The Continuation

Chapter I—The breakfast brawl

Disclaimer: No, sadly I don't own any FF VII characters, but I have made up one of my own…Most of this story, the first chapter at least, will be from her point of view, because…that's how I am.

Note—Just so I won't have to do this at the end…Please read and review! Thankies! For those of you who know me….Zombies!

"Harper! We're home!" Yuffie screamed as she bounced through the door to 7th. Heaven. Cloud, Tiffa, and Vincent followed her inside, but I was hardly able to give them a welcoming glance as Yuffie trapped me in one of her deadly hugs.

"Glad you're all safe," I managed to choke out.

"Where's Marlene?" Yuffie asked, releasing me from her death-grip. "I have something I wanna give 'er!"

I looked over my shoulder and said, "She's in the back looking at the materia."

"Great! Hey, Marlene!" She ran past me in the direction I had indicated.

Tifa walked up and hugged me much more lightly, but no less heartfelt, than Yuffie had. "How was she?" She asked, talking about Marlene.

"An angel, as always. I could almost worry about her: most kids her age stir up some kind of trouble!"

Tifa just laughed and followed Yuffie.

I turned to Cloud, who was taking off his materia. "How was the trip?" I asked.

He didn't look at me when he responded, "Long, and there was this man who was extremely over-protective of his tour guide daughter who'd signed up to lead us through the mountains." Now he turned and smiled at me, then put his materia in a faded brown bag labeled "Cloud."

I laughed and almost made a comment about how protective he'd been of Aeris, but thought better of it. Instead I asked, "Well, did you bag the monster?"

"Yep, sure did. Another one of the dragons from the Mt. Nible reactor." He turned and headed off to his room, leaving his bag of materia on the counter.

I turned now to face Vincent…

…Who wasn't there. He'd left his materia in a neat heap on the arm of the sofa.

I sighed, snatched up Cloud's bag, and cradled Vincent's loose orbs in my shirt.

On my way to the store room, where Yuffie and Tifa had gone, I rounded a corner and slammed into something, sending Vincent's materia flying. I sighed in frustration and bent to pick up the mess, but slipped on one of the balls. Starting to fall, I awaited pain in my backside, but I never hit the floor.

Some one had caught me, their hand at the small of my back and between my shoulder blades. I could feel this person's breath heat my cheek every other second.

I opened my eyes; two faintly red eyes were studying my bewildered expression.

"Vincent!" I breathed his name as a sigh of relief. "…What were you doing in the hall?"

"Um…sorry," His eyes flew open as if he'd suddenly remembered that he was holding me.

My eyebrows furrowed, "What for?"

"For making you trip." He removed his hand on my lower back and helped me up with the other. He backed away, turned on a lamp, and bent to gather the materia.

I dropped to my knees to help him, but not before I noticed his appearance: He still had on his regular shirt and silky looking pants, but his crimson cape was gone. Instead of his pointed, metal shoes he had on an old pair of what he called Cid's boots, and his metal arm looked a little dirty in the yellow lamp light. There was a scratch down the right side of his face, and his crimson headband was there, as always, keeping his black hair out of his eyes.

I, on the other hand, had to remove the annoying lock of silver hair that had stuck to the right corner of my mouth. "It really wasn't you fault," I said.

With the mess all picked up, he stood and cocked an eyebrow, something I'd never seen him do.

What's that about? I asked myself. Grabbing Cloud's bag from the floor, I held out my hand expecting Vincent to give me the materia he held, but instead he turned away from me and headed to the back room. Ok, seems like Vincent's a gentleman. I'd never been able to spend much time with him.

The walk was silent, as I'd expected it would be, and when we reached the store room Yuffie, thankfully, and Marlene was gone, leaving Tifa to herself.

As we walked in Tifa was just about to leave. "Hey Harper, Hey Vince. You OK?" She asked, eyeing Vincent queerly.

I glanced at him. He did look a bit off.

His face showed a few little signs of cheerfulness as he answered, "Yes Tifa, I'm fine."

"You really don't look fine, Vincy," She warned, but as she walked away she mumbled, "You look hot!" thinking we couldn't hear her.

The door closed behind her and Vincent turned to the empty slots mounted on the wall, a look of disgust coming across his face. "She shouldn't say things like that."

We began slotting the materia.

I shot him a quizzical look as I placed Cloud's bag in the corner.

"She knows how Cloud feels about her. It just wouldn't be fair to him to…I mean, after…" he trailed off.

Hesitantly I picked up his sentence, "After what happened with Aeris?"

He waited a moment before answering, "Yes."

I stopped what I was doing, looked down as a sadness came over me, and began slotting again. We finished in an awkward silence. Vincent was the first to leave.

Cloud really liked Aeris, and Tifa. All Tifa did now was rub Cloud's feelings in the dirt. Well, that's how it seemed to me.

I left the store room and stepped into the hall. Yuffie's voice could be heard and so could Marlene's small piping one. By the noises in the kitchen I could tell Tifa was preparing an extremely early breakfast. I saw Cloud outside unpacking the rest of the equipment. Vincent was not in the front with the others, and not in his room as I passed his open door on the way to my room. Poor Vincent, what's wrong?

As I entered my room I stripped off my uncomfortable over shirt, revealing a while spaghetti strap tank top. My thoughts shifted gears. Oh Tifa…

Tifa didn't approve of my walking around "without a shirt on." Apparently she forgot the mini-skirt and tank she used to wear around the guys, something I didn't do. Still, she made sure I always had on an over shirt.

I sighed, feeling cool air wrap around my bare arms and neck, as I walked across the smallness of my room to stand in front of a mirror. I brushed some more hair out of my eyes idly. It fell back almost immediately. I searched, forgetting about the hair, my odd blue eyes for something…

Not really knowing what I was looking for, I quitted the mirror and sat on the edge of my bed. I pulled off my shoes and rolled over to get comfortable. Then I remembered: Tifa was making food and would be rounding everyone up. Oh well. I dismissed the reminder and fell asleep.

Just like I had expected, Yuffie was sent to wake me. "Get outa bed you sleepy head!" she sounded the alarm cheerfully.

"But I'm tiered," I moaned, face down in my pillow.

"Well, you shouldn't have stayed up all night waiting for us!" she exclaimed then jumped between me and the wall when I showed no signs of getting up. She began rolling me towards the edge of my bed.

"Yuffie…" I groaned.

"Get…Out…of…BED!" she grunted and finally pushed me onto the floor.

I reached up and grabbed my pillow, rolled onto my stomach, and curled up muttering "NO." in protest.

"Yes!" She snatched my pillow and ran out of the room.

I looked after her, then let my head fall painfully to the wooden floor. "Aw, man…" I grumbled while I crawled to my feet and put on my over shirt again.

I staggered into the living room. Tifa was almost done filling our plates, Yuffie was nowhere to be seen, Marlene was probably in bed asleep, and Cloud was on the couch, my pillow resting in his lap.

"Looking for this?" He waved the pillow in the air.

I just glared at him then leapt over the arm of the couch. "Give it!"

He laughed and evaded my attack.

"Cloud!" I whined.

He just kept laughing and started hitting me with my pillow.

"Cloud! Give it to me!" I crawled over him.

He fell back, lifting the pillow high and out of my reach.

I reached over him to try to grab it, just as Tifa called out, "Breakfast is served!"

"Oh! Food!" Cloud yelped as he rolled out from under me. He rounded the couch on his way to the kitchen, stuffing the pillow in my face as he did so.

"Hey, OW! Oooo…Hello pillow." I once again curled up to go to sleep.

Just then Barret barged through the door, "Hey guys! I'm home, and guess who I brought with me!"

Nanaki, or Red as I called him, walked in after him, giving us all a sheepish smile.

"Nanaki!" Yuffie screeched as she flew from some hiding place.

"Hey B. You're just in time for breakfast!" Cloud welcomed Barret with a manly hug.

"Speaking of breakfast," Tifa started. "Would anyone like to wake the couch potato up so she doesn't starve?"

Cloud shifted his eyes to the burly man beside him, "Would you do the honors?"

"Love to!" Barret loved waking me up because I was such a pain, er…that's what he said anyway. He slipped his real hand under my side and flipped me over his shoulder like a sack. Dumping me into a chair at the table, he said, "Here's your potato, ma'am." He gave Tifa a nod and a wink.

"Thanks, Barret. Everyone, come eat! You too Red," Tifa called again.

Everyone sat down, but one place was empty. Barret looked to the empty seat. "Yo, where's Vincent?" he asked.

Note- I ya! It's longer than I would've expected! Well, again to all who know me…I must go kill the zombies and level the city. Have a nice day! Props to my new fav. thing! MegaTokyo!