Sunshine in Winter

the third month

We'd gone to see Dr. Bannon before we'd left. He kept on ending his
sentences very quickly, trying to be polite and not obviously filling
in the blanks. It was all right; I could do it for him.

"I'll give you these pills now, and these, uh, tranquilizers, for the
next month." Because after that, babe, you're so screwed. "You may
find it difficult to walk after a while because of your spine..." ...when
it melts down and begins to stick out your back! "I've set a list of
exercises that Mr. Valentine can help you with." I eat kittens for fun.
"You're in good shape." For a terminally ill poison patient, sweetcheeks.
"I'm sure that you can have a peaceful, uh…"

Silence hung in the air and I suddenly felt terribly sorry for him. He
must have been a pretty new doctor, not used to the frustration that
was a disease you couldn't cure. And for a point in his favour, he
hadn't given me the big I-Told-You-So. Stuttering and stammering over
the words, it was obvious he hated this part of being a doctor.

Didn't mean I liked the bastard any better.

"I don't like taking tranquilizers," I muttered, only half-broken.

"Isn't there anything else...?" Vincent, voicing the query I had been
about to demand. He knew himself that there was nothing else.

"Herbal medication isn't strong enough," Bannon said bluntly, and I
relished the fact that he wasn't stopping and starting like a faulty
motor, "though I have had faith in Asako Guirasame up to this point.
You may even want to invest in some mahoucine cetrinide."

My brain didn't follow, but Vincent's immediately did. "You want to
give her calenture?" he questioned softly, naming a high-class drug.
"Cloudland?"

"It's used for medicinal purposes, and – "

"And you are sooooo not giving me that shit, man. I'll take the
goddamn tranqs."

"Good," he said bleakly. "Mr. Valentine, if you'd come over to my
pharmocopoeia?"

Vincent stood up and walked through the door indicated, but Dr.
Bannon stopped a moment and looked at me.

"Miss Kisaragi?"

"Yo?" I looked up at him, from where I was gnawing at the inside
of one cheek.

"I'm – "

Fuck. He was trying to say sorry. I cleared my throat. "We won't
be seeing each other again."

He looked as if he was going to say something further; then he
ducked his head in new resolve and followed Vincent.

We left for Wutai almost immediately afterwards.

Autumn is the end of all that, more dreary than winter, when the
plantlife goes senile and the animals start hoarding and preparing for
a long boring winter. The sogginess underfoot is that of mulched-up
red-brown leaves and you can smell the stink of sweet plant
putrefaction. When I was younger I used to go and roll in the leaves
and wear the thick woollen sweaters my aunts would knit for me, renting
them past all recognition on the grasping sharp edges of tree-branches.

I think Vincent might be an autumn boy. He wears his yukata again and
melts gently into the landscape in it's rough material, hair braided in a
painstakingly uneven plait that my arthritic fingers took years to meld
together. Sometimes he has to turn around and look at me because he
feels my breath quicken as I work the strands; there's no danger. I
love his hair, soft and beautiful and agonizingly flawless – it reminds me
in a really creepy incestual-I'm-sure-way of my mother's. I want to
bury my face in it and breathe him in, the clean sweet smell mixed with
dust from the mountain. In the shadow of the trees he looks so Wutaian
that I expect him to pull a wakizashi out of nowhere any minute now and
fence in the twilight. He is the death of the year. He walks perpetually
in death. He is life twining away; not the sterile softness of winter ever,
but caught in the breathless preparation to let go that characterizes
fall.

All this death gives me the strange need to be near him. The hunger
to press my ear to his chest to hear his heartbeat overwhelms me
sometimes. I was never so frightened as when I looked at him, wondering
how slow and steady it was, when he grasped my chin and leaned forward
so I could place my ear above where it pulsed.

It was slow. Oddly slow. I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow, frowning at
the laboured beat of it.

"Modified heart," he said briefly.

"Ewww," I said gleefully, happily ruining the moment. "That's grossness,
Vincent. Why does it beat slower?"

"It's stronger in getting blood to the rest of my body. It needs fewer
pumps." He reached out two fingers to my neck, testing my own pulse.
"Yours is quicker, but still below average. It's a good thing."

"Do you have any other weird-ass organs?"

"… Brain enhancements."

"Ewwww."

"… Eye enhancements…"

"Ewwwww."

"Increased efficiency when using materia due to gland augmentation;
a more useful respiratory system; an ear on the back of my neck and two
spleens."

"… okay, now you're just pissing with me."

He kept his face perfectly straight. "And three stomachs."

"You can shut up now."

"And five throats."

"All your throats can shut up as well."

"I exude a slippery substance when frightened."

"You know, that's just disgusting."

"I have an egg sac on my thigh."

"Vincent, I'll throw up on you."

"And a trick foot."

"Vincent!"

I think I might be a bad influence. I think I might adore him.

… remains of sacrifices were found upon the altar; however, it is not
confirmed as to whether rituals and possible summoning of Aesculapius
took place within the temple proper or within another setting. Many
religious documents, which would have helped, were set on fire as part
of the purification process after the fever, unknowingly…

I read until my eyes hurt and remembered why I slept during school.

…fragments of materia recovered at point…

…coagulation point northwest of the…

…however, none recovered…

The results of my research weren't exactly good. Ten bazillion people'd
gone looking for Aesculapius before I made my plans. And they'd found
crap-all. Yet there was a little voice in the back of my head whispering,
'Go for it, Yuffie. Go.'

… yielded a high quantity of 'Heal' and 'Restore' materia. This was not
a sufficient amount to justify the area being a once-hallowed point of
worship for the Healing summon, which lead some to argue that there
was an area that had been passed over, but in all likelihood Aesculapius
was merely a primitive religious figure than a powerful Summon...

I should never trust the voices in the back of my head. They're the ones
who tell me to steal stuff. I'm sure I have demon possession, rather than
a conscience.

… with the death of the Jasonic tribe closest to the midpoint, all possible
leads have been lost, with only scattered ancestors to give any clues as
to the truth behind the stories…

I planned to leave in mid-Autumn. Anything after that, and it'd be too late.

Turned out I was too late anyway.

We kept inside that autumn. We let the windows open, to let the breeze
through of the fading summer flowers, but other than him sitting me in
the sunshine I didn't go outside. Vincent had a complete thing about me
getting enough sunlight; it contained Vitamin Annoyance or something.
I felt like a potted plant; I'm surprised he didn't water me.

I used to sit for long hours and hike my shirt up and wriggle my cotton
slacks off and stare at my body. The curving marks of poison that
twined up me like ivy on oak; they'd followed the veins up from my
thigh and my stomach and were creeping across my ribcage to my heart.
Slow death. There was one little vine that slowly inched it's way up
towards my armpit; I used to look at them and shudder until Vincent
pulled a sheet across me and gave me Asako's vile-tasting tea and watch
me weakly not-protest. I found out that it was fever-prevention, blocking.
I never really knew what fevers were for, before. My body was heating
up continuously to try and destroy the infection, which lived at my body
temperature and would hopefully die if exposed to one higher. However,
this was no ordinary infection and I would have burnt up like dry kindling
if my body was allowed to take control.

I still bit down on Vincent's fingers every time Grandma cut my leg
open. Still a wuss.

My sleeping patterns changed entirely and I have no idea when Vincent
ever did the deed himself. Sometimes I'd sleep the night through;
sometimes the day. Sometimes I'd sleep from five o'clock to three in
the morning. I always used to wake up to him leaning over me, stiff from
sleep and stiff from sickness, and let out a little contented kitten-purr as
he massaged all the stiffness out of me. My fingers would curl open and
my back would bend and my good leg stretch out. He never touched the
bad leg, not much; it hurt like a bitch. The only time he tried, I wept like
a little girl.

I woke up at three in the morning again, in the soft darkness, sky black-blue
and dotted with stars. I could see it from my window. There was a moon, too,
the barest sliver of a crescent. Or was it a gibbous? I forget; Vincent once
sat up with me and told me everything there is to know about waxing-waning
moons, but all I could remember is giggling like a maniac for hours over the
word 'gibbous'.

Hee, hee. Monkeys.

"Good morning, Yuffie." His voice is the purest lambent velvet. "How do you
feel?"

"Back, Vinnie." I closed my eyes, taking mental stock of my body. "Back hurts."
It didn't hurt so much as I couldn't really feel it. I couldn't feel my hips,
either. I felt like a block of black marble. I attempted to wiggle my toes;
they worked, albeit feebly.

He rolled me over, taking off my sweat-stained cotton shirt to work his magic
on my back. Long fingers worked the knots out of my neck, prompting a long soft
sigh of relief, and then he took his hands away.

"Don't stop," I muttered sleepily.

"… Yuffie, I haven't."

I paused.

"I have my hands on your lower back."

"I can't feel them. I must be numb this morning. I'll probably get a case of
screaming pins and needles in a moment."

He worked at me for a while. I could feel his hands moving my body from that
spot, but otherwise, it felt like nothing.

"Is that better?" he asked after a while.

"No."

Lying there in almost complete darkness with his hands on me that I couldn't
even feel, I began to get frightened.

"… Did you feel that?"

"I didn't feel anything."

"I just pinched you." His hand made it's way down my leg, where there was still
slight feeling. "Can you – "

"I can feel my leg, but – "

"Did you hurt your back and – "

"I would have told you, Vinnie – "

"I want you to try and sit up."

He rolled me onto my back again. My brain commanded my back to bend and for all
the little magic of my nervous system to burst into lightning sparks again, to
sit up. I gasped as I tried, like a fish, wriggling, arching my neck and
kicking out my leg as I tried to drag myself forward. It felt like there was an
invisible weight on my hips and back; the lower bits wouldn't respond and they
were fucking up the rest of my spine. I couldn't sit up.

"Vincent," I panted, "Vinnie, I – I can't – I – "

"Come on, Yuffie." Such gentle encouragement, and something razor-sharp and
screaming beneath it. "You can do it."

"I can't," I wept. "Ican'tcan'tcan'tcan'tIcan'tsitupohGodsohI'mgonnadieI'mgonna – "

Sharp and efficent, he slapped me. Not just slapped me lightly, but slapped me
hard enough to make me see stars and for my head to be knocked back. Without
preamble, he shoved me over onto my front again, fumbling with his good hand,
and did something to my spine that I was glad I couldn't feel. I just started
weeping in quiet misery, then felt all the air shoved out of my lungs as he
slammed his fist down in the area of my kidneys. My weeping slowed to little
baby hiccups of surprised pain. I honestly believed he hated me in that moment.
Hated me for being sick and hated me for not getting well and hated me for
dying, hated me for everything, just hated. Then he slowly rolled me over
again – dizziness – and sat me up himself, face drawn in a death mask of pain.
His eyes bled crimson. This was a death knoll for us. My back has given up; my
nerves have given up; how long before the rest of it does? Death begins in
tiers; I was slipping lower and lower and lower -

"I'm going to go get Asako." The velvet voice has turned canvas, scratchy and rough.

"No," I immediately moan. "No, Vinnie, please. Stay here. Don't leave me. Not
yet."

He bundles me up into his arms and swings his long legs over the side of the
bed. It's still dark with no sign of sunrise, no stain of grey in the east. He
props me up and holds the cup to my mouth as I drink the cooling tea he'd
prepared for me, sip by sip. I'm crying as I drink, chest convulsing, and he
wipes up the little drips that escape from my mouth with his forefinger.

I would never walk. I would never run. I would never go looking for Aesculapius
and I was dead already.

"I thought this wouldn't happen," I burble, all herbal tannin and saliva and
tears and sweat, "for months!"

"...it's not all your back. I can't guess at exactly what's affected, I'm no
expert on the spine, but – "

"But I can't walk, I can't sit up, I can't – I can't do anything, Vincent!
I'm a – a – a goddamn mongol! A retard! A cripple!"

"No, you're still Yuffie," he said, very wearily.

For some reason, that calmed me a little, or at least tickled my fancy enough
to make me giggle through my tea and snort it over my cheeks. I accepted the
next little bitter sip he offered, choking it down. He was taking the pillbox
from the table next to my little makeshift bed with unconscious ease, crushing
up the medicine and dropping it into my tea with his claw. Surprising, the
amount of dexterity he could wield from that goddamn thing. I accepted the tea
mutely again, tasting the pills beneath, making a face.

"Breathe," he instructed me gently, still seeing me choke, my hyperventilation
coming through. It was so claustrophobic, there in the darkness in the warmth
of his arms. "In. Out. In. Out."

I gulped for air, part of me amazed at myself. Old Yuffie never let anybody
tell her how to do things; here was Vincent telling me how to breathe, and me
accepting it as gratefully as if he was the reason air was pouring into my
lungs. Eventually the barrier melted and I gasped freely again.

The tea was all gone, lumpy herbs at the bottom. I swivelled them around
miserably. Vincent took the cup off me and set it on the sideboard.

"Now we go to Asa," he said, in a voice that would not be denied. My back
was marble as he lifted me up in his arms. I could see in the light now, from
the stars, that he was still just wearing drawstring pants and nothing on top,
hair in a messy topknot. He was beautiful enough to break my heart as he opened
the door and let the cold night air rush in, not bothering about a shirt or
about pants for me as he stepped out into the night and walked down the ancient
stone steps leading down from my house to get to Asako's.

I remember thinking that the moon was indeed gibbous.

Grandma, who was not God, could do fuck-all for me but we'd known that from the
outset. We constructed a brace for my back so I could be shoved in sitting
position without flopping over in a rubbery heap; Vincent carried me everywhere
usually anyway so that didn't change much, but I now had to be propped up almost
constantly and I had very little private time any more. Vincent woke me up many
times when I was sleeping to turn me over; eventually I learnt how to ignore
him and sleep through it.

I bitched about it unendingly. It seemed to make people feel better.

Dad's hair was grey. Vincent took me to sit with him, as was our custom, at
noon if I wasn't sleeping and we'd sit and watch his fish and his ponds and
talk with our silence. His hair wasn't white and ivory vanilla-scoop pure like
Asako's – it was grey like the smouldering ashes of wood. I hadn't known Godo
was getting old so quickly; I had this horrible feeling I knew the cause.

We sat on the bench. I had a chair that I could be strapped into, but the utter
humiliation of that meant that I ditched it almost every time in order to sprawl
over by myself. Dad and I had had a minor argument that was very refreshing
over whether I should sit in the chair or not, but eventually I ended up with
my head against his thigh breathing in his dandelion-sap smell and lying on the
bench watching the sky and his nose.

"Your nosehair's getting grey, old man," I commented.

"So is everything else."

"You should pluck it."

"Keeps my nostrils warm for winter."

"You're a disgusting, senile old man."

"You're a worthless ingrate of a daughter."

There was another long moment of silence. A thick grey-wool cloud scudded
overhead. The sky was the colour of arctic ice. Vincent was somewhere else in
the garden, most likely thankful for a breather from me. If I craned my neck I
thought I could see the arm of his yukata.

"Yuffie," Godo suddenly said, gentle and very quiet. "We need to talk."

"Shoot."

"As you know, I signed over the rulership of Wutai to you before you left. I've
been acting as regent in your absence."

"Actually, no, I didn't." I hadn't even thought about it. Lady Kisaragi. They
called me that anyway.

"Do you never pay attention?" he scolded. "Yuffie, this is very important, so
please open your fool ears and listen for once."

I opened up my fool ears and listened.

His hand came down to stroke my hair. The affection of the action immediately
set me on edge. "Yuffie, every leader of Wutai must pick a heir if they have no
sons or daughters of their own before they die."

"If I die, won't you become leader again?"

"In a way. That could happen. But that is the bad way. You cannot pick me
legitimately as heir – if you did, it might be seen as my grasp for power anew,
and someone else might make a bid for lordship of Wutai and claim you didn't
have full grasp of your wits. The people want a young heir. It would be better
if you chose somebody now – one of your cousins, maybe – someone young."

"Shake?" I suggest. "Chekov?"

"They're retainers, Yuffie. Young. I was thinking Arin, or perhaps Kaede – "

"Dad!" I immediately explode. "Arin doesn't want to be ruler of Wutai!" He was
my shy cousin, currently someone working in the Turtle's Paradise bar in order
to earn enough money to go to Junon. We didn't talk often, but when we did
talk, I got an anti-impression of leadership-wantingness. "He'd hate the job.
And Kaede's a ditz. She'd let anyone marry her to seize power."

"I know," he said ruefully. "But there must be a heir. Why did you think I
wanted you to have babies so badly?"

"Because you were a dirty old sadist!"

"Your younger relative are much too young," he said softly. "And what with your
life expectancy, may I put this bluntly, won't be ready by the time you leave
this vale of tears." His voice had hardened. I think he was trying not to cry.
"You could just pick Arin as an intermediate, someone who can hand power over
when the time comes, perhaps – "

"So this is how the Kisaragi dynasty ends? A slew of caretakers?"

"Yes," he snapped suddenly. "It ends with the death of their Lady
before her time because she was damn fool enough to wander around the world for
Gods-know-how-long and ignore her duties and get herself bitten by a poisonous
monster and have all the grace to die when her father has barely any years
left in himself. All that we have worked for – all that we have gained – might
collapse if you leave us without a leader!"

The garden was silent.

"The people want someone upstanding," I murmured.

"Yes."

"Someone strong."

"Yes." His voice was wistful.

"Someone who won't abuse power."

"Yes. Yuffie, what are you – "

"Someone who I approve of."

Suspicion darkened in his eyes. "Yuffie – "

"Someone who, importantly, will last a bit. Yo, Vincent," I hollered, pushing
myself back against my father's leg so that I could make a stab at sitting up.
He moved to support me immediately. "Vinnie, get over here."

He stopped looking at the roses and walked over, all grace, eyes quizzical. My
father was looking at me like I'd pulled open a time bomb.

"Yuffie?"

"Vinnie? How much Wutaian blood do you have?"

His brow furrowed as he thought that over, lips curving in a sardonic small
smile. "...I worked in a takeaway when I was thirteen."

"That'll do. Dad? I pick him."

"Yuffie, you are not picking him as your heir!"

"…Yuffie, you are not picking me as your heir."

They said this at the exact same time. Stooges.

"How did you hear me from all the way across the garden?" I accused Vincent
suspiciously, then turned back to Godo. Maybe he really did have an ear in the
back of his neck. "Look. Vincent's good at this. The people like him and he's
an ex-member of AVALANCHE – the only man with more status is bloody Cloud
Strife, but he couldn't run a village if you paid him, he can barely brush his
own hair without losing the comb."

"If he's brushing his hair, why does he have a comb?"

"Well, he's that idiotic."

"Yuffie!" Vincent's voice was slightly panicked. "Yuffie, I have... I have no
idea on how to run a village, a – a city! I don't want that sort of power.
I want to be left alone," he finished plaintively.

"Tough. Vincent, if I don't have you, I don't have anybody. Do you want Wutai
to die along with the rest of me? Are there going to be two deaths, instead of
one?" I clenched my hands into fists, mouth twisting in a scowl that meant I
was going to cry soon. "When I die, I know what's going to happen to you. You're
going to nail yourself back in your coffin, or go out to Gongaga and live in a
little house and never talk to anybody – and that's the good ending scenario.
Or you'll go back to the Waterfall and live there licking mould off the walls
and bemoaning the rest of your life because not only did you let Lucrecia die
but you let me die as well." He stepped back at that. That shot told! The
immediate anger in his eyes was one I could hardly bear, but I pushed on.
"Are you doing this just to hurt yourself, Vincent? Do you want to see
me die? Do you want to beat yourself up over it for the next ten kazillion
years? I'm not letting you use me for that. Not ever!

"So, and in my legally binding word as Lady Kisaragi, I proclaim you, Vincent
Valentine, my heir and Lord in my place. I also adopt you as one of the Shinobi;
your honour is our honour; your dishonour our dishonour." My voice fell into
booming ritual cadence. My father was looking horrified, but it was too late to
stop. Vincent looked like he'd swallowed a frog that was kicking all the way
down. "Your blood is our blood. This family is your family. You are Kisaragi Vincent."

My wasted lungs ran out of puff by that point and I had to take a lungful of
breath. Amen.

Godo and Vincent had silent apoplexies and died on the floor. Well, at least, I
think that's what they wished had happened. That, or it suddenly happening
to me. Vincent looked as if he dearly wanted to turn Chaos and strangle me.

Suddenly, my father spat into his palm. "I witness this," he said softly in
lilting Wutaian, "and declare it binding."

I spat into my own. "I witness this," I repeated softly, "and declare it
binding."

We both looked at Vincent. Very, very slowly, he spat into his hand, and we all
grasped fingers. I wondered momentarily why we couldn't use something less
disgusting for binding agreements, like vomit or arterial blood.

"I witness this," he rumbled, voice somewhere in his boots, "and – and declare
it binding – and – Yuffie – "

His eyes met mine. They were full of anger and unwary resentment and something
so tender and young and uncertain that I didn't care any more.

"If ever I live," I began, and I don't know why I said it that way, only I
suddenly felt ancient and much older than he was – crap, I didn't even know
what I was saying anyway, it was in my voice, not my words - "if ever I live, I
do for you, Kisaragi Vincent – "

He wrapped his arms around me, spit and all. Godo stood up and left us tactfully
to that private clinging moment, my head on Vincent's shoulder, and I don't
know what he thought. Kisaragi Vincent. The name felt so good on my tongue. As
if I'd finally swallowed him and made him a part of me, forevermore.

"I love you, you know," I said softly.

Vincent looked up at me. There was something so twenty-seven in his timeless
eyes that my mouth split in a grin.

"Your love, Yuffie," he said, equally soft, "is a ferocious thing."

In the heartbeat of that moment I thought that he might kiss me. His hands were
warm, propping up my useless back, body carefully placed against the throb of
my leg. He suddenly wasn't Vincent, sixty-something ancient in a young man's
body; he was the other half of me, alive and passionate and crystalline. No
demons. No hurt.

Instead, he lifted me up into his arms, standing. "...and, frankly, it sucks."

"Vincent! Vincent! You said 'sucks'!"

He propped his arms around me with a sigh. "… yes, Yuffie."

"You used an example of pop culture! Oh, Vincent!" I craned my head up. "Is
Meteor coming? Because, you know, you just said 'sucks'."

"...yes, Yuffie."

" And you said it as a derogatory term, not as a verb, which might have been
pardoned, as in, 'this vacuum sucks', but instead, you said 'it sucks', a
popular term for describing something as negative!"

He rolled his eyes in 'why me?' despair, and we went inside to wash our hands.
Well, for him to wash our hands.

"… you really said it!"

"… yes, Yuffie…"

Funny how things turn out.

And how short it is from grief to joy, smiles to tears, pain to youth. I saw my
life as a rapidly shortening line, a date to end by, my entire body coated
thick in the bright sheen of mortality. I had a legacy. I had Vincent in my
stead when I died. I had him up until that moment when my heart gave off and I
left for the big Materia Hut in the sky. He was part of my family now – that
was just too, too cool. I had so much.

One jump from grief to joy. Hope to shattered disappointment. I had been so
eager to just slip away as my last swan song and come back whole, radiant,
healed, Aesculapius. God, why did I even think that I would succeed where
billions of others hadn't, with time and resources and health on their hands? I
was going to die.

I didn't want to die now. Not quietly. Not gracefully.

My father told me –

Nobody dies gracefully, Yuffie, or with dignity – it's all a lie. Your mother...
in her last hours... refused any more medication and begged me to take her
outside to let her die. With dignity.

She died spluttering and gasping and unable to move with her eyes begging me
not to let her die, Yuffie. She died with no dignity. She simply died outside
in the sunshine. There is no gracefulness in letting go – rarely – if ever –
here will never be... Kisaragis die in battle. Not because it has dignity – but
because is at least mercifully quick, and because nobody expects grace on a
battlefield...

I'd read the Aesculapius (and Ashura) sections until I'd memorized them off by
heart; then I ransacked my father's library for more. I used to lie in my bed
in rainy nights, propped up by pillows, poring through them. There was so
goddamned little about this Summon! Some books dismissed as rumour; others
protested as fact. I looked through every book – every materia tome, every
geography volume. Vinnie had never cottoned on to my researching my miracle, no
matter how damn unsubtle I'd been – I'd clipped up all the reports, all the
maps, all the articles and hid them underneath my mattress. I laughed
hysterically afterwards, to think I could have done it all by myself as I'd
used to do.

And now? I couldn't walk and was fading fast. Without the steady diet of
medication – medication that I didn't really know how to pick and administer to
myself – I could cark it in a week. I needed more than a week to look for
Aesculapius. It was getting close to my fourth month of illness – longer than
that, really – and it was only if I was lucky that I was supposed to live
to a fifth and sixth. My life was a rug being pulled away from underneath my
feet, and I'd already fallen with a bump on my ass. I moved into the same sort
of depression I'd had when I'd first been in Wutai with my disease; no matter
what Vincent did, all I used to do was sleep, and when I woke I was sullen and
silent.

So, as one last bitter goodbye to my hopes, I decided to burn the entire
printouts I'd gathered of the stupid mountains and the stupid summon and the
stupid maps and kiss the ashes away. In my own rank stupidity, I asked Vincent
to hand me the Fire materia.

"Why do you hate the geography of the Icicle Mountains so much?" he asked me
mildly, looking over the papers, the maps and the places I'd marked, the paths
to take.

"Just hand me the damn materia," I'd groused. "I want to send this all to hell."

He fingered through the reports, one eyebrow raised. "Why?"

"...Promise you won't laugh at me?"

"I swear."

My shoulders slumped as I crossed my arms. "...I wanted to go looking for a
summon, a poison-healing summon. Don't know why I thought it would work. Just
one of those pipe-dream last-ditch attempts, I guess."

"Aesculapius." He'd barely listened to my rant, shuffling through the papers.
"You… you wanted to go look for it?"

"Yeah."

"Shinra looked, you know. When I was a Turk…"

"M'sorry I got so excited over it, then."

He looked at my miserable, drawn little face, with the bones sticking out. "Is
that why you've been so cheerful, Yuffie? Before your... back? You wanted to go
find this summon?"

"I wanted to live."

He was silent for a long time over that.

"If even mighty Shinra found nothing," I shrugged, "I suppose I'm glad I didn't
try. I probably would have just died up in the mountains. Better, though,
really, to cark it among all that snow, you'd get made into a popsicle in
moments, no rot or anything gross - "

There was another moment of silence as he went to my little kitchen, pouring
himself a cup of tea and sipping at it, bloodied eyes a million miles away. He
seemed to be thinking about something so hard his brain looked like it was
steaming.

"Yuffie," he eventually said softly, "I never said Shinra never found anything."

My heart stopped.

"They found… they found traces, they…"

One of my arms reached out and snagged him forward bodily, eyes burning. Though
my arm was weak, I tugged him forward as hard as I possibly could, practically
falling out of the bed. "Vincent Valentine, you are taking me to that mountain
whether you like it or not."

"Yuffie, your back…"

"You can carry me."

"…It's freezing."

"I'll pack a jacket."

"It's full of monsters."

"Give me a gun."

"Your father."

"So don't tell him."

"Half a dozen things could kill you in your condition…"

"Bring it on."

"…"

"Did you or did you not listen to the 'whether you like it or not' clause?"

"I know," he said heavily, long strands of ebony falling loose from the neat
ponytail at the nape of his neck and grazing his cheeks. "I'm going to end up
taking you, aren't I?"

"You bet, Vinnie baby." My cheeks were flushed, and I couldn't wipe the grin
off my face. One step, from disappointment to hope again. "You'll really take
me?"

"Of course, Yuffie." A wry smile spread across his features, one hand slipping
to prop my useless back up comfortingly. "I don't break my promises."

"And which promise was that?"

"Mine to myself; to make sure you lived."

"Aw, Vin. I don't know what I'd do without you..." I wrapped my arms around his
neck, cheek on his shoulder. "You just don't want me to die and force you to
become Lord Vincent, you asshole," I added tenderly.

"Exactly."

I pecked him on the cheek, though for two pins I would have stuck my tongue
down his throat and played tonsil hockey with him out of pure gratitude.
However, that might have been pushing it. He looked like my avenging angel to
me at that moment, crimson eyes composed. I couldn't believe he had acquiesced
so easily on the issue, that he was taking me, taking the chance. I couldn't
not find Aesculapius after such a display of faith. "I'm going to live, Vincent.
I swear! I'm going to live!"