Author's Note: Yes, it's been about a week or more since I posted for this story. Really, I STARTED this chapter the day after I posted the last. But, life happens. I had a lot of sh–... STUFF to do for school. On the plus side, I finished Lullaby and can concentrate more on this story until I start writing On the Way Down.
Ahhh... long chapter it will be, I think. :::shakes head::: I gotta stop talking like Yoda.
By the way, I'm jumpstarting my muse, so forgive any crappiness that might appear.
Hehe... uh... if any guys are reading this story, they might get a little embarrassed with this chapter... you'll understand why in a few minutes...
–Disclaimer: Don't own them. End of Story. But I want it to be a beginning, starting with Squall showing up at my door...
Chapter Fourteen: Say Goodbye to Dignity
It was becoming a regular routine for Squall to have to wake Yuffie up, or try to wake her up, every morning before work as she either never heard her alarm clock go off or she just incessantly hit the snooze button. He wasn't sure which it was. But, every morning from Monday thru Friday (she still wasn't working on Saturdays) would play out in almost the same manner.
Squall would go in there and at first call her name, as though that would work even though it had never worked before. Then he would nudge her; usually, the only response to that would be a sleepy groan and her flipping over. At this point, depending on her mood, a pillow might come around and hit him. Finally, he would have to physically pull the blankets away from her to prevent her from hiding from both him and the overhead light. She would finally get up after that.
Today was going to be different though. Squall could tell it when he walked into the room even though there was nothing there to suggest that it would be. Everything looked perfectly normal. Yuffie was lying in her usual tight, curled up ball, the myriad of blankets she slept with in the normal nest around her. He noticed that her alarm clock was propped up against the far wall, the red numbers blinking 12:00. Apparently, she did hear the alarm clock go off and chucked it across the room in retaliation.
"Yuffie," he called from the doorway, knowing from previous experience that it wouldn't work. "Yuffie, come on. It's time to get up." Flipping the light switch on his way into the room, Squall blinked a moment to let his eyes readjust from the darkened room to the now light-flooded room. He reached her bedside and gently shook her shoulder. "Yuffie, wake up!"
A tired indigo eye opened and stared at him for a moment before closing again. "Squall, please, just let me sleep," Yuffie moaned, not even rolling over like she normally did, but lying completely still. "Just go away and let me sleep."
"If you don't get up now, you won't have time for breakfast," Squall told her, knowing that had never failed to get her up once they had purchased some more sugary cereals for her to eat. He even backed up a little, thinking she would jump out of the bed at the mention of food, but she didn't. She simply lay there and stared at him.
"I'm not hungry," she whispered in a soft voice, curling herself up into an even tighter ball if that were possible. "I... I don't feel that well this morning and I don't think I can go to work today. So, please, I'm begging you, just let me go back to sleep." The uncharacteristic pleading tone of her voice normally would have made her ashamed, but not today.
Worry causing his brows to furrow, Squall knelt down beside the bed to get a closer look at her face, just now noticing how pale she was, paler than normal even. "You don't look so good," he murmured, reaching out a hand to place on her forehead to check for a fever, but not finding one.
"Gee, thanks for noticing," Yuffie grumbled sarcastically, rolling her eyes as she did so and prying his hand off her brow. "Now, will you please just leave me alone?"
"You don't have a fever," Squall muttered quietly under his breath, more to himself than to her, and continued to stare intently at her. He didn't like the paleness of her complexion; it worried him. To him, she looked worse than she had when he first brought her to his apartment. "Maybe we should get you to a doctor..."
Shaking her head, she momentarily closed her eyes and winced slightly in obvious pain, hissing sharply at the same time. "I'll be okay, Squall. Just..." she trailed off for a moment and clenched her eyes shut and pulled the blanket around herself tighter. "Just go to work and don't worry about me."
At her second sharp intake of breath in just the past few moments, Squall reached over and started to pull the blanket away from her. "Come on, Yuffie. It's not normal to be in this much pain with a cold or virus. You might have an appendicitis or some–." He broke off when she refused to let the blanket go, gripping it so tightly her knuckles were turning white.
"Squall, I will be okay. I'll be fine," Yuffie insisted, trying to keep a firm grip on the blanket, but another wave of pain made her loosen it just enough for Squall to pull it away. Before she could stop him, he started to pick her up despite her protests and feeble kicks. "What are you doing?!"
"I'm taking you to the hospital before you appendix or whatever–."
Taking a deep breath and rubbing her forehead, Yuffie interrupted him before he could continue on with his rant of what might be wrong with her. "I have menstrual cramps, okay? Or do you want a full medical examination?" she hissed, a crimson blush creeping up onto her cheeks. She really hadn't wanted to tell him what was wrong with her, but he just kept pushing the issue until she burst.
While Yuffie's face were turning red, Squall's was quickly losing it's color and his arms went lax, causing him to drop her back onto the bed. Luckily, it wasn't a very far drop and she simply glared at him when she landed. "Oh... uh.... um... do y-you need anything?" he stuttered slowly, desperately hoping she wouldn't send him down to the drugstore for anything embarrassing.
If she hadn't been in so much pain from the cramps, she would have laughed at the expression on his face. Instead, she just gave him a half-hearted smile and curled back up into her protective ball and pulled the blankets around her. "No," she whispered, shaking her head as she did so. "Just go to the restaurant and don't worry about me. I'll be okay."
Squall slowly walked out the door, straight down the hallway, through the living room, and out the front door without even stopping for his morning cup of coffee. Before he even knew what he was doing, he found himself knocking on Cloud and Aerith's apartment door. The florist hurriedly opened the door and let Squall into the apartment before rushing back into the kitchen to check on her breakfast. "What are you doing here so early, Leon?" she asked as she spread the cream cheese on her bagel.
"Yuffie has cramps," he sighed, running a hand through his hair before he rubbed it down his face. It paused at his eyes to rub them before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Tell me again why I decided to let a teenage girl live with me?"
"Leon, Leon, Leon," Aerith muttered, shaking her head as she bit into her bagel. "It's just cramps. Every woman gets them. I get them, Yuffie gets them, even Rin–," she broke off when she realized she was about to say a name that he had forbidden anyone to say in his presence. "Every woman gets them," she repeated firmly as she left him in the living room and headed down the hall to the bathroom for something.
A very rumpled looking Cloud emerged from the bedroom across the hall and started towards the living room. "What are you doing here, Leon?" the blonde yawned as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
Aerith didn't give the brunet time to answer the question before her dulcet voice floated from the bathroom, where she was rummaging around the medicine cabinet, and answered it herself. "Yuffie has cramps and Leon doesn't know what to do about it," she called, a hint of humor in her voice.
"Run away, Leon, run far away," Cloud said in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning across the counter to make himself better heard to Squall, but hopefully not his wife. It didn't work. She started up the hallway just a few seconds after he had passed that information along with a scowl on her face.
"Give these to Yuffie," she muttered distractedly as she tried to push a bottle of Midol and a box of pads into his hands. Actually, she had no trouble making him hold the pills. It was the box of pads he seemed reluctant to take from her grasp. "Leon, they are pads. They're not going to bite you."
She was turning to face Cloud, her mouth open to reprimand him for his comment, when Squall interrupted her. "Can't you take them over to her?" he practically begged, as he looked down at the items in his hands.
"LEON, you are twenty-six years old! Grow up!" the florist growled, turning the brunet around and pushing him towards the door. "And, no, I can't take them over there because I have to get down to the shop and open it after I deal with Cloud."
Before he realized it, Squall was out the door and in the apartment corridor, his own apartment door staring at him. He quickly opened the door and hurried inside before anyone could see him in the hallway; he really didn't want anyone to see what he was holding. The short trip to his apartment had never seemed as long to him as it did then.
Upon entering the apartment, he noticed Yuffie leaning over the kitchen sink, with one hand around her stomach, out of the corner of his eye. Hearing the front door click close, she turned to stare curiously at him, her eyes falling to the items in his hands. That's when Squall noticed a few tears on her cheeks and more welling up behind her eyes. "Hey," he murmured, setting the stuff down on the counter. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. It just... hurts," Yuffie whimpered, clutching her lower abdomen with both hands and slowly shuffling into the living room. She grabbed the bottle of Midol on the way and read the back label after sitting down on the couch before pouring two of the pills into the palm of her hand and tossing them down her throat, swallowing them dry.
"You shouldn't take medicine on an empty stomach. It'll make you sick," Squall warned as watched her take the pills. She simply glared at him as she lay herself down on the sofa and drew her knees to her chest, pulling the blanket she must have brought from her room around herself as she did so.
"Well, I don't feel too well right now. And I don't see how it can get much worse than it already is," she snapped irritably as she grabbed the remote control and turned the TV on, flipping aimlessly through the channels until she found some old movie from the eighties playing. Really, she had no interest in the movie, but wanted something to try and take her mind off the cramps in her abdomen.
He finally shrugged and wandered back into the kitchen, eyeing the box of pads Aerith had given him warily. The idea of them just setting on the counter in plain view unsettled him and he carefully picked them up, as though they would hurt him, and carried them to the bathroom. It was at this moment he was exceptionally glad he had his own bathroom in his bedroom. "There are some things not meant for male eyes," he muttered to himself as he set the box of pads down on the counter next to the sink.
After going back into the front half of the apartment, Squall sat on a stool at the island counter in his kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee while he read the paper. He had been sitting there for just a little over half an hour and was just preparing to leave the apartment to head to The Rustic Oven when his eyes caught Yuffie lurching to her feet and rushing down the hall to the bathroom. What followed was a series of gags and choked coughs as she retched the few contents of her stomach into the toilet.
A few minutes later, she weakly stumbled out of the bathroom, hobbled back to the couch, and gingerly lay back down, a few whimpers escaping her throat as she did so. Squall rose from his stool and walked over to her, kneeling at the end of the couch and trying to keep his hands from brushing the hair out of her face. "I–," he started, only to be interrupted by Yuffie.
"I don't want to hear," she snarled tiredly, assuming he was going to say I told you so like most other people would. Or, at least, like the people she had known before. "You were right. You win. Now just leave me alone."
"I was going to ask if you wanted me to cook you anything for breakfast," Squall explained slowly, wearily rubbing his eyes and shaking his head.
"Oh," Yuffie said simply, her tone slightly apologetic for her snappish nature. "I... uh... aren't you going to work?" A look at the clock showed her it was nearly past time for him to be going, yet he was still here and offering to cook for her.
Sighing, Squall rose to his feet and looked at the clock himself. He hadn't really realized it was so late until now. But, if he were to leave her like this, alone all day in the apartment, he would never forgive himself. "No. I have stuff I can do here today or over the phone," he finally replied, already picking the phone up off the base to give his assistant manager, Julian, a call. "Is there anything you want to eat?" he asked as he called the restaurant, hoping Julian would be there already.
Yuffie waited until he was through with his phone call before she answered him, thinking about his actions the whole time. He confused her to no end. Sometimes, he could be as cold as the icy wind that cut through your coat and nipped at your skin, like he was when he had left the costume competition only a few days ago. Other times, he was so sweet and caring that it made her almost want to melt, like he was right now and when they had watched scary movies together. He was such an enigma–.
"Yuffie!" Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted as Squall stared down at her, the phone placed on its base once more and him waiting for her answer about breakfast. He wondered briefly if she was okay, considering the way she had almost completely zoned out for the brief amount of time he was on the phone. "Breakfast?" he prodded.
"Uh... just some toast," she muttered distractedly when she snapped back into reality. For that brief span of time that she had been lost in thought, the cramps didn't feel nearly as bad as they did now. And, truth be told, she really didn't feel like eating anything but would force something down just so she could keep the Midol she so desperately wanted down.
The rest of the morning passed rather calmly; Squall managed to make Yuffie eat two pieces of toast and she immediately took another two Midol down with that, which helped to ease, but not stop completely, her cramps for a couple hours. He then learned very quickly why Cloud had advised him to run earlier that morning.
Since he had the spare time, Squall had decided that he would spend a few hours searching online once more for the necklace with his family's crest on it. But, as he searched the internet, he absentmindedly began drumming his fingers upon the table, tapping out the 1812 Overture without really thinking about it. He was nearly through with his improvised version of the symphony when he looked up and saw a pair of venomous indigo eyes glaring down at him as Yuffie stood in front of him.
"What?" he asked innocently and confusedly as he tried to decipher why she was glowering at him like that. As far as he knew, he had done nothing wrong. However, looking into her eyes, he realized that he must have done something.
"I was asleep," she growled lowly, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits as she scowled at him. "It doesn't hurt when I'm asleep." A glimpse of the still perplexed expression on his face would have clued most people into the fact that he had no idea what she was talking about. She decided to elaborate for him. "I was asleep, that is, until you decided to perform a concert over here by banging your fists on the table!"
Now Squall was really confused. First of all, he had only been tapping his finger lightly upon the wood. Secondly, it didn't sound that loud to him and he was right there were the noise was. And, finally, he wanted to know how in the world the light tapping of his fingers on the surface of the table had managed to wake the teenager up when the loud, annoying buzz of her alarm clock was unable to most days of the week. "I–," he started to apologize, but stopped when he saw her nearly double over in pain, her arm clutching weakly at her stomach.
"Dammit," she hissed loudly, trying to make her way back over to the couch. Apparently, the small effect the Midol had upon her was quickly wearing off. She was taking tiny baby steps across the room as the bigger steps made the cramps worse when strong arms picked her up and carried her the rest of the way.
Squall carefully set her down on the couch and quickly picked up the phone, dialing the number he had memorized for Aerith's floral shop. "I don't know much about this, but I really don't think that normal," he muttered to Yuffie as he impatiently waited for the green-eyed florist to pick up the phone.
Yuffie just lay there curled up in a ball once more, only half listening to his one-sided conversation with Aerith. But, when he snapped his fingers in front of her face, she began to pay attention once more. "What?" she whispered hoarsely, trying not to cry again, but it just hurt so much.
"Aerith wants to know if it's normal for your cramps to be this bad," Squall demanded, holding a hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. At Yuffie's nod, he relayed the answer back to the florist, then paled as she apparently asked another question. "Uh... she also wants to know how heavy the... uh... blood flow is."
Groaning, Yuffie buried her face in her hands, just as embarrassed as Squall, if not more so. This was something really she did not want to discuss with him, even if he was only asking because of Aerith. "Heavy," came the reluctant and muffled reply from her hands.
After relaying that answer to the florist as well, Squall talked to her for a few more minutes before finally hanging up. "She's... uh..." He paused for a moment and gulped. "She says she's setting you up an appointment with a gynecologist," he finally managed to get out, saying it all in a rush.
"Great," Yuffie muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes and sighing loudly. She watched as Squall left the room and then came back a moment later with Demi in his arms, handing the cat to her. "What?" the teenager asked in confusion, looking back and forth between the cat and Squall.
"Before she hung up, Aerith said it might help if you put a cat in your lap and make it purr," he explained, going back over to his computer which still sat on the table. "And Demi purrs more than Sydney."
Biting her lip and deciding it was worth a try, Yuffie sat up a little bit and placed the cat in her lap, petting her beneath the chin and behind the ears. Those spots on that particular cat were almost like instant purr buttons; just barely touch her there, and she would be purring. It wasn't long after that, that Yuffie noticed her cramps began to lessen and she managed to fall back asleep with the cat still purring in her lap.
Squall, having learned his lesson from earlier, made sure he was perfectly quiet while she was asleep, hardly even daring to move.
Just a little over a week later, Squall found himself sitting in the waiting room of the gynecologist's office, imagining ways to pay Aerith back for this. After she had made the appointment for Yuffie, the florist had promised to take the teenager herself and save Squall the embarrassment. But, that morning, Cloud had somehow managed to twist his ankle and Aerith insisted that the blonde would need her assistance. A low growl escaped Squall's throat as he decided that perhaps it was Cloud he should be mad at.
A few minutes ago, Yuffie had been nervously fidgeting in the chair beside him while she filled out the forms the receptionist had given her. But now, Squall was alone in a waiting room full of women, young and old alike. And he felt extremely self-conscious as he waited for Yuffie to return so he could leave. It was bad enough having all those women stare at him when he had walked through the door with Yuffie. But, at least then, he had known someone in the room. Of course, I might have been worse if he had known one of the other women in the waiting room.
Sighing and running a hand through his long locks of hair, Squall rose to his feet and headed towards the exit, asking the receptionist to tell Yuffie where he was when she came out. Outside, he took a deep breath to help sooth his frazzled nerves. He had never thought he was one to get frazzled nerves until the week before.
For three days that week, Yuffie's cramps had been bad enough that he refused to leave her alone in the apartment. And in those three days, he had learned about a woman's menstrual cycle than he would ever want to know. He had also found enough things in the bathroom to make him regret not taking the extra few steps to go to the bathroom in his bedroom. Unfortunately, what he had found was enough to make him wonder how a woman of her diminutive size could produce that much menstrual blood.
He didn't ponder that thought long, immediately pushing it out of his head as soon as it came to mind. Frankly, it terrified him.
Squall didn't know how long he was pacing around outside the medical office when Yuffie peeked her head out the door. "Uh... Squall?" she called softly, looking down at the ground rather than his face. "I kinda forgot my wallet at home and need you to pay for this... I can pay you back when we get home. I have the money."
Pinching the bridge of his nose and not wanting to go back in there, Squall reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, tossing it to her in the process. "Just take that and pay for it," he muttered, watching her as she stared at the wallet in shock.
"Um... Okay," Yuffie said confusedly, surprised that he was actually trusting her with the very wallet she had stolen from him a little over a month ago. "Are you sure?" She had to make sure; she didn't want to be accused later of stealing anything from him.
"Yes, I am not going back in there," he stated firmly and leaving no room for argument. He watched her meekly step back inside the office before he softly murmured the rest of his statement. "Besides, I trust you."
A few minutes later, Yuffie reemerged from the office and they silently started walking towards his car. The drive back to the apartment appeared that it was going to be as equally silent as the walk to the car, even with Yuffie flipping through the radio stations in an attempt to find something they both liked.
Finally finding the silence to be unbearable, Squall decided it was time to end it. "Well, that was embarrassing," he muttered, not noticing that Yuffie had turned her head to face him and staring at him. "I've never been so embarrassed in my life," he continued, still oblivious to her facial expression.
"You were embarrassed?!" she asked incredulously, her stare quickly becoming a glare. "You were embarrassed?! How do you think I feel?!" Shrilly, her voice raised a few octaves and she didn't even realize what she was saying until it was too late. "At least you weren't the one lying on a table in a porno position!"
Considering the way his thoughts towards the teenager had been going the past couple of weeks, that was the last thing he needed to hear from her and he temporarily lost control of his car, nearly driving it up a telephone pole. An incredible feat, really, when the fact that he usually drove rather slowly was taken into account. He parked his car there for a minute and rested his forehead against the steering wheel while Yuffie continued to glare at him. "Yuffie," he finally muttered, "just shut up."
Hurt, Yuffie shut her mouth with a snap and turned to look out her window, just watching all the people walk down the sidewalk. She felt the car slowly start back up again and Squall pulled back into the traffic, but she refused to look at him. "Stop at the drugstore," Yuffie whispered as she remembered the prescription for birth control pills the doctor had given her, telling her that they would help with the cramps.
Sighing, Squall silently did as he was told and waited in the car for her as she dropped her prescription off. He hadn't meant to sound so cruel when he told her to shut up, but with the way his mind was working these days, he really didn't need to hear anymore about her doctor's appointment. Yuffie returned to the car a few minutes later and they drove the rest of the way in silence.
It was around midnight that night when Squall gave up on trying to sleep and gave into the urge to get something to drink. He and Yuffie had hardly spoken to each other since they had returned from her doctor's appointment and it was making it hard for him to sleep. He didn't like having her mad at him; the reason why it bothered him so much not even coming to mind. His feelings towards her confused him and he didn't even bother trying to sort them out; it would only confuse him more.
He soon found himself in the dark kitchen, rummaging around the refrigerator looking for the carton of milk he knew was supposed to be in there, but not finding it. That was when he heard a voice from behind him. "I have insomnia, but what's your excuse?"
In his surprise, Squall jumped at the sound of Yuffie's voice and bumped his head on the top shelf of the refrigerator. Hissing in pain, he clutched the top of his head and turned around to find her sitting on the opposite counter, eating ice cream directly out of the tub with the milk he had been searching for sitting next to her. "That hurt," he muttered, trying not to curse as he had been getting onto her about language since she had moved in with him.
"Want me to kiss it?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and digging into the tub for another bite of ice cream.
Squall was a mere inch away from telling her 'please do,' but managed to stop the words before they came out of his mouth. "Get your butt off my clean counter," he instead reprimanded, trying to get his thoughts into some semblance of control. He watched her slid off, inwardly wincing when he noticed her nightshirt, still one of his flannel shirts, rode up slightly and revealed her upper legs. He really didn't need that right now.
"Sheesh, Squall. It's not like I'm naked or anything," Yuffie muttered in annoyance, walking over to sit on one of the stools at the island since he seemed to have issues about his counter tops.
Before he could reign in his thoughts, his mind flew to what she had said earlier in reference to her doctor's appointment: 'You weren't the one lying on a table in a porno position.' No, that thought really wasn't helping matters. In fact, he dropped the glass he had just pulled out of the cabinet and watched as it fell to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. Sighing, he grabbed the broom he had stored in the nearby pantry and began sweeping the pieces up as Yuffie stood there and watched him.
"Smooth move, Squall," she teased as she took another bite of the ice cream, savoring the taste. It was her favorite flavor, something called Chocolate Truffle Explosion that had bits of chocolate truffles mixed in with the chocolate ice cream and rivers of fudge running through it as well. All in all, it was literally a chocolate explosion.
"Put that in a bowl," Squall grumbled as he handed her a bowl from the cabinet when he reached in to get himself another glass. He glared at her when she simply set the whole tub of ice cream into the bowl and continued to eat out of the tub. "Nice, Yuffie. Real nice. I'm sure that's on Aerith's list along with drinking orange juice out of the carton."
Smirking, Yuffie pointed to his current state of attire: nothing but his boxers. "And I'm sure Aerith would just love to know that you're corrupting me by walking around like that," she threatened as she defiantly dug into the tub once more for another bite.
Squall sighed and massaged his temples as he sat down on the stool opposite hers. "I won't tell if you won't tell," he finally stated as he pulled out a spoon from the nearby drawer and stole a bite of her ice cream.
Yuffie raised her eyebrows and stared at him for a moment before deciding whether or not she should go along with his deal. "Fine, it's a deal," she agreed, sticking her hand out for him to shake and make the agreement final. It took him a moment, but he eventually did take her hand and shake it. "So, anyways, since you're up, I might as well ask you."
"Ask me what?" Squall prodded as he waited for her to continue, but she simply took another bite of ice cream and waited for it to melt in her mouth before she would continue.
"I've just been wondering what you had been planning on doing before you inherited your restaurant," she said softly, half afraid he would get mad at her. She never knew what he was going to do from one moment to the next. "I mean, I know you were going to college and all that, but what were you going to do until you inherited The Rustic Oven?"
Squall sighed and ran a hand through his hair, closing his stormy blue eyes in the process. "I'm not really sure. I hadn't picked out a major yet when it happened, but I think I might have gone into law school or journalism," he said after a few moments. "And if I had, I might have just owned the restaurant and not really work there. So, I guess I'm glad that I did inherit it because I love working there. It just... it reminds me of home."
Nodding, Yuffie pushed the tub of ice cream closer to him when she saw him reaching over for another bite. "That sound so cool," she told him, unable to hide the little bit of jealousy in her voice. "I don't really know what I'm going to do once I do get my GED. I guess I'll just try and get a job as a receptionist somewhere."
"Don't do that, Yuffie. Don't cut yourself short. You would hate doing that. At least take some classes at the junior college and try to find something you would enjoy doing," Squall insisted, but when he suddenly remembered the way she had finished balancing the books for him, even finding a few mistakes he had made in there, he continued. "Maybe you should try accounting. And, if you do and if you like it, I can always use a new accountant to do my books since I apparently have trouble doing them."
Letting out a short laugh, Yuffie agreed with him and they ate the ice cream for another few minutes in companionable silence before Squall broke it. "So, why did you run away in the first place?" he asked quietly, his eyes finding hers and holding her gaze.
She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I just got tired of being shuffled around from place to place all the time," she admitted slowly with a touch of resentment at the foster families. "It just seemed like none of them really liked me. I mean, I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with, but give me a break. I was only four years old when the courts shoved me off onto the first available foster family and they only kept me for a few weeks, claiming I was too emotional." She sighed loudly here, pushing the ice cream away from her completely and dropping her chin to rest on her arms, which were setting atop the counter and crossed. "My parents had just died, for crying out loud! Of course I was emotional!"
"Yuffie, you don't have to–." He started to tell her that she didn't have to tell him anymore, but she kept going as though she hadn't heard him.
"And then the next family said I was too hyperactive. Then I was too annoying, then too depressing. I was always too something!" she hissed, holding back the tears that were threatening to fall from her eyes. After a few moments, she composed herself and sat back up. "So, I finally just had enough and left. I sold almost everything I owned just to get a bus ticket to come here." She sighed sadly and shook her head. "I was a delusional thirteen year old thinking I could find a way to support myself. And, well... look how that turned out."
"You told me before you don't regret it," Squall whispered, watching as she pushed back any tears that remained behind her eyes. But, both the tears and the tone of her voice told him that she did regret it.
Shaking her head, Yuffie stood up from her seat and carried the half-melted ice cream back to the freezer. "The only thing I regret is that when I got here, and realized that there was no way I could support myself, I pawned my mother's necklace," she whispered, taking a deep breath and keeping her back to Squall. "It wasn't worth much, it was just a little bronze medallion with the Japanese symbols of love and hope on it hanging from a chain, but it was the only thing I had from her." Yuffie started to walk out of the kitchen, but stopped and paused for a minute at the entrance to the hallway. "I kept telling myself that I would find some money and get it back, but it never happened."
Squall watched her as she left him alone in the kitchen, wondering how someone who seemed so happy most of the time could be so depressed deep down inside. It amazed him that she was able to keep this side of herself so carefully hidden behind that happy-go-lucky facade. He also realized that he seemed to be the only person she had ever shared this with.
Author's Note: Ahhhhh.... just over 6,000 words and, actually, I had promised someone that it would be up by midnight last night, but when I started falling asleep at the keyboard and STILL had about half of this chapter to go, I decided I might better get to bed.
Anyways, I hope you're still enjoying the ride. Things will start picking up in the next chapter. Yes, believe me, they will. I've been wanting to write the next chapter ever since I started this story. Okay, I'm going now. So, leave me a review and I'll be a happy camper.