Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything even remotely associated with Final Fantasy VII. I may have kidnapped Vincent and Tifa (and whoever else I decide to throw into the pot) for this story, but they're not mine to keep. Yup. Now, read.
* * *
Chapter Two: A Little Warmth and Light
by thelittletree
Vincent slipped down the stairs and in a moment came to the door at the bottom. From here, he went outside and around to another door, which he gave a brief rap with his knuckles. It was nearly eleven; she was bound to have been up for hours.
Ten seconds hadn't passed before a thirty-something woman with shrewd green eyes and feathery blond hair answered the knock; something about her expression told him she had been expecting him -- perhaps had been expecting him far earlier. "Well, she's awake I'm guessing."
"Yes."
"And how is she?"
Vincent weighed a few possible replies before finally saying with a sigh, "Angry."
The woman nodded, looking unsurprised. "I could've told you that last night if I'd thought you'd listen to me. Well, nothing for it now. I made her something to eat, maybe that'll help a little. But you shouldn't have left her up there alone." She stepped away from the doorway and returned a moment later with a foil-covered pan. "Is she vegetarian? It's lasagna."
Vincent shrugged, and when he turned he was nearly able to feel the scowl she was aiming at his back. Not that he paid it much mind. During his lifetime he'd had worse things aimed at him and very little could ruffle him anymore.
Very little except the prospect of adding to his already extensive sins, he acknowledged grudgingly as he headed back toward the stairs. Leaving Tifa to drown after watching her jump would've weighed heavily on his conscience; another death to add to his tally. And not just any death, but the death of someone who had been there in the last minutes of the world when things had been desperate. Not that he'd known any of the members of Avalanche well, and not that he'd had much cause to think about any of them in a long time; but there had been a kind of bond there, and he'd felt honour-bound to return and finish what they'd started when Cloud had given each of them the chance to leave.
Honour-bound, maybe, to run to the bank and plunge into the icy water, to grope around until he'd been able to feel hair that wasn't his own slipping through his fingers. To pull the water-logged weight of an unfamiliar body into his arms, to wrap her in a dry piece of clothing and climb onto the back of his feathered mount. Because he'd had no more money for the inn, and the nearest place of shelter he would've be accepted was his own home, in Nibelheim. Racing along in the cold air until she'd been burning with fever and whimpering for her father, for Cloud, for anyone to save her from that searing darkness.
It had been the only time he'd ever heard her call for help. In Avalanche, her visible pride and strength, her determination to do it herself, had often led her to stand alone in a fight. He'd been able to relate, recalling his days in the Turks when teamwork had been a dirty word to him. They had all been good fighters; even Reeve, in his own way, as a spy in the camp of the enemy. But perhaps Tifa most of all; she'd fought with the kind of confident calm that made soldiers, after they'd watched her beat their comrades into bloody pulps, look into the quiet rage in her face and run.
Though now there seemed little trace of that woman left in the angry, desperate girl he'd left on his couch. And, somehow, he felt a kind of grief for it. And a kind of bitterness. She should have continued fighting.
She should have continued living.
But Hojo...
Hojo had convinced her it was safe, though she should have known better. Lucrecia... So strong, and then so weak, pulling away from him like a dead leaf falling from a branch. 'No, Vincent, I'm...I'm not going to the hospital. It's too late. I just...want to die...'
Vincent opened the door and started up toward his apartment, not even glancing behind him to see if the woman was following. He knew that she was. She would have followed him up last night when he'd brought Tifa in, if he'd let her.
He was a fool; no use in denying it. An oblivious fool with such a drive to atone, if only to keep his own demons at bay.
Lucrecia had nothing to do with this. Guilt and grief had nothing to do with this. A warrior's simple desire to see his comrades live. An old man's simple wish to see the next generation succeed. That was all it was. Nothing more.
And nothing to do but continue. No way out but forward.
Honour-bound to finish what he'd started...
* * *
Tifa glanced up as the door opened and was surprised to see Vincent enter followed by a woman. She wasn't anyone Tifa recognized, blond and grim with an aura of worldly wisdom about her, but something about the way she was staring made Tifa sure the woman had seen her already. It was a little unnerving to be at a loss like this and she felt another rush of anger at Vincent for involving a stranger. It was none of his business, none of the rest of the world's business. And she felt again the desire to escape, to run away before someone asked her about the bridge.
Because those answers were her own and she didn't have to justify herself. Saying them would be like vomiting up her internal organs. It would be painful to put them on the outside for others to see...
The woman walked into the kitchen with a kind of assurance that said this wasn't the first time she'd been in Vincent's home, and placed a pan she'd been carrying on the table. She looked irritated as Vincent walked away from her toward the bedroom. "You didn't say anything about her ankle."
Vincent said nothing, and after a moment Tifa heard a door close behind her. The woman sighed to herself and muttered something under her breath before turning to Tifa. She had the air of someone who knows they're intruding, but who is determined to say their piece anyway. "Well, I imagine the last thing you want is some busy-body asking questions, and my grandmother used to tell me when I was a girl: 'When you don't know what to say, bring food.'" She gestured to the pan on the table. "So, here's some lasagna, if you want. My name's Lily Townshend. I live downstairs."
She didn't approach or hold her hand out for Tifa to shake, and Tifa felt absurdly grateful for not being expected to follow social regimes, especially when she was still hunched over her ankle.
The woman, Lily, turned to the kitchen and briskly set about straightening it up, though it seemed neat enough. And Tifa thought there was something about her that said she'd been in awkward situations before -- so many that she was no longer embarrassed by them. And, for the first time in so long she didn't want to count the months, she felt a curious kind of interest in something, someone else. Who was Lily? What had she lived through to have become so sure and outspoken?
How in the world had she come to know someone like Vincent?
Cid, she thought suddenly. Brash and bold like Cid, a man who'd seen his dreams crumble into themselves like charred buildings and who'd been so irrepressibly, unashamedly human that he'd sometimes seemed almost immortal. Tifa had envied him occasionally, the way he'd embraced his vices and forced people to take him or leave him the way he was. She'd wanted to be like that. If only she'd been like that.
If only, if only, if only...then maybe *he* wouldn't have left. It always came back to the same tired old story.
Tifa came out of her thoughts as Vincent re-entered the room, now dressed in a black button-up he'd neglected to tuck in and with his hair pulled back haphazardly into a working ponytail. And without the bulk of the sweater, without the cape, he looked almost too thin to be healthy. Lily glanced up at him from where she'd been bent double and looking into the interior of his stove. "Do you ever clean this?" she demanded, straightening up. "Maybe you pay rent here, but you still have to take care of the place."
Vincent practically ignored her as he stepped into the kitchen, and she closed the oven door without another word.
There was a peculiar dynamic between them, Tifa thought, trying not to stare as she switched the ice pack into her other hand. They'd known each other for a while, that was certain; the silence between them was comfortable and familiar. But not as lovers, Tifa ruled out right away. That seemed too bizarre. Friends? It seemed to go beyond the simple titles of landlady and tenant, which they were likely to be if he paid rent to her.
"Is this still warm?" He indicated the pan on the table.
"Should be."
He pried the foil off with an attentive briskness and turned to open a cupboard above the sink.
"Get three," Lily told him quietly as she pulled some cutlery out of a drawer at her hip.
Vincent brought down three plates and Tifa was forced to look away as she realized how closely she was watching him. Was this the same Vincent she'd been arguing futily against only minutes ago? He seemed entirely too...normal, if that was the word, as if it was easier to believe that there really wasn't, and had never been, a personality behind those guns, those painful, wrathful transformations, and that omnipresent stoicism.
Lily began to cut the lasagna into sections, and then she set about lifting three pieces out, one by one, onto the plates. Tifa was almost surprised when the woman looked up to meet her eyes. "You going to come eat with us?"
Tifa marveled initially that they thought she might be interested in food. She didn't want to be here, she'd made that perfectly clear, and no amount of consideration on anyone's part was gong to make her forget that she'd been saved against her will.
Still, her stomach grumbled, and more to keep herself from acknowledging it than to make a show of denying it, she turned once more to her ankle. Maybe her stomach was empty, but food wasn't a temptation. She'd gotten used to hunger over the past few months as her bar had declined into obscurity, a small business being bullied out by bigger, grander establishments. She'd gotten used to the way her clothes seemed to hang off of her and the way her cheeks sank in, close to the bone. She'd even become used to the way, day by day, life had changed into something she could no longer bear alone, though she hadn't been able to make herself burden someone else with it.
It was the way it had been since her father had died, whether she liked it or not. Her life, her problems, her solutions; and this time nothing was going to sway her from what she'd chosen because she knew nothing would make anything better.
Though -- gods help her, her mouth was watering -- it smelled wonderful.
Vincent and Lily had already started eating. Vincent, she noticed, was holding a knife awkwardly in his clawed fingers, though he used it with an ease that seemed practiced. They'd left the chair closest to her empty in open invitation.
Her stomach grumbled again and she swore under her breath. The last betrayal of her body; weak, injured, and hungry. Desperately alive and voicelessly pleading to be allowed to continue living.
She could just starve to death, she told herself. But that, of course, was what the bridge had been for. She'd already been starving, and had decided it was taking too long. If she was going to die anyway of stomach-ache and heartbreak, it might as well be quick and numbing. She hadn't wanted to starve.
She still didn't want to starve. Damn them! Damn Vincent! And damn herself, too...for being weak, wishy-washy, and so weary of it all. No more pain, please. Please.
She wasn't going to try and walk on it. A sprain was a sprain, and she'd seen the kind of bruising that could result when one tried to rush it. How much longer would that take to heal? Just that much longer before she could try to run again. She levered herself up from the couch with her arms and then put a steadying hand to the coffee table. And then she began to hop toward the kitchen, without looking up to see if they were watching.
It didn't take her long to reach the chair, and then she was lowering herself carefully into it. She didn't dare meet their eyes. She didn't have to justify anything. She was just doing this to keep her strength up, until she could escape. Not to starve, but to drown. Not to starve, but to drown. Not to starve...
It was still warm, and after the first bite she had to force herself not to eat the rest too quickly. Small and empty like an old, brittle balloon, she knew her stomach would reject it if she filled it too fast. The smell and the taste were like putting a memory into her mouth. When had been the last time she'd eaten lasagna? Somewhere with a gathering, she recalled; maybe a holiday, or some kind of reunion...
Oh yes, Cid's wedding to Shera. Someone had made lasagna for the reception. Maybe Shera herself; she'd overheard one of the crew's technicians saying that the woman had done far too much for her own wedding. Sewing tablecloths, folding napkins. She'd been determined to have a hand in it all, no matter what Cid had said. She'd learned a kind of pride out of the hardships she'd endured, and she'd been her own worst critic. A perfectionist, she'd refused any kind of help...
All of their friends together; Cloud laughing beside her as Barret good-naturedly razzed the new groom; Vincent as the only one missing from their number. Gifts and smiles and dancing. Oh god...
She pushed the plate away from her and put her hands to her face. No, no, no...
She was crying. For the first time in so long she couldn't remember, she was crying. And no matter how she tried to cover her eyes the tears still leaked out between her fingers. And a little light leaked in.
* * *
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed! This fic is going in a somewhat different direction than I'd first planned and I hope the liberties I'm taking don't scare everyone away... *eyes the Lily growing in the middle of her fic*
And I have no idea if they would have lasagna in the FF world. Prob'ly not. But in this story they do. I like lasagna.
* * *
Chapter Two: A Little Warmth and Light
by thelittletree
Vincent slipped down the stairs and in a moment came to the door at the bottom. From here, he went outside and around to another door, which he gave a brief rap with his knuckles. It was nearly eleven; she was bound to have been up for hours.
Ten seconds hadn't passed before a thirty-something woman with shrewd green eyes and feathery blond hair answered the knock; something about her expression told him she had been expecting him -- perhaps had been expecting him far earlier. "Well, she's awake I'm guessing."
"Yes."
"And how is she?"
Vincent weighed a few possible replies before finally saying with a sigh, "Angry."
The woman nodded, looking unsurprised. "I could've told you that last night if I'd thought you'd listen to me. Well, nothing for it now. I made her something to eat, maybe that'll help a little. But you shouldn't have left her up there alone." She stepped away from the doorway and returned a moment later with a foil-covered pan. "Is she vegetarian? It's lasagna."
Vincent shrugged, and when he turned he was nearly able to feel the scowl she was aiming at his back. Not that he paid it much mind. During his lifetime he'd had worse things aimed at him and very little could ruffle him anymore.
Very little except the prospect of adding to his already extensive sins, he acknowledged grudgingly as he headed back toward the stairs. Leaving Tifa to drown after watching her jump would've weighed heavily on his conscience; another death to add to his tally. And not just any death, but the death of someone who had been there in the last minutes of the world when things had been desperate. Not that he'd known any of the members of Avalanche well, and not that he'd had much cause to think about any of them in a long time; but there had been a kind of bond there, and he'd felt honour-bound to return and finish what they'd started when Cloud had given each of them the chance to leave.
Honour-bound, maybe, to run to the bank and plunge into the icy water, to grope around until he'd been able to feel hair that wasn't his own slipping through his fingers. To pull the water-logged weight of an unfamiliar body into his arms, to wrap her in a dry piece of clothing and climb onto the back of his feathered mount. Because he'd had no more money for the inn, and the nearest place of shelter he would've be accepted was his own home, in Nibelheim. Racing along in the cold air until she'd been burning with fever and whimpering for her father, for Cloud, for anyone to save her from that searing darkness.
It had been the only time he'd ever heard her call for help. In Avalanche, her visible pride and strength, her determination to do it herself, had often led her to stand alone in a fight. He'd been able to relate, recalling his days in the Turks when teamwork had been a dirty word to him. They had all been good fighters; even Reeve, in his own way, as a spy in the camp of the enemy. But perhaps Tifa most of all; she'd fought with the kind of confident calm that made soldiers, after they'd watched her beat their comrades into bloody pulps, look into the quiet rage in her face and run.
Though now there seemed little trace of that woman left in the angry, desperate girl he'd left on his couch. And, somehow, he felt a kind of grief for it. And a kind of bitterness. She should have continued fighting.
She should have continued living.
But Hojo...
Hojo had convinced her it was safe, though she should have known better. Lucrecia... So strong, and then so weak, pulling away from him like a dead leaf falling from a branch. 'No, Vincent, I'm...I'm not going to the hospital. It's too late. I just...want to die...'
Vincent opened the door and started up toward his apartment, not even glancing behind him to see if the woman was following. He knew that she was. She would have followed him up last night when he'd brought Tifa in, if he'd let her.
He was a fool; no use in denying it. An oblivious fool with such a drive to atone, if only to keep his own demons at bay.
Lucrecia had nothing to do with this. Guilt and grief had nothing to do with this. A warrior's simple desire to see his comrades live. An old man's simple wish to see the next generation succeed. That was all it was. Nothing more.
And nothing to do but continue. No way out but forward.
Honour-bound to finish what he'd started...
* * *
Tifa glanced up as the door opened and was surprised to see Vincent enter followed by a woman. She wasn't anyone Tifa recognized, blond and grim with an aura of worldly wisdom about her, but something about the way she was staring made Tifa sure the woman had seen her already. It was a little unnerving to be at a loss like this and she felt another rush of anger at Vincent for involving a stranger. It was none of his business, none of the rest of the world's business. And she felt again the desire to escape, to run away before someone asked her about the bridge.
Because those answers were her own and she didn't have to justify herself. Saying them would be like vomiting up her internal organs. It would be painful to put them on the outside for others to see...
The woman walked into the kitchen with a kind of assurance that said this wasn't the first time she'd been in Vincent's home, and placed a pan she'd been carrying on the table. She looked irritated as Vincent walked away from her toward the bedroom. "You didn't say anything about her ankle."
Vincent said nothing, and after a moment Tifa heard a door close behind her. The woman sighed to herself and muttered something under her breath before turning to Tifa. She had the air of someone who knows they're intruding, but who is determined to say their piece anyway. "Well, I imagine the last thing you want is some busy-body asking questions, and my grandmother used to tell me when I was a girl: 'When you don't know what to say, bring food.'" She gestured to the pan on the table. "So, here's some lasagna, if you want. My name's Lily Townshend. I live downstairs."
She didn't approach or hold her hand out for Tifa to shake, and Tifa felt absurdly grateful for not being expected to follow social regimes, especially when she was still hunched over her ankle.
The woman, Lily, turned to the kitchen and briskly set about straightening it up, though it seemed neat enough. And Tifa thought there was something about her that said she'd been in awkward situations before -- so many that she was no longer embarrassed by them. And, for the first time in so long she didn't want to count the months, she felt a curious kind of interest in something, someone else. Who was Lily? What had she lived through to have become so sure and outspoken?
How in the world had she come to know someone like Vincent?
Cid, she thought suddenly. Brash and bold like Cid, a man who'd seen his dreams crumble into themselves like charred buildings and who'd been so irrepressibly, unashamedly human that he'd sometimes seemed almost immortal. Tifa had envied him occasionally, the way he'd embraced his vices and forced people to take him or leave him the way he was. She'd wanted to be like that. If only she'd been like that.
If only, if only, if only...then maybe *he* wouldn't have left. It always came back to the same tired old story.
Tifa came out of her thoughts as Vincent re-entered the room, now dressed in a black button-up he'd neglected to tuck in and with his hair pulled back haphazardly into a working ponytail. And without the bulk of the sweater, without the cape, he looked almost too thin to be healthy. Lily glanced up at him from where she'd been bent double and looking into the interior of his stove. "Do you ever clean this?" she demanded, straightening up. "Maybe you pay rent here, but you still have to take care of the place."
Vincent practically ignored her as he stepped into the kitchen, and she closed the oven door without another word.
There was a peculiar dynamic between them, Tifa thought, trying not to stare as she switched the ice pack into her other hand. They'd known each other for a while, that was certain; the silence between them was comfortable and familiar. But not as lovers, Tifa ruled out right away. That seemed too bizarre. Friends? It seemed to go beyond the simple titles of landlady and tenant, which they were likely to be if he paid rent to her.
"Is this still warm?" He indicated the pan on the table.
"Should be."
He pried the foil off with an attentive briskness and turned to open a cupboard above the sink.
"Get three," Lily told him quietly as she pulled some cutlery out of a drawer at her hip.
Vincent brought down three plates and Tifa was forced to look away as she realized how closely she was watching him. Was this the same Vincent she'd been arguing futily against only minutes ago? He seemed entirely too...normal, if that was the word, as if it was easier to believe that there really wasn't, and had never been, a personality behind those guns, those painful, wrathful transformations, and that omnipresent stoicism.
Lily began to cut the lasagna into sections, and then she set about lifting three pieces out, one by one, onto the plates. Tifa was almost surprised when the woman looked up to meet her eyes. "You going to come eat with us?"
Tifa marveled initially that they thought she might be interested in food. She didn't want to be here, she'd made that perfectly clear, and no amount of consideration on anyone's part was gong to make her forget that she'd been saved against her will.
Still, her stomach grumbled, and more to keep herself from acknowledging it than to make a show of denying it, she turned once more to her ankle. Maybe her stomach was empty, but food wasn't a temptation. She'd gotten used to hunger over the past few months as her bar had declined into obscurity, a small business being bullied out by bigger, grander establishments. She'd gotten used to the way her clothes seemed to hang off of her and the way her cheeks sank in, close to the bone. She'd even become used to the way, day by day, life had changed into something she could no longer bear alone, though she hadn't been able to make herself burden someone else with it.
It was the way it had been since her father had died, whether she liked it or not. Her life, her problems, her solutions; and this time nothing was going to sway her from what she'd chosen because she knew nothing would make anything better.
Though -- gods help her, her mouth was watering -- it smelled wonderful.
Vincent and Lily had already started eating. Vincent, she noticed, was holding a knife awkwardly in his clawed fingers, though he used it with an ease that seemed practiced. They'd left the chair closest to her empty in open invitation.
Her stomach grumbled again and she swore under her breath. The last betrayal of her body; weak, injured, and hungry. Desperately alive and voicelessly pleading to be allowed to continue living.
She could just starve to death, she told herself. But that, of course, was what the bridge had been for. She'd already been starving, and had decided it was taking too long. If she was going to die anyway of stomach-ache and heartbreak, it might as well be quick and numbing. She hadn't wanted to starve.
She still didn't want to starve. Damn them! Damn Vincent! And damn herself, too...for being weak, wishy-washy, and so weary of it all. No more pain, please. Please.
She wasn't going to try and walk on it. A sprain was a sprain, and she'd seen the kind of bruising that could result when one tried to rush it. How much longer would that take to heal? Just that much longer before she could try to run again. She levered herself up from the couch with her arms and then put a steadying hand to the coffee table. And then she began to hop toward the kitchen, without looking up to see if they were watching.
It didn't take her long to reach the chair, and then she was lowering herself carefully into it. She didn't dare meet their eyes. She didn't have to justify anything. She was just doing this to keep her strength up, until she could escape. Not to starve, but to drown. Not to starve, but to drown. Not to starve...
It was still warm, and after the first bite she had to force herself not to eat the rest too quickly. Small and empty like an old, brittle balloon, she knew her stomach would reject it if she filled it too fast. The smell and the taste were like putting a memory into her mouth. When had been the last time she'd eaten lasagna? Somewhere with a gathering, she recalled; maybe a holiday, or some kind of reunion...
Oh yes, Cid's wedding to Shera. Someone had made lasagna for the reception. Maybe Shera herself; she'd overheard one of the crew's technicians saying that the woman had done far too much for her own wedding. Sewing tablecloths, folding napkins. She'd been determined to have a hand in it all, no matter what Cid had said. She'd learned a kind of pride out of the hardships she'd endured, and she'd been her own worst critic. A perfectionist, she'd refused any kind of help...
All of their friends together; Cloud laughing beside her as Barret good-naturedly razzed the new groom; Vincent as the only one missing from their number. Gifts and smiles and dancing. Oh god...
She pushed the plate away from her and put her hands to her face. No, no, no...
She was crying. For the first time in so long she couldn't remember, she was crying. And no matter how she tried to cover her eyes the tears still leaked out between her fingers. And a little light leaked in.
* * *
Thanks to everyone who's reviewed! This fic is going in a somewhat different direction than I'd first planned and I hope the liberties I'm taking don't scare everyone away... *eyes the Lily growing in the middle of her fic*
And I have no idea if they would have lasagna in the FF world. Prob'ly not. But in this story they do. I like lasagna.