Chapter 7 Core Temperature

Disclaimer: I only own plot to story and Harper and...Well you'll know when you see her.

Note: Sorry about the lateness of me for the past couple chapters. Happens I actually had a life on those weekends. Great huh?

Vincent watched closely the people around him. He was watching their mannerisms to see what the feelings were between groups. Everyone in the Djose area seemed at ease, even comfortable, with High Summoner Yuna. Auron had said they wouldn't be long stuck outside and that they would enter the Cloister of Trials as soon as possible. Vincent didn't know what that meant. Tidus said he wasn't really supposed to go in, but that he always did anyway.

As everyone proceeded toward the inner sanctum, Vincent decided he and Harper should probably stay away from this unknown factor. Harper came up and told him she had decided the same thing.

The entrance door opened with a dilapidated swish and in walked three men. "High Summoner Yuna?" the one wearing the richly colored robe said. His hair was brown, pulled back into a pony-tail which let his bangs fall to the sides of his face and, in spite of the loud colors of his clothing, he gave off a general feeling of humbleness. "I am summoner Isaaru...I have some news."

The news was that summoners on their pilgrimage had been disappearing, a fact that hardly unsettled the group. Yuna's guardians, or at least the original five, were as confident in their work as Vincent had been when he was a Turk...but then...those were days he did not miss.

Isaaru and Yuna's conversation was brief, as though Isaaru knew exactly why Yuna was there, and the six people disappeared into the puzzle called the Cloister of Trials.

The front room was instantly quiet after the door to the trial closed. Vincent made his way over to a wall and sat, waiting for their return. Harper jumped at the opportunity, sitting down (close, but not as close as she'd like) beside him. "Vincent?" He didn't answer, but she knew she had his attention. "What's wrong?" she asked, then chanced a glance at him. His eyes were closed.

For a while nothing came from him and Harper thought maybe he was asleep. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her head on her knees. "It's just old memories and past fears which I didn't expect to see again," came the sudden reply from the again mysterious man beside her. He received a small noise to urge him on. Vincent opened his eyes and turned them on her without moving his head. "I'm not quite ready to talk about anything like that."

Harper's other question was killing her. "Are we ok?" she blurted.

Now Vincent turned to her with an extremely serious gaze, yet it bore that softness he seemed to have only for her. "If we aren't, it is I. You ..."

"Haven't done anything?" Harper picked up. She wasn't inexperienced: she had been with other men before. They all said the same thing. "Yeah. I know."

Vincent knew sarcasm when he heard it, so he didn't say "good." Instead he tried to go on, "Harper...please..."

"Please don't lie to me."

Vincent's mouth closed almost with a snap. "I'm...not. Please, believe me." To him his voice sounded as if her were ready to kneel before her and plead with her. His insides twisting while her face was ice, for she thought he was simply speaking.

Not one of the few others ever said that part to her, though. Harper forced herself to calm down and convince herself that he was telling the truth. He wouldn't have spent three months chasing after her in the name of safety and love if he didn't think their relationship would work out. He wouldn't have gone after her at all. Vincent spoke the truth, when he did speak. She sighed audibly and relaxed against the wall. "I'm sorry. I'm just..." she sighed again. "It's been a great thing with us so far, I'd hate to lose it because of anything," done explaining, she gave him a soft smile.

"I know," he replied, gently taking her hand and giving it a reassuring clench. "Me too."

Their eyes met for the first time since the incident at Mushroom Rock. Something...a haunted look, the haunted look, the one that Shinra had given him, was back in Vincent's deep red eyes. "Have you slept at all lately?"

He looked away as if shamed by his answer. "No. Not since the beach."

"I wish I could help, you know."

"I do."

For a while they both thought it was time for the summoner and her guardians to come back, but when they didn't Harper continued. "Would it help if I sat with you at night? We wouldn't have to say anything...just for the company..."

Vincent started to laugh lowly, but stopped when even the lowness echoed in the large room. "Last night I laid in bed for a long time thinking about asking you to take a walk outside with me. I didn't because you were asleep."

She giggled just a little bit. "I stayed awake for a long time just wondering if you were going to get any sleep."

He smiled at the irony of the previous night. "Well. I think I would like the company...they're back."

Harper looked up from the floor in front of her feet and to the door that the party had gone through. The guardians emerged first: Wakka and Auron, Tidus and Lulu, then Kimahri behind Yuna who was looking quite a bit more than exhausted.

Vincent stood, and in his wake Harper did too. One glance at Yuna told them both something, but only Harper was bold enough to ask, "Bedtime?"

Auron nodded and left the temple. The others all followed. As it turned out, it was late in the evening, not the morning (for they had entered in the morning and it seemed to not have taken that long to complete the trials and whatever else lay behind that door). Everyone took time to clean up before hitting the hay. Shower order was oldest first. Auron, then Vincent; Harper and Lulu had to flip a coin, then Wakka...and so on. Everyone said Yuna should go first, even Vincent put in his two cents in favor of that, but she just wanted to rest for a while.

Eventually, everyone ended up back in their own room, for a while. Three hours after all the lights were turned off, the door to Vincent and Auron's room creaked open as one of them slipped out and padded down the hall to Lulu and Harper's room. He knocked as softly as he could. A few seconds later, Harper was at the door. "Hey, Vin...Auron?"

"Expecting someone else?" Auron asked, with maybe a touch of admonishment to the question. He stood before her in the dimly lit hallway in an orange/red shirt, usual black pants, and socks.

"Yeah..." Harper opened the door wider and straitened her lopsided t-shirt. She actually liked sleep attire and was in baggy grey pants and, as mentioned, a T-shirt that happened to be green. "What's up?"

Auron blinked at her for a moment. "Valentine isn't in bed. He isn't in there, is he?"

"Eh...no..." Harper glanced behind her just to make sure he wasn't. "You sure he's not in there?"

"I'm positive."

Harper sighed, "Ok. You go back to sleep, I'll go look for him." She turned and disappeared behind the door muttering "I told him to come get me if he couldn't sleep." Auron stood alone in the hall for a few minutes while Harper got herself in order. She emerged fully dressed: boots, black pants, and black second-skin like tank top. All she lacked was her sword and guns.

Even though Auron was older and a grown, respectable man... he couldn't help the way his eyes somehow kept ending up where they shouldn't in those few seconds she stood before him saying, "Like I said...I'll go look for him." With that, she turned and walked away.

The night air was chilly. A faint glow came from the temple in the distance. Before her was the first bridge one had to cross before entering the Djose temple area. An echo of stones being flipped into the water reached Harper's ears. "Vincent?" When there was no answer she began making her way to the underside of the bridge. There were large flat stones which rose above the level of the water and had many worn pebbles scattered around the edges and undersides of the overlapping rocks. Vincent sat on the ledge-like rock lowest to the water. He was in the new clothes Yuna had made him get: dark, baggy pants and a white t-shirt. It was an odd site when all he ever wore was the black pants and shirt and cloak. His hair was even let down. "Vincent?" He turned his face to her, then flipped another stone into the murky depths and turned away.

"I couldn't sleep."

Harper blinked in a slight confusion and began making her way toward him. "But...we agreed that you could come get me if you couldn't... Why didn't you?"

"I know..." Vincent sat down cross-legged and flipped another stone. "...and I don't know." That was his answer to her question. "I guess...I just didn't want to wake you; I knew for a fact that you were asleep... Lulu told me."

"Oh..." Harper bent at the waist and picked up a pebble shaped for skipping. She threw it and watched as it skipped three, four, five times before she sat down beside Vincent. "So you did come."

He nodded, "I did. She said you were sleeping well. I didn't insist."

"Well... Even if you had," she laughed then, relieved that she had been heard during that conversation. "I don't think Lu would have done anything but say again that I was asleep and shut the door in your face..."

That coaxed a laugh from Vincent. Harper was happy she was the one who could get him to laugh, genuinely laugh. "Probably." For a while no one said anything. Then, "It surprises me that, after an entire day of doing nothing, that you would be able to sleep."

"Well..."

"What woke you?"

"...Oh," Harper wasn't sure what he would say to the fact that Auron woke her up, and where his eye had been. She knew she'd feel guilty if she didn't tell Vincent that, so he could know Auron. At least, a little bit. To know that Auron was just like any other person. "Auron did. He said he woke up and you weren't there. I thought it was you at the door... Vincent...he's just a normal person...like Cid..." So she didn't say exactly what had happened, she told him what she thought was important.

"Cid...?"

"...Eheh..." Harper faltered for a moment. "Bad example... Do you mind if I sit with you now?"

"No. Please stay."

Harper nodded and crossed her legs, putting her hands on the ground behind her to help steady her balance. The water shimmered in the moonlight as they sat in silence, Vincent with his thoughts, no doubt, and Harper with her lack of thought because she was tired. Suddenly something came to mind for her. "You know, for the longest time when I first saw you, I was sure that you hated every living thing." She kept looking at the dark water as it licked at the rocks edge, even as Vincent looked at her with a look of surprise and confusion. Then she nodded. "Yep."

"Why?" Vincent was still facing her.

"Well, it seemed you never spoke to anyone except maybe your thoughts. For a few days I thought maybe you didn't even have a voice." Harper turned her head and grinned at him. "I think that was the stupidest thing I ever thought about you."

"That I hated everything, or that I couldn't speak?"

"Mmm...both. But mostly that you hated everything. Not long after I made that judgment I figured out that you in fact love almost everything, yet resent yourself."

Vincent laughed at the description he was being given for himself, but at the same time, he knew she was right. Lately he'd been more at ease, but back then... and now... "You're right."

Harper grinned at him, teeth white in the moonlight.

After that, neither spoke for a while. Mainly because something weird was going on in the water. In the space lighted by the moon the water bubbled up, climbing at its highest to at least 5 feet. The coulomb of bubbling water moved toward the shore just a little distance from the pair. When the water receded there stood a girl, or a woman to be more exact.

She was clothed in light-green and light-purple clothes; she had blue-ish hair that reached her knees in the back and was angled away from her face. It had a slight curl to it.

For a moment the new person just stood there, looking at Harper and Vincent as if they were the intruders. Then...she simply collapsed.