Guten Tag! How's it going? So you've stumbled onto the firth instalment of my rambling... i apologize! =D Actually I thank you and encourage you to read on... if you dare!
Ok that's enough out of me, i hope you don't think this story is too dire, but if you do in fact have some opinion (even bad) of it, then feel free to leave me a comment.


Disclaimer: Did you know I don't own any of Square Enix's creations? Its a sad truth but probably for the best.

4. You haven't changed

Walking along the high street at a vigorously fast pace I wasn't exactly expecting to bump into someone but it's funny how mishaps can completely change the course of your day. I was anxious to get to the bank before it closed but when I saw her I completely forgot about money and needing to get it paid in. I just stared down at her as she stared up to me. And after stuttering for what felt like forever, I finally managed to say hello.

"Yeah, hi." She greeted back, giving a small snirk, one that would have gone unnoticed if one was not aware of what to look for.

"How are you?" I asked, I hadn't talked to her properly in, well ages.

"Good. Yourself?"

"Great. How long's it been since we last saw each other?"

"A week?" she said almost sarcastically

"No I meant, y'know, actually talked." I tried to think myself but I couldn't. "I remember talking just after Rikku and I got together"
"That was the last time." She nodded

"Oh, how long's that been?"

"Almost two years." She stated calmly. She wasn't at all flustered by our abrupt meeting, whereas I felt completely confused. I thought I must look ridiculous, standing like a stuttering moron, probably sweating too. I was nervous talking to her – it was stupid really. This was Paine.

"Geez, we really should've caught up more often." She just nodded at my suggestion. "Do you… wanna, like… go get a coffee now? Or are you busy, I completely understand if you have somewhere you need to go."

"No," she said quietly, "A coffee sounds nice."

We sat tucked together in the corner of the little, old café not far from the main square. It was cosy in here and I desperately needed to get some more layers off but I was worried I would make a fool of myself by just stripping off. I was heating up dramatically though.

"It's warm in here." She stated as she pulled off a thin jumper and threw it on top of her black bag on the floor.

I chuckled, and began to pull my first top off – I don't know why I insisted on wearing so many layers. "You read my mind." I smiled at her. When I finally adjusted my clothes so I was comfortable I looked back up at her. She was always so serene and so perfect – but it wasn't like she tried. I think it was more the fact that she never made an effort yet still looked great that made me so attracted to her, and the fact that she was hot. "What's been going on with you then? Two years I can't believe it." I sighed.

"Yeah, it's pretty careless of us to leave it so long." I nodded in agreement as I watched her take a sip from her mug. "I haven't been doing anything out of the ordinary. Just living I guess." She replied without giving any feeling to her words. Why did she always do that? Make you drag conversation about herself out of her, like drawing blood from a stone.

"You haven't changed." I commented

"Neither have you." She looked up into my eye - green meeting red - before continuing, "I swear, looking at you now, it's just like looking at you right back in the squad." Saying this, she took my mind back to that time. Those days of laughter and nights of lust – I wanted them now and I hated the fact I just couldn't. "What happened to us?"

I shook my head. I had no idea – my guess was as good as anyone's. What had happened – had we just lost it? Or had she swung the other way? No, Nooj and Shuyin had happened – they stopped it all. What would we have been like if none of that had happened? If we'd been allowed to go on as planned; to run into the wilderness and take each day as it came. Where would we be now if we hadn't been separated? "I miss it."

"The four of us were good." She agreed. I only wish it had stayed that way – good. I regretted so much and this wasn't how I wanted life to be, it shouldn't be this full of remorse. "How are you and Rikku?" Paine asked suddenly. Had she not heard what happened?

"Er, we broke up." I stated, surprised she didn't know.

There was a very long pause as neither of us remarked on my current circumstance. "Sorry." I could finally hear her whisper.

"Don't be. She broke up with me but I was asking for it. I was bored of it all, both of us were – wasn't working out."

"But you seemed so happy." Paine stated her observation cautiously.

"Did we? I sure didn't think so. To me it felt like...it had gone sour. I was sure it showed. Neither of us was that interested in it anyway so it had to happen eventually." I explained quickly.

"You two always seemed picture perfect." The warrior spoke dryly as she sat across from me.

"How you figure that?"

She looked at me with an expression that asked 'why did she need to explain.'. But she continued regardless when I didn't respond. "You were so suited, just everything looked so right."

"Looks can be deceiving." I remarked quickly. "You of all people would know that surely." I watched as the crimson eyed woman took this in and slowly nodded her agreement once again.

"Of course they can." She spoke calmly. "But I don't think my looks are really that deceiving. Do you?"

"I think they used to be." I replied not really thinking about my words. I was instead occupied with how my opinion of her had changed. I still liked her but I swear I never used to feel this anxious in her company.

"Are you saying I'm even more of a crazy bitch now?" she looked amused as I struggled to answer her. I didn't really know what I'd meant by saying that – it just came out. "C'mon then Gippal. What's so different about me now days?"

"I don't really know, I guess..."

"What?" she pushed me again, there was a sly grin on her lips so slight it was almost hiding, and her tone was so soft it sounded like a angel flirting with me.

"You never used to bat for the other team." I had no idea why this came into my head, I hadn't meant to say it, I really hadn't. I felt my whole reason for being fade away as a cringed. What did it matter if she did like girls anyway? It's just I couldn't stop thinking about her and the way she acted around Rikku – Rikku was attractive so it wasn't impossible for her to feel that way.

"What?" Paine repeated, but for a different reason now.

"I just meant… that-"

"Oh save your breath Gippal!" she ordered me, before glaring across the table – her heavy lashes framing the fury in her eyes. What had I unleashed? "Why would what I wear and how I look like lead you to that assumption? Are you really so shallow that you judge people by the material of their clothes and the way they style their hair?" she scoffed continuing, "That's so pathetic it's untrue, I would never have believed it if I hadn't heard it directly from your mouth. I thought you knew me, or have you been so blinded by Rikku's dizziness than you don't even remember you have other friends? Bloody outrageous! How the hell did you even come up with that? I don't swing for the other side or bat for the other team or whatever else you feel like calling it. I'm not into girls and you should damn well know that from everything that's happened! Why would you even think that?" I couldn't answer her - I just shrugged my shoulders. People at a nearby table were starting to stare at us but luckily the café was almost empty so they were probably the only ones really being disturbed by her anger. "What Gippal!? Just tell me for the love of Yevon, what makes you think I could ever like girls?"

"It's the way you look at them." She sat back, startled, as I explained and really wished I hadn't the need to. "Ok well the way you look at Rikku. You always do this thing, it looks like you just want her, need her – a longing I guess. I thought it was because you fancied her. It disturbed me because I had never realised that about you – I had never taken the time to consider you may actually like women. I thought… well I thought a lot of things."

"All of them wrong no doubt." She said stormily but at least her moodiness meant she was no longer on the verge of shouting the café down.

"I'm hoping so." I admitted now that she was quite persistent in that she had no liking for women.

"I didn't realise I looked at Rikku that way." I looked up when she said this, her tone was a lot more calm than I had expected it to be; she was thinking and her brow was knotted. "Or at least I never thought it could be seen so easily on my face." I listened as the red eyed women allowed her thoughts to come out of her head – an occasion very rare indeed.

"So you do look at her a different way?" I asked

"Not in the way you seem to think, but I guess yes. I do feel something different to what I feel to Yuna and LeBlanc and other women."

"But you're not a lesbian?" I queried again

Glowering at me one more time, and Paine let out a small laugh. "No, not at all."

"Well then, what do you feel? You can tell me."

"I'm really not so sure I can." She sighed as she spun the coins from her change on the table in front of us.

We watched as they spun in circles around each other, then when the last one finally collapsed I picked it up between my fingers and attempted the same trick as she just tried. When it was successfully spinning fast again I spoke softly, "I am positive you can tell me." Looking up I saw she was staring straight back and our eyes met. To break the tension I smiled before saying, "You can definitely tell me what you feel for Rikku if I can tell you I think you fancy her."

Sighing as if she'd been beaten, Paine leaned a little bit further forwards, "I'm not attracted to her; I'm envious of her." I lifted my eyebrow, what she was saying corresponded with what Baralai had said, and that got my mind questioning again. "I'm envious because she has you…or rather had you."

"I don't get it." My brain was puzzled and I had too many questions whirring through to really register what she said.

Paine looked away from me, away from everything really, her head was directed at the floor but even her eyelids were firmly shut – it would have taken a long time to prise those open again quickly. "I haven't stopped loving you."

"You loved me in the first place?" I suddenly asked like an idiot.

"Oh Gippal why can you never read between the lines!?" she groaned. "Has nothing I've ever done made you think I could feel that way about you? I can't believe you've been that oblivious? No scrap that, i can believe it."

I stuttered, "I guess… well… m- maybe I have been." I kept thinking and thinking, searching my memory for anything she'd ever done to show her affection!

I thought back to the squad and now I could hear her – her words from back then. Nights when we'd enjoyed each others company and I had lazily begun drifting off to sleep. That was when she'd always talked to me – told me her secrets – but I'd always been too sleepy to respond, to really take it in. Now I thought back to remember and I could hear the things she said most often; "I wouldn't ever just go with anyone Gippal, you know that don't you? You do mean a lot to me, even when I don't show it." I always murmured that I was listening but I never took it to mean anything. Just like I never thought she meant it when she had whispered, "You mean the world to me". She had never said anything that had rung immediate alarm bells. If she had said "Gippal I love you more than anything else" then maybe I could have woken up to it sooner. But I hadn't and now I felt like an idiot. However, I knew I was a right prat but inside of my very core I was ecstatic. She loved me – ME – and not Rikku! I hadn't turned her off men and she loved me!

"I should go." I hadn't noticed how long I'd sat there not saying anything, I'd left her to feel rejected but I'd never intended to. As she stood and grabbed her bag, I reached out to her but she brushed my hand off, I was barely sure she even registered it had been there.

"Paine?" I wasn't sure where she intended to go, so I quickly grabbed my things and followed her as she hastily made her way to the exit. I called out to her again as I reached the door but she didn't stop, she just carried on as she started down the quiet street. "Paine! Where are you going?" I ran after her along the pavement; she walked so bloody fast just a second of me pausing let her escape much more than it should have done. "I'm sorry, I hadn't finished. I was thinking! You can't blame a guy for thinking can you?"

"I'm not blaming you for anything Gippal. I'm just getting on with my life. Just like I have been doing for the past four years." As she said this loudly enough so I could hear all the way back down the street, it cut into my heart. I was wasting my time messing around with Rikku, both of us knew it was never going to last – we are too similar it would have sent us crazy. But all that time I could have spent it with Paine, she was who I'd been thinking about when I knew it was wrong. She was the one who I really wished I could be with but I had believed that she didn't like me back. The thing was she did like me back, she always had. But how was I supposed to know that? I'm not telepathic!

"How was I ever supposed to tell that you felt that way Paine? You were so closed these past two years, ever since I saw you again after Vegnagun you not once let on how you felt! You didn't give me any clues!!" I called out to her.

At this she abruptly stopped but didn't turn. I was thankful though because it gave me time to catch up. Panting when I reached her I took a moment to gain my breath. I stayed behind her, looking down at her bare shoulders; her skin always looked so soft, so kissable. Her head tilted slightly towards me – it was almost insignificant but I could tell she was registering my close proximity. "How did you expect me to know you hadn't changed your feelings?"

"You said it yourself – you weren't even aware I had those feelings to start with."

She was right, I never believed she loved me, "But I always hoped."

Turning just enough to look toward me she laughed coldly, "Why?"

Smiling I said "You mean the world to me." As her eyebrows rose in astonishment at the fact that I could even bother to remember anything she had once said, I leaned swiftly down towards her. Pushing her arm gently so her body was parallel and facing mine, I then took her face in my hands before she could say anything. Bending my head down to hers I tipped her face up to mine, when she opened her mouth to –what I presumed was – protest I quickly covered it with my own. Her lips were dry but I didn't care, I traced her bottom lip before slipping my tongue between them both. For a while she didn't move at all and I was beginning to think I should prepare myself for a good slap right across the cheek. I was about to start wincing in anticipation when Paine reached up and put a hand behind my head locking my jaw to hers. Slowly she grazed my lips with her teeth and I felt a shudder jolt through me, which led me to realise her other hand was placed on my back, holding my torso pinned against her body. It had been over 4 years since I'd last been anywhere near her lips yet I felt so natural. It didn't feel at all awkward – not like it did when Rikku and I had started going out again; we'd grown up so much that it took time to readjust to one another. Now though, here with Paine I could have been sixteen again, I didn't feel any different.

I unhurriedly parted my lips from the soft ones that I had enjoyed being attached too, only to move them to her jaw line. Massaging her skin with my mouth I gradually worked my way down to her smooth collar bone and on to her fair shoulders. Her nails scratched gently at my top, every now and then digging into the skin at my shoulder blades. Nuzzled again against her neck, I whispered, "I haven't stopped loving you either."

X If you got this far then i send you a large large thank you for reading and a big hug! X