Chapter Eleven
In Loving Memory

Part One
Wakka really felt bad. Auron didn't seem to be doing so well any more, without a leg to stand on. Lulu kept telling him that they had gotten some leads on Seymour, and that they were doing all they could. But in reality, the girl that was forefront in the detective's mind was sitting on Wakka's couch, wrapped in a blanket, and watching television.

And she'd been there for a week.

Wakka understood that Lulu wanted to make the transition easy for everyone involved. He knew as bad as Auron felt now, he'd feel even worse if he came face to face with a girl he felt deeply about who had no recollection of him at all.

Those were the things that Wakka kept repeating to himself over and over again as he walked in to work every day. Those thoughts didn't keep him from feeling damn guilty every time he passed LaGuard in the halls of the Department, though.

"Lu, I'm gonna cave!" he vented one morning about a week after Rikku had been back.

Lulu rolled her eyes at her exasperated partner. "No, you're not," she said firmly. "He doesn't suspect anything amiss, and you said it yourself, Rikku's doing really well. And Yuna said the lab technicians at the hospital have almost figured out the antidote. Just give it another week, Wakka."

"Whatever you say," Wakka muttered. "You're not the one he'll come after once he finds out, ya?"

Lulu shook her head. "Wakka," she said warningly.

With that, Wakka headed back to his own office, shaking his head. He had no sooner sat down at his desk than the desk clerk buzzed him. "I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Capitan," she said in that ingratiatingly chipper voice of hers. "But you have a call on line one."

"Thanks, Calli," he said, picking up the phone. "This is Capitan."

"We're out of Twinkies," the familiar female voice said on the other end.

Wakka smiled in spite of himself. The past week had taken a lot of getting used to, but now he loved having her around. Once she warmed up to him, she was funny and very sweet. She always found a way to make him smile. She was just like a little sister, and he enjoyed her company. He could easily see why LaGuard was so enamored of her.

Of course he, himself, was far too enamored of one Lulu Magis to even think fleeting romantic thoughts about his new roommate.

"Hello?" she said after a few moments. "Are you listening to me?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry," he said absently into the phone.

Rikku rolled her eyes on her end of the line. He was annoying, and absent-minded, but she trusted him more than anyone right now. He had been there that first night, when she had been afraid, and alone, and unsure.

But she didn't feel about him the way one would feel about someone they were romantically interested in. He was – her big brother, her best friend, and she would be lost without him.

"Twinkies, Wakka, Twinkies," she told him in exasperation.

"I heard you da first time, ya?" Wakka snapped back.

Rikku pouted. "Well, I'd go get them myself, but someone won't let me leave the apartment ..."

"You know it's too dangerous. We can't have anything happenin' to ya now that we got you back, eh?"

Rikku smiled in spite of herself. "I know, I know. So, whatcha doin' right now?"

"Working," Wakka told her dryly.

"Really? Is that what you do every day? I thought you just went to follow Lulu around like a puppy," Rikku retorted.

"You're a real comedian, you know dat?" Wakka said.

"Ahem."

The voice at his door made Wakka look up. Auron stood there, looking at him. "Sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you about something Tidus found."

Rikku heard the other voice faintly through the phone, and her heart sped up. It was – familiar. Strangely familiar. Why? "Wakka? Who's there?"

"Uh, n-no one. I'll talk to you later, ya? And I'll bring you the Twinkies," Wakka stammered out nervously, and hung up.

Rikku sat staring at the phone back in the apartment, her mind jumbled and full of even more questions.

Auron looked at Wakka strangely. "Was that an important call?" he asked the younger man.

Wakka shook his head. "That? Oh, no, it was just – well, my cousin's visitin' from Besaid, and she got bored back at the apartment, that's all."

"I – see," Auron said. Wakka noticed how haggard he looked. Once again, he felt the guilt wash over him.

"You okay?" Wakka couldn't help asking.

The older man nodded. "I'm fine," he said brusquely, but Wakka could see that he wasn't. He was in pain, and it was eating him from the inside out.

"If you need to talk, I'm always available," Wakka said kindly.

"Thank you. If you'll excuse me," Auron said, turning to go.

"Wait! Didn't you say you needed to talk to me?" Wakka asked.

Auron looked confused, and then blank. "No." He sighed. "It can wait. I need to take a walk."

Wakka watched him go, and once again questioned if they were doing the right thing.

Part Two
"Lu, it's not right!" Wakka lamented later that afternoon while he and Lulu were having lunch at a small cafe.

"Wakka, it's for the best," Lulu reiterated. She was growing weary of the charade herself, but didn't see any other way. When Auron and Rikku reunited, she wanted the moment to be perfect – and happy for everyone.

"No, it's not," Wakka raged. Lulu had never seen him so angry. "You did not see him this morning. He looks awful, Lu. Like he hasn't slept in days. Like his heart is just completely gone." Like I would be if anything ever happened to you, he thought, but couldn't bring himself to say it. "What if it was someone you cared about, Lu? Wouldn't you at least want to know that he is safe?"

Lulu looked at him, seeing him in a new light. This Wakka was a man of passion and conviction, and she tried to fight the feelings bubbling up inside of her. "It's not that I'm trying to hurt anyone, Wakka. Not at all. It's just that things have been very hard for LaGuard, and for Rikku. The two of them – they've both suffered incredible losses, and they don't need any more pain in their lives. They are the same, Wakka. And they belong together. But not like this."

Wakka looked at Lulu, showing her heart for the first time in his presence. He fell for her even more. "Lu, he may not make it much longer like this," Wakka said hoarsely.

"He won't have to. If those lab techs at the hospital come through like Yuna thinks they will, we'll have Rikku Sands whole and safe again within the week," Lulu told him. She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. They both jumped at the sudden current that seemed to shoot straight through them. Lulu looked at Wakka – into those hazel eyes that she had come to adore, and had to look away.

"We should go," he said quietly.

She nodded. "Yeah." She stood up to leave, and then turned back. "Wakka ..."

"Yeah?"

"It'll be okay."

Part Three
He opened the door to his apartment and was immediately assaulted by a flying white box that hit him square on the forehead. "Ow! Hey!" He picked up the empty Twinkies box and muttered obscenities about "Al Bhed heathens" under his breath.

Rikku's blonde head peeked up from the couch. "I heard that," she said warningly. "Well? Where are they?"

"I forgot 'em," Wakka said apologetically. "It was kind of a weird day at work."

Rikku contemplated this for a minute. "Well, tell me what happened and I'll decide if you're forgiven or not."

Wakka rolled his eyes. "Maybe I don't want to tell you, huh?"

"Oh, so that means it's about Lulu," Rikku teased. "You better tell me!" She reached for the nearest thing to throw at him, which happened to be a battery-powered clock radio.

"All right, all right. Just put the clock down," Wakka cried out. "You're a violent roommate, you know that?"

Rikku smiled her sunshine-y smile. "Me?" she said with feigned innocence. She pointed to the armchair opposite the couch. "Sit. Talk."

"Bossy, too," he said. He saw the look in her eyes and laughed. "All right, all right!"

He proceeded to tell Rikku about his lunch with Lulu, and how she had gotten up and left so abruptly. "What do you think that means?" he asked her.

Rikku shrugged. "I've thought that she has a thing for you ever since I got here a week ago. I think you should talk to her."

Wakka thought on this for a while, and then he turned back to Rikku. "Do you have any memories of any of us? Anything coming back to you?" he asked her.

Rikku looked back at him, and then looked down at her blanket. She began picking at the loose pieces of fuzz. "I know that I can trust you guys, because you all seem so familiar to me. And I know that you have to be right about what happened with Seymour, because I don't think that I'm the kind of person who would marry someone like him. Nothing – not one thing – about him, or his home seemed familiar to me. But everything around here – it's like it's in the back of my mind somewhere, and I just have to dig it out."

"But what about us?" Wakka pried, leaning forward in his chair.

"I know that I know Yuna. She's on my heart or something. Intrinsically part of me, like only family can be. And I remembered your smile. I think your smile is actually one of those things that came to me in dreams and images I had. And Lulu's eyes – no one else has eyes like hers, so how could it be anyone else that I was remembering?"

Wakka nodded. "Anything else?"

"Why are you being so nosy?" Rikku asked him, refusing to meet his eyes.

"I'm just trying to help, ya?"

Rikku nodded. "There's nothing else that is coming to me right now," she told him, still not looking at him.

Wakka sat back, not intending to pry any further. He knew there was something she wasn't telling him, but he wouldn't force her to talk. She'd tell him, in her own time.

They sat in companionable silence, watching TV for what seemed like hours that evening. Finally, Rikku reached over, took the remote out of Wakka's hand, and turned off the set.

Wakka looked at her. "You tired?" he asked, concerned that she was wearing herself out.

She shook her head. "There's – there is something else," she said meekly. She looked at him, squarely in the eyes. "A kiss. I remember a kiss." Tears began swimming in her eyes, and she tried to force them down. "I don't – remember who it was or when, but I know he's the one. He's the one that kept me from completely giving into the darkness when Seymour was raping me, and beating me, and degrading me." She closed her eyes, lost for a moment. "It was – that perfect kiss that you only ever read about, you know? I wish I could remember who he was."

Wakka just looked at her. "You don't remember his face?"

"It was – dark. The place that I remember this kiss, it was dark. So I don't have a face to go with my clearest memory. Isn't that sad?" Rikku brushed the tears her cheeks impatiently.

"Do you think you'd recognize him if you saw him?"

Rikku shook her head and closed her eyes. "No. And I don't want to know! I don't want someone else telling me who it is! I want to know on my own. I want to be able to see him in a crowd, and run to him, and hold him, and thank him for giving me a reason to live. But I have to do it on my own. I have to find him on my own."

The determination in her spiraled emerald eyes was enough for Wakka to know. He finally realized that all this time, Lulu had been right.

Part Four
Two weeks later, Wakka finally mustered up the courage and decided that he was going to tell Lulu. He was going to invite her out to lunch and spill his heart out to her. He invited Yuna and Tidus to eat dinner with he and Rikku the night before. He needed the moral support.

Rikku sat beside Yuna, and across from Tidus and Wakka. She noticed Yuna and Tidus staring into each other's eyes as if no one else existed, and she smiled sadly to herself. She had begun to grow close to these people again, and she knew that they were people that she had loved, and would love again.

"So, Wakka, Tidus told me that I am a brat," Rikku said, trying to liven up the conversation. "Can you believe that?"

Wakka looked at Rikku and narrowed his eyes. "Rikku," he said slowly. "You are a brat."

Rikku stuck her nose up in the air and gave a little sigh of indignation. "Meanie."

Yuna laughed. Rikku seemed to be doing so much better, and Isaaru, the lab tech, promised her that they were putting the finishing touches on the antidote. Just a little more time, Rikku, and we'll have you back for real. "So, Wakka," she said. "Why did you invite us all here, and without Lulu no less?"

Rikku gave Wakka an evil smirk. She was pretty sure she knew the reason. "Wakka's in love," she said teasingly.

Wakka glared at her, but Yuna smiled brightly. "Is that true? Are you finally going to tell her?"

Wakka looked down when he felt the color creeping up into his cheeks. "Yeah, I guess I am."

Yuna clapped her hand and grinned warmly at Tidus. "Well, that's wonderful!"

Rikku smiled and walked around the table to hug him. "Do I get to be in the wedding?" she asked jokingly.

"No brats allowed," he told her.

"Ha ha," she said, returning to her seat.

"Speaking of love," Tidus began timidly. "Uh, has anyone seen LaGuard lately?"

At the name, Rikku's head shot up. "LaGuard?"

"A detective," Yuna told her.

"I know. I just – I've heard that name." Rikku looked at her plate. "Seymour said he's the one who kidnapped me, remember?"

Wakka turned his attention back to Tidus. "I saw him a couple of days ago. Looked worse than ever," he said.

"Is he sick?" Rikku asked, concern all over her face for a man she didn't even know.

Yuna smiled sadly. "Heartsick, maybe."

Rikku looked down, puzzled. Why did she even care?

Part Five
The next day, Wakka took great pains in making sure that he was exceptionally well prepared for his luncheon date with Lulu. He even practiced what he was going to say to Lulu in front of Rikku.

"She'd be crazy not to fall for you," Rikku told him honestly. "You're a great guy, and I'm glad I've gotten to know you. But, lucky for Lulu, you're not my type!" She smiled. "Oh, but if she moves in here, I'm not moving out. You'll just have to work around it."

Wakka laughed at her. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, eh?"

"Good luck," Rikku said, watching him walk out the door. She returned to the couch and resigned herself to another long day of watching TV.

By noon, she was bored silly. "Oh, this is ridiculous," she muttered to herself. She remembered that Wakka had told her that he didn't have his lunch break until one-thirty, and if she got ready and left now, she could go down to the station and wish him luck, get out of the house for awhile, maybe go bug Tidus ... It seemed like a great plan.

She quickly showered and pulled on a pair of the jeans that Yuna had brought over for her, as well as a bright orange, cropped t-shirt and her trusty thick-soled boots and leather jacket. She braided her hair into two pigtails and when she was satisfied with her reflection, she hurried out to catch a cab.

The cab driver took her to the station without incident, and she climbed out and paid him his fee. She walked into the big gray building and walked up to the desk clerk. "Hi!" she said brightly. "I'm looking for Wakka Capitan."

"He should be in his office. It's down that hallway, third door on the right. I can buzz him if you want," the clerk said brightly.

"No, I'm trying to surprise him, if that's okay," Rikku said.

"Okay!"

Rikku walked in the direction the desk clerk had pointed her in, and found the door that said "Wakka Capitan" in bold black letters without a problem. She knocked, and there was no answer.

"Well, shoot," she muttered. Now what? "I guess I could go look for Tidus, he might know where Wakka is." She walked down the hallway, and found only closed doorways. She wasn't about to knock on the office door of someone she didn't know. If the door was closed, it typically meant there was some important work going on.

She walked back down the hall until she heard a male voice coming from an open office. "What the hell?" she said, walking to the door.

The man, whoever he was, was sitting with his back to the door, talking on the phone with someone. Rikku waited patiently until he finished his conversation. He was the only sign of life she'd even seen in this hallway, so she was going to take her chances.

He hung up and turned his chair back to his desk to write something down in a thick notebook. Rikku could see that he had dark hair that was peppered with some slight gray.

Cautiously, she knocked on the doorjamb. "I'm really sorry to interrupt your work, sir, but I'm looking for Wakka Capitan. Do you know where he might be?"

At the sound of her voice, Auron's head jerked up.

She stood in his doorway, a warm smile on her lovely face that faltered a little when his eyes meant hers. I know him! Her heart screamed at her. I know him!

"Rikku?" Auron asked, standing up and crossing the room to her.

A/N: How mean am I? I don't write for weeks because my life is crazy, and then I leave you all with a beautiful cliffhanger! Sorry, but you understand, it had to be done for this chapter to be effective. I hope you will all forgive me for making you wait so long! I really am sorry. My life is total chaos. But anyway,please READ AND REVIEW this! I really do thrive on everyone'sGREAT reviews! You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and that makes me want towrite more. Hopefully you like this ... and forgive me for the cliffy! XD