After a very long, and I daresay for the most part unplanned hiatus for this story, I'm back and I am trying to get back into the swing of this story. It's been such a long time that I actually went back and re-read the whole thing to remember what was going on. I remember most of my ideas and I've gotten a few new ones, so I hope that I can pick up just as well where I left off. And I sure hope my scene breaks work here. I was having trouble with those recently…
Disclaimer: Maybe someone should explain this very slowly so those of you who are too stupid to remember can understand…
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The first thing Yuffie felt when she woke up was warmth. Warmth, and the warm weight of someone pressed against her, skin on skin, and a heavy, muscled chest against her back and one arm lazily across her shoulders. She snuggled closer on instinct, and then her eyes snapped open in shock when she remembered the events of the previous night.
Struggling, she managed to break free of the arm and sit herself up, holding a blanket up to her neck to keep herself covered. Squall was still sleeping next to her, snoring softly. He was unguarded and unaware in his sleep, but even that sight didn't soften the young woman's heart. She could not believe what had happened. It was something she had wanted for so long… and now that it had happened, she was terrified.
"Oh my God!" She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands and dragging the blanket from the bed to cover herself as she gathered her clothes. Squall rolled over and woke up, groggily staring at her.
"What's wrong?" He asked, watching her as she grabbed her clothes up off the floor.
"What's wrong, Squall? We wake up after having mad sex all night and you ask me what's wrong?" She snapped. "This… it's not supposed to happen like this! It's wrong and you know it!"
"Then how was it supposed to happen, Yuffie? Tell me so I can do it right next time?" He groped for his shorts and slipped them on as he got up, following her about the room simply by turning in place.
Yuffie mentally beat herself for her slip of the tongue. The last few days with her acting so lovey around him, which seemed like a good idea at the time, she was beginning to regret. She couldn't let him know her feelings towards him. She simply couldn't. Not only would it be so wrong on so many levels, but she hated this man. So very much. Everything about them clashed, which often led to explosive results.
"Yuffie?" He'd moved closer to her while she thought. She ducked past him and shut herself in the closet, putting her clothes on. He opened the door a crack and she yanked it shut again.
"Stay out of here!"
"Yuffie, you've ruined my life…" he breathed. Somehow, she heard him.
"What?" She stuck her head out, glaring at him. "What do you mean by that? I didn't ruin your life! It was ruined when I met you! You're the one who ruined my life!" She slammed the door shut again and continued dressing, walking out of the closet fully clothed.
"We need to talk about this," he said, pivoting so that he could keep his eyes locked on her.
Yuffie paused briefly.
"No, Leon, there is no 'this,' to discuss," she told him calmly. "We won't speak of this again. I'm packing my things and getting a different room, and you and I will never speak of this again, and the secret of this will come with us to our graves!"
"I can't do that," he said softly, trapping her between the dresser and the wall.
"Why not? You ignored me long enough!"
"Because… I'm in love with you."
SWACK!
His head was turned all the way to the right and his left cheek was stinging from the impact when she slapped him. Slowly, he turned back to face her and she hit him again on the other side, forcing his head all the way to the left.
"Snap out of it!"
"There's nothing to snap out of, Yuffie. I'm in love with you. End of story. But I want it to be the beginning."
"No, it can't be, I'm sorry."
Before she let him answer, she scampered out of the room, and then headed at a dead run down the hall, out the far door, and into the Second District, running to the secluded alley full of crates. She'd grabbed her shurikens this time, and would be ready to face any Heartless that came along. This gave her time to ponder what in hell was going on.
Squall was frightening her. One little fluke like this couldn't change his lifetime of hostilities about her, could it? And yet he had sounded so serious when he said it, when he'd said he loved her. She shook her head to clear it of the thoughts. She had to focus on the matter at hand, to sort things out.
What was it that attracted her to him, of all people, anyway? She supposed she had always admired him. For his strength. She considered herself to be strong in different ways, but she knew that she was not as physically strong as she was fast and wily. She had admired his ability to take defeat and simply train harder for the next time, whereas she would throw a fit sometimes when she lost a battle—that was evident enough in the preliminaries at the Coliseum. And of course there was always his appearance, which would be sufficient enough to make any woman fall over her high heels while watching him. Sometimes in hot weather, he'd train with his shirt off.
Yet despite her attraction to the mysterious Lionhearted, just about every aspect of their personalities clashed. His arrogance and coldness against her sweet and friendly nature sparked many arguments.
And on top of all that, he frightened her. The display last night proved that she should be frightened of him, beyond a reasonable doubt. She had been prying, yes, but he had gone completely overboard with his temper. For a while, she honestly and truthfully believed that he would kill her. His enormous strength and his lack of control of his temper was something that terrified her. Although… no matter how angry he got at her and no matter how much he threatened and threw his weight around, he had never once hit her. In the nine years that she had known him and in the two that she had been his partner, he had never laid a vicious hand on her.
"This is so confusing…" she said, putting her face into her hands. "I wish I knew what to do, but I'm so confused I don't even know where I should go or who I can tell…" she trailed off, holding back sobs. She didn't want to shed tears over this.
"Squall told me," a soft but stern voice said behind her. Yuffie turned abruptly to see who was speaking to her, and she shivered when she saw that it was Aerith. She should have known that Aerith would come and look for her. She was just humiliated that Aerith now knew what she'd done.
"I guess you're angry at me, huh?" She said, turning back away and refusing to make eye contact. "You're probably disappointed that I'd've done something so stupid, aren't you?"
Aerith squatted, balancing herself on the balls of her feet next to Yuffie. She was silent for a while before she decided to speak. "I'm not angry. I'm disappointed in what you did but I'm not disappointed in you," she said calmly. "I know how you felt about him. I'm just confused by this. You hate him and you love him, you're confused, but you slept with him anyway. That makes no sense on my end, Yuffie."
"And you think it makes any more sense on mine?" She snapped. "Gawd, I don't even know what was going through my head!"
"What happened last night?" Aerith asked. "Squall told me that you'd…" she paused, looking for the right phrase to use delicately. "Told me that you'd spent the night together, and that you'd yelled at him and slapped him before running off. I—heard some yelling last night but I didn't get up to check. What had happened?"
Yuffie stayed silent.
"Yuffie, you muse tell me. I want to help you."
"But I don't want anyone else's help!" She yelled, burying her face in her hands. "Don't you get it? I want to solve this myself. It's something I need to solve on my own, or with…" she paused. She had to solve this with Squall, but she was unsure of how to do it. Even so, it would mean nothing if she had Aerith solve her problems with him, as she so often did. She had to do it herself, she just had no idea how to even start. She sighed.
Aerith only shook her head. "I don't understand. But I'll let you have your way—just as soon as you tell me what happened last night."
"You really want those details?" She asked, regaining some of her humor and raising her eyebrows. "I mean, they might shock you."
"I didn't mean that part of the night, Yuffie. After all, I'm a lady," she said, smiling a little.
"Well how do you know what I meant if you're such a lady?" Yuffie asked, the picture of innocence in her face. She sighed and started to explain. "We… got into a fight. A big one. I guess I went overboard, but he was being such an ass. I mean, I asked him if he remembered anything and I guess that was stupid of me, but he said that he did remember some stuff. I guess he was being nice about it. And then I guess I struck a nerve, because I asked him if he remembered anyone specifically, and he said yes. A girl. I suppose I pried too much because then he just stormed off, and I got upset listening to him stupid, pathetic drivel and he told me that I didn't understand. But I did! I told him we were the same, and that I lost everything too… and then I guess he started getting heated because the next thing I knew he was going berserk. I thought he was going to kill me!" She rubbed her arms with her hands and took a breath. "Then he kissed me. And I guess I was so relieved that he wasn't going to kill me that I just… went along with it."
Aerith said nothing for a long, long time, and Yuffie worried what she might have been thinking. Finally, she spoke. "I still don't understand. Maybe I never will. But… you will need to solve this. It can't go on with this kind of tension forever, you know."
The young ninja just nodded to that. She knew. But she was not yet ready.
"But you love him, don't you?"
She nodded, too afraid to actually say it for fear that he might hear her.
"Would you like me to tell him?" She offered, knowing the answer before she even asked.
"No. I can't use you as a go-between anymore. This has nothing to do with you." She continued to look at her feet. When Aerith went to put her hand on her shoulder, she coldly shrugged it off.
"I see." The Flower Girl said before standing and dusting her rump, which was useless because she hadn't actually sat on the ground to begin with. She began to walk away.
"But thank you anyway," Yuffie quietly called to her and watched her walk away.
Once Aerith had disappeared, she dangled her hands between her knees and stared down at her feet once more. She had to think of something… she just didn't know what, yet. She'd need a bit more time to think.
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I really don't think that this chapter was any good, but I am glad that I've finished it. Again, I'm really sorry about how long it's been since I last updated, but I hope that my comeback makes up for it. I didn't get much time for writing the last few days because school started and I'm a bit out of whack, not to mention the fact that they messed up my schedule and I have Algebra first thing in the morning! AHH! Anyway, I do have some ideas about where this is headed, and I'm beginning to gather some for the next chapter. But since school is started and all that good stuff, I don't have tons of time to write. But I will make an honest effort!
Please review and make me happy! Then go and thank Deplora, since she was the one who badgered me into updating this sucker!
