［day1; gray eyes again ］

i'm going to die.

oh.

and, yeah…

..it's so good to see you again.

"Yuffie. We must go."

Here is one strange thing about Yuffie Kisaragi: she absolutely hated the way that Vincent said her name. It was probably the way his voice sounded, like he was describing some awful disease where your toenails shriveled up and entered your bloodstream and poked little toenail holes in your major arteries. Like, the kind of disease where the person just wants to throw their self off a building so they don't have to go through it. Toenails totally sucked. So that was probably why she hated the way he said her name.

Probably.

Her dark eyes were wide as his flawless crimson sight pierced the darkness. And also he saw the relief and fear and the embarrassment and, get this, the joy. Weird how someone was happy to see him. "O-Oh. My. Gaw-guh-guh-gawd. Vincent Vi-vinko Va-alentin—" A wave succeeded in splashing her in the face. She hardly missed a beat. "Ye-yer puh-puh-possibly the most buh-beauti-tiful idiot that huh-has ever guh-guh-grac-graced th-the—" Splash. Splutter.

Her lips refused to move, dark eyes still widened.

She was dying, wasn't she?

Don't think about it—And maybe she hated it because he said Yuffie sort of like Yuffeh.. but then again, sort of not. Like it was too time-consuming to take the effort of actually making an 'ee' sound at the end. Like, she was just, you know, 'eh.' Which was totally untrue and stupid.

So, that was probably it.

Vincent's fingers twitched against her wrist. "Your body is shutting down," he said calmly as could be. (Of course he didn't care. Of course he didn't.) But she could hear the faint sharpness on the edges of his voice. Remember, faint. It made her, of all things, smile weakly. She was tied to a rock and the water was up to her chin and she was about to die and, dammit, this man was making her grin like an idiot girl.

Maybe she was already dead.

And maybe Demon Boy was really an angel.

How backwards and utterly great.

She tried to mumble something that didn't quite make it into words.

"Do not worry," he replied quietly, looking down into the dark liquid and grimacing.

And wow—just wow—that was probably more than he'd said to her all year. Or, well, close enough at least.

She tried to make out his features in the darkness. He was still the same Vincent Valentine. It was more surprising that she thought it would be. How could he still be the same person when she'd changed? When he was doing something like this. When he was freezing with her.

But all she could see was the same old, classic, Social Interaction Burns My Skin, icy Dracula guy as he'd been before.

Surprises, surprises.

The "vampire" was close enough for her to catch a wave of his warmth. Probably for the first time, she was cold and he was warm and—Leviathan damn it all—she was jealous as hell.

And, it was just… it seemed that the ambiance of the moment had changed from the moment she choked and tried to point at him and failed, obviously. It wasn't this hysterical franticness anymore. It was tense, silent, strained.

All of Yuffie's least favorite things.

Oh, joy.

Damn Vinnie for forcing his personality on her rescue mission. This was so lame.

She felt the ropes loosen, fall. She was free. So, why was it that she couldn't move?

"V-v-in.." Yuffie fumbled over his name, wavering on her feet, eyelids drifting down as her eyes lost his image. "…iss'hot."

Suddenly she was warm—happy.

She grinned, eyes still half-lidded. And for all the wrong reasons as usual.

He smelled like gunpowder and fire and rain and boy of all things.

Oh.

And moldy old people. There was that too.

—So where was he when the world span up and the water flew through her mind?

Right where she needed him.

Her eyes closed.

(No, no—not yet.)

Take our tears.
Put 'em on ice.

"Vih-Vinnie?"

Oh, man. This was the part where he was supposed to "jump into action," right?

Vincent was getting too old for this.

Well, jumping was simply out of the question. Instead he lifted his eyes slightly to look at Yuffie's shifting form. She blinked a few times. Stretched out her legs. Observed that her tattered jacket had been replaced with his cloak… Then stared at him with the widest eyes he had ever seen her wear, lifting herself up onto her knees.

"Oh my gawd, Vinnie! I'm not dead!" she smiled strangely, preoccupied with the surprising amount of life pumping through her veins.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

"You are not." Vincent nodded.

Oh, and you brought Madame Obvious, too! How're the kids?

"I'm not… freezing to death." She sounded happy at least, albeit a little shocked. "Still freezing though." The ninja pulled Vincent's cloak around her tighter.

"Hmph," he muttered. Had he been a different man, this would be the part where he smiled and tapped her lightly on the hand. "You are not out of the woods yet."

He shifted as if to stand, but she stopped him with a small voice, "Vincent…"

There was a pause.

"This is a cave."

Fortunately for Vincent's sanity, he wasn't a different man. Sigh.

"I was merely using a common expression."

"Yeah, uh-huh. That's what all you crazies say. You with your voices. Oh, gawd! Hellmasker told you I was a tree, didn't he? Oh, gawd…" Yuffie looked at him with a tortured look that didn't match her laughing eyes. "Cave. C-A-V-E. Say it with me, Vinnie. Fight the man! Er, the demon… monster… dealie-guy…" She trailed off with a cough.

The gunman shot her a rather reproachful look but didn't reply.

The shock was immobilizing.

Or, no, that was probably the fact that she felt like she'd just been hit by a truck. And then burned at the stake. And then laughed at.

Yuffie rubbed her head, looking around at the flat plateau of stone. It ended at a wall on her right and at a drop-off on her left. A strange greenish-blue light bathed everything. "Gawd… I totally didn't see this part of the cave when I was all dragged in and gagged up and such," she exclaimed happily, gesturing at her mouth.

"I swam."

"No shit, Sherlock."

Silence again.

"We must leave," he muttered, gathering himself and standing, slightly hunched over to dodge the low ceiling.

Yuffie followed suit, though slowly, carefully. "So, again… I'm not freezing to death…" she trailed off expectantly, dark eyebrows shooting up.

"I cast a weak cure spell," Vincent answered without looking at her, edging towards the drop-off. "It may wear off soon."

The ninja rolled her eyes. "Only worth a weak one, eh?" she grumbled, a little offended.

Silence again.

He didn't have to answer for himself… but of course, for the sake of the story, he did. "The materia that Cloud supplied was… inadequate."

"Pfft. You're inadequate," Yuffie mumbled, glaring sideways.

Silence again.

Yuffie coughed.

Then… this was surprising. "Something happened to the water," Vincent said quietly, eyes trained on it.

She followed him slowly to the edge of the plateau, glancing off. The water stretched out before them, only a couple meters from their position. Oh, yeah, okay—so they were stranded, but here's the weird part: the water was glowing. Tendrils of green snaked through it and wove together, shining up at them like threads made of moon drops. They crawled over each other, moving as one body.

"Cool…" she said brightly, squatting to get a closer look. "Is that…?"

The man turned to look at her blankly.

Lifestream.

Silence again.

Yuffie shifted her gaze from the green water to Vincent. "Well, let's go then. Your crappy cure is gonna wear off soon, right?" She rubbed her hands together and shifted from foot to foot. Restless. So, what else it new?

About to dive in, not one to think—

Vincent tapped her forearm with the backs of his fingers once.

The girl froze, every muscle tensed. Then she ever-so-slowly turned to look at him. He shook his head.

"That is Lifestream," he said ("No duh," she replied), "You will be poisoned by the mako."

"And you won't?" she half-laughed, glancing at his pale, greenish profile. He looked…

What was that feeling in his eyes?

Wait—no. Never mind. That was the light from the water. Nope. He looked… exactly the same as he always did! Finally, he muttered, "What does it matter?"

Stupid Vincent and his stupid Superman abilities and his stupid red eyes and his stupid shiny claw.

"Hmph." Yuffie folded her arms and looked away. "Well, it doesn't look like we have much of a choice, does it?"

Vincent cleared his throat quietly. "Combined with the earlier hypothermia…" he trailed off, an ominous conclusion left hanging between them

She cringed in reply, gritting her teeth. "And?" It wasn't like she cared. It was just the fact that the stone ledge beneath her sneakers was falling away and she felt sick to her stomach. But it wasn't like she was scared. She was a ninja, dammit! Ninjas weren't scared to die. They were only scared to lose.

Hah. That much was true at least.

"The others will follow me when I do not return. We need only wait." He sounded worried.

Yuffie still looked skeptical. "You sure, Vinnie?"

No.

He nodded slightly, avoiding her eyes.

Liar.

She knew.

With a shrug she retreated back to the corner she'd been sleeping in earlier. "Alright. But don't expect me to sit in your little awkward silences without complaint." She plopped down with a floomph as his cloak settled around her. The ninja pulled her knees up to her chest and watched with a stormy glare while Vincent's dark outline turned its back on the glowing water. The cave echoed.

Yuffie felt… small.

Silence again.

Vincent sat down a few feet away from her, folding one leg under him and stretching the other out in all its shiny, golden glory.

She was getting cold again.

"Vih-Vinnie?" she called.

Of course, she knew there was no guarantee that the others would show up. Vincent wasn't even good at telling the truth—let alone lying. But that didn't mean she had to think about it.

"How'd you nuh-know I was here?"

Talk about something else—anything else.

Yuffie hated watching him lie to her.

"Cloud arranged the mission," he began. "We all split up, Cloud and Tifa, Reeve and Barret, and Cid and I."

She snorted at this. Mostly it was the image of Cid trying to get Vincent to smoke. I cannot. Chaos doesn't like the unpleasant fumes. If I don't obey his wishes, he'll never give me his famous fried baby recipe!

Yuffie's teeth started to chatter.

Vincent pretended not to notice.

"We were all sent to different parts of the country. Cid and I came here, to the Eastern coast because I am familiar with the land," he went on, surprisingly talkative. Maybe he sensed it too—don't think about it.

"Familiar how?" she whispered, letting her eyes flutter shut as she tried to stay focused on his words. It was so cold.

"I explored these parts after Sephiroth."

"And you didn't visit me."

Vincent pretended not to hear.

"I have discovered that Cid is hard to wake, so I came out searching alone this morning—looking for anything suspicious." He paused there, cleared his throat again. "And this cave… it was not visible last time I was here. From there, you can guess…" Vincent finished.

This was the part where Yuffie laughed at him and made some joke about something or other and giggled and snickered and generally made him feel a bit homicidal.

Except she didn't.

And if Vincent had been another man he'd have freaked out and soiled himself.

"Mm…" she garbled, drowsiness tugging at her temples—pounding under her tongue. "Andid theh recipee werkout fer ya?"

"Yuffie…?" It came from far away.

Suddenly he was right beside her, leaning over her shivering form. "Yuffie!" And although she could see him and he was right here, his voice still echoed as if he were all the way across the cave. "If you sleep, you might not wake up." He was worried again. He was sharp again.

She was all smiles—all the wrong reasons.

Again.

She couldn't concentrate.

Ninja eyes shut.

First there was the flowers—they were yellow and white and green and echoing around her like this deepish, softish voice and then they span out of sight and suddenly it was only a lamppost and then her mother brushing her hair and you can't run fast enough and her father smiling for once and Aeris laughing perfectly as usual and you can't scream loud enough and Cloud looking at her and he was proud and you can't hit hard enough and Tifa and Barret and Reeve and Cid and they were proud and it was her turn and don't worry and then the whiteness and blank and it's only a dream.

Then the moon. And also dissolving into bluish-gray eyes. Then it was her. And she was so beautiful.

Yuffie missed her.

She slipped away.

Ninja eyes shot open.

Vincent came swimming into view—and she was standing right behind him—one hand on his shoulder, one touching Yuffie's cheek. Vincent didn't seem to noticed her.

She tried to tell him.

A flash of light.

They froze. (Get it? Frozen?)

And Vincent's eyes fell shut, his head landing soundlessly on Yuffie's stomach. One true thing about the world: Vincent Valentine did not just faint at the sight of her waking up, even if she was simply the sexiest ninja alive. He just wouldn't. He wouldn't.

Something was wrong. She flew out of focus. Yuffie looked for her. Gone.

And don't worry, it's only—

Yuffie passed out.

Silence again.

—

THIS MESSAGE BROUGHT TO YOU BY SEPHIROTH: where death is our life's work
j.blue; Okay so! First off, we'd like to thank the reviewers. Because like.. seriously, you guys are the coolest people, oh, say, ever? I can't speak for Phish, here, (yesican), but I sit here and squee over each one of them individually. Because we love you guys. ;; Touching, I know.

Oh! And yeah, the constructive criticism we got was really helpful! It was a bunch of stuff we wouldn't have noticed otherwise, so thanks! (Phish is too lazy to go back and rework the paragraphs, but I hope I explained most of it in this chapter…-coughbadlycough-.)

Psh. Yeah. We're total FFVII n00bs. So… I'm not really sure… where the Lifestream's little "I'm-coming-above-the-surface-to-swallow-dead-Aeris" place is… (Near that shiny white conk shell city thing?) Or how that even works. –cough– Yeah… Or much about anything. At all.

Updates! The next one will be slow, and then there'll be a fast one. And then a slow one. And a fast one. And so on and so forth. I mean sometimes I'll be slow (I'm sure this'll happen) and Phish'll be fast. But when Phish is fast, you'll probably be busy hunting the flying pigs anyway… -is slapped-

Hmm… what else? Oh, yes… the Korean phrases in last chapter! We're passing off Korean as Wutainese. (Or Wutaian or Wutainian or whatever we decided to call it.) I forgot about this last chapter… Yes. Phish's second language is English—first is Korean. So that's how that worked out. Uhh… Korean is © to the Koreas. …And, uh… Phish… I guess…

P.wings; I sound like Pwings. Geez. Pwings. Peewings. Anyway. Here's the glorious chapter from Jayblue. Her name sounds cooler, doesn't it? Anyway. Do I write slow? .. I don't think so! –is slapped by blue-

nxn Review please! And thank you for reading.

the tunabob salutes you..