IS92: I have hit a milestone. This is the first fic I've ever written where the tenth chapter hasn't been close to the end! I am so proud of myself! XD

Sheik: Yes, be proud of yourself. You've managed to torture me for 10 full chapters by the time this is up.

IS92: Oh, don't worry, Sheik. You're going to have a change in luck soon. Maybe.

Sheik: What's that supposed to mean?

IS92: Anyway, no own no sue and on with the show!

Sheik: Will you ever answer my questions?

IS92: Will you ever shut up? Oh, by the way, peoples, I now have a beta for this fic! ^-^ I'd like to thank my close friend, Lady Faye Rosethorn for spending her time listening to my crazy ramblings. This fic would probably end up a lot shorter without her. XD She noticed a way I could continue the fic that I never would have thought of. Anyway, I should probably stop rambling now so the story can start again, huh?

Sheik: You think?

IS92: Shut up, Sheik.

Ch. 10

This trip just couldn't get any better, could it?

No, I thought not.

Currently the Hero and I had been traveling for ages, or so it seemed. We had finally arrived at the shores of Lake Hylia this afternoon, and we were setting up our campsite for the night. We hadn't talked much over our journey beyond arguing over which way it had been to Lake Hylia from where we had been.

Not to say I didn't enjoy the view, of course. I spent half the trip staring at the Hero, who was incredibly attractive for someone so childish. His intense focus as he caught wild cucco and then his frustration when he lost them made me fight laughter several times.

"Sheik!" The Hero called, breaking me from my thoughts, "Could you help me out over here?" He gestured to the fire. I sighed in annoyance. He'd been using me as a human flint since I'd showed him that spell a while ago.

"You really need to learn this on your own." I said to him, "I'll show you one more time, First, concentrate your energy, then release it through your fingertips, willing it to do what you want it to. Like this." I knelt down next to the fire pit and muttered, "Din's Fire." A small spark shoot from my finger, lighting the kindling.

"Next time, you do it on your own." I said, "I'm not going to be there to help you all the time." That got his attention. When I looked at his expression, he had paled like he was afraid.

"What do you mean Sheik?" He asked. I grabbed a stick and poked at the fire, trying to figure out how to explain it. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and, Goddesses know, I didn't want to leave him. But I couldn't foresee a way for that to happen.

"Well… You're the Hero, Link. You're going to have to face some things on your own." I said, not daring to meet his eyes anymore, "I'm not going to be able to help you defeat the Evil King. It's outside of my role as your guide." I finally chanced a glance at him. His expression was not depressed, as I had feared, but one of confusion.

"Why do you care so much about staying in your role as my guide?" He asked, "Haven't you already gone outside of that role?" I knew he was thinking of when he had almost fallen to his doom.

"That may be so, but I'm afraid I can't always act as your safety net in times like that, Hero. What if I hadn't been close enough to catch you?" I replied, "I'm just an ordinary person, after all…. What?" When I had said I was ordinary, his expression had changed, and he had tensed a little, like he was holding himself back.

"Nothing." He stated simply, refusing to say anything more on the subject. Before I fell asleep that night, I couldn't help but wonder what he had been about to say.

The ashes of the fire were still slightly smoking the next morning. After a meal of fish caught in Zora's River, we headed towards the temple uncontested.

The water of Lake Hylia was frigid, and I honestly felt like I was going to drown before the door to the temple opened enough for us to slip inside. But we surfaced in the main hall before anything happened. As I caught my breath, Link voiced both of our minds.

"Whoa."

The sheer vastness of the water temple was enough to amaze the unwary. Three floors were visible, one in front of us above the water level, and two submerged below. A large tower was the only decoration given the room, aside from several torches. It was the largest building I had seen in a long time, dwarfed only by Hyrule Castle. I knelt down by the water's edge to see if I could see the bottom, wondering exactly how deep it was. However, I hadn't noticed the danger I was putting myself in in doing so.

A single tektite wouldn't seem like a huge danger to most, and had I seen it, it wouldn't have even provided a challenge. However, it had been sitting across the watery chasm, and when I had tried to see the bottom, I hadn't seen it, but it had seen me. A couple scratching noises were all the warning I had before it leapt at me.

"Sheik! Look out!" Link shouted, drawing his sword.

But he was too late.

I had looked up at the tektite just in time to see it land on my head and knock me into the water.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do know how to swim, and I can hold my breath for quite a while when I want to, but faced with the depths of the Water Temple, I was in over my head. Whether it was the shock of the blow, or just the frigid temperature of the water, I couldn't seem to move. At least, not enough to save myself. My vision began to go black as I drowned.

Goddesses! Please don't tell me this is it! I haven't even told him!

It seemed that this was what the Goddesses meant to happen. I couldn't save myself and there was no one who would save me. Just before I lost consciousness, however, I felt something- or someone- grab ahold of me.

I woke coughing up water. Link was staring at me, watching me intensely as I sat up. I was so tired.

"Are you alright, Sheik?" he asked, his face only inches from mine. I could feel myself turning red.

"Y-yes, I'm fine." I said, reaching up to adjust my cowl. I hoped that the fabric would hide my blush… until skin touched skin and I realized I was unshielded. Heat rose within my stomach in anger that the Hero would do such a thing as remove my cowl without my permission.

"I had to take it off of your face…" he said as a way of apology, "It was sticking to you and making it harder for you to breathe." The lack of the fabric that usually obscured my expressions made me feel horribly exposed. I wanted to be angry with him, but as per usual, I couldn't.

"By the way…" He started, and I was nervous about what would come next, "Why do you wear that thing anyway? It's like you're hiding; like you're embarrassed."

A small hitch of my breath and my mind was in another place, another time.

"Why do you keep yourself hidden?" He asked, a faint smile softening his features, "You have a very nice face. The way you constantly hide, it's like you're embarrassed."

My heart fluttered. What was this? Why were these feelings welling up within me? Why now? And why did he remind me of… of…

"Sheik? Are you sure you're okay?" Simple words broke me from my reverie. I felt a slight wetness around my eyes and realized that I had been crying. Wiping away the tears, I took a breath to calm myself before I spoke.

"I'm fine." I replied, but my voice, the traitor that it was, cracked and revealed my lie.

"What's wrong? Was it something I said?"

I shook my head, trying to suppress the emotions that were threatening to break me down.

"Please tell me." He pleaded, "It'll make you feel better if you do."

"I-I can't." I said, "I'm sorry, but I just can't, Hero."

"Why not?" He asked, "It's just me. No one's anywhere near here." He gestured around himself at the practically empty room.

"I know, I know, it's not that, it's just… I don't think I can handle it right now." Silence hung in the air, suffocating in its volume. I couldn't take the way he was looking at me. I hadn't asked for his pity!

Yet, there he was, his deep blue eyes piercing through the façade to the depths of my heart. I could have lost myself in those eyes… except that was when he decided that we should get moving again. He slipped into the water with a splash and started to dive down into the depths. He must have realized that I wasn't there, because after a few moments, he surfaced again.

"Are you coming?" He asked. The question brought a small smile to my face due to the sheer absurdity of it all.

"I'm afraid I can't breathe underwater like you can, Hero. I won't be able to help you right now." I replied.

"Oh. Okay." He looked slightly upset by the fact. He started to swim away again, but stopped short.

"You know, you should smile more often." He said, breaking into a grin, "It really suits you."

As he finally left the room, I stared at the water. He really did know exactly what to say. It amazed me that he could see through me so well. Cowl or none, it was a rare event when someone could read me as well as he could. The last one had been… My mind instantly brought his visage to the forefront. He was exactly the same as the last time I'd seen him, fighting his hardest for my sake. Dying for my sake.

No! Stop it, Sheik. There's no use in feeling this way when he's been dead and gone for years already!

I shut the image from my mind and sat down to wait for the Hero's return.

It felt like hours later when Link finally returned. I'd started feeling ill from watching the water rise and lower more times than I cared to count. At first, he startled me. I gasped and readied my blade as I realized that something was approaching me, though I knew not what. As he broke the surface, taking a deep breath of air, I let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey! Don't point that thing at me!" He shouted. I chuckled a little at the look on his face.

"I'm sorry. " I laughed, "I didn't realize it was you."

"You didn't have to scare me like that, though!"

"Hey, I said I was sorry." I replied, raising an eyebrow, "Would you rather I were unprepared and a monster had attacked me?" The look on his face told me that he understood my point.

"Anyway, what happened down there? Did you find anything?" I asked. His face brightened.

"Well, I found these!" He exclaimed, holding up a pair of old, partly rusted keys, "Oh, and I saw Ruto. She was the one who showed me how to change the water level."

That Damn fish-woman! I had a new reason to hate her now.

Not only had she been the ultimate cause of my motion sickness, she had shown me up by being able to aid Link when I could not, and I knew she cared about him as well. If she got in my way, I'd…!

Wait a minute! What was I thinking? I couldn't…! And besides, she was the one person that Link feared almost more than the King of Evil himself. I had nothing to worry about, right?

"Hyrule to Sheik!"

"Oh! Yes?" I snapped out of my thoughts to realize that the Hero was waving his hand in front of my face.

"I was saying that the next room is right over there." He pointed at a door to the left of us, on the same level. "You'll be able to come too this time!" A smile lit up his face.

Happy as I was to see him so excited, I worried anyway. What if something happened to him because of me? What if…? What if that dream I'd had a while ago was more than just a dream? I'd die if something happened to someone I loved again because of me. Wait…! Did I just think what I thought I thought? I shook my head to clear it of my conflicting emotions and confusing thoughts. There was no time to think of that now. There was no turning back.

The key clicked in the lock, breaking as the chains fell into the watery depths of the temple. The door opened into a room that made me a little dizzy. Platforms traveled down the slope of a wall before withdrawing beneath it. On the other side of the room was a small indent in the wall, which housed the door into the next room. I bit my lip in anxiety as I realized exactly how difficult it was going to be to cross a simple room. Although the distance between the platforms wasn't something I'd worry about under normal circumstances, water was running over just about everything in the room, meaning the platforms would likely be slick. If either of us slipped, we'd fall into the abyss below us. With a screeching sound, both Keese that guarded the entrance of the room died as Link shot them with his hookshot.

"Link, I'm going to try to cross first, so stay out of the way until I've succeeded." I stated.

"Wouldn't it make more sense if I crossed first? It would be easier for me, since there are hookshot targets everywhere in this room." He asked. I could feel myself twitch due to the fact that I'd embarrassed myself. And in front of him, for that matter! At that moment, I wished that I could have just shrunk into nothingness.

"Ah… alright, then. I'll stay out of your way." I replied, wishing that I'd said nothing in the first place.

I watched as he used his hookshot to pull himself from platform to platform, getting closer and closer to the top each time. The lithe warrior's reflexes and skill with his weapons was to be envied. I personally wished I were half the marksman he was. It took him very little time to ascend the slope, and as he climbed up to the top, he waved to me. I supposed it was my turn now.

I took a breath to steady myself, and took a leap of faith, hoping I'd timed it well enough that I wouldn't fall into the abyss. I landed on one of the platforms, which was quickly moving down into the darkness. With as much speed as I could muster, I leaped from platform to platform, much the same as Link had with the aid of his hookshot.

However, I wasn't immune to the slickness of the platforms. As I landed on a platform near the top, I lost my balance, and began to fall backwards.

"Gotcha!" Link shouted, his hand grasping my wrist. He helped me up to the ledge, making it look easy. Although, the fact that I was so slim that I was almost girlish was probably a factor in that.

"Ah… Thank you." I said, playing with the fabric of my cowl, "That's a second time you've saved me." He smiled at my comment, placing the last of the two keys in the lock. It made a click as the chains released their hold on the door.

"Don't worry about it." He replied, "After all, you're my friend. I'm not about to let you get hurt. Friends protect each other."

"Yes… Friends…" I sighed, part of me wishing that we could be more than that, another part of me knowing that my fondest wish would never be granted.

IS92: So…. Now that I've finished this chapter, it's about 10:30 at night, and I'm exhausted as heck. I really should sleep in a bit more than I do on breaks and weekends, but otherwise, I'd never get anything done!

Val: You barely get anything done anyway, so what are you talking about?

IS92: AAAHHHHH! ZOMBIE!

Val: I'm not a zombie. Din's fire, you act crazy when you're tired.

IS92: *pokes Val with a stick*

Val: Would you stop that?

IS92: Are you sure you're Val? 'Cuz last time I checked, Sheik was the uptight one.

Sheik: I am not uptight!

IS92: Yes you are. Do not argue with meeeeeeee!

Val: She's got a point, you know.

Sheik: Shut it.

Val: Make me.

Sheik: Oh I will. *evil grin*

Val: O.o'

IS92: I hate to half-quote some random thing when I can't remember what it is, but when you guys leave me out of the conversation in the author's notes when I'm the author, I kinda feel weird. Anyway, review! Comments and Criticism is appreciated, although I like the former better! Flames will be used to roast a future villain…. MUAHAHA!

Val: I hope she doesn't mean her…

IS92: Anyway, Mata ne!