Baralai' gaze fixed on the computer-generated panel in front of him. The popup of the next city's geography was detailed, with 3-D dimensions, and clusters that showed its densest residencies, along with well-plotted paths that lead to the population's generators and quick ways back out.

The markings were brightly colored, easy to read. They just needed a quick replication programmed in.

He blinked disinterestedly. If he'd been focused, he would have finished it 45 minutes ago and would be handpicking his crew for the next raid by now. But he wasn't focused. Far from it, actually. He missed Yuna terribly and he's stuck here doing his job, which he never complained before. It was actually an honour to work beside the old teachings of Yevon, to combine the old and the new. Yuna never did approve the old teachings but she accepted what was due of her.

He had gotten her pregnant a little too early and he didn't want to upset her with their beliefs. Yuna would remind him of her old friends Dona and Barthello who had differences of opinions, albeit stronger than hers. Yuna told him over and over how she wasn't really in any group but

that she would remain neutral but that didn't stop her from speaking her mind of the atrocities of Yevon's dark secret that nearly destroyed the world.

Yuna's words came haunting back. He tilted his head back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

Baralai felt his chest tighten with regret like it usually did when he reflected back on that impetuous desperate action that had cost the lives of thousands of people who lived in Spira.

Years back when he was possessed by Shuyin. It wasn't entirely Shuyin's fault really, it was him to blame for he hated so much that he was a willing victim to destroy the world with Shuyin.

Being possessed was a terrible feeling. One can only feel the hate being multiplied and fed. As if he didn't feel anymore other than that emotion and that was what drove him. When Yuna had asked him to marry him years before, he felt elated. It was the responses from his friends that were a bit surprising. Nooj and Gippal congratulated him and Gippal, in his usual way, teased him:

"You get the High Summoner on her back and already you're on your way to getting her knocked up with babies. What a way to go. Lucky bastard."

Gippal continued as he shook his head with laughter. "And I thought I'd be the one where all Spira's fathers would come running for shot gun weddings for knocking up their daughters."

Nooj scoffed a reply at Gippal. "Don't kid yourself, Gippal. You may get a lot of girls but you aren't that good."

"OH! This comes from the mouth of Noojie Woojie." Gippal and Baralai both laughed at that.

"Watch it, or you'll be facing more than just shot gun weddings at your back." Nooj growled back.

"Listen you two." Baralai cut in with his usual diplomatic approach, "I can't decide who would stand by my side at my wedding. You both have been great friends."

"If you have to ask, I've never went against you, Baralai, not like some Mevyn guy." Gippal shifted his eyes with glittering amusement over at Nooj.

"Humpf, make a mockery out of me, go on. But I've offered to save Baralai's ass from Shuyin's possession."

Gippal widened his eyes and laughed, "Oh-ho! Yeah right. You're willing to shoot his body down and hoped that he'd survive!"

Baralai interrupted before the tension between his two friends would blow out of proportion,

"You know, I think I'd make a new edict that under extreme conditions, a man can have two best men by his side at his wedding."

"Sounds like a plan to me, Baralai." approved Gippal. Nooj on the other hand nodded
complacently but not without his usual comment, "I would be most honoured as well, but are you not taking your Praetor duties with too much power? Giving a decree for weddings as well?

Saying that I make new rules for my Youth League group and going overboard with their fanaticism is just a bit much don't you think?"

Gippal gave Nooj a scathing look. Baralai wasn't usually bated by Nooj's off handedness.

Instead, he smiled and nodded in return, "Touche. I have a right to make this a special decree.

A union between the high summoner and myself."

"Yes, former high summoner, or did you forget?"

At that instant, fiends had approached the trio, making their bodies tense for battle, forgetting the moment between them. The conversation never did come back up afterwards.

Baralai drifted back to the present from his thoughts.

"Must be very serious to wear such an expression like that."

He startled at Maechen's voice, the familiar old voice that usually came to visit Yuna at the most inopportune moment. There was one time in which he appeared in their bedroom and he nearly wanted to clog him a couple of rounds. Not that that was Baralai's method but that his alone time with Yuna was too intimate for other prying eyes to see, even if it were the unsent. Don't the unsent know the meaning of privacy?

Yuna, however was very fond of the old man and that she wanted to send him. But he wanted to stay on for a little while until he could accumulate enough information. Enough information for what, Baralai thought. It'd better not be anymore gathered information between him and Yuna in their private time. The thought gave him a grimace.

Baralai sat bolt upright in his chair. "What are you doing? Is there something I can do for you?"

He searched around for his men and they were on patrol so whatever brought Maechen over to see him had better be important.

"Young man, I thought I'd tell you a story," came the ancient voice. Baralai stared at him for a moment, giving this some consideration.

"Alright. What would you like to tell me this time?"

"Don't mind if I do," the words came out smoothly, despite its droning melody. "There was once upon a time where two lovers met and finally fell in love. This happened a thousand years ago."

"Which one? Yunalesca's past or Shuyin's and Lenne's?" Baralai replied quickly, with a white brow lifted at the old man.

Maechen chuckled easily, the ancient eyes twinkled, continuing, "A man who looked so much like Shuyin and a girl who lived in another time and place. They could have never met you see? But the coming of Sin brought them together. This was the young man's gift to his only son, the son he never got to get close to."

"Your point?" Baralai replied smoothly.

"I won't continue if you don't want me to, Baralai but I thought this would be of great interest to you because it concerns your Yuna. And I have a great investment in this as well. I care very much for Yuna and I don't want her to be hurt."

"What are you talking about?" Now confusion marred the younger man's face. His heart beat a little faster. What was this old man up to? Yuna and another man who lived 1000 years before? Yuna had told him about some man who was his guardian, who was an unsent but he was more than an unsent, he lived among the living. Fought among the living and loved her with all his heart. He got that last information from Rikku.

"Shall I continue?"

"Yes, of course."

"I know that Yuna has a slow disease that connects her to Spira. As long as Spira lives, she

lives but Spira is dying somehow. The calm is among us, thriving well but there will be a conclusion to all this."

"I've been searching for cures all over Spira. This exhibition isn't just about New Yevon's diplomatic affairs but rather, secretly, it's about finding clues to save Yuna." Baralai whispered the last words, his head bowed down slightly. His blue eyes stung at the back, the strong fists held at his side at the frustration of finding it.

The old man nodded, acknowledged the pain that visibly showed in Baralai's face.

"As I can see that Yuna has found someone like you to love her. You do love her right?"

"I do not know what love is, but what I feel for Yuna is so powerful, it's more powerful than the hate I felt when I was under Shuyin's possession."

"This story, well, it's one of the greatest love stories of all time, if one can call it that. A love story between a dream and a powerful Summoner whose bloodlines run back as far as Bevellés most honoured families. Yuna was born in Bevelle you know that?"

"There isn't much I don't know about her, well, except for this mysterious man who claims to look like Shuyin, the one who caused all grief 5 years before."

Instead of continuing his story, Maechen gave him a visual. "Forgive me, Praetor of Bevelle, but I must hurry this story so look here." He gave him a sphere, glowing red, vibrating with unknown energies.

It was the first time he had been able to visually see something other than the imagination he'd use by listening to one of Maechen's story.

He heard a whistle.

The moons were out…bright enough to silver his profile. His easy-on-the-eyes profile, with
an expression that bore no ill will, or hard edge. Just a tremendous sadness. She almost

didn't recognize him. "Tidus?"

He said nothing. Eyes still transfixed on some random point outside the window, he didn't even look at her. Her bare feet whispered across the grass as she ran up to him, her heart in her throat. "Are...are you okay?" she cried more than asked, stopping on the bare edge of his personal space. Up close, she saw the salt lines on his cheeks, and puffiness of his eyes.

His chest heaved with a deep sigh, and he finally met her stare. She held her breath. There

was a light snort - a dim remnant of his former self. "I'm not crazy, if that's what you

mean," he replied in a raspy voice.

Yuna hiccupped, and the tears she'd just barely managed to get under control, came pouring back. Before she thought to stop herself, she fell on him, too damn relieved to care about how many unspoken rules she was breaking between them. She wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled her face in his chest. "I was so worried," she sobbed in a choked whisper, wetting his bosom with her tears. "I couldn't reach you. I tried. For days, I tried! I was afraid you'd never come back..."

Baralai scanned the horizon. This was in the farplane. He could almost feel their love, as if

he was the one who was witnessing something too private.

Two startled breaths had ruffled her hair. His muscles tensed at her affection, and she could feel his heartbeat quicken. He obviously had no idea what to do with her, but Yuna almost enjoyed his discomfort, because it meant that he was still him. She waited in anticipation for his embarassed protest. But it didn't come.

Tidus shifted awkwardly, but after a few seconds, he finally gave up on trying to wriggle free, and rested a tentative hand on her shoulder. "-Yuna..."

"What?"

"You did reach me."

Her eyes widened. "You heard me?"

"You promised me you'd protect me always."

"Ah! You heard me! Yes, I'll always protect you."

The young blonde man was quiet for a moment, letting his memory tickle the edges of her mind...of a dark, vast place. Of shackles, conflict, and hovering insanity. Then a light...a light embodying her voice. Her blood ran cold. That's where you were? In that place?

She felt him shiver. "Mm. Though I don't..." his voice hitched, and he tried again, "I don't understand why you wanted me back so bad."

"You're my only love. How can I not?" Yuna's reply came so lovingly.

It was enough to send Baralai's teeth grinding. With his usual cool demeanor, he'd never felt

such awful jealousy. She obviously feels more for this Tidus than she'd ever given him. To feel those feelings from her, it was too cruel for him.

"Enough." Baralai grated out.

"But you haven't seen the rest of the sphere."

"I don't want to. Please. I need to be alone."

"You may lose Yuna if you don't act now, Baralai." The ancient unsent was deadly serious.

"If she loved him more than she does me. Why? I don't understand."

"How noble you are, Baralai. To give Yuna the love she had lost, or rather she felt, but never attained. What she has with you is real. With Tidus, it's a dream."

"So what am I suppose to do? Stop her from loving him? Preposterous! I could never do that."

Baralai's voice became constricted, the pain in his heart seemed to tear at him.

"No. Never, of course. It's not that you should do but that you should pay close attention to where her disease lies. She's closer to death than you realize. She's such a young lady with two beautiful children you gave her. Do you want her to throw that all away?"

"What am I do to, old man?" there was desperation in Baralai's response.

"Why...love her. Save her."

He disappeared. Leaving Baralai to stare at the empty space in which the unsent occupied just moments before.

CONTINUED.