A/N: Thanks to everyone who commented earlier. :D This is my favorite chapter of the three, because I wrote it first and it still sits smoothest in my mind. I hope you enjoy it.

Leaving Eden

The Eve (In Passing)

She does not know the meaning of sin, and he refuses to be the one that teaches her.

He would be the best candidate, of course. He knows how much the burdens weigh, the heaviness that sits like coal and metal in one's heart. He knows the way a devil's tongue forks when it whispers persuasions in one's ear. He knows the unquenchable heat of flame that thirsts for blood and flesh and power; he knows all about hatred. He knows how hard and painful the fall from paradise is: one moment his hand is holding Lucretia's, the next moment Hojo is plating it in metal. He knows the grip it has on one's being.

He has never let go.

Vincent feels the numbing burn of sorrow every moment – it ripples inside him, in the monster-cells, in the tears of his cape and the way his hair grows pointed at the ends. His mouth has long stopped uttering confessions; instead he traces the myriad steps to damnation, his lips growing paler and paler, his tongue bitter with the taste of guilt.

He is reminded of the word forbidden when he looks at her. Remember the serpents, he tells himself. The beasts, the demons. But they are lost to her smile and her teasing; they are lost to the shape of her head fitting under his chin as she whispers, "I love you, Vinnie." And when he says nothing in reply she sighs, irritated and full of resentment, although she is used to it.

She believes she can chase away the ghosts, wipe away the tears, cleans his soul of its sins, but no one is that powerful. And she pulls away from him again, mock tragic and moaning about how he never responds. "I'll leave for good," she threatens. "And you will miss me loads. You will kiss the pillow I slept on because it smells like me, and you will cry rivers into it because the loss is just too bad." But she does not go; he makes dinner and she makes tea and by midnight she is cuddling close to him again and he will not, not commit another sin. He grows stiff and cold when her lips find his cheek and try to find his mouth.

"You shouldn't be here," he says. "Why are you here?"

"I tell you every day, but you never listen."

He is ripping her to shreds, and he knows it. He is tearing her to pieces, he is sucking the joy out of her spirit. But he cannot hold her – not with an arm like his. He will hurt her. He hurts her. Maybe she will go away. She cries and she punches him. He thinks she does not know quite how hard her fists are. She shouts obscenities and then, to his horror, she starts to laugh. "If I could leave you, I would. But I can't."

Then her giggles turn to hiccups and she buries them into his chest until it is soaked, while his human hand combs through her hair.

"Why can't I fix you, Vinnie? And why can't I leave you alone?"

The words sting him, like salt on an open wound; he feels crushed and empty and tender. More like a beast than ever. He does not answer, instead he says, "You will die here."

"And it'll all be your fault." Then she moves away from him and curls up, and he wishes once again that death would take him.

He does not mention it, but he is really full of envy, because they will have peace, they will have an end. When they have their eternal sleep they will not have nightmares and they will no longer wake from time to time to wonder why their hearts are still beating and their minds are overplaying bitter memories. He envies them, too, that they will not last forever having to recall what once was. Barret's wrinkles deepen, Cid's hair turns silver at the edges; soon Cloud will be stooped and Tifa decaying, and they will all become ashes, every one of them.

"I'll find a way for you to age normally again."

And her words would hurt less if her resolve wasn't so sincere.

"You should live before you start getting too old," he tries to laugh, but he has never been good at laughter. It rasps out, it wheezes. It sounds mirthless. He averts his eyes. "Yuffie, don't do this. Don't hurt yourself for me."

She cannot explain herself; she scuffs a shoe across the floor and puts her hands on her hips. "Whatever. It doesn't matter." She goes on tiptoe, joking about how she will never grow another inch now that she is over twenty, and she gives him a chaste kiss. It lands smack on his nose, "Because your nose is long and huge, like my boots."

They talk about the boots, the weather, the weapons, materia, her country, his past when he has been drinking (he forgets to pry the bottle from her hands, and she does not remind him, claiming that she is old and sober enough). It is like they are married, but not. They never talk about tomorrow. Maybe she is hoping for something.

He knows what she is doing; he has done it before, staying in the cave with Lucretia, waiting for a miracle that he knows will never happen. "It's almost winter," She murmurs one night. The wind blows through the cracks in his broken door, and he remembers that the sun sleeps much earlier these days. She smiles when she looks up at him and something inside him gives way, breaks – she cannot stay here, she will spoil here. She is too beautiful and alive and happy to remain here. She has duties; she has so much to give Wutai, their friends, the world.

He has nothing to give her. He never did.

And he is worried that he might find it hard to let her go, if she stays any longer.

He cannot love her. She does not know the meaning of regret, and he does not intend for her to.

So he tells her, cold as the floor beneath their feet, the polished metal of his gun, the dying autumn: "I will never love you. Go away."

And she looks stricken and her lip wobbles but she takes it coolly. "I knew all that," still with enough spunk to sound self-assured. "I was just wondering if you'd ever say it. You've never had the balls." Then, because she cannot think what else to do, she throws her arms around him in a clumsy embrace and shouts that she hates him, and then, a little less hysterically, "I was never enough, was I?"

Yuffie never used to cry so much. He has broken her; he has started turning her into a monster too. He cannot let that happen. He is the one that was never enough, and will never be. Unless he agrees, she might keep hoping, she might linger...

So he keeps silent, and it is enough, because the next day he wakes up to empty nothing: she is gone.

She does not know the meaning of sin, and now she won't have to.

He kisses the pillow she leaves behind, and he remembers the taste of regret.

A/N: The next and last chapter will be up soon enough. Thanks for reading this chapter. Comments are always greatly appreciated. :D