Wow, you guys probably hate me right now. I've kept you hanging by your feet from the last chapter and Squall's wet dream and the walk and all, but I've been caught up with my Final Fantasy X story, a kidney stone, and writer's block for this ficcie, but with the help of my lovely, Squall-craving assistant Deplora, I am back on my feet and ready to write! All of you go read and review her stories. They are way awesome! Special thanks and much praise goes to her for sort of badgering me into writing more. I'm glad she did, too. I almost forgot about this fic completely.

I got this little idea in my head, which you will find out soon, from a movie called "Moonstruck." Any Italian should watch that movie. It's very good, very funny, and romantic to boot. Muahah!

Yes, I own Kingdom Hearts. I won it in a poker game three weeks ago. Ya happy? It was a strip poker game and the deed to the characters just happened to be in the pocket of someone's pants. All right, all right, I'm going!

                                                                                                    ~*~

They walked in silence. Yuffie was trapped in her own thought and Squall in his own embarrassment. Housekeeping in the hotel already thought that there was something going on between him and Yuffie, and the stain in the sheets was just going to make it worse. He sighed heavily, shuffling his feet on the ground and then kicking an old can hard enough to send it clattering into an alley. He stole a sidelong glance at Yuffie, but she was staring up at the sky and had stopped walking.

          "What are you looking at?" He demanded. He noted the dreamy look on her face and felt his own face soften in response to it. She looked peaceful, and faraway. As long as she had this childish wonder, she would quickly forget all prospects of future dangers. It was something he envied about her.

          "The moon, Squall," she said softly, tilting her head to one side and sighing with a half-smile on her lips. "It's so beautiful. And it's huge. As big as a house. I've never seen a moon like that before." The light of the huge, full moon rising above the buildings reflected off of her dark eyes. Then she looked at him and the light of the moon only lit one side of her face. "Don't you ever notice things like that? Or are you so off in your own little hellhole of a world that you don't notice anything beautiful anymore?"

          He nearly let slip the words, "I've noticed you," but he caught himself before he did say anything. Instead, he just looked up into the sky at the moon. It reminded him of times long past.

          "Squall?" She asked, placing her hand gently on his arm.

          "I suppose sometimes I do. I just don't have a childish fascination with the stars and the moon anymore. Especially since I realized that the stars are worlds, and the worlds are disappearing. It's depressing to look up at the sky, night after night, and see fewer and fewer stars. It means the Heartless are winning. I'd rather not think of that."

          "Then don't think of it like that," she suggested. When he looked at her strangely, she elaborated. "Well, when you take something scary like that, and try to think of it another way, it makes it seem less scary. Like thunder and lightning. I always try to imagine it as the gods are shooting off fireworks for something, and it makes it less frightening," she told him.

          "But thunderstorms can't hurt you," he pointed out. "Not really. The chances of it are so slim. But this… this is serious. This is something that can change the course of history forever. At times like this, it's best to make sure that you know what goes on or before you know it, you'll be faced with it and not know what to do about it." He sighed, staring into the dark with troubled eyes. "Ignorance is bliss, but ignorance can also mean death."

          Yuffie sighed again. He was right and she knew it. She hated it when he was right about things like this. But she liked to forget. Even just for a little while, she was happy to forget about the dangers of her current position. She liked to forget where she was, and what could happen to her, and act the maturity of all of her sixteen years of age. But it never lasted long. Just as soon as she was smiling again, they would get word from someone that the Heartless were coming back and they needed for take up arms and fight or be killed. But for a little while, she could at least pretend that everything was all right.

          "I hate it when you're right," she told him. She thrust her hands into her pockets and walked forward slowly, staring down at the damp ground.

          Squall suddenly felt bad about what he'd said. He knew just as well as Yuffie did that he was right, but that didn't mean he liked it any more than she did. In fact, he was glad that she could sometimes forget what kind of danger they were in constantly. He took a few quick steps to catch up with her.

          "Sorry I brought it up. I guess it just… slipped," he said as a kind of an apology.

          She shrugged and forced a smile. "It's okay. Sometimes I could use a good slap back into reality."

          Squall didn't argue with that logic.

          "Squall?"

          "Leon."

          She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to five to stop herself from yelling at him for his name games. Then she spoke, hesitantly at first, not knowing how he would react to the question she was about to ask. It was a sensitive topic for both of them, "Do you… remember anything? About Hollow Bastion? You know, before the Heartless came?" She carefully took a few steps away from him and was prepared to make a run for it if he got angry at her for asking. But he didn't. Instead, he got the same far-off look in his face that she got when she remembered the past.

          "Some," he admitted. "Bits and pieces up… up until the end." He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "Mostly I remember people. I remember doing things with some people. I remember talking to them and I remember what we said, but I can't remember their faces or hear their voices. I remember a little bit, but I've worked so hard to forget my failure that I've also forgotten my friends."

          That was the most he'd ever said to her aside from a plan of action in a battle. "I hardly remember anything at all," Yuffie admitted slowly. "You remember anyone specifically?"

          "Yes."

          "Who is it?"

          Here he paused. "A girl," he said simply.

          "Who?" She was playing with fire now, and she knew it, but she wanted to know. She wanted to get inside of his head and understand what he was talking about.

          "Just a girl, okay, Yuffie?" Now he was beginning to heat up. He didn't want her to learn what was going on inside his head because he was afraid of what might happen. "Woman, really. She… I… we… oh, never mind."

          "No, don't 'never mind' me!" She ran and stood in front of him. "Tell me. I won't tell a soul. You can trust me, Squall."

          "Leon!" He hissed. He began to walk quickly away from her and back to the hotel. They'd been walking so slowly and stopping so it was only about two hundred yards away from them.

          "And why'd you change your name, huh?" Yuffie was now working in a danger zone, but she was operating on the theory that if she got him angry, he'd spill the beans. She didn't know if she'd survive to help him, but she thought he might spill.

          "Go away, Yuffie! Just… just go the hell away! Okay?"

          She ran to catch up, standing in front of him so that he couldn't get through the door into the hotel. "No," she said blatantly. "I'm not gonna stop until you tell me." To her shock, he grabbed her shoulder and shoved her aside, walking swiftly through the door. She squeezed through behind him and followed. She followed him all the way back to their room.

          "Leave me alone," he said in a dark, murderous voice.

          She noticed he had his hands over his eyes. "What was her name?" She asked softly, keeping her distance.

          "Rinoa."

          "Did you love her?"

          "I did."

          Silence. She grew angry at him, suddenly. He was wallowing in self-pity over something that happened years ago. Over something they had no control over. Over something that they had in common. The more she thought of it, the more she realized how crazy this was. They were in the same place. She had lost her home, too! She'd lost her parents. Her friends. She was young and had very few memories of them. Like him should could no longer picture their faces nor duplicate their voices.

          "Look at you," she said. "You're pathetic. You think I'm not sad about it?" She walked around the table in the middle of the room to get to him, sitting on the edge of their bed. "You think I don't wish things were different? At least you could do something. I was helpless. All I could do was sit there. I didn't understand what was going on. But you… you could fight back. Why are you wallowing in your own self-pity? You're overacting. Changing your name won't help, either. I know who you really are. You're just feeling sorry for yourself!"

          He stood up, closing the distance between them and staring her down and immediately she wished that she had just kept her big mouth shut.

          "You don't get it!" Squall yelled. "You were too young to remember but I remember, and I don't like what I remember! I just remember people screaming and she begged me to help her. She begged me to save her but I wasn't fast enough. No, Squall wasn't fast enough. Wasn't strong enough!" He shoved her, making her stumble to the ground. She immediately got up and backed against what she hoped was the door, and ended up being a corner.

          "Sq-Leon…" she corrected herself, not watching to anger him while she was cornered. "Please. I'm sorry. It's just that—" she bumped into the wall and words left her body. Her mouth dropped a little as she felt the solid wall behind her with no escape in sight and her weapons on the table ten feet away, and Squall closing in on her. The look in his eye was the look of a madman. He was going to go stark raving mad.

          "Not so tough now, are you?" He asked, beginning to breathe heavy. She could swear that she saw fire burning in his eyes. He shoved a chair out of his way. It slid across the floor and into a wall, breaking on contact. Yuffie swallowed hard. This was it. She was going to die with him hating her. He'd never know, would he? That she loved him…

          "Please," she begged in an uncharacteristically tiny voice. She closed her eyes and waited. And to her utter shock, his lips crashed on hers. He had one hand on either side of her, so there was no escape, and he was bearing down on her with his mouth on hers…

          She had to stoop a little to detach herself and get some air. She stared into his lusty, half-lidded eyes, looped her arms around his neck, and kissed him again. This time she at least knew what to expect. But when his arms slid beneath her to lift her up, she began to get nervous again. He was walking somewhere but from her position she couldn't see where. But she could definitely guess.

          "Where… are you taking me?" She asked breathlessly.

          "I think you know," he said. Then he stopped. "Do you want this?"

          At least he's asking first, she thought. "I do. I have for a very long time," she replied. She was lowered onto the soft surface of the bed and he was already working on the buttons of her shorts.

          "So have I," he told her. "So have I…"

                                                                                                    ~*~

Holy cow! I finished! Deplora is yelling at me to go post, so that I will. And as for everyone else, I am exceedingly sorry that this took so long to get up, but I kinda had a kidney stone and have been on codeine drugs for a while. But I'm back! And since Deplora is being evil and threatening me with HER story chapters, I think I'll have to get some of these up faster. Anyway… so all of you go thank her for badgering me, and I'll get to work on the next chappy!