Don't tell me this never crossed your mind.

o o o

The little village on the road to Mideel was unremarkable, at first. Small houses, the ones on the outskirts abandoned, and a few dusty stores greeted the three as they entered, and they all agreed that stopping was unnecessary. Well, Cid and Tifa agreed, Vincent merely shrugged. No one accosted the three as they walked, rather quickly, along the main road. Rumor of Cloud sped them along, and Meteor above made them uneasy. They barely glanced around as they passed through the village.

Cid dropped the butt of his cigarette to the ground, and from habit, glanced back at the other two. Tifa was right behind him, which was all right, but Vincent had stopped in the middle of the road, looking up at one of the abandoned houses that ringed the village. "Val?" The pilot called, stopping. Tifa looked at him with a frown, then looked back at the gunman. "Val, what is it?" Cid continued, doubling back to his friend, absently lighting another cigarette. Vincent ignored him, his eyes on the dusty house, then walked up the stairs. "Valentine!" Cid protested. "We've gotta go, man!"

Vincent still ignored him and casually dug his claw into the boards barring the door, then ripped them off. When the door was free he walked inside, leaving his companions in the road. Tifa and Cid looked at each other, then hurried after the gunman.

They found him standing in a dusty, dim living room. Furniture and decor still sat where they had been left, as if the family who lived there had left on vacation and never came back. Vincent was standing before the elaborate fireplace, looking up at a dozen dusted-over photographs on the wall above. "Valentine?" Cid asked, his voice much softer than it had been in the road. "What is it, man?" Vincent didn't answer, but closed his eyes, seeming to struggle with himself, not against his demons as they had all seen before, but against old memory and old grief. The other two looked at each other again, then carefully each put a hand to the gunman's shoulders, offering what support and comfort he'd take. "C'mon, Vince." Cid said. "What's eating you?"

Vincent looked at them both for long moments, then sighed, turning his eyes back up to the obscured pictures. "Not Vincent." He said finally, a harsh whisper.

"What?" Cid asked, confused.

Vincent shook his head slowly. "My name....my real name...it's not Vincent Valentine." He said quietly. "My mother named me Vitu." Cid noticed Tifa jump slightly, but Vincent didn't, his eyes on the pictures. "I...changed it, to protect my family, when I joined the Turks." A half-smile curved his lips, two parts amused, one part nostalgic. "And, I admit, to give myself a bit more 'flair'. I...lived here, my entire young life, until I was eighteen and went to Midgar." He reached up to the largest picture, the one in the middle, and smudged away some of the dust with his thumb, revealing a faded image of himself at seventeen, his hair in a short, neat bob and his eyes rich wine instead of glowing ruby, but it was undeniably Vincent, or Vitu it seemed. The picture was a family portrait, it seemed, but he didn't disturb any of the rest of the dust, keeping his family's faces hidden.

"My...my father was from here, from Mideel." He continued softly. "Every kin of his blood carried eyes like wine, our birthmark as it was, but my mother was Wutaian. We were...striking, my siblings and I, and some called us angels and some demons, and we were so different and so proud that we had few friends....and many admirers. We all eventually moved to Midgar, where beauty was the norm, and pride wouldn't get us fired or scorned or shame our parents. But I had very little contact with them...to protect them......."

"But one more than the rest, right?" Both men turned in surprise to Tifa, who blushed slightly but continued. "You loved them all, all four of your siblings, but you loved your little sister the most, right? That's why you rarely saw her, ever." Vincent frowned. He had never mentioned the number of siblings he had, or even that he had a sister. Tifa turned back to the picture, mimicing Vincent and wiping away the dust over each face, knowing exactly where each one lay. Vincent stared hard as her thumb unearthed his parents, each one of his brothers, and last, his sister, only twelve when the picture was taken. Each child in the picture had the same rich ebony hair as their mother, and the same wine eyes as their father. The younger Vincent had his arm around his sister's shoulders and the girl was smiling brightly at the camera.

Tifa smiled sadly, looking back at Vincent. "Vitu Fairtai." She said softly. "A long-lost, much-loved uncle Eva Fairtai told me about so often. That my mother told me about." She touched the picture frame gently. "I....my mother had the same picutre in the front room. She'd get it down, sometimes, and tell me about my uncles. Uncle Jas, who was a merchant in Midgar..... Uncle Averl and Uncle Thans, one year apart but so much like twins, who made guns in Corel....and Uncle Vitu, who had joined the Shinra and had disappeared before I was born, who she missed dearly, who had been her favorite brother." Vincent's eyes had darkened with old memory, hearing the names of his brothers whom he hadn't seen in decades. Tifa ducked her head, her voice wavering slightly. "She moved to Nibleheim with my father. She died, when I was a kid still, some sickness I never learned the name of, that took her in two weeks and never gave her a chance to fight back. My...your brothers are still alive, all in Midgar. I lived with Uncle Jas and his wife for a while, after Nibelheim was burned, before I joined up with Avalanche." She looked at the floor, aware of both pairs of eyes on her, one bright and confused, one dark and thoughtful.

Vincent closed his eyes, exhaling slowly. "Lock-,Tifa." He said quietly. "If we survive this madness, I would greatly appreciate it if you led me back to my family." Tifa nodded, not trusting herself to speak without crying, and Vincent turned and walked out the door.