~Half Forgotten Memories~
by:GoldenSilence
Ch.6-Going away
disclaimer:All FF7 characters belong to their various creators.
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A/N=It's been two weeks since I updated this..sorry everyone!:DI will have a chapter out at least once a week from now on. The chapters will also be longer (and Christmas vacation is coming up-coincidence?I think not.:))
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Vincent was the only one to speak as they walked quietly across the darkened hall to the room Shera was staying in.
"Look Tifa, I don't know if this is happening to you, whatever it is, because of Cloud's death, but everyone has to deal with this. We just have to get through it. You have to let it go."
Vincent sounded like he had been rehearsing that little sentence of his for months. Tifa was about to respond to Vincent when she realized they were at the door to Shera's room and that she really didn't know how to respond anyway.
She must have made quite a sight. Tifa's tears had not yet dried on her cheeks,she was still clad in a bathrobe, and her damp hair was dripping water on the floor and probably leaving similiar puddles all the way across the hotel.
Even after being woken up at the crack of dawn, Shera still looked as composed as ever. She scrutinized Tifa and Vincent.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing much"-Vincent tried to sound as nonchalant as possible-"just wanted to come in for a little chat."
Shera allowed herself the smallest raise of an eyebrow. If there was any word she had never dreamed Vincent would say it was chat. The closest she had ever heard him get to chatty was when he had talked to Tifa a few days ago. Of course!Tifa must have come to Shera to talk and Vincent, for some unknown reason, had decided to tag along. The idea of Vincent openly talking to Shera was unbelievable-not to mention uncomfortable.
"Of course," said Shera. Ignoring Vincent, she looked directly at Tifa. "What do you want to talk about?"
Vincent was still gripping Tifa's shoulder so hard it felt like it would fall off. "She'll talk afterwards. I want to talk first. Privately," he said tersly, as if it was an effort for him to get the words out.
Shera's eyebrows raised a little higher. Privately? What on earth? Then what was Tifa doing here?
"I..I..suppose."
Vincent nodded and suddenly let go of his grip on Tifa. She immediately began messaging her sore shoulder.
"I'm sorry, but I need to speak to Shera for a moment. Can you go outside?"
Tifa glared. "I thought I was supposed to be the one talking to Shera."
"You will. After I'm done talking first."
Tifa sighed. "Fine." She went out of Shera's room, resisting the urge to slam the door.
After the funeral, Vincent's facade had dropped, even if not for long, and she had seen the emotion that was hidden beneath the surface. Now Vincent was back to being Vincent. Terse and unemotional at best.
Tifa pressed her ear up against the door, trying to catch what Vincent and Shera were saying, but their voices were still too muffled. When the murmuring of voices at last stopped and Tifa went back in, Shera was looking at Tifa like she had just spouted an extra head. Great, Tifa figured, feeling alot frusterated with her friend than she had felt in a long time. Vincent must have already told her HIS side of the story. That I'm crazy and talking to myself and should be locked up immediately.
"Tifa..Vincent said some intresting things have been going on. Do you want to tell me about them?"
"Yeah..okay."
Shera sounded a good deal to much like a shrink for Tifa's comfort, but she decided it couldn't hurt to give her the right story, not Vincent's own twisted version. Better to have her try to explain things than have Shera simply go on thinking she was a nutcase.
"Vincent,maybe you had best go while me and Tifa talk."
Tifa shook her head. "No, that's alright, Shera. I want him to hear this too." Couldn't hurt to try to convince Vincent she wasn't a nutcase as well while she as at it. Tifa didn't know why, but it bugged her that Vincent hadn't believed her. She had believed him when he had told of meeting Lucrecia's ghost, hadn't she? Hadn't everyone? So why couldn't he believe her now?
Thirty minutes later, Tifa had told Shera and Vincent almost everything. Her optimism that they would understand what had happened to her was not exactly at an all time high.
Vincent kept glancing at Tifa sideways the whole time she was talking, as if afraid she would break into a million pieces in front of his eyes. Shera, to her credit, only looked slightly shocked...but Tifa could clearly see she was skeptical and would probably go with Vincent's version of the whole thing.
Tifa had one last part she had left out, partly because she wasn't sure it would help her cause. It would either convince Shera and Vincent for good that she was crazy, or it would make them finally believe what had really happened.
She was about to explain to them how something had almost drowned her in the bathtub when Shera jerked forward almost mechanically in her chair, her eyes staring at nothing. For a split second, Tifa thought she was having a heart attack or something of the sort, but then just as quickly as it had happened, it was over, and Shera's eyes refocused as she leaned back in the chair again.
Tifa stared at her. "Shera??"
Shera blinked owlishly. "Afraid I must have fallen asleep. You'll have to excuse me. What with the funeral and all, it hasn't exactly been easy to get a good night's rest lately. " She smiled at Tifa and Tifa couldn't help but feel that something wasn't right. "Now where were we?"
"She was telling you about the voices," Vincent prompted.
"Oh yes, of course. Now about these voices..did they ever try to do anything to you? Harm you?"
"How..how did you know?" Tifa stuttered.
Vincent was becoming more and more uneasy as the conversation went on. Tifa was so convinced that the voices were really from someone else. Not a good thing.
Tifa continued. "I was taking a bath this morning and then it was as if I was drowning. No, I was drowning, I swear it. The bath wasn't a bath anymore, it was like an ocean or something. The voice was there the whole time, telling me-"
She stopped midsentence. Vincent was giving her another one of the strange, unreadable expressions in his reptoire and Shera looked absolutely horrified beyond belief. Vinccent had to rely on his adeptness as an actor of no emotion to keep from looking the same. This was what Cloud's death was doing to her? Tifa, so full of life, had tried to kill herself? He couldn't believe it. The last thing he needed was another person close to him dying. First Lucrecia and now her...
It was no use to try and pretend any longer. Vincent's characteristic calm went down the drain-he was too worried about Tifa to bother trying to act restrained and reserved. Hejumped up from the chair, pushing it to one side, his uncharacteristic action causing the full attention of both Shera and Tifa to focus on him at once.
" Cloud's death wasn't his fault, your fault..it wasn't anybody's fault except perhaps Sephiroth's. Killing yourself won't solve anything. I contemplated it for years before realizing as much."
Touching ( and shocking) as it was that Vincent was actually admitting something about himself, especially something she was sure was tied to Lucrecia's death, Tifa still mentally wished she could beat Vincent over the head with a stick to knock some sense into him. Gods, she had never taken him for the melodramatic type, but he certainly was acting that way now.
In Tifa's opinion, the old Vincent's face would have worn the same look upon hearing the news of Tifa jumping off a cliff as it would of if it heard she was getting married.. Vincent appeared to have been too busy wallowing in his past and misery to show emotions over anything else.
So why was he bothering now? It was puzzling. Very puzzling. She had almost been murdered, and all Vincent could think was that she had inflicted this torment on herself?
"Vincent..I didn't.."
But it was too late. Vincent, emberassed of the extent of emotions he had portrayed and realizing he was afraid that he was once again letting a person get too close to his heart, was out the door before Tifa could get the whole sentence out of her mouth.
Shera put her hand on Tifa's shoulder. "Don't mind him. We all are since Cloud's death, and I bet it's ten times worse for Vincent when he's already been through the death of one person close to him. It's why he has his barriers raised so high around all of us. He doesn't want anyone to get close enough for him to hurt so again. He's under alot of stress and pain. So are you. I think maybe it's best for you to get away for awhile. Go take a vacation somewhere, work things out for yourself."
"But where would I go?" Tifa trailed off. Shera appeared to be thinking.
"How about the Golden Saucer? It's the perfect place for you to relax a bit while having a good time."
Shera didn't think Tifa was a complete suicide attempt case, she just thought Tifa needed a break. Tifa felt relieved. At least one person believed what she had to say.
"Well..okay."
"Good. You go get packing. I'll call up and make you some reservations at the hotel." Shera picked up the PHS to start dialing. Tifa was about to go out the door, when on second thought, she wheeled around and stuck her head back through its frame.
"By the way, thanks."
"No problem, dear."
Shera spoke into the mouthpeice only after she was positive Tifa had left and was no longer within hearing distance. "Hello? Yes, I would like to ask if you have any vacancies in Corel prison right now? What crime did she do? Murder. Horribly bloody affair for me when I found out. Yes. Yes. An hour or so you say? Good. Thank you."
****************
Vincent came to see Tifa off at the train station in Wutai (a recently built modern addition to the somewhat old fashioned town) some hours later. She hadn't expected him to show up at all and told him so.
"Vincent, I didn't really think you would show after what happened this morning."
"I hoped you had forgotten it. I assure you it won't happen again." Vincent looked as if he was going back to being his usual unmoved by anything self, but then the tone of his voice changed. "That's not what I mean. Tifa. I'm sorry. I.." Vincent's mouth moved wordlessly as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't.
"I'll miss you." What made Tifa ventured to say such a thing, she had no clue. She knew it wasn't at all the words Vincent was thinking of, and would probably make him put up his guard against her more than ever, but she stated it anyway.
"I'll miss you too. Tifa, you must know that.." Vincent turned his face away, not wanting to let Tifa see what he deemed his weakness written there. "I'll miss you too.." He couldn't seem to get out what he wanted to say. It was right then that it hit Tifa exactly what Vincent wanted to say and though she couldn't put words to such a thing any easier than he could, she could show it.
And she did. Standing on her tippytoes, she kissed him full on the lips, her small hands on either side of his face before pulling away. Vincent staggered a few feet back from her, looking unsure..and frightened. Tifa had just broke down an icy wall inside him-one that he spent years making until it was a thing he was sure was indestructable. Vincent couldn't believe she had kissed him.
Tifa couldn't either, her head was a whirlwind of emotions and confused thoughts..she didn't know what had possessed her, but it was over and done with now and that was that. Turning her back on him, she ran up the steps to the train two at a time, waving to him before she went through the door. He didn't wave back and she didn't expect him to, but he gave her a glance that was worth enough to let her know that when she came back to Wutai, alot of explaining would be in order.
As Tifa watched him from a window as the train pulled away, she could tell Vincent was trying to communicate something with his eyes. Looking at him standing on the platform there as if rooted to the spot, she couldn't help thinking that he seemed more broken down and forlorn than she would ever be.
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A/N=Did you like it? Then please-oh pretty please- review!
by:GoldenSilence
Ch.6-Going away
disclaimer:All FF7 characters belong to their various creators.
---------
A/N=It's been two weeks since I updated this..sorry everyone!:DI will have a chapter out at least once a week from now on. The chapters will also be longer (and Christmas vacation is coming up-coincidence?I think not.:))
-----------
Vincent was the only one to speak as they walked quietly across the darkened hall to the room Shera was staying in.
"Look Tifa, I don't know if this is happening to you, whatever it is, because of Cloud's death, but everyone has to deal with this. We just have to get through it. You have to let it go."
Vincent sounded like he had been rehearsing that little sentence of his for months. Tifa was about to respond to Vincent when she realized they were at the door to Shera's room and that she really didn't know how to respond anyway.
She must have made quite a sight. Tifa's tears had not yet dried on her cheeks,she was still clad in a bathrobe, and her damp hair was dripping water on the floor and probably leaving similiar puddles all the way across the hotel.
Even after being woken up at the crack of dawn, Shera still looked as composed as ever. She scrutinized Tifa and Vincent.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing much"-Vincent tried to sound as nonchalant as possible-"just wanted to come in for a little chat."
Shera allowed herself the smallest raise of an eyebrow. If there was any word she had never dreamed Vincent would say it was chat. The closest she had ever heard him get to chatty was when he had talked to Tifa a few days ago. Of course!Tifa must have come to Shera to talk and Vincent, for some unknown reason, had decided to tag along. The idea of Vincent openly talking to Shera was unbelievable-not to mention uncomfortable.
"Of course," said Shera. Ignoring Vincent, she looked directly at Tifa. "What do you want to talk about?"
Vincent was still gripping Tifa's shoulder so hard it felt like it would fall off. "She'll talk afterwards. I want to talk first. Privately," he said tersly, as if it was an effort for him to get the words out.
Shera's eyebrows raised a little higher. Privately? What on earth? Then what was Tifa doing here?
"I..I..suppose."
Vincent nodded and suddenly let go of his grip on Tifa. She immediately began messaging her sore shoulder.
"I'm sorry, but I need to speak to Shera for a moment. Can you go outside?"
Tifa glared. "I thought I was supposed to be the one talking to Shera."
"You will. After I'm done talking first."
Tifa sighed. "Fine." She went out of Shera's room, resisting the urge to slam the door.
After the funeral, Vincent's facade had dropped, even if not for long, and she had seen the emotion that was hidden beneath the surface. Now Vincent was back to being Vincent. Terse and unemotional at best.
Tifa pressed her ear up against the door, trying to catch what Vincent and Shera were saying, but their voices were still too muffled. When the murmuring of voices at last stopped and Tifa went back in, Shera was looking at Tifa like she had just spouted an extra head. Great, Tifa figured, feeling alot frusterated with her friend than she had felt in a long time. Vincent must have already told her HIS side of the story. That I'm crazy and talking to myself and should be locked up immediately.
"Tifa..Vincent said some intresting things have been going on. Do you want to tell me about them?"
"Yeah..okay."
Shera sounded a good deal to much like a shrink for Tifa's comfort, but she decided it couldn't hurt to give her the right story, not Vincent's own twisted version. Better to have her try to explain things than have Shera simply go on thinking she was a nutcase.
"Vincent,maybe you had best go while me and Tifa talk."
Tifa shook her head. "No, that's alright, Shera. I want him to hear this too." Couldn't hurt to try to convince Vincent she wasn't a nutcase as well while she as at it. Tifa didn't know why, but it bugged her that Vincent hadn't believed her. She had believed him when he had told of meeting Lucrecia's ghost, hadn't she? Hadn't everyone? So why couldn't he believe her now?
Thirty minutes later, Tifa had told Shera and Vincent almost everything. Her optimism that they would understand what had happened to her was not exactly at an all time high.
Vincent kept glancing at Tifa sideways the whole time she was talking, as if afraid she would break into a million pieces in front of his eyes. Shera, to her credit, only looked slightly shocked...but Tifa could clearly see she was skeptical and would probably go with Vincent's version of the whole thing.
Tifa had one last part she had left out, partly because she wasn't sure it would help her cause. It would either convince Shera and Vincent for good that she was crazy, or it would make them finally believe what had really happened.
She was about to explain to them how something had almost drowned her in the bathtub when Shera jerked forward almost mechanically in her chair, her eyes staring at nothing. For a split second, Tifa thought she was having a heart attack or something of the sort, but then just as quickly as it had happened, it was over, and Shera's eyes refocused as she leaned back in the chair again.
Tifa stared at her. "Shera??"
Shera blinked owlishly. "Afraid I must have fallen asleep. You'll have to excuse me. What with the funeral and all, it hasn't exactly been easy to get a good night's rest lately. " She smiled at Tifa and Tifa couldn't help but feel that something wasn't right. "Now where were we?"
"She was telling you about the voices," Vincent prompted.
"Oh yes, of course. Now about these voices..did they ever try to do anything to you? Harm you?"
"How..how did you know?" Tifa stuttered.
Vincent was becoming more and more uneasy as the conversation went on. Tifa was so convinced that the voices were really from someone else. Not a good thing.
Tifa continued. "I was taking a bath this morning and then it was as if I was drowning. No, I was drowning, I swear it. The bath wasn't a bath anymore, it was like an ocean or something. The voice was there the whole time, telling me-"
She stopped midsentence. Vincent was giving her another one of the strange, unreadable expressions in his reptoire and Shera looked absolutely horrified beyond belief. Vinccent had to rely on his adeptness as an actor of no emotion to keep from looking the same. This was what Cloud's death was doing to her? Tifa, so full of life, had tried to kill herself? He couldn't believe it. The last thing he needed was another person close to him dying. First Lucrecia and now her...
It was no use to try and pretend any longer. Vincent's characteristic calm went down the drain-he was too worried about Tifa to bother trying to act restrained and reserved. Hejumped up from the chair, pushing it to one side, his uncharacteristic action causing the full attention of both Shera and Tifa to focus on him at once.
" Cloud's death wasn't his fault, your fault..it wasn't anybody's fault except perhaps Sephiroth's. Killing yourself won't solve anything. I contemplated it for years before realizing as much."
Touching ( and shocking) as it was that Vincent was actually admitting something about himself, especially something she was sure was tied to Lucrecia's death, Tifa still mentally wished she could beat Vincent over the head with a stick to knock some sense into him. Gods, she had never taken him for the melodramatic type, but he certainly was acting that way now.
In Tifa's opinion, the old Vincent's face would have worn the same look upon hearing the news of Tifa jumping off a cliff as it would of if it heard she was getting married.. Vincent appeared to have been too busy wallowing in his past and misery to show emotions over anything else.
So why was he bothering now? It was puzzling. Very puzzling. She had almost been murdered, and all Vincent could think was that she had inflicted this torment on herself?
"Vincent..I didn't.."
But it was too late. Vincent, emberassed of the extent of emotions he had portrayed and realizing he was afraid that he was once again letting a person get too close to his heart, was out the door before Tifa could get the whole sentence out of her mouth.
Shera put her hand on Tifa's shoulder. "Don't mind him. We all are since Cloud's death, and I bet it's ten times worse for Vincent when he's already been through the death of one person close to him. It's why he has his barriers raised so high around all of us. He doesn't want anyone to get close enough for him to hurt so again. He's under alot of stress and pain. So are you. I think maybe it's best for you to get away for awhile. Go take a vacation somewhere, work things out for yourself."
"But where would I go?" Tifa trailed off. Shera appeared to be thinking.
"How about the Golden Saucer? It's the perfect place for you to relax a bit while having a good time."
Shera didn't think Tifa was a complete suicide attempt case, she just thought Tifa needed a break. Tifa felt relieved. At least one person believed what she had to say.
"Well..okay."
"Good. You go get packing. I'll call up and make you some reservations at the hotel." Shera picked up the PHS to start dialing. Tifa was about to go out the door, when on second thought, she wheeled around and stuck her head back through its frame.
"By the way, thanks."
"No problem, dear."
Shera spoke into the mouthpeice only after she was positive Tifa had left and was no longer within hearing distance. "Hello? Yes, I would like to ask if you have any vacancies in Corel prison right now? What crime did she do? Murder. Horribly bloody affair for me when I found out. Yes. Yes. An hour or so you say? Good. Thank you."
****************
Vincent came to see Tifa off at the train station in Wutai (a recently built modern addition to the somewhat old fashioned town) some hours later. She hadn't expected him to show up at all and told him so.
"Vincent, I didn't really think you would show after what happened this morning."
"I hoped you had forgotten it. I assure you it won't happen again." Vincent looked as if he was going back to being his usual unmoved by anything self, but then the tone of his voice changed. "That's not what I mean. Tifa. I'm sorry. I.." Vincent's mouth moved wordlessly as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't.
"I'll miss you." What made Tifa ventured to say such a thing, she had no clue. She knew it wasn't at all the words Vincent was thinking of, and would probably make him put up his guard against her more than ever, but she stated it anyway.
"I'll miss you too. Tifa, you must know that.." Vincent turned his face away, not wanting to let Tifa see what he deemed his weakness written there. "I'll miss you too.." He couldn't seem to get out what he wanted to say. It was right then that it hit Tifa exactly what Vincent wanted to say and though she couldn't put words to such a thing any easier than he could, she could show it.
And she did. Standing on her tippytoes, she kissed him full on the lips, her small hands on either side of his face before pulling away. Vincent staggered a few feet back from her, looking unsure..and frightened. Tifa had just broke down an icy wall inside him-one that he spent years making until it was a thing he was sure was indestructable. Vincent couldn't believe she had kissed him.
Tifa couldn't either, her head was a whirlwind of emotions and confused thoughts..she didn't know what had possessed her, but it was over and done with now and that was that. Turning her back on him, she ran up the steps to the train two at a time, waving to him before she went through the door. He didn't wave back and she didn't expect him to, but he gave her a glance that was worth enough to let her know that when she came back to Wutai, alot of explaining would be in order.
As Tifa watched him from a window as the train pulled away, she could tell Vincent was trying to communicate something with his eyes. Looking at him standing on the platform there as if rooted to the spot, she couldn't help thinking that he seemed more broken down and forlorn than she would ever be.
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A/N=Did you like it? Then please-oh pretty please- review!
