Chapter Seven
Spark of Potential
It was quiet here tonight, Rinoa noted thankfully as she leaned against the railing of the training center's "secret area", admiring the lights of Garden. Usually, the place was full of couples who had snuck away for a few stolen moments. Even she and Squall had come here a few times. But at this late hour, it was deserted, and she was glad.
She didn't really even know why she was here. She'd been asleep and dreaming about lovely things -- whispers and promises and cherry blossoms and kisses and being wrapped in Squall's arms again -- when suddenly the visions had become dark and ominous.
She saw herself … unable to see herself. As though she was looking through someone else's eyes. But he -- and she just knew it was him -- he couldn't see her clearly. Her face was blurry, and fading in and out of focus and she was beckoning to him, and dancing, but he couldn't see her face and Rinoa felt his worry and his fear as the images came faster and faster, swirling and blurring in and out and turning into darker and bleaker things.
The Lunar Base. She saw herself floating in outer space helplessly, and felt his panic that he wouldn't reach her in time. Then she saw the space helmet shatter into a million pieces and felt him screaming in the distance.
She woke with a jolt, sitting straight up in bed, and gasped out his name. Was that what time compression had been like for him? Was that why she had found him, lying there, barely breathing?
She had to get out of this room. The walls felt like they were closing in on her. And she needed to see him, to reassure herself that he was still flesh and blood and breath. How many other nights had she woken up from some nightmare and gone to him? He had just held her in his arms, soothed her, told her it would all be all right. Hyne, she needed that right now.
Without even bothering to grab a robe, she had hurried out of her room and had her hand poised to knock on his door before she realized what it was she was doing.
"Shit," she hissed, stopping dead in her tracks. "What am I doing?" She couldn't be here now. Sighing sadly, she placed her palm against his door for a mere second, and then turned around. But instead of going back to her room, she found herself heading to the training center.
She was unarmed, but she knew it didn't matter. Her magic would more than suffice against the low-level monsters of the area.
Luckily, even the monsters must have been sleeping, because she made it to the secret area without any encounters. She should've just gone back to bed … she was supposed to start training tomorrow.
She tried not to roll her eyes at the ridiculousness of it all. She didn't need to train. She wasn't going to become a SeeD. But this was her home now, and if she wanted to stay, she had to keep up appearances.
She wanted to stay.
No matter how much it hurt her to be here, with memories around every corner, knowing that only she remembered them; it didn't matter. She still wanted to be here. But … what would happen when Cyrus came for her … if Squall still didn't remember? Would he at least care enough at that point to keep her safe?
And what about the deaths of Edea and Ellone? The ones that she was supposed to have committed? More lies fabricated by Cyrus of course … but if no one remembered her, why would they have any reason to trust that she had not killed anybody? The night they'd supposedly died … she'd been with Squall. For the first and -- at the rate things were going -- the last time.
xXx
He woke up in a cold sweat, like so many other nights. The recurring dream he had about time compression seemed to be getting worse. More insistent. Knowing that there was something he should have done … but failed. And he didn't know what it was.
They'd completed their mission. Destroyed Ultimecia. And they'd all made it back in one piece from time compression. It was, by all rights, a success.
But it felt like something was missing. No … not missing.
Forgotten.
Feeling jittery and keyed-up, he got out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants and a plain white shirt. He was about to walk out of the door when the strangest feeling came over him. It felt like whatever he'd forgotten was right outside his door at that very moment.
He yanked open the door with a sudden force and was greeted by an empty, dark hallway. Shaking his head at the disappointment that he felt, he grabbed his gunblade and headed for the one place that always helped him clear his head after a bad night.
He made several laps through the training center before he gave up. The monsters obviously didn't feel like fighting tonight, damn it. He was about to call it good and go back to his room, try to salvage what he could of his sleep, when he glanced up toward the secret area. And felt compelled to go in, though he didn't know why. He'd never been particularly drawn to that area of Garden at any other time in his life. Which he guessed made him pretty abnormal compared to all other guys his age.
He walked inside, looked around, and found it empty, save for a dark-haired girl standing at the railing. His eyes narrowed. "Rinoa?" he said uncertainly.
She started a little, but then turned to face him. Blinking rapidly, she smiled faintly. "Hi."
"What are you doing here?" he said, trying to maintain eye contact with her. He'd already noticed the skimpy blue shorts and matching tank top that she was wearing. Her hair was slightly disheveled, and the image that was breaking into his consciousness was one that would have probably gotten him kneed in the balls, had she known what he was thinking.
None of the other girls that he'd found attractive in the past had ever made him feel like this. She seemed to emanate some special kind of homing-target hormone that shot straight to his glands. And, if he was being totally honest, to his heart, as well. But how was that even possible? He'd only met her … Hyne, two days ago.
"Are you okay?" she asked, and he realized that, like a jackass, he'd been staring again.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
"Apologizing for staring at a girl. Haven't ever heard that one before. Look, unless you were contemplating the best way to decapitate me with that pretty blue sword of yours, no apologies needed," Rinoa said lightly, smiling at him teasingly.
"It's rude," he continued. "I should just go …"
"Wait!" Rinoa said, not wanting him to leave. They were … getting closer. She could feel it … that spark of potential that always cracked in the air between them. "You don't have to go. Stay for awhile?"
He hesitated at the doorway, and then turned back to face her with a sigh.
"You know, I think we're probably here for the same reason," she told him when he'd joined her at the railing. "You couldn't sleep, right? Bad dream."
He just nodded. He wished for quite possibly the first time in his life, that he wasn't so bad with words. He wanted to explain to her about the nightmares, about the agony they'd caused him over the past months. But how did you explain something that you didn't even understand yourself.
"It's okay, you don't have elaborate," she told him gently. "I get that you're not a big talker, and that's fine. I probably talk enough for like, six people. Does it bother you?" She cocked her head to the side and studied him.
"It does, normally," he said after some thought, and Rinoa felt her heart sink. "But you don't."
Rinoa looked up at him, pleasantly surprised. She felt warmth all the way to her toes. "Was that a compliment, Commander?" she asked, elbowing him lightly in the ribs.
"Whatever," he said, shooting her a sidelong glance.
Her grin widened at the familiar twinkle in his eyes. "You know, Squall -- can I call you Squall here? No one else is around, and I won't tell anyone that you weren't being bossy," she whispered conspiratorially, leaning next to his ear.
"Whatever," he said again, his voice almost a croak. Lavender and vanilla. She smelled like lavender and vanilla …it was familiar.
"Goody!" She clapped her hands. "Okay. Squall. You do know that it's okay if you think I'm cute or whatever."
His head jerked up so quickly that she thought he'd give himself whiplash. "What?" he managed.
She rolled her eyes. "Or, okay, maybe you're just lusting over the hotness that is me," she said, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue, and he quirked his eyebrow, amused now. "But whatever. It's okay. You don't have to feel like you have to apologize to me all the time. I'm not going to sue you for sexual harassment or anything."
He kept his head down to avoid looking at her, but she bested him there too. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, and managed to make eye contact with him. She smiled. "I'll tell you a secret," she told him, and he finally looked up.
"What's that?" he said despite himself. Damn it, she was good at this.
"I think you're the best-looking guy that I've ever seen." He waited for her to laugh and say that she was only kidding, but her dark eyes were shining sincerely. "See? It's easy, and the world didn't come crashing down at our feet!" She gasped dramatically.
"Haha," he retorted, though he could feel his face heating up. He couldn't think of anything intelligent to say, so he opted for silence. Am I supposed to say something now? he wondered, as she continued to look at him. "Rinoa, you …" he paused, wondering how best to put it. Somehow what came out was not what he had intended to say at all, but it felt like the truth. "You remind me of shooting stars."
Unforeseen but sought-after. Beautiful and lucky.
Her eyes widened and filled with unexpected tears. "Squall," she whispered.
Was he remembering something?
What happened next was completely unexpected -- for both of them. He found himself taking her hand, and she pulled him closer to her.
He didn't protest, in fact, he put his hand around her waist and drew her even closer, and when she stood on the tips of her toes to bring her lips to his, he met her halfway, his lips crushing down on hers with a sense of urgency that he wouldn't have believed possible.
He just needed to kiss her … touch her … she was like … coming home.
Her fingers threaded in the hair at the nape of his neck, while his hands roamed the exposed skin of her lower back. His fingers dug gently into her flesh, and she gasped. He had learned that she liked that so long ago, it seemed. But … he wouldn't remember that now, would he? How could he? She couldn't for the life of her understand what had come over him. Unless …
He said I reminded him of shooting stars …He remembers … something …
That was the last coherent thought she had for awhile. She found herself pressed up against the wall, his hands tangled in her hair as he exposed her neck to his lips. He lingered over the spot just below her lower ear, the spot that always drove her insane, and she moaned lightly. He brought his mouth back to hers and kissed her again, even more insistently if that was possible, and his hands slid lower, and gently cupped her backside and she gasped.
Suddenly the spell seemed to break and he pulled away from her immediately.
His chest was heaving, and his eyes had become that dark shade of gray that they always turned when he was passionate about something. "I'm sorry," he told her, running his hands through his tousled hair, and exhaling loudly.
She shook her head, trying to catch her breath. "Was I complaining?" she said, and it came out meaner than she had anticipated.
"You're upset," he said.
"No, I'm not. But why are you apologizing? And I swear to Hyne, Squall Leonhart, if you say one word about what is or is not appropriate, I will deliver my knee directly to your solar plexus." Her eyes were wide, her hair even more disheveled than it had been before, and her expression was supposed to be angry, but he just thought it was about the sweetest thing he'd ever seen.
He shook his head. "I don't know," he finally sighed. "Because I felt like I should. Because I got a little too carried away."
She smiled. "I think you could do with getting carried away more often," she told him, tickling his ribs gently. He squirmed and she grinned. "Oh, ticklish?" she teased, leaning into him. She knew he was ticklish, and that his most ticklish spot was on his upper inner thigh …
A sudden sadness washed over her then, and she pulled away. She still remembered all these things about him, these deeply personal things, things that only people who loved each other knew. And he only remembered vague snippets of things … if he remembered anything at all. She wished that she could make him remember. There had to be some way … "I should go," she said after a long moment, and he frowned at her sudden aloofness. "I'll see you at training tomorrow."
He nodded as she left the area, and just watched her go. He was still mildly in awe of what had transpired between them. But part of him wasn't surprised at all … it was almost as if he'd expected it, from the moment she'd walked into Garden.
Now the only question was … how the hell was he going to concentrate at training tomorrow morning?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Oh, wow, I didn't expect this when I started writing this chapter. But it all just seemed to fall together and it seemed right. I hope you guys liked it! XD God, they're adorable, aren't they? Looks like our guy's finally starting to remember some stuff, huh? Unfortunately, all this adorable-ness isn't going to be able to last for much longer. There's some pretty crappy stuff in store in the next few of chapters, which is breaking my heart to think about. Thanks for reading and for all the awesome reviews! You guys are the reason I am writing this so fast:)