FicWad

It was dawn on Besaid.

Chappu's hand was soft and cool in hers, the way it always had been, and when she ran her thumb across his knuckles she could feel the scar he'd had there ever since the time he'd fallen on the rocks near the beach when he was young. She would swear that he was solid and alive at her side, nothing at all like the faded and silent shade of him she'd seen on the Farplane.

"I miss this," she said quietly as he began leading her back towards the city.

"I know you do, Lulu." He squeezed her hand, not looking at her. "I never meant to leave you so soon."

Part of her wanted to tell him that he shouldn't have joined the Crusaders if that was true, but it wouldn't have been right. Not when she'd devoted her life to being a Guardian, knowing each time she left Besaid at the start of a pilgrimage that it could be her last time seeing the island.

So instead she kept her silence as they walked along the cliffside path to the town, the way they had a million times before. She knew that she ought to be happy, that being with him like this should feel like the world was finally setting itself right again, but instead, as the town came into view around the curve in the path, she found herself weeping. She who hadn't allowed herself to cry in front of another person in years.

"Hey, none of that now!" He tried wiping away her tears with his free hand, a futile effort since they were just replaced by more a moment later, and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "I'm not here to make you sad, Lu."

"What did you expect I'd be? Overjoyed to be reminded of all we've lost?"

She immediately regretted snapping at him, but he just laughed. "There's my grumpy girl," he said, then began pulling her in the direction of town again. "C'mon, Lulu. There's something I wanna show you."

She didn't want to go down to where other people might be, didn't want what time they were going to have together be interrupted by anyone else, but she couldn't deny him anything. Not now. "What is it?" she asked as they walked down the main road, then stopped and frowned when she noticed a building she'd never seen before. Had they been building while she was gone, she wondered, then almost laughed at herself for how foolish the thought was. However real this all felt, she'd never been able to fool herself enough to believe they were actually in Besaid.

"This is what I wanted you to see." He gestured around them, at the city. "Take a look, Lulu. This is what you're making."

She looked, not understanding what she was supposed to be looking /at/. It was Besaid, just the way it had always been aside from the new building... and, now that she was paying attention, more than just that one stretching away from the town center. She didn't know why she hadn't noticed how much bigger the city was at first.

And there were flowers growing near some of the homes--tended gardens instead of just whatever wild plants happened to grow close to a building--although she'd never known anyone to waste time on something so frivolous when Sin could arrive and destroy it at any time. "It looks..." she began, then trailed off in numb shock when she realized that there was dust on the stairs of the temple.

"Calm?" he finished for her, sliding his arm around her waist when she nodded. He leaned his head against hers and contemplatively said, "You know, the way I see it, if I'd still been around when that guy who looks like me showed up, my bro wouldn't have been so interested in him. He wouldn't have gotten him an in with Yuna, she wouldn't have started thinking that maybe there's a way to put Sin down for good." He waved around them again, squeezing her softly. "If I'd still been alive, you wouldn't get a chance to live in this world. I got to protect you in the end after all; I think that's worth my life."

"It's not," she said, her voice harsh. It was a horrible thing to say, she knew, and an unforgivable feeling, but in her heart it was the truth. A thousand more years of Spira suffering the pain of Sin, a million more summoners and their guardians dying in droves on the long road to Zanarkand, these were prices she'd gladly pay if it meant Chappu could still be with her. The only part of it she would regret was Yuna's death, and even that was something Lulu'd begun bracing herself for the day she'd announced that she was becoming an apprentice Summoner. "And I never needed to be protected."

"Lu, don't say things like that. You know you'll regret them when you cool down." Though his words were chiding his tone was warm, not sounding at all disgusted with her for saying such an awful thing. "Lulu, I got to spend my life with the most wonderful woman I've ever met. Long as I can say that, I'm not gonna have any regrets, except--" He cut himself off with a rueful shake of his head as he began leading her toward her own home.

"It's easy for you to say that, Chappu. You weren't the one left behind." She shouldn't be fighting, she didn't want to be fighting, but it still hurt her so much. She felt like a wounded animal, lashing out against the person who was trying to help it.

"Of course I was; every time you left on a pilgrimage." She opened up her mouth to protest that it wasn't at all the same, but he seemed to anticipate her response and continued before she could get a word out. "No, it was worse/, Lu. At least you know what happened to me. You can mourn and move on. But when you went with Ginnem you were gone almost as long as I've been, and all that time I had no idea if you were alive or dead. It was /luck that brought you back to me, even if you think the luck was bad. If Ginnem had decided to go on and rest in the Ronso caves instead of exploring that cave, you would be the one terrorizing Spira as Sin right now, and I'd never even have known what happened."

There was nothing she could say to that, save, "I didn't know it then. The true cost of the Final Summoning."

He smiled as he pushed open the door to her house. "I know you didn't. Even if you did, I'd get it if you'd decided it was worth it anyway... but I wouldn't have thought The Calm was worth the price of losing you either."

She frowned as she stepped through the door. The room they were in was dark and silent, and when she looked around everything important to her was gone. "I'm not here," she said.

"Why would you be?" he asked, pyreflies slowly starting to leak from him to light up the room, making it even more clear how empty it was.

"This is my home, Chappu."

"Has been since you were old enough to leave the temple," he agreed before stepping closer, cupping her cheek in a hand that was fading away even as it touched her. "But why would you be here now, when there's another man out there who isn't dumb enough to leave himself regretting never asking you to be with him?"

Lulu's eyes widened and flew up to meet his, almost blinding herself from the brilliance of the light seeping from him. "Chappu, I... I would never forget--"

"Who said anything about forgetting?" he asked, leaning forward to kiss her eyelids when they automatically closed from his closeness. Even with her eyes shut she could see his light through them. "You getting to live in peace with someone else who realizes you're the best woman in Spira? That's not just worth dyin' for, it's worth not trying to keep holding onto you now that I'm gone." As he began to pull away he whispered, "Remember that, ya? Long as you're happy, that's all that matters to me. Just thought you oughta know."

When she opened her eyes she was in Cid's bed again, and it was his hand on her cheek wiping away tears, his fingers rough and calloused in a way Chappu's had never been. "Hey there," he said, pulling away as soon as he noticed she was awake. "Nightmare?"

"No..." she said, pushing herself into a sitting position. Usually she would be turning away now, or ducking her head so her hair would cover her face, rather than letting herself be seen with tears in her eyes, but instead she allowed herself to look up and study his expression. To see the concern obvious in his eyes. "Just a dream." Of course it was nothing else. It wasn't any surprise that she'd be dreaming about Chappu when she'd just been telling Cid about their time together the night before.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked as he stood up and crossed to one of his shelves.

"No. I'm fine, Cid. Truly." And it was the truth, for the most part, although she was left wondering if the things Chappu had said were what she really believed he would have felt, or just what she wanted to make herself believe he'd say.

"All righty then, I won't press you none about it." He returned to her side, carrying a bangle and a bag. As he pressed the bracelet into her hand he said, "Here, Rikku made that for you. She was real worried after that fiend attack, so I guess she figured she'd do what she could to keep it from happening again."

"The others are back?" she asked, slipping the bangle onto her wrist and feeling the invisible shield of magic it produced settling over her body. As always, Rikku had done a wonderful job.

"Were. They went back into the ruins again, but you were still asleep so they decided to let you lie." He rubbed his palms against his thighs, looking strangely nervous, then held out the bag. "Then this is something one've my crews found in Baaj Temple awhile back, same time they found Tidus there." When Lulu reached into the bag and pulled out a doll of a child in armor with a bow tied (badly) around its neck he quickly continued speaking before she could say anything. "I don't know nothin' about how to tell the strength of those things so maybe it's not as good as the one you're usin' now, but I just remembered it today and thought maybe you'd get more use out've it than it's gettin' sitting in storage."

She sat the doll on her lap, lifted her hands so it rose to its feet, and began feeling out the way her magic flowed through it. The paths her mind found in it were cramped, her power sluggish as it moved through it, but she found herself unwilling to tell him so when he seemed to want her to like it so much. "This is..." she began, then trailed off frowning at its back.

"What? Somethin' wrong?" he asked, starting to bite down on his lip before catching himself and curling his hands into fists on his lap instead.

"It's not that," she said, still frowning as she began to dig through one of the pockets sewn into her sleeves. "It's just, don't these..." she pressed her free fingers against two small indentations in the back of the doll's helmet, "...look like these/?" She pulled her hand out of her sleeve and opened it to reveal two small purple gems she'd gathered on the pilgrimage; a crest she'd found when she'd gone to the Farplane to say goodbye to Chappu one last time before they left Guadosalam, and the sigil Rikku had been given as a souvenir after she'd skittered all over the Thunder Plains trying to avoid getting anywhere close to any bolts of lightning and, in the process, ended up having to avoid far more blasts than the rest of their group had run into by just walking straight across the plain. She'd tossed the talisman to Lulu when she got it with a mumbled 'I don't /want a reminder of that, so go ahead and collect the set.'

"Now that's one hell've a coincidence," Cid said, blinking at the grooves and plucking the crest out of her hand to look at it. "Looks like these things are even carved so when they're in place the backs'll fit smooth with the curve of its head."

"I wonder what they're meant to do?" she asked fingering the sigil still in her hand.

He flashed her a wide grin. "Only one way to find out!" he exclaimed, then fit the crest into it's place before she even had a chance to think of urging him to be cautious. Instead of being annoyed she found herself smiling at his obvious enthusiasm. It seemed as if he was always happiest when he was doing something that might end up blowing up in his face.

When nothing happened but the gem faintly glowing (to Cid's obvious disappointment) she slowly fit the sigil into the other groove, then jerked her hand back as the glow spread out to cover the entire doll. Then as fast as it had appeared the glow was gone, leaving the doll apparently unchanged. She tentatively reached out to touch it, then picked it up when nothing happened. "Did that do anything?" she asked.

"Hell've a let-down if all it does is put on a little light show."

She turned it over in her hands, poking and squeezing it. She could feel that somehow it wasn't the same, like an itch at the back of her brain, but she couldn't say how. "No, there is something... ah!" She had found it. When she'd made it stand on its own again, she suddenly realized that the power conduits that had been so closed off just minutes before were now stretched so wide that her power practically flowed through it without her expending any effort at all. Not only that, but she could feel the doll amplifying the energy she put into it, strengthening her magic without any further drain to herself. The thrum of power was so strong that even Cid could feel it; she could tell by the look on his face. "Thank you, Cid," she said, smiling warmly as she let the doll fall lifelessly to the bed again. "This is wonderful."

"Yeah, well, you're welcome." He coughed and looked away from her, clearly the sort of person who was embarrassed by being on the receiving end of gratitude. They sat in silence for a moment, before he abruptly sat up and out of nowhere said, "So! Why don't you tell me about these 'monster chests' y'all were chasing?"