I half expected the cave's exit to be blocked by a cascade of snow when we arrived at the gaping hole in the mountainside, but to my usual astonishment—and delight— the snowstorm had only touched the eastern side of the continent with its wrath. The western terrain only received a dusting of barely an inch. Vincent was obviously happy as well, due to our speed would increase considerably. I even believed we would reach Junon by late afternoon.

The sun shone a magnificent yellow above our heads, yet it did nothing to warm the frozen day. It only blinded us on the snow's glossy surface. Once again, I had begun to regret the contents I had chosen to bring along. At least I had become accustomed to eating very little, as long as I had breakfast and dinner, surviving without lunch was plausible. Perhaps soon I could go without any food at all, like Vincent. And even if I were hungry, I still had my rations from our time in the cave.

Nothing eventful happened for the remainder of our trip, besides clouds that rolled in from the north and the few flurries that fell, but it wasn't nearly enough to slow us down. And we kept our silences. Quite honestly, I was still waiting for his retort to my comment about his heartlessness, and possibly an explanation as to why he called me Lucrecia. It sounded like a female's name… Possibly an old love? Was that name an opening in Vincent's past life? The one, which I had no idea about?

Although my predictions about entering Junon by late afternoon were incorrect, I was nonetheless happy to see the town when the phenomena of sunset commenced in the sky. My body felt fully frozen, but my mind still produced an array of memories about the town. First sights, arriving, finding a transport. Nothing notably special, but all left an impact. I remembered my excitement toward coming to Midgar. I figured it would be the best thing that that happened to me, and my teacher Zangan was whom I credited. He saved me from a number horrible fates; although Midgar may have been one he condemned me to. At least I was still alive.

Checking into the inn was a routine, but a teenage girl attended the counter and she took an instant liking to Vincent. Why that bothered me, I'm not sure, yet it did. Her flirtatious behavior made me want to slap her across the face and tell her to bother someone else, however, I left the situation to the gunman. He could deal with it in any way he wanted.

"I'm gonna need you to sign right here." She leaned across the countertop, smacking her gum and exposing a good half of her breasts to us both while pointing to the evident line. The situation became awkward, and I realized Vincent didn't want to leave any evidence of his presence. This was my golden opportunity.

"Here, I'll sign," I said sweetly, smiling broadly to both. "Why don't you go get our room, honey?" I assumed he caught on, as he relieved my shoulder of the bag.

"And don't forget to put your new name." Acting clearly wasn't his area of expertise, yet I got his message. He wished me to sign under a psuedonym.

"Sure, thing!" I smiled even more, and turned back to the log. Not taking any chances I wrote Shera Lockhart. If someone were looking for me, then hopefully this would leave him or her a clue. And Vincent did not know my last name so I could easily lie to him.

"So are you guys newlyweds?" the girl asked, chewing even louder.

"Yes." I really hadn't intended us to be so, but he was the one who implied it.

"Where are your rings?"

"His family didn't believe in rings." I lied, laughing a little. "They preferred tattoos."

"Tattoos? Where?" I lessened my grin.

"It's kind of inappropriate."

"What are they?"

"Rings." I answered, wishing the teenager would shut up and stop asking questions.

"So… his family didn't believe in real rings and you guys got tattoos of rings instead?" She repeated.

"Isn't that what I said?" My tolerance was coming to an end.

"Sounds… sadistic." She said. "My grandfather doesn't have a room for newlyweds, but I'll push your beds together for you."

"Oh, no, that's alright." I put my palms up.

"Nah, I don't mind." She slipped from behind the counter and moved to the door through which Vincent had just disappeared. I followed closely behind, and shrugged to Vincent when he glanced up in surprise.

The room was small and quaint with two beds, a bureau, and a wardrobe closet. At least it was warm and cozy. The teenager struggled a bit with the bed on the left, groaning as she joined the two as we watched without offering to help. I suppose we were both a bit perturbed. It was one thing sleeping on the floor of a cave together; sleeping in the same bed was a whole different scenario.

"There!" She announced, rising up and clapping her palms. "Enjoy your night." I desired nothing more than to reach over and deck her one for what she was implying. Vincent said nothing even after she left, and I moved to pull the beds back apart.

"Leave it." He commanded. I looked up at him, not sure of what I was hearing.

"What?"

"It will make too much noise." He sat down on the right side. "What name did you sign under?"

"Shera Lockhart." I told honestly. He accepted my answer without question, but he continued to watch me. I knew he had something more to say.

"Tomorrow morning a ship will be leaving Junon and heading towards Costa Del Sol. I intend for us to be upon it. We will arrive about midnight and rent a room at the hotel there. The following morning we will depart towards North Corel were this Barret Wallace currently resides. After our business is completed,"—our business?—"We will return to my residence, which should only take us a day or two. Understand?" I didn't acknowledge him; there was no need to tell him that he would not be killing Barret. I still had my hopes that somehow, possibly, he would be stopped, yet I had no idea how I would do it. When the time came, however…

And another thing bothered me. His plans still included me even after Barret was "assassinated", something along the lines of keeping me captive at his house, wherever that was. I remembered vaguely at 7th Heaven when he mentioned something about me serving as a "fine hostage". A hostage for what? His own amusment? Maybe his organization needed me for something more?

Vincent brought my dinner, which I ate without comment. All our walking had left me exhausted, and my mind had been given its fair share to ponder. That, as well as my irritation towards the gunman returned.

I slipped out of my shoes and into the inviting covers on my side of the bed, intent on sleeping immediately. Unconsciousness took me before Vincent also came to bed.

-

Darkness still claimed a hold on the outside world when I awoke not feeling rested enough. The room was deathly quiet, and my rustling in the sheets seemed louder than usual. Was I alone? I couldn't hear Vincent's breathing, and as much as I wanted to reassure myself of his presence I wasn't about to go groping around in the bed for his form.

Something was there, however. It didn't feel… human, but I was no medium. What right did I claim to judge what species the thing was? My skin broke out in gooseflesh.

I squinted, attempting to adjust my eyes to the darkness to no gain.

"Vincent?" My voice had an abnormal tremor to it. I wasn't afraid… was I?

Then… it kissed me.

I don't mean the simple touching of lips, but it—whatever it was— collapsed onto me, crushing me on the bed, its teeth clashing against my own and its tongue moving with the sway of its mouth. Momentarily shocked and stunned, I could only lay there trying to piece together what was going on, and tell myself that it was a dream that just felt so real. Its mouth moved away from mine, and the lips caressed my cheek for a second. My brain finally caught up.

"GET OFF-mrph!" A hand muffled my words. The lips, which had shifted to my neck, pulled away and whispered softly in my ear, "Lucrecia…"

I lost it.

Kicking and screaming I twisted every which way, jerking free of whoever-it-was, and tumbling to the floor. Pain seared my neck, and I clapped a hand to it, whimpering. The charisma of the apparition was gone. And I could see.

The moon glistened brightly outside, like a silver ball suspended among beads of stars in a black web, why hadn't I noticed it before? Vincent lay stiff in the bed, clearly in a deep slumber, one that all my thrashing had done nothing to disturb. Pulling my hand away from my neck, I stared in bewilderment as my own blood dapple my fingertips. I'd been bitten.

Suddenly alarmed, I inched quickly bad into the bed, trembling all over and expecting to be attacked again. What were that thing's intentions? Certainly not rape, I mean, there was a man—hypothetically speaking—sleeping right next to me. Maybe, however…

My gaze crept onto Vincent, slightly distressed that I might find his chest not moving, and that he might be dead, murdered—no matter how hard that was to believe.

Slowly, his lungs expanded, raising his breast.

Relief flooded through me, tingling in my hands and dizzying my thoughts. I didn't think about how beneficial his death would be, I didn't think about his mission to assassinate my friend, only the sweet, lingering confusion that he lived. Cautiously, I laid my head down upon his chest, and attempted to match my intake of air to each and every one of his melodious, wonderful breaths.

-

Morning came early as usual, although my internal rebellion to the outside world refused me to open my eyes and accept the dawn. The balmy room was peaceful and quiet, which only increased my feelings of resentment. Groaning, I shifted my head slightly and exhaled deeply, aware of a strange rhythm surrounding me, becoming a part of me. My breathing. He was imitating each of my breaths to the second… as I had done last night.

Grudgingly, I forced my heavy lids open to gaze into crimson eyes, but didn't make any effort to move any further than that.

"What are you doing?" His voice rumbled heavily in my ear, which had maintained its resting place on his chest throughout the entire night. Flushing a shade that corresponded with his irises I jerked my head up with a rush of adrenaline, and turned to get out of bed. Vincent caught my elbow in his hand and brushed my hair away from my neck to reveal the recent wound.

"When did this happen?" He inquired, sweeping away the dried blood. I looked at my fingers where blood also resided, and then back to the gunman when I noticed the ring of red on his chest.

"Must have hurt myself last night." I brushed it off; Vincent would believe me insane if I told him the truth.

"It has the appearance of a bite," he examined, "don't lie."

"I was attacked…last night." I explained, shrugging my shoulders. "Whatever it was thought I might be tasty. I guess I proved to be otherwise."

"Where were you?"

"Right here in bed." I raised a brooding finger to my cheek, "although I think I was bitten when I fell out."

"You expect me to believe you were assaulted here in bed?" A skeptical eyebrow climbed his forehead. "Without waking me?"

"Yes. You looked dead."

"Did you see who it was?"

"No, I didn't see what it was."

"It was not a human?"

"It didn't feel like one."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said. I mean, it had a human body—I think—but these little voices were going off inside my head telling me that thing wasn't human. They were like screaming, 'not human! Not human!' but I didn't want to trust them because there's this other voice that sounds like you, saying, 'this is stupid. Why are you so goddamned ignorant?' Yet, I couldn't hear it because my female instinct was squealing, 'Oh my, God! This motherfucker is about to rape you! Get off your fucking ass and do something about it!'"

I concluded my story with the sudden remembrance that this man had no sense of humor. Vincent stared at me with a look that told me he truly thought me in need of medical—or psychiatric—help. Sighing, I rose.

"I was kidding, Vincent." I busied myself with my things. "I'm fine, now can we leave?"

Those words were on my list of top ten things I would never, EVER say, along with 'Look before you leap', and 'Midgar is the land of opportunity.'

Although the assassin didn't look in the least convinced of my story, he didn't pursue the matter any further. And I didn't feel like telling him my molester had called me Lucrecia, as well. Somehow, there were bonds fastening the three together, yet it wasn't apparent to me. In time…

The teenager's position as innkeeper had been replaced by an elderly man, who I guessed, was the grandfather she mentioned the day before. Vincent left the appropriate amount of gil with him while I hiked my bag up further on my shoulder, rubbing my neck where the lesion had begun to throb painfully. What the hell had bitten me? I prayed fervently that it wasn't poisonous.

When we arrived at the docks, I received another surprise, which didn't astonish me at all: we had no tickets for the ship. Vincent knew what he was doing, so I followed his orders and his footsteps without comment as he slipped past the guards to the lower decks. There we hid ourselves among the luggage and waited for the vessel to proceed away from the port. Crewmembers prowled around us, bringing in more boxes and bags, and at the same time I shivered thinking about being caught. He would eliminate them.

One particularly hefty seaman forced his way very close to our refuge spot with a large crate held in his arms, before slamming it down and turning away. I relaxed.

A large black rat squirmed its way across the floor, also in search of a new hiding place, and my heart fell right out of my chest.

I absolutely loathed rats, which was odd for the sheer numbers I dealt with in the slums, and the thing certainly thought my patch of floor was the perfect location for disappearing.

Before I could scream, Vincent jerked my body roughly up against his, wrapping his arms around me and stuffing his forearm into my mouth. It was a crushing embrace, and I thought he was going to squeeze my very life out of me with his large arms. It almost seemed to be his goal. The rat saw our movement and scurried off to find another hole. We both relaxed considerably, although my hands were still trembling. Vincent kept a more loose hold on me still.

Ten more minutes passed before the sea craft's foghorn bellowed out its announcement for departure, and the great engine commenced rumbling on a level below us. The crew all left for the deck, and we were then alone. Vincent released me and stood, brushing dust away from his shirt, so I followed, stretching my legs.

"Mm, I can't wait to get to Costa del Sol," I voiced, mentally there already. "I hate the winter." He didn't respond, leaning against a large crate. I asked, "How are we going to get off the ship?"

"The same way we got on."

"That was easier, though," I objected.

"Why should this be any harder?"

"Well, there won't be anytime when this room will be deserted enough for us to get up those stairs. Someone will either be going up or down, I suspect."

"We won't be using those stairs."

"I don't see a magic door. You got one in your cloak?"

"There's another flight of stairs to the engine room."

"Oh, I get it. We'll cut a hole in the hull and swim to the surface. Oh well if the ship sinks."

"From there, a ladder will take us to the main deck."

"Wow," I said after a delayed pause. "You are a piece of work, you know that?"

"I try," he answered cynically.

"Ha ha." I returned the sarcasm. "So what are we supposed to do until then?"

"Wait." He responded.

"Should've seen that one coming." I rolled my eyes. "I think I'm going to sleep."

"I will wake you when the time comes."

"I have no doubt that you will." I bunched his long cloak—which I had been wearing—under my head and closed my eyes. Even though a deep slumber never came, I fell under sleep's spell soon enough.

-

When the man who had brought me thus far roused me to awareness, I realized that no fresh memories had assaulted me while I slept, only a barrage of reruns. My life was like a horrible movie that had no point, but a ruination of repetitiveness, and I wish I could turn it off to put in something more exciting. Unfortunately, my life, unlike a movie, could not be shut off at will. Even when I tried.

The steps, which Vincent had previously mentioned, were parallel to those that led to the upper floors, only these were clearly not used very often. A carpet of grime lay thickly about like a fresh snow, and any recent footprints had already begun to evaporate. Vincent's feet barely left a mark. Mine lay out a perfect map for anyone following.

The engine room was smaller than I expected as well as noisier. The gentle hum that reverberated in the upper floors was nothing compared to the resounding crescendo of racket the colossal machines were managing to belt out, and I prayed my ears would hold. Weathered equipment lined both sides of the room, connected in the middle by long, gyratory cylinders that unnerved me, and I glanced towards Vincent in hopes of being told we didn't have to climb over them. The unsettling truth was apparent.

He smoothly walked in the direction of one of the engines, and pulled himself up, looking back to me to see if I were following. With grim determination, I did as his eyes commanded.

Jumping from engine to engine was easy, although the vibrations under my feet tickled my soles in an unpleasant way—like an itch with no way to relieve it— but the gunman didn't complain and I wasn't about to, either. When my feet safely touched solid flooring once again, the machineries' roars had begun to diminish, rolling raucously down to a halt as the cylinders ceased their rotating. Vincent mounted the ladder.

The main deck was alive with people busy preparing to dock, although none were acute enough to notice the presence of two stranger's slinking along the railing of their boat, however, I wasn't protesting. In the pandemonium of unloading goods and charting exports, the two of us were able to saunter down the gangplank without even the need to hide. Costa Del Sol unknowingly awaited us with the normal ado of tourist activity, even though we were there for reasons greatly different than a game of volleyball or sunbathing.

-

My insomnia was almost humorous, yet I couldn't seem to laugh it off—or even laugh at all, for that matter. I believe my fear of being assaulted once again still presided with and icy grip on my heart. And I even didn't feel safe with Vincent near me (he wasn't sleeping-that much I knew); it didn't seem close enough. Even last night when he had been sleeping next to me, his help had amounted to nothing. I almost wished he would hold me and comfort me, but that seemed silly. He wasn't my mother; he wasn't even a friend, even though he had seen me cry more times than even Cloud had. It wasn't that I didn't like to show weakness; I just didn't wish to be pessimistic, especially in front of the Lord of Pessimism, himself. And, God knows, where he was now, in front of me, behind me, even above me. That thought may have frightened me even more than the fact that my invisible molester could come back, yet I trusted Vincent. Strange as that faith was.

Possibly out of impulse, I reached my hand out from under the blankets of my bed, unsure of what I was searching for, and not even quite aware what I was doing. My fingers wrapped around something solid, and, suddenly, I was not so afraid. Smiling, comforted, I found sleep with my hand wrapped within a larger hand—one that I dreamed to be Cloud's.

-

Finally finished. I apologize this chapter was so short, and that nothing too exciting happened. Thank you so much for all the encouraging reviews I can't tell you how much I appreciate the comments. Without you, my laziness would overcome me, and I'd never update. You would think being on break would be some motivation, but noooo….