Night was falling by the time Vaan finished, and Balthier had disappeared into his room. He went looking for Fran instead, and found her sitting by a campfire she'd built outside the ship, tending to some type of stew she had bubbling away in a camp oven.
"Was he worried I'd be jealous when I found out the truth and decided to back away before I could? Is that his problem? Because I'm kinda running out of ideas here!" he asked without any sort of explanation as he threw himself down beside her. "And if that is his problem, he's an idiot. I know I don't need to be jealous of you; it would be like if he was jealous of Penelo!"
Fran just looked at him, and stirred her pot, but he trusted that she understood what he was talking about. He was sure that she had to have the same uncanny partner-sense with Balthier that Penelo had with Vaan himself that made it so she always knew the second he thought somebody looked good.
Well, except for the weird blind spot Penelo had when it came to his feelings about Balthier, but he was pretty sure that that was just because she hadn't figured out yet that he liked guys sometimes too.
"Or is there something different about me that makes it so he doesn't like me any more? I don't feel any different, but I guess I wouldn't notice myself changing, huh?"
Fran sighed and set her ladle aside, and Vaan perked up, able to tell that she was about to impart some of her mysterious Viera wisdom on him.
"Vainer than he'd care to admit, is our Balthier," she said.
Vaan stared at her. "What?"
She gave him a look that told him he'd heard what she'd said, and she wasn't planning on giving him anything else yet.
"You can't be telling me that he's been staying away from me because he thinks he's not pretty any more." Vaan leaned forwards and grabbed Fran's shoulders, searching her face to try and find some sign that she was making a joke. "Tell me you're not saying that. That's way stupider than any explanations I thought of, and I came up with some really dumb ideas."
She pulled away from him to take up her ladle again, fill a bowl she had sitting nearby with her stew. "Eat with me. We'll speak."
Vaan would have said that he was a lot less interested in food than he was in answers, but the second after he took a bite for the sake of politeness he started to wolf it down. He'd forgotten what Viera cooking was like in the year since they'd last traveled together. He had no idea how she did it, since as far as he'd ever seen she used the exact same ingredients as everyone else, but everything Fran made tasted fresh and alive in a way no other food ever had.
"You must know, first; Hume medicine is not always good for we Viera," Fran said as she served herself, an apparent non sequitur. "Potions, remedies, battle medicine made for all people will do no harm, but others are not so benign."
"Hume medicine isn't good for everyone, got it," Vaan said, feeling a little insulted that she thought he wouldn't already know that. Even if he couldn't have worked it out on his own, he'd spent years being raised by a Bangaa; more than long enough to pick up that there were some Hume things Migelo couldn't touch for the sake of his health and work out that the same must be true of other species.
"Did Balthier tell you I was injured in Bahamut?" When Vaan nodded, she continued, "Twice, the rubble struck me. The first piece stole my consciousness, the second pinned my ear and would not be moved. Balthier needed to cut me free, and when even his knife did not make me stir he feared me dying. In his fear he forced into me medicine he'd once won by doing a favor for a wood-witch, hoping that her green magics would do my body more good than harm."
"What happened?" Vaan asked, getting drawn into the story in spite of how little it seemed to have to do with what he was really interested in learning. "It can't have been anything that bad, right? I mean, you're obviously okay now."
"I slept," she said simply. "Long, I slept. Balthier tells me I breathed, and swallowed when he poured water or broth into me, but nothing else. A month passed and more before my dreams finally let me free."
"Long enough for his leg to heal wrong..." Vaan said quietly.
"When I woke, Balthier had become older, far more than just the course of time. Pain, solitude, and fear had worked their barbs into him, and pulled away at his youth." She looked down at him seriously. "Vaan, our Balthier has no more room in his heart for a young man's games."
Vaan reeled away from her, stung. "So you mean all that time he was just playing with me?"
She shook her head slightly. "He is not the one he fears was doing the playing."
Somehow that was even worse. "How could he think that? I've been waiting around for him for a year! Who does that if they're not serious?"
"He had faith at first, then stories began to reach our ears of the new sky pirate haunting the skies near Rabanastre. We were proud to hear them. Until the rumors began of the pirate and the princess."
"Rabia? But I told him the whole story about how I was totally uninterested in her the day after I got here! If that was all he was worried about, he should have been fine after that."
"Only rumors they may have been, but the next time they begin about some other girl? Or the next?" She gave Vaan a gentle look, and set her bowl aside. "He has always trusted his fair face to keep the attention of those he wishes to hold onto, even when his personality can be trying. Now his trust in himself falters, and he wonders how long it will be before the rumors speak truly."
"Now he has a problem with rumors? Does he have any idea how many times I had to listen to someone who'd dragged me off to ask if that was really him they'd seen give me the 'boy, I wish I were him, I hear he and the ladies, hur hur, ask me to tell you when you're older' speech? I never worried about it, and if I have more self-esteem than he does now that's just creepy."
Fran stood in one graceful move and began walking back to the ship. "I've spoken enough. Now it is your place to choose what to do with what you've heard."