Vincent's Last Birthday Escapade:

Part Three

By Darknightdestiny

Tifa watched Vincent's face with an indescribable fear. Her eyes nervously darted about his form, checking for indications that at any moment, he would be overcome with rage and transform into one of Hojo's creations so that he could rip them all to shreds. His own eyes remained focused on the screen, his mouth slightly parted, she noticed, as it was when he had first discovered Ken and Johnny in his apartment. As she was noticing this, he blinked, and those same eyes flicked over in her direction.

So it was him after all. They were the same eyes, albeit that they were red now, and the same mouth. He had the same thick hair that shone like the dark metal of the Quicksilver, and the same smooth, pale skin, albeit that now it was a much lighter shade from being locked away for so long. Vincent stared at Tifa in silence before his gaze drifted slowly about the room, settling on each member of AVALANCHE. Everyone in the room met his stare with nervous fidgeting, waiting to see what he would do next. The air was silent, save for the easily recognizable sounds of a tattooing needle working its master's will in the background, where the tape still whirred about two small spools within the old machine. Tifa had always held a strange power of persuasion, and right then, she wished to all of the stars above that she had tried harder to convince the rest of them not to watch that tape.

Vincent stood motionless for a bit more, and then he turned his gaze back to the television screen, focusing in on the scene before him. He inched towards it without making a sound, watching the entire process with the curiousity of a child, seemingly mesmorized by it. The others watched him in fascination as he gave his young self a personal, silent appraisal, but Tifa knew better when she caught a familiar look passing quickly over the gunman's delicate features. An instant later, and much to the surprise of everyone else in the room, Vincent's hand shot out and clicked the ejection button on the machine. He slid the black object out from the machine and exited the room swiftly without so much as one word. Some stared after him with curiousity, while others did so with a heavy feeling of guilt weighing on their hearts. In the middle of this moment of quiet reflection, a young ninja's voice pierced the stagnant air.

"Vinny, wait!" Yuffie ran after him while, one by one, the others acquired a look of dread, as they anticipated the events that would soon transpire. There was no stopping Yuffie Kisaragi when it came down to anything involving Vincent Valentine. The members of AVALANCHE were directing their gazes towards Cid at this moment, and even Cloud was prepared to blame the pilot, even though each of them had participated in the deed of their own free will. Cid looked back at the rest of them and threw his hands up in the air.

"What!? Now it's all my fault?" Cloud nodded. Tifa wasn't listening. She had her eyes fixed on the doorway that had just become Yuffie's exit, and she had a look of worry and deep contemplation on her face. One after the other, the rest of the members of AVALANCHE assured Cid that the entire incident was his fault. When Tifa didn't say anything, Cid became curious.

"Hey, Tif. Aren't ya gonna say somethin'?" There was no answer. "Tif? Hey, Tif...what's on yer mind?"

Tifa broke from her silent spell at the sound of the older man's rough voice. "Hmm? Oh, nothing..."

"It doesn' look like nothin'."

"...I was just thinking."

"Well, shit! Ain't ya gonna tell yer ol' pal Cid what's up?"

"...What do you think she's going to do to him?" Cid paused and scratched his head for a minute. The rest of the team stopped to listen to his conversation with Tifa. When Cid realised what she had meant by her comment, he too began to grow worried about the gunman. Yuffie had a heart for Vincent, that was certain, but she wasn't exactly the best counselor. In fact, the young shinobi had no social tact at all, and she was rather blunt in everything she said, an admirable trait to some, but nevertheless, quite hurtful at times.

"Vinny, wait up!" Yuffie scrambled after the man in black and red, desperately trying to keep up with his quick pace as he ascended the staircase. "Vinny!" He didn't answer her and continued walking in silence. Yuffie would have called it 'storming off,' had Vincent shouted, slammed a door, or done anything to that effect. But Vincent never did things in that manner, and so as far as said ninja knew, it very well could be.

Yuffie reached the top of the stairs and ran down the right corridor before turning sharply to the right once more, only to be met with the door, it having just been shut in her face. Yuffie balled her hands into tight fists and stomped on the ground, shouting at the top of her lungs. "Vincent Valentine! Come back here!" The door remained shut. Yuffie tried to open it, but it was locked. She pounded on it with her fists. "Vinny! Please come out!" Still no response. Yuffie put her head up to the door and listened through the woodwork for any signs that Vincent might comply. The room was completely silent beyond the door, which only served to frustrate the young shinobi further. She growled, "You know, Vinny, you can be such a stubborn ass sometimes!"

Yuffie was about to storm off herself, when she heard a faint clicking sound come from the other side of the door. 'What was that?' She stopped mid-step. A sudden realization dawned on her and she turned on her heel and ran back to the door, flying at the speed of lightning. "Vinny, don't do it!" she screamed, throwing herself at the door, hoping to break it open. Instead, it opened upon her arrival, sending her stumbling into the dark room.

The ninja went sprawling forward and caught herself on the back of a chair, banging her shin in the process. She wheeled around again, a stream of curses falling from her mouth. Vincent stood by the doorway, watching her with an expressionless face. She positioned herself upright and faced him, and he adjusted his eyes to her established height before muttering softly, "...Words unfit for one so young." His hand slid from the doorknob as he moved away from the door, the fingers lingering on the metal as he did so. The knob turned, and Yuffie recognized the distinct clicking noise it made.

Yuffie's eyes went wide for a moment, and then her face filled with fury. "Vincent, you did that on purpose, didn't you?!" she screamed, remembering his cruel sense of humor. Vincent just stared back at her, bewildered by her sudden anger, but nonetheless amused by it. In truth, he had no idea as to what she was alluding, but he didn't remember doing anything that should make her upset. She stood there with her hands firmly placed on her bony hips, waiting for some sort of explanation. When she didn't receive one, she ran at him, ready and wanting to throw a fit, but instead only punching him once in the shoulder before burying her face in it. "Vincent," she whimpered, "I was so scared!"

It was then that Vincent decided he would take a couple of seconds for a quick 'time out,' so that his brain could reload. First, he sees his deceased lover in a cave, and so he goes back to the mansion so that he can be alone for a while. Then, he wakes up to find that everyone has left the house and has been crowded around Cid's television to watch a film featuring a very personal moment in his own life. The next thing he knows, there is a small girl attaching herself to him. "Yuffie...what are you talking about?" The young ninja shifted in his arms and poured out her complaints to him rather hurriedly.

"Vinny, you've been so down since we left that waterfall- well, more than usual- and I was worried about you, and I thought you'd be mad at me, and then I heard a click, and then I thought you were going to do something stupid, and oh, Vinny, don't ever leave us!"

Vincent began to wonder if his thought reprocessing had been in vain, as he tried to understand what was plaguing the young girl. One eyebrow raised in question, and the other followed before his face finally settled into a frown of dismay and possibly insult. Yuffie wasn't paying attention. She was much too preoccupied with squeezing the life out of Vincent than she was with noticing his facial expressions, as rare as they were. "...I may be a bit on the side of depressed..." and here he set her away from him, "but I would never stoop so low." Yuffie looked up at him and smiled.

"Good." She pointed her finger at him, "You had better not. I'd miss you." Had she not heard what he'd said? Vincent was suddenly torn between wanting to pat the girl on the head and wanting to slap that silly grin off her face. Of course, Vincent Valentine would never hit a lady...

...except for maybe Scarlet. Not that she was a lady. But then again, neither was Yuffie.

Vincent blinked back at Yuffie before getting a smug smirk on his face. 'Oh, is that so?' he thought to himself. Yuffie just stared back at him, no doubt thinking that just maybe she had gotten him to smile, touched his heart somewhere, gotten him to notice how much she really cared. She, with her bright enthusiasm and energetic charm, had gotten Vincent Valentine to smile.

Vincent closed in and swept her off her feet, quite literally, and her heart leapt up into her throat. Her chest fluttered as he carried her across the room, and she contemplated all the possibilities of this all-so-sudden turn of events, analyzed every detail of his actions, as so many girls will do. Yuffie held her arms tightly about his neck...

...and so the jerking motion was all the more prevalent when she found herself promptly relocated- or as she would put it, 'dropped'- inside the hallway, Vincent's door once again barring her way. Yuffie rose from her crumpled position at the foot of Vincent's door and checked herself for injuries. She glared at the offending barricade of wood and shouted loudly at it, so as to relieve her stress. "Jerk!" Of course, the door would not answer back.

The ninja girl muttered various obscenities to herself as she dusted herself off, and somewhere between the word, "ungrateful," and the phrase, "son of a bitch," no doubt a phrase she'd picked up courtesy of Cid Highwind, her eye caught the figure of Tifa Lockheart. Tifa leaned against one of the corridor walls, a glazed over and sympathetic look on her face. Whether it was sympathy for Vincent, the shinobi herself, or for the entire scene in general, Yuffie could not tell. Yuffie balled her fists again and stamped her foot, glaring once again at the gunman's door in frustration. "Tifa, men are stupid."

Yuffie finally did storm off, leaving Tifa alone in the hallway of the mansion with only her thoughts to occupy her. The echo of Yuffie's retreating footsteps disappeared as they gradually faded from Tifa's hearing range. A strong gust of wind blew in through one of the open windows and tossed dark chocolate strands about the young woman's face, neck and shoulders. Holding her arms protectively about herself, hoping to block out the sudden chill that began creeping over her, Tifa walked slowly over to Vincent's door and pushed herself up against it, listening for any movement inside. When she heard none, she softly called out Vincent's name, but she got no answer. She decided that though it would seem almost too simple, and though it was highly unlikely, she would try the only other thing that came to mind.

She turned the doorknob, and it opened easily.

Tifa stepped inside the room, and she looked around, her eyes searching every inch of it. The light from outside did not illuminate this room as it did the rest of the mansion. Dark curtains had been draped over the windows with a deliberance, out of place and overlapping the previous set. The room was surrounded in shadow, and Vincent was nowhere to be seen.

Tifa's eyes met with the familiar stone wall that had been their portal to the lab and to Sephiroth the first time they had revisited Nibelheim. That was also the first time they had met Vincent, when they'd awakened him from his dreamlike- or nightmarish- state. Tifa walked over to the stone wall and bent down, her fingers trailing over the edges of the stones, looking for the release. When she finally found it, she hesitated in lifting it, but she eventually realised that, being who she was, she would never be able to rest peacefully without talking to Vincent about what had happened that day. Tifa slowly lifted the outer wall, a surprisingly light imitation of the stone shell that surrounded it, over her head, and she stepped out of the room and onto the winding staircase leading down to the basement.

Looking down the stairwell, Tifa didn't see any sign of Vincent lingering at the exit, but she had a feeling that she knew he was down there. She descended the staircase, taking her time so as to plot her next course of action. Or perhaps she was merely reliving this scene from her past, though this time she was alone, rather than with the other members of AVALANCHE, and she would be 'discovering' Vincent in a completely different way. She was afraid of what she might find, unsure of what state he might be in, but she dismissed her fear and pressed onward, knowing that if she did not, she might never be able to forgive herself.

When Tifa reached the bottom of the stairwell, she was faced with a choice. She could either stop where she was and turn into the door on the left, or she could continue on to the study. She thought that most would assume him to be in his coffin, if only for their fanciful preoccupations with fabrications and fantasy. While Tifa could think of a few reasons why Vincent would be in the study, she knew that she need go no further. Vincent would not dare go to the lab, after being reminded of all that he had lost. Instead, he would focus on how he deserved it, pushing away any true recollection of why his life had ended up the way it had, covering up the pain with whatever he could, so that he didn't have to face it.

Tifa knew Vincent much better than he would have thought she did.

Tifa stopped outside of the door to Vincent's coffin room, knowing full well that the door locked from the outside, but dreading the effect it might have if she walked in unannounced and uninvited. She leaned against one of the side walls and ran her hand over the flat surface protectively, before calling out to him. She was surprised to hear a ruffle of fabric, before a soft and quiet voice filtered through the wood.

"...Tifa."

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A/N: I wanted to say something about the "I would never stoop so low" comment. This is not to discredit fanfictions that have been written about the possibility of him actually commiting the deed; that is just his attitude about it in this particular story. This is not even my opinion about his character in general...I may insert something like that into another story in the future.

Also, the next update, which I hope will be sooner, will be the actual last update. This was going to be it, but I decided I needed more time...because I am going to launch this as a prequel to a brand new fic I want to create. I had this idea one day, and I can't ignore it. And so...a new story is born. I have to think of a title, though.

I must apologize for being a Yuffentine tease. I know I received a request that I make this a Yuffentine, but I just could not. I understand how the setting would seem right for one, but when I started this story, I already had a certain 'heart-to-heart'/vignette/sappy-mushy-thingy, for lack of a better word, planned out in my head. And it didn't really involve Yuffie...

So, yes. There is one more part coming. I want to update this soon, but I want to make sure it is good and worthy of the effort. I don't want to read it over a month later and say, "Oh, I could make that so much better!" But Christmas vacation is coming, and I'm so excited about that, because it means I don't have to go to school! Which means I have plenty of time to work on my four fanfictions that I am doing simultaneously, because I am insane, and don't know how to pace myself.

If anyone wants to know the status of my fics, or how the actual process is coming along, you can find out by going to my LiveJournal. The link is on the homepage I listed in my profile. I use the thing as more of a project updating list with a few boring snippets from my life, plus a scrapbook for all of those ludicrous quizzes. But I always seem to write about what I have left to do as far as fanfiction goes, so if you really can't wait to find out, then look it up. Also, I get a bunch of questions about my stories from unsigned reviewers, so I can't really answer them...but if you want to leave an anonymous comment in my LJ or whatever, and then I can reply to it, then you'll be able to check up on it later and read my answer.

Thanks for reading.