Penance

©®™ Lt. Commander Richie

((Disclaimer: Still nothing, man! If I owned it, do you really that I would be sitting around getting Sephiroth two out of four times on random FFVII Character Quizzes? But I'm 75 percent Yuffie and 70 percent Vincent. This I can live with.))
((Dedicated to: Lunar-Chasmodai, my best IRL friend and the only person I would ever carpool to a con with.))

Chapter 11


I'm so sorry.

Vincent was heartbroken. Atop the roof of the mansion, he once again saw nothing but the inside of Lucrecia's cave. The glitter of the Materia around him reflected onto his face, playing shadows across his already harried visage.

"I have betrayed you, betrayed your memory." He began, standing with his hands in front of him, staring the mismatched glove and gauntlet down as though they were the source of his pain. With a yell, he threw his hands to his sides and threw back his head as though it would relieve him of pain. A roar pulled itself from his very heart, and as he ran out of breath he sunk to the floor.

"Too many people beg my forgiveness." The gunslinger shifted his gaze to the dirty banks of the pool, closing his eyes. In the glitter of the Materia, a single small tear fell down his cheek. It ran down his neck, bleeding into the collar of his shirt. "But I still beg forgiveness from you."

My forgiveness should not be begged for.

Vincent's head snapped up, another tear flying from his face as he sat down on his heels, his hands in his lap. He felt defeated, and his crimson eyes shed tears one after another.

"But you will say that you must beg for mine." He said, anger seeping into his voice. "Can you not simply forgive me for my past sins?" The last sentence came out in a yell.

No. You have done nothing wrong.

"Where's Spike?" Yuffie had given up on her Piano Room ventures, taking residence on the top of the stairs with her head in her hands. Between her legs, held fast by the wooden stairs, was her Shuriken. Tifa's hands clenched, and she grimaced as though she had smelled something unsavory.

"Not now, Yuffie. I'm trying to put the kids to bed." She said, forcing a smile as she leaned down and picked up Mira. The six-year-old yawned, but did not wake up. Denzel had already gone ahead outside to the tents, taking the smallest as the children's tent.

"He's gone, isn't he?" The Ninja asked. Sadly, Tifa nodded. She held Mira tighter, as though the girl's blue eyes were a link to her missing swordsman's own. The twig-like girl whimpered in a nightmare, reaching blindly for her familiar coat clasps and finding none. "But he'll come back, right? Doesn't he always come back?"

"Not always, Yuffie. I hope he stays gone this time." Tifa snarled the last words, angry at the blond for simply leaving.

"Well, you can't mean that. That would be like me saying that Vincent should stay in his coffin. You and me both know my view on that, Teef. You don't want Cloud gone any more than I want Vinnie back in that coffin-o-nightmares." Yuffie reasoned, nonchalantly taking the giant throwing star out of the woodwork at her feet and tossing it up and down. Her face remained emotionless as she did so, eyes tracking the constant motion of the Shuriken.

"But you don't love Vincent like I love Cloud. Here," Tifa said, taking one hand and moving Mira's to where she could grasp part of the martial artist's shirt in white-knuckled fists. "Much better." She finished, smiling down at the tiny girl and using the same free hand to gently move the girl's hair ribbon back onto the top of her head from her forehead. Yuffie tried to protest Tifa's point, but she held the free hand up in front of her. "You love Vincent as a friend. Platonically, and that's how he stays attached to us. Even if I feel strongly for Cloud, he'll just have to leave and not come back for a while before he realizes that."

With that, the martial artist turned, opening the front door of the ShinRa Mansion and leaving Yuffie to watch her Shuriken impact the floor in the rapidly dwindling light through the stained glass windows behind her. With a sigh uncharacteristic of her, the young Kunoichi jumped after her weapon, tugging it from the ground.

"You're wrong, Teef. I don't want Vincent in that coffin for the exact same reason you want Cloud back." She let out a shriek of frustration, throwing the Shuriken with as much force as she could muster at the wall ahead of her. With the resulting crunch of metal meeting stone, the Kunoichi sank to a sitting position, putting her head in her hands and simply sobbing into her palms.

It rained hard that night, large drops falling on the tents outside and soaking though the canvas to drench the people sleeping. Lightning flashed occasionally, and when it did the thunder followed immediately afterwards. Every time it did so, Denzel noted, Mira would squirm in her sleep and make a face. At the surface, it made him glad to see her suffer, even if it was subconsciously. But deeper, it almost made him feel sorry for her, almost made him want to reach out and comfort her.

Almost.

"It isn't fair." He muttered, his legs tucked to his chest as he looked away from the six-year-old. His wavy brown hair fell in his eyes, obscuring his vision. "You get all the attention. You're just like everyone; everyone loves you." Denzel sighed, his breath just barely misting in the air in front of him.

"You're the wonder child. You escaped the Remnants, you drank the Dark Water but you didn't get controlled." He continued, blinking a solitary tear down his cheek and looking back at Mira over his knees. Another breath misted in front of his mouth. "You don't know what it's like to have bad stuff happen to you. After I drank that water I could see what I was doing, but I couldn't do anything to stop it. You drank, but it didn't happen to you. It's not fair."

The last word seemed to echo around the drenched tent walls, and Denzel shivered in the cold as he realized just how sodden his clothes and hair were. Mira grimaced in her sleep once more, as another flash of lightning and crack of thunder rent the air.

"What makes you so special? You're just a kid with some special parents." He asked, pulling a blanket away from Mira's side of the tent and pulling it around himself. The twig-like girl shivered and curled tighter than she had already been, grasping for the little warmth that she so missed with the hand outside her sleeping bag. Slowly, one bleary glowing blue eye opened, and she sat up.

"Why are you so mean to me?" Mira asked, wiping her eyelashes of condensation with the back of one hand. With the other, she drew her sleeping bag around herself.

"Because you deserve it." The older boy snapped, drawing the blanket closer. Mira sniffed and began to cry, now wiping her eyes with both hands. "Everyone is so nice to you, it just balances out."

"I never did anything to you!" Mira cried out between hiccups, clenching both her hands in her lap until her knuckles were white.

"Do you know what it's like to not be able to control your body? That you're just watching as it does things?" Denzel snapped, glaring at the girl across from him like she was some sort of monster. "If you had just been normal, if you hadn't've been able to run from The Forgotten Capitol, I might have liked you a bit more."

"Ms.-" Mira faltered, wiping at her large eyes again as she gasped for forgotten breaths. "Ms. Lu'kessa said she's always apologizin' to Mr. Vins'nt 'cause she did something to him without realizin' it. She told me that she was real sorry 'cause she didn't know, an' that's the worst kinda hurt." Again, the six-year-old paused, looking up at Denzel's angry visage. "So'm sorry. For reals, too."

Even though he desperately tried to stay angry at her, Denzel felt his anger, and the scowl he wore, begin to falter. His upper lip, curled though it was, began to shake with the absence of anger to keep it there. With a misting sigh, the boy sat back against the wall of the tent. Droplets of water fell from the low ceiling, hitting both of the tent's occupants.

"Saying sorry won't help. Maybe someday you'll get it." He said, tipping his head back to look at the roof of the tent. A drop of water fell onto his forehead, where his Geostigma had been. "You don't get it. Not yet. Just go back to sleep."

Lightning flashed and thunder roared, rain pelting the tents in an incessant tattoo. Somehow, though, the two of them managed to sleep.

Eyah. This chapter's wierd. But you gotta realize that it was written over a period of like, two weeks. OOWEEEHHHOOOO-OOOOH, Denzel speaks! ... And angsts!

Next chapter: Barret and Marlene arrive, and construction begins! ... But where's Vincent? Not to mention, something important is found out by the WRO, pertaining to Mira. But what could it be?