His Second Childhood
By: Selim
Summary: When Squall returned from Time Compression, he wasn't himself anymore. Now he must grow up again, but would having his father in his life the second time make any difference? Squall doubts it, but time has never been on his side.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII. I am not making any profit off this piece of fiction.
Rating: T
Note: Unbeta'd

It had been another miserable week in the life of Squall Loire. His father had decided that a nanny wouldn't do, Squall had never been raised with the sole attention of one person and having three grown men doting on him was already too much to handle. A day care, Laguna had proclaimed, was ingenious. With at least fifteen other children, it could feel more like the orphanage or the garden which would make Squall have a bit of normalcy from his old life. That decision had pushed the boy into a meltdown. The first day, when Laguna sprung up the new plan on the boy outside the building, Squall had begun to cry, under the irrational fear that Laguna had given up on raising him.

Every day, Squall would throw the same tantrum. His eyes would water, his breathing would shorten, and before he could stop himself his arms would be wrapped around Laguna's neck in a hug, begging for forgiveness for whatever he'd done wrong. For the most part, Laguna was at a loss of words on how to deal with those emotional mornings. Every day, Squall's arsenal of toys would get bigger, but the boy's tears wouldn't relent.

It wasn't that he was trying to act up. The tears didn't work and his irrationality drew him to the chain gate outside to watch Laguna climb into a private transporter to return to work on the other side of the city. The adult in him was appalled at his behavior. He had attempted to call up Matron the night before, to get reassurance that his degenerative behavior was normal. Her inability to answer the phone had spiraled him further into a depression.

Once Laguna's transport was out of sight, Squall moved back into the building to go about his daily job. After his first melt down, he heard his new caretakers comment that the two-year-old didn't sound like one. Since that moment, Squall stopped making a half-baked attempt at conversation. In retrospect, he'd never been around children. Students found pregnant at Balamb were often expelled from the program. Children were always about seven when they were admitted to the school program leaving his experience with younger ones from television shows. It gave him bad vibes that people didn't trust him at being a toddler, but he doubted they'd believe he was nineteen either.

A part of him died at that realization. What age was he? He hated being treated like a baby. If he heard someone enunciate his name
cutely one more time, he'd certainly rip their head off. At the same time, for once in his life, he was being spoiled rotten and he loved it. Grown men couldn't ask in a small voice for grilled cheese and apple juice after a well deserved nap without the other person in question mocking him.

So he had a plan to use the small hell called Day Care for his own purpose. He would study those kids. Laguna was putting the extra effort in to be a better father then Squall could at least make the attempt to publically act like a child. He chose another quiet little boy who'd thrown a similar tantrum about being abandoned as himself. Pressing against the metal gate for the seventh time that week, Squall rubbed his heavy eyes. An attendant touched his back soothingly before walking him over to the cubbies to put away his backpack of toys away. Grabbing his toy of choice to carry around (an old toy train resembling one that had been 'well-loved' back at the orphanage), Squall checked the area for the child. As he expected, the little boy was reaching for some crackers from the attendant to take with him and his orange juice.

Reid Newmak was the child of some executive in Urban Development. It was, from what Squall could get from Laguna, through that child's father that Laguna had learned about the expensive 'child prison'. His mother worked at a downtown hospital, leaving the boy alone for days on end. Shifting the toy train under his arm, Squall rushed past the work to follow Reid's example. His mind worked fast, recalling how the other children had referred to the snack, "Cookie!" He raised his hand expectantly.

"What do you say Squallie?" The woman smiled.

Call me that again and I'll rip you fucking… "Please?" He forced a smile as a fourth of the cracker was placed in his waiting hand.

"You may, thank you for asking." The woman ruffled his hair. Scowling, Squall turned towards Reid, already making his way towards the jungle yard to join the other children.

Dark eyes gave him an analytical look before stuffing the cracker into his mouth to empty his hands. Without any preamble, the child climbed up the wide steps to the first level of slide. Ignoring the chances that the cracker may cause him to choke, Squall stuffed the dry food in his mouth as well, wincing as the sharp edges brushed the sensitive sides of his mouth. Honestly, he never liked graham crackers. Sometimes Matron would receive a box from Cid at the orphanage, but Squall always found those too dry or too sweet for his taste. These were the same, swallowing was like trying to fight Ultimacia with a butter knife. It was hard, painful, and trying process. As he'd expected, even the small rectangle had been too much for his small mouth, forcing him too chew and split the food between his cheeks until he could swallow.

Brushing away the drool from the corners of his mouth, Squall followed Reid onto the slides, asking for help to climb up ladders. For the life of him, he couldn't understand how he'd once lived with such ineptitude. Simply relying on people for everything was bothersome, especially when those persons spoke to him in such a demeaning way as the helper at the bottom of the slide, encouraging the children to come down on their own power through imagination. "—Here comes Squallie! Greatest snowboarder ever-!" Squall's brow twitched, the last boy had been a dragon slayer after a red dragon. "Can he make it?" Shoulders tense, Squall seated himself on the slide, pretending to contemplate the fall as if it were a mountain rather than a simply four foot slope. The day before, he'd witnessed a child have a breakdown about its height, so he could understand the need of help being at the slide, but…for every child?

He couldn't stand looking at that ground. It did look far off, but he was able to rationalize his height to ground ratio, with the plush floor variable, as being safe. There was no way he could physically hurt himself on it and throwing any kind of fit would have been more of a waste of his time than acting like a duckling to a child that seemed nervous about the shadowing. Behind him the line was starting to build, children starting to whine that "Squallie" was taking too long. He ignored them, opting to use his new found platform to take in his environment outside the day care.

It left nothing to his waning attention however. The voices of disgruntled children and the encouraging voice of the worker had him ready to throw his legs over the side and just jump down, but he refrained. A two-year-old would never do that. With a deep breath, he pushed himself down. Without a second glance at the instructor, he canvassed the play yard, looking for Reid. He smirked when he saw the child pressed against the gates, staring over at a small café across a busy walk way not too far off from the daycare. Joining the boy, Squall tried to see what was interesting in the area, but besides a ratty looking blonde man leaving an upstairs apartment, there was nothing of interest.

"What are we looking at?" He finally asked. The other child gave him a wide eyed stare before rushing off towards a playhouse. Rolling his eyes, Squall glanced over the café again. Besides that blonde man, he saw nothing in particular.

How weird. He hadn't lived in Esthar for long, but that was certainly the first light haired person he had the chance to see. The same shade as Seifer, the man looked like any other haggard drifter. He probably took the first chance at a new life in the Forbidden City the minute the war started. It reminded him to give Zell a quick call after Laguna went to bed, just to see if there had been any signs of Seifer.

He was pulled from his thoughts when his small body was lifted into unfamiliar arms. One of the instructors was carrying him over to plush mats to sit him in a large circle of children for sing-a-longs about what color items were. Reid loved it, the children loved it, Squall just wanted to bash his head into the soft carpeting. He needed his Boku-chan to deal with anymore of this idiocy; at least the stuffed bird didn't judge his inward appearance. "But," he whispered, changing his voice into a high pitched whine, "but wanna read!" Inwardly his vocabulary cried at the poor sentence structure, but that was the first thing to go. Two-year-olds didn't talk in complete sentences. He could live with just being quiet a good chunk of the time, but he had to actually apply himself at asking for things like any toddler would… although he was taking a liking to the word "mine" very much.

"After sing-a-long time, just sit here. You don't have to sing with them, just…stay." She held her hands up as if telling a vicious dog not to attack. Squall rolled his eyes. His distaste for the singing was becoming known amongst the worker, to the point they also knew if they took an eye off him he'd make a run for it. Anxiously tapping his foot against the padded mat, Squall raised his train above his head.

"Zoom…zoom…"

Pleased that the boy was distracted, the worker walked away and Squall's arms dropped. The train slipped from his fingers as he dropped to his back, gazing up at the clear ceiling panels. Puffy white clouds, clear blue skies, it was relaxing. Nap worthy really. All he needed was to be under a tree with the wind blowing through his hair. He wouldn't have to worry about the sticky fingers reaching for his toy, or the sound of the guitar strumming to a song about the colors in the world around them. Out of all the songs, he hated this one the most.

It was so demeaning.

In that sickening sweet voice, the singer would turn to each student asking them to name an object and the color of said object. Squall had played along at first, but even that had grown tiresome. Willpower alone stopped him from being a total ass and telling that it was not a brown but beige . He'd never had songs growing up (besides the occasional soothing tune that had no words from Matron) and he'd turned out just fine.

Although that was debatable.

"Squallie what color is the sky?"

Squall ignored her, tucking his hands behind his head. That blond haired man outside still bothered him. He hadn't seen blond hair since he last saw Quistis and Zell. The dry heat of the desert surrounding Esthar didn't allow. However, he wasn't satisfied with just thinking it was another random drifter from the east. Of all the people, why a blonde? Maybe he'd found the man he was looking for, but there he was stuck in a jail with other children.

Besides, lady luck hadn't been in his favor much in his life. There was always that growing chance that he'd just let Seifer walk past him and made no attempt at shouting for him. That knowledge made him weary. He'd always thought that he was ready for anything life had to throw at him, but now he was beginning to realize that even hundreds of Ultimacias didn't match up to seeing Seifer again with such a diminutive body. What was he supposed to do, just walk up as if nothing had ever happened?

As if that would ever work. Seifer would probably look at the child like Squall had two heads. There was no guarantee that Seifer even remembered the orphanage gang. It would be nice if the man, like Squall, had foggy memories sprinkled around fake images of television shows he currently watched. It would give himself someone to fill those gaps with. Of course, he also knew that Seifer wasn't one to take on a GF going as far as to publically refer to them as Battle Handicaps. It was a shame too; Squall had always seen Ifrit to be one of the same with Seifer. Both had a fiery passion for dreams wrapped around an angry persona.

His heart panged. Shit he missed Shiva. He forgot the…power he had with her. Slamming the heel of his foot against plush flooring, Squall bit back a curse at every sorceress.

Faintly he could hear the soft sound of "choo-choo" next to his ear. Reluctantly, he turned his head to watch Reid rolling the train roughly against the floor before slamming it down a few times with deeper train cries. Sitting up, the man-turned-child watched, concentrated on his train. He could almost hear the object crying out to be saved, reminding everyone of its veteran years. He remembered Selphie, four at the time, dropping the orphanage's out of the lighthouse just to see the splash. He remembered crying because it was supposed to be his turn with it. He was going to ride that very train to find Sis and—

"That's mine!" Squall ripped it from Reid's hands, readying to be attacked by the other boy.

It never happened. Instead, Reid started crying thus drawing the attention from the staff. "M, my choo-choo!"

"Squall was Reid playing with that?"

"It's mine!" Squall tightened his grip around the toy, sure that the women would take it away. Sure enough, a smooth hand came down, reaching for the toy. Annoyed, Squall bit down on it, unrelenting when she made a startled cry. If he let go of it, the last part of his childhood would be gone, destroyed by children that had no sense of the world His own childhood being taken by people who just didn't understand him. He was tired of playing these childish games. So tired of fooling people with some fake childhood.

"Maybe it's time for a nap?" The woman he was biting hissed out, ripping her hand from his mouth. Squall kicked as he was raised in the air, his train ripped from his arms. Luckily, it wasn't handed down to Reid, but placed high up when not even he could get it with the aid of a chair. Screaming, Squall was brought into a back room where many mats on the floor, lined into rows. His own had a blue blanket brought from his home. Squall scowled as he was laid down.

He had no intention of napping. He wasn't tired. When he was tired, he usually degraded mentally, becoming the child he looked. He threw tantrums, made noises of no value, and sounded like the rest of the children in that daycare. Squall knew what was wrong. He was emotionally tired of acting. He was ready to just be himself. The only thing he could think of was running. He needed to get out of Esthar, away from everything it stood for.

Closing his eyes, Squall evened his breathing falling into an act he'd become so familiar with.

As he planned, not long after the staff worker disappeared, leaving him in a faintly lit room. Sitting up, Squall grabbed a plush chair in the corner, pushing it towards the window to get a look around his surroundings. A thin piece of plastic promised to keep the window locked, but Squall's bright mind made quick work of it, sliding the window open. He could taste his freedom.

Glancing back at the room, at his mat and the blue blanket, Squall dropped his head. Shame crept up his chest, but he still took one deep breath, climbed on the ledge and made a final leap for his freedom.

SeeD training kicked in, causing him to land on a firm knee with his arm extended forward, palm down. With strength he didn't know existed, he propelled himself forward, darting across the street, disappearing into oblivious crowds. His small mind tried to form a map from memory, attempting to recall every transit, every road, ever building that took him to the railway systems that would take him to Fisherman Horizon.

If memory served him right, in two days the gates would be closed. The senate had voted that foreign aid was no longer needed, the monster infestation almost eliminated. SeeD were in transit, giving him plenty of chance to join them and take refuge in Winhill where Ellone was. She would never patronize him. She knew what kind of hero he was, she would raise him in only a mirror of his past life. She would give him his gunblade back!

He nearly tripped over his feet when her realized he wasn't going anywhere near the transits. His guess was that if he did continue, he could make it to the lower level car lot, but not the train railways. Laguna had never brought him to this area, probably because the man had never been in it. Like the downtown area of Deling City, with older buildings pushing against each other, blocking out the hazing sun overhead. It made him nervous, finally taking into consideration of what position he stood.

A small child in a seedy environment.

Freezing, Squall ducked into an alley when he heard the hearty laugher of a drunk man. Dropping to his bottom, Squall pulled his legs to his chest and waited. The sounds of people became a plusing in his ears. Doors opened the number rose. His breathing slowed. His thoughts scrambled, blaming himself for even coming out. What if he was really lost and some sick pervert picked up? This would be the end of Squall Leonhart? Lost on the streets of Esthar? Stepped on by drunkards?

His thoughts spiraled out of control fast as the first tear drop escaped. He wanted Laguna…

A door opened near him followed by the lid of a trash compacter opening. "What the…"

Glancing up, Squall was shocked to see the same blonde he'd only seen in passing earlier. His voice hitched into a nervous squeak as he pushed against the building trying to hide from what could be a dangerous situation.

"…Squall?"

His eyes widened. Behind that ratty beard was a face he only dreamt of seeing again. "Seifer!"