Chapter One: Hidden Captivity
Before she could even open her eyes she was happy, an inexplicable elatedness filling her entire being before she had achieved more than a nanosecond of consciousness. Subconscious memories lingered just beyond the border of her drowsy comprehension, and the rest of her body understood them before her head had a chance. Her hands moved with a will of their own to the other side of the bed. They expected to find the smooth skin it had so recently become accustomed to, but found rough bed sheets instead.
The brunette's face lost its lazy smile in favor of startled gasp. At a dizzying speed she brought herself upright. The sunlight in the room harshly assaulted her eyes and her head ached slightly from the sudden movement, but, to her relief, a Cloud was right next to her in the chair beside the bed.
"Tifa," he said, regarding her now fully awake status.
Tifa's first reaction was to smile, but a frown won over it when she saw that the man was fully dressed, ready to go, ready to leave again.
"They called this morning, when you were still asleep," he responded to the question of her frown.
"How long will you be gone?" she asked him with a note of sadness in her solemn voice. "How long will you be away from me?" she asked herself.
He took a step towards the bed and leaned forward, his hand touching her cheek in an attempt at a soothing gesture.
"Not long enough for you to miss me."
"Tifa?"
The child's question roughly brought Tifa back down to earth, the memory temporarily pushed aside. It had been on repeat the ever since he left. At first it had been recollected with giddiness. Once Cloud came back from his delivery, things would be different. They could finally have a real family. It took a few weeks to make Cloud a liar though; there was no denying that she missed him. But it took a month for her to get worried.
"Yes Marlene?" said Tifa, trying and surprisingly succeeding to sound calm despite her inner anxieties.
"Do we know where Cloud is yet?" It hadn't been an easy month for the girl either. The question had become routine, just like the slowly dwindling hope that filled her eyes every time she asked. Tifa frowned.
She said, "No honey, we don't know yet."
"Oh." Marlene's voice became quiet and disappointed, just as Tifa expected.
She bent down slightly and put a hand on Marlene's shoulder.
"Cloud can take care of himself," she said, "He's probably fine." Tifa made the effort to light her face with a smile.
"In fact, he's probably on his way back right now."
"Sure is taking his time…" said Denzel as he made his way down the stairs.
No one could contest the fact. After a silence, Tifa spoke up.
"He is being a bit slow," she said, her smile turning playful, "but I think all he needs is a little kick to his behind to speed him up, hm?"
Marlene giggled, but Denzel remained doubtful.
"How's that gonna happen?"
"Well, Aunt Yuffie's pretty good at kicking people, don'tcha think?"
Mountains are naturally windy places, high elevations causing them to be open to a multitude of wind currents and free of any pollution. The Nibelhiem Mountains were no different. The sweet, crisp wind played with his hair as the man sat, cross-legged, eyes closed. This had become his routine in the past month, sitting in a secluded corner early in the morning and savoring the chance at peace and quiet he rarely got these days.
"VINCENT!!!"
"All good things must come to an end," he mused to himself. Officially, the WRO sent him to track a monster that had taken to kidnapping people in the last few months. He had barely touched down on Nibelhiem soil, when Yuffie had found him, and insisted on "keeping you company. I know you just can't stand to be away from me. I'm practically doing you a favor!" Of course she laughed, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. It disturbed Vincent so much that he let her stay. But afterwards she seemed to be her normal self, much to his chagrin. He hadn't made any headway in the mission at all with her around, and getting her to leave would require nothing short of having the Death Penalty aimed between her eyes. He just wasn't in the mood for that. He sighed, and rose from the ground with his ever-present blood red cape billowing about him.
As Vincent came within view of the camp, Yuffie spotted him and skipped over. Upon turning twenty-one, the ninja reinvented her look yet again. In place of her blue and orange top was a shorter, zip-up violet tube top, covering a grey and white striped tank top that stopped a little above her belly button. The orange shorts had gotten too short, even for her, so dark green shorts of the same material served their purpose. She wore black fighting gloves on her hands (much like Tifa's) and an arm guard on her right hand. As for foot wear, Yuffie paired black leggings with Velcro sneakers. She made it work.
"Where do you go off to every morning?" queried Yuffie curiously when she reached him, "It's like you have some secret hiding spot that you can magically disappear to." Her eyes thoroughly inspected his image, a thoughtful finger tapping on her cheek, as if some stray speck of dust on his clothes would give a clue. Vincent knew that a response would only encourage a never ending verbal torrent, the likes of which he didn't feel like exerting the effort to ignore. So he just kept on walking towards the tent. The ninja followed him.
"Anyway, I needed to-" the girl was cut off by an annoyingly cheerful, bell-like ringing coming from her belt. "My cell!" yelped Yuffie as she flipped it open and turned around to speak.
"Hello?" said the girl, "Oh hi Tifa!...What kind of favor?...A month?! You're right, he's never been gone that long before!...Oh, don't you worry Teef, I'll kick 'im ten ways to Tuesday if that's what it takes! Where was his last delivery supposed to take him?...Psh, I'll probably find him staring at his reflection in an icicle. I'll call you when I find his sorry ass. Bye!" with that, she hung up. She turned back around to look mischievously at Vincent.
"Wanna help me find Chocobo Butt?"
Meanwhile
He was floating. That was the first thing he realized when the initial dizziness of regaining consciousness passed. He had started stretching his arms to work the kinks out of them when he came to his second realization: He was in a tube. He tried to remember but all he could recall was making the delivery and the slight sting of a dart on the base of his neck. A slight panic ran through the man as he forcefully opened his eyes to see if his sense of touch had deceived him, but the first thing to enter his sight was a man.
"Good to see you've woken up, Brother."
AN: Ahh, it's so much fun making Yuffs over.
Anyway, please read and review!