Set post-game, so possible spoiler warning for any and everything in Final Fantasy VIII. This is much less a romantic piece than it is character introspection.
"Did you ever know that I had mine on you?"
The soft lilted words of the song drifted out from the shower to Squall's ears. Rinoa was always singing that song- because it was her mother's, he guessed. She had a nice, sweet voice, but Hyne, he hated that song.
It was too sappy and romantic, and nothing ever worked out that way. Real life wasn't a fairy tale, where beautiful princesses get swept off their feet by handsome knights on white horses. They didn't ride off into the sunset together, to live happily ever after. Real life had more substance to it- pain and tears and grime, broken promises and shattered hearts and soiled lives. Not like that damn song.
But wasn't that exactly what had happened?
Rinoa certainly fit the part of the beautiful princess in distress, all doe-eyed and fragile, with literal angel wings (angel wings of a sorceress) to boot. Squall supposed in a way that he was the hero of the tale, though it didn't seem right to think of it like that. An introverted soldier-for-hire who dressed in black leather didn't exactly meet the description of a knight.
Not that Squall had ever held much for fairy tales, anyway. That had been more Seifer's thing- though Seifer probably would have punched out the first person to call his dream a "fairy tale".
But Rinoa, for whatever reason, had seen fit to cast Squall in that role. She'd seemingly picked him at random- you're the best-looking guy here- and it had all snow-balled from there. Whenever she'd been in trouble, it had been Squall she'd counted on to save her, and he'd done it. What else could he have done? Then he was put in charge of the assassination attempt on the sorceress, and from that point on, everyone had looked to him, till finally Cid had named him Balamb Garden Commander. He'd certainly never asked to be the hero. But everything came full circle and now he was the sorceress' knight.
Squall set down his pen with a sigh and pushed the seemingly bottomless stack of papers farther away from him. Who knew heroes had so much deskwork to do? This wasn't in the job description.
The water had stopped running, but the song hadn't. Squall could hear Rinoa humming it as she bustled around in the bathroom. He ran his hands up through his hair and dropped his head on the table. He really hated that damn song.
Maybe he hated it more now because he'd found out that it was about Laguna. That fact alone made the whole thing vomit-inducing. Squall allowed himself a small chuckle at the president's expense.
And that was how Rinoa found him when she swept out of the bathroom, a cloud of flowery-scented steam following in her wake. She smiled as she passed him, her dark hair hanging damp around her face. "What are you laughing at?"
Squall just shook his head, his features lapsing back into neutral. "Nothing."
She shrugged and walked into the bedroom. "All right, hun."
Squall wrinkled his nose. Rinoa always smelled nice, but sometimes she overdid it with the perfume. Real flowers would probably wilt in the midst of all the fumes drifting out from the bathroom.
Rinoa was definitely a high-maintenance princess, in more ways than one.
She'd told him that she loved him, that night of the celebration following the defeat of Ultimecia.
And he'd smiled a bit, and kissed her, because it had seemed the thing to do. Squall had actually been happy that night. They'd put an end to the sorceress's threat, won the war. They had all made it through time compression (though how he still couldn't quite understand). It had made him happy, to see his friends in such high spirits, laughing and fooling around like normal teenagers, and it hadn't seemed strange anymore to call them his friends.
He was glad to be there on that balcony under the stars, with Rinoa. But he couldn't tell her he loved her. She hadn't pressed him, and in the weeks and now months following the war, he still hadn't said it.
Now Squall heard the click of the bedroom door opening, and Rinoa walked back into the room, hair dried and make-up on, wearing a blue dress. "Are you sure you don't want to come to dinner, Squall? I know the others would love to see you- you're always so busy working."
He shook his head and glanced dolefully towards the papers he'd been ignoring. "No, I've got to get this done."
Though her eyes looked a bit disappointed, Rinoa just smiled- she was always smiling- and kissed him on the cheek. "Okay, but try not to work yourself to death, sweetie." Then she stepped out the door, and the light seemed to go with her.
Rinoa was a lovely girl, and Squall knew that any guy in Garden would have been only too happy to take his place, but… How could he say that he loved her when he wasn't even sure what love was?
He didn't think that Rinoa knew, either. She'd thought she'd loved Seifer, too, hadn't she? It was a bit frivolous to go around saying you loved someone when maybe you didn't actually. It lessened the intensity of it, cheapened it somehow.
When Squall said the words, he wanted to be sure he meant them.
Sometimes Squall thought that maybe the only reason he was with Rinoa was because everyone expected him to be (it seemed now he was always doing what other people thought he should do). She was the princess and he was the hero, and this was how the story was supposed to end. It was the right thing to do.
And when he started thinking that way, he really knew it wasn't time to say "I love you" yet.
But then he thought of the smile that brightened her whole face, and the way her eyes twinkled when she looked at him. He remembered how he had almost let her go and the overwhelming feeling of relief that had coursed through his body when he'd been in time and she'd flung herself into his arms. That had felt right.
He thought of the fear in her face as she'd hung hundreds of feet in the air from the edge of Balamb Garden, and of her anguished cry as Seifer had thrown her to the monstrous Adel. He remembered the tinkling sound of her laugh and the way her soft silken hair felt in his fingers.
She'd gotten him to open up out of himself a little, to admit when he was hurting and also when he was not. She'd melted his ice just a little, and she'd never left.
But even that wasn't enough, not really. Because sometimes he hated her ever-lingering presence and her prying nature. Her high-pitched voice grated on his nerves and she always needed something from him. He liked space, she liked company. She was always chattering when he longed for silence. They were polar opposites, and he couldn't always be there to rescue her.
Squall didn't want to always have to rescue her.
And… if she'd needed to get him to change, did she really love him? Or did she merely love the person he'd become? Did she love the idea of him she had in her head, the white knight that really wasn't Squall? Sometimes he felt like all he was was a project to her. The stoic loner she'd decided to thaw out.
He knew that wasn't love.
Knights and SeeDs both were first and foremost warriors. Squall had at one time tried to keep track of the number of lives he'd taken, but it had grown too large to remember anymore- too cumbersome, and too depressing. How many lives had ended at Rinoa's hands? Not many, if any, he'd venture to guess. If- and that was a big 'if'- she had killed any, they had probably died from their wounds in time, indirectly. That was not the same as striking someone down and watching them die. It was hard to be discriminate with a gunblade- the men he left incapacitated were dead, or soon to be dead, not simply knocked out. It was not something Squall was proud of, but it was a simple fact of the life he lived.
Rinoa had turned her head aside every time- every time- she'd seen Squall move to strike a human. She had never seen him kill anyone. It was another mark of her innocence, and her naïveté. Her hands were still clean, but Squall's were tainted beyond repair… except to Rinoa, who could still hang on to her romantic notions about her hero.
Could she truly love someone who had so much blood on his conscience?
More importantly, Squall was not sure if he wanted her to. Rinoa was not a SeeD, and she was not cut out to be one. Maybe it would be better for her to sever all involvement, so she could keep the innocence that Squall- and every other SeeD- had lost at far too young an age. Sometimes Squall wondered if he had ever been innocent.
There was no chance he was going to get back to work on all those files now, so Squall pushed back his chair and stood up. He was getting as bad as Zell with his pacing- as if the constant movement eased the stress in his head. Maybe he'd head to the training center. He missed Seifer (and he'd never imagined he would ever say that)- he'd never be able to find a sparring partner like Seifer again. He headed to the bathroom to splash some water on his face, and that helped a little, but everything was just a momentary distraction.
Did everyone put this much thought into love?
Or was that in itself a sign that he wasn't in love? If he had to think about it this much, did that mean he didn't love Rinoa, at least not the way she wanted him to?
Then again, maybe that was just Squall. He thought about everything too much.
Squall walked over to his desk again and shuffled the papers resting on the top, so that it at least looked like he'd gotten some work done. Not that Rinoa paid enough attention to notice, anyway.
He glanced up to see that she was back. She was smiling at him already, and she had a Styrofoam container that she set down in front of him. "I brought you some dinner, Squall, because I knew if I didn't you'd forget to eat again."
"Thanks," he said, and he meant it. It meant something that she thought about him that much.
"Everyone says hi."
Squall nodded, and thought that maybe he should make more of an effort to see them once in awhile. He had decided that he considered them friends, after all, hadn't he? Friends should see each other every so often, shouldn't they? He frowned. He'd have to think of something to say to them. Maybe he should inquire about their health? Ask about… what was it Selphie was always going on about? The Garden festival? Was she still trying to organize one?
Rinoa laid a hand to his cheek. "You look so cute when you're lost in thought, Squall. But trust me, it doesn't hurt to smile every now and then." And she grinned as if to prove her point, before heading into the bedroom.
And he realized that after an evening of deliberation, he was right back to where he had started from. Nowhere.
He leaned against the desk and sighed. And so would pass another day, in which he thought everything to death and concluded nothing, thus maintaining the status quo. Maybe tonight Rinoa would tell him she loved him, or maybe she wouldn't. But either way, she'd wonder whether this would be the night he finally uttered those three little words to her.
But it wouldn't.
Maybe tomorrow, Squall decided. Maybe tomorrow everything will seem clearer.