"YOU AREN'T LOOKING HARD ENOUGH! I SWEAR I JUST SAW HER HEADING THIS WAY!" Rikku shouted to Brother over the rain of the Thunder Plains.

"MAYBE WE SHOULD TAKE A BREAK WE'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR HOURS! THIS STORM IS RELENTLESS." Brother shouted back to Rikku.

Rikku sighed; as much as she hated to admit it Brother was right. They'd been looking for Paine all day and they'd been in the Thunder Plains for hours. They were soaked to the bone and still noreal sign of Paine. They would have to take a break. 'What was Paine thinking running off like that without a word?! And now all the Gullwings are gone and...and! Ugh...'

As soon as Rikku got all bossy about finding Paine ('Someone has to step up and try to find her!') Cameron and Calie left; well Calie left. Cameron, Rikku exploded at and banished from the Gullwings.

"What's the point?" He'd asked her tucking a stray strand of his short blond hair behind him nervously.

"The point in what!?" Rikku demanded impatiently; he'd interrupted her organizing the search for Paine and showing each of the Gullwings on a map where they'd be searching. They were pressed for time as it is interruptions only made things worse.

"The point in finding Paine." The blond said hesitantly.

"What?!" Rikku was shocked that anyone, especially a Gullwing, would not want to look for Paine; she'd just assumed they'd want to protect their own.

"it's just." Cameron paused before gaining more confidence in his point. "She ran away...I say good riddance. I mean what did she ever do around here anyway? She was just a snarky bi...."

Rikku cut him off "What did you just say?!" Her face a turned red and her hands were trembling in fury.

"A snarky bi..."

"No before that!"

"She never did anything useful around here....she was just a bic..."

Rikku smacked him before he could finish "HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT ABOUT PAINE!" Rikku was furious now. Everyone else stared at the two in shock. "SHE WAS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL GULLWINGS! SHE WORKED HARDER THAN YOU EVER DID. AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE...what she...YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" she yelled as tears welled up in her eyes.

After that Cameron had left. Rikku offered to give him another chance but he didn't want it. He said that he needed a change in his life anyway and now seemed like a good time.

Calie left when things got too tough. Rikku didn't blame her either after all she was just a kid. She'd left on peaceful terms anyway. After they'd been searching for Paine for the first few hours Calie had started to lose her energy. After all, though she liked Paine she didn't really know her and after searching for so long...

With tear-filled eyes she'd gone to Brother, before she could say anything he spoke up. "It's alright kid." He said with a reassuring smile despite how exhausted he was. "It's been fun."

She smiled back. "Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for your friend." She had said...and then she'd left them behind.

Rikku herself felt ready to collapse about now. Today was their third day looking for Paine...and still hardly a sign of her. Didn't she know that they all missed her? Yuna's been worried out of her mind, Brother's been so shaken up he could almost pass as a normal person, Buddy's been real quiet and withdrawn, and Shinra...well he's been worse off than any of them...He always looked up to Paine...before she abandoned them.

By the time they got back to Rin's Travel Agency Rikku felt ready to die. She collapsed on the nearest chair and closed her eyes. Tears streamed down her face washing away the stress, but not taking away the problem, not bringing Paine back.

When she started sobbing she heard Brother's cracked voice besides her. "Uh...Rikku?" Even Brother was worried now. Once in a while he actually acted like a normal human being; it was times like this she realized that they really were siblings and he wasn't an alien, sometimes she wondered.

She was about to respond when he sighed and walked away and someone else sat down next to her. She didn't need to look to know it was Gippal, she recognized his warmth, the flutter in her stomach she got when he was around. When he wrapped his arms around her she started sobbing again.

"Why?!" She asked through her sobs "Why did she run away like that....doesn't she know how much we love her?" She sobbed so hard she suspected that she would just crumble; she could only take so much stress, and this, this was worse than Yuna's pilgrimage. This was worse than the desperation she felt in Zanarkand ruins that day two years ago.

"Rikku" Gippal whispered snapping her out of her thoughts. She looked up and saw Gippal smiling back at her. "We'll find her...I promise." He grinned "Dr. P can't hide forever....I don't know why she ran off but we'll find out when we find her. We'll work everything out...I promise."

Rikku couldn't tell if he really meant it but she decided to believe him. Borrowing jacks never helped anyone anyway. She wiped her eyes a forced herself to smile. "Yeah...your right. I'm gonna' go to bed...I'll see you tomorrow. We're searching Guadosalam...we've looked everywhere else...You don't think she went to see Leblanc do you?"

Gippal frowned "I can't imagine why she would want to....if she didn't want to talk to us about her problems she definitely wouldn't want to go to Leblanc about it..."

Rikku sighed. "Well we'll look anyway! Goodnight' see you in the morning." She said with a smile and walked away.

As she walked away she heard Gippal mutter something...she wasn't sure what he said but she was too tired to care. She wondered how Baralai had taken the news...Yunie and Tidus were telling him today weren't they? She certainly hoped he took it better than she had....the last thing they needed was him to freak out...all of Spira might be in jeopardy if that happened...though she was only thinking of Baralai to stop thinking of herself. Though if nothing else, at least for now she had hope: hope that they would find her tomorrow; yes tomorrow would be the day.

A/N Hi everybody! I'm posting this a day early because I have a youth church activity thingy tonight-Saturday (it's a lot funner ((funner is slang term and I can use it!)) than I just made it sound LOL!) Anyway so yeah I wrote this chapter (Actually chapter 1-4) on my cell-phone and I haven't edited them a whole lot so I am sorry for any mistakes feel free to point them out and be nit-picky if you want because I'm sure there are a ton of mistakes in here! Anyway tell me how you guys like the story so far (Like if you hate it still tell me because like seriously I need to know if it sucks!) also just tell me if these really long and ramble-y authors notes are distracting because I can make them shorter. Anyway I hope you are enjoying the story so far! Love y'all - Reibun