Rikku woke up the next day and almost forgot where she was. Finally it came back to her though. Djose Temple…oh yeah…that's where she was. It wasn't that she wasn't excited to stay at Djose temple and help with the machina, but everyone was hanging around her. Until her attacker was caught, everyone was going to stay close to her and make sure she was safe. Brother was almost glued to her sometimes and no matter how many times she told him he was in her bubble, he seemed to always want to pop it.

Rikku sighed and jumped out of bed. Getting ready quickly, she made her way to the machina room where she, Gippal, Brother, and Buddy were working.

"Good morning!" Rikku said to everyone as she entered. Everyone replied a muddled 'good morning' back to her and she pulled out the sphere machina that she had put under the work table last night. She had started to fix it yesterday but grew frustrated and tired when she couldn't get it to work.

It was a neat contraption that absolutely fascinated her. The sphere was held together by individual pieces that had been welded into a circular shape. When you pressed on one of the individual pieces, the piece was suppose to pop out, reveling little pockets that you could put anything you want into it. Secretly, she had taken a smaller version of it and had dropped the key into it. Then she had hid the sphere under a loose floorboard in her room, along with other boxes that could possibly contain a key. Someone would be searching for awhile if they actually found the loose floorboard.

The sphere she was working on now had problems with the springs and wouldn't pull out if you pressed on the right piece. Yesterday, she had had to disenable a lot of the pieces to figure out how the thing actually worked, and then how she could get it to actually do what it's supposed to.

"Someone's boyfriend is here," she heard Brother muttered irritably in her ear.

"Brother what on Spira are you talking about? I don't-" Rikku started when she saw Evander walk into the room. He was tall muscular and tan from working out in the desert. Unusual for an Al Bhed though, he had short auburn hair and deep blue eyes. She suppressed a groan and felt utterly embarrassed as she felt everyone's eyes in the room drift toward her. She folded her arms across her chest. Evander wasn't her boyfriend!

"Evander!" she said, hoping she sounded cheerful. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question. Shouldn't you be getting some rest somewhere?" he asked. He couldn't resist not giving her a more than friendly hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. Rikku's mouth twitched and her face burned as she thought of everyone staring. Gippal didn't know anything about Evander; what smart comment was he going to make when he left?

"Well, I decided to make myself useful." She said and pulled away. She had known Evander had been disappointed when she had broken up with him, but Rikku just didn't feel like she connected with him the way she thought she would when they had first started dating. Something had been missing.

"I…just wanted to make sure you were ok…I heard what happened," he said, again disappointed by her rejection. Rikku wasn't sure why she kept on hurting him. He was a great guy. Why didn't she like him?

Rikku tried to shrug it off, hoping that he would leave soon. She could feel the awkward moment building like it always did.

"No big deal," she managed to say. "I'm ok now and that's what matters."

He nodded.

"I'm going to be around for awhile so come look for me if you want to," he said and left when he knew Rikku would give him nothing more than politeness.

"Bye," she said and she let a sigh of relieve come over her when she heard him shut the door. Everyone went back to their work as if they had seen anything…expect Gippal.

"Wow, Cid's girl actually got a boyfriend with Brother on your watch, I'm amazed." He commented.

Rikku threw him, her best death glare, but her cheeks still burned. Why did she feel so embarrassed about her 'boyfriend' with Gippal?

"He's not my boyfriend!"

"I don't know, you guys looked pretty cozy for a minute to me."

"Shut up!" Rikku and Brother shouted together.

Rikku looked at Brother, and Brother looked at Rikku. Wow, for once they actually agreed on something. The tension in the room finally broke and Rikku found she was starting to smile and managed to giggle.

Now that it was back to normal, everyone began working on their projects until it was lunch time.

As they arrived at the mess hall and got their food they all began eating and talking happily. However, Rikku had noticed that Gippal hadn't lost his old charm and he was still attracting girls left and right. Rikku frowned, today however, she felt this odd feeling growing in the pit of her stomach and found she couldn't ignore it. And seeing a relatively attracted blonde girl plopping herself down in Gippal's lap didn't help it either. Even though it was rude, Rikku couldn't help but stare.

That is, until Evander came down and sat next to her. She tried to ignore the tension that was building in the air again and tried to start up a polite conversation. As they talked however, Evander had this weird look on his face and she repeatedly saw him glaring at Gippal. Maybe the scene with the girl and Gippal was too much for him to handle as well.

"Evander is something wrong?" she asked.

He snapped out of his glare and looked at her.

"No, no of course not," Evander started but his eyes drifted again to Gippal. "Well yeah something is." He started again and lowered his voice. She leaned closer to him so she could hear. "Should you- should you be hanging around Gippal?"

"Gippal? This Gippal?" she asked a little louder than she thought she did. She felt nervous as their table went quiet again. "What's wrong with Gippal?"

"What? You didn't know?" Evander asked, puzzled.

"Shut up, Evander!" Brother practically roared, now the whole room was quiet. "She's doesn't need to know!"

Rikku looked at everyone at the table, lastly Gippal who look in pain and the girl sitting on his lap that look positively horrified.

"Know what?" she asked quickly.

Evander shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "There's this rumor going around, saying he's the guy who attacked you…"

That's when Gippal almost threw the girl out of his lap and stood up. He looked angry and at one point Rikku thought he was going to jump over the table and attack Evander for the accusation. After painful moments of clenching and unclenching his fists, he stalked out the room.

Rikku was more confused than ever. Gippal was the machina fraction leader! Who would accuse him?

She must have said the question out loud with out knowing it because now everyone at her table didn't seem to want to answer it. The rest of the room went back to their business now that Gippal had left.

"Who would accuse him? Certainly I would never believe he was the one who attacked me." She stated but instead of reassurance, she got even more uncomfortable looks and they refused to meet her gaze.

"I did…?" Rikku voice trailed off. She would never accuse Gippal! Her mind raced as she thought of the previous day, trying to remember anything that would have incriminated Gippal. "It was like what you did when we were kids and you'd sneak up behind me and scare the crap out of me." The words shot through her.

"Shit!" she cursed and standing up, she ran after Gippal.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Gippal's POV:

Gippal was so glad he had gotten out of the room before he had blown up completely. He hadn't really minded Cid's remark because he was pretty sure Cid would yell at him for everything he did. For one, Gippal had not been happy to see Evander anyways. When he had heard Brother whispered "Boyfriend", Gippal had immediately disliked him, especially when he started groping Rikku. When Evander had left, he had made some smart-ass comment and then tried to force the image of Rikku in another guy's arms away. He had tried to force the protective thoughts for Rikku from him. I mean, it wasn't like they were still dating or anything. However, he had been a little relieved to hear Rikku defensively say he wasn't her boyfriend. But that brought up another question, had they dated before or were they going to?

He found that he had traveled a good distance from the mess hall and pounded the wall with his fist to get out his frustration.

Why had Evander told Rikku? He wondered how that rumor had gotten around and he was furious that Evander had brought it up. Didn't he understand Rikku at all? She meant nothing by that comment. Did Evander feel threatened by him or something? I mean, how could he? Abigail had been sitting on his lap and distracting him from Rikku. He had been glad Abigail had come over actually. The odd feelings that had stirred up as Rikku had talked to Evander had not been good. To say the lease, it had been very uncomfortable. With Abigail in his lap, he had been able to suppress it, until Evander came back. But why would Evander think Rikku meant anything to him?

Gippal shoulders sagged, the anger finally slipping out of him. Maybe it was because she-

"Gippal!" he heard a voice call out.

He turned to see Rikku running toward him, her golden hair flying behind her.

"Gippal," she said as she tried to catch her breath. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea-"

"It's nothing," Gippal said, for once waving away the problem and not giving her a sarcastic comment about her boyfriend's attitude. For some reason, he just didn't feel like it.

"But Gippal…I didn't mean anything by that comment…it was just a- just a…" she tried to explain again, guilt was written clearly across her face.

He patted her shoulder. "Really, Rikku, its nothing you need to worry about."

"But it is Gippal!" she cried but she paused as she tried to pull herself together. "I mean, I trust you, you know? We've known each other for so long and we're friends. Gippal, I know you would never try to hurt me."

Now it was his turn to feel guilty as he remembered walking away from her for the Crimson squad. He made sure she didn't see his guilt.

"Of course we're friends-" he started but was caught off guard when Rikku surprised him with a hug, her slender arms wrapping around his waist.

"-I would never try to hurt you…" he finished. He couldn't help but notice how easily she slipped into his arms. How long ago had it been since she done had that?

She looked up at him, a hug smile spreading across her face and she slowly pulled away.

"Just wanted to make sure there wasn't any confusion," she said, and he could tell that she was blushing slightly.

He smirked at her. "Aw, Rikku, I didn't know you cared." he said and to bring them back to normal he grabbed her and tried to give her a noogie.

"Hey! Watch it! My head still hurts, you know!" She cried trying to pull away.

"Oh yeah, sorry about that." He said and released her and they smiled at each other.

"Well, now that that's settled, I'm going to go work on my machina. See you later!" she said and ran down the hall.

Gippal watched her go and then headed to his office. Brother would probably be in the work room so Rikku would be watched and safe. Gippal thought of the mountain of paperwork he had to do. He had put it off this morning but knew he had to get it done sometime.

Evander starting a scene had not been the best event for Gippal. Sure he had straightened things out with Rikku, but almost his whole staff had heard what Evander had told Rikku. Even when they found out that the attacker wasn't Gippal, there might still be suspicion and until then, Gippal knew they would be careful around him. He sighed, how much of their trust and respect had he lost today? Now more than ever did he want to find the culprit!

….…………………………………………………………………………………………

Shade grumbled as Westaire stood in front of him that evening. Westaire had failed him miserably and had not been able to get the job at Djose temple. Another day was lost that he couldn't afford!

"Try again, harder! Or else the consciousness will be far worse than it was today," Shade informed Westaire, anger boiling inside of him.

He wanted power and he wanted it now!

(A/N: This chapter is a little longer but I think it came out really good and the romance is starting to form! I absolutely love this couple! Anyways, Shade is getting a little boring but since Westaire is coming into a bigger role, the action will come very soon! Hope you enjoyed it and please review