(Squall POV)
I had never had 'brunch' before.
At Garden, there was no such thing. Breakfast: 0700. Lunch: 1200. Dinner: 2000. If you missed a meal, you went hungry. There were no vending machines. You had to walk to Balamb if you wanted a snack, and a hungry person is not interested in walking five miles just for potato chips. So when Rinoa woke me at 10:30 (How did I sleep until 10:30?) and asked if we wanted to have brunch with Dreylen, Zone, Watts and a few others the first question out of my mouth was...
"What's brunch?"
To which Rinoa giggled and explained, slowly and delibrately, as if I were a small child, exactly what brunch was. Apparently, it a time just between breakfast and lunch for people who either missed the former or wanted a head start on the latter. Go figure. To be completely honest, I found the entire concept a bit silly. Why have a separate word for something that could be fit by two already existing words? It was inefficient and clumsy.
Regardless of the logistics behind the idea of 'brunch' I agreed and there I was, sitting with Rinoa on one side of me and Dreylen on the other. Zone, Watts, an older man, slightly balding, whose name was Treston sat on the other side of the table. The five of them were all making pleasant conversation, while I simply sat there and ate.
I wasn't paying much attention to their conversation, it was typical small talk. Hello, how are you, I am fine, what have you been up to, oh nothing much. That sort of thing just drained and weighed down on me like, like, like I was Atlas or something. So I looked around, smiled amiably, nodded occasionally, and ate. Rinoa would give me a smile, or a wink, or would simply squeeze my hand to reassure me that, at the very least, she was happy that I was there.
It was funny, how that could make ME happy, now.
"So, Squall." Dreylen said. And it was funny how now I was aware of my own name so much more acutely because I realized that it's okay that people wanted to talk to me. "I want the whole story."
I held back a sigh. I really didn't want to be talking about me. "There's not much to tell. I saw her at my SeeD graduation party. Then I was sent to Timber to help liberate it. Then we got caught up in the entire sorceress debacle."
Rinoa looked at me for a second like she thought I was joking.
"What?" I asked, completely oblivious.
"Do you know HOW to tell a story?" She said, half incredulous, half joking.
"Not unless it starts with 'Once upon a time.'" I replied, making everyone crack a few giggles. I surprised myself with that one. She brings out the very, very tiny shred of playfulness I still have left in me. Hopefully, she'll also be able to nurture it and help it grow. It felt good to make people laugh.
"You just made a joke." Rinoa deadpanned, looking at my completely serious face.
"Yes. I did." I said, just as evenly.
She broke out into a big smile at that and I was sure she'd have given me a hug, but as it was we were in kind of an awkward position at the 'brunch' table for hugging.
"Can I tell the story now?" She asked and, at my nodding continued.
"Well, once upon a time." She began, giving me a wink and a giggle. "I was invited by Seifer to a SeeD graduation ball."
Seifer. The name still stirred up a few memories. I remembered so many things about Rinoa and Seifer. Too many things. When she said she thought she loved him in Galbadia Garden. When she asked me if 'he' was here back in that train in Timber. The look in her eyes the first time we fought on Edea's parade float.
"...going to like me, you're going to like me.' That's what I said, and I could tell he was really confused...."
I believed then, I think. That she wanted Seifer. I believed then. I believed when we were in Deling. I believed up until we were in Fisherman's Horizon and she talked to me. Worried about me. And maybe, even then, I thought of myself as a replacement. Sitting in. But then we faced Seifer in Galbadia Garden. And she looked at him as if he were the Devil himself. Not betrayed. Not hurt. Just...'you monster.' Exactly how I felt.
"...tired of pretending he couldn't dance, I guess, because he just stood up in a perfect dance position a..."
Why? Why in the hell is she still here, sitting next to me, smiling because she's talking about me? Why, after all that time of pushing away, did I only need to embrace her once to bring her to me? How did she see right through all apathy and callous treatment to this person sitting next to her now? Still introverted, still quiet, but no longer bitter for the company around me. No longer scared of someone caring.
"...found out later that I was the only person that he let shake his hand..."
Still scared, though, of losing someone. I know, I know. It's completely unwarranted, it's completely unnecessary. The only way I can logically think of losing Rinoa is either by her dying, me dying, or me pushing her away. And, you know what is inconceivably stupid on my part? Sometimes I still consider pushing her away. Can you believe that!? Sometimes I STILL consider pushing her AWAY.
"...saw that attack on Deling in Timber and got so worried for Seifer and..."
I am such a moron.
"...we ended up staying at Forest Fox headquarters..." "You mean Anita's house!" Laughter.
No, seriously. How can I even think that? This woman who has SAVED MY LIFE. This woman who I'M GOING TO MARRY. This woman who means EVERYTHING TO ME. Was I that far gone? Had I been pushed so far that pushing people way was the ONLY thing I could do? Part of me thinks so, but another part of me, the part of me that's sitting here right now, smiling and listening to everyone here chat about 'our adventure' reassures me that there was a person buried beneath all of my defense mechanisms.
"...headed for Galbadia Garden. We wound up getting an order for the assassination of..."
'They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.'
That's a quote I read from a book in the library, after Rinoa had dragged me there but before I had spoken with Ellone when I didn't know she was Ellone. Just paging through the books and I came to that page and those words were at the top. And that's exactly what happened to us. Wrong place. Wrong time. Naturally, we are now heroes.
"...Caraway sent us on some kind of test of strength, to the Tomb of the Unknown King and..."
But, even more striking than that to me, was the quote I noticed in my room when I first stepped into it after defeating Ultimecia. I was battered, I was bruised, I was completely out of it. But I still saw this small slip of paper out of place in my room and I picked it up and I read it. It was in a handwriting I couldn't recognize, or simply hadn't seen in a long time.
It said, 'When you can do anything, you forget you shouldn't.'
"...Ended up being controlled by the sorceress and about to be fed to her pets before Squall and Irvine..."
When you can do anything, you forget you shouldn't.
It was that little slip of paper, more than anything, that convinced me to leave Garden. Cid, Edea, all the junior classmen, all my peers, all my friends. They were saying, 'You're amazing, Squall!' and, 'Wow, Squall, how did you do it?' and, 'Squall, you can do ANYTHING!' And their voices were pounding and pounding at my head like moths trapped in a lampshade.
"...Squall actually JUMPED OFF THE CAROUSEL, stole a car and drove it right up to Edea. And Seifer was there, too..."
I could do anything. And I didn't want to forget that I shouldn't. So I didn't do anything, I did what was right. I did what was I knew was my best option. I left, so I could do nothing, instead of anything. When you can do nothing, your efforts are never in vain. That was what I wrote on the back side of the piece of paper that still sat in my billfold. My own personal response.
"...Caraway got me out, JUST ME! And Irvine went in there and took me, JUST ME! So I forced him to..."
Caraway. After today, we are heading to Deling City. To speak to Carway. To speak with General Darius Caraway, de facto President of Galbadia. Not about politics. Not about rank. To talk about courtship. To ask this man if I was allowed to have his daughter's hand in marriage. Though Rinoa would say it would be a stretch to call her his daughter. And if there was any righteousness in the world, it wouldn't matter what he said.
"...And I was just so happy to see Squall alive." Here she looked at me, smiling. And I smiled back, not for any particular reason. But just because seeing her smile made me smile. "...Well, after he saved me life, that's when I started..."
I had realized last night that I, too, needed permission from my father to marry, given that I was still a minor. So, at three in the morning, I called Laguna - who was still up, to my surprise - and he got so incredibly EXCITED that it was me on the phone that he spilled his coffee on himself. He asked me what I needed and I said, 'Permission to marry this beautiful woman next to me.' And he said, 'Are you sure Rinoa would be okay with that?'
I laughed. For the first time, in a long time, I laughed at a joke.
'Since I'm the one next to him, I'm more than okay with it.' Rinoa yelled into the phone.
We laughed. Together.
As a family.
"...Split up. Selphie and Quistis and Zell headed to the missile base and Squall, Irvine and I headed to Garden..."
How bizarre it was to think of that. A family. Laguna, Rinoa, Caraway and I were a family. We might be a dysfunctional, bastardization of a family, but we would still be related, despite or maybe because of our dysfunctions. We would have holidays together. We would exchanges gifts with each other. We would stare each other down and we would take each other's sides in arguments.
Am I really only seventeen years old?
"...Fight our way down into the bottom of Garden to start the engines that caused it to fly, and we managed to avoid the...."
Maybe in numerical years. Maybe in the amount of days that I have been alive on this planet. But in experience, and in my mind, I am so fucking old it's not funny. But the great thing about having an old mind is this. You can always make it young again. And that's exactly what I was doing. Rinoa could make me feel 17 again. Rinoa could heal me in a way she would never really understand.
I know I am in love with Rinoa because she can save me from myself.
"...slammed into Fisherman's Horizon, and ended up being stuck there for days. We were so worried about where the others..."
What would our future hold? Children? White picket fences? Utter and total confusion? Complete chaos? Undiluted passion? Understanding of one another in a way that is completely misunderstood by anyone who isn't us? Just true fucking love?
"...Destroyed this beaten up old...tank slash train type thing and out come our friends, and Squall's face just lit up..."
I don't know. I have no idea. And, you know, it's only now that I'm beginning to realize that having no idea is okay. It is okay to be spontaneous. It is okay to be surprising. It IS okay just to say 'I don't know.' And it's okay to be wrong. I don't have to do everything. Because then I might forget that I shouldn't.
I only have to do nothing, and then every effort is worthwhile.
I looked at Dreylen across the table from me, who had been watching me. I had been watching Rinoa the entire time. I think she knew I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, I was just watching her as her mouth moved. And, you know, I don't think Dreylen was paying any attention either. She was watching me watch Rinoa, a content smile on her face.
'You really love her, don't you.' Is what Dreylen would say to me afterwards.
'Yes.' I replied, 'I do.'
I had never had 'brunch' before.
At Garden, there was no such thing. Breakfast: 0700. Lunch: 1200. Dinner: 2000. If you missed a meal, you went hungry. There were no vending machines. You had to walk to Balamb if you wanted a snack, and a hungry person is not interested in walking five miles just for potato chips. So when Rinoa woke me at 10:30 (How did I sleep until 10:30?) and asked if we wanted to have brunch with Dreylen, Zone, Watts and a few others the first question out of my mouth was...
"What's brunch?"
To which Rinoa giggled and explained, slowly and delibrately, as if I were a small child, exactly what brunch was. Apparently, it a time just between breakfast and lunch for people who either missed the former or wanted a head start on the latter. Go figure. To be completely honest, I found the entire concept a bit silly. Why have a separate word for something that could be fit by two already existing words? It was inefficient and clumsy.
Regardless of the logistics behind the idea of 'brunch' I agreed and there I was, sitting with Rinoa on one side of me and Dreylen on the other. Zone, Watts, an older man, slightly balding, whose name was Treston sat on the other side of the table. The five of them were all making pleasant conversation, while I simply sat there and ate.
I wasn't paying much attention to their conversation, it was typical small talk. Hello, how are you, I am fine, what have you been up to, oh nothing much. That sort of thing just drained and weighed down on me like, like, like I was Atlas or something. So I looked around, smiled amiably, nodded occasionally, and ate. Rinoa would give me a smile, or a wink, or would simply squeeze my hand to reassure me that, at the very least, she was happy that I was there.
It was funny, how that could make ME happy, now.
"So, Squall." Dreylen said. And it was funny how now I was aware of my own name so much more acutely because I realized that it's okay that people wanted to talk to me. "I want the whole story."
I held back a sigh. I really didn't want to be talking about me. "There's not much to tell. I saw her at my SeeD graduation party. Then I was sent to Timber to help liberate it. Then we got caught up in the entire sorceress debacle."
Rinoa looked at me for a second like she thought I was joking.
"What?" I asked, completely oblivious.
"Do you know HOW to tell a story?" She said, half incredulous, half joking.
"Not unless it starts with 'Once upon a time.'" I replied, making everyone crack a few giggles. I surprised myself with that one. She brings out the very, very tiny shred of playfulness I still have left in me. Hopefully, she'll also be able to nurture it and help it grow. It felt good to make people laugh.
"You just made a joke." Rinoa deadpanned, looking at my completely serious face.
"Yes. I did." I said, just as evenly.
She broke out into a big smile at that and I was sure she'd have given me a hug, but as it was we were in kind of an awkward position at the 'brunch' table for hugging.
"Can I tell the story now?" She asked and, at my nodding continued.
"Well, once upon a time." She began, giving me a wink and a giggle. "I was invited by Seifer to a SeeD graduation ball."
Seifer. The name still stirred up a few memories. I remembered so many things about Rinoa and Seifer. Too many things. When she said she thought she loved him in Galbadia Garden. When she asked me if 'he' was here back in that train in Timber. The look in her eyes the first time we fought on Edea's parade float.
"...going to like me, you're going to like me.' That's what I said, and I could tell he was really confused...."
I believed then, I think. That she wanted Seifer. I believed then. I believed when we were in Deling. I believed up until we were in Fisherman's Horizon and she talked to me. Worried about me. And maybe, even then, I thought of myself as a replacement. Sitting in. But then we faced Seifer in Galbadia Garden. And she looked at him as if he were the Devil himself. Not betrayed. Not hurt. Just...'you monster.' Exactly how I felt.
"...tired of pretending he couldn't dance, I guess, because he just stood up in a perfect dance position a..."
Why? Why in the hell is she still here, sitting next to me, smiling because she's talking about me? Why, after all that time of pushing away, did I only need to embrace her once to bring her to me? How did she see right through all apathy and callous treatment to this person sitting next to her now? Still introverted, still quiet, but no longer bitter for the company around me. No longer scared of someone caring.
"...found out later that I was the only person that he let shake his hand..."
Still scared, though, of losing someone. I know, I know. It's completely unwarranted, it's completely unnecessary. The only way I can logically think of losing Rinoa is either by her dying, me dying, or me pushing her away. And, you know what is inconceivably stupid on my part? Sometimes I still consider pushing her away. Can you believe that!? Sometimes I STILL consider pushing her AWAY.
"...saw that attack on Deling in Timber and got so worried for Seifer and..."
I am such a moron.
"...we ended up staying at Forest Fox headquarters..." "You mean Anita's house!" Laughter.
No, seriously. How can I even think that? This woman who has SAVED MY LIFE. This woman who I'M GOING TO MARRY. This woman who means EVERYTHING TO ME. Was I that far gone? Had I been pushed so far that pushing people way was the ONLY thing I could do? Part of me thinks so, but another part of me, the part of me that's sitting here right now, smiling and listening to everyone here chat about 'our adventure' reassures me that there was a person buried beneath all of my defense mechanisms.
"...headed for Galbadia Garden. We wound up getting an order for the assassination of..."
'They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.'
That's a quote I read from a book in the library, after Rinoa had dragged me there but before I had spoken with Ellone when I didn't know she was Ellone. Just paging through the books and I came to that page and those words were at the top. And that's exactly what happened to us. Wrong place. Wrong time. Naturally, we are now heroes.
"...Caraway sent us on some kind of test of strength, to the Tomb of the Unknown King and..."
But, even more striking than that to me, was the quote I noticed in my room when I first stepped into it after defeating Ultimecia. I was battered, I was bruised, I was completely out of it. But I still saw this small slip of paper out of place in my room and I picked it up and I read it. It was in a handwriting I couldn't recognize, or simply hadn't seen in a long time.
It said, 'When you can do anything, you forget you shouldn't.'
"...Ended up being controlled by the sorceress and about to be fed to her pets before Squall and Irvine..."
When you can do anything, you forget you shouldn't.
It was that little slip of paper, more than anything, that convinced me to leave Garden. Cid, Edea, all the junior classmen, all my peers, all my friends. They were saying, 'You're amazing, Squall!' and, 'Wow, Squall, how did you do it?' and, 'Squall, you can do ANYTHING!' And their voices were pounding and pounding at my head like moths trapped in a lampshade.
"...Squall actually JUMPED OFF THE CAROUSEL, stole a car and drove it right up to Edea. And Seifer was there, too..."
I could do anything. And I didn't want to forget that I shouldn't. So I didn't do anything, I did what was right. I did what was I knew was my best option. I left, so I could do nothing, instead of anything. When you can do nothing, your efforts are never in vain. That was what I wrote on the back side of the piece of paper that still sat in my billfold. My own personal response.
"...Caraway got me out, JUST ME! And Irvine went in there and took me, JUST ME! So I forced him to..."
Caraway. After today, we are heading to Deling City. To speak to Carway. To speak with General Darius Caraway, de facto President of Galbadia. Not about politics. Not about rank. To talk about courtship. To ask this man if I was allowed to have his daughter's hand in marriage. Though Rinoa would say it would be a stretch to call her his daughter. And if there was any righteousness in the world, it wouldn't matter what he said.
"...And I was just so happy to see Squall alive." Here she looked at me, smiling. And I smiled back, not for any particular reason. But just because seeing her smile made me smile. "...Well, after he saved me life, that's when I started..."
I had realized last night that I, too, needed permission from my father to marry, given that I was still a minor. So, at three in the morning, I called Laguna - who was still up, to my surprise - and he got so incredibly EXCITED that it was me on the phone that he spilled his coffee on himself. He asked me what I needed and I said, 'Permission to marry this beautiful woman next to me.' And he said, 'Are you sure Rinoa would be okay with that?'
I laughed. For the first time, in a long time, I laughed at a joke.
'Since I'm the one next to him, I'm more than okay with it.' Rinoa yelled into the phone.
We laughed. Together.
As a family.
"...Split up. Selphie and Quistis and Zell headed to the missile base and Squall, Irvine and I headed to Garden..."
How bizarre it was to think of that. A family. Laguna, Rinoa, Caraway and I were a family. We might be a dysfunctional, bastardization of a family, but we would still be related, despite or maybe because of our dysfunctions. We would have holidays together. We would exchanges gifts with each other. We would stare each other down and we would take each other's sides in arguments.
Am I really only seventeen years old?
"...Fight our way down into the bottom of Garden to start the engines that caused it to fly, and we managed to avoid the...."
Maybe in numerical years. Maybe in the amount of days that I have been alive on this planet. But in experience, and in my mind, I am so fucking old it's not funny. But the great thing about having an old mind is this. You can always make it young again. And that's exactly what I was doing. Rinoa could make me feel 17 again. Rinoa could heal me in a way she would never really understand.
I know I am in love with Rinoa because she can save me from myself.
"...slammed into Fisherman's Horizon, and ended up being stuck there for days. We were so worried about where the others..."
What would our future hold? Children? White picket fences? Utter and total confusion? Complete chaos? Undiluted passion? Understanding of one another in a way that is completely misunderstood by anyone who isn't us? Just true fucking love?
"...Destroyed this beaten up old...tank slash train type thing and out come our friends, and Squall's face just lit up..."
I don't know. I have no idea. And, you know, it's only now that I'm beginning to realize that having no idea is okay. It is okay to be spontaneous. It is okay to be surprising. It IS okay just to say 'I don't know.' And it's okay to be wrong. I don't have to do everything. Because then I might forget that I shouldn't.
I only have to do nothing, and then every effort is worthwhile.
I looked at Dreylen across the table from me, who had been watching me. I had been watching Rinoa the entire time. I think she knew I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, I was just watching her as her mouth moved. And, you know, I don't think Dreylen was paying any attention either. She was watching me watch Rinoa, a content smile on her face.
'You really love her, don't you.' Is what Dreylen would say to me afterwards.
'Yes.' I replied, 'I do.'