Yuna screamed as she dodged Maln’s attack, her eyes mostly on Jyscal as he attacked Seymour, as he laid unconscious on the floor.

What was left of the table smashed against the wall, part of it flying into Yuna’ s face.

She was against the door and dodged again as Maln tossed the pieces away and swung at her with her fist, punching a hole in the door.

"Hey!" Maln heard Py yelled, before a bullet tore through the door, missing both Yuna and Maln back away as they were both missed. "Get back in there!"

Maln reached through the hole in the door and grabbed Py’s throat as Yuna ran to Seymou’rs aid. "Leave him alone!" she yelled, grabbing him and shielding him from Jyscal’s next blow with her body.

"Get out of my way!" he yelled, not blinded by rage enough to attempt to go through her.

Maln smashed Py’s face into the door, making him drop his weapon and unwittingly giving everyone else in the other room time to grab theirs. Maln dropped Py and opened the door, repeated bashing Py in the head until he was still. "Stay out of my way!"

He was suddenly grabbed and dragged out of the doorway by Auron as the others ran into the room. Cid threw Jyscal off Yuna.

Cid shoved Jyscal against the wall and started screaming at him in Al Behd.

"Well, I … um," Jyscal said.

"He said you’re a meanie and he wouldn’t’ trust either of you left alone with a piece of string," Rikku said. "And that now he knows where Seymour gets it."

"I will NOT be blamed for Seymour anymore. What he does is his own stupid mistake!" Jyscal said.

"Oui fana kuehk du gemm res!" (You were going to kill him) Cid yelled, then noticed Jyscal's confused expression and started over. "You were beating him senseless!"

"He was mostly senseless before I got to him; besides what was I doing that you didn’t want to do?"

"Do not accuse me of sinking to your level!"

"What is my ‘level’ then? And what is the difference between the revenge I want and the revenge you want?"

"I did not come here to be shot at, and I certainly didn’t come here to be accused of lying!" Cid exclaimed. "This is over!"

"No it’s not!" Jyscal yelled, shoving Cid and grabbing Maln out of Auron’s hands. He held the angry teenager by the hands and hair, but Maln hardly seemed to notice and spat at Cid’s shoes. "I’d say he complicates some things around here, especially about what you would accuse me and my people of being guilty of."

"He’s one of yours, not one of mine," Cid said. "I’ve never seen that boy in my life."

"Even so, I’ve never seen a blonde guado before, and his hair is as flat as my son’s. If you wish, you can go back to where you came from and isolate yourself form the world and every disaster that befalls it, just as you accused my people of doing when our holy grounds were violated and the farplane was damaged."

Cid was quiet. He looked over at Yuna, who was fretting over Seymour as Lulu picking him up—with surprising ease compared to Rikku and Yuna.

"Seymour, Seymour, wake up, please," Yuna said.

Seymour groaned as he opened his yes, one with several bruises over each other, extremely red in discoloring, no doubt they’d turn all sorts of other colors in a few days. He started choking, then coughing, and then finally managed to spit a gob of blood onto the floor. Something in the spit and blood rattled onto the floor and Yuna backed away pressed closer to him, though trying to avoid the wounds, when she saw it was a tooth.

"Seymour, it’s okay. It’s over now," Yuna said, running a hand down his face in hopes he’d look at her, in hopes that he was mentally there enough to notice.

Instead, Seymour quickly ran his tongue over his teeth. "That…wasn’t… mine."

"It was mine and I’ll kill you just like I’ll kill these dumb fucks al Behd!" Maln yelled.

"You keep quiet," Jyscal said.

Despite Yuna’s efforts to get him to look at her and believe everything was well, he looked at his father, hearing the voice.

His face and chest were covered in bruises from fighting with Maln and mostly from his father. He had numerous bruises on his head and couldn’t see straight. He had a severely black eye and he wasn’t sure whose blood was in his mouth. One leg had been shot and was still bleeding. One arm was broken. His other leg had a dislocated kneecap he'd been running on.

Shapes were blurring together and colors were moving and changing. He noticed people by their voices alone, but that was enough. His father was there. Maln was there. Somewhere he vaguely remembered hearing and angry AL Behd male voice… no doubt their leader. Between the three of them his days were numbered… in fact his hours were numbered. He felt too bad to be awake to be killed at the moment and let his mind befall back into darkness, despite Yuna’s protests.

"Seymour!" She said. "Seymour stay with me!"

"What are my girls doing here?" Cid asked. "And why’s she worried about him? He owe her money?"

"Are you more isolationist than Beseid?" Jyscal asked. "She threatened to bring a war with you as allies against us if I had him executed for false reasons."

"Look, I wanted him dead, but I wasn’t about the make up lies about them!" Cid yelled.

"I as told he tried to murder another ex-maester, one who was in charge of Djose at the time. She stopped the whole thing and demanded we go with his idea of a wedding to prove good intentions."

"Him?" Cid asked. "Good intentions?"

"It is hard to make proper decisions when one is dead," Auron spoke up.

"You don’t’ make good decisions when you’re sober," Lulu said.

"If you would like to discuss anything further, we can resume negations later. The fact of the matter is they are married and any force the Al Behd may take to separate them, as much as I want both of them out of my sight, will be seen as an act of hostility. Now, I believe there are a few questions that need to be answered about a certain other halfling, don’t you?"

"I don’t know anything about him," Cid said.

"I meant for him to answer them."

"Fuck off!"

"That’s not an answer!" Jyscal said, twisting his arms slightly. "Tell us what you want and why."

"I want them all shot!" Maln said. "All of them fuckers. They nearly killed my mother, what they did to her. You hear me? She nearly died because of you! You couldn’t have been happy with just taking advantage of a weak woman, could you? You had to try to kill her! She had to slice my eye out to keep from getting killed before she left me in the street. To die. You’re the ones who deserve to die, if you’d do something like that to her and then pretend it was nothing!"

"That’s enough, now shut up," Jyscal said.

"Why are you saying I take responsibility for this lunatic?"

"I did not know Yuna was a half-breed as well. I was told creating such things was a sin and I alone had ever done so. If he means nothing to you, then Yuna means nothing to you and you leave, but this will not be swept under the rug. I will expose both of them to the whole world, and your actions. And then I shall be the one to sit and watch and ignore another’s chaos and misfortune."

"Excuse me?" Anzi asked, poking her head in the doorway.

"Not her," Auron swore, earning a glare from Lulu.

"I… I was told to stay out until the fighting was over and it’s been kinda quiet for—" She noticed Seymour, bloody, brusies, bleeding, injured, and unconscious with his head on Lulu’s shoulder and fainted.

"Good, that should keep her quiet," Auron muttered.

"Who exactly is she?"

"She’s fun when Auron’s not around," Rikku said. "She’s his nanny."

"She’s the head maid around here and runs the place," Yuna said.

"She’s an idiot," Auron said.

"She is not!" Jyscal said. "She is my friend and I refuse to let her leave."’

"She is responsible for your death, as is he," Auron said.

"He turned her against me!"

"She is not like that!" Lulu said. "She has a heart and it is not easily changed. Not even by you, Jyscal. If she had any part in that, she chose to do it."

"Are we talking about the same person?" Auron asked.

"You people are all crazy!" Cid said.

"You get used to it," Rikku said.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

This dream was different.

He was running again. He and Yuna. Yuna, as he knew her before. Yuna, the summoner.

They dared a glance behind them and it cost them precious seconds. It cost them more as Yuna tripped and her grabbed her and helped her up and they kept running.

They kept running down the vestibule, running from things with forms and shapes and guns. People, this time he was running from people. Not darkness, not his father, not what his mother had become.

He wasn’t a child anymore.

They ran out of the end of the vestibule and froze, holding each other. They were stuck on the platform. Glowing red lights behind them. Glints from weapons in the darkness. Her hand on his chest and she pressed close.

He had his hands around her back. There was nowhere to go. There was nothing either of them could do.

There was.

The guards fired and he turned, he had his back to them and he pressed Yuna closer, not just for comfort, but to shield her entirely before the bullets flew by.

She didn’t even scream.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t stand anymore and he tried to fall slightly to the side so she could free herself from under him. They fell to the ground. There was blood everywhere. It stained her beautiful white shirt, her sleeves, her bare shoulders…maybe he had failed. Maybe he hadn’t protected her after all. He couldn’t’ even die to save her correctly.

"Sorry…" he managed to whisper and his eyelids began to flutter. He was sorry. He was sorry for all the stupid things he tried to do. For dying and not letting himself be sent or accepting his own death and what he’d caused after that. For being weak, for being useless, for being an ugly, ill-bred halfling she’d never truly love the way he loved her. He was sorry for it all… for not being perfect.

Everything went black.

The dream was over and he was lost in a vast sea of nothingness, with flashes of things he couldn’t’ understand scattered about it.

He saw Anzi several times, flashes of her standing of him. He saw her talking, but couldn’t understand what she was saying.

He saw her and Jyscal talking about something.

He saw Jyscal standing over him, with an expression as if he did not recognize Seymour anymore and was staring at someone new and foreign and wondered what to do with them.

He saw Lulu and the others behind her. They didn’t say anything.

He woke up again and this time did not fall back into the dark and the nothing immediately after. He just lay there with his eyes closed and let the rest of his sense slowly tell him what was around him.

Smells came first. There was the overwhelming scent of sickness and sweat and he nearly choked on it. Underneath that, he smelled the light scent of flesh. He smelled flowers. The blankets had recently been washed. He smelled hair.

He heard breathing, not his own, next to him.

Where was he?

His eye felt too tired and pained to open. He felt heavy cloth over one of them. His head throbbed. His ears were ringing. His limbs were mostly numb, as if her were looking at a map in the dark and half of it had been burned away. He felt mild pain in one of his legs. He felt the blanket around him in some places, jut enough to know he was dressed in only his shorts and there was something warm and soft next to him.

He twitched his fingers, wondering if he still had all of them. He couldn’t tell. They felt like one think mass, moving in slightly different directions. That was on one hand. He couldn’t tell on the other. He just knew it was a mistake to even think of moving his other arm, which he was slowly realizing was draped over his chest and held there with bandages and strips of cloth tied around him.

He realized there were hand on him—on his face, in his hair and he wanted to panic but he couldn’t move more than those few fingers.

He whimpered, wanting to be left alone. He didn’t want to be seen like this. He didn’t want anyone to know he could be this vulnerable, this weak, this defenseless.

The weaker he was, the more others preyed on that weakness.

He hands left and he sighed. They should go away. They should stay away.

Then there was an arm under him, lifting his shoulder and head and neck gently and a cup was set next to his lips. He felt cold water and parted his lips drinking greedily and weakly.

He ignored the hands. More primitive needs took over. He no longer cared about being hurt; he was too thirsty.

He slowly finished the water and he was lowered back down. He was on a bed… why? Why was there water here? Why the blankets and the bed? Why was he sick and numb and blind from pain and a swollen black eye under a bandage?

"…Not dead?" he asked. Someone had be there. Someone had given him water and the had to still be there.

"No," they answered.

"Why?" He remembered what had happened last, but now the images and sounds were separating themselves. He should have been dead. Gunfire…pain…blood…yelling…Yuna…save Yuna… somehow.

"Shh, you’ll be okay."

"Want to… why?"

"Cid wanted to talk to both of you… and he couldn’t just let you get killed. I couldn’t either."

"…Anzi…?"

"She’s asleep next to you. She refused to be taken back to another room."

"…Yuna?" he asked, finally recognizing the voice.

"I’m still here, don’t worry," she said.

"No," he said, and tried to turn away, but his neck hurt too much. "…Please…no.." His chest suddenly hurt. It was painful for her to see him like this, so pathetic. Anzi had known him since he was a child. She had always dried his tears and wrapped his wounds. She knew everything. She was his secret keeper, she was someone he could always trust. But Yuna… he could lose Yuna. He didn’t want to lose Yuna.

Maybe he had lost her already. Maybe he never had her… not like that. Still, he didn’t want her to watch him like this. It was bad enough she didn’t love him, what did she have to linger and taunt him, especially when he was in so much pain? When he was so exposed to her and she could hurt him even more? Why did she have to be here when all his dignity was gone and all his defenses were down?

"…Alone…please…want…alone." It didn’t hurt so much to be alone. Not as much as it hurt to be so degraded. It was better to be afraid of the dark and face it alone to still be so afraid than face mockery in the light.

"No," she whispered. She was right next to him, he could feel her weight shifting on the bed. "No, it’ll be okay."

He whimpered in protest.

"I won’t hurt you." She touched his face where it wasn’t bruised or cut and the pressed her lips against him there. "You saved my life… I think… I think I love you."

"…I love you too…and…you don’t… don’t know…"

"Shh," she said, tracing a finger over his chin.

"…It would hurt…so much…if…if you lied."

"Go back to sleep," she said, her hand moving to his hair and resting there. "Shhh."

He didn’t. He couldn’t. He just lay there for hours. He felt her calm, soft breath on his skin. Her hand was on his chest. She was so warm. She was so comforting. She was so tempting… so tempting to trust her, to give up his defenses against her. To have someone he didn’t have to build walls in his mind against… he’d forgotten what that felt like.

"Yuna…" he whispered hoarsely. He needed more water.

There was no reaction. She was sound asleep, holding him, though limply, her head on his shoulder.

She had said she loved him. She had no fear of him, sleeping on him so contently as if he were just a warmer part of the bed. How long had she been doing this? Maybe… maybe he finally had someone to trust again.

It was a strange and foreign feeling, but as she shifted on him, he knew he’d get used to it someday. The dark wouldn’t be so frightening with someone else to help you through it.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Seymour laid on the bed, unaware of much of anything. In fact, he had no idea he was awake until Yuna asked him if he were.

"Apparently," he answered. Whatever had made him numb before had worn off and he was suddenly aware of the extent of the wounds he’d received. His arm was broken and the entire thing was bandaged. Two fingers her tied together. His other arm was only halfway covered in bandages, but his hand had suffered three broken fingers and a twisted wrist.

His ankle was swollen and bandaged. There was something metal over the bandages just over where he’d been shot.

There were more bruises on his face than the one over his eye and several o his head that were just starting to go down.

"My head hurts," he managed.

"I managed some spells on you. I would have been in time to stop the bleeding… but I wanted to make sure your father wasn’t going to kill you," Yuna answered, slipping out of the bed.

"The thought is appreciated," Seymour said.

As Yuna began to change, they heard voices out in the hall.

"This is very… disheartening… Anzi," Jyscal said.

"We have got the get thicker doors," Seymour whispered.

"Do not fear, for yourself or for the boy. We shall speak more while they are busy with negotiations."

"Jyscal, I—" she said.

"I would be lying if I said I understood, Anzi" he said. "But there are important things to discuss, and that is not an option."

The door opened, Yuna screamed and covered her chest, and Seymour wished he were dead.

"Oh, get over it," Jyscal said, throwing a set of clothes at Seymour—or, more precisely, on Seymour. "Both of you. And either get dressed or go talk to Cid in your underwear."

"He’s still here?" Seymour asked.

"Of course he’s still here," Jyscal said. "What did you think?"

"Between me and the assassins, I thought he’d have gotten mad and left."

"Despite what he wanted, it was me who nearly ruined everything, not you," Jyscal said. "It took a lot of diplomacy to bring it about, but a pact is in place, and although you were unconscious while it was proposed and agreed upon, I hop you will fulfill your end."

"What, you run out of furniture to destroy, so you want to start on me?"

"Be serious."

"I was."

"What exactly does Cid want with him?" Yuna asked. "I’m not letting anyone kill anyone else!"

"That, actually, was in the pact," Jyscal said. "Cid sponsored the surgery that saved him, and I paid for it and gave my hospitality for him and his people to stay here as they go well."

"Why wasn’t I told about this?" Yuna asked.

"Two reasons: I was dealing with Anzi, the mess, and your friends at the time, and I did not want to risk you running off to speak to him yourself and attempting negotiations in Seymour’s place. Seymour will talk to the Al Behd about reparations and the current situation. You will mediate if they need it. Another part of the pact was that as long as we are all here under one roof, it does not come crashing down around us. That means Anzi stays here. That means no more quarrels. That means Cid wants you to watch him and Anzi the both of us."

"Does this mean it’s over?" Yuna asked.

"It means the only people who have managed to save me from my own father are people who wanted to take my life themselves," Seymour said, wondering if the irony were humorous or not.

"It means you win," Jyscal said, in a flat tone. "It means this means my life if anything should happen to yours, should I even threaten it. It nearly cost you your life, but in the end, you emerge victorious."

"Great, one to infinity," Seymour said, taking the pair of pants off his head and thankful he hadn’t had his shoes thrown at him.

"No, Seymour," Jyscal said, his tone just as flat, ad yet extremely threatening at the same time. "It means you won the war, and I am the one forced to surrender. Congratulations, but do not forget it."

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