Light padded into the room as stealthily as possible. She winced at the barely audible sound of the hardwood floor sticking to her bare feet, but she knew he wouldn't hear her. When Vincent was asleep, Vincent was fast asleep, as dead to the world as most actual dead people.
Even knowing this, she still screwed her face up in annoyance at the creak of the boxspring as she sat down on the empty side of the queen-size mattress. Her worry was entirely misplaced, for the sleeping man gave no indication he heard her; he just breathed in deep and let it out. The exhale caused some of his hair to flutter out away from his face, but it quickly returned to its place as he breathed in again. He was laying on his side facing toward where Light sat, with one arm tucked under the pillow under his head. His other hand was wrapped around the edge of the comforter, which he had pulled nearly up to his chin. Only his head, arm, and hand remained open to the air. The purple duvet really brought out the gold in the undertones of his olive skin, Light thought appreciatively, not for the first time, and likely not for the last.
It was something of a marvel to her that in eight years together his skin had not changed at all. It had never significantly changed color, or texture, had never lost even the smallest amount of elasticity. No matter what scrape he got himself into his skin never so much as scarred over.
Not like her skin, Light thought with a small amount of discomfort. True, she did not show any signs of aging – one of the benefits of being the chosen one of a goddess, she figured – no wrinkles or odd discolorations. But she didn't have Vincent's ability to heal without scarring, as she learned the hard way six years ago. Light passed an inaudible sigh through her lips and put one hand on her belly. Without really thinking about it, she pushed the edge of her blouse up with her thumb, and moved the waistband of her skirt down with her other fingers, just enough to see the vertical white lines that ran up and down her abdomen. Stretch marks. Luckily, here on her belly was the only place they were readily visible, though she knew a few smaller ones existed on the insides of her thighs and the edges of her breasts. She wished she could erase those unsightly scars, but she wouldn't have traded the event that caused them for all the world. No amount of flawless skin was worth the life of their son.
Light's stealthy entrance had been for the purpose of glimpsing Vincent's adorable sleeping face, with his calm brows and little stream of drool, but now she had seen it, and it was time to get him out of bed. The routine was pretty simple: Light would gently shake his shoulder and tell him to get up, Vincent would eventually wake up just enough to groan and slide his arm under the blanket, whereupon there would be nothing to stop Light from grabbing said blanket and wrenching it down to his hips. The sudden cool air would wake him up and he would be surly just until his vision cleared and he met Light's eyes. She would kiss him good morning and then coerce him into making breakfast with her, because there were some things that even strong, responsible, badass Sergeant Lightning couldn't handle doing on her own.
Her plan went swimmingly until the part where she pulled down the blanket. Vincent, suddenly cold, grasped helplessly for his missing comforter, and not finding it, had settled for the next nearest source of heat. That's how Light found herself helplessly pinned to her husband's chest by two deceptively strong arms, and Vincent himself, quite content with the new status quo, began falling back to sleep.
"Of all the mornings to pull a stunt like this..." Light reprimanded, but the anger was halfhearted at best. It was impossible to stay angry with a man who, in the first place had full possession of her heart, and in the second place was still drooling on his pillow. "Vincent, really, it's the ...oof...okay, now you're just squishing my lungs, come on...better...as I was saying, it's Hope's first day of school, and I want us to have a proper family breakfast together before he goes..."
Vincent's eyes fluttered a bit at the mention of their son. He started forcing himself to wake up. Light had been counting on that: Vincent had few weaknesses that were also motivations, but the biggest, strongest, most endeared to his heart was Hope. He'd do anything for his little buckaroo, even wake up early in the morning – he actually called him 'buckaroo'; Light was pretty sure that reference had something to do with an unruly chocobo, but she hadn't gotten around to asking him about it.
His dark eyes finally opened for good and he turned his head to look down at his wife, still pinned against his chest. "You and your son will be the death of me," he muttered to her.
"You can't die, so what's there to worry about?" She teased back as she squirmed forward just enough drop a kiss on the end of his nose.
The doorbell rang. Light pushed herself up from the bed and told Vincent to get dressed while she answered it. He sighed his acquiescence and tried not to be too obvious about watching the feminine sway of Light's hips as she left their bedroom. Another sigh escaped him while he flopped out of bed and stumbled to the closet to find a shirt.
Meanwhile, Light opened the front door to none other than Marlene.
"Morning!" the girl said cheerily. Light immediately felt the smile growing on her face and stepped aside to let Marlene in.
It struck Light again how much had changed in eight years. Nowhere was it clearer than in Marlene: when they met, she had been but a girl of seven, strong for her size but still so small. Eight years had seen that girl grow into a sturdy woman, built not unlike Tifa, but taller, taller than Light herself. Marlene was only fifteen now, but she was probably full-grown.
Then again, some things really hadn't changed: Marlene might have gotten bigger, but she was still every bit the sweetheart she had always been, still a sassy little spitfire when she wanted to be, still deeply perceptive without trying to be. Adopted or not, she was obviously her father's daughter, and even though Barret still spent a lot of time away due to work, there was still nothing in the world that lit up either of their faces like being reunited after a long absence.
"Good morning, Marlene. You're a little early; he's not ready yet," Light gestured in the direction of the stairs. Marlene had been attending the newly-built middle school for the past two years, and this year she would be starting high school. Since all the new schools were right next to each other, she had offered to take Hope with her on his first day.
"Oh, that's okay, I was hoping I would be early actually," the young woman beamed. "Nothin's more important than a good breakfast on the first day of school, and since you hate cooking I thought I'd come over and help out."
Light didn't try to stop herself from giving Marlene a much-deserved hug. "You are a lifesaver." They walked into the kitchen together. Marlene approached the fridge, but before she could get to it the room went dark as a giant chocobo head appeared in the window. Nuggets warked excitedly from the backyard at the sight of the two women.
"Oh, calm down, silly bird, I'll get your breakfast in just a minute!" Light waved her hand dismissively at the window. Nuggets tilted his head in confusion. "At least there's one kind of breakfast I know how to make," she said to Marlene with a shrug. Marlene just laughed.
"You get him squared away, and I'll start on this. You have a wire whisk now, right?" Marlene called out as Light was heading for the backyard.
"A wire what?" came her reply from the back door.
Marlene sighed and started opening drawers. "Ah ha!" she cried as she found the whisk she had secretly stashed in the drawer about a year ago. It had never, not once, been used; she could tell by the fact that it was still in its original cardboard packaging.
Nuggets disappeared from the window when he heard Light entire the backyard. Suddenly that yard was alive with warks and kwehs and trills as the bird realized that his master was making her way toward the shed where the greens were kept. His wings flapped excitedly as Light pitched a generous helping of greens into his bowl.
"Here you go, you big nugget, don't you forget your protein-calcium supplement," she admonished as she poured the extra pellets over the greens. Nuggets was an old, old bird now, and his bones weren't quite what they used to be. She patted him lightly on the side. "Good boy, Nuggets," she praised him.
Then she went back inside, where she saw Marlene had taken over the entire kitchen. The girl was so intent and so hard at work that she didn't even notice Light's entrance.
"Need any help?" Light asked, even though she knew the answer.
"Nope, I got it all under control!" Marlene answered with a smile. She had found an apron and it was just as well: there was flour everywhere, on Marlene's hands, on the counter, in the mixing bowl, everywhere.
"What are you making, pancakes?" the pink-haired woman asked, incredulously. Marlene's head bobbed as she nodded.
"And eggs. How do you like yours?"
"Um, scrambled, usually," Light answered.
"Scrambleds, coming up!" the girl called out as she stirred the pancake batter.
"You know you don't have to go to all this trouble for us," Light reminded her. Marlene just flashed another smile.
"But I want to. I like cooking. You never liked cooking, and Vincent's no five-star chef himself. Though between you and me, Aunt Light, you make a mean moonshine, better than Daddy's."
"When have you been sampling my moonshine?" Light asked sternly, but she was smiling. It was good to know there was some food-related thing that she didn't fail spectacularly at, was even good at making.
Marlene shrugged, a motion exaggerated by the fact that she had to raise the mixing bowl along with her shoulders. "Tifa lets me try a little so when I get to start taking and testing the deliveries I know what to look for. It's all for education, don't you worry."
"So you're serious about taking over the bar when Tifa decides to retire?" Light asked. The girl laughed.
"Tifa's forever away from retiring. But she's going to train me up, let me work at 7th Heaven unless I find a different job somewhere, and when there's enough saved she's going to help me open my own bar. And you better be willing to supply my place with some of that shine of yours," she added with a wink.
"I don't know, there was that non-competition clause in Tifa's contract..." Light began. Marlene's eyed went wide. "I'm just joking, of course I'll help you any way you need. So what about Denzel? He's gotta be, what, twenty now? I haven't seen him in a while; what's he up to?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders again. "You know Cloud taught him a lot about repairing cars and building bikes. Well, Daddy gave him a job out at the oil fields, repairing their trucks and such, and I think they're starting to train him on repairing the drill rig itself. Denzel doesn't really talk to us much lately; most of what I hear about him is from Daddy. But, I guess he's happy out there, working hard, saving a lot, being...being Denzel. He's doing okay, I think."
"You sound like you miss him," Light observed. Marlene's eyes looked a little sad as she poured pancake batter into the preheated pan.
"I do miss him. He's like my brother, you know? But I guess even brothers need their time and space away from home."
"That they do, girl," Light agreed. "Hey, I'm going to run upstairs and make sure Hope's up and getting dressed, I'll be back in just a few minutes."
Marlene's smile returned. "Take your time, Aunt Light. These won't be done for a while anyway."
Light stopped outside of Hope's room and knocked. "Sweetie are you up?" she called through the door. No answer. She stepped into the little bedroom.
Hope had fallen back asleep, still wearing his dinosaur pajamas. His thick dark hair covered his face much like his father's did; Hope was even drooling like his father did. Light sighed and sat down on the edge of his bed. She shook her son very gently.
"Hope, honey, it's time to wake up."
"Unnngh, Mom do I have to?" the little boy asked groggily as he started waking up.
"Yes, you have to. You have school today."
"I don wanna go school," Hope complained.
Light laughed. "You know, a long time ago, your Auntie Serah used to say that whenever I would try to wake her up. She never, ever wanted to get up and go to school. It was all a big joke of course. She really loved going to school. It was just hard to wake up for it first."
"I don wanna go school," the little boy repeated.
"Yes you do, and I think you're going to like school just as much as Auntie Serah did. Come on, time to get up. Put on your school clothes." She helped her son stand all the way up and change from his pajamas into his brand new uniform. Light tried not to cry a little while she finished up the last of the buttons and tucked the ends of Hope's shirt more snugly into his shorts. Despite her best efforts, when she looked at her son and took in the full image of his new uniform, when it hit her full-force just how fast her little boy was growing up, her eyes began to sting and she felt a wave of telltale heat rise in her neck and cheeks. Light sniffed. "Now, don't you look handsome." She brushed a piece of lint from his shoulder.
Hope squirmed and blushed. "Mooom," he complained. Light sniffed again.
"I tell it like it is, son. Oh, you know what? Marlene is here, she's gonna take you to school today."
The boy brightened up a bit at that. He liked Marlene a lot. She was pretty and nice and she smiled all the time. Marlene was like a big sister who was always willing to play and tease and help out but never did all the mean big sister stuff like pinch and tattle-tale.
"Come on, let's go downstairs and see her," Light offered. Little Hope nodded agreement and they went downstairs together – mostly together; Hope couldn't help jumping down the last two stairs and running into the kitchen to see Marlene. Light followed her son into the kitchen at a responsible adult walking pace just in time to hear Vincent's voice from the breakfast table:
"Hey there, little buckaroo, did you sleep well?"
Light shook her head. She had to make better mental notes to herself about asking about the buckaroo thing.
"G'morning, Daddy, I slept great!" came Hope's answer as he seated himself at the table. "Can I have some juice, please?" Vincent smiled at his son and poured him a small glass.
"Don't drink too fast now or you'll be sick," he warned as Hope tried to down the whole glass at once. The father was glad he'd only poured a small glass.
"Hey Marlene, how fast can you drink juice?" Hope asked suddenly as Marlene carried a plate full of pancakes to the table. "Are those all for me?"
"As many as you want, buddy, it's your big day," Marlene answered him, but she chose not to address the juice question. She didn't really need to accidentally start a competition with the boy that might get him sick. The girl went back to the stove to babysit the scrambled eggs. When they reached a consistency that matched her exacting egg-related specifications, she brought them to the table where Hope was not-so-patiently waiting with his fork and knife grasped in each fist.
"Hope, remember: napkin goes in your lap," Light reminded him sternly.
"Mom, do I have to?"
"Yes."
"Dad, do I have to?"
Vincent didn't even look up from his book of crossword puzzles. "Son, what's the one rule of this house?"
The little boy puffed out his cheeks in a pout that only a child could manage without looking completely ridiculous. Only when both parents shot their best eyebrow-furrowing cross looks at him and Marlene stopped loading plates up with pancakes did little Hope feel compelled to answer. "When Mommy says something, no asking Dad to say something different."
"Or?" Vincent prompted, his eyebrow raised.
"Or vice versa," Hope finished in a mumble.
"So where does your napkin go?" Vincent followed up.
Hope pouted again and put his napkin in his lap. And then Vincent smiled. He said thank you. Suddenly Hope was filled with guilt. "Sorry I didn't listen, Mom," he apologized. To his relief, his mom smiled too.
"Apology accepted, sweetie. Thank you for fixing it."
"May I have some maple syrup, please?" Hope suddenly asked, and just like that, the last shred of tension in the room fell away. With a smile plastered on his face, Vincent passed the syrup bottle to Marlene, who poured a generous but not too crazy helping on Hope's flapjacks.
The rest of breakfast passed with no noticeable event. There was barely any chatter due to the necessity of chewing, though each one of the Valentines paused at least once to compliment Marlene on her top-notch cooking and thank her again for having made breakfast in the first place. Marlene herself tried to be humble through all this praise, insist that it was her pleasure and she was just glad to be able to spend time with them, but toward the end she couldn't help herself and she replied with, "I know, I'm awesome."
To which the Valentines heartily agreed.
"Is there enough time to clean up before we have to go?" Marlene asked as they were finishing up. She looked frantically up at the clock on the wall. Light waved her hand.
"Don't worry about clean-up. You've done more than enough. We'll handle the clean-up while you and Hope get to school." Her hand had been gesturing, indicating herself and Vincent as the cleaners-up.
"Wait, we?" asked Vincent in feigned alarm.
"Don't make me hurt you, Valentine," Light warned him with a poisonously sweet smile.
"I would never dream of it, Mrs. Valentine," he responded in kind.
Since she was at an angle that Hope and Marlene wouldn't see, Light went ahead and made a face at her husband before she turned back to make sure Hope had his backpack and his jacket.
"Remember to hold Marlene's hand on the way," she told the little boy. She sniffed and tried to blink away the returning sting in her eyes. "Remember to look both ways before crossing the street, okay? Remember to play nice and don't hit anyone on the playground."
"Mom, it's okay, I know," Hope reassured her. "I can do this."
A tear escaped and started rolling down Light's cheek. "I know you can, sweetie." She lowered herself to her knees and pulled her baby boy into a tight hug. He hugged back.
"I love you, Mom."
"I love you too, Hope." She released him and held him out at arm's length. "Have a good day at school."
"I will! Bye Mommy, bye Daddy!" Hope gave a child's imitation of a salute and then took Marlene's hand. Marlene didn't say anything, but she gave Light a look that told her not to worry. All too soon for Light's sensibilities, the two kids disappeared out the front door onto the sidewalk. Light didn't stand up right away; it was as though she was paralyzed, anxious about separation from her precious baby, sternly forcing herself to remember that Hope wasn't a baby anymore. And Marlene would be with him; she would never let anything happen to him. Light trusted that girl completely. Rationally, she knew there was nothing to be anxious about.
Even so, it was hard to let go.
Vincent appeared at her side. Light finally picked herself up off the ground and leaned on her husband's shoulder.
"You know he'll be okay," Vincent offered reassuringly.
"Of course he will," Light agreed as she wiped her tear away. "He's got that stubborn Valentine attitude; nothing gets him down for long."
He looked over at her skeptically. "You think he gets that from my side? No, no; our boy got his good looks from me, but that stubborn-ness," he paused to plant a kiss on Light's forehead, "and that fighting spirit, that's all Farron. And all that sweetness buried under the spunk," he paused again and draped his arm on Light's shoulders, "I think he got that from those Lockharts and Wallaces."
Light laughed. "I swear he's got more of Tifa in him than either of us. But you know...sometimes I look at him and all I can see is Serah. He's just like she was at his age."
Vincent's lazily draped arm shifted until he was all but hugging Light. "I've heard it said that children act more like their aunts and uncles than like their parents."
"Serah's never been here to model behavior for him," Light pointed out.
"No, but Tifa has. And Tifa reminds you of Serah."
"When did I say that?"
Vincent's mouth quirked up at the corners into a smirk. "You sometimes talk in your sleep." Light gaped at him open-mouthed. "A couple times a month you'll say things about how 'Mom and Dad are coming home so you need to help clean the house up', but then you'll say Tifa's name. Or you'll be talking to Serah about a delivery for the bar."
Light shook her head. "They do get switched around in my dreams sometimes. In the worst ones, when I feel sad or defeated, one of them will show up and say 'come on, sis, no giving up!' and it doesn't even matter which one says it because it's something that both of them would say. That kind of thing seems to happen a lot in my dreams."
"Increasingly, lately, if your sleep talk is any indication," Vincent observed. Light blushed a little and tried to shrug it off.
"Just stress, probably. Getting all the paperwork and school supply shopping done for Hope, and Nuggets's health problems, and my last batch of that moonshine must have gotten a bad bacteria in it, and—"
Vincent silenced her with a crushing hug that lasted for a good solid minute. After that, he only loosened his grip enough to plant a proper kiss on her. He knew he had done well when he felt her smile under his lips. The way she smiled like that in mid-kiss was one of his top five favorite things about her mouth. It took quite a bit of willpower to pull away enough to speak.
"I know, Light. The last few weeks have been as hard for you as they get without introducing a new Planet-threatening villain." His hand came up to wind his fingers into her wavy pink hair. "And that's why you don't get to stress about anything today. I'll be cleaning up the kitchen, and brushing down Nuggets, and the most you're allowed to do is supervise."
"Is that an order?" Light challenged, though her voice was a playful tease.
"Think of it as more of a dare," Vincent countered in as similar a tone as his voice would allow.
"Challenge accepted."
Vincent was true to his word; he would not allow Light to lift a finger to help with the chores. If there was a tool or a detergent he couldn't find, she was allowed to direct him to its location, but she was not allowed to lift, scrub, fetch, toss, or otherwise handle or utilize anything related to the cleaning process. At first it made her uneasy, watching her husband work while she did nothing. After a while she realized that Vincent held absolutely no resentment toward her for not helping, and in fact was most cheery when she kept to her end of the bargain and simply talked the time away while he made the kitchen sparkle and Nuggets's feathers shine.
"By the way," Vincent started in as he was washing his hands of excess chocobo feather oils, "Remember that troupe we saw performing LOVELESS on our first date?"
Light leaned up against the gleaming counter-top. "How could I forget? Not my favorite date, but definitely my favorite show."
"Well," Vincent began, but then suddenly caught himself. "Wait, not your favorite? Then which one was your favorite?" Light paused to think.
"When we went back to our mountain near the Northern Crater."
Vincent chuckled. "The time I stocked our emergency backpack with nothing but fireworks and a bottle of wine?"
"That's the one. I've said it before and I'll say it again: fireworks over snow are much prettier than fireworks on the beach. The colors reflect really well off all the white."
"I'll keep that in mind for the future," he answered as his chuckles died down.
"But anyway what were you saying about the LOVELESS troupe?" she brought the topic back around. Vincent paused as if trying to remember what he was about to say before he got sidetracked.
"Oh, right. That troupe is back in town, I don't know if you've noticed the fliers around the neighborhood."
"I hadn't noticed."
"That's alright, but here they are, and I was thinking we should go see their new show."
"Oh yeah? What's it called?"
"I Want To Be Your Canary."
Light's eyes lit up. "I've read that play! It's a classic, and such a beautiful, sad story." Her eyes took on a misty, dreamy quality.
"So, then, let's go. The show starts early enough, we can take Hope with us and we can go tonight." He sounded much more excited about the prospect than he usually did about this sort of event. Maybe he was feeding off of his wife's love for the story, or maybe he just really liked the troupe.
"Do you think Hope's old enough to handle it?" Light suddenly switched into concerned mom mode. Vincent just shrugged.
"It would probably do him good to be exposed to great classic literature and theater from a young age. Maybe he'll grow up into a classy gentleman."
Light raised her eyebrow. "Maybe you're right. But I swear, if he ever grows a twirly mustache I am blaming you and your young-age high-brow culture exposure."
Vincent solemnly raised his right hand and closed his eyes. "There will be no twirly mustaches from him as long as he lives under my roof. But once he's an adult with his own place and his own life, I absolve myself of responsibility for his facial hair."
"I can accept those terms," Light answered with equal solemnity.
Marlene walked Hope home after school, and both Light and Vincent were surprised to see a second little boy following Hope into the house.
"Hey, buddy, how was school?" Vincent asked when he saw the group in the entryway. "Who's your friend?"
"Hi Dad, school was good, my teacher is really nice, this is Alex."
"Alex, huh? Nice to meet you, Alex, I'm Hope's Dad." He nodded to the bow, who reflexively bowed back.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Valentine," the boy stammered. He was a stocky lad with hair of a nondescript medium brown and extraordinarily bright blue eyes, and a curious bruise on his jawline.
Light entered then and and introduced herself to Hope's new friend. Then she asked how they met.
"Some boys made fun of me at lunch," Hope launched into the story. "They laughed at me for having a girly name. Then I punched some of them in the face."
"Hope!" Light admonished in her best Mom voice.
"But it was so cool, Mrs. Valentine, like he just dropped three boys in three punches!" Alex chimed in. "And, I mean, I was one of them. But I was wrong to laugh at Hope and I already said sorry, I was wrong to think he wasn't cool just because his name isn't really manly. Hope's actually really, really cool!"
"Hope, I'm glad you made a friend and everything, but you know you can't just hit people just because they make you mad."
"I won't do it again," the boy answered in his most contrite-sounding voice, with a convincing and sheepish hang of his head.
"He won't need to ever again, now that everyone knows he's a total badass!" cried Alex. "Oops, I mean, he's a total...awesome cool guy and stuff!"
Vincent and Light exchanged looks. To call out Alex's language or not? He caught himself and corrected, so that was a point in his favor. Plus, if he was inclined to talk that way in general, one scolding from his new friend's parents wouldn't change that, and could potentially cost Hope his new friend.
And anyway, it's not like they could call him out on the grounds that his statement was inaccurate. Hope was descended from a great and glorious legacy of badassery.
They made a few minutes worth of small talk with Hope's new friend and then mentioned the plan to go to the theater. Hope wasn't interested in seeing a play, not now that he had a friend in his peer group, but Marlene offered to babysit if the two adults wanted to go to the theater and leave the kids at home.
"Tifa doesn't schedule me to work school nights unless it's an emergency, so I'm completely free," Marlene explained. "I'd be happy to watch Hope and Alex both if it's okay with his parents."
"Marlene, honestly, what in the world would I do without you?" Light asked, though most of the question was muffled against Marlene's hair, as she was hugging the girl very tightly.
"You wouldn't see nearly as many plays," Marlene suggested.
"I would have to worry about twirly mustaches!" Light cried, again, mostly into the girl's hair.
"What?"
"Never mind."
"Okay, Aunt Light. Hey, if you're going to the theater, shouldn't you be going to get ready?"
"Right." Light disengaged from the hug, thanked Marlene again, and ran upstairs to jump in the shower.
"So, what are you going to go see?" Marlene asked Vincent, who was still standing there.
"I Want To Be Your Canary," he answered. Exactly as Light's had, Marlene's eyes lit up.
"Oooooh, that's supposed to be a really good one. Lucky!"
"That's what I've heard," Vincent said with a smile.
~~~~~~~~~~
Final note from the author:
Thank you for reading "Because you were waiting". Thank you to everyone who wrote reviews. Your criticisms made me think harder about where and how to take the story, and your praises gave me the ego boost to keep going. Thank you to my friends who proofread my first chapter before it was ever published to make sure I wasn't throwing character traits off of bridges. Thank you to whomever(s) put proper, labeled world maps on the Final Fantasy wiki. Seriously, referring to those suckers made the entire process that much easier.
Thank you to the readers who have joined the ship of Lightning x Vincent, or as I like to call it: Lincent. Welcome aboard. Galley's on the Crew Deck, make sure you wear proper gloves and hats if you venture into the Engineering Deck. Don't open the airlock without clearance.
Ship metaphors aside, really, I appreciate every time someone said to me something to the effect of "I didn't think about this pairing before but I like it!" and every time, it brought (still brings) a smile to my face.
Unfortunately, this story is now at its close. As my good friend Kuja might put it, the curtain has fallen and it is time to strike the stage. In the future I would love to write more of The Adventures of Vincent and Lightning for you all, but for the moment I think I will take a break and a breather. Maybe work on one of the other crossovers crawling around in my head. Maybe that one about Dragon Age. My name is Blood-Magic after all, I mean, it would be a shame to have a Dragon Age-y pen name and no actual Dragon Age stories, right? But I'm getting a little off-subject.
Thank you again, everyone, I hope to see you again in the Lincent world soon. *sounds of an airship powering up* But now I must go; my coffee needs me. *take off: whoosh!*
