Chapter 21
The closer that Irvine and Selphie got to the town of Balamb, the more their pace seemed to quicken.
"You don't really think he'll leave for good do you, Irvine?" Selphie asked, struggling to keep up with his longer strides.
"Quistis said that she saw him when he returned to Garden. The chances are that he saw her as well, and that he knows that she saw him."
"So? That doesn't matter. What matters is that Garden is his home."
"Selphie, he knows that it was Quistis who did this. He's going to believe that she'll tell Cid that he's still here, and that SeeD will come after him."
"You can't be sure that he'll just leave."
"I can, Selphie. You have to believe me, I know how he feels…" He paused, unsure of how to continue, not even able to look her in the eye. "She's his whole life, his everything. To make sure that she was safe from harm, he would do anything." He felt sure that she had realised by now that he was no longer talking about Squall and Rinoa. He was relieved when she offered him no reply, preferring instead to leave so many things unsaid.
"We really messed things up, didn't we?" she thought. "We really had a chance, and I ignored it. Now look at us? We're almost afraid to speak to one another." She looked up at him, and saw, deep in his eyes, a look of sadness beyond description. This was what they had become. "We can't let Squall and Rinoa mess things up too. At least they have a chance."
Irvine picked up his pace, embarrassed by what he had just revealed about his feelings for Selphie, and wanting to get as far away from her as possible. She soon found herself jogging to keep up.
"I always thought he'd come back, you know?" she said. "I couldn't imagine that Squall could live without Garden, and I could never imagine the place without him. Deep down, I believed that he'd come home." She hung her head slightly, ashamed at what she perceived was her naivety. "I couldn't have been more wrong, could I?"
He suddenly stopped, and put both his hands on her shoulders.
"You weren't to know, Selphie. You weren't to know."
"Squall, wait," Rinoa shouted across the bustling platform, as she tried to catch up with him.
"What is it?"
"Do we have to rush off now? I mean, we don't have anything with us. No food, no clean clothes, nothing."
"What's your point?" he asked, impatiently. He was clearly worried about being spotted. It would be too easy for any member of SeeD to slip through the crowd without him noticing.
"Look, even if we get on the train now, it isn't going to leave for another five minutes. At least let me go and buy us some things for the journey." She only paused slightly, not leaving enough time for Squall to reply. "Thanks," she said, before rushing off in the opposite direction.
"Rinoa," he shouted, running after her and grabbing her arm. He turned her around forcefully. "I don't want you leaving my sight."
"Squall. I appreciate you being protective, really, I do, but I can look after myself. I don't want to spend the rest of my days looking over my shoulder, afraid of who's hunting me down. That's not a life, Squall. That's just existing."
"And what would you rather I do?" he asked. "Just go back and have them throw us both into prison. Wouldn't that be even worse than this?" He was beginning to raise his voice, oblivious to the fact that passers-by seemed to be staring intently at the couple. "Is that what you want?"
"No, Squall, of course that's not what I want. There has to be another way. You might not believe in destiny and fate, but I do. I believe that I met you because of fate. It could have been anyone else from SeeD that was sent to capture me, but it wasn't. It was you. That was meant to be."
"There's nobody in control of my life."
"Don't be so narrow-minded. There are times in everybody's life when they just have to accept something. There are certain things that you can't choose."
"There are always choices. Fate is just an excuse that people use when they make the wrong one."
"That's not true. So many things in my life have happened that I've had no control over. I can't help the fact that I was born into a rich, corrupt family that's obsessed with power. That was something that I just had to put up with, and it's shaped my whole life. It's made me who I am. And I don't believe for one minute that our paths collided by chance, Squall. Everything felt so right."
"Well, if your saying that we don't have complete control over everything in our lives, then how do you know that this isn't 'fated?' he demanded.
"I don't know, Squall, just please trust me on this. It feels wrong. I'm not the kind of person who runs away from their problems, and I didn't think you were either. Maybe I misjudged you." This seemed to have an affect on him, causing him to back down for a moment.
"She's right," he thought. "Since when have I ever ran away from anything? That's not who I am. But then, I'm so frightened of losing her. I know what happens when you stand your ground and fight. People get hurt, people die. Fighting causes so much pain and suffering, that I'm not sure whether it is the best way."
"Well, Squall? Are you going to run?" she asked?
"It's the only way to escape from this. If we run, we can forget about Garden, forget about Caraway, forget about all our problems. Why the hell shouldn't we just leave?"
"You do realise that, wherever we go, they will find us. It'll only be a matter of time."
"You can't know that."
"My father has the whole resources of the Galbadian military at his command. If he was willing to launch an attack on Garden, then he must want me back pretty badly. He's not going to let me go that easily."
"Neither will I."
"But don't you see? By running, that's what your doing. At least if you go back to Garden now, there's a chance that they might believe the truth about all this. The attack last night should have proven to them that you were right." She threw her hands up in exasperation. "I know that you have your pride to maintain, and that you feel like you'll be admitting that you were wrong by going back, but Squall, nobody else sees it like that."
"You know me too well," he admitted. "But even if we return and they believe us, what then?"
"Now that I don't know," she confessed. "That's more your area of expertise," she replied, only half jokingly.
"I doubt they'd trust me again. Not now they know that I would put you before them."
"There's only one way to find out."
He gave her a tiny smile that was not noticeable to anyone but Rinoa.
"Fine, you get your way." He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, defeated.
"Good, because I'm not sure we have much choice in the matter anymore," she said, pointing towards the far side of the platform.
He followed the line of her gaze, until he spotted what had attracted her attention. Irvine and Selphie were heading straight for them.
"Hey, Squall, Rinoa," Selphie screamed, waving her arms in the air. Rinoa waved back, sheepishly, embarrassed by the fact that the entire station was now staring at them. When Selphie finally reached them she began babbling, excitedly, and the couple found it extremely difficult to keep track of what she was saying. "After you left we went to see Cid about why Quistis had lied about Rinoa, and he ordered us all to search for you, but Garden was having maintenance work done so we decided we couldn't look for you, because we thought you'd left the island. And then those men came and attacked us in the night, and so we knew Rinoa was telling the truth, so we've been desperately trying to find you to tell you we're sorry." Rinoa and Squall looked at each other, confused.
"I think what Selphie's trying to say is, this was all a big misunderstanding, and we hope you can forgive us," Irvine explained.
"Well?" prompted Selphie, hopping from foot to foot in anticipation of their answer.
"We're both coming home."
A/N I'm really sorry for the unacceptably long delay between updates, I've just had so much work to do. This might well be the case for the next few months, unfortunately, so if I don't update regularly, I apologise in advance. I want to thank everyone that reviewed and everybody that's still reading this fic.
Thanks to:
Optical Goddess
Renegade Seraph
Rinoa Heartilly-Leonhart
Meestyna
Angelofthelions
The Angel of Fate
ReKu
Rinoa Leonhart1
Old User
Rinoa Lockheart
MagzDD
Almicene
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Freakker
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