A/N: I've decided that last chapter can stay. At least it has some decent mental imagery, and I guess it's not so bad to have a little pointless fluff floating around.
However, it's time for the real special!
Disclaimer: What would Brian Boitano do? Cover his ass, he's gonna get sued.
At times, he feels unholy, a demon only fit for playing the organ in a haunted castle. In the Nibelheim mansion lies his dark piano, freshly repaired with its missing key.
With Chaos exorcised, and Lucrecia's memory laid to fitful sleep, he can bear to stand in in that great manse once more. At first, it was a labour of duty. He had expelled Deepground from this place, the place where so much of Avalanche's history was made, and he had to protect it from further invasion.
Now, though, the mansion is just a little more homely. He's installed a few comforts in it, to make it more suitable for habitation; now, even in the underground laboratory where he was torn apart, he is never more than a few metres away from the comfortable, mechanical hum of a heater. In the guest rooms, pastel colours mask the faded horrors. The lights hum, dispelling the silent house's spell.
The piano is his confidante, watching every change he wreaks with nothing more than a tinkle of keys. Every night, the tendons of his good hand arch over the keys, striking, stroking, playing. Sometimes, the music comes reluctantly, and at others, it flows and pools in silver serenades in the house's darkest corners.
On his many prowls through the basement, he found, nestled between scientific journals and logs of abominable research, a songbook. Clothed in dust and adorned by cobwebs, it soon found itself perched on top of the piano. Recently, he's been learning one of the many songs within its pages.
It begins ominous, shifting through the notes low and dangerous. Then, a frenzy of vicious activity, rhythmic to the point of being mechanical, culminating in a jangle clatter of keys at the high end. Then, an absolute descent into near silence. The strings don't vibrate, they quiver, always ready to sound but never quite getting there. Then, another spike of frenzied sound.
He can almost play it flawlessly now. It's a challenging piece, requiring every single ounce of dexterity he has. Even when he gets it right, it always seems that he's getting it wrong.
Occasionally, his friends visit him, and hear him play. They have differing opinions on the melody. Tifa thinks it a little tragic, and scolds him a little for locking himself away to play it. Cid and Barret don't have the patience to listen. Cloud nods appreciatively, before leaving abruptly; the violence of the piece occasionally triggers his morose nature. But Red looks at him with eyes full not of appreciation for the music, but of pity.
Of course, he doesn't know if he's playing it properly. Because, as fate would have it, the very first of his friends to drop round was Yuffie Kisaragi. And his songbook went 'missing' directly afterwards.
He reminds himself of the tune by humming it. His voice is creaky, more full of rust than honey. But he can pick out the notes, and he enjoys the way it seems warmer in his voice than when beat out of the strings of the piano.
He wakes in the guest room, after a long night at the mercy of the keys. His fingers ache, and his ears are ringing. But more importantly, he can smell burning. With flowing speed, he leaps out of the bed, and hastens to find the source.
He finds Yuffie in his 'kitchen'. He never bothered to replace the old fashioned stove, partially because it has character and partially because he isn't exactly made of gil. She's having a great deal of trouble with it, and he spots what looks like the charred husk of an egg welded to the top.
"What exactly are you doing here, Yuffie?"
She takes her eyes off the stove, and immediately it begins to smoke. "Oh, I was bringin' your songbook back. Gawd, never knew piano lessons were so boring. Then I remembered I borrow without permission again, so I was gonna make it up to you with breakfast."
"So. You come here to give me back the songbook you stole, and ended up ruining my only functioning kitchen appliance." he says archly, crossing to the stove and pushing her out of the way. He may be able to salvage the eggs, if not the cooker.
As she waits (pulling up two plates, with an automatic assumption that she deserves some of the spoils), she hums. A few bars here, a few bars there. Like a sparrow or some other songbird, her voice isn't the prettiest, but it does have a nice energy to it. In contrast to his piece, hers is gentler and slower, hovering around the high notes and teasing the lower ones. A dive, then an elegant swoop back up to the top. Next, a burst of chirpy staccato. Then, the melody settles back into something slower, more peaceful, and even cheerful. But the notes seem to echo his, in their own way; refracted, perhaps, by her voice.
It is then, as he stands in his kitchen, cooking eggs for his least favourite housebreaker, that he realises that they are two halves of the same song.
A/N: A play on the soulmate idea. This is pretty much made to be interpreted. I owe inspiration for this to a short story I read a while back. Can't remember what it's called for the life of me.
