A.N.: Welcome to the Epilogue! (cue 'Final Countdown' music) Just to make up for me not being able to add a proper Author's Note last time, due to a stupid cybercafe computer, you get a super-enormous one this time... I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my super-talented editor AtheneMiranda for bouncing around the ideas for this story, as well as my others. She deserves special recognition for forcing Selphie and Rinoa to stay in character throughout. (She'd love some reviewers for her own stories, mainly in the FFVII, FFIX and Mercedes Lackey sections...go make her happy!) Thanks also to the communities at www.ffwa.org and www.ffonline.com who reviewed it on its first net outing, and to *deep breath* djinxx, Stella Anon, Mistress Moonflower, Mayonaka, beamy, Baconfat, Sakaki22, klepto-maniac0, Quyckslver, Angelprinczess29, JessyNick, Eve, Lili, no name yet!, Makira-chan, ShadowsOfDeath, DarkJedi, Eria, WolfwoodLover, ?, Milly, Silver Hawk, Crystal Cat, Arafel, a reader, dipstick and REM who reviewed here. And to the characters, who put up with living in the inside of my head for several months without too many complaints.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed my first-written exploration of the FFVIII universe. For those of you who might be interested in where it came from, look in the archives for a powerful little songfic called 'Sober' by Lucky Girl's Confusion, a.k.a. Allora Attwater. I was convinced Laguna and Squall's relationship couldn't be allowed to work out the way it did in that fic, and the rest, as they say, is history. This closing scene was one of the first bits of the story I got set up; I hope you think it works.
EPILOGUE: TOGETHER
Squall sighed to himself as he limped up the winding staircase at the top of the Palace. A fortnight on, he was sure he would never be quite the same person again. It wasn't just that he was so badly injured that he'd been prescribed a minimum of two months away from his gunblade. His confidence was shattered. The war hero he had once been was a distant memory. He couldn't imagine why the others didn't reject him as a leader.
He'd spent a full week recovering in the infirmary, with the whole of Esthar fussing over him. Once he left he was rarely out of Rinoa's company. They would walk the streets at night for the sake of being together. He wasn't meant to be working yet, but he'd wanted to get back into the mission's administration; she stayed by his side through every meeting. He often felt himself reach for her before offering a suggestion, like he needed to be reassured he could still do his job properly. When she wasn't there, he would retreat behind a wall of silence unless someone else silently accepted substituting for her. It was hard to remember that not everybody lived to hurt him.
Somehow, Laguna kept stepping up to fill the role. Squall was too uncertain of himself to be anything but suggestible, but at times he felt he did all but bend over backwards to accept Laguna's support.
He inhaled the night air as he came out onto the roof. Esthar glittered below him. His eyes traced the city's contours, easily distinguishing the different districts: the West End; the miniature city of advanced technological industries round Odine's Laboratory; Upper North Side, the financial district; the Poor Quarter; the docking area round the station and the harbour. Laguna's city. Here and now he could see why the man sacrificed himself for it.
That was the heart of it. Squall would and did do anything for Garden. Laguna's loyalty to Esthar was as strong.
He suddenly realised he wasn't alone. Twenty feet away someone was leaning on the parapet, looking out over the city. Squall moved closer; the man turned at the sound of his footfalls, and he saw it was his father. Laguna raised a hand in greeting. Squall returned the wave, and slowly walked to Laguna's side.
They actually seemed to be developing a tentative kind of friendship. There were still personality clashes and the occasional row, but the only one that had been anywhere near as serious as their old spats had abruptly stopped when Kiros burst out laughing at the sight of Squall and Laguna glaring at each other nose to nose. Their profiles were so similar it had looked like someone had stuck a mirror between their faces. Squall had to smile when he remembered that.
"What are you doing up here?" Squall asked.
Laguna laughed. "Trying to be busy. While you were missing I dropped everything so I could help look for you. I made the mistake of letting someone else pick it all up. Now everyone's so used to filling in I'm left with nothing to do. That's usually when I start acting the klutz. I need to wrestle my work back from the secretaries and commanders before someone notices I'm an idiot."
Squall was silent. Before Raine had appeared to save his sanity, knowing that Laguna was looking for him had meant everything to him. Coming round to find that his father had rescued him, he had again clung to the idea that Laguna might think he was worth something. He didn't know why Laguna had believed. He never would unless he asked. But that belief in him was the foundation of the rebuilding he had to do.
"Why did you do it?" he asked in the end.
"Do what?"
Squall looked down. "Rescue me. Think I was worth rescuing. I don't know."
Laguna sighed. "You know the sad thing? You mean that when you say it."
Squall glanced at him, then looked away. He couldn't face the intensity in Laguna's green eyes anymore. "I've always found it - hard to remember good things about myself. It kind of gets taken for granted that I'll succeed. Maybe I'm insecure, but I like to be told I've done well. It never happens. I just get criticised when I do badly. That happens - kind of often."
He looked down at the cast on his right hand. Even with Selphie's best healing magic poured into it, it would take another month for the bone to recover and even then he would have to face rebuilding the muscle before he could fight again. The ankle injury wasn't as serious but it would need hours of physiotherapy before it could bear his weight in battle.
When the doctors had first revealed the extent of his injuries to him, his first reaction had been to wonder if living through this had been worth it. What would he do, if he could never fight again? The idea of a life without SeeD was completely alien to him. He wouldn't know how to be a civilian.
But he would always have Rinoa. She'd held him after the doctors had gone away, telling him over and over again how much she loved him, until he felt he was doing something useful just by being with her. She would be lost without him. That thought had buoyed him up; but then she had gone to make a phone call and he'd not been able to stop wondering if she would ever come back.
She might find another lover. Laguna could not find another son. If he could mean something to him as well as to Rinoa and their child, that might be his salvation. If someone saw him as unique, valuable... Squall silently damned his unsteady emotions. People couldn't always have someone to reassure them of their own worth. He had to remember how to live without hope. It was the only way to survive.
He tensed up all over at the gentle touch of Laguna's hand on his back. "Tell me what you think you're doing wrong."
"Why?"
"Because."
He was waiting for an answer, not as a friend or parent but as an authority figure, demanding the truth. "The Garden has records of the people I've sent to their deaths. My friends could tell you all the times I've let them get injured by being careless. It was my fault Seifer kidnapped Irvine. I screw up on missions all the time because I think I've finished a job and I haven't. I neglect Rinoa. I ignore my friends. I -" He broke off when Laguna put a hand over his mouth.
"Listen to yourself. Then think of all you've achieved. Then remember nobody's perfect. Then ask yourself why little mistakes matter so much."
"You call lost lives a little mistake?"
"You aren't meant to be the nanny of every SeeD out there. They graduate because they're competent. After that it's the responsibility of their squad leader to make sure they don't go off and kill themselves. Making sure the wrong people don't graduate is all you can do." It kind of made sense, but... "That won't make you stop thinking about the deaths. But I hope it will stop you martyring yourself over them." Laguna gave Squall a little shake. "You are worth something. Even if you don't believe it."
"What -"
"- ever," Laguna finished. "I'm serious, Squall."
Maybe he was right. Maybe there was a place where a mercenary could live free from nightmares. "I wish I believed you."
"You can," Laguna answered simply. "I know it. You just need to think a bit differently."
Squall looked at him and for the first time saw the handful of lines on his face, the evidence of the strains he'd overcome. The times he'd been shattered by what he'd gone through and had simply carried on because he had to. And if he could do it, so could Squall. "Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"Do you think you could ever be proud of me?"
Laguna looked at him like he didn't understand the question. "I am proud of you. I don't know how I could be anything else. I mean, you saved us all from Ultimecia, for Hyne's sake. You're a hero."
"I was just there. I did what I was supposed to. I don't feel like anything special for just doing my job."
"That's what makes you special. Doing something insanely dangerous because you thought it was the right thing to do."
Squall absorbed the words, his head tilted to one side. "I think we're starting to understand each other a little - father to son."
Laguna put a hand on his arm. "We're learning. That's got to be a good thing."
"Mother would approve." Squall smiled, and the expression felt genuine for once. He hadn't heard from Raine since he'd left intensive care - she'd told him he was, paradoxically, healing to the stage where she could no longer reach him - but he was sure she was still watching him. It was sometimes like he could hear half a snatch of laughter, or could smell her flowers in the air. He hadn't mentioned her to Laguna again, mainly because the other man had never quite brought himself to believe she wasn't a figment of Squall's delirious imagination. Rinoa had believed him, though - Rinoa and Ellone.
Elle was something else entirely. She'd been the one to tell him she'd moved in with Laguna, and she had missed out on an explosion only by retreating from the infirmary before he found his voice. For a good few minutes Squall had been sure he'd heard her wrong. He hadn't wanted to believe his sister had seduced his father. Thank Hyne he'd not picked up the wrong idea and thought it was Laguna's fault. Selphie had eventually forced him to accept the whole idea, mainly by shouting, "But it's so sweet!" down his ear until he promised to give in if she would go away.
"How's Rinoa?" Laguna asked.
"Adjusting. Edea yelled at her for two hours straight when she heard she'd been using sorcery during pregnancy. She's not technically a SeeD so no-one's going to argue if she quits for a year." He still had to pinch himself to remember it wasn't a dream; he really was going to be a father. "She's on maternity leave and I'm supposed to be on sick leave; we were planning on taking a week or so out for some quiet time."
"So you can talk about how you never learnt to put on a condom?"
He realised Laguna was joking and half-smiled. "I could say the same to you."
He was right, of course. One mishap had left them coping with its consequences. Not that he didn't want a family. But he doubted his ability to bring up a child. He didn't want to land himself with anything like Laguna's problems; he never wanted to face a son who didn't understand.
"I'll look forward to coming back to Esthar."
"I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that."
"I'm happy to say it."
He grinned. "Maybe Rinoa'll teach you how to relax while you're away."
Squall snorted. "That's about as likely as Seifer going straight."
"The craziest bit of all of this is he didn't mean to do anything."
"All the same -"
The door behind them banged open. "Squall! Laguna! You out here?" called Kiros.
"Yeah, what is it?" Laguna answered.
Zell pushed past the Vice-President. "Some Trabian troop ship's been blown up off the Balamb coast. Their Prime Minister's on the line asking why the fuck we let Seifer loose."
Squall and Laguna glanced at each other. "You want -" Squall started.
"- to go do something useful?" Laguna finished.
Squall smiled. "Great idea, Dad."