Filling In The Blanks

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy 9 incase you didn't know by now :)

Chapter 31: A Secret Known as Rescue

Ribbon fell from just above her head, and her ice colored eyes glittering in the rare sunlight that covered the city.

"A special gift for a special occasion."

"Huh?" She questioned, tilting her head.

"I do not think you know how much you mean to me…"

But she didn't hear him; she bent down and picked up the ribbon from the ground. It was silver and blue. The two colors mixed together in a pattern she couldn't even begin to explain, but she knew it wasn't an ordinary piece of ribbon.

It felt like velvet as she rubbed it between her index finger and thumb, a smile dancing upon her lips; he could tell she was pleased.

"This is beautiful…" She nodded, glancing up at him. "But what do I use it for?"

"Whenever you need comfort, or need to be reminded of me…" He nodded, "Whenever you need something to hold back your hair, when I'm not around to do so, or whenever I'm not here to hold something together..."

She nodded, truly enchanted by what she was hearing, "Will it really be able to do all that?"

"And more…" He nodded, as she threw her arms around him.

"Thank you, Fratley!"

"Years from now, I cannot even begin to think where we'll be…" He smiled at her.

"Together…" She confirmed, revealing to him that she had heard him earlier. With that, the small form of the Bermecian pulled him lower to her height, finding his lips with hers.

?

Freya rounded the corner, almost slipping on the water. She forced herself up, and kept running, desperate to get back to the mage.

She remembered how angry she was when she had agreed to leave Fratley, and now she knew she was making the same mistake. The torches on that side of the hall were still lit – either from a defect in range from her dragon, or from the edgy guard relighting something so he could see. Either way, she saw that the guard had kicked Vivi again…

Who knew what kind of punishment he had endured for the few minutes Freya had been gone. She jumped, kicking the nervous guard square in the face, causing him to cry out and slide himself around on the ground, forcefully making his way away from the rat-like woman.

The guard came at her with his sword, which she easily dodged. She crouched, pouncing into the cage, and sliding with Vivi across the floor, just so they couldn't use him against her. Reinforcements had finally arrived and while Eiko was screaming and yelling and trying to shove her way out of her cell, they began taking strikes at Freya.

She held on heroically – she wouldn't let Vivi be taken or hurt any worse than he was. She was a protector, and she wasn't going to let him down. The resistance member watched as a gleaming sword was being swung down on her – a blow that would definitely kill.

She braced herself for the pain, but after a loud clash it never came. With eyes popping open, she couldn't believe what she saw in front of her.

"Steiner?"

?

Footsteps echoed in the corridor, pattering every so often in a shallow puddle, causing liquid drops to splatter and disintegrate into the stone. There was no light, except the flames that carried on the torch the runner had with him.

An ominous glow was seen in the distance, but before he reached the scuffle he took a sharp right. Carefully maneuvering around, he came to a stop in front of a cell. The brunette was resting, her eyes peacefully closed as she leaned against the wall of the cell.

With shaking hands, he quickly stuck the key into the lock, and when it clicked, the occupant of the cell across from her stirred as well.

"Amarant?" She questioned, surprised.

"Hurry or I'm leaving you…" He turned and opened Zidane's cell as well.

"What's going on?" The blonde demanded, slightly dazed.

"Beatrix…" He turned to her slightly, and then to the Genome, "Zidane… You promised me shelter and protection if I help you escape… I'm holding you to that."

"If you fight for our cause, I can guarantee that…" Beatrix nodded, determined.

"Then you have my word… We must move…" He darted the way he came, the two quickly sprinting behind him. They skidded to a stop in front of Cinna's cell, opening it, and pulling him up.

His head was still not in great condition – he had been unconscious for most of their stay. Amarant tossed Beatrix the keys, and she quickly unlocked Blank's cell, and went to help support Cinna, trying to rush him along.

Blank opened Dagger's cell, and helped her up, everyone too concerned with escaping from the hell hole to realize who they were with.

They turned back again, Amarant ready to lead them out.

"Wait!" Zidane cried out, "What about Vivi, and Eiko? What about Marcus?"

"Where's Ruby and Freya!" Blank shouted, angry that they were going to leave them.

"They'll be fine, I promise you. There's no time to really explain, we have to go…" The man was surprisingly calmed as he moved, but it was a quick and steady pace – they enjoyed his escape plan, even as confused as they were.

A stampede of feet trotted down the hall, halting when they came to the stairs. "What now?" Cinna desperately questioned.

"We move…" He nodded, beginning the trudge up the stairs. They slopped through the mess of water, and mold, mucky dust, and everything else that had collected on the staircase. If possible, the way down was much worse than the dungeon itself.

Amarant pulled a few cloaks from a crate when they reached the tops, throwing them at everyone, and forcing them to put them on. They opened the door and hurried, careful not to attract any attention.

Unfortunately, Cinna's slow run gave it away, and guards were on them faster than flies on garbage. They all stumbled around, trying to find where to go. The hideout was far less extravagant than trying to get around in Alexandria when the whole main group had had to escape, but this was far less familiar, which meant – far harder to get out of.

Luckily, Amarant had a little sense of where he was taking them, and burst through a window only about seven feet from the ground. He easily rolled on his fall and Zidane, Blank, and Beatrix easily made their way out.

Dagger slowly helped Cinna, but got so impatient with his fear of killing himself, she shoved him out the window, following pursuit with her own graceful landing.

The terrain was amazingly unstable. Sandy, then with some prickly grass, or perhaps a random row of bushes or trees that caused a roadblock, only slowing them down was ahead of them.

Zidane was very bothered by the fact they left almost half the group behind, but he couldn't dwell on it very long, as they jumped on a boat to cross a small but exceedingly deep river, the current dreadfully strict, and extremely strong.

The boat resembles their raft back at Dali more than anything, and by the look on everyone's faces, each and every body on that boat knew the others were hurting with the thoughts of what they had had a month or so ago.

The sun scorched everything, causing the water to be very warm – to the point of not even being very drinkable. It would only make them more thirsty, and considering their condition, and their status – they thought against it.

The blonde tried to calm himself down with thoughts of how they could get back on track, but with every glance backwards, he had this dreaded feeling that something bad was happening to the others.

?

There was no explanation to the man she saw holding his own in front of her, against the guard.

Once he slashed through the man's neck, making sure he could never breathe again, the knight pulled her up. In his usual, strong voice he spoke, "There's no time to explain… Let's go…"

He picked up Vivi, and Freya exited the cell, only to freeze. There in front of her… A muscular, tone body, a beautiful shade of blue dazzling his skin, with a tan vest, and a green hat with a red feather sticking out of it, was the man she missed most.

He was staring at her lovingly, his spear straight up just like the perfect knight, a piece of silver and blue ribbon tied neatly in a bow around it.

At this moment in Freya's life, was the first time she finally understood what it meant to be relieved, what it meant to be happy, and what people meant when they said 'everything might just turn out okay'. Tears formed in the Bermecian's eyes. She wasn't the kind of person to cry, but seeing Sir Iron-Tail Fratley once more, the best friend since she was small, the lover since she could remember – the one she yearned for the most… was finally there in front of her.

He quickly opened his arms to her, knowing they didn't have that much time, but not caring either way. She needed this… She ran towards him, wrapping her slender and long arms around his waist.

Steiner moved ahead with Eiko, who he was being acquantanced with through all of her constant questions. He unlocked the cells of everyone else, completely shocked at seeing just who they saw in front of them. Carefully, everyone escaped the way they came – avoiding the upper levels carefully. They also jumped on a boat, racing across the river in an attempt to catch up with the others.

Ruby glanced around, "Where's Blank? What about Dagger? Where's the rest of us?" She questioned, biting her lip.

"We're going to catch up to them…" Freya assured, her voice sounding more confident and almost giddy. It was kind of scary.

Marcus wheezed, not having a wonderful time floating over the water. He had had it kind of rough – talking back to the guards to get a bit of a beating. And then they started doing it for fun. He would be better once he got some food and water, along with a cure from Dagger, but until then he would struggle.

"Look!" Steiner pointed across the lake to see another raft type boat, everyone on that platform crowding around the front in an attempt to see where land was. They looked uneasy… restless.

The knight scanned the raft, and spotted Beatrix. She seemed to be holding Dagger back, the young girl – he froze. She looked angry… Not even just that… absolutely pissed at Zidane. Though now, he wasn't sure what his feelings were towards that, he watched the princess' hands shake violently. Her hair…

Her lovely raven hair, always cascading down her back in an essence of beauty… It was gone. He touched on that briefly, but had to move back to Beatrix. He yearned to see her so much… He wondered what kind of a reaction she had when she found out the news of him being dead. He himself had heard it – and decided to keep a low profile to travel to Bermecia.

There was a yell from the other boat, Blank pointing to the other raft. Ruby's face lit up, and he figured something must have happened with the two – more so than what had been going on towards the end of their stay in Dali.

Everyone maneuvered themselves to turn around, and that's when Beatrix saw him. She stared at him for only a few moments, before a sudden movement truly touched him.

She dove into the water. Beatrix lost all composer. She stumbled and jumped and paddled in the most ungraceful un-Beatrix like way anyone could ever imagine. Steiner stood, too stunned to say or do anything at all.

She swam as fast as she could, and when she got close, Ruby and Marcus helped her up onto the raft. Her heart was beating fast, her face red, and her breath coming out in short puffs. She was exhausted. Not eating or drinking much for the past week, not sleeping easily in the past few weeks, and not moving around that much since they left Dali in the past month made her want to fall over and rest. But she couldn't – not when she was finally in front of Steiner.

The first thing she did was stare at him, and touch his cheek making sure that he was actually there. He didn't open his mouth to say a thing – he knew better. Next she brought her hand back and slapped him across the face. He kept his head to the side, knowing that he deserved it – feeling from her standing in front of him, that he put her through a lot of pain.

Then she placed a hand on both sides of his face and yanked him down. She caught his lips on hers, and kissed him, immediately closing her eyes and pulled him closer to her. He eventually closed his eyes and wrapped his large arms around her petite waist, dumping more passion into their kiss than he thought possible.

Everyone started to cheer, seeing that the two finally told each other how they felt.

Amarant awkwardly looked around, not quite knowing what was going on, as he moved the boat forward again, having enough knowledge to put together the fact that the knight was not swimming back to their boat.

Fratley followed suit as the reunion went on behind him – it had been so long since he had seen everyone… Freya especially, that he was in fact slightly jealous, but he did not hold it against them for long, as Beatrix's fears were confirmed in his eyes, of truly believing Steiner was dead.

Beatrix closed her eyes, and though her clothes were clinging to her body, water dripping off of her, she felt truly warm. She never knew quite what people meant until now… In the bar that sorrowful night, she had indeed been similar to Freya – so she was happy they both got their happy ending.

?

Eventually, Dagger's adrenaline ran out, and she came to realize she was on the little raft with Zidane. Tension came out of nowhere, and everyone felt awkward on the ship. Blank chewed on his lip as he watched Zidane look out across the water, not knowing at all what his best friend was thinking about.

Then he would glance at Dagger and see that she was glaring… well… daggers into him. The death glares were taken to a new level and every once in a while, she would flick water up at his back with her staff.

Either he was too involved in his thoughts, or he didn't care, and that infuriated her even further.

Cinna also glanced at the two of them, and the redhead was surprised he hadn't made some sort of a comment to the two of them.

That impressed feeling shattered when the fat Tantalus member spoke, "Would you two stop being angry, it's ruining the happy mood – making me jealous of the partying raft not too far away."

Zidane glanced at him in a confused way, "Huh?"

Dagger rolled her eyes, "Typical."

The blonde was truly confused, and Blank suddenly felt bad for the taller thief – the poor guy was too occupied to know what was going on.

"Why are you even mad at him, Dagger? He doesn't seem mad at you."

"He has no right to be!" She barked, loud enough to make the rest of us jump. "I have reason – more than one!" She almost shrieked.

"Dagger, you should be a little quieter when raging about Zidane being a dumb ass… We aren't out of the woods yet."

"Technically, we're not in the woods, we're on a lake…" Cinna snorted with laughter at his own joke, "You could – you could," He couldn't get out what he was going to say with his chortles, "say… we're not o-outta the water yet!" He howled with laughter, but I found Dagger directing her glares towards him now, Zidane had gone back to his staring at the horizon, Amarant rolled his eyes, and I was debating the situation at hand too much to really care.

My teammate sighed and looked down, his attempt at lightening the mood rather shattered.

I could only chuckle. The situation wasn't funny, but at the same time…

?

On the other raft, things were very peaceful. Fratley and Freya conversed quietly as he moved the raft forward. Beatrix sat beside Steiner. They were mostly silent, but Ruby could see they stole quick glances at each other, and smiled every time they were caught doing so. Vivi lay unconscious on the raft, his head in Ruby's lap. Marcus was quite similar to Zidane, staring off into the space – nothingness.

Ruby was excited to see Blank again. There were still no established feelings, but they now knew the other cared about each other, though it didn't necessarily change their attitude towards each other. Ruby still got pissed at Blank, and Blank was still scared of her. It was kind of the way their relationship functioned.

She massaged her temples, but still didn't speak to anyone. She simply wanted to go home, even though she didn't know where said home was at the moment.

When they finally docked on shore, the other team was waiting for them. Dagger squealed and jumped into Steiner's arms, truly delighted to see the knight once again. She embraced him for a while, crying and telling him never to do that again.

Everyone waited patiently, and after she finally let go of him, a little embarrassed at her gleeful outburst, Steiner took Vivi gingerly into his arms.

"What next?" Marcus asked. They didn't know where anyone else was – Christ… They didn't know if anyone else even knew they were kidnapped.

"We don't even have a trail," Dagger observed out loud glancing about.

"Well… We have quite a story to tell everyone…" Fratley nodded; he pulled out provisions so they could rest up and dry off a little, and also hear the story, "Let's rest a little bit before we start…"

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A/N: Yay! We're done with that chapter! :D So how was it? Anti-climactical I know, but it leads to better things :D The story, which is next chapter, I thought was pretty clever and it all kinda makes sense!

Please review and let me know what you think!

-zesty-