Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy X

Thanks again to CupofTeaforAliceandHatter for your review! I'm really glad you liked the last one too :) I hope you enjoy the rest as well!

This is a fairly long one shot, but I thought it dealt with a kinda interesting idea. So please, enjoy!

016. Mind

I thought he could read minds or something when we first met. I was so glad that Yunie and the scary but beautiful Lady Lulu would take me on, especially after all I'd done, and since Yunie and I had only really met once, years and years ago. The only condition was not revealing my Al Bhed heritage to Wakka and believe me, I was more than okay with that! I thought we would just be off after that, on our way to Guadosalam and beyond and wherever I could get Yunie to except for Zanarkand. But nope, he had to step in, all authoritarian like. He asked to see my face, which I thought was a bit weird but I said whatever, and then he demanded I open my eyes. I thought he must've been a mind reader, and he was going to laugh at my silly plans and childish fears, but he didn't. I was just greeted with one cold, blank, brown eye and another sealed shut by a scar, hidden under vaguely brown translucent shades. I thought he looked distant. And sexy. I really hoped he wasn't a mind reader after I thought that, and his eyes gained a thin layer of mirth and his lips pulled into a tight smirk.

I may have been convinced that he wasn't a mind reader for a while, but it wasn't long before the thought struck again. He just had this wise all-knowing aura that all mind readers must have - to be successful at least. No one's gonna believe you if you're a chatterbox like me, they'll just think you're getting lucky with your guesses. We were in the Thunder Plains - not my favourite place - and they all just passed up an inn! A shelter from the lightning! I couldn't believe it - they were all so cruel. Him especially. I threw them all so many curses in my mind - well not Yunie, she was just going along with the meanies. But I was so annoyed! And then I almost started crying, and the lightning around me made me shake in fear. I could barely think straight, and my legs started to feel weak as my pulse sped up and I gave one final plead. He turned around and looked at me in this way I couldn't quite identify. We stopped there that evening. I was convinced he was a mind reader.

We grew a lot closer in the interlude between then and the next incident - I'd started calling them incidents, what else should they be called? He was my friend, companion, and a lot more emotionally, even if I was less to him. We fell through the ice in Macalania with such force that for a second, I swear I saw my mama on the other side. I was certain we were dead. I even started going through my list of regrets - although as soon as we landed safely on the ground, I swore that I could tick a few off the list easily, and soon.

Yuna was fast asleep, and she looked so peaceful that we didn't wanna wake her up. So we left her, and we finally had some real time to kill. I'd been thinking for a while that really, Lulu was the person I wanted to be like the most. She was so elegant and graceful with an amazing figure, but deadly and fierce at the same time. She was basically a blend of everything a woman could ever want to be. I so wished I was like that - more sexy than cute and more graceful than obnoxious and annoying.

I told her as much, and she laughed. I didn't quite get it, and it was on my mind for the rest of that morning. Clearly, Auron had heard, because he found me alone, a bit later on, when we were away from the others.

"So you want to be like Lulu?" He asked me, sitting down next to me on a piece of abandoned building or machina - could've been either easily.

"Yeah, who wouldn't? I mean, she's so beautiful and kind and powerful and has the best figure of anyone ever." I pointed out, shuffling as I leaned back against the makeshift chair I'd found, pulling my legs tighter to my chest.

He laughed at me, with that low, gruff drawl, "That might be true, but I wouldn't want you to be Lulu. She's not quite the same."

"Oh yeah?" I challenged - I was so sure he was winding me up.

"She may be as beautiful as you said, but she's not as bright. She's not as fun as you. And she's not as fun to wind up."

"H-Hey!" I stuttered. "I was thinking exactly that just then, how did you know that!?" I demanded, jumping off my chair and onto his back as he walked away, letting me latch onto him.

He just swatted me away, chuckling lowly. "Perhaps I'm a mind reader then."

Home was gone. Before I knew it, it was a pile of asphalt and dust and broken dreams and memories. It felt kinda unnatural, but normal at the same time. 'Home' had been somewhere that we'd never really found - we build in one place, it gets destroyed. We build in another place, it gets destroyed. Not a mark left behind, just some scorched sand and a pile of crumbling debris, waiting to be blown away. I bet I couldn't even mark the spot where Mama died now. I just wanted to be alone, away from Wakka and all his stupid, well-meaning but irritating, analogies. There weren't many nooks and crannies left on this ship that I didn't know, and fewer yet that I hadn't explored - although Tidus came a close second - and it only felt right that now I should make use of my knowledge. I settled for a small cupboard type room, furnished with a small crate of shiny Mana Spheres, down a narrow corridor leading from a larger room, and a larger corridor back to the main hull of the ship. And I sat there, alone. I don't know how long I was there for, or what I was even really thinking about, except that there I was alone, and there I was safe.

Naturally, Auron found me. I couldn't tell what time it was - there was no real light, only a fluttering, dim lamp, and I wasn't even hungry. I just felt numb.

"How do you do that?" I asked when he'd entered and sat down across from me, balancing his sword against the wall so it shone in the dim lamp's light.

"Do what?"

"Oh, you know, find me. Like, all the time."

"I... Was not aware of that." He raised his shades up the softer than I'd once thought skin of the bridge of his nose. He didn't have a particularly small or big nose now I thought about it... Medium, I'd say. Average.

"Oh come on, you can practically read my mind." I scoffed at him, rolling my eyes. I wasn't up to being chirpy, not now. Not today, when my only safe haven, my Home, was gone.

I could imagine the look in his eye, inquisitive and degrading. "I can?"

The way he said his questions - more like a statement than an inquiry - never failed to raise a smile to my lips. "Go on, say what I'm thinking right now." I dared, perking up.

In my mind, I didn't know what to think, Kimarhi in a bikini? Auron and I? Yuna with a pair of guns? Wakka with an Al Bhed baby? Me, more like Lulu and older, with Auron? No matter what I thought, he still kept seeping into my mind. But I stuck fierce - and the only thing I let myself see was the fleeting image of Besaid I'd glimpsed when I was five, and visiting Yunie for the first and only time. It was a hot day, and the sand burned beneath my feet. But I was a child of the desert, and I ran around anyway. But slowly in my mind, the images of Yuna and Brother faded, and I was left with something slightly different.

"You're thinking of the future. Of me. And of others." He declared ambiguously.

I hadn't even noticed when he slipped into the image and when it morphed into a memory that wasn't my own. But he was right. Not that he needed to know, of course.

"Nah, it was an image of Kimarhi. In a hot pink bikini."

I watched as his eyebrows raise and his eyes widened beneath the translucent shades.

"O-Of course. Maybe next time."

"Yuna and Tidus, they look fairly close." He stated, amidst the ethereal azure lights of Macalania forest.

It was kinda cold, but deadly still, and all the leaves on the white trees seemed to be shinning; despite the fact that it was currently night, the moon was shining fiercely in the sky, as I'd never seen before. I felt like I was trapped almost, in a bubble of never-ending peace, and never-ending time. It lulled me into thinking that maybe it would be best to stay here - away from all the trouble and away from the threat of sin. But the bright lights of Bevelle that I saw when I climbed the shimmering, silver-leaved trees put that idea out of my mind - we had a goal to achieve, and I had to think of as many ways to stop it as possible.

"Huh? Oh yeah, hadn't noticed yet gramps?" I smirked down at him, from where I was sitting in a low branch of the thin, white trees.

"Gramps?" He said the word slowly, testing how it tasted on his tongue. "I'm hardly that old." He stated, standing from his position on the ground, leaning up against another tree trunk.

I sniggered at him and watched him come closer to me, reclining on my tree branch. Still, he wasn't that old, I guessed. He certainly wasn't too old for me.

"I'm not too old for you." He pointed out, and I would've sworn at that moment that he looked inside my mind, and heard what I said.

I jolted on my branch and leapt down, facing him with widened eyes. "A-Are you actually a mind reader?" I asked hesitantly, curling into myself, shoulders drooping downwards.

He chuckled at me, and he put a hand on my shoulder, stilling my nervousness. I relaxed and looked back up at him. I really thought we were going to kiss, but then Lulu and Wakka came back, having looked around sufficiently. As always, Wakka looked clueless, but I knew that Lulu picked something up from our closeness. I just hoped she wasn't right.

I was right - Lulu did know something. Go figure. She just warned me, subtly giving me an aside, "Sir Auron's an older, wiser man than any, and he's broken. Don't give in to him - he might use you for something you're not willing to do."

That was all she needed to say, and I understood her concern, but I was too far gone by that point - I wanted him, and that was all. But I did try to block my mind when I was around him - more than usual anyway. I avoided looking into his eyes, and I stayed focused on my goal: save Yunie. I spent every spare minute I had thinking about it, and I spent every spare minute Tidus had thinking about it with him. I felt the pressure building inside me, and I could barely stand it anymore.

No matter how I avoided him though, I was left alone with him one night in the Calm Lands - on the far side, near to the cold, silvery, misty mountains of Kimarhi's home. He looked at me over the night's fire I'd made, away from the Al Bhed Inn - Rin was suffocating me a bit too much for my liking.

"You are tired. You... Fear for Yuna." He declared, in that growling, gruff, monotone of a voice he had.

I rolled my eyes and looked at him with raised eyebrows and a small smile. "You guessed it," I replied with every inch of my tried soul poured into my voice. "I don't know how you do that," I commented lowly, resting my elbows on my thighs and my head in my hands.

He chuckled slightly, but even his rarely heard laughs were restricted by now. "Maybe I'll tell you one day."

We fell into silence again, I couldn't even form a sentence to say what I wanted, and he was too stoic to say much.

"What did Lulu tell you? That night." He queried, looking at me through grey-brown, scrutinising eyes. I suddenly felt very judged and slightly trapped.

"Oh, you know..." I trailed off; I didn't want to say the words directly. "Just to be careful and all that. That you're old and broken, nothing I don't know." I reeled off nonchalantly.

I raised an eyebrow slightly but didn't say anything, as always. What I would've given to read his mind then, and hear what he was thinking.

I surrendered myself to him completely, not long after, despite her warnings. I should've listened.

I was just so tired. Tired and weak. It felt awful, and I felt worse than death. I couldn't walk to save Yunie. I couldn't run to stop her. I couldn't fight to protect her. I couldn't think to think of how to save her. I was too tired for my own good, and I could barely go on. But they didn't know that - I wouldn't have been doing my job properly if they did, now would I? I had to protect Yunie, and that meant staying strong with her and for her, until the very end! Naturally, though, he knew. We didn't talk about it, but I could see it in his eyes, he saw me collapse at night, or when he saw my fingers shake when I tried to complete all the weapon and armour customisation I had to do. I knew he was a mind reader, right from the get-go, and here, at the mouth of the mystical, pyrefly-lit Zanarkand, he looked like he shouldn't be anywhere else - he belonged amid the magical, bright pyreflies. And I was just a, what was it again, a 'sand-blasted grease monkey'? Something like that.

"You are worried." He noted astutely, in too little words for my liking, on the shimmering slopes of Zanarkand. It was such a beautiful place for such a destructive, barbaric task.

"Aren't we all?" I responded, leaning back on the ground, arms out behind me and knees bent in front of me. I could only watch the sky and the colourful lights of the souls of the dead twist in pretty ribbons. It was so morbid, but so entrancing.

"I... Yes. But you more than us all." He commented, looking into my face. He was right, none of the others seemed to drag their feet as much as me, and I still thought 'what if' at every turn, despite what Tidus had told me. I felt like a letdown.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Don't worry for her. She doesn't need your worry - she'll be fine." He stated, calmly in his gruff monotone.

"How can you say that? She's gonna die! And I won't have found a way to stop her!" I cried, tears brimming at the edges of my swirled eyes. I felt hurt, betrayed, and I knew that we were almost beyond the point of no return.

"You shouldn't worry. I can tell you are worried, and far too much at that." He simply responded, offering nothing more.

"How do you do that?!" I let out a strangled sound of annoyance and say up sharply.

He said nothing but looked at my face. "Do you know how I can 'read your mind'?

I looked at him with a cocked head, he was always so calm, even in the face of... Sin. "No? Some kind of magic you learnt in those temples back in the day?" I guessed, randomly.

"It's because your mind is always on your face, and in your eyes."

I looked at him with a half smile. I didn't want the magic to be dispelled, not that easily anyway.

I was furious, at first. I still am when I think about it. He never told anyone of us that really, he was dead. And he would be gone when this was all over. He never even bothered to mention it, or slip it into conversation. "Hey Rikku, it's nice weather today, isn't it? Oh, by the way, I'm dead." Or, "Morning Rikku. I'm dead." Nothing, nothing at all.

I refused to talk to him at all, and I never let him see my face, not without a facade of a mask on first.

But even I couldn't hold out for that long. He came into my room aboard the airship under the cover of night - my pops would skin him alive, Yunie's guardian of not, if he caught him sneaking into my room - and he spoke to me, softly and gently, but so sincerely that I believed him. I couldn't help but believe him, despite myself. He told me of his pain, his angst and his woe. I've never heard anyone speak that candidly of anything that personal before - Lulu and Yunie are sisters in their own right, and they keep everything between themselves. I let him back into my heart, to my pleasure and displeasure, and I let him back into my soul. But I hated myself for it. He would go soon, and I was to be left behind - on my own. I needed him. I still need him.

And soon enough, there was one night left, before it was time to take on Sin. One night left with him, for all I knew, until I'd never see him again. All I did that night was futile - all the begging, sobbing and pleading. He was largely impassive, but I could see in his eyes how he was reading my face, and reading my mind.

"Rikku, I know you're scared, but listen to me," I snapped my head up to look at him. For all I'd cried and begged on that evening I'd never once thought that I was scared, "I will always be with you in memory at least. Please, never forget that. Never forget my memory. I want you to keep it in the mind I can read so easily."

I didn't know what to say - I wanted to laugh at his attempt of a joke and cry because he was making me feel even worse about his imminent death. I wanted to wail and cry out that whoever would listen that it wasn't fair - but it didn't matter, this was Spira, and Spira was never a fair world.

"Hey Auron, would you read my mind once more for me?" I asked in a watery, hoarse voice. He looked at me with tired, worried eyes and nodded as I pushed the image that'd been invading my mind to the front, and tried to emulate the emotions on my face.

I said nothing, but I knew what he felt - the fear, and horror, and all of the regret.

When he was sent the next evening inside Sin, I pushed that same picture to the front of my mind again. I wanted the last thing he saw to be the image from my mind.

Holy Jesus, I really do have something with angst, don't I? Well... I'm going to leave what that last image was up to you, what do you think it was? It'd be interesting if you let me know.

Please, review if you liked it and follow for updates. Thanks!