A/N: Thank you soooo much to you lovely reviewers: Kisdota-The Freak Gamer, omegarulesall, QbertEnhanced, koalababay, Althia9, Dracorum, chiharu-tanaka, difficile, larnelo girl, and Puggles Master.

This prompt came about because I was thinking that you never know what random strangers you'll meet along life's path.

Prompt #31 - Direction

"This isn't Narith." Vaan stared out the window of their airship. Even in the darkness of night, he could see enough to realize they were flying over fields, not the large city in western Archadia. "Penelo?"

"I know!" Penelo frowned at her navigation screen. "It says we're at the right coordinates, though."

"Could you maybe have put in the wrong coordinates?" Vaan regretted asking the question the instant Penelo whipped around to stare at him.

"Vaan, I've been navigating this ship for a year; I know how to input the right coordinates!"

"Well, we're still not at Narith," he said pointedly. "I'm going to land."

As Vaan began to set the ship down, Penelo sighed. "I thought it was taking a little long to get there," she said.

"Why didn't you say so, then?"

"Because I thought I was just tired. We've been flying most of the night so we could make the pick-up time for this stupid job. I don't have the sun to show me what direction we're going, and it's been cloudy most of the trip-" Penelo waved her hand at the cloudy night sky in emphasis "-so I've only had the stars every now and then. All I have is the navigation system on this thing! Maybe it's broken; did you think of that?"

Vaan gently set the airship down in a large field. "That's ridiculous. I just had her tuned up!"

"It doesn't mean things can't break. Look at what happened to the last engine we had! Or the rifter belt! Or-"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Vaan grumbled.

Penelo was busy tapping at the coordinates screen as Vaan unfastened his harness and clambered out of his seat. He leaned over her shoulder just in time to see the screen blink, and then numbers on the screen suddenly change. "Uh-oh," Penelo mumbled. She tapped the screen again, and the numbers flashed to a new set. "Yes," she said definitively. "I'd say the navigation system is broken. So what do you know about repairing the nav system?"

Nothing. Vaan barely knew how to operate the navigation system, let alone repair it. Most of the things he had learned how to repair had come through the experience of actually fixing them. And they didn't have many spare parts on board-who knew if they had what they needed to fix this?

He opened his mouth to reply, but Penelo beat him to it. "That's exactly what I thought."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to." Penelo stood from her seat, looking rather irritable, and walked past him toward the airship door. She punched the button to lower the ramp.

Vaan followed her, watching the ramp go down. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that we're out in the middle of nowhere and neither of us has actually slept all night and now-oh, no. Vaan! I think you landed in a farmer's field!"

"What are you-" Vaan stopped when his eyes adjusted to the darkness outside the ship and he got a good look at the field of grain crops. Definitely a farmer's, and probably a farmer who lived very close, if the house he now noticed in the distance was any indication. He couldn't make out the architecture of the house, or the barn and other few small buildings around it, but he recognized the crops. This particular grain only grew in one place that he knew, because he occasionally delivered it to Dalmasca and Archades. "Penelo, we're in Rozarria! We went the complete opposite direction of where we were supposed to go!"

"Thanks for pointing that out, Vaan," Penelo said with more annoyance than before. "I'd never have figured it out."

"Well, this is just great." Vaan leapt off the ramp and into the grain field. "We're not going to be able to do this job now, and that means no gil for all this trouble."

"It's not my fault." Penelo stepped more carefully down the ramp and came to stand beside Vaan.

"Well, it's not mine, either!"

"Excuse me." The Rozarrian accent drew their attention to the man approaching quietly through the grain. Despite the near-dawn hour, he looked wide awake. "Would you mind telling me what an airship is doing in my field? It's not everyday we see an airship at all, let alone look out the window to see one parked right outside!" His voice held more amusement than anything, and Vaan was sure he saw a smile twitching at the man's lips.

"We're so sorry!" Penelo said instantly. "It was dark, and we didn't see much of where we were landing."

"We got kind of lost," Vaan added. "Our navigation system's broken. We were supposed to be in Archadia." In the back of his mind-okay, and maybe in the front-he knew this was nobody's fault. Airships broke. He'd had his airship utterly destroyed before, so this was certainly better, but it was almost sunrise, and Vaan was hungry, and he wasn't going to be able to do the job. Most of all, he was worrying about Penelo and her lack of sleep and food, even though he knew if he even hinted to her that he was worrying, she would potentially jump down his throat.

He rubbed his forehead tiredly. He'd had it all planned out. Get to Archades, pick up the goods at the designated time, and then check into an inn for a while so Penelo could get some rest before they took their cargo to its next destination. Now they were somewhere in Rozarria, and though they had a bed on their ship, all they currently had in the way of food were nutrient bars.

Vaan looked sideways at Penelo. She was pressing a hand to her back and drooping with exhaustion. Sighing, he faced the farmer. "We'll pay you for the damage we caused to your crops."

The farmer looked between them both, his grin widening. "Mm, we can discuss that. Right now, how about you come to my house? My wife is making breakfast and it is not everyday we get the opportunity to talk to Dalmascan foreigners. Particularly young Dalmascan foreigners who argue like an old married couple." He winked at them.

Vaan and Penelo exchanged glances, and Penelo's face finally relaxed into a smile. Vaan returned it with a smile of his own, and Penelo turned back to the farmer. "Well, we've only been married a year, but we do have a lot of practice in arguing," she said with tired humor in her voice.

The farmer chuckled. "I see." He motioned at them to follow him. "I'm Sel."

"I'm, uh, really sorry about this," Vaan said.

Sel waved dismissively as he led them through the grain field toward the house. "It will give me a story to tell the other townsfolk. It's the most interesting thing that's happened all year."

"What other townsfolk?" Penelo asked. "Where are we?"

Sel laughed. "In the middle of nowhere. I don't think our town is even on the maps. We are actually more a community of farmers than a town." He pushed open the door to his house and led them inside. "Elry, we have guests for breakfast!"

The house smelled fantastic. The scent of food permeated the air and made Vaan's mouth water and his stomach rumble loudly. The delicious smell grew stronger as Sel led them into the kitchen, where a woman with dark curls was cooking several pans of food.

Her eyes lit up when she saw them. "Welcome! I take it you are the owners of the ship in our backyard?" Her voice was as dry and amused as her husband's. Then she got a closer look at Penelo and her eyes widened slightly when they landed on the small bulge of Penelo's stomach. "Oh, look at you! Poor dear, you're dead on your feet-you look exhausted. Come, sit down!" She took Penelo by her shoulders and gently led her to the table.

Vaan found himself being tugged by Elry's hands a moment later, until he was sitting beside Penelo with a steaming plate of food in front of him. By the time the sun had risen, they were joined by Sel and Elry's three children. The eldest of the three was a girl who looked to be only a few years younger than Vaan and Penelo, and she shot Vaan a sort of look that he pointedly ignored. He had absolutely no interest in her or in returning her appraisal. He had Penelo, and that was all he ever wanted. And he also had no desire to deal with a jealous, hormonal Penelo. Hormonal and exhausted was bad enough.

"Have to get up early on the farm to take care of everything, yes?" Sel asked, scooping a generous second helping of food onto Penelo's plate. "It is a simple life we live here. Not like yours, if today is any indication of your lives."

Penelo leaned back with a sigh, absently rubbing her stomach. "Our lives have always been pretty crazy," she said with a small smile at Vaan. She stifled a yawn with her hand.

Elry straightened. "You need a good rest," she told Penelo firmly. "I'm sure you both do."

Sel nodded his agreement. "You should both get some sleep. Then, I think, we can deal with damage to the field." He didn't sound at all accusing, and in fact sounded as cheerful as ever. "I think an afternoon of helping out on the farm should do for repayment quite nicely. Would you agree?" he asked Vaan. "It would also be time to get my friend Filder, two houses over. He knows more about airships than anyone in the area. He used to fix them for the military. If anyone can help you fix your ship, it's Filder."

It was more than fair, and Vaan quickly agreed. It wasn't as if they could go anywhere until the nav system was fixed, anyway.

After breakfast, Vaan and Penelo returned to their airship to get some sleep in their bed. Under the blankets, Penelo snuggled up against Vaan's side, the hard curve of her stomach pressed against his hip. "You know," she murmured, her eyes already half-closed, "out of all the things we've been through, you'd think I wouldn't find random things that happen to us strange anymore. But this-well, it's not at all what I expected."

Vaan curled his arm around Penelo and kissed her gently on the mouth. "If we ever decide to leave Rabanastre, I vote we move here."

Penelo laughed. "They are nice people." Her eyes were all the way closed now, and she mumbled, "Sorry we missed the job."

Vaan shrugged a little. "There'll be others." He watched as she drifted completely off to sleep before brushing her hair away from her eyes. It was always good to be reminded of the things in life that really mattered. If there was one thing that Vaan had learned throughout his life, it was that no matter what direction he went, it would be okay as long as Penelo was with him.

He kissed her lips one more time, patted her stomach, and closed his eyes with a contented smile on his face.