Author's Note: I didn't really intend to keep writing Auron/Rikku stuff, but I'm starting to like it.

devotion

He wonders sometimes if he's really as devoted to all of this as they believe him to be. He's looking for redemption and grace and a way to save the friends he lost so long ago, but is that enough to save the world now? It seems selfish when he thinks about it - saving them all so he can go to the Farplane and finally rest in peace.

His conviction wavers. When they aren't looking and he's keeping watch late into the night - because hey, let's face it, sleep is worthless to a body that isn't truly alive - when the night is still and he can think, his conviction wavers. His lip trembles sometimes when he isn't expecting it to. He's taken shaky breaths (worthless!) under cover of darkness; if one slips out in company he passes it off as a sigh.

He can't always sleep but he is so tired. He misses his old friends, wonders what a father Braska could have been, wishes Jecht and Tidus could have had a chance for a real relationship. He fights on, ignoring the pull of the Farplane each time he tries to rest. After all, after everything that he's been through, he knows he isn't done yet.

But there are nights where he wonders if he's only the ghost of a good thing. Is he truly real anymore when sleep is mostly a game of pretend and food tastes like sawdust? When the light hits him just right at dawn, he can see pyreflies dance under his skin. He's taken to keeping gloves on, or else retracting his hands into his sleeves, but he thinks she may have noticed. She is oddly observant. Most of the time it's endearing but it worries him still. She deserves someone whole, someone to grow old with, and she keeps giving him that look.

He knows that look. He laughs to think he used to work for it, flex and show off and brag for it. Warrior monks were supposed to be noble, wise, and loyal; the monk in training was arrogant, attention-seeking, and haughty. He grew out of it when his parents started fighting.

He remembers the one who helped him through, the one who inspired him to be a guardian, the one who he rejected out of love. He thought it was love. Maybe it really was; he hurt for a long time, regretted turning her away, repeated a thousand times if only I hadn't but he had and he just needed to live with it. She was pretty. He was broken. Then he left and killed his friends and died for nothing and everything, and now here he is, round two, without the priest's daughter.

There are new lives at stake, and he swears to a god he doesn't believe in that he'll save them, somehow. He knows more this time but is it enough?

And there's always the fear of failure, too. Another of his friends might die. This new generation is prettier and younger but not any better off, not by a long shot, and he doesn't want them to regret like he does.

He wants her, especially, to be safe. She is so young. What a horrible world it is, with a fifteen-year-old risking her life to make sure her cousin dies. He knows she's fighting against that outcome but that ending was written one for him and the pain of it is all too real. (What if he fails? Oh, hell, what if he fails?) She is young and vibrant, the merriest, just like she wanted.

And she's beautiful, too, which does absolutely nothing but takes away his inappropriate (worthless!) breath when he looks at her like he so often does. She doesn't know how beautiful she really is. He tries not to let his gaze linger for too long on her legs, her arms, the curve of her neck or, oh gods, her chest beneath that orange top. Instead he glances quickly away. He ignores her. He will not fall again for someone he'll only abandon in the end (but oh, too late, too late).

So he sits, questioning everything they believe he stands for, and his conviction wavers. Maybe he isn't really a good person. He was killed at 25, has been dead for ten years now, and feels three times older. Yet he watches (lusts after? loves?) her against his better judgment. And he brings Yuna closer to possible doom, and Tidus closer to death, and - and why do the others come along? He gets redemption (maybe), Yuna gets glory (hopefully), Tidus gets love (wonderful) and revenge (damnit, Jecht) and answers (please oh please), so why are the rest of them there?

She's sleeping. He's staring at her, vaguely envying her, and almost mourning the chance they never could have had.

If he's devoted to anything on this journey (round two; here we go again), it's keeping them safe. He loves them all - regretfully, he doesn't love them equally and he never will. But he will protect all of them until the end of his existence, and he will keep watch over them, and he will save them. He'll try. He might not be devoted to tradition, or religion, or anything he used to believe in, but he is devoted to his friends. He always has been. The old trio still lives as long as he walks the earth. For hopeful Braska, he watches Yuna. For human Jecht, he watches Tidus. For the young Auron, he watches Rikku and he laments and his lip trembles, sometimes, and he drinks alcohol he doesn't taste when no one is looking.

Once again, late at night, his conviction wavers.