Authors' Notes: I'm collaborating with shinaka with the Fang/Sazh/Vanille dynamic over at 10_orders at LiveJournal. The challenge is to write 10 pieces of fiction using 10 commands as prompts. We're doing them out of order. Naturally.

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIII
Title: "Catharsis"
Pairing/Characters: Vanille+Sazh, cameo by Fang
Prompt: 10. Give me another chance
Rating: K+
Warnings: Some spoilers for Chapter 11 of the game
Summary: Vanille and Sazh have a talk.

Disclaimer: I'm running out of witty one-liners for this.

Catharsis

"Hey Sazh! Can I talk to you?"

At the sound of his name, he turned around to see the bubbly redhead stomping down his way. Whatever she wanted, it seemed important, as she...ran even faster to catch him. Uh oh, is she going to tackle him? As if reading his thoughts, the chocobo currently perched on the top of his afro chirped in response. Yes, she was going to tackle him, and he was deciding whether or not to brace for the impact or make like a chocobo, pardon the pun, and run like hell.

But he decided to stand his ground. The girl after all did have more experience in running around chasing after gunmen and more times than not these days, he felt like his joints needed some greasing.

"Sazh!" She leapt upon him, damnable winsome smile upon her lips. "Come with me! You and me are gonna have a nice talk over… there!" Vanille flapped an arm not on Sazh at a tree… quite a ways from the party. Knowing how Oerba's clear and flat landscape can be deceiving in terms of distance, he estimated the tree to be at least a mile away.

Struggling to steady himself under the weight of girl with a surprisingly heavy fishing rod for a weapon, he made his confusion at this request known nevertheless. "But uh, can't we talk here? Here's a nice place. Not likely to be attacked by Cieth. Or Oretoises. Or both."

"Of course not silly! Oretoises would never venture out here. But if you want we can talk inside." Vanille then firmly pressed her hand behind Sazh's back and proceeded to steer him towards a nearby dilapidated building. The chocobo flitted out of his hair and flew around them a couple of times before another chirp was heard. Clearly the chocobo was smarter than it seemed and gave the two some privacy while heading the opposite direction to play with the silver-haired boy in the meantime.

"Vanille! Hey, ok ok, I'm going," he said, as he walked a little bit faster towards the rusted door. She was right behind, smile on her face, disposition bright and sunny. "So what did you wanna talk about?" He asked.

Though the smile still stayed on, her face grew - tighter, was that the word for it? More grim, more reflective of the events they've been through, first in the hollowed-out planet in the sky, and then in this strange place where both trees and monsters grew rampant but there was no trace of humanity to speak of but in these houses with cracks and holes and rusty robots.

And then there was Nautilus.

"…I know we talked about this back when we were captured and put into the Palamecia," Vanille spoke, words much quieter and more tremulous than when she jumped on him mere minutes ago. He straightened where he stood, jaw set a little tighter in his mouth, one hand reflexively reaching for a Vega 42 - he needed its familiar handle for this.

"But I can't leave it at that. I need to settle it with you once and for all, Sazh."

"I already told you-"

"Wait! Please...let me finish." Sazh needed to sit if they were going to talk this out again. As if Palamecia were happening all over again, the wound was reopening. It was still painful for him to fully discuss it; it was partly the reason why he skirted over the issue in the first place. But somewhere deep inside, he knew - hell, they knew they had to talk. In full this time, no glossing over details. Raw feelings, pure, uncensored, plain emotional.

And draining as well.

"Dajh," he thought, as if the image of his playful little boy would give him the strength to relive that horrible day. Nautilus will never be just the City of Dreams to him. No, it was something more, something special. A time of Revelations, and heartache.

"I need to sit then." Looking around, he planted himself down on an almost-sturdy stool. Taking a deep breath and mentally counting to ten, he continued with, "Go on, Vanille."

She gave a small nod and then spoke. "At the time, me and Fang… we had no idea what would happen when we went into Euride Gorge. All we knew was that we were awake on Cocoon hundreds of years later… And that Fang had no memory of her Focus."

She looked away then, eyes turning glassy, and Sazh knew she was trying to hold in her tears.

"I… was such a coward. She was so desperate to find out what happened, why her brand was burned the way it was. But I couldn't. If I had told her, she would have known then that her Vanille was just a scared little mouse, who would run away when a friend needed her most. And innocent people - like then - would have died. I didn't want any more blood…"

"And I didn't even tell her myself. It was Fang that got it out of me. Hecatoncheir was born because I was caught in my lie. She knew all along," she started to sob, tears freely falling, unable to be held back.

Sazh was shocked to say the least. Only Fang and Vanille knew what happened that day. To trust him with the knowledge why her summon was heralded into the material plane…it shook him down to the core. At that point he knew why she wanted to talk to him. Silly kid, she didn't need to try so hard; didn't she know she was breaking his heart?

"Sazh…I want to know something. Can you…do you ever think you can give me another chance?" Holding back her sniffles, she wiped her tears away from her face. "I want to do things right again. But I can't start if I don't have your approval."

"You already have it." Before she could protest, he continued, "I already did tell you at the Palamecia. And I meant every word of it. But if you wanted to hear it again…I forgive you." Placing his hand on her shoulder now, he directed her to the door.

"C'mon now. They're waiting for us." And like Vanille did earlier, he steered her right outside of the door…where Fang was waiting. Both were shocked at her appearance.

"Been wonderin' where you two ran off to. I see that everything's fine now." With that, the Pulsian turned away and headed towards camp, not before smiling.

Yep, things were just fine between them.