Rock Star

And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be...
 - Nickelback, "If Everyone Cared"

The next morning, after a brief farewell with Yuffie after breakfast, Vincent was on his way.
Yuffie had seemed disappointed. Shyly, she placed a kiss on his lips before wishing him a safe journey.
"I will meet you in Wutai." Vincent told her. "At your last show. It is only appropriate, I suppose, that I meet your father."
Yuffie giggled. "I suppose."
He struck out from Junon toward the Chocobo ranch; he knew that was where Cloud stabled his gold chocobo, which would safely, if slowly, bring Vincent to Mideel.
He didn't know why, but he was hesitant to ask Cid for a ride on this particular mission. He did not want to explain himself to the pilot, despite the fact that he was a friend; in fact, he was embarassed. He figured this was what normal men who were going to get examined for impotence went through.
Vincent knew, however, that was not an issue. He'd experienced enough at just the thought of having Yuffie that he knew he would be able to perform when the time came. He just didn't know what the repercussions might be of said trysts.
He had to make a brief stop before crossing the swamp near the chocobo farm; he figured crossing before he had to face the Midgar Zolom would be a good idea.
He was right; despite how much stronger he was now, compared to when he first met Cloud, the Zolom proved to be a little bit of a challenge alone.
Not since the first time he'd set out, nearly a week ago, he wished fervently that Yuffie were with him. She'd have made some sort of smart-ass comment about the little snake, and killing it would have been three times easier - one time for each of them, and one because being around her lifted Vincent's spirits in a way that was completely inexplicable to him.
He stumbled across the plains and set up camp within sight of the chocobo farm; he'd get a fresh start the next day, on the gold chocobo, to Mideel. If he was lucky, he'd be there the following night.
He fell asleep wondering if Yuffie missed him as much as he missed her.

As a matter of fact, she did.
When she had the time to.
Life on the road was a blur. Wake up, eat, fly, go make sure the stage was being set up to their specifications, help out if needed, do sound check, eat again, go to a press conference or interview with the local news outlets, eat a light dinner, do a show, eat another light dinner, meet and greet, sign autographs, go back to the hotel, go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Yuffie, however, wouldn't give it up for anything. She just wished Vincent could be there with her. She knew he didn't like being in the limelight like she did, but he would have made it so much easier with his silent support - now that she knew she had it.
She resisted the urge to call his PHS daily; something about the look in his eyes when he said he needed to take care of something and that he would meet her in one month's time made her think he wanted to be alone and Vincent-y. She hoped he wasn't regretting...
Whatever it was they had.
The next morning she was awoken about thirty minutes before she would have normally woken up - by the sound of her PHS going off.
She looked around blearily and then grabbed her phone. Her screen told her that it was Vincent who was calling her.
She made a little squealing noise and answered it. "Hi, Vincent!"
Damn, I sound too chipper for someone who just woke up.
"Hello." Vincent said. He sounded grave. He always did.
"How's it going?" Yuffie asked. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock on the night stand. "Jeez, it's 5:30 in the morning!"
"It is?" Vincent sounded almost confused. "I apologize. It is well past midday here."
"I'm at the Gold Saucer." Yuffie said. She yawned. "Where are you?"
"I am traveling." Vincent sounded almost jovial now. There was a smile in his voice.
Yuffie knew she'd been right - whatever it was he was doing, he was being secretive about it. Oh well. She didn't care! She missed him.
"I just wanted to call and let you know that I should be able to make it to Wutai by the time your tour comes to a close." He said.
That was true - he had arrived at Mideel shortly after noon and spoken to the doctor about his requirements. The doctor had nodded and made a list of all of the equipment that would be necessary to test for this kind of thing, and had ordered them - Vincent had paid, of course, for the expensive diagnostic equipment - and they should be arriving within the next two weeks. A company in Cosmo Canyon made them.
Once he had the proper equipment, the doctor said, it would be a matter of days before Vincent had his answer. Then Vincent only need travel back to the chocobo farm, sneak the chocobo back (Cloud and Choco Billy had no idea that he had borrowed the golden creature) and call Cid asking for a ride to Yuffie's final show of the tour.
He was reasonably sure Cid would oblige. If not, he would appeal to Shera - she'd convince Cid otherwise.
"Good!" Yuffie said. Sleep was creeping out of her voice. "I'm glad. We're planning on doing a big show there, since it's my hometown and the last on our tour." Her voice darkened. "I haven't seen my dad in a few years, though, Vinnie. I dunno if he'll be happy to see me."
Vincent pondered this for a few minutes - so long, in fact, that Yuffie said "Hello? Are you there?" Thinking that the connection had been severed.
"I am here." He said. "I would think, despite how proud both you and your father are, that your father would be happy that you are alive; you are, in fact, his daughter."
"Yeah, maybe." Yuffie's voice held a note of doubt. "He's a stubborn old fool, though, so we'll see."
They talked for a few minutes - Yuffie did most of the talking, actually. Vincent never had been much of a conversationalist.
"Well, I ought to go." Yuffie said. "I can get my morning exercises done before I shower and eat."
"Alright." Vincent said. He was just happy to hear her voice for the first time in a week. "I will see you soon."
"I love you, Vinnie." Yuffie said. Then there was a click - Yuffie had hung up.
"...I love you too, Yuffie." Vincent said, softly.

"I am going to be honest with you, Mr. Valentine." The doctor said. "This procedure can get a little uncomfortable; most people do not like MRI tunnels. They are claustrophobic at least."
Vincent thought of the coffin at the Nibelheim mansion and smiled. "I doubt that I will have any serious problems, doctor. Let's get started."
The batch of testing that the kind doctor was going to put Vincent through would last all this day and part of the next - several CAT and MRI scans, X-rays, blood and tissue drawings, and some biopsies. The doctor made every process he could as painless as possible; he was ten times the doctor Hojo had been.
Then again, Hojo had never even considered a career in medicine, which, in Vincent's eyes, made him a failure as a real scientist.
He leaned back onto the table and it slid into the tunnel. It really was claustrophobic, but it didn't bother Vincent particularly. He shifted.
"Hold still." The doctor's voice came down the tunnel. Suddenly bright lights were taking pictures of him from every angle.
He closed his eyes.
A few minutes passed and he slid back out of the tube. "All done." The doctor said. He smiled. "I am very glad that someone as rich as you decided that this equipment was absolutely necessary, Mr. Valentine. I believe I owe you a great deal."
Vincent let out a small smile, but said nothing - the doctor was not charging him for the service, which he felt was kind. He had only asked that Vincent pay for the equipment, as it was currently beyond his means.
By midday the next day, all procedures had been finished. Vincent had been poked, prodded, scraped, stabbed, and sutchered - and now the doctor was going to begin compiling the data.
"It will take me a few hours, Mr. Valentine." The doctor said. He smiled. "I should be finished by five or six tonight."
Vincent nodded slowly. That gave him a few hours to contemplate. He had not bothered to think what he would do when the results came in.
"Come by for dinner, Mr. Valentine." The doctor's wife, also his nurse, walked up behind her husband. She smiled. "I'm making steak."
"I suggest taking her up on the offer." The doctor said, smiling at Vincent. "Nobody makes a steak quite like my wife. It's a once in a lifetime offer." His wife blushed.
"Certainly." Vincent said, taken aback a little. He offered to bring a wine of some sort to complement the dinner; the doctor said that would be agreeable.
Vincent decided that he was going to get the best wine he could; he figured that it was the least he could do. This couple had shown him a lot of kindness.
It helped that they were the only medical professionals he wasn't terrified of.
He walked back to his room at the inn, glancing downward occasionally. Mideel had rebuilt around the mako pools, and above them. A network of bridges and pathways wove its way above the pulsating green pit, connecting every building to every other building in the most efficient way possible. Shinra, now that Rufus Shinra had rebuilt it into something totally different from what it had been, had been the one contracted to do the work, and Vincent had to say that they had done a fine job.
He walked into his room and his PHS was flashing. A missed call. He had not brought the machine with him to the testing because it would have interfered - now, flipping it open and noting that Yuffie had called him, he wished he had.
"Hey, Vinnie, just calling to say hi!" Yuffie's ever-cheerful voice rang through the phone. "I just wanted to let you know that we're in Nibelheim - I'm seriously considering buying the Shinra Mansion from Rufus. Whatdya think? We could demolish it." She giggled. "Anyway, I'll be working the rest of the day, so call me tomorrow, okay? I love you!" A click signaled the end of the message.
He shut his PHS and smiled to himself - he was very lucky.

At promptly 6 p.m., Vincent stood in front of the Doctor's house slash clinic with a bottle of very fine red wine, which his palate told him would be good with steak, that had cost him almost 300 gil. He didn't care.
"Hello, Mr. Valentine." His wife answered the door. She smiled. "Come in."
He entered and took note of the house - he had never been in the private half of the building before, and it was designed much the way the clinic was, which was to say, it was designed to make everyone who entered it feel at ease.
Once a doctor, always a doctor.
"Ah, welcome, Mr. Valentine." The doctor said. He appeared from what Vincent assumed was his study. "I have your results, but it is only polite that we eat first." He gestured toward the dining room.
Vincent was really more interested in his results, but he figured that the doctor was right.
They passed a relatively pleasant hour eating. The doctor and his wife exclaimed at the wine; apparently it was a very fine wine from Gongaga that went very well with red meats. Vincent was pleased that his palate had not lost it's edge in the years since he'd made a habit of consuming fine wines.
After dessert had been cleared, the doctor's wife excused herself on the grounds of housework. The doctor then invited Vincent to his study.
"Well, Mr. Valentine." The doctor began as he sat as his desk and gestured for Vincent to sit as well. "You certainly are an interesting case. I am glad you provided me with the files from Hojo and Dr. Crescent." Vincent noted that the doctor did not address Hojo by the title doctor, which pleased him inwardly. "Had you not, I am afraid I would not have known what to make of the results from your test."
He opened a file; Vincent saw hardcopy of all of the digital files that he had provided the doctor with. The file was several inches thick.
"You may have this when I'm done explaining it to you." The doctor said, smiling as he saw Vincent regard it. "I have my own copy, which will never leave this building, for if you should need my services again; otherwise, you can have this."
Vincent nodded.
"I will begin with the most pressing matter; you can, indeed, impregnate." The doctor nodded. "Your sperm is certainly active, considering your age. It would not be difficult, but not necessarily easy. Average potency, I expect." The doctor flipped a page. "As far as I can tell, your DNA is normal. Any alterations Hojo and Dr. Crescent made to you are purely phsyical; they have not altered your DNA. Therefore, your offspring would be normal by society's standards."
Vincent smiled. "Then Mako exposure does not alter the DNA?"
The doctor shook his head. "It can, but when it comes to genetic structure, it's nearly impossible to tell what route the body will take. In your case, you are as normal as anyone else at the most basic level."
Then the doctor flipped another page. Vincent frowned; his questions had been answered.
"There are a few other things we need to discuss." The doctor pointed to the scans of Vincent's body. "I want to know, are you aware that your right arm still exists?"
"What?" Vincent asked, disbelief crossing his face.
"Your right arm is still there, beneath your claw." The doctor pointed. "The claw is merely an exoskeleton. What purpose Hojo had in placing it there, I cannot fathom, but it merely surrounds your arm and hand; a sort of life-support system is in place for your arm, as the nerves have all been attached to the claw, but a surgery could correct that. Your hand is as good as it ever was, Mr. Valentine."
Vincent stared at him for a few minutes, unable to quite comprehend what was being said.
"I...need some time to ponder that." Vincent said, finally.
"Understandable." The doctor said. He flipped another page. More? Vincent thought.
"Your skeletal structure has been strengthened artificially." The doctor said. "Same with your muscular system. You will eventually age and die, of course, just like the rest of us, but you will always be in good shape - there are implants within you that release the right hormones to ensure that. Your eyesight and hearing have also been enhanced, but I assume you know that already."
Vincent nodded.
"I'd say, Mr. Valentine, that other than your claw, you're a vision of perfect health. You not only can reproduce, but you should." The doctor nodded, smiling. "You have some of the most pure genetic material I've ever seen - I'd hazard a guess that Chaos has something to do with it, he being closer to the Planet than most beings."
Vincent wondered if he should be grateful to the demon, or not.
"I think, then, that we are done. I expect you will leave in the morning?" The doctor asked, closing the folder and holding it toward Vincent.
Vincent accepted it, and nodded. "First light. I have somewhere to be soon."

"Vince? That you?" Cid Highwind answered his PHS. He was in Junon, getting some parts for the Shera. He wiped sweat from his brow; getting the damned fuel line to attach to the airship was getting to be more and more of a pain in the ass.
"Yes. It is me." Vincent said.
"Hey, man, where you been?" Cid said, lighting a cigarette.
"I am at the chocobo ranch. I would appreciate it if you could give me a ride to Wutai." Vincent said. "Yuffie is expecting me for her last show tomorrow."
"Uh, sure thing, Vince." Cid said. His brow furrowed. "I'll be a few hours, I'm in Junon picking a few things up. Can you sit tight?"
"I suppose so." Vincent said. To Cid's ear, he sounded almost jovial. For, you know, Vincent. "I will feed Cloud's chocobo and eat something while I wait."
"Alright, Vince. I'll be there in a few." Cid said. He hung up his PHS with a quizzical look on his face. Vincent never called asking for a ride - and why was he at the chocobo farm anyway?
"Whatever." Cid dismissed it and walked downstairs toward the shops - and the signs that said "NO SMOKING." He never paid attention to them, and the shopkeepers never tried bothering him about it anyway. They knew better.

Author's Notes: Did anyone else get a little hot thinking about Vincent's sperm? Or am I the only one:D