Balamb Garden's Yuletide Vacation
Chapter Twenty-four
Friday, December the Twenty-second
Squall's Solstice Carol
Ellone knocked gently upon the commander's office door and didn't know if she should be disappointed or relieved when there was no answer. Opening the door as quietly as possible, she was surprised to observe Squall sound asleep with his head resting on his arms stretched out on the desk before him.
He looks so sweet when he's asleep, just as he did when he was a little boy, Ellone thought as she moved behind him to gently ruffle his hair. I guess he's worn himself out with being so ornery. Well, it'll be easier this way.
The young woman took a seat on the desk next to Squall's head and cast her consciousness into his mind. Squall realized he was standing in what looked to be a common room of a bar or restaurant of some sort. Glancing around in surprise, he was even more amazed to espy Ellone.
"Elle? What's going on?"
Ellone's voice sounded eerie when she spoke. "I am the Spirit of Solstice Past – your past."
Squall's expression initially reflected befuddlement but was quickly replaced by his more recent one of cynicism. "Oh, I get it, whatever," he said.
"No, you don't get it! You don't get anything," the Spirit spat angrily. "Take a look around before you make such fast judgments."
"Okay," the young man retorted glancing around the room. "We're in some bar. Big deal!"
"Whose bar, mortal? You have been here before."
"Look, Ellone, you're starting to irritate me with this crap," Squall complained. "Why don't-."
Suddenly a frigid strong wind blew through the room with the force of a gale force interrupting the commander's tirade. It blew him backwards causing him to lose his balance and fall backward. "Ow!" Squall complained about his now bruised derriere.
"There!" exclaimed the Spirit, "Let that be a lesson not to piss me off! Now where are we?"
Not having a clue at this point what Ellone's true intent was, Squall decided to play along. "Well, it actually looks familiar to me somehow, but I couldn't tell you for sure."
A tiny girl in a blue dress came stumbling in the room from a stairway that led to the upper floor. "Elle gonna put the star on top of the tree, right Raine?"
"Yes, Ellone," said Raine in a tired voice from behind a tall stack of Solstice decoration boxes in her arms. "But you have to be patient, Laguna hasn't gotten back with the tree yet." Squall's eyes widened when he saw her. This was the first time he had seen a vision of Raine since learning she was his mother.
Squall took a step toward her. "Mom?" he said, but she walked right through him.
The Spirit put her hand on Squall's shoulder. "They are only shadows of the past Squall, they can neither hear nor see you."
Ellone bounced on her toes. "Oooohh how soon?"
"Any minute now." Raine was just organizing the boxes when a timer went off in the kitchen. "Oh the cookies!" The pretty young mother ran to the kitchen just as Laguna burst in the door with a flurry of snowflakes.
"Lagooonaaa!" The tiny girl screeched and bounded up for a hug. Then she went to examine the snow-covered tree leaving a puddle of icy water in the entranceway. Ellone began to jump into the puddles splashing slush about and soaking her teddy bear slippers.
"Ellone! Stop that!" admonished Raine, emerging from the kitchen and drying her hands on a dishtowel. "Laguna! You can't bring that thing in here!" She pointedly sternly to the door. "Out!"
"But Raine, I thought-," Laguna started to say.
His wife cut him off. "You thought what? That the rules would change just because I married you?" When she saw Laguna flush and look away she said, "Well you thought wrong, mister!" She jabbed him in the chest and slunk up to him, managing to look sexy in an oversized sweater and jeans. Ellone began splattering around the slushy water again and Raine looked down at her with her hands on her hips.
"Ellone," she said in a deadly calm voice. The little girl stopped in mid stomp and slowly turned her face up slowly to look her adoptive mother in the face. "Didn't I tell you to stop that?"
Ellone nodded slowly.
"Okay, then I want you to go upstairs, change your slippers and sit on the sofa until I call you to dinner!" Ellone ran for her life up the stairs.
Raine turned back to Laguna, smiling mischievously. Seeing that he was still pouting, she touched her lips softly to his cheek. "Oh don't pout, Laguna," she said in a half-whisper directly next to his ear, "Aren't the rewards worth the sacrifices you make for me?"
Laguna chuckled, a sound that almost sounded as if he were saying, "G-ya-ha-ha." Raine giggled in response and kissed Laguna roughly, twisting his long hair around her fingers.
Squall made a gagging sound. "Ew! Shiva! That's gross, Spirit! Make em stop!" He covered his eyes.
The Spirit sighed. "Oh Squall, stop being such a prude!" But without further complaint she flicked her wrist and it was a few hours later. Ellone and Laguna were clearing the table following dinner. Raine sat back in her chair and put a hand gently to her stomach. She sighed deeply and looked up at Laguna who had just set a plate of freshly baked cookies and a cup of coffee before her.
Grabbing his arm, she asked, "Laguna… have you ever thought about children?"
He laughed. "Of course, I think of Ellone all the time!"
His wife shook her head. "No, I mean about having a child of our own."
Laguna paled. "As in you being…pregnant?"
"That's usually the way it works, Laguna."
Without warning Laguna jumped out of his seat and called to Ellone, "Hey Elle! Want to help your uncle Laguna with the tree lights?" He picked up a string of white lights and held them above his head. Ellone clapped and ran over.
"The tree! The tree!" she sang, jumping up and down.
Sighing deeply, Raine rose and joined her family in the decorating of the solstice tree.
"Oh Hyne," murmured Squall, "she's not-um…"
Yes, she is," said the Spirit, "with you."
Squall didn't know what to say. He watched the happy family fade into the darkness. Just before the entire scene was gone, Squall reached out and pocketed one of Raine's cookies.
"You were a brat, you know," mentioned Squall as a new scene began to materialize around them.
"I was not, I was cute!" retorted the Spirit.
"Whatever."
"Anyway," snipped the Spirit, "Just so you know, by the time Laguna found out about you, he felt it was too late to interfere in your life."
Squall snorted. "That's such crap! He was just too scared!"
"That may well be, Squall," she told him, "but how are you any less frightened by your relationship with Rinoa?"
"I'm not scared!"
"Yeah, well, anyway…" the Spirit directed Squalls attention to their surroundings in order to change the subject. "Do you recognize this place?"
"It's just a student dorm room," he said looking around at old rock group posters from the previous decade. "Although, it does look familiar…"
"It should," said the Spirit impatiently, pointing to the far end of the room. The young man noticed a small figure rolling over in his sleep in the bed. Alarms went off in Squall's mind as he realized the sleeping boy was a younger version of himself.
"Yes," said the Spirit. "It's your room a few years ago."
Squall watched as the younger version of him woke up. I must have been about twelve, he thought.
The young Squall finished waking up by stretching and then he sat up and swung his feet around onto the floor. It was then that he first saw the beautifully wrapped Solstice present. The boy made a wild dive toward the gift and began to haphazardly rip off the gift-wrap.
I remember this, the commander thought. I was so happy that day.
"Oh boy! Oh boy!" the young Squall exclaimed jumping up and down in his excitement when his gift came into sight. "It's a gunblade! I wanted one so bad, how did anyone know. Where did it come from?"
"I've got to show this to everybody," the boy exclaimed throwing his pajamas off. "I've got to get dressed. When I get big I'm always gonna sleep in my clothes."
"Uh oh, sorry, I didn't foresee this," the Spirit murmured turning her head.
"Hey! Look at this, everybody," the young boy cried out now completely dressed and leaving his dorm room. Squall made a move to follow himself when the Spirit stopped him by placing her arm on his.
"Where are you going?"
"I want to see more. I want to see how everybody was, I was so happy that morning."
"You could be happy in your own time, if you so chose," the Spirit intoned as the room faded away.
Squall was still soundly sleeping in his large office. Ellone, presently standing behind him, was happy with the way the first occurrence had went, but now she was completely at a loss for what to do next. She realized the small amount that Squall had just experienced was not going to be near enough to change the course of his life.
Yes, she could show Squall the immediate present, but just that alone wouldn't do. Later he would probably be awake and Ellone had no power in the present and she absolutely couldn't send someone into the future.
An apparition suddenly appeared in the office in front of Ellone. As the figure became more distinct Ellone felt herself grow weak in surprise and just before fainting thought, Julia! She can't be real.
"Squall, wake up," Julia ordered.
Squall discovered himself standing next to a figure that looked identical to the pictures he had seen of Rinoa's mother and whom he had observed previously through Laguna's eyes. This must be a dream, he thought.
"No, it's real."
As the young commander looked at the figure beside him in surprise, she nodded and explained, "Yes, I can read your thoughts. You have no secrets from me."
"But you're dead. You're...you're..."
"I am the Spirit of Solstice Present and we are going to spend some time with your close friends. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
The Spirit snapped her fingers and they were suddenly standing in the chapel watching Rinoa and the other young women participating in the ritual to help Seifer's ghost move on from the earthly plane.
"Oh no!" Squall protested, "Why are watching this crap?"
"Show some tolerance. You remember the concept of tolerance don't you? I just ask because lately you've been acting as though you've never heard of it."
The Spirit's rejoinder shamed Squall into silence as he had opened his mouth to retort. "Besides," the Spirit continued to speak, "you are her knight. If you thought she was behaving in a misdirected manner that's all the more reason you should be by her side."
"What would you have me do?" he cried out plaintively.
"That's for you to decide, isn't it?" the Spirit answered smugly. "Come, we have more to see and not much time."
As the two figures left the chapel Squall locked eyes with Rinoa and strangely felt as though she could actually see him for a minute. They next materialized in a back corner of the coffee shop where Ellone and most of his friends were sitting. He noticed immediately that only Zell and Rinoa were missing.
"Where's Squall? Why isn't he here?" Andrea wondered.
"Why would you care?" Selphie asked.
"I was just in his office a little while ago. He was sound asleep and looked exhausted," Ellone explained.
"We don't need him," Selphie snapped.
"Sefie," murmured Irvine.
"No, I mean it," the ordinarily kind hearted young woman said turning to her boyfriend. "We don't need him. He's done nothing to help. He's only attempted to serve as a hindrance and he doesn't have one ounce of Solstice Spirit in his entire miserable body. And on top of that he has just about driven poor Rinoa around the bend."
The others present nodded or muttered their acceptance of that statement. Squall was shocked and somewhat saddened to observe that no one present, not even Ellone, spoke up in his behalf.
"By the way speaking of Rinoa, does anybody know where she is?" Quistis questioned.
"Yes, I do," Nicole admitted. "I saw her leave the Garden. She was dressed in her former outfit and was carrying a small suitcase."
The expression on Quistis's face turned to one of alarm.
"And you didn't try to stop her?!" Selphie accused.
"Of course I tried to stop her," Nicole replied indignantly. "But what could I do? She said she was going home to Deling City for a few days and that she'd be back by the end of next week."
"She's not coming back," Andrea declared in a dead voice.
Everyone turned to look at her. "I can't explain it. I just know. If she were coming back, she wouldn't have left. Rinoa must have felt she had run out of chances with Squall."
"You know," Quistis said thoughtfully, "I did see her coming out of Squall's office a little while before coming down here. I was hoping that they had a talk and had gotten some things straightened out, but I bet she went in there and couldn't even wake him."
"Oh that's horrible!" Selphie looked as if she were going to cry.
"No, I'll tell you what's really horrible," Irvine offered. "His selfish behaviors damage himself most of all and he doesn't even realize it, even after all this time. That's why I won't say anything against him. Squall Leonhart is his own worse enemy and probably always will be until he finally dies a lonely bitter old man."
Squall felt a chill run down his spine at the sound of those words. "Take me back, Spirit. Take me back right now! I don't wish to hear anymore."
The Spirit of Solstice Present snapped her fingers and the two of them were immediately returned to the commander's office. Something about observing his body asleep before him made Squall feel woozy. He turned away and looked at the Spirit."
"If this is a dream, wake me up!" he cried out.
"Haha! This is no dream, Squall Leonhart, as much as you would like it to be. What you just witnessed really occurred."
"And you think this is funny? Wake me up! Wake me up right now! I've changed, I tell you. I don't want to see anymore."
"You have one more lesson coming, the most important one of all," the Spirit kindly explained while fading away leaving Squall to ponder what he had just learned.
Once again back in his office, this time by himself, Squall observed that he was still sleeping at his desk and that Ellone was nowhere to be seen. Hearing a noise behind him, he turned his head and was quite startled to see someone completely cloaked in a dark robe. The garb was arranged in such a manner that nothing of the figure was visible to Squall except for one outstretched hand. There was such an aura of complete silence surrounding the spooky persona that the commander felt terrified.
"W-Who...are you?" he stammered although he was certain that he already knew.
"I am the Spirit of Solstice Yet to Come, the Solstice of the Future," the figure spoke in an unmistakable voice.
It's the mysterious voice! Squall thought as adrenaline flooded his body.
"Are you the thing that's been taunting me?"
The cloaked figure answered naught but pointed the hand out in front of her. He and the mysterious phantom immediately melted into the main atrium of the Garden, but as Squall glanced around he was amazed that it was changed from the last time he had seen it a short while ago. The fountains were gone and had been replaced by many elegant statues.
He instinctively stepped closer and observed statues of Cid and Edea. Squall saw statues of apparent adult SeeDs who he realized had only been children when he supervised roll call that very morning. The young man then perceived statues of the 'heroes' who had defeated Sorceress Ultimecia. He stepped toward the stone figure of Rinoa and saw something that caused him to feel as though his blood had turned ice cold in his veins. A plaque at the base of her statue gave her death as two days after the solstice he had yet to celebrate that evening.
"This must be wrong!" Squall called out to the Spirit.
"That is not wrong," the Spirit spoke lowly in an eerie voice. "Rinoa attempted to tell you something that was of the utmost importance to the both of you, but you refused to wake up. She already felt you wouldn't listen and would desert her in her time of need so she fled her home at Garden to return to Deling to die at the hands of a butcher. She couldn't stand the shame and sought out a quack that couldn't stop her hemorrhaging and Rinoa quickly bled to death. You lost your future wife and son in one ill fated hour."
People who knew Squall wouldn't have believed the cry of raw anguish that escaped his lips. "Tell me one thing, is there still time to change this?"
When the Spirit of Solstice Future remained silent, Squall demanded, "Take me back, take me back right now."
Now the Spirit spoke, "You were given ample warning, mortal but you chose to not heed me. Now you must reap what you sowed."
The haunted young man heard the voices of his friends, but they sounded odd, blurred, and older. They walked right by him, but gave no indication that they saw him. Squall was shocked to observe how much they had aged. He could still tell it was they, but they were more solid if not exactly overweight. Squall noticed some random gray hairs; his friends were headed toward middle age.
It must be at least twenty years later, he realized.
"I don't care what you say," Selphie said. "I say good riddance. I bet he hasn't said more than five words to me in the last twenty years and four of them were bad."
"Now Sefie, show some charity," Irvine responded.
"Spirit, who are they talking about?" Squall asked. He swallowed at the lump that had formed in his throat.
"I'll show the same charity he showed Rinoa twenty years ago. I loved her, she was my friend. He might as well have plunged a knife into her himself!"
Quistis asked, "Where was Zell? I expected him to come, if for nothing else than an old times sake."
"He said he just couldn't break away from Trabia Garden right now," Irvine answered. "Too many responsibilities as Headmaster, and Ellone said she would have liked to come but she's been working closely with her new business and didn't want to leave it right now."
"Spirit, tell me! Who are they talking about?"
"Well, personally I would hope that people don't feel as though they have to travel halfway around the world just to attend a short service for someone who hasn't said a kind word to them in years and then finally had the decency to kill himself. I just wish he would have done it years ago," Selphie retorted.
"You know it's odd when you think about it," Irvine interrupted his wife's tirade. "It all started to unravel for Squall on that Solstice right after we defeated Ultimecia. If only someone could have reached him then, helped him to understand what was going to happen later down the road. But I guess that's hindsight and wishful thinking."
"Come on," Selphie suggested. "I want to get out of these formal clothes."
As the people he knew walked away from him, Squall heard Quistis mutter, "I guess it will be a little nicer around here from now on."
"For sure!" agreed Selphie.
"Talk to me Spirit!" Squall pleaded. "What's going on?"
When the figure remained silent, Squall glanced hysterically around the Garden. The hallways were decorated with pine garland and lights. Everything looked cheerful and relaxed. Groups of students and SeeDs were standing and talking. Many people were laughing; it didn't look as though any of them were in mourning.
Two young upperclassmen walked by talking. "Who's going to be the new Headmaster now that Headmaster Leonhart is dead?" a pretty young blonde asked.
"I think Mrs. Almasy will be," the dark-haired young man answered.
"Oh that's great!" the girl exclaimed. "I thought she should have been all along. Dare I now call her Headmistress Quistis?"
"Haha! I think I might stick with Headmaster Almasy if I were you."
Squall fell to his knees as if in pain. "Tell me," he beseeched the silent figure, "that this can still be changed. Our fates can't just be set, there must still be time. Tell me, please."
The Spirit reached up and lowered the cowl revealing the face of a pretty brown-haired woman. "Stand up, son," she said while helping Squall to regain his feet if not his composure.
He looked on shocked and speechless for a few seconds and finally stammered, "Y-You're...Raine."
"Yes, I am, but I would prefer you call me mother." She smiled at him.
"How is this possible? Why are you here?"
"I've always been near you, watching over you; but today is special. It's a crisis point in two people's lives. Ironically enough, they're both here in Garden, you being one of them. What shall you do, son?"
"Whatever it takes to not allow those things to happen," Squall answered with determination in his voice.
"And you won't forget what you learned here today?"
"No, of course not. Who could forget such awful things?"
"Good," Raine replied. She slipped her hand inside Squall's coat and placed it on his chest. "You shall always be in my heart as I hopefully will remain in yours. Goodbye son. I wish I could stay and we could talk, but it is not allowed. I have someone else who desperately requires my assistance. I love you."
Moments after she was gone Squall raised his head from his desk where he had been sleeping. He shook his head. Good grief! Was that a dream? No, it was too real. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the snowflake cookie he had pilfered from his mother's house. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a dream.
The cookie smelled buttery and sweet. He took a nibble of it, savoring the flavor of the only cooking he'd ever tasted of his mother's. Then realizing he could reminisce later, Squall tucked the cookie into his desk, jumped up and ran out of his office into the corridor. The commander grabbed the first person who walked by, a young redheaded female SeeD named Jesse.
"Tell me!" he ordered grasping the young woman by the upper arms. "What's today?"
"Today sir?" she echoed looking at him strangely. "It's Solstice Eve."
"Oh thank Hyne, I'm not too late! Thank you and Merry Solstice!" Squall offered before running down the corridor.
Well, I guess he's finally flipped completely, the young SeeD thought. I knew it would happen, sooner or later.