I really have felt brain-dead for the last week or so. I've had to get back into the swing of school in addition to getting better from this stupid stone. And I have to go BACK for a dye-test in two weeks, so I'm really not looking forward to that! Dammit, my IV bruises are just starting to get better, too! But I'm being screamed at by JaguarKitty and also by Deplora (a little) to update this thing, so I guess I have no choice. I've got an idea anyway. I'm so evil. Okay, okay, okay, I'm going. I really am!

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Ch 12:

I Think I Love You

"This is humiliating." Gippal of the Machine Faction leaned against the wall of a closet. He was locked inside, ducking to avoid hitting his head on the coat rack. Rikku leaned against the opposite wall, suppressing a fit of giggles. He glared at her and rubbed his eye underneath the eye patch he always wore. "It isn't funny," he told her.

          "Yes it is," she sniggered. She tried to keep quiet but she couldn't help but laugh at their situation. Now, near mid-January, she had been seeing him as often as possible since Christmas. But with Gippal being famous it was difficult to get any time alone, as groupie Al Bhed girls kept trying to track him down and drag him away. So to remedy their problem, they'd sought refuge in an empty coat closet in an unused hallway. Unfortunately, the door was locked and there was only a keyhole on the outside… consequently, they were trapped.

          "Rikku, we can't stay in here forever," he told her, shifting his head around the metal bar.

          "I know. We gotta get out of here eventually. But… it's funny!" Her shoulders shook as she laughed with her hands over her mouth. "Oh, come on. Loosen up. You gotta laugh, too!"

          Briefly resigned to his fate, Gippal sighed and slumped against the wall. Then he wondered… would he get a reception from his phone in here? It was worth a try…

          "Who're you calling?" Rikku asked as she saw a look of relief come over Gippals' face. He was very glad that he could call for help now.

          "You'll see—hey, Baralai?" He began talking to the person on the other end. "Yea, listen, I got a problem and ya gotta help me. And don't laugh when I tell you what it is, either." Pause. "I'm… locked in a coat closet in the downstairs hallway with Rikku. We can't get out." Then there was a very long pause. Gippal sat with his ear to the phone, his expression going from blank to annoyed and all the way to confused in a matter of seconds.

          "What's the word?" Rikku asked. "Is he gonna help us?"

          "It's really kinda hard to say," Gippal said. "He's still laughing at me."

          "I would be too!"

          "You are laughing at me."

          A few minutes passed, and the doorknob rattled and the closet door swung open. There stood a silver-haired youth wearing long robes and a blue headband. "Gippal, Gippal, we give you books, we give you lectures—why won't you just come out of the closet?" He said in a somewhat paternal-sounding voice.

          "Baralai, if you hadn't just saved my pathetic ass, I would strangle you with your own jockstrap," Gippal snapped, replacing his eye-patch and slipping from the closet before his childhood friend could slam the door on him. "Come on, Rikku, lets get back before everyone gets suspicious."

          "What would they be suspicious of?" She teased. "That we were makin' out in a closet?" She pecked his cheek. "Why would that make you upset? You know it's true…"

          Gippal shook his head and took her by the hand, leading her back to where they had been talking and eating and drinking before they'd made a run for a private place where no one unwanted would snap photographs.

          "By the way, Gippal, you really owe me for this one. I mean you really, really owe me. You called my away from my date with Paine. With Paine! You know how long it took me to get her to say she'd go out with me?"

          "What, a good-lookin' guy like you?"

          "I'm serious!" He snapped.

          "Okay, okay. I'll sing at your wedding, okay?" The blonde Al Bhed offered.

          "You already promised me that. After I saved your butt after you snuck into the girls' bathroom when you were thirteen."

          "Then I'll name my firstborn son after you."

          "You also promised me that. Trampoline, when we were nine."

          "I'll pay you in euphemisms," he tried, getting desperate.

          "You still owe me euphemisms from that tree incident when we were seven."

          "Then you can borrow my car whenever you want."

          "I do that anyway."

          Rikku called back from a stairwell, "You comin', Gippal?"

          "Yea, I'll be right there. Come on, Baralai, your Princess Charming is waiting for you," he tapped his friend on the arm, and ran up the stairs after his girlfriend.

          When they arrived upstairs at the bar, Paine was sitting on a stool with her legs crossed, glancing off out of a window and casually sipping a drink. She was a pretty girl with a sort of classic look about her. She kept her slivery hair cropped short, and her red eyes were piercing. She wore tall black boots, black shorts, and a black halter with a metal skull on the front. Her whole appearance would probably resemble Lulu if she didn't dress so frighteningly. She was also very quiet, and even Rikku hadn't been able to make her open up much over the course of the night.

          "Sorry I was gone a while, Paine," Baralai said in a soft voice, looking very apologetic. "I didn't know I'd be gone so long!"

          "It's all right, I was just beginning to think you'd gotten lost," she said in her own soft, low voice.

          "Ah, come on," Gippal teased. "Is his sense of direction really that bad? I mean just because he can't find his own car in an almost-empty parking lot…" he trailed off, leaving Baralai blushing furiously.

          "Fro tuh'd fa ku cusafrana da luhdehia fryd fa cdyndat?" ["Why don't we go somewhere to continue what we started?"] Rikku asked Gippal, thinking she was fairly safe from being heard.

          "Damm sa fryd oui cdyndat yht E'mm cuu ypuid vehtehk oui y bmyla du vehecr ed," Paine said, in perfect Al Bhed. ["Tell me what you started and I'll see about finding you a place to finish it."]

          "You didn't tell me you spoke Al Bhed," Baralai said casually. He'd never heard her speak it before and she never appeared to understand what he and Gippal said privately when she was within earshot. He felt his belly button drop out for the thought of what Paine might have overheard when he and his friend said in Al Bhed.

          "Yes, I know a lot more about you than you think I do, Baralai," Paine said calmly, taking another drink.

          Baralai sat down in the seat next to Paine and began talking softly to her, enough so that Gippal and Rikku wouldn't hear.

          Slightly miffed at being ignored, the two blondes left Baralai and Paine or their own devices, which was apparently just what they wanted in the first place. A few moments later when Rikku went back to pick up her jacket, she found them both sitting on the same bar stool, kissing.

          "You know, your friend and his girlfriend are over there exchanging tonsils," Rikku told him, throwing her jacket over her shoulders as they walked outside into the cold night air. Besaid, despite being an island, tended to get quite cold in the winter because it was further south. She looked up into the sky and noticed that, despite a few patches of stars, the sky was cloudy. Yuna told her earlier that it might snow.

          "Finally," Gippal said, shaking his head and grinning slightly. "Ya know, he's been after her since we were thirteen?"

          "That long?"

          "Yea. And it was me that made him ask her out. He kept talking my ears off about her. Paine this, Paine that, all the time. I told him that if he didn't ask her out, I'd solicit the embarrassing pictures I have of us when we were kids."

          "You've known each other for a real long time, haven't you?" Rikku tilted her head to one side and wrapped herself firmly in her coat. It was beginning to get a little windy.

          "Yep. We grew up together. He's not Al Bhed but his father was a missionary for the Yevonite Church in parts of Bikanel. Eventually he gave it up and Baralai stayed in South Bikanel, where I lived." He stared up into the sky. "That was before the shit hit the fan with the Guado and the Yevonite extremists and they began that little 'police action' near Home."

          Rikku nodded. All of the religious extremists, especially the Guado, hated the Al Bhed with a passion. About ten years ago, conflicts broke out, and eventually it became almost a full-fledged war. "I get it," she patted his arm. "I'm Al Bhed, too, remember?" She forced a smile.

          "It's hard to forget," Gippal said, his mood lightening. "You look too Al Bhed." He kissed her forehead just as the cold wind blew fiercely, making Rikku shiver.

          "What time is it? I gotta be home by eleven."

          "We got twenty minutes," Gippal said. "I'll drive ya home."

          "Won't it leave Baralai stranded?"

          "What's he care? He and Paine are in there giving each other a tonsillectomy."

          Rikku arrived back at home with no time to spare and decided that it would be best if she went right inside and didn't stall outside lest her father, or Brother, or worse, Yuna, got angry at her.

          "When will I see you again?" She asked just before she opened the door.

          "I'm in town another week, but after that it could be a while," he said with a sigh. "I really gotta take a break. Summer's gonna be busy, but if we schmooze your father maybe you can come with me. You can say you've got a summer job."

          "On the road?"

          "This is your father we're talking about. If you bat your eyes and call him 'Daddy,' you can get anything you want. It's the thing every Al Bhed Princess does to get what she wants."

          "Goodnight, Gippal," Rikku said, turning to open the door.

          "Hey, doesn't Prince Charming get a kiss goodnight?"

          "He will when I find him."

          "Aw, come on, Rikku."

          She turned around again to face him, still standing on the front step which gave her an extra six inches of height. She kissed him softly and would have pulled away, but a hand on the back of her neck kept her in place.

          "Rikku, your lipgloss is smudged," Yuna said upon seeing her cousin walk into the house with a loopy look on her face.

          "I'm in love," the blonde declared, sitting down at the kitchen table where Yuna had a cup of jello. Realization of the time struck her and she frowned. "What are you still doing up?"

          "I couldn't sleep. I just keep thinking," she said, screwing up her face. "But that's not important. What happened with Gippal? You say you love him?"

          "Sure I do," Rikku giggled. "I think it's destiny."

          "People who believe in destiny have very little imagination."

          "Who rained on your parade?" She snapped. When Yuna did not answer, she asked carefully, "Was it Seymour?"

          Bicolored eyes watered and she looked down into her half-eaten jello, her appetite suddenly diminishing. "I'm so mad. I can't believe he made a grab at me last month. It's just… how dare he? How fucking dare he even try it?" She clenched her fist. "No one's gonna believe me if I tell 'em."

          "You know, sexual abuse is taken real seriously. I think they'd even believe it if you said a priest was doing it."

          Yuna wrinkled her nose. "You're right. But who would I tell? Seymour's a respected man."

          "What about Auron?"

          "What would he do?"

          "Doesn't he work for the police?" She asked. "And he hasn't lived here all that long so he probably doesn't respect Seymour like other people do."

          There was a pause. Yuna was deep in thought, from the look on her face and the way she was chewing on her lower lip. "You really think it'd work?"

          "Maybe. But who would it hurt by telling him?"

          "Me, for starters. What if he doesn't believe me?"

          "But what if he does? Think about it! He could put this whole thing out of your way!"

          "What if I have to go to court?"

          "What if? It'll be worth it to get Seymour off of your back, wouldn't it?"

          There was a very long pause as Yuna assessed her options. She could stay on her feet and fight back, or she could back down and be the little mouse that she'd always been. "You know, Rikku, you're not just another pretty face," she said, giving her a quick hug.

          "Yunie, you're gonna do it?"

          "Yes, just as soon as I get the guts to say something."

          "Yunie—"

          "Okay, okay! Soon, I promise."

          "You want me to go with you?"

          "Maybe… I'll think about it." She hugged her cousin again, and dropped her spoon into the sink. "I'm going back to bed. 'Night, Rikku."

"Yunie, Valentines Day is in a week. You and Tidus planning on doing anything?" Rikku walked alongside her cousin from the parking lot to the school. Yuna was beginning to feel extremely annoyed at her cousins' constant poking and prodding into what existed of her love life. The blonde would probably bust out laughing if she found out that they hadn't even kissed yet…

          "No, Pypa, we aren't," she said as calmly as she could manage. "And if you don't stop hanging onto my elbow like that, I'm going to put it somewhere where the sun don't shine. Got it?"

          "Yes, ma'am," Rikku snorted. "You're such a killjoy, you know that? I bet if you went out on Valentines Day, Tidus wouldn't know what to think!"

          "I know. I don't want to give him a concussion, do I?" She asked sweetly, opening the door and stepping into the heat inside the school. In winter, the heat was always on inside the school, even when it wasn't needed.

          "Aw, come on. Be a sport! I hear there's a dance here Valentines Day 'cuz it's a Friday this year," she baited.

          "Rikku, the first and only dance that I went to was Homecoming and that's because Tidus asked me to go with him. And in case you'd forgotten, and certain someone who shall remain nameless really screwed that over for me."

          "Oy vey…" Rikku sighed. "All right, all right. But the least you can do is dress up nice on Valentines Day. You know, kinda like a gift."

          "You'll never stop, will you?" She sighed.

          Since it was colder, the girls had stopped sitting outside while waiting for the first bell to ring and instead sat right inside the door. Lulu was already there, waiting for them.

          "Morning, Lulu," Yuna sat down on the floor with her backpack between her knees. "You have a nice date with Wakka over the weekend?" She asked. "Where'd you go, anyway?"

          "I had to work late," she said slowly. "By the time I finally got out, there was little we could do, so we ended up just going back to my house."

          "Ooh, Lulu! Whatcha do there, huh?" Rikku squealed.

          Lulu sent her a nasty glare. "I never go anywhere without my Moomba. Don't vex me," she said in her this-means-business voice.

          "Really, Lulu, what did you do? Just talk or did you get nervous and watch a movie instead?"

          "Watched a movie. That's all," was the answer.

          "What movie?" Rikku drawled. Lulu sent her another wicked glare. The tone of the blondes' voice suggested that they had been watching something that shouldn't.

          "Victor-Victoria," she answered. "It's one of my favorites."

          "What? It's one of mine, too. Don't get defensive," Yuna said, planting her fists on her hips as she balanced herself on the balls of her feet in a crouched position on the floor.

          "I am sorry," Lulu said, looking down into her black dress in shame. "I know I've been… less than agreeable since Wakka and I started dating. It's just making me nervous most of the time. And all of those people he's normally with don't like me. They think I'm a witch."

          "You are a witch," Rikku said. "Just not the kind that they think associates with the Devil. You know, like those crazy witch-hunters from four hundred years ago."

          "I didn't make a pact with a Devil. I'm smarter than that."

          "They're just stupid is all," Yuna said. "The only reason they fear Black Magic is because they don't know about it. I bet if they knew a little more, they wouldn't think you were so scary. Or me, for that matter, even though my magic is White Magic."

          "Think the same thing could work for Al Bheds?" Rikku asked with dry humor in her voice. "I bet if they knew the hellhole that is Bikanel now, they'd think otherwise about us."

          "Shh!" Yuna smacked her hand over her cousins' mouth. "Not so loud! I'm serious; there are some severe extremists around here. The only reason they aren't coming after me and Lulu with knives is because they're afraid the Devil will come up out of the ground to avenge the death of his earthly vessel!"

          Rikku moved her head so that she could talk around Yunas' hand. "D'you guyz ftay awake at mights finking about dis kinda shtuff?"

          "We've had many years to think about it, Rikku," Lulu said. "It's the sad truth that around here, unless you're Yevon Catholic, you're considered a Devil's plaything."

          "I like that analogy," Yuna rolled her eyes. A final bell rang and she let go of Rikku so she could get her backpack on and get to class. "I gotta run. I have a fountain to finish and two vases to glaze. Don't expect to see much of me this morning."

          In the art room, Tidus was having an argument with a lump of clay that kept warping no matter what he did with it. Rikku was sitting across from him, absorbed in her own project.

          "You thinkin' of takin' Yunie to the Valentines Dance at school?" She asked after they'd worked in silence for a few minutes.

          "After what happened at Homecoming? Hell, girl, are you nuts?" He smashed the clay with his fist. "Damn, this keeps warping!"

          "Yunie says stoneware does that. Try the red stuff or the white stuff. Or both at once." She sighed, changing the subject from school to personal. "You never take her out anywhere!"

          "Not true. Last week we went to see a movie. And Saturday we took a boat down to the pond in the park."

          "Did it sink?"

          "Like a lead weight." There was a long pause as they both briefly went back to their work. Then Tidus lowered his head and voice, leaning over to whisper, "Hey, Rikku, I gotta ask you something."

          "Whatcha wanna know?"

          There was another hesitation before he asked, "Do you know if Yuna has a favorite song?" He hoped to Yevon, despite his lack of belief in it, that Rikku knew the answer. The girl was in thought for a while before she answered.

          "I'm pretty sure it's, 'I Think I Love You' by David Cassidy. Yea, that's the one. She listens to it all the time. Why you wanna know? You gonna stand under her window and serenade her?"

          "Actually, I had a different idea, but that's not a bad one, though," he said, weighing his options. "Nah, I think I'll stick with my plan. That way everyone will know."

          "Know what?" Rikku asked, beginning to get very worried. Tidus only grinned. "Everyone's gonna know what?" She asked again.

          "Oh, nothing, Rikku. You'll find out eventually," he said. Then he winked.

          "Dammit, Yunie's gonna kill me."

          "Relax. If something happens, tell her it was all my idea."

          "It is your idea!"

          "So no worries, then." Then he winked.

          And so the week dragged on. Thursday surprised them with snow, but it was barely enough to cover the grass. Despite being an island, Besaid got a considerable amount of snow each year. Where Tidus had lived in Zanarkand, the heat of city lights and passing cars and so many people and machines made any snow that fell melt before it could stick.

          Wakka drove his car up to Lulu's front door. He'd told her that he was going to drive her to school since her car didn't do well in the snow. She had agreed, even though the accumulation of snow was barely a few inches. Three at the most. When she came to her door and saw him there, she noticed that he didn't have his things with him.

          "Wakka, where are your things?" She asked. "What's going on here?"

          At this the redhead smiled. "Put that stuff back inside, ya? Grab a purse and lets get a move on. We skippin' school today, ya?"

          "Wakka you can't be serious!" She said, eyes wide. "We'll get caught! We'll get into trouble! We'll—"

          When he took her hand and began to lead her down the steps and to his car, she felt her normally hard resolve melt. There was something about his somewhat goofy goodwill, his overly optimistic nature, and his general demeanor, so opposite of her own, that she found impossible to resist.

          "Lu, please? For me?" He asked.

          The mage sighed heavily. She wanted to. But she didn't relish getting into trouble. It was a difficult choice…

          "Where are we going?" She asked.

          "Wherever the wind may take us," he told her with a wink.

          "Can we… go for a walk in the cemetery?" She asked, immediately wishing that she hadn't asked. What would he think of her, wanting to go into a cemetery on a date?

          "Sure," he shocked her with his answer.

          "You don't mind?" She asked as she belted herself into the front seat of his car. She wondered why he was so calm about it. A Yevon Catholic in a graveyard of his own free will? "Are you sure you don't mind this?" She asked him a second time as they car stopped in front of the cemetery gates.

          "Lulu, I come here all the time," he said. "I come here whenever I need to talk to someone or whenever I have a problem."

          "To whom do you talk?"

          There was a pause again as he thought of an answer. He looked down at his feet then off to the left before he replied, "This is where my brudda and my parents are buried, ya? Whenever I gotta tell someone somethin', I come here an' tell them."

          "That's sweet," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. Muscles tensed briefly under her hand and he quieted.

          "You think so? Most people would be scared, ya? That I cone here an' talk to the dead?"

          "To each his own. Most people come to a graveyard at night to be scared and tell ghost stories. But during the day… it's peaceful. I don't think of it as death. I just think of them as sleeping. And for most of them, by the time they're buried, they're glad to rest."

          Yuna was very worried. She knew that Seymour would be out of school with a nasty flu today—he'd had to take leave earlier the day before because he fainted dead away in the teachers lounge at his lunch. She had no worries about that. But she had let Rikku talk her into wearing a skirt to school among other things. It was a short one but she balanced it out with her tall boots and knee socks. She stood in the bathroom at school examining her reflection. Black skirt, black boots, black socks, and a blue blouse—she felt so girly it made her sick. But she was resigned—she knew Tidus would like it. Rikku had asked point-blank what he would think if she wore a skirt to school, and Tidus said without smiling that he'd have an orgasm in his shorts and then faint.

          Tidus, meanwhile, was getting set up in a closet where he could make a PA announcement later. He'd caught a glimpse of Yuna as she walked into the building this morning, and he nearly did what he'd told Rikku he'd do if he saw Yuna in a skirt. He couldn't wait for later when he would make his announcement, which Yuna would understand and no one else would. At least, he hoped.

          Art class was normal that morning. Yuna was busy rolling out long strips of clay, and Tidus sat in the back with her, since all he was doing was glazing a project and making a colossal mess of his hands and shorts.

          "I don't see why you don't wear long pants," Yuna said, adding the strips onto a flat, round surface of clay. "You'll catch your death in pneumonia wearing shorts like that all the time. Pass me that bowl of water please?"

          "You're wearing a skirt—not that I'm complaining or anything!" He said quickly not wanting her to change into something like sweatpants.

          "Tall boots and knee socks balance it out. In reality, just a little leg is showing," she told him, scrunching up her face as she tried to get the sides of her project even.

          "Better than nothing, I guess," he said very quietly.

          "What was that?"

          "Nothing, nothing," he was quick to reassure.

          "Uh-huh…"

          Later on the bell rang to signal the end of first period. Yuna didn't see Tidus heading upstairs to their second class and she began to worry. Whenever he didn't come right away, it meant something was going to happen. He wasn't there for the first five minutes. Then ten minutes. Then twenty. Then half an hour of second period went by and there was still no sign of him and she began to worry. Then there was a sound on the PA like someone was about to make an announcement, but instead of an administrators' voice, she heard a very familiar voice say, "You know who you are, and this is for you." Then the speaker began to sing. And he was very good.

          "I'm sleeping, and right in the middle of a good dream, like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking on my brain. Before I go insane, I hold the pillow to my head and spring up in my bed and scream the words I know I dread: 'I think I love you!' Hey, I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love that there's no cure for. Hey, I think I love you. Isn't that what life is made of? Though it worries me to say I have never felt this way…"

          Yuna tried her very best not to look surprised. All at once she realized who the voice was, since she knew right off the bad it was not the original David Cassidy version of "I Think I Love You." It was Tidus! How was he doing this? Didn't he care that he'd get into a lot of trouble? Or did he bribe the office? Her head was spinning and suddenly the music stopped and she heard a very quiet four-letter word muttered.

          "Reina, you're in a shitpot of trouble!" A voice said, and suddenly the PA was cut off.

          For the remainder of the day, Yuna neither saw nor heard from Tidus. After a while she deduced that he'd gotten an in-school suspension for his stunt but she desperately wanted to thank him for it. No one had ever done something so sweet for her before. He was the only person besides Kimahri, other Ronsos, or her own family members who had shown her any kind of kindness at all. And he kept trying to top himself.

          Even after the final bell rang, there was no sign of Tidus, so Yuna sat down on one of the stone benches outside the exit of the school to wait for him. Rikku soon found her.

          "Yunie, what's up? What're you waiting for?"

          "I want to see Tidus. If you wanna go home, you can take the bike," she offered her keys and Rikku stared at them.

          "My cousin is offering me the services of her bike?" She asked in a genuine shock. Then she decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Okay, but threaten me."

          "What?" Yuna asked.

          "Threaten me! You always threaten me when I borrow your stuff. If you don't I'm gonna wonder if you were abducted! I mean you always threaten me! So please, just to ease my sanity?"

          "If you crash that bike into anything, I will skin you and use you for that new pair of boots you've been telling me to get."

          "That's better." She turned and started for the parking lot. "Bye, Yunie!"

          Time passed, probably close to half an hour, and Yuna began to wonder where Tidus was. Finally, she saw him coming out of the front doors, and as soon as he was out and the door closed, he turned around a flipped the bird to whomever was inside.

          "Son of a bitch," she heard him growl.

          "Tidus?" She said softly. He turned and covered his mouth, ashamed of what he'd said. "What happened?"

          "ISS. Lucky for me it was just one day." He sighed. "I wanted to sing the whole song for you. Rikku said it was your favorite."

          "It is." Now Yuna paused, looking down at her boots. Then she looked up, looked around to see if anyone was watching them, threw her arms about his neck and kissed him.

Finally! Not only have I posted after a month's absence, but I also got into the Tidus-Yuna fluff. I know my summary said that this would have all pairings, but I've decided to have Tidus-Yuna be the main pairing. Please don't attack me. If you really want it I can write another story with other pairs but not until this is done. But I really am going to try very hard to get the next chapter out soon. It'll be Spring Break, and I've been thinking about this one a LOT since I started this story. Okie smokie? Oh, and one more thing—review!

The song "I Think I Love You" is copyright of David Cassidy.