Author's Note: I have a confession to make. When I first started this story, I was going to make Pierce a nice guy, you know, a friend of Yuffie's that just happened to propose to her. But, as I was writing the story, I actually started to hate him. And, well, now you can see what I'm doing with him.
Please, someone shoot me now. I made the mistakes of watching "The Princess Bride" while thinking of Squffies and now I wanna write an adaptation of it for KH. I need help. Psychological help.
You know, I've been thinking that I've been muse-less the last few chapters, but that's not entirely true. I have my muses still; they're just busy brainstorming on my next story, "Blind Instinct." That's the problem with my muses. They like to get ahead of themselves.
By the way, I'm thinking of rewriting a couple of my early stories. What do you guys think? Let me know in the review if you think I should.
Note to those of you who mentioned Squall's wound: Well, I have to admit that I'm not the one who thought of that. It was the talented Vulpes Lapis, who helps me plot-wise with most of my stories. So, you must give thanks to her and read her stories.
Note to Axa: I have no clue if Amaya is the correct spelling or not. I was just surfing a baby name site to find a Japanese name that fit the occasion.
Note to Pingpong867: I'm not so sure I want to release Josh and Orli, now. It's awfully nice having two hot guys around the house doing whatever I want them to. But, for you, I will release them and take my Squall back.
[Disclaimer: I own nothing except Amaya and Pierce and any other random character I may make up along the way. Disney and Square own everything else.]
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Chapter Nine
"Mommy? Mommy?" a small voice shrilly cried out in panic from the Green Room, causing Yuffie to lurch to her feet in the Red Room and scamper through the connecting door. Sitting up on the bed, a distraught Amaya frantically searched the dark room with darting eyes for signs of her mother.
Reaching the bed, Yuffie gathered the child to her chest, whispering comforting words into her ears and rocking her gently. "Shh, it's okay, baby. I'm right here." In her mother's arms, Amaya visibly calmed down and began to suck on her thumb while holding Yuffie's hair in her other hand. A few moments later, and the child was fast asleep again.
Squall leaned in the doorway, watching mother and child on the bed a moment before approaching them. Once at the bedside, he placed his hands on Yuffie's shoulders, rubbing them gently before settling down behind her and resting his head on her shoulder to gaze down at his sleeping daughter. "Can I hold her?" he finally asked softly after a moment's hesitation.
Smiling, Yuffie slowly turned around and handed the slumbering child across to her father, who very carefully took Amaya from her mother's arms, causing Yuffie to wince when Amaya's little fist refused to let her hair go. "Don't worry about waking her up," Yuffie whispered. "She sleeps like a rock once you actually get her to sleep."
Squall looked down in amazement at the daughter he never knew he had. Just the thought of having a daughter filled him with a sense of wonderment. "I just wish I was there for you the whole time," he murmured to both Amaya and Yuffie. As he adjusted his hold on the girl, her face crinkled and she let out a soft whimper around the thumb that was still in her mouth. As his arm began to fall asleep, he gently lay the sleeping child down on the mattress and looked up at Yuffie.
As the moonlight shone through the window, Yuffie blinked her eyes in disbelief a few times at what she saw. There, on Squall's cheeks, a few tears glistened in the soft light of the moon. Squall is crying? she asked mentally asked herself. I haven't seen him cry since... well, since never. "Squall, it's only four o'clock in the morning. I think we should go back to bed," she said after looking at the clock and getting off the bed.
Grabbing her hand, Squall pulled her back down onto the bed. "Let's just sleep right here, okay?" He glanced down at the sleeping child beside him. "I don't want her to wake up alone again. It's a frightening experience." Complying, Yuffie gently scooted Amaya over and lay between Squall and the child, her arms around Amaya while Squall wrapped his arms around her.
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Across town, Pierce Maradei sat at an empty table in his family's Italian restaurant, his fingers drumming the oaken surface while he pondered his current situation. The woman he had planned to marry lay in another's arms at this very moment. Just the thought of what he deemed as his possession doing that made his blood boil. If one didn't know better, one would think that he loved Yuffie. But love never entered the equation in their minds.
For Yuffie, it was a marriage of convenience, a way to provide for her daughter. For Pierce, it was his want of Maradei heirs, to put it simply. The only Maradei son was expected to produce heirs for the family and Yuffie was just a means to carry those heirs. She was singled out of the hundreds of available women in Traverse Town because of her looks. Out of all the women of the town, Pierce considered her the most beautiful and he would never settle for second best. It was only the best for the Maradei son.
But, now that her past lover had returned, a new problem arose. How to convince Yuffie to forget about the man named Squall and marry him, Pierce Maradei. Since he had met her, he knew there was only one way to manipulate the woman and that was through her daughter. The same daughter that Pierce had planned shipping off as soon as she was old enough. He couldn't allow another man's child to live under his roof and take anything from his own children. No, the Maradei heirs would have everything and that bastard child of Yuffie's would have nothing.
He continued to sit there, deep in thought as a plan slowly became clear to him. If Yuffie feared losing her child, then she would do anything to keep her. Even marry him if he so deemed it. Yes, that would be the only way to convince her. Make her believe he could take her child away. A demonic grin plagued his lips the more he thought about it. She would even turn away from this past love for the sake of her child.
Rising from his chair, Pierce set out to put his plans into motion. The first step being a stop at the hospital records office. It paid to have friends in high places. Of course, it might have been fear of the Maradei family and not friendship that aided him, but, in his mind, both were equal. After his trip to the hospital, he would, naturally, have to use his influence with his lawyers to cinch the deal.
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Yuffie awoke the next morning to an insistent tugging at her shoulder length hair, opening her eyes to find the blue eyes of Amaya staring at her, only an inch from her face. Startled, Yuffie jolted backwards, causing Squall to fall off the bed with a loud crash as he took the bedside table down with him. Amaya crinkled her face in amusement and let out a peal of laughter.
"Squall? Are you okay?" Yuffie asked concernedly as she leaned over the bed to check on him. Amaya peeked over the edge of the bed as well, confused as to why another person had been in the bed she normally only shared with her mother.
Rubbing his forehead dazedly, Squall sat up slowly. "What happened?" he questioned, looking back and forth to mother and daughter, who were both laughing. Well, Yuffie was stifling her laughter, but Amaya was giggling loudly.
Yuffie reached down a hand to help pull him up. "Amaya startled me and I jumped, pushing you off the bed in the process," she explained as he sat on the edge of the bed.
As she realized that the man was still a stranger to her, Amaya decided to play shy and hide beneath the sheets. "Mommy, why Mwister Weonheart sleep in bed?" her small voice muffled out from beneath the covers.
"Amaya, honey, um... he's your daddy," Yuffie confessed as she pulled the blankets away from her daughter's face. At the blankets removal, Amaya dived deeper into the covers, nearing the foot of the bed before her mother pulled her out.
"Nuh-uh, don't have daddy," Amaya insisted as she looked warily over to Squall, who was still sitting on the edge of the bed, letting Yuffie handle the situation.
Yuffie threw her head back and sighed loudly. "You could help me, you know, Squall," she told him as she turned her gaze to him.
"How so, Yuf? How am I supposed to make her believe me?"
"Amaya, why don't you think that he's your daddy?" Yuffie asked, hoping she might be able to convince the child if she found the reason for her disbelief.
"Mommies and daddies kiss," the young child said after a moment's hesitation, remembering all the shows on TV and all the families she met in Traverse Town. In all of these instances, the parents had always kissed. So, in her young mind, that meant that a mommy and daddy had to kiss.
"Is that so?" the young mother questioned, with a smirk on her lips. Amaya nodded her head adamantly.
A smile came across Squall's face. "Yuffie, I think we can remedy the situation," he whispered as he leaned closer to her, placing one hand behind her neck and gently pulling her closer. As his lips captured hers, all the fiery passion of their first kiss embodied this one as well, causing them to become lost to the world around them.
Amaya covered her eyes with her tiny hands. "Eww!" she exclaimed as she turned away from them. A soft knocking on the door caught her attention. Seeing that the two adults in the room were too busy to answer it, she climbed off the bed and toddled over to the door and opened it. "Unkie Cloud!"
The blonde bent over and picked Amaya up. "Where's your mommy, Amaya?" he asked before looking into the room. A glance over at the bed answered his question, the parents of the child still lost in a kiss. "Ahem," Cloud coughed. "Am I interrupting anything?"
Yuffie and Squall pulled apart, Yuffie looking a little sheepish at her apparent disregard to her surroundings. Running a hand through her hair, she gave Cloud a questioning glance. "Why are you here, anyways?"
"I just thought I would come and check on you, seeing as how you refused to talk with anyone yesterday. But," he spared a glance at Squall, "it seems you have things under control now." He set Amaya back down on the floor.
"It's good to see you again, Cloud," Squall said as he stood up and walked over to the blonde. "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk with you yesterday, but..."
Cloud raised his eyebrows. "Can I see you out in the hall?" he asked, his question coming out more like a demand.
Squall nodded and followed him out, shutting the door quietly behind him. "You want an explanation, don't you?" He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed defensively across his chest.
"Damn right, I do," Cloud said in an angry whisper, not wanting his voice to carry into the rooms of the hotel. "You run off for two years, and then just come back like nothing happened. You have no idea what she's been through." He gestured towards the Green Room with this statement.
Squall took a deep breath. "Cloud, I've already been through this with her. And all I'm gonna say is it's not what you think. For some reason, it was only month to me. Now," he pushed himself off the wall, "if you want a more extended explanation, I'll tell you later. Because, right now, I have to make up for lost time." With that, he went back into the Green Room, leaving the blonde alone in the hallway.
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That afternoon, having left Squall and Amaya with Cloud and Aerith, Yuffie made her way across the Second District towards the Maradei's restaurant, knowing she would be able to find Pierce there. She knew she would have to explain the situation to him. Surely he would understand, he had been nothing but kind to her since she had met him a year ago. She would just have to calmly explain that there had been a misunderstanding between her and Amaya's father.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the restaurant doors and headed towards the back, where the staircase to the house portion of the building was located. She slowly ascended the stairs, knocking when she reached Pierce's apartment. You can do this, Yuf. You have to do this, she silently motivated herself as she pulled the engagement ring off her finger.
The door creaked open, revealing a smiling Pierce. "Yuffie, darling, whatever are you here for?" he questioned as he held the door open wider and gestured for her to come in. "I thought you and your old friend would be catching up on old times." He hid a sneer from her while her back was turned to him.
"Pierce, I can't marry you," she calmly stated, getting right to the point as she handed him the ring that had once graced her fingers. "I'm sorry, but I'm in love with someone else."
He held the ring between two fingers, gazing at the lone diamond set upon it. "Really, Yuffie. We both knew love never entered the equation." He pretended to be shocked by her surprised expression. "Oh, you thought I loved you, didn't you? When the whole time you were pining away for someone else, you dared to act as though loved me. Well, my dear, two can play that game. You weren't the only actor."
"Well, then, Pierce, there is no longer any reason for my remaining here, is there?" She pulled herself up and headed towards the door. "You're right, Pierce. I never loved you and, somehow, you had me blinded into thinking that you loved me. But," she paused as a smile came across her face, "that doesn't matter now, because Squall loves me and I do have Amaya."
"Are you sure about that, Yuffie?" he sneered as she placed her hand on the doorknob. "Are you sure her father won't try and take her away from you?"
Yuffie whirled around and faced him. "Squall would never do that. He came back for me, Pierce. And now, we're going to be a happy family."
"I'm not talking about your precious Squall, my dear. Here, why don't you read for yourself." He pulled a paper out from underneath the stack on the coffee table and handed it to her. "As you can see, it clearly states upon her birth certificate that a Pierce Maradei is her father."
Her eyes wide, Yuffie read the birth certificate, finding he was correct. "What did you do, Pierce? I remember putting Squall's name down at the hospital." She felt her chest tightening as the fear all mothers have began to form in her heart.
"It pays to have friends in high places." He gave her one of the Maradei smirks. "Or, to have people afraid of you. It doesn't matter. But, since I am her father according to that, I may have to take matters into my own hands to prevent such an unfit mother from keeping my darling daughter."
"Unfit mother?!" she screamed. "I have done everything in my power to be the best mother that I can be."
"Ah, but, you see, my lawyers agree that it's not healthy for a child to see her mother sleeping around with strange men." He relished in the shocked expression that came across her face. "Yes, I saw you last night with him. You should really think about closing the curtains next time."
Yuffie slapped him, leaving a bright red hand print across his face. "He was comforting me. Nothing happened."
"That's besides the point. It's my word against yours. And, I am a Maradei." He watched as she turned to leave. "Oh, and Yuffie? Don't bother trying to leave town. We have the World Exits blocked off. No one leaves without clearance. I can't have the mother of my child kidnaping her, now can I? Of course, if you marry me, this will all be forgotten." He watched in triumph as a few tears slid down her face as she slammed the door behind her.
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Author's Note: Okay, there we go. Review, as always. See, October Breeze, I'm taking your words to heart and not writing 'read and review' at the bottom anymore. Just review. It is kinda silly to put both down here. Anyways, I predict about 1-2 more chapters and then an epilogue. So, it is coming to an end.
Oh, and we're going to pretend that although KH has the technology for space travel, they don't have the technology for paternity tests, kay?