Gippal cringed at Paine's look of disgust. He could tell she didn't remember. Her eyes were frantic. In what seemed like one fluid movement Gippal found himself on the other side of Paine's bedroom door wearing nothing but his under garments. She slammed it hard enough to knock the wind out of him, and had every intention of doing so.

"Hey! C'mon now, Dr. P! This isn't fair," Gippal tried to reason with the stone-faced metal door. It would not budge, and neither would Paine. Sucking in a deep breath he sighed and resigned himself to the truth.

"…Look, Paine, I know this looks bad—"

"You're damn right it looks bad!" Paine was blushing furiously. This was not something she would do in public, however, for it would break her placid, sarcastic image. Had they both been naked? What kind of nocturnal nastiness had they been up to?

"Give me a chance to explain, would ya? Jeese!" Gippal was slowly losing his patience. "I… I got a little lonely last night. Decided to visit you. You opened the door yourself. It's obvious now that you were half asleep and too drowsy to remember, though."

A stubborn silence radiated from the door. This was the most she had spoken to him since he and Baralai had joined The Gullwing's quest for an ancient site filled with valuable, undiscovered ruins that they had caught word of. It was untouched, they said. It held important information on Spira's history, they said. A goldmine of machina, they said. But 'they' said a lot of things.

"Can I at least get my pants back?"

"Did anything happen?" Paine snapped.

"Like what?" Gippal played the innocent card. Paine knew this little charade well.

"Cut the crap, Gippal. Did we do anything?"

Gippal slumped in defeat. "No. No, Paine, nothing happened." The door cracked open revealing Paine's sharp, narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. An icy glare made him stumble back a few steps before he regained his composure, and what little dignity a man half-naked in public can have. "Now can I please come back in? Please?" He smiled cunningly. He liked her, maybe more than he should. He liked the quiet, reserved type. And she was sharp as a razor. The whole package was enticing but untouchable, and he had resigned to leaving it untouched. But he would be damned if he didn't play with it.

Paine sighed, letting down her guard, but not too much. She wouldn't let him in again. She had learned her lesson once before. She turned on her heel and receded back into the room, letting the door swing open loosely. Gippal advanced and grabbed his discarded pants from the ground before anything could separate him from them.

All in all, Paine mused, he wasn't bad looking. He was handsome, in fact. His eye patch made him dashing, and his blonde spikes made him wild. Gippal's skin was a deep wooden color, like lacquered oak. Paine knew every inch of that skin. She learned its scars and soft spots, its curves and slopes where his bones were knitted together. She studied him extensively when they had first met back in her foolhardy days. She learned a lot that very same year, as fate would have it. Mainly she learned to sublimate any sexual urges to her fighting techniques and abilities.

Gippal's askew smile could melt hearts. Paine was once one of those hearts; she was just another casualty. Now, her heart stayed firm and grounded where others were imbued with his fantasies. Paine leaned against her dresser, arms crossed as Gippal laced up his boots. A heavy silence hung and threatened to spill forth in a deluge of unspoken words and profanities. They stayed dammed up tightly in Paine's cheek, where she bit back the urge to allow them freedom.

For a moment, Paine was lost in thought. It was a moment too long, and gave Gippal the upper hand. He moved across the room quickly and leaned up against the dresser, pressing up against Paine and crossing into her personal space. She snapped back to attention and gave him a cold, hard stare.

Leaning in close, he whispered in her ear. "Don't you ever miss it?" His breath was baited and warm, sending unwelcome chill bumps up her spine as he attempted to debauch her unwary mind. He lingered just close enough to her that she could feel his body heat; a not-so-subtle tease.

... She lay clutching her torso, panicking. There was so much blood. It was everywhere. And it was hers, all of it. She felt her stomach clench and relieve itself of its contents, the likes of which she vomited in the toilet. Her hair wilted into her eyes and stuck to her dampened forehead, wet from sweat. The ceramic tiles were cold and unfriendly, and she was alone...

"… C'mon, Dr, P. I miss you sometimes, ya know?" Hands crept there way towards her hips. He meant it. She knew he missed her. But what had once thrived between them now lay crumpled into abeyance.

"You are one of my closest friends," Paine said. It was all she would allow. It was all that could have been said.

There was a hiss of a quick intake of breath and Gippal, disappointed, backed away. Paine watched him go without moving an inch. She winced as the door swung shut and waited for the tension in the air to go slack. Somewhere inside her, a subtle longing wilted in despair as she battled it off. Not again. She wouldn't allow herself to be sucked into such a trite situation. Paine wasn't about to get mixed up in any stupid love stories. It just wasn't her game.

"Gullvings!" Brother's thick accent came over the intercom, "rheeport to brhidge!"

Paine's heels clanked against the metal corridor floors and slowly died away into the distance.