Yeah so I haven't updated in a while. Sorry! This is a bit odd, this series. But I shall continue it! D

Day 2

Rikku couldn't sleep all night. She had conveniently forgotten any kind of plushie that would help her through the lonely, howling nights. And so, she had curled up in the sleeping bag and convinced herself it was all just a dream.

She woke up the next day to—more rain. And more thunder. The sky said good morning to her by flashing loudly above her head. She gasped and covered her head with the pillow. Her heart was beating fast and she couldn't make it stop no matter how hard she tried to calm herself. She bit her bottom lip and clutched tightly to her sleeping bag, waiting for the fear to go away. But it didn't. It wouldn't. Not unless she tried. She slowly crawled out and glanced around. The rain was a bit lighter today, but the thunder was just as fierce. There was a man at the top of a tower, and Gippal was watching from the ground. Despite her hatred of being anywhere near Gippal, she walked over and stood next to him to watch the man. He glanced momentarily at her.

"You're still here?" he asked. She scrunched her nose.

"Too scared to go up there yourself?" she countered, changing the subject. He laughed a bit.

"Now where would my team be if I got shot down from a tower by a little blonde squirt?" he asked, turning slightly towards her.

"On the ground begging me to be their leader instead of you," she stated.

"Not a morning person, huh?"

"No." Gippal stood in silence for a minute, then turned around.

"Let's go for a walk," he said. He started to walk away.

"What about him?" Rikku asked, pointing up at the Al Bhed. Gippal considered him for a second, and then waved his hand at him. Rikku shook her head. And this is the guy Cid had been praising so much on the way over? Rikku shuffled after him, not sure why she was.

They had been walking for a few minutes when Gippal spoke up.

"You know what the last thing you said to me was?" he asked. She looked at him, awaiting him to go on. "I came to your place to say goodbye to Brother, and you came out and asked me where I was going. I told you I was going to the Crimson Squad and you said 'Good, I hope you don't come back'." He was grinning a little bit. Rikku felt a little ashamed. She had promised never to wish death on anyone. Nobody deserved to die. Not even Gippal, as horrible as he was.

"How do you remember that?" she asked quietly. He shrugged.

"I think I told myself that I would make sure I stayed alive so I could come back to Home and rub in your face that I didn't die," he said. Rikku turned red.

"Your life really did revolve around teasing me, didn't it?" she asked. He shrugged.

"I never hated you like you hated me. I actually thought you were a pretty nice kid. That's just what stupid boys like me did. Annoy their friend's younger sisters," he said. Rikku felt stunned. She always had thought that his reason for being mean to her was because they mutually didn't like each other. Now she knew that it was all one sided. "Well, hate me," he added, correcting the beginning of his sentence. Rikku was suddenly finding it hard to hate him right now. He wasn't treating her like an insignificant child like he used to. Just, like she was a person he knew a long time ago. Lightening flashed about five yards away, and Rikku jumped. Out of impulse, she reached out and grabbed Gippal's arm, hiding her face in his sleeve. After a second, she gasped and let go of him.

"Sorry…," she mumbled, staring at the ground to hide her pink cheeks.

"I forgot that you don't like thunder. To tell you the truth, I don't like it much either. I hate coming out to this place. That's also why I'm not the one on top of those towers," he said with a grin. It seemed a little… reassuring to Rikku. She was trying hard not to forget that this was the one person she had hated the most since she was five, but it was becoming hard seeing the person he'd grown into. She offered a small smile back.

Rikku's shoes were covered in mud, and she kept flinching every time the lightening flashed. She squeezed her eyes shut and brought her chin down into her chest, her fists going underneath her chin. It was the same position she had been in when Brother had hit her with a lightening spell, and now it was the same position she went into whenever she was afraid. She suddenly felt a hand on her head, and she looked up. Gippal rustled her ponytail around. "Don't worry. You'll get over this," he said. She smiled genuinely at him. At that moment, if she could have picked anyone else to be her brother, it would have been him. They walked along, trying to remember all the things that Gippal had ever done to Rikku and Rikku tried to remember all the revenge she had taken on him. "I remember the one that I got so mad at you for," Gippal said with a smile. "My mom had gotten me that toy gun that shot water, and you somehow broke the barrel off. I really thought you were a demon that day." Rikku laughed.

"That was only because you ripped three pages out of the machina book my dad gave me. That was six pages of machina goodness ripped out," she retaliated.

"Because you took my eye patch and threw it into the oasis," Gippal added. Rikku grinned mischievously.

"That time was because that girl that you liked was watching," she said. Gippal lightly pushed her.

"You know, you haven't screamed this whole time," he said. She shrugged. She had been laughing a little too much to pay attention to the thunder.

"I never notice it if I have something else to think about. Which isn't often since I'm in the middle of the fricken Thunder Plains. The only reason I did this was because Pops kicked me off the team. Because he had to send a hover out to get me when a storm hit the Mi'ihen Highroad and I was too scared to get to Rin's," she said. "I guess there had to be more reasons for me doing this, but that's what sprung the whole thing."

"Maybe it was time for you to have an adventure," Gippal said.

"I have had adventures," she said hesitantly.

"None that are your own." Rikku nodded absentmindedly. Her own adventure.

They came back to the workers, and Rikku watched them in fascination until she said goodbye to Gippal and went back to her own tent to take refuge from the rain. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail, thinking about how excited she was to talk to Gippal again. Surprises were being thrown at her so quickly, it was almost elating.

That was obviously too short to be a chapter, so here comes day three.

Day Three

Rikku was being shaken. She groaned and turned over.

"Goway Pops, I'm shleepin'…," she grumbled.

"Wake up! I'm so bored!" Rikku's eyes snapped open.

"My-!" she sat up and stared at Gippal. "What the hell are you doing in my tent?" she asked, pulling the blanket in her sleeping bag up to her chin.

"I told you, I'm bored. Al Bhed's are already hyper enough, and it doesn't help that I'm wired. Come on, get up!" he urged her, pushing her shoulder. She eventually tumbled out of bed and looked at the clock.

"It's five o'clock in the morning, Gippal," she said with a yawn.

"I know! And I've been awake for five hours! Everyone fell asleep on me," he said, looking glum.

"So you decided to come wake me up?" she asked. She didn't understand why they had one conversation and he was waking her up to talk to her now, but she was already awake, so why not? Maybe it was time for a change of heart along with lifestyle. He only nodded in response. She sighed and got back into her sleeping bag. "Just gimme five more minutes," she said. Gippal was completely silent, but she heard him move a bit. When she opened her eyes again, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. Gippal was sitting on the ground and reading from her journal, a wicked grin playing across his lips. "What are you doing? Give that back!" Rikku said, getting out of her bed and advancing on him. Gippal put his knee up so that it went into Rikku stomach and held her at bay, while she reached helplessly for the thin notebook.

"No way, this is just getting good. So you in fact didn't hate me as much as you say you did," he said, pointing to a page in the journal as he held it out of her reach.

"What?" Rikku asked in disbelief as she stopped reaching for the journal momentarily. She hadn't read her old journal in so many years she didn't even remember what was inside. He pointed to the sentence again.

"'Gippal is so mean to me, but sometimes he can be nice. He gave me a lollipop today and actually apologized for putting sand in my hair. That's why I like him. Dad always told me never to like jerks like him, but on the days he's nice to me, I like him a lot'," Gippal read loudly from the journal. Rikku fell over him, reaching for the journal.

"Shut up! I didn't write that!"

"Yes you did!"
"No I didn't! Give it back!" Gippal closed the journal and put it down on the ground, then, pushed Rikku so she was on the ground.

"How're you gonna get it back now?" he asked. Rikku wriggled under his grip, and realizing she couldn't, glared up at Gippal's wry smile.

"Gippal! Gerroff of me," she said. He shook his head.

"So. Did you really liiiiike me?" he asked in a girlish voice. Rikku stuck her tongue out at him.

"I definitely don't now," she said. She finally put all those muscles she had gotten over the past year and pushed him as hard as she could. He fell back, sounding surprised, then grabbed the journal and held it close.

"C'mon, tell me! Did you want me to kiiiiiss you?" he asked. Rikku couldn't help but laugh. It was all too funny that she was just remembering now that she had had a huge crush on Gippal despite how much she hated him as well. It was a very odd feeling.

"Did you like me?" she asked suddenly, smirking at him. He thought.

"Nah," he said.

"What?" she squeaked.

"Your teeth were crooked, you had all these freckles, your hair was always a mess and you were kinda pudgy," he said. Rikku scoffed.

"Well if that's what you think of me-!" she said.

"No, because now you're-," Gippal stopped halfway through his sentence.

"Now I'm what?" she asked, a little anxious. She closed her eyes momentarily and imagined kissing Nere again, him telling her she was beautiful, gorgeous, anything that would make her heart melt coming from Nere.

"Different…," Gippal said, handing the journal to her. She snatched it away and held it close to her.

"You will never see this again," she said with a grin, waving it in front of his face before holding it close again. He shook his head.

"I'll get it somehow," he said. "Until then, I'll just have to learn more about what you're like now."

Later that day, Gippal had gone to work on the second and third tower with the rest of his team. Rikku went the other way, stopping next to a small crater made by a particularly large bit of lightening. She was afraid being out here on her own. The rain misted her view, and she couldn't see if fiends were coming. She had brought a bracelet that Cid gave her. He told her that it would keep fiends away. But Rikku didn't believe there was anything that could keep fiends away. And Brother had given her a ward that would halve lightening damage, but she was still afraid. Cutting it in half was not enough. She stared up at the sky and let the rain splatter across her face. Things were already getting better. She didn't expect it to be this easy. Maybe there was a trick to it that she had stumbled upon.

Maybe it was because Gippal was there. She felt comfortable with him, though she would have never expected to a few days ago. He was easier to get along with than when they were nine and ten. She still couldn't believe he had left for the Crimson Squad when he was fifteen. Of course she hadn't missed him then. But now she wondered why not. Sometimes she liked the attention. At least they didn't ignore her. Maybe she was just insane.

She missed Nere. She missed everything about him. She wanted to hug him again. But then there was the issue that there was nothing solid between them. Just a kiss before Rikku went away for a week. She sighed. She hadn't been in many relationships, mainly for the reasons that she didn't have the time to care for a relationship and she just was plain not good at them. She had told a boy she would marry him once. Hopefully he had forgotten and wouldn't come to Cid someday asking for permission to marry her. Cid would happily say yes.

She squinted into the darkness and saw something propped against a rock. She took hesitant steps toward it. She couldn't tell what it was, so she put out a hesitant hand to touch it. He hand collided with a smooth surface. She came a bit closer to it and stared at it until her eyes focused to the details of it and then she gasped, falling back towards the tower behind her. She had touched a human skeleton. She squealed and hopped from foot to foot. She couldn't handle seeing dead people. Not after Home was destroyed. She had seen people she knew, and children, dead among the rubble. She never wanted to see so much death again.

She ran back to her tent and snuggled up inside it. After a few minutes of shivering and crying over Home, she pulled out her journal and turned to the first page. 'I hate Gippal. I hate him so much I hope he goes blind.' The threats of a nine year old. Well, she got half of her wish. She spent the night reading her entries of what used to be her life, nothing compared to what it was like now, until she couldn't keep her eyes open. She slept peacefully, but not before setting her alarm clock for 3 o clock in the morning.