Hope
Author: Chaos Valkyrie
First Conceptualized: September 14, 2006
Posted One Shot: April 15, 2008
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy X. So there.

Author's Note: Just a little ficlet that came to me awhile ago. I had started pondering FFX from Yuna's perspective, and this emerged. I liked it so much, I even decided to clean it up a bit and share it. Enjoy! See my profile for more updates.

It was a well known fact that people in Spira married young. Because face it – who lived long enough to get old? With Sin's rebirth, one was lucky if they'd see the next sunset with their beloved, much less the next fifty years.

That was why she'd become a summoner. She'd never been interested in any of the island boys when she was young. No matter how hard she'd tried, she just couldn't see any of them as more than a friend or a brother. A few awkward kisses down on the beach at sunset when she was fifteen had settled the matter quite firmly. She felt love for that boy, but it was the same all-encompassing love she felt for everyone. And she didn't want to settle for anything less than that love she had seen her parents' share. That same longing that drove her father to recklessly fight Sin.

So when, after her first summoning, she looked up from Kimahri's grip to see him standing there, forbidden in the cloisters, she wasn't sure what the clenching of her heart meant. And as she grew to know him better, she wasn't sure what this longing in her heart was. He was irreverent. He was obnoxious. He was proud and arrogant and reckless and everything that was opposite to her.

But he could make her laugh as no one else could. He would smile at her after a battle and she could feel herself smiling unreservedly back. He wore his heart on his sleeve and she knew, however goofily he might act, that he was terrified of this strange world of theirs, and yet he kept marching forward. Beside her.

She didn't know how to tell him at first. That defeating Sin meant her death. The first excuse she gave was that he wasn't her guardian, and would be leaving them before the end, and so he didn't need to know. She didn't want to see the same sort of pity in his eyes that she got from the other Spirans, nor did she want him to distance himself from her emotionally as Lulu and Wakka had done when she made her decision.

But then the excuses ran out. She asked him to become a guardian, because she couldn't bear the thought of him leaving. And then there was no real reason to keep it from him any longer. Because he would have to learn the truth at some point. But she couldn't bring herself to tell him, because every time he started telling her of his plans for the future after Sin was defeated, she couldn't bring herself to turn his world upside down again. She couldn't tell him that his plans were useless…

Because she didn't want them to be useless. Because she wanted to live on, with him, in the Spira they could create. She wanted to love him so badly that her body ached whenever he drew near. His smile became a dagger to her heart every time he so much as glanced at her. Because he was shattering everything she thought she had wanted to do with her life, ripping her dreams and her goal and remolding it into something she couldn't recognize.

She had thought that a marriage with Seymour, however false, might set her back on the right path. It didn't, it only made the ache worse. And then, when he kissed her in the Sphere Pool…

This was no awkward kiss on the beach. This was no simple brotherly peck. She felt on fire as they sunk into the pool. She felt bereft when the moment was over and they emerged from the water. She felt content as they made plans for the future – together. And now she understood what her father and mother had felt. And now she knew that it was too late to turn back or run away from either fate.

And so they kept marching forward. Together. And when he smiled at her, she smiled back. And when he grabbed her hand, she gripped it tighter. When they opposed Yunalesca, she threw the blitzball for him. And when they faced the end, she hugged him tightly as Sin fell forever.

And the dream shattered. She, who was supposed to die, lived on. And he, who had pushed them all to live, faded back into a dream. She tried to hug him and failed. She tried to grasp his hand, only to watch her own pass through his. All she could do was smile sadly in return as he bid them all farewell.

But she didn't give up hope. She lived with it daily, the belief that this wasn't over, that they'd meet again. Because hope was the gift he'd given her. His hope was what defeated Sin. His hope was what had caused her to live. And so, in his memory, in his love, she kept hope as their child, a memory of him.

For after all, she'd already done the impossible once. How hard would it be to do it again?

End Note: A sad little perspective thing, but hopeful. Because you know that in FFX-2, her hope pays off in the end.