Flirting with Death, Chapter 10:
Comforting Darkness
By Darknightdestiny
They went straight to Cid and Shera's house after leaving the inn. The sunlight was extremely bright that morning, beating down on all the town members going about their daily activities. Vincent squinted his eyes at the glare, uncomfortable with the growing heat. Every once in a while, a cool breeze would blow in from the mountains, easing his trouble, but he was still extremely sensitive to the conditions after being locked away for so long; because of this, he had avoided the sunlight as much as he could after waking, and it just made things all the more difficult now.
Tifa, on the other hand, was enjoying the warmth of the rays on her skin, reveling in her newfound glow. Her eyes darted about the place, less suspiciously than Vincent's; she was more interested in taking in everything around her. No matter what life threw at her, Tifa just seemed to have that amazingly rare ability to find joy in the simplest of things. After all, that is what one has to do when there isn't much else to be happy about, and Tifa had been perfecting that talent since her mother died.
When they reached the door to Cid's house, Vincent stepped on ahead, but paused at the door and stepped aside. Tifa looked at him strangely, as he obviously wanted her to be the one to knock. She just shrugged her shoulders and strolled up to the doorway, letting her hand fall onto the wood three times. She turned her head to face Vincent.
"You really don't like them, do you?"
"…"
"Vincent…"
"…That is not the case. I only-"
And the door opened. Tifa found herself face to face with Cid. He was the same as ever, and was everything she was expecting him to be. While she had been staying in Midgar, she had tried her best to keep in touch with everyone by phone system, and Cid had been no exception. And every time he had answered, he had greeted her with his usual, "How the f&^* are you doin'!?" which was proof that he would never change. Some of the members of AVALANCHE had guessed Cid's language and temper was the result of ShinRa's treatment of him and his dream. But apparently, that wasn't true, because he still had that same dangerous spark. Even now, he had a cigarette gracing his thin lips.
"Tifa! How the- you!!" Cid turned to Vincent mid-embrace and stared. "Why the h&*% haven't you called?!" Vincent just stared off to the side, eyes softened with apparent disinterest. "You know, you were the only one who didn't keep in touch! D%**#&, why?!"
"…"
"Oh, fer cryin' out loud…what the h&*%, you can tell me later. And you're gonna!" He sighed. "Come on in, both of you."
Tifa followed Cid into the house, Vincent gliding in behind her. Tifa looked around the house; everything was exactly as she had remembered it. The broken down car was still in the room off to her right, and there was a kettle on the stove, not yet heated, as if it had been waiting for someone- anyone- to arrive. But something was missing.
"Hey, Cid," Tifa questioned, "Where's Shera?"
"Oh, her," he stated, rather casually. "She's sleeping in the bedroom."
"Hmmm…now that's something I didn't expect. Shera stays in bed while you tend to the guests." Tifa giggled as a young girl in spite of her age.
"Hardee har har. Actually," Cid continued, lost in thought, "Shera's been kind of sick lately."
"Sick? Oh no, Cid. What's wrong with her?"
"Psssh…pipe down. Ain't nothin' wrong with her. She's just fine. Just fine!"
"Cid…how do you know that?"
Cid paused and looked back at her, sheepishly. "I sorta…"
"Yes?"
A tinge of pink crept into the man's sunkissed face. He started again, fumbling for words. "I sorta…," he coughed and then sped up the pace of his words, "sorta…ahem…got-her-pregnant," he finished, slurring the last three words all together in a mumbling voice.
"Cid! You did? Oh, Cid!" Tifa exclaimed happily, her hands clasped together.
"Don't go getting' yer panties in a bunch! Yeah, I did. And now, I gotta learn to deal with it. F&*%^$ gettinn' up in the middle of the night to go and fetch her some of her s&*^. Don't know what the h$** she wants with all of them strange ingredient thingies anyway," he said, scratching the back of his head with one hand, hanging the other loosely at his side.
"Cid, this is so wonderful! Oh, congratulations!" Tifa burst forward, throwing her arms about the man's neck.
"Oh, geez. Just what I needed."
She backed up, smiling and then turned to Vincent. "Did you hear that? Cid and Shera are going to have a baby!"
"I did."
"Isn't that wonderful?"
"…Indeed. My congratulations, Cid."
"Yeah, thanks, Vince. You ain't half bad. I'm gonna go and wake Shera up now."
"You want to wake her?" Tifa asked.
"Sure. I mean, I know she wanted to sleep earlier, but she wouldn't wanna miss this. She ain't seen you guys in months!" Cid headed out of the dining area, to a room somewhere on the far left side of the house. Tifa turned and looked at Vincent, who was off in the corner to the right of the stove. He looked back at her for a moment, then marveled at one of the walls, and so she sat down at one of the chairs in the center of the room.
Vincent had been expecting Tifa to say something to him, as she had always been the type to do, but after a while she had gotten the idea that sometimes it was best to just leave Vincent alone.
But Vincent did not want to be alone. Not just yet, no…that would come later. But right now, he wanted to ask her some questions, and so he, much to her surprise, started the conversation.
"Tifa." She barely heard it, his voice was so soft and was aimed at the ground.
"Hmmm?" She looked at him with a bit of surprise, mixed with curiosity.
He hesitated. He hadn't ever been one to initiate conversations, and even less so ever since he woke up. He somehow found the words he had been searching for. "…What have you been doing these past five months?"
"Oh. Well…I have a new bar, in Sector Three…of New Midgar." She watched his face for any reaction, but there seemed to be none, so she continued on. "I've been working there with two nice people- a brother and sister- and I've made a pretty good living off of it." Vincent continued to watch her, as if expecting more than that. "…And that's it," she finished, removing any doubts he might have had.
It was a while before he spoke again, and when he did, it was not to comment, but to ask another question. "Why did you leave?"
She frowned to herself. "I thought I had told you, but maybe not. Alright, here goes…I was sitting at the bar one day-"
"No."
"What?"
"There is another reason you left."
"What makes you say that?"
"You are not the type of woman to run from boredom. You must know why you left Midgar."
"I don't really know why I left…I left to figure out why I left, and…you're making my head spin. What makes you think I wouldn't leave because I was bored?"
"…Do not tell me…" he played with the notion, "…that in all of your experience in cheering up others, you have not found the ability to cheer yourself up?"
"Who says I'm sad?"
"I do."
"Well, I'm not. I'm perfectly fine, I always have been."
"…" Vincent stared past her at a sleepy-eyed Shera who had just come hobbling into the room. The woman's bleary focus finally cleared and settled on the girl in front of her, then on the man in the corner to her right.
"…Hey," she cooed sleepily as she rubbed her eyes. "You guys want some tea?"
"I can make it," said Tifa. "You just sit down and relax."
"Ah…it's not like I can't move yet. I'm just a little dizzy lately…hey, you know what would be good right now? I know…" she mused as she wandered off to get Cid, who had just gone off to grab some whiskey. Cid always grabbed whiskey when Shera made tea…he preferred it to milk on all occasions.
Minutes later, Cid came waltzing out into the dining area, headed straight for the door.
"Where are you going?" asked Tifa.
He looked back at her and rolled his eyes. "F*&^#$' cravings…" and cut himself off before he said anything he might regret later and strode out the front door, asserting his role as the dominant force in the house with a muffled stream of curses.
Shera came back out into the room to meet the other two and asked, "Will you be staying here tonight?"
"Um…" Tifa shifted. "We were actually going to ask Cid a favor…do you think," she dug the toe of her boot into the floor, "that Cid would let us borrow the Tiny Bronco?"
"I don't see why not…"
"Really?" Tifa was shocked.
"We don't really use it. Everything we need is right here in this town. Before you all blasted into our lives, it just sat out there in the backyard, more of a showpiece than an actual convenience. But since it's you two, I don't think it'd be so had for him to part with it this time. Of course, if anything happened to it…"
"Gotcha."
Shera smiled. "You know, I've been meaning to ask you what brings the two of you out here."
"Search for adventure?" Tifa smiled back, knowing full well that Vincent was right when he said she was unhappy and she really had just wanted to get away. She hated it when he was right.
"But what on earth brought you two out here together?"
Vincent surprised both of them when he spoke up. "Tifa was passing through Nibelheim. I…became bored with such a sedentary life, and so I decided I would come along."
Shera stared at him for a while, then burst out giggling. "You kids…"
Vincent looked exceedingly uncomfortable at the thought of himself as a "kid", but he tried to contain his annoyance. Shera walked back into the rest of the house, calling out, "Tifa, you can stay with me tonight. Vincent can take my old room…Cid will just have to stay on the couch." She snickered to herself some more, knowing how he would probably react, even though had he been there, he would have made the same suggestion. "Vincent, you can follow me. I'll make your room up."
It was later that night, after a wonderful dinner prepared by Shera with the help of Tifa, that Vincent retreated to his room. He had watched with amusement as Tifa had insisted on doing everything she could, on account of Shera's occasional bouts of nausea, hardly letting the poor woman do anything at all in her own kitchen. That was so like Tifa, to always keep herself busy…to always help others…
To drown her own misery in her attempts to make everyone else around her happy.
He knew her attempts all too well, for she had tried quite a few times during their tangles with Sephiroth to cheer him up as well…only he never let her. This, he realized, had been the closest they'd ever gotten to each other since they'd met. In fact, this was the closest he had gotten to anyone since he had woken up.
True, it had unnerved him a bit at first, but he had grown accustomed to her nature in only a couple of days, whereas when he first met her, he had tried his best to ignore it. When he had woken up, he had wanted to be alone; he had wanted to curl up and rot away, or just simply disappear, and he had no intentions of letting anyone into his world of suffering. But living alone for five months after that had begun to wear on him. He was still human, after all, and humans are social creatures by nature. He had known back then that he was destined to be without friends, to live alone and in shame and misery for the rest of his days, unworthy of contact with the human world. But she had tried to get him to talk at times, and finally, after he had pushed her away on so many occasions, she had finally given up.
But the truth was, he had wanted to comfort her then. But he would not, because he did not want to plague anyone else with his burdens; they were his to bear alone. But he had seen so much of himself in her. He had always distracted himself with his new task, and when it was over, there was nothing left for him. He imagined that was what she must have been feeling, because he had watched her spend her time and her energy trying to comfort her childhood friend, Cloud, and when he left, her task had been made void- at least in her point of view. Because even though she may have helped him in the long run, she could no longer help herself by helping him. And whether or not she even realized that she was benefiting from her own kindness, she was going to spiral into depression if she did not find a way to be happy, independent of others.
He hadn't wanted her to become like him. He had seen how she was hurting back then, and he had wanted to help her, but he didn't want to let her become dependent on yet another person, and he feared becoming even a bit dependent on her. He saw now that she had covered it up and denied it to herself, even to the point that she had perhaps come to believe it. But obviously something was still bothering her, and he feared that it would slowly kill her. She would never be a monster, he thought, like him, but she would lead a life full of misery.
When she had showed up in the mansion, he had considered sending her away, wanting to be left alone to his misery. But instead he was struck with the notion that this could be a second chance for him; he could finally do what he could not do for her before, and now he had a reason to do it. She needed his help, even though she was under the impression that it was he who needed her, and he knew that she was doing this for his benefit.
Vincent lay on the bed in the dark, staring up at the ceiling; his claw was draped over his bare chest, and his hand stretched back beneath his head. He thought back to the reasons why she would think he needed her help. Whenever he was left alone with his thoughts, his mind always wandered back to his misery. It had been so long…
It hurt to remember, but he could not help it. Times like these, Vincent wished that he had been plagued with amnesia after his traumatic ordeal. Then again, he had gotten to see her one last time…his love. But she was gone now, and would never be within his reach as long as he lived on this planet. All he could remember of her now was a dull and numbing sadness that lay under the heavier burden of pain and loss. His memories were plagued with that pain, a pain that would not subside, and that haunted him in his dreams.
He could still remember the fluorescent lighting and feel the hot liquid running from his body. His lifeblood…
Various tools of torture were prepared especially for him, prepared with a sick and twisted care. And whenever he was near escape, whenever he was at the breaking point, losing control…he was drugged. Four whole years he had spent under knives and unfamiliar machinery; four years of pure humiliation and anguish since he had been changed. And then he had been pumped full of drugs again and buried alive, sealed away in a chemically induced sleep- in a coffin only penetrable from the outside, forever to remain.
Brutally murdered at only twenty-three…
That was before they came. They came and gave him a purpose, and he almost opted to stay in his crypt and seal himself away from the world. He just wanted it all to disappear…he wanted it all to go away. Sometimes he had wished he had never been born. And sometimes he had thought that his time with her had been worth it all. But he had found that he could not escape from the pain, even in sleep; it would haunt him forever.
And he still bore the scars…
Cid had fallen asleep on the couch and Shera had put out his cigarette. Tifa hadn't been ready to go to sleep yet, and Shera had wanted to walk around and do something- anything- and so Tifa had told her that she wanted to take a look at the car. Tifa had never taken much interest in mechanics, but it was something that she hadn't seen yet, and it never hurt to try and understand a friend's interests, right?
Tifa wandered around the vehicle, examining it with her curious gaze. She knew the basics of the workings of a car, but more than that, she was admiring the paint coating. Tifa had always been visually oriented, though she was logical as well; being a martial artist, she was accustomed to assessing the shapes of objects and their build. She paid special attention to movement and style, and the beauty of the action in an object.
She had just finished her trip around the car when something caught her attention. There was a row of books stretching across the back wall of the room like a border. They were all the same height and approximately of the same thickness. They were also all black with a small, red ShinRa logo at the bottom of the binder.
She turned to Shera, who was standing in the doorway, quietly observing. "What are those?"
"Those? Ahm…those are the staff books."
Tifa's nose wrinkled and she gave a questioning look. "Staff books?" she repeated.
"You know how when you were in school, you had a yearbook?"
"Uh-huh…"
"Well, those are the ShinRa staffbooks. It's like employee profiles, issued only people that work in ShinRa. There were still some things that weren't included. Like…hmmm. Oh, I know. The Turks. They're in there too, but they have the shortest profiles. There are lots of things that ShinRa excluded from those books, but they were there for reference, in case an employee needed to locate another employee, or find out who they were…for the sake of business. Usually they were issued to employees who held a significant position. It's not like every soldier got one. Well, not every regular soldier, anyways. Members of the actual group of the same name got them, though. If someone of a lower position needed to get in touch with someone outside of their department, they would just talk to their superior."
"Oh, that's right! Cid used to be a pilot for ShinRa, I'd almost forgot. But…Cid's only what, thirty?"
"Just turned thirty-three this February," Shera replied, with a sort of pride in her smile.
"Right. But there are so many…"
"A lot of those books were his father's," Shera explained. "Did Cid ever tell you about his dad?"
Tifa shook her head.
"Cid's father was ShinRa's chief engineer. He was around before the reactors were even put into action, though he did help to design them. They started in Midgar and slowly spread to the rest of the continent before going overseas. It took a while to develop the plans and a lot of funds to put them into action." Shera noticed surprise register on Tifa's face, with a hint of something else as well. "Oh, but don't hate him for it," she said, knowing that those funds were the reasons the Midgar slums had become the way they had, and that the reactors were the tool that had fueled ShinRa's greed and led them to the Northern Continent in hopes of expanding their influence, which was where they had discovered Jenova. Tifa's father had died in a reactor as a consequence of their most prized experiment. "Cid's father was a brilliant man, but most people working for ShinRa at the start of all this mess had no idea what was to come of it.
Tifa's eyes softened as her consciousness seemed to drift farther away from Shera's voice, but she quickly shook her head and managed to smile at Shera. "I know…I know," she repeated to herself, as if trying to convince her own mind of the fact, looking to find some comfort in it.
She was struck suddenly with an idea.
Tifa walked briskly over to the last, half-filled shelf where the collection ended and examined the year on its binder. Then, she began walking back in time, counting the years backwards in her head. She stopped abruptly when she had covered about three fourths of the collection and stood in front of the first shelf.
"It should be one of these," she said quietly to herself, in an almost inaudible whisper."
Shera stepped forward, curious as Tifa grabbed one of the books off of the shelf and started thumbing through it. There was an index, categorizing the different departments by name. Tifa skimmed the page until she found the department that she was looking for. Shera watched with interest as Tifa flipped through the pages in a hurry and landed on the title page of the category she had been in search of.
"…The Manufacturing Department of Administrative Research…" Tifa breathed softly.
Shera wondered to herself what Tifa would want to look at that page for. Then her eyes widened as she remembered something Cid had told her once. She watched as Tifa flipped through the section slowly; the young girl's fingers were trembling, and her body was growing cold, then hot, while her muscles clammed up. The members were all listed in alphabetical order…
Tifa's eyes came to rest on a page near the end of the section, and her heart nearly stopped. She stood there, stiff as an iron rod, her gaze glued to the page. She would not have been able to tear her gaze away from the page if she had tried. Something was holding her in that position, and she looked like a cornered rabbit; her heart was pounding loudly in her ears and her throat was dry. She tried to regain her composure and slowly stretched her hand out, holding the book away from herself, and almost dropped it as she let herself fall backwards to lean against the side of the car.
Shera watched Tifa placed one hand on her forehead with some faraway look of amazement on her face. Tifa's breaths were shuddered and she was trembling. She immediately wrapped her arms around herself to try to stop her shaking. She looked up at Shera with wide eyes and then excused herself from the room.
Cid's fiancé walked over to where Tifa had set the book on the hood of the car, and picked it up; the place had been saved, the book having been set open and facedown. She looked at the pages and gasped.
Tifa stood outside Vincent's door. She didn't know why she was standing there or what she wanted from him; she only knew that she wanted to say something, not minding that she had no idea yet of what it was. Her mind raced. She could hardly believe what she had just seen…could that have really been him? The eyes were different, and the hair was shorter, but they were the same silky strands, black as night itself. The face had been the same from the nose up, but she had never seen the rest of his face before. His features were so…startling to her. It was nothing she had expected, and she was so taken back by the seemingly flawlessness she had just witnessed in his face. He was strikingly beautiful, but he looked so sad at the same time. His dark brown eyes conveyed more than his face and she had been almost terrified to look at them because she was struck with the depths of some emotion she did not understand, and that frightened her.
At the same time, she had felt almost guilty for what she had just done. The books were sitting right there on Cid's shelf, yet she felt somehow that she had invaded Vincent's privacy. She wondered just how much alike or different the Vincent she had come to feel so protective of was to the Vincent that had been a Turk all those years ago. She felt like she had gotten to know a part of Vincent that had been previously shrouded in mystery, which she had. Only she felt as if she should have gotten his permission first, and now she felt a strange need to tell him.
But what if he got mad at her? She was sure that he didn't want anyone to know about it, and she was afraid of angering him; she really wanted to get to know him. That's right, she felt protective of him. It seemed strange even to her when she thought about the way that sounded. She sure was not as strong as he was, or as fast. But she was feeling a strange protectiveness over his emotional and mental state; Tifa was a person of strong willpower. She was a strong fighter, this was true- but Tifa was also a master of inner strength. She had no doubt that Vincent was also extremely strong, though she had no idea exactly what it was that he had gone through, but she had always picked up where others had left off, being the strength that they didn't have. And now that she thought she might possibly have a chance of helping him to heal, of really getting to know him, she didn't want to hurt him. Vincent was a person who shied away easily and was extremely hard to get to know; he never let anyone in, ever. But she hadn't understood why he had agreed to come with her to Cid and Shera's, and she could only hope that he would continue with her afterwards. After refusing to let her try to understand him all those times in AVALANCHE, she didn't exactly expect him to warm up to her.
But the way that he had answered Shera in the dining room made it sound like he was going to stay with her after all. And his dark eyes had been popping out of that picture and burning, recessing into the page at the same time, just begging for her to help him, listen to him.
Tifa swallowed the lump growing in her throat and knocked softly. "Vincent?" she whispered.
There was no answer. "Vincent?" she called, a little louder. Her hand moved to the doorknob, and began to shake uncontrollably; she thought it was going to fall right off.
'I shouldn't be doing this, I shouldn't be…I shouldn't…'
She turned the knob.
Inside the room, all was black, and she could see nothing, save for the bit of wood floor that the doorway shed some light on- but she heard steady breathing coming from where she knew the bed to be located. "…Vincent…"
She then noticed a faint red glow coming from the bed area, and watched as two red eyes floated up from their previous position; Vincent had just sat up, dragging himself away from the comfort of the bed sheets, and now had his eyes trained on her.
"I'm sorry…" she started, "I didn't know you were asleep…I didn't hear you respond, so I guessed you might have been, but I wanted to check…"
"It is alright, Tifa. I was not sleeping."
Tifa shuddered involuntarily. After seeing his old picture and now not being able to see him in the expanse of blackness, she couldn't even visualize him as he currently was in her mind. Hearing his smooth, unwavering voice in spite of her own nervousness was making her heart flutter strangely in her chest, as if it was trying to escape, to fly away. She didn't like this feeling, and she wanted to return to her familiar settings, and so she reached for the light.
As soon as she had located the switch after running her hand along the wall for about a second or two, she felt a warm hand on her own- a warm hand with cold fingertips. The hand that enveloped her own jerked away suddenly and her heart resumed its beating, fluttering as it may have been.
"Please…" he asked of her, "do not turn the light on."
"O-k-kay…" She decided she should just stop before she ruined everything completely. She managed a small laugh. "Already accustomed to the dark, huh?"
"I am…accustomed to the darkness, yes."
"Alright," she said with a steadiness that amazed even her, not grasping Vincent's hidden meaning behind his words, "I won't turn on the light then. I know how painful that can be sometimes."
'No, Tifa… you cannot possibly grasp how true that is,' Vincent thought to himself.
"Well then…I guess I'll be going then. Goodnight, Vincent."
"…Tifa, wait."
She turned at the soft sound of his voice and stopped in the doorway, the light casting its golden glow over her face and hair, before it faded at her waist where her right leg was drawn back into the darkness. Vincent remained in the shadows, where the only part of him that was visible to her was still his eyes. She looked back at them, and noticed that in the dark, their light was bright enough to illuminate his facial features. She could tell that he was looking at the floor, because his eyes were thin slits, but the light was directed downward, casting an eerie red glow onto his high, pale cheekbones. The overall effect was that of a small red tinted flashlight pointed downward in the darkness, one for each side of his face. She was almost sure for a moment that from the light she could see…she could discern…a bit of his lower face.
Maybe it was just the memory of what she had seen earlier playing tricks on her.
Either way, the silence was killing her, and as strangely calming as the atmosphere was, it was unnerving at the same time when she sorted the thoughts out in her head…alone in a dark room with Vincent, his red eyes glowing with an unnatural flame, fueled by some frighteningly powerful, hidden secret. Though she instantly wanted to run away, all she could do was stare in awe and nurse the idea of taking him in her arms and comforting him.
Tifa had a strange habit of wanting to help everybody.
Finally, to her relief, he spoke again. "There was something you wanted to ask of me…?"
"Ah…no. No, I…I'm good." She smiled widely at him, trying to conceal all of her nervousness and awe behind that one simple expression she was so good in faking, all because she knew that Vincent could always see her face clearly, even if she had been in the shadows with him.
"…You are sure?"
She could feel his eyes searching her face even before she noticed them doing so. She firmed her features in resolution- she had backed out of this one, and she wasn't going to attempt it again until she knew for sure that she could handle it. "I am. I just wanted to say goodnight, I guess…make sure that you didn't need anything before I go off to bed."
"I am fine."
"Oh. Alright. Good then, I'll just be going now…"
"Goodnight, Tifa."
"'Night!" she called, and half-walked, half-ran out of the room.
Vincent silently shut the door behind her and lay down in the warm bed, letting the darkness cover him once again.
When Tifa reached the other bedroom, Shera was sitting cross-legged on the bed, waiting for her.
"You feeling alright?" Tifa asked. "I can get you something, if you need, or I'll be happy to do anything you need help with…"
"I should be asking the same to you," said Shera, with a melancholy expression on her face. She remembered the day that she had asked Cid to tell her about his adventures with AVALANCHE. He always told her about their escapades, beaming with pride all the while, whenever she asked. Of course, he tended to leave some things out for fear she'd go mad and pass out or get an ulcer or something crazy, even though the whole ordeal was over with.
"Women," he'd say.
But she remembered that day specifically, because that was the day he had told her about "that strange man who was standing in the corner of our kitchen, and was so reluctant to tell us what he did for a living," as she had put it. "Who is he, Cid?" she had asked him. And that was the day that Cid explained Vincent's connection with the ShinRa, or at least what he had known about it, which was basically that he had been a Turk. Strange, she now thought, that the thought hadn't even crossed their minds since then to look him up in the old staff books.
"I'm fine," said Tifa. "I just…let my mind wander for a bit. I'm okay now, really I am."
Shera then produced the same book and held it out to Tifa, who backed up a bit, her eyes stuck to it, though not as wide as before. "Ah huh...you're not fine. You're shaking in your boots! Tifa…"
"I'm sorry I acted the way I did, it's just…"
"You looked like you had seen a ghost."
"It felt like I did. …It still feels like I did…"
Shera looked up at her with sympathy. "You know, the best way to get over a fear is to face it." She handed her the book again, and Tifa took it this time, though reluctantly, as if to touch it meant illness. Shera laid back and turned over, her back facing Tifa in order to give her some privacy. She yawned and turned her head back, looking over her shoulder at Tifa and said, "You knew about this, right? That Vincent used to be a Turk?"
"Oh, yeah. We all knew. It's just, there's so much that we never did know, and it's almost like I've taken a step into this place where I don't belong…his place. And it's not like I can ever take it back, either. I just wonder if I'm ready to know any more about it, you know?"
"Do you think he would tell you if he knew you were interested?"
Tifa frowned. "No," she said. "No, I don't think he would. I think he would try to hide it, because he doesn't feel comfortable with anybody knowing about it, otherwise, why would he hide it?"
"Maybe…" Shera mused, "Maybe he has trust issues. Maybe he doesn't want to get hurt. Cid told me Vincent's been hurt before, really badly."
"Yeah, he has," said Tifa. None of them really knew the details, though, or the extent of the damage.
"Maybe he doesn't want you involved for other reasons. Maybe he wants to spare you from his pain."
"What do you mean?"
"Well…Cid said once that Vincent gave him the impression that he didn't like people. So Cid went up to Vincent one day and asked him plain and simple, 'Why the h*^& d'ya have to act like that, ya heartless son of a b*&^$?!'"
Tifa gasped at her impression. Shera just shrugged her shoulders and looked a bit remorseful, but more for Cid than herself.
"It's how he asked it. Anyways, Vincent asked him what he meant and Cid explained very colorfully that Vincent's anti-social behavior had given him the impression that he didn't much like anybody else there. He said that Vincent made it seem like it was the last place he'd wanted to be and then asked him flat out why he'd bothered to come if he was just sticking around to grace everybody with his moody presence.
"What did he say?" Tifa's eyes were wide as she tried to imagine the confrontation.
"He told him that he didn't hate anyone on the ship, but that none of them could ever relate to him, so he didn't bother to try to get close to any of them. Said that he would go his own way when it was all over anyways. Then Cid told him that if he would just tell someone what was going on, he was sure Vincent would be able to find someone who would understand him. But Vincent refused, and Cid could tell he was upset with him for prying into his business. He sharply told him that no one should be allowed to experience the kind of pain he had, and then told Cid to leave him be and not to speak to him of it again."
"Wow…"
"But he never told him not to tell anyone else. So now you know."
"Shera? Thank you…for telling me. It makes me feel better, thinking that maybe it's not my fault that he doesn't want to be friendly around me."
"Well…he did follow you here, right?"
"He probably felt like he had to, though."
"Maybe. But you might be able to find that out too, someday. Just take it slow, because I don't know what got to that man, but he seems so cold, I figure it must have been pretty big."
"Okay. Thanks again."
"No problem." Shera turned over and started to go to sleep with the light still on.
"Uh…Shera?"
"Hmmm?"
"You want me to turn that off?"
"No need. It's kind of nice right now. Besides…you take all the time you need. You probably shouldn't take that with you; that could be a big mistake."
Tifa had no intentions of taking the book with her in the first place, but she knew what Shera had meant. "Okay. 'Night, Shera."
"Goodnight, Tifa."
And Shera fell asleep quickly, while Tifa stayed up for what turned into another good hour as she studied Vincent's picture.
(A/N): Wow. Can we say long? I think out of all of these, this is my favorite chapter. I'm proud of its length, and I'm happy I got to cover everything I wanted to before I forgot it all in some random bout of daydreaming. Emotion is so hard to capture. My story on the timeline behind Vincent's "murder" and happy coffin time was meant to explain the stasis theory while also refuting some of the trouble with the stasis idea, such as: when did his hair grow, where'd he get the clothes, if hair grows in stasis (as in death as well), then why weren't his nails extremely long as well and his toenails (in those boots? Ouch!) and such. So I just gave him four years to grow his hair out. Meh.
Reviews are much appreciated! Thanks to everyone who's been reading!
