A/N: I'm the least depressing person anyone has ever faced on the planet E-Arth. So I will fess up now, angst is not my division and while I don't think Paine is angst, angst angst like some people portray her, I do believe she has some deep issues she struggles with and often alone. My goal was to bring her inner turmoil in to play, but keep it away from her surface demeanor. She's amazingly strong and I believe would bounce back in no time, I just wanted to show that inside: the scars are still there, but with a positive outlook: life can reward a better outcome.

I do hope you enjoy, as always, I ask as politely as I can: READ AND REVIEW BEETCHES! RAWR! ;D

Disclaimer: *SIGH* Can I just say ditto? Ditto. Everyone knows I own absolutely nothing besides fanfics anyway…except my adorable fluff-muffin ARTEMIS! Luff you kitteh-kooty! (-Don't understand? My profile says I'm obsessed. Check. It. Out.)

Caribbean blue seas melted seamlessly into azure skies; the only definition between one another was but a small, white crest of ocean waves as they breached shore and touched dry sand.

Calming, fruitless and eternal.

She shivered.

The sudden fear was starting to bubble again in her stomach. Like a massive volcano lying in wait, her once idle emotions were threatening to explode and dissolve.

Suddenly, she shut her eyes. She didn't want to see anything. Seeing was no longer real to her. Too many things happened that one could see, but never really register. The sense of sight was all but a lie. For once, Paine needed to feel; the damp sand between her toes, molding smoothly in her hand, the waves breaking at her feet only to once again recede giving the constant promise that it would soon return; a promise never broken. To feel the sun pleasantly warming her pale skin, the crisp breeze from the ocean discouraging sweaty foreheads and sweaty palms.

Her brow creased.

Yes, everything is just so dandy.

Far off in the distance she could hear the laughter of her comrades wavering listlessly on the shorelines. That would soon end for her.

A comrade was a term of the past. As she had always done, Paine would start life anew. She had no reason to hold on to fleeting memories. YRP had officially ended. And with it ended a friendship she never even knew she had, never even knew she wanted. But to cling to it would be childish.

It was customary; to push them away.

Push them out of her life before they could push her out of theirs. It was simple logic that avoided meaningless heartache. But how would she go about it? Just walk off the sandy shores, fade in to the distance and never reappear? What about after that? When it all was said and done, where would she go? Where would she live? How would she live?

Paine grunted, squeezing her left breast. The throbbing was sharper than she last remembered when such a parting had crossed her life once before. It was easier then. Her heart eventually grew cold, numbing the ache that shot like lightning inside. But now those she joined and the journey she took melted the layer of ice encasing her barely beating heart, creating a new problem. Not only did the stab from before start again, but a new pain arose intensifying the last.

"Damn it." She ground through clenched teeth, her already rigid fingers tightening their grip around her chest.

"You okay?" the voice cut through the air like a knife, driving its tip through the confusion and straight in to her skin.

Paine reeled back, in taking a sharp breath before effectively silencing herself, forcing her hands to the sand and constricting that instead. "Fine."

A grin replaced the concern on the Al-bhed's face as he dropped densely on to the ground next to her. "Well, maybe you are, but I heard your boob screaming bloody murder from…" he extended a thumb back at the lively group "…way over there. I hope this isn't what they consider foul play."

"Just murder is all." She murmured.

He laughed and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "You slay me, Dr.P."

"Then that'd make two of us."

His body was warm, warmer than the sun that was secretly burning her skin. She looked to his hand on her shoulder, afraid to look at him, feeling rather than seeing the heat that radiated from his chest speaking of his discarded garment. His skin, a liveliness of reds yellows and browns, contrasted so visibly against hers; which happened to hold all the excitement of a white canvas.

He was tan, muscular. She was pale, thin.

In a group of girls, she was the toned, strong one. Both Yuna and Rikku were generally much smaller than she was; in build and size. It hadn't occurred to her how emaciated her frame truly was. At least, until now.

"Come on! Let's jump in the water!" he proposed suddenly, gripping her hand as a child would their mother, eagerly pulling her towards the waves.

Paine squinted against the falling sun, blocking the rays with her free hand. "I think not."

"Don't be such a crab! Ha! Beach humor!"

Wasn't he just full of himself?

Needless to say, Paine spotted a crab in her peripheral vision a few good inches away, tucked in one of its sand cubbies, peaking every now and then to watch the scene unfold.

Great, she rolled her eyes, we've turned in to a sitcom for crustaceans.

"Let go of my hand." She demanded, tugging her limb for emphasis.

"Who put sand in your pants! Ha! More beach humor!"

Her eyes focused on the hand firmly, but gently holding her wrist, blazing at the sight of a challenge. She wasn't going to lose this. Although, technically, there was nothing to win or lose, Paine felt her pride take hold and demand a victorious position.

She was determined to win, high stakes or not.

Gippal on the other hand, was generally having a blast. He was on the beach, with Paine no less, tugging her hand and pulling her towards the ocean. Life couldn't get much better than this. Not when you had a machina faction that needed tending to. It was nice to get a break every once in a while. And this was definitely a break he could learn to appreciate.

Because he was on the beach. With Paine.

Yeah. That has a nice ring to it.

With Paine.

Before realizing he had already pulled her in to the water, his hand slipped. Having become very slick with ocean water gushing all over it, the hand grasping Paine's very own hand, released her as she was on her final given tug, consigning her, not-so-very-neatly, to the wet, sand-hardened ocean floor.

She landed with a scrape and splash in to ankle deep waters, Gippal falling clumsily on top of her as he reached out to break her fall, or at least catch her before she hit ground. Although, whichever one he intended didn't quite matter. Both failed, nonetheless.

Red eyes watched emotionlessly as Gippal's face ranged from genuine surprise to, the less amusing, feigned planning. Both of his massive arms were on each of her opposite sides, caging her in the given area as water swished against her body mirthlessly.

His eye, she noted, was like the sea. Calming in its color, fruitless in its meaning, eternal in its swirl.

Why? Why was he a constant reminder of what she feared most?

After the extended period of silence, Paine finally noticed the descent of Gippal's head to her lips with a raised brow. Quaint, but not enough for his sake; her hand caressed his cheek…and pushed it in to the waters next to her.

"What was that for!" he cried, wiping water from his face.

"Payback." She answered simply, offering a hand to help him up.

Really, he should have seen that coming. It was a typical answer from a woman like her. Woman, he thought briefly. That's definitely what she is, alright.

Unwittingly Gippal's gaze drifted up, following the distinct line of long legs, the sway that was her thin, yet toned abdominal, and the curves that was her femininity. At first, she was just…one of the guys. And what could be better than that? There were no awkward moments or general distinctions between genders. Well, maybe a few awkward moments, but only because of personality mixing. But after the split, something inside all of them had changed.

Could a few years really make a person seem so different when they looked and acted the exact same? For Paine, he supposed so. Gippal glanced at her face, full of bewilderment at his stare, angry at the lack of a response or courtesy to at least verbally refuse the hand extended for accessible help.

Had reality sharpened the gaze in those enigmatic eyes? Or did an abrupt departure leave her angry? Seething beneath the surface of a cold exterior that didn't seem to melt against the hottest of fires?

Did Paine develop from pain?

"Tfft." The woman scoffed, her hand receding back to her side. "Obviously, you don't need any help of mine."

"Sure I do." He grinned, cheekily, her voice bringing him back to life. "I need help with lots of things just like everybody else does."

"Like what?" she rolled her eyes. Safe to say Paine didn't believe him for one second. Probably wouldn't believe Nooj or Barralai either if they quoted his words.

"Well, with lying for one." He laughed, remembering their reunion as clear as day. Paine had that effect on him to make him want to blurt out her name in utter surprise. Too bad she hadn't let him. One moment more and he would have given away their past, present and…did they even have a future? Nonetheless his blabber mouth would've escaped him only to relentlessly assault her, plague her and steal her artificial flavoring.

"Want another?"

She shifted on to her left leg, speaking of her tiring of this scene already. But Paine was known for the occasional surprise. "As much as I want Vegnagun back." Ha. Or not.

"I also need help with…" Gippal stroked his chin, still sitting in the ankle deep water as if he were on dry land. "…girls."

Her brow lifted. She didn't laugh, didn't flinch. The only thing that moved was her brow.

So he continued. "And I need help with…"

"Whose leg are you trying to pull?"

"Say what?"

Paine growled, switching legs again before running her fingers deftly through her hair. "You need help with girls?"

Gippal smiled "Sure do. Does that bother you?"

"It wouldn't if it were a true statement."

She's calling me a liar? Oh. No. She. Didn't. "I'm serious!" his palms turned up, speaking of his disagreement.

Paine shook her head and started back to the dry shore. He acts so natural with everything how could he possibly need help? She crossed her arms angrily. The idea was ludicrous. Gippal acted as if the sun rose and set with the word 'relaxation'. His only terms of worry was if he remembered to wipe his ass after using the restroom. And she was willing to bet that even that had been forsaken to the realm of relaxation.

Pleasant thought…

"Paine!" He shot up, running after her in his soaked state, water splashing around his feet, making him run slower; a seeming effort to keep him away from Paine. Even the damn ocean doesn't want me near her!

"What?" She all but spat out, turning to face him with a look that bordered on the lines of how one might feel regarding a small, immature child.

"Damn, you're hasty."

"Is that all?"

He stopped. "No. I came to defend my title!"

"What title? The one that states you're a 'flirt'? Or the one you've seemed to make up on your own?"

"…Both?"

"Tch."

"Hold on there." Gippal grabbed her arm before she could start marching away from him for the…second, was it, time. He couldn't let her go back to the group; he couldn't let this moment slip by. Gippal's time schedule was all over the place and right now, he had time, but he wasn't sure of how long that would last and he needed some kind of guarantee. A guarantee that he was in the right place; a guarantee only Paine could give him.

Paine grunted, almost breaking in to a whine before she cut it off and faced him.

"So, maybe I'm not so bad with girls…" he sighed "But I'm really no good when it comes to women."

Oh how he wish he could've laughed without the very real threat of getting socked in the mouth. Paine's face was priceless.

Bless Yevon shining upon him, he continued without missing a beat. "Because, here I am, standing with the most…amazing…woman I've ever met…yet I can't even think of a single right word to say."

Priceless emotion left the building at the end of that sentence.

In fact all emotion left the building. There were no hints of surprise, satisfaction, unease or even disgust in the lines that made up Paine. Red eyes went blank and in their reflection he saw a bleak reality that was their future.

So…we have nothing, he thought a bit solemnly, biting back the regret and pushing pride to the front.

"And that settles this discussion." He laughed, but the sour tone broke through "See? I told you I need help."

And with that said, Gippal's head hanging low, he swashed pass the ocean water, back to dry land and to the bonfire that was beginning to light up the sky fading into night. While Paine, on the other hand, still stood there frozen solid, like a rock.

When she finally moved, she gazed bleakly at the fire and ashes rising in to the beyond before crumpling to the sand, ocean water growing colder, tickling her legs as it pushed and pulled.

She scoffed. And he thinks he's bad with the opposite sex, what a joke. Paine felt so pathetic that she couldn't even muster a word to begin. What was she supposed to say? How did she start? More importantly, how did she feel?

Paine hugged her knees and shivered.

As much as I want to, I can't just leave things like this, she sighed, trudging her way up the beach.

A/N: Not interested in traffic, REVIEW or...or...I won't post chaptah two! Mwa ha ;] (not a big deal if ya don't like it, right? xD)