DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters, places, or montages of Final Fantasy X. They belong to Square, not me, blah blah blah.

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"Oh, crap."

Seymour and Rikku turned towards Lulu, startled by the black mage's uncharacteristic outburst.

"What is it, Lulu?" Rikku asked through a mouthful of cherry cobbler laden with ice cream.

"We forgot Wakka!"

"Oh." Seymour unconcernedly continued eating his key lime pie. "I hadn't noticed."

Lulu groaned. "He must still be in Luca. Auron said in his note that he went on alone, didn't he? Ohhh...!" She groaned again and covered her face with her hands. "What if he's still on the roof of the hotel?"

Rikku giggled. "Oopsie."

Lulu stood up from the table. "I'm going to call the hotel and see if he's till there. Behave yourselves while I'm gone."

"Can I have the rest of your chocolate mousse?" Rikku asked.

"Go ahead," said Lulu, already walking briskly out of the ferry's restaurant.

Rikku happily grabbed the bowl of chocolate mousse and dipped her finger into it. Once she obtained a sufficiently large glob, she slurped it off.

"Why don't you use a spoon?" Seymour asked. "There are plenty here."

"It tastes better this way," she replied. "Wanna try?"

"Actually, I am feeling tired," he said. "I think I will go to bed early."

"All right. Suit yourself." Rikku scooped up a blob of chocolate mousse. "See you in the morning, then!"

"Right. Good night."

Seymour headed to his room on the lower deck, but had no intention of sleeping. He needed to think of an escape plan. He had only a few hours before he would be sent, and he had nothing in mind. It was disgraceful. He shut the door behind him—Lulu had confiscated his key, so he could not lock it—and sat down on the edge of the bed to think.

If all else failed, he supposed he could jump ship in the middle of the night and swim for it. He would rather not, though. He wasn't strong enough to fend off the more powerful ocean fiends without magic, and it would be just his luck if Sin showed up when he couldn't take advantage of the opportunity. Also, Rikku would put him to sleep or worse the second they realized he was missing, and he would be watched more carefully afterward. He'd acquired some measure of trust from Rikku and Lulu; it could be useful, and he didn't want to jeopardize it unnecessarily.

Taking Calhoun's controller from Rikku seemed the best course of action. Lulu and Rikku were in separate rooms. So long as he could keep from waking Rikku, he would be fine. He could take the device, run, and worry about figuring out how to work the contraption later. It was a simple plan, but it ought to suffice. And if Rikku should wake up?

Worry about getting the controller first, his told himself. Then keep her quiet.

He frowned. I don't want to hurt her...

Seymour jerked upright. He didn't what? Since when did he care about that? Anyway, it wasn't as though he was going to kill her. He would simply knock her unconscious, if that. And he didn't mind if he had to kill. He was used to it. Hadn't he tried to kill her and countless others before? This should not bother him in the slightest. Right?

He noticed that he had moved from "did not care" to "should not care."

He also noticed that he did care. The thought of hurting Rikku troubled him. The thought of having to kill her made him feel horribly sick in a way that was alien to him. No, he would not harm her, and he doubted that he could bring himself to.

"Geez, Seymour, what is happening to you?" he asked himself aloud. His eyes widened as he realized he'd used one of Rikku's words. Now he truly was disturbed. He decided to sleep for a few hours to clear his mind. He changed into his sleepwear, climbed into bed, and set his alarm clock for three hours hence. When he woke up, he thought as he turned off the light, Rikku would probably be asleep. He could take the controller from her then.

Rikku...

She had been a far kinder keeper than he had expected. Sure, there were the assorted injuries, the double entendres, the seemingly random schemes, the questionable outfits, but it had not been that bad. He quite liked the questionable outfits. He still did not understand why Rikku had wanted to do most of the things she had made him do, but he supposed they made sense in her head. Rikku's manic mind intrigued him. And while he could do without the injuries, the circumstances under which he had received them were enjoyable in retrospect.

Yes, he would miss her. He thought of her whirling green eyes, flashing in mischief; her eager, wide grin; the tug of her hand as she dragged him off somewhere, dashing excitedly ahead; her ever-present laugh that trilled like a bird's chirp.

Seymour chuckled. If I did not know better, I would say I sounded like a lovelorn fool.

Lovelorn... He froze.

No, he reassured himself hastily. Impossible. The very idea was laughable, as he had told Cid three days ago. Had it really only been three days? It seemed longer. Him in love! It was an oxymoron. The closest thing had been his infatuation with Yuna. He simply wasn't equipped for that particular emotion. True, Rikku had become a friend of sorts, but nothing more.

But as he tried to banish the thought, Seymour recalled the small, suppressed urges to smooth back her hair or touch her shoulder; the flustered reactions her flirtatious insinuations never failed to bring, though by all rights he should have grown accustomed to them. He realized for the first time how astonishingly patient and willing he had been with her. He had grumbled and complained all the while, but he hadn't strongly resisted one of her orders since they were on the airship. He'd reasoned that she just would have made him do as she said anyway, and that fighting was useless, but that clashed with his nature. He vowed to fight indignity to the end... unless these weren't indignities. Unless he'd wanted to go along with her. Hadn't he already admitted that he'd enjoyed himself?

Seymour groaned and pulled the covers up over his head. "Damn it."

He made himself fall asleep, hoping to awaken and find this...this notion banished when he awoke. This did not happen. Instead Seymour dreamed of Rikku and thought of her the instant he regained consciousness. Flustered, he vaulted out of bed and headed above deck for some air.

Luckily, no one else was about. Seymour hopped up on the railing and sat dangling his feet. He looked over his shoulder and stared out at the still, dark ocean.

"I do not love Rikku," he tried to convince himself. It was to no avail. "I cannot love Rikku." This, too, was a lie. He could feel it. He scowled. "Hmph! It is not as though she would reciprocate!"

No, she wouldn't reciprocate. At best, she would find it amusing. Look at her! Why on earth would a young girl be remotely interested in someone over a decade older—not to mention dead? Also, Rikku was an Al Bhed. His race had given hers every cause to hate them—and he personally had given most of them. He'd have to wipe Rikku's memory for her to even consider caring for him. And then there were her friends' grievances against him. Multiple murder attempts, kidnapping, lies... and almost marrying her cousin had to be breaking some law of relationships. If he told her of his feelings, she would think it was part of some new scheme on his part. And she had every reason to think so.

Seymour shut his eyes, feeling strangely guilty. "I should not love Rikku," he whispered. "I do not deserve to."

Footsteps thudded on the deck. Seymour glanced up and saw Rikku walking towards him. "Hi, Seymour!"

"Hello, Rikku." Seymour's mind focused on one concept: ACT NORMAL.

Rikku draped her arms over the railing next to him. "What're you doing up?"

"I could not sleep," he said as he shoved all romantic thoughts to the back of his mind. "And you? You're still in your day clothes."

"I haven't tried to sleep yet," she said. "I got bored, and I wanted to talk to you. When you weren't in your room, I came to look for you."

"Why did you wish to talk to me?" he asked.

"I wanted to ask about Yunie's wedding dress."

He blinked at her. "Why?"

"Billy Idol came on the the sphere in my room—White Wedding, y'know—so I got to thinking about you and Yunie's wedding, and I remembered the dress. Did you pick it out, or what? Because it was all short in the front, and that's not really Yunie's style. And where did it come from? Did you have a wedding dress with matching boots randomly sitting around Bevelle? Do some of you maesters have weird secret hobbies or something?"

Seymour chuckled. "Amusing as it is to picture the dearly departed Maester Kinoc as transvestite, I must tell you that I had the dress made for Yuna specifically. I thought the shorter cut was very becoming, personally."

"It did look nice," said Rikku. "It's just not what Yunie would pick for herself. I wouldn't mind wearing it, though. I thought it was cute."

Seymour thanked Yevon for his icy poise, which kept him from blushing or smiling.

"Lulu ought to have something really cool," Rikku continued, "once she and Wakka finally get together. She'd never let Wakka pick out a dress. His taste is as bad as Tidus'. Oh, speaking of Wakka, Lulu called the hotel in Luca. Turns out he was on the roof the whole time. I think he might be a little ticked at us, but he's none the worse for wear. Good thing Lulu noticed he was missing. Otherwise he'd have to live off the land till someone found him."

"You mean scrounging for chewed gum and communing with passing gulls?" Seymour asked.

"Yeah. Or hunting the gulls for food."

"With what?"

"His hair."

"His hair?" Seymour asked. "Explain."

"Well," said Rikku, "remember how hard yours was? You know how pointy Wakka's hair is. If it was anywhere near as hard as yours, he could use it to stab things. So Wakka would lie in wait until a gull flew near enough. Then he'd jump up and skewer it with his hair!"

Seymour laughed. "What if he wanted to get more than one gull?"

Rikku giggled. "He could use some old straws to make a blowgun, and he could chip off pieces of his hair to use as darts!"

Seymour laughed harder, clutching his sides at the image of Wakka using his hair as a projectile weapon. In his mirth he leaned too far back and overbalanced. He toppled backwards over the railing and hit the sea awkwardly. The water slapped his back. He tried paddling to the surface, but the long trail of his sleeveless robe became unwieldy and tangled around his feet. He heard something enter the water a few yards in front of him. Seymour glanced up and saw Rikku treading water and beckoning to him.

Flee! the rational part of his mind screamed. Forget Calhoun! Now is your chance! What is stopping you?

Seymour extricated himself from the fabric and paused for only an instant before he swam towards Rikku and took her outstretched hand. They surfaced together.

Seymour noticed a cable attached to something on Rikku's belt. "What is that?"

"A tow line," she said. "The other end's attached to the ferry." She pointed to the boat, which had traveled a surprising distance in the short time since he had fallen. "It'll pull us in. Hold me." She paused. "Umm, you know. Because otherwise you'd fall."

Seymour noticed that she hadn't burst into giggles or hammed up the command's connotations. Odd. He gripped her shoulders. "Like this?"

"No, lower. Around my waist." Seymour resettled his hands above Rikku's hips. She rolled her eyes. "You'll have to do it tighter than that if you want to stay on. Suck up the weirdness and be a man"

"I'm only half human man," Seymour grumbled, but he obeyed. He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and pulled her firmly against him. He tried to ignore the sense of awkward, giddy contentment that he now felt. At least he was holding her from behind instead of otherwise. "For the record," he said, "this was your idea."

Rikku craned her neck and looked at Seymour. "Don't worry. I wouldn't even bother using this after the kissing thing. It's no longer shocking." A familiar glimmer of mischief appeared in her eye, "Well, I suppose I could make it shocking, if you really wanted to. I could reposition the tow line so you have to hold me in a more risqué fashion."

Seymour was very proud of himself for not blushing. "I regret asking."

Rikku faced front again. "Brace yourself. I'm reeling us in."

"Ready," Seymour said once he had secured his hold.

"Blastoff!" Rikku punched a button on her belt. Th tow line jerked forward, and Seymour was glad that he had followed Rikku's instructions. Though he was not flying back into the water, the waves bludgeoned him as they sped through the water.

"This is not the most comfortable way to travel," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the water.

"Well, this'll teach you not to fall overboard," Rikku hollered back. "Or it'll teach me not to make you laugh."

"You will always make me laugh," Seymour said without thinking.

"What?"

He cursed himself. What had he said that for? He needed to watch his tongue. "Nothing."

Rikku glanced skyward. "Going up!"

Before Seymour had time to wonder what that meant, the tow line lifted them into the air, scaling the side of the ferry. With gravity's pull, he suddenly found his hold on Rikku slipping.

"Sorry," he said, embarrassed, as he hastily scrambled to reposition his hands in a more neutral location without losing his grip entirely.

Rikku shrieked and giggled. "Eek! Not there! That tickles!"

Seymour felt a flush rising to his cheeks. "I cannot move elsewhere!"

"Don't worry about it. We're almost there."

The tow line drew them up level to the ferry's railing. Rikku spun around so Seymour could climb up first, accidentally banging him against the side of the boat in the process. He carefully—and reluctantly—let go of Rikku with one arm, got a good grip on the railing, and hauled himself back onto the deck. Rikku clambered after him. She unclamped the tow line's hook and stuffed it into one of her pouches.

"Squish, squish." Rikku hopped from one foot to the other, leaving wet footprints. "Ugh. These'll take forever to dry." She peeled off her damp, oozing socks and shoes and set them aside.

Seymour too was sopping wet. The soaking weight of his sleeveless robe added a good ten pounds of extra weight. He stripped off the soaked garment and squeezed it. A puddle dribbled to the floor. He held it out at arm's length. "I suppose this is useless for the time being."

Rikku took it from him. "I can dry it, if you want. No sense in having you waterlogged."

Seymour smiled halfway. "Soggy pyreflies travel more slowly?" he asked wryly, surprising himself at how flippant he was about the matter he so dreaded.

An odd expression came over Rikku's face. She whirled so Seymour couldn't see her. "Yeah, maybe," she chirped, though her cheerfulness sounded forced. "Wouldn't want to go the Farplane all squelchy, would we?" She began wringing out the robe and did not speak. The only sounds for the next few moments were the waves lapping the ferry's side and the dripping of water onto the deck. Soon the robe was wrung dry. Rikku continued twisting the fabric tighter and tighter, until her arms shook with the amount of force needed to keep the fabric from snapping back into shape. Something that sounded very like a sob escaped her.

Seymour touched her shoulder gently, wondering what could be troubling her so. "Rikku?"

"Why did you come back?"

He did not understand. "What?"

"Why didn't you just swim for it?" she demanded, still not looking at him. "I would've let you!"

He was too surprised to think of a lie, or some sarcastic remark that better suited his character as she expected it. "I wanted to come back."

"You wanted to?"

"Yes."

"Then you're stupid!" Rikku flung the robe down violently. "Don't you get it? We'll be in Besaid in the morning. Yunie will send you! There's no coming back from that, not even for you!"

Could she possibly—? No, it was preposterous. "Why," he asked slowly, "does any of this matter to you?"

Rikku turned and faced him, her wide green eyes bright and quivering with tears. "Because." Her voice broke. "I don't want you to go..."

Unexpectedly she embraced him tightly. Seymour felt her tears dripping down his chest, her breathing coming in shaking gasps. From somewhere, he could swear he heard quiet piano music. He put his arms around her and gently stroked her back, wanting to soothe her trembling form. "Do not cry," he murmured, trying to stop the droplets that threatened to fall from his own eyes. "You should not cry."

"Why?" she whispered. "Why did you want to come back?"

He had nothing to lose by admitting it. "For you." The piano music he had heard was now joined by a high female voice and a chorus of strings. "I am sorry. I know I should not..." No, he should not. He had no right to, after all he had done.

Rikku touched his face. "You're crying..."

"Am I?" He tried to steady his voice. "I hadn't realized."

"You're not supposed to cry," she protested.

"I am sorry," he apologized again.

"You're not supposed to be sorry, either." Rikku stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. The music paused for a moment.

Seymour leaned down and met her lips with his.

As they kissed, a symphony exploded around them. Seymour was conscious only of himself and Rikku, aloft and spinning through infinite stars and water; where these things came from he was not sure, but he didn't care. Being with Rikku was all that mattered, nothing else. Had there ever been anything else? He honestly could not remember, and he stopped trying to. He lost himself in all of it: the water, the starlight, the music, the twirling—and Rikku, at the center of it all.

"I love you," he told her once they had returned to normalcy.

Rikku grinned. "Well, I kinda figured, after all that crying and spinning and stuff." She kissed him again. "I love you, too."

"Your father really is going to kill me now, isn't he?"

"Yeah, probably. And your Guado buddies aren't going to be happy with you, either."

"I don't mind." He paused. "What of your friends?"

Rikku sighed. "I don't know." She leaned her head against Seymour's chest. "What are we going to do?"

"It is my problem," he said. "Do not trouble yourself."

"I think it's very much my problem too, so I'll trouble myself all I want," she retorted. She paused. "I could... I could take Calhoun off of you. Then you could leave."

"No."

She looked up at him, surprised. "No?"

Seymour was shocked himself. Had he just rejected an offer of power? "No," he repeated. "If you take Calhoun off, the others will not like it. And...I do not know what I will do if I have my powers again," he admitted. "I will not hurt you. I will never hurt you willingly. But the others—I can promise nothing."

Rikku nodded. "I know. I can't expect you to. You've already changed more than I ever thought you could."

"It will be fine," Seymour reassured her, though he did not believe it himself. He rubbed her back. "We will know tomorrow what will happen."

Rikku gazed up at him. "Stay with me tonight."

Seymour felt a misgiving. It was a desirable proposition to be sure, but Rikku was still very young. Did she fully understand what she was doing? "Are you absolutely certain?" he asked her. "I will gladly do so, but only if you are sure that this is what you want."

"I didn't mean like that," said Rikku. "Geez. Love or not, I'm not going to go from first base to loss of virginity in an hour. In stories, it's romantic. In real life, its too fast and skanky."

"Oh." Seymour was a bit relieved. He was also leery about moving that quickly. It didn't seem gentlemanly somehow, regardless of who initiated it.

"What I meant," she said, "is for you to just stay with me during the night. Just sitting and talking and sleeping. No—"

"Canoodling?" Seymour suggested.

Rikku giggled. "I was going to say 'funny stuff between the sheets,' but same thing. Where'd you come up with canoodling? It's a grandma word."

"Have you not noticed by now that I am a stranger to slang terms and modern euphemisms?" he asked. "If you prefer, I can also call it fornicating, copulating, or consummating the relationship."

"Bleah." She wrinkled her nose. "Amazing how the wrong name can make something good sound so unappealing." "But yeah. None of that. I just want you to be near me...for as long as possible."

Seymour smiled. "That, I will also gladly do."

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(A/N) To any romance-lovers out there, I must state that romance is not my strong suit at all. I wish I could've made everything less abrupt, but I only have two chapters in which to romanticize. If you like it so far, stay tuned for the almost-completed Romantic Ending Part 2!

To anyone who is not so fond of the romance, I suggest skipping Part 2 and waiting for the second and third alternate endings, which will be romance-free.

To all readers and reviewers, thank you again. I apologize profusely for being so slow to update. I blame school, rehearsal, college-related junk, and general laziness on my part. But as I said, Part 2 is almost done, and ought to be up soon!