"Where thy footstep gleams – In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams."
- Edgar Allan Poe

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"I love you."

"…You should go."

"But-…"

"Yuffie. Go home."

"Shut up!"

That was the first time she ever kissed me. Her angel lips touched mine in that sweet caress, and I wept. For the first time since Lucrecia's death, I wept, and I held her, for I couldn't find the words to explain what she had just given me. In that one kiss, she had shown me everything; her life, her doubts and worries, her love…for me. Everything was in that one kiss, and I knew then that I loved her.

Oh, my dearest Lucrecia. What has happened to my memory of you? For once in my life, I long for the presence of one other than you. The woman I love, the woman I cannot have. And for the life of me, as long as it is, I cannot explain my feelings for her. No contempt, or lust, or empty promises, but sweet, ignorant love.

I begged that she leave. I was so afraid, afraid of showing her my feelings, afraid of hurting her. For the monsters inside me would not accept her presence. One longed for her body, another pined for the presence of Cloud (1) – though I still can't fathom why, the third still cried and mourned for Lucrecia, and the fourth wanted no part of it, just the sweet bliss of blood and death and hatred and sorrow.

But she was so happy, so alive; more so than I had ever seen her. And I was so lost, so unwilling to accept her closeness, for fear of causing her harm.

So as what I thought to be a last resort, I sent her away. I told her anything I could think of to make her leave, and it worked. She cried, and as much as I wanted to, I held my emotions back. I told her I couldn't stand her presence, and she told me it was a lie. She saw through it, but she left regardless.

And then I knew, for the second time in my life, what it was to be alone. With nothing but the angry echoes of the monsters in my mind, I broke my promise to her and locked myself away in my coffin once again. I told myself it was the same as before – I would sleep, and when I would awaken, everything would be different.

But I couldn't sleep, for my thoughts, my very being, were haunted by my memories of her. Her laughter, her smile, her voice, and her tears. Those horrible tears that broke my heart.

Then after a year of vague remnants of sleep, and dreams plagued by her face, she returned to me.

Her hair was long, and I remembered that I had once told her I would like to see it that way. Her eyes had lost their luster and their life, and I saw in those haunted orbs, the cause of her pain. When I had sent her away, I had killed a part of her, crushed her heart.

And when she saw me, lying sleepless in that coffin, she wept. I tried to shush her, to apologize for the broken promise, but the volume of her sobs grew, and she collapsed onto the floor at my feet, holding in her arms a bundle of blankets, and I had a fleeting idea of what they might contain.

When she calmed, she stood, and she told me why she had returned. She had married, and her husband had taken her father's place in Wutai. She told me, she had come to see me once more, before she returned to her home. And then she offered me that bundle, and my heart sank, and I realized then just what it was, and I accepted it with the utmost care.

Staring down into the face of our sleeping son, I began to cry, for the second time since my dearest Lucrecia's death, and I begged her to return to me. I told her to leave behind her father's kingdom, and to leave her husband and return to me. She merely shook her head, and stole back the child from my arms. She told me then that she couldn't leave, because she had grown to love him. She could never love him as much as she had once loved me, but she loved him regardless, and she wouldn't abandon him and her duties.

And then she left, and that void in my heart grew, because I knew, somewhere deep inside of myself, that I would never see her again.

So I laid myself to sleep in my coffin once more, knowing that the next time I awoke, everything I knew will have changed, and I will be living in a new world.

And I was right.

I awoke years later, to find that the man that Yuffie had married found out about our son, and in a blind rage, killed both my child and the woman I loved. And so doubled was loss of my life, two women I loved, two sons of mine, dead, because of my fear.

As I knelt before her grave, I cried once more, thrice now I have cried for this woman, and this would be the last time. I cried for her, for our son, and for myself. And as I cried, the demons in my head also wept.

Oh, Lucrecia. What a coward I am! I could not save you or our son, for my fear hindered me, and your life was lost to science, and your son was lost to my hand (2). And years later, Yuffie's life, and the life of our son, lost to my fear. I was afraid of showing my feelings, and so she would never know the truth of what I felt for her, and our son would never know the joys of living.

What kind of coward am I, to keep on living, even after there is nothing left for me to live for? But what kind of coward would I be to end it all, to join you, Lucrecia, and my friends in the Lifestream? No matter what path I choose now, I shall forever know myself a coward and a failure!

As I stood from my kneeling position, the feeling of wetness still on my face, now a mixture of my tears and the falling rain, I remembered something once said to me by my friends.

I am the Evergreen. I may not change with the seasons, but over years, I grow stronger, and while I do not appear to age, and my visage stays the same until I die, my memory is the strongest.

In this forest of mismatched heroes, trees that have long-since withered and died, I still stand tall. The Evergreen; unchanged and unchanging. I am the only one keeping the memories of our fallen heroes alive.

So if I cannot live for myself, I will live for them. The memories of my friends.

The memory of her, of our son.

I, Vincent Valentine, am the Evergreen. Preserving the memories of people and places long since passed.

I am eternal.

Ethereal. (3)

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(1) I read somewhere once that Vincent has four demons: Galian, Chaos, Gigas, and Hellmasker. Please tell me if this is wrong, because I honestly don't know. I'm just using that idea for this story. In my head, Galian is the gay demon that wants Vincent to be with Cloud. Chaos is…chaotic, for lack of a better term, and wants nothing but sex, blood, and carnage. Thus, the lusty one of the four. Gigas longs for Lucrecia still, and Hellmasker just wants flesh and carnage. That about sums it up.

(2) I am I firm believer in the "Vincent-is-Sephiroth's-real-father-not-Hojo" theory, and that Vincent blames himself for what happened to Sephiroth; he's still convinced that there was more he could have done to prevent what happened.

(3) e-the-re-al adj. 1 light; airy; delicate: The ethereal beauty of a butterfly. Her ethereal beauty made her seem more like a goddess than a human being. 2 not of this earth; heavenly: An angel is an ethereal messenger. She longed for an ethereal home.

This, I should think, is pretty self-explanatory. This is the first, and last word I think of when I think of Vincent. Delicate, heavenly, not of this earth. His eternal, mysterious beauty makes him seem less human in a way that's very alluring. And thus, the title, and ending word of this one-shot.