A/N: Thank you for the great response! Also a few people pointed out that this is Auron and he wouldn't be overcome by some simple snow wolves – and you're probably right, you are. Let's face it, he would have just Bushido'd them off Gagazet. And I could be wrong but I think they are on Gagazet, at the very bottom, anyway. To be fair blame the fiend location list I found on the internet lol.

Can you suspend your disbelief for a while? Just until Rikku's done?

Chapter Fourteen

Auron was lying within the tent, unconscious, his face pale, his breathing shallow, and a huge gash stretching down his chest, and clearly very deep. There was so much blood. Within a fraction of a second, she was inside the tent, kneeling at his side. "What the hell have you done to him?" she demanded again, pulling out all the potions and elixirs she had on her.

"I didn't do anything!" Giia snapped. "He just jumped in front of me when loads of fiends attacked, I told you."

Rikku tried to remind herself that he'd done stupidly-heroic things like that for everyone on the Pilgrimage, and that it didn't mean he sacrificed himself for Giia. He would have done that for anyone. She continued her examination to find the extent of his injuries, then found the worst when she tried to take his pulse. It was slow, erratic and weak. He had mere minutes to live. The wound had done some serious damage – he was bleeding a lot, both externally and internally. She called up Curaga and cast it. Nothing happened, not even a slight knitting of his flesh. Shit. The next thing she tried was an Elixir – again, nothing. Not even Phoenix Downs worked.

By this time, Rikku was desperate. Nothing she had in her arsenal, and no ordinary magic she knew would work. So she had to try some extraordinary magic.

"There's only one thing that'll work," she muttered, more to herself than Giia. But she knew that it would cost her everything. Her love, her chance of happiness, her very existence. She reached out a trembling hand and laid her palm over his heart.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Giia snapped, throwing her hand off.

"Do you want him to live?" Rikku demanded. "There's only one spell now, and as you don't know how to perform it, it falls to me." Giia scowled. Rikku, aware that every shallow breath Auron took brought his last closer, wasn't in the mood for hesitation. "He'll die without it, Giia! I know you hate me, but leave him out of whatever game you want to play!"

"Fine. Do it."

She took a deep breath, put her hand back on his chest and began whispering the spell under her breath. Once it was started, her body seemed to take over, drawing energy and magic from some place so deep within her she'd never known it existed. The spell finished, she opened her eyes and waited. Nothing happened for at least five seconds.

"Ha! I knew you were pathetic as a white mage," Giia scoffed. Rikku didn't hear what else she said, because at that moment a sensation akin to an iron fist punching through her ribcage and tearing her heart out passed through her in a burst of light that filled the tent. She blacked out with the pain for a few seconds, falling forward onto Auron's prone body. Then she snapped awake, hearing the slow, steady beat under his skin. Her heart. It had worked then. She'd made a heart-pact. She put a hand to her chest, a cold and sore patch stinging every time she took a breath.

"Is that it? Is it done?" Giia demanded.

Rikku turned to deliver a scorching, pain-filled glare with her spiralled eyes at the other woman. "It's done. He'll be awake soon, but-" Both women turned to gaze at Auron when he stirred, but didn't wake up. She carried on. "It would be better that I could check he's alright once he's conscious-"

"Oh, no way." Giia leaned forward a bit, a vicious smile on her face. "You're going right now, and he won't ever know you were here. A promise is something that you can't break, remember?"

"So you're willing to put his life at risk?" Rikku demanded.

"If you've done your job properly, then there's no risk, is there?" She called to her lackeys. "Take her to the summit and…" She went outside the tent, speaking so quietly that Rikku couldn't hear her. She had a nasty feeling the words 'kill her' were involved though. She took advantage of Giia's momentary absence to take what would probably be the last look at Auron she'd ever have. She gave a sad smile and smoothed some silver-streaked hair from his brow. "Now I'm less than I appear," she whispered, tears beginning to threaten. No. I will not give Giia the satisfaction. She heard footsteps from outside, and quickly bent and pressed her lips to his softly, then got up before the tent flap opened. "Giia…keep him out of this. This is our battle; don't use him as a pawn."

"Oh, I won't," she replied in a way that made Rikku very uneasy. "Not a pawn; I think he'll be the most powerful weapon I have against you. These little parleys might have worked with LeBlanc, bitch, but they won't work with me. Auron is mine now, and I'm going to use him any way I want."

"You don't give a shit about him!"

"No. But you do. And that's why, from now on, I'm going to be the most loving and devoted future wife of a Legendary Guardian you've ever met. Get her out of here!"

About half a dozen of her thugs appeared, grabbed hold of Rikku and hit her on the back of the head with something heavy. The last thing she saw before the world went black was Giia, bending over the man she loved; the man she'd just given up her life for.

---

Amazingly, she didn't wake up dead. If I was dead I wouldn't have woken up at all, stupid. It looked as though Giia's lackeys had just dumped her at the top of Gagazet. She sighed and sat up, rubbing the back of her head. "Now what?" she asked the general atmosphere. Then her face slowly crumpled, and she sat there, knowing there was no-one else up here, and bawled. Loud, wracking sobs burst from her, and she wasn't the mature, saved-the-world-twice adult anymore. She was six years old again, and she was scared, and alone, and there was no-one who could comfort her. The knowledge that there never would be again hit her like a punch in her stomach, knocking the breath from her lungs. What have I done?

Her heart – ha! – gave her the answer. What I had to. He's alive. That's all that matters. She took slow, deep breaths and then reached for her com-link. "Celsius, come in." She sniffed, swallowing her tears.

"Rikku? Where in Spira are you?" Brother's voice demanded.

"At the summit. Come pick me up, 'kay?"

"You find anything?" Buddy asked.

She was quiet for a moment. "No." She put the com-link back. "But I lost something."

A/N: So, now you know what a heart pact is. Let me know if you liked the idea!