Not a word was said about the fight earlier that morning when Shera returned, nor was anything said of it the next day. Cid and Shera went about their lives like nothing had happened. One morning, they got up to find that Vincent had, once again, disappeared. Cid spent the rest of the day muttering incoherent curses about his friends running off and abandoning him.

Feeling guilty, Shera made him his favorite dinner and stayed up the whole night preparing enough frozen meals to keep him satiated for her three day trip to Midgar. She had been planning this trip since before Vincent's departure and she would be damned if she let Cid's moodiness stop her from planning her wedding to the man she loved.

For the sake of avoiding another fight, Shera sent him to bed like she always did. When she was sure the Chief was asleep, she sat down and spent the next three hours writing a letter that she hoped would make Cid understand what she was doing and how she felt without absolute blurting out why she was so suddenly pulling away from him. If she did that, she might accidentally give the poor man a heart attack. She got the vague feeling Cid was even more oblivious as to the workings of his own mind and heart than most men were.

When the letter was finished, she set it on the table where he would find it and went back to her room to finish packing. Tseng would be waiting on the outskirts of town with a helicopter for her, so she tried to hurry as much as she could without waking Cid. "I'm sorry, Chief," she whispered as she rushed out the door, "You'll understand eventually."

"Was he mad?" Tseng asked as she sat down next to him in the chopper.

"Didn't tell him," Shera answered simply. Tseng gave her a sideways look. "You don't know him like I do, Tseng," she whispered.

"I know he's a brutish, arrogant, and very crude man," Tseng replied evenly, "What else is there to know?"

Shera glared at him. "He's my best friend, Tseng. I want him to be happy."

Tseng shook his head. "I don't get it," he said, "but I'll trust you."

"Thanks, Love," Shera leaned over and planted a kiss on his lips. A rare, loving smile spread across Tseng's face.

Chief,

You're probably going to curse me six ways to Junon when I get back three days from now, but I'm going to do this anyway. Tseng and I are getting married. There is nothing you can do or say that will change that. I love him more than life and I have since the day I met him.

But that's not what this note is about. You're in love, Chief, and it's not with me. I can't tell you any more than that, though. You have to figure it out for yourself, and I know you never will as long as I'm here, as long as you think you're in love with me.

I'm not stupid, Chief, and I'm far from blind. You think you love me. That's why that ship you've been working so obsessively on is named after me when it should be named after someone else. I thought I was in love with you, once, too, but the moment I saw you two together I knew what I felt was nothing close to love. I thought I would never feel that powerful love that I saw in the two of you.

Then I met Tseng. He changed everything. And here I am, ranting about Tseng again. Sorry.

I'm going to Midgar for three days. Just three, I promise. I'm not going to completely abandon you just yet. There are meals in the ice box, more than enough to last you the weekend even if Vincent comes home again. Just pop them in the oven for half an hour on 300, instant meal.

I'll see you when I get home.

Love,

Shera

When Shera came home three days later, it was to find the house a complete mess, not that she was really surprised. Cid had never been the neatest of people, but now it seemed almost as though he had gone out of his way to make the house even messier than usual.

"Chief!" she called as she slammed the door, "I'm home!" She toed a suspicious looking pile of old clothes out of the way and went off in search of the errant Highwind. In retrospect, she had to wonder why she had bothered searching the house. There was only one place that Cid was if it was before 8 at night, and that was in his shop working on his new airship.

Judging by the distinct lack of pilot and the lack of any missing coffee when she checked the kitchen, Vincent had obviously not come home yet. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Shera went off to Cid's shop. True to form, she found him deep in the belly of his newest ship, working on some problem he had found with the engines that only he could possibly have noticed.

"I'm home," she called, poking her head into the engine room.

A grease covered, oil-splattered figure that looked as though it might have had blond hair at one point emerged from under a section of the engine, cigarette stuck between his teeth. "The hell are ye standin' there for? Get yer ass in here and help me, dammit!"

Shera smiled and obediently crawled under the engine next to Cid. "See that?" he pointed into a small crevice with a flashlight. "I need ya to pull out whatever's jammed in there. My damn hand's too big."

"I keep telling you to stop doing this," Shera muttered as he reached up into the narrow chink in the metal. "How can you work on your own engines if you keep compacting them until you have to pull them apart just to tighten a bolt?" Privately, Shera was grateful for the return to normalcy. Even if Cid had managed to trash the house, he was still treating her like Shera, still giving random orders and being gruff and grumpy to hide his own mistakes.

She felt around a bit more and finally her fingers touched something that felt out of place, rough where it should have been smooth. Securing her fingertips around it as best she could, she gave the thing a hard yank. It slipped free and fell into her waiting hand, "Looks like part of one of the fuel cells is cracking," Shera muttered, examining it, "What do you think, Chief?"

"Oh shit," Cid muttered just before a jet of oil sprayed out of the crevice and sprayed both of them in the face. Shera was too busy laughing at Cid's oil-covered face to berate him for filling the ship's tanks before making sure everything was sealed properly.

Vincent Valentine cursed the snow for all he was worth. Especially the Cosmo Canyon snow. Especially the Cosmo Canyon snow when he was stuck out in it next to a dying fire with only a frostbitten ninja girl for company. Nothing against Yuffie, he really did like the girl... at a distance... when her mouth was closed... but he really would have preferred different company on this particular stakeout. He was still wondering how Yuffie had managed to find him and how she had managed to get him to help her with this particular mission.

And now, thanks to a unexpected snow storm, not only had they lost their target in the canyon, but they were also stuck in a cave with no way to contact the outside world to get help. And Cosmo Canyon snow storms tended to last a very, very long time.

Like most of the winter.

'I really need to get a cell phone,' he thought.

"Cheer up!" Yuffie said through slightly chattering teeth. Vincent had repeatedly told her to put more clothes on before they left Nibelheim, but she had stubbornly insisted that she could handle "a little cold". "It can't last much longer, can it?"

Vincent gave her a very flat look. "Don't they have snow storms in Wutai?" he asked carefully.

Yuffie nodded vigorously. "Yeah," she said, "we have to stay inside for weeks on.... oh."

Vincent sighed and took off his cape. "Get comfortable," he advised, tossing the red garment to her. Yuffie quickly wrapped up in it with a muffled "thanks". "We're going to be here a while. Pray Nanaki thinks to check that we made it back to Midgar safely."

He privately cursed Tseng for all he was worth. The Turk had been the one to ask that he and Yuffie check out the group that had been hiding out in the canyon, saying that Rufus thought they were too little to bother with but he was going to err on the side of caution. There had been no outward sign of it, but Vincent got the vague feeling he was still a little sore about AVALANCHE coming up from nowhere right under his nose in Midgar almost two years ago.

On the plus side, the group seemed to have been as unaware of Cosmo Canyon storms as Yuffie was. Vincent was betting that they had, if nothing else, been trapped by the storm just like them.

"What do you think everyone's doing right now?" Yuffie asked suddenly. Vincent cast her a curious look. "I mean Cloud and the others. What do you think they're doing right now?"

"Probably enjoying a warm house and warm food," Vincent said with a touch of grumpiness, "far away from this," he gestured to the raging snow storm outside. 'Except Cid,' he thought with a wry smile. As long as there was still some remnant of daylight in Rocket Town, the man would be in his shop working on that blasted ship of his. Vincent could not count the number of times he had arrived late at night only to find Cid fast asleep over his work desk or under an engine or some other strange place.

Right about now Shera would probably be threatening not to make dinner for him if he did not come back to the house. Cid would be shouting back at her that he would just be a few minutes more and to get started on dinner. He would be down in time to eat.

And Shera would shake her head and go off to make dinner, knowing full well she would be bringing it up to the ship for him to eat.

"Hey!" Yuffie suddenly shouted, breaking him away from his thoughts, "Vinnie! You're smiling!"

"Excuse me?" Vincent asked.

"You're really cute when you smile!" Yuffie gushed, pointing a finger at him. "What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing," Vincent lied, suddenly wanting his cloak back. He got the vague feeling that he might be blushing.

"It's a girl, isn't it?" Yuffie almost squealed now, pouncing towards him, "You're blushing! You were thinking about a girl!"

Vincent groaned. This was going to be a long night.

"What do you mean they're not back from Cosmo Canyon yet?"

Tseng was rather amused to hear Nanaki's normally calm voice raise almost an octave in alarm. "I'm sure they just got a bit side tracked, Nanaki," he said.

"Side tracked by a blizzard!" Nanaki snapped, "It's been snowing for two days, Tseng!"

Tseng cursed. The science department had assured that Cosmo Canyon was not due for a snow storm for another week.

"If they're dead when I find them, Tseng," Nanaki's voice sank to a low, threatening growl through the phone that made the hairs on Tseng's neck stand on end, "I am holding you personally responsible."

"Please do," Tseng sighed and hung up the phone. "Shera is going to kill me anyway," he added as an afterthought as he began to dial her number.