Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
They were sitting in Seventh Heaven when she broke the day's silence. He'd spent the day clearing the yard of rubble and leaves so that the kids could play; she'd been moping, mostly, and getting in the way.
"I've been thinking," she'd said. He'd raised an eyebrow without looking at her. "Gawd, Vincent, don't look so surprised. I've been thinking- I'm still on the job for Reeve, most of the time. You should join me."
They don't talk about how she never carries her phone around any more, or about the letters that have started arriving - sealed with a great red splash of wax - that she burns unopened.
They're on a mountain path barely four feet wide, winding fitfully up the side of a nameless peak between Nibelheim and Corel, when the wolves come. She's off-guard, daydreaming. If Tifa were here, she'd have pulled Yuffie to a halt by the arm, and waved one loving finger in warning. Dilly dally, shilly shally. Stay alert, you poor excuse for a ninja.
Vincent has finished it before she's had time to blink. Three headshots and they're twitching, meaty shapes on the ground; they're all tooth and limb and she can count their ribs every one. They were hungry, then, and some softer part of her heart wishes things were different, knows that were things right, wolves should be able to walk the world as bravely as she does. They shouldn't be squabbling down in the dusty valleys over rabbits and fieldmice, and they shouldn't be hiding up here for fear of being eaten themselves.
A snarl – no, a roar - brings her head up, sharp, and she's the fast one now because Vincent has knelt down to slit throats. (Such a careful guy.) She's away and sprinting up the arch of his back as the pack comes, a solid baying mass of flesh headed right for them as he jumps and sends her flying upward with a push of his left arm while the right goes for his gun. She feels his shoulders shift and then she's weightless and swinging left right left with shuriken and knives from the air, until a double somersault takes her down again to a ledge where she watches him effortlessly finish them.
Someday, she thinks, she'd like to just sit back completely and watch him fight, remembers it from days before Meteor: he's diffident, almost lazy the way he curves his arm up to shoot - as if the prey's, perhaps, a touch beneath him, and he's only deigned to end its misery. She fights like she's dying, flailing and gasping and striking out for space, and she thinks that's why they work together; he fights like he's already dead.
She shares his tent because why not, really: before Meteor there was room for three, with Vincent, pale and ragged, keeping watch by the entrance and Yuffie and Red sprawled out like puppies. Nanaki is not Red, was never really Red, and they're both young emperors. But Nanaki is, always, wiser than her, and he is at home with Deneh, safe and leaping from rock to rock, snarling at wolves that creep too near the Cosmo Flame.
Meanwhile somehow she is here, in the cold and the damp, back in Nibel with Vincent Valentine as if she were sixteen again. She misses Nanaki's warmth, misses how they'd wrestle and argue and fall asleep quick as children, while Vincent watched over them. She's too cold and too old and too tired for this. She misses home, wishes desperately that things were different, that she were different. If she'd been another girl, an ordinary girl – but no. She shakes her head: without her country she'd be nothing, and she will use its gifts wisely, throne or no throne.
When they split up the first time to sleep, so many years ago, she'd piled her stuff in with those two and settled in - "What?" she'd said, and then "What?!" because Vincent was still staring at her.
"This is our tent." he'd said, somehow without implying too much, but all the same she went red.
"So? I'll have a guard dog to protect me from the vampire, and an undead badass to protect me from the werewolf. Everybody wins."
He turned away, and from the shake of his shoulders she could see him laughing silently. She was suddenly hot and cold with relief and fear and youthful righteous anger. "I'm not sharing with Tifa and Aeris and Cloud. Gross.Youcan't tell me that's hygienic. And anyway I'm underage. The two of you are in a four-man tent. Four."
She took his silence as consent and began to unpack her blankets. Red butted his head at her ankles. "I hope you don't snore."
She bowed low to him, as solemn and courteous as any young novice of Leviathan. "I swear it on my grandmother's shrivelled pudenda." And she dashed off to Cid who was yelling about dinner; over her shoulder they heard "-maysherestinpeace-". They looked at each other and sighed. They'd been had.
They settle in for the night in a tent perched above cloud level, and though she's pressed her face into her pillow and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, Yuffie feels every cough and rustle as a shudder up her backbone. She's not tired a bit, and could happily have stayed staring at the fire till dawn broke. But they're tucked into the side of a hill, and after showing off so much about her tripwires and traps, she'd lose face if she stayed up to watch for monsters. She sighs and makes a nest of her blankets.
If only they were in an inn. A nice, cosy inn like the one in Cosmo Canyon that's so far behind them now. One with narrow wooden pews where everyone piled in together and ate and sang and fought amicably and made up again. They'd sit next to each other, crushed between a Mideeli grandmother and three Wutaian students, and eat and have drinks and talk politely like normal people.
Maybe they'd get a little tipsy and their knees would touch under the table; then they'd glance up at each other, startled and apologetic. The air in the room would get thick and heavy and dry their mouths. They'd both, simultaneously, clear their throats and reach for their drinks. But that buzz would still be there under their skin, and it would happen again – his hand would touch hers as he went to push away his plate, the faintest brush of his knuckles against her fingers – she'd shuffle in her seat and her bare thigh would just, just move against him, and his muscles would twitch; he'd deliberately not look at her, but move a little closer, and she'd feel a lock of his hair fall against her upper arm.
She'd be on fire by now, and she'd be looking forward desperately to getting in a tub and soaking out everything that was building up. She'd raise her glass and wink at Vincent, drain it and then grab her pack from the pile by the door, heading over to the bar to get her key and escape, only to be met by a smiling, apologetic innkeeper –
So sorry – the inn is so very full tonight, only there was a mix-up with the party from Mideel and they need an extra bed, we don't like to turn away senior citizens, would you and your companion mind very much sharing a suite?
And she'd be panicking but joyous at the same time, so she'd channel it into a toothy smile as she snatched the key and tossed the other to Vincent - who would still be sitting quietly where she'd left him - before taking the stairs two at a time.
It'd be a pretty nice suite, much nicer than either of the rooms they'd asked for – Cosmo's rooms were carved from the rock, after all, so there'd be roughly plastered walls and a low ceiling, with a window carved out and a couch right there to look at the view. There'd be a full autumn moon out there for her to admire at her leisure, red and heavy and stunning. She'd throw down her things and leap into the tub, which would have wooden planks with a cover, so reminiscent of home. She'd lean her head back and enjoy the water straight from the hot springs, and feel sixteen again; she'd be the girl taking her last bath in Wutai before Meteor.
She'd still have the tingle under her skin, but now it would be more of an itch; the pleasant kind, the kind that would ache when it subsided. She'd pour orange and vanilla oil into the water, and after a while soaking and shivering, she might consider her options vaguely, might run a splayed hand over her stomach and around her hips – it'd feel like silk, with the oil, and it'd be delicious, but Yuffie decides that the ache is almost better than to spend it so quickly, and alone.
So, she thinks, she'd move her hand one last time in one slow, insistent motion from her hip to waist to breast, pause a moment over each nipple, and let the oil work into her skin. Then she'd let herself steam dry perched on the edge of the bath like a daughter of Leviathan stranded on a rock, imagine herself seducing beautiful sailors. She'd shift her hips uncomfortably and pull on a robe, dry her hair and then wander out into the bedroom, slide languid onto the couch and wait for Vincent.
But Vincent would never arrive, and this is all wrong because they are in a tent and he is right there. She screws her eyes up as tightly as they will go and balls her hand into a fist, praying for sleep.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Vincent knows Yuffie's still awake. It's as awkward and strange as everything else between them: the way she trips over her own feet rather than meet his eyes, the way they work in battle, her smoke bombs and silent knives jarring with the click of him racking his gun and the dramatic snap and flare of his cape as he leaps for the kill. It's the way he lets her fight her own battles though his throat seizes when she takes a hit. He's like the big brother she never had - never wanted - and he thinks it might kill him.
Because in another world, another life, things might have been different; he'd never have met her if not for Hojo and Gast, but in a different world - a kinder world- he would, regardless, not have had a very long life expectancy as a Turk. And Lucrecia might have loved him, as she almost did; not enough to marry him, but enough to save his life, enough to take revenge on Hojo. She could have lived to raise her son.
She might, then, have done Vincent a kindness by leaving him to sleep, rather than wake as a man become monster. And he would have finally awoken, perhaps, to the eager eyes of a young treasure-hunter fighting a war against Rufus and his hounds.
This world's full of maybes and might-have-beens, each a fragile and shivering thing. He's never been much for certainty; the only heavy knowledge he's borne has been that of his own failures, of each sin of omission holding down his bones and weighting him into stillness.
If he were the man he'd been at twenty-seven, he'd make her scream and bite him; he'd clutch at her to keep himself grounded, and every bruise that bloomed afterwards would remind him that he was still living. He has made of himself a gentler man, and he would like to sink into her as if into a dream; afterwards he'd close his eyes and rest his forehead against hers while they breathed quietly together. Vincent has learned his lesson about dream-women. While he puts them together in his head, forms their limbs and desires from clay and breathes life into their mouths, they are fighting and fucking and living without him.
So he would take her as she is, needy, demanding, full of punishments for the petty sins he has not even considered. She'd come to him – she'd have to come to him – but this time, finally, he would take his moment and seize it from her; would take her balled fists and open them with kisses, one to the pulse at each trembling wrist and one barely more than a breath at her neck. If he knows her well enough, she'd fight him, would turn his strength against him, and he'd have to grab her wrists – careful not to crush her tiny bird-bones – hold her there, and look at her until she knew he was serious.
She plays a hummingbird game with him, always has done. She will flit in and out of his vision, tease him with a fingertip to the corner of his lips or by sprawling across his lap, and always, always be laughing. In the beginning, it had angered him, and then it had been frightening, having her toy with him. The longer he waits, the more afraid he becomes; she is small and fast, but he could break her so easily if he were careless.
She'd slap his cheek if he touched her, but then she might kiss away the sting; Vincent flushes at the thought, but knows that she'd play his part in reverse. She'd take his hands, each in turn, in both of hers, and unfasten his gauntlet, take off his gloves, run her lips and hot breath over his palms and take in the smell of leather.
Each touch he gave would send a shiver up through her, set her quivering like an arrow nocked and ready to fly. She'd writhe into him, giving him looks that would pull the marrow from his bones, flay him open with wanting her.
His body's a long hard line under her; she has no time for his whispers and his slow soft spiderhands. She's on him and around him and oh, Vincent, no – the cruel voice awakens – this is not for you.
His back arches against cold earth, wracked with it. He lies awake, open-eyed, trembling.
"But time will not permit: all is uneven, And every thing is left at six and seven".