-Chapter Four-
Miss Clever
A/N: Yay! Reviews! Loads of thanx to you guys who reviewed! You're the reason I write this, if that now makes any sense to you..;D However… let's start!
The day past by very slow. Rikku just sat there and looked at her wounded guide slash take-apart-machina-and-rebuild-them-again-teammate the whole day.
When it was getting late she fixed a little bed with the mattress, a blanket and the only pillow to Gippal.
"Here…Sleep – but remember this: if it wasn't for that eye, I'd let you sleep outside…" she said tiredly "It's not that I pity you, just…"
"…" Gippal opened his eye and looked at her "You're being nice for a change…Why? You actually pity me?" he grinned and held his hand over his eye with the sock over and with Rikkus help him lay down on the mattress and put the blanket over him.
"You've lost your ear too? I said that I DON'T pity you.." Rikku yawned
He didn't answer, he just gave her a tired smile and fell asleep just a little while later.
Rikku sat down a little bit away from him and closed her eyes. If she fell asleep some stupid machina could come in and stick out Gippals other eye too. And do other meanie things too…But if stayed awake she would be really tired the next day and she would have to work all by herself…Darn…
She looked at the sock that lied over Gippals eye. It was soaked in blood now. "Yeew…"
Then she closed her eyes and tried to get some rest.
"Rest, not sleep!" she said to herself. But of course she fell asleep. Right away.
.-.-.-.-.-
When she woke up the next morning she looked around in surprise, trying to remember where she was. Then she saw the sleeping Gippal and remembered.
He snored a little and said something in his sleep, but he lay with his back facing her so she couldn't hear what.
"You," Rikku yawned as she gave him a little push. But then she changed her mind. "I'll just let you sleep…you should be grateful…"
She crept out of the tent to find out that it was a dull and boring day. And she had work to do.
"Oh poopie…" Rikku whined as she started to walk towards the Djose Highroad were all the machina was gathered, shivering because of the cold winds. When she came there she saw Gippals little toolbox, standing there on the ground, so she got started right away.
It was a tough job, but she had no other options than do it herself. The al bhed hater wouldn't feel any pity for her anyway so it was no meaning in telling him that she had to do it alone. Maybe he'd thought that was funny and she wasn't going to let him laugh at her. No way!
Four hours later she was so tired that she barely could stand up, so she decided to stop. She had done quite well, and she smiled proudly to herself.
She leaved the toolbox on a little rock and started to walk home again. Gippal had to be awake now!
.-.-.-.-.-
And he was. But he looked as if he was sleeping, or it looked more as if he was…dead, because he lay down on the ground with an empty look in his eyes, uh…eye.
Rikku looked at him, trying to decide if she should continue to be nice, or be a real meanie again. She decided to be a little bit of both, just in case.
"Umm," she started, just to get his attention, and then she asked him how he felt. No answer. So she tried again. "How's your eye…?"
Now Gippal twitched and looked at her. His face was pale and the arrogant smile of his wasn't dancing on his lips, like it used to.
"Oh," he said, voice barely above a whisper "It's you…" After his cold words he turned around so that all Rikku saw of him was his back.
"Fine," she snorted, but deep inside she felt almost hurt by his cold attitude "But don't come running and crying to me later!"
Rikku snorted and went outside again, and sat down on the cold ground.
"Here I am, trying to be nice, and he just ignores me…" Rikku thought angrily as she regretted that she'd been so nice.
She sighed and looked up at the sky, trying to decide what time it was, but she had never been good at that sort of things and today you couldn't even see the sun. But it couldn't be that late, could it?
"Might as well rest here before I get back to…work.." Rikku decided. So she closed her eyes and sighed again.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Rikku rested for about half an hour, and then she tiredly walked back to Djose Highroad to take some machina apart.
It was quite many left, and she sighed just at the thought of continue doing this.
Just as she found Gippals toolbox and walked up to it, she heard footsteps behind her.
"G..Gippal!" She turned around to see who the footsteps came from. And when she saw who it was, she wished that she'd never turned around. It was Beren, Beren the mean Al Bhed hater, Beren the total meanie, Beren the...She shook her head, trying to get rid of all the hate thoughts.
"Oh…You…" was all that she said before she turned around again. "Ohhh! Poopie, poopie, poopie!"
Beren didn't seem to care about Rikkus cold attitude because he just asked her where Gippal was, even though his voice sounded a bit of annoyed.
Rikku felt how a drop of cold sweat started to run down her forehead when he asked that.
"He's…um…You mean the Gippal that was with me?" she nervously said, still with her back towards Beren.
He didn't even answer.
"Uh…So…I suppose that he's the Gippal you mean, then…" she continued and took a deep breath. Might as well tell him. "He's...in the tent…resting. Something happened to…his eye."
"To his eye? What?" she could feel Berens eye boring into her back.
Rikku sighed and turned around, she told Beren what had happen and led him to the tent. She waited outside when he got in it.
A couple of minutes later, he came out again.
"I'll take him with me. That eye doesn't look good." he said to Rikku without looking at her. Rikku frowned. Did he care about Gippals eye? The mean al bhed hater?
"Because…" Beren continued. "So there is a because…Then I see…" Rikku thought and nodded at Beren to continue. "Well, if we don't fix that eye he won't be able to work at all, will he? So then I guess it leaves us no choice but to help him."
Rikku nodded again, trying to hide a smile. Then she helped Beren to get Gippal out of the tent, and Beren took Gippal to the Crusaders headquarter to fix his eye.
.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Rikku decided to stay at the tent for the rest of the day. Gippal would come back soon and then he would be able to work again.
Rikku wondered what he was doing but shook her head and gave herself a little punch in her head.
"I don't even know him…" she sighed "..but still…It seems like I've known him for soo long..as if we were childhood friends or something…" She closed her eyes and tried to remember, but all she came to think of was a mean kid who always had stolen her ice cream, and his name had been…uh…Not Gippal anyway…
"I wonder if he's OK…?" Rikku thought out loud and opened her eyes again. Then she rememeber that she had to fix the tent.
"Sure is a problem…" she said as she went inside and started to fix the 'bed'. Now when Gippals eye would be fine, he could as well sleep outside. "He's the one who forgot his tent, not me," she thought when the guilty feelings started to show their ugly faces "and besides I took care of him the whole day and whole night…"
She fixed the last things, and then she went outside again, just in time to see Gippal coming towards the tent.
Rikku looked at his face. What was he wearing..? A…eye patch? Wasn't he too old to play pirate? She just continued staring at him, as he came closer and closer.
"What should I say? Should I say anything at all…?" Rikku didn't even know if she should look worried, angry, happy or sad so she continued to look totally emotionless as she shook her head and opened her mouth to say something.
"Well…How…When…Yeah…Uh…" she started and tried not to stare at the eye patch. Gippal chuckled a tiny chuckle and looked back at her.
"This is the kind of eye patch the Crusaders use when they get their eyes ripped out or damaged…" he said with a ironic smile on his lips.
"Ripped out or damaged…? It was THAT bad!" Rikku stammered something and tried to figure out what she actually SHOULD say.
"I didn't think," she started, cautiously, not wanting to say anything stupid "That it was…It's that bad?.." Her voice trailed off and she got back to stammering again.
"Yeah…" Gippals chuckle stopped and his face became serious. "Might take a while getting used to be half blind…"
"Half blind!" Rikku choked out, completely forgetting about the whole 'being-careful-Not-to-hurt-gippals-big-ego' thing and her face changed from emotionless to worried.
"They said that they eye got…" he stopped, trailed off and took a pause trying to find the right words. "That they eye got…infected" he finally said and started to grin the ironic grin again.
"I-i-infected…? R-really…?" Rikku said, voice nervously trying to stay as normal as possible.
"Yeah, infected," Gippal sighed "Infected by your sock, miss clever"
.-.-.-.-.-
Flushing at her new nickname and the fact that her 'taking care of Gippal' had resulted in Gippal loosing half his sight, Rikku looked down on the ground in panic.
"God! He's half blind because of me! What the heck should I do now?" Thoughts rushed around in Rikkus head in ultra speed and some of them managed to stay in her mind long enough for Rikku to actually understand them. ´
'Poor Gippal…Because of me…' was one of them, and Rikku felt how her head turned even pinker.
"What's the matter, Cid's girl? Making me loose half my sight isn't that bad, is it?" he grinned playfully and walked up to her.
"Then I don't have to see you as much as before" he added and put his arm around her neck, chuckling.
Rikku though, was too busy to notice that, busy thinking about Gippals reaction of this whole mess.
"He doesn't even tell me that he hate me? Doesn't yell? What's the matter with him? Did his BRAIN get infected, too?"
But then his words finally made sense to Rikkus brain, and it didn't take long until Rikku jumped away from Gippals hold of her and stopped pity him.
"What did you say!" she said, upset, and put her hands on her hips. "You're going to regret that, trust me!"
Gippal just chuckled and shook his head. Against her own will, Rikku found herself admiring Gippal. His eye was totally ruined because of her, and he didn't even show a sign of being angry and sad, not even one of them. Should she keep acting normal too? Maybe it was better that way? He might…well, not forget but…think less of this mess if she did?
Rikku decide to do so, so she told Rikku that she was changing to her jammies and went inside the tent and started to change and fix the last things with the bed for the night. When she was ready Gippal came in, looking surprised at the sight of the only bed.
"You mean…that we're going to sleep in one bed?" he asked, slightly blushing.
Rikku blushed and threw a pillow at him. "What do you think about me? I'm not crazy!" she said, and laughed for the first time since she'd came here. "You're sleeping outside!"
Gippal looked at her as if he was trying to understand if she was joking or not. When Rikku gave him the pillow and the extra blanket he understood that she wasn't joking at all.
"Sleep tight!" Rikku grinned as she shut the tents opening, before Gippal had the time to complain, and lay down on her bed with a big smile on her lips. But later that night she had some really bad dreams about a sock, an eye, a Gippal and a Rikku...
A/N: Yawn..This "fix-machina-thing" is SO getting boring! But I promise you that it will end in the next chapter, and then the story will be a lot of more funny! ;) So look forward to it, k:p And UOGH! I made Rikku a total jerk without feelings! --'
However….I'll be back soon:p
