Whoo! I am so on a roll here, people! I actually got this idea for a new chapter yesterday after I posted the last one but my fingers were hurting so I decided to start writing today. Anywho—here's the new chapter. And I wish to apologize now for all of you who wanted to see Tidus and Yuna smooch. Well, you know how skittish Yuna still is, and I have decided to make Tidus a gentleman. (Hel-lo? Auron raised him! How can he not be?)

There's no disclaimer, dammit. I own them. All of them. They were my sweet sixteen prezzie. Now leave me alone!

                                                                                                    ~*~

Chapter 8

Healing Winds

"Yuuuuuuunie," Rikku drawled outside of her cousin's bedroom door in a sickly-sweet voice. "Yuuuuuuuuuunie, get uuuup!" The knocked on the door, but she received no answer from inside. Cautiously, she opened the door only to be met with a sneaker in her direction. She slammed the door closed immediately and stamped downstairs. "Fine then!" She yelled. "Be that way!"

          Brother heard Rikku stamping down the stairs. "Rikku, Yuna does not get up?" He asked in his broken Common. Rikku scowled and nodded.

          "She's such a bitch in the morning."

          "When can I go try?" He asked eagerly. "When? When?"

          "No, you don't get to go try. That's a 'No Brothers' zone," she said, then stuck her tongue out at him. "Go on, you gotta get to work, anyway. You'll be late if you don't get moving soon."

          Brother looked at his watch and then at the kitchen clock. He swore in AL Bhed, grabbing his car keys off of the hook on the wall and running out the door in a blur. Rikku sighed, glad that she now had the house mostly to herself. Lulu wasn't answering her phone and Yuna was still out cold upstairs so she had no one to tell that she had met Gippal. She sighed, reaching down inside her shirt to pull out the slip of paper that had his phone number on it. She'd wanted to call him, but she couldn't think of anything that she could say.

          A few minutes later, she decided to try and wake Yuna again, but on her way past the font door to the stairs, the doorbell rang. She sighed and opened the front door to see who was there. To her surprise, it was Tidus.

          "Tidus?" She asked in shock. "What're you doing here?" She opened the screen door and let him in.

          "I… uh… came by to see how Yuna's doing," he stammered over the words. "Is she here?" He hoped that Rikku at least knew of the previous nights' close call with Seymour and their escape through the park. Since the blonde Al Bhed didn't seem surprised at all, he guessed that she either knew or had guessed what had happened.

          "Sure. It's about time someone got her up anyways," she stepped out of the way, letting him all the way into the hallway and closing the door.

          "Got her up? You mean she's still asleep?" He looked at his watch. It read 12:17.

          "Yea. I tried getting her up for a while, but all she ever does is throw stuff at me." She sighed. "But she'll be happy to see you, so why don't you go wake her up? Her room is the one at the end of the hallway upstairs to the right."

          Tidus nodded and went up the stairs to the left of the front door. At the top of the stairs and the end of the hallways to the right was the door that Rikku said was Yuna's. He studied the door, which was covered in signs and pictures and across the top was what looked like yellow "Caution, Police Line, DO NOT CROSS" tape. A few of the signs looked real, like they might've been stolen. One caught his eye, one that read in big bold letters: Notice! Private property! Trespassers will be violated. SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT!

          How welcoming. He shuddered and listened carefully. He was a little nervous about going into the room, so he knocked on the door. From inside, he heard a little shuffling and a soft, "thump" sound, so there was definitely someone in there alive.

          "Hello?" He called softly. "Anybody home? You awake in there?" This time he carefully opened the door enough so that he could stick his head in and see inside. The room was disorganized, with papers, books, and pencils strewn all over the floor along with dirty clothes and dishes leftover from midnight snacks.

          The bed in the middle of the room was piled with blankets and a few stuffed animals. There was a lump at the edge of it, and out from this lump stuck one pale-skinned, slender arm, the fingers just brushing the floor. He assumed that Yuna was under those blankets and attached to that arm—somewhere.

          Seconds later a shoe came whizzing in his direction. He dodged it and it hit the wall behind him, landing on the floor next to its' mate and a hairbrush. Yuna's voice came from under that pile of blankets; "Rikku, dammit, I told you not to go waking me up!"

          Rikku was right. She wasn't a morning person. Then again, he really hadn't expected her to be one. He quickly put his head back into the room and announced, "I'm not Rikku!" Before she got the chance to throw something else at him.

          Yuna sat bolt upright in bed, looked right at him with wide eyes and beginning to turn quite red. "You—I—Tidus, what are you doing here?" She gasped, trying to cover herself with a blanket even though she was decently covered. Then she remembered what she had done a moment ago and looked concerned. "I didn't hit you, did I?" She asked.

          "Nah," he said. "Blitzer, remember? I've got good reflexes."  He couldn't help but look at her, thinking that perhaps he had found the only girl in Spira who could look sexy wearing baggy plaid pajama bottoms and a tank top.

          "Turn about, please, so I can get dressed," she told him, snapping him out of his daze. He obeyed and once he was turned, Yuna pulled on a pair of jeans and a gray zip-up sweatshirt. She threw her PJ's onto her bed and walked past Tidus to get her shoes and her hairbrush.

          "I'm, uh, sorry I woke you up," he apologized clumsily.

          "It's okay," she replied. "Rikku would probably rather I got up, anyway. Did she invite you over?"

          "No… I came to see how you were doing. If you were doing any better from last night." He followed her down the stairs.

          Yuna stopped in her tracks on the stairs, looking back up at him. He actually cared about her. He came by to see if she was all right. "I think I'm better, now," she said truthfully. "The initial scare's over, but I'm still mad," she said. Then she sighed. "I'm really sorry about causing all of that trouble."

          "Yuna," Tidus said firmly, taking her by the shoulders and turning her somewhat awkwardly on the stairs to face him. "It isn't your fault. Stop blaming yourself." When she didn't look convinced, he tried again, saying, "Hey, I had fun. Up until the fleeing-for-our-sanity part, I had fun."

          This made her smile. "Thanks." Silence for a moment. Then she hugged him around the waist, which was all that she could get at because he was standing a few steps over her.

          A deep bark from the back door broke the moment and Yuna went to go see what was up. He saw her facing the back door with her fists on her hips, growling Rikku's name under her breath. She opened the door and let a dog the size of a small car into the house. There was a note on the countertop near the back door, which read: "Yunie, I've gone out to the mall. I should be back by four. Be good and don't do anything I wouldn't do! Love, Rikku."

          "Would you like anything?" Yuna asked, ignoring Ursa as the dog blew past her to inspect the newcomer. She thought nothing of it, as she was used to her huge dog being about.

          "Mph!" Tidus grunted, bending over a little. "No thanks."

          "Are you sure? It's no trouble, really." She dug into the refrigerator, looking for something to eat.

          "No, I'm—oof!—fine, thanks."

          "All right." Yuna pulled herself out of the refrigerator with an apple in her teeth and a half-drunk bottle of soda in one hand.

          "An apple and a coke for—muph!—breakfast?" Tidus asked, bending over a little further and scooting backwards a few inches.

          Yuna shrugged. "I'd just have the soda but Kimahri used to make me eat breakfast every day." Pause. "Besides, it's not your breakfast." She took a bite of the apple before saying casually, "By the way, my dog's name is Ursa. It means 'she-bear' in Ancient." [A/N: Ancient = Latin. The word "ursa" actually does mean "she-bear."]

          "We've met," Tidus remarked dryly, trying to back the dog up. Ursa was standing nose-to-crotch with the teenager and had been "inspecting" him for the last few minutes. "Call her off please," he nearly begged.

          "Ursa, go lay down," she pointed at the carpeting in the living room which was just off the kitchen. The big dog obeyed, laying down right on the threshold and looking absolutely pitiful with her huge brown eyes and her big, sad face. Yuna rolled her eyes. "You're pathetic, dog."

          "Think she listens to you?" Tidus asked, sitting down at the table adjacent to Yuna.

          "Probably. I don't know if she can understand everything that I tell her but she always listens when I talk," she said. "She's usually the only one who listens." Her face fell and she looked melancholy.

          "I'll listen," Tidus said softly, suddenly feeling a little sappy. But it was true. He would listen to Yuna. He liked her—a lot. He hesitated before asking tentatively, "So, uh… you wanna do something today?"

          Yuna raised her eyebrows and polished off the rest of her apple, tossing the core into the garbage can. "Like what?" She asked. "You know I'm afraid to leave this house. It's like my security blanket."

          "We can go to my place," he offered.

          Yuna thought this over for a minute before glancing at her dog, who was still trying ever so hard to look as pitiful as possible. "I can't leave Ursa. I'd have to walk her."

          "I don't live too far from here. It took me about twenty minutes to walk. Why don't you bring her with us?" He suggested.

          "But… don't you have cats?" Yuna asked cautiously. Her dog treated cats and squirrels like chew-toys.

          "I can put them in the back room, they won't mind." He sounded like he was really trying to convince her to come with him. She decided to throw him a bone.

          "All right," she said. "I'll get her leash."

          Ursa wore a big purple harness, instead of a collar and leash—Yuna explained that it was to keep her from strangling herself when she pulled on the leash. She took her house key and locked up as they left. A skateboard was sitting on the porch, and she kicked it over and let her dog pull her at a steady speed on the board. Tidus was impressed—he knew that he himself would probably fall off of such a thing.

          "This way," Tidus pointed to the right. "I live in North Sandsfield."

          Yuna nodded, steering her dog much like a chocobo to face the right. Ursa set off at a normal walk and Tidus walked next to her.

          "If you have a car, how come you didn't drive here?" She asked.

          "I came home late last night, so Auron hid my keys so I couldn't drive anywhere," he explained. As soon as he said this he knew it was a mistake. Yuna immediately looked apologetic.

          "Tidus! Oh, no, I'm sorry. It's all my fault—"

          A hand covered her mouth. Tidus was tired of her blaming herself for everything.

          "It's not your fault," he stated firmly. "If I'd gone right home after I dropped you off then I wouldn't've gotten into trouble. Instead I went back to the park and stayed there for a while, okay? I lost track of time and ended up coming back home at twelve-thirty. I was supposed to be back by midnight."

          Yuna grinned underneath his hand and then removed it so she could say, "Or else your car turns back into a pumpkin and your wheels turn into mice?" Then she giggled—she couldn't help it. Nor could she resist the comment.

          "Yea. My car turns into pumpkin pie and catfood after midnight. Where do you come up with this stuff?" He asked.

          "It's a story. Cinderella," she explained. Hadn't he ever heard of it? Then again… maybe he hadn't. He was an only child and a boy so he probably didn't know.

          He thought for a moment. "Oh! I get it."

          "You said you lived in Zanarkand?" Yuna asked.

          "Yea. I played blitzball there since I was fifteen. After that Auron got canned so we hadda move here. I think he's happy about it, cuz he used to live here in his prime," he said.

          "His what?" She asked, switching hands with the leash.

          "His prime. Auron's no spring chicken, ya know."

          "Does he know you talk about him like this when he isn't looking?"

          "I talk about him like this to his face," Tidus said. "He knows it. Besides, it's true."

          Yuna sighed. "If I ever said anything like that about Kimahri, he would've roared to break the windows and trussed me like a chocobo and thrown me into the river." There was a brief pause. "Or he would have threatened to do so. I doubt he would ever have done it."

          "Then why did you listen?"

          "With a threat like that, do I call his bluff or don't I?" Yuna asked, making a legitimate point.

          They turned onto a road near the sandy-covered road that led down to the beach. This was Sandsfield and it would be just a little further to Tidus's house. Yuna had kept her balance on the skateboard perfectly, but it was due to her dog keeping at one steady pace and not bolting. Then she saw a squirrel, as did Yuna. She leaped from the skateboard as Ursa began to run after the squirrel.

          "Ursa!" Yuna cried in vain. She kept a firm grip on the leash with her feet planted but this dog would have no trouble dragging her. Tidus, too, caught the leash and Ursa had considerable trouble dragging both of them behind her. The squirrel saw its' window of opportunity and ran over someone's fence and out of sight.

          Finally, Yuna's dog was calmed down and they kept walking to the edge of the street where a house sat slightly isolated from the others. It was further from the neighbors' houses than the others were from their neighbors.

          "This one," Tidus said. "You might have to wait with the dog out here for a minute before you can come in, so I can get the cats out of sight." He reached into his pockets and then scrunched up his face.

          "What?"

          "Auron took my car keys, but my house keys are attached to them," he explained, sighing. "I'm locked out."

          "Oh, dear," Yune raised her eyebrows. "When will he be home?"

          "Probably not until tonight. He works for the police but he never actually tells me what he does… must just be one of those things," he said, then he shrugged. He went over to the fence and climbed on top of one of the posts, balancing on it.

          "What are you doing?" Yuna gasped. "You could get hurt!"

          "I've gotta let us in somehow," he said. "This is easy, I've done it before when I got locked out." The fence was high enough so that he could set his hands on the roof of the garage and pull himself up, walk across the top of the garage, and onto the roof of the house, right outside a window. He opened the window and crawled into the house.

          Faintly, Yuna could hear someone running around, some doors opening and closing, and a little scuffling going on inside. Ursa's ears perked, and she was interested as to what lay inside that door. Finally, Tidus opened the front door. He looked like he had had a hard time with the cats because he was covered in cat hair and one of them had scratched his arm.

          "Hey—sorry that took a little while. Fast little suckers," he said, letting her in.

          Ursa was yanking on her arm, trying to sniff every nook and cranny in the house because she could smell cats. Yuna let her off of the leash and she immediately went off looking for the source of the smell.

          Tidus couldn't help but notice that Yuna seemed a little upset. For a while he kept his mouth closed but finally he asked, "What's wrong, Yuna? You look sad."

          Yuna took a deep breath, deciding whether or not she should actually tell him the truth. "You really wanna know?" She asked. She felt that she could trust him. She had not known him very long but she knew in her intuition that she could trust him, and she could trust, if nothing else, her gut instincts.

          "If you don't mind telling me."

          "I'm… scared. And I'm lonely. Since my parents died I've been by myself. I've been alone, but I was never lonely." She explained. "I had Rikku, and I had Kimahri, and I had Lulu. And it's been like that for years and years and years. But now Kimahri's gone. And I'm growing up and this is my last year of school. After this I actually have to get up, get out of Besaid, and go do something with my life, you know? And I'm scared. I'm scared of Seymour because when I'm out of school there won't be any laws protecting me from him." She sighed. "But now I just want to have friends, but I hardly have any. And for the first time in my life it's caught up with me. I'm lonely. And I don't like it." She paused and looked up at him. "I'm not making any sense am I? I'm just rambling."

          "Ramble all you like," he told her. "I'll listen."

          "Why are you being so nice to me?" She asked warily. Kimahri had taught her not to look a gift chocobo in the mouth, but he had also taught her that she shouldn't trust everyone, even if they seemed to have good intentions.

          This shocked him. "Because I like you," he said plainly. He meant what he said, and he did like her and possibly as more than just a friend, but he was a little afraid to tell her.

          Yuna's fist clenched. "I hate him," she snarled. "I just want him to stop it. I want to live my own life without living in fear and always looking over my shoulders and waiting for him to spring and pounce on me."

          "Yuna, I can help you. Auron works for the police, remember? I can get information that can get him thrown in jail for stalking you," he said. "Stalking is illegal and that's what he's doing. Well, it's illegal in Zanarkand, but I don't know about here. Even so, whether or not he get arrested or even convicted doesn't matter because if he's even accused of sexual misconduct with a student, it goes on his record forever, and he'll get kicked out of the school. And since he'll have that on the records, he'll have a hell of a time getting a new job."

          "So you'll help me, then?" She asked eagerly.

          "Of course I will. We can get Rikku and Lulu involved, too. The more hands we have, the more likely it is that we can make his life a living hell. What say you?"

          Yuna turned this over in her mind. One way or another, she was not going to give into Seymour's demand that she drop out and live with him. She knew well enough why he wanted her to drop out at the end of the semester. She wouldn't have all of her credits by then, and would not be eligible to graduate. Without at least a high-school diploma, she would be helpless and unable to get a job—therefore dependant on whomever she lived with for money.

          "I say I have nothing to lose."

          "Good. Yuna, I can help you, but… you're gonna have to trust me before I can help. You'll have to trust me."

          She paused. She gathered all of her nerves and pecked him lightly on the cheek. "I trust you," she said.

                                                                                                             ~*~

Okay! There it is, and only six days after the other one. I wish I had written this sooner, but I had a HUGE fight with my mom over my chem. grades. I hate chem.…  oh, so much. Anyway. Here the plot thickens, and yes, there will be more of everyone else in the next chapter.  I just wanted to get this one posted, you know? So anyway. Now that it's posted, won't you leave me a review and tell me if you loved it or if you hated it? *bows* Thank ye kindly, good sirs and madams!