Final Fantasy belongs to SquareEnix, not me.

This is the direct sequel to Paradise. I recommend reading that one first, because there are references in it that won't make sense if you haven't. It's short and lemony.

Sanctuary

Chapter One

"You're a cold-hearted bitch, Farron," Fang spat at me the morning before we arrived in Oerba. We had camped at the foot of Taijin's Tower the previous evening, or the rest of the party had at least. I had opted to scout alone. I was lightly sleeping atop the ravine overlooking the camp when I was awoken by the angry warrior. I stayed seated with my back against the rock, not intimidated by her crossed arms as she stood above me.

"What's your problem?" I sighed, but I had an idea about why she was upset. I wasn't surprised she knew about what happened two nights earlier.

"What's my problem? Someone I care for got used by someone I used to respect. Is this what soldiers do to girls on your planet, shag 'em then toss them to the side?"

I cringed internally at her accusation.

"I don't know what you're talking about? I didn't realize that because we had sex we were suddenly in love. Is that how things work on Pulse?

"Gran Pulse!" Fang corrected, even more pissed off than ever. "I thought you were an honourable person; I never would have told Vanille how to get to the beacon if I had thought you would treat her this way!"

I stood up and tried to stare her down. Now I was pissed off.

"Look Fang! I never made any promises to Vanille, and as I recall she didn't ask for any! Did either of you think that I was going to further compromise the mission or the lives of our group to make it happen again?"

"Don't act like you're ignoring her for the good of everybody else!" Fang yelled practically nose to nose with me. "If you don't care for her, tell her so she can stop feeling like she has a chance with you."

"!..." I didn't know how to respond. As angry as I was with Fang for goading me into a fight, what she was saying was correct. Not that I wanted her to know I thought that. I turned my back to her and crossed my arms. "I'll talk to her, but you leave this between her and I—"

"DIE!" The voice of Snow screamed in the distance close to the tower entrance. Our team mates had started without us and began our day of fighting. It's not that Taijin's Tower was particularly difficult to get through; it was just tedious to have to rearrange the seven tiers to get to the top. There was no time in between those hours to talk to Vanille but several times we were able to make eye contact. If she was upset with me, it was hard to tell because she seemed just as cheerful as ever.

Once we reached the top of the tower, Fang suggested we split up to complete two objectives. One party would fight the Fal'Cie, Dahaka while the other completed the task of the Cieth Stone on the main floor. She came up with some reason why it had to be the three women who took the secondary task to which everybody else agreed to; all I heard was "Let's do a mission that does not get us any closer to saving Serah and also gets you alone with Vanille for a while."

Yippee.

As we boarded the elevator, Fang took a seat at the far side, leaving me to control the machine. The ride itself would take several minutes playing a twinkling song meant to lure the monster out of hiding. Vanille said something quietly to Fang as the ride began, but soon was sitting next to me. Her face was serious.

"Fang talked with you this morning," she began with a sheepish tone in her voice. "I just wanted you to know I didn't put her up to it."

I looked over to Fang who was staring out the second exit pretending to ignore us. I kept my voice low.

"She was only looking out for you. She didn't say anything that wasn't true."

Vanille's eyes became wide as if her mind was saying 'what could she have said?' instead, all that nervously came out was "Oh?"

I couldn't help but smirk as I responded, "she only suggested that I'm not handling things with you well, and that perhaps I should be upfront with my intentions."

Her eyes fell low and she looked away.

"You don't have to say anything," she said shyly. "I understand how things are. I know Serah is your priority, but also that you have to think about the safety of our whole group. You shouldn't have to worry about…"

Her voice trailed away and though she didn't finish her sentence and as much of an emotional dummy I am, even I could hear the hurt. With my free arm, the other of course still holding the elevator lever I brought her to me and held her.

"I'm sorry Vanille," I said sincerely. "I care for you, I do. When this is over, maybe we could talk about things and decide what they mean together."

Her face was in the crook of my neck with her arms about my waist. I suddenly felt very protective of her, and more ashamed than ever of my previous day's behaviour.

When we returned to camp after our eventful night together, I tried to behave as if nothing happened. Because of what I had seen as the sun rose, I was able to pretend that the night was a normal evening of scouting and sleeping apart from the group. If Vanille had thought to take a moment to confess to the gang what had actually happened, she was forced to conform to my lie since I was the first to discuss the night.

I noticed right away she returned to calling me Lightning, which suited me fine, but during the day she made several attempts at flirts and stealing affection, all of which I rebuffed. I even stopped making eye contact to further discourage her; perhaps also to discourage myself from weakening my stance.

As I held her, I couldn't understand how she could be so forgiving of me; but as her breath travelled up my neck, my gentle feelings became anxious.

"Oerba," she whispered into my ear. "It will be our safe place. Be with me tonight."

The rational part of me wanted to tell her to wait and see, because how could she know that was true when all other villages we'd gone through were barren and dangerous.

The other part of me, that part that had tried not to acknowledge the eyes she could feel burning into her as they rode chocobos the previous day. This part suffered further when as revenge for ignoring her, had to watch as the girl went ahead of her so she'd have to get a good look at her perfect backside bouncing in a suggestive rhythm. The part couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to try to have sex atop a giant moving bird. This part of me uttered "uh-huh" as her hand cupped my breast before I had a chance to remind myself about the dangers of emotional entanglements in a time of war.

It was then I remembered Fang was only ten feet away and probably heard everything, but briefly, I didn't care. I brushed my lips down her neck and felt her pulse quicken as her breath caught in her throat. I left a faint kiss on her shoulder, tempted to find her lips but leaving it at that when I realized that starting something now would make it hard to stop. Instead I warmly met her eyes which were half-closed with parted lips and I knew then that her feeling was mutual. The final notes of the song the elevator played thankfully, and I hoped then that the fight would be easy so that we could quickly finish the final leg of our journey tonight.

Unfortunately, that was not the case.

The winged piece of shit we had to fight (whose name I forget since things on Gran Pulse tend to have terrible names), was a real bastard.

Fang was the one who got to do most of the real fighting with Vanille and I having to concentrate our abilities on defenses and healing. It's not that it was physically strong in particular, but its strategy was to lay a dozen curses on us along with a strong poison before flying far enough away until it could be strong enough to do it again.

It was taking a long time, and as strong as Fang was, I was becoming angry that she hadn't killed it already. Irrationally, I was blaming her for keeping us away from Oerba and I switched strategies so that I was attacking as well. Because of this, Vanille was forced to oversee all of the healing alone.

"Lightning, let me draw its attacks!" Fang yelled after a nasty string of ailments left us sick and exhausted. I wanted to vomit, but I was not ready to slow down.

"No, just hurry up and kill this fucker!" I screamed. It was almost dead. You can tell these things because their behaviours become more desperate.

Fang had managed to climb onto its back and was bashing its skull as I shot at its chest. In retaliation, it thrust itself backwards against the ceiling, and then spun around so that the fragments of sharp metal it had loosened would whip down upon us on the floor.

Vanille, who had been neglecting to heal herself and was affected by the slow curse, was struck.

"Aahh!" she screamed as the slash down her arm began to bleed profusely which could barely be heard by the sudden cracking sound.

Fang and I both saw it coming, the massive splinter the monsters wing had just clipped.

"Vanille MOVE!" Fang screamed, too far away to do anything as I raced towards the stumbling girl. My hands had barely touched her when time suddenly began to slow down.

I didn't feel it enter my back; but a feeling of horror did strike me as I saw it emerge from my chest and somehow quickly realizing that it could pierce the both of us if she didn't fall back far enough. As fortune would have it, my body was enough to halt its progress; its tip did not extend past the bent knee I landed on. Vanille had blood on her face where she lay on the ground. Mine.

I couldn't hear her scream, or whatever sound was coming out of her wide open mouth as her eyes burst wide filled with terror. I don't remember my last thoughts before I fell unconscious, but I do recall a feeling. Anger: Anger for all the things I had lost, my family, my home, my sister; also for lost opportunities. If I died, whatever met me on the other side was in for a world of hurt.

Then I blacked out.