Chapter Two

Squall strode along the corridor fingering the links of the chain in his pocket. Behind him he could hear the click-clack of Xu's heels, as she struggled to keep up with him, and tried not to show it.

"Sir, could you at least just sign these?" she called after his retreating back, a note of exasperation creeping past her usual business-like tones.

"I'm telling you the same thing I told Irvine at the landing pad," Squall called over his shoulder without breaking stride, "I'm not touching anything till I've seen my wife."

Xu shuffled her papers hurriedly while she followed. Squall reached the elevator and hit the call button. The door opened with a clunk, and he stepped inside. Xu reached the doors and waved a page with lots of emboldened words at him.

"It's important!" she said reproachfully.

"So is this," Squall told her, and tapped the button for his floor. The doors slid shut, and with a steady hum the elevator began to take him up.

In the corridor below, Xu glared at the lift doors for a moment, and then shrugged her immaculately Armona-suited shoulders.

"Tightarse!" she muttered, just to vent, and pulled a pen out of her top pocket. Licking her finger and frowning in concentration, she started working her way through the sheets on the walk back to her office. By the time she reached the second floor she was humming sotto-voiced to herself.

In the lift, Squall studied his reflection in the metal doors. He'd resisted cutting off his bangs for the mission, but the desert sun had bleached his hair to light chestnut, and tanned him as brown. His dress uniform's jacket was still snug across the shoulders, even open, but the white t-shirt he had on hung loose now. He'd gone down two belt notches on his belt to. He must have lost twenty pounds up in the mountains. The muscle was still there, but you could see his ribs. He was as lean and rangy as a whippet. Well, maybe she'd like it. He fiddled impatiently with the chain once more. Then the elevator chimed as the doors opened at their floor.

Squall stepped out onto the corridor, trying to ignore the odd fluttering in his stomach. Why she still had that effect on him he didn't know, but something Laguna had once said floated through his head; 'Love is someone who makes you laugh at yourself.' He was still grinning to himself when he when he touched reached their quarters and touched the bell. He realised he still had the chain in his hand and hurriedly stuck it behind his back.

"Hello? Who is it?" Rinoa's voice asked him from the speaker grill. It was strange to hear after nearly four months.

"Hello Rin, it's me," he told it, "I'm back," he added somewhat redundantly.

The door hissed open straight away, but there was no-one standing in it. Squall blinked, half-holding up his present. A slim bare arm snaked round the doorframe, grasped the front of his jacket firmly, and pulled. Behind him, the door slid smoothly shut.

Later, as they lay on the bed, she laid the chain on her up-turned hand and spread her fingers wide, holding it up to catch the late afternoon sun streaming through the bedroom window.

"Do you like it?" Squall asked her as she turned it back and forth.

"It's beautiful," she said "Where did you find this?"

"There's a little gold dust up in the mountains there," he said "And the Malisans love it. Their smiths still work on each piece of jewellery by hand up there. They can shape it into the most amazingly intricate pieces you'll every see."

She sat up and twisted around, holding the chain up by both ends for him to take.

"Help me put it on!"

Squall pulled himself upright and took the ends from her. The nails of his fingers had grown long while he'd been away, and he pulled the little gold clasp of the chain back easily, and fitted it through the hoop on the other end. Rinoa reached behind her and settled the chain around her neck. Squall stretched back out on the bed, resting his head on one hand and half-closing his eyes. She turned around uncertainly and flicked her hair away from her eyes.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked him.

"Mhmmm," Squall murmured drowsily.

She punched him on the arm; "Look at the chain you idiot!"

"I was," Squall protested, laughing.

"Hmmm," she said, not convinced. She ran a nail up across his chest and spread her hand against his ribs.

"You've lost weight," she told him critically.

"And you've put some on," he said, poking her gently in the belly. Rinoa shifted uncomfortably.

"Yes. About that," she said, "Squall there was something I was meaning to tell you when you got back. That… well, got lost in the moment."

Squall looked at her; "What?"

Rinoa sighed and reached out to take his hand between her own, deciding she needed to be unusually blunt with this news.

"Squall, I'm going to have a baby," she told him, emphasising the noun.

At least the way she phrased it saved him one awkward question. After you'd known Rinoa a while, you learnt to listen for subtle shades of meaning. Still, a lot passed through Squall's mind in the split second before he had to react to this news. Dates, time, lack of messages, memories… Too many demands obliterated coherence. Rinoa waited patiently beside him for him to sort himself out.

"Wha... How!"

"The usual way I hope," Rinoa said primly.

"But weren't you on the… on the thing!" he demanded. It felt like he was seventeen again, and Cid was giving up the helm of Balamb Garden to him just before the Galbadians caught them. Huge, looming, unexpected responsibility.

"Yes Squall," she said slowly and patiently, "I was on the thing. They don't always work, you know."

Squall paused at her answer. It must've been a big shock to Rinoa, this discovery, and she hadn't broken it to him gently. He sensed a certain measuring of the way things stood between them that hadn't been there before. He found he was doing it too. At certain times in any relationship, people wrap closer together or they drift apart, he realised. Life had shifted for her and through her, for him as well. The change was for the deeper, strange because it disturbed the comfortable, familiar outlines of his life. It could be frightening, but it didn't have to be.

Rinoa opened her mouth to start speaking but he put his hand against her shoulder, stopping her. Time to answer the question she hadn't asked him.

"I'd be stopping working in the field then. Maybe delegating a bit of the Director's paperwork to Xu and Quistis to?" he offered cautiously.

"That's a start," she said weakly. Somehow, she'd expected more. Utterly frustrated with the pace of it all, she reached across and pulled him upright by main force. A startled Squall found himself nose-to-nose with his wife, belatedly returning a fierce embrace.

"Love, are you serious about this? It can't just be us any more," Rinoa murmured, slowly bringing her head to rest against his.

"Of course," he answered, as if it was impossible to think otherwise. Closing his eyes, he fell back to the bed, pulling her with him. Humming to himself, he stretched out a hand and began to tangle and untangle the threads of her hair. Rinoa lay awake on his chest, feeling it rise and fall, and wondering if she would ever entirely understand Squall. There was so much they had to even start to discuss too; classes, appointments, doctors, quarters. But it could rest there for now.

Besides, she could hear his heartbeat now; it was pounding.