A/N: Requested by serenbach. Thanks~


Disclaimer: This is 100% illegal, just like your shirt is 100% cotton, and your lawyer is 100% not someone you'd invite over for dinner.


"Vincent Valentine, what the hell are you doing in my private chambers?"

It's a good question, but he doesn't know the answer. Something, certainly. He needs to do something. There's no more 'raindrops falling into a forest pool' tranquillity in him now, just fire and anger and energy. He hasn't felt this alive since he was born.

"I wouldn't mind, but, uh, it's not proper for the Empress of Wutai's ex to be paying her a bedroom visit," she says, trying to ice the word ex so it freezes. No chance there. "Besides, I told my guards not to let you in."

"I told them otherwise," he says darkly, his hands crumpling into fists. They'll wake up in a few hours. Probably.

She looks at him blearily. Yuffie Kisaragi is by no means a morning person. It's somewhat underhanded for him to exploit that, but dammit, he needs every advantage he can get, and it's not like he could have waited any longer.

There's a pregnant silence. Good. It gives him time to think. He needs every chance. The words to say, the things to do, that mystical set of instructions he needs to follow to get her back. And an escape route, in case things go wrong. He can only think of the last one.

"So...What? You're just gonna stand there, looking at me? You knocked out some innocent men so you could peep on me sleeping?" she asks, feigning nonchalance. Wrong move. It echoes in his ears like the ring of a gong.

His metal fingers have been digging into her bedside table. He doesn't notice, just walks. They gouge thick trails in the wood, but that doesn't concern him. He needs to get closer.

"Whoa, hey. What are you-" she backs up, her hand plunging down into her clothes, searching for a star, a kunai, anything.

For once, she's too slow and he's too fast. Before she can react, they've collided, and his arms wrap themselves around her back, pinning her arms to her sides. Her heart beats- ba-dump, ba-dump- in a way it isn't supposed to.

"Just once in your life, Yuffie, shut up and allow me to speak," he growls.

The sun is finally peeking above the mountain, and the sun streams in through the window. She doesn't know where to look, so she looks at his face. There's something there, something once broken, twice removed. It's in his skin, ethereal in the light, almost like it was new again.

"Yuffie...How long has it been since we started dating?" he asks. It's the mirror of her question the night before. Instantly, she snarls. If he's here to play jokes, she doesn't want it.

"Six months, Vincent. Six months, and you never even tried to hold me," she spits, like a cat whose tail has been trodden on.

"Six months? And what does that mean to me, one who has forgotten time? For thirty years I slept, and now the passage of time means nothing to me. The days blur into wildness, the months into seamless dreams," he whispers. There's poetry in it, she realises, the kind of poetry she always thought he had, the kind he'd never show her.

"For me, one day is as the next, as is the next, as is the next."

His arms loosen, and hers break free. But she doesn't move away. His hands still linger on her shoulders.

"So, too, is a month. Is a year. Is a lifetime. Yuffie. Listen to me now."

For six months, he never tried to hold her. But he's holding her now, with his fingertips at her back and his words tingling in her ears.

"For me, time is nothing. A second is the mirror of eternity. If I am prepared to spend one with you, then I am prepared to spend the other."

She feels the cold metal of his hand dance across the back of her neck, gently, gently, like lilies resting on a pond.

"I...I was scared, Vincent. You...You didn't do things like a normal person would," she stammers. All her jokes, her silliness, her immaturity, are falling off her like old clothes.

"It is my fault," he says, bowing his head in guilt. His hair brushes across her collarbone, and she realises just how close he is. "I forgot, that time means something different to you than it does to me. For that, I am to blame."

"Oh, shut up," she mumbles. His hair is tickling her.

"The time I have wasted...Feel free to take it back."

There's something teasing in his voice, some dark temptation. Her shoulders tingle from where his hands have been, and where they should have been before. It's like magic, only without shiny materia or the Planet's Wisdom. Just him.

"No? Then allow me."

He steals the kiss, just like she would have if she'd thought of it. It's slow, lingering. The taste of his mouth starts to seep down through her nerves and into her skin, into her muscles, her soul-

She breaks, gasping, her head swimming and numb. He allows her a few breaths, and then, with a smile he shows only to her, rejoins the kiss. He's in control, and he likes it.

Time slows, in the hazy fog of her mind. Each sensation seems to stretch in her mind until it occupies all her memories, all her feelings. The seconds blur together, becoming the mirror of eternity- the eternity she'll spend with him.


A/N: A sappy ending there. I blame society and baby animals in general.