I'll Be There For You – Chapter 2

The Past Is The Past

I groaned as the morning bell ran, signaling for everyone to get up. I showered and got dressed in a baby blue tank top and faded overalls with white sneakers. (I knew that they weren't going to be white much longer.) I put my hair up, and then halfway through the process, I let it fall down my back. 'Much better' I thought to myself as I put a hair tie around my wrist just in case, and then left for breakfast.

I sat with my crew as I helped myself to a pancake. Gippal was sitting with his other important people at a table at the other end of the mess hall. I noticed a woman sitting on his left who was practically hanging on him. As usual, he didn't notice. He never notices anything like that, especially me. I wanted to slap myself after I thought that. 'What happened to the promise I made to myself? Wasn't I not going to get involved with this?' I scolded myself.

"Hey Cid's Girl!" A male voice said, standing right in front of me.

I knew it was Gippal without even looking up. He was the only one with enough guts to call me that around here after yesterday (Yesterday wasn't pretty…) "Yes, Gippal?"

"I was going to show you where you were working. You done?"

"Yup. Lead on." I replied, setting down my fork.

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"Whoa!" I cried as I looked around my office.

"The workroom for you crew is across the hall so you don't have to run all over this damn temple. The papers of what needs to be done are on your desk, but I left them unorganized, because I didn't know how you worked best, sorry. When you finished something though, you need to turn it into me so I can tell the shipping people what machina is being to shipped to Bikanel when."

"All right, I'll get started!" I said happily, plopping myself into the chair behind my desk.

"You don't have to jump into it head first you know." Gippal smirked at me.

I rolled my eyes, "The faster I get the paper work done, and the faster I get to do the fun stuff."

"Fun stuff?" He raised an eyebrow at my statement.

"Working with the actual machina, duh!" I laughed.

Gippal blushed, "Uh… right. I'll leave you to it then. If you need me, I'll be in my office, doing paperwork. Oh joy." He grimaced when he said 'paperwork', then left my office, shutting the door behind him.

I began to read the first paper with enthusiasm, ready to get down and dirty.

Cries of anger and frustration interrupted me from the machina part that I was working on.

"Take a five minute break everyone!" I called out as I followed the cries to Gippal's workroom.

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"Why isn't this working?" Gippal cried out in frustration as I entered his workroom.

"Having some issues?" I giggled from the doorway. Gippal jumped and spun around, which made me giggle even more. I probably looked like Spira's biggest idiot, but I didn't care. Catching Gippal with his guard down wasn't something that happened everyday. Plus, it was damn funny.

"I'm just fine!" Gippal snapped, but blushed slightly, letting me know that he really wasn't angry. I giggled some more. Since when did Gippal blush so much? I shrugged it off and walked over to look at what he was working on.

"So what isn't working?" I asked him, looking intently at the machina.

Gippal snorted, "Like everything. It's something that I thought up. I thought that it would be fun to put together, but I can't get it to work."

"So this is something that you thought of in that big head of yours?" I teased.

"I don't have a big head!" Gippal sputtered, blushing again.

I shook my head, trying not to giggle. "Uh huh. Whatever you have to tell yourself Gippal. Can I take a shot at it?"

"Be my guest." Gippal replied, not really paying attention.

I began to tinker with the parts a bit, and connected a few wires, disconnected a few and reattached them to other wires and parts. I could feel Gippal looking over my shoulder. I couldn't see his face, but I bet it was something close to disbelief or shock. Within a minute or two, the machina was alive and working. I stood up, and faced Gippal.

It took all of my willpower to not burst out laughing. Gippal had this priceless stunned look on his face. Then I had to fight down a blush when he smiled at me, which sort of worked. I turned a little pink.

"Thanks a whole bunch. I forgot how good you are with machina. Now, when I can't get something to work, I know who to call!" He said, his smile widening.

I couldn't help it, I blushed. "You're just being nice to me because I'm your co-worker."

Gippal frowned down at me, his eye filled with something that looked like… sadness? "No Rikku… I meant that."

I gaped up at him. "Hey! You called me by my name…"

He laughed, a true and clear laugh, "Well, there's a first time for everything." He put his arm around my shoulders and led me out of his workroom. "Come on, let's go get some lunch."

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I was about to tell my crew that I was going to eat with Gippal, but I decided against it. I remembered that woman of his that was hanging all over him at breakfast. I didn't really want to meet her, so I sat down at an empty table with my crew. A few minutes later, Gippal came over with a worried look on his face.

"You okay, Cid's Girl? You said that you were going to eat lunch with me."

"It's not you, it's your… girlfriend. I noticed her hanging over you all through breakfast… and I don't really have any desire to meet her."

Gippal looked hurt, "I'll make her move… if that'll help."

My breath caught, would he really do that for me? "No, it's okay. I'll come."

"Cool." Gippal smiled one of his true smiles. You know, the one that makes my knees go to jelly… Yevon, he hasn't smiled like that at me for the longest time… okay, Rikku, seriously… focus. Thankfully, Gippal snapped my out of my thoughts. "Here, I'll carry your plate."

"Thanks." I smiled up at him as he led me over to the table that he was sitting at. He put my plate down in front of a chair to his right, and I put my glass of water next to it. I sat down in my new chair, and Gippal sat down in his.

"Guys, this is Rikku," he said, and then proceeded to introduce me to the rest of the table.

"Gippal…" a husky, female voice from behind me cooed. That… "voice" (if you can call it one.) sent chills down my spine.

He turned around and gave a smile, which seemed a little forced to me. "Oh, hello Amy."

"Hello… honey, it seems someone has taken my seat."

I cringed. Ugh, she called him honey? That was just revolting. But the way that she said it… it was like I was a piece of trash that she expected Gippal to clean up. Apparently, he didn't appreciate being called honey either, seeing as he grimaced.

"Sorry Amy. I wanted to talk to Rikku, and she needed a seat. I think that Laz has an empty seat next to him." He said, pointing over to a table a few feet away. Amy smiled sweetly, and fixed me with a death glare before she flounced over.

"Gippal! You didn't have to do that!" I whispered fiercely so Amy wouldn't hear me.

He shrugged, "It's no problem. I really do want to talk to you, and you said that you didn't want to watch her hang all over me. Come to think about it… she is kinda clingy…"

I gasped, and his eye was dancing with amusement. A slow smile spread over my face.

"I feel so honored…" I said sarcastically.

Gippal laughed, and I joined in. We talked about trivial things all throughout lunch. For the first time in a long while, I was content with where I was.

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Gippal surprised me even more when he walked me back to my office. "I'll see you at dinner, 'kay? I've got a whole stack of papers that need to be done before tonight, so I might as well go get started."

I laughed, "You have fun with that!"

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Like he promised, I saw him at dinner. He gave me Amy's seat again. It was actually quite funny to watch her turn redder than a fire flan, but I didn't laugh… in her face anyway.

I sighed as I lay down in bed. I tried to go to sleep, but my mind kept drifting to today… to Gippal really. His behavior was really weird today, but I'm really enjoying it. I love the fact that he's treating me like a friend, and not some kid like he usually does. But, what if he's treating me like this because he wants to be more than friends?

"Rikku, you promised yourself that you wouldn't get into this! So, keep it!" I scolded myself as I slapped my forehead. "What happened in the past is the past. What happened between us as teenagers doesn't apply to us now." With that, I turned over onto my side to catch some z's. I had given my mind a sound telling off, and it believed it.

But why didn't my heart?

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A/N: Oh so good! Yay! I updated! Don't you all love me!

I would like to thank the following people for reviewing and leaving me wonderful feedback…

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-Vincent's Angel of Chaos-