FicWad

I don't enjoy traveling, and I tell you that, but you just smile and say that you're glad I came, and I suppose that's the best way to start this all out. We're walking through a garden-it is where one of your Advisers, a young woman who is not Estharin, directed me when I arrived-and the sun is streaming through those strange oil-spill windows. You say that my mother would have loved it here, and I can't really say anything, because what do I know about that? I never knew her, and when you see that I'm not going to say anything, you say that she was like that too, when he would bring up something she didn't know or want to talk about.

You tell me I am a lot like her.

And you tell me I look happy, despite having traveled. You smile while you say that, and sling an arm over my shoulders, and ask if Rinoa and I have made it official and everything, but there's this edge to your voice, like you hope I haven't just decided to settle down.

And I am almost happy to inform you that, No, Rinoa and I haven't made anything official because Rinoa and I aren't seeing each other at the moment. You feign surprise, and ask me what's got me so happy. But now isn't the time, and I steer the conversation away-and you let me, because you know me, however distantly. We are not so different, you and I.

With nothing else to really speak of, except my 'news' and a few questions I have concerning it and the things surrounding it, I sift through my memories and thoughts and organize accordingly, until I pass upon a brief and quiet memory of Irvine returning from Esthar and taking me out to drink with gossip and telling me of you and-

I ask, very casually, how long you and Kiros have been an item. You sputter a little, blush, swear under your breath and mutter something about how you told Irvine not to tell me, and I can't help my laughter.

"What was I going to do?" I demand honestly. You shrug a little, and we walk for a while in silence. I'm not entirely sure if I'm expecting you to answer, or even if I want you to answer at all.

But after a while, you say you have to stop-"I'm getting old," you complain, and you sit on a bench that's set into a niche in the landscaping, and I just stand, looking over the flowers and shrubs and grasses and feeling very peaceful-and then, after a moment more, you ask, "Do you really care?"

"It's not any of my business."

"That's not what I asked, Squall." I shrug a little, and you sigh, rubbing your face. "Since I was seventeen."

"You were in the military?" You nod, playing with the chain that has your dogtags on it and spinning a ring on your pinkie with your thumb in an absent sort of gesture that is perhaps more telling than any words you could say to explain this to me.

You look like you're ready to explain though, and I sit beside you and say, in a blunt and precise manner, "You love him." After a moment, you just nod; you know you can't say anything, and you know that I don't care, really, so why try and explain it away or anything. Being genuine is a relief, I suppose; I do not get much of that in Garden.

When you ask again why I put up with travel, I smile a little, and I tell you, in that same precise sort of way, "Because I wanted to see the look on your face when I asked you what's so much better about men over women."

And you say, only half joking, "You could have just called," and you jostle my shoulder a little. I wonder if you would have done anything like this if you had raised me, and I had grown up in Winhill. Then again, if I had grown up in Winhill, none of this would have happened, and we wouldn't be sitting here, and I wouldn't have a nervous knot in my gut.

In a quiet voice, you ask why I wanted to know something like that, and I just shrug a little, staring at my fingers. I spin my Greiver ring idly on my finger, tap my foot against the cobble and contemplate the grass growing between the stones. You seem a little concerned with my silence, and you say as such, but I can't really get the words to come out.

So I tell you that after Irvine came back, and after we had been out drinking, something happened. Then, Rinoa and I parted ways, and he was there. I can't get the words I want out, but you smile a little, and I know you know what I mean. You jostle my shoulder again, laughing a little. I find myself smiling, relieved that I could say any of it.

You tell me, "He's a good kid. I think you two will be happy." Then, even more seriously than that, you impart me with fatherly wisdom: "The key to staying good with someone is to stay in the room."

I ask you if it's hard, being in love with a man. You shrug a little, and say, "It's not easy, that's for sure. But I don't think it's any harder than being with a woman." And, of course, you know such things, because you've had both. I say something like that, and you sputter and blush and mutter about how you don't want to have that conversation with me.

We sit in quiet then, and the sun moves through the garden. I hear someone coming before you, and training gets the better of me, because I jump to my feet. You laugh a little, peering over some shrubs and waving over the approacher-.

Kiros watches us with a curious sort of expression, like we were both doing something we ought not have been doing. You smile with this dopey sort of look, and tell me that dinner will be in a few hours. I know my dismissals, and I shake my head a little, wanting to tell you that you're old, and more than that you're my father, and you shouldn't be having secret rendezvous in a garden.

But I can't say much of anything, because you're smiling at him, and I vaguely remember Irvine saying that you are both comfortable; and you saying that you've been together since you were seventeen ...

And I wonder if I'll ever be happy like that.