Chapter 13
For a long time, she could only stand there, paralyzed by the rush of feelings that swelled in her chest at seeing him. She felt as if her very soul were trembling within her. Certainly her eyes were betraying her. It couldn't be…
Her body finally kicked into life once more, and she threw herself into his arms without thinking. She didn't want to cry, but tears were flowing out freely despite her efforts. It had been six long months, each day stretching into its own eternity as she slowly was forced to process the fact that she would never again gaze into those heavenly eyes. Yet, here he was, not a dream like he had appeared to her so many times before, but as a real human being.
"I just knew I'd never see you again," she managed to choke out. "I just knew it. How are you here now? After so long of being just a memory… how can you really be here?"
She knew, some where in the back of her mind, that she must have looked like some ridiculous child to him, but at the moment she didn't care. Every agonizing second that passed, his presence haunted her, filling her with such a burning need to be anywhere near him that with every moment she was denied that need, she died just a little bit more.
(How? How did I ever become this way over him? Over anyone? It hurt so much…)
She was brought from her reverie as she felt him timidly rub her back. She could tell from the tentative way he returned her embrace that he still felt a bit awkward with close contact.
Rinoa untangled herself from him, a faint blush staining her cheeks. She lost herself once more in his eyes, before reality finally sunk in. "Squall… what are you doing here? This is a police station, and you're a wanted man! Come on, we have to get you out of here," she said frantically as she pulled him toward the open window through which he'd come.
He stopped, gently loosening her fingers from his arm. "Rinoa, stop. I'm well aware of where I am. I came to see you."
She could only stare at him, her heart giving off another dull ache at his voice, and his words. "To see me?" she repeated.
He nodded. "I need your help, Rinoa… I… I didn't do it. I swear."
The corners of her lips tugged downward, and her eyes shone with a new sadness. "Squall… they found your fingerprints on the knife."
"You don't believe me?" he demanded.
"It's not that I don't believe you," she replied hurriedly. "It's just… what do you want me to do? I mean, I can't just run off with you. I have a job here, and I'm engaged! I can just leave that all behind," she replied, missing the look of hurt that flashed over his face at the mention of her engagement. She wanted more than anything to go with him, but to run away with an alleged criminal would have very serious consequences. And of course, there was the matter of the evidence.
"You don't believe me," he repeated, more to himself, than anyone else.
"No, Squall, it's just that-" she was interrupted by a knock at the door, and a deep male voice calling her name.
"Dammit!" she hissed, jerking Squall by the arm and shoving him beneath her desk before sitting down and flipping open a random file. "Come in!" she called sweetly.
Squall held his breath trying not to make any sound whatsoever. Heavy footsteps pounded over until their intruder was standing next to Rinoa's chair. Curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked out at the tall man standing too close to Rinoa for Squall's comfort.
"What are you doing here?" the blonde haired man asked. "Didn't you have the day off for that funeral thing?"
Rinoa resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his lack of sympathy. "I wanted to go over a few cases of mine before I went home."
"Always the workaholic, huh?" he said with a slight chuckle. "Well, I'm gonna be here all night. Some lunatic from some mental asylum escaped. Murdered his doctor. I want you to be careful when you head home."
"Yes, Seifer," she sighed in exasperation.
With every word the man seemed to move closer and closer to Rinoa, and Squall didn't like it one bit. In fact, he was seriously considering biting the man's leg, which was now only a few inches from his face. Instead, he studied the excellent view he had of Rinoa's long, shapely legs bared by her short skirt. This succeeded in distracting his mind with other thoughts.
"Well, I guess I'll see you around," Seifer, said, leaning in to capture Rinoa's lips.
She abruptly jerked her head to the side, so he met her cheek instead. "See you later, Seifer."
Grumbling slightly to himself, Seifer left the office. As soon as the door was safely closed behind him, Rinoa let out a sigh of relief and pushed her chair back. Squall stood immediately and headed for the door.
"Squall, what are you doing?" she demanded as she grabbed him by the arm once more.
He shrugged her off. "Forget it. I don't know why I bothered."
"Squall," she whispered once more, her vision becoming blurry yet again. "I want to believe you but it's just so… How do you know you didn't have some kind of episode and you just don't remember?"
"I never had one before, why would I start out of the blue?"
"Isabella told me that you became unstable again, after I left," Rinoa explained. "If it happened that way, I don't blame you, Squall. You couldn't help it."
"Dammit, I told you I didn't do it!" he growled. "I didn't have an episode," he insisted, slowly backing Rinoa up against her desk. "I didn't do it because I hated her, I didn't do it because the voices told me to!" he finished in a hiss.
Rinoa trembled for a moment, feeling her lower back hit the edge of her desk. At first glance, Squall seemed to seethe with an incredible rage that scared even her. But the longer she watched him, she realized it was just anguish and desperation. She leaned her forehead against his chest. "Look me in the eye, and tell me you didn't do it," she whispered.
Without hesitating, he gently lifted her chin with his fingertips, and looked down into her eyes. "I did not kill Quistis Trepe."
She took a deep breath, her mind finally clearing for the first time that night. "Come on. We need to get away from here first. It would probably be a good idea to leave the city, too. They'll be tearing it apart looking for you."
He grabbed her hand and stopped her as she headed toward the open window. "You believe me?"
She smiled slightly, her heart aching in an almost pleasant kind of way. "Yes. More than anybody else… I believe you."
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rinoa flipped on the light, revealing a small, chaotic living area. She tossed her heavy brief case down on the floor, not caring where it landed, and collapsed on the couch with a relieved sigh.
"Nice apartment," Squall said, his eyes absorbing every detail of his former therapists new dwelling.
"That's nice of you, but you don't have to lie," she said. "I'm so busy at work that I barely have time to clean. I moved her five and a half months ago, and I still have half my stuff packed in boxes."
"So you really like your job that much," he replied quietly, studying a picture of Rinoa and her family.
She stood up, walking across the room until she stood next to him. "To tell you the truth, I hate it. But I have to make a living some how. I was… a lot happier with my job at the asylum."
"So that blonde man was your fiancé, huh?"
Rinoa bit her lip until she thought it might bleed. Squall almost sounded… angry, or jealous, though she found it hard to believe.
"Leave."
"What? But why?"
"Just go. Please. Go!"
Despite all that time, she had never forgotten those words. It was adding insult to injury, rubbing a ton of salt in an open and bleeding wound. It was bad enough that she'd had to leave him that night, but for him to reject her in such a way was unbearable. That intimate moment they'd shared had been everything she had hoped for. To him, it must have been nothing more than a physical release for his frustrations. Perhaps he had told her to leave because he didn't want to use her. Or maybe, he just didn't feel the bliss that she felt when their lips touched.
"Yeah, that was him," she sighed. "He's the chief of police, actually. We met at work."
He only nodded, deciding to say nothing more on the subject. Silence invaded the room, causing both people to shift uncomfortably. It was amazing how one little ring could awake so much pain in a relationship as close as their's.
"Well, we should get some sleep. We need to leave the city as early as possible. Getting you here in the dark was hard enough," she said.
He nodded with a deep sigh. "Where will I sleep?"
"Well, this is a one bedroom apartment. But the couch is pretty comfortable." She looked over at him and smiled, her heart fluttering in relief once again at the mere sight of him. "Breaking out of the asylum and all must have taken a lot out of you. You take my bed, I'll take the couch."
He shook his head. "It's supposed to be the other way around."
She gently placed her hands on his shoulder, turning him around and marching him toward her open bedroom door. "It's my apartment, so what I say, goes." After successfully getting him into the room, she leaned in the doorway and allowed her eyes to take in everything she'd missed the past several months. His beautiful eyes, his tempting lips, his lean, muscular body hidden beneath the trappings of his clothes… no matter how many times she'd seen it all in life, and in dreams, she'd never tire of the sight. "I'd offer you something more comfortable to sleep in, but I don't guess you'd wanna wear my lacey night clothes, huh?" she joked, barely managing to speak through her dry mouth.
"I'll be fine," he replied, stifling a yawn. She was right. All the running he'd done after breaking out had taken quite a bit out of him.
"Goodnight Squall," she said quietly. She gently closed the door, shedding her work clothes as she heading back into the living area. Grabbing a loose black shirt from a pile near the washing machine, she pulled it over her head and collapsed once more on the couch. Tomorrow was the day she'd leave everything behind. Still, she couldn't help but smile.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Squall stared at the door for a moment, as if expecting Rinoa to burst back into the room. He didn't feel comfortable with putting her out of her own bed. Finally, deciding to give in to his body's cry for mercy, he stripped down to his boxers and buried himself beneath the covers.
The mattress beneath him felt like heaven, and that scent… what could only be described as her scent, clouded his mind. She just wasn't going to make it easy. Being near her and knowing he couldn't touch her was bad enough, but sleeping in her bed?
He didn't know what he had expected to find when he finally saw Rinoa again. He knew that she would've moved on with her life, but the fact that she was engaged caught him totally off guard. He didn't blame her… in his mind she deserved someone better than a raving lunatic like him. Still… he couldn't help but want to strangle her fiancé.
Inwardly, he cursed himself for not taking the opportunity he'd had to be with her before. He'd never wanted anything so bad, but his heart battled against him. It was bad enough that she was taking a piece of his soul with her when she left, whether he wanted to admit it or not, but to just give her his heart like that… only for her to walk out of his life forever. As much as he craved her kiss, and yearned for her touch, he just couldn't do it.
The way she looked at him when he told her to leave… it still made his chest tighten in anguish, as if a hand had been squeezing his heart. And now it was too late. She loved another man. The only thing he could do, he decided, was accept the fact, and be glad that he still had her friendship. So long as she was happy, he could survive.
Squall grudgingly resigned himself to this conclusion, and closed his eyes in preparation of a long, deep slumber. Just as he was drifting off to sleep, a stray thought startled him back into the waking world.
(Did she say lacey nightclothes?)
He groaned in frustration, before burying his head beneath her pillow. Yet, there was that scent that made his blood burn with desire. Sighing, he tried to imagine that she was there with him, with no ring to separate the two of them. Slowly, the thought lulled him into a comfortable sleep.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A heavy pounding on the door roused Rinoa from her dreamless slumber. She cracked her eyes open, sunlight burning into her pupils until she was forced to squeeze them shut again. Another round of insistent knocking sent her stumbling from her temporary bed to the door.
She rubbed her eyes furiously before peeking through the peephole at her unwelcome guest. She immediately recognized the uniformed man, and sighed in exasperation. Opening the door just a crack, she sent the man a weary look before saying, "Can I help you, Raijin?"
The broad-shouldered man smiled at her, tipping his officer's hat. "Seifer asked me to come check on you. He did some digging, and found out that you worked at the same asylum that crazy murderer escaped from. He wants you under twenty-four hour surveillance in case that nut comes after you."
"That's really sweet of him, but I don't think that's necessary. I kind of worked behind the scenes there. None of the patients ever really knew me," she lied.
"Well, it's Seifer's orders." He replied. "So, can I come in and have some coffee?"
Rinoa studyed the man's goofy grin before saying, "At least let me get properly dressed first." She didn't wait for an answer before slamming the door shut and running to her own room.
"Squall!" she whispered desperately, taking hold of his shoulders and shaking him. "Wake up!"
"What?" he grumbled, cracking open a single eye to stare up at her.
"Seifer sent one of his friend's to look out for me. He's out in the hall now, we have to hurry and leave!"
He nodded, standing abruptly and pulling his clothes on. Rinoa temporarily forgot her problems and watched him, the world not returning to her until he was once again hidden from her eyes. Finally, she pulled a suitcase from her closet, and flung it on the bed.
"I hate to ask you," she said, digging out a pair of jeans and slipping them on. "But if I just leave him out in the hall, he's gonna get suspicious. Just throw some of my clothes in there, and anything else I might need. I've gotta go make that idiot some coffee. Stay in here. After he's occupied, we'll go out the window and down the fire escape."
Rinoa ran back out to the door and let Raijin inside, giving him her best fake smile. "Thanks for waiting. I just had to straighten up a little bit."
Raijin shook his head. "Women. It always takes forever for you to do the simplest things. Can I have that coffee now?"
Rinoa nodded, escorting him into the living room and sitting him down on the couch. "Yeah, just let me go make it."
She went through the usual process of making coffee, just like she did every morning. That simple action reassured her once and for all that she wanted to leave this mundane life behind.
(Everyday… always the same thing. There has to be something better.)
She served Raijin his coffee, then sat there for a few moments, trying not to appear rushed. Finally, when she thought it had been long enough, she stood and gave him another forced smiled. "I forgot there was something else I needed to do. If you'll excuse me…"
She didn't wait to hear his reply before heading back to her room, where Squall was waiting patiently. She grabbed her purse from the top of her dresser, then turned to her companion with a genuine grin. "Let's go!"
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A/N: Well, what do you think? Sorry I made Rinoa cry so much, but I thought it was an appropriate reaction. Next chapter: Life on the run, and how long does Raijin sit there before he realizes something's wrong?