Standard Disclaimer. I do not own FFX or the characters in it. They are owned by Square-Enix. I do own this story, and my original characters. The title of this chapter is from a song performed by Carly Simon.

Auron and Mercy were both silent as they walked around the hill to the side opposite the main camp. She watched her husband out of the corner of her eye as he paced at her side. He's withdrawn again. What is eating him? I wish I hadn't asked that stupid question about what's-his-name…Seymour. Hell, what does it matter, if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. I swear, the man is driving me out of my mind! At this point, if I were a Summoner, I'd be half tempted to send him myself, just to put him out of my misery, she reflected sarcastically. Lucky for him, that's impossible.

Auron stared straight ahead as he paced, letting anger fill him. Of all the emotions racing around inside him at this moment, it was the only one that would keep him moving forward, however unjustified it was, so he held onto it grimly. Why didn't she at least try the mountain, he asked himself, over and over. She was fit and healthy, she could have made the attempt. She might have met us on the Thunder Plains, or Macalania, at the latest. Still locked inside his own head, he reached the point he judged to be the correct spot, and dropped his pack on the ground from standing height. It made a solid 'whoosh' when it hit the sandy soil.

The noise pulled her out of her dark reverie. Looks like we're camping here, she acknowledged to herself, watching his jerky movements as he knelt to unstrap his bedroll.
He kept his blind side turned towards her, as his thoughts buzzed like angry wasps. I managed the climb over Gagazet alone, half-dead. Couldn't she have at least tried? His conscience roared back at him, Fool! You had just removed most of the fiends, and Braska had just brought the Calm. The carrion-eaters were squabbling over your soon-to-be-fresh corpse. You were perversely lucky. You were properly equipped for the conditions, and the Ronso already knew you. The circumstances were not the same, and you know it. She acted correctly. Enough!

Mercy heard him snap his bedroll into place on the ground, and lay his sword down. He threw his belt over his pack with sharp slap of leather against leather. His armor followed, landing on his pack so hard that all the metal buckles rattled. She bent over to spread her own bedroll out on the ground next to his. She didn't need to watch to know what he was doing, in the still night, his movements were so loud, she could track him by the sounds alone. She pulled a thin blanket from her own pack, along with the threadbare bundle of clothing she used as a pillow. Then she laid her own swords down where she could reach them easily if they were attacked during the night, and began to unwind her belt.

His coat had fallen to the ground; he kicked it to the 'foot' of the bed, then sat heavily and began to yank off his boots. The prod from his conscience forced his emotions onto another track, and after he set his boots aside he stared up into the night sky, and guilt punched him in the stomach. The sky between the stars is black, as black as the witch's hair, and how in the hell am I supposed to tell my wife about that? He reached blindly for his jug, took a long pull, rinsed his mouth, and spat out the liquor. Every time I think about what happened, I need to wash the taste of it out of my mouth. Whoever said confession was good for the soul, surely did not have a wife as adept with the swords as mine is. But I must tell her, and pray she forgives me.

She finished undoing her belt, stripped off her tunic, and stuffed them both into her pack. Then she sat on her own bedroll with her back to her husband, her knees drawn up and her arms clasped around them, her eyes closed, her cheek resting on her knees, thinking, This is not how it was supposed to be. We were supposed to make love first, then reveal all the horrible truths. Not begin with this brittle silence. Eventually, she gathered up the energy to work on getting her thigh-high boots off by herself. She leaned back, and her right shoulder settled into his solidly muscled back. She felt his whole body go completely still. She took a deep breath, got a firm grip on her right boot, and yanked it off.

He held his breath. When she touched him, he felt it as a blow to his heart, his emotions crashed into darkness, and he was completely paralyzed. Fear. Mind-numbing, heart-stopping, gut-wrenching fear. We are only certain of tonight. Tomorrow, there will be…battles…fiends. It is worse than when we hunted in the hills. She could fall, in any battle, on any day. Spira is infinitely more hazardous than the dream city. A hundred-fold, a thousand…it does not matter, more is more. Yuna will make her choice tomorrow. She will see the true face of Yevon. When she hears Yunalesca's offer, I do not know what she will choose. I have had too many nightmares where I have seen the face of the next Sin…and it is a Ronso face, with a broken horn. If that is her choice, we could fight Sin as soon as tomorrow, or as late as a month from now. But if she refuses the bitch-queen…none of us will walk away unscathed. We will be fortunate if any of us escape, let alone all of us.

Mercy leaned forward, grabbed her left boot, leaned again into Auron's back, and tugged, but it wouldn't give. She dug her shoulder into his back, wriggled her hips and twisted her whole body in an attempt to get some leverage on her stubborn footwear. Something, her movements, the noises she was making, or simply her fierce determination to 'win' an argument with an inanimate object, lifted his paralysis. If we only have tonight, why am I just sitting here? Why aren't I helping her remove that boot, he concluded, a half-smile forming on his lips. He swiveled in his seat, just as her foot popped out of her boot.
Without his back to support her, propelled by her own momentum, she fell backwards, until he caught her under the shoulders with one arm, and she found herself in an awkward position, sprawled across his knees, with the sole of the boot still clutched in her upraised hands, and the rest of it flopping in her face. He plucked the boot out of her hands, and she could see his face, the half-smile, the warmth in his gaze. Her face lit in an answering smile, as he started to pull her up. Her palms skated up the corded muscles of his arms, and the warmth turned to heat.
He lifted her easily, until her face was on a level with his. Her fingers touched his cheek, his hand framed her face, their lips met in a kiss that began in scorching intensity, and almost instantly got hotter. They pulled each other down onto the mats, their mouths still fused together.
He dragged the strap of her bra down off her shoulder, exposing her breast. His hands were rough. Not only the texture of his skin, he was just...too desperate now, as though he resented the time it would take for him be gentle. She didn't care; she was too busy trying to claw his shirt up out of his pants. He rubbed his palm against the hard peak of her nipple, and she writhed under him. Her leg hooked around and she ran her heel up and down the back of his thigh. Someone started moaning, low, incoherent sounds. Her nails reached his skin; he felt the sting as they raked his back. It only added to the burn in his blood. His hand closed around her breast, hard and tight. It should have hurt, but it didn't, she just wanted more, more of everything...except their clothes. She tugged at his shirt again, urging him silently to get rid of it. He broke off kissing her just long enough to drag it over his head and throw it somewhere out of sight. She ditched her bra just before he fell back on top of her, holding her down with his body. Another kiss, hard, deep, possessive, equally for both of them, she wrapped the long tail of his hair around her fist, keeping his mouth slashed down on hers until the need for breath forced her to let him up.

He started to move then, his lips licking kisses down her neck, beginning to nibble when he reached the curve of her breast. He slid down over her, keeping her legs pinned together, and in a blinding flash she realized, he's keeping me pinned so I won't leave, I don't care, this way he can't leave either, and then his tongue licked the taut peak of her right breast, and all thought fled. She dug her nails into his back as he sucked her nipple into his mouth, and her head fell back in a silent scream as her whole body tried to arch underneath his. She could feel how hard he was, his erection was digging into her thigh. She flexed and rubbed against him, and he lost control, his teeth closing on her flesh. She whimpered, not in pain, but in pleasure at the heightened sensation, and he heard himself growl, low in his throat, as he caught her nipple between his teeth again as she clawed at his shoulders. I can't take much more of this, we're way past needing any more foreplay, how do I get him out of his pants if I can't reach? Oh, talking, I remember that. She took a breath, opened her mouth to say something, and he must have felt the movement, because he raised himself up on his arms, fast, and his mouth crushed hers, silencing her. His thoughts were practically incoherent, but the few sputtering brain cells had sent him the warning, No talking. Every time we talk…we fuck things up. So he tried to kiss her senseless instead.

She had him where she wanted him now, or at least one of the possibilities, except still with too many clothes. She slid both her hands down the back of his pants, inside, against his skin. She wasn't thinking anymore, she just splayed her fingers over the tautly muscled cheeks of his butt and tilted her hips, and he was fitted right against the notch between her thighs, and trying to find a way in through too many layers of clothes. He rolled off her then, sat up and began to unfasten his pants, as she started to wiggle out of hers. It was quicker this way. But her movements, the jiggle of her breasts and shimmy of her hips took all of his attention, and he was mesmerized as she rolled her leggings down, revealing the smooth curve of her belly. She stopped, looked into his staring face, and opened her mouth to speak. He pressed a finger to her lips to silence her again, and she sucked it suggestively. He trailed his now wet finger down over her breast, circling one still taut peak, then continued down her midriff to stop at the rolled-down waistband of her leggings. His hand dipped inside, teasing the dark, wet curls. She rubbed her hand against him, stroking him, teasing him equally, as she finished the job of undoing his buttons. He shucked his trousers fast so he could watch her roll down her leggings, feasting his gaze on each bit of her body as it was revealed.

Then his arms were bracketing her head, and he had one knee between her legs, silently asking if it was all right for him to do this, asking admittance with a sudden desperate look and a raised eyebrow, and her arms were around him, and her hips were tilted up to his, and in one swift thrust he was deep inside her, all the way in, and he thought, This is the way it is supposed to be, just before he bent to kiss her. They moved together then, their bodies remembering the rhythm. They pushed and pounded on each other, urging each other for more, harder, faster. She wrapped her legs around his waist, dug her heels into his back, pulling him in tight, pushing her hips up to meet his every thrust. He felt her body tense completely, saw her eyes go wide and blind, then she found her release, so hard, so complete, she thought she saw the stars shooting overhead. She also needed to scream so badly that she sank her teeth into his shoulder instead. He was so close to the edge himself, that it took him right over, and he pumped into her over and over as she convulsed around him.

They stayed like that for a while, unconscious, but eventually she woke up and forced him to heave himself off of her, to let her get some air. They settled down for the night as they always had, using her old blanket and his coat as bed coverings, and now he had her pillow, because she had his shoulder. Fair is fair, she thought. But please, whoever watches out for fools and misguided travelers, don't let us get attacked tonight. I don't want to get up and hunt for his t-shirt right now, and I really, truly don't want to end up fighting naked in front of the others. And I especially don't want Lulu to find out exactly what she missed. She snuggled her head into the hollow of her husband's shoulder, and sighed. Do I do this now, or do we try to get some sleep first? I feel so good right now, so dreamy. I think my brain's turned to mush. But I supposed it had better be now. I might not get another chance like this. I think it'll be better if he's just as wiped out as I am, she thought hazily. It'll make it harder for him to run away again. She raised herself on one elbow, and looked down into his face. He's half asleep. This is going to be so much fun, she decided sarcastically. Now I know just how he felt, the day he told me about this place.
"Auron, love, we have to talk," she said, her voice quavering slightly.
He wondered, why does it always sound so ominous when a woman says, 'we have to talk'? Because it always does sound ominous, he decided. He was completely awake.
"I didn't tell the others everything about how I got to Spira."
He turned on his side, so that he could face her. He knew instantly from her expression that he wasn't going to like this story. "I didn't think so. Tell me," he ordered.

She drew back a little at his peremptory tone; so he took her hand, and laced his fingers with hers to soften his words, and to maintain the suddenly fragile contact between them. She looked down at their joined hands, then she began to tell the real story. "When you left, I did watch the tidal wave, and Sin coming, from the windows. That much was true. The wave was going to go straight through the building on its way to the stadium. You were right when you thought that building would be a target. It was." She shook her head at the memory. "It was coming on pretty fast. And it was so big; I knew I couldn't get far enough away fast enough, even if I'd wanted to. I knew I was going to die, but I didn't know if that would be enough to reach your Farplane." She stared into his face, gripped his hand, tried to will him to understand what she was saying. "Love, I believe you, I believe in you, I did from the very beginning, but I can't believe what you believe. Just because I knew I was going to die, didn't mean I wanted to die. I've never believed in your Farplane, just in you. I didn't know whether that would be enough, enough to let me in, or whether that would keep me out. I watched Sin come and said I wished there was another way, and then I heard fingers snapping behind me, and there was a woman, one of the fayth, in the room with me. She came out of nowhere. Shiva. She said there was another way if I chose to take it, but..." she suddenly stopped, and looked up into the stars, searching for the right words, or for courage. She found something, because her eyes returned to his face, and she continued, "But the other way involved great trials, and if we failed, great loss. But if we succeeded…if we succeeded," her voice softened, "our hearts' desire."
"We?" he asked suspiciously.
"I'm sorry, but yes. We. There was no other way." Her voice was firmer now.
"Tell me the rest," he said, trying hard to keep it from sounding like an order this time.
"She said that we had set the parameters for your part of the trial ourselves. I offered you your freedom, and you refused to take it. You gave me your word. So the trial was that someone would tempt you to break your word. It was Lulu, wasn't it, a little over three sennights ago?"
His embarrassed silence was all the answer she needed, but eventually he choked out, "How did you know?"
"Oh, please. You told me yourself; when you described the group, remember? I couldn't quite hear whether you called her a witch, or a bitch, or maybe you couldn't decide. You're still not good at barefaced lying, at least not to me. I know about the timing because of my part of the trial." She swallowed, hard. She knew this next bit would be the worst.

"I needed to ride Sin from Zanarkand to Spira, just as you did. But Jecht was expecting you and Tidus. He wouldn't have taken me the same way he did the two of you. Please stop feeling guilty, Auron. You couldn't have taken me with you. You probably were right about that. It probably wouldn't have worked. I didn't get here that way, so stop beating yourself up about it. You and Tidus went though the 'front door'; I guess you would call it. You knocked, and Jecht answered, more or less politely. Shiva said she would have to sneak me in, I suppose you could say, through the 'back door'. She explained to me what this 'other way' of hers was, and that she was certain it would work. I imagine that the fayth of Zanarkand, the fayth of the aeons, Sin, and Yevon are all interrelated somehow, and that's how she knew it was possible. But she said that all I had to do was take my pack and go up to the roof of the building. She told me to think about everything she said while I was on my way up to her, and that she would be waiting for me. If I decided to go through with it, she said she would throw me into Sin from the top of the building."
"There's more, isn't there?" he asked in fearful resignation.
"I had already made my decision. When the time came, I said 'Yes'. She told me to close my eyes. As soon as I did, she put her arms around me. Auron, her touch was like ice. She kicked off from the top of the building. I remember thinking at the time how strong she was, that she was much stronger than any normal woman her size, because she propelled us much farther than should ever have been possible from just that one kick. And you know, she seemed to be holding me with more, I don't know, appendages than just two arms. It was just weird, but by then, everything was a nightmare."
She leaned over, kissed him softly, and whispered, "I love you."
He answered back, the only words possible, the deepest truth of his heart. "I love you, too, my lady." But that same heart was pounding in his chest as she kept her eyes locked on his.

"We pierced Sin's watery shell. Shiva had warned me, that, when that happened…I would die." His eye closed for a second, in shock, and he forced himself to open it and keep focusing on her while his breath froze in his body. He had to hear every word she said, he had to understand. He had to. "She told me that if I could hold my spirit, my soul, intact through the maelstrom, I could ride Sin back to Spira. But I had to stay, hidden, inside Sin, until you passed your trial. After that, they promised that they would 'pull me out', and land me in Spira ahead of you." She laughed, a strained, bitter sound. "Then, it was supposed to be simple; I just had to survive in human form until we found each other." She choked on unshed tears. "But for three months, I rode Sin in the belly of a beast…my soul hidden from everyone, even the poor beast itself. It was a coeurl. I saw once, through its eyes, its reflection in the Sea of Sorrows. It had turned black, with crimson whiskers. Finally, three sennights ago, I found myself here."
His face was white in the moonlight. And she was frightened now, afraid he would reject her, but it was too late to turn back, or to leave the story unfinished, especially so near its end.
"Auron, I thought it was the only sure way, so I took it. I believed in your word a lot more than I believed I could reach your Farplane on my own. Love, I am like you now. I am unsent."
Anger, fear, awe roiled through him simultaneously. He clasped her tightly in his arms, mostly to keep himself from shaking her until her teeth rattled. If either of them had failed, her spirit would have been lost.
"Why did the fayth do this for you?" he finally asked.
Auron, sometimes, you truly are a fool. As she looked into his face her expression held both total love, and complete exasperation, and she said, "Love, they didn't do this for me. They did it for you."

End Chapter Twenty-Five