A/N: I figured that most people preferred a LeonxAqua ending, so I gave him a bit of a problematic background to make his advantage over the other pairing options a bit smaller. It is more fair this way, isn't it? Well, at least this chapter is longer than usual. :P It had the potential to be at least twice as long, but since I'm in a hurry (which is still a bad excuse), it's only about 1000 words long. Maybe I'll come back to it and extend it a bit, like I did with Kairi's fight with Terra, involving his journal. Enjoy! :D

Thanks: Killya008 and ZalelTribal. :)

~ "The only times I've been in danger was back then. I'm not going to revert back to the old me. Now leave me alone!" ~

98) Fire

It was Leon's birthday the day after they had given their concert in Olympus Coliseum to celebrate the Passing of Fire festival, which symbolized the opening of the famous Olympic Tournaments. The Olympus Coliseum was their last destination, and today happened to be the last day before their real departure home.

Aqua could barely believe that three months had passed so incredibly fast. It had been nice to take a break from relationships. She could live without all the drama. Besides, Xehanort made sure that they got their fair share of that. She remembered how he had started to pull out his long, silvery hair after hearing that the dresses for the women in the orchestra wouldn't arrive in time for the royal party in the Enchanted Dominion. Fortunately, they had managed to solve that issue an hour before their concert, just like how they had fixed the damaged decors in Wonderland. All had been fine. If there was one thing that Aqua had learned that day, it was the fact that Xehanort was the scariest man alive. He could probably give Hades a run for his Munny, and that really said something.

Fortunately, she had made some great friends too, like Serah, Quistis, and Olette, and she got closer to Leon.

At the moment, Leon was grumpy because he had been stupid enough to take the phone call, realizing far too late that Laguna was on the other end of the line. Again, he had warned him that he was in danger.

"The only times I've been in danger was back then. I'm not going to revert back to the old me. Now leave me alone!"

Leon didn't believe for one second that he was really in danger. Still, every time that Laguna had called him in the past, Leon would be dragged into one of Laguna's mess ups. Well, not this time if it was up to him.

Just when the dark-haired man had hung up on his father, Aqua entered his room.

"There you are! Why are siiting here all by yourself, when it's such a wonderfully warm day?"

Upon persuation, she eventually managed to get him away from behind his desk to go into the city one more time and walk along the many stalls. It was pretty crowded, even on a weekend.

When Aqua looked around, she noticed that everyone around her was wearing a beautiful flower on their ear on in their hair.

"If a native Greek woman places a flower on her right ear, she's available. The bigger the flower, the more desperate she is. If she places it on the left ear, it means she is taken already. It's a tradition here," Leon muttered when he noticed her staring at them.

He put the flower he'd bought for her on her right ear.

"How do you know all this stuff?"

Leon seemed to tense up for a brief moment, and Aqua realized that she'd said something that had upset him, but in a blink of an eye, his features were smooth and calm again.

"Rinoa once told me."

"Oh, I see."

She could have known that.

Their next destination was a museum with paradoxal architecture, since Aqua knew how much Leon enjoyed musea. There was a staircase that only seemed to go up, but when you walked up the fourth set of stairs, you'd realize that you were standing at the same place as where you had started.

After the stairs, Leon and Aqua entered a room where it was raining everywere, except for the place where the two were currently standing. It didn't matter how they moved around, they never got wet by the rain, even though the floor was filled with puddles of water.

Leon's eyes seemed to glisten in the dimmed light and they reflected the falling droplets. "I… never knew such rooms existed," Leon admitted slowly. "Thank you for bringing me here."

"Don't even mention it. Want to check out the room that represents Fire?" Aqua questioned, to which he nodded.

"Let's go."

They soon found out that the museum also had other interesting rooms; in one of the rooms it was always sunny, and it had a huge flowergarden that was used for making all kinds of potions. Another room turned out to be a sunny beach, complete with ocean and all, and so on. In 'The Room that Never Was' it was so dark and quiet that Aqua and Leon could hear their own blood rushing through their veins. The silence was so unbearable that they couldn't stay there for too long.

It was nice to be accompanied by someone who shared that same interests as Aqua did. Ven never had the patience to enjoy a trip to the museum with her and Terra… Terra was Terra. He loathed artistic things for some peculiar reason. In fact, Leon and Terra were like fire and ice, and to be honest, Aqua was currently more attracted to the fire.

By the time it was evening, and they'd had their dinner, Aqua and Leon had reached the townsquare. A group of street artists were performing at that moment, while a few couples danced on the classical music. Aqua recognized what they were playing: An der Schönen Blauen Donau, Op. 314 by Johann Strauss Jr. Apparently, it was normal here for people to dance on the streets, especially when there was a waltz going on.

Aqua was surprised when Leon extended his hand towards her and asked her to dance. He turned out to be really good at it too.

"You're a real enigma, you know that?" Aqua said with a hearty laugh, as she was twirling around on the music.

The corner of Leon's mouth curled upwards in the beginnings of a smile. "So I've been told."

By now, it was close to ten o'clock in the evening and they had been sitting on this square for so long that it suddenly seemed empty when Aqua looked around her. It was starting to get considerably colder too, so she dug deeper into her warm coat.

"So, what did you think of today?" Aqua asked curiously, giving her friend a sidelong glance.

Leon seemed content; he smiled at her. That in turn made her feel lighter, but not quite as elated as when his lips brushed against her own…

What am I doing? she thought to herself, while breaking the one rule she had set for herself.

But she couldn't help it; she'd become more and more attracted to Leon during this trip. This was bound to happen sometime. The question was, where would it go from here?

A/N: That kiss just had to happen.

Next chapter: "The sooner she dies, the sooner we can carry out the rest of our plan."

Well, it looks like I saved the best stuff for the last two chapters, or did I? What do you think will happen next? The person who comes up with an explanation that is the closest to the one I have in mind, can get a short gift-fic from me if they're interested. :)