A/N: Sorry this is so late, I've been RIDICULOUSLY busy, what with A-levels and all that lot xD

Not too sure if this was what you had in mind Em Space, but here it is :) Enjoy :D

Mission 2

Vincent blinked away at the water clinging to his eyelashes and lowered himself another few inches on his rope, trying his level best to ignore the squealing laughing ninja swinging around and around on her rope beside him. Their surroundings were completely indiscernible due to mist and the bottom was lost in a haze of yellowish grey smog. Hence the climbing gear.

Wasn't this always the way though? Wasn't he always sent on some ridiculous mission to some faraway place in the middle of nowhere getting something stupidly easy with one of the most mentally challenged people on the planet! Certainly seemed that way... Speaking of which, shouldn't he have been paying more attention to controlling said mentally challenged person?

A couple of meters away to his left, Yuffie was dangling precariously upside-down from her rope, gloved hands hanging white-knuckled onto the uncomforting thin climber's rope, lowering herself jerkily further into the gloom, laughing like a kid in a candy store. An evil kid in a candy store.

"Yuffie you're going to pass out if you hang up-side any longer."

"Oh relax Vinnie," Yuffie giggled, righting herself only to proceed to spin in increasingly faster circles, "this is the first time we've been out of the office in weeks! Have a little fun would ya? Grumpy guts... Wheeeeeee!"

Vincent frowned, watching the top end of Yuffie's rope dancing in the gloom and a sudden feeling of irritation coursed through him. Of course the rope would take her weight, and of course the stake at the top would too – he'd hammered it in himself after all – and naturally he would catch her if she did somehow manage to pitch herself out into the fog, but she still shouldn't be taking the risks.

Almost as soon as this thought entered his head, there was a shriek beside him and Yuffie plummeted into the depths. Struggling with his bindings, Vincent's stomach lurched as the shrieks stopped abruptly. His fear was, although not entirely unfounded, entirely unnecessary as a few moments later there followed a rather loud "Ow!" and then "I found the bottom!"

Grumbling about his near heart-attack, Vincent dropped himself to the bottom and unclipped himself, glaring daggers at the ninja now pulling a rather large and pointy looking rock from underneath her. Reaching down, he closed his claw around her arm and pulled her unceremoniously to her feet:

"What do you think you're doing?" He hissed, ignoring the look of surprise in her eyes, "Goofing off, what if the bottom hadn't been right here?"

"Then I'd have kept going until I hit it wouldn't I." She snapped back, struggling her arm out of his grip, massaging the already purpling marks where his fingers were. It made something twinge inside him at the sight.

"You'd have died or done yourself a damage," he glared at her, "And I'm not prepared to cart your dead body back to the WRO because of your own stupidity."

"Stupidity!" Yuffie exclaimed, her voice rising to a shout, "It's called fun Vincent. F U N! Maybe if you stopped being so gloomy you'd try it sometime!"

"Fun doesn't include falling possibly hundreds of feet to a predictably messy end at the bottom of it!" He gestured roughly with Cerberus to the jagged and pointy rocks Yuffie had barely missed.

"I was mucking around Valentine." She threw her hands in the air. "Lighten up!"

"Mucking around is what children do!" He shouted at her, finally losing his temper and taking a few steps toward her, "Stop fucking about and grow up Kisaragi!"

He winced internally at her flinch and the hurt clearly evident in her eyes, in the way those thin brows were pulled together, the way she looked him up and down in a disgusted way then turned her back. He barely let out a breath as she stalked over to a rock and picked it up, putting it in her pocket, no doubt to throw at him later.

It wasn't that he was wrong, or even that she wasn't, but just that he shouldn't have shouted like that. It's unusual for him to get so worked up, and he's never, never used her second name before, not like that. It shouldn't have bothered him at all, her mucking around and nearly killing herself, but it does bother him. It bothers him that he can't just leave her alone to muck around and risk her neck in the name of fun. It bothers him that he still thinks of her as a child, even though said child is in fact a fully grown woman capable of reducing him to a raging, glaring, shouting moron simply by virtue of landing on her arse.

He let Cerberus fall limply at his side, half-heartedly noticing that there was really no reason to have it out in the first place, not unless he was planning on shooting her for her trouble. Because that's all she is really, trouble. Trouble for him in the eyes of other people, he doesn't really want to be known as the paedophilic vampire fawning over some kid straight out of the loony-bin. And trouble for him in the eyes of the law, he equally doesn't want to be seen as the 69 year old Turk accused of getting fancy with the Princess of Wutai. But doesn't he just wish some days that he was?

"Everything happens for a reason Vincent..." He heard Yuffie mumble, her voice so low that he wasn't even sure she had meant him to hear, and had her face not been hidden by the veil of her hair, he may even have seen the tears. But as it was, he didn't see, and her face was hidden from him the rest of the day, and she didn't muck around on the climb back up, and this was, as Vincent knew very well, a rarity at best.

If he really thought about it, he could perhaps recall once or twice, in all of his time knowing her, when the ninja wasn't larking about or cracking jokes to anyone and everyone who would or wouldn't listen. But the rest of his memories were of her as a raging ball of black fuzz, and Shuriken, buzzing around like a fly, irritating and cajoling and distracting from any important or time-consuming thoughts or actions. She was always running around and creating havoc, he just hadn't bothered to consider a reason...

A/N: Any more prompts would be greatly appreciated, even if they're simply words, or 50 word challenges xD I'd love to do some of those so PLEASE prompt me one xD

-Okami