Bittersweet

She was propped up in bed, sleeping again, her hands folded patiently in her lap as if she really, truly had intended to stay awake for him this time. He left the door open as he entered, just in case Jordan decided to pop over, and came to sit in the chair he had brought up from the dining room.

"Tifa."

She took a soft breath through her nose, from the tube that fed her easy oxygen, and opened her eyes. Eyes that brightened as soon as they recognized him. "Vince … "

She was exhausted from earlier attempts to fix the blankets. Most of the time her breath was enough to push out his entire name. Not that he minded hearing Lily's informal title once in awhile.

"Breakfast," he told her as he brought the tray around and set it up on the bed. Oatmeal, tea, a few slices of an orange, most of which he would be feeding to her. The last time she had tried to lift a teacup to her lips with unconsciously trembling hands, it had spilled everywhere and she had cried a little. And though he had done his best to let her be as independent as she wanted for as long as she wanted, he drew the line at letting her burn herself. And she did her best to be gracious about it.

The oranges she could feed herself, but the oatmeal he scooped up and brought to her mouth for her. She watched him all the time, and he met her eyes as often as he could. Mealtimes had quickly become his favorite part of the day, when she was aware enough to smile a little and sometimes touch his hand. So tired, she slept for most of the day, and the doctor had finally given them a time frame. A few weeks, maybe a month at the most. At ninety-two, she had survived most of her contemporaries and escaped a lot of the big age-related maladies. Her body was simply worn out and was shutting down. She would probably go in her sleep.

A tiny bit of oatmeal dripped down her chin. He rescued it carefully, not willing to let any go to waste.

She turned her head away for the next bite and Vincent resisted the urge to sigh as he took the spoon away. Mealtimes were becoming shorter and shorter.

She drank a few sips of her tea and then sat back again, content simply to be with him until she drifted off. He smiled a little and tried to be worthy of that serene, knowing gaze, which was most of their conversation now. He had decided, long before it had come to this, that she would never see him breaking. He would never express his grief to her, never tell her about the dreams that made him reluctant to go to sleep, alone in Jordan's old bedroom. Perhaps he couldn't control when she was going to die, or how he felt when he inevitably thought about it, but he could, to some extent, control how she felt about leaving him.

No sorrow, no regrets, no distress on his account; not if he could help it. Not even if she said she wanted it.

And she had said. Sometimes, when she had the strength, she asked pointed questions about his future, pushed every button she could think of, because 'pretending he didn't feel anything wasn't going to make it easier'. Some days she made it very hard to keep a lid on his heartache.

But keep a lid on it he had, and would until she was gone. Both of them knew the truth, and they didn't need to talk about it – mostly because he didn't want her to spend the time she had left trying to fix what wouldn't be fixed. He had made a decision, he had known the consequences from the beginning, he was ready enough to face them. All she needed to do was not worry about anything, and he would be adequately satisfied with not having to bring any baggage of atonement away from her death. She would never believe that he would be fine, but they could pretend. They had gotten very good at pretending.

Her smile twitched a little wider suddenly and she slid her fingers across the bedspread toward him, a silent petition for his hand. That was something he could do.

"You probably won't miss … " A breath. " … having to take care of me this way."

He raised an eyebrow. She was going to try. Once, he had watched her fall asleep in the middle of a sentence. "If you say so."

Her smile threatened to spill over into a grin. Faded, battered, weary, hidden behind her age, but her grin was still the same.

After a moment, he forced his eyes away and busied himself tidying the dishes. Deliberately refusing to think about the morning he would have no reason to make oatmeal, no teacup to fill with tea, no routine to blindly, devotedly follow. The morning he would realize that he had had a purpose, he had been someone to somebody, but that it had ended, just like any dream realistically had to. And he had woken up to what had always been the inevitable truth: he was immortal, cursed, and all alone.

"Will you read to me … until I fall asleep?"

It had taken surprisingly little to adjust into the role of her caretaker. Even if it had all changed almost overnight. Reasonably healthy one minute, and the next she had been bedridden with a nasty case of bronchitis. And though her body had struggled to scramble up that increasingly vertical incline toward recovery, it had never actually gotten there. And she had eventually been too weak to wash herself, or eat by herself, or get up to use the bathroom, though that had become less of an issue as her appetite had waned.

It had made her angry for awhile, as she had naturally fought against the reality of a weakened immune system and all of the costs it had entailed. But she had been willing after nearly a month, after the doctor had finally spelled out the finale on the horizon, to start accepting the truth.

And Vincent had been very grateful when, one evening, instead of being upset and miserable and sick, things he had no control over as much as he wished he had, she had finally seemed to look at him and realize what she was putting him through. And, like an apology, had asked him to bring in a deck of cards.

"What do you want me to read?"

It had been like getting her back from a dark pit – if only for a few months before the world ended, anyway. And he had taken it like a gift in the midst of what should probably have been blackening grief, one last brilliant shine of memories before night fell. Feeding her, washing her, dressing her, tucking her in. Seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, though the sound had become little more than gentle gasps, knowing she was mostly, finally at peace with reality – and being able to share in all of it, to forget that the end was so close, whenever she opened her eyes.

She glanced briefly at a thin red book on the night table. "That."

He leaned over to pick it up. And almost immediately recognized it for poetry.

"Connie brought it over yesterday … when she and little Trina came to visit."

He had never really had an interest in poetry, though he would admit to himself that some pieces were well thought out, meaningful. With a long-suffering sigh that she would know was mostly false, and mostly so that he could see a corner of that smug, intimate smile, he opened it.

The pages turned automatically to one that was dog-eared.

"That's one I like," she told him. The interval, he noticed, between when she closed her eyes and when she opened them again was getting longer. Soon she would be out until he woke her for lunch.

He cleared his throat, not sure he should be ready to pave her way. But happy enough right now to fill the moments before she nodded off.

"Surprised by joy – impatient as the Wind, I turned to share the transport – Oh! With whom, but thee, deep buried in the silent tomb … "

He frowned a little and glanced at her, not sure if she had meant to lead him to a verse about death. But she had her eyes closed, listening, and he knew he wasn't going to make an audible objection. She could have her way; it was only a poem.

" … that spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind – but how could I forget thee? Through what power, even for the least division of an hour, have I been so beguiled as to be blind to my most grievous loss."

He realized with an uncomfortable suddenness that he might have written this, years from now, at a moment when he turned and looked, on his way to or from a hunting ground, and saw the sun rising out of a white horizon. And, realizing it was beautiful, would suddenly remember as surely as the sun rose that she hadn't seen it, and that all of that magnificence had been wasted on someone for whom joy would always be equal parts pain.

" – that thought's return was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; that neither present time, nor years unborn could to my sight that heavenly face restore … "

She had fallen asleep. He slowly closed the book and put it back on the night stand. And simply watched her for a minute as his thoughts turned over.

It hadn't been a conversation she had been looking for, with her questions, with her reminders. Not precisely trying to undermine his efforts to maintain normalcy, not even just being stubborn, but wanting – since he wouldn't let her sacrifice her peace of mind for his – to make sure he was letting himself feel, before it was too late to go back and prepare himself.

She knew all of his buttons, just as she knew exactly when and how to press them. And he silently cursed the fact, unsuccessfully pinching at the ache that had started with the bridge of his nose.