Hallelujah, a final fantasy x fanfic

Note: This takes place on the Airship, right before the gang goes off to defeat Sin. BTW.

---

I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music do you?

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled King composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

---

"Do you know where the Hymn of the Fayth came from?"

The question catches me off-guard. I turn to Yuna, who's smiling at me serenely, and I can't help the goofy grin that spreads across my face at the site of her. "No," I respond. "Where?"

Her smile turns haunting as she answers, "It's said that Lady Yunalesca sang it to Sin while she summoned the Final Aeon. It calmed Sin so much that Lord Zaon could defeat it."

If the question seemed strange, the answer is even stranger. I don't understand. She can say this with a smile? How? The woman had sealed away her own fate with that melody, yet, Yuna speaks of it with such a calm sweetness that she might as well had come up with them while frolicking in a field of flowers.

"Yeah? How did everyone know it? I mean, if she only sang it when she was inside Sin, where did the rest of Spira hear it?"

She sighs. "I don't know. Wouldn't it be funny if that wasn't even how it happened?" She clenches her hands into fists as tears filled her hopeless eyes. I don't know what to do. What should I do? I pull her into my arms. It's the first thought I have, the only thing I could think to do. "Everything else is a lie. Who says that isn't, too?"

---

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof

Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you

She tied you to a kitchen chair

She broke your throne, and she cut your hair

And from your lips she drew the hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

---

"I can't believe I believed it." She's not sobbing this time. I can tell without looking that the tears are flowing freely down her cheeks, but her voice is as it always is. "I believed it so blindly. How could I have been so stupid?"

"You weren't stupid," I say. What I want to add is, I'm the stupid one. I have no clue what to say to her. I'm just speaking, not thinking. I'm not bothering to. I wouldn't be able to, anyway. I'm just saying whatever comes to mind. I didn't expect this. How can she go from smiling to crying within the same minute? It doesn't make sense. I can't understand women for the life of me. "Yevon appealed to you because otherwise, what else would you have? Yevon was your life because you didn't have anything else to turn to, right? Its beautiful words drew you to it and you couldn't help but love it."

"And what have I to show for it? I devoted my entire life to Yevon, and it betrayed me. He betrayed me. He was all I had, and he betrayed me. And guess what?"

Her voice turns to little more than a bitter whisper now. "I still believe it."

---

Maybe I've been here before

I know this room, I've walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew you

---

I must say, I'm shocked. "No one came blame you for that, Yuna," I murmur into her hair, still trying to console her. "After seventeen years, it'd be weird for you to just ditch your beliefs, even if you know they're lies, right?"

"I know... but... that's not all. Believing his teachings... it just made everything make sense. If I thought about it, I would've known it wasn't true. I think in my heart I always knew, you know? It's just that it felt so... nice. So familiar. My father used to read to me from the teachings when I was young. Maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe I'm only clinging to my memories."

I pull away from her to look into her eyes, but she refuses to meet mine.

"Before I became an apprentice," she continued, "I felt so... alone. I had nothing to look forward to in my life, and nothing to look back on but saying goodbye. Maybe that's why. Maybe... maybe I just didn't want to be alone again."

---

I've seen your flag on the marble arch

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know

What's real and going on below

But now you never show it to me, do you?

---

I pull her back into my arms. What else can I do? I have no idea what to do... I just want to make her feel like herself again. I want to show her that she's not alone, but how? How can I say what I think if my lips refuse to form the words? They just won't allow me to tell her that she's not alone, that she'll never be alone as long as I'm here, that I'll always be there for her when she needs me, even if my only role is a shoulder to cry on. They won't let me say that I love her, that I always have and I always will, even after everything's over, after Sin is gone and I'm off in who-knows-where-land. Slowly, I pull away from her enough for my lips to meet hers. What else can I do? It's the only way I know to calm her, to quell her fears.

I don't tell her that I'll always be here for her. I don't have to. She knows. Had this conversation taken place earlier in our journey, I would have had to say it, but now I don't. We just know each other enough. She knows the workings of my mind, I know the workings of hers. Yuna no longer has to tell me what's going on inside, behind her mask. I just... know. I can't explain it any differently. I just know, in the same way she knows what I'm truly thinking.

"You're not alone," I whisper, pulling my lips from hers for only moments. The words catch the air, hanging, suspended in time momentarily. I want to show her the truth, and I suddenly know how. She knows, too, as she lays backward onto the blankets covering the cold metal floor of the Airship storage room we've claimed as ours. She allows me to ease myself on top of her. She allows me to calm her with my touch, allows my hands to wander over her thighs and hips and stomach. She allows me to untie her obi and remove it, letting the silk flutter to the ground nearby.

All of this she allows, but it isn't until I look into her eyes that I know she wants it.

"You're not alone," I whisper again, into her hair as she pulls me close to unhook my overalls. "You're not alone because I love you."

---

And remember when I moved in you

The Holy Dark was moving too

And every breath we drew was hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

---

Our bodies move together. Back and forth, steady as the tides, her lithe frame pressed against mine, her arms around my shoulders, and every breath, every gasp, every motion is a hopeful prayer to a nameless God.

---

Maybe there's a God above

And all I ever learned from love

Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you

And it's not a cry you can hear at night

It's not somebody who's seen the light

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, hallelujah

-----

Song is "Hallelujah," but, seeing as I only know it from the cover Rufus Wainwright, I can't say for sure who wrote the lyrics. Just know that it wasn't me.

I heard this song and just had to write this to it. Really, the entire thing was just an excuse for the very last part, which I couldn't get out of my head until I wrote it. Many thanks to Shad for sending me this song, many, many thanks to Sanno for getting me into Rufus in the first place, and many, many, many thanks to Mr. Wainwright for covering this song in the first place.