A/N: N/A.

Disclaimer: No recognizable material belongs to me.

"To suffering there is a limit; to fear, none." – Francis Bacon

When she woke up, it was four thirty in the morning, and Tidus was still asleep. Silently, numbly Yuna stared at the red numbers on her alarm clock for so long that after a while it felt as if they had been laserd into her brain. When it changed to 4:35 she gave up on trying to go back to sleep. Taking in a light breath and holding it, she gently moved Tidus' arm from over her waist, and then her neck out from under his cheek and nose. His warm breath had left her skin moist and she pocketed the spot under her palm, pressing skin on skin, trying her best to save it until she couldn't feel it anymore. Was it ridiculous to say that she missed it?

Careful not to make a sound, she stepped out of their bed and enveloped herself in cold, the warmth from his body spooned and their silk sheets being stripped from her skin. She shivered, and silently started for the shower room.

She hadn't even taken a step before Tidus groaned tiredly and reached out for her, groggy and not really awake. Deftly, she grabbed a large, fluffy pillow and placed it under his arm, hoping that he was still asleep enough to be fooled. He seemed to be contented with it. But still she waited, and still he didn't move an inch.

Finally she let go of the breath she had been holding, and moved across the room to the shower. It was lucky for her that the airship had such thick walls in its structure; she wouldn't have to worry about the running tap waking up her lover through a closed door.

'Lover' She thought, as she opened the door and slid into the other room. 'I have a lover…' It still sounded too strange.

She resisted the urge to whisper "base!" as she touched the tile of the bathroom floor. But she did allow herself to close her eyes, press her back into the door, and slide down until she was sitting on the tile. Her arms hung limply at her sides, hands and forearms on the floor, knees bent up to her chest.

"What's wrong with me?" She asked quietly, leaning her head back till her face was angled upwards, the back of her head leaned beneath the door knob. She was thinking about this past afternoon, her eyes still closed. She opened them slightly and looked at the blinding fluorescent light that was glaring down at her prone figure. She knew what she had seen. And it had been too real for a dream. Gippal had been there, and he had been mad.

But when she'd asked Tidus what had happened, he only said that she'd passed out while talking to Baralai in the bridge and wouldn't wake up again. Hoping that she was only exhausted, they'd lay her in bed, and it was only several hours later when she had started screaming, and Tidus had had to restrain her.

Yuna turned off the running water for the bath and started to strip out of her PJs, which she left on a pile on the floor. It was time to wash them anyway.

When she stepped into the tub, the steaming water sent pleasant shocks up her spine to the back of her neck. She'd poured in lavender and chamomile oils that an old woman back on Besaid had sold to her, claiming that the vapors were pleasantly relaxing in times of stress.

Yuna had bought them more out of pity than actual interest, and hadn't planned on using it ever, but now… she let out a long exhale as she lowered her body into the water, she was starting to believe that it actually worked.

She closed her eyes tight and clamped her lips shut as she poured the empty bottle that she'd filled with water over her head and let the scented liquid cascade over her face, shoulders and back, and then, with a heavy sigh, she leaned her body along the back of the tub, just letting herself soak.

She moved her fingertips lightly over the water, limp wrested and relaxed. But then… there was something inside her that just wouldn't settle.

She opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. Gippal's singe, green eye still scalding her vision.

"Thanks for trying so hard to find me." His voice was clinging to her ears, not letting her go. "Glad to see the Summoner isn't bias when it comes to helping people."

Yuna lowered herself into the tub until her nose was right above the water. So… he thought she wasn't trying hard enough to find him? That she hadn't wanted to go on the mission?

She felt as if someone had forced her to swallow a can of worms and they were still squirming in her throat and stomach.

She had been so afraid. It had been so real, the way Gippal had been standing over her, how hard it was to breathe with the smoke all around her, making her so dizzy and weak.

She blinked. The smoke. She'd forgotten completely about it, but it had been there the whole time. In her "dream", if that's what she was going to call it, Gippal had been smoking a cigarette. The ashes had dropped onto her leg and burned her but… was that really all it took? One cigarette could make that much? Hadn't it affected Baralai before she passed out?

Yuna's eyes snapped open as she realized. The smoke. The smoke had been there before she'd seen Gippal… in fact, it had been there from the very instant she'd walked into the bridge. That meant that it had been there from before she had started talking to Baralai… and before she had passed out and had that weird dream. But… it had been in the dream too.

And if it hadn't come from Gippal's cigarette…. She frowned. Now that she thought about it, Baralai hadn't even commented it on it. And neither had Buddy. What if… what if they couldn't see it?

Frustrated, Yuna bit her teeth together tightly. She was starting to get weirded out by this whole thing.

And then… once the day started the others were going to have questions, they would want to know what happened. If she was ok. But she couldn't tell them. They would have thought she was insane.

… Maybe she was. She shook her head and wrote off that thought. No. She wouldn't allow herself to be. It had just been a dream. Something she'd only have once and never have to have again. It wasn't real.

"Fight me little girl!" Gippal's voice came screaming back into her mind, and she realized how tightly she was holding onto herself. "Scream at me until your throat bleeds! I'm not coming back, and I'm never leaving!"

Yuna fought the urge to cry as she plunged herself under the water, letting the heat zing her skin for what felt like hours as she held her breath for as long as she possibly could. Finally, when her lungs had already split open, she was forced to come back up.

It was only then, when she was gasping desperately for breath, that she noticed the sharp stinging. She looked down at it through the clear water, and froze, dread blossoming in the bit of her stomach.

No… way.

There, on the middle of her left tight, were small red burn marks, scattered in the shapes of ash. And she knew exactly where they had come from… the simmering red tip of Gippal's cigarette.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer." – Frank Herbert