"How grievous not to know the address of one's soul!"

Book Five: Of Which the End Does Not Resemble the Beginning, IV: The heart beneath the stone

Les Misérables – Victor Hugo

CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Empty Garden

Tidus

There had been days like this before. Days he had worn down the soles of his yellow sneakers from pacing, days his fingers had grown cold around the bars of the black iron gates, waiting for her.

And Tidus had never been patient. He had shown up at the Abes try-outs on his thirteenth birthday, all flash and arrogance, and the old Captain had laughed and told him to grow a few inches and come back in three years. Of course, Tidus hadn't given up there, arguing his case heatedly all the way back to the entrance gates. Sorry, kid, the Captain had apologised gruffly. Hold onto that tenacity for me - it'll make you a great Blitzer someday.

It was that same coiled frustration, that same rushing current of determination he had felt as he watched the Abes Captain walk away from him, that had brought him yet again to the gates of Yuna's empty garden.

Three weeks had passed without a whisper of the Southern girl. At first that had not raised any suspicion in him – her old man undoubtedly being the culprit, spiriting her off to the Zanarkand Opera House or Chocobo park or some other feeble substitute for a Blitz game.

Yet as the days passed and the garden gates grew lonely, Tidus had begun to wonder what was keeping her. Her father had been on leave from the Crusaders before after all, and it had never stopped her from coming to the garden in the evening for a hushed, stolen conversation or an eager exchange of the day's news. And Yuna's neighbours were just as in the dark as he – those who had known the family at all spoke of the gentleman of the house as mysterious and aloof, with a pretty little daughter he kept hidden from sight.

But Tidus had always known where to find her. Past the gates and past the ivy and past their favoured moonlit spot, Tidus drove deep into the beating heart of the garden, dipping under tree branches that caught in his hair like long winding fingers. Beads of moonlight escaping through the leaves shifted on his skin and the grass was long and wild, grazing his ankles as he took long, guarded steps. It looks like it hadn't been cut in weeks, he realised. Like no one even lives here.

Yet there were traces of her everywhere. A lonely watering can; a collection of Besaidian seashells arranged just so; a bird table decked with strings of Macalania nuts. Even the hibiscus grew more thickly here. Despite his frustration, Tidus found himself intrigued by this new hidden world, ever desperate to understand the Yuna he had met at the Sending.

As he stepped through the last of the hibiscus, the unpolished stone wall which bordered the garden came into his view, decorated by rainbeaten chalk drawings. Drawn to them, Tidus soon realised they were not drawings at all, but a set of Summoner's glyphs. He recognised some of the forms from the stained glass windows of the old Yevon Temple in C-West. Despite the religion's fallen glory, its symbols were undeniably beautiful. Tidus followed them and tried not to think about the way Yuna had looked when she danced.

Soon the glyph chalkings began to fade into what looked to be Al Bhed verb forms – the kind Tidus was forced to write over and over in his youth until he learned them by memory. Cra ryt ra ryt drao ryt ryjehk ryt. Drao ghuf ra ghufc ghufehk ghaf. Fa ku ra kuac E ku kuehk kuha. He studied the wall in surprise. He knew Yuna had been embarrassed by her lack of Al Bhed when she arrived in Zanarkand and had been trying to learn, but he never suspected she had taken the task so seriously. The chalk workings bore evidence of a deep, concentrated labour. She wanted to bring herself closer to Rikku, he thought, his heart breaking. To all of us.

Tidus traced the graceful loops of her letters sadly with his fingertip. He realised vaguely that he had never seen Yuna's writing before. It was spidery and elegant, like her in every aspect. She had - he had - they had - having - had, the workings translated from Al Bhed. They know - he knows – knowing - knew. We go - he goes - I go - going - gone. He pulled his eyes away, pretending not to be troubled by the words.

Weaving between a nursery of newly planted shoots, the house at last came into view. It was typical North Zanarkand style, plump white marble that belled outwards, enveloped by electric blue floodlights. There were no signs of a disturbance – no broken glass or kicked-in doors - it looked safe, untouched.

That gave Tidus some hope, and so too did the lonely-looking chain of rainbowed Besaidian beads hanging outside an upper level window - the kind Yuna wore in her hair. He had asked her about them once, when they were sitting by the fountain in the East-A plaza.

"Oh, these? All Besaidian girls have them."

"Do the guys have 'em too?" He leaned forward conspiratorially, grinning.

"No," she laughed, batting him away. "They are usually made for daughters by their mother, or sometimes between sisters. My teacher Belgemine made these for me. I miss her so much sometimes."

Tidus felt sorry for her then, and reached out to brush the beaded braid with a finger, the gesture utterly unconscious. It swayed gently for a moment between her hair and the swell of her cheek, which was glowing brightly. Yuna, clearly embarrassed, fumbled for something to say. She had still been so shy back then.

"Ah – and, ah - they have different colours for different occasions. It's not really interesting," she said promptly, mistaking his affectionate smile for teasing.

"Go on, Yuna. I gotta learn more about Besaid so I can make Lulu bite her tongue once in a while, right?"

"Mm," she nodded, smiling herself. "Well, at the coming-of-age – I mean to say, the sixteenth nameday - the beads are blue – and when the first child is born, scarlet, you see? And – ah... When Besaidian girls are married, they are pure white." And she had turned her head away from him in a quick gesture, hair hiding her face, and spoke no more on the subject.

At the memory of her blushing face and the flooding affection that came with it, something inside Tidus snapped. He dipped to take a handful of gravel into his hands and threw it towards Yuna's window with a Blitzer's precision, though with significantly less force. It hit the glass with the sound of hollow rain.

"Yuna!" he rasped, heart thundering.

He hesitated in raising his voice, ever under the spell of the secrecy of their meetings.

You know what? he thought to himself suddenly. Screw it. If the old man heard, so what. Tidus could deal with the bastard. Their confrontation had been a long time coming.

"YUNA!" he thundered at her window. "YUNA! HEY! TALK TO ME, DAMNIT!"

He watched for the sudden flash of the lights, for that old man of hers to come storming out.

Yet nothing came, while Tidus waited and waited in the despairing silence, looking up at her lifeless window like a child betrayed. The pungent, too-sweet scent of hibiscus surrounded him, haunting, rendering her absence almost tangible.

When he took his leave at last, his body cold and defeated from the tense anticipation of waiting for her, he found that same scent following him on the long road home.

Jecht

The dream was an old dream.

Bevelle had been a classy city. They didn't have to watch their backs for street thieves like back in Luca, or take pains to evade planks of construction wood and leap unfinished bridges like in Kilika. So when he found himself guarding his Summoner alone while Auron and Jyscal were gathering supplies, Jecht expected the grand sparkling tour, especially from a native noble like Braska.

So when the Summoner had instead expressed his desire to make a particular visit to the slum district, Jecht had been nothing if not suspicious.

A sign hung precariously from the doorway of the inn Braska had led him to, The Evrae spelled out in flaking painted letters. The Summoner himself seemed saddened by the crumbling state of the old building. Then again, all kinds of things made Braska sad. He looked sad when he saw Al-Bhed beggars on the side of the street, sad when little girls gave him flowers, sad when Jecht talked about the boy. The Summoner laughed at Jecht's jokes and even offered a few of his own from time to time, but the man was godsdamned sad down to his bones. It just made Jecht work all the harder.

Yet when he saw the Al Bhed markers on the door, even he couldn't contain his disbelief.

"Are you kiddin' me?" he rasped.

Braska gave him a long, searching look. Even the hardest man would flinch away from those eyes. "The Al-Bhed bother you?" the Lord asked, unnervingly quiet.

Jecht shifted his shoulders. "Hell no, Braska, I don't care if they got green eyes, bug eyes, eyes falling out of their head. But there's gotta be a classier place for you than this, we ain't that broke."

"I have business here," Braska said with mystery. "We will not be staying the night."

Jecht grunted. Braska's word was always final, though what the man had to do with some Al Bhed hiding hole was beyond him. Quickly Jecht put himself before the Summoner - he figured he should, being Braska's Guardian and all. And Auron – the mirthless bastard - was always telling him to be "more vigilant."

Yet inside, it looked like most of the other Al Bhed agencies Jecht had wandered into in his time, nothing to shout Home about. There was a wide desk with a machina buzzer and something in a cage that clearly objected to its confinement. Jecht almost lost a finger when he tried to stroke its feathers, while Braska spoke in undertones to the old bat who ran the place.

"Wait here," the Summoner told him, when an inn porter came to lead him to his 'business'.

But Jecht soon got bored of the old harridan on reception trying to offer him natural Al Bhed remedies, finally deciding to go outside for a breath of fresh air. He stayed close, in the shelter of the doorway, flexing his arm muscles and trying to massage his tender shoulders to distract himself. Uncomfortably he wondered what it was that had brought Braska to this place. Damnit. He could make Braska laugh, Auron curse, and Jyscal flinch like a little girl, but none of them took him seriously. No, that ain't fair, he told himself. Braska atleast had shown him more respect during the Pilgrimage than the most reverant Blitzball fan had back in his Abes days. But the man's walls were proving damned impossible to scale.

He was musing on how much the high and mighty Auron might know about his Lord's connection to the Al Bhed when a figure began to emerge out of the dusk air. A child, he realised as the silhouette sharpened – tiny, absurdly doll-like. She was carrying a huge bucket in one hand and a pair of leather sandals in the other. She was limping on one leg, trying to hop.

She froze when she saw Jecht leaning in the doorway.

"You alright, kid?" he called, taking an involuntary step towards her.

The child stared at him for a long moment, probably deciding whether to be frightened by him or not. "I have a bottle in my foot," she said at last from a distance, all seriousness.

Used to child talk, Jecht took her meaning immediately, peering closely at her reddened toes. A shard maybe, but the fact she's still walking means it ain't as bad as all that.

"A whole bottle, huh?" he played along. "That's gotta hurt. C'mere and sit down, kid."

Jecht gestured to the rickety old bench outside the Inn, where he sat tentatively, waiting to see what she would do. To his surprise she came without question, and lowered herself carefully before him on the hot dry ground.

Jecht retrieved a fine needle from the travel kit Auron had reluctantly thrust upon him at the beginning of the pilgrimage. When she saw what he meant to do, the girl delicately set her hands out behind her for balance and lifted her tiny white foot, just in time for him to catch it up in his hands. She looked up at him calmly, the slight tremble of her lip the only indication she was in any discomfort at all.

Damnit, it was so hard not to think of the boy.

"Why weren't you wearing your shoes, sweetheart?" he asked while he gently probed the wound, to distract himself, and her from the pain.

"They broke again," she said solemnly.

Poor damn kid. Her clothes were practically hanging off her. Curious though; she didn't seem to have the swirls marking her an Al Bhed. She had a handsome little face, heart-shaped like a native Bevellian. So how'd she end up in the slums?

Jecht realised that while indulging his own curiosity, she had been regarding his tattoo with interest. He laughed aloud; the damn thing was hard to miss.

"You know what that means?" he asked her. She shook her little head, hair the colour of dark honey falling over her eyes.

"What, you never heard of Blitzball, kid?"

"They play Blitzball in the river sometimes. There's a spiky ball." And she twisted her little white hands this way and that, miming, almost losing her balance before she remembered to hold her weight again.

Jecht smiled at her. "This here's the symbol of the Zanarkand Abes, kid, the greatest Blitzball team in Spira!"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, then, after a pause, continued, "are you going to play in the river?"

"Not quite, sweetheart," he laughed. "In Zanarkand, we play in a great stadium, all lit up – that's right, even at night!" Her eyes were so wide and hungry that she didn't even noticed as Jecht dislodged the glass shard at last from her wound. Enjoying the attention, he released her foot and leaned forward, folding his arms on his knees like an old storyteller. "Great Blitzball tournaments are held there; the stands are always full – whole cities come to watch from all over S-"

"Meddma suuh!"

Jecht and the little girl both turned, startled by the call. An Al-Bhed woman was standing in the doorway to the Inn. She looked almost ghostly, pale green eyes staring out from underneath a halo of silvery blonde hair. She wore a watered sort of beauty, which Jecht thought would look fuller if she weren't so thin and frail. Her face bore the marks of fresh tears; it was plain she had recently been crying. She inclined her head briefly in Jecht's direction, seemingly untroubled by his presence.

"There is a gentleman waiting to see you," she told the girl, her voice pretty as a bell despite the tearful hitch in her breath. So the mom's around, atleast. I guess. Truth be told the Al Bhed looked like she was going to start crying again any moment, and nothing made Jecht more uncomfortable than watching someone cry.

"Go on, sweetheart," he told the little girl hastily. "Your Momma's waitin' on you."

The girl rose to her feet, then picked up her sandals and ran to her mother, graceful as a dancer despite her injury. Halfway to The Evrae she paused, and, remembering her manners, turned to bow to Jecht in the Yevonite way. The way Braska always did.

Hey Dad.Dad.

The damn kid had looked so much like Braska. Why hadn't he seen it?

Dad!

Why hadn't he said anything?

"Hey Dad, Dad! Wake up!"

The boy. Blurry fear seized Jecht for a moment as his eyes snapped open and Tidus' sheepish face came into focus. "What?" he panicked. "What is it?"

"Relax, Dad." Tidus blinked, looking briefly alarmed by his father's reaction. "I just thought you shouldn't be sleeping on the couch again. You're an old man, your back's gonna give out one of these days."

Jecht made a half-hearted swing at him which Tidus dodged easily. "Watch it, boy. Ain't so old I can't kick your scrawny hide to Mi'hen highway." He rolled to a sitting position and rubbed his eyes groggily with the heels of his hands. "What time is it?"

"Lamps aren't lit yet," said Tidus while kicking off his sneakers.

"You're back early again tonight, boy." Tidus was usually out all hours of the night with his Blitzer coach and Cid's kid, but lately he had been turning up back at the houseboat much earlier. "What reason do your friends have to ditch your sorry ass this time?" He snickered at his own joke.

"Ha ha," came the flat response, unfazed. The boy seemed to be getting less touchy these days. "I just… lost something, okay? I can't concentrate."

Jecht studied his face for a moment; the unmistakable unease written all over his features. That ain't all it is, boy, he thought, but what he said was, "Your Mom would have said, look in the last place you saw it."

"I already did." Tidus hesitated, then offered, "It always bugged me when she said that."

Jecht snorted, surprised at the comment. "Me too, kid," he admitted.

Tidus smiled faintly; then seemed to catch himself and quickly smoothed his face, scratching the back of his head like he did when he was nervous, and had done ever since he was a kid. "Well – g'night."

Jecht watched him go with a raised eyebrow. The boy seemed more agitated than anything, probably Tournament nerves, or another fistfight with that damned Al Bhed friend of his, Gippal. Nothin' to shout Home about.

Besides, Jecht had his own troubles. First the burglary, then the warning from Rin, and now Braska was back in his head, flooding him with old memories that he'd taken pains to forget. You've been sleepin' a long time, Braska old friend. So why are you givin' me trouble after all this time? Jecht didn't dream of the pilgrimage very often. Hell, he rarely dreamed a thing. Maybe, he thought, it was because he'd stopped drinking so much now. The bottle goes, the dreams return. Jecht scowled, and raised himself from the sofa. It was damn annoying.

Yet at the same time, he thought, picking up the boy's discarded sneakers and setting them by the door… everything felt somehow clearer.

Tidus

He slept fitfully that night. He dreamt of the night at Rin's bar, of finding Dona, except this time it was Yuna who lay above the bloody star, and when he bent to touch her pale face, she dissolved into clouds of pyreflies. He woke in a cold sweat, blinking into the dusk-light that filled his room.

Finding sleep impossible after the unpleasantness of his dreams, he lay awake for a while, turning his glow-in-the-dark Spiran globe over and over in his hands, tracing the lands with his fingertips. Again and again he returned to Besaid, reading the names of landmarks there - Besaid village, Old Yevon Temple, The Western Sands. There's nothing for her there, he convinced himself. She's a Zanarkander now.

As soon as dawn had broken, Tidus rose and dressed, pulling on a black vest and denim shorts in the style of his Blitz uniform. The new day had sent a fresh burst of adrenaline surging within him. He told himself the empty garden had been a bad dream. He had overreacted. He had missed something. She would be back any day. All he had to do was persevere.

He found himself walking his sneakers down that old familiar path from D-East to B-North. Musicians and street performers were setting up, waiting for the early morning influx of children, plucking strings and stretching muscles. He accepted a free newspaper and read it half-heartedly until he realised it was a Youth League propaganda piece about public access to spheres and tossed it disgustedly into a trash can at the next corner.

Somewhere in Yuna's neighbourhood there was a child laughing, shattering the morning hush. As he came closer, he realised the laughter was not coming from the streets, but Yuna's own garden. The realisation sent him running the last distance, pulse racing.

As he approached Yuna's house, the garden gates rushed to meet him. His hands slammed around the bars as he finally saw, not Yuna behind them, but a small boy, standing in the middle of the flower patch with a long stick in one hand.

"Hey! Kid!" he called, panic coursing through his veins.

The boy dropped the stick, startled, and turned to stare at Tidus with his mouth gaping open like a fish.

"Kid!" Tidus tried again. "What are you doing here?"

The boy spun in a blur and ran into the shelter of the trees. Tidus vaulted over the gates without hesitation, sneakers smacking on the other side and sped after him towards the house, finding the past evening's path easily in the daylight.

Inside the house someone was singing an old Yevonite song in soft soprano – a woman's voice – not Yuna's "-ields you wander, fills your dreams, disturbs your slumber! Oh an otherworld awaits you! an otherworld it takes you!"

Near the tinted glass door from the house into the garden he could see items sprawled across the grass, looking like they had just been unpacked. The boy was standing amongst them, looking ready to bolt any minute. He was ostensibly native; ash blonde with a Zanarkander nose. Unlikely to be a relation of Yuna's.

"Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you kid," Tidus said carefully, trying not to startle him. "You live here?"

The boy nodded timidly, biting his lip so hard that Tidus could see the skin turn white.

"Okay, so - you live with Yuna, right? You know Yuna, little guy?"

The boy shrugged. In his frustration, Tidus took an involuntary step towards him.

"Pacce!"

The singing had stopped. A woman emerged from the door of the house and hurried towards them, face turning fierce when she saw Tidus.

"What are you doing in here?" she barked, gesturing Pacce towards her with her flurried hand movements. "Who are you?"

Tidus introduced himself quickly, showing her the silver chain that marked him a member of the Zanarkand Abes. The woman relaxed visibly, but still appeared vexed by the intrusion. When he explained he was looking for the old tenants, she became defensive.

"We bought this property from a third party, I had no contact with the previous owner," she snapped. "I'm sure if they thought it was important they would have left a new address for you.

Tidus had no choice but to leave then. He walked numbly from the garden as the devastating realisation sank into his bones, the child's renewed laughter like white noise, something in the distance.

Why would she up and leave like that? he asked himself, consumed with confusion. What had changed? Was it the Sending? Did it upset her so much that she had begged her old man to take her away? She had been so quiet that night… but then, so had he, musing on the mysteries of her life and how different she had looked when she stopped being Yuna, and started being the Sender.

He was only half surprised when he realised he had walked himself to Lulu and Wakka's door.

"Hey brudda. Any sign of her?" Wakka asked as he met Tidus at the door.

Lulu was waiting in the salon. Tidus sat down on the chair in front of her and bent forwards until his forehead almost touched his knees, driving his hands into his hair, wretched.

"I'll take that as a no, ya?" Wakka said light-heartedly. Tidus didn't have it in him to reply to the joke. "Listen brudda, I gotta go handle the promo for the semi-finals. Sorry Ti. She'll turn up."

In Wakka's absence the stillness stretched long and unbearable, while Lulu in her harsh black stood poised before him like a judge.

"She's gone, Lu," he said quietly.

"You're sure?"

"I went by her house this morning." The admission lingered; the mage was perceptive enough to know to the rest. "I can't stand it," he confessed.

The silence which met his revelation only served to heighten Tidus' unease. Lulu was always the one to sweep in, take charge, make things right. That was who she was.

"I don't understand. Why would she do it?" He forced himself to meet those crimson eyes. For once, they were not sympathetic.

"I believe that the most reasonable explanation is that Yuna left as an obligation to her father," Lulu said coolly. "However, that may only be part of it. If her leaving was… encouraged by a belief that you did not particularly hold her in any higher esteem than the rest of us, would you blame her?"

Now it was Tidus' turn to be silent.

Lulu sighed. "She was gracious, generous, kind. She adored you. You knew how she felt about you, didn't you? What was holding you back?"

"It wasn't like that."

"Then what was it?"

"I used to feel sorry for her. I wanted to help her out with her old man."

He could see Lulu was far from pleased by that, but it was the truth. When they had first met, Yuna had been a wide-eyed innocent, all dressed up like a priestess. It was easy to take pity on her, and he liked having pretty girls around. He had enjoyed her reactions to Zanarkand and appreciated her troubles with her father.

He had known that Yuna liked him, true. And he wasn't an idiot either; he knew she was beautiful. But he had never seen her as a girl to date or fool around with. As time went on she became many things – a companion, confidant – but never that. She was just someone who needed him, and he hadn't seen that ever changing.

"So I am to understand that Yuna was little more than a protegee?" Lulu accused, reading his thoughts. "You watched her take her first steps of freedom, proud that you had carved the path for her?"

"I thought that's all I wanted." When did that change? "I told her about Mom," he said aloud, though he hadn't meant to. The night in the garden felt too private even for Lulu to hear.

"After the Sending, you were angry at her."

"Yeah."

"Because she didn't need you for that."

And it had stung like hell. In that instant he couldn't find any of the reflections of Yuna he recognised – not the child he had painted whose hand needed holding, not the starry-eyed islander who needed a seasoned guide, not the pretty girl he coaxed smiles from.

"It is her duty," Lulu was saying. "Her calling. It-"

Tidus lost his threads of restraint. "I know, alright? I know it's her thing. I just don't like seeing her do it, okay? I can't stand seeing her like that. Gods. She's out there somewhere dancing and I'm not there to take her home."

Finally Lulu seemed to find her sympathy, a touch of gentleness entering her voice. "The father is there."

"He's not a father, he's a gods-damned jailor," Tidus said darkly.

"Yuna didn't think so, and you know it. She loves him; that is something else that you never accepted."

She had hit the mark. Tidus had imagined Yuna taking her leave of Zanarkand reluctantly, challenging her father, standing her ground with that rare wild look he had seen at the Stadium. And he had imagined her leaving quietly, compliantly, with a Sender's stoicism. Painful as it was, his heart found it easier to conjure the latter.

"Tidus." Lulu lowered herself to the ground before him and met his eyes kindly, her hand falling naturally onto his knee. "Now that you feel her absence, have you decided what Yuna means to you?"

In the moment that Lulu spoke her name he understood everything.

All this time he had slowly been taking possession of her. Her happiness, her sadness, her smiles, shy and wild and tremulous as they were; everything that was hers he had knotted to himself, and anything that had threatened that knot he had thrown all his power against without ever fully understanding why; Gippal, her father, the Sending.

He realised he wanted it all. He wanted to take her to Blitz games and call her his girl, he wanted his old man to meet her and tease her and tell her he was far too good for a son like his. He wanted to brush his fingers against the beads in her hair, and see if he couldn't make her stop blushing.

He raised his head, stormy blue eyes having found their resolution at last. "I have to tell her, Lu."

In the mage's face he read the same warning that played in his own mind.

If I can find her first.

Rikku

The din was interminable. Pounding machinery, screeching gears and dials spinning violently; fresh silver engines groaning as they were pushed to their limits; orders barked across the shop floor, from sisters to brothers, fathers to daughters, every corner of the factory filled with blaring life. It was music to Al-Bhed ears.

From the cradle Rikku had loved noise and sweat and sandy feet and machina. Her first toys were bolts and spanners, the steady background noise of an engine a reassuring lullaby. Sore muscles were a source of pride, an oily face something to be admired. Only five when the Eternal Calm swept Spira, she endured neither the relentless sticking fear of Sin nor the persecution of Al Bhed that her father and brothers had suffered, and so her sunny, optimistic disposition came naturally to her. She was the sweetheart of her extended family and the effortless favourite of her father.

Shyness passed her by; she grew up surrounded by boys' thunder and had to work harder than most to make her presence known, whether it was wrestling her brother for a turn at the wheel of the airship, or persuading her cousins to let her join the latest dig.

Tidus she had met through Gippal, when she was seven and he was nine. He welcomed her into his friendship easily, seemingly immune to the stubborn gender barrier that most boys his age enforced. He was excitable and noisy, but unpredictable and prone to tantrums. If anyone called him 'Jecht Jnr' or even made mention of his mother, he would fly into a fit of temper and storm off with Gippal, who always seemed to understand his friend's troubles more than Rikku.

As Tidus grew in age and fame, his outbursts grew fewer. Only those who knew him well knew that the anger never truly left him - it was only that he lied more often. But Rikku still recognised it lingering in his eyes, bitter steel under blue water.

Until Yunie came.

Rikku fought her way through the Machine Faction headquarters with a will of iron. If Lulu was going to be judgemental, and Wakka was going to shrug his shoulders, and Tidus was going to be pathetic – well then – it would fall to her to mend things.

Weaving among the workers on the shop floor with a thief's precision, Rikku tried her best to avoid being delayed by any curiosities. She briefly regretted the chance to inspect a new C6 Primer Snowmobile that her cousin Keyakku was working on but her efforts were soon spoiled in any case.

"Ru dranna, Rikku!"a voice called to her in Al-Bhed. It was Nhadala, one of the girls she had grown up with on Home. Rikku stopped to hug her, unable to help herself. "Haven't seen you around here in a while. Your hair's different. You look all grown up."

Rikku brushed it away nervously with her fingers, smiling to herself. She had been growing it out, so gradually that no one close to her tended to notice. When it was long enough she was going to braid it. Lulu had commented of course, and had worked on her husband until he did the same. She would have asked Tidus' opinion, but his mood had been as black as an oil pit lately.

"What do you mean she's gone?" Rikku had demanded when she finally heard the news at Lulu and Wakka's house one night. And Tidus hadn't said anything, the idiot. Just held his head between his hands and stared at his sneakers.

She had never seen him so depressed, not even when the Abes lost the championship last year.

"When are you coming to Omega with us?" Nhadala was saying.

"It's Blitzball season," Rikku shrugged apologetically. At the beginning of the year, she had the keenest intentions of going out to the digs with her father and brother. But high summer had rolled around, and there had been Tidus to cheer, Yuna to show around. And him…

"But the Primers got knocked out already."

Rikku grinned, showing teeth. "I'm an Abes girl."

"Traitor," Nhadala teased, poking her forehead. "Hey, you're friends with that star Blitzer of theirs, right? He's pretty cute, think you could get me a date?"

"Now who's the traitor?" Rikku teased.

"Well, can you or can't you?"

"Sorry!" she chirped. "I'm pretty sure he's taken."

Or he would be soon, if she had her way. Tidus wasn't fooling anyone. It wasn't just the flirting – he'd always been that way - but he softenedaround Yuna in a way Rikku had never seen in all the years she'd known him. It was kind of beautiful. Rikku thought about the person she had come to see and wondered if that day would ever come for him.

She found him at last in the Research and Development workshop. It was as scorching as the Bikanel desert in there, hot steam rising from the rows upon rows of oil barrels. Rikku snatched up a hard hat before entering, pausing to choose one that didn't clash with her outfit.

He had a blowtorch in hand, welding a mechanised part for one of the new submarines for the Omega Ruins dive. Rikku only had to glance at it to know it was top of the range, the freshest technology they had access to. Since Gippal's Dad was head of the Machine faction, it meant he got to work on all the latest developments.

He was wearing a mask to protect his face, but he flipped it up when he saw her coming, and the blowtorch sputtered out.

"Hey, Cid's girl, I'm kinda busy right now. What's up?" He flashed her a dazzling smile around the long nail he held clamped between his teeth. Rikku hated the way it made her heart beat a little faster.

"I need your help," she said unflinchingly. And stop calling me Cid's girl!

"Shoot."

Rikku drew a deep breath, encouraged by his easy confidence. "Yunie's gone missing."

Gippal snatched the nail from his mouth, visibly surprised. "What? She ran away?"

"No, not like that. We think maybe she moved away with her pops."

Gippal stared at her for a long moment, wheels clearly turning. Then he turned back to his work. "Then I don't see how it's any of our business."

Rikku fists curled at her side. She glared at Gippal's back with fierce, leonine eyes, her hot desert blood flaring to life. "Yunie's my friend and she was your friend too! Friends don't just forget each other, friends don't just give up on each other!"

Gippal's shoulders fell still before her eyes. In her heart Rikku summoned the boy who had protected her when she was little, the boy who had taught her how to hotwire a hovercraft... the boy who had taken her home after the Sending, an arm around her shoulders all the way. But the oil barrels hissed and spit, and she was only met with silence. When her vision began to blur, she spun on her heel.

"Rikku." Surprised by the use of her given name; even more surprised at how soft it sounded to her ears, Rikku felt herself caught as by a noose, turning hesitantly toward him. Gippal put down the blowtorch carefully, dusted his knees, and rose to meet her suspicion with a rare uncomplicated smile. "You've changed your hair."

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I love Rikku/Gippal. But it'll be more subtle than the Tidus/Yuna stuff.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiago Yuna?

You know what I never do? Once I've made the final draft 'coherent', I never go back and read it and ask myself 'Is this an INTERESTING chapter? If I was reading this, would it be a skip-over chapter?' I just correct the final visible spelling mistake and think 'OH THANK GOD IT'S DONE I'D BETTER POST THIS RIGHT NOW BEFORE I LOSE ANOTHER READER QUICK QUICK QUICK SHANDY QUICKKKKK.' So I hope this chapter isn't dull. I got so bored by the last couple of drafts that I decided to add that Yuna and Tidus flashback which perked me up a little. I think I'm only interested in a chapter when they're interacting. But anyway, I was really unhappy with the ending of one POV. If it reads really rushed in parts, it's because they were passages I was stuck on, and I just tied them up quickly so I could finally post.

Do any of you have the courage to ask when I think I'll have the new chapter up? WELL? DO YOU?