Sorry in advance to anyone thinking this chapter would be fun. The relationship Balthier and Fran have is without a doubt very deep and meaningful, and I feel that their relationship deserves something more than what the other characters have gotten up until now Skip it, if it's not your cup of tea, because plot-wise (no, this fanfic has no real plot, but let's pretend it does for just one second) it has no meaning what-so-ever. (And it has no Vaan-bashing either!)

Disclaimer: SquareEnix owns Ivalice and all its wonderful characters, I just borrowed them for a while to ease my own (slightly) obsessed mind.

Part 5: Fran

She had known him for a long, long time; since he had run away from the Judge training to become a sky pirate at the age of nearly 17 and she had defied every law of her people to go see the world. They had met in Balfonheim, where she had saved his ass from certain death after being caught cheating in a game of cards. There had been some fighting and some running, and after shelter had been found; a whole lot of laughing. They had been partners since then, partners, but above all; friends. Together they had managed to scrape up enough money to fix up -or rather turn it from a warship and into an unrecognizable ship made for spped- the airship he already was in possession of, the Strahl, and they had flown away, reaching for the horizon.

He had been somewhat scrawny back then, not completely fitting in his own skin. That cocky attitude, the silver tongue and sly, sexy grin hadn't fitted the rest of him until after he reached 18, when his body finally had filled out the leather vest, when he had suddenly grown a head taller and he had finally given in to her pleas of cutting his then long hair.

Fran could still remember how his face had turned from grim to pleased when he looked in the mirror, hair short and ears pierced. Finally he had looked like the womanizing sky pirate he always had wanted to be.

After that they had taken on the world. They had seen everything there was to be seen, stolen every treasure it was possible to steal, escaped the reaching claws of bounty hunters and broken out of prisons and dungeons. Or at least Balthier broke out, Fran always managed to slip through the guards' fingers. It was their gimmick, Balthier got caught, locked up, and Fran came to help him escape after he had gotten his greedy fingers on treasure and valuables.

At one point they had slept together; wild, drunken sex in a rented room at an inn in the very town they first had met, after a rather impressive escape from certain death after a more than successful robbery of a rather important noble from Nabradia. By then he had gathered a lot of practice from willing women in every city they had visited, women who seemed to throw themselves at his feet as he walked by.

And it had been good. Better than good.

But it had all been slightly awkward, and they had promised themselves to never let it happen again. Their partnership was to important to let anything ruin it. But of course it happened again. Many times. So they had started skipping the awkward part, and the part where they both would lie and tell each other it would never happen again, and decided just to have fun with it and enjoy good sex and good company.

Now that they had traveled on foot for a very long time, had fought more monsters than ever before, and of course tagged along with the most random party ever, she had seen him change yet again. It was nothing physical, but something in his eyes, some sort of purpose. It all had changed the second he had asked what the going rate for kidnapping princesses was these days, and they had been dragged into all sorts of mess and ugly politics.

She wasn't jealous. Not really. It wasn't in a Viera's nature to be jealous, but up until now she had been the only important, only constant woman in his life and he had been the only man in hers. It was somewhat painful to see him slip away, though she knew that he had not moved an inch.

He still loved her, Fran was sure of that, felt it, in his own way. The way a brother loves his sister -except the sex of course– or the way one loves a dear friend.

Something also told her sharply tuned instincts, which were always tuned on him, that he loved someone else in a whole different way. There was no point in denying that Balthier and Ashe had become intimate, but there was something else there as well; love.

Balthier was in love, and Fran had honestly thought the day would never come. Of course, Balthier was an idiot for falling for a princess, no less the sole heir to the throne of Dalmasca, but she would never tell him that, rather let him figure it out on his own.

It made her both happy and sad to learn of this. Mostly happy, happy for him and the change in him, but sad, and scared, because she knew that eventually she would loose him. If not to Ashe, then to someone else. He was rootless, but not as much as he himself wanted to believe.

They both knew that Fran knew him better than anyone, including himself, but she would never use that insight and knowledge to point him in any one direction. She would instead come with one of her cryptic statements and let him figure out the best course of action on his own. The only question was whether or not he would figure this one out before or after it led them both to a painful and abrupt ending.

For the first time in days, Fran actually had the peace to sit down on think on these things. The night was spent in the Salikawood, getting shelter with the Moogles, their first real rest in days, and Fran couldn't help but miss the nights in the open, when she would often be on guard duty, and not having the calm to let her mind wander.

Fran sighted, glancing over at her partner and best friend, where he sat close to the princess around a fire. They only ever sat this close together when Basch was out and about, scouting the area for fiends, or buying something from the occasional merchant they came across. It was sweet really, how close they had gotten.

No, Fran was not the jealous type, but it still stung a little bit to know that he loved someone that was not her.

Just then, Balthier's eyes met hers, and he gave her a smile. A smile which told her that even though everything had changed, some things were still the same, and though he had given his heart to the princess, a part of it would always be Fran's to keep.