Disclaimer: I do not own ANY part of Final Fantasy VII in any way, shape or form. I own NOTHING!

A/N: I've had a few people suggest that I write a Yuffie and Vincent story, and because I enjoy writing anything for FFVII, I started this randomness for fun. I've been sitting on it for a while, so I figured I might as well post it. Expect a series of Yuffie and Vincent drabbles and one-shots taking place in various canon settings. Brace yourselves for shenanigans, angst, fluff, and awkwardness! Enjoy!


To Wish Impossible Things


CHAPTER ONE:

VINCENT


Perhaps it's because I've been asleep for so long. Perhaps I've forgotten how to interact with people. Perhaps I've just forgotten what people are like. Sleeping for thirty years will do that to someone. No one would argue that all this is quite the adjustment for me…

Whatever the reason…I do not know how to handle the ninja.

"Are you sure you don't have it?"

I nod without opening my eyes.

"When was the last time you saw it?"

I open one of my eyes to see Yuffie underneath my hotel bed, scrambling around underneath it in search of her precious Luck Materia.

I don't even use Luck Materia. Much less know where it is.

Yuffie gets back to her feet, puts her hands on her hips, and glares at me. "Aren't you going to answer me?!"

I answer with silence.

"Could you at least tell me where Cloud is?" she huffs.

I shake my head. "I haven't seen him since all of us were in the hotel lobby."

"Ah-ha! So you can talk!" she cries, clearly feeling victorious. "I was starting to think something had cast Silence on you."

My brow furrows. "You've heard me speak before."

Yuffie plops onto the bed. "Yeah, like twice and one of those was a grunt so it doesn't count."

Briefly, I consider this. Without question, I am a man a few words. I have no doubt that she is right about my words or the lack thereof. I haven't said much since joining them because I rarely need to, but I realize that this may indeed be the first time that I have spoken directly to this girl about…well, anything. Maybe that is why she is making such a big deal out of it.

I sigh and close my eyes again, hoping she will take the hint that I am not interested in talking anymore. Not that I was all that interested in the first place.

She doesn't take the hint. She stays on the bed, clearly content to just sit there and scrutinize me. Since she can't find her Materia or Cloud, I am now the consolation prize.

Unable to stand the tension anymore, I open my eyes to narrow them at her. Our eyes mate and the instant they do, her brow furrows and her head cocks to the side.

Suddenly, she is on her feet. She crosses the space, puts her hands on her knees, and leans toward me. She gets close, painfully so. This is the closest anyone has dared to get to me in a long time. She eyes me with a curiosity only a teenager could possess.

"Yuffie…" I chide halfheartedly.

"Your eyes really are red," she muses as she somehow eases even closer to me. "I thought it was just all the red you wear reflecting in your eyes, but they really are red!"

I blink but otherwise remain unfazed. "Are all teenagers this blunt nowadays or is it just you?"

"Hmm…" Yuffie taps her chin a moment before a cheek splitting grin bursts across her face. "Nope! Just me, I think!"

That's a relief. I'm not sure if the Planet could sustain itself if people like Yuffie were the future.

I start to reply but decide it isn't worth the effort. It will probably trigger more questions. It is best to ignore her. That is what Cloud does most of the time, so I cast my gaze back out the window I'm perched on, watching a few fireworks explode in the sky above Gold Saucer.

"Are you sure you aren't a vampire?"

This isn't the first time she has asked me this. The first time was shortly after I joined them, after she'd had some time to evaluate me and devise the theory that I am indeed a vampire.

"I mean…your eyes are red," she continues since I don't answer. "I've seen you eat like twice. You don't really sleep. And you're pale."

I'm not looking at her, but I'm pretty sure she is counting all these vampire traits on her fingers.

How the hell is Cid sleeping through this? I muse as I glare at the motionless, snoring mound of blankets on the bed behind Yuffie.

"I am not a vampire," I reply matter-of-factly.

In Yuffie's defense, after everything Hojo did to me, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I was a vampire. I wouldn't really consider myself human anymore. I'm something different, something worse. Like a vampire, I walk the strange, gray line between life and death.

"So if I fed you garlic right now, you wouldn't explode?"

I do not know much about vampire lore, but I am pretty sure that is not how that works.

"I wouldn't explode," I parrot.

She mulls this over a while. She bounces on the bed a little and clicks her heels together as her eyes wander the room.

"But seriously, do you ever sleep?" she asks. "Because most of the time it looks like you are just lying down. Also, did you know that you still rest like you are in a coffin?"

Note to self: Yuffie loves twenty questions.

"Habit." I did lay like that for twenty some odd years.

"Is it comfortable to sleep like that?" Yuffie doesn't wait for my answer before she is flopping onto her back and folding her hands over her chest, trying said sleeping position herself.

I can take no more of this.

"If I help you find your Luck Materia, will you go back to your room?"

Yuffie jerks into action. She pops upright and nods feverishly.

Without another word, I head for the door.


Crowds bother me a lot more than they used to. And they bothered me before.

They seem louder than I remember. They definitely stare more, but I have grown used to the stares in the short time I've been awake. My appearance draws a lot of attention.

The crowds part for us as we make our way through the heart of Gold Saucer in search of Yuffie's precious Materia.

We retrace her steps, which is much easier said than done. Yuffie takes a lot of steps. Until now, I'd never realized how often she would sneak off and return to our group without our noticing. But it actually explains a lot…

At that moment I acknowledge that Yuffie is indeed talented. Her talent isn't the most conventional of talents but still a talent nonetheless. Not many people have the gift of stealth.

"Where was the last place you remember having it?" I finally ask. The aimlessness this…adventure has taken on has begun chipping away at my patience.

Yuffie puts a hand on her hip and looks down and away in contemplation.

"Hmmm… Before we got on the tram in Corel."

"Is it possible that—"

"If you ask me if someone stole it from me, I swear I'll… I'll…" she pauses to shake a tiny fist at me "Well, I don't know what I'll do, but it'll be bad! Really bad! Like really, really bad! No. One. Steals. From. Yuffie. Kisaragi. EVER."

I don't respond to this.

We head for Wonder Square and start searching the arcade (I figured it was good a place to start as any), but after a while, I have to drag Yuffie away from all of the games she finds so tempting in the hope that she will actually start being at least somewhat productive again.

I don't get the appeal. These games are noisy and bright. I consider myself a man of reasonable intelligence, but I do not get the appeal of staring at a screen and performing various actions until said screen changes. Despite the variety the owners have obviously tried to offer their guests, all of these games seem equally pointless to me.

Things like these games make me believe that hiding away and sleeping for decades was indeed one of my better life choices.

"Here!" Yuffie shoves a stuffed cactuar into my chest.

I grab it out of reflex.

"Don't say I never gave you anything." She beams, obviously pleased with the fact that she was able to manipulate the nearby crane machine into giving her this…plushy.

What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Where is the nearest garbage can? Maybe I can toss it before she notices. Or I could just leave it behind. Some child would be happy to have it…

"You gotta name him," she declares as I make a path out of the arcade. If we linger, Yuffie will probably jump back onto the G-Bike game or start begging Crystal Fortune to give her a better reading since she didn't like any of its previous predictions for her life.

I don't answer. I just keep plowing through the sea of people, heading for Chocobo Square.

A race has already started by the time we enter, but I keep my eyes on the floor and on the counters in search of the yellow orb that has brought me here…with Yuffie.

Yuffie, however, has apparently abandoned all thoughts of Luck Materia as the bright chocobos glide by. The crowd cheers, but there are boos, curses, and other mixed responses too.

This area violates all of the senses in the worst ways. The flamboyant music is cranked up as high as it can go, but you can still hear all the shouting and chocobo warking. Lights of every color imaginable encompass the entire area, and it is all but impossible to escape the smell of popcorn, beer, and chocobos.

I can't remember the last time I was this overstimulated…but a part of me acknowledges that things like this are how you know you're alive. To some, this is living. Since reemerging, I continually have to remind myself of these things.

As I watch Yuffie lean over the railing to get a better look at the race taking place, I find myself envious of her. I envy her enthusiasm, her energy. It must be nice to be excited about something.

Slowly, I realize that I envy these things about her because they are the pieces of humanity that have been burned out of me.

I cast my gaze away. I do not want or need reminders of the finer things in life I am missing out on.

A fight breaks out nearby, and I decide to focus on it for a while. When I finally look back toward the racetrack, Yuffie is gone. By the time I locate her again, she is crawling around on all fours on the ground between the legs of the crowd.

She pops up again with a hand full of gil, some torn passes, and chunks of garbage but no Materia.

I frown. "Could you have lost it in Corel?"

"Maybe," she admits as she tosses the garbage and starts counting the gil in her palm.

I can't help but wonder how much of that was actually gotten off the ground and how much was snatched from someone's pocket.

Yuffie snickers at the two men still fighting. They are rolling around in the floor now. Throwing curses and punches as they slowly cover themselves with anything and everything sticky that has accumulated on the floor.

As we continue to watch, Yuffie looks up at me with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Twenty gil says that fat guy with nacho cheese on his shirt wins."

Apparently, Yuffie has picked on Cid and Barret's habit of making bets to pass the time.


Having deduced that we will not be finding Yuffie's Materia in the belly of Gold Saucer, I make my way back to the Ghost Hotel.

Unthinking, Yuffie follows on my heels. It's weird how content she is to just follow me blindly. She doesn't question me. For all she knows, I could be taking her to the Shinra labs.

Privately, I remind myself that not everyone is as cynical as me. She has no reason to trust me, but she had no reason to distrust me either.

"Have you thought of a name yet?"

I look back at her, bemused.

"For your cactuar," she elaborates, pointing to the stuffed animal I have shoved into my pocket. I couldn't get it all the way in through. Its head still pokes out, mocking me.

I shake my head.

"Well, get to it!"

I don't understand her. Why does this matter? What does she want from me? I don't know, but for some reason, I continue to humor her.

We search the faux graveyard near the Ghost Hotel a bit. We walk the foggy (smoke machine fog, not real fog) path and even check behind a few tombstones but find nothing. I am not even surprised anymore. I decided a while back that the Materia is long gone, but I continue looking anyway. Why? I haven't the faintest. Why not?

"Thought of one yet?"

"No."

We reenter the lobby. It is quiet aside from the heavy ticking of the clock. No one is here. There isn't even anyone awaiting potential customers behind the front desk.

With no one in my way, I start moving the chairs and inspecting the space near the chess table.

"Wanna play chess?"

I don't answer.

She sits down anyway, looking at the game someone abandoned.

Yuffie exhales and gives me a disapproving stare. "Got a name, Valentine? Your poor cactuar still doesn't have an identity. He will go through life with no individuality or even the ability to obtain any form of recognition. How will he introduce himself? How will he fill out paperwork? How will he get a job?"

It is a stuffed animal. Why would it need an identity? He will not be doing any of these things.

"Cactuar," I say, not because I care but because I want to pacify her and bring whatever this is to an end.

"Cactuar?!" She reels, almost flipping out of the chair. "That's a horrible name! That's like naming a dog…dog!"

I stare at her and blink, unfazed before I glide across the space and briefly glance under the stairwell for anything yellow.

Nothing.

"Ugh!" Yuffie slings her head back. "Fine! That's the worst name ever, but I guess a horrible name is better than no name."

Silently, I motion for her to get up and follow me back to her room. Yuffie surprises me by understanding my silent plea in its entirety. She knows that I am finished. Our adventure (if it could even be called that) has come to an end. We have failed.

Defeated, she gets up and follows me. She is dragging her feet along the blood-red carpet. Her head is low, and she is practically dragging her hands behind her.

We reach her room, and I open the door for her and motion for her to go in.

She pouts a little but eventually goes in, albeit begrudgingly.

Dramatically, she flops face first onto the bed. Some of the pillows fall into the floor as the feathery mattress attempts to swallow her petite frame whole.

"Goodnight, Yuffie," I say as I turn to leave.

Without pulling her head up or out of the mattress, she waves me away.

I step out into the hallway, but before I shut the door, Yuffie's head pops up. She looks back at me, her face red with embarrassment.

"Vince, you aren't going to believe this…" she drawls as she slowly sits upright.

Don't tell me…

"It's been in my bed the whole time." Yuffie pulls the glowing, golden orb out from under the blankets. "It must have fallen out of my pocket when I fell asleep earlier…"

I have no words, but I am not really surprised by this turn of events.

"Goodnight, Yuffie," I say flatly and shut the door behind me.


A/N: Thanks so much for reading!

I have absolutely no business starting another story, but like I said, I've had this a while and thought: WHY NOT?! Plus, you don't see that many Vincent and Yuffie stories out there anymore so I figured I'd see what I could do for the community. Anyway! I digress!

Thanks again for reading and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!