Chapter Two

Half a year later, once more back on the airship, Rikku was pacing. She always paced when she was thinking. And right now she'd worn a shiny strip on the floor of her room. She'd been thinking a lot. She knew what she should be thinking about. She should be thinking about Yuna. About how they were going to defeat Sin without the Final Aeon. About where the fuck Seymour had disappeared to and when he was going to rear his ugly head again.

But she wasn't. She was thinking about the topic that her thoughts had been centred on for the past six months. She skidded to a stop and rubbed her hands over her face, letting out a growl of frustration. She let her hair down and massaged her scalp lightly. "Argh! Why are you doing this to me, Auron?"

She sighed. That wasn't fair. It wasn't as if she wasn't a willing participant in what happened. Not that anything really had happened. Since he'd comforted her at the death of Home, they were friends. They'd sit and talk into the small hours – sometimes about her childhood, sometimes about Braska's Pilgrimage. She felt honoured that he'd confided in her. She didn't think that even Yuna knew some of the things Auron had told Rikku. When it got really late, and she fell asleep – it was always her, Auron never seemed to need it – he covered her with his coat, and she'd wake up feeling like she was wrapped in Auron. Except for the last few weeks, when she'd woken up, and Auron was there too. And waking up in his arms was the single greatest experience of her life. He just smelt so good, like charcoal and spicy sweetness that she just wanted to breathe in for the rest of her days. While she still felt the slow, steady breathing against her body, she couldn't stop herself from simply kissing his lips softly. He looked so much younger when he was asleep, the lines around his eyes smoothed out and his mouth relaxed. She knew it was probably wrong for a million reasons, but she thought she might, despite never having known the emotion before, she thought she might be feeling it now. And she loved it.

But how could she be sure? And even if she was, what did he feel about her? A friend? A nuisance? Someone he simply tolerated or pitied? Added to which, there was still the problem of what was going to happen afterwards. They never talked about it, and she wasn't even sure, but a dread had been growing in her stomach for a while now. Something cold and hard that filled her with doubt and made her shaky whenever she thought about it. She didn't have any proof, other than the fact that Auron was…different. He hardly seemed to eat, or sleep, but he never got tired. She'd never seen him bleeding, even when a fiend's claws left deep slash marks through his armour. The man was freaking indestructible. Helpful in a battle, but suspicious outside of it. And what if he was an-

No. Don't even go there. If he was, he would have told you, right? Right. So there's really nothing to worry about. Except she couldn't stop worrying. Which was what led to her pacing in the first place.

She stopped and took a deep breath, coming to a decision. There were two issues that needed resolving, especially since there was a high likelihood that someone was going to die in the battle tomorrow. And if it was going to be her, she was going to damn well get to the bottom of this. "Ok Rikku, two issues here. 1) Have to tell him how you feel. Or how you think you feel. 2) Get him to tell you that you're being stupid about thinking he might be- About the second issue."

She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and marched with a determined air to Auron's room. Reaching it, she knocked briskly four times. "Enter."

As the door hissed open, she tried to smile, only to find that she couldn't. She couldn't make her feet walk inside. She couldn't even speak. Big deal for Rikku.

Auron, katana in one hand and sharpening stone in the other, gave his normal half-smile at seeing her. "Rikku." A tiny crease gathered between his eyebrows at her terrified expression. "Are you coming in?"

She nodded mutely and took a tentative step forward, only to jump when the door closed after her.

"What's the matter?" he asked, a little unnerved by her silence. Silence with Rikku was never good.

"I, um, heh…"

An eyebrow was raised in silent question.

Rikku sighed at her own behaviour and just decided to blurt it out. "Ok, I have to ask you something."

The other eyebrow joined the first, and he set the weapon and the stone aside. "What?"

She sat on the edge of the bed next to him, not looking at him for a moment, instead twisting her hands in her lap. Another deep breath. She looked up with those swirling emerald eyes that he kept denying had the ability to suck him into their depths. "I've been thinking a lot lately about…things that have happened recently – or not happened, I guess. And I really want you to tell me I'm wrong."

Oh no. Rikku no, don't say it, don't ask me.

There was fear and desperation in her eyes now, and something that he really hoped wasn't love. "Are you Unsent?" she whispered.

He looked down at his lap. Somehow one of her soft hands had managed to become encased within his. He opened his mouth. And nothing came out. He couldn't tell her. To tell her the truth would make it real, and that would cripple him, and devastate her. And to lie would be worse. So he kept silent, knowing that his silence would say it all anyway.

Her hand was withdrawn after a moment when neither of them could breathe. She didn't say anything either, which somehow made everything worse. He'd done something that was worse than any other kind of betrayal could have been. So bad that not even Rikku had words for it. He was dimly aware of her sitting next to him shaking hard enough to move the bed, and all he wanted to do was to take her in his arms and stroke her hair and kiss her face and tell her that everything would be alright. And he couldn't.

Because it wouldn't.

Once Rikku felt like she could stand again, she got up and walked to the door. Her feet were arrested by his voice.

"Rikku, I-"

"No." The word was so small and soft and sad. A broken sound. She was gone as swiftly as the wind.

A/N: Ok, I got 19 hits last time and ONE review! Come on people! If no-one thinks it's good enough to comment on then I won't bother. PLEASE!