And onto my OTP. I love Yuffie and Vincent. I love them very much. If you want to flame them, do so, but not in front of me, as I will spray you with my water pistol. Like in Doctor Who. And don't call it pedophilia, cos it ain't. The only thing it is, is perfection. And this is my imperfect contribution to that amazing fandom. I love you, Dirge of Cerberus, for making all this possible.
If I ever win an OSCAR, that would be my speech. Seriously. And no, I don't own it. If I did, there'd be a lot more snogging involved, as well as declarations of undying love.
He is standing at the edge of the world. Before him there is only darkness. It writhes and coils around itself in a furious broil, swallowing each last glimmer of light with enormous finality. They flicker out, one by one. One by one. He restrains himself from looking behind him; he knows all too well the sight that would greet his eyes. A sight unlike any other that he had seen throughout the millennia. Behind his straight, stiff back, a world is dying. It is not, however, the world that it used to be. This is not the green, lush, fertile world of a millennium ago, this is a world overwhelmed by apocalypse.
Rivers have turned to lava and ash, carving new passages into the landscape. If someone had looked carefully, they may have seen a tepid green glow seeping steadily out of the rock. It is ravaged, it is polluted. The pure green light of the lifestream that once nurtured the planet is now transformed to a sickly brightness, sapping what remains of the world's strength. Strangely, he does not care as much as he thought he would. He has seen the world rise and fall; it has come to the brink of destruction countless times and it has always pulled back. But not even he can save it this time. The planet's life has run its course and now it is time to say a final goodbye.
Everyone else is long gone. Only he remains; a silent vigil to the last few minutes that this world, and anything in it will ever know. Alone again. Yet he somehow feels not fear, not regret, but instead a sudden expectation of what is to come. Soon, it will all be over. Silently, in the face of the darkness, he makes a promise to himself, and to those long gone.
I will not be alone again. I'm coming.
--
It was with a vague sense of trepidation that he picked his way in-between the now wilting daisies peeking up above the ground, his metal shoes grinding horribly against the rough gravel of the driveway. The nervous sensation multiplied as he raised a gold-clawed fist to knock against the white-wash of the door, and he swallowed minutely. He wasn't used to feeling this anxiety, and especially not in a situation like this. Vincent Valentine did not do goodbyes. And he definitely didn't do them twice. Collecting himself, he knocked quickly before he could change his mind. A tiny girl dressed in red mini-shorts opened the door. Her eyes widened in surprise and he could see her suppressing a tiny scream at his appearance. He chuckled softly to himself – she was just like her grandmother – before smiling gently and letting her beckon him inside. Strange, how much easier it was to smile now. How much lighter.
"Where is she?" he inquired in an impassive voice. The girl pointed upstairs without a word before bounding back along the corridor into the house; it was obvious whom he was asking after. Anyone who'd visited the house for the last week had been for the same reason.
He climbed the stairs slowly, thoughtfully, pausing when he reached the top to stare for a second at his destination; an innocuous green door sporting a gold-burnished doorknob and the engraved words 'Beware – monsters within'. He smiled again. She hadn't changed a bit.
After a second, he opened the door quietly and let himself into the room. It was fairly unimposing – the walls were painted in a fading red and lined with old photographs. A dresser stood modestly in the corner and there was a window through which he could see the snow-capped mountains of Wutai. A small bed occupied the centre of the room. In it lay an old woman, fast asleep. She was breathing heavily, the coverlets rising and falling with each breath. Her grey hair was cut short, framing a face weathered with the sun and the snow, and she was clearly fully-dressed underneath her sheets. As he approached the bed she stirred; her eyelids flickered slowly open and focused almost immediately on his tall figure.
"Hello." Her voice was old and cracked; the difference didn't fail to startle him, though he'd been expecting it. "You must be exhausted, I only sent word yesterday. Sit."
"I couldn't…" he started.
"Yes you bleeding well can. You're pale as hell, Vinnie. Sit." She smiled at her own joke with aged lips, and he sat down on the end of the bed. "Closer." She said. "It's not as if we're strangers, after all."
It was an order, not a request, and he moved softly nearer until he was sitting by her shoulders, her hand resting lightly near his claw.
"You've changed."
"I'm old." She replied.
They sat in silence for a while, absorbing each others presence.
"I'm glad you came," she said after a few seconds. "I didn't think…"
"Why wouldn't I come?"
"You left." She said simply. "Why would you?"
He stared at her. He had left, and it had destroyed her. Again and again he had ruined everything in his life, and it was only afterwards that he realised how great a sin lay on his head.
"Yuffie… it was because…"
"I know." She smiled up at him sadly from under wrinkled brows. "You thought that I would be embarrassed, growing older and older when you still looked as young as when we met."
"I did not wish to dishonour you." He replied stiffly, his golden fist clenching with the memory.
"Vincent," she sighed, resting a care-lined hand over his metal claw. "You really are a dufus. Once I'd passed twenty-five, I stopped caring whether you looked twenty, or eighty, or anything. I didn't care. I would've stayed with you until I died." She paused wryly. "Too late now, course."
Vincent sat in silence, his face impassive as ever.
"Yuffie, I…"
"Don't dwell on it, Vinnie. God, you're even gloomier than before I worked my magic on you and you actually behaved like a passable imitation of a human being."
Just for a second, it felt like sixty years ago. Instead of an old woman it was a young girl lying in the bed scolding him, and sixty years worth of cares lifted briefly off his shoulders.
"It took you eight years?" He replied, garnet eyes glinting swiftly down onto the old woman. She smiled with delight.
"That's the Vinnie I know!" Her voice subsided into coughs. "Thank-you."
"How are the others?" he asked in an attempt to keep from discussing the reason for his visit.
"Tifa's still running the bar. She's not the same though. I don't think she ever has been, after Cloud."
Vincent inhaled sharply. "Cloud? How long since…?"
"A couple of years. I looked for you at the funeral."
There was nothing to say. No words. Nothing. Somehow, he had always imagined everyone in their little group going on forever. Always saving the world to live another day, never growing old, never dying. Now Cloud was gone; they were sparking out, one by one and leaving him, the last one left. He couldn't pretend to himself anymore; pretend that they would always be there for him to go back to. Finally it dawned on him; it was too late. He'd always been too late for everyone. He'd always left without saying goodbye, and that was something that he'd bitterly regret forever. But not this time; this was his chance to finally make some things right. Not everything. But maybe the most important things.
"I'm sorry," he eventually forced out.
"You're here now," the old woman said, old before her time, old before they'd even had a proper chance. Too old for a second chance. "That's enough."
"Yuffie, I –"
"Vincent." She interrupted, her breathing growing ever so slightly shallower. Her eyes – glazed over, but just as bright as they had been half a century ago – rose to lock with his own. "It's not just Cloud; it's everyone else as well. They're all gone." She looked pained and suddenly frail, the wrinkles sitting strangely on her skin. "It's been so lonely without them." She paused again, looking as if she didn't want to voice the words coming from her mouth. "Vincent, I think I'm dying."
And there it was. That truth, that inescapable truth. Through all the years he'd been alone, that whispering voice in his ear – 'everyone dies, Valentine' – had haunted his nightmares and plagued his thoughts. Now his nightmares were appearing again… but this time he was wide awake.
"No." he said steadily, his expression as blank as ever. He would not accept, he refused to accept it. Yuffie was just a girl; still seventeen. Still too young to die, always too young to die. For Vincent, the years fluttered past like butterflies; swift and fleeting like leaves in an autumn breeze. He was struck for a second about just how ephemeral human life was; it flickered in and out like a candle in the darkness. He himself should have died at least fifty years ago. Yet that was his curse; to live. Simply to live, and to watch all that he knew, all that he… cared about… all of it, washed away.
"You were always… so stubborn, Vinnie." The old woman shifted slightly under the covers, her tiny hand grasping tightly onto his golden arm like a drowning man to an island. "But look at me." Her glance flickered feebly around at the old photographs littering the walls. "I'm even… worse than you are now. Living in the past."
He tried mutely to shake his head, but she suddenly tugged him down towards her weakly and he leant towards her struggling lips.
"I've held on this long for you, Vinnie. All that time wasn't enough. I wish… I wish… We were never meant… to be normal… And I don't… regret anything… I... Leviathan, I'm scared Vinnie…" Her voice trailed away into frail whispers, her eyes frantically roving his face, trying to impart some message before it was too late.
"Yuffie!" The name tore from his throat before he could stop it, his other hand reaching up in vain to stroke her course, grey hair.
"Hey, Vinnie?" The old woman lay still all of a sudden, and for a moment he feared the worst. "Don't you dare blame yourself. 'Snot your fault… I was so… happy, before you went, I… I'm glad you're here." She went quiet, her eyes still boring into his own. "It's not that scary anymore…I always thought I'd die in battle… not like this… but I think, maybe, I'll just go to sleep, and when I wake up… it'll all be okay again. Please tell me it'll be okay. I just… want to run again, Vinnie. Feel the wind…"
"You will, Yuffie." Vincent promised quietly, his eyes too dry for tears. "You'll feel the wind again."
Her face brightened, the wrinkles melting away. "We had good times, didn't we?"
"Yes." Before he went and ruined it all. Ruined everything he touched, just to watch it fade away before his eyes.
"Vincent…" Her voice was soft now, quiet as the rustling of a far off breeze. "It doesn't… doesn't matter that you left. Just… promise me something." Her grip tightened on the smooth metal of his claw.
"Promise me, Vinnie. I don't care how long I have to wait. I can be patient." A rueful, half-joking smile fluttered over her old, barely-moving lips. "Just promise me you'll meet me there."
Vincent clenched his jaw tightly, his flesh-and-blood hand still resting lightly on her hair. "I promise." He whispered. The old woman smiled, a shadow of her younger self clearly visible in the grin, then her hand fell limply off his claw and lay still on the sheets. Her eyes closed softly, the last vestiges of her breath clinging mist-like to his golden armour.
"Yuffie," he said softly. "Yuffie?"
There was no answer. Vincent stood up, gently extricating himself from the sheets. He took one final look at her face, somehow peaceful in a way that it had never achieved when she was younger, then turned away. He was alone again. Now, and forever.
--
He pulled himself back from the memories to face the violent turmoil before him. For the first time, he glanced behind him. Not long now. A steady green light was pulsing beneath his feet; from underneath the rotten, barren surface of the world, something stirred. The darkness raged. An intense barrage of air suddenly blew against his motionless form; he bared his lips into a terrible grimace and fought against it to remain upright. He could feel the demon within him, aching to transform, to take control, to carry them both through this blackness alive.
"No…" he snarled through the wind. "I shall not survive… not this time…"
As if sensing his struggle, the green glow emanating from deep below the surface grew stronger, it pushed up through the stones in little licks and flames. He could feel the ground heaving beneath his feet. Almost time.
"End this…" he managed to spit out against the oncoming storm. Almost immediately, it seemed that the furious wind died. The ground stilled underneath him. From the corners of his eyes he could see the radiant green tendrils thickening and gathering, but his ears had gone strangely numb. The darkness seemed to fade, and before him he could see fresh green fields strewn with flowers.
"You've atoned enough, I think," a gentle voice sounded in his ears like a soothing balm.
"C'mon Vinnie!" Another voice, and with it everything else seemed to drain away. He felt light, light in a way that he had not felt in a million years. "This party's no fun without ya!"
"I'm coming." He whispered, and the green light surrounded him, entering into every pore of his body, filling him with warmth and joy and hope. And finally, finally, after a millennia of waiting, Vincent Valentine felt a gentle breeze brush his face, and he walked forwards into the sunlit field, and embarked upon his journey into the stars.
Please review! And guess who the mystery voice is just before Yuffie's at the end. Even I'm not quite sure who yet!