! Line of Control !
...
Leon took a deep breath and took the newspaper in his hands. He leaned back against the wall and started read the article labeled as 'The Trouble in Paradise'.
The reporter had described everything there was to describe; from number of shoes Aerith owns to the color of socks Leon wears. Everything was described with utmost precision. But he didn't stop there; he went on and published his own version of the story about things not going smoothly between Leon and Aerith. But the worst part was that he had supported his story with many 'evidence', hence making it more believable.
The closing of the article was: "Even though they say that they've been married for last three years, they don't even leave in the same room! Leon lives in green room while Aerith lives in the red room. Even their interaction (in public at least) is hardly of a couple. Even their best friends (Mr. Sheppard) didn't know about their wedding until recently. After putting all the pieces together, the picture is still very unclear. There is definitely trouble in paradise, things are not how they look like, and further investigation is required."
"Great, now some idiot is hell bent of making my life public" Leon said crossly after reading the article.
Leon banged his head against the wall. "Dam it! How did I get into all this mess? All I ever wanted was to be left alone" he said as he slid down against the wall. "Just to protect one lie we are constantly making new lies"
Leon just sat there motionless, lost deep in thoughts. Cid risked a glance in Leon's direction and immediately his smile disappeared.
Both Eiko and Yuffie were pacing across the room. They both came to a conclusion that Leon must move out of the green room, but the how to kick him out of his own room was something to ponder.
Aerith started to feel very lightheaded after using yet another Curaga. Everything started swirling around her so she grabbed on to the nearest object for the support. Everything stabilized after few seconds. She knew that she had pushed herself to the limit this time and pushing it any further could be lethal. Besides, she had no intentions of facing Leon's wrath, so she decided to return back to their so called 'home'.
But much to her dismay, thunder boomed in the sky overhead.
He was charging his 'Fire' spell to unleash it on the hoard of heartless, but after a stentorian thunder the sky fell apart and the torrent begin.
"Dam" he cursed at his luck. He was relying solely on magic as his gunblade was lying few feet away from him. But thanks to the untimely downpour he could not use his fire spell anymore and the worst part was that he no way to defend himself.
The knife like claws sliced through his right shoulder, immediately exposing his flesh. Two more heartless took the advantage of Leon's momentarily lasp and attacked him injuring him further. Unfortunately he had no time to even yelp in pain as three more heartless were ready to strike him down.
Leon dodge rolled from the attack and quickly reclaimed his gunblade. He was bleeding from his right shoulder and the amounting pain required his attention. But he decided to ignore the pain for time being so that he could finish off the fight.
Leon switched his gunblade in his left hand and counter attacked. But unfortunately, as the rain keep on increasing, so did the heartless. More and more heartless were popping out of every direction. Within matter of seconds Leon was completely surrounded by the heartless. The memories of Hollow Bastion flooded back into his mind.
His efficiency was greatly hampered by his injury.
Initially Leon came here from Cid's shop to take out his frustration. But his current situation was even more frustrating. Leon realized that this was a desperate situation and he would need to take desperate measures to overcome this adversity.
"Time to finish this fight" He closed his eyes for a moment and channeled his energy. Soon a faint glowing light surrounded him as the energy reached its highest peak: its Limit.
After an eery silence, the injured lion let out a threatening roar.
Red light surrounded Lionheart as glowing energy formed around his gunblade. He leaped forward at the group of heartless, a trail of white energy passing behind him and his weapon as Squall himself glowed a faint red, empowered by his unique Limit, Renzokuken.
Within seconds more then a dozen of heartless were dismantled. But the best was yet to come. Squall launched himself up into the air, pirouetted with the gunblade extended, and released a disc of massive energy which exploded in all direction engulfing every enemy nearby. This limitbreak is known as, Fated Circle.
Squall gracefully landed back on the ground, still in his trance. He looked around and found nothing but bunch of munny orbs.
"This is bad" he said to himself. 'There strength and numbers keeps on increasing' he thought analyzing the situation. 'At this rate a major catastrophe might not be far. I think I should warn the king about it.'
His thought process was forced to stop by the throbbing pain. He crouched down as another serge of pain ran through his body, 'Dam it; this might take a while to heal. An injury just a week before the tournament. Can it get any worst? (sigh) I can always count on my bad luck.'
After collecting all the munny orbs Leon left the third district. He was initially planning to go back to the hotel but he changed his plans midway. He had no intentions of facing Aerith overprotective, over concerned, over possessive wrath. Heck if she finds out, she won't even let him step out of the hotel at his current condition. So he needed to cover things up, I mean literally too. So he decided to pay a visit to good ol Merlin.
Aerith was still sitting by the window waiting for the rain to stop. Although physically she wasn't doing much, mentally she was exhausted from overexertion. Her mind kept on floating back and forth between her past and her presence. To put it bluntly, it kept on going back and forth between Cloud and Squall.
These sort of thought often ends up making her depress. But luckily her stomach came to the rescue as it demanded her attention. Unknown of the fact the Yuffie left some food in her cube; she decided that the closed source for good food would be none other then the hotel. Hospital food was a strict no no. Aerith was finally at the point were her food and got priority over getting wet. She was too hungry and too tired to care about the downpour. So she decided to go back to the hotel.
"You big jerk how could you do such a thing to moogles?" screamed Eiko.
"Hey it was (censored) one day deal, all right" Cid said raising his hands in defense.
"I don't care... they are tired, exhausted, underpaid, misused moogles. I can't take it anymore" Eiko protested.
"SOOOO????" Cid leaned forward towards her trying to intimidate her.
"So I have decided that they won't work for you anymore" Eiko yelled, getting up on her toes, trying to match Cid's intensity.
All the moogles in the background stood in attention position and said at once, "We quit kupo!"
"Nooooooooooooooooo" Cid kept his hands on his head and said, "Nooooooooooooo", trying to generate a dramatic effect.
Eiko stomped upstairs with moogles behind trailing.
Leon, who was standing by the door, watched the whole scene with a glimmer of amusement.
Leon walked in quietly and saw Cid sulking in his chair. Leon's temper suddenly flared up, upon recalling Cid's 'advertising campaign'. He wanted to give Cid, piece of his mind.
Leon approached Cid, ready to lace at him but Cid looked really down in the dumps. So Leon was forced to reconsider his actions, 'Lions don't feast on someone's leftovers. I'll let Cid recover first and then hunt him down.'
Squall took a seat opposite to Cid's. No one said anything for few minutes. 'Man I really wanted to torture this guy for what he did but… he really looks down. Guy I should leave him alone...for now at least.'
Few more minutes passed without any exchange of words. The only sound that was audible was coming from upstairs. Leon decided to ignore that for time being.
"So how did the sale go?" Leon tried to start a conversation.
"Everything… Sold out" came a monotonous reply.
"I see"
After a while the conversation continued, "So why are you so down?" Leon asked, pretending that he didn't see anything.
"All my employees quite! What am I going to do now?" Cid said slightly banging his head on the table.
Leon leaned back in his chair, "Hey don't worry, they will be back to normal tomorrow"
"I know that but… but I need them today to clean up the (censored) mess"
Leon stood up from his chair. "Well tough luck buddy" he shrugged nonchalantly and turned away.
'Tough luck! Wait till you go upstairs and find out what 'tough luck' really looks like' Cid thought looking at Leon as he made his way to his room.
Leon was just by the stairs when he heard flared up Eiko screaming at someone, "Hey it goes there in that closet, not there you idiot"
He had barely taken few steps when he heard her again, "No no no move her stuff in the other drawer"
Couple of more steps and Eiko was in action yet again, "And you stop stalling around and get back to work"
"Yes maam came the reply from all the moogles"
Leon gulped and took few hesitant steps forwards and saw bunch of moogles running back and forth between the green room to the red room. Suddenly his eye caught something the moogles were carrying 'Wait a minute that's my jacket...and my shoes...and my t-shirt...and my box--...'
"What the hell?" the words slipped out of his mouth.
He rushed up to the moogles just to get bumped with incoming Yuffie from the green room. "Oouch!" the ninja yelled as she fell back. Yuffie looked up still rubbing her head.
Leon was about to say something when he heard Eiko speak from the red room, "Good job everyone. That should do it. And nowwww its time for US to go clean MY room."
"US! That's not right kupo! It should be more like, 'Now I will go and clean my room' kupo!"
Eiko kept her hand on her hips and leaned forwards to wards moogles, "What did you say?"
"I am tired kupo!" complained the first moogles.
"Ya same here kupo" said the second one.
"Yup I agree kupo" supported the third one.
The first moogles turned around and asked his teammates, "I can't take it anymore, should we do it kupo?"
"Ya I am up for it kupo. At least we get paid there" said the second one.
"Yup count me in kupo" supported the third one.
Mustering all the courage the first moogles said, "umm… Eiko… we… you know… sort of… umm… kind of… quit"
"WHAT???" yowled Eiko and immediately started to look for something but couldn't find what she was looking for, so she grabbed the next best thing a, a frying pan ... All the moogles jumped up in surprise.
"I fought with Cid and got you out of there and this is how you repay me?" barked angry Eiko as she raised the frying pan above her head.
(Eiko is a moogles lover. She could never hurt moogles even if she tried. She was just trying to scare them, that's all.)
"Run kupo, run!" warned the first moogles as they all started running around and a leather Eiko chasing them down.
They were all just running around in circles until on moogles suggested, "To the shop kupo."
With that all the moogles ran out of the door with Eiko still chasing them. Leon and Yuffie were still standing by the door, dumbstruck at the scene in front of them.
Eiko rushed out to attack the moogles but unfortunately she was swapped off her feet… not by her knight in shining armor… but by… Leon.
Next thing Eiko realized was that she was 4 feet off the ground. She frantically tried to get out of Squall's grip but he simple pulled her up with one hand and brought her to his eye level.
"Just what the heck is going on here?" Leon demanded, "Explain to me?"
Eiko sighed as she realized that there was no way out of his grip and even if she did manage to get out somehow, the moogles would be out of her reach now.
Cid say moogles running out of the hotel and wondered what could have cause that. So to investigate the matter further he decided to take a walk upstairs.
"Now that your love story is on the verge of getting busted its not safe for you to stay in the green room... you have to move in with Aerith in red room... so we moved all your stuff into the red room too, aren't we nice?" She said batting her lashes innocently.
Leon dropped her absentmindedly and put his hand on his forehead in his trademark style. "Yup we even asked Aerith if she was fine with it" Yuffie pepped in.
Leon sighed, 'She would say yes to anything… but that's beside the point, I don't want to move in with her... what if...what if'
Leon shook his head knowing that think about 'what if' wont get him anywhere, he must think about 'what next' instead.
Well to be honest Leon had thought about that too. He knew that sooner of later this was bound to happen.
But still, Leon wasn't ready to move in just yet. His mind was running at its max capacity trying to figure a way out of this... his thoughts were a jumble. 'Even thought all my stuff is in the red room I could always go sleep in the green room...right? ... Wrong that stupid bunker bed is too small… dam it.'
After thing about bunch of different possibilities he came to a dreadful conclusion, "Guess I'll have to move in the red room after all."
Cid snickered from behind and patted him on his back, "Thought luck buddy."
Cid walked away from the scene happily.
"Well that's settled" Eiko said with a sigh of relief. "You bet" Yuffie agreed.
Yuffie waved Leon a cheerful goodbye and Eiko did the same as the both run in to the green room.
"Later" Cid's voice came from the distance as he walked away whistling happily.
Everyone left leaving Leon all alone.
Leon leaned his against the (red room's) door, turned around and slid down wearily.
He assessed his current situation and slammed his head against the door in frustration, "Anything wrong Leon?" he heard a voice soon after.
Completely drenched Aerith walked in looking like a zombie, a beautiful zombie that is.
"Everything" he replied.
Aerith had a faint idea of what he was referring too. After all it was hard to figure out that Leon was thinking, especially when you have lived with him for so many years.
"Its okay Leon, we'll figure it out somehow" she tried to say it as cheerfully but her weariness was evident in her voice.
Leon was tired of thinking and just wanted to go to sleep so he can forget everything. He stood up and moved out of the way and allowed Aerith to enter first.
The room sure looked different and it would surely take some time to adjust to it. Both Leon and Aerith looked around at the newly renovated room. Aerith was fascinated to see her new royal canopy bed. She looked at everything with child like amusement. Leon glanced at her and wondered, 'She is taking it much better then I thought she would'.
A sudden surge of pain ran through his shoulder forcing him to take support from stand next to the bed. Aerith noticed the change in expression on Leon's face and asked with a concerned tone, "Anything wrong Leon?"
"Oh nothing, I am just tired that's all" Leon tried to play it off. He fell flat on the bed and closed his eyes as Aerith just watched him.
Suddenly Aerith started sneezing left and right. Leon opened his eyes and stated the obvious "I think you should get changed first and then worry about the rest"
"Oops, I thought I was forgetting something" she said smiling sheepishly. With that she grabbed a pair of cloths and went to change.
Leon suddenly bolted up from the bed and started searching for something frantically.
"Where is it? Where is it?" he uttered as he emptied few drawers. After going through almost everything he finally found what he was looking for.
Upon finding it he held it up triumphantly like a first prize trophy in Olympic. He slowly brought his prized possession closer to his face and took pulled the lead off.
The thing he was searching for was his… marker.
With marker in his hand, Leon began his artwork. He took few measurements and drew a straight line in the middle of the bed-sheet, dividing it into two equal half.
He was almost done with it when Aerith walked out and saw it. She asked and obvious question, "What are you doing?"
"Diving out space" came a simple reply.
"What?" Aerith asked in confusion.
"Don't worry" he called for Aerith to come closer, "Come here, I'll explain it to you"
"Okay this bed is definitely too big for us...and that's a good thing… So as you can see I divided it into two parts, you can sleep on the right side of the bed and I sleep on the left side of it" he explained.
"Ohhh, I get it" Aerith exclaimed.
"Its called LOC; The Line of control. You don't cross into my territory and I wont cross into you territory, we both have to respect it the LOC" Leon explained it further getting a bit more technical.
"Yes Sir" she said with a mock salute.
"Good" he said and sat down on his side of the bed.
Now Aerith had to make a decision, to sleep or to eat. She hadn't done either of those in last two days. So after debating with herself for a while she finally decided that sleep was her priority.
Leon assumed that Aerith must have eaten the food he had sent with Yuffie earlier so he didn't bother to ask that and fell flat on his side of the bed.
They both slept side by side thinking about different things. Aerith soon fell asleep as she was dead tired but Leon on the other hand was struggling to sleep. Somehow he was very very uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a room with Aerith. After much twisting, tossing, turning for about an hour, he finally went to sleep.
Aerith, accustomed of having the entire bed to her since last nine years, was the first one to breach the LOC. In her sleep she crossed over to Leon's territory.
Aerith usually rolls around the bed in her sleep while Leon once asleep was as good as a log, in fact even log would get jealous of him.
Aerith was felling cold and was shivering beneath her blanket... she flung her left hand in her sleep and it fell on something warm, without caring what its was move closer to it.
By the early morning her head was lying on Leon's chest and her arms were tightly wrapped around the sleeping log… oops I mean Leon.
Leon on the other hand was revisiting his past. All the scenes, all the pain, all the memories came back to him one by one. The visions of the past; his nightmare was revisiting him. Soon he woke up from his nightmare, just to walk into another nightmare.
As soon as he opened his eyes he found someone was sleeping very uncomfortably close to him.
Not once did he ever scream because of the nightmares but he was about to do just that. He wasn't sure which nightmare was scarier, the one he envisioned in his sleep or the one he experienced after waking up. So Leon did something which he had never don't before, scream.
You naturally wake up when someone you are sleeping on screams loudly. Aerith moved away from him and was barely able to open her eyes.
"What do you think you are doing?" yelled Leon.
"Sleeping" she said in her semi-stupor state.
"Let's be more precise here, you are sleeping on MY side" he said, "You crossed the LOC"
"That's it?" said the half asleep girl. "You woke me up to say that?"
"What do you mean that's it—" Leon said still furious.
"Whatever" she said cutting him off and falling right back into the bed going to sleep instantly.
Leon sighted and stood up from the bed. It was around 5 so he decided to go for some training. After all he had to prepare for the tournament and injury was not an excuse to slack off. So after completing his morning rituals he went straight for his training ground.
Surprisingly enough he was joined by Yuffie around 8.
"Where is Aerith?" he asked.
"Sleeping I guess" Yuffie replied with a shrug.
"Hmm" he expression changed a bit and it was immediately picked up by Yuffie, "Worried about her aren't ya?" she asked teasingly.
"No just inquiring, she wasn't feeling good last night" he said monotonously.
"Ya ya whatever lover boy" she said flinging her suriken at him.
Leon deflected her attack and added, "Shut up, will you?"
Their little sparing session continued for a while before Leon spoke again, "Where is Eiko?"
"At Merlin's" she said dodging Leon's gunblade.
"Why?" he asked.
"Practicing few spells" she said counter attacking.
Leon suddenly pulled out of the battle. "Now that's a good surprise. Why sudden interest in training may I ask?"
"Well I don't want to screw up in tournament you know" she replied honestly. "And Eiko just couldn't pass a chance to blow few things up at Merlin's" she said with her toothy grin.
Aerith had finally roused from sleep around 10. She stood up lazily and stretched a bit. But suddenly she felt very dizzy and collapsed on the ground unconscious.
After an hour of training they decided to return back to the hotel.
Both Leon and Yuffie were surprised no to see Aerith in the kitchen. So Yuffie helped herself with milk and cereals while Leon decided to check on Aerith first.
He went upstairs and slowly entered the room. But what he found might give him nightmares for rest of his life. "Oh my god" He rushed to Aerith's side and immediately checked her pulse. She was unconscious and would require some medical attention. He scooped her up and ran to the hospital.
Yuffie saw him carrying Aerith somewhere and decided to follow. She too ran after him with a bowl of milk and cereals in her hand.
Leon called for the doctor and everyone came in when they knew that their patient was none other then Aerith.
They immediately took her away and told Leon and Yuffie to wait outside. Leon stayed at the hospital while Yuffie had called Cid, Merlin and Eiko.
It was around 1pm when the doctor finally came out. The doctor came up to Leon with a big smile on his face, which worried Leon. 'Something is not right' Leon crossed his figures hopping for the best.
"Is she alright?" asked obviously concerned Cid.
"She is doing fine, nothing serious" doctor replied with a smile.
"What happened to her?" asked Leon.
"Do you really want to know that?" asked the doctor instead.
'I do not like this at all. Something is wrong; I can feel it.' Leon thought.
"Come on tell us already" Yuffie demanded, "What's wrong with her?"
"All right, all right. She is…" the good doctor paused longer then usual to generate a dramatic effect. "She is pregnant!"
"You are kidding" Leon said in utter disbelief.
"Congratulation Leon, you are going to become a father!" said the doctor adding an insult to the injury.
Needless to say, it was the first time ever anyone had ever seen, the brave, courageous and mighty Squall Leonhart faint.