All Places In-Between

By Mihoyonagi

Chapter Ten: Why we were a family

The morning sun warmed our tent, but not enough to stave off cold completely. Wrapped in blankets, and then in my arms, Yuffie remained still. She'd cried herself to sleep the night before, whimpering about holes in her memories and pieces she wished hadn't been filled. Though now she remained still, I knew she was awake.

I ran my fingers through her hair. "Will you give Godo another chance?"

"Shh. I'm sleeping."

I laughed. I could already tell it would end up a good day. I don't know why my mood was so bright. Perhaps it was the fact that I was needed by someone. Despite the fact that I liked my space, every great once in a while it's nice to know someone depends on your for one thing or another. Or, maybe it was that I finally had company.

Sure, Cloud and the others had been my companions in battle, but few of them were quick to grow on me. Aerith and Red had been those I'd spoken to the most, as both of them could easily carry their weight in an intelligent conversation, but being with Yuffie somehow felt...

Liberating.

She was a free spirit. I could scour the entire face of Gaia over and again and not find another quite like her.

"You're a terrible liar, do you know that?"

She snorted, then buried her face further against my chest. Her breath warmed the skin under my clothes. "I don't want to get up."

"I didn't ask you to get up. I am merely asking if you wold give Godo another chance."

"... And if I say no?"

"I'm not going to push you to do anything you're not comfortable with. You should know that by now. But, as hard as this is for you, it's just as hard for Godo. I can only offer this advice; I think it might be a good idea to see him at least one more time before we leave. It's no secret that you and your father never got along well, but you shouldn't leave, or leave him, angry."

Yuffie smashed her face even further into my chest. "Hm hnt hmmuh."

"Can't hear you."

She pulled her face away. "I don't wanna."

"And no one is forcing you. I merely think it's a good idea."

She went quite. Then, huffing a sigh against me, she relaxed. "Fine. But only because you know how to offer advice and make me feel like shit at the same time."

"I'm not trying to guilt you into anything." I sounded a little more hurt than I had intended.

"I know. You're too nice of a guy for that."

She sat up, stretching, and, without her there to warm me, I grew a little cold. It had been a long time since I'd let anyone close, both physically and emotionally, and it was pleasant to find that such close contact didn't bother me as I thought it might.

But, perhaps that was more due to the fact that a few walls of ice had been melted. I'd dealt with part of my past I'd tried to keep locked away, and Yuffie was the one to console me. I could honestly say she was the closest thing to a friend I'd gained since before I was changed.

I wasn't exactly a lonely person, but I was more the type that kept to myself. My personality wasn't a friend attractant, but I made due. Growing up, I had a few close friends – quality over quantity – but... It had been longer than a few years since I'd last spoken to them. In fact, it had been when I finally signed on with the Turks since I had seen any of them at all.

Cloud and the others were friends, but of a different brand. They were the type of people to help you out in a bind, to guard your back when the outcome was grim, but I never felt as though any of them were the type I'd invite over for afternoon tea. They were battle-worn comrades, bonds formed because we all shared a similar goal. We got together once or twice a year to drink and eat, and the rest of the year we kept to ourselves. We had risked our lives to save the world; bonds like that aren't forgotten, and never overlooked.

But, as far as it went, once Sephiroth had been defeated, none of us really had anything in common.

We packed up camp, Yuffie humming a strange, happy little tune as she rolled up our blankets and folded the tent. Though I knew she wasn't exactly pleased over the prospect of spending more time with Godo, she seemed happy enough so I left words for another time and simply left her to her thoughts.

When we had packed and made our way back into town, Yuffie had stopped humming. Her eyes remained bright, however, so I knew she wasn't completely displeased.

I pondered what had lifted her mood; she had been such a mess the night before.

Godo seemed rather surprised to see us. Yuffie marched right up to him, puffed out her chest, and began. "I know this is hard for you, but it's ten times harder for me, so no more yelling at me. I'll make you a deal- I'll be nice to you if you're nice to me."

He looked a little shocked. Godo blinked a few times, surprise written clearly across his face, then began to laugh. "I seldom make promises, Yuffie."

"And I can be quite the bitch. Just ask Vincent."

Godo glared at me, as if daring me to call his daughter such a terse name. I held my hands up in surrender, shrugging. "Don't drag me into this, Yuffie."

And that's how it went.

We ate what Yuffie described as funny little sandwiches made out of funny little fruits, with funny tasting juice and – yes, that's right – funny flowers decorating the table.

"Those are tsutsuji - Wutaian azaleas – and they only grow that color naturally here in Wutai."

I wasn't previously aware Yuffie had an interest in gardening. Then again, perhaps she hadn't, and it was a new concept she had decided sounded interesting. Godo gave us a tour of the garden.

Not a plant person myself, I politely excused myself from inevitable boredom I knew was looming and let Godo have time with his daughter.

For no particular reason I one could find rational behind, I decided to make my way through the forest and toward the sea. It had been ages since I'd last spent time in Wutai – not merely stopped by for a day or two while journeying with Cloud and the others – and memories from my youth poured back into me. The town had changed so much since I'd last been a resident.

True, I didn't often offer up pieces of my past willingly. I never felt it was something to be ashamed of – at least not my early years, though I'm hard pressed to talk about my time in the Turks, or with Lucretia – it was just something I never volunteered.

I almost drowned, once. When I was four, I was playing too close to the water and a great wave swept me away from the shore and into the open sea. Truth be told, I don't remember much about the entire incident other than waking up with my mother screaming and my savior above me, my clothing soaked and sand in my hair. I cried mostly because I hadn't completely understood what had happened.

That was when my mother took to coddling me. Who was I to blame her? She'd almost lost her only son. To be fair, I had been scared for years afterward of the open sea, but I became spoiled in my father's absence. He'd left mother and I home so that he could find a job to keep us housed and fed. ShinRa ran him ragged and dry, and for the greater part of my youth I resented him, thinking that he was the selfish one, having left mother and I for what I thought at the time was an amazing, exotic, industrial city in the making. Shinra had been founded only years before my birth, but it had already grown into what could only be described as a corporate empire.

Young and naive, I wanted to work for them when I grew older. When I told mother this, she would pat my head and laugh, then tell me that she would be sad were I to leave her alone. So, I vowed to take her with me, give her an elaborate home in the budding city of Midgar, with running water in the house, indoor plumbing, and electricity.

She died when I was eleven.

That was the last time I'd allowed myself to cry (ignoring of course my outburst caused by Hojo a few days before). Father had come home for her funeral, the first time I'd seen him in nearly three years.

Angry and resentful, I blamed him for her death. I'd shouted at him the night after we buried her in the garden, blaming his prolonged absence and neglect for her broken heart and spirit. She loved me as her child, but she was never as happy as when father had been around and we'd all been a family.

He took me to Midgar, where we shared a stuffy little apartment on the plate until I turned 17. Then, without telling him, I applied for a position within the Turks and went into training.

It was three years after I'd been hired when I found out he had pulled the strings to get me hired.

Yes, I had enough combat skill to be a prospective candidate in the first place, but it was his position among the ranks that had cemented my employment in the first place.

I didn't realize until much later in life, but he never forgave himself for always being gone. After mother passed, he looked resigned in most everything he did, but when he would look at me he would smile, despite the fact that I never thought much of him.

I suppose that's why he opted to ask ShinRa for me to be positioned in Nibelheim, so that, for the first time in our lives, we might have the chance to grow close.

It ended in chaos. Quite literally; it ended with Chaos being forced into my blood, into my body, as though I was some kind of fleshy prison.

Lucretia blamed herself when father had died while they were working together. That's why, even though she came to me for solace, she would never allow herself to leave Hojo and be with me.

The sea didn't bother me any longer.

I stared out at the stretched expanse of ocean, wondering if my house, after over thirty years of neglect, it still stood. Half a mile down the shore I walked, looking only to my feet. It had been decades since I last walked on the worn path that was etched in the sand between where the shore started and the forest ended. Someone had walked by here recently- there was grass broken and bent from smaller footsteps. Perhaps only a half a day old, at the most.

I didn't expect it to be standing.

It was, though the rice-paper doors had long since been blown over and sand and plants alike had invaded the small little house. It stood there for a moment, wishing I knew what to think.

My head was mostly empty.

There were many memories of this house, but they all seemed so fleeting and far away. I took a deep breath and began, once more, toward the house.

Nothing was left inside, save a few broken shelves. Father and I had taken everything when we'd left, so it was no surprise. Wutai wasn't exactly a bustling town, and it didn't surprise me in the least to think that most would have forgotten about the old cottage by the sea. After all, mother and I had mostly kept to ourselves. We grew most of our food, and only went into town if we had no other option. Despite father working to support us, money had been tight.

I couldn't bring myself to actually enter the house, though the front entry way had all but been destroyed. I went, instead, to the garden on the side of the house.

Fresh flowers had been lain on the grave of my mother. I froze, feeling both surprised and guilty.

After father and I had moved, we never looked back. I missed mother with all of my heart, true, but I knew we hardly had the money to feed ourselves, let alone take trips back to the place where we used to love. I'd resigned myself into thinking that once we were in Midgar, I wasn't who I used to be, who mother had taught me and raised me to be. I had to learn, quite quickly, that life, ever the fickle mistress, was ten times the bitch I first thought her to be.

I knelt down and touched the flowers, then set myself to picking some of the weeds that had grown along my mother's headstone.

"I'm sorry I've been away so long, mother." I wasn't really speaking to her- I wasn't the type to believe in an afterlife – but I found I couldn't help myself.

'I'm sure she's glad to see you.'

I paused, surprised. It wasn't Chaos who had spoken. It was Death Gigas. And he sounded sincere.

"Father and I moved away, and so much has happened-" it all came out in a rush, like I had a bad case of verbal diarrhea and couldn't stop myself. I felt awful. "I fell in and out of love, and, mother, I'm sorry but I'm a bit of a monster now."

'Don't say that,' Death Gigas chided, softly. 'She's your mother. She loves you no matter what you are.'

"I... I don't understand. Why are you talking to me like this?"

There was a quiet between us. It was true that Death Gigas and I were known to converse every great once in a while, but I was more used to his monosyllabic responses, and only in the heat of battle when he barked something along the lines of 'duck' or 'on your left.'

'Demons have mothers, too.'

And suddenly I felt like an even worse. I knew nothing – nothing at all – about the demons inside of me.

"Tell me about her?"

Another pause.

'No. You ask because you are guilty, not because you are curious. When you ask because you are curious, I will tell you.'

He pushed himself into dormancy, so far back into my subconsciousness it was as though he'd left me completely.

Who would have figured that- a demon with a soft spot for his mother.

'You have much to learn about us,' Chaos' voice echoed. 'You know our names, but little else. So selfish.'

I sighed and continued to pull the weeds from around my mother's grave. Satisfied, I stood and looked down at the pile of earth that covered my mother's coffin.

"I'm sorry," I said for no reason in particular.

I turned and made my way back into town. My mind wandered so far that I didn't realize I'd made it back to town until I was opening the gated door to Godo's garden and removing my shoes before I stepped into the house.

They were watching TV, some silly game show where the contestants had to cross a drawbridge while having rubber balls shot at them from the opposing team.

Yuffie turned to me when I walked in, smiling. "Hey, dad- Vincent's back. Can you get some more of those tea cakes?"

Godo left, watching the TV until he was out of the door, laughing to himself all the way down the hallway.

"Have fun?" Her smile was contagious, even though I was in a somewhat somber mood.

"I went to visit my mother, actually."

"Did you see the flowers I left?"

I blinked. "You left them?"

She shrugged. "I did a lot of exploring on my own yesterday, after dad and I had fought. I figured it was your mom since the name on the gravestone was Valentine. I can't imagine there are many others by that name around here- it's not really fitting for a Wutain."

I looked at her for a moment, reveling in how smart she could be at times without even trying. "Thank you."

She shrugged again. "I don't remember where we laid my mom to rest, so some of those flowers were for her, too."

"I'm sure my mother wouldn't be opposed to sharing."

"Oh, look!" Yuffie stood, her change in conversational subject a sign of how short her attention span could stretch every once in a while. She spun around a few times, showing off her apparently new kimono-type dress. It stopped halfway to her knees, her legs covered by black tights. The forest green fabric of the garb complimented her skin and hair. The long sleeves swung around, even after she'd stopped spinning.

"I found it in my closet. Dad said it used to be mom's, but I can have it now that I'm grown up. How do I look?"

I smiled up at her, genuinely. "Absolutely beautiful."

I couldn't tell if she blushed. A part of me wished my words had meant something to her. I didn't have time to find out, however, because Godo walked in with a tray of tea cakes and a new pot of tea.

"Where did you run off to, today?" Godo asked, through a mouthful of cake.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Yuffie scolded.

He swallowed, but didn't offer up the question again.

I met his eyes. "I left you to your privacy. You didn't need me as the third wheel, so I went off to... visit my own family, I suppose."

"You do look Wutain," Godo nodded sagely, as if he'd known all along.

"My mother was, yes."

"You didn't need to leave your family so soon. Yuffie and I fine for now. You could go back and-"

"I appreciate the offer, Godo, but my family is long dead. I wasn't visiting as so much as paying my respects. I haven't been back to Wutai for... for a long time."

Yuffie smiled. "We've got a new family, you and I. Despite it being a little dysfunctional."

She was right. It was messed up, but she was dear to me in ways our other friends were not. I liked the idea of a family, even if it was only the two of us. "I suppose you're right."

She winked at me. "About what? Being a family, or being dysfunctional?"

Godo laughed. "A family where everyone gets along- now that is a strange thought."