Disclaimer: Oh, seriously, people! You all know that I didn't make up FFX or its characters! If I did, it wouldn't be in the FANFICTION section! Honestly, people, it's NOT THAT HARD!!!

Okay, glad that little spasm is over. This chapter's in Tidus's point of view, cause I've been neglecting my poor blond-haired bishi lately ^-^!

Oh, by the way, this chapter is the same time as Yuna's last one. After I finished writing chapter five, I was thinking about how much fun it'd be to write the same occurrences from Tidus's point of view.

I think I'll just shut up now.

This is probably gonna confuse some people, but I put random author's notes in here. Any of my notes will be in double parenthesis [Like this:(()) ] Tidus also makes notes, and his will be in regular parenthesis.

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Chapter 6

"Yuna…" The name slipped from my lips in a whisper, unbidden by my brain. She constantly invaded my thoughts. Everything about her: how soft her hair was; the way her eyes made whoever looked into them trapped in her gaze, like there was nothing else on earth but that person and her; the way her skin was always so soft; how she fit so nicely in my arms; how she tasted when I kissed her… I could go on forever. But I've got a story to tell, right?

I was standing in front of her house, near the curb. Yuna lived in a small house; it was only two floors, but there were windows everywhere. I counted six on the bottom floor and three big ones on the second floor. It doesn't seem like many, compared to most of the buildings in Zanarkand (where architects had decided that whole walls being replaced with glass was "in style"), but it was a lot for the size of the house. It didn't have siding of any kind, making it different from most houses I passed; it was painted a deep, hunter green, and there was a large garden in front. The garden spread along the house, under the windows, and along the sides of a meandering stone path that curved through the grass like a water snake. It was almost overflowing with lilies, geraniums, and other plants that I had seen on our pilgrimage but hadn't bothered to learn the names of. The grass was lush and a nice, bright green. I only had the time to take all this in because I was afraid of confronting Yuna. Pretty sad, huh? A guy being scared of the girl he came back to life for. But, hey, when you don't even know how long it's been since you've seen a person, how can you know if they still love you? Especially if you never even got to tell them how you truly felt when you saw them last.

I took a deep breath and walked up the path to the house. I knocked loudly on the door. I hadn't meant to, but I was extremely jumpy right then, and couldn't control the amount of force I used.

The door opened, causing my breath to stop completely. But, of course, it was only Lulu. She stared at me hard and slammed the door in my face. I blinked. What? Why had she done that? Oh, right. The people who had pretended to be me. I sighed.

"Lulu," I called. "Lulu, it's me! I'm back!"

There was a moment of silence, and for a second I thought she had already left.

The door opened again a second later, but, instead of Lulu, it was Rikku. She was giving me a glare that I used to give people: I called it the Deathglare. Right now, she looked like she could damn me to hell with a single word. "Um, hi, Rikku. You were right: you would see me again."

She paused, her deathglare gone. She had an uncertain look on her face, as though contemplating the reality of what I had said.

"It's me, Rikku," I said quietly. "I'm really back."

She bit her lip. "Look," I said, still quiet. "I can prove it's me. Remember, we were trying to find another way to defeat Sin, one without Yuna dying? Remember, when we were talking about it at Mount Gagazet, and you said I sounded like a leader? Just before Seymour attacked us? And, when you first saw me, in Baaj temple ruins? You thought I was a fiend, and you were talking in Al Bhed, and I couldn't understand you? Come on! It's really me!"

She looked at me a minute more, then nodded slowly. "It is you," she said, awe plain in her voice. Then she turned into her old self. "Tidus! It's you!" With that, she threw her arms around my neck and gave me a strangling hug. I was surprised. I didn't know she was so strong!

"Can't… breathe…" I choked out. She quickly released her hold on me, blushing slightly. "Yuna's going to be so happy! I can't wait to see her reaction!" With that, she squealed and disappeared from the doorway. A second later, I heard a series of loud thumps and Rikku's voice, quieter, saying, "You can come in if you want! Lulu's in the kitchen!"

I entered. It didn't take me long to find the kitchen and Lulu: I just had to go straight. "Um… Lulu?"

She sighed, not looking away from the window. "You had better be real."

"I am."

"You had better not disappear again."

"I won't."

"Do you know that for sure?"

I paused. There would be no hiding the truth from Lulu. She could smell a lie from miles away. "No."

"I thought as much." She stood and looked at me. "I'm still not sure you're really you, you know. But if Rikku trusted you… I guess I can, too." I nodded, and we both looked toward the ceiling as a series of thumps sounded. Lulu gave a tiny half-smile. "You should go wait in near the main stairs. Rikku will most likely drag her down there when they're ready."

Her. My heart did a weird flip-flop. Her. Yuna. I would be seeing her again. Soon. As I walked out to the entrance again, I silently prayer to whatever deity was listening that she would still love me.

Taking a deep breath, I leaned against the front door, trying to calm myself. Of course, this technique didn't work. Why had I thought it would? It never had before. I sighed.

It was a few minutes later when I finally heard the tell-tale thumps of feet coming down the stairs. Again, my heart did flips around my chest. It honestly felt like it wasn't connected in any way to any other part of my body. It was like it was flying around my chest cavity, hitting against my lungs and ribs. What was I thinking? For all I knew, I had been gone for years. No, said the sensible part of my mind. Lulu and Rikku both looked the same. So, you couldn't have been gone for too long. I sighed lightly. Just because they looked the same didn't mean it hadn't been a long time. Because it could very well have been. I was looking down. I would leave. Soon. Now.

"Tidus…" it was only a whisper, but my name was spoken with the emotion of a scream. I looked up. There was Yuna, in some ridiculously small outfit that made her look so good I almost wet myself ((Heh… that's far to amusing… I shouldn't have even put that in there… now that's the only thing I'm gonna be able to think about when I try to title this chapter)). I offered an almost infinitesimal smile. "Hello, Yuna." Do you still love me?

She was silent for a second, her eyes wide for the same amount of time, but the look was gone almost immediately. It was replaced with one that reminded me of some of the blitzers who always acted like they were better than everyone else. But I knew Yuna wasn't like that, and I couldn't have been gone long enough for that to have changed. "Hello yourself, Sir Tidus," she replied coolly.

At a loss for words, still internally driven insane from wanting her, I said the only thing that came to mind that wouldn't make me look like a sex-crazed idiot. "H-how are you?" I stumbled over the words, my brain having gone completely numb.

She looked into my eyes, and behind the mask she was once again wearing, I saw the Yuna I had always known: my Yuna. "I'm fine, now that you're here." I relaxed: She did still love me. And she had missed me. Of course, that last one might not have been a good thing, but I didn't care. She loved me. That was all that mattered. I smiled at her.

That was it. Her calm was gone as simply and as easily as mine had come. She ran down the remaining stairs (She had been standing on a landing, three stairs from the ground). The momentum she had gained sent her sprawling into my arms. She pressed her head just above my collarbone, sobbing. I did the only thing I could right then: I held her. I gently stroked her hair, comforting her with my actions and words. I told her it would be okay, that I wouldn't leave again, et cetera. After a couple minutes, she stopped sobbing. She was now only sniffling a little. She pulled back and looked into my eyes. When I met hers with mine, I got the familiar sensation that I was falling into them. I loved that feeling. I never got tired of it, or her.

"I'm so glad you're back," Yuna whispered, her voice breaking slightly.

I smiled. "I'm glad to be back." The I remembered something, and I grew instantly serious. I had never told her I loved her. Well, now was as good a time as any, I guessed. "Yuna, there's something I never told you: I love you. I think you knew, and I hope you never doubted it for a moment. I love you more than…" I did a quick scan for anything I loved the same as I loved her. Nothing even came close. "Anything," I finished lamely.

Tears returned to her eyes. She grabbed my hand gently in hers. "I knew. I just needed to hear you say it." She said, her voice once again barely above a whisper. Tell me you love me, I begged her silently. Please. I need to hear you say you love me.

"And I love you, too."

That was all I needed to hear. Even if I left now, I could die a happy man. Yuna loved me. Me. She could have any man in Spira, but she chose me. There was only one thing I could do right then: I pressed my lips to hers in a small, lame excuse for a kiss.

She reached up, putting a hand on my neck, and returned the kiss with the intensity that I hadn't given at first. But now all my emotions were flowing to her through our locked lips. I turned and pinned her against the wall with my body, my hands now resting on her hips. I wanted to be as close to her as possible right now. This one moment was making up for all the time we had lost, which I still didn't know. I heard someone giggle behind me, and groaned inwardly. Didn't Rikku know that this wasn't the kind of thing that someone should interrupt?

Yuna and I pulled away at the same time, and I turned to look at Rikku, giving her my best deathglare. Her hands were pressed together and against her lips; she almost looked like she was praying. Yuna went over and hugged her. She must have said something to her at the same time, because the Al Bhed smiled at her. When Yuna had pulled away, Rikku suggested that her cousin show me around. My love came back and took my hand, then said something to Rikku about a party. Rikku's response was happy, giggly. I didn't hear it, or even anything Yuna had said, except the word "Party." I was far to busy looking at her. God, she was so beautiful, so perfect. I couldn't understand how she could love someone so flawed as me. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, even in Zanarkand. I couldn't get enough of her beauty, her grace, of which I had been deprived of for who knows how long. However long it had been, it was far too long. Hell, a day would have been too long for me.

"Come on," She said, and even her voice held an unearthly beauty. She pulled me to one room, then the next, but they all looked the same to me. My eyes never left the beautiful girl I had come back to life to be with. Somehow I knew that that was the reason I was here, for Yuna. I finally paid attention to her tour when she lead me up a small staircase in the corner of the kitchen: how we even got to the kitchen, I didn't know. When we had climbed all the stairs, she motioned to three of the four rooms, pointing them out as Rikku's, Wakka's, and Lulu's.

"Wakka lives here?" I asked, my heart dropping slightly. With him here to take "care" of Yuna, there was very, very little chance that we'd get to do anything... interesting.

"Well, not usually." She continued to explain that he was getting some machina installed in his house, so he had been staying with Yuna. His room, she explained, was really just a guest room. That was where I'd be staying, if Lulu got her hands on me.

I looked to the fourth door, the one she hadn't said anything about. "And… that's your room?"

At her nod, I paused. How was the best way to say what I was thinking? In the end, I just asked, "Can I see it?"

She nodded again, slowly, and opened the door.

I looked around, taking in the furniture and surroundings one piece at a time. The walls her painted a light bluish-green, and the floor was covered with a carpet of a similar color. There was a wooden writing desk, a wooden cabinet-like thing for her clothes (I had learned the name of the piece once, but it was a funny word in another language that I could never remember), and a loveseat with a red flowery print covering it.

And of course, there was her bed. It was simple and comfortable-looking. It had a plain white comforter on it that looked like it was stuffed with chocobo down. The bed itself was appeared to be queen-sized: it had a wooden headboard and footboard, both carved with a matching design of flowers.

Yuna must have caught me staring at her bed, because she lead me over to it and perched on the edge, before motioning for me to do the same. I obeyed the unspoken command, and she leaned against me. I ran my hand down her hair, still awed by her beauty. She reached up and kissed me. I kissed her back, caught slightly off-guard by the passion she held in the kiss. Almost unknowingly, I lay her down, pulling my body over hers. Her delicate, thin fingers were trying to figure out how to get my shirt off, when suddenly she gasped and pushed my away. I hit the floor hard and looked up at her, confused. She stood quickly and held out her hand to me, blushing. "I'm sorry. I was just surprised. I didn't want to, you know, go that far."

I nodded and grasped her hand, allowing Yuna to help me up. "It's okay," I said. "To tell the truth, I didn't mean for that to happen, either. But it won't again, right?" I felt horrible about lying to Yuna, but I would've felt worse if she thought the only reason I was back was to get laid.

"Right," Yuna said with a nod. Awkward silence ensued.

A couple seconds later, though, a knock sounded at the door. Rikku's voice asked if she could come in.

Dropping my hand, Yuna called, "Yes, come in."

Rikku entered. "I talked to Lulu and bunch of people from the town; they said they think a party's a great idea. Oh, and by the way, Lora and Jeren say 'hi.'"

"Oh," Yuna said, "Okay. I'll come help."

Rikku smiled at her, then responded with a simple "'Kay."

The girls quickly left, leaving me alone in Yuna's room.

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Well, what do ya think? How's chapter 6?

I know I said it'd be what Tidus did, but I got lazy and just made it what he was thinking instead.

It might take me a little while to get 7 up. I would tell you why, but Shad would hurt me . . (And no, Shad, it's NOT the same reason as last time.)

Oh, speaking of Shad, I just reread your review… that whole "Flowing like water" thing put some really, really… wrong thoughts into my head. Heh… Sick kitty over here… XP But I'm glad chapter 18's working! So, how soon can we expect it? Better not be three more months…. ::mutters incoherently::

~E.N.