"Where do you want it?" Undyne was stood in the doorway of Grandfather's- His chambers. Still hard to think of this place as his still despite the long years.

Nanaki roused with a sigh. "Over there please." He gestured with a paw; Undyne shuffled across the room and set the bulky box; an ancient and painstakingly excavated relic of a century or two previous.

Undyne straightened her back and grinned. "Sure this is all worth it?" She knocked one hand against the curved glass screen. "This thing's been out of date since before you were born. Why aren't you using the holo-projectors like everyone else?"

"Because while it is archaic here, it was less so elsewhere." Nanaki padded across to her. "Can you spare me a moment to complete the setup?"

"Sure?" Undyne assumed a quizzical expression.

"Thank you. I know I've asked them before, but you did check with the archaeological team? The interior is cleaned and dry?"

Undyne nodded. "Yep. All the dust cleared out. No moisture. All electrical contacts tested. So far as anyone's concerned it'll work. 'Course, can't be sure until we try."

"And that will have to wait for my guest."

"Oh." A beat. "Oh! That time of year already?" Undyne grinned. "He'll still be the same, won't he?"

"And always will so far as we know." Nanaki laughed – the sound nothing close to human and tended to unnerve people. Even someone used to his company like Undyne. "If you could connect it over there-" Undyne held up a thick cord terminating in three prongs. "Thank you. Now there are three other wires that need to go into the back – just match colour to colour."

"Uh-" Undyne plucked up the merged cable. "Yellow, red and white?"

"Yes."

"Done."

"Thank you."

"Elder Nanaki?"

"Yes, Undyne?"

"How... how does it even work?" She gestured at the glass screen. "Like, I could understand if it used holo-projectors to generate an image inside it, though dunno why you'd have the glass or why it's curved. Even then, you can't see in, so...?"

Nanaki chuckled; Undyne winced. "It achieves only flat images. The screen generates an image based on fired electrons; colour is defined by combinations of red, green and blue spots on the screen." How curious when said out loud. Three colours with links to three of the Returned. Their eyes. Though one was a mixture of green and blue. And green eyes shared by another of whom he retained nothing but bad memories of.

"Uh, Elder?"

Nanaki blinked. "Apologies. A connection I had never entertained before." He opened his mouth and Undyne held up her hands.

"I got the gist. So you can watch old recordings on this. That's the goal?"

"Yes."

Age had not changed Vincent in any appreciable, physical way. Injuries healed, scars faded away from him. Only the indignities and vivisections Hojo visited upon his body remained; the transplanted arm, his pale skin, the monsters residing within him. Entities Vincent had made peace with over time. At least, the most optimistic estimation of Vincent's recent (the last fifty years or so) tendency to allow his transformation into Chaos and thus gain the power of flight.

He arrived with long-ingrained precision, his flying ability not impacting his punctuality in the slightest; he arrived precisely at noon. Most of the Canyon residents knew him by sight if not in person. New arrivals gawped as he shifted back into a familiar and seemingly also unchanging form – swirling red cloak, black leather and golden claw. "Nanaki."

"Vincent. It's good to see you again."

"And you."

They wandered back to Nanaki's chambers in an overly familiar sequence of movements. Their tradition long established. "I have something of a surprise this year."

"Oh?" Vincent reacted to this break in tradition – small-talk and details of the other's life during this past year.

"Yes. A relic of old. I pray it still works." Nanaki padded to the counter where the TV sat; Vincent approached slower, almost revelatory. "There are tapes too." A slight shift in Vincent's irises. "Found at Kalm. I... I don't believe I need to infer further of where they were found."

"No." Vincent shook his head. "No, you do not. You said you hope this works? You have not tried?"

"I thought it better if we found out together. Plus-" He lifted a paw. "Not as if I am adept at the controls."

Vincent shot him a rare grin. "Let us see if I remember-" He switched the TV on first; a deep hum, a burst of ozone and a high-pitched whine accompanied a screen awash with pulsing snow. "This at least works."

"There was something about-" Nanaki broke off as Vincent set the TV to the requisite channel; the screen turned black. He took a deep breath. "There were a few tapes to choose from. The one inside sounded the most interesting." Vincent nodded and pressed the play button.

The screen flickered, bands of static bursting across, a flickering band lowering across the screen and leaving nothing but darkness. Nothing? It was perhaps a long-shot- "The volume is down." Vincent pressed a button on the TV and Yuffie's voice burst from the speakers.

"Shut up! This is my movie."

"Yuffie, the lens cap is on."

"Reeve!" Nanaki exclaimed. A shuffling clunk and the screen flared to brightness. An old friend looking exhausted framed right in the centre.

"Better?"

"Now I can see." The screen rushed in close to Reeve's face. "You have terrible pores." Reeve's hand closed over the screen and the view whirled away.

Vincent chuckled. "She never did change."

"No..." A wavering bobbing view point settled; the interior of the Eighth Heaven in Kalm. Sometime after Meteor. A celebration of some kind; Avalanche had made a point of regrouping every few years – hard to tell one occasion from another. Cid and Barret were drinking. Marlene was chatting animatedly with her girlfriend – her name lost in time by this point. Shera and Elena were tending bar oddly. Reeve was talking to Vincent and Nanaki-

"Curious to see ourselves from this distance and this view-point." Vincent leaned closer. "I would like to think I have at least changed a little but-"

The camera in Yuffie's hands whirled again. Elmyra was crossing over to Marlene as Yuffie rushed past, the camera whirling again to encompass almost the entire bar.

"Where's Spike?"

Cid glanced around. "Oh. He and Tifa were getting some more wine. Wait. Where are they?"

A giggle from Yuffie. "Let's go find out!" She ignored a chorus asking her to leave them alone. The camera bobbed through a door and along a passageway. "Can't hear them." Yuffie's voice barely above a whisper. "So much for the scoop of a lifetime." The camera whirled around the back rooms of the Eighth Heaven. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Nanaki blinked. "Wait. Was this-?"

The camera whirled around the corner and stopped. Framed dead-centre were Cloud and Tifa; his arms around her waist, hers around his neck. Their lips together. "Gotcha!" The pair sprang apart, looking around wildly to stare in confusion at the camera. "Proof! I have proof!" Yuffie was shouting. "You too do like each other!"

"Yuffie..." Tifa started taking a step forward. The camera span and headed back the other direction. "Yuffie!"

"Can't stop, going to announce your engagement."

"Yuffie!"

"I remember." Vincent actually smiled. "I remember this occasion." He sighed. "I had forgotten so much of them."

"Me too." Nanaki could not drag his attention from the screen. Their old friends seen once more. Something to archive now; he would ask the engineers for a transcription of the tape contents onto something more permanent. "At least this way we can be reminded."