Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Final Fantasy x-2.

A/N: I sincerely thank everyone who has reviewed! You're reviews mean a great deal to me, and thank you all sooooo very much for reviewing! You guys are totally the best!

Also, Gippal is really not meant to sound like a bastard! So please! Please don't think of him as one…yet anyway!

Let's continue with this week's story…

Chapter Eleven

Brevity is the soul of wit

"No! I'm telling you, Gippal, I won't allow you to leave now!"

"You're right, I won't leave now." Gippal said. "I'll leave at dawn."

"And just what does your wife think about this? Does she even know that you plan to leave her?"

"Nope, no yet. I'll speak to her when I find her, which is kinda hard, since she hides whenever I'm in the same room as her."

"Except at night." Chandos said with lowered brows.

"Yep."

Chandos threw up his hands. "I'm going to breakfast now."

To Gippal's surprise, Rikku was seated at the breakfast table when he and his dad entered the small breakfast room. She was wearing what he how recognized as the ugliest top of her three clothes, a dull brown wool that could have had no style the day it was conceived. On her head sat a cap of bilious yellow.

She looked up briefly, nodded, then lowered her head again to her place of food.

Chandos looked from one to the other, and announced: "I think I'll breakfast a bit later." He left, a brief prayer on his lips that his son would bend one way and Rikku wouldn't run.

She looked like a pinched, pale, very homely shadow. Except for those awful spectacles that brought everything into sharp focus. He suppressed the unacceptable feeling of guilt and set himself to his chair. He sat back in his seat and folded his arms over his chest.

"G'morning, Rikku."

"G'morning, mist…Gippal."

"I'm glad you've remembered."

"Thanks."

He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled. Instead, he said: "D'you think you'd be with child?"

Rikku dropped her fork. She wanted to hurl her cup of very hot tea into his face. She wanted to scream the best of her abuse at his head. She said in a low, tight voice: "Maybe. You've done you're 'duty' after all."

"That's quite a number of words you've strung together." Gippal said. "Glad ya realize I deserve more than a nod or a shrug from ya."

"Oh yes." She said. "You deserve soo much more."

Gippal frowned. Her voice was flat, utterly emotionless. Didn't the woman have a shred of feeling? But perhaps her words had a shred of sarcasm?

"I'm leaving in the morning."

"Okay. Good Luck."

"Don't you care when I'll be back, or where I'm going?" His tone was irritable, his words wicked, and he knew it.

"Nope." She said. She began to spread the soft sweet butter on a slice of bread, concentrating to her full powers on the strokes on her knife.

His hands clenched, and he said in a nasty voice: "I'll visit you tonight. I don't wanna be careless with my…duty, now do I?"

Rikku felt her heat plummet to her toes. Her period had come. Yevon, what was she gonna do? It was time to attack, she knew it. "You know what? Why don't you just leave today, Mister Gippal? The weather is purrfect, don't ya think?"

Gippal regarded her in thoughtful silence. He supposed that a homely, very dowdy female would feel some bitterness about her looks, but this very agile sarcasm? It didn't seem right on her hunched shoulders. Somehow it didn't fit her dull character.

Rikku realized she'd make a mistake. She bit her tongue.

Idiot! Don't give him reason to question you, to bait you into anger. Don't give him a reason to stay here!

She tossed her napkin beside her plate and quickly rose. "Maybe I'll see you later, sir." She said, and nearly ran from the room.

Gippal sat quietly, looking at nothing in particular.

What the hell was the matter with her? Dammit, I'd picked her instead of her sisters, given her a house, given her consequence. And she hated me. And I did treat her well at night. Didn't embarrass her or insist upon seeing her naked or demand that she touch me. Maybe I'll leave today after all.

Two hours later, Grunyon interrupted him in his bedroom. "Mr. Gippal, Otis tells me that you have a visitor. It's Lord Lazarus."

"Holy Chocobos." Gippal said blankly. "Hmm…haven't seen him since the macarina was cool."

He joined his dad and Lazarus in the smoking room.

"Gippal, old pal." Lazarus said, coming forward to clap his friend on his shoulder. "You're now a married man. Congrats. About time, I'd say."

"You say, Laz? You only arrived on Spira one year before I did."

"Some of us fellows mature more quickly, Gippal." said Lazarus, his dark green eyes twinkling. "Where's your wife? I'd like to meet this lady who pulled you into marriage."

Lazarus frowned at the sudden silence. He heard Chandos clear his throat, but still Gippal stood there like a stupid puppet.

"Where's Rikku?" Gippal asked finally.

"I don't know." Chandos said. "I sent word to find her, but no one knows where she is."

Gippal remembered the awful scene at breakfast and imagined that Rikku had indeed escaped.

"Rikku." Lazarus said. "A very nice name. Who's her family, Gippal?"

"Her dad's Cid, the leader of the Al Bhed. She lives at Bikanel Island, close to the Sanubia Desert until a few good weeks ago."

Lazarus felt at least a score of questions hovering, but he held himself silent. Not in front of Gippal's dad. There was a mystery here.

At that moment, Rikku slithered into the room.

Gippal cleared his throat. "Rikku." He said in his most pleasant voice. "Come in! I'd like you to meet Lazarus. Laz, my wife, Rikku."

Not a clue of his thoughts appeared on Lazarus's face. "My pleasure, ma'am." He said smoothly, and raised Rikku's hand to his lips.

When he straightened and smiled down at her, she realized he was even of Gippal's size. Warily she met his eyes, but saw no distaste in them; she saw only pleasure and intelligence. She ran her tongue over her suddenly dry mouth, terrified of his perception and muttered: "Yeah, it's nice to meet you. Lazarus."

She sent an agonized look toward her father-in-law, and obligingly, Chandos said in a very relieved, quite loud voice. "Let's have a drink now."

"S'cuse me." Rikku said, retreating. "I don't drink, I…" She quitted the room before anyone could say a word.

Lazarus said thoughtfully when Chandos handed him the snifter: "Let's drink to your marriage, Gippal."

They did.

It was close to thirty minutes later before Chandos left the two longtime friends alone.

"I thought I was gonna see you in Luca."

"Ah…soon? You're bringing Rikku with you?"

"Nah, Rikku stays here, that is, she wants to stay here, in the temple—she likes it here."

"Right…" Said Lazarus. He waited, but there seemed to be nothing more forthcoming. "I guess you'll tell me soon."

"There's nothing to tell." Gippal said.

"Probably nothing of interest." Lazarus agreed, his deep voice sounding lazy and bored.

"How long are you gonna stay?"

"But I just arrived, Gippal."

Gippal gritted his teeth. "You know what I mean, Laz!"

"Oh right, I understand. But this love—

"Whoa, whoa! This ain't a love match!" Gippal said harshly, breaking into this fascinating chatter on Lazarus's antecedents.

Lazarus shot him an odd look, then said mildly. "I brought a suitcase, Gippal. I planned to spend the night, but if you don't want me too, then I'll leave."

"Naw, Stay. We'll leave to Luca together, tomorrow. What do ya say?"

"That'll be pleasing, no doubt."

Rikku was standing by the window of a small room that faced the entrance. She saw the two men stroll companionably outside. She could imagine how Lord Lazarus would treat her if he had to suffer looking at her a second time. He couldn't hide his true feelings again. But he had looked at her in such a strange way.

She saw Lazarus throw back his head and laugh at something her husband said. Had her husband made a joke about her? No, he wouldn't have. She turned away for the small window, her shoulders hunched.

She pretended to be sick that evening and stayed safe in her room.

Viola, eyeing her when she brought her a tray, wondered just what this sickness was. Rikku was pacing about, looking alternately flushed with anger, than pale.

"I'm not gonna let him do it, not again!" Rikku said aloud to her empty room several hours later. "No way."

It was more than that, she knew. If she stayed and he visited her, she would have to tell him that she was far from pregnant. She would have to tell him about her period. The end result of such a confession left her mind blank.

She molded a fat bolster under the covers of her bed, and made her way to the same small room she'd went to that afternoon.

When Gippal quietly entered her bedroom three hours later, he was more drunk that he cared to admit, but his determination was profound. It took him several moments to realize that the bolster wasn't a woman. He stared down in the darkness, his hands feeling the damn bolster as if it were a woman's leg.

He'd asked nothing of her, damn her! He'd given her everything any woman could possibly want. His sexual demands required just ten minutes of her precious time. And she didn't have to do anything save lie there like a damned log while he did all the work.

He was about to run around making a scene when he realized that Lazarus and his dad were in the temple. It would cause the most outrageous scene. He could just hear Lazarus's lazy drawl. "That's odd, Gippal, old man. You say you thought a bolster was your wife? She's hidden from you, I hear you say?"

He swallowed.

It didn't occur to him until he was lying in his own bed; the room spinning dizzily when he closed his eyes that it was probably that she had unintentionally spared him male embarrassment.

He felt dead, all of him. Not even a twinge of life.

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Both men left the following morning, each nurturing a hangover.

Gippal didn't bid his wife good-bye. She was nowhere to be found.

Rikku watched their leave-taking from her post in the little room.

Whew! Finally…

Her father-in-law was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.

"Good morning, Rikku." He said quite pleasantly.

"Hello!" She said.

"Did you sleep well Rikku, in your hidey-hole?"

How did he know?

She elevated her chin. "Yep! I sure did."

"Gippal's gone, Lazarus with him."

"Yeah I know, I watched them leave."

"And that's why you finally are showing yourself?"

"I'm hungry."

"And something of a coward also. I do know about your charade, yes I do. I've seen a picture of you, painted by Sister just a year ago. My question is: why your elaborate charade? I guess that Gippal met you as you are now."

Rikku, at the end of her tether, waved his fist at him and shouted everything to him.

After her little screaming match, Chandos absently rubbed his chin. "I gather, then my dear, that you maintained the façade in order to …sicken Gippal enough so that he would leave you quickly."

"Correct." She said in an acid voice. "And it worked. But…" she lowered her head. "I don't know what to do now!"

"Of course you do, my dear." He said very gently.

Rikku pulled off the offending spectacles and glared at him.

"Yes, that's a start."

"Well?" she demanded.

"You, my dear Rikku, are in charge of this temple since Gippal has left. There's no one to gainsay you, not a mum not a dad. This is your home. These are your workers. You can, as a matter of fact, do exactly as you please."

She stared at him for a moment, his very clam words sinking into her befuddled brain.

She said very slowly, her brow nit in thought. "You're right. I can do exactly as I want, can't I?"

"Absolutely." Said Chandos, hope flaring.

Rikku gave him a quite dazzling, beautiful smile. She pulled the cap off her hair and flung it to the floor. She stomped on it.

She next pulled the pins from the severe bun and shook out her thick hair.

She burst into merry laughter. "Woo hoo!" She threw the spectacles into the air, and when they landed. She ground her heel into the lenses.

Rikku threw her arms around Chandos's neck. "You're a wicked old man!"

"And you, my dear daughter, are a minx."

Rikku laughed gleefully, and didn't hear Chandos say under his breath. "My poor son. You don't have a chance, not now."

He wondered how long he should allow Gippal to absent himself. Well, he would just wait and see how Rikku settled in. Then he would decide how to bring his son about.

As for Rikku, didn't she realize that her husband would return? He wondered what she would do when that realization struck her between the eyes, as it would, sooner or later.

TO BE CONTINUED…

A/N: I've had a lot of questions about when Rikku is going to finally reveal herself, and I've already written a couple of chapters ahead AND she will reveal herself in Chapter 13: All Hell Broke Loose.

Yes, that will be the chapter when everything happens, and the fun will begin! Until then, thank you guys again so very much for reviewing and I do hope you continue reading and hopefully reviewing!