Everything Looks Better Ch. 12

Dawn came as a sliver of apricot on the perfect ocean horizon. Approaching the houseboat, dashes of sunlight reflecting on the water were slashed by navy stripes of distant waves. Normally dawn meant quitting time, but this morning Raine halted her exercise to look. She had seen a thousand sunrises, but something told her to pay attention to this one, as if it were Zanarkand's last daybreak.

"What are you doing?"

"The sun is pretty this morning," Raine said, drifting out of her battle stance. She glanced over her shoulder at Auron. The muscles and veins in his arms were rigid and his katana was raised to strike, but now he lowered it a drop, raising a wise eye over her head to the sea.

Raine transferred her lance to one hand, sagely propping the handle on the deck with a soft thud. Auron approached her side and grinned down at her. A morning wind ruffled his hair, which was whiter these days and was in need of a trim, and as he faced the sun, his new tail switched across his shoulder. It had recently been laced in a wonky braid and tied off with a pink butterfly clip.

Every day before dawn, Auron instructed her on the finer points of combat, something he knew more about than Summoning and sending dances. Apparently, Auron had been impressed with her ability to wield a patio umbrella on that day of the Sinspawn attack and found her a used spear for practically free at the auction house in G-west. If they did find a way back to Spira, Raine agreed she would give Summoning another try. Auron had also been impressed with her aptitude to nearly send him, without the status benefits of a staff, and Raine gathered that was supposed to be a big deal. But if it didn't work out, she would at least have back-up skills as a Guardian.

It used to be dawn was the only time they could find to train for their next pilgrimage, right before Raine went to work, but now they did it mostly out of habit. After twelve years of searching for a way back to Spira, pilgrimage ambitions had gotten stale. Talk of Spira was now perfunctory, conversational, their Spiran agendas now mechanical and empty, like an extravagant vacation they would never be able to afford.

As they settled their gazes back on the sunrise, Raine grabbed her spear with both hands and spun counter clockwise, swinging the shaft down at the back of Auron's calves, flipping his feet out from under him. With a grunt, he landed hard on his back and Raine shoved the head of her lance into his face, halting just inches of his nose. The impact of his fall rocked the deck and water smacked against the sides of the boat.

Auron didn't flinch but arched an eyebrow at her, and when he found his breath said, "You play dirty."

Raine smiled. "Oh, you have no idea."

"I thought I did," he said, waving the spear out of his face and sitting up. He reached up to her and she grabbed his hand, hauling him to his feet. "I was winning, you know."

"You were winning," she said. "Lucky for me, you're a sucker for sunrises."

"I know a Ronso who might be interested in learning that move," Auron said. More obligatory Spira chat. Who were they fooling? Raine was never going to meet a real Ronso. "Although I doubt Kimahri would have an easier time distracting me with a pretty daybreak."

While Auron twisted at the waist to stretch out, Raine heard his spine snap in several places as he corrected his back and she inwardly grimaced in guilt. For a man nearing sixty, he looked great, but even Legendary Guardians wear out eventually and Raine found herself pulling her punches a little more often than usual. She would never tell him that, though. Maybe it was an unnecessary precaution, but it was one she extended into the bedroom, volunteering to be on top on account of the trouble his back gave. Not that she minded. And once they got into a rhythm, neither did Auron.

With the assumption Sin would someday venture close enough to the Zanarkand dream so they could hitch a ride back to Spira, Raine made friends with some of the other marina residents, most notably the ones with sea-ready vessels, since their rickety houseboat could barely survive monsoon season. Masquerading the search for Sin as a social event, Raine entertained and Auron easily played the part as the reclusive whale watcher, standing guard with binoculars. Without Tidus' influence, the chances of meeting Sin at sea were astronomical, but they had to try, even if it meant risking their socialite friends. Dreams were disposable in the grand scheme of it all, Auron tried to make Raine see.

"I was a dream once," she reminded him on several occasions.

"More like a recurring nightmare," he would joke and managed to wink at her, not easy with only one eye. For four years they hunted Sin this way, but after Auron and Raine got the surprise of their life, they came to a mutual agreement their time would be better spent finding a way off the dream without Sin.

There was no way of knowing for sure what was happening outside of the dream and it was quite possible Tidus had already been defeated as Sin by another Summoner party. Raine knew Auron didn't like to talk about this. If it was true, the fact there was still a Zanarkand dream for them to live in meant the cycle went on and someone else's Guardian was now the catalyst for Sin's rebirth. Auron had been prepared to sacrifice himself to make sure that never happened again. During their midnight pillow talks, Raine would try to pin Auron down on details about which one of them would become Sin if it came to that, but he would promptly shut down and evade her. "I'm still thinking on that," he would say and roll towards her with his most persuasive kiss to end the conversation.

Bracing her spear on her shoulder, Raine headed inside the houseboat. "Shower?"

After consideration, Auron said, "The girls will be up soon."

"Hmm." Raine nodded. "I don't think Willow bought that water conservation excuse we gave her last time."

"She did get all your brains," Auron mocked blame and held the screen door open for her.

After locking their weapons in the glass case by the stairs, Auron went to prepare the morning meal and Raine hurried to the bedroom to undress and start the shower.

All her paid time-off was used up during her first wedding and Raine had nothing left when she returned to Zanarkand, but wrestled with her decision to go back to work at all. She was unsure she could keep up the charade of Zanarkand life, knowing everything around her was just a massive simulation. Her first few broadcasts were agonizing, fearing she would stray from the teleprompter with declarations of other worlds, dreams and Summoners. But that was the fastest way to unemployment and, like the real world of Spira, Dream Zanarkand still had an economy that ran on money. It got better over time, her urge to rip the wool off her viewers' faces, although when her father or brother came up in interviews or panel discussions, Raine found herself smiling like a lunatic to disguise her impulse to stand up and cry, "He's Sin, all right? They both were! Their deaths meant something. They were not born for Zanarkand's own amusement! They bought Spira time!" And they did, Raine eventually realized. Whatever reason, suicide or sacrifice, they became Sin so someone else didn't have to and gave people of Spira more time to figure out how to defeat Sin for good.

Raine's shower was quick and efficient to leave some hot water for Auron and to take over getting the girls ready for school while he showered for the day. After, Raine would have hustle to get ready for work. Today was a big day. Tournaments. She liked to get there early to watch warm-ups. Sometimes pre-games showed her more about the players than in the actual game. She expected to be late tonight and if she couldn't tuck the girls in at night, she liked to spend time with them at breakfast.

She dried off before stepping out of the shower to avoid making puddles she didn't have time to mop up, running the towel over her arms and legs. Not long after starting their early morning exercise regimen, Raine had noticed her arms taking on more definition and she could feel her core getting stronger. As an added bonus, it snapped her body back into shape after both pregnancies. Auron developed a less rigorous routine during her early months, but a few weeks before her third trimester, he would wheedle her back into bed and show her the only exercise she was allowed for the remainder of the pregnancy.

Discovering she was pregnant had been relatively traumatic for Raine. She had disposed of her birth control prior to her first wedding and didn't bother getting more after her second since Auron believed himself to be infertile. Plagued by dark fantasies of Auron leaving her, Raine took nine days to tell him. Once a cheater, always a cheater, someone had told Raine once, and there had been that one night Raine caught Auron spying on her and Colton from work when she had to stay late at the station. When she had confronted Auron about the snooping, he just muttered something about "old habits," but Raine wasn't sure if he was talking about his Guardian days or how Raine had offered herself to Auron when she was already committed to Jory.

"I'm pregnant," Raine had blurted when Auron asked her if she wanted to split a beer.

One hand on the refrigerator handle, Auron's head rotated to look at her over his shoulder. By then she was used to him without his sunglasses, but she wasn't used to seeing his only eye dance quite like that. He had also been wearing his collar informally open, revealing short stubble and lips that could be kissed whenever the mood struck. Except now those lips were simpering and Raine's face turned to stone as she realized something.

"You knew," she said stiffly.

There was a warble of confusion in his eyebrows. "That you were pregnant?"

"That I could get pregnant."

"Tidus mentioned—" he started but stopped. Whatever mirth was left on his face drained when he realized he was in two worlds of trouble.

"You don't think that was something I should know? You know I'm being considered for my own show, you didn't once think to tell me it might be a good idea to pick up some birth control, you know, just in case?"

"I thought you wanted..." He drifted off and looked away, jaw flexing, surely realizing nothing he said would come close to an excuse.

"My own show, Auron! It's been in the works for a year. I've been grooming Colton to take my place as sports anchor."

Auron shot her a murderous look at the mention of her co-worker, awarding credibility to Raine's suspicions of his jealousy. "I'm aware of your time with Colton."

"I thought we agreed you would stop keeping things from me."

"I meant to tell you. I figured if it was going to happen, it would happen right away. When it didn't, I was glad I didn't tell you."

To Raine, it wasn't about the show. Okay, it was a little about the show; she had worked very hard to get it. Usually she didn't mind he preferred to hold his cards close, but when they had the potential to derail her life with an untimely discard, Raine wondered why she bothered to plan anything.

Although Raine wanted to argue with him, she knew Auron had been right not to tell her. It had been four years since their return to Zanarkand, four happy years that might instead have been filled with angst over the pressure of getting pregnant. It would have wrecked her. She had finally come to grips with being childless, filling her life with other things to occupy her time and realizing she'd rather be childless than without Auron. Auron was the only thing in Zanarkand she could be sure was real. She wouldn't give him up for all the dream children in the world.

Collecting himself, Auron closed his eye. "Are you keeping it?"

Raine knew it had been hard for him to ask this. As a former monk with very traditional opinions of a woman's right to choose, Auron was the minority in a progressive city like Zanarkand. But there was no question. The chances of becoming pregnant with Auron's child were one in a million.

Actually two in a million, they had learned three years later.

Slipping on the robe from the back of the bathroom door, Raine was going to have to kick it in high gear if she was going to have any time with the girls this morning. Shaking the towel through her wet hair, she turned on the water and opened the medicine cabinet for her toothbrush. After Raine squeezed toothpaste onto the bristles, the hiss of the water on the ceramic sink stopped suddenly and she gave the sink a very irritated what now? look. They just had the plumbing replaced.

But the water was still running. No, not running. Not really. The stream was still there, under the faucet, suspended in time. Curiously, she swiped her toothbrush through the water, cutting the stream, leaving a gravity-defying gap in the middle.

Raine gasped, threw her toothbrush in the sink with a flimsy clatter, and darted into the bedroom. She was stopped by the familiar Fayth in the purple hood, who was sitting hunched on the arm chair by the bed, his knees drawn up to his face, his child-sized brown boots braced on the cushion, and he was surrounded in a cloud of Pyreflies.

"Remember me?" he asked, amiably enough, but she couldn't help to regard his presence as a direct violation of her space. When Fayth appeared, good things didn't follow.

Driven by a sudden, unwanted vision of her family in the kitchen, frozen in mid-laugh or mid-bite, Raine bolted for her bedroom door. In a blink, the Fayth boy was standing in front of her and she had to literally skid to a stop on the throw rug to avoid smacking into him. Both standing, she realized he was not quite as tall as her chest.

For a long time after returning to Zanarkand, Raine had often ruminated about the Fayth's instructions to her on the train the day of her second wedding. Don't think he said to her, right before hurling the world back into motion, and it seemed to imply she thought too much, perhaps impeding her own ability to come up with obvious answers. Eventually, she asked Auron about it and he gave her a thoughtful frown as he considered what it meant, but startled her when he erupted into a deep chortle.

"The Fayth said something similar to Tidus before we left Zanarkand," Auron explained to her. "He told me about it later in Spira."

"What did the fayth say to Tidus?"

"Don't cry." Auron had waited in suspended humor until Raine caught up to the hilarity of it. They had a good laugh over it.

Now, she only dreaded what the child-Fayth had to say. Part of her already knew it and had feared it for years. Knowing she wouldn't be able to leave her daughters behind, she certainly wasn't going to bring them to Spira and make them join a pilgrimage. Although Auron once told her he knew Guardians as young as 10 years old, Raine could tell he wasn't keen on bringing their daughters to Spira, either. And so began the habit of talking around Spira, as if it were the dream, the vacation they would never dare take, the reality they were happy to ignore if it would keep their daughter's safe. Auron had now become Tidus, content with the dream being not so much a prison anymore, but a refugee camp, a witness protection program, or unused attic space for harboring fugitives. So much for thinking of dreams as disposable.

"It won't be long," the Fayth said, vaguely cryptic as his voice echoed, even though the bedroom was actually quite soundproof. Raine and Auron had tested it many times.

"Is Sin coming?" Raine asked. She looked with longing to the bedroom door for Auron to come barging in. He was the only real thing in Zanarkand; surely he wasn't susceptible to this time-freeze like everyone else, although he didn't even mention the discrepancy the last time the Fayth visited her, which told Raine he had been a part of it like everyone else.

"Not exactly," he said and took in a huge, hesitant breath, and just held it for a moment. Willow would often do the same thing, just before telling a truth she didn't want to admit. "Several months ago, a Summoner party defeated Yunalesca."

"How will they get the Final Aeon without Yunalesca?"

"They are attempting to beat Sin without it." The boy looked away in the general direction of the bed, but Raine always had the peculiar feeling the Fayth was able to exist in many worlds at once and was looking at something in another plane in order to give her an accurate play-by-play of Spira's events. "They've already breached Sin's outer armor and have attacked Yu Yevon inside."

"That's wonderful news," Raine said and smiled uncertainly. She sensed a "But."

"It is. Soon, we will be able to rest."

Feeling physically ill at what that entailed, Raine grappled for the bed post. She glanced away unhappily, thinking of a time when the Fayth expected Raine to end the dream. The boy was certainly aware of events in Zanarkand. He had to know she and Auron had spent a large portion of their time in Zanarkand making love, having babies and generally taking advantage of happiness whenever it presented itself, and not enough time, in comparison, exploring a way out of the dream. Constantly reminding herself of the dream's existence was exhausting and sometimes it was simply a relief to pull the wool caps over their own eyes and forget. "I understand. I'm sorry we couldn't end it for you sooner."

"I also understand. Life is short enough." He nodded knowingly. "At least you lived it fully."

The first part sounded like forgiveness; the second part cautionary. Raine tried not to look defeated. "Thank you for taking the time to see me." Thank you for warning me.

A moment later, the Fayth was gone and the water in the faucet blasted against the sink, making her jump. Quickly, she returned to the bath to shut off the water and stared with bleak strain into the gurgling drain for a moment, trying to decide if she'd been dreaming. No, Brainy Rainy. You're the dream.

Auron. He had to be notified of this. She headed for the bedroom door just as he strode in.

"Did you see that?" she asked.

"See what? You in a robe?" The corners of his eyes crinkled as he grinned, grabbing at the terrycloth ropes. "I want a rematch."

"Auron, wait—"

"Hesitation is our worst enemy when the girls are eating cereal," he murmured against her lips and opened her robe. His hands slid around to her ass and his bold tongue stabbed into her mouth. He was using his bedroom voice, a husky sound he made when he was in the mood. It took her awhile to catch on to it, but when she did, realized he'd used it on her before: that evening in Spira, instructing her on sword sharpening. And again at the houseboat after she had propositioned him ("Everything you give me is more than I need") and even as far back as that night having dinner with her aunt and uncle, when Auron lead her uncle to believe he had been talking about the Duggles ("They play dirty, but I think that's their appeal"). Since she wasn't yet of age, Raine was sure the tone had been mostly unconscious for him then. Well, pretty sure.

Growled through his teeth like a curse, Auron had told her he loved her for the first time during some intense lovemaking not long after returning to Zanarkand. Once, she thought Auron couldn't love her as much as she loved him, but that wasn't true. Her mistake was forcing Auron think of love in her selfish way. Auron loved cautiously and once Raine realized that, she never hassled him for validation again, not like that evening by Macalania Lake. Suicide or sacrifice, she had demanded. How selfish of her to make him decide. When he didn't understand the subtle difference, she misunderstood this to mean he didn't understand love or was incapable of it. Tidus had made Auron decide, too: Zanarkand or Spira. It pained her to know Auron chose Spira over Zanarkand, the pilgrimage over her. But it occurred to Raine he had done it knowing he could only choose one and he chose to avenge Tidus for her. Was that suicide or sacrifice? For Auron, it was probably both, but either way, it was selfless and wasn't that what love was supposed to be? Auron understood this better than Raine. He even understood it better than Tidus.