Author's Note: I know... it's been three weeks since I updated. But, now that BI is out of the way, I can focus all my creative energy on this one. Except that my muse wants to start work on "Lullaby," too. :::growls at muse:::

And I'm probably going to keep going back and forth from calling Squall 'Squall' and 'Leon.' I think it's mainly depending on the POV and such.

[Disclaimer: Don't own them. Won't own them.]

Chapter Five: No Silver Lining

The sound of something pounding against the window awakened Yuffie, her eyes fluttering open reluctantly to find dark storm clouds covering the sky and hailstones hitting the glass. She slowly sat up, looking down at the burgundy comforter laying across her and hazily wondered where she was. The vague memory of a man named Squall bringing her to his apartment, feeding her, and letting her bathe suddenly cleared though it didn't ease her confusion. It was still a new and strange thought to her that someone in this city, someone who she had just robbed would bring her into their home.

A splitting headache let itself be known and Yuffie lay herself back down upon the pillows, pulling the blanket up to her chin and curling into a ball as feverish chills raced through her body. She groaned softly, reaching up to rub her temples, her eyes clenched shut against the pain. "I hate being sick," she muttered under her breath, rolling over to help clear her stuffy nose as she gasped for breath between parted lips. A look at the bedside clock showed her that it was just after five in the morning and the way her eyelids kept drooping told her that it was way too early to be getting up.

But, just as slumber nearly reclaimed her, she realized that the bedroom door was shut, sending shivers down her spine. Even as a child, she had been unable to sleep knowing that the door was shut. Something about it caused an absolute terror to settle upon her chest, as though it were forcibly holding her down. So, quickly jumping out of the bed, she stumbled to the door, swaying slightly with both nausea and vertigo, and wrenched the door open.

She crawled back into the bed, clutching her head with one hand and reaching for a kleenex with the other. But, satisfied nonetheless that the terror had dissipated now that the door was open and the soft glow of a nightlight from the hallway washed through the room, sending instant relief to her frazzled nerves. Sniffling as her nose began running again, Yuffie rolled onto her other side and allowed herself to succumb to sleep.

A few hours later, Yuffie awoke to the feel of a calloused hand on her forehead and she lazily opened her eyes, squinting them again when the overhead light threatened to blind her still sleepy eyes. "What's going on?" she rasped, her throat having become raw with breathing through her mouth all night and her lips slightly chapped as well.

"Nothing. I was just checking your fever," Squall explained, removing his hand from her forehead and looking down at her. One could tell she was sick just by the feverish flush on her cheeks and the dark bags under her eyes. "How are you feeling this morning?"

Yuffie sighed, her eyes still closed against the bright light of the room and tried to sit up, only to find that she was having difficulties. "I can't move my legs," she murmured, rubbing her forehead to help ease the headache that was already forming.

"Well, that's because you have two cats lying across them," Squall replied casually, turning to pick up the small box of cold medicine Aerith had left for her the night before.

"Oh," the teenager said softly, slowly opening her eyes to look at her legs and see the two black and white cats sprawled over them. She remembered the way one of them had hissed at her yesterday and looked at her host in doubt. "Uh... didn't one of them try to attack me yesterday? Should I be scared?"

Turning back to the bed, the blue and green pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other, he furrowed his brows and stared at the cats. "If you're scared, I can move them..." he began, handing her the pills which she looked at warily before turning her eyes up to him in question. "Don't worry. They're just cold pills Aerith left for you last night. And if I don't give them to you, she'll have my head."

Yuffie nodded mutely and tossed the pills into her mouth, immediately grabbing the water to wash them down. That done, she gestured towards the cats once more, afraid to touch them for fear that they might lash out at her. She had dealt with alley cats on more than one occasion, most of the time coming out of it with more than a few scratches on her arms. "Um... why are they suddenly all cozy with me?" she asked curiously, not really knowing what else to say.

"Sydney doesn't surprise me, the universe is his cat bed," Squall replied, reaching out to stroke the larger of the two cats, who affectionately butted his head against the palm of his owner's hand. "But, Demi... she tends to be a little shier..." A momentary look of confusion came over his face as he scratched under the second cat's chin, eliciting loud purrs from her throat. He turned his attention back to the girl in the bed. "So, other than not being able to move your legs, are you feeling okay?"

"Relative to WHAT?!" she exclaimed a little louder and a little more heated than she had originally planned, but with the headache pounding away at her skull, she could barely contain it. "I have a raging headache, I can't breath through my nose, my throat feels like someone scraped it with the edge of a knife, my stomach is preparing to throw up everything I've eaten in the last year, and to top it all off, MY STUPID LIPS ARE GETTING CHAPPED!"

Squall took a step back from the bed, his stormy blue eyes wide as he stared at the yelling girl, who had just started coughing from her outburst. "I guess you feel well enough to holler..." he trailed off, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

Cringing slightly at his words, Yuffie shut her eyes and lowered her head, a hand reaching up to rub her eyes. "I'm sorry uh... Squa–erm, uh.. Mister Leonhart... er... I mean... uh... sir?" she finished lamely, giving him an apologetic smile and lifting her eyes slightly to look at him. She had never done too well with other people, having learnt at a young age to rely upon herself as most of the world couldn't care less about her.

Eye narrowing slightly, Squall realized that he had never actually introduced himself to her because if he had, he would not have told her his name was 'Squall.' Squall was a name from the past, a past he did not want to revisit. "Where did you learn my name?" he finally inquired rather coldly, but anytime that name was used, he felt an icy barrier rise up around himself.

"Your driver's license," she mumbled quietly, looking back down at the comforter that covered her. She chanced another glance back up to him, noticing the way his eyes had become icy in just the few seconds after she had said his name. "You know, when I.... uh... borrowed it the other day... I... I kinda was looking through it for cash..."

Squall sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, his eyes closed as he tried to lower the icy barrier. "I don't go by Squall anymore. And don't call me Mr. Leonhart or Sir... it makes me feel old," he muttered, leaning his head backwards and looking at the ceiling. "Just... just call me Leon, okay?"

Yuffie nodded quickly, not wanting to upset this man that had taken both the time and effort to bring her into his house. "Alright... Leon," she whispered, remembering that had been the name Aerith had called him yesterday while she had been there.

Shaking his head, Leon pushed away from the wall and started towards the doorway, but stopped, placing his hand upon the doorframe and his face still looking into the hallway. "I'm sorry if I seem cold sometimes, but the name of 'Squall' reminds me too much of the past," he explained, turning his head slightly to look at her. "But, anyways, do you think you can get up to eat or do you want me to bring it in here for you?"

"Uh... I feel a little dizzy when I sit up, but I think I can stumble into the kitchen to eat..." she began, bringing her legs around and placing her feet upon the floor. It was then that she noticed she was no longer wearing the clothes Aerith had brought her, but the green flannel shirt he had loaned her earlier. "I didn't go to sleep in this..." she trailed off, a hot blush coming across her cheeks as she realized that someone had changed her clothes and Leon was the only other person she knew of in this apartment.

A soft chuckle escaped Leon's throat as he noticed her embarrassment and he decided that he might better explain the situation to her. "Aerith came by while you were sleeping last night and insisted that you change clothes. She did it, not me. I wasn't even in the room," he told her, pointing towards the pile of clothing the florist had folded neatly the night before. "Your other clothes are right there if you want to change..."

Nodding, Yuffie hesitantly stood up, the flannel shirt she wore hanging down to her mid-thigh, and gripped the wrought iron headboard of the bed to keep her balance as a wave of dizziness swept over her. She noticed that Leon was still standing in the doorway, watching her as she tried to take a few steps, only to fall backwards onto the bed. "Maybe I should eat in here after all," she muttered quietly, looking up at him to see him nod and walk off down the hallway.

She settled herself back into the bed, sitting up and leaning back against the headboard after having propped up a few pillows behind her. A lump under the covers got her attention and she reached under there to find her stuffed bear, smiling as she brought him out. When Leon had handed her that bear yesterday, still warm from its trip in the dryer, she was hardly able to control the smile that broke out on her face. It was simply amazing to her that he had seen the bear and had thought enough to bring it with her. She briefly wondered why a man that could seem so sweet was not yet married, but then she was reminded of the coldness he could show also, like when she had called him Squall moments before.

Sitting the bear on her lap, she drew her knees up and stared at the bear. "Okay, Moosh," she whispered in a conspiratorial manner, feeling embarrassed to be talking to a stuffed bear at her age, "what do you think--" She broke off when she heard soft chuckling coming from the doorway and she quickly jerked her head around to see Leon standing there with a tray in his hands. "I was... uh... talking to my bear?"

"I assumed as much," the man replied, handing the tray to her and then pulling a chair from across the room to sit at her bedside while she ate her breakfast of toast and orange juice. He figured the toast would be easy on her stomach and the vitamin C in the orange juice would help fight off her cold. "So, Yuffie, tell me about yourself."

Taking a drink of her juice to help ease the toast down her dry throat, she nodded. "Well... what do you want to know?" she inquired, hoping he wouldn't try and dig into her life. He had mentioned that he did not want to be reminded of his past and she was the same way. There were certain aspects of it she wished she could forget, yet they would still haunt her daily.

"Your name, for one," he said, but seeing the confused look on her face as he already knew her first name, he elaborated, "Your whole name since you seem to know mine."

She set the piece of toast she had been about to bite into back down on the small plate and took a deep breath. "Why do you want to know? You aren't going to turn me into the police, are you?" she asked worriedly, sparing a glance to judge the distance between the bed and the door in case she needed a quick exit.

Leon raised his hands defensively, leaning back in his chair. "Seeing as how I got my wallet back with everything still there, I don't think I would have a reason to justify the mess that I would have to go through to do that."

"Yuffie Kisaragi," she finally said quietly, realizing there was no way to get around telling him, at least no polite way to get out of telling him. And considering the circumstances, she did owe it to him to tell him. She took another small bite of toast, her stomach having still not decided whether it would revolt on her or not this morning.

"Do your parents know where you are?" he inquired, picking up the cat that had wandered into the room and was about to jump onto the bed. He assumed Yuffie did not want cat hair in her food, so he kept a tight grip on Sydney instead.

Yuffie closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, not wanting to think about her parents right now, but also knowing that he would persist until she gave him an answer. "My parents died when I was four... they were murdered, actually." The headache that had turned to a dull throb now began to pound again, causing her to wince. She opened her eyes and noticed that he was about to say something, but she quickly stopped him. "And don't say your sorry. I don't want your pity," she snapped.

Leon shut his mouth with a snap, nodding mutely and silently respecting her for her response. He knew of too many people who loved to revel in self-pity and receive pity from others. "What about the rest of your family?" he finally said, trying to figure out why someone as young as her could possibly be living on the streets, near starvation.

"They either don't exist or they didn't care 'cause I haven't heard from any of them since then," she scoffed, taking a sip of her juice in the hopes that the cool liquid would help with the aching of her head. She could see in his eyes that he wanted to know more, and she silently debated whether or not she should tell him the rest. Sighing, she finally acquiesced. "I spent the next nine years being shuffled around from foster home to foster home. I didn't like the people and the people didn't like me. So, I left the last one four years ago and I haven't regretted it."

Adding up the years in his head, Leon started with the age of four years she had said she was when her parents died, making his eyes widen when he realized how old she actually was. "Wait a minute. You're seventeen?" he asked incredulously, his eyes going over her blanket covered form to try and verify the fact.

The teenager wryly raised an eyebrow, staring at him. "Eighteen in a month and a half," she replied, watching him as he watched her. She knew she had always been a little on the childish side in appearance, but it had never bothered her. If anything, it helped when she stole someone's wallet. Especially when she made up her sob stories, such as the one she had tried to use on Leon the night she had taken his wallet. "Got a problem with it?"

"No. You just don't... well, you just don't look seventeen." He silently decided that this was going to be harder than he had originally thought. When he had first brought her in, he had hoped that he would be able to talk her into going back to the family he had thought she had run away from. But, seeing as how she was nearly eighteen and didn't have a family, he decided that wouldn't work.

As she was eating, Yuffie noticed that she was having an increasingly hard time trying to get her eyes to stay open and to keep the yawns at bay. On the plus side, she could feel her stuffy nose clearing and the aching in the head subsiding. "Look, I don't mean to be rude and all, but I'm feeling really tired right now and I don't think I can finish this and I just want to go back to sleep..." she rambled, looking at Leon pleadingly. "I don't know why I'm so tired either."

He picked up the box of cold pills, reading the back of it to see what the side effects were and smiling slightly when he came across the first one. "Right here, it says 'May cause drowsiness,'" he told her, picking up the tray her breakfast had been on and noting that she had eaten most of it.

"Okay... well, I'm gonna go back to sleep then," she muttered, already sliding down the headboard and into the blankets, her arms around the small stuffed bear. "Goodnight, Squall," she slurred sleepily as slumber reclaimed her.

"Leon," he corrected, knowing it was fruitless to do so as she was already out of it.

Author's Note: Ack... nothing like what I wanted. Nothing at all like I wanted. Anyways, I'M SO SORRY that I've taken so long to write this chapter. But, at least I did get Blind Instinct finished. And this is my only active story right now. So, anyways, review a way now that you've read. And I'll try to start getting at least one chapter out a week, maybe more sometimes. I don't really know yet. School starts back for me on Wednesday and I'm not sure how tough this semester is going to be. It's my last, and I'm taking Senior Seminar, so it might be fairly difficult. I think someone told me you have to write a 20 page paper in Senior Seminar :::shudders::: Anyways, I'm rambling. I'll go post right now.

And, VL, there. I got a chapter up for this story. I know you have been waiting ever so patiently for it. :::snorts:::