To Know You

Chapter Ten: Malleable Morning

By Rachel "D" Winslow

"You'll go, won't you?" The words broke the silence and seemed to permeate the very walls of the room.

Vincent looked down at the warm body cradled in his arms, her deep brown eyes staring up at him awaiting his answer. He idly let his hand fall over her hair as he thought it over. It shouldn't do him any harm; he could stay in the shadows for as long as he pleased.

"...I'll go." He managed a soft whisper.

It was early morning and still dark outside. The rain continued to beat down harshly on the windows of the apartment; inside, the two of them sat very still, listening to the sounds of the earth as it mourned the loss of another soul.

They had stayed that way for hours, she curled up in his lap with her arms hung around his neck and her head resting on his shoulder as if to say, "I'm here," and he simply holding her there, staring blankly at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes. She certainly hadn't felt like taking him up on his offer of time spent at the water's edge after the day had gone so horribly wrong. Neither one of them had gotten any sleep that night, and neither one of them was about to shift position and break their awkward embrace. It was a welcome contact that both of them needed, a rarity they were unwilling to compromise.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered into his shoulder, not looking at him for fear that his gaze would weaken her confession. "I feel like..." she began with fresh tears, "...like I took something from you that I can never give back." She cut herself off before she lost control, shaking in his arms.

"Shhh." He squeezed her gently, and she felt even worse. Why should he offer her comfort when he was the one who had lost? "We both know," he continued quietly, still searching the empty white space above them, "that if you had asked me to, I wouldn't have gone."

She shifted in his arms, turning to face him. "But you did go. Why did you come after me?"

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting it escape him through his nose. "You had intentions of your own." He paused for a moment. "I suppose it was fear," he freely admitted, after gathering the words.

"I guess I put you in a bad position." Tifa's eyes began to sting, and she ducked back into Vincent's shirt.

He sighed, feeling his nerves begin to let go in the nearly imperceivable shudders that left him with his breath. "You did...but it's over now." He gathered her to himself tightly, still not quite his usual self.

"Vincent..." Tifa offered, "I'm really glad you were with me today."

His head fell forward to rest on hers. "What would you have done had I not been there?"

She couldn't be sure if it was curiousity or accusation. "I don't really know," she sighed. "...Would you want to know?"

"I don't think it really matters." She felt his chin working against her skull, and she was grateful for his contact and warmth, even if it would only last for so long. "It's not something you would have kept from me." He smiled faintly. "I know that much at least."

"It would have been really hard." Her eyes trailed the folds in his pants against the couch, and she absent-mindedly lost her fingers in the fabric of his shirt. "I'm glad you were there."

"So am I."

She almost could have fallen asleep then, in his arms, satisfied with his admission. Her eyes flicked to the garbage bag lying by the couch. He'd not been sure about it, but she'd convinced him it was all right; anything that had to do with his childhood, that only he and his mother would have shared, he could take. It was best, they decided, that he find what was meaningful to him before it was cleared out; he didn't have anything else by which to remember her.

His choices had been odd, but they were things that his other relatives could have certainly done without. Among them a rolling pin, a baby pillow, and a card he had made for her when he was ten. Things that held a certain significance to him alone, that others wouldn't be able to appreciate like he did.

Not a monster at all.

Curled into his body, she hoped her presence gave him some comfort. She also hoped he had meant what he said about being glad he had been there. She knew he probably felt guilty for never taking the time to visit his mother before. If his past behavior was any indication, it would haunt him for a very long time if he never made peace with it.

"Vincent...?"

Silence, then something. "Yes?"

"You must have been close to your mother..." Tactless perhaps, but she couldn't help but take joy in the fact that his heart was indeed reddened flesh, and not black or made of stone. She'd known it all along, but she had her proof laid out for her, and there was no longer any way that he could deny it.

Perhaps not the best time to begin that conversation, but it was a relevant moment, and he had to appreciate that. There was really no way to know when it would be appropriate to ask him that question, but it was a fair one, and though he didn't owe it to her, he decided that he would divulge a little of himself to her. He hadn't been himself all night, and it seemed much better to him to get it out of his system at once before he changed his mind.

"...I suppose so." She was always so kind to him, and he never resented her for being weak. He had tried to be her hero, tried to save her from the man she loved. In the end, the inevitable consequences had made his life a living hell. Not unlike another scenario, much later in his life.

He honestly had forgotten for a while. Then, when he and Tifa had left the room in the evening, he had spotted an old thimble on the edge of her dresser. He'd muttered something about skillful old hands, and then the memories had come.

He remembered helping his mother with dinner when he was small; he remembered her teaching him cursive. He remembered late night talks with her and the wisdom she imparted to him. He remembered never being able to give back enough, never feeling like he could ever repay her for all she'd gone through to keep him safe and well. She'd always been there for him, no matter what the circumstances were. Yes, they had been close; though it had seemed like there hadn't been time to feel it, if he thought back hard enough, he could remember the moments that had mattered. The thimble he'd taken too. She'd loved him so much.

"...What about your father? What happened to him?"

He remembered broken bottles and hiding in the closet, loud screams and muffled cries on the weekends his father did bother to come home. He remembered seeing his mother, bloody and beaten time and time again, and swearing that he would find a way to end her suffering. He'd hated him just as much.

He had to admire her; she was a strong woman.

Vincent sighed and let his head fall to rest on the back of the couch. Clenched his fist for a moment, and then released it slowly. Tifa sat up and watched him, waiting for something more. How would he ever explain it to her?

"My father died long before my mother."

"...Before you went to sleep?" Silence. It was easier to refer to the years he had spent locked away from the world as time spent sleeping, rather than doling out rash comments such as when he 'went in the box', giving off such impressions as he was some tired marionette. Pincushion was far closer to the truth, but she was unaware of the extent to that truth.

"Before I was a Turk." It was a very long time ago, the beginning of why he became everything he did, the very first step in his long road to hell and suffering. In that moment, he could almost blame his father for passing the guilt and the torment onto him. But if it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else in his place. Better to take responsibility for his own particulars than to try to hold a grudge against the man who merely put him in position, set him up for the fall. Each step that led him closer was really a decision of his own making.

"What happened?"

"I killed him."

Abrupt, almost as if he was trying to cut her off. He could barely believe he'd said it when it was out, hadn't hesitated at all when it came to admitting the truth. He dared to glance at the girl who had wriggled around completely in his arms; she had tilted her head towards him and was staring at him with contemplation beneath her tired eyes. He knew she expected that he meant he had killed him in the same way he had always said he'd killed Lucrecia, and was responsible for Sephiroth. All indirect results, riddling him with guilty confessions and a desperate need for atonement. As if she didn't believe he was capable of truly murdering someone in cold blood. But he'd done it many times; the difference lied in the fact that he'd been cold and detached when he was on the job. But when he'd killed his father, he had done it with hatred in his heart, and it was a lingering hatred that had never really gone away.

"You killed him," she repeated, almost like an animatron.

"It's a long story..." Much longer, in fact, than he would be willing to elaborate on.

She assumed he wouldn't be willing to tell her, sure that she already knew what it was going to detail; he not being there at the right time, not doing something he should have, indirectly causing guilt to him for some accidental death. "I'm not going to sleep anytime soon," she simply put.

He had wanted to stay quiet at that time, wanted nothing more than to sit in the dark and be selfish that morning. He had wanted to use up the whole of his opportunity to be comforted by her warmth and her soothing voice, and never let on to her how much he was beginning to enjoy her presence, never tell her how appreciated it was at that moment when he was most vulnerable. He was excused for being numb, and even then he was excused for being the very opposite. Part of him just wanted to talk to her, and let everything go; if there was one person in the entire world that he could talk to and trust to never bring the same conversation up again if he wished it that way, it was Tifa. That night he had deviated from his set ways, the persona that others had come to expect of him, and it seemed there was no use in arguing that the time was not as right as it ever would be.

He breathed in deeply, trying to let go of his anticipation as he prepared himself for her reaction. The noise alone had her attention, though her gaze hadn't left him yet. "...He hit her." A pause, and an expression crossed his face that told he was trying to gather his thoughts. "A lot."

Tifa slid down to the floor so that she could face him. Vincent was becoming so lost in his thoughts that he didn't protest, and his memories became distraction enough that he could easily avoid looking into her eyes as she sat there. She leaned one elbow up on the seat as she sat with her legs tucked behind her, her face dangerously close to his knee; this he didn't notice, and if he had found the time to be uncomfortable, he still wouldn't have cared much.

"She didn't deserve it...no one does," he was careful to add to that, knowing he could come off sounding like some did, while others didn't. "He was a drunken waste of life." A bitterness permeated his words as he spoke, and she could feel the reserve of hate he held for the man. "He was out all the time, doing god-knows-what with god-knows-who, coming home at all hours of the morning, smelling like drink and beating on her." He took a minute to get himself together, and Tifa waited patiently. "He was a Turk." And his eyes finally did meet hers, as if she was supposed to understand some hidden implication.

She mulled it over for a moment. "But...why did you become a Turk? From what it sounds like..." and she tried to choose her words carefully, "you would want to be anything but the same man as your father." She all but winced at the words, and she was unsure of how they would be received. But Vincent, too tired and too resigned from the day's events, was forgiving, understanding. He brushed away the words, knowing that she wouldn't have known a single way to make her point otherwise.

He even smiled slightly, bitterly. "I was fifteen when I shot him. He was buried in the backyard for a few days...until they came looking for him." Vincent continued to unravel the gruesome details of his first murder, wondering at himself even then; how he was able to drag his father's bloodened corpse past his mother's crying, huddled form without so much as batting an eye, he only assumed was what had given him the first hardening of his heart that had enabled him to do as much killing as he had. "I had saved her..."

"Vincent..."

"But I also brought her a lot of heartache. When they came, they simply told me that I would be wearing his suit from then on."

"So really..." she said with understanding, "she lost both the men in her life." She leant her head against his knee, reminding herself that his body was warm. It helped reconcile him with the image she had always held of him, and made her forget what vague stories she had heard, claims that he'd been such a cold-hearted killer. Wistfully, she added, "You were only fifteen..."

"I wasn't like him." It sounded like he was trying to convice her, but part of him knew he was still convincing himself after all those years. "I resigned myself to the fact that I was never getting out after a time, but I did my job grudgingly, never gave into the lifestyle they held..."

Tifa only offered a sad smile as he pushed himself back into silence. After a time, he was absently stroking the hair by her temple. Neither one of them had noticed when it started, but she didn't mind, and he never quite seemed aware that he was even doing so.

"It was a terrible, isolated life..."

"You blame him, don't you?" Her left hand came up and rested on his thigh, but he didn't shrink away from the gesture. Instead he sighed, letting his hand drop from her hair to rest lifelessly on the couch.

"I always resented him...my mother was always alone, even when he was there. Even when I was there..." his head fell back, and he stared at the ceiling some more. "It got easier with time...my duties were the embodiment of why I resented him...and it was so much easier...killing with resentment towards him, and then towards myself. I pictured him...before long I was killing myself."

Jumbled, ragged words from him, but she understood him well. Soon, she had climbed back into his lap and lain her head next to his. Stunned into silence again, he waited hours before he spoke even a single word again, and when he finally did later on that day, he wouldn't be able to help himself in asking her if she thought him terrible before muttering something about how he was going to burn in hell.

"Vincent..." Silence. "Would you want something to drink?"

She only felt him nod against her head, and that was enough for her. It seemed his spirit had ended its restlessness, or at least what it was willing to show of it. She was sure there was plenty working at his heart, deep beneath the surface of his skin, more than just what he had needed to get out right at that moment. But she knew she would have to wait for another day. She wondered, at times, whether his demons were the only facet of his being that altered his candidness and the rest of his demeanor. It seemed that he was often ruled by opposing desires, internal conflicts that never seemed to be resolved. Sometimes so predictable and at other times so uncharacteristic, and he seemed even less stable as of late. Perhaps the demons she had seen were not the only ones he was forced to deal with.