadn't been reward enough, he occasionally appreciated this weakness, even if it was mostly background noise by now. Once it may have made him pitifully human beside her immortality, but now it was proof that they were both falling apart.

"It's been awhile."

"For-"

"Dreaming."

"For…both of us."

Squall took a slow pull of his coffee, enjoying the gentle pressure of Rinoa's legs on his, and listened to the muted crashing of the waves.

"I seem?"

"Hmm?"

"You said I seem. What?" Rinoa swung her legs to the floor and stood, and Squall handed her his empty cup, eyes never leaving her as she walked into the kitchen. She filled it, and hers, and stopped with the carafe in mid air to look at him. "Well?"

"…Happy." He felt the word sit, more than hang in the air. Rinoa bit her lip, set the carafe on the counter, and picked up her mug, holding it more tightly than was probably necessary.

"I…" she started.

"I just mean…"

"No, it's… I- This weekend…" She sighed, and Squall frowned. "No, don't."

"Don't-"

"Don't get frowny."

"I'm not."

"You are. You're frowning."

"That doesn't mean I'm frowny."

"I just…" Her shoulders dropped, and she picked up his mug and walked towards him. "I meant it. What I said, yesterday, about being relieved."

"Okay."

"But you're still waiting for the bottom to fall out."

"…."

"Squall…"

"It was my idea."

"I told you. You didn't betray me."

"I feel like I did."

"You…" She brought her coffee to her lips, and Squall watched the ripples skate across it where her breath hit the surface. "I felt like you did when I first woke up yesterday."

"I-"

"-Let me finish. When I first woke up. I just… I woke up, and I was in bed and Noelle was there, and of course I knew what had happened, and I… I was angry. Angry with Noelle for being there, and with myself. Angry with you, because if you hadn't decided we needed to go down there… But then… I don't know, Squall. I just kind of watched Noelle for a few minutes, and it hit me that the person I'm really angry with is Edea."

"Edea?" Squall furrowed his eyebrows and shifted so he could face her more directly. Edea? It had been awhile since…

Rinoa nodded. "And not just for hiding this. For… For everything. Well maybe not everything, not for…for the succession itself. But everything afterwards. Never talking to me. Never teaching me. This…thing happened between us that nobody had any control over, and she…left me to drown. And I spent all of this time making up excuses as to why without ever really… Well, I guess I just wanted to blame anyone but her. I wanted to blame Cid, or Garden, or Seifer, sometimes even you if we'd just had a fight. Anyone else, because I kept hoping if I was good enough or patient enough or whatever enough she would come around, but then… After she died I thought that maybe I forgave her, because we were already talking about passing it to Noelle, and I just thought of how hard it was going to be to explain everything, but… I haven't. I haven't forgiven her at all. I don't even think I realized until yesterday just how angry I've been." She paused. "Am."

"Rin…" Something in him twisted, and she looked so small, sitting beside him with her eyes cast down.

"And I don't… I don't want that. I don't want Noelle to resent me years after I'm gone because I was too…what, ashamed? to be there for her."

"They're…" The words died, already wrong, and Squall took in a small breath.

"Don't… They are the same." She looked up and met his eyes. "They are. It doesn't… It doesn't matter that now it's family, or intentional, or that the first time Edea even met me was when… It shouldn't have mattered. And if it did, she… She had a chance to make up for it. Whether she had any blame in it or not, she had the I chance to help, and she didn't."

"Do you think it's because of-"

"-this?" Rinoa waved an arm across her face, and let her eyes close and started to fall back against the couch.

"Hey-" Squall pressed a hand between her shoulders to catch her and she opened her eyes. "That's not funny."

Rinoa took a last sip of her coffee and set the mug on the table, and sighed. "It isn't. But…yes. I do think it's why, but it doesn't… Anyway, that's why… I'm grateful. Because I was going to do the same thing, for the same reason, without even realizing it. Only it would have been worse because I told Noelle I would be there for her. And…now I get to be."

Squall slid his fingers across her back and into her hair, and when she didn't continue, he said, "But now something's bothering you. You were lighter when we got home."

"It's not…bothering me, I don't think." She sighed. "Maybe I'm just thinking about it more, now that I'm talking about it."

He arched an eyebrow.

"I'm really… I'm okay with this Squall. I promise. And… I don't know. I want to…" She sat up a little straighter now, her eyes brighter. "I want to find out more about it."

He felt the twisted thing inside him start to uncoil. "You-"

"I do. You know, we don't even know for a fact this actually happened to Edea. Maybe all those times she wouldn't talk to us or they would spontaneously cancel plans they really were just shutting us out. Maybe we're reading too much into it. It would explain why Ellone never said anything. Still hasn't said anything." She leaned back, and Squall shook his head.

"I don't know that I would go that far."

"I don't think that's it, but we don't know. Not for a fact. In all the research we've done over the last thirty years, all those hours you spent in Odine's lab, we never heard anything about this."

"Well it's hard to research what happens after you transfer your powers when there are so few documented cases of it happening…peacefully." He chose his words carefully, and Rinoa laughed.

"You mean when most of my predecessors were killed by angry mobs?"

"Or shot into space."

"Or were so old or isolated that nobody would have thought twice about them blanking out even if they did."

"Yeah. That's pretty much what I meant." He returned her smile now, and she reached for his hand. He traced his thumb across one of the thin white lines on her fingers and she stretched them out. "I guess we aren't as done learning about this as we thought."

"Guess not. There's probably no need to ask if you've still got all of that, is there?"

"No," he shook his head. "No there really isn't." Boxes of essays and experiments, crazed notes scratched onto napkins and detailed historical accounts, all taken slowly from Esthar with Laguna's help, outside of Garden's radar. Squall guarded them as closely as his gunblade-possibly even closer; even this far south, after this much time, he checked their vault regularly. A compulsion Rinoa once teased him about, until he finally stopped talking about them and his paranoia became simply habit. And now…

"What?"

His smile spread, and he was amazed that his initial reaction to learning about Seifer's research had been anger, to telling her had been apprehension. "I still have everything. But I may have something even better."