Disclaimer: Listen, I think everyone here realizes that since I'm writing fanfiction and not producing movies that I DO NOT OWN FF8 … so let's just DROP the subject and get it going…

Chapter Nine

'I'm so weak…' Bitter thoughts infiltrated her mind.  She felt so feeble as she edged towards his warm body and called out to him, "Squall?"

He was still a little breathless, "Mm?"  He turned on his side to face her. "Yeah?"

"Hold me…" Her voice sounded tired and nearly helpless.  He kissed her and wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her closer to him, "I'm… scared…"

The tip of his nose touched her forehead. "Of what?" His voice was barely a murmur and his grip on her tightened. "Don't be scared… there is no reason…"

She sighed slightly as she shifted closer to him, she was still so cold.  Sensing this, he momentarily let go of her waist to reach for the comforter and pull it up.  Accomplishing this task, his hand resumed its place on her waist, "I don't know… there's so many things I regret…"

His hand moved along her spine, he stopped midway and asked, "What… do you regret?" He was afraid of her answer, fearing that maybe she would finally reject him for good.

"I regret the agency… I regret… leaving Seifer…" The words were forced from her mouth and when Squall heard them, they sounded so dejected and wrong.

"You still… you still…" He began but was unable to finish.  This was what he had been afraid of… his angel had never belonged to him?  Was it all just a big show put on to amuse the general public?  Had he been… a simple puppet?

Her hands reached out and she reached for the back of his neck, pulling his head down a bit and raising her own to meet his eyes, "No… I don't." 

His mind relaxed a bit with this news.  However, just because she didn't love Seifer… it didn't mean that she loved him. "So then… why?" He inevitably had a pouting look on his face, slightly sad.

She smiled slightly. "Well… what we both did was wrong… we shouldn't have…"

"I don't care." His eyes were suddenly cold. "I did what I did without any regrets… it's not like the secret had been kept from them a whole long time… they weren't kept from anything for long, now were they?"

"Had they been informed from the start, we would never have been together…" Rinoa explained softly.

"You say that like it's a good thing." He suddenly was struggling to keep his voice down, to keep his temper under control.  Suddenly, he rose to a sitting position however she put her hand on his chest and brought him back down.

"Could you cool it?" She asked snappishly. "Could we pretend for once that we're a model couple and talk about the certain issues in our life?  Because let me tell you we have loads of them… barrels full."

"Were we a model couple, we wouldn't have issues to resolve.  No, I will not cool it.  Christ, Rinoa, you're telling me that you regret breaking up with your old boyfriend, the one that sliced a blade across my face.  Then you tell me that if we had told our old lovers about the agency in the first place we wouldn't be together… how the fuck do you expect me to cool it?"

"Oh my God!" She hissed suddenly. "Even after sex I can't have a decent conversation with you!  Could we please work together here… right now I need you to just listen, can you?" He remained silent. "All I'm saying… is that maybe we weren't very… civilized…"

"It was about you… it had always been about you, right from the beginning.  I wanted nothing more to do with either of them, even in the first place, had I the choice, I would have been with you," He said firmly. His eyes hadn't still lost their icy shade.

And to this she couldn't speak.  Had it always been about him?  No… she had loved Seifer once.  She knew this but he had always loved her.  What was she supposed to say? "Squall I…"

"I'm not expecting you to tell me anything…" He turned away. "Good night…"

"Squall… please… don't be mad…" This was a first.  She was the one doing the begging and not he.  This happened on a very rare occasion, "I want to talk to you, I need to talk to you.  I need you …"

"Rinoa… I don't want to talk about the past.  I don't want to remember Quistis or Seifer.  I don't care about them and honestly, I can't remember the time when I did," He replied coldly.

"Fine … then let's talk about something else … please, just talk to me…" She hung onto his arm, pleadingly.

He rolled over on his back. "What the hell is with you all of a sudden?"

'I'm weak; so weak… can't you see that?  I don't even realize what I'm saying, leave me my moments with you, Squall… make them beautiful, please…' She thought sadly and then whispered in his ear, "I need you more than ever right now…"

She turned his face towards her; he frowned but turned his whole body towards her and closed his eyes. "Talk about what?"

She moved closer to him, "I don't know… anything."

"Ok, let's talk about your father who threatened to shove his foot up my ass so far that I'd be spit shining the top of his shoe with my tongue last time I saw him.  How's that for a topic?" He asked sarcastically, his hand placed once again on her back.

"That sounds great.  I'd say he likes you more than he did when I told him you were fathering my baby though." He was surprised to hear the seriousness in her tone of voice.

"Ok, let's talk about something else… I'm beginning to get nauseated by the thought of him…" Squall said wearily, "Let's talk about…"
"How you bought a dog without my consent…" Rinoa pouted slightly at the smile that had suddenly appeared on her husband's lips.

"You said that saying 'no' to our daughter was the most difficult thing to do… so it got me thinking, why should I even say no?" Squall answered simply. "You never said that I couldn't."
"Yes, well I assumed that you understood that it was out of the question to have a household pet." Rinoa replied, "I wouldn't have thought you'd just buy one."

He opened his eyes slightly, observing his wife's facial features.  He looked into her dark brown eyes and couldn't help smiling a bit.  He observed the pouting lips, the red cheeks and the strand of raven hair that simply fell across it.  He brought his hand to her face a brushed it off, then getting closer to kiss her softly.  They broke apart and he stated simply, "Anyways, I thought you liked dogs."

"When they belong to someone else, yes, I do," She answered him, her eyes remaining closed.  She gave off a little sigh, "When I have to feed them and clean their crap… then it's another story all together."

He stayed silent a moment and then said, "I love you …"

She didn't reply for a while, only traced the scar from his forehead to underneath his left eye, "Ok… I know…"

He suddenly felt a pang of frustration. "And you, Rin?  That's not the way you're supposed to answer me…"

"You know how I feel, I don't understand why I should tell you every five minutes…" She clicked her tongue in an annoyed fashion.

"No, I don't know how you feel.  You never told me," He replied in an accusing tone, "Never, not once.  Help me out here, tell me because I'm starting to go crazy wondering whether or not-"

"Squall, don't push it!" She hissed as her nails dug into his shoulders. "Stop!"

He cringed slightly at the sting and when her hands relaxed he replied, "Fine." He sensed she was quite pissed off from this direct confrontation but he knew she could not know of the immense pain his heart was weathering. 

***

She stirred slightly and opened her eyes. It was morning once more.  As a force of habit, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand and read '7:57a.m.'  Knowing it was only futile to try and go back to sleep she pulled herself from her husbands grasp, slowly and carefully so not to wake him.  He merely grunted slightly but did not move.

Looking around at the piles of clothing that had been shed the preceding night she decides to not bother with it right away and instead entered the bathroom that was connected to the master bedroom.

She closed the door behind her and locked it, almost as if she needed to take the extra precautions and went about doing her morning routine.  She first took a shower, dried her hair, brushed her teeth and put on her make-up (very little but to her it was still part of the ritual). 

She then, with a towel wrapped around her, went back into the bedroom to pick out some clothes.  Squall was still asleep which didn't surprise her at all since he always slept in late and to add to it, he was also a very heavy sleeper. 

She rummaged through her closet and decided on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.  Her mother's voice suddenly rang in her head, 'you know, after I became a mother I didn't dress like a teenager anymore.  No offense Rin, you look like your fifteen.' She became muttering sub-consciously under her breath, "Go to hell, mom… I refuse to start wearing flowery dresses that makes me look forty…"

She went to the bathroom to change and then decided to go downstairs.  Closing the bedroom door behind her once more, she slowly descended down the stairs.  She found her son, sitting Indian style on the couch watching cartoons.

"Hey monkey, how long have you been up?" She asked, walking up behind him.

"Since five this morning…" He answered blankly, his concentration on the television entirely.

She combed back his messy dark hair with her fingers.  It was so much like Squall, silky and soft but black like her own.  "You hungry?"

"Yeah, a bit…" He answered.  The fact that he had been up since five didn't quite surprise her, as he was always an early riser.  She used to be like that when she was younger however when she had hit her thirteenth year she had discovered the beauties of sleeping in.

"I'm going to start breakfast…" She left him to see what the fridge stored … and finally realized what her dear hubby had forgotten the night before.  Milk.

"Alessandro, I've got to go to the store, you want to come with me?" She went back into the living room.  "We have no milk…"

"M'ok …" He said, turning off the television, "Lemme just get socks…"

She noticed he had gotten dressed fully, except for the socks.  She went to the entry hall and pulled on her running shoes and a light spring jacket.  Her son came back down in a matter of seconds and put on his shoes as a windbreaker and they were off.

"Why was your bedroom door closed?" Alessandro asked whilst buckling his seatbelt.

Rinoa shrugged as she started the car, "I don't know, maybe your father closed it." It wasn't a lie… Squall had closed it but she knew perfectly why.

"I was worried that killers had come and murdered you guys or something…" He stated and sounded as if he was still afraid of that possibility. "It's nearly never closed.  Only sometimes when daddy's home or when you're on the phone with someone at night…"

'Shit… he knows too much…' Rinoa thought helplessly, 'Wait a minute… did he come in?' She tried as best to look unaffected, "Did you… come in?"

"No… I didn't want to be the one to discover your bodies." He replied simply looking out of the window.

Rinoa raised her eyebrows, "Is that so?" She paid no more heed and just drove on to the nearest corner store.

Alex, however, began talking avidly, "I heard murderers slit your throat and hit a… an artery…" This was obviously a very big word for him, "And blood spews everywhere and they don't care one bit because it's their job."

Rinoa became slightly edgier as her son went on, "I mean, that's just sick!  What a bunch of creeps!  Mom?  Are you ok?" She had grown slightly paler over the last few minutes.

"Never been better…" Her voice was slightly squeaky, "Here we are, let's go get the milk."  They disembarked the vehicle and entered the store.  Alex went off to the candy section buy Rinoa was used to this so she went to the refrigerated section and grabbed a large carton of milk.

"Why Rinoa… it's been a while, I believe…" A deep voice greeted from behind her.  She swerved around on the spot… and froze as she looked into the piercing gray eyes of her old boss.

Sammy: Y'all can guess who that is?  Good.  Thank you for all your kind reviews, they mean so much to me!  Please, please, please review this chapter and thank you all for reading!