When Vincent had agreed to follow the others, he had expected only to follow in their footsteps, not to fight beside them. It would be simpler that way, to fight from the shadows and stay to himself; inflicting his presence upon them would be too unpleasant.

He had not expected to find Aeris standing outside of his room as he waited for the morning, knocking gently on the door. Nor had he expected her to have bundles of clothes and folded plastic under her arms. "Hello, Mr. Vincent," she said, smiling up at him. "Got a minute?"

"Of course. Miss Aeris, yes?" He could not say much more than that, puzzled as he was over her sudden appearance. He had seen her briefly, as he emerged from his coffin - she'd held her staff at the ready like a master ready to strike, and the bracers on her wrists had gleamed with Materia. He'd seen fear in her eyes; she hid it well, but he'd been trained in sensing fear, in using it to his advantage.

But now she did not look the least bit intimidated, even though he was sure his appearance had not become less frightening; he had not allowed himself to look into a mirror, because he had done so before in the mansion, and knew what he would see. She was smiling and at ease, like this was nothing unusual at all.

"That's right! And you'll want to put these on, Mr. Vincent." She handed him the clothes. "I had another lady in town agree to mend the ones you're wearing, and we're going to let fix them while I work on your hair for a bit."

"My hair?" he repeated, resisting the urge to touch it with his good hand. He didn't have to; he knew it was tangled, knotted around his head. "Shouldn't we rest, if we are leaving town tomorrow morning?"

"See, that's the thing! We're not leaving tomorrow morning. Tifa and Barret have to take care of something in Cosmo Canyon, and it'll take a couple of days. Cloud's not going to leave without them, so we have a few days. There's no reason to just sit around by yourself, is there?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I have no problems with solitude," he said dryly.

"Yeah, I know, but come on. You really don't want to walk around without at least cleaning up a bit first, do you? Trust me, you'll feel a lot better when I'm finished. I know exactly what to do."

He might have laughed then, if she hadn't looked so earnest about it. "And if I say no?"

"Oh, come, now. I'm serious about this, you know." She grinned, and a mischievous gleam lit her eyes. "If you want to know how serious, ask Cloud about Wall Market sometime. I mean, you'll have to buy him a few drinks before he starts talking."

He snorted a bit. "If Wall Market is the same as it was before, I think I can guess."

She lit up a bit. "You were from Midgar?" she asked.

"I lived there for a while," he hedged. He hadn't intended to say even that much; this girl would've made a brilliant interrogator.

"So did I," she said, more seriously. "So you don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to. And if you really want me to go, I'll leave you alone. I just want to help out, if you'll let me."

She was a tenacious one, he thought. And while she was far from harmless, he did not have any reason to believe she meant to hurt him. "If you wish," he said.

"I do," she said. "Why don't you wash off and get changed? I'll be back with some more supplies!"

Aeris had returned by the time he'd showered and changed his clothes, more bundles and bags in her arms. She'd abandoned her pink dress for a long flannel gown that fell all the way to the floor. "All right, we're ready to get started," she said, spreading a piece of the plastic sheeting across the floor in front of the single mirror in the room. She grabbed an old wooden chair from the other corner and set it down on the plastic. "Sit down here, okay?"

He obeyed, bemused, and waited as she tucked another piece of plastic around his shoulders.

"Okay, that's good," she said, finishing up. "Now hold still; we're going to need a lot of oil, and I don't want to waste any of it."

"Oil?" he repeated, raising an eyebrow, but doing his best not to move his head.

"Shhh!" She giggled behind him. He watched her pull a pair of cloth gloves out of one of the bags, and slipped them on. "You can ask me whatever you want, after I'm done with this part."

The next thing he felt was something cool dripping down over his covered shoulders, running down over the sheeting. He closed his eyes quickly, and his nose filled up with the smell of bitter olives as the oil started to trickle down over his face. He could hear her humming something behind him as she worked, pulling at his hair and rubbing the cool oil into the hair just above his scalp.

"There," she said, after what had felt like a long time. "Keep your head back, okay?"

"I suppose," he said, and might've said more if she hadn't pulled something else over his hair, something that rustled. Then she walked past him, humming again; he opened his eyes and saw her drop a large, plain bottle into the garbage. It couldn't have been of any decent quality, he thought, not at any reasonable price.

"Okay, now we need to let it warm up for a while," she said, walking back to the heating unit. It rattled and hummed as it began to work. "Now would be a good time to talk, if you still want to!"

"Well," he said slowly, "my first question seems meaningless, now that you're finished."

"You probably thought I was going to use the stuff from the buggy or something, didn't you? I can tell you've never had to deal with this stuff before, Mr. Vincent!"

"Please, call me Vincent," he said, and the plastic creaked as he shifted in his chair.

"Okay, but if I'm going to call you Vincent, can you please stop calling me 'Miss?' Just call me Aeris."

"All right, Aeris. I am sorry." He coughed, trying futilely to clear the smell from his nostrils. "And no, this isn't something I've needed to do before."

She shrugged. "My mother used to do it to me all the time, when I was a kid. She had me do the same thing, back when she had hair as long as mine."

"Hmm." He looked up at the stained ceiling. "I suppose I should apologize for being so unkempt."

"Don't be silly. You were down there for a long time, right?"

"Hm. That's true." He could have left, he supposed. He'd been out of his coffin once or twice, over the years, but he'd always returned after a short time. There was no reason for him to leave the town, no reason for him to be awake.

"Well, there you go! Besides, we can't keep going north until the others get back anyway." She stood up. "I've got to try to find a better comb, and it's going to be a while before we can keep going anyway. You don't mind waiting, do you? You can lie down if you'd be more comfortable."

"I've spent enough time lying down." He cracked a smile at that. "And I am used to waiting."

"I'm sure you are! But I've got some records from the innkeeper, if you want to listen to some music." She walked over to the table by the record player and pulled out a record from the pile, a simple black sleeve with LOVELESS spelled out in large, golden letters. It was an oddly familiar name, although he could not place it. "Oh, this one's my favorite. Do you want to try it?"

He nodded, feeling the weight of his hair pulling at the back of his neck. It was surprisingly heavy now, a sodden and oily mess. "Yes, I would like some music. Thank you, Aeris."

"Don't mention it." She pulled the black record from its sleeve and started fiddling with the record player. "I'll be back soon, I promise. Try not to move around too much, okay? The oil needs to be warm for a while. Oh, and Yuffie's still in our room, so feel free to knock on the wall if you need anything. I made her promise to be nice," she added with a grin.

He nodded. "Thank you," he said again.

He leaned back as she slipped out through the door, and a gentle piano melody began to play. He did his best to relax, but his body was already making token protest at leaving his coffin, despite its strength, and he could feel the other things within his mind stirring. The music seemed to soothe the weakest-minded of them, the beast - he was grateful to the girl for that, although surely she could not have known.

The others were quieter, and Chaos was an ever-looming presence in the back of his mind, always silent and always waiting. It was easier to focus on the music and ignore them as best he could.

The record was almost finished when Aeris came back. He opened his eyes as the door opened and saw her, wearing a black jacket over her gown that she shucked away almost at once, and holding an ivory comb in one hand. He saw himself as well, wrapped in sheeting and soaked in oil, looking utterly ridiculous.

"Hello again," she said, smiling. "I found what I was looking for! Ready for the fun part?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I very much doubt that 'fun' is going to describe this process."

She shrugged. "It might be a little uncomfortable," she admitted. "But don't worry - I'll be as careful as I can."

"I appreciate that." He stretched as best he could. "I am as ready as I'll ever be."

"Okay. Let's do this." She moved out of his field of vision, and he heard a scraping sound as she grabbed another chair and pulled it across the floor. She sat down behind him, and the old wood creaked in protest.

She worked in silence, tugging at his hair with the ivory comb, trying to tease the tangles out from below and pulling at him over and over in the process. It was no more than a minor irritation, and in a way he was glad, because he had worried that everything he had suffered had numbed him completely. But he still winced ever so slightly as Aeris tugged a bit harder at a particularly stubborn knot.

"This might take longer than I thought," she said after a while. "Are you sure you want me to do this, Vincent? I could just cut it off, if you want."

"You did say that this wouldn't slow down your journey?"

She shook her head. "We can't leave until some of the others come back, and it'll be a few days."

"Then I see no harm in this. Besides, I think you would have to cut all of it off, and baldness doesn't suit me."

"Sounds good to me," she agreed, tugging again at his hair with the comb. "I'll keep trying. But I don't want to hear any complaints if you don't like it!"

"I'll be sure to keep them to myself, then," he said wryly, and she laughed.

It was like that whenever Aeris came by - never working on him for long, because it was surely delicate work, and she was most likely quite tired by the time that they finished. But he never heard her complain, even when the time got away from them both, and she seemed to have been working for hours.

"You have a delicate touch," he said, once, distracted by his memories. He could not help but imagine Lucrecia at her lab desk, carefully combining chemicals in tubes and pipettes. Aeris had that same sort of concentration about her, as she worked.

"Thank you!" she said, pleased. "I know I haven't done this sort of thing in a while, but it never leaves you, I guess. Besides, it's not that different from gardening."

"Gardening," he echoed. "I cannot say that I am surprised."

"You're so formal, Vincent," she said, smiling. "But yes, I love flowers. They don't grow much in Midgar, but I usually find a way." She kept working for a bit, silently - she gave him a particularly hard tug on one tangle, harder than he'd expected, then winced a bit as he did. "Although," she said, after she was done, "it's a little easier working with flowers."

"Because they don't wince?"

She smiled sheepishly. "I was going to say, 'because they can't feel pain.' Because they can't, not really. I hate seeing people crush flowers, but it's not as if you hurt a flower when you pick it. Dealing with people is different. It's a lot harder, but it's usually worth it. " She put down the comb and flexed her hands a bit. "I need a break, though. I'm going to get a snack. Want anything?"

"No, thank you." There was no truly polite way, he thought, to admit to her that the idea of eating made him feel somewhat queasy in this strange shell of a body.

"Well, then," she said, "I'll be back soon. Did you need to get up for anything?"

He shook his head. "I can wait here," he said. "Go ahead."

"If you insist," she said, stripping off her gloves. "See you later!"

He supposed that he could have asked her to take off the plastic, or shredded it himself. He was hardly bound by it. But he did not mind. He had no problems with waiting.

He had lost track of time while Aeris was gone. He had been in something of a trance, listening to the sounds of the monsters that growled and warred with each other in his mind. Those waking nightmares were now the closest that he could ever come to dreaming, and for all of the horror of seeing them grow and bite and tear each other apart night after night, it was enough to keep him from going madder than he already was.

It was the sound of Cloud's voice that had brought him back. Vincent could hear him speaking on the other side of the wall, although he could not make out what he was saying, only that he was speaking. At first he was not concerned - perhaps the others had come back in the night. But then he heard Aeris's voice as well, and that was enough to convince him to open his eyes.

He was very quiet as he used his claw to cut a slit in the plastic around him, enough to let his good arm out. He crept to the doorway and cracked the door open, just enough that he could hear what was happening more clearly.

"...should have been gone by now," he could hear Cloud say, exasperated. "The reactor's a dangerous place, and the longer we wait, the worse it'll be. You know he's bound to be laying some sort of trap there."

"I'm telling you, it'll be fine! Tifa and the others are on their way back," Aeris answered. Her voice was sharper than before, more frustrated.

"I'd feel better if you'd give me the PHS and let me talk to her myself -"

"No way," Aeris said, her voice firm and cool. "You'd just tell her to hurry back, and you know she would listen to you, even if it's not what she wants or needs right now. She and Barret and Nanaki are going to come back soon enough, and by the time they're back we'll be ready to head north, so stop worrying about it!"

"I can't stop worrying, Aeris. This is Sephiroth we're dealing with! We needed to be gone two days ago, and we don't have time to wait, for your vanity or -"

"It's not about that," she interrupted, raising her voice. "Anyway, we've spent longer than this at other places, because you said we needed to wait. And we never had trouble following him after that, so why are you getting upset now? It's not just because it wasn't your idea, was it?"

"I - I don't -" Cloud stammered, then stopped abruptly. All Vincent heard for a moment was the impatient tapping of someone's toe against the floor. When Cloud finally spoke again his voice was strange, fainter and more confused. "How can I be the leader," he asked plaintively, "when the people I'm leading won't listen to me?"

Then he gasped, loudly. Vincent rushed to open the door, not caring then about the sound it might make, and stepped into the hall to see Cloud's head in his hands, and Aeris standing over him, one hand on his shoulder. "It's all right, Cloud," she said. "You'll be all right."

"My head hurts," Cloud managed, his voice a bit stronger. "I'm trying, Aeris. We've got to... we have to find him. Figure it out. I'm the leader, right?"

"Of course you are," she answered softly. "But a leader also needs to take care of the people who follow him, right? And Tifa needed some rest away from here before she could go on. I knew she did, so I told her to go, because I know she would've listened to you if you'd told her not to and that might've been bad for her. So you'll forgive me for that, won't you?"

"Aeris," he said. "I... I'm sorry. My head."

"Hush, now," she said. "Come on."

She led him across the hall into another door, but not before looking back over her shoulder, shooting Vincent a look. He nodded back, not knowing what else to say.

He heard voices - not Cloud's this time, but the two girls, talking just too softly for him to know what they were saying. He could imagine what had passed between them, though, when Aeris stepped out and softly closed the door behind her.

"I hope we didn't wake you, Vincent," Aeris said. Her smile was gone, and her eyes were very distant and sad.

"No," he replied. "Is everything all right?"

"I think so. Yuffie's keeping an eye on Cloud for a while. He just gets like this sometimes, and I don't really understand him yet." She frowned. "He's a good leader, but sometimes he forgets that being a leader means more than just... you know... leading people."

Vincent didn't answer. He wasn't quite sure what she meant, if only because it had been so long since he could remember having a leader. Thirty years alone was a long time, and it was easier to try to forget than it was to remember what it had been like before.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep for a while," she said after a while. "What about you?"

"Sleep means little to me anymore," he admitted.

She looked up at him. "Would you be okay if I worked on your hair a bit?" she asked, quietly.

"Yes," he said, "if it would help."

She nodded gravely. "I think it would. Thanks, Vincent."

She worked more slowly than she usually did, sitting at the mirror. Her eyes were still tired and sad, but her fingers moved as surely as ever, and a bit more gently; she still tugged, but not nearly as hard as she had before. They didn't speak much, at first; Aeris worked in silence, and Vincent sat and pondered what she had told him. Vincent could hear voices from the other room, although he couldn't make out what they were saying - Cloud saying something very quietly in his husky voice, and Yuffie answering back cheerfully, sometimes even laughing. He was curious, he would admit that much, but it seemed wrong to impose on his privacy any further.

Instead, after a while, he broke the silence. "Aeris," he said, as she pulled her comb away to clean it for a moment, "you told Cloud that this wasn't just about vanity."

"I did," she said, pulling a tangled bit of debris and tossing it to the plastic below. "And it isn't."

"What is it, then?" he asked.

She looked back at him, catching his eyes in the mirror. "It's about being nice to each other. Don't you know?"

"I've done horrible things, Aeris," he said softly. "I don't have much experience with good deeds."

"Yes, well, it's like my mother always told me." Her voice was firm, then, as she put the comb down. "We've all been through horrible things. Some of us had to do horrible things. Some of us had horrible things done to us."

She stopped and shuddered a bit, and Vincent remembered another woman shaking with fear over things that had been done to her. He almost reached out his hand to her, but stopped himself, wondering if it would be untoward; he had spent too long alone to remember what was appropriate anymore.

She must have noticed his reaction, even though he said nothing, because she reached over and put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm all right," she said. "Don't worry about me. The point is that we've all been through so much, so why shouldn't we try to be nice to each other when we get the chance? That's why I told Barret and Tifa to go back to Cosmo Canyon with Nanaki, because she really needed to get away from here. And that's why I thought I'd help you, because you've been alone down there for so long. I doubt you'd had anyone to talk to, so I thought that it might help."

"It is helping," he admitted. "I just find it difficult to accept such kindness, after all of my sins."

"Well," she said, and her smile came back, "I'm willing to give you a second chance. After all, we just met, so it would just be silly for me to hold a grudge about something I know nothing about. Right?"

"I suppose that's true." He tried to give him a real smile, something that he hadn't done in a long time. It looked wrong on his too-pale face, but when he saw the corners of her eyes crinkle with happiness, he knew that it was worthwhile.

"I think it's done," Aeris finally said after an hour, taking a few more swipes through his oily hair with the comb.

Vincent opened his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror, saw the lank black hair falling all around his shoulders. "I would say you were right," he said. "What now?"

Aeris yawned. "It's up to you, I guess," she said. "You should be able to wash it now if you want. But I need to get some sleep."

"You should," he agreed, looking at her tired eyes, then turning to take a glance at the clock. "It's nearly morning."

"Mmm. It'll be afternoon before Tifa and the others get back. I have some time to sleep." She smiled sleepily at him as she stood up. "And time to clean this up later, too."

"Let me take care of that," he said. "You've done more than enough."

"Okay, then. If you insist." She unwrapped the plastic around him for the last time, letting it crumple to the floor. "Thanks again for letting me spend some time with you tonight."

"I should thank you," he said, stretching both of his arms, feeling twisted flesh shifting painfully under his claw. He was all right. His hair was lank and sodden, still, but it at least seemed to be laying flat on his head.

"You're welcome," Aeris said, smiling. And despite his haste, she made it to the door before he could even offer her his arm.

He spent the day cleaning up in his room, while the others slept. Sleep was no longer so important to him; the creatures that shared his body kept him going, somehow.

Moving the mirror and cleaning up the sheeting was the easy part. All he had to do was carefully fold it, so that the oil would not leak, and take it outside, where it would be carted away. The washing was a good deal more time-consuming. Aeris had left him two full bottles of the cheap shampoo in the bathroom, and he'd used both of them by the time he was finished. It might have been overkill, but after all of the trouble that Aeris had gone through, he wanted to be especially thorough. She'd left a bristle-brush behind for him as well. It felt strange, standing in front of the mirror, staring at his own face as he ran the bristles through his hair with his good arm.

He found the clothes that Aeris had brought back - red and black, not nearly so stained and tattered as before. The cape was shorter now, and a brighter red; the pants and shirt were the same as before, only cleaner. He dressed himself and found a few strips of red cloth in the bottom - cut from the cape, no doubt. He took one and wrapped it around his head, tying it securely in the back.

It was strange, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror. The claw still gleamed, a constant reminder of his twisted arm, and his eyes glowed red, but despite all of that he looked - and almost felt - human.

It won't last, one of the creatures whispered in his mind. It will never last. Mere kindness will not wipe away what you have done.

He closed his eyes. "No," he said, softly to himself. "But I will not waste the gift that she had given me."

The monsters had nothing to say to that. Even Chaos only seemed to laugh ruefully, as if conceding. And for the moment, that was good enough.

He left the inn to head to the mansion, hoping to find a few things he'd left behind.

Vincent, much to everyone's surprise, was the first person outside waiting for the buggy when the time came, taking practice shots at the ravens who flew outside of the town. Still, he could see the confusion on Cloud's face when he came out and found that Vincent had beaten him there; he opened his mouth as if to speak, but was interrupted by a loud shout from Yuffie. "Oh, hey! Wow, Aeris, you were right! He cleans up pretty nice after all!"

Aeris laughed as she walked up behind the young ninja, and he saw Cloud turn, his face darkening to a strange shade of red. "Yuffie, do you really have to -"

"Oh, c'mon," she said, poking Cloud in the arm. "We were all thinking it! I'll bet even Cait Sith back there was thinking it!"

The animatronic cat, who had just bounded up behind Aeris, was extremely good at looking puzzled. "Oi, lassie, I just got meself powered up again, ye can't go puttin' words in m' mouth like that! What's it you're going on about now?"

"Don't ask. Trust me, you don't want to know," Cloud answered, his face reddening still more.

Aeris, meanwhile, walked up to him, and looked him up and down. He'd managed to find the few pieces he'd been missing in the mansion, the outfit he'd forged when he'd first realized what had happened to him. "Nice boots," she said, smiling.

He smiled back. "Thank you. I made them, long ago... I thought that they were appropriate, now. I had thought that I would never be able to stand in the sunlight again, but now... I would like to try, at least."

"Well, good. Life's too short to spend it in nothing but darkness." She reached out for his hair, her hand halfway out until he nodded, then pulled lightly at the now-free long black hair. "This look suits you, I think," she said. "I'm glad we could fix it! I'm pretty sure you'd look weird if I'd had to shave you bald."

"There's no doubt of that. I've lost a bet or two in my time." He shook his head. "Aeris, thank you. Hopefully I can find some way to repay you."

"Oh, don't be silly. You don't have to do that!"

"No," he replied. "But I think that I'd like to."

"Ahhh," she breathed, grinning back at him. "Well, don't let me stop you."

"Hey, guys, look! The buggy's almost here!" Yuffie called, interrupting them. It was time for them to keep moving, and he was going to join them. No hiding, he thought, and nodded to himself. No skulking in the shadows. He'd fight in the open, and if it that meant his enemy saw him coming, let them fear him.

He was still a man, no matter what else he was. It had taken a stranger's kindness to remind him, and he was grateful.