Chapter 17

Disclaimer: (enter disclaimer)

Note: I'm a happy blowfish. Just wanted to say that. Ii nichi ga aru!

(vincent pov)

From Costa del Sol, all we had to do was fly West and a little North to Cosmo Canyon. Unlike the trip to Costa del Sol, we flew in perfect weather, but we had to wait a day or two to leave because some part on the ship was malfunctioning.

--Couple days later--

We set the Highwind down outside of the Canyon area a few hours after departure from Costa. I decided I'd walk the rest of the way. Nothing disturbed me as I walked among the mesa and buttes; there was hardly more than a snake on the side of the trail.

When I finally reached the city, I found that it had many more people than the last time I'd visited, and, passing through the halls, I noticed that the people of Cosmo Canyon had started making their own weapons. All the while, I kept an eye out for Harper, but I didn't see her those first few days...

(harpers pov)

Day broke sooner than I would have liked it to. 'I knew I shouldn't have stayed out so late last night,' I thought as I tried to massage away my pounding hang-over. I didn't even remember most of what I did last night. I did know, that I sat at the bar simply drinking for what seemed like forever. I didn't even know why I was there in the first place. Never in my life had I had a hangover this bad, and I didn't know what to do about it. So, what I did was get out of bed, take a shower, and attempt to eat.

As I sat at the table in the inn's restaurant, Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz walked up and sat down. "We've been looking for you since last night, Harper. Where'd you go?" Kadaj asked in a slightly scolding tone.

I sucked on my lower lip and pushed down the urge to ask him what it was to him where I had been. "I...was...out late..." my own voice echoed in my head, made it hurt more. I closed my eyes and hoped I could just fall asleep again. But of course, there was no such luck.

"Kadaj..." Yazoo cautioned. "I think...I think she better go back to bed before we leave."

"Why? What's wrong with her?" Loz asked.

I looked up at him with an icy glare, embracing the fact that I could stare like Sephiroth did at Cloud and using it, "I'm...drunk." I said that, and let my head fall to rest in the crook of my right arm. "Ow."

I knew, just because I knew, that the three of them looked at each other and sighed secretly, thinking something like: this might me a little bit harder than we thought.

Kadaj tapped me on the shoulder in a few minutes to ask, "Have you ordered anything?"

"Yeah," I said, my head still down.

"Uhm..." he started to say something else, but then stopped.

Loz picked up his sentence, "It might not be the best idea to eat right now..."

"...because I'll probably throw it up. Yeah, I know. Not like I ordered something expensive," I said with a weak smile. "I'm hungry. I'm eating," I stated. That was that. No more objections from the guys.

Eventually the food came, and when I looked down at it in front of me, I almost wretched right then and there. But I was able to keep what's supposed to stay in, in and shakily swallow every bite without major problems. I felt worse after eating, but I deserved it for getting so drunk in the first place. "Gotta eat to live," I told them when I was done. "Besides, I'd rather throw up food than not be able to because my stomach is empty, you know?" I said as we stood.

A man at the table to our left laughed roughly and said, "Girl knows what she's talking about!"

I hardly heard him as he continued to tell the very uninterested Kadaj about the first time he was drunk and had a hangover: my attention was by the door.

A tall man with coal black hair walked in. I thought it could be Vincent for a moment, but then I saw the man was wearing a t-shirt and jeans...something Vincent would never, ever wear no matter how much you paid him...and thought, 'Why would he be here anyway?' I shrugged it off.

(Vincent)

I walked into the restaurant down stairs and passed an eye over the crowd with nothing and no one catching my attention. I proceeded down the stairs to the bar to continue asking people if they'd seen Harper and the men she was supposedly with. So to start, I went to the bar for ordering food and liquor to ask the tender there. "Excuse me," I said, making the woman turn around. 'I hate it when bar-tenders are women.'

"Yeah? What can I do for you?" she asked as she passed an eye over me, giving the question a different meaning.

'Since when does the Canyon let people like this work here?' I couldn't help thinking. "Eh..." I laughed a little, maybe to gain some confidence, and unclasped the top two buckles of my cloak. "Nothing of THAT order," I said, "Actually, I was wondering if you could help me with something."

"Yeah?"

"I'm looking for someone, maybe you've seen her?"

"What's she look like?"

"Oh, you wouldn't be able to miss her..." I went on to describe Harper as best as I could.

When I was done she said, "Well, I don't recognize her, but the boss might. Hold on, I'll go get 'im." She hurried through a narrow doorway to get her boss.

"Yes?" a small native man asked.

I figured he knew nothing about the young woman. "I need to know if maybe someone by the name of 'Harper' has checked in lately. Could you help me with that?"

"Sure...hey, didn't you come here with Nanaki once? Vincent was it?" he asked.

Now that he said something about it, I did recognize him. "Ah, yes I did. Nice to see you Kipp."

He nodded, "Yeah, I think someone by that name checked in real late last night. Silver hair, tall, blue eyes..."

"That's her!"I exclaimed.

"Well, some one like that ordered some food just a while ago..." the bartendress said.

(Harper)

I turned away from the man I thought was Vincent, but only just in time to see the real Vincent come down the stairs. I laughed. So we were staying at the same inn in the same city. I couldn't figure out why he was here, then I thought that maybe he'd come after me, to bring me back to Midgar. 'No, he hates me,' I convinced myself. I turned to Kadaj, "I think we ought to leave."

He seemed happy to be distracted from the drunken man's story, "What? Why?"

(Vincent)

"Actually, I think she's over there, by those three guys," the girl said.

My eyes, I knew, flew open as I turned around and almost lost my balance. I brought up my left arm and rested it on the counter to steady myself. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Kipp paid no attention, but that the girl was...possibly repulsed by the moveable, metal prosthesis that was my left forearm. I paid no attention to her and looked closely at the crowd. 'Four people with silver hair should not be this hard to find,' I thought. Then I saw her. She saw me too. Our eyes locked, but she was talking all the while to the one with chin length hair. "Harper," I said softly and started moving toward her.

(Harper)

He saw me only a moment after I told Kadaj that we had to leave. I was staring straight at Vincent when I remembered something. "My guns!"

Kadaj looked to see who I was looking at, then snapped his attention back to our group. "You're right," he said hurriedly. I guessed he didn't like Vincent, but that didn't make any sense... "We're leaving," he continued. "Loz—her guns: get them and meet us outside the city," he ordered.

"If they aren't ready?" Loz questioned.

"Just go!" Kadaj and I said at the same time.

Loz hurried through the crowd and disappeared.

"Come on," Kadaj said. He grabbed my hand and began pushing through the crush to the door.

My pack was still up in my room, but I had my necklace and that was all I really needed. Still, I liked the clothes I'd packed; I knew, though, that we wouldn't stop, so I didn't say anything and only looked back to see if Vincent was following.

He was.

Yazoo made it to the door first, Kadaj and me next. As we emerged from the inn to the less crowded area around the Candle, I searched frantically for anyone else that may have come with Vincent, but no one was there. We bolted for the exit, Kadaj still clamped onto my hand. (Too tightly, I might add.) We descended the long stair, Kadaj and I first and Yazoo at the back. I was almost pulled over as Kadaj went down faster than I could follow.

When we reached the bottom, Loz was waiting for us with all three bikes...and my back-pack. I frowned and asked, "How'd you get that?"

He just shrugged and tossed it to me.

I caught it then looked at him again with a questioning gaze.

He rolled his eyes and pulled my two guns from behind his back.

I squealed and ran to get them from him in excitement. Guns in hand, my excitement was cut short as, at the top of the stairs, a dark figure appeared, cape billowing in the breeze.

Vincent shouted down to me, "Harper!"

'Getting annoying,' I thought, still convinced that he hated me and only wanted to tell me so. I buckled the guns to my belt, shouldered my pack, and climbed onto Kadaj's bike to sit behind him with hardly a thought more about Vincent.

Engines revved, and we were off. Cosmo Canyon was soon just a pin-point in the distance.

(Vincent)

I stood there, at the top of the stairs, for a long time, till I finally turned my back to the settling dust and went back to the inn. I sighed and sat down heavily on one of the stools at the bar. I took off my red headband and ran my right hand through my hair. I sat there, mentally exhausted, until I knew that I'd failed so far. Now I didn't have a clue as to what to do. I felt numb, like I was retreating into that nightmarish sleep I'd had when I slept in the coffin for so long. 'Maybe I should have just gone back to the mansion and slept again...'

I didn't notice the girl looking at me as I sat there until she spoke to me. She was drying a glass. "Doesn't look like you got what you wanted," she said.

I made a face and shook my head "no."

"What happened?" she asked.

I raised an eyebrow and said slightly coldly, "If it's your job to ask me, then don't. Ask again if you're asking only for you."

"It's not my job. You look like a nice guy with good intentions," she explained. "The type of guy that always gets put down."

I was shocked, inwardly, to see that none of the impression she'd made earlier was now gone. "Feh... 'Nice guy with good intentions'? That's a first."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Well," she started, placing the glass on a shelf under the counter, "it might help if you wore different clothes. Black and red together kinda gives people the wrong impression, ya know?"

"I'm aware of it," I said flatly. "It's good for me, I don't usually talk to people and I usually don't like them talking to me."

"Why's that?"

"Well, most people I know are just too...immature to have a real conversation," I told her. Talking was helping my mental health. Maybe it was a good thing this bar tender was a girl, otherwise I may not have spilled my heart out so.

"Oh, well you know, some people may have had things happen that they want ta hide, so they act crazy all the time...?"

"Yes, Cloud is like that..." I mused. Aeris's death had been hard on him; it would make sense for him to try to cover up pain with foolishness. He was the type that felt like if he was sad, everyone else would be too, so he just couldn't be sad. He had to be strong for everyone else. "I understand that."

"Good, most people like you don't," she said. I think it was a complement. "So, what were you doing anyway?"

I thought for a moment, 'What could be harmful about telling her my plans? Or, plan, as it were. I'll never see her again after I leave. Chances are any way.' I decided that nothing horribly would come of it, so I began telling her. "The girl I was looking for, Harper, she and I had been spending time together—"

"Dating?" she interrupted.

"Not...exactly, no. But we shared something, she knew it, and I knew it. Then one day she finds something out about herself and before we all knew it...

"We came home, myself and the people I live with, from the Gold Saucer one night to find a fire burning out in the hearth and the chairs all rearranged. Those differences were meant to tell Cloud, the leader of us mostly, that she left for some reason. Cloud comes to us later to read us a note Harper had left for us. It explained why she left, and asked us not to come after her...at the very end, she said good-bye to me. Now, I'm here, and before this Costa del Sol, looking for her and trying to find out why she left. I found her today, but it seems she really wants nothing to do with me or anyone else from home," I explained. I left out the part about Sephiroth on purpose. Harper did have a point about not wanting anyone outside the "family" to know about her lineage. You can never know how people are going to react to anything.

I expected her to say that that was an interesting story, then wish me good luck. But that's not at all what she said next. "Did you talk to her?"

"Excuse me?"

"When she found out that thing, did you talk to her about it?"

"A little..."

"What did you say?"

"I don't remember."

"Well, that's not a good thing. Did you talk to after she first found out?"

"Not...not that I know of..."

"She's mad at you."

I stared at her blankly. "How do you know?"

"I don't. But I would be if it were me," she said. "Look, can I give you some personal, heartfelt advice?"

"If you want to..."

"Leave 'er alone. I mean, she told you why she left in that letter didn't she? Just leave her alone. She wanted to leave, and she left. She was even nice enough to let you know why she left. Just let her go."

I was surprised at the harshness of what she said. No one had talked to me so frankly in a long time. Actually, I don't think anyone dared speak to me that way for fear I was a bit trigger-happy the day they did. "Do you even know why I'm after her in the first place?" I asked in a good natured way.

"No. I'm just telling you what I think. But, yeah, why are you after her still? She told you why she left and asked you not to come after her. Yet here you are."

"There's something more to everything that's going on. I can feel it. Something's underneath our noses and we don't see it...'we' being the people she left. I'm going to find out."

"Even if it costs you whatever you two shared?" she asked.

"Yes."

She smiled, "You really like the truth, don't you?"

"No. I don't. The truth hurts and—"

"—'and who likes pain?'" she finished.

I looked at her. She reminded me a bit of Lucrecia just then, and a bit of myself too. "And who likes pain?" I repeated.

Note: I hope you people think this long enough! Is like...8 pages in Word! Had fun writing it though. Well, at the beginning of the chapter, in the first note, I told everyone to have a good day...that was three days ago. So now I say good-bye for now! Sayonara!