Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I make no claim whatsoever to the characters or world of Final Fantasy VIII, which is the property of Squaresoft/Square Enix.
Chapter XII
"But... You'll be so far away."
Squall stood with one hand on his hip, frowning intensely at the jumble of Ellone's possessions spread over her apartment floor.
She barely glanced at him. "It's not that long a journey if you get the ferry from Timber."
"Have you even told our parents?"
The set of his shoulders told Rinoa that he was agitated. She padded over from the sofa and laid a hand gently on the middle of his back. He tensed, then relaxed.
Ellone, oblivious, carried on bundling pairs of socks together into tight balls. "Of course I did. They took it pretty well. Mom even said I can bring the kids up to stay in Winhill during the summer, when Centra gets really hot, and again at Midwinter." She looked up and flashed an excited smile at her brother. "Won't that be great? Then she started going on about something to do with sweater colors, which I didn't really follow."
A sly look crossed Squall's face. "Well. That's something for you to look forward to." He squatted and surveyed the chaos on the floor with a critical eye. "This is a mess, though. You need to approach it systematically."
Ellone's eyebrows shot upwards. "Excuse me? I have a system. Can't you see there are three piles?" She pointed to each indistinct mass of clothes, books and kitchenware in turn. "Send, Sell, and, uh, Storage."
He narrowed his eyes. "'Storage' means 'Squall', doesn't it?"
"Got it in one."
Squall ignored his sister's challenging smirk. "Well, the first thing we need to do is reduce that pile by at least two thirds. There's a limit to how much of your crap I can keep in my apartment."
Rinoa picked up a navy belted woolen coat from the 'Storage' pile and turned it over admiringly. "This is nice."
Ellone gave the coat a cursory glance and started rifling through a pile of books on the floor. "Take it. It's too warm for Centran winters."
"Thanks. I will."
Rinoa sifted through the remaining clothes in the pile and found two sweaters and a scarf that were to her liking. She'd noticed, in her old life, that she and Ellone were of roughly the same height and build, but had never had reason to make anything of it. The fact that their relationship was now close enough to share clothes was a pleasant surprise.
"Squall, do you want…" Ellone was holding a stack of five paperback books, "...this crime series about an alcoholic detective in the far north of Trabia, where the sun only rises for an hour a day in winter-"
He held out a palm. "Northern Oblivion. Those are mine anyway. I lent them to you and you never gave them back."
Ellone's forehead creased. "Huh. I would never have guessed that." She started to pass him the books, then withdrew her hands. "Wait a minute. You could say that about literally any item in this apartment, and I'd have no idea if it was true or not."
Squall snorted. "Yeah, right. Like I would go to the trouble to acquire your collection of mindless chick-lit and inferior music." He took the books out of Ellone's hands and flicked through the pages of the novel on top. "Did you even read these?"
"I don't know if the other me did, but I gave up after a couple of chapters. It was just so… bleak."
Squall gave her a withering look. "That's the whole point of Trabian noir thrillers. The bleaker it is, the more high-brow." He glanced at Rinoa, who was making no attempt to hide her amusement. "What?"
"It's fun hearing you turn into a literary critic, that's all. I never saw you reading anything other than Weapons Monthly magazine."
Squall looked somewhat offended. "Was the other me completely uncultured?"
"Yes," replied Ellone flatly, while Rinoa reassured him, "You were just too busy, my love."
Ellone sifted through the pile of books again, then thrust another volume at her brother. "Okay, explain to me why I have this."
Rinoa intercepted, taking the book in her hands to look at it. A cloth-bound hardback, the embossed title read Principles of Aviation.
Squall shrugged. "Dunno. It's probably Nida's."
At the shocked expressions on Rinoa and Ellone's faces, he added, "The guy you were dating when I first moved here. He was a student at the air force college. What? Do you two know him?"
Rinoa nodded. "He was Balamb Garden's main pilot. That's just... Wow."
"I don't know him!" Ellone protested. "I only met him twice! What was he like? How long was I with him?"
"He was, uh… forgettable? Anyway, you broke up after a couple of months. You didn't seem particularly upset about it."
Rinoa leered at Ellone and poked her in the ribs. "Nida and Seifer, huh."
"Oh, don't start," said Ellone, with a hint of warning in her voice. "We can't all have the luxury of finding the same soulmate in two separate universes." She huffed and returned to sorting through the books.
Rinoa saw that Squall's eyes had slid over to lock onto hers, and she wondered how he felt to hear the word 'soulmate'. She wasn't sure she liked it. It put her in mind of the Sorceress-Knight bond, predestined fate, and all the pain and loss that had brought. No, she didn't need Squall to be her soulmate. Being together in the present was more than enough.
A Week Later
Squall hauled both of Ellone's suitcases up the steps of Deling Central Station, despite his sister's protests. As soon as he set them down at the top, she grabbed the handles out of his hands.
"Elle, why won't you let me-"
"I'll have to carry them both from Timber onwards. So I may as well start getting used to the weight now." She tugged the cases towards her and walked awkwardly into the station. Rinoa could see how hard she was straining to take the load. Not for the first time, she admired Ellone's almost magnificent stubbornness.
"Fine, give yourself a hernia, then," Squall muttered under his breath as he followed her in.
Inside the station, Rinoa gazed up at the signboard above the main ticket gate. Ellone's train was already at the platform, with fifteen minutes until departure.
Ellone fiddled with the strap on one of her suitcases. "I should probably just get on board now. Find a seat. No point waiting around."
Squall half-turned away. Rinoa could see a familiar closed expression on his face. He wasn't ready for this goodbye.
"Elle," she started. "Before you do, I was thinking about something you said. About how Edea used to have a contact in Deling."
Ellone had explained that until a few years ago, an old friend of the Kramers had acted on their behalf in the Galbadian capital, working with adoption agencies to bring new children to the orphanage. The friend had also served as a go-between to help some of the older children to maintain written contact with their birth families. Since her death, the orphanage had been unable to carry out either of these tasks, but Ellone was keen to find a way to restart them.
"I just... Well, I thought it could be me. I mean, maybe I could try."
Ellone was clearly taken aback by Rinoa's words. "I- You know we won't be able to pay you, right?"
"And you know I already have an income, thanks to my mom. I don't care about money. Will you let me try? It's all I've ever wanted, Elle, to do something that helps people. Even if it's something small. Maybe I could make a difference."
The grand dreams she'd had in her youth of liberating Timber were far behind her now, but Rinoa knew she would always yearn to do something meaningful. Ellone's newfound sense of purpose and excitement was infectious, and Rinoa wanted to be part of it.
Ellone stared at her, then smiled. "I think you could. I'll talk to Matron about it. I'll be in touch as soon as I get to Centra."
"Great. Also, I want to make a donation. A sizable one. Tell Matron that, too."
Ellone held up both hands. "No, Rin. I can't take any more of your money."
"Why not? What am I going to spend it on?" she argued.
"Because it's yours. Squall, tell her."
Squall leveled a cool gaze at his sister. "I'm not 'telling her' anything. Don't knock a good offer when it comes your way, Elle."
"But-"
He made a faintly exasperated sound. "'Woman attempts to convince wealthy heiress not to donate to struggling orphanage'. Isn't there something wrong with that sentence?"
Ellone's features softened, and she looked at Rinoa with contrition. "I guess when you put it like that... Okay. I... Thanks, Rin." She turned her head to glance at the station clock. "I'd really better go now."
Rinoa embraced her, whispering "take care" in her ear. Squall's brief hug was awkward and pained, and his face clouded over when Ellone slipped out of it all too quickly to grab her suitcases and cross the ticket gate onto the platform. She heaved the cases onto the train, gave an excited wave from inside the train door, then she was gone.
They stood by the ticket gate, neither speaking, until the doors closed and the train slid slowly out of the station. Squall's eyes were blank, lost. Rinoa watched his forlorn gaze follow the dwindling dot of the train, and for one moment he was the little boy from the orphanage, losing his Sis all over again.
"You okay?"
He didn't look at her. "It feels like the day she left Winhill to come and live here. I was still a kid. I cried my eyes out under the quilt that night."
"D'you think that's why you ended up following her?"
Squall tilted his head, considering the question. "Not really. There was no work for me in Winhill. Coming to Deling was natural."
"But you could've gone to Dollet, Timber, Balamb..."
"I guess. Maybe I did need to be near her." He caught her eye and half-smiled. "Damn, I sound pathetic."
Rinoa took his hand. "No, you don't. She's your family. I'm glad you found a way to be together. The other you spent so long crying over her, then your memories of her were taken away. It's been so good to see you two having a real relationship. Watching you bicker... all of it. You're really going to miss her, aren't you?"
He nodded, eyes still on the platform.
"We'll visit her, Squall." She squeezed his hand, and felt him draw closer to her side.
"Yeah."
Two Months Later
Rinoa and Squall's first trip to the orphanage came at the start of the Centran summer, the humidity thick in the air, the sun blazing hot. Rinoa was speechless at the sight of the orphanage, a world away from the desolate ruins she had known before. To Squall, everything was new, and he met it with curious, scrutinizing eyes.
Edea was polite, but more subdued than Rinoa remembered, and had retired to her room not long after their arrival. Ellone had greeted them with delight, bouncing back and forth between the kitchen, the garden and the playroom, children hanging off her at every turn. Seifer was mid-visit, and had introduced himself with the same self-assurance Rinoa remembered from all those years ago in Timber. She wondered for a split second if he would recognize her, if they had somehow crossed paths in this life too. But there was nothing, no hint of familiarity in his eyes. She found herself relieved when his piercing gaze slid back to Ellone's face and stayed there.
When Seifer took the children down to the beach to swim, splash and paddle, Ellone invited Squall and Rinoa to join her in the kitchen as she prepared the evening meal.
"Laguna really appreciates your letters, you know," she told Squall, without turning away from the stovetop. "I'm so glad you're writing to him."
He leaned against the countertop, brushing some crumbs into the sink with one hand. "I suppose that means you've been writing to him too."
"Every week or so. I think I'm going to ask him to visit. He'll be safe from the G-Army here." Ellone paused and snuck a look at her brother's face. "So... Maybe you could be here when-"
"Maybe." He stared at the floor for a long time, then shrugged. "Yeah. All right."
Ellone's eyes shone. "It'll mean the world to him, Squall." She caught Rinoa's smile, and returned it.
"So what do you think of this place?"
"It's amazing," said Rinoa. "Seeing it brought to life like this."
"It is, isn't it? How about you, Squall?"
He ran a finger along the warped frame of the nearest kitchen cupboard, which was swollen with water damage. "It looks like you could use a carpenter around here."
Ellone's eyes glittered dangerously. "Are you offering your services, or just being critical?"
"I'm offering, idiot. Free of charge, of course."
She smiled down at the cooking pot, then placed a lid on it and turned fully to face him. "I'd like that, Squall. A lot. Actually... I wanted to talk to you. Both of you. Matron's started to come around to accepting the idea of retiring and letting me take over officially. And, well... Depending on the number of kids we take on in the future, I might ask you and Rin to come and help me out full-time, if you'd consider it."
Rinoa's mouth fell open. "You mean, live here?"
"I don't mean now. One day. But only if you want to. I can't tell you to leave Deling. It's your home."
Rinoa met Squall's gaze, and saw her own expression reflected in his. There was a gleam of excitement alongside his surprise. A door to new possibilities was swinging open in front of them, and she sensed that he was willing to walk through it.
He kept his expression unreadable to Ellone. "It's not exactly 'home' for me. You were always my biggest tie to Deling, Elle."
She frowned. "What about you, Rin?"
"I don't want to live with my father forever. Honestly, my home is where Squall is. If you want to try, Squall, I..." We'll try together. An idea struck her. "Could I bring Angelo, though?"
Ellone let out a laugh. "Of course! The children would love having a dog around."
The conversation was cut short by the arrival of two dripping wet, very sandy children to the kitchen in search of drinks. Ellone shooed them outside after handing over two glasses of homemade lemonade from the fridge. Seifer was next, his damp hair slicked back, a faded beach towel slung round his shoulders.
"Any of that lemonade left for me, Elle?"
"Probably. Get it yourself." She turned back to the sink and started to wash the cooking utensils.
Rinoa suppressed a smirk. The discovery that Ellone had the firm upper hand in her relationship with Seifer had been a delight. She watched him pour himself a drink and crane his head down to say something inaudible to Ellone, who snorted and flicked some of the soap bubbles from the sink at him. Seifer gasped in mock outrage and strode over to the table to sit down, using another chair to prop up his sandy bare feet. Rinoa felt Squall twitch in disapproval as sand trickled over the chair cushion onto the stone floor. Seifer chugged down his lemonade and started to tell Ellone about a water-fight that had taken place at the beach.
Rinoa nudged Squall and quietly asked, "What do you think of him?"
Squall cast a long, measuring look over the oblivious Seifer. "He seems like a good guy, under all the… ego."
"So you don't have an uncontrollable urge to punch him in the face, or something?"
Squall turned to her in amused indignation. "Rinoa, I've never punched anyone in my life." He checked himself and conceded, "Well, okay, other than my brother. And I think the last real fistfight Alex and I had was when we were about thirteen."
They returned to watching Seifer, whose eyes were fixed on Ellone, still standing with her back turned. She bent down to reach something from under the sink, and Squall's expression twisted into a scowl as an unmistakable smirk of possessive appreciation crossed Seifer's lips.
"Admittedly, he does have a highly punchable face," Squall muttered darkly, eliciting a small giggle from Rinoa. "I can see how we would probably have riled each other up, if we grew up together."
"You definitely did."
"What about you?" he asked. "You had a crush on him, right? Any traces of it left?"
"Oh Squall, I was a kid."
Her eyes tracked Seifer as he sprang off the chair, loped over to Ellone's side and with a good-natured grin, started to dry off the dishes she had washed.
"When you're young, it's easy to be attracted to confidence if you don't have much of your own yet," Rinoa reflected. "I've grown up since then. I know myself better now."
"That was unexpectedly insightful," he replied with a small smile. "I'm not entirely sure what it says about my sister, though."
Seifer and Ellone were chatting and laughing together now, almost unaware of Squall and Rinoa's presence on the other side of the room. There was a lightness to Ellone's laugh that Rinoa could not recall hearing before.
"I'm just glad she's having a good time with him. She missed out on all of that, growing up at sea."
Squall stifled a chuckle in his throat. "Funny, because the Ellie I know has had a lot of boyfriends."
They slipped out of the kitchen into the late evening sunshine, leaving Ellone and Seifer to each other's company. The older children were in the process of herding the younger ones back into the house. Rinoa tugged on Squall's hand and led him away from the orphanage building to the expanse out back, in the opposite direction to the beach.
"Where are we going?"
"I want to show you…"
It was still there, untouched and unchanged, bathed in brilliant gold before sunset. The flower field. The perfect meadow of wild blooms, stretching unbroken into the horizon at the end of the world. Their place. Except that it wasn't, not any more. Rinoa watched Squall's eyes taking in the sight as one that was entirely new.
"This is where we made our promise. Well, there were two promises. We said that we'd always be waiting here if we couldn't find each other."
"What was the other promise?"
"You made it to yourself, and didn't tell me about it until much later. It was your oath to be my Knight."
"Oh. Did I keep it?"
Her lips curled into a bitter smile. "You certainly kept it. It's what got you killed, in the end."
He was silent at that. She gazed out over the meadow to the dim, bluish-green hills in the far distance.
"This time, I don't want us to have any promises. I just want us to be… us. One day you might choose to walk away, and I want you to have that choice."
She summoned the courage to meet his gaze, and when she did, his eyes were soft.
"I can't imagine I'll ever want to, Rin."
"Still, I… I want you to know that you can."
"All right. So is that our new promise? To promise not to have any promises?"
She laughed. "I suppose so." She took both his hands in hers. "Squall Leonhart Oakwright, I promise that you and I will be free to be together, or not together, with no oath binding your soul to mine."
"Rinoa…" He stroked her fingers with his thumbs. "There are other ways of binding people together, you know. I didn't need an oath to fall in love with you."
"I..."
"I'm not trapped. I wasn't tricked. I'm here because I want to be. And that's that."
He bent his head to kiss her. And that's that, she thought.
And it was.
Epilogue
A Year Later
Edea's retirement party was a lively affair. Seifer, its chief organizer, had reached out to his former foster siblings to give their beloved Matron one last hurrah. Edea spent much of the day smiling through tears that flowed thicker with each arrival: Zell, bearing a huge bouquet of flowers, Quistis, who unloaded a case of champagne from her taxi, Selphie, who brought a box of half-melted cookies, and Irvine, with a smartly-wrapped jewelry box under his arm containing a silver bracelet.
Each of Rinoa's once-friends greeted her and Squall politely, curiously. They had no idea who she was, but Rinoa found that she didn't mind at all. They were all here, together in the same room, and it made her heart sing.
Angelo sniffed at her feet as she cast her eyes over the scene of the playroom, decorated lavishly with paper ribbons and children's drawings. In one corner, Squall was patiently showing one of the older kids how to sand down a piece of wood. Irvine and Selphie were in another corner, deep in conversation, their heads bowed so close together they were almost touching. Seifer was sprawled on a beanbag talking animatedly to Zell, who was laughing loudly, while Ellone was huddled next to Quistis, a sleepy toddler on her lap.
Squall handed over the sandpaper to his young apprentice, and slipped to Rinoa's side. He knelt down to ruffle Angelo's neck.
"Are we staying for good this time?" Rinoa wondered aloud, though she was fairly sure she knew the answer.
He straightened and looked at her. "It's up to you. I'm ready, if you are."
Centra was her place. It held the flower field where she and Squall had found their way to each other after Time Compression. It was the land where she had stepped through a waterfall centuries in the past and brought Squall back to life. Where she had achieved the impossible. It was her place of new beginnings, of hope. Of love.
"I think I'm ready, too."
Two young children dodged Angelo as they ran past, laughing. They were the newest arrivals, and it warmed Rinoa's heart to see how quickly they had settled in. The orphanage was now home to a total of seventeen children. While Ellone was fearsomely capable, she was being stretched in all directions every day. If there was a right time to join her in her life's work, it was now.
"Then we will." Squall watched the children disappear into the playroom, and sidled closer to Rinoa. He bent his head and murmured in her ear.
"Guess you'll be too busy with all these kids for us to have any children of our own."
Rinoa looked up at him, startled. "You mean you want to-"
At her expression, Squall faltered. "Well, yeah, I... I'm from a big family, so I always kind of assumed..." He eyed her seriously and said, "I mean, not if you don't want that, Rin."
"I do want that. I just never expected to hear you say it."
The smile that grew on his face made her tingle.
"We could make it work," she said.
Squall leaned his head on her shoulder. "Think we could."
Angelo shuffled and yawned. Squall's arm had snaked round her waist, and Rinoa searched for a name for the feeling that suffused her.
Peace. That was it. She'd known it before, in a handful of tiny, fleeting moments that had slipped away as soon she was aware of them. Yet somehow, peace was hers, pure and lasting; and this time, it was hers to keep.