I Can Still See the Stars

Synopsis – Twilight strolls underneath the stars had always been Rinoa's remedy of choice to soothe the soul and clear the mind. Tonight's stroll was a little special, however. Post-game Squall x Rinoa, written for the Successor Challenge.

Author's Notes – Apologies if this seems a little disjointed. There was no real plot for this one outside the premise that Rinoa enjoys walking around at night setting the backdrop. It probably didn't help matters when I realized I contradicted myself and had to scrap huge chunks at the end and rewrite it in like 2 hours to make sure this would post on Squall Day.

-—-

No matter what could be said about the ever-changing political climate, beautiful June weather in Timber was a constant.

Hot enough to break out the summer clothes, dry enough to not break out in sweat and still cold enough to not court the attention of all the bugs lying in wait from the winter months at night, leaving only the clearest of skies and the brightest of stars. While Rinoa had been prone to wanderlust and had ventured to many places in the process of satiating it, Timber had subconsciously become the standard everything else was compared to over the years.

Peering outside the open window of the second floor hotel room they'd rented for the weekend in the downtown core, Rinoa was overwhelmed with the need to reacquaint herself with the landscape. It didn't matter to her that she was exhausted from the long day of travelling with Squall or even what the current time on the clock was showing, the moment she peeled her eyes away from the window, she found herself scribbling an excuse on the hotel-provided pad of paper to let her sleeping boyfriend know she was going to be out of the room for a bit in case he woke up. Not that she would be long, she figured, just gone long enough to get one full circuit of the main street the hotel was on. Still, better safe than sorry.

From there, she set the note on the nearby nightstand, swapping the pen in her hand for one of the key cards left on the table. Every action that followed – exiting the room, hopping down the stairs to the main level, crossing the lobby floor – went by in a blur of colour until she set foot outside where time and space finally stilled enough so she could register all of the details before her. And it was truly breathtaking.

There was something about the serenity of the veil of darkness being pierced by lamplight and the stars above that felt comforting to Rinoa. It didn't matter that she could no longer see the finer details along the paths she walked at this time of night, it was beautiful in its simplistic elegance. It was also a kind of beauty that she didn't often get to experience as the need for safety regularly outweighed this particular want, regardless of her ability to launch dogs or set people on fire without so much as batting an eyelash.

She tried her best to soak it in for all it was worth right now as she walked down the cobblestone-lined sidewalks alone with the rest of the city dead to the world. The soft clicks emanating from underneath her feet and distant crickets chirping were the only sounds breaking the silence during this stroll. It was just…so freeing to have time stand still in a natural way and not think about anything but how insignificant she was in the grand scheme of things. It was especially freeing without having some kind of Garden-appointed psychologist dissect those thoughts to shreds for public consumption because they'd contained vague allusions to nihilism and the relativity of time.

Rinoa mentally groaned at the self-sabotaging trail of thought.

So much for a nice stroll for the soul, she thought to herself, and you wonder why you can't have nice things.

Even despite the disruption, made a point of exorcising herself with a long exhale and walked on. As she knew from her experiences in what basically amounted to a series of SeeD boot camp-style fitness classes she'd made the mistake of signing up for at Selphie's behest, and obviously among a laundry list of other more serious experiences too, no matter how successful the attempt was, someone who got back up after they stumbled was always closer to their goals than the person who chose to stay on the ground.

Rinoa smiled at the memory of using one of those machines where you had the insides of your thighs to press together some pads attached to machine weights without a clue as to how to adjust the setting to lower the weight. Well, mostly the part where she was too stubborn to ask for help and ended up walking like a cowboy after she was done with it, anyway. Of all the outcomes she'd anticipated from being in plain sight after that, she hadn't counted on Squall being the one to comment; she'd never would have pegged him to blithely say, 'Can't blame me for that this time.'

Granted, he'd probably meant that in a different sense than she'd interpreted – there had been past instances where he'd suggested fitness-related endeavors at her request resulting in major aches and pains - but it was just more amusing to pretend that he was being uncharacteristically cheeky.

Rinoa snickered under her breath as she passed another storefront. Maybe she could have nice things after all.

"…I can't tell if I should be relieved or worried you left in the middle of the night to laugh at a store named Pants R' Us."

The voice behind her made for a wicked jolt to her stomach and heart. Rinoa turned around immediately.

"Jeez Squall, would it have killed you to not scare the living daylights out of me?" she croaked. From what she could make out, her boyfriend crossed his arms.

"I'd say the same to you." he countered. "I thought there was something wrong after how quickly you'd left the room."

"Didn't you see the note?"

"I did. And it didn't help matters considering you left the ice bucket in the room." he answered with a sigh, uncrossing his arms to pinch the bridge of his nose. "…Is there something we need to talk about?"

Rinoa frowned at the sight of him lowering the hand he had on his nose, mentally kicking herself. "No…I just…this is going to sound stupid but, I…really just wanted to take a walk around the block."

"…Why not wait until morning?"

"Because a morning walk is a whole other thing."

"I…don't follow."

"It's one of those things you might not understand as a SeeD or even as a man but I'll try my best to explain. Walk with me?" She offered her hand to him. Despite his confusion and the lingering traces of annoyance, he took it almost immediately. Once they were past Pants R' Us, she started by asking a question. "You remember how my father locked me up in my room for my own sake?"

Squall nodded.

"Imagine living a world where most people acted like that all the time to keep you safe from yourself, either by words or actions. How would that make you feel?"

"Considering how well I enjoyed having people make decisions for me, you can imagine how I'd feel."

Rinoa lightly smirked. "Touché. But imagine if someone taught you something that made sense instead of something you didn't want, like, I don't know, teaching you how to avoid T-Rexaurs in the training center?"

"I suppose I'd listen."

"Ok. So what if you saw a cadet about to get mauled by one. What would you do?"

"I'd intervene."

"Alright. Suppose you do and you were successful in saving you both but the T-Rexaur left the cadet with non-life threatening but still serious injuries. Would there be anything else you'd do?"

"Send them off to the infirmary for the injuries and write a report detailing the series of events in case if an investigation is to be made after."

"So you wouldn't tell them they deserved what they got for not protecting themselves?"

"…No."

"But I mean, he had the choice to avoid the monster. If he was that close to get hurt while armed, he must have being trying to do some irresponsible stunt."

"That assumption is faulty. Even the most predictable monsters can deviate from their usual patterns without warning. You could do everything right and still end up hurt or killed. Proper strategy can mitigate risk, but it is never 100 percent foolproof."

Even if he could not see it, Rinoa smiled at his response. "You'd be surprised at how often people in the civilian world are blamed for their own surprise maulings." she remarked. "I love walking underneath the stars like this but I don't get to do it often or fully enjoy the times I do. Even when I tell myself, 'screw the girl-rules, I'll do what I want to do,' I still find myself looking over my shoulder for those metaphorical T-Rexaurs. It doesn't really matter if I could fry them with the flick of my hand now, that feeling just…never goes away."

"So you went out to prove something to yourself?"

"Honestly, I can't say that I was. The only reason why I jumped at the chance to take a walk at night is because I know the people of Timber, I know I'm safe here. Plus the hotel was right there so if anything went wrong, I could run back in a flash." she admitted, pausing for a mere-split second before she felt the need to append her explanation. "…I know, sounds ridiculous to be afraid of something like this after being through an actual war."

"Not really."

It didn't matter that they were standing at a corner of an intersection at this point in time, it took the sorceress by surprise when Squall stopped walking and found herself stopped as well, turning inward to face him. While the man in front of her looked all sorts of tired – the florescent lighting overtop of them exacerbating the natural shadows cast by his angular features – he looked at ease, calm even. Or at least as calm as someone overworked and perma-sleep deprived like her boyfriend could be.

The fact that his hand was still holding onto hers did not go unnoticed either.

"There's an old saying taught in Garden to the effect of, 'War itself becomes a fleeting affair when it is compared to the subsequent battles fought against perspective.' What it means is that war often distorts your perception in some capacity, regardless if you got out largely unscathed." he explained. "Taking part in something as large as that doesn't mean you are no longer allowed to have regular fears and phobias."

"Thank you. I really needed to hear that." she said, her words inflected with a twinge of hope. "Sometimes it's nice to be reminded that I can be a normal girl with normal girl wants and problems instead of being treated like some kind of ticking time bomb of pure evil and doom."

"I can imagine." If her eyes weren't deceiving her, she could have sworn that the corners of Squall's lips upturned a little after that third word. "Mostly because I'm certain some people are convinced that 'ticking time bomb of pure evil and doom' is my actual title at Garden."

Rinoa couldn't help but giggle a little. "For any reason in particular or just because you don't like them?"

"I've set deliberately set the thermostat in my office warmer than the rest of the building by a good ten degrees." he answered. "And I've hidden a metronome in my drawer to keep people uneasy to the point where they leave as soon as possible."

"I can't tell if that's a very dry joke or if you're being serious. If it's the latter, has anyone called you Satan yet? Because that would be really, really appropriate."

"I'm serious, and no. Just been called a cold-blooded snake by Xu and quote-unquote, 'a man who is in desperate need of getting laid.' I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the state of my office though."

"Oh I'm sure it is. Cause you know, if you get to be hot and bothered elsewhere, you won't feel the need to be hot and bothered in your office." Rinoa ribbed. "Either way, who told you that? Irvine?"

"Still Xu." he flatly answered. "And I think I need to call you Satan for that mental picture."

"Hey, not my fault if you took it the wrong way. I was referring to your thermostat settings." Rinoa responded, her voice brimming with glee and her face now split open in an ear-to-ear grin as she deliberately chose this moment to continue their trek back to the hotel. "It does beg the question of how she knows when it's been a dry spell though, assuming she wasn't saying it just to goad you. I mean, you being grumpy when you have to deal with people is normal. Nothing special about that."

"Apparently I fixate too long on fool-proofing spreadsheet projects that have multiple end users of varying competence. She says it's an unhealthy outlet."

"…Really?"

"No. Xu says these kind of things when she's gone without for long enough to project her problems onto me. She actually likes the spreadsheets." he dryly answered.

"…Do I want to know how you know? Actually scratch that, I should be more focused-slash-offended over the fact that she probably thinks we have enough dry spells for her to assume that she can say these things and you wouldn't guess that she was projecting."

Squall shrugged. "Whatever. It doesn't matter that I prefer not to broadcast the amount of sexy I may be having at any given moment. People are going to draw their conclusions anyway."

"So no dramatic hair flicks? No gyrating around your office or strutting down the hallways? No lifting up your shirt seductively to show off rock-hard abs? No dousing yourself in baby oil and sparkles?"

"…I know what I said. And you know what I meant."

If anything, this comment made the problem worse as Rinoa was soon overwhelmed by a coughing-laughter fit with some breath-exorcising wheezes spicing things up here and there. Squall could have sworn he saw the glass of the nearby storefront start to vibrate as she continued to laugh at his slip.

"-Oh Carbuncle… Now…now I'm just- I'm just picturing you sticking yourself in a huge potato sack to hide the sexy–ahahehe!" she stammered before stopping in place, wilting right in front of him as her head bowed with renewed laughter and her hands on her knees for support.

"This is where I chose to lay my affections. …Unbelievable."

Biting her lip to stem the flow of giggles, Rinoa looked up despite the fact her eyes had teared up with every reminder setting her back to square one and at the mercy of the ridiculous mental images. It didn't matter that the man in front of her wasn't doing or emoting anything particularly note-worthy, her brain was short circuiting into a feedback loop regardless of rhyme or reason.

"Do I have to carry you to the hotel?"

Rinoa shook her head, biting her lip harder.

"Somehow I doubt that very much." he told her, running a hand through his hair.

"You did not."

"I did not." he parroted, deliberately smoothing the hem of his v-neck shirt with both hands before ultimately resting them at his sides. While said hem wasn't raised, it was the next best thing to show the outlines of his navel and lower stomach though the effect was lessened in the dark. Still, Rinoa was very well aware that he knew what he was doing, the bugger.

"You did so." she retorted, daring to stand up straight now so she could wag a finger at him. "Don't make me cast Sparkle-aga on you to admit it, Mr. Leonhart."

"Try me, Heartilly."

"Oh, I'll try you alright." Rinoa mirrored. "I'll try you so hard it sounds like a really bad innuendo that I only realized sounded that way…just now. So yeah. The trying is happening."

Squall stood perfectly still, waiting for some kind of 'spell' to be cast on him – even if it was in the loosest sense of the word. Meanwhile the closest thing she could muster was some really bad jazz hands action.

"C'mon, I want a hat trick of Stupid Sexy Squall-isms." she mock-complained. "Why can't you cave?"

"Because I don't strut or gyrate so unless if you can cast a cloud of baby oil over my head, it won't happen."

"That's a straight-up lie and you know it. You practically have a cat-like prowl when you're charging head-first into battle."

"…I do?"

Rinoa nodded. "Yes you do. Watch."

From there, she walked past him, both hands clasped together and to her right with her pointer fingers pointing to a patch of ground ahead of her. Shoulders squared with her head tilted forward, she leaned rightward to pretend like her finger gunblade had some of the weight of the real thing. From there, she took a few elongated strides, not cutting a pin-needle straight path forward but swaying left to right ever so slightly with lithe grace before turning around on a dime to face him again.

"And voila – the gunblade shimmy. Convinced now that you have it in you to complete the trifecta?"

She earned a legitimate hint of an amused look for that one but no further shimmying on his part. "Just because it happened before doesn't mean I can do it on command."

"This is true. The key to shimmying is when you can turn your brain off and let your legs do the thinking – which is definitely a madcap proposition in your case. But have no fear, I will help you achieve my dreams."

Before he knew it, Rinoa had closed the gap between them and grabbed the hands he had on his hips, pulling them forward. Or would have if he had the inclination to move. Rinoa let go then.

"Ok, ok, I get you're not cool with the idea. I'll stop." she said. "Let's just enjoy the walk and the starry night sky then?"

"…That would be good." he replied, extended his right hand. She took it and they started to walk down the lit street beside him.

With the frenetic energy fueling their earlier shenanigans tapering off further with each step, she could hear the crickets again amid the returning silence. There were no thoughts sabotaging the peace this time, just comfortable near-quiet she'd been seeking from the moment she stepped outside the hotel's threshold. Rinoa tilted her head upward to look overhead. A bittersweet smile blossomed on her lips.

Her memories of waking up in the spacesuit seemed like so long ago, hazy from time and her then white-hot emotions cycling through the stages of grief so fast they compressed and then repressed from the moment Squall had saved her. In a way, she was glad her subconscious had protected her from the particulars of those few seconds/minutes by othering them to the realm of fragmented nightmares you no longer remembered with certainty the moment you woke up.

It allowed her to still see the stars and the night sky for what they'd always been to her – a beautiful and humbling landscape from afar, a canvas filled with her wishes and hopes weaved in its fabric.

But the more she walked with her head at this angle however, the more she wondered about why she did not bother to even think of including Squall in her original plans. Sure, she could have told herself that she was being considerate because he was tired, or that he wouldn't see the point of a walk at this time of night, but it didn't feel like the truth to her. If she had wanted to be considerate, she wouldn't have made him worry by the half-baked plan. His seeing or not seeing the point of a walk like this was irrelevant as it was not likely to change her own decision to go outside. She tilted her head down from peering into the heavens and then to the left, certain that the smile on her lips had shifted into a neutral look by now.

"…Squall?"

His gaze had been focused on the sidewalk ahead of them before turning to look at her.

"If I didn't explicitly say it before, I want you to know now that I'm sorry I didn't run this by you first. I just…thought you wouldn't care about taking a walk at this time of night after all that we did today back then. But the more I thought about it now, the more I realized that you wanting or not wanting to join in is no reason for not letting you know what I was actually doing instead of coming up with some lame excuse about getting some ice from the lobby's ice machine."

He gave her a warm look. "I appreciate the apology but I don't think changing your note would have made a difference."

Rinoa blinked. "What do you mean?"

"…When my mind is set on assuming the worst, no amount of evidence to the contrary will convince it otherwise." he quietly explained. "I wish I could change that but…"

"…it just stays with you no matter what you do or no matter how far you've come."

"Something like that." he replied rather listlessly. "It's…been worse lately with the stories I've heard and how much I haven't been around, knowing that I haven't done enough to help either situation."

Rinoa gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, fighting every ounce and inclination within her not to frown; she had no idea that he knew about the stories.

"Don't ever blame yourself for that. I can't change how they treat me no more than how they treat you – to expect you to be able to is just immature and placing the blame in all of the wrong spots because there's only so much you can do. Trying to liberate Timber taught me that the hard way." she began. "I remember when I first got here at 16, full of ideals and hell-bent to change things up and prove my father wrong. I learned pretty early on that I couldn't do it all and it used to discourage me so much that my best-laid plans kept on falling to pieces. It was so bad that I would tell the others I was going to my room in the train to nap when I was really going in there to bury my face in the pullout couch to scream into the pillows. I know, hard to imagine I was even more disorganized then, huh? Anyway, what I learned was how to pick my battles and always celebrate the small victories to keep my perspective in check. When you have such a huge goal to achieve, framing is everything because it can make the difference between thinking you're trying to fight a Ruby Dragon versus a big hoard of Grats. And we both know that while they're annoying, a bunch of Grats are far easier to deal with."

"So are fake zombie president body doubles."

She smirked. "Yes. Fake zombie presidents who tell us how much their butts hurt are too. How silly of me to forget."

"Extremely silly."

Rinoa's smirk widened some more - partially because the word 'silly' had actually left his mouth but mostly in relief. He might not have explicitly mentioned it, but she had a good feeling that her words had helped in some measure.

"Speaking of silly, I wonder how my successor is faring in dealing with Zone and Watts's ridiculousness. I mean, I was kind of wacky too so we all balanced each other out. I hope this guy didn't run for the trees yet."

Squall shrugged. "So long as the person you handpicked wasn't that one editor for the Timber Maniacs, they should be fine."

"Yeah. I just hope we'll be able to see them before we leave on Sunday. And that they'll forgive me for not keeping in touch and basically abandoning them."

"They won't." he stated with an eerie amount of certainty. "They know why you did what you did. Finding a replacement was the best thing you could have done for Timber's cause back when you weren't sure how this would all play out with your abilities."

"I know, but it still feels like I gave up sometimes. Or that I sealed myself up in a Garden-shaped bubble. Or-"

"Rinoa." Now it was his turn to give her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Starting anything when you stood to be seen as a sorceress figurehead could have been the recipe for disaster back then. You had valid reason to extricate yourself until things settled insofar as the war went. You can only do so much."

"I believe those were my words to you, Squall."

"Then I'm using them against you." he said. "Failing that, you could read the contract's extremely-vague use of words and notice the lack of executable termination clause for either party."

"If that was your dryly-delivered way of saying you're offering to make me un-sad by helping out with Timber, I appreciate it."

He leaned in to plant a brief kiss on her forehead. "It might have been."

Rinoa blushed. "I'll keep that in mind. In all seriousness though, I always forget that you're still technically bound to me by that thing. I mean, I suppose it's oddly reassuring to know that I have the ability to say, 'Mr. Leonhart, as your client, I demand that we have sexytimes in your office. Timber will benefit...really indirectly. Sorta. Kinda.'"

Squall tossed her a level look. "…Really Rinoa?"

The sorceress giggled, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek in kind. Just as she suspected, his skin felt really warm. "That's Satan to you, Mr. Leonhart."