Disclaimer: I don't own any Final Fantasy Games, but I'm saving up to buy Vincent Valentine - I have three pounds so far. Ha.

A/N: Usually I don't like OC fics, but I'll make an exception because I just had to get this idea in writing. Hope you like it.

One

I was born in the summer.

The way my mother told it, the day of my birth had been one of those searing hot, restless July days, when no one, even at the best of times, can be bothered to do anything. My father had left just over a week before, to fight alongside some long-time companions of his in a rebellion group called Avalanche (it was the best thing to do, he'd said), leaving mom behind because of little old me, who hadn't even been born yet.

It was ten o' clock at night when I was born. The sky was a deep indigo colour and the air was still warm. I was nine days early, and born at home, so unexpected was my arrival. From what I hear, Miko Strife's mother, Tifa, was there, and looked after me for a few days to come because my own mother was too out of it to do anything. Tifa Lockheart contacted my dad, but he didn't come home. Even though his daughter had been born, and his wife (well, okay, they weren't married, but the woman he allegedly loved) wasn't doing so great due to 'complications', he still didn't come home.

Asshole.

I lost faith in him a long time ago. Spending my childhood making excuses for him was useless; I never saw him – not once. He didn't even come back when I was nine, after my mom got herself killed protecting me.

Very soon afterwards, I lost hope. I had no one.

I lived with Tifa, Cloud and Miko, after that, until I was seventeen. Then I went back to live in the ground-floor apartment in which my mom and I had once lived. It was hard, going back there, but it was something I felt I needed to do. I stood there in the fading light, in my old bedroom with its bright blue walls and dark purple curtains framing the small window, and tried to kid myself that nothing had changed. Then, when I'd almost gotten to believe it, I pulled my mind back to the harsh reality of life. No good looking back. The next morning, I painted all the walls white, functional and expressionless, and got rid of every trace of the life I'd left behind. I wanted none of it, because it hurt too much to want something that was unreachable…

Well. You know all this about my life, now – more than I have ever told anyone, quite probably – and yet you still don't even know my name. I'm sorry about that. It's usually one of the first things you find out, reading someone's story, but what's a name, really? Something my parents gave me, and neither of them is around anymore.

I was born Evaine Valentine, but stopped using my father's surname when I realised he was never coming back. So, for the purpose of our discussion, my name is Evaine Crescent. My father, wherever he may be, is Vincent Valentine, and my mother is, no, was, Lucrecia Crescent. I'm nineteen years old, old enough, as people keep telling me, to search for my father if I wish. But I have no wish to do so. Why should I, when I have never known him, through his own choice?

I'm between jobs at the moment, and I live alone – have done for the past two years or so – in the very same apartment in which I was born. Since my statement is on paper, you can't see me, so I suppose I should tell you of my appearance. Let's just say that the thing I seem to hear from everyone who knew my parents is: "You look so much like your mother, but you have your father's eyes." And I guess they would know, since my eyes are a strange, deep crimson colour that makes me wonder if he, too, got called a 'devil's child' by other kids when he was in school. The rest of me is pretty ordinary. I have relatively – but not dramatically – pale skin, and long, brown hair that's not perfectly straight but it definitely isn't curly either. I'm not really tall, but neither am I particularly small. I'm neither plump nor thin, but merely average. I guess the only thing you could say about me is that, yes; my resemblance to my mom is – as told by Aeris Gainsborough – 'almost uncanny'.

So I suppose now you think you know me, right?

Wrong. There's still a hell of a lot you don't know; a lot which I suppose I must tell you. If I'm honest, I don't really know where to start. I'm usually pretty good at putting things in writing, but right now I have no idea what to put. How do you put a whole life into ink and paper, even one that hasn't even been fully lived out yet?

You start, I guess, from the beginning. From the very first thing you remember, but what if your first memories don't seem important; or what if it's too hard to force yourself to recapture that time of innocence, knowing that you can never have it back?

Then you start from where it all fell to pieces, hoping that if you start from there, you might be able to fix what's left of that old life.