Saidan no Hitsuji

Chapter Four: Descoberta (Discovery)

By Seishuku Skuld (skuldchan@gmail.com)

I added another chapter! I realized I couldn't fit everything I wanted to under the "Denial" theme, so I stuck this one in. ^^;; I might actually have a couple more chapters planned as I keep mucking around in Auron's head...God, it's so much fun!

Thanks for all the wonderful comments from people who read my fic, I really appreciate it! It helps boost me over the big writer's block standing in my way sometimes. ^_^ Arigatou gozaimasu!

Music makes my fingers go: Malice Mizer - Illuminati

Hamasaki Ayumi - M

Goo Goo Dolls - Black Balloon

Escaflowne - Yubiwa

~*~*~*~*~

namida ga ato kara afuredashite

saigo no egao ga nijinde mienai no

ikanaide ikanaide koko ni ite

As my tears keep overflowing one after another,

I can't see your last smile through their blur.

Please don't go, please don't go... Stay here.

-Escaflowne: Yubiwa (Ring)

I awoke last the next morning, Jecht and Braska had risen before me. It was near noon already, and Braska smiled kindly at me when I opened my eyes.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

"Fairly," I replied, before realizing what time it was. "Oh no," I groaned, "I'm sorry, Braska, I didn't mean to sleep in this late."

"That's all right," my summoner answered with a smile. "I wasn't planning to leave until tomorrow anyway." I heaved a sigh of relief.

"You sleep like a log, Auron," Jecht commented, standing over me with his arms crossed and a smug grin.

I resisted the urge to retort, but instead grinned wanly and said in return, "I was tossing and turning all night."

"Hmph, I told you, you need to relax more. But that's what this little vacation is for, ain't it Braska?"

Braska nodded and winked at me, a sign that I shouldn't take offense at Jecht's offhand words.

For the first time, I found I didn't, and just smiled back.

***

We stayed for the last time at the Travel Agency, and once again Jecht left the room in the middle of the night. I followed him out soon after, looking for a quiet place to talk perhaps, hoping he wasn't recording another sphere.

I found him sitting on the edge of the river, head raised to the sky, watching the moon and the colors of Macalania play over a darkness pinpointed with stars. He glanced at me suspiciously as I sat down next to him, keeping my eyes averted from his face and focused along the rippling reflection of the water.

There was a long period of silence before I said anything, I tried to gather my thoughts of what exactly I would say.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked finally, hoping to break it to him after talking him up a bit.

"No."

"Neither can I."

"Look Auron," he spoke so quickly he almost clipped the end of my sentence, "stop beating around the bush. If you're going to yell at me for going out here at night, then do it. At least you have the sense to come out here where Braska isn't going to hear you."

I frowned quickly, pursing my lips. He had mistaken my intention entirely, and I was about to meet his suspicion with some of my own, but then I remembered that I was out here to apologize and not give him another one of my lectures. I took a deep breath, finding that it calmed me much.

"I'm not out here to yell at you," I replied, laying onto my back to enjoy the stargazing. "I just wanted to apologize."

Jecht looked at me for a moment, a confused look on his face, and then he burst out laughing, scaring a flock of birds into disturbed flight. I watched their shadows flit over the lamps of Macalania's trees.

"Don't make me laugh, Auron," he said harshly when he finished laughing. "What's made you want to apologize? Braska finally talked you into it?"

"No," I responded calmly, closing my eyes and inhaling the fresh scent of the river, "I came to apologize because...I saw your sphere."

"You what?!"

"I heard you leave the room." I met his look of incredulity, and tried to look my sincerest. I hoped I wouldn't hurt his feelings anymore by telling him this, but if he hated me after this, I probably deserved it. For being such a bastard to him. "I wanted to see what you were up to, because you were sneaking away. I thought you were going out to drink or something."

"Don't trust me do you," Jecht frowned, more a statement than a question.

"I found you by the river," I continued, ignoring his comment. His comment I didn't have an answer to. "I heard you recording the sphere. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have." I paused, thinking of the best thing to say. "And I'm sorry you miss your family." That sounded lame, but I couldn't do anything about it.

I wondered what he thought of me now, now that he knew I'd spied on him during something intimate and private. I wondered if he hated me, if he hated me already. There was a sudden twinge of sadness that I felt if he would never forgive me. I wanted his forgiveness, it would at least put me at peace with myself. It would set everything right.

"It's okay," Jecht finally said, and I found myself exhaling the breath I'd been holding, awaiting his answer. "I mean...I guess I haven't been exactly the most trustworthy on this mission," he chuckled a little bit, and let his head hang, staring at the sand below his feet. "Yeah, I've screwed up a couple of times."

"You have," I said, sitting up next to him, "but it's all right." I smiled a bit. I was glad he was able to admit he'd been wrong and could joke around a little about it. It was a great feeling of relief. "It's nothing we can't fix."

We sat there in silence, hugging our knees and looking into the sparkling water, wondering what it would be like to swim in it. I was by no means a great swimmer, and I could not hold my breath near as long as the blitzball players, but the thought of the cool, dazzling water running over my skin brought a small smile to my face.

"You know, I really miss my wife, and son."

"I know," I nodded, though knowing wasn't enough. "It's...painful isn't it?" I had no family, I grew up an orphan in the Temple; Braska was the closest thing to family that I ever had.

"Yeah," Jecht admitted, "it hurts. It's hard to say that, but...you never know how much you love 'em until they're gone, and you'll never see 'em again."

I nodded, imagining what would happen if I ever lost Braska. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the pain of that thought. The worst part was that I really was going to lose Braska. So soon. Too soon.

"I can't say I know how it feels," I murmured, "I never had family. Braska's the closest I'll ever get...but when I think about losing him..." I nearly choked on the words, sudden unbidden tears springing to my eyes as I thought about Braska sacrificing himself for Spira, his life draining away before my eyes as he summoned the Final Aeon.

"Hey hey," Jecht said softly, "who says you're going to lose Braska? Aren't we here to protect him?"

"No," I shook my head, "You don't understand." I tried my best not to cry, I had to remain strong for Braska and Jecht. Right now, they needed someone to lean on, and it had to be me. I couldn't drown in despair, not now. I would never let myself. But I couldn't get the image of Braska dying out of my head. In the end, there wouldn't even be his body left, just a handful of pyreflies flitting off to the Farplane. And me all alone...without the man I loved all of my life.

"What's there to get?" Jecht asked, with a shrug, his arm coming about his neck as he cocked his head. "I mean, Braska's just gonna get the Final Aeon and summon it right? Then we fight Sin, and every problem is solved."

I was unable to stop a bitter smile from spreading about my face. "You're really clueless aren't you?" I buried my head in my knees, so he couldn't the hot tears beginning to spill over onto my cheeks, "Braska is going to die. Summoning the Final Aeon drains all the life from the summoner. After it kills Sin, Braska's going to die." I choked then, my throat constricting and cutting my words short. My breath was coming quicker, and it was becoming harder to breathe. Pyreflies taking flight.

"Braska's going to die!" I couldn't hold it back anymore, and all the tears I'd kept hidden the entire journey spilled out of me at once, a torrent river overrunning the pitiful floodgates of my pride and strength.

"Oh Yevon," I hugged myself closer as I tried to speak, gasping for breath, trying to shut out the images of Braska dying and disappearing in my arms, "Oh Yevon, Braska's going to die! He's going to...sacrifice himself for Spira...and he's going to leave me...and..." I stopped there, unable to continue the thought.

What would happen to me if Braska died? I didn't know. There really wasn't anybody else left in my life if he disappeared. Sure, I'd had a few lovers back in Bevelle, but none of them ever equaled the passion I had for Braska. There was nothing after him.

I wondered what Jecht was thinking, he seemed the strong type of fellow, and I could have bet he was thinking about how weak I was, a grown man on a pilgrimage, crying for the death of his summoner.

"I..." Jecht began, and then I heard him sigh. "I never knew that."

I sniffled a bit, and looked up, wiping the tears from my face with the back of my hand.

"You didn't tell me, because you didn't have the heart to."

I nodded. Maybe he wasn't as dense as I thought he was.

"That's why you're so overprotective of him. You love him very much, don't you?"

"He's all I ever had," I replied quietly. "I can't remember a time when I wasn't friends with Braska."

"I see. You're lucky, you know," he sighed, laying back on the sand, "you'll get to say goodbye to him. I never got that chance with her, or Tidus."

"Tidus?"

"My son," Jecht smiled dreamily, his mind lots in the nostalgia of far away memories. "He likes to cry, but I think he'll be fine. He hates me, I'm kind of mean to him. But I miss him, and Mireiyu. She's a wonderful woman. There's so much we wanted to do together."

Mireiyu and Tidus. Those were their names. I committed them to memory; Jecht's wife and son.

"But that'll never happen now. I don't think I'll ever be able to see my Zanarkand again. That's one thousand years ago, isn't it? It's all just ruins now. I wonder if my house is still there. Probably not."

"Maybe we can look for it while we're there," I suggested, breathing deeply to calm myself.

"It won't be there," Jecht sighed. "It's been too long."

He was right, but I shouldn't tell him that. So we just sat there at the shore of the Moonflow, watching the mysterious lights of Macalania hover above the water and float up into the sky.

Jecht and I sat and talked until dawn, we talked of our pasts, he of his wife and child, how he first started blitzball, how he first met Mireiyu and fell in love with her. I talked about my childhood with Braska and our numerous adventures in the great tower that was the temple of Bevelle.

"You're pretty close to Braska," he commented once when I told him of how I rejected the hand of that priest's daughter in marriage. "Are you glad you didn't marry?"

"Glad?" I nodded. "Yes. I live for Braska. He's the only one who stood up for me and protected me when we were children."

"I see," Jecht said. "Have you two always been...you know...this close?"

"You mean, our game?"

"Yeah," Jecht replied, a little hesistant. I wondered if my preferences made him nervous.

"We've been playing it for as long as I can remember, but it's never really been serious, I don't think."

"Though you'd like it to be."

"I think in the end...Braska loves Reiu. I got to know her in the years she was married to Braska, and she's a wonderful woman. She's his wife, and I'll always be second to that."

"But you don't seem to mind." I looked at Jecht closely, and wondered how he could be reading my feelings so easily. How in the world did he understand me so well?

"Not at all. I love Braska and being..."

"...close to him is enough for you," Jecht finished. I looked at him again, quizzically. Had he been talking to Braska? Was Braska telling him all this? Or was there something in the man that could read me like a book? It confused me, and I could feel my heart pounding faster as I regarded him. It was a disquieting feeling, but also a comforting one. I didn't have to explain my emotions to him, he understood without words.

"Well," Jecht rose, stretching his long limbs, his joints cracking, "we'd better get back to the Travel Agency before Braska wakes up and finds we're gone."

"Sounds good," I agreed, noting the dawn beginning to creep up over the canopy of leaves.

We walked back to the inn together, talking in low whispers, the lights of Macalania hanging above us like watchful angels. Not a single argument passed between us the whole way back.