What You Love is Your Fate


Prologue

It was a blur, the first day back. An oxymoronic blur he struggled to navigate through, hands slick and grip-less and induced to keep up but failing nonetheless. It was warmth in his arms, but a strange coldness in his heart. It was emotional overload and a village-wide party later that night, so intense in collective joy it lasted until sunrise. It was disbelief that this was his reality…again.

He felt weightless that night. Gravity, untethered. The ground, a mirage: ready to divide and swallow him whole. His footing too light and his reflexes much, much too slow.

The problem was there were too many people that night—a thought unusual for his extroverted nature. But he had just been thrown across the universe once again, and was finding the second time around to be a different kind of difficult. This time he was truly and utterly at a loss, and with little space to think through the feeling it spiraled below the surface of his skin into a tight, terrified knot.

Sin, the fayth—they had brought him to Spira for a reason. He fought through Spira with purpose. And though he had learned of his transience at the height of falling in love, even her part in his destiny, as fleeting as it would be, had given him strength. Yes, he would die for her. It wasn't so much a question as it was a resolution. It hurt, but he had come to terms with it.

And yet, he was alive somehow, standing in the middle of the ocean with the sight of Yuna running toward him in the distance.

The problem was it was too good to be true. The sun and the cheer and the familiarity of so much love enveloped him completely. It was easy to feel like it could all be so simple. He was back, she was there, and they could finally live the life they secretly dreamed of together.

He saw Besaid in front of him and all the friends he made in his short time on Spira. He felt the pang of fear of losing everything all over again. Darkened thoughts superimposed with darkened skies and by the time night had taken over the island, doubt was the anchor sinking into Tidus' mind. It was the knot, twisting, snapping like taut wire to flood the void in too much mistrust.

Could it all be a dream? Had he never made it to the Farplane and instead ended up in some illusion-inducing purgatory? Was the feeling of so much imbalance the result of his suspension between worlds? He was neither here nor there, but in some intermediate state of the afterlife.

His thoughts swirled in the darkness until Yuna joined him in a stumble, throwing both her body and heart onto his own.

"I'm so happy I could die," she said into the sleeve of his upper arm.

He felt all her weight against him and instinctually, threw a hand over her waist.

It surprised him, their newly public affection. The nature of Yuna's pilgrimage and her resolve to continue meant hiding most of their feelings from the rest of the group, and as a consequence, from each other. Of course they knew they how much they cared, but they were choked from the chance to feel it so fully. And as much as Tidus wanted to tell the other guardians to go to hell and deal with it, he knew what Yuna needed most was his unconditional support.

So they hid what they could as best as they could, fooling no one along the way.

And now she lay in his arms for what felt like the first time in his life, clearly exhausted from months of sphere hunting and re-saving the world.

He thought of all the things Yuna saved more than once and added his name to the list.

"You should get some sleep," he murmured into her hair.

She offered a smile and muffled reply, still glued to the yellow fabric of his jacket.

He wanted to tell her his thoughts, but the weight of her body against his quelled his fears. She was warm and alive, and her breath so even it lulled him from his tension. If this was in fact his reality, then he figured they had plenty of time to talk. And if this was nothing more than a dream on his way to the inferno, why not enjoy it while it lasted?

"Yuna," he cooed toward her limp form. "Let me walk you back, seriously."

"I can't sleep here?" she asked, curling deeper into him.

She was flush from the heat and the wine. He could see the stains on her lips—a darkening at the center of her pout and a haunting invitation if he stared too long. It was another reminder of how much life had changed for her.

"Yuna," he whispered again, half-burying the sound into her hair.

"Hmm?"

"You need to rest." He wasn't sure why, but he was sure it was true.

"I am resting," she said.

His heart leveled. He nudged his shoulder against her slumped body, every part of him loosening at the sound of sleep in her protests. Eventually, she woke up and he helped her from the log they used as a chair, never letting his hand fall from her grasp.

They moved through the party quietly, hand-in-hand and with little commotion.

Wakka and Lulu had left first, the excuse of a newborn looming over their every explanation. Rikku remained in the distance, still deep in the throngs of the celebration and with Brother by her side. Every now and then, her laughter would erupt into the air like a flare gun and spiral back into the crowd to engulf a few people along the way. And Paine, comfortable in the world's shadow, disappeared long before making an appearance.

For the first time in their lives, the young couple was alone.

Yuna, floating in a bubble of intoxication, was blissfully aware of the fact. She looked up at Tidus to share the sentiment, but his expression bore none of the same enthusiasm.

"Hey." She tugged at his arm. "Are you okay?"

The morning had been euphoric for the both of them, she knew it. He was smiling, laughing. It was like the very same person she watched jump off an airship had changed his mind and turned back around. It was as though no time had been lost between them at all, and they were just as much in love as they had been before. Only now they could embrace it.

"Hm?" He glanced down and then back up. "I'm fine."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure," he repeated.

Yuna stopped at a crossroads and Tidus followed, unsure of their destination despite his offer to guide her. They had been to Wakka and Lulu's home for a moment, but nothing in their time there informed him of Yuna's own living quarters.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"The temple," she replied, eyes drifting around the scene before them.

When she returned from Bevelle, exhausted by the demands of the world already, the invitation to live at Besaid's only temple had been too honorable to refuse. There was no use for it anymore. No reason for summoning, worshipping, and living for a deity now exposed as wholly fraudulent. So the residents of the island decided in unison: it would be for Yuna. Yevon had imploded and the world was in mourning, and somehow, the sight of the young summoner walking the temple's halls had lessened the hurt.

The crossroads she faced was more than literal. The temple, enveloped by open-air halls and communal gardens offered little privacy. And in that moment, in the middle of the road where machina had yet to meet the darkness and so much of the island was celebrating elsewhere, Yuna wasn't ready to let their solitude go.

Her body flared in anger. The entire population had pulled at her and Tidus' attention in opposite directions all day and her patience had reached its tipping point. She missed him, deeply, and had never been able to tell him.

"But," she pulled at Tidus' hand, "I don't want to go there."

"Why not?"

"It's just that—well, we haven't talked much, not at all really, and I want to and I miss you, I've missed you for a long time and—"

Her composure crumbled, frustrations mushrooming and leaking onto her face.

Tidus stood still, watching her silent cries line the palette of her face. He understood, completely. He missed her, too. "Yuna," he said slowly. "It's okay. It's okay, Yuna, I'm here."

"I know," she said and sobbed into him freely.

They stood as one figure in the dark. She spilled herself onto him and he cupped all the sorrow into his hands, holding her as tightly as he could.

Her breath evened with an exhale. "I'm sorry," she said, head cradled in his arms.

"It's okay," he repeated.

She looked up to him and the shadow of his face in the moonlight, to the glint of cerulean impaling the darkness. His eyes, thank Yevon, were just like she remembered.

He's here, she sighed.

Fueled by wine and his embrace, Yuna raised herself onto her toes and kissed him. Finally. It was soft and hesitant, though bold by comparison and somewhat desperate in its haste. Tidus closed his eyes, paralyzed and puttied all the same, until her timidity veiled over and she lowered herself back, hands pressed into his forearms for support.

In the absence of her lips his memories of Macalania filtered through in no sequence: it was the heat of the spring and the closeness of their bodies; the pressure of her arms clinging to his neck and his anguished need to kiss her pain away; mellowed heartbeats, wet hair and faces; her breath in his ear; his love, solidified. He felt charged and alive, jumpstarted in the present by the passions of their past.

Gloved hands around her face, he pulled her into him and kissed her again.

So much time lost, he had to catch up.