Inside Out, a final fantasy vii fanfic

×INSIDE OUT×

For NineShadows

Prisoner writes without lights, half a mile underground
He's won the hearts of the murderous thieves he can't see, that surround

And the rain cries for him
And the chains bind to him
Like they'll never see him again
Like they'll never know him again
Like they'll never hold him again
Hold him again, Love him, love him again they say

Take me home, Take me home
Take me home when you're done here

--Adam Crossley, 'Prisoner'--

The sky is a deep grey-blue outside my large windows, growing gradually lighter as I finish my work. Only a couple of hours before the children will be up, but they're not here tonight. It's been a long time since I've gone to bed at a decent hour; keeping the bar nice doesn't keep me up too late into the night, but lately I can't seem to make myself get right down to it first-thing after a long day.

It's not the first time this week I've been unable to sleep. I've been restless for months now; sometimes I have the focus and I'll jot a few notes down, just a couple of lines here and there because it's nice to have something that's mine, but for the most part I'm not thinking straight.

Everything is off the counter, but the sink is full. I can't bring myself to empty it. I'm not tired—I'm worn all over, but I'm buzzing on the inside. So many things I haven't stopped to examine because I don't yet have the courage.

I tell myself I can't be grieving if I still have hope, but I'm beginning to think that my 'hope' is actually something more like denial. It's a denial that's slowly fading, after weeks of waiting for a sign, anything at all to prove that I'm not hoping in vain.

Into light... I watched a friend incinerate in cold space. Reason tells me that he's not coming back.

No; not just a friend, Vincent.

I throw down the rag and perch myself on one of the stools, leaning my elbows atop the counter and hanging my head in my hands. Death Penalty is mounted on the wall behind me—it was with the things recovered from the Sierra when Cid made his crash-landing—high up where no one curious person can reach it, but I haven't been able to make myself look at it head-on without crumbling. So I don't.

I'm not quite ready to tie a red ribbon to my arm.

Each time I come to this place I tell myself it will be the last time. I tell myself that I can't go on missing you, because that will make it real, and I only have to hold out a little longer and everything will be all right. I tell myself this, but I keep ending up here with my head in my hands, leaving salty stains on the wood varnish. The truth is that I'm growing into my sadness, slowly but surely. It gives me someplace to run to, even if that place is lonely and cold. Being alone in it makes me feel left behind, but there's an odd sense of connection there, in absorbing myself in it. I know it's wrong, but I can't seem to let go.

Then I remember that I don't want to be where Cloud was a year ago, and that I should take my own advice.

I can almost turn my eyes up towards the rifle on the wall. I think that maybe it will help get all of this out of me, and then maybe I can finally sleep. I don't even know if that allure is one step forwards, or two steps backwards.

Then, just as I've given up for the night and turned down the lights, there's a soft rapping on my door.

I think I might not answer it, and I begin turning the chairs upside-down and mounting them on the tables. It's five in the morning, after all; today isn't a delivery day, and I don't have any appointments. Still, I steal a quick glance over my shoulder.

Once I make eye contact, I know I can't pretend I don't know he's there, and I've never been one for turning anyone away. But at this hour, it could be anyone, in search of anything. A helping hand, maybe.

But whoever it was is gone now.

I realize, to my astonishment, that I can't remember locking the door tonight. I finish with the chairs and move to the front of the bar to remedy that—but I catch a shadow out of the corner of my eye.

Someone is leaning against my wall, and if the smell drifting through the cracks around the edges of my door and the whispy tendrils spiraling through the air outside are any indication, they're having themselves a smoke. Without even thinking, I open the door and step outside.

"We're closed," I say. "You shouldn't be hanging around on street corners at five in the morning anyway."

And then it hits me that I'm outside at this hour, talking to a strange man—who, for all I know, might just live in the back alley. But as soon as I actually look at him and realize he's well-groomed and well-dressed, as soon as he turns to look at me—

I gasp.

"Vincent."

It's almost a whisper when I say your name. I can't believe he's you. You blink, and your eyes search my face. "... Tifa."

If I didn't know better, I'd think that maybe you were expecting someone else, by the way you're looking at me. I expect some deadpan comment about how I took a while, how you were beginning to think I'd run off, because that's just the sort of thing you would say, but I can't really breathe, much less comment. I'm frozen, mouth hanging wide open, and only when you've recovered do you approach me from the shadows and nod towards the door.

I should embrace you—I should strangle you—but instead I numbly step aside so you can enter, and you do, crossing the room with such a fluid, casual gait that I can't help but stare. So different, that stride of yours; there was a time when I would have thought Vincent Valentine was a man of constant purpose, of mechanical movements and a destination in mind. Once upon a time, everything was a means to an end.

When you walk into my bar, your eyes seem to be everywhere at once. I'm still in shock, but I think maybe I might run up to you and hug you anyway. It would be nice, I know, but I think better of it. You're drinking everything in like you haven't seen it time and time again, and for a moment I almost want to ask who you are, and what you've done with Vincent.

Instead I make drinks, and I watch you from a distance, as you walk along the walls, studying photos and newspaper clippings and the few meager pieces of 'vintage' memorabilia I've managed to gather from the ruins. At first I think you're just happy to be home, but that's not quite it. There was a shadow that used to follow you around, Vincent, but it's gone now. You're free now; it's what everyone has wanted for you for so long.

Today you look like it was never there at all.

It doesn't take me long to figure out what's missing. I invite you to have a drink; I would have done it anyway, and you've come all this way. I'm not about to send you to the inn, even though you've obviously set up somewhere. Still. All this way...

You look well. There's a healthy color to your skin now; still pale, but with a dark yellowish tint that gives you away as being from Kalm. You've cut your hair—that's why I didn't recognize you at first. It still sits messy on your head and falls into your eyes, but at least it's off of your neck. You have a pleasant lean, when you're not covered in layers of hair and fabric. I can't help but notice the way the thin material of your black dress-slacks hangs from your hips. It looks rather expensive, as does your watch, that crisp olive-toned shirt, and those leather shoes. It's a far cry from seeing you in the same tattered cloak and buckled get-up, and it's rather easy on the eyes.

You clean up nicely, Vincent Valentine.

I still think I should throttle you for buying clothes and cutting your hair and finding yourself a place before coming to see me, but after only a little while, I can understand why you'd want to take some time out for yourself.

You see, there's not much you can't find out about someone just by listening. The best way to get to know someone is to spend time with them, and that's what we do. And I sit with you, and I listen—to what's there, and to what isn't.

You talk about the journey; you talk about hitching rides, the people you met along the way and the places you've been these last couple of months. You tell me that Shelke left you not far into the trip, that she had unanswered questions and you couldn't help her anymore. It wasn't the journey I wanted to hear about, but I was happy to hear your voice just the same.

But I've been here before, haven't I?

It's like déjà vu, the things I'm picking up suddenly, warning signs all over the place. You're much more careful than Cloud was, but there's one big difference here—you're being deliberate, while he was just brain-washed and oblivious to his problem. I don't think you even realize what you've given away.

Vincent... you know things that you shouldn't.

It's not like you, to be so careless. And that's just like me, to not be thinking about what's going on, but rather why your guard is down. That's not like the Vincent I knew. That's not...

... that's not like...

My gods, that's it, isn't it?

You get up to refill our glasses, and I can't help but stare. You know exactly where everything is, even though I've never seen you behind my bar before. The bottle is empty, and you retrieve another. You barely acknowledge the can in which you toss the wrapping, but it lands exactly where it should. I don't think even I am usually so fluid when I move around this place. Everything goes back where it should, and you slide me my glass easily while tipping your own.

But I don't drink.

You're standing there, eyes roving over the shape and the grain of that gun like it's the first time you've ever seen it up close. From my vantage point, you look so untouchable and alive, and I wonder what you're thinking. You came to me, Vincent Valentine; I don't know why, or if your reasons are your own, but you made it a point to be here, and at this hour. What were you doing, wandering the streets at five in the morning? Is it possible that you were having a moment like mine?

I had hoped that we would find you well. Lighter, maybe, a bit warmer. I just hadn't ever thought in my wildest dreams that 'different' would mean this.

You're not the man I thought I knew. You're someone else.

A gun-shot wound to the chest—you died that day, didn't you, Vincent? You've been dead for thirty-three years, and I've been walking with demons for three. I never really knew you; you died a long time ago, and the man that I came to know was someone—something else. I saw him die, and the man standing in front of me isn't him.

I'm talking, drinking and sharing with a stranger, and I don't mean it in the figurative sense, like I thought I knew you, but I was wrong. You're actually someone else.

He had us all fooled, didn't he? Even me. I know it when I look into your rust-russet eyes and see your warm smile, the awe with which you look at that gun, like a small boy. Your voice is even different—it's less gravelly and worn, which I think is strange when I remember seeing you idly turning that pack of cigarettes over in your hands. He never did smoke, not in all the time we traveled together.

Shelke didn't understand it, did she? That's why she left, and I think you know it, too. I wonder how she felt, having gone all that way looking for someone else and running into you. Trying to find the one person who might understand a little bit of what she'd gone through, and then realizing that she didn't really know you at all. I hope that one day she does find where she belongs.

And you—you came to the only place you could think of where someone would take you in without asking questions. You knew, Vincent. Somehow you knew to come here, to me. I can't blame you; you don't have anywhere else to go. Have you been watching us, watching him, these past years? Did you gain his knowledge when you crossed over?

Will you tell me, if I don't ask?

Did you go somewhere else for a while? Were you on some metaphysical street-corner, waiting for your ride home? Were you in the empty spaces between us, in the air and the breath around us? Or... were you there with him all along, buried deep beneath flesh and muscle—a bare echo in those bones, watching from behind alien eyes?

... no.

Looking back, I never did see you there. Your eyes are different, foreign and strange. Beautiful, exotic, but still unfamiliar. It would mean that the man that I—

... and that's not something I remember, even in the tiniest of glimpses. You're all stranger to me, Vincent. You must have come from somewhere else.

"I never asked you if that held any significance to you," I say, nodding to the rifle.

"It was my father's."

Your head turns then, and your eyes lock with mine. They're just as piercing as they ever were—rusted amber-gold or blood-red, it doesn't matter. I imagine you've always had that effect. But I've learned a thing or two about patience over the last few years, and soon your expression sobers with the realization that I know your secret.

"You're different than I thought you'd be," I admit quietly.

"... I'm sorry," you reply, just as quietly, frowning in something that looks like genuine concern.

A dry laugh escapes, and I'm surprised to find that there's a bit of wetness in the corners of my eyes. "It's not like you could have warned me."

But you did warn me, I realize suddenly. You were blatantly careless in your conversation and the way you walked in here—that, or very specific. You wanted me to figure it out so you didn't have to say it, I think. Your face is a blank now, but your neck is smooth in its movement as your head leans to the side to get a better look at the tears burning in my eyes. "... You liked him."

I bite back another laugh that somehow feels more like a sob. Yes, Vincent—I liked him. I liked him a lot. I would have called him friend. And maybe, when the mood and the timing was just right, I would almost swear that there was something...

Well. You don't want to hear about that, do you, Vincent?

Suddenly I've lost control. I shake my head and throw my arms out, wrapping them about your neck. I begin to cry, not even hiding it anymore. I bury my face in your shoulder, because its somehow familiar and practiced and safe, even though we're strangers. And you let me. "I'm going to form some kind of horrible complex, aren't I?" I choke out.

Your arms come around to hold me. "... It happens to the best of us," you soothe; you almost sound amused, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. "But I think you'll be just fine."

I'm not, Vincent. I can already feel it.

... You smell the same, you know.

"Shh. Don't cry, Tifa."

You're gentle and kind tonight, but it only makes things harder. Your voice shouldn't be this soft. Your hands shouldn't be this warm. You speak and move like you know me, and maybe you do, but I don't know you, and I'm not about to project him onto you, because it's not fair. I know you're doing your best...

Why are you even here?

"Do you want to get out of here?" you ask. "We can grab a drink."

I must make some absurd face, because it's a silly question, considering where we are. But you only smile back.

"Coffee, then?"

I consider you for a moment. I don't know if you're looking for friendship or for someone to tell you that everything is all right, that you're not completely alone in this world and that if you stay with me for a few hours I won't hurt anymore. I wonder if maybe all of the things he used to say about atonement weren't rooted in something from your own past or the way you were raised. I wonder why he wanted to help you, when his own purpose was so clear, and I wonder why he stayed with us and fought for us even after he'd avenged you.

Maybe I accept your hand because I have questions of my own. Maybe I don't want you to feel like it's your responsibility to make sure that I'm okay, or maybe I think that when we part ways, I'll fake a smile and bury it deep down so that you can forget about it and get on with your life already.

But when you lead me out into the cool morning air, it feels so good on my skin and in my aching bones, and I get the sense that maybe things can work themselves out if I want it badly enough.

It's a small place on the corner of the main drag, and I can see the Tri-Continent International hotel from where we're sitting. The man behind the counter waves at you like he's seen you before, and I wonder if maybe that's where you're staying. People are starting to move about outside, some on the early commute to work. I watch your eyes scan the street and note all the people, the cars, the vendors opening their businesses, every single one of them, and I remember that this is all new to you.

You're not staring through me today. You're just as striking as ever, but you tone it down for this. You're leaning back in your seat, casual and comfortable where you are, and you seem to have lost all of your former social awkwardness. Just another tall man with dark-as-night hair and bright eyes.

But something about that rubs me the wrong way. I can't shake the idea that you're special, Vincent. Maybe it's the Turk Legends, but I don't want to take you down from your pedestal just yet.

I'm used to seeing you be straight-forward and rigid, used to seeing you stick out like a sore thumb. But it's nice, the way you make me feel comfortable with you, like you're not even trying—like we fit together, and I can relax and not worry about you taking something, anything, the wrong way. I like you like this, Vincent. I do. I like you a lot. We don't say much, but I think you want to be here with me, and whatever your reason, that's enough.

I know that you were a big part of the man I did know. I know that a lot of what I saw was built from his memories of your past, because he was assuming your identity. I know that I didn't really know him, but the things that I wanted to hang onto were the things that I couldn't see. And the stories he told me—I never envisioned someone like you.

I'm sorry, Vincent. I fell in love with the demon wearing your skin. I never knew that I wasn't supposed to, and I never told anyone, not even him. Did you see, Vincent, from your vantage point? Wherever you were... did you see what he did to me? Did you know what I felt? What kinds of things do you see and feel and know when you're dead?

I don't suppose many people get to watch their bodies walking around, talking like they used to. Whenever anyone would ask him about Lucrecia, he would slip into another state—like he was trying to remember the right answer. How much of what he knew was based on what he saw alone, in his mind's eye? What about feeling? Was it all fumbling, or did he have some solid idea, from the pieces you left him?

What did he leave you?

Are there any echoes of me in that body of yours, Vincent?

Do you remember the time out on the railing of the Highwind, when he came to stand beside me and told me how glad he was that I was alive? Of course I didn't expect he would be glad if I died, but it wasn't something I was used to hearing after every battle, and there were a lot of them. He told me that I'd given them all quite a scare. I hadn't thought that fear was something the solid, stoic and wise Vincent Valentine, who often found humor in the most morbid of situations, was at all familiar with.

... Do you remember how that felt? You wear the same scars, you must carry the same memories. Your soul is an entirely different thing, but adrenaline and emotional-physical response are in your blood. When you think back, do you remember a moment in time when he stopped to ponder my fate and was made afraid? Do you remember what that feels like?

I wonder...

I wonder if there was anything he kept for himself.

It's rough, this knowledge that I was falling, falling hard for this force beneath your skin that was never you at all. So strange thinking that, for the moment... rather than the man, I might ask for the demon who wears his skin, because I know who I am with him. I'm afraid of having these same feelings, when everything is different. I look at you now and know that I'm going to form some horrible complex. Life with you is never going to be the same again.

Still, we sip coffee and order breakfast, and I'm glad I didn't go to sleep.

You've decided to stay with us. It's fine by me—I'm still so fond of you, and slowly trying to make sense of it. It's odd, considering the circumstances; I've had no qualms about letting you be in the house at night with the children, no red flags going up about the fact that you used to be a hired gun. I still believe I know you, and I have to remind myself sometimes that I don't.

You could be anyone—only you're not anyone. You couldn't have been anyone else.

But you really are an amicable person, once you've warmed up to someone, Vincent. Quirky and private, but very personable and interested in me for some reason. Your sense of humor is still morbid, and I'm glad for that; it took long enough to get used to the first time around, and I would have missed it. It's not out of the question, that you might have picked up a thing or two from watching him. I wonder if this real Vincent dances; I wonder if you like food and film and art. I wonder...

Will this Vincent answer my questions? Will he let me make him dinner, or take him out? Can I lean my head on his shoulder and talk for hours? Will he let me back him into a corner, or pull him into a kiss? It seems like I've spent so much time getting used to the old Vincent, the one who never really was, forming all these questions and hopes for something else, and now I'm lost in the face of the real thing.

It's not fair that you should know so much about me already. That something else might have transferred over, that you might feel this need to hang onto me for some sense of familiar belonging, because you got to know me through him. It's not fair that if I want to hang onto you for whatever reason, then it doesn't count because it was based on a lie.

I suppose I should thank you for your honesty. For coming to me with your choppy haircut and an unlit cigarette held loosely inbetween your lips. For coming to me dressed in an expensive shirt and slacks like a Turk and not a ghost, though he was such a lovely ghost. You could have played the part of Pretender for me, but you didn't.

But why? I still don't understand. Any of the others would have taken you in, and you wouldn't have to put them through this. You know I was falling in love with him. The others don't have that problem. For a moment I feel a flash of anger, as if you might have come all this way just to see, to hurt my heart and make me break down for you because you could.

Whatever your intentions, it doesn't change that I'm glad you came. I'm glad you chose me. And I'm glad you thought I deserved the truth.

I didn't know that living with you would be so hard, Vincent. For some reason, I thought it would make things easier, but I'm finding that being friends with you is one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I know it doesn't do any good to live in the past, but I'm still waiting on something. I need to sort these things out, while you're still being patient with me.

I've got you right in front of me, but I'm still trying to understand him. You're not the only stranger, now.

Hojo didn't know when he put you under the knife and did those things to your body that Lucrecia was going to try to revive you, did he? And she—she didn't know what he had done, did she? Even though she did it for the record...

You see, I've been thinking about what this means.

He... was born into a captivity he didn't understand, punished for things he didn't do and tortured by human hands that hated you, Vincent. He suffered, alone and abandoned. Of course Hojo couldn't let him go free. I wonder if the professor knew what I know. I wonder if Lucrecia went to see him after he woke up and found herself talking to a stranger. I wonder if she could stand it—or if she left, too—and I wonder if that's the reason she told him to stay back that morning in the cave.

Few people would have known you well enough back then, to spot the difference. You'd been through a lot, after all. But I wonder if they saw?

Few people knew Chaos like I did. I am sure that none of the others see past the skin they've come to recognize. You've been through a lot, after all—they're happy for you.

I understand why he sequestered himself away. He wasn't without a purpose—he was just as legitimate as you and I, and the planet had a plan for him, too, a very special destiny. But with nothing but time and a past that meant nothing to him, there wasn't much else to do but to sleep. And I know now that demons can grow just as restless and resentful as the rest of us, especially if they have eternity in their stars.

It makes sense then, that when presented with an opportunity to use it...

We woke him up, Vincent, unaware of the dangers ahead and the parts we would play. With your own corpse, that demon held your place here and bought you out of purgatory. I don't know how he did it or why; who decides how much atonement is enough? But I honestly believe it was a matter of the heart being right, and I like to think the reason was us.

I hate to think of where we'd all be if we'd never come across his grave. I hate to think of where you'd be—or where you might not.

... But what of him? Did you pass by him on your way here, and did he have anything to say to you? Did he get a choice at all? Did he pass it on to you? Because I've come to think that it isn't as I'd hoped; you're not as connected as I'd imagined. You knew him distantly—you have that same tiny nick in the corner of your upper lip, and you have this semi-permanent dent in the side of your elbow where the metal cuff of the gauntlet was clamped all those years, but your mannerisms are all wrong. I would think, upon learning of all the things that have happened and knowing what he did for you, that you would be overwhelmed, much moreso if you'd remembered the experience first-hand.

But things aren't as they should be. Maybe you're hiding it—you're not cold, and your eyes are warm and honest; I'm glad that your heart is still right and that you didn't squander the opportunity. It's kind of disappointing that you've got nothing to say about it, but what would you say, really?

I understand it, in that light. You feel badly, I think, and maybe this is what overwhelmed looks like on you. I see it sometimes, in your hesitance. So confident in most things, but shy in the smallest of moments between the two of us. Do I make you uncomfortable, Vincent? I don't begrudge you what happened to him. It was as out of your control as it was out of mine, and he—he was done here, really.

But I wasn't done with him. There were so many things that I wanted to say, and I... squandered my opportunity. I'm more upset with myself than I am at you. It doesn't matter now; for the first time I realize that I can't go on pretending that he's alive anymore, in you or in the places you've been. I can't go on thinking that things would be any different, because he had a purpose to fulfill, and I don't want to think about what things might be like if I'd given him a reason to come back, because he's not here.

We'll be starting over, you and I.

So tell me, Vincent; why did you come back, and why are you here with me of all people?

... Did you ever begrudge him, for taking your chance from you, to see her again and to ask your questions? Did you ever want to reach down and help us, when you saw us tearing ourselves up along the way, doing something that humans were never equipped to do, and knowing that you helped to make it so? Did you come here to apologize, to start fresh with the only thing you know?

You don't owe me anything for our friendship, Vincent, not even an apology. I want a new beginning.

Weeks turn into months, and time leaves so many things behind like loose sand trampled underfoot. I never would have imagined that was the reason—but I suppose you did have the advantage of watching from afar for a very long time. The idea alone is dizzying, that you might have wanted...

The realization that the reason you knew your way around my bar so well might be that your eyes were on me...

The knowledge that you're not him is like a warm blanket the first time you kiss me. These feelings are your own, and you wanted me to know. That's why you waited—there's a lot wrapped up in your kiss, Vincent, far too much for me to believe you haven't been this sure for a long time.

Suddenly that blanket is ripped away, and it's like being left standing in the middle of the cold. I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd have to make a choice. Precious memory... or the real thing.

I like to think I better understand Cloud's position now, but somehow this seems less fair. Aeris and I were two distinctly different people. And so were you, but I didn't know, Vincent. You shared memories and absolution with Chaos, and when you touched back down on solid ground after thirty-three years of floating, you knew me. You got to share in his knowledge and hold it in your heart.

Funnily enough, my ideas of him were partly made up of you. The stories he told me, like they were his own—they gave him someone he could be, even if only for a little while, even if only with me. I thought I would never be able to separate the two of you in my mind. But I can. And it's unfair, because...

He gave you a reason to come back. I was the reason that you came here, Vincent, but I wasn't reason enough for him to take the chance for himself.

Oh, I know that there are many things that I can't possibly understand; maybe he was never meant to come back, and maybe you were never meant to die. No one knows why things happen the way that they do. Who's to question the planet for borrowing you for a bit? After all, we belong to it—it birthed us and made us who we are in the first place.

I'm still bitter. We were doing fine, Vincent—I was doing fine, and it's the thought that counts, right? I should be counting yours right now, instead of worrying about his.

I didn't want to think about what things might be like if I'd given him a reason to come back, because he's still gone, and nothing's bringing him back. But then you had to go and kiss me—

And I didn't stop you.

Only a fool would say, 'Leave me here with my paper man; I don't want the real thing,' but it's the sacrifice I think I'm in love with. What he did for you has to count for something, doesn't it? But... I didn't even know that's what it was, until you came here.

Falling for you through him—falling for him through you...

He made you a stranger to me, and—your coming into my life did the same for him.

I was okay with it, until you kissed me. Friendship is one thing; it was okay to wonder, to entertain the idea, but I don't know if I'm ready to handle you. I'm still mad at myself—not at you—and I keep thinking, if only I didn't want to kiss you all over, if only I didn't want to know the man, the bit of truth in the lie, and so much more that I haven't gotten to experience yet. I can't be ready, because I still think it might be better if I didn't.

So hard to try and blot out everything I thought I knew. That's how it should be, Vincent. Do you have any idea how many nights I've cried myself to sleep over him?

... Do you have any idea how many nights I cried over you and the stories he told me?

I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready—

My throat is dry and tight. I can't breathe...

"He loved you, too."

You gather me to yourself, but all I can do is bury my face so you can't see. "How long have you...?"

It's the most I can get out, and you don't hold it against me. "For a very long time."

"How long have you been watching me?" I ask.

You run your hand through my hair and brush your mouth against my head. "... Since you were fifteen and Sephiroth returned to Nibelheim."

I cry harder then, and you wrap your arms tight about me. I can't handle it right now. I can't...

You saw me in Nibelheim, in Midgar, in my darkest hours. You saw me alone and scared and fighting every day. You've seen the things I'm most proud of and the things that bring me the most shame. I bet you know me better than anyone else ever did. And I bet thirty-three years with nothing but your thoughts allowed you to know yourself quite well, too.

I shiver. "I've done things I'm not proud of."

"We all have."

I stand there and try to hang onto that warm-blanket feeling I had only moments ago. "Why?" I ask, muffled against your shirt. "I mean... I was no one to you."

"You and your sensei were the only ones who made it out of the village that day," you say quietly. "You were... fiercely brave. And such a beautiful wreck." I tense up at that last comment, but then I feel you laugh softly against my hair. "You moved me, Tifa. I think if I ever came close to feeling what was in someone's heart, it was that moment. I needed to know what would become of you." And the last part you add even more quietly, so much that I almost don't hear it. "I didn't know that I would fall in love with you."

A beautiful wreck, Vincent? Would you ever take me there on purpose? To be moved by me, like you said? Just to see, to hurt my heart and make me break down for you because you can?

But that's not the reason you came after all.

You wouldn't know those things, unless you were telling the truth. I never told you the whole of that story, and I never told him the whole of it, either. He'd been fast asleep when it happened, years before I'd even met him. Completely and entirely separate beds, the two of you. "You... you really do, don't you?"

"I do."

"... Where were you, all of this time?"

I can feel your smile. "I'm not really sure."

"What was it like?"

"... Lonely. Very muffled and quiet."

I'm not sure what to say, so I let the first insensitive thing I can think of slip out. "I'd go insane."

It doesn't seem to bother you, because you chuckle. "I nearly did."

We're quiet for a while after that. I hadn't realized until now how hard I was clenching your jacket. I attempt a modest sniff and rub at my eyes. It's just... you kiss me, and I cry. You don't even get upset with me—oh, no. We have a conversation, and you laugh about it.

"I wanted to come and see you in person," you finally say. Then, for some reason, "He loved you, too. I could see it."

"But not like you."

Silence.

"Vincent...?"

I feel your sharp exhale ghost its way through my hair and down my neck, and I shiver. Like you might be frowning. "... I can't know what he felt. Only what I saw."

"You felt me."

"... You were not so quiet, back then."

The line plays itself over and over again in my head—'not so quiet, back then'—and my heart sinks. I think suddenly that I could lose you, if I push much further, if I close myself off like I've been, and I'm overwhelmed by the realization that I couldn't bear it.

I've had enough for tonight. I bite my lip and stare across the parking lot at the car, and you seem to pick up on it without missing a beat.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

My mouth twitches ruefully. "I'm sure, Vincent. I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay."

"... Then I will stay." Your strong, firm hand is a warm presence behind my head as you hold me against your chest. It's strange, how I feel like I've known those hands for years. Even stranger, I tried to push the idea out of my head, once I knew; now, I'm hanging onto you for dear life because you're not as new as I thought you were, and this time you're truth, and I know it.

"Please take us home," I beg.

I've been running away all this time.

"Do you mind if I hide here for a while?"

Somehow I conned you into lying in bed with me. I feel small and unjustified wrapped up in your arms, but I know that you would have done anything for me if I'd only asked—especially this. It seems such an innocent thing for me to ask, when you think about it like that; it makes you look just a little less innocent.

You lift your head slightly to accommodate my burrowing. "From me?"

"No. From me."

"Mm." You reach back and make yourself comfortable with a pillow. There's sleep in your voice and it's comforting to me, and many more things that I would never have let myself have before, when there was still so much to sort out. "I'm afraid we can't do anything about that." You sigh. "... I'm sorry."

I look up at you. "For what?"

"That things aren't—"

My hand flies to cover your mouth, and I stare at it, disbelieving. Slowly my eyes meet yours and I shake my head. "I'm just..." I lose my words. All I can think about is your mouth beneath my fingers and how it felt against my own. I quickly remove my hand.

"At least you're honest," you say, lop-sided smile creeping up. "That I can take."

I blink. "Oh, no," I say. "It's not that. It's not that I don't—" I pause. "...Because I..."

"Conflicted?" you ask, a slight twitch in your brow and your smile widening. Humor in the strangest of things. I wonder how much of us is made by experience and how much is written in our genes.

I nod.

The way your eyes settle on my mouth before turning away doesn't go unnoticed. Thirty-three years is a long time to wait for human contact; eight years is a long time to watch someone's every move, and we've had months that were just ours to get to know each other. "Tifa..."

My thumb smooths over your hand reassuringly. It's enough to grab your attention, and when your head is tilted at that angle, I'm not one to overlook the opening.

When I kiss you, I don't do it because you said you loved me, or because I miss him. I don't do it because I feel badly for you or because I think I owe you something. I do it for no other reason than it feels right to kiss you. Right here, right now, I don't want anything but to be this close to you, sharing warmth and breath and the feel of our mouths moving against each other. It's been a long time since I've lived in one moment, since I've done anything with someone just because I wanted to and because it felt right for that particular space in time.

Even if it turns out that it never feels right again, I'm not going to squander the opportunity. Not this time.

Your breath is a ragged whisper against my chin when we break for air. I rest my head against yours and memorize the sound and the smell of you. "Tifa...? What—"

I run my palm lightly over the curve of your face and brush away some of your dark hair with my fingers. "... Baby steps?" I ask quietly. It's a promise I can make, relieved to find that I could easily kiss you again, that it still feels right and that it's another thing I don't want to do without anymore.

There's nothing for a moment, but then I feel you graciously nod your sweet head against mine before you bury your face in my shoulder. "Baby steps," you echo.

You might be years ahead of me, but I'm content to let you lead. I'm not afraid of letting him rest anymore, of starting over with you. I want this with you, Vincent, and it might be nice to let someone else be my guide for a change.

No more being quiet. I won't lose you by hiding. I know what you were getting at, Vincent, and I'm done pushing you away.

... We'll take things one day at a time.

Somebody says I could sure use some water, It's been so long
Prisoner replies, "To quench our thirst, how about a song."

Take me home, Take me home
Take me home, 'cause I'm done here

End

Listening to: Adam Crossley, 'Prisoner'; Devics, 'Come Up'; Imogen Heap, 'The Walk'.

Notes: I realized that Vincent's birthday was a couple days away and that I had nothing to offer. That's what writing-in-progress folders are for. : ) I started this a while ago as a gift for Nines, and it evolved drastically—most of it over the last two days. It's about time I finished it, and I felt bad that I'd told her so long ago that I was working on it. I hope it's everything she was looking forward to. This was hard to write; not emotionally, or anything, just... I had a clear idea of what I was trying to say, and then I realized that expressing it wasn't the easiest thing in the world. In fact, it was hard as hell, and because of the references to 'him' and 'you', I couldn't use third person, and it had to be present tense. This is not a style I'm used to using, either. I only realized after I'd finished it that it probably sounds like a lot of things I've read. If this wasn't straight-forward, or if I regurgitated something I read somewhere into this by accident, I'm sorry. I'm very, very tired. But I was sincere, at least—it's all from me.

You can find the featured song on Adam's MySpace, and download it for free. If you're reading this long after I've written it and that's no longer the case, or he's switched his track listings, send me a PM (please don't review JUST to ask for the song, though feedback is much appreciated—you can tag it onto your review if you don't have an account), and I'll send the mp3 to the address you have listed.

Happy Tenth Anniversary, Vincent.