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Why are you fighting me? That rough, demon-esque voice, which haunted the back of his mind and drifted in and out like a wandering ghost, asked another of its absurdly simple questions. Of course, it was never that simple.
"Go away." A suitable response, he assumed, though as much as he said it, it was never quite enough to make the voices disappear completely.
Why won't you listen?
Silence.
You can't ignore me forever.
He thought he could. He tried to. God, did he try. But that damned thing wouldn't leave. It wasn't like he could ever be rid of it, though. He created the demons. He made them out of some small part of his twisted, distorted self. Why? Was it because of loneliness? Did he make them out of fear of being alone? No, couldn't be... Isolation had its own intense, dark appeal. Revenge then? Did he make them for some sort of misguided retribution? It didn't seem to matter anymore. It had been so long...
Too long.
"I don't want you in me anymore," a soft, tired voice answered. He was giving in. Didn't he always give in to them more times than he would have liked? He had been fighting the monsters inside of himself in an endless battle for decades; within the bottomless depths of his own tormented mind he had fought for his freedom. But was it all for nothing now? The monsters were winning, with every change, with each white-hot and painful transformation. And he grew a little less human.
You forget...
"No," he replied quietly. There was a slight spark there, an unquenchable fire that had always burned in him. He wouldn't give in this easily. Not now, not anymore. "I will never forget."
But you have.
Perhaps he had. He didn't want to remember. There was so much pain, so much misery. Who would condemn him for wanting to be rid of those memories? So many faces, those beautiful, smiling faces. He had lost them all. He couldn't save them. He hated them. They were slipping away like so much dust; no longer could he hold on to the pleasant memories, and all that remained was the pain.
I am you.
"You can't be..." But wasn't that what Tifa said? That poor, beautiful soul. She so wanted to believe in him, that he wasn't as lost as he thought he was. He was stronger, he was human, just like her.
But he wasn't human.
Listen to me...
"No!" His now throaty voice echoed off of the lofty walls and bounced away into the darkness, until there was no sound left but the trembling of his own body.
And that was the end of it. Vincent sat there, his back against the cold stone of some alley, his head pounding with an indescribable pain. He had won this time. This time he had conquered the demons. Every now and then he believed that they actually let him win, rather than fight with him and risk losing their only vessel to this world. He was hunched over, his legs spread apart and arched upward, both his hand and his claw grabbing his drooping head. It hurt too much to think, but still a great number of thoughts assaulted him and made their bittersweet dance around him, trying to dizzy him, trying to make him forget his pain and slip away to darkness. But he couldn't indulge those thoughts now. He had to get back to... Where was he supposed to go again? Something about a helicopter?
"No more. No more..." Vincent closed his eyes and ignored those whispers of reality, which told him that he had no time to sleep anymore. There was something waiting. Something... someone...
Vincent lowered his head further and let the darkness take him.
***
Vincent had never thought much about being a Turk in the beginning. It was a means for money, a way to see the world. Even when he was hunting people, hurting people, ruining lives, he had somehow found ways to justify it. Perhaps that was how he lived with himself. It was never truly living, however, and the more he did, the more he hated it. He died inside after a time. But then she came... She had made him feel things that he once thought lost somewhere in all of that ugliness.
Maybe... maybe it would have been better if I never had met you...
She interested him; she seemed so cold at first, always conversing about her work. Her world was so small, so... practical. But there was something passed that wall and when he broke through it, he found someone just as lost as him. Vincent had fallen in love with her the more he talked with her, the more he was around her, and when she reciprocated...
You never should have. We never should have. Didn't you know? He was watching. The professor was always watching...
Vincent had given her an ultimatum, had foolishly thought that he could actually separate the woman from her work. Her work was her life. No... it was more than that. It was her shield from reality. It was her wall. It was never enough for her and she had to give more to it. She had to give until there was nothing left. She chose her job over him.
At first, I thought you chose the professor over me. I always wondered how you could love him. He treated you like nothing - less than nothing. But I know now... I know. You never loved him. It was your work. It was always your work...
Vincent left her to her happiness, left her to what he knew would mean the end of their relationship. It didn't matter. And she was happy, consumed in the only thing that could make her forget. As long as she worked, Vincent would disappear and become nothing more than a passing dream.
I frightened you. I think you frightened me, too. You told me once... that love wasn't enough. I knew what you meant. And I hated you for it.
What the professor did to her was horrible, was something Vincent thought could only happen in the worst of nightmares. But what she let him do was far worse. All for her work. All for something that Vincent saw as obsolete. And when he objected... What was done to him was unforgivable. Then the monsters came... Then the darkness fell...
It's hard to hate the one you love most. I...know that now.
Perhaps he had always known that. After all, he had seen so many things, so much hatred, and it was hard to know otherwise. Those horrible memories could never be forgotten, he understood as much. But that was all they were; simple memories, perhaps even ones that had been exaggerated by time's cruel hand and his own chaotic mind. Just memories. Something touched Vincent at that moment, brushed against his arms. No longer was it in the dream world, no longer were those memories tricking his mind. This touch was from reality, beckoning him, telling him to wake up.
Go away. Let me sleep...
But with that one touch it was back to the City of Ghosts. Hands were placed over each of his, which were still clutching his head. He could feel it, though a part of his mind passed it off as another dream of his, some pleasant and distant one from long ago. He knew that touch... And those soft hands brought back a wave of recent memories, which hit him hard, making his already sensitive head react with dull recognition. ShinRa. Soldiers. Helicopter. He had somewhere he had to be. He had people waiting for him.
"Vincent."
Yes, I know. Reality awaits.
"I was looking for something. Don't you remember?"
Vincent's hands slipped away from his head, and away from that soft, familiar touch. Apparently he hadn't been unconscious for too long a time. He grudgingly pulled his head up, letting his hands fall to the ground beneath him. He wasn't surprised to see Tifa's face, welcoming him back to reality. Some part of Vincent knew that she would follow him. He would have been angry, or at the very least irritated; when he told her to leave, to go back to the helicopter, he wanted her to do just that. What if he had turned into Chaos and she had been around? But now, as her eyes wandered over him with that quiet affection, he was happy she didn't listen to him. Tifa was kneeling between his legs, bent over him slightly as he straightened his back against the wall, her hands now holding his face steady.
"What were you looking for?" his soft voice asked.
A small smile touched her lips, but it lasted only briefly. "Answers, Vincent. I wanted answers. You were supposed to give me them, not more questions." Tifa took her hands away from his face and sat back on her legs. "And you. I was looking for you, bounty hunter."
Hunting a bounty hunter. How ludicrous.
He stood up in one swift, fluent motion, forcing her to do the same. Breathing out slowly, his back still against the alley's wall, he looked at his metal claw and the red band wrapped tightly around it. Then those blood-red eyes wandered back to her. "Close your eyes, Tifa."
Tifa raised an eyebrow. That wasn't the answer she had been expecting. She watched him curiously for a time and when he said nothing more, she searched those scarlet orbs of his with furrowed eyebrows. Not finding anything that would reveal what exactly he was planning to do, Tifa simply did what he asked of her. Silently, she closed her eyes. And waited. She could still feel his presence before her and that strange cloak of his brushing against her arms, then the startling feel of his fingers as they curled around the nape of her neck, his nails pressing firmly into her skin. Tifa opened her eyes. She couldn't help it. Vincent didn't want her to, of course, because then they both would be lost in a matter of seconds, seconds which could have been used to make their way back.
But didn't Vincent want more time to begin with? More time to keep her, just for a little while longer?
He pulled her closer to him, taking an almost tentative delight in the way her large, chocolate eyes softened whenever any part of his body touched hers. With those same curled fingers, Vincent stroked her soft cheek. He found it strangely fascinating how the little hairs on the back of her neck rose up with a brush of a finger, and how her body leaned into him with a very poignant desire to have him near her. One simple touch from him, even in the most platonic way, could make her melt. It was...troubling to hold such a power over her. Who was he to wield such a thing?
Tifa could feel his fingers slip away from her face with uncertainly. A sudden rush of panic welled up inside of her and she reached out and took hold of his hand faster than Vincent could react. Her speed surprised herself. "No," she said firmly. Her fingers tightened around his hand. But even as she spoke that single, commanding word, she could feel him pulling away from her, she could feel his muscles tighten in response to those unspoken questions. "Stay," she whispered. The earnestness that was in her eyes was almost enough to make Vincent do just that. Almost.
"We have to get back," he said. He tried to say it forcefully, tried to make it sound important, like if they didn't move now they would almost certainly be confronted by every ShinRa guard on the planet. Unfortunately for time, his attempts failed and the words came only from his mouth as a slight mummer. They did indeed have to get back. But something in his voice had told otherwise. Vincent brushed more of those persistent brown strands away from her face, letting his fingers sweep back and get tangled in her hair.
Just a little more time wouldn't hurt...
"I don't want to go back, Vincent."
Of course she did.
"Let’s just run away."
She was so terribly lost at that moment and if she had been in a more rational state of mind, she would have did what they had to do. In fact, they both would have, minutes ago. Vincent knew this. He kept telling himself to let go of her and walk away. His body didn't listen to him, however, and continued to disobey him by inching even closer to her. There he went again, making things needlessly complicated, needlessly troublesome, needlessly...
Vincent brushed his lips against hers and waited for a moment.
Needlessly... needless.
His lips were just a breath away from hers, but he no longer moved towards her; he was waiting for something. Vincent thought of those days before this, when the sun was bleeding gold, when he and Tifa had been in the same predicament they were in now. Nothing had come of it. But perhaps something would have, if not for the Turks' interruption. So what of it now? He was waiting for her to say no, to say that she loved what's-his-face and that nothing could ever become of their relationship, other than business. He was waiting...
But he wouldn't get that response.
The hell with it then.
Vincent's fingers sunk deeper into her hair and he tilted his head to the side slightly, as if he was searching for a way to extend time and that way rested solely in her large, brown eyes. Then he closed the gap between their lips. Tifa leaned into him, accepting his kiss, responding with an eager desire to prove that this was right, to show him that there was nothing else now. She was forgetting, or at least trying to. And Vincent didn't bother to break the kiss to remind her that this little freedom, this small liberty, wouldn't matter in the long run. Once it was over, their moment of freedom would be forgotten and life would go on.
But for the moment, there was nothing else.
***
It was raining again. Tifa was used to it by now. After all, Midgar had scorched the skies, burned and blackened what was once so beautiful. Why wouldn't the sky cry so much? It certainly was entitled to its tears. And she could understand its pain, could understand how each ray of light that was allowed through the black would be both painful and lovely; a mixed blessing. Tifa looked away from that pipe-covered sky, for once grateful that she couldn't see through to the other side well enough. Instead, her eyes stayed glued on the dark figure in front of her. Vincent's red cloak was once again wrapped around her. Tifa had tried to argue with him when he first offered to give her that red warmth, had tried to tell him that he would be cold, too, but in the end she gave in. She had been too cold to argue.
I wonder if he feels the cold... Tifa's lips quirked into a faint smirk. No. He probably doesn't feel it like I do. She looked down at her brown boots; each step caused the puddles of rainwater to ripple and splash, sending a spray of silvery water to chill her bare legs. Tifa grimaced. She would have tried to avoid the puddles, but everything was a puddle. One vast river...
The rain poured down on Vincent's body with its usual distinct sound, outlining him in a subtle mist of silver. Without his cloak, he was hard to make out in the dim lighting of this street, and he seemed to try his hardest to blend into the shadows. He couldn't, however. The faint outline of the pattering rainwater kept him visible to her eyes, if only barely. Tifa touched her wet, cold lips. His kiss still lingered there, both a sweet and bitter reminder of what could never be. Two kisses, actually. Tifa scoffed and let her hand drop to her side, more water flowing down in silvery streaks, chilling her skin. Two times he had kissed her, and the second he had been wide awake for. Certainly Vincent realized what he had been doing. She suddenly had the overpowering urge to run up to him and kick him as hard as she could. Now that would definitely get his attention...
Tifa laughed. She snorted really, then she laughed.
Once Tifa looked up again, Vincent was watching her, one dark eyebrow arched upward. Surely the girl had gone insane. Vincent figured it was the cold rain, or perhaps it was him. He never thought himself particularly funny, but maybe Tifa was seeing something he couldn't. The corner of his lips pulled upward. "I didn't think I looked that strange."
Tifa pursed her lips together, holding his cloak around her tightly. "No, it's nothing. Forget it." Her cheeks blushed slightly and she turned her head away from him. "It's... just the cold. It's making me feel weird, that's all." That must be it. But it's not like Vincent doesn't deserve a swift kick every now and then. Tifa felt her shy smile widen.
She swallowed another laugh and started walking towards Vincent, who was standing perfectly still. The only sound from him was the pattering of the rain on his head and shoulders, and it dripped down, ebbing from him like blood. Tifa stopped in front of him, her head raised towards his face, waiting for him to do something. Vincent simply stared down at her with a most perplexed expression. Curious girl.
Vincent closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed. "Tifa..." He looked at her reproachfully, which caused the amusement on her face to vanish completely and for a furrowed brow to replace it. His mouth opened again, showing a line of white teeth, then his lips came together and he tilted his head to the side. He couldn't say it. He couldn't tell Tifa to forget about him. He couldn't bring himself to remind her about Cloud Strife and what their awaiting helicopter would mean the beginning of the end of. He couldn't say it, but he was almost certain that he didn't have to. Tifa saw it on his face as plainly as if he had written the message there.
Tifa lowered her head, allowing the rain to latch onto those persistent stray hairs of hers, to roll down them like tears and wet her face even more. She said nothing for the longest time, and the two simply stood there, listening to the rain. Finally, she whispered solemnly, "Yeah. I know, Vincent." Their little moment of liberation was already gone. She knew that whatever came of them now, she would always remember it at times when she needed to. She had been free for just a moment, a beautiful and fleeting moment. Tifa lowered her head more so and whatever water that had beaded on the top of her head now ran down her cheeks. Vincent was simply trying to tell her what she knew he would have to say when this was over, when he found Cloud for her, when everything was back to what she deemed normal.
But she didn't want normal, not anymore.
Vincent nodded his head slowly, and he lifted her chin with a curled finger. Her eyes never met with his. "You know how this ends, Tifa."
He was trying to say it, even now.
"I never wanted it to." She kept her eyes on his hand and the fingerless glove that was wrapped around it. It shimmered with the rainwater and she felt something hot sting her eyes at that moment.
Vincent smiled, and if she had been looking, she would have saw that rare smile and how wonderfully real it was.
Tifa's eyes finally met with his and she was able to catch the end of that genuine smile of his, before it faded to his usual nothingness. "I don't think I ever did," she whispered, and she closed her mouth quickly, preventing anymore water from dripping inside.
His eyebrows scrunched together. "What?"
"You asked me once if I ever loved him."
Cloud Strife.
Vincent cringed inwardly. He told himself repeatedly that he didn't want to hear this, and he felt terrible knowing that a small part of him actually did.
She blinked away what stung her eyes, and she felt something warm run down her cheeks; it was such a stark contrast from the cold rainwater. "I loved what he thought he was, what I made myself believe. But I loved a dream. And once I figured it out... Vincent, maybe it's too late."
Vincent made a strange expression, something Tifa couldn't place. It nearly looked as if she had just thrust an icicle through his heart. He didn't like where she was taking this. He should have said what he wanted to say, what she knew he was trying to tell her. Maybe then this would never have happened. Vincent shook his head, trying in vain to free the beads of water from his eyelashes. He blinked and the rain ran down his cheeks. Vincent said his next words with a chilling emptiness, each word sounding more curt than his next. "Congratulations, Tifa. It usually takes people their whole life to figure out that what they were chasing after never really existed to begin with." With another shake of his head, more drops of water flying in every direction, Vincent turned around and began walking. He wanted her to say nothing more, just to follow after him in silence. But he knew her too well. Vincent stopped walking before she ever spoke, already waiting for the sound of her strong, clear voice.
But the voice was neither strong nor clear. It was quiet, strangely so. "Did you ever look for her again?" she asked. There was no bitterness there, no anger. It was as if she had never heard the clipped words that had spilled from his mouth.
Fire, his eyes felt as if they were on fire.
Her. She meant-
"I'm much happier thinking she's found some small measurement of peace." Vincent closed his eyes, trying to make the burning sensation vanish. If she ever lived. I wonder... No. I don't want to know. I don't.
"What was her name?"
Vincent felt himself freeze, as if his body had finally succumbed to the bitter cold of the rain, which had completely soaked him, chilling him to his very soul. It was like he was standing naked in the snow. He was out of place here suddenly and everything around him shifted and altered; nothing seemed normal anymore. But what was normal? Vincent shivered slightly, and he uttered the name with a long forgotten warmth.
"Lucrecia."
It didn't hurt like it once did to say her name. He had come to terms with this years ago. But there was still a dull throb, one which ebbed from a wound that he knew would never truly heal. Vincent flinched suddenly when he felt Tifa's presence besides him. His red cloak that she had wrapped tightly around her was darker with the rain, and most likely heavier. She lifted her eyelashes up to reveal solemn looking eyes.
"We should get back."
Vincent was more than happy to agree, but he said nothing to answer her. His lips stayed together, as if glued by the rainwater. They began walking once again. He didn't turn his head to see if she was walking with him; he could feel her there, moving silently besides him. They soon fell into easy step with one another and the puddles of water parted for them as they went on their way. Tifa only glanced at him once, before she let her eyes slip away from him and back to the sky. His face revealed nothing, but his eyes seemed more somber than before. Perhaps it was because he had been trying to tell her something, and she knew what it was. She had seen it plainly in his eyes. He would say it when this was all over.
Tifa watched the rain.
He was trying to tell her goodbye.
***
"Hell, it's 'bout time they showed up." Cid was standing besides the helicopter, his feet soaked in the puddles on the roof, an unlit cigarette hanging limply from his mouth. He sniffed and fiddled with the goggles on his head. He had been pacing for some time, only recently coming to a stop before the helicopter's door. Cid never liked the rain, mostly because it was difficult to smoke in - that and it reminded him of things he would rather forget. "Damnit, Valentine. Makin' me worry like that..." he whispered, peering over the edge of the roof and shoving his hands into his pockets. His fingers brushed against something...
Strife's picture.
It was warm and dry in his pocket. Cid fingered it absentmindedly as he watched Vincent and Tifa's forms from twenty-something floors above. They entered the building. Cid worked his neck to rid it of its kinks and nodded over towards Barret. "How much were you gonna pay us again?"
Barret didn't bother to look up from his gun-arm, which he had been staring at for a good five minutes now. "Three thousand." With a swift movement of his left hand over his gun-arm, Barret cleared a path free of water on the metal's surface. But it was a pointless effort, since raindrops covered it again moments later. The big man sighed and shifted on his seat upon the edge of the roof. "Why? You gotta problem with it?" Even though Cid was certain that the words were supposed to be forceful, the man they were coming from was much too distracted at the moment, so they sounded nearly despondent.
Cid grunted. "Nope. Just wanna make sure..." He pushed himself off of the helicopter's closed door and sat down besides Barret. "Thinkin' about your kid?"
Barret finally looked at the ex-pilot and he searched the other's eyes, thinking that the man was probably uninterested and only searching for a conversation topic. But Barret was surprised to see that in Cid's face was sincerity. He seem generally interested. "Yeah." The big man looked away from Cid and watched the exit at the other end of the roof, which sloped into the building, where Vincent and Tifa would be coming up from. "She's a good kid. And... she deserves better than this. They all do." He meant, of course, Avalanche, his little family. "She wasn't born here, ya know. Marlene... she was born somewhere else." Barret chuckled, a sort of terse, empty chuckle. "Hell, we both were born somewhere else. I wish I coulda brought her back there."
"Then why don't you?"
"'Cause it ain't there anymore." And that was all he said of it. Barret smashed his gun-arm into the ground beneath him, cursing ShinRa silently. There should have been a home to go back to, a place warm and safe, surrounded by emerald trees and sparkling rivers. Marlene should have grown up there, chasing butterflies and collecting bouquets of flowers. Not here. Yes, he had saved her from a fire that had taken his wife, his family, his friends... But it wasn't enough. Marlene deserved more, if only for the sake of the village that he couldn't save.
Cid scratched the back of his head modestly. "I can't believe I'm about to do this..." he mumbled. The ex-pilot stood up and fruitlessly tried to smooth his wet and wrinkled shirt. He surrendered soon enough and settled for zipping up his blue jacket instead. "Listen... I don't want your damn money anymore." Even saying the words seemed painful for him.
Barret frowned. "What?"
"I'm not leavin'. I just don't want your money anymore." Cid walked back to the helicopter and tried to pull the door open, but his hands slipped from the handle and he stumbled back a few steps. More water splashed up to wet his pants. "Friggin' door..."
The big man behind him stood up quickly. "Don't give me any of your damn pity. I said I'd give ya three thousand, so that's what I'm gonna give ya!"
Cid tried opening the helicopter's door once more, this time successfully. The door slid to the side, but the pull had been too forceful; the door simply bounced back and nearly crushed Cid's fingers as it closed again. The ex-pilot jerked his hand away quickly. "Goddamnit!" He wiggled his fingers and shoved them back into his pockets. Cid breathed in quickly and turned around to see a most disgruntled Barret, whose dark skin was shimmering from the droplets of rain. "I'm gonna feel bad taking money from you and your kid. So just keep it and quit glarin' at me."
Barret's frown only deepened. "I don't like owin' people, Cid."
"You don't owe me anything. If I didn't wanna do this, I would've left a long time ago." He locked eyes with Barret and a silent agreement passed between the two men, before Cid opened the helicopter door again and pulled himself into the pilot's seat. Then he added, if only for emphasis, "Shit, Vin doesn't even care about the money." Cid adjusted the aircraft's headset on top of his goggles and stared straight a head. In the distance, looming like a baleful omen, was ShinRa's building. It stretched higher than the metal pipes that covered the sky, and through a hole the building continued upward to touch the blackened heavens.
A smile appeared on Barret's lips. "You're a damn jackass, you know that?"
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