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094. Alcohol

Laguna sat at his desk, feet propped up on the glass top and legs crossed over one another. His arms lay cradled on his stomach, thumbs twirling around each other, greying hair pulled back out of his eyes.

Squall sat upright in the chair, back straight as a bone, as he'd always been taught. It wasn't proper nor good manners to slouch. His hands lay flat, and still, on top of his legs.

The pair couldn't be more different if they'd tried.

"So." Laguna declared.

"So." Squall replied. Their voices seemed to reflect each other. And where Laguna has that happiness edged with just enough darkness so that you knew he hadn't been blessed with a wholly lucky life, Squall had no qualms about displaying these hurts in the form of his sullen stoicism. It was as though he was challenging the world to make him happy. If anything, that made Squall the more sensitive of the two; where Laguna hid all his pain, Squall made it plain that it was there.

"I think that we need to talk."

Squall raised an eyebrow. "It depends on what you have to say, really."

For some reason, perhaps it was that the words Squall said resembled Raine so closely, he lost all ability to keep up his facade. He jumped up, like the spritely man his son was, and walked over to the wooden cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of ochre rum and poured two glasses. He deposited one back on the desk before taking a sip from his own.

"This is going to be a long night."

Squall nodded, and took the glass, inspecting it before taking a sip himself.

"I'm sorry."

Squall didn't say anything, but the slight shift in his grey-blue eyes told it all.

"You've seen it in all the dreams Ellone showed you, didn't she?"

"You... fell in love?"

"Married."

"Married a woman in Winhill, left to chase after Ellone, and the woman died."

Laguna put a hand over his face, shielding his eyes.

Squall pressed on, regardless. "She delivered a child - a son - and he was deposited in an orphanage. The orphanage of Cid Kramner, and his wife, Edea. Ellone later attended this orphanage, too."

Laguna said nothing but hid his eyes behind a hand. Squall merely took another sip from his glass. He didn't much care for rum normally, but now it felt useful. It gave him something to do in the suffocating silences when words just weren't enough and he couldn't bear to look at Laguna.

"I... I didn't know." Laguna whispered. "I swear to you, I never, ever knew." He removed the hand and looked into Squall's eyes. "If I had known, I..."

"I'd be a different person."

"Yes." Laguna nodded, picking up the glass and looking into the swirling liquid. "So would I."

The room around them felt too large, with ceilings too high and lights too dim for a moment like this. The furnishing was so sparse, and there wasn't even the usual carpet of paperwork to make things look less lonely. Just the two men, a desk, a single lamp, a large cupboard, and the one that held all the alcohol.

Somehow, that made all of this so much worse.

"I often wondered what had happened to her."

"Why didn't you check."

Squall had not phrased it as a question; but a statement that belay his emotions. He'd been thinking about this far more than he'd care to let on to any other person except the one who pushed him to meet with Laguna in the first place.

Laguna downed the rest of his drink in one large gulp. "I never got the time to leave. As soon as Ellone was back, and safe and rescued, I was made President. I never had the time to check."

"You never had the time to visit your wife? Bring her to you? To go and see your daughter?"

Laguna merely went to get the bottle of rum, and place it on the desk, refilling his glass in sullen silence. "No."

Squall swallowed hard and downed the rest of his glass, too. He refilled it with no hesitation. "I often wondered how it might be to have a father. No one around me ever had one. I didn't they'd be quite like this."

Those words seemed to pierce Laguna, who looked up at Squall with shattered eyes. "If I could take it all back, I would. I'd rather live in a world at the end of time with my family if I could just experience one day."

Squall looked away from him and took a sip of the rum. It burned hot in his throat and left a strange aftertaste. He didn't care for it.

Neither did Laguna.

A silence stretched out between the two of them. Neither of them moved, neither barely dared to breathe. "Me too."

Laguna's mouth twitched into a tired half-smile; gone as soon as it came.

"Do you know who named you?" Laguna asked, reverting to his earlier position.

Squall shook his head. "No one knows. Cid and Edea claim that I was virtually rushed out of the village. A name and a blanket is all I came with, so they say.

Laguna's face contorted into a fierce scowl the likes of which Squall had never seen - not even in his Ellone-induced dreams. He saw himself in it, somehow.

"I'd like to have a word with them."

"I intend to, as well."

"They didn't even give you the right name."

Squall quirked an eyebrow.

"I was married to your mother. She went from Raine Leonheart to Raine Loire."

Squall nodded sharply. He took a gulp. "I like the name I have now."

Laguna nodded. "I understand." He took a sip of his own.

Father and son stared at each other, trying to look for connections that were or weren't there, wondering what they should or shouldn't ask. In the end, neither said anything.

"I'm so sorry."

Squall only nodded. He drained his glass and left, performing his strict SeeD bow before he left the room, not looking back. He didn't know if he would be alive after the next day, but at least he knew who his father is. How much he cared for that information, he still didn't know.

Somehow, he couldn't blame him. Even after everything.

Laguna sat alone in his office, staring at the door.

How lucky his son was, he thought, to have that woman by his side. The daughter of the woman who was said to be in love with him. Who wrote a song everyone knew the lyrics to, about him.

If only he knew how lucky he was to have that chance still in life. And maybe he wouldn't have his wife ripped from him too early, and a child he never knew about suddenly appear, seventeen years of agony later. He only hoped that Squall didn't really hate him, not that much.

Not that he could blame him. After everything.

I do really like thinking about the relationship between Squall and Laguna. In my opinion, it's the saddest thing in that game.

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