Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Why Me? A Love Story For Manic Depressives ❯ Stolen Moments ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A/N: Ok people, I apologize for this. The good news is that this chapter is ALL Vincent and Yuffie interaction, because it is definately past time for them to advance, as it were. The bad news is, I wrote and rewrote this chapter about five times before I was finally satisfied with it, and it still doesn't feel totally right.

I don't know if this is just me being my own worst critic, but I guess this is a time when I'm gonna need an outside opinion to really know for sure.

Let me have it, people.

Also this chapter suddenly developed a live of its own about three quarters of the way through, and I want you to know that I DID NOT intend it to end up the way it did. It just flowed out of me, and even though there is some... possibly out of character interaction, it felt very... I don't know... powerful, so I kept it the way it was.

Again, let me know what you think. If I sound hesitant or unsure of myself it's because I am... I actually almost hurt myself writing this chapter... got maybe a little too deep into it. You other writers might know what I'm talking about. If there is anything wrong with this chapter, it stems from me maybe putting a little too much me into it.

That being said, enjoy, please.



"He seemed no different from the rest. Just a healthy normal boy. His mama always did her best, and he was daddy's pride and joy. He learned to walk and talk on time, but never cared much to be held. And steadily he would decline, into his solitary shell. As a boy he was considered somewhat odd. Kept to himself most of the time. He would daydream in and out of his own world, but in every other way, he was "fine". He's a monday morning lunatic, disturbed from time to time. Lost within himself, in his solitary shell. Temporary catatonic, madman on occasion. When will he break out, of his solitary shell?" -Dream Theater, Solitary Shell

It was hot. Unmercifully hot. The kind of heat that was made all the worse because of the humidity, an ennervating, mind-slowing, leeching heat that crept up on you and stole your clean underwear when you weren't paying attention. Still, even in such an oppressive environment, life, in its neverending diversity, intruded into even the most sour of moods. The air held the moisture so well that rainbows abounded everywhere the light was captured just right, and a thousand different jewel colored insects made their presence known, filling the air with an almost bone-felt buzz. The jungle was a cacaphony of life, and it raised even the dimmest of spirits.

Yuffie had removed the sweater/shirt she normally wore, revealing a thin black tank top, and rolled down her socks, so that the still damp cloth wouldn't cling so disgustingly to her skin. Her companion had made no concessions to the heat, however, and walked beside her in silence. She'd prodded him for a few more details, just for the companionship mind you, but he seemed to have gone over his human interaction qouta for the day.

It really annoyed her.

It wasn't that he was ignoring her, which he wasn't. He watched her quietly, and his facial expressions did change, leading her to believe he WAS listening to her. It was just that he didn't open his mouth... didn't add any personal input whatsoever. Most people listened to others only so they wouldn't miss their chance to take up the conversational reins when it was their turn. Vincent just listened, content, apparently, to actually hear what the other person was saying.

Which meant that everything Yuffie had to say had to be meaningful, damnit. She didn't know what she'd do if Vincent thought she was an idiot. The fact that he was willing to... talk? Ok, maybe not, but INTERACT, with her made her feel special... more grown-up, in a way. Of course, she was still very annoyed at Vincent, maybe even a little hurt by him, but after her angry tirade, it was what he hadn't done that had made her anger dissipate into surprised, elated shock. He HADN'T blown up or patronized her the way Godo would have, hell, the way any other supposed "adult" would have. That was the thing with Vincent, he LISTENED. He even recognized the fact that she had a valid point, that she could think. She loved Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the others, she loved them very much, but they'd never really listened to her. They'd listened to him, of course. All he'd had to do was speak in that quiet, "miss it if you weren't paying attention", tone of his, and everyone else (her included) would shut up and listen. He only said something when it mattered. Vincent seemed to enjoy solitude and silence, or at least, found them tolerable. She had to fill up the emptiness with noise. With life.

A fundamental difference between them, she thought. Maybe it wasn't so much that he enjoyed the solitude, just that he was used to it. Maybe he'd given up trying to reach out to others, because so few reached out to him.

That was unbearably sad.

"Hey Vinnie..." She inserted after an uncharacteristically long silence (about three minutes).

He cocked his head at her. She had begun to realize this meant he was listening intently.

"How far do you think this thing goes?"

He blinked slowly.

She waited for a response. He gave none at first, and she was about to insert her own comment when he startled her with an answer.

"This is an unstable area, Yuffie. Rain and mudslides can open up all sorts of cracks. It could go on for miles."

She grinned, a crack of white in her sun-darkened, slightly bruised, mud-spattered face. Neither one of them was looking their best. Frankly, they were both beaten up and impossibly filthy from the tumble down the hillside and subsequent downpour. Still, her grin and the carefree manner in which she held herself made her attractive despite, or perhaps because of this downtrodden image.

Vincent shifted ever so slightly, uncomfortable with that line of thinking.

She put her hands behind her back and deftly balanced her way heel-to-toe across a narrow, unstable branch lying across a deep puddle.

"You know Vinnie, I've never been very fond of my name." She said, somewhat distractedly as she crossed.

He stepped easily across the puddle, saying nothing, but casting a sideways glance back in her direction.

"It sounds so... I dunno... childish, I guess. I don't know what m-... Godo was thinking."

He raised an eyebrow.

"But... I like the way you say it, Vinnie. You're always so serious all the time, the way you say it makes it sound... pretty."

He stopped and looked back at her, a slightly pained expression on his face.

"Geez, it was a compliment Vinnie!" She said crossly to him, hopping off the branch and stepping around him.

"I realize this is a bit of a stretch for you, but lighten up, dang it."

Vincent shook his head slightly, as though clearing it, then followed behind.

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"Oh thank you, Leviathan! Thank you soooo much."

The object of her praise looked a bit out of place for a crack in the middle of a jungle, but not so much that Vincent felt suspicious. The muddy ground gave way to a pebbled, rocky build-up, obviously lying here undisturbed for years. A curving side-passage of sorts had opened up off the main crevasse, terminating after several feet in a fifteen foot expanse of pebbled beach. A small pond had formed naturally, and the water gleamed seductively in the subdued, filtered late afternoon light of the jungle.

She plunked down at the water's edge and kicked off her shoes, removing her socks just as quickly. Dipping her feet into the water, she sighed contentedly.

"Vinnie, it's perfect... cool, but not too cold." She smiled again, then turned to him imperiously. "That settles it. We are definately stopping here for the day."

He raised an eyebrow in a sardonic, "since when are you in charge" sort of way, then switched his gaze to the still waters of the pond, searching for any signs of danger.

"Oh I am SOOO gonna-"

"I don't think it's a very good idea, Yuffie." Vincent said dubiously.

"Vincent, I am crabby, I am filthy, and I stink." She wrinkled her nose. "So do you, for that matter. Who knows when we're going to find out way outta here? This is a gift! A bit of good luck, finally, and I intend to take advantage of it."

He sighed.

"Look, I know you don't wanna be walking around sweltering all the time! It's not like we're on a time table or anything! Besides, I'm tired and sore, Vinnie. It won't do us any good stumbling around in the dark exhausted. We should use this opportunity to rejuvenate ourselves." She grinned mischievously and rubbed her hands together.

He crossed his arms, frowning.

"Fine, mister gloomy-pants. You sit there and marinate in your own filth. I'M taking a bath."

He sighed again.

"Well, what are you still standing there for? I'm not gonna do it with you standing there, lech."

He shrugged and pointedly stepped back around the bend, leaning against the dirt wall.

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She watched him round the bend, then quickly removed her dirty clothes and waded into the pond quickly, splashing around for a moment before settling down. The caked on mud, blood from the various small cuts she'd sustained, and sweat washed from her body, and she dipped down into the cool, dark waters up to her ears and bubbled a contented sigh upward.

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING, VINCENT!" She called out, then dipped her head under the surface and scrubbing out her short dark hair.

In the twilight water it was hard to make out any details, but she could swear she saw a cloud of dirt billowing away from her in the cool water.

Coming back to the surface, she tossed the water from her and eased down a bit, considering her situation thus far. Granted, this is not how she would have liked to spend her time in Gongaga jungle, and certainly her erstwhile companion had an amazing knack for pissing her off without expending any effort towards doing so, but she had to admit, Vincent was a interesting man.

He'd always been that way for her, this dark, enigmatic, brooding, handsome-

Handsome? Where the hell did that come from?

Well, she decided, while we're on the subject, and purely from an aesthetic point of view, he IS attractive. Take away that raggedy ass cloak (gawd that thing's probably older than I am) and he might actually fall into the hunk category.

Yup, she thought to herself, he's definately not someone I would kick outta bed for eating cookies.

She giggled to herself at this unlikely image. Just the thought of dark brooding Vinnie solemnly eating chocolate chip cookies in such a setting was like imagining Barrett in a ballerina costume, vaguely disturbing, and patentedly ridiculous.

She lay back in the water and floated with her eyes closed, considering the situation as it stood. Eventually, she was going to have to ditch ol' Vinnie, she supposed. It wasn't that he was bad company, it was just that he was dead set on her returning to Wutai, and she just couldn't bring herself to allow that, not even for Vincent. Still, ditching him was something of a problem, because the man had already shown a remarkable amount of tenacity just tracking her this far, and this was Vinnie, not some old pushover like Sung. She couldn't beat him, at least, not without trying to kill him, and she just wasn't going to do that.

Not that she was entirely sure she could beat him if it even came to that, the man was scary when he got angry.

So she supposed she'd just have to bide her time and, like her ninja forefathers before her, slip away when her pursuer was otherwise distracted.

Probably by a situation she'd created.

In the meantime, this was a good opportunity to get to know her silent, contrary companion. Maybe crack open his solitary shell and see if she couldn't get to know the man inside.

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-Well... isn't this... cute?- The demon sounded smugly sarcastic.

Vincent sighed.

-What's wrong Vincent? You don't see what's so patently wrong with this situation? Who do you think you're fooling, killer?-

-I think you've been picking at this for a while now, Chaos. Why, I can't begin to imagine. What is it about this girl that you find so threatening?-

The demon was silent.

-Are you afraid of her?- Vincent mused, half simply trying to get a rise out of him. It was rare that he came across a subject that showed any signs of fazing the demon. It felt good to have a bit of role reversal, to feel in control for once.

-Don't be stupid, Vincent.- The demons scoffed. -I will admit a certain morbid curiousity as to why she fascinates you so much. Before you protest, remember... I see what lies behind your eyes, killer.-

A chuckle. -I am, after all, what stares back at you from the mirror.-

-My, aren't we a barrel full of metaphor today?- Vincent thought sarcastically. Still, the demon's reaction caught his attention. As stated earlier, Vincent was a master at deluding himself. It helped to ease the pain, somewhat. The demon wouldn't often let this go over, however, pointing out those subjects which Vincent tended to gloss over as too painful. This wasn't a painful subject, merely uncomfortable, but the demon actually seemed more discomforted by it than he was.

-I would think you'd be overjoyed at the situation. I can't imagine what you'd like to do to her, if I let you get your filthy claws on her.- He shuddered at the thought.

The demon's response stopped him short.

-Vincent, all this time we've been locked together like this, and you still haven't realized the only person I enjoy tormenting is you?-

That stopped him short. -I...-

-I've seen your soul, Vincent. I know what a cold-blooded, murderous bastard you are. You have it all wrong, killer. You look at me like I'm the stain on your soul, the personal demon that makes you who you are. The truth is, humanity doesn't need divine intervention to create the basest form of callous cruelty, and the same holds true for YOU. You are responsible for your own corruption, not I. I'm just stuck with you, and I detest self-delusion. I didn't ASK to be thrust upon you, by that detestable little slug Hojo, and I so I helped you get your vengeance, because it was MINE as well. Do try to remember that I find you as reprehensible as you find ME. The sooner you give up and embrace oblivion, the happier we'll both be. I say this because I know your sort, Vincent. You can leave it behind you, wash away the blood on your hands and try to lead a respectable life, but the only thing that seperates you from the killer inside is a thin veneer of circumstance. Find the right situation, and you'll kill again.

Because for you, killing isn't nearly as hard as it should be... human life is meaningless to you, how can it have meaning when you don't even value your own? You never will, either... not since you lost HER.- The demon sneered.

-I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Vincent. You drove her away. Your darkness. You let her see the real you, the killer, and it scared her so badly that she turned a blind eye to the slug's faults and embraced him. THAT'S what killed her, Vincent. The realization that she loved a man who could hold her one minute and then coldly execute a whole family without an increase in heart rate the next. How could someone... no, someTHING like that love another human being? How could she know you wouldn't turn on her, if your masters told you to?-

-I LOVED her! I NEVER would have hurt her! I would have left Shinra had she asked it of me...-Vincent swore vehemently.

-I know that. Yet... she never asked. Maybe she knew you a little better then both of us, eh?-

-Why are you DOING this to me?- Vincent asked finally.

-Because I can, Vincent. Someone has to.- The demon sneered.

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She eventually finished her soak and made her way out of the pond, giving herself a few extra minutes to air dry before trying to put on her still dirty clothes, an act which raised a grimace of distaste on her features. Still, she felt soooo much better now, she didn't know what Vinnie was so worried about.

Speaking of...

"HEY VINNIE! I'M DONE, IT'S YOUR TURN NOW!"

There was no response at first, so she rounded the corner and snuck a glance at him. He was leaning against a wall, arms crossed, apparently in a trance.

"Hey... did you hear me, Vinnie?" She asked, somewhat wierded out by his vacant expression.

His face tightened and awareness apparently returned to him, he flicked his gaze over in her direction.

"What was that just now, Vincent?" She asked pointedly.

He sighed, looking very tired for a moment before he hid it away behind that mask of his. She was beginning to hate that expression.

It wasn't the real him.

"Are you done?" He asked quietly.

"Yup, it was refreshing. Now it's your turn." She said, crossing her arms.

"I'm not-"

"Yes you are, Vincent." She grabbed his arm and yanked him to a standing position, dragging him towards the pond. "you are going to take a nice, refreshing bath if I have ta drag you in there and scrub you myself."

He set his feet and she found it hard to drag him, so she got around behind him and started shoving on him.

"Stop.... being... stubborn... and... do... what.. I... SAY!" She panted behind gritted teeth.

He turned around and grabbed her wrist roughly. "Stop it, Yuffie. This is not a game-"

She yanked her wrist away from him and put her hands on her hips, glaring up at him. "Game? Who said I was playing around? Come on, Vinnie. You're just annoyed 'cause this is turning out to be a good idea. Stop being an ass."

He actually glared at her.

"Don't you DARE treat me like a child, Vincent Valentine." She hissed, looking defiantly right into his eyes.

He continued to glare at her for a moment longer, then raised an eyebrow. "What are you still standing there for? I'm not going to do it with you standing there." He said finally.

"Lech."

She blinked, then blushed and backed away from him.

"I wasn't, I mean I... aw geez Vinnie, just hurry up, ok?"

He continued to stare at her with one raised eyebrow until she backed around the corner, then sighed to himself.

"How did I get myself into this?" He asked himself softly.

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This was torture.

She didn't know HOW the hell it had become torture, but it had to be Vinnie's fault. When he'd turned her earlier jibe back on her, he'd embarassed her enough to make her retreat, but what he hadn't realized was the direction this lead her thoughts to.

See, Yuffie was insatiably curious, and few things made her more more antsy then the solution to a mystery sitting right in front of her. In the time she'd known Vincent, she'd never seen him even partially undressed, not even with just that ratty old cloak off. Even though it was tattered, it still hid a large portion of his form, not to mention most of his face. Having had the "is Vincent cute" conversation with herself, certainly didn't help.

Nope, she thought, not a good idea. If he caught me, I'd die of embarassment.

She waited.

I mean, this is Vinnie we're talkin' about... it's not like he's gonna suddenly change into a completely different person the minute he takes off that cloak. Not to mention those cloth- GRRR! What the hell am I THINKING!! I'm such a pervert!

She waited some more.

It's just plain stupid! I mean, yeah, I am a pretty sneaky individual, but this is Vinnie! He'd catch me for sure!

Temptation reared it's ugly head.

Well... I guess I am... alot better than I was when I was a kid...

I wonder if I'm sneaky enough to...

NO! Good thoughts in, bad thoughts out. Good thoughts in, bad thoughts out...

She blinked, looking down at the dirt wall under her fingers. She'd scaled about ten feet up, towards the steeply sloping ledge that split the two passages.

What the hell?! How did I get up here? Curse you, hormonal teenage body, you've betrayed me!!

She railed against herself.

Well... since I'm up here...

She heard quiet splashing in the water just beyond the lip of the ledge.

Oh this is sooo wrong. He is never going to forgive me if he finds me here.

She peaked over the edge, then darted back below the lip of the ledge.

Didn't see nothin'. He must be right under the ledge. I am so gonna get caught...

This didn't stop her from slowly peeking over the edge of the ledge, down into the pond.

She caught sight of his clothes, neatly folded and tied up in his cloak, his gunbelt secured around the bundle. Death Penalty was propped within easy reach in such a manner that it wasn't directly touching the beach other than it's stock. It gave the impression that Vinnie was ready to grab his clothes and be ready to move at a moment's notice. How utterly typical of him.

She couldn't see him at first, and there were no ripples in the water to mark his presence. She frowned at first, and then he broke the surface slowly, like a dead thing slowly rising to the surface... only this wasn't a good analogy at all.

For one thing, even though he was pale, he didn't move like a dead thing.

For another, he was just too cute to be a dead thing.

His back was to her, and she caught sight of his shoulder length hair dripping water behind him, flat against his lean, well muscled back. He wasn't as thin as Yuffie thought he might be, not skeletal at all, in fact. Just lean, and rangy, like a wolf or a panther. His shoulder muscle on his fully human side was well defined, it was obvious that Vincent was in good shape. His metal arm was physically attached to his body at the shoulder, a somewhat bulky metal ball and socket joint replacing the normal shoulder joint. Water beaded on the golden metal of his false arm, and it moved like it was his own flesh.

Then she saw the scars.

He had alot of them, slices and ridges of tissue where he'd been injured over the long years of his life, as well as strange, surgical looking scars, as though someone had gone at him with a scalpel seemingly at random. She winced in sympathy, trying to imagine what it must have been like for him so long ago. She knew he'd been with the Turks, even heard that he'd been experimented on by Hojo, but no one would ever tell her the whole story, especially not Vincent. Her eyes were drawn to the starburst like scar in the center of his back, just to the right of his spine. Long, hard experience with Shinra technology told her that this was a gunshot exit wound, but an injury there should have killed him.... would have killed a normal man.

He glanced to the left of him and she caught the side of his face in profile. Able to see his mouth for once, and having spent time with him in close proximity, she thought she detected a hint of something... a sadness about him. He seemed to be staring down in the water, at his own reflection, she guessed, watching it be distorted by the ripples he created. His mouth twisted slightly, turning down, as though he was disgusted by what he saw. It was an intensely intimate action, something she'd never seen him do before, and her breath caught in her throat at the anguish of it.

It was then that she knew that Vincent Valentine was a soul in pain. It surprised her, this sudden insight. He'd never given any indication of any sort of emotion... in fact, Tifa had once remarked that Vincent scared her because he just seemed so dead inside, and at the time, Yuffie had had to agree. When he killed, and granted, with the exception of the man trapped under the giant lizard a few days ago she'd never seen him kill in anything but self-defense or defense of his friends, there had never been any animation to his face, a sort of disconnection from his own actions that chilled her to the marrow. She could never figure out what motivated him. Yuffie's heart beat just a bit faster, as it occurred to her that this was a side of him that no one, not even Tifa, whom he'd had the most interaction with besides Cloud, who was their leader, had seen of him.

She also felt ashamed, because she'd stolen this intimacy from him, intruded on his solitude, his pain, without his permission. Would he thank her for the pity she felt now? Certainly not, not since he went to such lengths to hide it from everybody. For the first time in her life, Yuffie had stolen something she wished desperately she could give back, but she couldn't. Regret filled her.

Again, this was not an emotion that she dealt with much, and she recoiled from it instinctively.

I'm sorry, Vinnie, she thought quietly to herself. I wish...

She never completed that thought, she simply turned and slipped back down the cliff-face quietly, deeply entranced in thought.

Vincent looked up at the cliff side from his introspection for a moment, sensing something, but seeing nothing, he turned back to the business at hand.

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After Vincent had finished his bath, the light of late afternoon was fading into that transitory, fleeting golden twilight that marked the fall of night. The shadows grew longer, and the sounds of the jungle gave way to the grunts, squeaks, groans and grows of nocturnal animals, predator and otherwise, waking up from their light time slumber. Vincent went about gathering various fallen branches and sticks, bits of dry moss and such, preparing a small campfire, while Yuffie sat close by, her arms around her knees, quiet, subdued, and brooding.

Vincent wondered what was wrong, but said nothing.

As the evening progressed she watched the fire crackle and pop, as Vincent went about cleaning his revolver with methodical patience. Every once in a while he glanced up from his work and searched her face, but her gaze was centered very far away, and he simply went back to what he was doing.

"Vinnie... Vincent, I mean. Why don't you ever smile?"

Her voice was quiet, and uncharacteristically subdued. It was this muting of tone that caused him to stop what he was doing and glance up questioningly, one eyebrow raised.

"You didn't even smile when we beat Hojo, or when Shera scolded Cid for being away so long and he damn near fell down the stairs trying to get to her. Everyone else did..."

She stared at him, intently.

He flinched at bit from her earnestness. "I suppose..."

She cocked her head slightly.

"I suppose I just... never had anything to smile about." He said, finally.

"But wasn't killing Hojo what you were after? Wasn't that... your atonement? Wasn't that... supposed to make everything alright?" She asked, falteringly.

"Yuffie..." He said, hesitatingly.

"Please, Vincent. I... want to understand. I know you think I can't, but... I really want to understand you." Her eyes shimmered with emotion, emotion that Vincent found very uncomfortable.

He shifted uneasily, but found himself unable to simply dismiss her sincerity. He collected his thoughts, hesitated a moment more, then caught the pain in her eyes and started.

"Killing... Hojo... should have felt right." He said, after a long time. "It should have been over after that. But it didn't feel like anything. He was just dead, and I was just the one who killed him."

Her expression become one of sadness.

He looked at her gently, the revolver in his hand forgotten, for the moment.

"Yuffie... sometimes, good people do bad things, and sometimes, bad people do good things. What matters is the intent behind them."

His earlier conversation with Chaos came back to him, and he lowered his gaze a bit, speaking without really considering his own words.

"I don't think I've ever been a good person, really. Everything I ever did, I did because it was expected of me. Was killing Hojo a good thing? I think so. He hurt alot of innocent people, and he would have continued to do so, if we hadn't stopped him."

She nodded slowly, on the verge of something... almost not WANTING him to continue. It was obviously very painful for him to admit these things. Her heart sank and became a leaden weight in the pit of her stomach.

"But I didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, Yuffie. I did it because I wanted to... to hurt him, after everything he'd taken from me, all the pain he'd caused me. But his death didn't change what I was. It didn't suddenly make me a good person. Just because I'd been the victim for once, just because I'd suffered, that didn't make me a good person either."

He sighed.

"I don't think I know what being a good person is."

"You're wrong, Vincent." She said, her voice breaking with emotion. "You ARE a good person. You just can't see it. Well I'm... I'm gonna show you... some day. I swear I..."

He face crumpled and she broken down and began to sob.

"I'm s-s-so s-sorry, Vincent!"

What was she sorry for? She was sorry that he had been hurt so badly, so many times. She was sorry he'd been betrayed by those he loved and yet still clung to their memory because it was the only good thing he'd ever known. She was sorry that he'd sacrificed everything, every possible positive human interaction he could have had, not because he was afraid of being hurt, but because he was afraid of hurting anyone else.

She was sorry she'd intruded on his solitude, had hurt him, making him explain these things to her.

She cried.

Vincent blinked at her in astonishment. He'd only ever seen her cry once in the whole time he'd known her. When Aeris had died so violently, been ripped from all their lives seemingly without any concern by Sephiroth, a cruel child hurting others partly because they were in his way, but mostly because it amused him, she'd broken down and wept for the lost Cetra, like a child who'd lost a sibling. For an instant, just an instant, he'd started to reach out, to comfort her, but he had hesitated, and she'd turned and buried her face in Tifa's shoulder, crying her eyes out.

And he'd turned away, because it was better that way. For both of them.

But there was no one here now, to comfort her, and he felt strangely guilty, as though he'd caused this normally carefree spirit to take on the weight of the world.

He set down the half finished revolver and eased around the fire, sitting quietly down next to her, and she continued crying, oblivious.

He watched her for a moment, a pained expression on his face, caught, again, hesitating in indecision, half of him telling him to comfort her, the other half telling him to get up, leave her alone, run away, keep her safe.

Finally, he reached out his hand, and put it gently on her shoulder.

She started, then looked up, surprised. Tears dripped slowly down her cheeks, her eyes wide and disbelieving.

He blinked, looked confused for a moment, blinked again, then asked, in an almost questioning manner...

"It's... alright?"

"Oh Vinnie! I'm so sorry!" She sobbed.

Then put her arms around his waist and sobbed into his shoulder, staining his shirt with her tears. He stood rock still, wooden, his hand still awkwardly on her shoulder, glancing around confusedly like a trapped thing.

He said nothing else.

But he didn't move.

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