FDB- This is the end. It's been fun. Hope you've enjoyed My Immortal Emotion. See you in the sequel.

Epilogue: I've been alone all along.

I woke up in a dark hospital room surrounded by my slumbering family. My dad was asleep in a chair, Mom was on the couch, and…Rebecca wasn't there. Thank God. I don't need that right now. I just need Rikku. I lay there, staring at the ceiling for a while. Then I just started crying. I cried like I had after learning Stephanie was dead. Cried like I did at her funeral. It was that same pain all over again. Except this was worse.

Rikku was alive somewhere, and knowing that just tore at my heart. Stephanie was dead, and I had accepted that. I'd accepted the fact that I'd never be able to hold her again. At least on this side. But Rikku was still alive. Knowing that she could be in my arms was even worse than her being dead. I just lay there in the darkness, the beeping of the heart monitor the only sound other than my shallow sobs.

I tried to reach up and wipe the tears away with my right arm, and found that it hurt like a bitch. I looked down and it was in a cast from the elbow down. I looked my self over and found that the only other damage was to my right leg, which was also in a cast. I looked to my left side and didn't find a cast. But I did find a pair of bandages.

They were on my old scars. When I first came to, I thought that the whole Spira thing was just a dream. But this proved it. My old scars had opened up again. Because of Yu Yevon. He opened them up to remind me of the pain I felt when I lost Stephanie. But it back fired on him. I tore him to pieces, just like that motherfucker back in Central Park tore my heart apart.

I lay there wide awake until morning. I surprised my parents when they awoke to find me conscious and asking for something to drink. They were all freaking out. Turns out I had been in a coma for a little more than a week. It was the exact time I had spent in Spira. My sister came in and starting poking at my casts, but you know, I was actually starting to miss her.

I was out of there in a couple of weeks, and walking again in about five months. It was with a cane, but I was still walking. I healed up nice, but something was still bothering me. When I finally got to go home, Mom said that a strange package had arrived addressed to me. It also came with specific instructions that only I could open it. When I did, I was inside my room. And guess what was inside.

Tetsusaiga, Masamune, Wakka's Blitzball crest, Kimahri's stick, Yuna's bracelet, Lulu's doll, and Rikku's music box with the letter. It was all the stuff I had from Spira. To this day, I have kept them and treasured them. I wear the bracelet every day, and I always have the music box and the blitzball crest in my pocket wherever I go.

As it would turn out, my grandfather from down south won the lottery and said he'd pay my way through college and buy me a new car. I was already 16 and driving when this happened, and, not wanting to drive my grandmother's old Ford Explorer all through the rest of high school, accepted. We went to a number of dealerships, and I finally settled on a 2005 Ford Mustang. Those things are beautiful. But there's one dealership we went to that I think I'll never be able to go back to. I think I freaked the dealer out when I started crying after he tried to sell me a Cadillac.

But now I'm in college. I finally moved into my dorm about three days after my 18th birthday. I got some great stuff. I got one of those thin, skinny PS2s, and I got a small TV. Rebecca got my old PS2, so my friends bought me some new controllers and some new games. I was sitting on the floor in my room unwrapping them. Jak III, the Devil May Cry trilogy (my sister was in love with Dante, so I asked my friends for a new set of disks so I could let Becca have the old ones), GTA San Andreas, and I was just unwrapping the last one. It the wrapping came off quick and easy to reveal…oh…God…

It was Tidus and the Fishhook. He was there in the water, same goofy grin plastered on his face. I looked at the title. Final Fantasy X. I glanced at the back and saw Yuna dancing on water. Auron was in one of the pictures as well…he looks uglier in person. I ripped off the protective plastic and opened the case. I pulled the booklet out of it and cracked it open. But before I did, I saw the cover. It was Tidus and Yuna in Macalania. The scene that started it all between me and Rikku.

I flipped it open and saw Yuna again, Lulu, then everyone. And right there at the bottom of the page was Rikku. She looked so much more beautiful in person. I kept flipping, passing section after section, "Battle System", "Sphere Grid", and when I came to "Minigames", I saw Rikku again, just as I had seen her in Spira. I couldn't stand it. Why couldn't we be together? What did that kid mean when he said that 'for things to go as they should, I have to be here'? Why can't I be with Rikku?

I just slapped the booklet shut and threw it, not caring what it hit. It hit my clock radio and knocked it on. Then I heard it. The song that started it all. The song that sparked Rikku's love for me. It was at the part that always made me cry. The part that made Rikku cry…

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just too real

There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried

I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream

I'd fight away all of your fears

And I held your hand

Through all of these years

But you still have

All of me

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone

But though you're still with me

I've been alone all along