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fanfic: final fantasy x/x-2 ficbits

the underside of happy endings (rikku/wakka)

It was his world, but yet it wasn't. It was the same blue sky, colorful buildings, familiar people, but there was something off, something new. People laughed and cheered, people he recognized from all his trips to Luca for the Blitz seasons, and they looked the same and yet on every face he saw the difference in what he and the others had done.

What they had done.

He thought as he leaned back into the cushions on the bench that maybe it wasn't really the changes in the world that were making everything seem strange and foreign, but instead the changes in himself. He was different now, changed so completely by a pilgrimage he had expected one thing from, but received another. She was a gift, his sister-of-heart safe and sound, stronger, but heartbroken.

The entire world celebrated, but she cried in Lulu's lap, clinging to Rikku's hands, and Wakka didn't know what to say to her, and knew even more that words wouldn't help her now. It was the final—and what he had thought, eternal—curse of Sin, to make the wounds only time could heal. He knew it well, had learned it early, but this hurt was different, a thousand cluttered thoughts for one thousand years of lies and a few months with a boy he had felt closer to than anyone else since Chappu. Auron was gone, his wisdom that all of them had counted on for so long, missing, and Wakka didn't know what to do. He knew Lulu didn't have the answers, either, had seen it in her eyes when he had turned away from the boy who never was, except he had been, Wakka had touched him, fought with him, held him—loved him. It wasn't fair and he was torn over knowing that life was never fair, and he had been given example after example the last few weeks.

He stared down over the balcony overlooking the entrance to the stadium and knew what he wanted more than anything was a happy ending that felt more like one, and not this, where the people that had only wanted to save the world still lost in the end even without the death of their summoner. There were no winners here and even as the world rejoiced, Wakka couldn't see anything but the problems.

Below him, blonde heads moved through the crowds, distinct because of how other people shied away from them, and it made him angry to see it. He had been watching it happen for days, seven days since the long drop off the airship he hadn't taken, but might as well have, because he still felt like he was falling and like he would never reach the bottom. He knew Tidus never would.

He felt the man sit next to him rather than seeing him. He was looking away, watching the crowds laugh and smile, drinks flowing freely now that it was later in the day, a celebration that had been going since Yuna had spoken, bravely in the face of the world she had saved, in the world that no longer held a person she loved. Wakka knew Cid had been circling Luca in the airship, unwilling to leave yet, harassed by Rikku to stay. With everything that had happened, Rikku had been the brave face, the one to lift spirits. He thought back, one memory on top of the other about Tidus and his teasing Rikku about her mothering, furrowed brow when using healing spells, wanting to protect Yuna, protect them all from her death. Now she had what she wanted, Wakka knew, but he wondered now if she thought the price was too high. He hadn't spoken to her at length since well before the final battle. He just didn't know.

"Yuna wants to go back to Besaid," Cid said beside him. "I'm takin' her tomorrow."

Wakka looked at the older man. They had reached a good point, he thought, in whatever tentative relationship they would have, connected to Yuna through family, and connected to each other through things that might be. Wakka knew he wasn't perfect, was a long way away from accepting the changes in the world, a long way away from looking at the Al Bhed as anything but sinners. He could apologize, and had done so with Cid but it didn't change the feelings. More wounds, with the future rushing at him and no time to heal. Even now, watching the crowds part for the fair-featured people made him angry. He didn't know what that anger meant; was it because he was angry at them for not admitting Yevon had been wrong or at himself for knowing he would probably do the same thing for unfamiliar Al Bhed even now? He couldn't tell. Maybe he didn't want to know.

"That's good, yeah? She needs rest." Wakka watched Cid look out over the people. The man was coarse and loud and unapologetic and Wakka liked him. He cared, in his own strange way, about Yuna, and it was a bond in common, the man who wanted to see the world whole for his family.

"I don't know if Rikku plans to stay on with you all," Cid was quiet, gruff, and Wakka was uncomfortable suddenly, didn't want to go here, not with Cid, not now.

"She's welcome on the island if Yuna needs her," Wakka said, and it was more white hot anger to think that maybe he couldn't give that assurance, that maybe she wouldn't be. Cousin to the High Summoner only meant something in public, in the bright light of the sun now shining through all the cracks in the teachings. It didn't change minds and hearts so quickly. He wanted Rikku welcome on his island, had pictured her there in the cool waters of the lagoon, laughing and happy. Even though the picture in his mind would never be completed, it didn't mean he didn't want it to happen, for it to be real.

"Is she?" Cid asked. "Are you sure you want her?" His words were the path to the truth of things he hadn't expected to learn. He could answer so many ways, but he knew Cid only wanted one, the one he had yet to give even to Rikku herself. She was his secret, he had kept her in the shadows that weren't shadows anymore; the truth was visible now through everything else. He could see her through everything, just like he had seen Yuna's form through the ghost-form of a boy he had cared about.

"Yes," he said, and it was true, because he did. He had never done anything easy; blitzing on the worst team, guardian set to watch his sister die, and loving a girl of a people he hated was nothing less than that. As he and Cid sat side-by-side in silence, he realized that maybe he had been given the key to the tricky lock of his hatred in blonde hair and a quick smile, cool hands and tight hugs.

The way to redemption, he thought as he watched the milling people below him, wasn't in how long it took to reach the goal, but how soon he realized that there was a goal and he wanted to reach it and that was enough for now.