AN: Hello again! I know this chapter was ready rather late, as I was busy preparing for my studies next month (looking for an apartment etc etc). I expect to be working a lot especially in the beginning, so I'll tell you right away that I will continue updating (of course!) but that it might take a little longer whenever there's a lot to do :) Just so you know.

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning, Vanille awoke lying on her side, feeling Fang's body pressed against hers from behind, her arm loosely around the girl's waist.

She smiled and opened her eyes, memories of last night flooding her mind. It had been wonderful, and the girl felt a wave of deep affection and love rise in her heart for the woman she'd shared the night with.

She carefully made to turn around in Fang's arm to face the still sleeping brunette when she felt an unfamiliar ache between her legs. Apparently, she was sore from their night activities.

But it wasn't too bad, fortunately, and so the girl tried her best to ignore the pain for now as she finally turned to face her still soundly asleep girlfriend.

She looked so peaceful. Hell, it almost gave Vanille a bad conscience as she planted a soft kiss on her forehead in a first attempt to wake her.

She leaned forward more as the woman did not react to the action. "Faaang", she then breathed tenderly into her ear, and the brunette unconsciously moved a bit while her hand on Vanille's waist stroked over the skin a little.

But still, she was asleep. So Vanille leaned to her ear once again, trying it once more. "Faaang ... wake up", she breathed a little louder than before while her hand found its way to Fang's back, stroking over the tanned skin gently.

And much to her delight, Fang opened her eyes at this, their gazes meeting as Vanille withdrew from her ear again, both smiling.

"Good morning, love", the guitarist said a little huskily before drawing the girl into a tight embrace without further warning.

Not that Vanille had any complaints, though. She sighed in content when their warm naked bodies pressed tightly against each other and she deeply inhaled Fang's scent as she stroked over the woman's back, smiling a little as she felt the scratches she'd left the night before.

"Good morning, Fang", she finally replied softly. She had to shiver a little as the woman she loved placed a few soft kisses on her shoulder before drawing away from her again.

They just lay there before each other, simply staring into the other's eyes for a few moments, no words said.

Fang found herself smirking after a while. "You in for a nice warm shower to start the day?", she asked her girlfriend as she sat up, stretching her arms.

Vanille smiled at the proposal. "Sure, let's go", she agreed happily and hopped off the bed. Fang took another few moments to get rid of the last remains of sleepiness and only got up and walked to the bathroom once she heard the water running.

And so they enjoyed a long shower together before having breakfast while reading the weekend edition newspaper. Fang wasn't surprised at all when she spotted an article about her and the 'mysterious redhead' at her side in the paper, which had a big photo of them both as well, obviously taken as she'd dragged Vanille the short way from the tour bus to the skyscraper on Friday.

It was kind of funny to read how the writer speculated about the nature of their relationship, obviously confused as to why Fang should spend time with a girl aside from sleeping with her.

Vanille didn't quite find it as funny as her girlfriend, mainly complaining about how outrageous and disrespectful the journalists dared to write about Fang and her personal life.

But the brunette reasoned with her that getting angry about things like that didn't help anyone, as you couldn't change them anyway, so it was best to just get used to and ignore it.

And after thinking about it for a moment, the girl had to admit that Fang had a point. She promised to try and not get upset about the press again in the future, which earned her an approving kiss.

After that was settled, the two enjoyed a happy Sunday outside in the almost too hot summer weather before going to bed early since Fang had to show up at the band's office the next morning.

The brunette had a harder time finding sleep than she would've thought, as worries about the strange letter kept getting to her.

Not only that, but she would be a liar if she didn't acknowledge this nasty feeling of guilt for not telling Vanille about this. She didn't want to upset the girl, but on the other hand, didn't she deserve to know? After all, she could be in danger as much as the band, who knew.

It was late when Fang finally managed to shrug off her thoughts, knowing that she'd hopefully find satisfying solutions together with the guys the next day.

"Mornin' guys", Sazh started once every band member had sat down on a chair in the small room they always used for their meetings to plan and talk everything through.

"Ya know we need to plan our move to Bodhum, but as I already told ya'll on the phone, there's somethin' else as well", he continued, holding his hands and licking his lips in an attempt to calm himself. "Somethin' important"

He briefly looked over to Fang, who looked almost as tired as he felt. "Do ya still remember these letters all of us have received once or twice over the last weeks?", he asked everyone and got approving nods from them.

"Yeah, those typed letters where some douche threatened to kill us and stuff", Cid piped up, smiling lazily as he leaned back in his char.

"The ones written in this gruesome pink colour we always made fun of..", Hope added, shaking a little as he remembered. The colour had really been an insult to his eyes.

"Yeah, these ones exactly. Well the thing is, Fang called me the weekend, tellin' me she received another one. But this time it's not the usual vague 'something bad will happen to Fighting Fate', 'someone will get hurt' stuff", he explained to the guys, his face having a suddenly very serious expression to it. It was clear that this concerned the man just as much as Fang, that he, too, didn't see it as a joke anymore like they all used to.

"So, what does it say that you're so worried about this?", Cid asked the older man, leaning forward in his chair in curiosity, his eyes then wandering on to Fang.

The woman got the hint and nodded before quickly taking out the paper. She cleared her throat, "Stay away from the Cocoon Song Contest or I will make you regret it. Dearly.", she read out before putting the message on the table, revealing the same pink-coloured letters used.

Cid held his in chin in thought. "Interesting. This one makes a clear statement unlike the others before that only threw empty phrases at us. Apparently, someone doesn't want us to participate in the Contest. I wonder why"

"You really don't read the newspaper often, huh?", Fang remarked, smirking at the man. "The press widely agrees that we're the absolute favourite to win this thing. If ya ask me, that's a pretty good reason to try and make us not go there"

Sazh nodded. "I agree. I just don't understand why the letters before were all so vague. Why not directly come out with it? Why all these letters before that were full of cliché phrases, so much that no one could possibly take 'em serious?", he'd stood up in the meantime, uneasily wandering around behind his chair.

"Well maybe it's not the same person as from the letters before. Just someone who wants to make us think that", Hope suggested a little self-consciously.

"I don't think so. We haven't told anyone besides, well, us about this, haven't shown the letters to anyone. So no one could've had the information to copy the style", Cid argued against Hope's idea. "No, it must be the same person"

"I guess he just wasn't satisfied that obviously, we didn't react to his earlier letters the way he liked. A person who does that wants us to react in fear. They want to see how we double our security efforts and everythin' because of their threats.", Fang then piped up while playing with the paper still lying in front of her.

"And quite honestly, with this letter he's been a little successful with me, to be honest...", she added after a moment, her gaze fixed on the letter. She really didn't like to admit it, but it was true.

And more so she knew she shouldn't react like this, as she'd just explained herself that this was the writer's goal: scaring them. But she just couldn't help but think of other bands that had in fact already been attacked by haters in the past. Everyone would get a little nervous over that, wouldn't they?

"Yeah, I'm with ya on this one. We just don't know if he's ready to actually do what he threatens, and that is what frightens me", Sazh admitted, nodding over to Fang in a way that clearly showed he understood her uncertainty about this too well.

"So what do you wanna do about this? Please don't tell me we're not going to the Contest because of this idiot", Cid spoke with a little anger in his voice, pointing at the sheet in Fang's hands.

"No no. We'll not give him what he wants. We will go and participate in the Contest as planned. If no one is against it, I mean", Sazh answered with confidence. He looked around briefly if anyone had any objections.

"No, I'm with ya. We'll go there. And I'm even more motivated to win this thing now that I know someone desperately wants us outta the Contest", Fang smirked, her usual nonchalant self-confidence present once again.

"I'm in too, I just think we should definitely enhance our security. As already said, we don't know if he wants to act on the letter...", Hope pointed out, and again, nobody had objections to a little more caution.

Sazh, as the band's manager, promised them to take care of it and hire additional and more skilled security staff for all their coming press conferences, interviews, gigs and whenever they left their apartments.

Also, they agreed to not get the police involved, at least not yet - it would only result in someone telling the press. That kind of extra 'attention' from the media wasn't something they really desired right now.

They would have to inform the police about this before the Contest anyway, as their help to ensure their security would definitely be needed. But until then, they might as well leave everyone in the dark about this, enjoying the relative silence the last weeks until the Contest would take place.

Fang sighed as the band's chauffeur drove her the way home to her apartment where Vanille was waiting for her. The rest of the meeting had gone smoothly and with a lot of laughing, just as usual, but now as she sat in the limo alone, reality came back to her, reminding her that she'd promised herself to tell her girlfriend about the letters once she returned home.

It was a task she didn't particularly like, no, not at all actually. She expected Vanille to freak out about it, and more so she didn't like that she would have to admit she'd lied to her girlfriend when she'd hidden the letter from her before.

Hell, maybe this whole threatening letter thing was nothing serious at all, just someone wanting to scare them off for fun or maybe even in little, childish hopes of getting them to quit the Contest and therefore upping the chances of the person's favourite contestant to win. At least that was her image of the person behind the threats.

But still, everyone seemed a little tense now that there'd been another letter with more than just some empty, almost comical threats in it.

The woman couldn't put her finger on it, but this latest letter had something about it that just gave you this feeling. This feeling that someone meant what they wrote and was possibly very ready to act on it. It hadn't been like that with the letters before.

The others must be feeling it too, otherwise they wouldn't have appeared so serious about it, she guessed.

"We've arrived, Miss Yun", the chauffeur's deep, friendly voice pulled Fang out of her thoughts as the car stopped still. She waited until the man opened her door to let her out and said her thanks, gave him the usual tip and then quickly made her way through the almost empty underground car park to the elevator.

It cast a smile on Fang's lips as she opened the door to her apartment and a lovely smell reached her nostrils. Vanille must've cooked for them.

"Sweetheart, I'm home", she called while dropping her keys nearby and making her way to the kitchen while kicking off her shoes.

"You're right on time! I've cooked us something", Vanille happily exclaimed as she almost suddenly walked around the corner to greet Fang and gave her a quick kiss. "I hope you like salmon"

Despite being still very much aware she sooner or later had to ruin her girlfriend's good mood, Fang had to smile deeply at how loving Vanille was as she followed the girl to the kitchen and dining area.

It didn't help her bad conscience when she tried to help Vanille setting the table and was cutely but also firmly told to sit down and let the redhead do the work. "Is there a special occasion for this or are ya just bein' nice with me?", Fang inquired as she watched her girlfriend put everything on the table.

"I'm just being nice with you", Vanille confirmed with a giggle as she sat down across from the brunette, smiling. "And besides, I love cooking"

And her love really showed, as to describe the meal as delicious wouldn't have done it justice as far as Fang was concerned.

"So, you said there was something you wanted to talk about?", Vanille said as they let themselves fall on the couch after the meal.

"Yeah, and I'm already sorry for ruinin' your mood with this", Fang started a little uneasy and turned a bit to face her girlfriend.

"Ya know, uhm ... do you remember the fan letter you saw me puttin' away on Saturday?"

"Yeah, sure. What is it with it?", the redhead replied, already having a bad feeling about this. Her eyes narrowed a little in concentration as she stared intently at Fang.

"Well, I haven't been honest with ya on this one. It wasn't a fan letter, love. In fact, someone has sent the band several threatening letters over the last weeks and this is another one, though we're a little more ... concerned about this one in particular", the brunette quickly blurted out to get it over with.

"I didn't tell ya because I didn't want you to worry and get upset about this, that's why I invented the fan letter excuse", she quickly added as the girl opened her mouth to say something.

She hoped Vanille wouldn't be too mad at her, after all she'd lied to her. That wasn't something many people took lightly, no matter what the reason behind it was.

She could see her girlfriend gulp and blink twice before she opened her mouth again, this time not to be interrupted by Fang.

"A-a threatening letter? Oh Etro. This is bad, isn't it?", she asked, a slight bit of panic evident in her voice as she bit her lip. "I mean, you... you said you received more threats before, right? This is serious!"

"Woah woah, Vanille, calm down a bit", Fang quickly cut her off, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"You're right we shouldn't treat this lightly as we, admittedly, have done until now. But unlike the other letters before, which only had some vague, stupid, almost impersonal threats in them, this one clearly warned us to stay away from the next Cocoon Song Contest", the guitarist explained the situation and took out the letter from her pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Vanille to read.

"I'm sorry for lying to you about this, love", she calmly said as the girl read the words.

She had a questioning look on her face as Vanille looked up from the letter again and their gazes met.

"It's alright, Fang ... just tell me right away in the future, okay? I see that you just wanted to protect me, but it's better not to keep important things like that from the one you love, you know", Vanille said, a little, sweet smile forming on her lips as she spoke the last words and gave Fang a quick, tender kiss to underline she wasn't really mad at her.

"Okay, I'll tell ya everythin' right away from now on", the brunette agreed, smiling herself.

"And please tell me you won't go to the Contest and have informed the police already", the girl said after a moment, with a spark of fear shadowing her emerald eyes for a second. She was afraid about this whole thing, of course. It was only understandable.

"Uhm, well ...", Fang rubbed over her hands nervously. "Actually, we decided we won't give this guy, girl, whatever the satisfaction to see us cancelling our participation in the Contest. And we agreed we'll only involve the police right before the event to keep the press in the dark as long as possible", she admitted and quickly put a finger on Vanille's lips when the girl opened her mouth in protest.

"Wait. Just let me say everything before you go complaining about it, yeah?", the younger woman only nodded with a small smile and let Fang proceed.

"Obviously, this person's goal is to scare us off from the Contest for some reason - already tried that with the letters before but didn't work. So they sent another one now, clearly tellin' us what they want. So if we give 'em that, they win. That we can't accept, ya know? It'd give them the idea they've power over us, ya see?"

Vanille nodded again, more firmly this time. "I understand. You don't want to give someone the impression they can do with you whatever they like as long as they just threaten you enough"

"Exactly. Though we are of course worried about it still, as we have no idea whether or not the writer is just bluffin' or actually willin' to act on his threats. So maybe it'll calm you down a little more that we decided to significantly increase our security standards from now on", Fang added and stroked over her girlfriend's shoulder.

"It does. I'm still afraid, though, Fang..", the redhead softly admitted and leaned forward to snuggle into her girlfriend's chest. The brunette instinctively put her arms around her, holding her close.

"I know, love. I am, too. The band members are. But we'll get through this together, okay?"

"Okay", she heard the muffled response from her chest, followed by small hands landing on her back to hug her tightly.

They stayed like that for several minutes, wordlessly seeking comfort in each other as they held one another tightly and just listened to the other's steady breath and heartbeat.

This long moment of peace proved itself helpful when Fang got a call from Sazh later that day, informing her that Hope, too, had received a letter with the exact same message as Fang's shortly after their meeting.

The next two weeks following were more stressful and loaded with work than Fang would've imagined or liked, as the preparations for both the Contest and their move to Bodhum had to be done at the same time.

This was due to the unfortunate fact that the record label had decided to close their Eden studio division in the third week after their return to Eden, which was just the week before the Contest.

That meant the band had only two weeks to prepare everything and had to do the move in the third week. It was possible but still a tough schedule.

Naturally, that also severely limited Fang and Vanille's time together, and so the most time the two spent together was when the girl helped her girlfriend organise her move, for which the latter was more than thankful.

Though it wasn't quite the way Vanille had hoped to spend her holiday with Fang, she still understood that there were just times when you had to take care of important things. That this time it coincided with her holiday with Fang was just unfortunate, but she was more than sure they'd have more time for each other again once the move was done.

And finally, exactly one week away from the Contest, the members of Fighting Fate had indeed managed to move to their respective places in Bodhum, though with a lot of help from their partners, good friends and others.

Now that was settled, there was still the Contest lying before them. They looked forward to it, but there was still this one thing that dampened their joy a bit: over the last weeks, everyone had received more threatening letters, all repeating what had already been told to them with the ones before: don't participate in the Contest or you will pay for it.

Sure, it made the band nervous, as with every additional letter they got, they feared even more that someone would be pulling something off right during the event. That was at least what they suspected since all they'd gotten during the last weeks were these threats, nothing else.

But despite worries being present in all of their minds, they didn't give in to the stranger's demands. And so it was Friday, six days before the Contest, when they came together in their new studio in Bodhum for the first time to get to know the staff and practise.

As it turned out, the studio wasn't as big as the one in Eden, but that didn't really matter to the band since it had all the equipment and comfort they needed to work properly. That was all that mattered.

Just when they'd finished looking around, they were approached by a relatively tall man with a grey ponytail in a black suit. He looked kind of strict but forced a polite smile on his lips as he came closer to the musicians.

"Good morning! My name is Yaag Rosch, I'm the newly appointed manager of this studio. I'm awfully sorry for having kept you waiting for so long", he introduced himself formally before shaking everyone's hands.

"This is alright, we've been lookin' around a bit in the meantime", Sazh kindly answered the man, who seemed to be sincerely embarrassed by his own unpunctuality.

The tall man nodded curtly before a hand wandered to his tie to tighten it a bit. "I'm pleased to hear that. Did you find everything? Or do you need any further help? I'd be glad to be of assistance", Rosch responded, again smiling politely as his eyes wandered around between the band members, seemingly staring right through their beings.

You could see by the momentary silence and the strange looks on everyone's faces that the band wasn't really used to such an overly polite studio manager. After all, the one responsible for Eden's studio had been the complete opposite in many ways; he'd been a relaxed, often unshaved guy running around the studio in short pants, t-shirts with gruesome logos and sneakers, who'd treated the bands and staff working there much like he'd treat his friends;

Rosch was different, yes. Very different. "No no, that's fine, thank you. Our guards will bring in our stuff and we'll start practising right away. As ya probably now, we'll take part in the Cocoon Song Contest startin' next Thursday", Sazh quickly replied, hoping to get rid of the man soon. Maybe he was really just trying to be nice in his own, very polite way, but it wasn't something Sazh was fond of, as it got across as kind of cold and impersonal.

"Of course, I am fully aware of that. I will better leave you alone now, then. Should you need anything, you can ask me anytime. You can find me in office 36 on the third floor. Good day", he said with his stoic voice, followed by a quick bow to everyone before he disappeared as swiftly as he'd arrived.

"Well, that was odd ... funny guy", Sazh commented once Rosch was out of earshot. "Yeah, I liked the manager in Eden more", Hope agreed, grinning slightly pained.

"If ya ask me, there's somethin' weird about this guy. Have ya seen the way he looks at us?", Fang spoke out her thoughts as they made their way to their practise room.

"You mean how you feel so terribly inferior whenever these eyes meet your own?", Cid inquired with narrowed eyes.

"Exactly that. I really don't like that, makes his politeness feel kinda dishonest", the woman agreed, nodding.

"Calm down, guys. Maybe we just have to get used to him, right? And we don't have to forget he, too, is new in this job. Give him some time, it'll be alright", Sazh ended the discussion before it had even really started.

The band spent the remaining days until the Contest in the studio, practising hard. They knew very well that this was one of Cocoon's biggest yearly events, and it was not only watched by millions of people on TV, but also took place in a big arena that had enough room for over fifty-thousand people. Good for the band, this arena was right in Bodhum, their new home.

It was definitely an honour to be popular enough to take part in this contest, and more so it meant a lot to be the press's favourite contestant.

Besides Fighting Fate, seven other artists took part. At first, they would be randomly put together in two groups with four artists in each. Then, everyone had to play a song they chose beforehand live. After that, the jury of three people would evaluate the performance and the audience could call or send a text message for their favourite contestant.

Once the voting was closed, group one and two both dismissed the artist with the fewest votes. This would repeat in round two and three until the last two remaining artists would fight for victory in round four. Every round took place on one evening, so that meant people could look forward to four days of excitement.

As the jury only gave ideas who they liked most and everything was decided by the audience, everyone knew this contest wasn't only about skill but even more about popularity with the masses.

Finally, the great day approached and everyone was both excited and nervous about this major event.

As Fighting Fate had had to inform the police beforehand that they needed extra protection for the event, it wasn't to anyone's surprise that only hours later, the internet was full of speculations as to why the popular band felt endangered enough to need more protection. Luckily, no word got out about the threatening letter, so everything people could do was wildly speculate.

In the evening, only minutes before the start of the event, Vanille sat in front of the TV back at Farron's to watch her girlfriend together with Serah, Snow and a slightly bored Lightning.

Vanille would've loved to be in the arena, right at the event, but Fang had asked her to stay at home, as their relationship was long not a secret anymore and she feared the girl could be easily targeted if the writer of the letters planned to do something at the event. At home she was safer, and with Lightning there with her it was even better, as the policewoman always had her duty weapon at home with her.

"Good evening, ladies and gentleman and welcome to this year's Cocoon Song Contest!", the host's loud, manly voice came out of the TV, filling the room. It almost made both Serah and Vanille scream in excitement. Oh, this was going to be so great.

AN: I hope you liked this one. I'm not so sure about this chapter, to be honest. I had quite mixed feelings while writing it, especially because I wasn't sure how exciting I wrote the whole thing. So why don't you tell me in the reviews how you liked it? It's appreciated, as always.

Also, as I'm already talking about reviews, I'd like to give special thanks to my long-time reviewers twinbladesofthedead and CalypsoCoast - you have been with this story (and me) for quite long now, that's just awesome :)