A/n Hello everyone. Thanks for all the reviews it really makes a big difference. Anyways I know that most of you guys think how I made Rikku react to a lot of what was going on was odd, but don't worry I'm building up on something. There is a reason for my madness! Have any of you guys heard of Three Days Grace? I like that band…sorry I know I had no reason to say that anyways I stated playing the game Star Ocean: Til the end of time and I am hella stuck in Aquios (or however you spell it) and it's getting on my nerves. Well that is really all I have to say! So now go forth, read the next chapter oh, and remember to review!

Chapter 9

(Three months had passed since the last chapter. Rikku and Gippal have been going slower. Trying to work everything out. Kadena hasn't been seen or heard of since she left the apartment that night. Weird things have been happing at Djose and everyone is sure Kadena is behind it. Yuna and Tidus found out that they are not only having one baby but two! Yep they are going to have twins. One girl one boy. Paine and Baralai have announced that they are getting married and as of now, it is only a week away.)

Rikku's POV

As I sat there watching as Yuna was fitted for her bridesmaid dress I thought back to when we were still part of The Gullwings and how I would of never thought of Paine getting married. Paine picked out better bridesmaid dresses then Yuna did though. They were long, black, and elegant. She picked out a nice plain white dress. It was strapless and the skirt wasn't really big like Yunie's was. The only fancy thing on it was the lace that went over the skirt. Yuna made her buy a shall made out of beads to go with it. Paine gave in after Yuna complained that the bride needed something shiny so everyone's attention would be on her. Paine had let her hair grow out just a little bit and it was down to her shoulders now. Yuna wanted to run white beads through it so it would glam it up a bit. Paine agreed to that because she didn't want Yuna giving her another lecture on how she had to be "pretty" and "More feminine".

"Rikku what do you think?" Yuna asked spinning a little in the gown.

The skirt moved gracefully with her and I smiled. Yuna was just starting to show so her dress had to be made a little different then everyone else's.

"You look wonderful." I replied.

She gave me a smile and Paine joined us.

"Hey you guys don't look half bad." She said and smiled.

Paine seemed very happy lately and why wouldn't she be? She smiled a lot more and she was beginning to be friendlier too. It was somewhat unnerving but pleasant at the same time. I liked this new Paine, but I missed the old one too. I had already had my dress fitted so I was done with all the dress stuff. I stood up and the dress skirt fell stopping at my ankles. Paine took a pair of high-heeled sandals out of a box and showed them to us. They were black and accented with small red crystals.

"Oh these are pretty." Yuna said looking at the shoes in Paine's hands.

"I thought you guys would like them, what do you think? I wanted to use them as the brides maid's shoes." Paine said.

"It works for me." I said with a smile.

Okay so I had a small shoe fetish. It only began recently, I was building up my shoe collection, and these were just cute. They would make a very nice addition.

"Okay so then were going to go with these?" Paine asked.

"Looks that way." Yuna replied.

Therefore, we went and got our shoes in the correct sizes. We also got a pair for Lulu, and Reanna (Brother's girlfriend) and Lablanc who were the other three bridesmaids. The only reason Lablanc was a bride's maid was that we needed an extra one. Five grooms men and only four brides maids wouldn't have looked very good. In addition, since she was dating Nooj who happened to be the fifth groom's man we just thought it would fit. If we had any other, choice Paine would have gone with it. She did not feel too happy about Lablanc even coming in the first place. We finished the day by making a stop at a new restaurant on the Mi'ihen Highroad. They started opening up many shops on the Mi'ihen Highroad after the whole Vegnagun ordeal. It was now a road of shops, restaurants, and entertainment facilities. We went to a place that had something called Mexican food. It wasn't half bad either. Everyone in Spria had been dividing into his or her own racial categories now. Not only did we have Ronso's. Guado's, Al-bhed but we had Mexicans, Asians, Caucasian, African-Spirieans (a/n Can't exactly put Americans can I?) and Native-Spirieans. It makes things a lot more complex now but I think I am getting used to it. There were tons of different religions now too. Me I was just plain old Rikku I didn't have a religion and I doubted I ever will. Yunie went and joined a Christian church. She told me I should join too, but I didn't want to get caught up in all that stuff. We made our ways home shortly after dinner. Yuna to Besaid, Paine to Bevelle, and me? I back to the moonflow. I got in a little past eight. Gippal wasn't home yet and I was grateful for that. He had been in a bad mood lately. Some odd things had been happening at Djose lately and he was taking it all out on me. I sat down on the couch and heard the door open…speak of the devil.

Gippal's POV

I walked in to find Rikku sitting on the couch with her head in her hands. She must have been tired because she didn't get up and say hi or anything. I walked past her and went strait into the room. Today was horrible. Since we fixed that big whole in the side of the temple, we had to fix five more. People had been getting hurt and today I lost one of my best men permanently. I took of the armor I was wearing and I looked at myself in the mirror. I was hit in the explosion today and it sliced my arm up pretty bad. I had the medic look at it and she game me stitches but it was still bleeding. The white bandage was almost soaked in my own blood; I needed to see a real doctor. Rikku came and stood in the doorway looking at me. There was worry written on her face and she came to me quickly. She pulled the white shirt off me and left me in a black tank top.

"What happened?" She asked.

"I was hit by some stray metal."

She pulled the bandage off my arm and I flinched. She looked over my cut and it seemed the stitches weren't holding very well.

"Oh my god Gippal!"

I didn't want to look at it. It hurt like a bitch and I knew already it wasn't too pretty.

"What?" I said closing my eyes.

"You need to go to the hospital! Right now!"

I opened my eyes and looked at my arm. Holy shit it was worse then it was two hours ago. The wound seemed to be getting bigger. Sara the medic said I should have gone to the doctor right away but I didn't. I thought I could hold out for a while, which I did but it only made matters worse. She quickly ran to the bathroom and when she came out, she had a large piece of gauze. She quickly wrapped and threw me my jacket. I tried putting it on but I couldn't move my arm very well. When Rikku saw this, she came and helped me into my jacket. She led me down the hall and into the airship.

"How are we gunna get there? I can't fly this thing." I said.

"I know how to fly an airship Gippal." She said in an angered tone.

I nodded and sat down by the pilot seat. I was to tired and in too much pain to argue. I heard the engine roar to life and felt it as we took off. It was only a few minutes later when we arrived at the closest hospital, which was in Guadosalam. Rikku rushed me into the ER and the doctors treated me immediately, and the last thing I saw before the put me under was Rikku's worried face.

Rikku's POV

I sat in the waiting room as they did the operation. They said that there were fragments of metal lodged in his arm and they needed to put him to sleep to get them out. He probably didn't realize how bad the wound seemed to be. In addition, the fact that when the experiment exploded the metal had oil on it and oil in the bloodstream is not a good thing. When the doctor came out of the room he had smiled at me and I knew everything was okay.

"So how did everything go?" I asked standing up.

It was well into the night now and morning was just around the corner.

"Everything is fine. Your boyfriend will live to see another day. But I just need you to sign these release forms so he can go home."

The doctor handed me the forms and I signed my name at the bottom. He led me to Gippal's room and I entered in time to see him pulling on his shirt. He looked at me and I saw that his arm was now bandaged up well.

"Hey." I said and smiled.

He smiled but didn't say anything. He was upset about something. He pulled his jacket on and the bandaged arm vanished. I walked over to him and he looked at me the smile gone.

"What's on your mind?" I said and sat down in a chair next to the bed.

"Marcus was killed today. By the same explosion that hurt me."

"Oh wow, I'm sorry." I said unsure of how to react to the news.

I really didn't know who Marcus was but he seemed important to Gippal so I frowned and started to hug him. He glared at me as if to say I don't need your pity. I just stopped in my tracks.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked my hand hanging in the air.

"Not in particular." He replied and turned away from me.

"Is there something your not telling me?" I asked.

He turned and looked at me.

"The whole thing was rigged, someone is purposely knocking off my men Ri."

"Who?" I asked but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, Kadena.

"Nobody is sure yet, but I have a pretty good idea of who it is, and I am sure you do too." He replied.

I nodded knowing what he meant. Kadena was purposely trying to get rid of people at Djose, I don't know if she meant to kill anyone, but hurt them I was positive of. Gippal continued to stare at me.

"I think that maybe we should go somewhere else for a few nights. Just in case it is her she may come to the apartment." Gippal said.

"Want me to call Yunie?" I asked.

"No lets not risk her and the kids, maybe we should get a hotel room or something." He replied.

Man, he was really worried. I wondered if he ever went through something like this before. I just had to ask.

"Umm Gippal, has anything like this ever happened before?"

He seemed to have to think for a minute, but then shook his head no.

"Not like this…Kadena is a little over obsessed. Even more so then Sheanna was."

Sheanna was his girlfriend before he started dating me the first time. She held a grudge aginst me for the longest time. She even came to threatening me, but she would never act on her impulses. It seemed Kadena would, and I knew she wanted me hurt maybe even dead. My frown deepened.

"Would Kadena really come after me?" I asked getting a little scared now.

Gippal reluctantly nodded and when he saw me pale the slightest bit he hugged me to his chest. He stroked the back of my hair as my heart continued to pound. Kadena was really a psycho, she was evil the last person who scared me this much was that Seymour guy. I pulled away and shook my head. The look in Gippal's eyes was one of fear, fear for me. Once again, he had put me in danger. Not like, he meant to but he did.

"I'm fine really, I can handle one jealous woman." I said and cracked a smile.

A nurse entered the room and looked at us.

"Good you seem to be doing much better child." She said and smiled.

She was an older woman maybe in her late sixties or early seventies. Her hair was graying and her probably once radiant blue eyes were dulling. She walked over to us and handed Gippal a small piece of paper.

"This is your prescription, for the pain you may feel every once in a while. Take it to your local pharmacy and get it right away. Also here," she handed him another piece of paper. "You young man are not to do any work for about two weeks, take a nice vacation with your girl here and get that arm rested before retuning to that ghastly job of yours."

Gippal actually smiled at the lady.

"Yes Ma'am." He replied and she smiled at us.

"Now you kids behave." She said and left.

We left shortly after that, we stopped at the pharmacy on the way to the apartment so we could pack some bags. We were going to go to Bevelle and hang out with Paine and Baralai for a while. I packed my brides maid dress because we would be there past the wedding date, my guess was we would be house sitting for them like I did for Yunie and Tidus. Hey, as long as I was far away from Kadena I would be happy. Before we left, I made a quick call to Paine to let her know we were stopping by tomorrow, but tonight we were going to stay at a hotel in Guadosalam. We got the last suite the hotel had, as well as some dirty looks from the older people in the hotel. That night I barely slept my mind kept going back to Kadena. What was she planning? We she going to try to kill me off? On the other hand, did she just intend to hurt me enough to get me away from Gippal? It was five by the time I closed my eyes and that night I had a strange dream.

I was running through a dark forest. I could hear footsteps behind me. I was being chased. I turned to face Kadena, and Sheena. Gippal was at the end of the forest and I reached for him, but he didn't reach for me. Instead, he took Kadena into his arms and told me he never loved me. Kadena let out a sinister laugh while Sheanna just stood there. I woke with a start and the sun was in my eyes. Gippal was fast asleep next to me. I shook him lightly and when he was awake enough to fly an airship, we left to Bevelle. Kadena stayed on my mind. I looked at Gippal and I knew I was not going to let her take everything from me, even if it meant her death.

A/n Hi-ya! Hey, I updated wee! Okay anyways, I just wanted to say thanks for all the wonderful reviews! I love you all and I know that you all wait for an update and that it sucks when it takes me forever so I will try to go faster now. Anywho I just wanna say thanks for reading and keep those reviews coming.