It all seemed so surreal to her.

This had been all she'd wanted for the last month. To be reunited with her family, to return to her life and escape the horrible confines of that dank and dark cell. To be free of her kidnappers and in the safety and security her home afforded her. And now she had all of that. But she couldn't have been any unhappier.

It had taken her mother a lot of work to even get her to leave that street corner because she had been determined to find him before she did anything else. In the end it had been fruitless. He had taken advantage of their reunion and disappeared, no doubt returning to that awful place.

Rinoa had been quiet all throughout the trip home, lost in thoughts that turned themselves over and over in her mind. While she had looked forward to going back home, she also dreaded it knowing that the moment she crossed through those doors the questions would begin. The police were no doubt waiting in the wings wanting her statement and her recollection of everything and anything happened while she was held captive, more than likely right away when it was still fresh in her minds. All she really wanted was to be left alone with her thoughts, to wallow in her self-pity because there was absolutely nothing else she could possibly do to make the situation any better. There wasn't anything that anyone could do.

And that was exactly what happened when she walked through the front door of her house. Her father immediately greeted her at the door, everything about him betraying how grateful he was that she was alive and safe and sound, how worried he'd been about her. The men and women who were standing around the front hall dressed in black and blue at least had the decency to give them a few minutes before the questions started. She'd been guided into the living room where she was allowed to sit down with her parents as they asked her question after question, wanting to know everything she heard and saw. She'd told them everything she could remember about the cell but aside from that she had felt useless, unable to give them anything more that might help them out.

Despite learning all they could from her they stuck around and it took a little while for her to remember that they were waiting for a call. Squall's call to be precise. She wondered if they would let her talk to him, maybe try and talk him out of doing what he was doing, but then she decided they would probably wouldn't even allow it. And even if they allowed it, she didn't even know what she would say to in the first place, let alone to convince him that this was still a very bad idea.

So instead she'd just sat there, letting her head rest on her mother's shoulder and over all basking in their presence. Two pairs of cops left the house in order to walk the grounds on a patrol at some point, and eventually her mother guided her upstairs to bed.

Slowly as she was waking up in the morning, Rinoa had been terrified that she would find herself back at that cell. Lying on that crappy cot with that stupid dull bulb as the only source of light in the room, wondering if and when will she ever get out. When she opened her eyes and saw her surroundings she was disbelieving, thinking that it was a dream or wishful thinking or something. It took a few minutes for it to finally sink in and when it did she couldn't stop the tears from falling or the relieved and horrified sobs from escaping her as she collapsed against her comforter. Her parents had rushed in then, having been awakened by the sounds she was making but she had been an inconsolable mess. Despite not being trapped in that cell and having the freedom to go wherever she wanted she desperately missed it, not because she was a masochist or that she craved being locked up but because those gray eyes she got so used to seeing almost every day weren't there to greet her. It reminded her that he was still in that hell and regardless that she had tried to reason with him she felt like a failure as a result.

But she couldn't even begin to explain that to her parents. They wouldn't understand it. The best they could do was give her reassurances that they probably didn't believe in themselves and the next thing she knew she would have to talk to someone with a bunch of diplomas or degrees decorating their office about feelings and the stress that came with her abduction. The rest of the day blurred together and she lost track of what she was doing and when she was doing it. She got dressed but only because it was something she was able to do now that she was back home, but otherwise she kept close to the house, just wandering the building at her leisure. No one bothered her, only to ask her if she was okay.

After the third person asked her, she realized she hated that question.

It was sometime in the afternoon when the phone rang. The police intercepted the call with their wire taps and their recording equipment as they tried to narrow down the location as her father picked up the phone. From the way he had sat up and the gestures the police were making to keep talking, Rinoa could only assume that Squall had finally decided to call. But the call didn't last very long. No sooner had the phone rang than her father was left asking if the person on the other end was still there, the call having been disconnected. The police frowned, not having acquired the location they'd wanted but then her father was heading into his study and a couple of cops followed afterwards. Rinoa assumed that whatever information Squall was gathering, it probably had something to do with the computer.

She tried to force it out of her mind, knowing that she hadn't even had the opportunity to ask to speak to him, and resumed her wanderings. The next few days were much the same. She got up, got dressed, ate some food and continued to look around and soon she found herself falling into a routine of just being. Overtime she saw less and less uniformed personnel and soon the only ones who remained patrolled the grounds, giving the family updates every couple of hours or so and occasionally being switched out by the new shift sent to replace them.

Rinoa was tired of crying and yet she couldn't stop herself from doing so at the very miniscule and seemingly unimportant detail she would come across that reminded her of him. Otherwise she found herself feeling numb, and knew that in the end she would be forced to deal with the onslaught of feelings that were bound to hit her once that numbness went away but for now she didn't know what to think, what to do so she decided to do whatever she could to just not think about it at all. She suddenly realized now how Squall must have felt, that just the very notion of freedom was terrifying and stressful. Still, it wasn't the same not even close. Rinoa had taken the freedom she'd had all her life for granted. Squall had never once experienced it before. If she was feeling overwhelmed now that she had it back, she couldn't even begin to fathom just what he might have gone through in her place. She wondered if that was half the reason he wanted to stay.

But just as it was getting close to dinnertime, she heard her father calling her from the bottom of the stairs and almost as though her response was automatic she proceeded to the front hall where he and a couple of officers were waiting for her. She stood on the third step from the bottom and waited for them to say what they had to, but the officers shook their heads and gestured to the sitting room. She looked at her father for any sign of what was going on but he averted his gaze and gestured for her to do as she was told.

So she found herself sitting on the couch of the sitting room, her mind running a mile a minute as she wondered what they wanted to talk to her about. She had given them everything she knew after all, what more could they possibly want. But somehow, judging by the grimness of the air that hung over their heads, whatever they had gathered her here for was not good.

"We understand that you've already been through quite the ordeal," one of the officers started gently. Rinoa almost rolled her eyes but for her father's sake stopped right before she followed through with the response. She was tired of everyone treating her like some kind of fragile statue that could break at the tiniest amount of pressure, but she knew they were at a loss of how to deal with her and didn't want to come across as insensitive. Still, she just wished they'd hurry it up and get to the point.

"But your father thought that you might want to know what's happened over the last few days," he continued. Beside him his partner remained silent, trying to appear sympathetic but instead coming across as clueless. "Now, you already know that your friend – the one who helped you escape – wanted to give us some information about the people who kidnapped you. The information he had was in regards to a big job they were planning. We can't go into too much detail as of yet, but due to the information he supplied us we were able to make several arrests at the scene. Not all of them were apprehended and we're still on the lookout for the stragglers who escaped. We have their descriptions, and it's very unlikely that they'll get very far while the whole city's on watch for them.

"While we had uniforms overseeing the sting, we also managed to track down the hideout. Everyone who was in the building was taken into custody and are currently being questioned in connection to several other kidnappings that have happened over the last decade. Unfortunately, even with the description you were able to give us, we have yet to locate your friend."

"We haven't found any bodies," the other officer spoke up in a reassuring tone to match her partners. "Which gives us hope that he's still alive and out there somewhere. We're currently circulating his picture across all media outlets in the hopes that we can find him and bring him into questioning."

"Is it possible that whoever escaped knows he was involved in the set up?" Rinoa asked, dread filling her at the very thought.

"It's very unlikely," the female officer answer. "The information concerning the sting was on a need-to-know. We made sure of it because of your friends position within the compound."

Doesn't mean you don't have a leak somewhere, Rinoa mused, but she opted to keep her thoughts to herself. Especially given that her father was in the room with her.

"Despite the fact that your friend is missing, we were able to secure something from the compound," the first officer resumed before crossing the distance between himself and Rinoa and holding out his hand, fingers clenched around what looked like a plastic bag. When Rinoa accepted the offering from him she almost dropped it, like it had burned her physically.

Inside the plastic bag was her cellphone.

"It was sitting next to one of the computers, and one of the officers discovered it while our people were rounding everyone up. We've already dusted it for fingerprints, but it seems he wiped it down before leaving it there. Along with the phone we discovered a note, though again we weren't able to pull prints from it to make a positive ID."

"What did the note say?" Rinoa asked, not knowing whether or not she really wanted to know.

"It said 'I'm sorry'."

And that was that. Rinoa instantly knew that Squall had written that note. She also knew why he had done it, her thoughts returning to the last time she had seen him. That night on the bench where she'd asked him to at least consider staying at her house once everything was said and done. She wondered if he had ran because he'd somehow figured out that the police had missed a couple of people, or if he was so distrusting of everyone and anyone he decided not to take a chance by sticking around and finding out how it all went.

She vaguely remembered excusing herself before she retreated back up the stairs, wanting to be as far away from the officers as she could. Deep down she had expected this, that she might never see him again but it didn't stop it from hurting. Not really caring where she was going, she stumbled into the first room she could see and quickly closed the door behind her in the hopes that she might be left alone. She barely managed to make it to one of the chairs by the wall and she curled into it and let the tears fall as she stared at the phone she still held in hand. She suddenly hated it, because it had been her one and only link to the only person who had been there to help her the last few weeks and suddenly she wished he hadn't helped her escape after all. She just wanted to see him again, even if it was only one more time.

She stayed in that room for a while, just sitting there and crying until she was too exhausted to shed any more tears. Eventually she wiped at eyes that felt puffy and swollen and only mildly curious of where she'd ended up she looked around the room and realized it was a study. It wasn't just any study though, because the one her father used religiously was on the ground floor near the back of the house. This one had been outro fitted into a music room because of her mother's love for the piano. Pictures decorated the walls and there was a desk at the furthers part of the room opposite the door, though to be far it was as much for decoration as the pictures that littered the walls.

But as her eyes scanned each and every picture that was available to her, taking in each and every one of them with an eye that practically memorized them, she paused at one in particular. Rising to her feet, she approached that picture, suddenly curious about it because it was such a simple photo in comparison to everything else in the room. The picture was of a couple that couldn't have been her parents – the man's hair was too long for her father to have tolerated and her mother often had her hair cut to chin level. Both were dressed up and looked like they were ready to go, but it was the woman in the picture that drew Rinoa's eye especially. The man was grinning widely as though he'd just won the jackpot while the woman appeared more sedate. Her smile was smaller in comparison but it lit up her features and made her look even more beautiful than any amount of makeup could possibly accomplish.

The smile seemed almost familiar to her and she tried to wrap her head around why that was possible. She didn't think she'd ever met the couple in the picture and thought that it might be possible that she could have. But as she inspected the woman's face to jog her memory, her attention was drawn to the woman's eyes and after a while of just staring at it, Rinoa let out a gasp as she stumbled backwards in her shock, almost sinking to her knees as her legs threatened to buckle on her.

Those eyes were familiar.

More importantly, she knew why they were familiar.

All at once, words that had been uttered in hesitance and confidence filled her head and she slapped both hands over her nose and mouth, completely at a loss of what to do or how this could possibly have happened. But despite the hard edge and the insistence that neither of us would survive without her picking up after us, she smiled a lot, the inner voice said. She had a nice smile. It always brightened up the room. Even when she was telling me to stop playing and clean my room I couldn't stay mad at her when she smiled at me like that.

"Mom!" Rinoa called, unable to face this alone. She needed to tell someone – anyone – about this latest discovery because she couldn't stand doing nothing about it. All this time she had been waiting for something she could possibly do to repay the debt that she had racked up and now she had that chance. But she needed to know that she was right. "Mom! Dad!"

The door to the music room opened but Rinoa didn't dare turn away from the picture, afraid that she might have imagined it even when the evidence was right there staring her in the face. "Rinoa?" her mother's voice called, filled with worry. The elder woman gripped Rinoa by the shoulders and stepped into her line of sight, her expression mirroring the emotion in her voice. "Rinoa, what's wrong? What happened?"

"Who is that woman in the picture," Rinoa said, purposely avoiding the question. Her mother's brow furrowed at the question and Rinoa repeated it as she pointed at the offending photo. Her mother's gaze turned away from her daughter and took in the sight.

"Rinoa, I'm not sure…"

"Just tell me who the woman is," Rinoa snapped and instantly regretted when she caught the slight flicker of hurt flock across her mother's face.

It took her a couple of seconds to answer and when she did, she spoke hesitantly as though afraid she might set her off. Rinoa ignored the look of pity, knowing that this was far more important. "She's the wife of a friend I had when I was in college," she explained slowly. "I met her maybe about a year before they were married. That photo was taken on their wedding day. We lost touch with them when they moved to Esthar, maybe a year or so before you were born."

She pursed her lips and seemed to hesitate saying what she had to say next, but then she forced herself on regardless. "Why are you asking about them, Rinoa?"

"Because she has his eyes," Rinoa explained, fully knowing how crazy she sounded. "And his smile! Everything she has he has, it can't be a coincidence, it just can't be!"

"Who has her eyes?" Her mother asked in confusion.

"My friend!" Rinoa burst out suddenly. "The one from that place, the one the police can't find! That woman has Squall's eyes!"

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed and who took the time to read this story (even if you didn't review). I know the ending seems rather abrupt, but it's always been in my head that way. As incomplete as it may feel, this story is in fact complete and I'm hoping once I've plotted out everything that the next part of it will be posted... though sadly I have no hope of managing that magic trick before the end of the day tomorrow (technically today as I write this at 1:30 in the morning). I hope you guys aren't too disappointed.

I also decided to keep Rinoa's parents nameless in this story just because they aren't all that relevant in this part. In the next part they will be named and given background themselves, but for the meantime they are simply Rinoa's Mom and Dad. Sorry if that seems like I'm not giving them much credit but this story technically was not theirs.

Again to reiterate the mention from the first chapter: this story was written for the Where I Belong August Challenge. If you're interested in reading more Squinoa stories please feel free to check out the community of the same name, run by Eternal Tiet, aka Ashbear. Have a good night and hopefully I'll manage to pull a chapter out of my ass for the novel.