This chapter is for you Yuriko-chan! Thank you so much for the support!

SEVEN :Beautiful Stranger

The sun came up, yet again, awaking the world, saving the sorrowful ones from another night of disconsolation...

Throwing her legs out of bed, Yuna stood up and walked towards the large windows of the room she shared with Seymour. A soft ocean breeze blew by through the white curtains, gently playing in her hair. She held her hands out to open the window a bit farther and sighed as she felt the warmth of the early morning sun on her sorrowful features. Closing her eyes, she tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and looked down at her growing belly. As she ran her hands over it, she felt her eyes water up... a thing that happened a lot lately...Even though...

4 months had passed already...

She took a shaky breath and a tear rolled down her right cheek. Looking out the window towards the beach, she saw two little children playing with each other, their mothers not to far away from them. The mothers were chatting with one and other, laughing, enjoying their early walk by the seashore.

Yuna looked away from the scene and closed her eyes taking another deep breath.

"I miss you..." she softly whispered, "I'm so sorry..."

But she had to smile as she thought about the time they had been able to spend together... she remembered the time when Rikku had offered her to learn how to skate. It had been summertime and she was staying with Yuna and her mother, here in Bevelle city. They had been exercising on the cycling path next to the beach. Yuna had been so scared, holding on to everything she could put a hand on. Rikku laughed a lot, helping her to let go and to try and follow her lead. She held out a hand to her and she took it, slowly rolling towards her cousin.

"See...? It's not that hard... trust me...I'm here for you..."

Yuna chuckled, the tears still flowing, but she didn't feel sad anymore. Somehow, those memories had helped her ease the pain she had been carrying for so long now... She softly laughed, wiping her tears away.

"I'll be ok..." she whispered, smiling up to the sun, closing her eyes.

A soft kiss landed in the crook of her shoulder. Gentle hands passed around her waist, caressing her belly.

"Good morning...How are you feeling?" Seymour asked, putting his cheek on her head, holding her close to him. She kept her eyes closed and leant a little on him, enjoying his touch.

"Much better." She whispered, smiling as he dropped a kiss on her head.

"And how is my little one over here doing?" he asked as he released her and kneeled in front of her, holding her belly in hands, rubbing softly. As if he heard an answer, he put his ear against her stomach and listened. Yuna laughed.

"He says that it's hungry." He said seriously, looking up at her and then putting his ear against her again. "Says it needs...daddy's special breakfast...and..."

Yuna laughed harder and put her hands on his head, holding him close to her. "And what?" she whispered, playing along.

He didn't reply but stood up, looking in her eyes, running a hand through her hair. "Laughter from mommy." He whispered, softly smiling.

Yuna threw her arms around him and kissed him on his lips. "I love you."

He laughed and held her close. "I love you too."

"Oh, wait..." Yuna let go of him and put a hand on her belly. "Daddy better not burn the eggs like last time, it says, because it's very hungry."

Seymour laughed loudly and kissed her on her forehead, hugging her tightly. "Let's get some food then."

The phone rang on Seymour's bedside cabinet..

"Who could that be so early in the morning?" he wondered, letting go of her and taking the phone next to their bed. "Yes?" he said in the horn, sitting on the bed. Yuna smiled at him and left him to his conversation on the phone. She yawned and exited the bedroom, walking towards the kitchen to start cooking their breakfast. Opening the fridge she noticed that they were almost out of milk and butter. She made a mental note to get some when she would go shopping for groceries with Lulu later. As she closed the fridge with the eggs in her hands, she heard Seymour calling her name.

"What is it?" she asked while walking back towards their room. She entered and heard the sound of water flowing in the shower. "Seymour?" she called, approaching their bathroom door before opening it.

"Yes, in the shower." She heard him answer and opened the door.

"Who was it on the phone?" she asked, smiling at the sight of his form that could be seen through the frosted glass of the shower.

"The police office. They've picked up Tidus' trail again."

Yuna gasped and frowned. She knew what he was going to say next.

"I want to assist them again." he said and the sound of the running water stopped. He stepped out of the shower and she took a towel out of the cupboard, offering it to him. She crossed her arms on her chest and just looked at him in silence as he rubbed himself dry. He draped the towel loosely around his hips and stepped towards her, taking her shoulders in his hands.

"You don't want me to go, huh?" he softly whispered against her forehead.

She closed her eyes and put her arms around him. "No. I don't. You didn't even tell me where."

He groaned and let go of her. "It's in Zanarkand." He said hesitantly.

"Don't go." She pleaded to him. "Maybe it's just nothing, a false lead like the last time..."

He lifted her chin with a finger and smiled. "We've had this conversation enough times before, Yuna."

She looked away and pouted. "I still don't want you to go."

He kneeled and raised her night-gown. "I'm going. Not only for you." He whispered and placed a kiss on her round belly. "But for little one too." Yuna frowned and placed a hand on his head. "Daddy will be back very soon." He whispered against her, looking up. Yuna shook her head and he slowly stood up, taking her face in his.

"Don't worry, there's no need to." He smiled reassuringly, softly brushing his lips against hers. "I'll be very careful."

She looked up at him, her eyes still full of fear. He hugged her to him and caressed her hair. "Yuna..." he whispered, smiling.

She closed her eyes and sighed. "I won't be able to stop you anyway..." she shakily whispered, holding him tightly.

"I love you." He whispered and let go of her.

"I'll make your breakfast. Go get dressed." She softly whispered, turning and walking out of the door.

As she disappeared around the corner, Seymour smiled to himself; he hoped that they would finally catch him and lock him up so that he would have finally the time to enjoy this new life with his beautiful Yuna.

After a whole day of grocery shopping, the two sisters sat down on a bench in Bevelle central park. Putting her bags next to the bench, Yuna sighed and sat back, enjoying the cool spring breeze that passed by. She was exhausted and her back hurt a little. Lulu just looked at her and smiled, taking Yuna's hand in one of hers.

"Pregnancy looks good on you." She said, with a hint of sadness in her voice.

Yuna laughed and looked at her sister, "It doesn't feel as good as it looks, you know." She then frowned when she saw Lulu bend her head and smiling softly. "Lu?"

Lulu looked up and shook her head, chuckling. She then faced away from Yuna and sighed, feeling that it had no use to hide what she was feeling anymore. "There is this guy..." she hesitantly whispered, slowly turning her head towards Yuna again. Yuna frowned, but smiled reassuringly.

"You like him?" she softly whispered, putting a hand on her sister's shoulder. Lulu sighed and closed her eyes, nodding slowly.

"I'm afraid, Yuna... I'm afraid to... Since Chappu's death I haven't..."

Yuna shifted closer, pulling her to her for a hug. "Hey, Lu... It'll be alright you know? You have to move on... Chappu wouldn't want you to be lonely for ever...?"

Lulu nodded and held her sister close. "But how would he think of me if he knew...that..." she hesitantly whispered, letting go of Yuna, looking at the swans swimming on the lake.

Yuna followed her gaze and waited for her to continue. Lulu sighed again, closing her eyes.

"I'm in love with Wakka..." she softly whispered.

Yuna smirked, "The blitz player?" she lifted one eyebrow as she saw Lulu nod her head. "What's wrong with that?"

Lulu chuckled sadly and looked at her hands in her lap. "He was Chappu's brother..."

Yuna gasped and her eyebrows knitted together again, "Oh..."

The dark haired woman smiled briefly and continued. "We met 3 years ago, a few days before Chappu died... there was an intense attraction between us from the very start, but we both knew that it wasn't possible between us."

"Your heart was already taken..." the little brunette whispered.

Lulu took her face in her hands and started to sob. "Oh god, Yuna... when he died, I thought that I would never love again. That was until me and Wakka met for the second time... a week ago in a little club on the beach side...and... I've fallen deeply for him...but he is his brother..."

Yuna shifted closer again and brushed a strand of hair out of her sister's face. "How does he feel about this?" Lulu looked at her and wiped a few tears away.

"He feels the same... But he told me to follow my heart... and I..." she whispered, more tears rolling on her cheeks. Yuna raised a hand and caressed a few tears from her sister's face.

"What does your heart tell you, Lu?" she whispered, softly smiling. "What does it say?"

The older sister smiled and closed her eyes, bending her head again. "Go for it..."

"Then you should... Chappu would want it like that too... You have to let him go, sis." Yuna softly whispered and then smiled. "I want to be an aunt soon too..."

Lulu laughed at that, her last tears escaping from her eyes. She took Yuna by her shoulders and hugged her again. "I love you, sis. Thank you." Yuna smiled against her shoulder and nodded.

"I love you too." She then released her and rubbed with a hand on her belly. "You know, I think we're kind of hungry down here." She smirked. "Let's go grab something to eat?"

"Yeah, ok." Lulu answered, bending down and taking all the bags that were on the ground. "I'll go and put these in the car and drive back to get you, ok? That way you won't have to walk the entire distance." She stood up and walked towards the exit of the park.

Yuna nodded at her and then shifted her gaze toward the lake again. She sat back and unconsciously, her hands went around her belly, her thoughts wandering towards Seymour renewing the feelings of worry she had had before. Two swans were swimming next to each other, closely followed by three little cygnets.

"Please be back soon..." she whispered, her heart feeling awfully empty and alone. She closed her eyes and tried to relax. If she kept thinking like that, bad things were sure to happen. She opened her eyes again and saw the two swans facing each other, their cervixes forming a heart...

Like those two swans, she needed him to complete her heart... she remembered feeling this way about Tidus, but she was just going to pretend that she never even did love him. And now, she refused to let him ruin her present life...

Yuna sighed again. In a way he was already ruining her present life. Because of him, she had to miss her loved one for several days each month.

As she was lost in those thoughts, she barely noticed another dark haired woman approaching her from behind.

"Excuse me...Could I please talk to you?"

Yuna almost jumped and turned around on the bench, looking at the owner of the sultry voice. There stood a young girl of her age. She wore a black bandana on her head and her long dark brown hair was gently swaying in the passing breeze on the back of her black leather motorcycling suit. Her jacket was zipped open in the front revealing some cleavage. She was holding her helmet to her hip, her brown-greenish eyes fixed on the soon to be mother. Yuna had to admit to herself that this girl was beautiful, but somehow, she felt like she had to be on her guard. She was about to answer when she heard Lulu call for her in the distance. Unwillingly she felt relieved that she didn't have to answer to this stranger.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go." She whispered as she stood up and was ready to walk towards Lulu.

"No, please. I really need to talk to you." The girl suddenly said, grabbing Yuna's arm, preventing her to take another step. Yuna gasped and looked at the girl.

"Do I know you?" she said, a hint of threat in her voice. The girl let go of her and reluctantly shook her head. Yuna tilted her head to the side and waited for an explanation that didn't come. She turned and resumed her walk, resisting the urge to look back at the girl, steadily making her way forward towards Lulu's waiting car.

As she put one hand on the passenger seat door, she heard a loud roaring sound coming from her left. Looking in the direction of the sound, she saw a red motorcycle roaring away in the opposite direction. The driver in the black motorcycling suit looked back at her, her long chocolate brown hair waving in the wind behind her. Even tough the screen where she was seeing trough was black, Yuna could sense her eyes fixed on her. She wrenched her look away and could feel her heart beat furiously in her chest. What did that woman want from her?

"Are you feeling ok?"

She looked down at Lulu who was sitting in the driver's seat and nodded quickly. "Yeah, let's go. I'm starving."

Yuna sat down and closed the door, put her safety belt on and tried to calm her heart. Why had that girl wanted to talk to her so desperately?

This didn't feel right. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

"Are you going to finish that, Lu?" Yuna whispered while pointing at the French fries that Lulu had left on her plate. Lulu smirked and shook her head, watching how Yuna grabbed them and made them quickly disappear in her mouth.

"I knew that being pregnant worked up an appetite, but this..." The elder sister joked.

"Hey, it's not me..." Yuna tried to say without spraying Lulu under with bits of food.

"He or she will be as strong as him, that's for sure." Lulu whispered, putting her elbows on the table and resting her head on her hands. "When is he due to return?"

A sigh escaped the future mother and she sat back, while taking her soda along with her. "I don't know, he told me in maybe three or four days... He went by train so it's like an hour and a half from here to Zanarkand. I just hope that he'll be back sooner."

"Do you think that they'll catch him this time?" The brunette asked, taking a sip from her own soda.

Yuna frowned and looked down. "I really hope so, but I don't know... there's something not right about all of this...I feel like..."

"Like they should've got caught him a long time ago?" Lulu finished for her.

Yuna nodded and sat back up, feeling very uncomfortable, "It's like something is working against us... I don't know...Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just becoming paranoid or something."

"Hm." Lulu put her finger on her chin and rubbed over it thoughtfully, "Who knows, maybe he's not working on his own?"

Yuna fell silent and just stared at Lulu, her heart starting a frenzied rhythm in her chest. Tidus wasn't working on his own... someone was helping him and in a way she had known that... Thinking back at the investigation the police had done on the assassination of Rikku, she remembered having heard Seymour saying that they hadn't found any DNA of Tidus on her body. All they had found where traces of purple lip-gloss on the young Al Bhed's cheek. But they had discovered that it hadn't been Rikku's gloss... so the conclusion had been that there had been another woman involved in this... An associate? This theory had been discarded due to the lack of evidence. Not even hair or nails had been found on her...

Yet the undeniable facts where that Rikku's neck had been broken and her windpipe narrowed so to cause suffocation...

"But still... the police didn't find anything to really support that theory..." Yuna said, hoping to convince herself more than Lulu. She was already breathing heavier than normal.

Lulu shook her head, "What if they looked over something? How else can you explain that Tidus is still running free?"

Yuna took a deep breath. She needed to calm down, she knew that. Stress wasn't good for the child. Sighing deeply, she tried to calm her raging heart. It didn't work.

"Lu, I'm really starting to get worried. I knew I shouldn't have let him go to Zanarkand!" she said almost hysterically.

Lulu stood up and walked over to her sister. "Yuna, calm down. He will be fine. Calm down. Just breathe deeply." She rubbed her hand over her back. Yuna tried to take deep breaths but couldn't control them. Soon her heavy breathing turned into high-pitched gasps.

"Lu..." Yuna whispered, in between two gasps, "I can't breathe..."

Suddenly the room started to spin around her, and then it all went black.

"Yuna!" Lulu cried as she saw her sister collapse in front of her. She quickly prevented her to hit the ground with a hand and turned to look around in the little restaurant they where in.

"Oh my god! Someone call for an ambulance!" She cried, while putting Yuna on the floor.

Several people just came to her to see what was going on and let out gasps of astonishment. Others ran out of the restaurant to find a phone.

"They're on their way. I've called them already." A sultry voice came from behind Lulu. She quickly turned around and gazed into a pair of brown- greenish eyes.

"What happened?" The woman whispered, feeling Yuna's forehead. "I'm a doctor."

"She just started to hyperventilate..." Lulu whispered, giving place to the girl to look at Yuna.

She put her motorcycling helmet beside her and checked Yuna's pulse. "She's going to be fine... but we need to take her to the hospital immediately." she whispered hastily while checking Yuna for other abnormalities. "How far along is she?"

"Five months and a half, I think." Lulu said looking at the motorcycling outfit this 'doctor' was wearing. As the girl turned her head towards her, she felt like she had seen her face before, but she couldn't exactly say where or when...

For a moment they just stared at each other and then the girl smiled. Lulu just couldn't shake the feeling that it was a sad, kind of remorseful smile. She frowned and wanted to ask her if they had met before but was cut by the sound of a siren indicating that the ambulance had arrived.

"Over here!" The doctor loudly said as the help came in. Two young men rushed over and put Yuna on a stretcher, while she told them what she had taken note of from her examination. They carried Yuna away and put her in the ambulance.

"I will follow them, thank you doctor." Lulu whispered as she passed the girl.

"Please wait."

"What is it?" Lulu asked, turning to face the doctor. The young woman slowly walked up to her and sighed.

"Since I didn't get the chance to talk to her, I need to talk to you. This is very important and I haven't got much time... so please..." she hurriedly said as she gestured for Lulu to go outside with her.

Lulu frowned, but when she looked at the younger woman's face, she just felt so sorry for her all of a sudden and nodded. "We can talk on our way to the hospital, ok?" The other brunette nodded and followed her to her car.

"My name is Lenne." The young woman whispered as they both were seated in Lulu's car. "I've tried to talk to Yuna earlier in the park but I think she got frightened by me..."

Lulu gave her a suspicious look. "What are you talking about?" she softly whispered, starting up her car. "Why did you want to talk to Yuna?"

"I came to warn her. She has to prevent Seymour from going to Zanarkand." Lenne whispered, looking at Lulu. "He mustn't go or his life will be in great jeopardy." She insisted, putting a hand on Lulu's.

Lulu had fallen silent and tried to concentrate on the road. "How do you know all of this?" she said, unwilling to believe what this stranger had just said.

Lenne sighed and shook her head. "Please, I can't explain, but you must convince Yuna to stop Seymour from going!" she pleaded.

Lulu blinked for a few seconds, unsure of what she was going to say next. "He's...He already left this morning..."

"What?!" Lenne whispered, her eyes growing wide. "Oh no... We have to get to the hospital immediately." She whispered hastily, putting a gloved hand on her mouth.

"Has this something to do with Tidus?" Lulu suddenly whispered. She had figured it out immediately and she had the growing feeling that this girl... was doing something that could cost her her life... Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard a gasp from the girl and then silence.

"Please...you must tell me...Is Tidus planning something?" She asked more urgently, while focusing on the road. They were now in the street of the hospital. As her ears got nothing but silence, she sighed and briefly glance at her for a reaction.

"It was a trap... and now that the first part of his plan has worked, he will put the second part in action and therefore we must get to the hospital immediately or it will be too late." Lenne said, her voice slightly trembling.

"The second part?" Lulu asked, while she stopped the car in front of the entrance and unbuckled her seatbelt hastily. Lenne got out of the car and slammed her door shut. "He's planning on kidnapping Yuna!" She said, breaking into a run towards the glass doors.

Lulu gasped and quickly followed the brunette.

As they got to the reception, Lulu could feel a growing shadow coming over her heart.

"Yes?" the nurse behind the counter said.

"Where is the pregnant woman that has been taken here earlier? She has mid long brown hair and mismatched eyes." Lenne quickly inquired.

The nurse looked it up in her computer and nodded. Lulu felt relieved as the nurse smiled to her.

"You will find her in Zanarkand; she has been transferred to the Heavenly Yunalesca hospital for special care." She said and turned around to continue whatever she had been doing.

Lenne breath choked in her throat and she let herself slip to the ground, while holding on to the counter. Lulu couldn't believe that this was happening...

"I can't believe it... I'm too late..." Lenne whispered, tears starting to roll on her cheeks.

If there was one thing she regretted now more than anything, then it was the fact that she had ever accepted to join with him...

ToBeContinued…

-BDP-