Disclaimer: I'm still poor and don't own anything.

Like Death Warmed Over

Chapter 6

When I awoke, I was alone; I felt strangely serene. I didn't understand why I no longer felt like crying, or why the recall of my recent experience brought me only a dull ache I'd grown to associate with loss over the years. The unbearable pain could not be remembered, as if years had passed since the incident. This mindfuck of the fayth annoyed me, despite the fact that it was admittedly better than coping naturally.

"I don't like being manipulated," I said angrily, knowing that I could not possibly be so fortunate to actually be alone.

As I expected, Bahamut appeared in front of me, chuckling. "I have done you a favour, Rikku," he said, and I replied with the nastiest facial expression I could produce.

"Oh, how rude of me," I spat. "I thank you, oh great one, for injecting my soul with a fucking shot of morphine!"

"Must you always be so vulgar?" he questioned drily.

I scoffed. "I just watched my mother die," I retorted, "and you want praise." I did so wish to maim him, but as it were, words were my only weapon, and wield them I would, deaf though he seemed.

"You have two ears and one mouth. Consider why that may be," said Bahamut, disaffected as ever.

I smirked, my eyes deadly. "So I can ignore you twice as rudely."

"Clever," he replied, and I swore I saw his eyes twitch upward for half a second. "However, I do not have all the time in the world, so I must ask for your cooperation." I made a face, but shrugged resignedly. "You must be wondering why you have been brought through this," he continued.

I pretended to be shocked. "No," I drawled. He stared at me, and I let out an annoyed "tch," but said no more.

"Unfortunately, I cannot fully enlighten you at this time."

What else is new, I thought, biting my tongue.

"However, I am sure you have questions."

My cue. I gave him a sickeningly sweet, close-lipped smile, my eyes obnoxiously wide in a mocking impression of attentiveness.

"Rikku," he warned.

"What?" I asked innocently. "I'm listening."

He fixed on me a stony expression so unnerving that even my will, in all its indignant obstinacy, wavered. I lowered my eyes, chewing on my lip. "It was that sphere," I said, without looking at him.

In my peripheral vision, I saw him nod. "Indeed. The time sphere. It was an ingenious creation, but not for the Al Bhed."

I stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded. He was laughing at my mother's death!

"Calm yourself, Rikku," he answered, maddeningly zen. "The problem with the sphere was not inherent to the sphere itself, but rather its setting. That is what I meant."

I blinked. "I don't get it, and the ambiguity's getting old."

"Home," he replied simply. "The only machina-operated base in all of Spira, aside from Bevelle. Anywhere else, the sphere is benign, with nothing around that it can adversely affect."

My face contorted with a strange variety of expressions. "Oh," I said as his point sunk in. I wanted to yell at him, but I knew, despite how I wished it weren't so, that it wasn't his fault. My mother was determined; nothing would have stopped her from completing the sphere, and if neither of us had foreseen the danger it posed then nothing could have altered the course of fate. It hurt, whatever the fayth had done to heal the pain of the event. But, loathe as I was to credit Bahamut with much of anything, it gave me a sense of closure over my mother's death. It was her time. It wasn't fair or easy to get over, but it was- heh. It was Spira; that same spiral of death and suffering, unbroken for a thousand years. Until Yuna. And… me.

There was pain and peace in resolution. Through it came acceptance, something that had been withheld from me for the last five years. The pain made the understanding terrible. But the peace, I knew, would make it tolerable. When all the pieces fit into place, forward progress could occur. Those pieces had finally been given to me, and I felt emotional, with too many feelings accumulated to centre on one. Yet it was there – I felt it – peace.

Bahamut had not said a word. Our gazes locked, and my mind went strangely blank as I stared into his eyes, as if he had bewitched me. After some seconds had passed mindlessly, I wrenched myself away from the serene abyss into which he seemed to have sucked my psyche and tore my eyes away from his. "Why was it so important?" I asked, looking at the ground, slightly unnerved.

He being who he was in all his annoying fayth glory was not derailed by my lack of specificity. "This is the beginning," he replied calmly. "That was the prelude." I stared, hoping my confusion and waning tolerance for such explanations could be transferred telepathically, and maybe they could, for he continued, "Your real mission is in a time further into your own past. That sphere was essential to transportation to that era."

"But I don't have the sphere," I argued. "I gave it to Auron."

"Yes," he agreed. "And I have ensured he knows what to do with it. It is my business to see that you arrive satisfactorily by my own doing."

"If it was that easy – that you could just knock us out and warp our disturbingly animated corpses wherever you wanted us, why'd you need the sphere?" I asked. "Couldn't you have done the same with Auron?"

"No," he replied. "The reason the sphere is essential, Rikku, is because after you arrive at your destination, neither you nor Auron will be dead in the sense that I can warp you anywhere." He emphasised the word distastefully, as though he did not appreciate the illusion that his godly powers could be referenced in such a common way.

"Okay…" Even putting aside the fact that he'd basically implied my deadness was an issue of contemplation, I still didn't get it. "That's after we get there, though, right? Why's it matter now?"

"At that point, the fact will apply to both of you; at the current moment, it is true only for Auron. You, therefore, are the simultaneously simpler and more difficult entity to transport."

"I thought you said you didn't have all the time in the world," I said, dully. "'Cause you sure are taking your time with these answers."

He graced me with another disturbingly soul-staring gaze before responding. "As I have just hinted, the fayth can only move the dead. Auron is no longer dead, and neither will you be when you arrive."

I stared. "You're resurrecting me?"

"In a sense, yes. At the moment, you exist as an Unsent, no more. And it is not, before you ask, the result of a failure on the part of the Al Bhed to Send you. Sent pyreflies are drawn to the Farplane unless, as you may have gathered from your prior knowledge of Auron, the fayth manipulate them elsewhere. Your soul, therefore, lacks the instability associated with those Unsent who become fiends, due to your Sending; however, you are not actually alive."

"Well, thank you for clearing that up," I said bitterly. "I feel so much better now."

"Patience!" he said. "It is a virtue; learn it. That is your current state. When you leave this place, it will alter, and you will join Auron in a state of full life. This is a very complicated situation. The fayth can resurrect, but doing so comes at the cost of another life. Thus, as you can imagine, we do not do it very often. What we have done in this case could be considered a bending of the rules."

I considered that. I was going to be brought back to a state of legitimate… aliveness – that thought was certainly positive enough, but as with all things that seemed too good to be true, there was a catch. Somebody had had to die- my mouth went dry. "My mother?"

He nodded. For a split second, I wanted to attempt to strangle him, futile as I knew it would be, but my newfound understanding of the necessity of my mother's death stopped me. That was to have been, no matter what – hadn't I just deduced that? This was what he'd been referring to in saying the fayth were bending the rules. They hadn't exactly taken a life in the case of my mother – they'd simply utilised her death, and oh, how it had worked to their advantage. It left a bad taste in my mouth – I didn't like the idea of the fayth fucking around with my mother's peaceful departure, but I knew deep down that it was an emotional response to a very simple logic problem. I looked at Bahamut with a resigned, if slightly displeased, expression.

"And Auron's…?" I asked the question tentatively, with the sinking feeling that I already knew.

"Yours."

For a moment, I thought about asking whether this had been in the same vein of resourcefulness as my mother's death. The idea that it may not have been deterred me. If the fayth had killed me to bring Auron back from the grave, I didn't really want to know. A rather pained look graced my features and I shut my eyes with a groan. "Shiiiiit…"

I opened my eyes after a few seconds and glared at him. "I really hate being manipulated. Like, I know I said I didn't like it before, but I really. Fucking. Hate it."

"There are over 200,000 words in both the Spiran and Al Bhed languages; could you not find a less profane way to express yourself?" he inquired disdainfully.

I snorted, shaking my head in disbelief. "Y'know, it's funny, but eloquency is not really the most pressing concern of mine at the moment. I know that must seem really strange to you, Mr. More-Cryptic-Than-A-Book-Of-Riddles, but I'm pretty caught up in the fact that you seem to think my life- or death- or whatever the hell state of limbo I'm in- is just a game to be discussed as flippantly as Sunday brunch!"

"It was simply a question," he replied. "And I apologise."

I rolled my eyes, waving a hand in dismissal. "My mother didn't like my language either; forget it."

"I was referring to manipulating you."

My head snapped up. "Really?" I asked incredulously. "…Why." It lacked the intonation of a question; I wondered what he expected to achieve by admitting such a thing. Not that I didn't already know that he was, but it was not my experience that those who used others to achieve a particular end were too keen on owning up to it.

"Because I am sorry that you had no choice in the matter."

"Oh." I wasn't quite sure what to say to that. It's okay? It… wasn't really okay, per se, it was simply a reality that I was going to have to grasp. Realism was sometimes the only operative strategy one could employ – this was definitely one of those times. I didn't much want to think about all the reasons I could hate Bahamut at the moment, because I knew that doing so would only make me angry while it wouldn't, on the other hand, change a damn thing.

My pride had become virtually nonexistent, in this sense. Before, I had been fighting tooth and nail to somehow best Bahamut in his own game just to convince myself that I still had some say over my own life- er, afterlife. At this point, I knew I may as well admit it; Bahamut was orchestrating everything that was happening to me, and if he didn't want me to win, I was not about to. I simply accepted it – begrudgingly – but I accepted it, because it was.

"However, I believe that you may determine this fate to be rather better than the alternative," he suggested, breaking my train of thought.

"Meaning… death?" I asked.

He shrugged. "The Farplane, yes."

I sighed. "I am pretty young to be settling down that permanently, I guess," I admitted, half-heartedly joking.

"You'll see," he said, again cryptically.

"Which, I take it, means you have no plans to inform me exactly what it is me and Gramps are supposed to do on this little mission of yours," I replied, figuring that there was no point in beating around the bush. Bahamut and I were on a pretty need-to-know basis, meaning that he knew everything that went through my mind and I knew what he decided to verbalise in the rare moments he appeared in my presence.

A small smile played around his lips. "I think it would be infinitely easier to show, rather than tell, you. However, I will say that this will be the last time we meet like this for some time."

"What?" I asked. "What if I need to know something?"

He chuckled. "Do not worry, Rikku, all will become clear in time." He began fading from my view and I knew what was coming. I swore as my head began to fog for what seemed like the hundredth time since I'd died.

My last thought before I fell unconscious was that Bahamut was really intent on teaching me patience.

I awoke to the sound of a voice saying my name. No – it didn't seem so declarative as it did questioning, and I blearily wondered why that was. It took me a few seconds to equate the soothing deep voice with its paradoxically anything-but owner. I opened my eyes, snapping my head around to stare at the figure in front of me. "Auron?" I asked dumbly, staring for a few seconds before the picture fit together. He'd made it here with the time sphere… my mother was a genius.

"Rikku?" he studied me with an expression, that, even through his trained stoic countenance, looked positively shocked.

I stared back, my face falling into a frown and my breaths becoming involuntarily shallow as my muscles tensed. "What?" I asked fearfully, half expecting him to tell me there was an angry Coeurl behind me set to pounce. Well, no, it wouldn't be a Coeurl; those only lived in the Calm Lands, and from what I could tell, we weren't anywhere near the Calm Lands – this looked positively like Macalania. Maybe a Chimera, then, those were quite nasty. But then, it wasn't like Auron to just stop and stare at a fiend; he was all about the action, shouldering his inhumanly large katana like it weighed less than I did (it didn't) effortlessly. Auron wasn't an observer. I began wondering if I'd slept in Iguion dung or something.

When he didn't answer immediately, I glanced behind me in a flash to dispel the Chimera theory and then turned my irritated expression back on him. "What?" I repeated, my tone taking on an edge of annoyance.

His face turned stony; he wasn't pleased. "Look at yourself."

My face fell. "No. You can't be serious," I replied, refusing to do as he said. "Not again. And- and you look the same!" I was terrified of what I would discover, but the more my voice rose with my denials the more I could hear a distinctive childish pitch in my syllables. I let out an ungodly sigh and looked at my body begrudgingly.

"BAHAMUT YOU SICK MOTHER-!" I screamed so loudly a flock of birds scattered from the surrounding trees. This, in retrospect, was an inherently terrible idea. Fiends, after all, weren't deaf, and the nasty buggers had never seemed to care about my emotional state during a battle. Anger wasn't about to keep them away from a little snacky kill- oh, I would make that pun.

Little. I sure was. By the looks of me, I had barely graduated toddlerhood. The only deluded reason I could think of that Bahamut could have had for turning me this far back biologically was that my physical state was once again reflecting its small-Rikku counterpart back Home.

It was not an inspiring deduction.

Auron looked murderous. "Do you ever think before you act?" he chastised me, I thought, too roughly.

"Easy for you to say!" I retorted angrily. "What do the stupid fayth make you – young and hot! And what do I get? Prepubescence and now infancy!"

He raised an eyebrow at that – at what bit of it I wasn't keen to know. I hadn't meant to vocalise my thoughts on his… altered appearance, but since I had, I simply rolled my eyes and refrained from commenting further. I assumed he could take it as a compliment and not press the subject. He was Auron, after all. You know, Mr. Maturity. Well, he was hot. It wasn't like it was a secret. He'd even been somewhat attractive in grandpa-land, where I'd met him, though I wasn't about to even think about that. It certainly didn't make me feel any less of an idiot. I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Well, y'know. Point is, I got the raw end of the deal, so would you just ease up?" I crossed my arms.

"I don't know what you suggest we do when your racket brings every fiend in Spira here after us."

I pouted indignantly. "I'd figured that much out myself, thanks," I said. "Sorr-ee."

He didn't say anything, which made me feel worse because I knew I'd messed up. "Why d'ya think we're here, anyway?"

"You seem slightly more informed than I – not surprisingly so, I might add, with your propensity for asking questions. However, if I were to make an observation, I would say that your age seems to reflect the time."

"Yeah," I agreed. "How old d'ya figure I am now?"

"Four, maybe five," he replied, I noted, unenthusiastically.

I tapped my chin with a finger thoughtfully. "Well, let's see. Key moments in my life… I died at seventeen, I was fifteen on Yuna's pilgrimage, we just relived my fabulous life at age twelve, I burned a Yevonite temple at six- KIDDING," I reassured him in response to the deathly glare he shot me. "Have a sense of humour… alright, so it wasn't funny, shut up. Anyway, now I'm… four." I sighed. "I dunno. Unless Bahamut's trying to de-age me back to utero, I'm lost."

Auron seemed to have thought of something, however. "You were fifteen on Yuna's pilgrimage?" he repeated, and I nodded. His face became dark. "Then we have gone back to either before Braska's Calm, or right after it began."

I nodded grimly, unaware of how silly I probably looked in all my childish innocence. I had more than an idea which he thought it was, but I wasn't about to voice the thought. As much of a slap in the face our little trek back Home had been for me, he had to be feeling a hell of a lot worse right now. I made a mental note to try to tone down my "annoying" factor for the time being. This would have been a lot more easily accomplished if I had not suddenly shrieked, feeling something sharp and burning sink into me. I turned quickly, realising it was just a common Wasp, but it was about as benign to my five-year-old self as an enraged Behemoth.

Auron was hardly any better off than I. No, don't get me wrong, I didn't think that he was really in any great danger from something as annoying as a Wasp. However, as I felt the familiar tinge of nausea sweep over me, I realised that, despite the fact that my brain was just as functional and developed as it had ever been, my body was weak. Physically, I had pretty much the strength of a small child in battle – and, at the moment, the small child was poisoned, and neither of us had weapons or antidotes, or much of anything that would help us. I staggered to my feet. "Auron, find something to throw at it," I cried as I eyed the Wasp's movements. Praying for luck and speed, I dashed forward, avoiding the prick of its stinger as I closed my hand around a small bottle on the wrong side of the fiend. Bahamut, this'd better be an antidote, I thought hard as I fled the attack of the Wasp, prize in tow.

Whether Bahamut took my threat to heart or I'd collected one too many luck spheres over the years, I glanced at my stolen treasure with a satisfied smirk. Doubling over as another wave of pain hit me, I quickly popped the top and chugged, feeling the nauseating effect of the poison begin to ebb away. I looked up. The fiend was still buzzing around angrily. "Auron, not to be a pain, but can you KILL this thing already?" I screamed, scrambling to my feet and dashing away again. It followed me with aggravating persistence, and I shrieked, running in circles, and wishing, wishing, wishing I had a weapon, or even half a weapon, hell, anything to keep the thing away from me.

"Duck, Rikku," Auron barked at me, and I obliged, dropping to the ground quickly as I could and covering my head with my arms. Something large and grey flew over my head and smashed with quite a sickening crunch into the Wasp behind me. I panted as pyreflies began to escape and circle around my head.

"Thanks," I said, resting my head on my knees.

He grunted in reply, and I sat there for a few moments trying to catch my breath. "Well," I said finally, "I guess we know we're both alive."

The cracking of branches in the distance cut any response he might have had off before it began. "Rikku, go hide behind something big," he said, and I nodded, pushing myself up off the ground and running to peek from behind a tree. I hated being so useless, but without any sort of weapon and all the physical endurance of a five-year-old, I was just that. Face the facts; this was survival of the fittest. We didn't have any Phoenix Downs and I wasn't in love with the idea of dying again, so I was stuck playing the coward until we could figure something better out.

Auron stood looking in the direction of the disturbance, and I wondered why, when the whatever-it-was was causing such a commotion and didn't seem to be getting any further away, he wouldn't rather try to avoid conflict, seeing as we were limited to large rocks for weapons. As the seconds ticked away, however, I saw him relax just slightly before stiffening up again as I made out the outline of two figures coming in our direction.

Leaning further around my tree, I gasped and lost my balance as I recognised my uncle, somersaulting awkwardly into plain view next to Auron with a whiny, "Owww…"

I looked up, rubbing my head and locked eyes with the strangers. "Heeey, Uncle Braska."

A/N: This fic has been on hiatus for about 2 years now. It's staying up because I'm proud of what it is, but I'm not sure if I'm going to update it again. Thank you to all who have read and enjoyed it. Maybe I'll come back to it someday.