Yeah, I know, I suck. Sorry (again) for being obscenely overdue! I was temporarily overcome with muses for other fandoms, and needed to take a break from this story so that I could step back and gather some perspective on it. Plus, there's that whole 'university' thing I had to take care of.

I actually had a lot of fun writing this chapter. Again, there isn't really any action, but it's an important one! And I hadn't originally intended to get Joshua more involved in the storyline. Normally I'm not a fan of authors extensively using an OC in fanfiction, but I can see now how easy it is to get creative! I'm starting to like playing around with his character a little more.

Anyway, thanks again for everyone's patience. As a reward, I tried to make this chapter a bit longer than usual. Enjoy!

000

Chapter 19

"There's one thing we haven't talked about yet."

Tidus looked up from the blueprints to meet Yuna's somber eyes. "What's that?"

"Where am I going to be in all this?" she asked, gesturing to the papers spread out on the table in front of him.

The muscles in his jaw tightened. He had been dreading this conversation, and put it off longer than he should have. Leaning back in his chair, he ran an anxious hand through his hair and held her gaze with his. She saw the look on his face, and promptly stood up from the mattress.

"You are not keeping me here," she warned him. She was trying to sound strict, but he could plainly hear a note of panic creeping into her tone. "Do you hear me?"

"Yuna," he sighed, "I can't do this right if I'm constantly worried about keeping you safe. I need my wits about me at all times, and you . . . well, you just –"

"I slow you down," she concluded bitterly, turning away.

"That's not true." Liar. She can admit it, but you can't?

She shook her head a little. "I do. I know I do. But you cannot expect me to sit idly by while you are out there risking your life for the both of us."

"And you can't expect me to let you walk right in the line of fire," he countered. He stood up and began pacing, determined not to let his resolve slip. "This isn't a simple matter of going in, handing over the file, and walking out again. I could die. We could die. Do you understand that?"

"Then what am I supposed to do?" she demanded.

Tidus' heart contracted painfully in his chest. "I . . . reserved a seat for you on a flight to the French Antilles. The island of Martinique. Tonight."

She froze. He licked his lips, and stumbled onward. "It's not final," he rushed to explain. "Nothing's paid for yet. I was on the computer at the city planner's office, and I just figured while I was there I should . . ."

He trailed off at the stricken look on her face. "Please," she whispered, eyes filling with tears. "Please don't send me away."

"I have to, Yuna."

"I can't just leave you!"

"I don't quite know how I managed to keep us both alive this past week. It's been one fluke after another, sheer dumb luck."

"You kept me alive," she insisted, gripping his fingers. "It wasn't luck –"

"A few agents are one thing, but this is different. I'm diving head first into a trap, with nothing to protect me but a stack of papers and whatever training they've given me. That's it."

Yuna glared back resolutely, lips trembling with the effort of keeping silent. His eyes roamed the planes of her face with an aching need, and his hand freed itself from hers to brush her cheek. "Don't you get it? It's my fault you're in this mess. I tried to kill your father – and probably you too, for the record – and then I dragged you from the hospital and made you my accomplice. If I'm going to have any chance of getting out of this alive, I need to know that I didn't just throw you to the lions, after all we've been through. I need to know that I did everything I could to protect you."

She finally closed her eyes, spilling her tears and leaning into his touch. "Promise me," she choked, "that when it's all over, you'll come and find me."

Relief flooded through him. He pulled her close, murmuring, "No matter what it takes."

000

Rikku stared out the window of the private jet, unusually quiet and calm. Her green eyes glazed over, blind to the clouds sweeping by or the blue of the ocean below. The aircraft was packed to the absolute maximum capacity, with nearly every seat taken up by either a person or some piece of surveillance equipment. Conversation buzzed in all directions, but the young psychoanalyst was completely oblivious to it.

Until, that is, someone swept aside the pile of wires in the chair next to her and replaced it, opening with a cordial, "You look even more preoccupied than Seymour."

Rikku blinked, startled, and turned to see Joshua – the young assistant, now in charge of his own task unit – smiling back at her. He looked like a kid who was about to go on his first hunting trip (and in fact, he kind of was), eyes wider and even brighter than normal.

"I'm sorry?"

"You've been really quiet and . . . pensive-looking all morning," he pointed out. At this proximity, they could speak quietly and still hear each other through the din of activity all around them. People making phone calls, negotiating with local police and intelligence factions, pouring over city maps, and of course, examining every possible square inch of the Opernhaus' blueprints.

Rikku smiled thinly. She was not in the mood for a conversation, though she had always thought Joshua seemed like a nice enough young man. Her decision to start working for the CIA had kept her wide awake for the last twenty-four hours, and she had the uncomfortable feeling like she was wading through quicksand. One wrong move and she'd plunge to her death, but all she could do was trudge forward and hope the lifeline waiting for her at the end would not suddenly pull out of reach. Auron had not been very that clear one what exactly he wanted her to do. All he had said was that she needed to do everything in her power to keep Tidus and Yuna out of SIN's reach. When she had asked why he was fighting so hard to protect these two, he had merely given her an enigmatic smile and told her to stick to one thing at a time.

"Oh, you know," she said with a shrug. "Just thinking."

"What about?"

"Raines. Yuna. The mission." Auron. Seymour. SIN. The CIA. Betraying the very people who took me under their wing, trained me, paid me, protected me. The same people who orchestrate high profile murders in exchange for money and political immunity. You know, nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Joshua looked down at his hands folded neatly in his lap. "I wanted to talk to you about that, actually," he confessed. "Has Seymour given you an assignment yet?"

"Not really. I'm supposed to stand by in case the Swiss police decide to get in the way. They've agreed to let us cast a net, but for some reason they don't seem to like the idea of letting a bunch of Americans run amok in their capital city."

"Run amok?" he repeated, giving her a look of mock indignation. "I resent that. I'll have you know, we plan to be very organized in our running."

"I believe you," she fawned graciously. "But it looks like all I have to do is be ready to kiss some serious diplomatic ass, and hope that I can convince the cops to stay out of our way. Apparently Seymour thinks I'm the type of person that gets taken seriously. He can barely stand me half the time, but here I am."

She gestured to her ponytail to illustrate her point. Unapologetically youthful and girlish, Rikku had nevertheless learned that not compromising her personality often meant getting overlooked, relegated to a pseudo-permanent 'temp' status that she doubted she would ever fully shake off. She was more than qualified for her job, whatever that job happened to be at the time, but even with Seymour's inexplicable confidence in her abilities, other organizations needed a little bit more convincing.

Joshua cleared his throat a little, and tried to keep his smile cavalier. "I'd like to see someone try to undermine you," he joked, though he suddenly dropped his eyes from hers. "As if they could. Seymour trusts you for a reason, after all."

Anxious guilt flared up in Rikku's gut, and she rushed to change the topic's direction. "So, why did you want to know if I had an assignment yet?"

"Ah, well, I was just wondering if you'd consider lending a hand with my team," he offered, fiddling with his thumbs in the most spectacularly bashful way. "I think you could bring a certain level of energy that, I, um, admittedly lack."

She stared at him, determined not to look as alarmed as she felt. There he was, thinking he was giving her a compliment. "Really? You want me to help you bring in Yuna?"

"Yeah," he coughed, daring to smile back up at her. "If you want to, that is. I'd understand if you'd feel more secure staying closer to base operations, but I could really use your expertise."

"I'm just a psychoanalyst," she protested.

"Which means you know a lot about human behaviour," he insisted. "You know how they think, how they move. I know you've read Savard's file close to a dozen times, not to mention your experience with Raines himself. Plus, you minored in telecommunications, right? So you've got the gadgets down pat too."

"He's right."

Both Rikku and Joshua looked up with a start to find Auron leaning over the back of their seats, his unscarred eye fixed on the young woman. "I'm moving you to the special ops mission. Find Yuna, and do what needs to be done."

She swallowed invisibly, and Joshua beamed. "Thanks, Lynwood," he said delightedly, before turning back to Rikku. "See? You're outnumbered."

Her answering grin fooled him, but likely not Auron, who kept watching her with that same unreadable expression. "I guess I am."

Their superior stood up and moved into the aisle, heading towards the front of the jet, where Seymour was busy briefing a few other members of staff. "Good. I'll tell the boss. You two should try and get some rest. We'll be landing in another few hours."

Yeah, like that'll happen, she grumbled inwardly, watching him converse with Seymour. Sleep was the absolute last thing on her mind. How the hell was she supposed to get to Yuna first, let alone keep the rest of the team off her trail?

Joshua, on the other hand, looked like he was trying to make himself more comfortable. He reclined his seat a little and shifted position, leaning his head back and closing his eyes before he realized that she was not following suit.

"You're not sleepy at all?" he inquired with a frown.

She shook her head and busied herself by pulling out her laptop. "I'll be fine. Just gonna gather some extra intel. You go ahead and get some shuteye, okay?"

"Fine, fine. Just don't burn yourself out. I need you in mint condition when we arrive."

She nodded wordlessly, and he took it as his cue to leave her in peace. With a self-conscious smile, he lay back down and settled in for a nap. There was something universally intimate about sleeping next to someone, even on an airplane, even if that someone was still more or less a stranger. They'd been colleagues for a few years now, but had never spoken to each other at any great length, and for a few minutes Rikku was frustratingly distracted by his unguarded presence at her side. The temptation to keep checking on him, taking note of his expressions, the occasional twitch of his hand on the arm rest, was making it very difficult for her to focus on just how completely screwed she was.

Finally, at some point his gentle snores faded into the background and she was able to at least get a rudimentary search underway. She was in the middle of scanning various hotel reservations in the eastern half of Zurich, when a window popped up on her screen. It looked like an old newspaper article, detailing the death of Braska LaRoche's wife, Renata. Rikku frowned in puzzlement. She had configured her laptop to block unauthorized file exchanges, as did most of the staff. It was a security measure designed to help keep her IP address relatively safe, allowing her to move between systems without attracting any attention. Yet there she was, receiving a mysterious package that was somehow pertinent to the case. She glanced up at the corner of the window to see who had sent it. A/L.

She craned her neck to locate Auron, and found him sitting near the front, computer open on his lap as well. Seymour was pacing no more than three feet away, berating someone on the phone in what sounded like German. Auron caught her stare, but pretended not to notice her. Rikku raised an eyebrow in reply. The man had some nerve to hack her in plain sight of the boss, she granted him that. She was none too pleased about the liberty, but figured it had to be important enough for him to take such a risk.

Scrolling down, her eyes scanned briefly over the details of Renata LaRoche's death. Something about a cabin, a gas leak, 'terrible tragedy', 'left Braska and his daughter completely broken-hearted', and the like.

Then she saw Renata's picture – a classic portrait, showcasing an understated beauty that was inescapably familiar.

Rikku's eyes widened. That's Yuna's mother. The thought came unbidden, springing from her gut with a certainty that was almost unsettling. The two women looked almost identical, though Yuna obviously took after her father in some respects.

Her father.

Braska LaRoche is Yuna Savard's father.

Her eyes shot back up to find Auron staring back at her this time. She gaped at him, trembling, before she looked down to examine the portrait once more. How could they have missed this? How could they not have known Yuna was the daughter of the French Minister of Defense? Aside from changing her last name, there was only so much that could be done to keep such a secret from an entity like SIN, whose sole purpose was to know the seemingly unknowable. It was no real secret that Braska had a child, but he had always been notoriously adept at keeping the spotlight aimed on him alone. The girl had been sent abroad for schooling, and had a whole team assembled specifically to guard her from public scrutiny 24/7. Throughout his entire political career, not once had he ever made a public appearance with his daughter, and only very rarely with Renata. They must have agreed early in the marriage that whatever children they had were to be kept completely anonymous. Had he known then that he would incur such a list of enemies? That if anyone was to seek revenge for his zero tolerance policy, they could pull his wife and child into the crossfire?

Rikku snapped her laptop shut, hardly able to breathe. The daughter of a man they had attempted to kill was now on the run from them with the very same agent they had tasked with the deed. If that wasn't an astonishing, ironic turn of events, she didn't know what else qualified.

How did Auron know of this? Was it from his connections in the CIA? No, if that were the case, the information on Yuna would have been much more thorough, likely even dating back even before the explosion. This was something else.

My best friend's wife was a casualty, he had said to her. SIN targeted him, and she died instead.

Rikku closed her eyes and sagged back into the seat, suddenly feeling very, very tired.