A/N: Okay, I'm almost positive there is some major OOC- ness going on in this chapter. I tried not to go too overboard with the emotions, but…ah well. I did what I could. I guess this is also a good time to mention that this story is AU and I have no ownership of anything but the storyline. The rest belongs to…well…you all know who it belongs to so why am I going there?
Chapter 8:
"G-Gippal?"
"She's coming to." Yuna said relieved, rubbing her cousin's arm gently. "Rikku, are you all right?"
Rikku looked at her cousin confused. "Was I just dreaming? What's going on? Where's Lelah? Is she okay?" She lifted her head up off the pillow and tried to get up off the cot she was lying on but Paine lightly shoved her back down.
"She's fine. You're at the stadium infirmary and you fainted. You're not going anywhere." Rikku knew it was pointless to argue with either of them so she did what she was told. Paine gave Yuna a look and Rikku picked up on it right away.
"Will someone please tell me what's going on? Why are you guys looking at each other like that?" She glared the best she could at both of them and waited. "Was that Gippal I saw or not?"
Figuring it was pointless to try keeping anything from her, and the fact that she had every right to know, Yuna nodded for Paine to start so they each took a seat down beside her.
"It's even hard for us to believe." Paine said, picking at her fingernail with her thumb. "But you weren't seeing things. That was Gippal you saw behind Slovak." Rikku shot back up and tried to move off the cot. Yuna and Paine continued to hold her back down. "Rikku, you need to calm down or I'm going to clock you one!"
"All right all right. Jeez." She said defeated. "I'm not gonna go anywhere." Rikku slumped back down again and sighed. "Go on"
"It turns out Gippal was responsible for Alek and Fajio." Yuna added sadly. "Slovak found him late last night on Bikanel Island. Supposedly he confessed to killing the two of them."
"That's impossible!" Rikku said shocked. "Gippal loved them like brothers! He wouldn't have done anything like that!"
"That's why she said 'Supposedly', Rikku. Of course we don't believe it to be true." Paine added. "Something doesn't fit." Nooj and Baralai came into the stadium infirmary, each with a grim face. "Guys, did you get any new information? Where's Gippal? Can we see him?"
Nooj shook his head, approaching his wife. "He's been taken to Bevelle, the tenth floor of the Via Purifico, where he'll be held until they can figure out what to make of his 'confession'."
"You agree that he has to be innocent, right?" Rikku looked hopefully at Nooj and he nodded in agreement.
"You know what they say-innocent until proven guilty" He placed a comforting hand on Paine's shoulder and she rested her cheek on it.
"You didn't answer me before" Paine noted. "Can we see him?"
"The guards at the temple said only Rikku could go see him. As for us, we didn't get to talk to him." Baralai added, making his way over to Yuna. "Slovak wouldn't let him say anything more than what he admitted, which seems a little off to me, but…I don't know."
"Then I want to see him now!" Rikku demanded, sliding herself off of the cot and onto her feet. "I'm going to Bevelle. Wherever Lelah is, please let her stay there just a bit longer." She headed for the infirmary door but Paine blocked her path.
"Rikku you can't- you're not in the right frame of mind!" She tried to push her towards the cot but Rikku resisted. "You're still dressed in your mourning clothes!"
"I don't care. I am in the right frame of mind, and I am going. Don't try to stop me!" Rikku calmed down, took a deep breath and looked at her friend seriously. "Please Paine. Let me do this. I need to see him. Just watch Lelah and I'll be back before you know it."
Paine looked at the other three in the room and they unanimously motioned for her to step aside. "All right. But be careful. You know how dangerous the VP is. Contact us if you need anything. Lelah is in good hands with your Pop." She smiled at Rikku and watched her disappear down the hallway and Nooj took her hand.
"Let's get going ourselves. It looks like the ceremonies are over, and we're not going to get any more information while we're here. Juin and Adlain must be wondering where we all are anyway." He allowed Paine to go ahead of him out of the room, following slowly behind her. Yuna and Baralai weren't far behind and the four headed for Nooj and Paine's house on Mushroom Rock Road.
XXXXXXX
Rikku hopped an airship ferry to Bevelle and arrived within minutes to the temple. Since practically everyone was still at the stadium in Luca, the homes and businesses seemed all but abandoned save for a few people here and there. Busting through the temple doors, she headed straight for the entrance to the Via Purifico but was blockaded by two Bevellian guards.
"Excuse me, but you're not allowed to enter here." The larger of the two said, blocking the way with his staff. "It's dangerous to go further, and we were instructed to keep all civilians out."
It didn't do him any good warning Rikku and she let him know it. "I was told I was allowed in there, so move it!" She stood defiantly with her hands resting on her hips. "My husband is in there, and I wanna see him!"
"Who is your husband?" The guard asked curiously.
"Gippal Arakaki" Rikku said as she tapped her high heel impatiently on the floor. They walked a few feet away from her to talk it over and check their list between themselves. They returned moments later, moved out of the way and lifted their staffs.
"All right, you could go through." The shorter one said, resuming his position as Rikku thanked them quickly and boarded the lift. The doors closed behind them and it lowered Rikku to the tenth level.
Rikku could feel her heart beating in her chest at the thought of seeing Gippal after a little over a month. She couldn't believe he did what he said he did, and like it or not she was going to find out then and there what the truth was. As she rounded the corner she noticed the new cells they had constructed since her and her friends were in there fighting Trema years ago. It was decided by the Triad that a sort of prison be set up there since there was so much empty space. It also helped being in such a scary area; the incentive of not having to go down there with the fiends and mega Ton Berries made people less likely to want to commit any crimes, lowering the rates considerably in the past three years. After passing about twenty empty cells and a few with occupants she didn't recognize, she was beginning to think she took a wrong turn when she heard a voice that stopped her dead in her tracks.
"Hey."
Her hands began to shake and her legs got weak, and Rikku slowly turned her head to the direction of the voice. At first when she saw Gippal standing by the bars of his cell she didn't recognize him; he had lost some weight, his hair was not spiked up but hung flat against his face, and because of the weight loss his epaulet didn't fit quite right. He wasn't standing straight up; it seemed as if he had trouble even standing at all. Rikku gulped and made her way over to the cell, studying her husband through the bars before acknowledging it was truly him. She placed her hands over his on the bars and gripped his hands tightly, tears instantly coming out of her eyes as she cried in relief.
"That was you I saw!" Rikku exclaimed relieved, squeezing his hands even tighter underneath her own until she saw him cringe a little from the pain. She loosened her grip and chuckled nervously. "Sorry…I'm just…so glad to see you. How are you? Are you hurt? Say something!"
Gippal didn't really react to Rikku standing in front of him; he just stood there staring at her, seemingly unable to say anything. In reality he was just as surprised to see her as she was to be seeing him. His first reaction was to grab her through the bars and kiss or hug her but the words of Slovak's warning reminded him that it wouldn't be such a good idea.
"Think of something to tell her, to convince her that you were the one responsible for killing Alek and Fajio. If you don't, there are people I have set up here and there, and they won't hesitate to kill her on sight at my command. You got it?"
"Yeah."
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath Gippal released his hands from under Rikku's, stepping away from her; his demeanor changed almost instantly and Rikku looked at him puzzled.
"Gippal? Is something wrong?"
"Why are you here?" He asked coldly.
"What do you mean, why am I here?" She stammered. "Um, I'm here for you…duh! Why wouldn't I be?" Rikku tried to look him in the eye but he kept looking away from her.
Looking at her made him weak- it made him want to gnaw through the bars, grab her and run away, but he knew what would happen if he did. Gippal tried his best to keep a gruff attitude but it wasn't easy, especially around her. He walked to the back of the cell and sat down.
"Listen Rikku, I don't know how to tell you this…" his body began to tremble as the words came out of his mouth like vomit, which was only fitting since he felt like he really did want to throw up. "…but it's…over between us." Gippal watched as Rikku registered the words and shook her head in confusion but he continued. "I guess they all told you what I did, and cuz I'm sure you probably think I couldn't have done such a thing…I'm going to tell you now that what they told you was true." Gippal took a deep breath in and continued to shake, hoping Rikku wouldn't notice.
But she did.
"That's a lie!" Rikku screamed at him in disbelief. "You're lying! I know it- you're just protecting someone! I can see it in your face that you're lying to me, Gippal!" She put a hand over her mouth in shock, and tears continued to fall. "Just tell them it was all a big mistake and we'll go home! Why are you doing this anyway?" Rikku gripped the bars, pleading for him to come to his senses but he still wouldn't look in her direction which began to frustrate her. "Gippal please…" she hung her head and brought her voice to a whisper. "You haven't even considered your daughter."
He felt like he could shatter into a billion pieces at the last sentence and could feel his control over the situation slipping away. She had a girl- he had a daughter no doubt as pretty as Rikku was. If he didn't compose himself he knew the consequences would be horrible for all of them. Either way he wasn't going to win; he knew what had to be done. Gippal stood back up, approached Rikku from the other side of the bars and finally met her tear filled gaze.
"I'm sorry Rikku, but while I was gone I just realized that I loved being out in that desert…by myself. There was no Faction, no friends, no responsibilities…no you. I could do whatever I wanted to out there. Alek and Fajio were just slowing me down, trying to convince me to come back home to you and live a boring, unhappy life running a Faction I didn't want to be shackled to." He paused, making sure she was still looking at him and continued. "Speaking of shackles…you wouldn't even let me come out to dig! My favorite thing in the world to do and you're so selfish you wanted me to stay home and miss out on all the Gil that's to be made out there." Gippal knew he'd done it when he brought her into the story; he could see she was trying hard not to break down yet again, but she was also growing angrier so he went on. "What am I to you anyway aside from some way for you to get attention? Your cousin was the one that saved the world twice and you were just hanging on, and now that that attention has waned you went for the next best thing. Me."
"Gippal shut up!" She said softly, her anger building. "I was pregnant! You should have been the…"
He went on before she could finish the sentence.
"You didn't even talk to me until we met up again in Djose. If I recall you were the one that decided when we were younger that I wasn't good enough for you so you stopped being friends with me. I was a sucker to let you back into my life."
"That's not true…I didn't…" Rikku stammered.
"I thought maybe I could forgive you for treating me like garbage but as I was out there…on my own and I got to think- I loved it…and I never really loved you." Gippal knew he was past the point of no return and there was no going back. He also knew the look on Rikku's face was burned into his brain and would haunt him from then on but he kept going. "I would have killed Slovak, but he was out looking for a place to camp. To throw him off I used the body of a corpse I had found earlier that morning that must've been there since Home was destroyed and dressed him up in my clothes, thinking the three of us were killed."
"That's when he 'found him' the first time?" Rikku thought to herself, trying to make sense of the story but having no luck. She looked back up at him, confused. "This can't be true…you can't mean everything we've been through was…"
"…A lie." He finished the sentence for her. "I just feel bad that there's a kid involved in this now. It's probably not mine anyway."
"You…MEANIE!" She screamed; she was so angry but not sure how to get the anger out. Rikku wasn't used to being so mad; her body convulsed, her hands shook, and her nose ran. She couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth and struggled to fathom why someone she thought she knew for so long had decided to turn on her. "Stop doing this to me!" She fell to her knees with her head in her hands. "Why Gippal? Why are you doing this to me? To us? To…Lelah?"
"Just get out of here, Rikku." Gippal said sternly with his back to her. "I'm tired of explaining myself, and I'm tired of looking at your crying, whiny face." In actuality, it was his own tears he didn't want her to see and he wasn't lying when he said he didn't want to see her crying because he hated seeing her cry. The fact that it was his own actions that caused her to cry made it even harder and he needed her to get out of there before she found him out. "Guards! Get this woman out of my sight already! I want to be alone!"
Within minutes two Bevellian guards came and picked an emotional, disheveled Rikku off the floor and began leading her out but she pulled out of their grasp.
"Get off of me!" She snapped, heading straight for Gippal's cell. "I hope you rot in here. How could you do this? Al and Faj loved you like a brother…at least Slovak was able to catch you. Maybe now they'll get to rest in peace." Rikku wiped her face and turned away. "I also hope this was all worth losing your family over. As far as I'm concerned you're still dead and Lelah will never ever know who you are." She ran as fast as her legs could carry her until she disappeared down the hall from Gippal's view.
Gippal, on the other hand, punched at the brick wall with his gloved hand and screamed in pain from the contact. He then slumped into the bench that was in the back of his cell and let out a sigh along with a few tears from his good eye. The guards walked back to their posts and another figure made his way to the bars where Gippal sat.
"Good job."
"Leave me alone." Gippal said angrily, holding his injured hand. "And stay away from Rikku, my daughter and my friends like you promised Slovak."
Slovak laughed heartily, leaning on the bars of Gippal's cell. "I promised I wouldn't have her killed if you did this- I didn't promise I'd stay away from her. Just look at the possibilities I have now. You know how I feel about Rikku, Gippal old buddy." He laughed even harder and Gippal rushed up to grab him but Slovak grabbed his hurt hand and twisted it around, causing Gippal to writhe in pain. "I'm telling you- don't try me. I will have her killed."
"But why go after her if you're just as willing to kill her?"
"Because I want to have some fun for all the times she turned me down for you." Still holding on to Gippal's hand, Slovak shoved the man back across the cell. "It could be so fun! I'll be seeing you. Try to keep busy in there." Slovak laughed as he walked away, leaving Gippal in the cell with his thoughts which unfortunately would not stop bringing up images of Slovak taking advantage of Rikku.
"Don't you touch her!" He screamed as loud as he could from the floor of his cell. "I'll kill you myself if you hurt her!! Do you hear me?! Dammit!"
