A/N: Another Aurikku oneshot from my end. Got one or two more coming. This one? ...I don't know. I wanted to write something in a Rikku-esque style that was a little less intense, shorter, and had a more laidback, easy feel. This is what my brain spit out, so... here it is. :) (Don't own, never have never will. How depressing.)

-Manda

Parallels

Well.

In my time digging up and dusting off and searching and finding spheres, spheres, spheres, I’ve seen the old video spheres. Zanarkand, y’know, way old but still so much like us all, and there were videos like we make today for memories and there were videos of a fake story and fake people for enjoyment – my pops said that they used to be called ‘films.’ Interesting.

I’ve only ever seen two, because there haven’t been that many dug up at all. One was this amazing kick-ass video about this guy, trying to save the world and how it was going to explode if he didn’t make it in time to the temple in—

You know what? Nevermind. That isn’t really important. I mean, I completely love that sphere and watch it whenever I get the chance, but what I want to talk about is the second sphere I found.

This sphere was… well, I guess based on regular life, back then. It was a romance story.

Well, I’ve never been one for gushy mushy romance. I always said that I wanted to have a bajillion little brats to run around, but you know what? That was like trying to fool me. By the time I was fourteen I had already sort of figured, way in the back of my head and heart, that I wasn’t ever getting married or having kids, because I could already feel it, deep in my bones and hair roots and the swirls of my eyes, feel that my path was that of an adventurer. A traveler. A thief, a leader. Call it what you will, but I’ll call it Rikku.

Yes, that’s it. My path is my own. (I sound like him when I say it like that, isn’t that funny?)

When I saw this sphere, though, this old rotting thing covered in dust and algae and rust from the dead city under the water with the video itself clean as the day it was made, the one thing that I remember about it is that the man walked away, and the woman watched.

She watched, and she did nothing. She said nothing. She cried quietly like a puppy whimpers and watched.

(I hated that movie, by the way. I watched it once and then Brother and I used it for target practice when we were throwing grenades.)

That’s pretty common here, too (no, not grenade throwing). In Spira, in this world. The man is always supposed to be the strong one – and even if everybody is more or less equal, same rights and anybody can do anything, there’s still that stereotype, and there’s still that image in my head of a man walking away and a woman crying.

Well, that’s wrong, anyway.

It’s really not much of a stereotype to me, because when the machina malfunctioned and mama died, she was the one walking away, and my pops cried when nobody was looking, and it was like she was walking away and he was watching quietly, but what’s different is that he knows and she knows, wherever she is, and I know and Brother knows that she didn’t want to walk away. She had to leave for an appointment in the Farplane and we’ll meet up with her later, that’s all.

But that’s always sort of bugged me. That’s why I’m never doing anything stupid like that, marriage and kids. Somebody always walks away in the end. Always.

For some reason, though, it doesn’t seem that way with Tidus and Yunie. But they’re different, one couple in a million, so in love and so completely in tune with each other, that I already know, barely six years after he came back – I already know that they’ll be together, forever. Yuna and her not-so Imaginary Friend.

That isn’t my path, though. I can already tell that there isn’t anybody out there for me.

Well, anymore.

Don’t tell anybody, but – and I mean nobody – but I did find somebody, once. A long, long time ago. I was barely an adult.

By Al Bhed standards, anyway. Spiran standards I still had two years to go. Sixteen, barely that, even, when Tidus had just appeared and Yuna was training to become a summoner, when Lulu and Wakka and Kimahri lived on Besaid and could pretend nothing was wrong yet, when a dead man just arrived, too, when Sin was alive.

And there we go. That starts it all.

Sin.

Funny, how he (and, by extension, Yevon, but don’t get me started on that thing) seems to be the source of just about everybody’s problems.

(I met a woman, once, who didn’t seem to notice the swirl in my eyes; she told me that she had been searching for a place where nobody had ever heard of Sin, but was ready to give up now, and… I want her to find that. She was nice. That’s all.)

Well, that’s the reason we were all brought together, anyway. And that’s when I was sixteen. Barely an adult.

But still an adult, nonetheless.

I was immature. I was childish. I was all laughter and smiles, but that’s not just it, that’s not just it at all, because just like anybody else there are two sides to the coin and I had seen more death than Yuna or Tidus or Wakka by then, younger but I had cried more and hated more and been hated more. So I was mature in other ways, maybe, even if I liked to steal and run away laughing.

So I was still an adult. Barely an adult, a long long time ago and I found somebody, once, a long long time ago, I was barely an adult, barely an adult—

Don’t tell anybody – and I mean nobody – but I did find somebody, once.

Legendary guardian. Unsent. Hero. The man in the red coat. Auron, the man who never smiled.

Well. That is a little embarrassing now, isn’t it?

I’m sitting here, mulling over these thoughts in the late Besaid sun, all orange and gold filling the beige-blue wall room I’m in; lounging on the hammock that I always set up in this room, unusually quiet because silences are comfortable to me. This room, the sweet scent of native fruit, this home, this living room with lots of windows to let in the sunlight and warm white sand as the ground, is so comfortable; I think with a little child sleeping on me.

Not mine, though. Yunie’s. I’d rather be the crazy aunt, anyway, who babysits when she decides that she wants to pretend for a while, and sends the parents off on a much-needed date.

She’s blonde, by the way. A different blonde than Tidus – like Yuna’s mother, my aunt. A more Al Bhed blonde, sun kissed. Her eyes are all blue, but she has fairer skin than her father, her father with the beach-boy surfer tan. Four and a half years old. I’m not too sure who she takes after just yet – she seems to get in a lot of trouble, funnily enough, but she’s quiet and gentle and smiles as much as she needs to breathe.

I like to think she gets that from me.

…Eighteen year age difference. He was almost thirty-five. Almost. We were going to celebrate his birthday as a surprise after we beat Sin, before we knew. Before we knew.

I think I just had a lot of respect for him. That’s healthy. I admired him to a point, on a level of camaraderie, but I think I really appreciated the fact that he saw me as an adult. An Al Bhed adult. I wasn’t the comic relief for once, because Tidus took that, and that was really nice, but to a lot of the others I was still just a child. Auron saw both sides of the Rikku coin.

Kimahri saw that, too. So it wasn’t just that.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I have no idea how I ended up snogging him right before we went into Zanarkand, I have no idea if I kissed him or he kissed me, and I have no idea. But it happened, anyway.

I’m not saying that’s love, but I’m not saying that it isn’t, either. To me, love is strong friendship, love is joy and happiness and being mumpish and down when something hurts what you love (mumpish is a word, Buddy told me so— well, that can actually mean it might not be a word. Nevermind).

I don’t like saying ‘in love,’ because how can somebody be in love? That’s stupid. Love is an emotion. It would sound just as equally ridiculous to say, ‘I’m in happy.’ I’m happy. I’m sad. I love. But I don’t do ‘in love.’ When I hear that, I can’t help but think that means in love with the idea of love. And that isn’t love, not really.

Talk about your tongue twisters.

But I won’t say that there wasn’t anything there, because there was. Maybe we were both real lonely, because the world is lonely and we were no exception, no exception at all. And I knew he was dead and he knew he was dead, but it was alright. It was alright then.

But he felt bad later, I know, because all he could say before he went was I’m sorry, which are some pretty sucky last words to the last girl you kissed and the last time you kissed her, I think.

But I won’t say that there wasn’t anything there, because there was. Maybe we were both a little sad, because back then everything and everybody was sad and we were no exception, no exception at all. But he wasn’t so sorry, because the next time I dragged myself into a travel agency, Rin smiled a not terribly happy smile but it was understanding, and told me that a huge sword was found in the back, and it had my name on it.

So maybe it wasn’t just sadness and loneliness. Maybe it wasn’t just that.

Maybe it was that he was too quiet and I was too loud, and he sat too much in the corners and I needed to learn to back away from the middle of the room sometimes, and we both saw too much death, and too much darkness, and he knew how to handle it and I knew how to find light.

A small little girl sigh, soft like baby chocobo feathers, and the weight that had settled on my stomach before moves, accompanied by a quiet yawn and then shifting like a little worm – blue, blue eyes like oceans and sky look up at me. I attempt a smile.

“Hey, kiddo. How was your nap?”

The late Besaid sun, full of gold and orange cover us both snuggly, bathe us in light and the warmth sinks into our skin and bones, reflecting off of her hair like honey.

“Good. Auntie Rikku didn’t sleep,” she tells me unblinkingly, a fairly neutral and inquisitive face, baby fat and all, looking up at me.

“No, I didn’t,” I agree.

“What did you do?”

“…I was thinking,” I finally answer truthfully, smiling at her.

“Bout what?”

“Life,” I reply and I pick her up and blow a raspberry into her cheek – she screams in delight and giggles like the little child she is, rolling off of the hammock clumsily to land on her feet and then land her behind on the sand, still smiling.

“It’s still summer,” I tell her, “And the butterflies won’t be out for long, you know.”

Macalania has the prettiest butterflies, but I like the white butterflies of Besaid. Simplicity and joy in the inelegance of the whiteness, and I prefer it.

“Wanna go catch some?” And the child nods enthusiastically and jumps up, and I hold her hand, so small and soft, in my own not-so-large but calloused one. The telltale signs of holding a wrench and screw are embedded in both as indentations, but I don’t mind; they’re like marks of pride.

The one thing I do know – for certain – is that he wasn’t just a lonely old man. And thirty-four is hardly old. The one thing I do know for certain is that he wasn’t just a lonely man. Man.

I haven’t properly… well. I’d like to say that I haven’t properly grieved for him, mourned him. That sounds stupid, though. It really does, because I’m not a goddamn widow with kicked-puppy whimpers being left behind. That’s the thing I’m farthest from. So that sounds stupid and I won’t say it again, but I’m dealing. I guess I just… when he left, I cried for him less like Yuna did for Tidus, and more like Lulu would for Auron. The sense that there was a mild, very mild friendship there, but nothing more. Guardian-ship.

I haven’t tried telling Yuna. I think I should, though, it’s sort of been eating away at me a little. I can deal, of course, but I would feel a lot better to just let sleeping dogs lie instead of carrying it around with me. I would like to let it out of my mouth like a pyrefly, let it out so that it can be everywhere and I don’t have to worry about the little bit of weight it puts on me.

Later, anyway. I don’t want to think about it now.

“Auntie Rikku is slow,” she smiles a first-grade smile with grinning mouth, teeth all shown, and I swoop down to pick her up with a wicked grin and she ends up somehow on my back, and I run with her all the way to the field near the ocean of Besaid, where the butterflies are, and we’re both laughing like no tomorrow and then she slides off of my back when we get there and I let her down gently, but we both fall to the ground anyway in a laughing, puffing mess and jumble of skin and hair and smiles.

I’ve never been to the Farplane.

(Talk about your subject changes, neh?)

I was considering going, after, so much that I told my dad and bro that I’d be gone for about two weeks, and I took off from where our airship landed just off of Macalania at a run. I couldn’t walk – I had to run, because all my head could see was sunglasses and graying hair and red coats and swords, my own strapped to my back even if I could barely use it. Running.

And I came to the Thunder Plains, I remember. There they were ahead of me, angry and storming and raging like always, a constant tantrum that never ends. I was so afraid, I remember, but I was still running and could see them in the distance, and I saw Auron in my head and could smell him in the air and could feel the weight on my back, and you know what I did?

I kept running. Straight through, all the way, never slowing down for a second, because I’m strong and I’ve run straight across Bikanel Island just to prove I could, so I kept going, faster and faster and then the thunder, and the thunder, everywhere but I wouldn’t stop and I tried not to think about the last time I was there but at the same time could only think about that, and the thunder and the thunder and the—

But I kept running, and I never stopped. Not once. I jumped and skipped and sprinted, but never slowed down to a walk because walking is where the doubts come in, and running set my lungs on fire but the moisture and the rain in the air eased it all and I realized that the storm was just a child, just a child crying and crying and I hurdled straight into the passage to Guadosalam, collapsing on the ground in a heaving, soaked mess of Rikku.

But I did it. I went straight across, and I felt something swell up in my chest, real big and up my throat so I couldn’t speak; I swallowed it back down, but I felt so warm.

And I got up and then I walked. I walked quietly, not talking to anybody because there wasn’t really anyone out anyway, and I walked up to the passage, straight through, and

there it was, there it was, there it was

the Farplane.

The Farplane. Just how I remembered it, gigantic and looming but not menacing, just there. Neutral. And I walked up the steps, one step at a time, and then I stopped where the half-wall looked familiar, and where a dent was from my claw bouncing against it so many times, the brick chipping.

Where I had sat with Auron, as the rest went into the realm of the dead.

We weren’t friends, then, but it was there that we reached a sort of understanding. And that was the starting point, because it takes time to grow anything and this was no exception.

And I paused, in the very middle of the path between where two people had once sat not so long ago, and then something went plop and I felt something wet hitting my thigh, and I looked down in surprise and when I had landed in the cavern of Guadosalam, the edge of my borrowed sword had cut into my upper arm a little and I hadn’t even felt it, but it was bleeding freely and the blood was such a stark scarlet contrast to everything around me in drab colors.

Auron’s sword cut me. Auron’s sword cut me. Auron’s sword cut me.

And then you know what I did? I laughed. I’m still not sure why it hit me so powerfully at that moment, and the meaning faded over time so I’m not sure anymore, but even now, sprawling on the ground and looking up at the late pink and orange afternoon sky with the ocean in front of me, I can still feel it in my chest.

And it made me laugh.

So I looked at the Farplane for a good long moment, laughing fully and honestly and truly happily, and then I flipped it the bird, turned tail and ran, laughing and laughing all the way.

I’m laughing now, too, and laughter is really the best medicine because I always feel better.

After that, I lived. I breathed and I smiled and I cried and I shouted and I laughed, and I lived. That was a release for me.

And whenever I feel real down, whenever I’m feeling like I’m forgetting or he won’t leave me alone, that’s what I do. I drop everything and I run, all the way to somewhere and anywhere, because we had been all over the world. I was in Luca when I went running to the Omega Ruins, I was in the Calm Lands when I went running and skidded to a stop in Zanarkand, heaving and panting and smiling.

I’m getting better, though. I’m not letting it kill me on the inside. And I don’t think about him everyday. That used to scare me, terrify me because if I didn’t, I was so afraid of losing him, because my memories are the most precious things I have, and nobody can take them away from me except me.

But I know now that just because I don’t think, ‘huh, that red flower reminds me of Auron’s coat,’ everyday doesn’t mean I’m losing him. I’m living. He would have wanted that.

Backtrack, erase that. He wants that. He’s somewhere else, now, but if there is one thing that’s controversial among the Al Bhed, it’s whether there is some form of consciousness after death. And I like to think there is.

I’ll meet up with him later, that’s all.

“Auntie,” she whispers and there aren’t any butterflies but there are glowing dots and for a moment my brain stupidly thinks ‘pyreflies,’ but these are a million times better.

“Fireflies,” I tell her and she smiles and cups one in her hands, small and fragile and her smile is like the little light is sharing a secret with her and a bubble of laughter erupts gently from her throat, the soft yellow light illuminating her face in the dying sunlight, and then the firefly floats lazily from her hands and lands on her nose in a kiss before taking flight again.

We try to catch fireflies in our open hands, laughing openly and spinning and twirling in the magic – because it’s there, and I instinctively know it – and the moon is shining like starlight, and it is warm and everything is good. Life is good.

Be happy.

I’m not startled at all when somebody and nobody tells me this in a familiar voice of a man; I smile, and say of course, and then the child and I go home to sleep.

And when I wake up again, the sun is shining again like everyday and I’m in my hammock that I always set up in this room, warm and comfortable like there is a warmth that isn’t just the sun wrapped around me and like there is air and nothing else around me, like I’m lounging in sand and wind.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Yuna’s quiet voice greets gently with a smile in it as she enters the sunlit room, short hair and two-colored eyes and everything soft light and joy.

“Hey, Yunie,” I stretch and yawn, my joints popping a little but I don’t move just yet – I wait until she is in the kitchen, and I slowly swing my legs over to touch the warm white sand, sifting it between my toes, and follow her. “How was the hot date with this mystery man? Tidus is bound to get jealous, you know,” and she blushes and laughs and Tidus comes in through the door blearily, with the ever-intelligent ‘whut?’ and she laughs more.

He promptly falls asleep again. On my hammock.

I think of shoving him off, but decide against it. If this is what Yunie has to wake up to every morning, then I’d say he needs his beauty sleep.

When Tidus came back, I was… I was happy. He is my friend, like a brother. I was… I’m selfish, I’m selfish, I tried not to think it but I did, I wondered why he could come back if Auron couldn’t because I’m so selfish, but it passed. It did, and I let it go and I felt better.

There are reasons, I know. Auron didn’t live a full life – far from it – but he was tired. He needed rest, and he told me so when he was leaning his head against my shoulder for some semblance of comfort, and I gave it to him so he could pick himself up and keep going.

I do that for myself, now. I had always admired that, respected that. The ability to stand up and keep going. And sometimes you need somebody else to do that for you, when you break, but if you stop a while to smell the machina oil and the moonlilies then you can patch yourself up and still get where you’re going. Our bond – yes, that’s it, the bond between us and us alone – that worked for that, but I can’t do that anymore because there will never be another Auron, so if I just take my time and sew up all the little tears in me, then I’ll be fine. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, and it works.

But Tidus wasn’t ready. He was an imaginary friend, but he was a loud one and needed to live and I think that, back then, he could appreciate living more than anybody. Now, too, especially now. I think like him. It’s like a train of good thoughts and feelings, like a happiness like the Besaid sun or Bikanel’s oasis or the Moonflow’s lilies, the Macalania Forest’s crystals and ponds.

“…Rikku?” Feather soft voice, and I have been sitting on one of the breakfast stools, staring out the window like a space cadet. I snap back to reality and grin at my cousin.

“Mmm?”

Yuna quietly settles herself down next to me, gentle and soft and calm like quiet ripples in the pond.

“…Are… you alright?”

“…Why wouldn’t I be?” And this isn’t a case where she’s expecting a right or wrong answer, which is what makes Yuna herself. Everything coming up moonlilies, it’s all fine.

“You’ve been traveling a lot,” she says after a reflective moment, looking at the light from the window, “And I was… I was wondering… if you’re looking for something.”

And that isn’t making sense to me very much, but Yuna can be vague and she blushes a little when she realizes she isn’t clear, bringing herself back to earth to watch me, with those eyes – bi-colored, those eyes that I’ve always loved.

“You’ve just seemed… very restless since the end of the pilgrimage, and after our last adventure, too,” she tells me honestly, everything soft and nothing too serious, because she’s smiling at the light hitting the counter and her hand.

“I’m… I was, at first,” I finally tell her, because it’s now or never or sooner or later and it’s easier now when everything is so calm and laid back. I’d rather let her know now than, say, at a party where I’m dead drunk (this will probably happen, because I’m not going to waste away, I’ll get out there to have my own experiences, and I already do and have).

“But everything is fine, now. I feel good.”

My right hand subconsciously reaches up to the back of my left arm, where it meets my shoulder, to trace a thin pink scar I know is there.

Tell you a secret. I picked the scab off again and again until it scarred because that’s my favorite part of me, and I feel better knowing it’s there.

I turn to her abruptly and an easy grin reaches my face as she smiles and stands up to start making breakfast.

“I had somebody, once.”

She turns to me with upwardly curved lips, head tilted in a mildly inquisitive fashion as she pulls out a few eggs. Yes, those are my words – I had somebody, once, because I don’t do ‘in love.’

“I finally figured out that that was it. I found my somebody, and that was that… I guess… I think that you only get one somebody. You can get someone else, too, but you only get one somebody. That was him.”

Yuna listens with a mild smile on her face, not unlike the comfortable silences I remember with my uncle when I was little.

“What… happened?” Feather soft, a grown up little girl; she’s cooking, but it’s silent in the sounds of lazy mornings.

“He turned into pyreflies,” I tell her matter-of-factly, “And he had to go to the Farplane. I’ll meet up with him later.”

Yuna’s eyebrows draw up, but I wave my hand in her face before she can say anything.

“It’s okay, Yunie! I was… I was sad at first, especially because I could only say goodbye as a friend because it was a sort of a secret. But… I’m telling you, now, so it isn’t a secret and I already went back and said goodbye… as me.”

Yuna blinks slowly and hers lips curve upwards again. “May… may I ask… who?” She ducks her head a little.

I grin wryly. “Here’s your hint. Sunglasses, red, and a sake jug.”

Yuna’s intake of breath is surprised and her hand flies up to her mouth, but she bites her lip in embarrassment and smiles meekly again.

“Sir… Sir Auron?”

I grin again, and she smiles fully, albeit a little confused, but it’s all good. Questions later, acceptance now; that’s how Yuna works, and I can appreciate that.

Little Dora totters in ten minutes later; we eat and I feel lighter, Tidus’s snoring in the background providing amusement.

“Auntie Rikku is happy today,” she whispers to me with blue eyes and a smile.

“I love a man, you know,” I tell her and then blow a raspberry on her cheek again to make her laugh loudly in a giggling sort of delight.

And I go outside at a run and dive into the ocean where nobody is except me and the water and the sun, and I open my mouth to let out that pyrefly and let it all go even if it’s still part of me, too, and I’m laughing again.

I wasn’t left behind. I’m the farthest thing from it, because he had to walk away but I didn’t stop, I kept walking, too, on a parallel path to him, always in sight.

And as we walk I can move closer, so that our paths will meet again, someday.

There’s a splash behind me and I’m drenched in water as Tidus barrels in with his daughter, Yuna trailing behind.

I laugh.