Yuna had always felt a little strange around Baralai after he had been a willing victim to Shuyin's manipulation. It was not easy taking control of his worst emotion: hate. It was really easy for Shuyin to enter the body of Nooj years before because Nooj was on a rampage to kill himself off, not brave enough to do himself in. Yet, he might as well go with a bang and fight for the side of the good.

Fight the good fight.

He only had himself to hate. It was the hatred in Baralai that had consumed him two years before and that hatred had grown into a monumental quest, and was easily taken over by Shuyin. He had a more viable purpose because he was the Praetor of New Yevon and Vegnagun had been hidden within its stony depths. Yuna still couldn't feel completely sane around him. He was ever the most polite person you could ever meet, much so opposite than his friend Gippal.

Was it, because his thoughts that made him so unreachable?

What was he thinking about that made him so unreachable? They were in Bikanel Island when it happened. It was, to say the least, expected: there was another catastrophe, and it seemed as if cataclysmic events would forever send people together, in more interesting ways than one could imagine. Yuna wanted to find out what made her new friend so interesting, why she felt fidgety, panicky around him. It was so out of character for her to feel the way she did, but ever since he has splendoured much attention on her, giving her distance, yet giving her the kind of charming sweetness that any man could display on a woman, made her feel quite unlike herself. Nooj seemed altogether so forward and brash, straight forward more like it yet wasn't he was tied to Leblanc who would not give up on him?

She loved him with all her heart and to think that she didn't even have one, the way she goes about. Her thoughts went back to Baralai. The rest of the team hid out in the camps, going through the island's secret places.

There was always something to be discovered in Spira. Even a thousand years of searching would not uncover the hidden depths that so plague even researchers who spend their lifetime searching. She watched him that evening, when the stars showed the flickering depths of the constellations. And the shooting stars made their way across the globe.

Whatever was roiling around in his brain left him nearly ballistic. She rationalized crazily. He's acting too weird. There has to be something more to it… Yuna cleared her throat, carrying on with the one-sided conversation, simply because she didn't know what else to do. "…Once there, after meeting with them, I can search through one side of the district and you could examine through the other—"

Suddenly, something did catch his attention. His eyes widened. He swore, coming to life. Yuna watched in growing unease as he sat up in his seat, frowning in alarm at the panel, to the desert, back to the panel…

"What is it?" she asked.

"Sand storm, Yuna. Heading right for us."

"No." she gasped. She knew sandstorms that hit Bikanel and they weren't tame, and they consumed their victims down deep into the sea of sand. She just hoped that it wasn't the sandstorm that hit Bikanel years before, when the entire community of Al Bheds were buried underneath its granulated grave.

Her head swiveled forward, and she squinted at the horizon. The sun-baked fantasy-like image warbled several kilometers away, and above it far above the blonde distant sky. She frowned, feeling utterly helpless, "A storm? I don't..." The mirage pitched like an upswing of a blade, fanning red, and yellowing the horizon, and the slice of movement she believed to be a part of its illusion, grew pregnant, round and contracted. It burst through the mirage like a rampaging cactuar, sending sparks of a thousand needles, the faintness now taking on a new structure. She held her breath, and adrenaline sharpened her senses as she observed the large spread of the systematic uproar, to the east, the west, northward and heading straight for them. "Oh…Oh no--"

He swore under his breath again, quickly pushing his silver hair back with a flick of his wrist, and concentrating all his efforts at his task.

"I thought you…checked the weather conditions, I mean, didn't you? It's, coming this way," she rambled, sounding completely and utterly stupid, but she was afraid. For the first time, in a long time, she was afraid. "Didn't you check the weather with Nhadala?"

"I didn't." He replied harshly, even for her ears, it seemed so out of his character, but this was a very heated position they were both in and both could not fault the other for being so quipped about it. She stared back at the horizon, then looked at him again.

She could only gape at him dumbfounded, her breath catching, "You what?…"

It wasn't like him to do that. He was always so meticulous. Always. Why was he so careless? Should she blame it on that? Was it her presence that made him act like this? The way she kept on thinking it was this way, made her feel a bit overblown and overzealous of their strained relationship. Even if it was any kind of relationship. The others went to the other camps while she and Baralai for some unknown reason had stuck together. Paine, Rikku and Nooj went off the the Central expanse, while Gippal and his Al bhed crew went to the Northen expanse, where the Ruins of undiscovered treasures were guarded by various fiends.

The imminent wave of unearthed desert and ferocious winds had just seemed to cover a mile in the last few seconds. Twice the size in her peripheral vision. She'd heard of sandstorms this big, burying entire cities, entire houses, gulping them up into the ground, at least as far as under 15 feet of gravel. It was going to be on them in a matter of minutes, and it was relentless. "Can we outrun it with this small flying hover?" she asked hopefully.

"No. It can't be outrun." Baralai ducked down, scanning first their surroundings proactively, and then slammed violently on the breaks. The hover slowed to an abruptness, and with the hovercrafts propellers nearly stinted, they could actually hear the rumbling, rescinding sounds of the impending disaster. The floor was even quaking. Yuna's palms began to sweat. Another mile. Crossed.

She felt deliriously ill. "It'll be on us in a matter of seconds…"

Not answering, Baralai hopped out of the hovercraft vehicle with a resolute expression, and dropped to his knees, slamming his fists into the sand. Energy started to exude and crackle about him, his face showing visible signs of straining...

He's trying to raise a barrier, a magical barrier, one of his talents! She realized this with clarity, as the twisting gravelly ground in front of him adhered to itself like a forming stalagmite, becoming huge and hard as a rock, and raising out of the ground like a small geyser. It shadowed them quickly, speckled with holes.

"Do something, Baralai or we'll be tipped over!"

He grunted, and the forming rock wall angled sharply. Almost too sharply. There was no time for perfection. Granules propelled by intense hundred mile winds started pelting viciously her face, and arms creating red welts underneath her protective sleeves. Her gloved hands tried to block the sharp granules that boomeranged off of her. The clear sky above them darkened, eclipsed by airborne particles. Yuna hissed and tried to cover her person and she was less concerned about herself. "Baralai!"

"Get out of the hover!" he shouted.

She reacted immediately, trying to push the door open against the air pressure, but it resisted.

Assessing danger was her job, but the force of this natural element was beyond her experience.

She squinted through the sand to see Baralai frantically motion for her to join him with one hand while the other was still erecting the shelter. There were only a few yards between them, but it suddenly seemed like miles.

How am I going to reach him in time?

Her stomach flipped with unrest, Yuna tried climbing over the door, foolishly squaring her shoulders to the winds in the process – but they caught her with a retribution, and ripped her out of the hovercraft, tossing her in a dizzying vortex away from her safety. It stole her breath before she could even scream.

The last thing on her mind was that she should have done something. She had let Baralai take care of the situation, just like she did years before with Tidus.

The mapped globe of Spira and its neighboring components, the distant islands and depths floated in a luminous cerulean hologram above the steel-caged panel. It was turning, angling, and magnified as Baralai watched intensely, eyes narrowing, the next simulated headway of Spira. The taint and sin that haunted Spira. It was a slow progression but the visual taunted him. Made his heart hurt. He was a genius. But he didn't know how to deal with her, much less the disease that plagued Spira. But first, to deal with his feelings. Another sporadic distress attack tightened his chest.

He grimaced, shoving those feelings away as his fingers tapped harshly on the computer panel, blipping the hologram about, andpulling up raw numbers on its contents. The cursed file was no different from the rest. Yuna was saturated with it. Spira and Yuna needed to be restored to health. But at the moment there was no immediate treatment and the chances of him inventing one in time… damn, he was no scientist. He was only fit to lead and to govern….

He didn't even know where to begin… Another set of frustrated tears leaked out of his eyes, and he carelessly wiped them away. The light of the panel was starting to make him see dots, and his peripheral vision blackened. They'd been back a day and a half, and he'd spent the entire time up here in a blind panic, searching…

"There you are!"

Nerves raw, Baralai jumped and swiveled towards the door as Yuna came bursting through it with her hands in fists. The circles under her eyes had started to darken, and she looked paler, less frightened, and more irate than when he saw her last. Her pacing was slightly uneven as she marched up to him, and he reflexively stood to steady her, but she jabbed her finger in his chest, making him sit back down.

She was still a fighter, despite her condition. In the days that lay ahead, her life spirit would prolong to recede… Not even the death of her departed dream would bring her an early grave and for that, Baralai was deeply thankful, even if he wouldn't admit it.

"Will you stop looking at me like I'm dead?" she laughed half heartedly, leaning forward to roughly rub the tears off his cheeks. He let her. His jaw hung part open, as his miserable face tilted back to meet hers. Thoughts of losing her wouldn't dislodge from the forefront of his mind, and the regrets came pouring forth, unchecked. He didn't want to lose any of his friends. Not ever. The memories of years before with Gippal, Nooj, and Paine were one of the most happiest and if he could just keep the friends he had then, and the ones he made now, like Yuna, who made him feel different...then...If only I'd listened to her beforehand he told himself and rested before edifying the oasis. I would have noticed. If only I'd checked up with Nhadala first for sandstorms…..but-

"I know you're sorry. Yes, you should have listened. And I'm angry with you, alright?" she smiled, wagging a finger in his face.

"…I'm trying to find something, Yuna. I have to find a cure for you, create one," his voice wavered, and his jaw muscles jumped. "I can't bear the thought of anything that could jeopardize--"

"I know that. I understand that. But if these last few tolerable days are spent being robbed of your presence while I still have the capacity to enjoy it, then I'll be a damn bitter ghost."

His vision blurred again. He didn't even try to hide it from her. She was his salvation for some nameless reason. Something that seemed predictable and he didn't want to question anymore. He spent the rest of his youth and the small part of his maturity thinking up reasons why this and that had to happen. He wanted to stop thinking and just feel. His inability to cope with this was overwhelming. She grabbed him to face her, supported his face up to face her and kissed him. He made a small, startled noise against her mouth, and she plunked in his lap before he could start apologizing again, and caged him against the back of his chair.

Yuna felt different, as if the sandstorm had changed her, or the constellations above sparkled with some kind of secret agenda. There was something different in the air that night, and after thestorm there was the great calm. They were either in the eye of the storm or that the eye of the storm were…themselves, trapped together in eternity, forever held like a crystal globe, a hologram of myriad confusion and unending ungrowth. It was something Yuna never ever did in her life; boldness was only a quality she presented when she fought with her friends, but this was another kind of boldness that extended far beyond her capability to understand. She felt love, the kind that she felt with Tidus years before and the one that kept on beating in her heart. The memory of Tidus and his dream. Her only love. For now, the feel of Baralai here in the middle of the Oasis made her feel alive.

She thrived in distracting him from his one track mind, and his hands gradually found her waist as he relived the closeness that was still so new between them. When his limbs had relaxed, she moved her lips to his ear and spoke with a soft desperation that made him buckle. "Will you be able to love me in the days that remain?"

A choked whisper. "Yes."

"Then let's get married."

His eyes widened, grateful for the desert storm, grateful for this moment. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he nodded.