Chapter Eleven

Three weeks went by much faster, Gippal noticed, when you had someone to love. In fact, he also noticed that days melted into nights and reformed back into days rather quickly when you hardly left the bed.

Not that he minded. Gippal loved the way life was going for him. He and Baralai left the bed only occasionally, mostly for the purposes of showering when they got too sweaty and, in some instances, to eat. When they woke up, usually at the same time, Baralai would get out of bed and get the morning newspaper and bring it back to the bedroom. Gippal would yawn and stretch lazily until Baralai returned, and then they would lie together in the sunlight that filtered through the window and read about what was going on in Spira while they pleasured each other.

Life seemed to have returned to as normal of a state as it could get, considering the circumstances. People went back to work and went about their business as though nothing had happened at all. To Gippal's surprise, the people were getting over the whole wrong-sex thing very quickly, and he was rather impressed. Politically, New Yevon and the Youth League seemed to run themselves – where things had fallen apart before under the leadership, a change of sex seemed to bring all of the interim leaders to their senses. Isaaru was basically running Bevelle in Baralai's absence – in fact, much to the Praetor's delight, Isaaru had been basically ignoring him – and Lucil had taken over the Youth League. The two of them seemed to have formed a partnership and were working toward "restoring order to Spira".

Gippal was delighted to find out that the Machine Faction hadn't made any headlines, which meant that everything was going as smoothly as it always went. Gippal knew that the Al Bhed could run themselves, and he was thankful for that. He was much happier spending his time with Baralai.

In fact, in the shock of the circumstances, everyone mostly seemed to have forgotten about either him or Baralai. Once in a while someone would come to clean the loft, which seemed odd since Baralai had never before had any sort of housekeeper; but other than that, Gippal was left on his own to help Baralai recover.

He was very happy to admit that Baralai seemed to be doing very well. Where he had once held many uncertainties, Baralai was becoming passionate again. No longer did he toss and turn at night, struggling with nightmares. Gippal delighted in the fact that Baralai seemed much more at ease, and it was probably entirely his doing.

It was another lazy morning. Gippal crawled back into the bed after cleaning himself off from his morning activities with Baralai, rearranging the sheets into some semblance of order. He curled up under the plush white blanket and smiled. Never in his life had he been so lazy, but it felt incredible to be like this.

Baralai padded into the room, completely naked, his dark olive skin contrasting sharply with the white all around him. Gippal watched him, following the graceful motions of his arms as he walked, listening to the soft tapping of bare feet on the hardwood floor. Baralai still walked on his toes, moving with graceful fluidity – he reminded Gippal of a cat.

A very sexy cat.

Baralai dropped the mail and the newspaper at the end of the bed and lay down into Gippal's arms. They kissed, and before Gippal knew it, they were making love again.

When they were done, Gippal laid his head on top of Baralai's chest and spent a few long moments listening to his heartbeat. It was so gentle and soothing, and making love and then lying like this afterwards was something that Gippal never thought he could get tired of.

…but then, there was the unmistakable sound of the doorbell ringing.

Baralai sighed and brushed Gippal's hair back, kissing him on the forehead before standing up. Gippal finally decided to let Baralai get up, and then went back to curling up underneath the blankets.

He watched, smiling, as Baralai pulled on a dark brown robe and went to answer the door. Gippal reached forward and grabbed the newspaper and scanned the headlines as he waited for Baralai to return.

Just as he was reading about Rin's newest endeavor – an airship taxi service – Gippal thought he heard an unmistakable voice.

"Baralai, I really don't want to upset you, but we found this."

"A sphere?"

"Paine and I took it when we were out on the outskirts of Bevelle. We found something that we thought you might want to see."

"What does it contain?"

"You would… have to see it, really."

Their voices faded into mumbling, but Gippal could tell from any distance that that voice belonged to Yuna. He had made fun of her enough to know her when he heard her. He sighed and pulled himself out of bed – again! – and dug around in the drawer he had claimed for his own until he pulled on a loose white shirt he had stolen from Baralai overtop of a pair of his new jeans. He ran his fingers through his hair – it had grown quite long over the past weeks and he had decided to let it go. He was trying to be a girl in every sense of the word, including with the long hair. Once he was satisfied with his appearance, Gippal opened the door and walked out into the living room.

He had been correct – it was Yuna who had decided to pay a visit. She stood in the middle of the living room in a tight green shirt and baggy jeans with a gaudy blue and purple belt, holding her hands daintily on her hips.

Gippal still found it odd to see Yuna without her breasts hanging out of her shirt in some way or another.

"You're here too?" she asked, tilting her head as she looked at Gippal.

"Err, yeah, you could say so," Gippal replied, suddenly wishing that he hadn't left the bedroom.

"We're lovers," Baralai said quite nonchalantly. "Now, what are the contents of that sphere?"

"You're—" Yuna stammered, staring at Gippal. Her jaw dropped.

"Lovers," Gippal replied, allowing the coy smile to show on his mouth. "L-O-V-E-R-S."

"That's enough," Baralai interrupted, stepping forward and taking the sphere that Yuna held in her outstretched, shaking hand. "Let's look at this." He padded over to the sphere reader and inserted the sphere.

The screen faded in to an image of a graveyard. The sun was clearly shining and a soft wind was blowing through a tree in the background.

"Yuna, point the lens at the stone." It was Paine's voice.

"Oh! Of course," Yuna's voice replied.

The image on the screen shifted away from the sky, now showing the ground. The grass was green and flattened in several places, and the tips of the blades were growing brown from the heat. The image faded and focused in on a single gravestone.

Here lies Baralai, a sweet son who never had the chance to be.
He died before his time, now his life will be spent in the heaven of the Farplane.
His wings will be the whitest of all.

The image on the screen turned to static, then fizzled to black. Baralai was staring wide-eyed at the blank screen, and immediately Gippal moved to his side, taking him gently by the wrist.

This was too much. Those spheres in Baralai's apartment, and now this gravestone? Gippal didn't know what there was to do about the situation; he was mad now, because he had spent the last three weeks productively bringing Baralai back to sanity, and now this gravestone had to just show up and ruin everything.

"Lai," Gippal whispered as gently as he could.

"I just… thought you should know," Yuna said, her voice shaking. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Baralai said suddenly, his voice flat. "Just… a little unnerving."

Gippal blinked. "Lai?"

Baralai nodded to him. "Thank you, Yuna, for showing me this. It's always intriguing to find those who you share a name with."

Gippal didn't know what was going on. He watched Baralai stride forward and take the sphere from the reader and hand it back to Yuna. "Come," he said, motioning also to Gippal. "Let us sit and talk of other things. Yuna, have you heard anything of the Farplane?"

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"Is that all you think it is?" Gippal asked Baralai the moment Yuna had left. "Someone with the same name as you?"

Baralai shrugged gently. "What else could it be? I'm certainly still alive, as you can attest to."

Part of Gippal was really glad that Baralai was over all of his angst, but another part of him thought that there was something rather strange about everything that had happened since the defeat of Vegnagun. Something was seriously wrong with Baralai's situation, with the spheres that they had found, and with that gravestone. Suddenly, being the wrong sex didn't seem like very much of a problem anymore.