Paine POV; spoilers abound. Paine finally beginning to deal with memories of Bikanel and the Crimson Squad, with Yuna's help.

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Yuna asked me once what Bikanel was like. I didn't answer her, pretending the rush of air over the deck was louder than her words. She didn't ask a second time and I had thought it was because she was too timid to push for an answer. I know better know. A woman who could break a cycle of death one thousand years long, a woman who could rip the soul of a planet in half and then knit it together again—surely that woman would not be too timid to ask a simple question. She had to save the world a second time before I could understand that.

I think now she didn't ask again because she could see that I didn't want to tell her what Bikanel was like. I didn't want to tell her about how the sun beat down, or how the nights were colder than the day was hot, or how fiends attacked at every other step, their breath reeking of decay. She already knew these things, had already been to Bikanel. That wasn't what she was asking about.

But how could I tell her about the rest? She knew what Bikanel was like—she was asking what the Crimson Squad had been like. She was asking what Baralai had been like, what Gippal and Nooj had been like, and what I had been like before Yevon stole our innocence of youth, before Shuyin's ghost ripped open our minds and shot us in the back.

She knows what we are like now and the habits that come from betrayal: the careful games Baralai plays with his words, the way Gippal has of covering his trail, Nooj's obsession with death and the way I stare into sunsets as if the sun could burn out my memories. She wants to know why we act this way, but I would think she already does.

She knows how betrayal tastes, she knows the way it hurts to fight your allies, she knows what happens to people when they stop believing in the good things of life. She knows because she has been there, and she knows what it can do to people.

She knows and yet she does not play games, or cover her back or become obsessed with what eluded her or build walls to keep the memories in and the people out. She hasn't stopped believing in the good things of life.

I don't know how she can hold on.

I find her sitting on her bed. She is cleaning her gun and small bits of machina form a half-circle around her knees, springs and screws and levers. She looks up when my shadow falls over her.

I don't know why I am here, why I sought her out. I stand in silence for a moment before I hear my voice speaking of its own accord.

"The days blurred together. I don't really remember anything specific about them, just a lot of marching and sweat and fiends."

Her eyes are confused and there is a small line on her forehead, but she doesn't say anything. I go on after a minute, turning to stare out the window at the clouds.

"I remember the nights much more clearly. We didn't sleep at night, really. Just snatches here and there. Mostly we stayed awake, laughing around the fire. We had to have a fire; it was so cold at night. Even Gippal would get chilled after a little while."

At the name, I see her features smooth. She understands what I'm talking about now, even if she doesn't know why I'm telling it to her. Neither do I.

"Those were probably some of the best times of my life. We laughed all the time. We told jokes, shared our pasts, told why we joined the Crusaders and why we signed up for the Crimson Squad. Everything. We got to know each other so well that we became like family. Some of us…closer than even that."

I half-turn to face Yuna again. Her features are porcelain: smooth and uniform. She shows no signs of speaking, and her hands have not moved since I first started to talk. I don't have anything else to say, however. I don't know what to do now. We stare at each other for what seems an eternity. I have never been a patient person. I am just about to turn to leave, leaping off the balcony to the safety of the bridge and silence when she finally speaks.

"But…all of that—it changed. Yevon changed it." Her voice is soft and deep with a silent sorrow. Yevon has betrayed her also, but even after all that has beendone to her and countless others, she cannot quite bring herself to speak ill of it. I can say nothing in response, so I simply nod.

Her hands begin to move, reassembling her gun as she continues. They do not falter, but her words are hesitant.

"The marching wore you down. People, your friends…they died in Bikanel. Accidents, fiends. And then…you went to Mushroom Rock Road and the Den of Woe…"

Her voice trails off, but her hands continue moving over the machina as she meticulously fits the parts of her gun together again. I continue where she left off.

"Then everyone died. And everyone I trusted…they abandoned me. He shot me and left me to die." Even after all this time, even after the knowledge that is was not his will that pulled the trigger, it is still hard to say.

Her gun is now completely reassembled, and she takes a small cloth to the side of the barrel. The circles her small fingers draw mesmerize me.

"And you wanted to die."

She looks up, but I refuse to meet her mismatched gaze. My throat is raw when I manage to say, "Yes."

"But you couldn't die—you wouldn't let yourself. You kept remembering your friends. You knew that your friends would not let you down or abandon you, not as you knew them. You knew that…something was wrong, and you told yourself that you would find it and you would fix it."

I wonder distantly how she knows so perfectly what I had felt, lying immobile on a narrow bed in the travel agency, and then I remember. I am not the only one who has a past with the kind of betrayal that keeps sleep at bay.

"I remember thinking Nooj would not shoot me, and would not shoot Baralai and Gippal in the back. Baralai would not disappear overnight, stumbling down Mi'ihen. Gippal would not make deals with Rin. Those were not my friends, not as I knew them."

"So you set out to find why they changed. You joined the Gullwings."

"But I didn't find why. You did."

"Not without your help, Paine. I couldn't have done it without you and Rikku. Some things are impossible to do on your own."

"But they become easier with friends beside you." I complete the well-known phrase.

"Our memories make us strong, Paine, and our friends carry us through. We need both to be complete."

She smiles in her quiet way. I find myselfsmiling back, my heart strangly lighter within my chest, my mind a little moreclear. I used to think she was weak and naive.I know better now. She is the port we all cling to in the storm and she is stronger than anyone I know.

The wind is playing in my hair, tangling my swept-up bangs. It feels like ghost-fingers of memory. Together with the sunset I am watching and the heat rising from the Celsius, it is almost enough to for me to pretend I am back in Bikanel, or even before that—playing with the sand of the beaches near Djose. If I close my eyes I can see a figure silhouetted against the sunset, long hair stirring in the breeze, then a flash of light as he turns to me and says my name for the first time.

I would like to see Djose's beaches again. Maybe someday I will ask Buddy to pilot the Celsius there. Until then, I will relive my memories, letting them carry me through.

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AN: I'm planning a companion piece from Yuna's POV. What do you think?