With So Much Love Sometimes it Hurts

The last time I had talked to you was before you left on that noble cause, to be a Crusader. To be someone us Al Bheds could be proud of. Someone Spira could be proud of. I supported you, I really did.

But that was before you left without saying goodbye.

I know I was going to leave right after you, but... I still would have said goodbye, you big meanie-face.

Even if you blame your early leave on me, it's not my fault! Well, maybe - but you deserved it.

The last time I talked to you was a week before you were supposed to leave. I told you, to make you jealous, about Tidus. About how while we were scavenging for the Fahrenheit. About how Tidus heroically saved my life when you couldn't. You weren't there, though you were supposed to be. (I really wish you'd stop your bickering with Brother sometimes. It's just so silly! You were best friends once!) So I tried to make you so jealous. I thought maybe the threat of a man that drifted away like the tide would make you stay just a little longer, until I was ready to let go. But you left earlier.

So much for that plan, right? You would always tell me you'd keep reminders. Of how life's best plans can go so awry. I thought you were just trying to act like the older one, the wiser one. So I didn't really listen.

But when you left, I wasn't finished yet. I had spent weeks and weeks preparing a gift for you. I couldn't find that perfect thing. The one thing you'd carry around with you for the rest of your life, even if we weren't to ever meet again. It wasn't like you'd have a huge amount of space, so I knew it had to be small. It couldn't be anything flashy, or you might not show it off like I hoped you would. I wouldn't make it anything too girly, or too masculine, because you wouldn't hold onto that either. (And I didn't want my warrior-man to get made fun of 'cause his lady back home. Hah. Right.)

And I had finally figured it out, too! Geez, you have horrible timing.

I'm sorry I made you so jealous. Or I was. At least, that's why you left, right? You were jealous over Tidus? He's more like a brother to me than the one I have left now. Keyakku died. Did you know that? There was so much I wanted to tell you. So much I never got to say, when you left.

But he died after that. After I found Yuna. After I met all my friends. After Tidus told me he thought he might just love little Yunie. But before he fell away, into the pyreflies. God, so much has happened. There's still so much to tell you, Gippy.

It's all I can do not to travel Spira just to find you. So we can stay up late, have Popsicles, and talk like we used to. To sneak away to the Oasis and splash away under the midday sun to cool ourselves off. To find a perfectly good machina and gut it, just to put it back together again. It's so hard sometimes, Gippal. I miss you so much. I heard the disaster at Mi'ihen, way back when.

All the way from under the ocean, from hundreds of miles away I heard Sin's deafening screeches. I was so worried, and I never got to say goodbye. Gippal, why would you leave like that? I heard that Keyakku saw you after I was gone. You hadn't actually left Home, but did when you first intended to. So why would you hide like that in Bikanel? If it was because of Tidus, how stupid can you be? You know I didn't have any eyes for anyone else but you. I loved you so much then.

If you had died because of the stupid Crusaders in Mi'ihen, I would have never forgiven you. Or myself, I guess.

It was stupid, so, so stupid!

And it was all I could do with myself but to run screaming your name, hoping that someone had seen you since.

Even Pops is worried that his 'third son' will never come back home, though there isn't much of one for us now. Even with our newfound acceptance in Spira, us Al Bheds have no where to go. I wondered where you were so many times, while volunteering for the night watch on the pilgrimage.

I remember the last time I ever had to do it, in Zanarkand. I wished you could have saw how beautiful that place was, all lit up by pyreflies late at night. They swarmed everywhere, flying from the still-standing waters. They zoomed past you when you tried to walk, stimulating your memories and stuff. I was scared, but not too bad. They were kinda comforting in a way. I saw that one day after my momma's funeral, by the Oasis. You showed me that beautiful, beautiful flower. It was orange like the late-day sun, with purple near the tips. It was coated in dew. It glowed, almost. It was so pretty, like my mom, you said. You said she was like that flower in the Oasis.

I thought you were just trying to be a sweetheart, which you were, but when I thought about it in Zanarkand, I was thinking - maybe you did it because my mom might as well have been yours, too. Yours left when we were both real little. I think I was just three. I only remember her 'cause we used to have big parties at our house in Home. Us kids would all be stuck together in a room, while everyone else was drinking and hollering and having the best time. We would play with little mini-hovers. The big group of us kids. They were plastic, but you tried to break it apart to fix it. You were only four. You ripped open your hand on the plastic, and your cries found your momma. She came running in, smelling like a desert rose.

That's why I remember her, really. She smelled so fine. Like she never drank a drop of Moonflow wine. I don't remember her face, only her scent.

But my own momma, after yours was long gone for whatever reason she thought it would be a good idea to run away, she was like your surrogate mom, huh? You would spend the night at our house when your daddy was off on operations or out retrieving supplies from the monthly shipping. She would take care of you, just like you were her own. You and Keyakku were best friends, too. And Brother, too. The three of you were inseparable, sometimes. That's part of the reason, too, isn't it? Because you three were so close, and my momma would never turn you away. She couldn't, even had she wanted to, though she never would. Keyakku would threaten to cry and scream. But he was with you, he told me, after I left.

Do you know how much that hurt? To know the only person you'd ever loved like... well, like that, just up and hid away from you, not knowing whether they'd ever return?

So when I saw you next, in front of a dock in Luca, it was like a ghost had come back, way from my past that I had tried so hard to forget sometimes. You had a big patch on the back of your head. You didn't tell me from what, or who, and how it happened, but you said you were taken care of by Spirans. You had a tear in your eye, when you said it; do you remember?

We talked for a real long time, Gippal. Not about anything in particular. Not about anything I wanted to tell you. You told me about how the Crusaders wouldn't let you in, 'cause we're Al Bhed and untouchables. You told me about how the underbelly of Mushroom Rock Road, at night, was the scariest place. How Mi'ihen looked right after Sin came through. About your last time talking to Keyakku. About how upset he was that I left and how angry I was at you.

But I wasn't angry at you, really, I told you. I was angry at Spira, I had lied. I told you I was so, so angry that Spira expected its summoners just to up and kill themselves because of a stupid Yevon teaching. That Spira, as a whole, was too afraid to try to battle Sin on its own, because of the stupid Crusaders. I blamed them, and how they were so influential that an Al Bhed, someone they openly hated, was so willing to help, but they didn't want it. And you believed me. Or looked like you did.

I hated how easy it was for you to believe such a bad lie. I really was, maybe am, angry at you. For leaving me like that. I just don't get you, sometimes. You told me how much you loved me, and because we had gotten in that stupid argument and I went to help retrieve the Fahrenheit as punishment, and I stupidly tried to make you real jealous, you left. Why? I mean, I guess I understand, but for all you knew, we would never see each other again. You could have died. I might have become Yunie's final aeon, if it came down to that. You could've been blown to bits by Sin! Spira, you're so stupid!

But you know, I kept your parting gift with me all this time. While traveling with my cousin and friends, while facing Yevon down, while crashing Yuna's wedding, while battling Seymour for the last time, through sendings and new beginnings. While battling Yunalesca, while finding out the truth behind Yevon's lies for good, while scared out of my wits and terrified by the excitement I felt at facing Sin. I kept it through everything. While Tidus ran from our lives. While Yuna cried and cried. When us Guardians parted ways. I went everywhere that shaped me with it. I kept it close to everything important, in a pouch on my leg, along with my favorite wrench and a few pictures: one of my momma, Pops, Keyakku, Brother and me. We were sitting on a hover near the shore. I was missing at tooth, and showed it so proudly. I kept a couple others, with my new friends and the old, and then one of you and me. We were hugging under some real Al Bhed fireworks. I was snuggled up so close. You were blushing. Keyakku took it. I don't think either of us realized at the time. He gave it to me as his parting gift.

I thought they should go together. It fit.

But while we were talking, on that dock, before Wakka came to find me and I had to go, I forgot about my gift. I was so content just to sit with you, talking about nothing that needed to be said. So I thought I would tell you now. Well, write to you now.

I don't know if this letter will ever get to you, Gippal, but I'm sending it with hope.

Hope that it'll find you, gift intact.

Hope that you'll read it and understand.

Hope that you'll find your way back to me, one of these days, gift in hand. Or hair.

Hope that Spira will remain as open as those who helped you with your head, when you were hurt. (And hope that you'll finally tell me what happened, stupid-face!)

Hope that you'll find whatever it is in Spira you're looking for.

Hope that one day, when all of Spira is finally at peace and we've led the lives we wanted, we'll be together again.

Maybe in a new Home, with our family and friends all together again, or as together as we can get.

Hope that your mother will find what she wanted that she couldn't find in Home.

Hope that the love I felt for you won't change over time. If yesterday, at the docks, was any indication, I think we'll be fine. I think that my hope in everything keeps us together through time. I think that hoping is all we can really do. Life will happen, whether we're ready or not. Hope is what gives us the faith to act upon it, I think. That's why I leave hope in my gift and my letter.

I have a feeling that you'll keep this snug under your pillow, like with that doll you didn't want me to tell anyone about. The one your mom made for you when you were little, the one you can't sleep without. Or couldn't. Maybe you've changed too. But I will still hope my letter will have a place under your pillow, to help you sleep at night.

Because I know that picture of us hugging under a firework sky is what helps me fall asleep, even after days like today. When my mind can't stop running on and on I'll lay above it and find that peace.

I just hope you can find yours. Yuna always said for us just to believe. So I will.

I'll just believe.

With so much love sometimes it hurts,

Rikku.

Gippal fought tears, easily losing that battle, as a pair of shiny silver barrettes fell from the envelope when he shook it. He wouldn't tell a soul about the letter, or his tearful reaction as he crossed the Highroad. How a girl he knew way back when he was so young would always hold onto his heart. He would never tell a soul as to why he gingerly slipped a pair of silver barrettes into his hair every morning, tucking them away safely every night to find rest under his pillows.

He would never tell as soul about the girl that would never stop hoping, no matter how harsh times could be. He may not say what needed to be said when with her, but he could always hope, and she would be listening somehow. He knew it.

Gippal tucked away the letter, a splotch of teardrops now mingling with the slanted, messy handwriting. He slipped the entire envelope, as thick as it was, into his pants pocket and smiled, face still puffy with tear tracks. People still celebrated along the road, their guard down, so happy and free of worry, thanks to High Summoner Yuna and her Guardians. Gippal smiled at this, too, a genuine look of happiness from the young Al Bhed.

At sixteen, he may have a bullet hole in his head. At sixteen, he may have been alone in a world that didn't yet accept his race. At sixteen, he may be walking away from the one girl he'd ever love like that again, but he was looking to a future in which he could call himself worthy of Guardian Rikku.

And when that day came, he wanted to be wearing her parting gift.

He knew they would give him the hope.

Holla back to Kurai Kitokiri for betaing my story and not treating me like a complete dumbass prior to the process. (: Ask a stupid question and everyone treats you like you have less than half a brain. Lovely. (:

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