NOTE FROM THE Author:

Short chapter this one. next one will be longer.

I do not own anybody in this fanfic... just the doctor. entirely fictional. yadda, yadda you know the rest.

Rejoice, Vincent-fans! This chapter will be focused on... dare I say it?... Vincent's naked chest!

END OF NOTE

Tifa observed Vincent's chest as it moved up and down with the slow rhythm of his breathing. The vapour inside the oxygen breathing mask appeared and disappeared in the same slow rhythm, followed by the even 'beep' from the heart monitor.

She had been sitting there in a chair by the bed for hours now, just staring at him, hoping he would wake up.

Red XIII had been with her for the first three hours, while the others gave up one by one after about two hours while Yuffie had fallen asleep before the first hour ended. She was still doing something in-between lying and sitting whilst snoring loudly. She had realised that coma isn't quite the same as sleeping, this she had discovered when she tried to startle Vincent into waking up. Cid had met this action with a 'What the HELL is WRONG WITH YOU!?', and Yuffie had learnt that coma definitely isn't the same as sleeping deeply.

Tifa was starting to feel stiff in her limbs from sitting in the same position for hours, and the noise from the heart-monitor was driving her mad, her stomach was growling in protest, saying that she needed to eat something more beside that little sausage she had earlier.

Yet, she wasn't ready to abandon Vincent.

What if he woke up when she wasn't there?

She really wanted to ask him what happened and why he didn't want to say anything about his past. She continued to sit there, feeling worried that what she said to him was the thing that caused the seizure. She prayed that it wasn't, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if that was the case.

Vincent hadn't so much as flinched since she found him. Nothing had happened, no irregularities in the heart beat, no failing lungs or any kind of seizure. Nothing had happened, at all. Whether that was good or bad was up to one self to decide.

Tifa finally shifted position and leaned forward so that her head was above Vincent's chest, she carefully stood up, stretching her back and tired limbs.

She looked around in the room. Only the sleeping Yuffie was in there. She looked back to Vincent. She knew she shouldn't, but she ignored the feeling in her guts, giving away to curiosity. Carefully, she removed the cover on his chest. His chest was still bare, the small hospital had no clean robes, so the doctor had left Vincent in his pants and an extra thick cover.

She examined Vincent's naked chest carefully. Her eyes traced the many scars leading across it. They were thin and pale stripes, probably caused from a scalpel of some kind. She examined them closer and noticed a bigger and ticker scar with small dots on both sides of it, indication that it had been sewn shut, leading across his chest all the way down to his stomach, forming a 'Y'. Tifa remembered something from a documentary about the crime-scene investigators in Midgar she had seen on TV once. When they performed an autopsy on the victim, they had left this manner of stitched wound on the corpse. What had happened to Vincent during his time as a Turks? She shuddered at the thought. As she examined the big scar closer, she realised it was more like loads of smaller wounds, streaming close to each other, like it had been opened many times.

She looked even closer and started to notice more and various kinds of scars. There were not only the surgical kind of scars, Tifa quickly noticed a what she believed to be a bullet hole in his stomach, bite marks on his side and scratch scars from some kind of claw on his arm. She looked up at the golden claw-arm lying on a table close to the bed, and she wondered for a while if Vincent had caused those wounds himself.

"Vincent. What have you been through?" she asked him. "I didn't even consider this when I said that to you up on the hill. I'm sorry, I should've considered this possibility." She said, sitting down in the chair again.

"It's alright, Tifa my love." Said a deep girls' voice.

Tifa looked up and saw Yuffie's big eyes stare at her from the other side of the bed, she let out a yelp of the sudden fright, but quickly got a more stern look on her face.

"That's not funny, Yuffie." She said. "and how long have you been awake."

"Long enough to see you obsessing over his naked body." She said with a huge grin on her face.

Tifa looked away in embarrassment, she whispered something about 'not obsessing.'

Yuffie looked down at Vincent. "Can't blame you, though. But those scars are kinda creeping me out. And the arm." She said and pointed at Vincent's stumped arm.

"Let's leave this now." Tifa said, clearing her throat and covering Vincent with the blanket, trying to pretend like it had never happened. "Please don't tell the others." She pleaded to Yuffie, not really wanting for the rest of the team to know that she might or might not have a thing for Vincent.

"Got it! This stays between us." Yuffie said and winked. "Now this is getting downright boring, I'm going out to hunt some materia." She said and exited through the door.

Tifa looked after her with a slight smile on her face, Yuffie might be the world's most kleptomaniac, materia-obsessed crazy ninja, but she had her heart in the right place, she sighed and went back into the chair, continuing to stare at Vincent's breathing, praying for him to wake up.