Author's Notes – Wow, I hit 200 reviews for this fic in the last chapter. That's pretty amazing considering I just hit the 100 marker around mid-late November with Chapter XV – Rain or Shine. Something must have clicked with people in the past few months.

Yeah, as some of you might have noticed, at one point I had to change my dividers 'cause didn't allow the dashes anymore and now they must have allowed them again so to put it in short, I wasted a whole lotta time changing them and changing them back. The only plus that came from this is that my older chapters are now the same format as the new ones but God, talk about work!

Regardless of that, I'm sorry for the long wait. School was being a bitch and I had a bad 'bout of writer's block. Hope this is okay though.

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Chapter XXVII – Something Left to Lose

-

I'm looking to the sky to save me,
Looking for a sign of life,
Looking for something to help me burn out bright,
I'm looking for a complication,
Looking cause I'm tired of lying,
Make my way back home when I learn to fly.

-Foo Fighters, Learn To Fly.

-

Monday, January 10th

I've been feeling a lot better since Squall left right before noon –not because he left, but because that's when the medicine seemed to kick in. I have to admit that it makes for a funny coincidence though. Anyways, I'll probably be able to go to school tomorrow, which is good because I really don't want to fall behind in Art, but bad because I know I'm going to be gawked at as if I had a Chocobo dancing on my head. ...Hm. You know, I think I'd want to gawk at me if there was a Chocobo dancing on my head. Either that or wonder how it got there.

-Erm, regardless of the dancing Chocobo, I honestly wonder how it'll be when I show up tomorrow. I have no clue how people will act towards me although I can anticipate that it'll be mostly negative. Who knows though? I should know that people are unpredictable by now. Maybe they'll come to their senses or maybe react on the other end of the spectrum and assume something from the flu-like symptoms and expect me to be...? No, no. I won't go there. Rumours don't get that bad that fast.

Note to self, don't wear any loose or billowy clothes, buy more form-fitting sweaters (and maybe a couple of nice belts too – new jeans are too expensive), eat healthy (but not too healthy) and avoid saying 'whatever' or glaring daggers at people.

God...what is it with me today? I can't seem to keep this journal serious no matter what I write about. This can't be a good sign. Hopefully this'll all be out of my system before Squall gets here. I doubt he'll put up with me cracking random jokes and going on a million tangents if it isn't.

Ugh. Right now I feel like I'm a hyperactive kid on chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles (because everyone knows that chocolate's a thousand times better than vanilla and sprinkles make them even more awesome) with the attention span of a goldfish and I don't have an outlet to get rid of all this extra energy. I really hope that Squall gets here soon; I've got nothing to do- ...Oh Hyne. That read so, so wrong (I really have to start writing my journals in pencil, this is nuts). That's almost as wrong as this morning when I imagined some random person at school telling us, "Aww, isn't that cute? You two are finishing each other's silences!"

...Remind me never to get sick again.

Wait a second...I think that was the doorbell. Awesome, I'm not going to go insane today!

...Three cheers for sanity?

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Following a speedy trip out of her room, past the stairs and living room, Rinoa found her way into the entranceway faster than her mind could fully register the actions. Latching her hand onto the doorknob, she gave it a twist and promptly opened the door. Behind it was a very solemn-looking Squall, his eyes clearly taking advantage of the piercing-blue hue they possessed; Rinoa felt like she was being acupunctured on the spot - or like she was being needled by an invisible porcupine. The instant she saw him at the door, the mentioned hyperactivity in her diary transformed into a metaphorical balloon and one of those equally-figurative acupuncture or porcupine needles popped it.

"...Tough day at school?" she ventured. He didn't bother to answer, opting to simply walk inside. In turn, she took his coat and hung it moments after she shut the door. When he started to head towards the dining room table, she quickly followed suit.

"-Are the comments are getting worse?"

Silence.

"-Seifer's being a pain?"

More silence.

"Someone's-"

He abruptly stopped and turned around. "Please..." he started, "I'm not in the mood for the interrogation. People are stupid, there's nothing more to it."

"-Oh."

After they quietly sat themselves at the dining room, Rinoa cleared her throat. Her tongue felt a little thick, coming to terms with her momentary respite as she looked at him take things out from his backpack. Tomorrow she'd be out in the open like he'd been doing for the past two school days, fending for herself against the tide of lies, deceit and, if she were to listen to him, stupidity. This would become reality and there would be no going back; it wouldn't only be something she wrote about in her journal or an abstract thought anymore. For a second there, Rinoa pondered the possibility that thought of finality could have caused today's fidgeting and not the medicine or the excessive bed rest. As it turned out, she never really reached a conclusion on that one.

"...Squall?"

It took a moment or two for him to tear his attention away from taking things out to acknowledge her.

"...Just so you know, I'm going to be at school tomorrow." she continued with a touch of hesitation. "Um...You nervous about this...this whole thing?"

"...I don't see why I should be." he dully noted. "It can't possibly get worse than it already is."

In spite of her budding nerves, Rinoa found a way to work around that and lightly smile. "So...people are being that stupid?"

He gave her a wary look. "Wait until tomorrow. You'll be able to see for yourself."

"Hm." She flitted through the sizeable stack of work he had before him and noticed something odd. "Squall, did we get any Lit work? All I'm seeing is History stuff."

"No, there wasn't anything. The entire class was spent on presentations."

Rinoa blinked. "Oh. I thought Kolp was going to do those later this week."

"She forgot whatever it was she needed for the class so she decided to change the date."

"I see. So did you get to present?"

He chose that moment to crack open a nearby textbook and absentmindedly answered, "...Yeah, I did."

"So how did it go?"

"It went...well."

She arched an eyebrow. Something about his tone sounded a little off.

"You know-" Cough. "-for someone who did 'well', you don't seem too happy. Did she give you a low grade?"

"No, she gave me 82 percent for the presentation and a 90 for the poems on the evaluation sheet."

Slowly but surely, her smile returned. "I'm surprised you didn't skip town."

When he looked at her with a profoundly quizzical expression, Rinoa knew that he'd forgotten about what he'd said the other day. She decided to enlighten him.

"Don't you remember saying that you'd skip town if she made you present your limerick Squall?"

"...I didn't say anything about my limerick."

"Nice try." she countered. "You said poems earlier, not poem. She made you do both, didn't she?"

A faint sigh filled the air prior to his response. "...Unfortunately."

"Okay... so why do you sound so depressed-" Rinoa was going to phrase her question like that until she realized how ironic it sounded. It was the norm for Squall to sound somewhat depressing. Or at least it was in her opinion; she wasn't sure if he talked enough for other people to have their own stance in the matter. "...when you must have done well on both to get that kind of grade? I can't imagine you being embarrassed since they were pretty neutral poems."

"You'd think so but...it wasn't the case."

The dark haired girl fought the urge to go-

"...Huh?"

...Nevermind.

He leaned back against his chair and crossed his arms. "I was the only guy who had both poetic forms right."

Rinoa looked at him with a funny expression on her face. "...But wouldn't getting them both right be a good thing?"

He leaned further back in his chair. "Not when the teacher says it was 'just wonderful' and loudly adds that 'Ms. Heartilly must have taught you a thing or two'."

"Oh. Hyne." She bit her lip, trying to stifle a few coughs and laughs simultaneously. She only succeeded in preventing the former. "I'm guessing that someone had fun with that comment and that's why you're so grumpy today."

Uncrossing his arms, he used one of them to rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "...All I've done is dig us into a deeper hole before this has 'officially' started. We're not going to be able to start off as subtly as I'd like to because people are equating unexpectedly-good poems with personal involvement for some reason."

"Well...um, can you blame them? If I wasn't the one helping you, I'd wonder how someone who's...not the greatest at presenting suddenly kicks ass at reciting poetry. And with that rumour going around and what she told you, I'd probably start wondering if the two things were connected."

"Hm." He started flipping through the pages of the History textbook. "...We'd better get started on this."

She nodded and moved her chair from the right side of the table near his on the end so she wouldn't be looking at the book sideways. Now sitting on his immediate right, she glanced over in his direction. Although the book in front of them seemed to be perfectly poised to start the lesson on...whatever, Squall didn't seem like he was ready to start. He was sporting a distant look and his hand was resting beside the book, perfectly idle. His mind must have been still caught up on something, presumably on what was going to happen tomorrow. Rinoa delicately placed her left hand over his right, prompting him to take notice and make eye contact. He was warm to the touch.

"Don't worry about it, this'll turn out fine." she reassured. He didn't say anything. "You're a good actor and we'll have good chemistry, I just know it from what we managed to do yesterday. Well... I also know that we won't act exactly like we did that day because of the different people but...I have a feeling that we'll fool them all and maybe have fun in the process."

He slipped his hand out from under hers. "...You're making this sound like a game."

"It doesn't hurt to be optimistic sometimes, no matter how hard it is."

He said an abrupt 'whatever' and turned his attention towards the book. "...She started a new chapter on Lunar Cry."

"Um, are you sure it's on Lunar Cry? I vaguely remember getting some independent assignment back with a whole bunch of X's on it before the break and I think it had to do with that."

"No, that paper was on Centran civilization and it was in mid-November."

"Oh. I guess I was mistaken about that. Go ahead."

Pointing at an artistic rendering of a cluster of monsters which seemed to be falling from the moon, Squall was about to say something, only to be cut short by the distracting sound of someone noisily inserting keys into the front door's lock. He craned his neck backwards to look.

"Squall, it's okay. That's just my mom coming home from doing groceries. I told her not to bother you today."

He stopped craning his neck and looked at her with a semi-unsettled look on his face. He leaned closer to her as if he was going in for a kiss or to say something at whisper-level. Obviously, he did the latter. "...I doubt your mother's a man."

Rinoa's eyes widened at an alarming rate. What he said could have only meant one thing.

"Rinoa, who is this boy?"

Both teenagers simultaneously turned their heads to see the older man clad in a long coat with a briefcase in hand.

'...Oh crap.'

Her father was home from his business trip – far earlier than expected.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Cough. "Dad, this is-" Cough. "-Squall. He's helping me keep up in school because I'm sick."

Her father set down his case and gave Squall the once-over. "Is he the same person your mother was mentioning?"

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "Err...you two talked?"

"Yes Rinoa, we talked last night when I called to say that I was going to come home the next day. She said that you fell ill when you went to bring homework last Thursday."

The accusatory glance he fleetingly gave her and Squall purposely implied that he knew more than he was verbally admitting. That 'more' obviously alluding to something that would make passing Squall off as a mere homework explainer nigh impossible. When his gaze wavered back over to her, Rinoa rubbed her eyes and made no effort to withhold a small grimace. The only way she could possibly try to get Squall out of the potential grilling wasn't going to pretty and neither was the situation if she didn't do anything. Still, Rinoa felt it was her responsibility for getting him off the hook even if it meant she was going to get the brunt of it. He didn't deserve all this flak for something that she did.

Just as she was about to open her mouth, he got up from his chair and beat her to the punch. For a moment, Rinoa caught his eye and looked at him as if he was out of his tree. He brushed it off and pushed the chair behind him.

"Sir, I take full responsibility for getting Rinoa sick."

Whereas the words coming out of her mouth remained non-existent, her mind screamed and her eyes spoke volumes. And yet he would not hear any of this. From the close proximity she was sitting at, it was like watching a car crash unfold right in front of her. She couldn't look away, too frozen to do anything other than stare.

Her father crossed his arms - a death sentence in itself. "I go away for one week and find out that my daughter's fallen ill from a kiss that shouldn't have happened by any stretch of the imagination as far as I'm concerned. How do you suppose I feel right now?"

"Unimpressed and probably outraged." he replied, only a minute flicker of weakness in the coolness of his facade. "It was a mistake on my part and it shouldn't have happened in the first place."

Still sitting in her chair, Rinoa's chest seized up momentarily. She was almost certain that Squall had chosen those specific words so her and her father could easily make different interpretations of what he meant. Rinoa almost wanted to self-depreciatingly laugh at the irony. For someone who was reputed for not talking much, he sure had a way with the words he did say. Or at least his fake boyfriend persona did.

Her father narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "My wife told me what Rinoa had done to get herself sick. Why are you trying to give me the impression that you initiated this situation? Or was there something else the both of you would like to tell me?"

Rinoa nearly jumped out of her seat. "Dad!" The indignant and pitchy tone she used triggered a small slew of coughs. It was a couple of seconds before she was able to follow up. "Nothing happened outside that one thing. Please don't blow it out of proportion-"

"-Rinoa," Squall gently placed his left hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Unbeknownst to her father, she subtly flinched at his touch right before she 'calmed' enough to properly sit again. "-if your father's not comfortable about the idea of you seeing someone, maybe we shouldn't continue with this."

At that moment, the teenager tilted her head rightward and luckily managed to lock eyes with him to fortify the charade. When she sensed a certain kind of quiet desperation emitting from his fleeting stare, Rinoa had to avoid losing herself within his nuanced performance by slowly shifting her gaze back at her father. They played musical stares; the older man's sight rested on Squall's instead of his daughter's when she looked his way. He furrowed his brow and his arms remained firmly crossed.

"You seem like a respectable boy, but there's something that doesn't register properly." he admitted. "How old are you?"

Pointless to stall the inevitable, Squall wasted no time in answering. "...I turn nineteen in August."

The older man's posture stiffened a little and his frown became more prominent.

"What's your reason behind staying an extra year in school then?"

Rinoa piped up at this question. "Dad, that's none of your business, you can't ask him that."

Her father ignored her protest and kept a firm eye on Squall. She looked at him too and noticed a small twitch near the corner of his mouth. To her surprise, he actually answered the insensitive question and told him that the same reason he'd told her in the library a week ago.

"Hm...Fair enough." The way he paused made it seem like he was disappointed that the answer he'd been given offered no valid reason to dismiss him. "So why are you interested in my daughter?"

Rinoa clenched her fists into little balls and finally got up from her chair; she had enough of this. Although they weren't fighting in the name of a real relationship, it was the principle of the matter that irritated her.

"Now you're just fishing for a reason to make it easier to not give Squall a chance. Can't you just trust my judgement? I'm not a child anymore; I should be able to make my own decisions. Mom's okay with this, why can't you be?"

"I can't because you still don't make the wisest choices, older or not." he firmly answered. "That is why I still feel the need to do this."

The teenager furrowed her brows. As much as she didn't want to pick this fight in front of Squall, the words on her mind had to be said regardless. "I know that I'm not the best behaved daughter in the world, but I don't see how you can justify saying that."

"I know about the other doctor's appointment you had in November young lady." he countered. "And if you don't think that justifies my reasoning, I'd like to see your counter-argument."

Her chest froze, breath hitched and words failed her. As vague as his wording about the incident might have been, she felt vulnerable and exposed to everyone in the room. Her hands started to quake and the basic ability to keep them into ball-like fists began to escape her.

"...I'm not that person anymore." she gritted, her voice threatening to bottom out. To hell with the secrets, she thought. Her father practically ousted her own deep secret in front of a quasi-stranger, why continue with the subtlety? It wasn't like he was going to appreciate the formality. "I've changed. He's...helping me not be that person anymore."

She was tempted to turn away and retreat to the confines of her bedroom, but she didn't. She didn't because she heard a couple of clicking noises near the entranceway door; this time it was her mother coming in with grocery bags. Bags she dropped the very instant she saw the three of them near the dining room table.

Still clad in her snow-encrusted boots and thick crimson coat, Julia walked over to the unfolding scene in question and sighed. "Fury Caraway, I hope this isn't what it looks like."

The older man turned his head in her direction. "Julia, I was merely-"

"-No buts Fury. You do this to every time Rinoa brings someone home. I'm surprised that she even bothers to tell us anything anymore with the way you act." Julia stopped and looked towards the pair of teenagers. "Rinoa, take Squall downstairs with the homework. I have to talk with your father in private."

With a furtive nod, Rinoa gathered some books and quietly led Squall into the kitchen where the stairs leading to the basement were in the far left corner. Once they were down there and shielded from all of the noise coming from upstairs, Rinoa walked directly to the reclining chair in the far right corner of the basement, slumped herself down on it and haphazardly dumped all of the work on floor with a resounding clatter, her mind in complete disarray. Squall didn't follow her to the other end of the room.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"I'm really sorry about the way my dad treated you Squall."

These were the first words spoken in over ten minutes of re-cooperative silence. Squall was still leaning against the wall and Rinoa was still slumped in the reclining chair, a fair distance separating them. The latter's words hadn't prompted the former look up instead of eying the floor like she'd hoped. In the wake of his prolonged muteness, she continued.

"If there's any way I can make it up to you...I'll..." Rinoa let out a sigh, not bothering to finish that sentence. This line of talking was obviously going nowhere with him. "...You must think I'm disgusting."

He slowly looked up and their eyes met from across the room. "...It's not my place to say anything. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, some more than others."

"...Even you?"

Squall gave her a weird look. "...Even me what?"

"...Skeletons, I mean." she meekly clarified. "Do you...choose not to judge people because you have skeletons in your closet too?"

"I choose not to judge because it's pointless to concern myself about other people's problems." he answered. "Not because I may or may not have skeletons in my closet."

"Hm." She momentarily paused. "So, I...take it that you figured it out?"

"Depends. Is it going to complicate this charade a few months along the line?"

Rinoa slowly let her head dip. He'd passed the test she'd set up, one she wanted him to fail miserably, one she wanted him to say, 'Rinoa, how the hell am I supposed to know what your father was talking about?' or something to that effect, maybe peppered with a 'whatever' or two. But no, he just had to be perceptive on this occasion.

"No. I'd never put you in this situation if that was the case." Once more, she loudly sighed. "...It had only lasted for a couple of weeks." Looking back up, her mouth naturally settled into a frown. "...Please don't tell anyone Squall. I've...had to live with this for a little while and...I don't think I could handle it if someone else were to know."

He stopped leaning against the wall and uncrossed his arms, opting to awkwardly put them at his sides. "...I won't say anything."

"Thank you." The frown she had on lessened into a relatively neutral expression. "Um, if you didn't feel comfortable staying here, with my parents and all...you can leave if you want to." Rinoa leaned over to pick up some of the pages she'd previously discarded and put it on her lap. "I'll be fine to do my work on my own today."

To her surprise, he didn't take her up on her offer to leave, instead he walked over and took up a seat near the recliner she been sitting in and grabbed the History textbook she hadn't picked up and flipped through the pages.

"...I think it'd be safer for me to stay down here." he noted between page turns. "I heard some loud noises so I assume they're still arguing. Getting caught in the middle of that wouldn't be wise."

"Fair enough. So...what's all this Lunar Cry stuff about?"

"Monsters." he said flatly. "Thousands of them falling from the moon and ruining civilizations in the process."

"Oh. That's kinda neat."

While her words feigned interest, her thoughts couldn't be anymore genuine. 'Thank you for staying Squall. I really appreciate it.'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

End of Chapter Comments – Yeah, I know it's been practically month since I last updated. Things kept popping up as I've said and my mind was stumped during the Caraway scene. Seriously stumped. So, I really apologize if this turned out really crummy.

On an even crummier note, I won't be able to update until late April, early May 'cause I'm now in the lovely season of exams. Fun, isn't it? Oh well. If I can scrap a moment or two for myself between studying and the actual exam itself, I'll be sure to devote it towards this. It's like the only thing I do for fun anymore. Well, that and watch my season box sets of House. House is sooo cool. ...But that's another story altogether.

Anyways, I hope this'll tide you guys over in the meantime,

-Emerald-Latias

Random Tidbits - The part where Rinoa says that she thinks she got a paper about Lunar Cry with X's on it is a reference to Locked Inside where Squall and Rinoa were doing homework on Lunar Cry and started correcting each other's in sheer boredom. As you can undoubtedly guess, Rinoa's had a bunch of X's on hers.

Oh and yes, the part about Rinoa writing about buying belts was a crack at in-game Squall. Of course she's unaware about that though.