Disclaimer: Don't own Final Fantasy VII, or Vincent, or Tifa, or Nibelheim, or...well, you get the picture. Just inserting them into the machine of my imagination and watching what pops out.
Remembering Lily
(Not a song-fic, but strangely inspired by the song 'Here Without You' by Three Doors Down. The title and switching perspectives suggested by a short story called 'Remembering Siri' by Dan Simmons.)
by: thelittletree
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
D'ya?
I remember. And I'll always remember. We could've laughed about it over the mouth of a bottle slick with whiskey and our saliva. Cried numb, inebriated tears until you asked me what the hell we were doing. I'd say that I couldn't remember. But I would. I'll always remember.
Poked me. Prodded me. With the barest glance of your eyes, gesture of your hand, twitch of your lips. Maybe I just needed the direction. Whatever it was. A vigilant signpost, relentlessly pointing out the way until I couldn't ignore.
Well, maybe that wasn't the only reason I couldn't ignore. Never told you, but I was the one who started it. Wanted her first, made her kiss me. Made her want me, living corpse that I am. Made her touch me until I couldn't stop gasping, until every part of me ached, until I was listening to her heartbeat, her moans, and knowing again what it was to be twenty-five and in love with the forbidden.
Masochist, you said once. Maybe. Never cut myself to watch it bleed. Never shot myself to feel the pain of breaking, the all too brief pleasure of losing the agony of living in the thrill of possibly dying.
I can't die. Not like you. Maybe I'll never see you again. I'm sorry I didn't say all of the things you knew already. I loved you, too, Lily. I loved your strength, your words when I didn't know what to say, your silence when there was nothing to say. I loved how you were never far away. My skin, when mine had been stripped away to leave me vulnerable. The first flower in my mind when thoughts were dead trees and rotting grass. The closeted part of me where I could hide when everything else was too raw for me to bear.
I don't need to tell you. I think you always knew.
I love her, Lily. I love her, and without you here I'm terrified of her. She will never replace you, I've realized; though she will be comfort and warmth and pleasure and conversation, and all of the things I can't help loving about her. She will reminisce about you to me, and that will be my mourning. You would understand, I know. Even if I never shed a tear for you, you wouldn't be offended. You'd just call me the stubborn, emotionally-constipated jackass that I am and pull out your cards and cigarettes.
Do you remember, Lily? The day Tifa did a handstand in your kitchen? The day you feather-dusted my ear and laughed and apologized later for the bruise on my arm where I'd hit the table, trying to escape twenty pinching, tickling, merciless fingers? The day you couldn't catch your breath and we began to hold ours?
I remember. I'll always remember. The day you caught death from where it lived in me. I'm so sorry. You were right. I was dangerous for you. But your friendship was without conditions. And I know you wouldn't want me to blame myself.
I blame myself anyway. I don't know what I could've done differently to save you. But I blame myself. I can't help it. You asked me to burn the hospital bed that last day I visited; told me to set it on fire, reduce it to ashes after they'd put you in the ground. And I smirked, swallowed the lump in my throat. Promised you in my heart.
Didn't do it. I'll burn my own body, if you want, Lily, for not picking your fragile body up out of that bed and taking you home where you wanted to be. I'm so sorry.
Your garden is blooming. Tifa is trying to teach me how to keep it alive. Watering, weeding, fertilizing, and a lot of careful consideration. Something you need to make time for every day. Something you need to be patient for, and consistent with. Something that depends on you, until you come to depend on it for that hour or two during the day when everything else is forgotten in that reliably silent company.
You even gave me the sunshine, didn't you, Lily? I was your garden, once upon a time. I was your garden of dead flowers that you cultivated until the weeds weren't so choking, until there was food and warmth again, until there was even a little bit of colour sometimes. Magic fingers, you joked sometimes as we sat in the yard and smoked and watched the clouds pass over our tiny corner of the world. And I believed you.
Magic is passing from the world, Lily -- a transient power only brought into being when humankind needed it. Truthfully, I know it has already passed, buried in the earth again, six feet beneath your headstone. Gone, like a rainstorm, like your annuals, like every other human I will ever meet. But you were there when I needed you, Lily.
Thank you.
* * *
It always seemed to be raining. Pathetic fallacy, Tifa had murmured before opening her umbrella and handing it to him, and then standing close with one hand on his elbow, looking down at the mound, already crawling with green. Crying a little, and using her other hand to wipe the tears away every minute or so. She always cried, quietly, and then she would talk for a little while about memories. It seemed to make them both feel better.
"Remember that fuse you stole from her stove so I could use your oven?"
Her voice was thick, but the amusement was there. He smirked a little. "I remember." He would always remember.
She gave a small chuckle, a shudder of her shoulders. "She was trying and trying to bake that quiche, and it kept coming out watery and she didn't know why." Another little laugh, and without looking he knew her teeth were in her bottom lip. "And she was so angry when she realized that fuse was missing." A sniffle, and she lifted her fingers to her face again. "God, that was funny." An abrupt silence, and then crying for real into his arm. Muffled into his coat sleeve.
Then, quietly, "Vincent?"
"I'm here."
A hint of pressure, her fingers in his skin as if testing the reality of his words. "I didn't cry like this last time, did I?"
He paused a moment, though he didn't even need a moment to remember. "No."
A sniffle. "I guess, sometimes, it just brings it all back. Everyone dies, but not everyone dies the way I've seen people die. It always seems too early. Even if it's their time, by someone's clock, it always seems too early."
She took a breath, trying to stop her tears. But sometimes it helped to hear her cry, to know she was getting some release.
"I know, Tifa."
A sigh. "I know you do." Another sniffle. "Oh God, I miss her, Vincent."
It was still a little awkward now and then, but he slipped his arm around her back, down to her waist. Held her in a half embrace. Refused to think about what they looked like to on-lookers, because it sometimes made him uncomfortable.
A long breath, and then a whisper. "Do you miss her?"
He had to resist the urge to clench his teeth, shift his weight away from her. She never pressed him too firmly, but she brought it up now and again, like pushing at a sliver under the skin.
"After Aeris died, Barret and I talked almost every night. Because he'd lost Myrna and I'd lost my parents, we could kind of compare our grief together." A little chuckle, not really amused. Trying to lighten the atmosphere. "It's weird, maybe, but it helped. Like we were making a new classification in our lives for this new grief, so we could move on."
He sighed inwardly, pursed his lips. "You know you can talk to me, Tifa."
"But, I want *us* to talk."
He gave the umbrella a deft flick and watched the raindrops scatter. Looked at the gray sky above and thought about the cigarettes in his coat pocket.
"I just...I want to know where you're hurting, Vincent. You can't just pretend it's okay."
Just wanted to help. But a part of him was still looking for level ground in the battlefield of what he'd lost, uneasy with moving too far without knowing the extent of the damage. Lily. It was like staring into a gaping hole and trying to find the bottom in the dark.
She was fiddling with the seam of his pocket. Beautiful and tear-stained and feeling alone. But not wanting to rush him. Couldn't help the stab of guilt, and the resulting twinge of anger. The war in his mind, because he knew she was right, but he didn't want to finally crack open that crypt of his pain. Not sure, in the end, what would come out, and afraid he would never manage to put it all away again.
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
Do you remember the morning I came back from Tifa's apartment, walking slowly and trying to find the stairs with thought-heavy feet? Do you remember what you said? Do you remember what you knew, simply by looking?
"So, it finally happened." Shaking out your mat in your nightie. "You finally slept with her."
I didn't answer. But that was all the answer you needed.
You made banana bread to get me to open my door. Slipped your cards onto the table and let the invitation stand. And, with your needle-sharp love, talked some sense to me. Forced me to accept the place I'd brought myself to, and helped me to embrace it.
Where were you, Lily, when it was Lucrecia? Where were you to slap me and show me how impossible it was to love a woman who was in love with science and fear and pride?
Where were you all of my life? My cheek would've been red with reprimanding welts.
There will be flowers on your grave, Tifa says. Lilies, from the Nibel mountains where they grow, hardened by the cold and the wind. Once the soil on your grave is strong enough to bear those bursting roots.
I promise to give them a little of my time every day.
* * *
He was surprised by the number of black, buttonless shirts Lily had in her closet. Waiting for repair, Tifa explained with a soft kind of smile. Things she'd never gotten around to fixing. But Tifa took them out of his hands, out from between metal fingers that had not been made for something as fragile as thread. And promised to work on them.
"Lily left me this sewing kit." She picked it up from the bed where she'd put it down. "She seemed to know I would need it." A tap on his nose with a quick finger before she left the room.
And he knew like never before that he had been a project, a purpose, a reason for living and getting up in the morning. Her mystery, her opus, her quilt, her garden, her legacy. And he knew, equally well, that he was completely unsuitable for those titles. But he had a feeling Lily had never done anything because it was easy.
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
He must've told you the chances while you were alone in that white-washed room, silent except for the noisy traffic of beeping and pulsing and pushing and breathing. Whispering white coats and flesh-coloured restraining tubes; invisible needles and the quiet dreams of the sick and slipping away.
He told us over the phone. Tifa's fingers a striking white relief against the receiver as she gave a small gasp, and then covered her mouth as if the suddenness of sound and movement of air and healthy lungs might do worse damage. Looking over at me as if I might crumble into myself, one tear escaping out of the corner of her eye at the twitch of her head.
And of course I knew.
Emphysema. Pneumonia. Complications. I'm sorry.
And what could I do but swallow it whole? Add its shuddering weight to the rest of what I carry on my back. Promise some tiny, frozen, grief-stricken part of me that one day I will get around to sorting it all out. Because right now, I have to continue standing.
* * *
"Any luck?"
He closed the door behind him and stepped out of his boots. "Some." Squeezed the excess water out of his hair and then, catching her warning glance as it splashed and sputtered on the floor, reached for a dish towel.
"How much is some?"
"Enough." He sopped up the rain water and then lay the towel over a chair to dry. Slipped out of his coat and hung it up. "Don't worry about it."
"Vincent..."
But he didn't want to argue. Walked into the bedroom, already pulling out of his shirt and trying to remember where he'd left his gray sweater.
She'd followed him as far as the doorway, and he could see by her clothes and the water bottle in her hand that she was on her way to a cardio class. "Vincent, how much is some? Over the last week. One? Two?"
He fought against a sigh and pushed his head and arms through the sweater. Tugged it down and straightened the seams. "Tifa, that doesn't matter if it's enough."
But he knew that wouldn't appease her and he watched with a certain irritation as she switched the water bottle to her left hand and scratched her forehead. "Look, you know I hate it when you do this. Please, I'm not trying to be a pest. I just want a straight answer."
But that wasn't all she would push for if she had her straight answer and they both knew it. He pursed his lips and made for the doorway, giving her time to get out of the way. "Don't you trust that I know what 'enough' is?"
She stepped aside and let him pass, but he knew without looking, without even thinking about it, that she was trailing him again. "This isn't about trust, and you know it. This is about you leaving me here alone for two or three days while you go off to Kalm."
He didn't answer.
"I'd be all right, of course. Even if someone attacked me on the street, I'd be able to handle myself." A moment of silence as he entered the kitchen and she stepped in behind him, moving to the table to put the bottle down and then lifting her arms to retie her hair. He stepped up to the counter, ostensibly to fill the kettle. But he didn't reach for it, or turn on the tap in the sink. "If hunting around Nibelheim isn't going to pay the bills, the reasonable thing to do is to go back to Kalm where the hunting's better. Don't you agree?"
And he had to agree. But there was a muffled, buried, unquenchable part of him screaming protests and keeping his head still and his mouth closed.
"Vincent?"
"It's enough, Tifa. Just leave it alone."
"Fine." A huff of breath and he heard the slap of flesh on plastic as she grabbed up her water bottle. "I'm going to the gym. I'll see you in a couple of hours, unless you feel it necessary to come along and hover over me." And then, with a glare he could feel on the back of his neck, she walked out of the apartment and slammed the door.
And he let out a heavy breath.
She was right. She was right.
But, oh goddammit, he couldn't lose anyone else. Even if it meant going to irrational lengths to keep it that way.
* * *
You never knew Lily, but I used to have dreams. Nightmares. Walking through hallways, doorways made of rotting flesh. Demons and blood and dead eyes staring at me.
I keep having a dream. And it's not like the dreams I used to have. In this dream I'm swimming alone in an ocean, looking for you. I know as I look that the best I can hope to find is your body, but you're nowhere to be seen. Tifa, I know too, is looking for you, somewhere in the ocean with me. But then there are thunderheads on the horizon and I recognize the signs that a storm is coming. I call out for Tifa, but I can't find her anywhere and the water is starting to get dangerous. I'm so afraid for her, but just as I start to feel a suffocating panic I realize that I've somehow gotten too close to a reef and hundreds of tiny, aggressive needles have punctured through my body and pinned me where I am.
And then I wake up.
What would you tell me, Lily? To let go of my fear; to go to Kalm?
But, of course, if you were here, I wouldn't have to worry about Tifa being alone. Even though Tifa is now more capable of protecting herself than you ever were.
But you were so strong and seemingly permanent. How can I trust any kind of strength to be able to take care of anyone anymore?
* * *
He woke up to the dark and warmth of their bedroom and knew without having to try and recall it that he'd had the dream. Uneasy, as if he might've just escaped certain death, and still prickling with the kisses of hundreds of stinging needles. Quietly, he shifted under the blankets and went to slide a hand across the soft, muscle-rounded skin of Tifa's arm. Done so many times before she didn't even wake up at the touch anymore.
But the other side of the bed was empty. Cold enough to have been vacant for half an hour.
"Tifa?"
The bathroom light was on, he realized as he pushed himself up, a sliver of white-yellow peering at him from under the door.
Tifa glanced at him in the mirror as he turned the knob and slowly pried into the room. She had a cup of water in her hand and her long, dark hair gathered over one shoulder. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
After a moment, she lowered her gaze to the cup as she took a small sip. And then she made a noise to clear her throat. "I had a dream about Lily." Her voice was muted, almost a whisper, as if there might be some harm in admitting it.
He opened the door further and stepped in. Slipped his hand down her arm and let it come to rest in the smooth curve of her elbow. "It was just a dream." A silly, trite, hypocritical thing to say, he realized a moment after. Though it was still the truth.
"I know. But it still feels real until you wake up." She dropped her gaze, studying the water spots on the taps. Though Vincent doubted she was really seeing them, probably reliving some scene from her nightmare. Then, like coming out of her thoughts, she gave a quiet sigh. "I miss her so much sometimes. Like missing my father. I don't know if I even realized before she died how much I'd come to see her as a mother-figure."
It didn't feel like she was pushing him for a response. So he simply stayed silent, letting the presence of his hand on her arm speak the comfort he didn't always have words for.
She dumped the rest of the water in the sink. "You want me to come back to bed."
"You don't have to. I wanted to make sure you were all right."
"Well, I'm cold, anyway." She flashed him a small smile and slipped their fingers together.
He wasn't tired, he realized as he slid back under the covers, and neither was Tifa. She stirred restlessly in his arms for a few minutes before turning around on her pillow to face him.
"Maybe this isn't a good time, but I ought to tell you sometime." She shook her head a little, urging her hair behind her and out of their way. "Mr. Fallowfield's daughter is coming back from school for a few months, so I'm only going to be part-time again."
He pursed his lips. He could guess why she'd waited to tell him.
"But before you say anything, Vincent..." She pressed her forehead against his mouth for an automatic kiss. "I was thinking about what it meant. Yes, we're going to need more money, and yes, that means you going back to Kalm would be a big help. But with the extra time-off I'm going to have, I could come with you." Her eyes were large and hopeful in the dark. "We'd just have to plan around my schedule."
His first impulse was to try and find something wrong with the suggestion, but after a moment he stopped to question why he needed to find a reason to say 'no'. She would be there; he would be there. Cloud was no longer there. It was a viable solution. And she looked so encouraging...
"All right."
"All right?" She grinned and snuggled into him. "Thank you. That makes me feel better. I've been worrying about what you'd say." She was silent for a moment, one hand instinctively moving to his side to warm her fingers. He waited until she was comfortable to rest his chin in her hair. Her breath was a steady warmth on his collarbone.
"Do you want to know what my dream was about?"
If it would help her to come to terms with it. "I'm dying to know."
He could practically feel her smile. "No you're not. But I'm going to tell you anyway. I dreamed that Lily and I were in her kitchen and she'd written down a recipe for me. When I went to make it, though, I couldn't find the right ingredients and Lily wasn't in the room anymore for me to ask her." She paused for a few seconds. "You know what I think it means?"
He sighed a little. "The recipe is what Lily used to figure me out, and you feel you don't know me as well as she did."
Tifa's head came up suddenly enough for him to guess that he'd gotten it right. "When did you get so good at interpreting dreams?" she asked him, her expression curious enough that he expected she was only half joking.
He merely kissed her. "Go back to sleep." As she shifted away from him, he added, "We'll go to Kalm next week, if your schedule allows."
"Okay."
On the brink of drifting off, Vincent came awake again as Tifa shifted around again to look at him. "Vincent?"
"Hmm?"
Her eyes were glinting, soft and reflective in the bare moonlight filtering through the curtains. "I'm not going anywhere, you know. Not anytime soon. You can trust me."
And he suddenly felt she knew him better than she thought she did. His dream, silent and interpreted in front of him, and he hadn't even told her about it. "I know, Tifa. Go to sleep."
One more rustle of blankets as she adjusted herself. And then silence.
"Vincent?"
He sighed into his pillow. "Don't you have to work in the morning?"
"I know, I know, but..." Her hesitation was like a palpable wave of cautious wording. Culminated in a whisper. "Do you miss her, too, sometimes?"
He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe Tifa's accommodation of his fear. Maybe the fact that she was trying. Maybe the final realization that there were only so many things in life you could control.
Lily was gone. Nothing could change that. But Tifa...
Tifa was her legacy, too. And it was enough. He stretched out his arms and drew her into them, suddenly aware in a moment of both the frailty and security of such an embrace.
"Every day."
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
You said once that the road to recovery is winding and uneven, and often only wide enough for one -- you, my deaf, contumacious signpost. Pointing the way. Until Tifa knew it, too.
All a part of your plan, I can't help believing. The last, best part of your magic.
So that I'll always remember.
Remembering Lily
(Not a song-fic, but strangely inspired by the song 'Here Without You' by Three Doors Down. The title and switching perspectives suggested by a short story called 'Remembering Siri' by Dan Simmons.)
by: thelittletree
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
D'ya?
I remember. And I'll always remember. We could've laughed about it over the mouth of a bottle slick with whiskey and our saliva. Cried numb, inebriated tears until you asked me what the hell we were doing. I'd say that I couldn't remember. But I would. I'll always remember.
Poked me. Prodded me. With the barest glance of your eyes, gesture of your hand, twitch of your lips. Maybe I just needed the direction. Whatever it was. A vigilant signpost, relentlessly pointing out the way until I couldn't ignore.
Well, maybe that wasn't the only reason I couldn't ignore. Never told you, but I was the one who started it. Wanted her first, made her kiss me. Made her want me, living corpse that I am. Made her touch me until I couldn't stop gasping, until every part of me ached, until I was listening to her heartbeat, her moans, and knowing again what it was to be twenty-five and in love with the forbidden.
Masochist, you said once. Maybe. Never cut myself to watch it bleed. Never shot myself to feel the pain of breaking, the all too brief pleasure of losing the agony of living in the thrill of possibly dying.
I can't die. Not like you. Maybe I'll never see you again. I'm sorry I didn't say all of the things you knew already. I loved you, too, Lily. I loved your strength, your words when I didn't know what to say, your silence when there was nothing to say. I loved how you were never far away. My skin, when mine had been stripped away to leave me vulnerable. The first flower in my mind when thoughts were dead trees and rotting grass. The closeted part of me where I could hide when everything else was too raw for me to bear.
I don't need to tell you. I think you always knew.
I love her, Lily. I love her, and without you here I'm terrified of her. She will never replace you, I've realized; though she will be comfort and warmth and pleasure and conversation, and all of the things I can't help loving about her. She will reminisce about you to me, and that will be my mourning. You would understand, I know. Even if I never shed a tear for you, you wouldn't be offended. You'd just call me the stubborn, emotionally-constipated jackass that I am and pull out your cards and cigarettes.
Do you remember, Lily? The day Tifa did a handstand in your kitchen? The day you feather-dusted my ear and laughed and apologized later for the bruise on my arm where I'd hit the table, trying to escape twenty pinching, tickling, merciless fingers? The day you couldn't catch your breath and we began to hold ours?
I remember. I'll always remember. The day you caught death from where it lived in me. I'm so sorry. You were right. I was dangerous for you. But your friendship was without conditions. And I know you wouldn't want me to blame myself.
I blame myself anyway. I don't know what I could've done differently to save you. But I blame myself. I can't help it. You asked me to burn the hospital bed that last day I visited; told me to set it on fire, reduce it to ashes after they'd put you in the ground. And I smirked, swallowed the lump in my throat. Promised you in my heart.
Didn't do it. I'll burn my own body, if you want, Lily, for not picking your fragile body up out of that bed and taking you home where you wanted to be. I'm so sorry.
Your garden is blooming. Tifa is trying to teach me how to keep it alive. Watering, weeding, fertilizing, and a lot of careful consideration. Something you need to make time for every day. Something you need to be patient for, and consistent with. Something that depends on you, until you come to depend on it for that hour or two during the day when everything else is forgotten in that reliably silent company.
You even gave me the sunshine, didn't you, Lily? I was your garden, once upon a time. I was your garden of dead flowers that you cultivated until the weeds weren't so choking, until there was food and warmth again, until there was even a little bit of colour sometimes. Magic fingers, you joked sometimes as we sat in the yard and smoked and watched the clouds pass over our tiny corner of the world. And I believed you.
Magic is passing from the world, Lily -- a transient power only brought into being when humankind needed it. Truthfully, I know it has already passed, buried in the earth again, six feet beneath your headstone. Gone, like a rainstorm, like your annuals, like every other human I will ever meet. But you were there when I needed you, Lily.
Thank you.
* * *
It always seemed to be raining. Pathetic fallacy, Tifa had murmured before opening her umbrella and handing it to him, and then standing close with one hand on his elbow, looking down at the mound, already crawling with green. Crying a little, and using her other hand to wipe the tears away every minute or so. She always cried, quietly, and then she would talk for a little while about memories. It seemed to make them both feel better.
"Remember that fuse you stole from her stove so I could use your oven?"
Her voice was thick, but the amusement was there. He smirked a little. "I remember." He would always remember.
She gave a small chuckle, a shudder of her shoulders. "She was trying and trying to bake that quiche, and it kept coming out watery and she didn't know why." Another little laugh, and without looking he knew her teeth were in her bottom lip. "And she was so angry when she realized that fuse was missing." A sniffle, and she lifted her fingers to her face again. "God, that was funny." An abrupt silence, and then crying for real into his arm. Muffled into his coat sleeve.
Then, quietly, "Vincent?"
"I'm here."
A hint of pressure, her fingers in his skin as if testing the reality of his words. "I didn't cry like this last time, did I?"
He paused a moment, though he didn't even need a moment to remember. "No."
A sniffle. "I guess, sometimes, it just brings it all back. Everyone dies, but not everyone dies the way I've seen people die. It always seems too early. Even if it's their time, by someone's clock, it always seems too early."
She took a breath, trying to stop her tears. But sometimes it helped to hear her cry, to know she was getting some release.
"I know, Tifa."
A sigh. "I know you do." Another sniffle. "Oh God, I miss her, Vincent."
It was still a little awkward now and then, but he slipped his arm around her back, down to her waist. Held her in a half embrace. Refused to think about what they looked like to on-lookers, because it sometimes made him uncomfortable.
A long breath, and then a whisper. "Do you miss her?"
He had to resist the urge to clench his teeth, shift his weight away from her. She never pressed him too firmly, but she brought it up now and again, like pushing at a sliver under the skin.
"After Aeris died, Barret and I talked almost every night. Because he'd lost Myrna and I'd lost my parents, we could kind of compare our grief together." A little chuckle, not really amused. Trying to lighten the atmosphere. "It's weird, maybe, but it helped. Like we were making a new classification in our lives for this new grief, so we could move on."
He sighed inwardly, pursed his lips. "You know you can talk to me, Tifa."
"But, I want *us* to talk."
He gave the umbrella a deft flick and watched the raindrops scatter. Looked at the gray sky above and thought about the cigarettes in his coat pocket.
"I just...I want to know where you're hurting, Vincent. You can't just pretend it's okay."
Just wanted to help. But a part of him was still looking for level ground in the battlefield of what he'd lost, uneasy with moving too far without knowing the extent of the damage. Lily. It was like staring into a gaping hole and trying to find the bottom in the dark.
She was fiddling with the seam of his pocket. Beautiful and tear-stained and feeling alone. But not wanting to rush him. Couldn't help the stab of guilt, and the resulting twinge of anger. The war in his mind, because he knew she was right, but he didn't want to finally crack open that crypt of his pain. Not sure, in the end, what would come out, and afraid he would never manage to put it all away again.
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
Do you remember the morning I came back from Tifa's apartment, walking slowly and trying to find the stairs with thought-heavy feet? Do you remember what you said? Do you remember what you knew, simply by looking?
"So, it finally happened." Shaking out your mat in your nightie. "You finally slept with her."
I didn't answer. But that was all the answer you needed.
You made banana bread to get me to open my door. Slipped your cards onto the table and let the invitation stand. And, with your needle-sharp love, talked some sense to me. Forced me to accept the place I'd brought myself to, and helped me to embrace it.
Where were you, Lily, when it was Lucrecia? Where were you to slap me and show me how impossible it was to love a woman who was in love with science and fear and pride?
Where were you all of my life? My cheek would've been red with reprimanding welts.
There will be flowers on your grave, Tifa says. Lilies, from the Nibel mountains where they grow, hardened by the cold and the wind. Once the soil on your grave is strong enough to bear those bursting roots.
I promise to give them a little of my time every day.
* * *
He was surprised by the number of black, buttonless shirts Lily had in her closet. Waiting for repair, Tifa explained with a soft kind of smile. Things she'd never gotten around to fixing. But Tifa took them out of his hands, out from between metal fingers that had not been made for something as fragile as thread. And promised to work on them.
"Lily left me this sewing kit." She picked it up from the bed where she'd put it down. "She seemed to know I would need it." A tap on his nose with a quick finger before she left the room.
And he knew like never before that he had been a project, a purpose, a reason for living and getting up in the morning. Her mystery, her opus, her quilt, her garden, her legacy. And he knew, equally well, that he was completely unsuitable for those titles. But he had a feeling Lily had never done anything because it was easy.
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
He must've told you the chances while you were alone in that white-washed room, silent except for the noisy traffic of beeping and pulsing and pushing and breathing. Whispering white coats and flesh-coloured restraining tubes; invisible needles and the quiet dreams of the sick and slipping away.
He told us over the phone. Tifa's fingers a striking white relief against the receiver as she gave a small gasp, and then covered her mouth as if the suddenness of sound and movement of air and healthy lungs might do worse damage. Looking over at me as if I might crumble into myself, one tear escaping out of the corner of her eye at the twitch of her head.
And of course I knew.
Emphysema. Pneumonia. Complications. I'm sorry.
And what could I do but swallow it whole? Add its shuddering weight to the rest of what I carry on my back. Promise some tiny, frozen, grief-stricken part of me that one day I will get around to sorting it all out. Because right now, I have to continue standing.
* * *
"Any luck?"
He closed the door behind him and stepped out of his boots. "Some." Squeezed the excess water out of his hair and then, catching her warning glance as it splashed and sputtered on the floor, reached for a dish towel.
"How much is some?"
"Enough." He sopped up the rain water and then lay the towel over a chair to dry. Slipped out of his coat and hung it up. "Don't worry about it."
"Vincent..."
But he didn't want to argue. Walked into the bedroom, already pulling out of his shirt and trying to remember where he'd left his gray sweater.
She'd followed him as far as the doorway, and he could see by her clothes and the water bottle in her hand that she was on her way to a cardio class. "Vincent, how much is some? Over the last week. One? Two?"
He fought against a sigh and pushed his head and arms through the sweater. Tugged it down and straightened the seams. "Tifa, that doesn't matter if it's enough."
But he knew that wouldn't appease her and he watched with a certain irritation as she switched the water bottle to her left hand and scratched her forehead. "Look, you know I hate it when you do this. Please, I'm not trying to be a pest. I just want a straight answer."
But that wasn't all she would push for if she had her straight answer and they both knew it. He pursed his lips and made for the doorway, giving her time to get out of the way. "Don't you trust that I know what 'enough' is?"
She stepped aside and let him pass, but he knew without looking, without even thinking about it, that she was trailing him again. "This isn't about trust, and you know it. This is about you leaving me here alone for two or three days while you go off to Kalm."
He didn't answer.
"I'd be all right, of course. Even if someone attacked me on the street, I'd be able to handle myself." A moment of silence as he entered the kitchen and she stepped in behind him, moving to the table to put the bottle down and then lifting her arms to retie her hair. He stepped up to the counter, ostensibly to fill the kettle. But he didn't reach for it, or turn on the tap in the sink. "If hunting around Nibelheim isn't going to pay the bills, the reasonable thing to do is to go back to Kalm where the hunting's better. Don't you agree?"
And he had to agree. But there was a muffled, buried, unquenchable part of him screaming protests and keeping his head still and his mouth closed.
"Vincent?"
"It's enough, Tifa. Just leave it alone."
"Fine." A huff of breath and he heard the slap of flesh on plastic as she grabbed up her water bottle. "I'm going to the gym. I'll see you in a couple of hours, unless you feel it necessary to come along and hover over me." And then, with a glare he could feel on the back of his neck, she walked out of the apartment and slammed the door.
And he let out a heavy breath.
She was right. She was right.
But, oh goddammit, he couldn't lose anyone else. Even if it meant going to irrational lengths to keep it that way.
* * *
You never knew Lily, but I used to have dreams. Nightmares. Walking through hallways, doorways made of rotting flesh. Demons and blood and dead eyes staring at me.
I keep having a dream. And it's not like the dreams I used to have. In this dream I'm swimming alone in an ocean, looking for you. I know as I look that the best I can hope to find is your body, but you're nowhere to be seen. Tifa, I know too, is looking for you, somewhere in the ocean with me. But then there are thunderheads on the horizon and I recognize the signs that a storm is coming. I call out for Tifa, but I can't find her anywhere and the water is starting to get dangerous. I'm so afraid for her, but just as I start to feel a suffocating panic I realize that I've somehow gotten too close to a reef and hundreds of tiny, aggressive needles have punctured through my body and pinned me where I am.
And then I wake up.
What would you tell me, Lily? To let go of my fear; to go to Kalm?
But, of course, if you were here, I wouldn't have to worry about Tifa being alone. Even though Tifa is now more capable of protecting herself than you ever were.
But you were so strong and seemingly permanent. How can I trust any kind of strength to be able to take care of anyone anymore?
* * *
He woke up to the dark and warmth of their bedroom and knew without having to try and recall it that he'd had the dream. Uneasy, as if he might've just escaped certain death, and still prickling with the kisses of hundreds of stinging needles. Quietly, he shifted under the blankets and went to slide a hand across the soft, muscle-rounded skin of Tifa's arm. Done so many times before she didn't even wake up at the touch anymore.
But the other side of the bed was empty. Cold enough to have been vacant for half an hour.
"Tifa?"
The bathroom light was on, he realized as he pushed himself up, a sliver of white-yellow peering at him from under the door.
Tifa glanced at him in the mirror as he turned the knob and slowly pried into the room. She had a cup of water in her hand and her long, dark hair gathered over one shoulder. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
After a moment, she lowered her gaze to the cup as she took a small sip. And then she made a noise to clear her throat. "I had a dream about Lily." Her voice was muted, almost a whisper, as if there might be some harm in admitting it.
He opened the door further and stepped in. Slipped his hand down her arm and let it come to rest in the smooth curve of her elbow. "It was just a dream." A silly, trite, hypocritical thing to say, he realized a moment after. Though it was still the truth.
"I know. But it still feels real until you wake up." She dropped her gaze, studying the water spots on the taps. Though Vincent doubted she was really seeing them, probably reliving some scene from her nightmare. Then, like coming out of her thoughts, she gave a quiet sigh. "I miss her so much sometimes. Like missing my father. I don't know if I even realized before she died how much I'd come to see her as a mother-figure."
It didn't feel like she was pushing him for a response. So he simply stayed silent, letting the presence of his hand on her arm speak the comfort he didn't always have words for.
She dumped the rest of the water in the sink. "You want me to come back to bed."
"You don't have to. I wanted to make sure you were all right."
"Well, I'm cold, anyway." She flashed him a small smile and slipped their fingers together.
He wasn't tired, he realized as he slid back under the covers, and neither was Tifa. She stirred restlessly in his arms for a few minutes before turning around on her pillow to face him.
"Maybe this isn't a good time, but I ought to tell you sometime." She shook her head a little, urging her hair behind her and out of their way. "Mr. Fallowfield's daughter is coming back from school for a few months, so I'm only going to be part-time again."
He pursed his lips. He could guess why she'd waited to tell him.
"But before you say anything, Vincent..." She pressed her forehead against his mouth for an automatic kiss. "I was thinking about what it meant. Yes, we're going to need more money, and yes, that means you going back to Kalm would be a big help. But with the extra time-off I'm going to have, I could come with you." Her eyes were large and hopeful in the dark. "We'd just have to plan around my schedule."
His first impulse was to try and find something wrong with the suggestion, but after a moment he stopped to question why he needed to find a reason to say 'no'. She would be there; he would be there. Cloud was no longer there. It was a viable solution. And she looked so encouraging...
"All right."
"All right?" She grinned and snuggled into him. "Thank you. That makes me feel better. I've been worrying about what you'd say." She was silent for a moment, one hand instinctively moving to his side to warm her fingers. He waited until she was comfortable to rest his chin in her hair. Her breath was a steady warmth on his collarbone.
"Do you want to know what my dream was about?"
If it would help her to come to terms with it. "I'm dying to know."
He could practically feel her smile. "No you're not. But I'm going to tell you anyway. I dreamed that Lily and I were in her kitchen and she'd written down a recipe for me. When I went to make it, though, I couldn't find the right ingredients and Lily wasn't in the room anymore for me to ask her." She paused for a few seconds. "You know what I think it means?"
He sighed a little. "The recipe is what Lily used to figure me out, and you feel you don't know me as well as she did."
Tifa's head came up suddenly enough for him to guess that he'd gotten it right. "When did you get so good at interpreting dreams?" she asked him, her expression curious enough that he expected she was only half joking.
He merely kissed her. "Go back to sleep." As she shifted away from him, he added, "We'll go to Kalm next week, if your schedule allows."
"Okay."
On the brink of drifting off, Vincent came awake again as Tifa shifted around again to look at him. "Vincent?"
"Hmm?"
Her eyes were glinting, soft and reflective in the bare moonlight filtering through the curtains. "I'm not going anywhere, you know. Not anytime soon. You can trust me."
And he suddenly felt she knew him better than she thought she did. His dream, silent and interpreted in front of him, and he hadn't even told her about it. "I know, Tifa. Go to sleep."
One more rustle of blankets as she adjusted herself. And then silence.
"Vincent?"
He sighed into his pillow. "Don't you have to work in the morning?"
"I know, I know, but..." Her hesitation was like a palpable wave of cautious wording. Culminated in a whisper. "Do you miss her, too, sometimes?"
He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe Tifa's accommodation of his fear. Maybe the fact that she was trying. Maybe the final realization that there were only so many things in life you could control.
Lily was gone. Nothing could change that. But Tifa...
Tifa was her legacy, too. And it was enough. He stretched out his arms and drew her into them, suddenly aware in a moment of both the frailty and security of such an embrace.
"Every day."
* * *
Do you remember, Lily?
You said once that the road to recovery is winding and uneven, and often only wide enough for one -- you, my deaf, contumacious signpost. Pointing the way. Until Tifa knew it, too.
All a part of your plan, I can't help believing. The last, best part of your magic.
So that I'll always remember.