Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 8 or its characters. They are ALL copyrighted by Squaresoft. ALL the chapters in this fic follow the same disclaimer!!!! I just own my created characters.

*********************

Chapter 5 – Reunion

*********************

"Damn, this looks even worse in reality than in the photograph."

Irvine he stepped out of the Storm slowly, followed closely by Seifer. All the cowboy could do was nod in response to Zell's statement. 'Man, Zell's right.' Shumi Village was reduced to ashes as true to the photograph, not even one cottage was left standing. The earth below their feet was barren almost to the point of the color black. Body parts were everywhere, as the only color visible, besides black and brown, was red. Even the sky around the area was a dark gray.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Irvine took the initiative and started to walk around. After a minute, Zell and Seifer soon followed him, their eyes traveling in every direction imaginable, trying to pinpoint something amiss among the ruins and at the same time, still trying to take in the reality of their surroundings.

"This is definetely no illusion." Irvine blatantly stated, as part of him hoped that the photograph that was shown to them earlier was somehow, a fake.

"No kidding, cowboy." Seifer replied. "Might as well start looking around. Split up, and if you find something unusual, just shout or something. Meet back here in a couple of hours." Seifer then journeyed further into town, or whatever was left of it.

Irvine nodded. "Zell, you stay around here and scrutinize this area carefully. I'll head towards the end of town, and see if I can find anything there. Catch you later." With the cowboy walking away, Zell turned around and faced his mission. "I'm going to solve this mystery, if not for the world, at least for him."

The martial artist firstly performed a Scan spell, to see if anything out of the ordinary was visible through it. Unfortunately, the spell returned fruitless results and Zell had to resort to the older style of investigation – getting onto his hands and knees.

-----*****-----

Seifer walked towards the heart of the city, looking around himself every now and then. Throughout his life, he had witnessed many acts of manslaughter and destruction of monsters, but none as worse as what had happened to Shumi Village. "This is unbelievable." he muttered to himself as he unconsciously kicked a few body parts here and there while walking. Unexpectedly, despite the fact that it didn't feel like it, two hours had passed while investigating. "Not even one fucking clue." Taking another quick check around, making sure he didn't miss anything, Seifer headed back to where they were supposed to meet.

Unbeknownst to the gunblader, sets of eyes were watching him with each and every step he took.

-----*****-----

"UNBELIEVABLE! Not even one fucking clue around!" Zell yelled in the air, waving his fists in frustration. "How the hell does a guy blow up a freakin' town and doesn't even leave one fucking clue about himself! I find that impossible!"

"And I find your attitude impossible." a voice proclaimed in the distance.

Zell sighed as he sat down on the floor cross-legged. "I'm not in the mood for your bullshit, Seifer. We got a serious problem on our hands."

The blond looked shocked at Zell's sudden change in disposition regarding the situation they were in, but quickly hid it. 'As much as I hate to agree with chicken wuss, he's right. This is not the time for our quarrels.'

"You find anything?"

The question brought Seifer back to reality, and began to answer it when a sneeze was heard in the bushes in the distance. Zell instantly retreated into a fighting stance as Seifer quickly unsheathed his gunblade, the Hyperion. The silver-colored blade glimmered as rays from the sun beamed down onto it.

Seifer gave Zell a quickly glance, wordlessly telling him that he was going in. Zell nodded as he readied himself a couple of deadly spells, just in case his comrade needed help.

Within a blink of an eye, Seifer had disappeared. The martial artist was shocked completely at the speed at which his former adversary left with. 'Damn, during those couple of years, Seifer surely has been training. Better be careful not to get on his bad side from now on.' he silently thought to himself.

Before Zell knew it, Seifer had yelled out an attack as he saw the blond warrior dive into the bushes with his gunblade in an attacking position, ready to slice. Only a split second later, did Zell realize that Seifer had actually intended to disarm the opponent, despite the fact he didn't even see him, or her for that matter. "Shit, he has improved."

The martial artist waited a minute or two before deciding to step into the area where Seifer had unexpectedly leaped. As Zell parted the bushes away, he found a thing, a human being to be more precise, at the mercy of Seifer's hands – Seifer had his gunblade pointed towards the back of the guy's neck. Looking around, Zell spotted a crimson red gunblade in the distance, obviously belonging to the mysterious guy. 'He must be from Trabia……'

Gulping down greatly, Zell gathered enough courage to slowly put his hand onto Seifer's blade and lower it down gradually. "Chill out Seifer – I think he's the guy Cid was talking about. You remember, the Tra-bia gun-blader."

Seifer glared at Zell before sneering arrogantly, kicking the mysterious guy in the back before resheathing his weapon. "Well, I still don't see a freakin' reason why he has to be sneaking around, like he was spying or something."


"Well, I thought you guys were bad guys or something." Zell and Seifer looked down upon the mysterious guy, who had just spoken for the first time. "It's a mistake, it could happen to anyone, and from the current circumstance, it happened to both of us."

Gritting his teeth, Seifer had to admit – this sorry excuse for a warrior was right. "Eh, get the hell off the ground and get your weapon." Walking back to camp, Seifer muttered something under his breath about the guy not being talented at all it fighting, proving Cid wrong about his previous statement.

Once all three regrouped at the camp, which was only a few yards away from the struggle, they sat down around the fire as nightfall started to dawn upon them.


"So, you got a name, or what?" Zell asked.

Now Seifer had finally gotten a better look at the new guy and it was then he realized it was the same bastard who insulted Fujin and Raijin in Balamb a couple of days ago. 'Shit! This is going to be harder than I thought. First the chicken wuss, and now this sorry excuse of a fighter.'

"Zack………Zack Nuriko." the man finally responded.

Scratching his head, Zell finally extended his hand outward to their new ally. "I'm Zell Dincht and the other guy over there is Seifer Almasy. Nice to have you on the team."

Hesitantly, Zack accepted Zell's hand, and both men firmly shook, signifying an alliance. Zack was about to do the same to Seifer, before he quickly thought against it. It surely was not the right time to talk to him, considering what had just happened.

Several minutes of silence passed between the three men before Zack realized something. "Hey, I remember seeing three of you enter the village."

"HOLY SHIT!" Zell and Seifer exclaimed in unison.

-----*****-----

With his Exeter, Irvine's most trusted weapon, in his hand, the cowboy took fearless steps into the unknown. "If someone can do this in such a short amount of time, I better be careful."

He entered the first cottage in his sight, and stood frozen in place at what his eyes revealed to him. If he didn't have a reason to be emotionally broken before, he did now. Right before his eyes, stood the person of his heart's desire, hanging from the ceiling with a rope tied around her neck. The unmistakable smell of death hung around the cottage, signaling the fact that she had been dead for some time. "Selphie………" was the only word out of the cowboy's mouth before the sound of the Exeter falling to the floor gave its echo in the room.

"It…can't…be… I just saw you fine only a couple of hours ago." Not trusting his own eyes, Irvine couldn't help but to edge closer to the limp body hanging from the roof. Her arms were tied behind her back and her head was hung low, so her hair covered her eyes.

Closing the distance between himself and Selphie to a couple of feet, Irvine hesitated whether to go any further or not. He was not ready to accept the reality of the situation if indeed, it was true.


Suddenly, Selphie's head perked up swiftly as her eyes locked themselves onto Irvine's, who cowered in fear, but did not take a step back. Irvine gulped down hard as he took another courageous step forward, closing the distance to mere inches. The last thing Irvine remembered was seeing Selphie's eyes turn an eerie yellow and an evil smile creep upon her lips before darkness overcame the sharpshooter.

-----*****-----

The lone wolf came out of the training grounds sweating and panting, but looking pretty much unharmed, with the exception for a few scratches here and there. His trusted weapon was sheathed at his waist, and after looking around – making sure that all was clear – he navigated his way back to his dorm room.

"Man, that was refreshing. Nothing beats a day fighting Grats and T-rexasaur monsters at the training center." Squall said as he stretched his sore arms a little.

Bahamut smirked. "I suppose, but do you think it was wise for you to train out in the open, especially in an area as accessible as the training center?"

With a wave of his hand, his master declared it to be no problem. "Nah, and besides, Cid told me that today was the day of the SeeD field test, so almost all of the are at their field test. Plus, the training center is supposed to be closed down for an upgrade in monsters – remember the sign we saw on the way in?"

"True………"

"Good, then it's settled. Now that we're off of that topic, why don't I go and take a nice, long relaxing shower." the commander said rather dreamily. "You can never have enough of those in a lifetime."

"Humph, make that two lifetimes." Bahamut stated in a grumpy tone of voice.

"Bahamut……"

"Yes?"

"May I remind you that I do NOT want to talk about that. Do you want to be locked up………again?" Squall's tone was surprisingly deadly.

"Consider me as good as gone."

Squall sighed, "Finally…maybe I'll get at least an hour of peace in my mind." Not that he hated conversations with his favorite Guardian Force in his own mind, but whenever the topic about their recent past ever came up, he did not want to even graze the subject, let alone talk about it. The last few years were the worst he had ever faced, and if it had not been for Bahamut, he wouldn't have been there in the first place.


Before he had any more time to think about it, he finally reached his dorm room. Unlocking it quickly, and entering just as fast, Squall secured the door shut as he slumped onto his bed. 'Oh yeah, the shower.'

Entering his bathroom, Squall turned on the shower, and unexpectedly, found the shower to be quite cold at first. Shrugging, he turned it towards the hot water side and let it run for a few minutes. As he was about to take off his clothes, the inevitable finally happened – the thing he was dreading: a knock on his door.

Almost instantaneously, he turned of the shower and stood dead silent, hoping that the visitor was just a passerby of some sort. But then again, why would a passerby knock on his door, when everyone knew whom the room belonged to.

Unfortunately for Squall, the visitor was persistent, as the knocking grew more rapid and louder, as if pleading to get it. A million thoughts were going through the commander's mind, but the thought of an emergency was at the front. "It might be Cid with some important info, and maybe he didn't want to call me over the intercom again." he rationalized out loud to himself. To further Squall's dilemma, and annoyance, Bahamut had decided to keep himself quiet. "Goddamn dragon………I might as well open it."

Gathering whatever courage he had in his body, Squall approached his door, but did not open it immediately. The knocking seemed to have stopped, and for awhile, he thought that perhaps the person had finally left. Just as he was about to turn away from the cursed door, the knocking came once again, and this time louder than ever, making Squall wince in fear – a feeling he had all too long forgotten. No one had been able to make him do that, with the exception of her.

However, all inhibitions were thrown out the window and Squall made a grab towards the handle and whipped the door open. At that instant, when he laid eyes upon the visitor, all of his senses, except for sight, were gone – it was her. "Rinoa……"

She was about to turn away.


It all started about some hours ago, when she left Kari in the care of Quistis and Selphie. Seeing her child safe, she wanted to get to the bottom of this. She couldn't believe that she actually stormed into the Headmaster's office – giving the stare of death to all who stood in her way – and actually threatened Cid, the man who behaved more of a father to her than her blood one, to confess the mystery about him.

She couldn't take the drama any more. She needed to know. Her whole life stood on the thread of a simple string whenever he was mentioned. Even more surprising, Cid had actually confessed the truth, and told his side of the story, which proved to be even more shocking that she ever thought it could be.

But she had no time to ponder over that. Relaying the story to her took up an hour's worth of time. She left his office dazed, having extreme difficulty to accept the fact that Cid knew all along that Squall was alive. Cid knew she could have killed him in that instant, for keeping the secret for so long, but Cid nevertheless confessed. However, the look in his eye when telling the story told her it wasn't complete. If she wanted to know more, there would be only one way to find out.

It took her another hour to gather enough courage to walk up to his dorm room. Nightfall had already landed upon the Earth, and with Kari safe in Selphie's capable hands, she could focus all her attention on this "mission."

And then she knocked, and waited. Still no reply. She kept on knocking, and no answer. Maybe he had left, she had thought. With her eyes brimming with tears that would ultimately shed, she knocked one last time, and was about to turn away, when the door finally flew open.

The first thing she noticed were his eyes. She knew it was him from the very bottom of her heart.

Both of them just stood there, looking each other in the eye. Both were too frightened to say anything – for fear of saying the wrong thing, and for the fear that it might all just be another sick illusion someone has played on their pitiful lives.

Her mind needed physical evidence. With tears starting to fall from her chocolate brown eyes, she raised her hand to his face, stopping just mere inches from any contact. She was frightened at the person who could give her all the security she would ever need. She did not want him to disappear.


With one last act of courage, she placed her finger gently on his scar that ran down from his forehead to the bridge of his nose. She traced it, and when she got to the end of the line, there was nothing else to do.

She hugged him.

There was not one rational thought that lingered in his mind. Squall was totally frozen – in shock – he had no clue. But when her hand landed on his face, it all came back to him. The notion that it was no illusion, but a reality gave him the strength that he needed. He was about to hug her, when she threw herself against his body, surrendering herself completely to his mercy.


At that instant, all of Squall's hard work to rebuild a wall around his heart, collapsed instantly at her embrace. It was not that he didn't want it, but the fact that he didn't deserve it; the fact that he shouldn't have it. But nevertheless, he returned the hug.

Rinoa then started to cry.

"Rinoa………"

Before Squall could say anymore, Rinoa squeezed him tighter, if it was possible. Squall struggled to breathe, but he didn't care. "Please, Squall. Just shutup. Just shut the hell up."


And that was all he needed as he gently pulled his angel into his room, kicking his door closed and locking it, making sure no other person could interrupt. All the meanwhile, Rinoa still had not let go of her embrace on her knight. She already told herself she probably would never let go again.

Not knowing what else to do, Squall stayed in the embrace. He just relished in the warmth Rinoa was sending him – a warmth he thought he would never receive again.

The heaven-made couple stayed like that for Hyne knew how long. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours – or even an eternity long – they did not care.

Finally, she broke the silence. "Squall……why didn't you tell me?"

Squall's eyes widened and shortly after fell in disgrace as he broke the embrace they were sharing. Walking towards the open window, he looked out and stared at the dark abyss located above – where all the shining burnt out specs of light shined brilliantly, and where the new moon radiated its usual color. They all brought back unwanted memories – painful memories he did not want to burden anyone with.

"I had my reasons Rinoa………You couldn't even begin to comprehend what I have seen and gone through." he answered softly, a lone tear escaping his eye.

Rinoa had nothing else but compassion and sympathy for her love. She could only imagine what he had to go through these past years. But he also had many great things waiting for him in the future. Slowly, Rinoa walked up to him and wrapped her hands around his back. "Please Squall, I want to share your pain."

He hadn't anticipated this. Maybe it was because of his separation from her, or maybe it was just him, but he had not expected Rinoa to be so caring and compassionate towards him. He had expected her to be bitter for leaving her alone for so long. Nevertheless, he turned around, and softly knocked his forehead against hers. "Thank you." he sincerely whispered, followed by his radiant smile, which was only reserved for her.

Rinoa gasped. He was gorgeous. She then decided it was her mission to make him smile like that more often – to break him open once again like she did a lifetime ago. After all, if he was going to be a husband, and more importantly, a father, she had no other choice.

"Squall……" she breathed, but before she had the chance to say more, she was engaged in a heart-warming kiss. A kiss that she realized all too soon she had missed so much, a kiss that mended the very bottom of her shattered soul, a kiss that made her, in one word, complete.

Neither knew how long it had lasted, but eventually, both had to break apart to gasp for air. Both of them smiled at each other lovingly, before Squall's fatigue from the training center earlier that day had finally caught up to him.

"Sorry Rinny………I'm feeling a bit lightheaded."

Rinoa eyes shifted to the floor. She didn't want the moment to end. Hell, she never wanted to leave him ever again. But something told her that he wouldn't leave, and that was all she needed. She had to respect his want for privacy……for now at least. "Oh, ok. I guess I should leave………"

Just as she was turning around, she felt his strong grasp around her wrist. Whipping her head around, she connected with Squall's stare – a stare full of admiration and love. "If you think I'm letting you go anywhere this late at night, you're clearly mistaken."

Her heartbeat skipped a few beats as she smiled throughout her falling tears. That was all she wanted to hear.

Squall had picked her up and before she knew it, she was lying on his bed with him. Almost as if it had been a regular habit, she rolled on top of her knight and stared into his eyes. In it, she could see every single emotion that Squall held within himself – love, pain, sympathy, empathy, and much more. She went down for one last kiss before she nuzzled herself comfortably in the crook of his neck, where, for the first time in the past years, she slept like a baby.


With Squall's strong hands holding her tightly against him, every insecurity she had felt before were washed away. His warmth, his touch, his lips, his presence was all that she needed at the moment. And to her surprise and liking, she received it all.

Author's Notes: Well here it is - the long awaited, and very much anticipated, Rinoa/Squall meeting. I really felt like this was the way they would react if they were presented in this situation. For you guys who are interested in Squall's past, sorry, I did not reveal it yet. But it will happen in time, so relax. As for Irvine, well, I know you guys are probably confused on what just happened to him, but rest assured - it's a major part of the plot and will be explained in later chapters, so don't wrack your brains about it.

And as always, I thank all of you from the very bottom of my heart for the reviews. They are what keep me writing.

So, as I always say: LEAVE A REVIEW! ^_^