Disclaimer: Me: Square-enix, can I have Final Fantasy VII? Square-Enix: No... Me: Damn...

Chapter 4: My Sanity on a Funeral Pyre

/Paranoia is the insect working its way/Through my subconscious thoughts/It's the larva of self doubt/Gestating in my heart as I spiral down/And everything I touch is breaking/And it falls to earth in splinters/And I shiver as every splinter/Finds its way underneath my skin/And after 22 years I can still make my skin crawl/Every shortcoming, a pitfall/On my way to making amends/Within myself to be what I became/Sometimes it feels like the whole wide world/Has made itself my enemy/But I will stand upon my own two feet/And raise my head up/I lick my wounds/Trying to cleanse the infection/Rabid and diseased reality fades away/When I pushed myself too far/A dream of emotional perfection/Has left a wounded heart/Trying to perceive the gifts inherent inside me/It's like squeezing the trigger/It's like opening fire/On everyone who's let me down/On every beautiful lie that is only fiction/For the first time/I'm losing control and I like it/Freedom feels like the noose is gone/ -Atreyu

She woke with a splitting headache just like she knew she would. Her arm hurt like never before and she was a little slow as to catching on why. Then she remembered the night before. Her brow creased at the thought of what she had done, she hadn't seen it and frankly she didn't want to. The blood was seeping through the bandage though and she could tell how bad it was.

The sun was low in the sky, judging by the colour of the clouds it was setting. She'd been asleep since when she'd passed out in Vincent's arms the night before. She wondered how long that was.

Despite the pain it caused she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her head spun and she was overcome with a wave of dizziness, but she was determined to do this. She needed, more than anything right now, to just be out of bed. Standing on wobbling legs she crossed the room to the bathroom it was connected to. She stumbled inside and took a look in the mirror.

She made a face at her reflection. Never in her entire life had she looked this horrible. Her long brown hair fell limp, sticking to her neck and shoulders with sweat. Her skin glistened with perspiration, a sure sign that she'd had a fever and it had broken. Her lips were rimmed blue and her eyes seemed sunken, the usual fire completely gone from them. She was pale, more so than usual and she was skinny. It would take a lot to recover from what she'd done this time.

At that thought her gaze moved back to her arm. The bandage was dyed red and it was soaked with her blood. She creased her brow when she tried to think of exactly how bad the wound really was. She remembered the fight between she and Cloud, she remembered picking up the glass from the floor, she remembered the actual process of cutting her arm open. However, for the life of her she couldn't remember what the end result was. Why hadn't she looked to see just what she had done to herself last night? She'd wasted no time in running to Vincent's house.

She moved her other hand to the bottom of the bandage. It was just as wet as it looked and she winced a little as she bumped the bandage against the wound. It was sticky and would be painful to rip off, but she was determined to see what was underneath it.

Just as she was about to tear off the first part of the bandage she heard the noise of a chair scraping across the floor downstairs. She pulled back immediately and looked to the doorway from where the noise was heard. She walked slowly to the door and out into the hall. Completely forgetting about the wound she moved to the top of the stairs in the mansion. From here she could see the kitchen where the tall, crimson-eyed man was located.

He was seated at the kitchen table with a newspaper in his hands. Looking closer Tifa could see a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth. The way he looked right now reminded her of Cid and it took everything she had not to burst out in laughter. It was a really funny sight. She decided instead to just go down to join him.

He didn't look up on her way down the stairs or even when she sat across from him at the table. She knew he knew she was there though. Everything was quiet, while he sat there reading and smoking and she watched him do so. The silence was killing her, she wanted him to say something to her, to look at her, to acknowledge her presence in any way at all.

"Good morning, Vincent." She said trying to get his attention. Her voice was still as weak and strained as before and had a new underlying substance: fear. She was afraid that he would never speak to her, she was afraid he actually would. He'd made his judgments about her last night, she was sure of it. She just wasn't so sure she wanted to know what conclusions he'd come to on his own. The man was a little strange, who knew what went through his head. However, if he were to say something she could confirm her thoughts and not be sitting here wondering.

He didn't say anything, not that she'd really expected him to. He didn't even nod, and that was quiet even for him. He was ignoring her and she knew why. She bit her bottom lip and wrung her hands looking at the table in front of her.

"That's alright Vincent, you don't have to talk to me. It's not like I wanted you to anyway." She said. She expected him to do just what he did, turned the page and smashed the cigarette butt in the ashtray on the table beside him. He acted as if she hadn't even said anything.

"Who is Lyris?" He asked suddenly, catching Tifa off guard so she jumped at the sound of his voice. It wasn't angry or cheerful, just as unemotional as ever. It would have made Tifa sigh in relief if she'd known what he was talking about.

"What?" She asked.

"Who is Lyris?" He repeated placing the paper down on the table and turning his gaze to her. "You have that name carved into your arm. Whose is it?"

Lyris? How did he know she had that name carved into her arm? He must have cleaned her wound also, instead of just wrapping it like she thought he had. Of course, that didn't surprise her, Vincent had been a Turk and he had traveled with them a year ago, he would know to clean it before dressing it.

"I don't know." She admitted, averting her gaze from his. "I don't know who it is."

"So you just carve random names into your skin?" He asked his voice seeming to get a harder tone to it. He was mad at her, she could feel it and she turned frightened eyes back to his.

"What other names are there Tifa?" He asked. The way he spat out her name made her wince and she caught her breath. "Where else have you etched them into your body."

"There are no other names." She said almost inaudibly.

"None?" Vincent asked over the voice in her head. His voice was laced with skepticism. She shook her head and he nodded once. His blood-red eyes bored into hers and she swallowed hard. After a moment his gaze softened and he looked away.

"How long was I sleeping?" She felt she had to ask. She didn't quite trust her inner clock at the moment.

"Three days." Vincent answered stiffly.

"Three days?" That shouldn't have come as a shock to her but it did.

"Why did you come here Tifa?" he asked, his voice had completely lost it's angry tone. Instead Tifa heard something there she never had before, it was almost as if he was about to start crying.

"I'm sorry I bothered you." She said meekly. He creased his brow at her comment and opened his mouth as if he was appalled.

"You never bothered me, I was just wondering why you sought out my attention instead of one of the others." He explained.

"One of the others? Who?" She asked.

"I don't know, Cloud perhaps." At the sound of the blonde's name Tifa's eyes watered and she bit her lower lip.

"Cloud left… last night." She said. Vincent's eyes narrowed at this and he sat back in his chair. Tifa looked up at him as the first tear fell. "He said I should've died, and Aerith should still be here."

If Tifa thought he been angry before she didn't want to know what emotion was going through him now. At the sight of his face Tifa broke down, she put her head in her hands and cried into them. She heard his chair scrape on the ground and she suspected he'd left the room. She was surprised to feel his gloved hands on her upper arms pulling her up and into his arms. She let her tears fall from her eyes and onto his shirt.

"He said he'd rather me be dead Vincent. He's never said anything like that to me before." She said into his shoulder. He didn't say anything, just held her and rocked slightly back and forth.

Putting her at arms length he looked her in the eye. "You know that's not true Teef." He said.

"Isn't it?" She asked her tears not entirely gone.

"Tifa what are you talking about?" He asked getting a little scared. "You think people actually want you dead."

"Cloud does." She said. "Aerith should still be alive Vincent, she brought happiness to the world. What do I bring, nothing, I'm no one of importance. People loved her Vincent, she did amazing things. She saved the planet and people love her for it. Who loves me for doing the things that I did on our journey."

"People love you Tifa." Vincent frantically tried to convince her. "So many people love you."

"Who?" She cried. "I've done nothing to help, I stayed back and let Aerith save the world. What part did I play in that? Aerith did everything, she won and she's winning again. Even now she's warning me to watch out and I'm not even listening to her. What kind of person am I? She's telling me to pay attention and I was too caught up in my other damned voices to listen. They want me dead Vincent, all of them. I need you, you have to help me. You can ignore them, how do you ignore them? I'm sick of this. They're killing me and that's exactly what they want."

"Who's killing you Tifa?" Vincent broke her off with his soothing voice.

"They won't leave me alone. They want me dead." She kept crying.

"TIFA!" Vincent yelled, cupping her head in his hands to get her to look him in the eye. "Who are they?"

"The voices." She said and Vincent's brow creased farther down than she'd ever seen it before. "They want me dead Vincent. They're gonna kill me, he said so."

"Who's he?" Vincent was only getting more and more confused.

"I don't know. I don't know who he is, but he talks to me. Yells at me and tells me they want me dead. He says the only way to keep them from killing me is to kill myself. I don't want to die by their hands Vincent, I don't even know who they are. If anyone's going to kill me I want it to be someone I know." Her tears ceased when she saw the look on Vincent's face. A look of understanding.

"No one knows you better than yourself." He said nodding his head.

"I don't want to die Vincent. I need to know how to ignore them." She pleaded.

"You want me to teach you to ignore the voices in your head?" He asked her and she nodded her head in affirmation. He almost chuckled at the foolishness of such a question. It sounded like he thought her crazy. If he didn't know any better by his own voices he really would think that of her. He wasn't crazy though and he knew she wasn't either.

"I can't" He said simply and let go of her head.

"What?" She asked in shock.

"I can't teach you Tifa, I don't know how to myself." He explained.

She felt her heart break again. He was her last chance and he'd just told her he couldn't help her. She needed help, someone needed to tell her what was going on inside her own head. Maybe she really was crazy. Maybe she should just give up and go back home, at least there she didn't have anyone to stop her from ending her life.

Note: So what'd you think? Should I go through and change some stuff? I don't know anymore... I don't think I like how OOC Vincent was in this chapter... he sure did talk an awful lot huh? Well don't forget to review... I love you, all you good reviewers out there... You all should skip over to my other story, it needs some love... Well, there's the review button...

Ayumi