It was late morning by the time Tifa was up again. She'd gone to bed about an hour before sunrise after seeing to Vincent, and refusing to let Yuffie out again. The girl could protect herself, but already one Turk had fallen as a victim to that feared murderer, and the woman was not about to see one of her best friends go missing too.

There was an ironically placid smile on her face, which knew it shouldn't be there, as she came down the stairs in the daylight. The bleached-out sun through the brooding clouds sent a nevertheless warm yellow glow through the curtains, spilling across the floor in the livingroom, where Vincent slept.

She held a steaming cup of lemon tea in her hand, and sipped it periodically as she padded around the room. The situation was grave... poor Yuffie was a broken spirit, driven to the edge of obsession by it. She'd withered from the buoyant sixteen-year-old girl Tifa once knew. Vincent had experienced Hades-only-knows-what on his way here, but the fighter had a great deal of trouble imagining it: whatever could have scared the man so senseless, worn him out so much.

She sat down easily in a comfy armchair by the couch where Vincent still slept peacefully. His face was strangely... humanized in the gentle mid-morning light. Not the cold marble statue it had been on their earlier adventure, shrouded by the bloodred collar, stoic and expressionless. His chest rose and fell with steady breathing, and, not that Tifa often watched him sleep, his rest was undisturbed by the erratic movements or REM specific to nightmares.

A sigh of contentment passed her lips before she took another drink of the warm liquid in her cup. Only gentle sounds came, her breath, the soft gulp of swallowing, and the clink as she set her glass down on the coffeetable. Nevertheless, this was plenty enough to wake the ever-alert gunman up.

His eyes came open with a snap, and he immediately sat up straight, even breaths stolen away as he looked around wildly, gasping like he'd been drowned.

"Vincent…?" Tifa called to him, shifting her weight, rising up to the front of the chair, "Vincent, calm down, you're safe."

"Tifa!" he blurted at the sight of her, "What hap-... where is... where am I...?" all between sudden pants, desperately sucking in air that she was sure he didn't need.

"I said calm down, please..." her fingertips massaged her temples lightly. It was too early still to be given a headache by any one of her companions, let alone this usually sensible, quiet one. She hadn't seen him in years... and he hadn't changed one bit. The woman found herself somewhat envious, those perfect dark waves cascading down from his head, that flawless skin...

"Tifa..." the rippling flare in his eyes that she'd recognized from last night was dying down, and simultaneously he seemed to be getting back a grip on his breath, and his senses. "I..." his voice cracked, lowering from the panicked high that it took to the normal deep register, "I'm sorry." he finished, "I came here in a frenzy, because I..." words caught, stuck, and didn't come out, so he rephrased, "...didn't know... where else to go. Haven't seen you in quite a while."

She'd been about to ask him what happened, what could have possibly happened to send him into such an uproarious rush, when she just stopped and smiled. Glad to see she was missed... "That's fine, Vincent, you know you're always welcome here..." she reached out for her drink, missing the warmth between her hands.

"I know." he said, placing his claw-hand carefully over his face and closing his eyes. "I stayed away because I..."

"Hey, Vincent." came another voice, one Tifa almost didn't recognize for a moment, before she realized it was Yuffie. And the sight that met her eyes absolutely stunned her into further silence for a moment. There was Yuffie, marching daintily down the hallway toward them, wearing some of Marlene's chocobo-print pajamas, which she used if she stayed over the night sometimes, and smiling. The first time she had smiled in at least a year.

"...had to." the gunman finished off, mumbling, and looking down, his hand returning to his lap.

She stopped behind his back, poking him in the shoulder lightly, "What's got you so glum? Oh wait..." and then she laughed, just a faint chuckle, really, "...that's normal."

You're one to talk, sweetie. Tifa wanted to say, looking up at her. Vincent didn't answer, which was expected, but Yuffie didn't seem particularly affected by it. She yawned, and stretched, blinking her sleepy eyes and smacking her lips. "So what's for breakfast, Tifa?" she asked casually.

Another first-time-in-a-long-time for Yuffie. Tifa couldn't help but be glad that she'd at least temporarily dropped that horrid nickname Reno once gave her, that seemed to stick. "Toast and eggs."

Yuffie nodded. "Yum." they both looked to Vincent, whose delayed reaction was nothing more than a shallow nod of approval. His eyes were distant, staring down at his legs, through his legs. They knew that look... he was occupied with something, something secret deep within his own head, and it was unwise to deter him from it.

So, without protest, they went on their ways, Yuffie flopping down in Tifa's vacated chair and flipping on the TV, while the older woman took herself and her teacup to the kitchen to start preparing some food for them. It was just those two, besides herself... but it already seemed just like old times. The house was much more full than it had been when it was just her. She felt like it fit like a home much better. Recently, the walls had gotten loose around her, made themselves into a drafty, distant frame that she was strained to try and fill.

But she was happy doing what she was doing now, flipping omelettes expertly in a pan with one hand, downing the last of the teacup with the other. She had a purpose now beyond the meaningless daily toil of bar work, and took only a slight detour on her way to serve breakfast in the livingroom to go to the front door of the Seventh Heaven, and flip the 'Open' sign to 'Closed'.

She didn't know how it happened, if there had been any convincing involved, or just a strange fluke, but somehow, for some reason... Yuffie and Vincent had stuck around, and she was not complaining.

Only three days later, she could see it was better for all of them. She had mused in bed, late one night, still stricken by sleeplessness, on how they all seemed to be reacting to the unusual amount of company.

Yet it had been three weeks. Three long, eventful weeks, and Tifa no longer denied that something had drawn them all together there on that one night by some kind of strange magnetism. Perhaps a destiny to fulfill, perhaps Fate (or Aeris) was tired of seeing them stumble around one another in the dark. For some reason or another, they all put aside what else they surely had to do: Tifa's bar work, Yuffie's Turk mission, Vincent's… whatever, and just stay.

Solitude was good for no-one... and it had long worked away on the sanity of Vincent. Truth be told, she could quite easily see some places where he'd been chipped away at as a person, lost some part of himself that had turned to dust and blown away, and would never return. Yet his work of art was still salvageable, and that was what they were doing.

Yuffie, too. It seemed to be good for her to have someone to tease. The fighter knew that she and Reno had gone at it endlessly, and never met with any anger, got nothing but laughs and kisses. Yuffie respected Tifa and Cloud too much to poke fun at them (not that Cloud was ever around to do that to), and in both Vincent and Reno's (And Cid's and Red's) absence, she had no-one. Her levity was returning, little by little, and tentatively, but it was there.

They were good for one another, Tifa finally realized, rolling over onto her side and staring out the window at the winter moon. Vincent was coming (albeit reluctantly) out of his shell, and Yuffie emerging from hers, like butterflies. Their wings were still wet with tears from the past, but soon enough, in the light of the sun, they would spread their colors and fly off together to some unknown horizon.

A frown creased her lips now. Fly off... together... leave her alone. She... didn't want that. Didn't want what? For her friends to be happy? No, that was horrible! Every one of them had spent so long living in sorrow, and now these two had finally found their escape? How could she hold them back? No, she wouldn't. If Vincent and Yuffie found something in one another that they needed to have, she wouldn't be a block to it.

Night closed in. A tear leaked from her auburn eye, and she wiped the water away, and as it closed in sleep, she only just began to wonder... when exactly was it that she'd fallen in love with Vincent Valentine?

xxx

Author's Ending Note Thingy: Yeah, I know the romance is moving quick... but yet again, I think this is gonna take more chapters than I thought to get done. I'll see if I can explain it in the next chapter a little more (thus the need for more chapters than I thought it'd take), but we'll see. I've been writing up a storm (GASP! Inspiration actually coincides with skill!) lately, and I'm kind of just going wherever the words take me... with, of course, a clear destination in mind. And that's pretty unusual! I told myself that I'd wait to post this chapter until after I wrote another chapter of one of my other fics, 'Where Others Fail, Prevail' (hint-hint, shameless advertising), but it just wasn't coming to me, and I didn't want to keep you waiting. So here it is: early. Hope you like, please review!