Disclaimer: Same as always!!

A/N: It's so time to get Reno off this whiny, angst-trip, don't you agree? Anticipate it!

The princess, his princess, had her arm snaked chummily through Vincent's. She was smiling - no, beaming, at the unusual show of affection from the usually cold man. She was gawking up at her companion with the look of some star-struck teen, finally meeting her idol.

Maybe that's what she is...The Turk thought sulkily, Maybe that's how she truly feels. Has she forgotten about me already?

The fighting spirit had long since deserted Reno, and though he was burning with jealousy, and a raging anger over what seemed to be his defeat, these two things were causing him to be sick and to despair as well. He turned away from the trio and threw a buddy-like arm across Rude's shoulder.

"Come on man, let's get out of here. We don't need to be causin' any trouble."

The darker man was surprised at how quickly the feisty redhead had changed his tune, but didn't hesitate to take him up on this, not even wanting to know what kind of Hell would be raised if this all blew up in their face. Grabbing hold of his still-unsteady partner, he walked them slowly back to their inn, which was incidentally, not far of a walk.

When they finally got to their room, which seemed to take aeons because of Reno's dragging steps, no longer filled with the cocky swagger and upbeat bounce, Reno sat himself down on the edge of the bed and held his face in his hands. Rude had been right. He was going more than insane, he was going psycho. He couldn't imagine that he had just spoken to that girl the way that he had, or had been treating even his best buddy in ways that he didn't know he was capable of behaving. Lying back on the cold bed he sighed heavily. Already resigned to live life alone and devoid of the shine and the fire that had once enveloped his soul. Before that vampire of a little girl had come and drained it all away.

The next thing he felt was a stinging pain in his kneecap, only to find that Rude had taken a seat at the coffee table, and thrown his shoe at the prone man.

"What the Hell...?"

"No sleepin' on the job, slacker!"

"We're on vacation, don't give me this 'job' bullshit. What, what is so important that ya hadta go and throw your smelly-ass shoe at me?"

"Look, the only thing you should be thinking about is how to get the Princess to like you, stupid."

Reno gave Rude a sour look.

"Man, why you even gotta go and bring up a bad topic like that, yo? You know the game is over for me. There ain't a chance in the world now that she's got her pretty little Princess Vinnie-sha Valentino..."

"Coz we're not throwing in the towel just yet, partner. We'll figure out the finer details later, like how to explain to Kisaragi-Taisho what's going on, or how to get Reeve on our side, but for now I want you to think of what you're going to do directly to get her to fall further in love with you."

"Further in love? Rude, ya gotta be yankin' my chain. It don't even seem like the kid remembers me."

"If she kissed you the way you said she did, there is no way she could have forgotten you. Girls are strange creatures, my friend. They may look at you like they don't know a thing about you, but once you touch her, she'll remember. They're very feeling oriented."

Reno cracked a smile at Rude's very dry sense of humor.

"Yeah, nice one buddy. But what am I gonna do?"

"Well first, we're going to have to work on a plan on how to get Reeve and the Crown Prince out of the way, even if only for an hour. And then we'll work on the game plan in sum total. Okay?"

"Gotcha. Man! I haven't felt this up to a challenge in years! This is like some kickass RPG or somethin' yo! Save the princess from the baddies or somethin' like that."

Rude gave Reno a funny look.

"You should really lay off the booze for a while..."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Vincent was glad to see that the ruffians had cleared themselves off of his lawn before he took his guests out. It was a bit of unpleasantness that he didn't want to be the first sight on their little tour.

He took Reeve to see the little rose-garden where he had his first unaccompanied talk with Yuffie. She looked away uncomfortably, recalling that little session, but was instantly put in better spirits when Vincent had artfully plucked a few miniature roses for her hair, dethorned them, and placed them between the clips that was holding her bangs away from her face. She blushed and smiled in a very girlish manner, much unbecoming of her usually tomboy nature.

"You look beautiful today, Yuffie."

"Th-thanks, Crown Prince Vincent."

"Just call me Vincent."

She practically melted at the warm tones.

Reeve stood by enthusiastically, absolutely amazed at the bashful aura that seemed to permeate from his charge. Usually he was a pretty obvious presence, putting himself on the radar with whoever he was with, but between these two he didn't really want to make a scene. He didn't want to interfere. He couldn't believe that things were going the way that they were. The most impressive thing was the level of maturity that Yuffie was showing she was ready to commit to. Suddenly the brashness and the flippancy had drained out of her. Suddenly she was more woman than girl. But there was something uneasy he felt about the change too. Just a few nights ago she had cried, saying she didn't want to lose who she was inside. But here there was such a radical change...he wasn't sure what to make of it.

They were well on their way to lunch when the first untoward incident happened to pop up.

Yuffie had gone from an attempt at mawkish sophistication to girlish curiosity. She had grabbed Vincent's prosthetic arm and ran her fingers up and down it. He didn't feel the touch at first because of the metal gauntlet he wore over the arm to cover what it looked like. But when her fingers found their way into his, he felt the tug of something unusual and whirled on the startled girl. Reeve at this point had been following at a comfortable pace behind them, and stopped in his tracks to observe. From his vantage point it just looked like Yuffie had tried to hold Vincent's hand and startled the prince. He didn't notice the mistake until he heard him yelling and saw him grab her in a way that was most unbecoming of a way for a prince to treat a young girl.

Vincent savagely threw Yuffie's hand away from his own and gripped her sternly on the upper arm with his prosthetic. The metal gauntlets were digging fine grooves into Yuffie's porcelain skin, reddening and starting to bruise a bit from the tenacious grip. He didn't know just how powerful the arm was or how much pressure he was exerting.

"I'm only going to tell you this once; don't you EVER touch this arm again. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"

Yuffie shivered and started to cry, nodding her assent and apologizing profusely.

When he let go, there was a grotesque anomaly of a claw-shaped hand mark, darkly intruding on the young flesh.

Reeve seethed with rage.

one should treat the princess like that.

But she had done something she probably should have known better than to do...

It doesn't matter! That's just not good form!

You're just a peon. Keep your mouth shut. You can sort this out with Yuffie later, when you are alone.

's gotten into her? Why is she taking that kind of treatment? Normally she would have severely beaten a man who treated her as such!

Maybe she's becoming the soft little woman her daddy's always wanted...

Reeve, going only so far as his role could go, quickened his pace and walked up between the two.

"Is there a problem?"

Vincent looked at him darkly, but quickly tried to soften his expression. Yuffie shamefacedly pulled down on her shirtsleeve to conceal the unsightly mark.

"Nothing. Let's go back to eat, shall we?"

Without even waiting for a response, Vincent made his way back in the direction of the mansion, while Reeve quietly wiped the tears from Yuffie's face and whispered to her.

"It will be okay. Promise."