"Hey sleepyhead, wake up." Rikku said gently shaking my shoulder.

I lazily opened one eye. "Heey, good morning Shiva," I drawled propping myself up on one elbow. "How'd you sleep in that big old bed all by yourself?"

"Wonderfully," she said shortly flashing me an infuriatingly wide smile. "Now get up you lazy bum, I made us breakfast reservations at that place we went last night."

"Oh, did you now?" I asked genuinely intrigued.

"Yes, we need to talk about some things and I thought it'd be better to do that on a full stomach."

"What kinds of things?" I asked as I made my way over to the closet and picked out a new outfit to wear.

"You know what kinds of things." Rikku said shortly.

"My dear little Rikku," I said turning to face the offending girl, "It is much much too early in the morning for me to know even my own name much less guess the topic of our breakfast conversation."

A hint of a smile crossed her face apparently she knew the feeling. "I'm guessing you're not a morning person."

"Naw, the night holds the key." I replied.

"The key to what?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know, it's too early in the morning." I said as I turned back to the closet.

"Oooh! You are so infuriating some times." She pouted as she stamped her foot.

"I try, I try," I said as a parting shot as I ducked into the bathroom to take my shower.

"I'll have a chocobo egg omelet with tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese, onions, and garlic." Rikku told the waiter.

"And for the sir?"

"A Behemoth steak, medium-rare and a double shot of vodka."

"Gippal!" Rikku yelled in a shocked voice, "It's breakfast for goodness sakes!"

"Mix some orange juice in with it to make it "breakfasty"," I told the waiter as I rolled my eyes. "She'll have the same to drink." I added on a whim.

"I most certainly will not." She shrieked but the waiter had already walked away. She fixed me with a suspicious look. "Since when did you become such an alcoholic Gippal?"

"My days in the crimson squad," I answered. "And I'm not an alcoholic. Whenever we had a hard and /or terrifying mission ahead of us Nooj would give us all vodka with our breakfast to "get our courage up" as he put it."

"But you and Paine were only sixteen at the time, two years under Spira's legal drinking age!"

"There's different rules when your doing battle, hon." I smirked.

"Hey!" Rikku said as if something had just dawned on her which it probably had. "Why are you having breakfast vodka now then? Talking to me isn't a terrifying task, is it?"

I just smiled in response.

"Is it?" she repeated louder.

The waiter brought over our drinks. I still didn't respond. "Is it?"

I took a small sip of my vodka orange juice and tried to remember if that mixture had a special name.

"You are such a jerk!" Rikku squealed. She stood up in a huff, stomped over to my side of the table, and slapped me hard across the face.

I blinked my eyes rapidly for a second till the room stopped spinning then looked over at her and said calmly, "Did that feel good?"

She nodded sheepishly as if she was a kid being corrected by her father for doing something naughty.

"Good," I said just as calmly. Everyone in the restaurant was watching us now. "Now go back to your seat and we'll pretend this never happened."

She nodded and ran back to her seat. The waiter brought out our meal.

"Cunno," she said apologetically as looked at the hand mark that still graced my cheek.

"For what? It never happened." I said evenly. Everyone else turned back to their breakfasts disappointedly. They were hoping for a fight or something else interesting to watch.

I dropped my voice, "Besides I'm the one who should be sorry, you were bound to hit me sooner or later with the way I always treat you."

"An apology? From Gippal Marklin? I'm surprised and flattered that you should waste such a rare occurrence on one such as my humble self." She teased as she took a sip of her drink.

"No need to thank me kind madam." I played along, "You are every bit worth the trouble of an apology."

Rikku blushed and took another large sip of her vodka and orange juice. "Thank you for the compliment kind sir," she mumbled.

"I thought you weren't going to drink that," I said gesturing over to the half empty glass in front of Rikku. "It's breakfast for goodness sakes!" I imitated her earlier exclaim.

"Maybe talking to you is a terrifying and arduous task as well, did you ever think of that?" she teased (another big sip of the drink). "I'm just getting my strength up."

"And you called me the alcoholic." I teased.

She shrugged and there was a momentary silence.

"Is this were you thought you'd end up?" I asked her after a moment.

"Beg your pardon?"

"Back when we were kids living in the desert, is this were you thought you'd end up?"

"In a restaurant on the south Moonflow?" she asked.

"No, the whole hero of a nation thing... and I guess the whole married to me thing too."

Rikku finished off her drink in one gulp. "No for one, yes for the other." She said quietly.

"You thought you'd become a hero?"

"No, I thought I'd be married to you."

"Reeally," I leaned back in my chair, "Interesting."

"Oh, get over yourself." She snapped. "Yes, I had and I repeat the very important word had, a crush on you when I was younger. In fact I thought I was in love with you for a while, not a single word or I'll have to hurt you Gippal, but I grew out of it."

"When did you grow out of it, what made you give up on the sexy Mr. Gippal?"

"Are you going to finish that?" she pointed to my drink.

"Making you uncomfortable am I? What's a matter trying to avoid the question?" I said holding the drink aloft and out of Rikku's reach. "Seriously, what made you get over your crush? Was it another guy?"

"Maybe it was because I realized what a jackass you were!" she pouted.

"Hey don't be like that Shiva," I cooed. I handed over the drink. "I was only playing."

She stirred the drink lazily with her finger but said nothing.

"It was another guy wasn't it?" I jabbed after a moment had passed. "You transferred all your feelings for me onto some other poor slob. That's the only way you could have gotten over me."

"You are so conceited," she said not angrily.

"So tell me, who was it?"

She chugged down half of the new the glass in one sip. "Nobody, I just stopped liking you, that's all."

"Tidus?"

"No, I would never do that to Yunie!"

"Sir Auron?"

"He's old enough to be my father!"

"Er...Kimahri?"

She laughed and shook her head.

"Baralai. You fell in love with 'Lai didn't you?" I felt a sinking feeling in my chest as soon as the words came out of my mouth. I did not want to know the answer to this one. I had seen them together at that party, I had seen how much fun they were having, and how good they looked together. I just didn't want my suspicions to be confirmed.

To my eternal surprise Rikku laughed again. "Paine would kill me!"

"What!?!"

"She would absolutely murder me in cold blood if I ever went after her Baralai."

"Her Baralai?"

"You really are stupid aren't you? Of course he's her Baralai. And she's his Paine. They just don't know it yet."

"Really?" I said feeling like a weight was being lifted off my shoulders. Good for 'Lai. Paine was a great girl, a little too intense for my tastes but he was lucky to have her. I was happy for them. I was happy for me. It was a happy moment for Gippal Marklin.

Then a thought popped into my mind and asked what should have been the obvious question. "Then what were you doing with him at that party?"

She gulped down the other have of the drink. "Like I said before, I was depressed that night Baralai was just being a good friend and trying to cheer me up."

"But what were you depressed about, you never gave me a straight answer."

She held her head in her hands as if to make still a spinning room. The first sign she had shown so far that she was tipsy.

"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" she pleaded, "Somewhere more private?"

"Sure," I flagged the waiter down for the check and tried to figure out why she was acting so strangely this morning.

"Ride zee shoopuf?"

"Eh, yeah, we'd love to ride zee, I mean the shoopuf. Could we get one all to ourselves though. It our honeymoon and we'd like a romantic moonlit tour of the Moonflow."

"But eet's the daytime sirrr." The confused hypello answered me.

"A romantic late morning tour of the Moonflow then."

"Suuure thing sirrrr," the hypello answered as he pulled a bottle of wine and two glasses from a box behind him and started to waddle of towards the shoopuf paddock. "Follow me. I'll show you two too your private shoopuf and give you a tour of zee Moooonflow."

"Sure thing," I told the shoopuf driver. "Come on Shiva," I addressed Rikku. "You were the one who wanted to go somewhere private so we could talk."

Rikku nodded faintly, "I feel sick."

"You know that may be because of the two vodkas you inhaled first thing this morning on an empty stomach, just a thought."

My wife gave me a death glare.

"Whoa, chill out Shiva darling, it was just a joke." I said making a "don't go all psycho on me you crazy chick" gesture with my hands. "How come you were drinking so much anyway? I thought you promised your father you would never drink again and seeing as what happened last time you drank I would think you would keep your promise."

"I had (hiccup) brought you there to (hiccup) talk about how we could get out of this marriage. Annulment, running away, ect. But then I realized I didn't want too. But I had to get out of it you see. Because I don't ...but I do...though I can't because you're so...and I'm sure you don't feel the same way. So I drank to get the courage up to still talk about it."

I looked at Rikku puzzledly, she wasn't making any sense.

"Then you started talking about the whole is this where you thought you'd be when you were little thing and teasing me about my crush and I got nervous," Rikku hiccupped, "I didn't like the turn the conversation was taking. As open of a person as I am I don't like to talk about my feelings especially the ones concerning you because of how mixed up they are."

"What are you trying to say?" I said slowly.

Rikku threw her arms open and wobbled shakily on her feet. "Haven't you been listening? I'm trying to say I love..."

But I never found out what she loved because as soon as she got the L word out a sick look crossed her face and she doubled over and threw up on my shoes.