Author's Note: Okay, I STARTED this chapter as soon as I posted chapter five of Lullaby. BUT, my mind kept getting easily distracted and it's taken me FOREVER to get this chapter actually finished. :::sigh::: I think I need to get some of that "focus factor" stuff to help me concentrate.
Note to JadeBlossom727: I don't know exactly how I keep my inspiration, but writing is the only thing keeping me SANE while I attend college. I mean, seriously, I started writing in January of this year and this last semester didn't seem quite as stressful as the others before it. The only thing I can surmise is that the writing is my stress relief. Plus, I love to write fluff since I have a serious lack of it in my life.
–Disclaimer: Most of the characters portrayed below belong to their rightful owners of Square and Disney. I do not own any of them and do not make any profit off of writing this. If I did own these characters, I would be too busy drooling over Squall to write fanfiction.
Chapter Thirteen: Out of the Darkness
Shivering, Squall woke up to find all the blankets he had on his bed pulled to the side and wrapped around an unidentifiable lump on the far edge of his queen size bed. The small shock of obsidian hair against his hunter green sheets and paler green blankets triggered the memory of Yuffie crawling into bed with him the night before. He could only assume that the lump was her.
The lump shifted and a leg was kicked out from beneath the blankets, revealing bare skin from her ankle all the way up to her thigh. His stormy eyes traced over the slender limb even as he struggled not to. A loud crack of thunder finally jarred him enough to pull his gaze from her to look out the rain-streaked window.
Rain fell from the darkened sky in sheets, making it impossible for Squall to see very far into the distance. A burst of white hot lightning in the black clouds illuminated the city for a moment before plunging it back into the dismal darkness. The low rumble of thunder that followed was enough to rattle the windows, making Squall glad that he had no plans for leaving the apartment today. It was one of those days that you simply spent lounging around the house, curling up with a blanket and a good book or movie.
With a soft groan and a yawn, Squall swung his legs off the bed and sat up, stretching somewhat before he stood up. Rubbing his eyes, he blindly stared at the small alarm clock at his bedside, willing the glaring red numbers to come into focus. Since the dark clouds managed to prevent any sunshine from reaching his window, he was unable to accurately judge the time by that like he normally would.
The red numbers finally came into focus, showing that it was well after ten and quickly nearing eleven, much later than he would normally sleep, Sunday or not. But, then again, he and Yuffie had stayed up well into the morning watching movies the night before, so he felt somewhat justified for sleeping so late.
After slightly taming his wild mane of mahogany hair, Squall began to leave the bedroom to start cooking breakfast, coming to the conclusion that Yuffie would awaken when the smells of bacon and sausage frying assaulted her nostrils. But, just as he was at the door, a loud THUNK met his ears and he spun around to find the lump on his bed now on the floor, blankets and pillows with it and unmoving.
Sighing as he ran a hand through his hair, Squall approached the lump and squatted to see if she had hit her head on the bedside table on her way down. A soft snore was his reply as he pulled the blanket away from her face. He noted that she burrowed even further down into the blankets, making a noise that sounded like something between a whimper and a grunt.
While Squall stayed there debating whether to leave her on the floor or pick her up and put her back on the bed, her indigo eyes fluttered open, blinking a few times to clear her vision. "Squall?" she mumbled, her brows furrowed as she looked around the room confusedly before she remembered climbing into bed with him the night before. But, now she wondered why she was on the floor and not the bed. "What am I doing on the floor?"
"The cats kicked you out of the bed," he told her jokingly as Sydney peered over the edge of the bed to stare at her. Squall didn't know when the cat had crept into the bedroom, but he was in here now and curiously watching his young mistress, as he had adopted her as one of the family by now. "And how did you not wake up when you fell off?"
"I didn't get much sleep last night between the nightmares and your snoring," Yuffie muttered, closing her eyes and running a hand through her tangled mess of hair. She sleepily rubbed her eyes, sitting up as she did so and leaned back against the mattress.
Raising an eyebrow, Squall regarded her with mock indignation as he rose to his feet, crossing his arms over his still bare chest. "I do not snore," he said with playful resentment while she simply stared at him and yawned.
"Sure, you don't. And pigs are flying past outside that window and demons are skating around on ice rinks and--" She would have continued on if it hadn't been for the flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder coming from the clouds outside, causing her to shudder and clench her eyes tightly shut in an attempt to block out the storm.
Squall watched the girl confusedly as she stopped mid-sentence and began to take deep breaths. "Yuffie?" he called softly, squatting down next to her once more. When she didn't respond to her name, he dropped a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"It was raining..." she began, her eyes still closed and her breath coming in ragged gasps now as she tried not to cry. "It was raining when... when my mother died." Another shudder went through her body as she remembered the scene of her mother falling lifeless to the floor. "The rain... the rain makes me remember."
Not knowing what else to do, Squall simply gave her shoulder another reassuring squeeze, causing her to turn her head and look up at him with a shaky smile. "Thanks, Squall," she whispered as she slowly brought her own hand up to cover his, thankful that he hadn't teased her about her dislike of the rain.
As much as he wanted to stay there on the floor with her, with her hand covering his, he knew he couldn't and he once more rose to his feet. "I'm going to go start breakfast," he told her, beginning to walk out of the room, but stopping in the doorway to turn and look at her again. "Anything in particular that you want?"
"Uh... just anything with a lot of sugar?" Yuffie said questioningly, her head cocked to the side like a curious puppy as she stared at him. "French toast maybe?"
Squall nodded as he left the room, muttering something about Yuffie's near constant intake of sugar rivaling that of a hummingbird's. How she managed to eat so much of it without making herself sick or sending herself into a diabetic coma was beyond his knowledge.
Climbing to her feet, Yuffie looked around the room momentarily, catching her reflection in the mirror over his dresser and realizing that her hair was a lanky, snarled mess, before picking the blankets up off the floor and quickly making Squall's bed for him. It was her way of thanking him for letting her sleep in their with him. That, and she had made a twisted, tangled wad out of his blankets and sheets not only from falling off the bed and taking them with her, but also from hogging them all and enveloping herself into her self-made cocoon.
Finally getting the bed into some semblance of neatness, Yuffie retreated from Squall's bedroom and into hers, quickly grabbing some clothes, a pair of blue jeans, an oversized sweatshirt, and her undergarments, before heading to the bathroom for a shower. She hoped she still had time before Squall finished making breakfast as she really didn't much care for cold French toast.
In the kitchen, Squall was in the middle of cutting thick slices of bread off the loaf of bread he had bought at a local bakery a few days before when there was a soft knock on the door. Without opening it, he knew it was going to be Aerith. Really, besides the occasional salesman, Aerith and Cloud were the only people who came by his apartment.
Sure enough, upon opening the door, he found the florist dressed in a light pink sweater and a faded pair of blue jeans. Her brilliant green eyes widened incredibly when she saw what Squall was wearing. "Leon! Don't tell me you're still going around in your underwear all day on Sundays?!" she demanded, forcing her way into the apartment, like she was prone to do, and glaring at him.
"Uh... yeah. Why?" Squall asked confusedly, wondering why it really even mattered to Aerith. The sudden impact of her hand hitting him hard on the back of his head made him wince and rub the area. "And what was that for?"
Aerith let out a frustrated half growl, half scream as she scowled at him. "Leon, you have a seventeen year old girl living in your apartment and you're wandering around all day in your boxers?!" she hissed rather loudly, her face screwed up in annoyance. "Squall Leonhart, I thought you had better sense than that!"
Squall held up his hands in defeat, backing away a few feet from the florist in case she decided to hit him once more. "Okay, okay. You win, Aerith. My decency standards will go," he relented, starting down the hall to get dressed before she could yell at him anymore.
Yuffie saw him pass by her bedroom door as she was coming out of it, having heard the whole conversation between him and Aerith. It was kind of hard not to when Aerith's voice had reached a whole new octave as she reprimanded the man. Yuffie silently cursed the florist for ruining her Sunday eyeful of Squall shirtless as she made her way into the living room. "Thanks a lot, Aerith," she grumbled as she strode to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of orange juice.
"For what?" Aerith asked confusedly until she saw Yuffie beginning to drink the juice directly from the carton and slapped herself on the forehead, already having forgotten her previous question. "Yuffie, don't do that. It's disgusting!"
Quirking an eyebrow, Yuffie rolled her eyes and pulled a glass down from the cabinet. "It's not like you're going to be drinking any, Aerith," she muttered as she poured herself a glass and put the carton back into the refrigerator. By now, Squall had wandered back into the kitchen, wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt, a smirk on his face as he saw Yuffie also being rebuked by the florist. Yuffie stuck her tongue out at him.
"I assume you came over for some other reason than just to yell at us, Aerith," Squall prompted as he went back to preparing the French toast, cracking a few eggs into a bowl and beginning to beat them.
Shaking her head, Aerith sat on the stool at the counter and briefly rubbed her forehead. "I came to invite you two over for dinner tonight since Cloud just returned last night," she announced cheerfully. "Sort of a 'Welcome Home' dinner."
Squall stopped what he was doing to turn around and look at her, a perplexed expression on his face. "I thought Cloud wasn't coming back for another two weeks?"
"So did I, but he turned up at my doorstep last night," Aerith explained, remembering the silly vampire costume her husband had been wearing. "Didn't Yuffie tell you–." She broke off when she remembered that Yuffie couldn't have told Squall since she hadn't actually been introduced to him. "Oh, Yuffie, I'm sorry I was so rude last night. But, I hadn't seen him for months."
Laughing, Yuffie came and sat next to the florist on the counter, ignoring the glare from Squall as she did so. He hated it when she sat on the counters. "Aerith, it's okay. You probably had a lot of things to... catch up on..." she said, winking as she did so and remembering the way Aerith had attacked the man lips first.
"Speaking of which, where is Cloud?" Squall asked curiously.
"Uh... he's still sleeping. I would be, too, if Iris hadn't needed to be walked. We didn't get much sleep last night," the florist admitted quietly, blushing slightly at the implication but fighting it back down when she remembered that she was a grown woman and really had nothing to be embarrassed about. Her husband had been gone for months and she had missed him. "Anyways, I'll see you two around seven?" she asked, heading towards the door but stopping to wait for their assent, which they readily gave.
After she was gone, Squall turned to Yuffie, his eyebrows raised. "So, Cloud showed up last night?"
Eyes brightening considerably and a broad smile coming across her face, she told him about what happened the night before when her and Aerith came back to the apartment. She even told him how she thought, at first, that florist was attacking an innocent trick-or-treater. Yuffie never even noticed that she had completely forgotten about the rain outside and all her memories associated with it.
Dinner that night at the Strife apartment was full of laughs as old friends were reunited and new friendships forged. At first, Yuffie had been quiet and shy around Cloud, not really knowing how she should act around him. That is, she was until she remembered him saying he swallowed a fang the night before when Aerith pounced him. And before she even thought about what she was doing, she had asked him if he ever found it.
Sputtering and blushing slightly that the teenager had heard his muttered response the night before, Cloud quickly told her 'no.' It took a moment for the humor of the situation to sink in and then both Cloud and Yuffie burst out laughing. Embarrassing as it was, they soon both realized that it had actually made quite an efficient icebreaker.
After they had eaten the dinner Aerith had prepared, during which Yuffie learned why the florist rarely cooked as the chicken was overdone, the potatoes were underdone, and the rolls just burnt, the group had retreated to the living room where Cloud pulled out some pictures from his trip. The first picture happened to be of a group of men lined up in a boat. Nothing extraordinary until Yuffie noticed that their feet were sticking out of the bottom of the boat. "Are they... is that... are they trying to be the Flintstones?" she finally asked, blinking a few times as she took the picture and held it closer to her face, as though that would help it make more sense.
"No, it's a picture from the Todd River Regatta," the blonde told her, laughing and leaning back on the sofa with his arm around Aerith's shoulders; she was leaning against his side and had an arm draped around his waist. "It's a boat race in Alice Springs, Australia except they have it on a dry river."
"Still looks like the Flintstones to me," Yuffie mumbled, taking another look at the picture before she passed it on to Squall, who was seated in the chair next to her. "Don't you think so, Squall?"
Cloud looked back and forth between the two roommates for a moment, wondering if Leon was going to explode like he normally did when anyone called him Squall. The blonde knew as well as anyone that the man loathed the name for it brought back memories of his past, memories he would rather forgot. The expected rebuttal never came and the blonde gave his wife a confused look. She merely shrugged her shoulders.
"I thought you went to Europe, Cloud?" Squall asked as he looked at the picture in his hands, silently agreeing with Yuffie but not wanting to admit it out loud. "And, Yuffie, I'm sure if you were to tell them," he gestured towards the men in the picture, "that you think they look like the Flintstones, they'd be insulted."
"And? What are they gonna do?" she questioned, raising her eyebrows and laughing a little. "Sic rabid kangaroos on me?"
Cloud rummaged around in his pictures for a moment before producing another one and handing it to Yuffie. "Nope, probably those," he said, pointing to the massive crocodile sunbathing on the bank of a nameless river. "And, Leon, I was in Europe. But, I had to make a trip down to Australia as well and managed to catch the Todd River Regatta on my free weekend."
Yuffie was still staring at the massive reptile in the photo, gulping loudly as her eyes drifted over to the open mouthful of teeth. "They... uh... really have those in the rivers down there?" she asked hesitantly, her indigo eyes wide as she thought about coming face to face with one of those crocodiles.
"Yep," Cloud replied, pulling out another picture and then blushing as he quickly tried to hide it behind the others. "How did that one get in there?" he muttered under his breath, ignoring Aerith's giggling as she had seen the picture as he tried to hide it.
"Ooh... what is it?" Yuffie inquired excitedly, grabbing the picture from him with practiced ease. After all, she had been a first rate pickpocket. At least, in her opinion she was. She looked at the picture and began laughing uncontrollably, bending over and clutching her stomach with one arm.
Squall looked over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of the picture, which proved futile as she was moving around so much while she laughed that he was unable to see it. He finally reached over and grabbed the picture with little protest from her. Blinking a few times, he looked back and forth between the picture and Cloud before he found his voice. "Okay, Blondie. What did you do?" he demanded, resorting to the nickname he used for Cloud only when the blonde had done something particularly stupid. This photo was evidence of that fleeting stupidity Cloud sometimes possessed.
"Look, I just happened to be in Pamplona during the Running of the Bulls," he began, trying in vain to grab the picture from Leon, but the brunet simply kept it out of his reach. "And some of the guys talked me into trying it."
"And a bull got you in the butt," Squall finished for him, smirking as he did so.
"IT'S MY UPPER THIGH!" Cloud bellowed, making another lunge, and failing, for the picture.
Yuffie stopped laughing long enough to take another peek at the picture Squall held. "It looks like your butt to me," she chimed in, beginning to giggle again. "I bet that hurt, too, didn't it? Like, you couldn't sit down for awhile, huh?"
Cloud finally managed to take the picture away from Squall, but not before his dignity had been shattered. "Yeah, yeah... laugh all you want. At least I was brave enough to run with the bulls," Cloud replied smugly.
"You mean stupid enough?" Squall chided.
"Run with the bulls... gored in the ass... blondes really do have more fun," Yuffie pondered aloud as her giggling subsided.
Aerith, who had been fairly quiet the whole evening, simply holding onto Cloud and leaning against him, finally decided to defuse the situation before the men's teasing turned into a friendly brawl which they were sometimes known to do. "Cloud, did you bring home the chocolate and FCUK shirt like I asked you, too?" she questioned quietly, lifting her eyes to his.
"Of course I did," he whispered as he leaned down to chastely kiss her lips, not caring that Squall and Yuffie were watching them. Slowly, he arose from the sofa and headed down the hall to their bedroom, emerging a few minutes later with a rolled up t-shirt in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other. He handed both of them to Aerith as he sat back down next to her.
In turn, Aerith passed the two items over to Yuffie, smiling as she did so. "Here, Yuf. I had Cloud get these for you while he was still in Britain. And you've got to try the British chocolate. It's so much better than the American stuff," the florist insisted, settling back up against her husband and she fought back a yawn.
"Aw, you guys! You didn't have to–," Yuffie began, only to be cut off by Cloud.
"We know we didn't have to, but we wanted to," he told her, remembering the way his wife had gushed about the teenager over the phone. She talked about her so much, that Cloud felt like he knew her before he even really met her.
Conversation continued for a while longer until Squall kept noticing the yawns Aerith tried and failed to hide. It was then he spared a glance at the clock and realized it was well after eleven o'clock and both he and Yuffie had to get up to go to the restaurant early the next morning. Not to mention the books he needed to balance that night as he had forgotten about them the day before. "Yuffie, I think we need to go," Squall announced, rising from his chair as he did so.
"Do we have to?" Yuffie pouted, enjoying herself more than she had in a very long while and really not wanting to leave. "Can't we just stay a little while longer?"
Not wanting to argue and seeing that both Aerith and Cloud were growing tired (Cloud had failed in suppressing a yawn as well), Squall did the only thing he could think of at the moment. He hoisted the girl into his arms and threw her over his shoulder, keeping one arm on her legs to keep her from falling. Giving Cloud and Aerith their goodbyes, he ignored the protesting girl on his shoulder as she whined and complained about him carrying her around like a sack of potatoes.
However, once they were out of the Strife apartment, Yuffie quit complaining when she realized that being over his shoulder did have it's advantages. She had an unobstructed view of his ass from her position, which, she had to admit, was just as nicely made as the rest of him. So, she was greatly disappointed when he dropped her from his shoulder outside his apartment though she did a remarkable job of hiding her disappointment with an angry scowl.
"You didn't have to do that, you know?" she grumbled, trudging into the apartment when he opened the door. "I would have left in a minute."
Squall didn't answer her for a moment, instead only raising his eyebrows and giving her a look that said he gravely disbelieved that. "Yuffie, we both have to get up early and I still have the books to balance..."
"Alright, alright," she muttered, hating that he was right, especially when she realized how sleepy she actually was. "And I guess I'll be going to bed then." She wandered down the hall, turning at her bedroom door to look back into living room and kitchen area to see Squall pulling out a briefcase that overflowed with a stack of papers when he opened it.
Hours later, Yuffie awoke to a rumbling stomach and an insatiable craving for the chocolate chip cookies she knew Squall had bought a few days before. But, as she crawled out of her bed, she realized that the kitchen light was still on and was dimly shining through to her bedroom. Looking at her clock, she realized that it was around three in the morning and Squall should have been in bed hours ago.
So, creeping down the hallway and into the kitchen to see what was going on, Yuffie found Squall asleep, slumped over the counter with his head resting on a stack of papers. She quietly approached him, stopping long enough to grab the cookies out of the cabinet and pour herself a glance of milk, and sat down next to him, carefully pulling the stack of papers out from under his head.
A black ledger was found lying open with his pen and hand resting on it, so she gently tugged that away from him as well and stared down at the figures with furrowed brows. She had always been good at math; it was the only subject she had actually excelled at while she had still been in school. And now that she was working in the GED study guide Squall had bought for her, her math skills were improving drastically.
Running her finger down the long list of numbers lined up on the side of the page, she found a few mistakes and quickly corrected them before continuing on. It took her a total of about half an hour to finish what Squall had started, the same amount of time it took for her to finish her cookies and milk. She quietly shut the ledger and placed it back into the briefcase along with the receipts and other papers Squall had pulled out, then shut the briefcase with a soft click.
She started to leave the room to return to her own, but stopped for a moment and stared at Squall as he shifted slightly at the counter. She couldn't help but admit how sweet he looked while he slept and she suddenly gave into an urge she had never had before. Tiptoeing back over to him, she gently brushed his hair out of his face before leaning down to kiss him on the forehead, much like he had done for her about a week ago.
Smiling a little and shaking her head, she then left him and finally returned to her room to catch, hopefully, a few more hours of sleep before Squall would awaken her in the morning.
Author's Note: You know, there was going to be another thing happening in this chapter as well until I realized that it would take up so much room that it would require it's own chapter. Expect it next time. And, if any Australians are reading this, I mean no disrespect about the jokes Yuffie made about the Todd River Regatta. It was just the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the pictures and it sounded like something she would say. So, please don't hurt me. :::cringes::: Uh... it seems like there was something else I needed to say... But I can't think of it. Anyways, make an author happy and leave a review!