Okay, First public try at this kind of thing. I don't own the rights to any of the characters or places etc [sigh. There're bits in Al Bhed, but in case you're not fluent (not that I am) I'll translate them. This story contains scenes of an adult nature, probably entirely of the Female homosexuality kind, so if that bothers you, turn back now! Slight possibility of Yuna\Rikku, but any chapter with such contain will have appropriately noticeable warnings.

I think that's everything for now... eh, that's what the edit feature is for.

Enjoy it... Please?

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The knock was quiet, but Yuna was still awake enough to hear it, even over the hum of the engines in the background. Raising her head from the pillow, she slid off her bed and made her way over to the door, enjoying the feeling of the soft carpet on her bare feet, ignoring as she always did when the long tail of her auburn hair banged against her legs.

She activated the door, and it slid open to reveal Rikku, looking quite worried, but just as cute as ever. At 17, she was as old as Yuna had been on their first adventure together 2 years before, but she had always been far more up-beat, and bouncy, and probably always would be.

"Yunie, can I talk to you?" Rikku was the only one who ever called her 'Yunie', and Yuna loved that she was something like that with her cousin.

"Rikku, you know you can always talk to me. I'd prefer it to be during the daytime, but since we're both up…" She moved aside to give Rikku room to come in, closing the door behind her, and following her back to the bed.

Rikku clambered up, and sat cross-legged leaning back on he hands, she was rocking side-to-side slightly, the same way she always did, and, as always, her smallish, but firm breasts swayed with her. Yuna sometimes wondered whether Rikku did it on purpose to get more attention, but doubted it, Rikku hardly needed another way to get attention.

"I was talking to Paine earlier, and she said some stuff that's been bothering me…" Rikku began her explanation as Yuna was crawling back onto her bed. Resting her back against the headboard; she curled her legs under her, and asked the obvious question;

"What kind of stuff?"

Paine was the, somewhat reclusive, girl who finished off the trio; Yuna had only met her when she joined up with the Gullwings, the group of Al Bhed sphere hunters Rikku had set up with her brother, the imaginatively named, Brother. Yuna still knew hardly any more about Paine than she had on their initial meeting.

"Well, it's kind of embarrassing, and I'm not exactly sure about it, but…"

"What?"

"Um, I think she might have been coming on to me…"

"Really…? Paine was flirting with you? When?"

Rikku blushed a little, dropped her eyes to he knees, and whispered "About two minutes before I knocked on your door…"

Yuna's mouth opened in a wide 'O' of shock, "Two minutes!? Rikku, what did you do? Run away and come straight here?"

Rikku nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Rikku… how sure are you she was flirting with you? What was she saying?"

The younger girl looked into her cousins eyes again, and repeated exactly what Paine had said, and done, even going so far as to put her hands on Yuna's upper thigh before sitting back and hugging her knees.

After a few seconds, Yuna recovered from the shock; "That's pretty certain."

Another nod was all the response Rikku gave.

"From the look on your face I'm guessing you're not into the whole girl-on-girl thing though?"

Rikku squealed in surprise, jerking backwards "Yunie!?"

"What? I'm not allowed to be open-minded?"

"Sorry Yunie, I'm just a bit jittery right now."

Yuna crawled over to hug Rikku, sitting next to her and comforting her; the way Lulu had when Yuna was growing up on Besaid.

"Do you want me to talk to Paine about it?" Yuna asked, realising just how motherly she sounded doing so. Rikku either didn't notice or was too concerned with her own problem to tease her about it, which made Yuna realise just how worried Rikku really was, normally either of them would have jumped on a chance to make fun of what they saw as her obsession with protecting people.

"Would you? Thanks Yunie... you don't think she'll be angry do you?"

After everything they'd been through together, especially getting over her fear of Thunder, it always amused Yuna to see just how frightened Rikku could be of Paine, although to be fair, most of the Celsius' crew were frightened of Paine, except Barkeep, but then, he was a Hypello, it was quite hard to tell.

"This is Paine we're talking about, and this is a pretty big secret she's shared with you... but don't worry Rikku. Even if she is mad, she's not going to hurt you... at least, I don't think she'd hurt you... Not really." Yuna realised exactly how little this particular bit of honesty was helping Rikku's state of mind, and changed the subject quickly. "Where do you think she is now?"

Rikku's response was muffled by the pillow she'd jammed over her head, so Yuna had to prise it away to get a clearer answer, which took a while, and by the time she had the answer she knew it would have been faster to just go and look.

It was only as Yuna walked through the door of the bar that it occurred to her that Paine might not be alone, and she was wearing nothing but a knee-length night dress; a fact which the slightly chilled air inside the airship was making abundantly clear. As the door slid open her worst fears were confirmed as Brother, captain of the Gullwings, and quite possibly the craziest person Yuna had ever met, spat out his drink and fell backwards off his bar-stool shouting loudly in Al Bhed;

"Ur Fuf, So femtacd tnaysc yna yhcfanat! Cra fyhdc sa! CRA FYHDC SA!!"

Paine rolled her eyes, and grabbed him by the Mohawk, too irritated to deal with his wild fantasies now, and worried about how Yuna might react if he switched language (not that she'd ever admit to that). She literally kicked him out of the room, calling after him, "Oui'na zicd milgo cra tuach'd cbayg Al Bhed! Banjand!"

Yuna cocked her head to the side, surprisingly cute in her confusion; "What was that all about?"

"You don't want to know, trust me."

Yuna looked slightly doubtful for a moment, but then accepted it with the same good grace she always did. If it was important, she knew, they wouldn't have spoken in Al Bhed. That was how it worked on the ship.

Paine picked up her glass and finished the contents quickly, drinking the liquor faster than was advisable. That was a worrying sign, she was clearly upset; although she'd been fairly lenient with Brother by her usual standards, so Yuna wasn't sure what to expect next. She was not, however, surprised when Paine said, "I know why you're here, so we'd better talk somewhere more private. I'd expect you to suggest your room, but Rikku's in there and that could be... embarrassing..."

Paine blushed almost imperceptibly, and tried to hide it by running her hands through her hair in exasperation feigned out of desperation. It didn't fool Yuna for a second though, she realised that however much she tried to take control; Paine was as confused and worried as anyone would be in her situation.

"I guess it's your room then..." Yuna said before Paine could raise any other suggestions, moving towards the door. Paine moved faster, as if to intercept her, but instead, she stood in the doorway and looked around before saying, "It's clear, let's go."

This secrecy was only confusing Yuna even further, but she decided that pressing Paine for details would only distract her from the real issue.

After a swift walk along the Airship's cabin level, they reached a door whose only distinguishing mark was that it had no distinguishing marks. All the other crew members had adorned their cabin doors with symbols or ornaments to show whose room was on the other side, but Paine had left hers blank. She punched in the security code, and Yuna noticed with some amusement that it was twice as long as any of the other security codes on the ship, even the code for the armoury. The inside of the cabin was, at first glance, as spartanly furnished as the door, but there were some personal touches, not least the rack of swords against the wall, near the bed.

Paine gestured Yuna through, and closed the door behind them, she sat on the edge of her bed, and waited. Yuna wasn't sure about whether she should sit on the bed or not, then realised that the only other place to actually sit was the floor, and so she sat next to her friend.

"How upset is Rikku?" Paine's forwardness was a little disconcerting.

"What makes you think she's upset, Paine?"

"Well the way she looked at me; then ran away, gave me a hint." Paine dropped her head into her hands, and she trembled as she tried to hold in her emotions. She relaxed slightly when Yuna's hand rested on her shoulder, "She's just confused, I mean, you haven't exactly told us a lot about yourself, and then you start flirting with her? I think Rikku's just a bit of shocked."

"She's shocked!?" Paine laughed ironically, "How do you think I feel? I suddenly realise exactly what it is that's felt so weird my whole life, and the girl who helped me realise it is terrified of the idea that I was thinking of her that way."

Yuna suddenly realised that no matter how scared Rikku was, Paine had to be infinitely more scared, because her life had just changed so hugely. She realised that Paine was staring at her...

"What?"

"Nothing, I just never appreciated how beautiful you actually are. I mean, I knew; but in the same kind of way you notice the beauty in a flower or something like that."

Yuna blushed at the compliment, and then started to worry slightly about where Paine's train of thought might be leading. Her earlier comments about being open minded came back to her and she realised that if she ran away too, she'd be doing just what Rikku'd done, but she gave herself, and Paine, one last chance to stop.

"What did you mean, exactly, when you said Rikku helped you realise?"

"I'm a lesbian Yuna, I'd have thought that wa..."

"I know that bit... I mean, do you love her, or was it just like what you just said about the flowers and everything?"

Paine pulled away, shrugging Yuna's hand off her shoulder. "You're trying to stop me aren't you Yuna? You want me to focus on Rikku so you don't have to deal with this stuff."

Okay, I know there was nothing explicit in this chapter, and yes it's a bit of a cliff-hangery thing, but hey, that's what chapter 2 is for... Yay!

I'd love some responses, but I don't mind if you just read it, I'm not doing this for the recognition.