Ow. I can't put my finger on why, but this story made me tear up. Then again, FFX is the first game, book, or movie to make me tear up since the ending of Riven back in about 1996. There's something about Auron's self-sacrifice that hurts in a good way, and you captured it so well here, his having to sleep under a grimy bridge, put his sword away (a tool, only a tool, yet such a piece of who he is), deal with domestic situations and a woman's grief which are so alien to him, deal with a boy he doesn't really deserve to have to give another ten years of his life to who doesn't really want him either, solve Jecht's unsolved problems, and all of it while he's still healing from wounds that will never heal. Ow. I really like your idea that Auron would've forced Jecht to make a sphere for Astrid, so that she'd have at least some information.