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Chapter XXIX – Shots in the Dark

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Lightning lanced through the sky like lava through his bones; thunder soon echoed his throes and rolled with his shoulder.

Vincent Valentine was in pain.

The gunslinger grunted and pressed further into the stack of wooden crates he reclined upon. Hot pokers skewered his flesh, skin set to tingle with an aftercurrent not dissimilar to the charge that hung in the air from the resulting storm. So great was the rumble of clouds that he almost failed to notice the one strained and pulled from cold, dead lips.

'Ti-iimme... r-ottss...'

Ebony brows fell further than the beads of perspiration that trickled down his temple. Receding into the depths of his subconscious, the stitched mass of flesh and rotting muscle drug split knuckles across the cognitive lake of his mind, coating it in a thick layer of ice. His brain thrummed with a hazy, unnatural chill and Vincent grit his teeth, his mind buzzing like a particularly bad bout of brain freeze.

Then again, his was almost a literal case of it.

A sudden image flashed through the tundra blanket and ivory glare Death Gigas had draped across his skull; a glimpse of a dress. Ripples of soft cotton and wisps of long hair. A teasing dash of colour...

Brown. The woman's hair was brown.

Laboured breath hung in his throat when another molten whip of agony lashed across his collarbone. Air expelled from his lungs in a strained gasp only to be lost in a crack of thunder so deep the very clouds near sundered under its bellow. Despite the clash of whatever deities warred above, the small town of Corel remained remarkably at peace, the majority of the conflict carried out in the heavens above. The atmosphere swirled with a tension unlike any storm Vincent had ever come to known. A wind so little it was but a passing zephyr on a summer's day, while something dark and terrible waged war between earth and sky. The closest he could compare the turmoil was to the endless struggle raging within his own mind – a timeless battle of man versus demon.

But, for him, it was four against one.

As if sensing his thoughts, a deep laugh reverberated through the bone plates of his skull, unbridled derision shaking the fine sutures which melded each section together. The tranquil tundra within his head was suddenly thrown out of proportion, his thoughts nothing but fragments of haze and snow, each to fall in a flurry of white vertigo behind his eyes like a small child shaking a snowglobe.

He clenched his eyes and swallowed deep in nausea. Fire in his shoulder and ice in his head, a throbbing he couldn't quite remember yet didn't care to recall – much like that fantastical landscape of paper flowers and endless sky; it only brought suffering and confusion. His senses were falling waste to whatever laid siege at his gates, his walls crumbling under its onslaught...

"There you are. I thought I'd find you here."

Vincent's back stiffened as another fork of dazzling neon split the sky.

Tifa.

Crimson eyes opened to peer over the valley of folds that made up his mantle, seeking out the unmistakable honeyed lilt of the fighter's voice over the rolls of thunder. Across the roof of Barret's crumbling abode, slim fingers latched onto the sides of a hatchway before Tifa Lockhart pulled herself up through the square opening. A delicate demitasse cup was pushed to rest safely by her hip, and only when its security was assured did she sweep her legs up through the remainder of the gap. Despite the awkward display, she still carried a certain grace only achieved through many years of honing her body into a fine weapon.

The woman rose and patted down the dust from her leathers, taking a moment to sweep curious russet's across the roof. It wasn't unlike the rest of Barret's abode rugged and worn like the man himself. Various crates of unknown content littered the concrete flat, along with grave fissures that Tifa couldn't help but wonder if they affected the integrity of the main structure at all. What mostly caught her eye, however, was the lone hammock that hung beneath a patched and ragged sheet suspiciously in the shape of a boat's sail. Bound to strong steel poles with spare rigging that all appeared to be remnants from an old ship's mast, the orange canvas swayed sunnily to and fro beneath a broken black sky.

Tifa took a moment to taste the air, an ionized tingle on the tongue, before falling into a crouch to scoop up the cup she'd left on the cleft floor. Rising quickly so the act was more of a bounce, she made her way to the stack of crates piled in the corner by the hammock and to Vincent's side.

"You forgot your coffee," she smiled, dim and plastic. Crimson eyes acknowledged her, a brilliant red to pierce the dark and gloom like brake lights through fog. Swallowing down the gasp stuck in her throat, Tifa gingerly set the cup down on a nearby box.

She stood for a moment, shifting from foot to foot, rubbing her left elbow before she murmured, "... You should get it before it gets cold."

Vincent barely moved. "Perhaps you should retire before you fall the same."

Thin brows furrowed. Tifa watched him and Vincent watched back, nothing but the thunder raging between them. Eventually, the fistfighter turned away. Vincent's hardened gaze fell upon her countenance, back rigid and muscles taut from an emotion he recognised only all too well. A psychological glass pane rattled by a different kind of storm; visceral and wild. Hers was on the verge of breaking.

His gaze relaxed. "... The hour grows late. You should rest."

Tifa continued to peer into the darkness that swathed Corel and its sea of lanterns. Pinpricks of light pierced the umbra like fine needles and, when Tifa turned her eyes to meet his own, Vincent could see their fiery glimmers captured in her depths like fireflies in a jar.

"Actually, I wanted to talk. To you," she clarified, noting the almost imperceptible tilt of the gunslinger's head. In actuality, Vincent was chasing her words after breaking from the trance of her eyes.

He regarded her carefully, taking equal care to pull his shoulder into a more natural position, before he swallowed and answered thickly, "Is now a good time?"

It was a rhetoric Tifa didn't care for and she answered by way of shifting the Turkish coffee from his side and taking its place on the crate instead. Situating the tiny cup neatly in her lap, she secured its seat with lithe fingers wrapped around what little warmth was left in the ceramic. She stared deep into its foamed depths as if she would find all her answers there and Vincent stilled by her side, conscious in the knowledge that Tifa Lockhart wouldn't take no as a sufficient answer from him.

Fatigue brushed it's fingers deep into the corner of her eyes, and Tifa attempted to chase away the wisps of purple with the heel of her palms, but somehow only managed to appear even more tired than when she first rubbed at her lashes. Vincent regarded her with wary resignation, allowing her all the time she needed to gather her thoughts while he took the opportunity to rebuild his mental walls. When he caught a glimmer of water gather in the corner of her eyes, he could no longer hold his silence.

"Are you in any trouble?" he asked, a note of concern laced through his timbre.

Tifa blinked as if startled by the simple question, before a wry smile crept over her face. "I wouldn't say I'm in trouble," she said, words soft. "More like I have them. If anything, I'd say it's you who's in trouble."

The fighter smothered a yawn behind a gloved fist while Vincent gave a single stunned blink in return. Realising he'd mistaken her lethargy for tears, he numbly observed her while sleet crept across his skull and worked it's jagged fingers into the cracks of his psyche. Words were hacked and severed with a dead tongue before being equally pulled from dead lips.

'Taa-ke res-ponsi-bili-ty. Fa-ace the gal-llows.'

"To what burden of guilt do I bear?"

Vincent pointedly ignored the voice that whispered of murder and attempted feticide; a beautiful woman lying still on the floor of his mind as her skin slowly turned the colour of porcelain.

Worryingly, he didn't know if the voice was his own or his demon's.

Tifa blinked rapidly and was quick to lower her hand, all trace of tears now carried on her lashes like dew drops on grass. "'Guilt'? Why are you talking like that? It's not like you've committed a crime or anything."

Oh, how wrong she was, Vincent thought. Instead, he held his silence, the air only punctuated by the deep bass of thunder and slow beat of orange canvas on lazy winds. Tifa watched him for a moment, anticipation dancing behind her eyes, before she took a soft breath and turned back to peer into the murky depths of his Turkish coffee.

"I wouldn't say you're guilty of anything, Vincent. Unless you count all those hints about your past job something to hold yourself deeply accountable for."

Black brows furrowed beneath crimson bandanna. "My 'past job'?" He discreetly tilt his head.

Tifa hummed in agreement. "Don't you remember? Though it has been quite some time, hasn't it. I wouldn't blame you if you forgot."

The gunslinger tucked his chin deep into his cowl as he sunk into equally deep retrospect. Pain and frost lay in pockets across his mind like mines in a field, making it difficult for him to recollect anything from its treacherous terrain. Instead, he simply found shrapnel; fragments of picture and colour he couldn't quite piece together through the small sun searing his shoulder.

All he could envision was that damnable dress. That plane of bone-bleached flowers... and blood. So much blood. It trickled from the corner of silken lips, muttering wordlessly as a withered hand reached for his own in the sticky, pooling lake of crimson that grew between them. A distance marked by two different rooms. Two different graves. Too much blood. Too much death. Too many secrets.

Thunder rattled his skeleton and the closet of flesh that concealed it.

"... Hmph."

"It was shortly after we found... woke, you. Cloud, myself, and..." Tifa's larynx bobbed with a swallow. "Right after we left the Shinra Mansion." Lightning branched and cleft the night with neon spikes, the sheer illumination pulling the fighter's eyes skyward. "Before we met up with the others at the foot of Mt. Nibel, Cloud asked you to keep the details of your past with Shinra a secret." A lopsided smile played on her lips. "I guess he got enough trouble from Barret back then to know how much trouble he'd give you, too, if he found out."

Vague images began to form, coming together like a foggy mosaic through the pain shrouding his mind. Clarity soon came with it and Vincent hummed, a light and mellifluous sound compared to his usual grunts and rumbles. Three years was a long time to recall any memory, but the day he was liberated from his nightmares by an ex-SOLDIER, a sole surviving Ancient, and a strong-willed fistfighter, was a day he would forever find difficult to forget.

He quickly recounted his slips over the evening: his clipped introduction with Barret's associate, Esther, then the implications brought forth by his admittance of preferred coffee taste. The resulting noise pulled from his throat was all the affirmation Tifa needed and she took a moment to smile at the sound, pleased. Her fingers teased along the rim of the coffee cup in her lap and she tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. Vincent watched the silken strand join the chocolate waves of its brethren. A focus through the pain. He breathed. "I will take more care with my words, henceforth."

Tifa's eyes softened. "You always do."

A gentle breeze rippled through his cape, causing it to billow in light flutters like a newborn bird testing its wings. The cool wind offered a momentary respite and the gunslinger relished the chill it blessed to his sweat soaked temple. Lanterns scattered below hummed to their own beat, swelling and ebbing in a tempo of orange flickers, their flames dancing with the passing zephyr. Vincent's shoulder thrummed to its own unheard rhythm; the unmistakable war drum of injury. Spots danced before his eyes and whether it was from Corel's lamps, the streaks of lightning, or his own wound, he was unsure. The crimson bleed of his gaze stemmed as he took a moment to consolidate his composure.

'My wound has had ample time to heal... is something preventing the regeneration process?'

The thought almost bothered him more than the misplaced heartbeat that pulsed steady under his collarbone. Vincent was by no means impervious to injury; he had taken more than his fair share of blows during their journey three years ago, as did they all. But his demons allowed him to recover faster than the average man. They didn't heal such grave damage with instancy, but in time they did nullify the pain and eventually treat the wound. For something to impede that process meant it, too, impeded his demons. Losing control, however, was another matter entirely.

He stooped his shoulder, that ever present heartbeat pumping what felt like lava around the upper extremities of his chest. Head throbbing with the vision of white petals and pale apparitions, it was only when Tifa's yawn reached his ears over the thunder that he came to his senses. He inwardly berate himself.

Too focused on the dead, did he forget the state of the living.

"Tifa." He near startled the woman with her spoken name and watched her spine straighten, slim fingers set to clasp a little more tightly around the cup in her lap. Tired russets focused with curious intent while lightning flashed in brilliant splendour overhead. Despite her evident fatigue and concerns answered to what appeared to be to her satisfaction, the fighter yet remained. Suspecting an ulterior motive – or topic – was at hand, Vincent decided to address the issue. "Is there something else I can assist you with?"

The tight furrow of her brow eased for a moment before it was reined in once more. Tifa searched the distance for something invisible to the glowing eye as she struggled with something equally indiscernible to the gunslinger. Fingertips wandered from the smooth curve of porcelain in her lap to play with the hem of her duster pocket, and only then did Vincent note the lone daffodil that hung neatly from its edge.

"Has Denzel yet to reacquire his gift?"

Tifa's lips thinned at the sudden question, fingers near flinching as they brushed against the flower's mellow petals. Thunder rolled.

"He... wanted me to keep it." Something in the fighter's tone suggested a mind steeped in troubled rumination and Vincent fought against the furrow of his own brow. Decisively putting an end to his own enquiries, he remained within the comforts of his own social boundaries and allowed Tifa the same in turn. The sky growled as the night took a long breath, Vincent's cape twisting in crimson curls at his back. Tifa's duster waved to the hammock behind which fluttered lazily in riposte. An orange wafture.

'How can I explain Denzel's behaviour to Vincent when I don't even understand it myself?' Tifa teased the vibrant daffodil crown in her pocket. Not only had the boy's actions been growing increasingly strange as of late, but she also had Vincent's own demeanour to mentally contend with. Both man and child were adamant in their reluctance to show emotion, reminding her only all too well of the childhood friend she dearly wished to find. Her heart throbbed with painful yearning.

Cloud's name was the first thing on her mind, but the last thing on her breath.

Slight yet deceptively strong fingers drift from the sunny corona to the rectangular shape that lay hidden within her leathers. Tifa took in the dry, static-charged air and willed it to inspirit her sudden, impetuous decision. Setting the Turkish coffee down to reside by her hip, the fighter manoeuvred her hand around the flower in her duster to pull at the book that weighed on her mind as heavily as it did in her pocket.

The ledger revealed itself from her utility pouch and crimson eyes homed in on the leather-bound like the laser sights of a sniper. Tifa squared her shoulders, willing herself undeterred though her heart jumped in her stead. Before the man could even think to give voice to his curiosity, Tifa held the object of his attention out towards him. A beat passed; slow and languid. Vincent took it without word. Blood-red eyes flicked from the ledger in his hand to catch her own – a silent enquiry.

Tifa nodded.

Angular fingers snapped back the book's clasp as deftly as pulling a gun's trigger before they opened the soft cover and thumbed through the pages. The fighter remained silent, heart thrumming in tandem with the lanterns. She watched the gunslinger with an unobtrusive air, marking the subtleties of his equanimity as he studied the written accounts in his hand. The deepening crease of his bandanna. The small twitch of his index against the book's spine. A flickering of molten irises as he scanned the page… Focus resolute.

Suddenly, Tifa felt like she was studying the past. Seeing the glimpse of a man who read status reports and mission files. A man who wore navy suits over crimson capes. A man that once was.

'I wonder... just who did you used to be, Vincent Valentine?'

As she peered at the gunslinger, an idea struck her as surely as the lightning flashed overhead; slight, yet brilliant. Vincent looked different now, not only in her mind's eye but also to her literal russets. He unfolded, his entire body rising with his eyebrows. His stooped spine straightened from the almost gargoylian posture he'd undertaken, the hunched folds of his mantle melting to roll down his back in a cascade of crimson. His glowing eyes, once glued to a singular name scribbled across the page, now pinned her to her seat.

"Tifa." The gravitas of her spoken name was almost as tangible as the electric charge in the air. It stole her breath, but she was quick to steal it back.

"Vincent, you can track, right?"

Her whispered question hung in the air, almost lost to the thunder grumbling its discontentment above. Blood-red eyes narrowed in grave acknowledgement. The gunslinger studied her carefully, and she could almost see him tossing the words over in his mind. Finally, he replied, "... My detail in the Turks was espionage. Reconnaissance, and..." Vincent paused, hesitance crossing his features by way of an almost wrinkled nose, "... wetwork."

Tifa tilt her head, confusion outweighing her surprise that Vincent had shared anything about himself at all. "Wetwork?" she echoed. When the man drew into himself with a curt tuck of chin in cowl, Tifa mentally filed the term away for later.

"For how long has Cloud been missing?" The question was direct, like a bullet's trajectory to the heart, and Tifa had to fight to expel air from her lungs. Though it only made sense Vincent would ask such questions, it was a different matter entirely for Tifa to be facing the subject so openly after hiding her worry for so long. It was a complicated knot of emotions that wound itself in her stomach, one that Tifa had no hope of disentangling in one night. So she took that bullet and bit it between the teeth.

"It's been about... two weeks, I think." She gave a brisk shake of her head as if that would dislodge the answer from her jumbled mind. Fatigue burned her eyes. "Yes. Two weeks," she nodded, the slight warble of her voice now steady with her answer.

Vincent watched her for a moment before he turned back to the pages in hand, a stray wind teasing his ebony mane to chase the valley of folds that ran across his mantle. His eyes scanned the ink, their glow stemmed only by a lazy blink of his lashes, two flickering candles trapped behind glass. "... I see," he rumbled, pinching thumb and fingers together to clap the book deftly shut. "Two weeks is ample time for a trail to grow cold." Tifa opened her mouth but he continued, a different kind of fire in his eyes: stoked; renewed. "Yet this is dated four days ago. Am I correct to assume this is the same book you picked up in the basement of Costa del Sol's villa?"

Tifa's jaw hung loose as she stared at the gunslinger. Thunder growled, deep, low, and distant. The cupid's bow of her lips pursed and she nodded. Vincent held the book in steady regard before he moved to hand the ledger back to its rightful owner. Tifa took it without a word, returning the leather-bound once more to its place within her leather pocket. Free from her searing gaze, Vincent turned his attention to the burn inlaid in his shoulder, molten muscles pulled in hopes of reprieve. Twangs of lava twist his collarbone and steeled his jaw.

'I now better understand her behaviour since Costa del Sol... but is this a truth worth knowing?' Vincent drew in the parched air and petroleum burn of oil lamps. While it was no secret the fighter pined for their missing once-leader, to know the particulars of his disappearance and clues had, in fact, been carefully concealed was a bitter pill for him to swallow. 'It appears even Tifa Lockhart has something to hide...'

Vincent's stomach curled in distaste. Too many secrets. Too few answers.

"I don't expect you to do this for nothing, Vincent. What I'm asking of you is... unfair. After all, it's not your problem..." She fiddled with the white hem of her shirt. "I know you have your own reasons for joining us on this journey, and I don't disparage you any of them." Here, her russets captured his own irises snared in flame. "But if you help me find Cloud, I'll help you with whatever you need. No questions asked."

Vincent's gaze hardened like cooling magma. "You don't know what you speak of, Tifa–"

"Oh, don't give me that," she huffed. "I'm perfectly aware of what I'm offering. I can't ask a friend for a favour without returning–"

"Nibelheim."

Tifa's words turned to ash in her mouth. "What?"

Vincent peered at her from over his cowl and under his bandanna at her squeak, a careful mask of impassivity set over his features. It revealed nothing. "It is imperative for me to journey to Nibelheim. In turn... I will track Cloud and assist you in your search." A pause. A crack in the shield; a quick turn of the eye. "Know that if I had any other choice in the matter..." Voices suddenly howled in his skull like an insane maelstrom. Brimstone eyes seized and rattled in hollow sockets like a criminal would the bars of his cell.

'I would pull you downdowndown drowndrownDROWN! SUFFOCATE. WITH. ME!'

"It's okay, Vincent." Her voice coaxed him back, but her own focus remained on the daffodil peeking over the rim of her duster pocket. "You might have been gone for a long time, but I like to think I know you well enough by now. Any reason you have is a good one, and that's good enough for me. You don't need to explain it."

Her inflection was just as unreadable as her expression and after a few moments, Vincent gave up trying to decrypt it. Their pact gave him much to think upon, as did the terminology she'd used for him.

'Friend...'

His eyes turned to the sky then. He blinked. Then blinked again. The brief lapse of sanguine glow pulled Tifa's russets to follow and the sight stole her breath all over again.

The storm had discreetly moved on during their discussion, its thunder now a bored grumble over the distant desert of the Gold Saucer. The lightning had followed, its once dazzling tridents now a tired sliver that brought tiny grains of sand beneath to glitter. What caught their attention, however, was the smoky grey curtain of clouds that had been pulled from the sky, revealing a front row seat to the picture show of the universe. Hundreds and thousands of merry stars fell across the night in a crystalline band, steady in a galactic stream whose course was only plotted to time. Diamonds spilt over black silk, they twinkled and winked to their sole onlookers; a secret promised just for them.

Vincent and Tifa both forgot to breathe.

"... I've never..." Words were lost in the sheer heliosphere before them and Tifa was quick to give up on trying. Vincent managed a light grunt in response, bleeding eyes trained on the cascade of jewels set in the heavens. The lanterns of Corel were suddenly a very poor imitation.

'Not since I was a child in Nibelheim, or the projection in Bugenhagen's observatory have I seen something so...' Bugenhagen. Nibelheim. … Cloud. The thought brought Tifa crashing down from her cosmic flight. Just how many had they lost to achieve this? To see the sky the way it was meant to be seen, unmarred by light pollution nor blotted by Shinra's gruesome Mako Reactors? On retracing their steps from three years ago, it was hard not to think of their original journey across the Planet. And the price they'd all paid for it.

Tifa suddenly felt humbled and ashamed all at once. Overwhelmed. Did they really deserve the Planet's forgiveness? How could they? Humans had almost destroyed this – destroyed everything – out of unparalleled avarice and selfish greed. Something heavy and indescribable settled on her chest. A deep ache that surpassed even the well of tears her eyes could draw upon. Her soul wept.

"Tifa?" Vincent's voice was quiet, as if speaking alone would break whatever spell had been cast. Crimson eyes held steady on her form. Intent, alert, and somehow, she personally noted... soft.

"I want... to fix this. To fix everything." Her heart spoke, the words spilling from her mouth without control. She shook her head. "All the damage we did to the Planet... how can it show us something so beautiful, after all the abuse we caused?"

Her question was answered with the celestial hum of stars. The pit in Tifa's chest began to gnaw at its gaping edges, when Vincent's sonorous timbre joined the resonance.

"... Sometimes it's damage that makes things beautiful." He avoided her eyes, voice barely a whisper above the night's wind.

Tifa cocked her head. "... Vincent...?"

"The same way we must make mistakes in order to learn from them. It grants us wisdom; carves out a history from our harm. From there, we are given a choice. What we choose to do with that choice, to either learn from our actions or continue on in ignorance... that is where true beauty lies."

Tifa stared at the man who reclined beside her, his gaze resolute on a distance marked by time rather than space. She could only in her wildest dreams fathom what he saw there. His words echoed in her mind and chased away the shadows of her heart, that dark, empty pit of her chest withering. It was then replaced by something else, something equally as deep. It gripped her throat and shook her shoulders, working its way up from her stomach to her heart, until it burst forth and freed itself from her mouth.

Tifa giggled. Then chuckled. Then, she laughed.

She waved away stunned crimson while rubbing at her own eyes, the burn behind them growing ever more persistent by the passing minute. She soon regained her composure, humour toying her lips as it lift her gaze to the sky. She answered the question he'd yet to speak.

"I'm just... so glad you're here. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't."

Silence met her admission, but for Tifa, that was okay. It was a silence she knew, of the other two people she might have confided in, would have been filled quickly by Barret or left to awkwardly linger by Cloud. But with Vincent, it was accepted like an old friend and allowed to settle around their shoulders like the very mantle he wore. Its weight was an anodyne that eased her own.

'I think I understand. The Planet shows us this because we're learning. Thank you, Vincent. I know better now. We know better now.'

They stayed like that for countless moments, the world spinning on its axis in the inevitable tide of time, unaware of the two souls who sat and watched the starscape play out from billions of miles away. Corel slept soundly beneath the whirling galaxy, undisturbed and oblivious much like the rest of the world. Minutes trickled by, as did the night itself. When Vincent's eyes traced a shooting star across the sky to fall over the crown of Tifa's head, his eyes followed to find her head was now in fact resting gently on her chest, chin tucked neatly into the crux of her collarbone.

Vincent blinked. 'Since when did I fail to notice her slumber?'

The orange hammock beat out a laugh behind him. Vincent took a moment to wrestle with his indecision, his first instinct suitably quashed on account of the fire raging through his shoulder. He was in no fit condition to carry her. Nor did he wish to disturb Barret at such a late hour for information regarding sleeping arrangements. With no other course of action, Vincent mentally steeled himself – much as he had that particular night in Kalm – and reached out a wary hand. He hesitated over the slim curve of her shoulder before brushing gloved fingertips over her arm.

"Mmm..."

She was cold. The frigid winds of the desert blew in from the Gold Saucer and, though the breeze was light, the cooling sands were enough to elicit goosebumps over any uncovered skin. It was enough of a temperature drop for Vincent to notice through his leathers and he gently pressed his full palm to her shoulder with more urgency.

"Tifa."

"Hmm... Huh? O-oh!" The fighter startled awake, hopping from her seat and sending the long since ignored cup of coffee by her side jostling towards the edge. Vincent dived to catch the crockery with a solitary finger while Tifa rubbed at her bleary eyes, her attempts to focus mixed with croaky mumbles and a slue of apologies. "Sorry, I must have... nodded off..."

Vincent nodded, carefully unhooking his finger from the cup's handle and setting the disturbed coffee back onto the crate. He hid his face deep beneath crimson folds and fought the grimace that came as a cost to his quick reflexes. His collarbone screamed like a thousand ailing souls in the Lifestream.

"Perhaps it is time you retired." He busied himself with drawing into a posture that appeared more natural. "... The Planet will still be here when you wake," he added.

Tifa smiled at that, a faint turn of the lips before she hummed in agreement. "Maybe," she murmured, rubbing her arms. "But I also remember when it almost wasn't."

The sudden sobriety to her words washed over the gunslinger and he took a moment to peer up at the stars. For a chilling moment, one more chilling than the desert sands, Vincent could almost feel that terrible, oppressive shadow of Meteor once more. His nausea returned with a vengeance.

"You know..." Tifa took a moment to fight against the yawn that stretched her jaw wide, "... the only thing more insulting to Barret... than asking for Turkish coffee... is not drinking it." Her body was racked with a violent shiver then, as if the very notion brought ill feeling. Or perhaps, Vincent thought, someone had crossed her grave. Though given Tifa's words, he was almost inclined to believe it was Barret getting ready to walk over his own. "Please make sure you drink some, Vincent."

Exhaustion and injury crept upon him, if the throbbing of his collarbone and pounding of his head were any indication, and so he decided to appease the woman as best he could. He picked up the tiny cup and gave a slight nod, long nose dipping to brush with his cowl's edge. "I will endeavour to finish it."

Tifa suppressed a snort and waved him away almost drunkenly in her fatigued state. "Endeavour is to try. You promised."

"Promise? I did not..."

Vincent blinked, the overwhelming sense of déjà vu momentarily quelling his pain. If Tifa's eyes sparkled from the stars, the lanterns, or mirth, he couldn't tell. She blessed him with a warm smile – a real smile – and, with a sway of her hips that sent her duster dancing, left him with the ghost of her past self to whisper in his skull.

'No, but your actions were enough.'

Vincent studied the demitasse cup pinched between thumb and forefinger, when the shrill protest of a zip being pulled along its metal teeth met his ears. His head snapped towards the interruption, when...

'… !'

Just as quickly he snapped it away, almost dropping his cup in the process. Vincent winced: more at the lecherous wolf-whistle from Hellmasker than at the brief glimpse of Tifa tugging her vest off. He forcefully threw the leering demon from his psychosomatic doorstep.

"... What... are you doing?" he ventured, taking every ounce of his self-control to keep his voice level.

Tifa stood by the orange hammock situated behind the crates where he reclined, casually bundling her leather vest up into folds. She knead the crumpled edges with her palms before answering in way of a tired drawl, "Making sure the Planet stays where I left it."

Vincent listened for the telltale ruffle of additional articles being removed. Only when he found none did he slowly, cautiously, turn his head; the only sound of clothing his own click of buckles and rumple of leather. Clad in her sleeveless white shirt, Tifa placed her folded vest at the head of the hammock before chasing away the indigo shadows beneath her eyes. Though discreet, the tremor which ran through her arms did not go unnoticed when a languid wind teased her tresses.

Head swaying back and forth in tandem with the hammock, she began to seek out what Vincent could only assume to be a blanket to join her makeshift pillow. He set down his coffee and joined in her surveyal, eyes finding nothing of note, though he grew partially distracted by the slight tremble of her jaw. Something brewed in his chest then, a feeling so potent that his own pain shrivelled and died in its shadow. He recognised it easily, but hadn't felt its full strength towards another in over thirty years. It furrowed his brow and set to etch a line across his temple that would inherit its name.

Despite her clear intentions, Vincent still felt the need to make a prudent observation on her ill-thought out place of rest. He opened his mouth to dispute but stopped before he began. Tifa was in the midst of a grand stretch, her back arched like a cat and revealing a thin series of scars that danced around her hipbones like silver ribbons. One in particular caught his attention; long, thin, and most certainly not a stretch mark. It snaked around her right hip with a tail the colour of liquid mercury, when suddenly it disappeared.

Vincent's gaze snapped from the shirt pulled down in a white-knuckled grip to the fighter who now shied away from him – a complete contrast to the confident, lazy stretch she'd just performed moments ago. Tifa avoided him by settling on the hammock, easing and testing her weight against the taut fabric with caution. The ship's aged rigging held steady with little protest and, with a slight lack of grace and fumbling hammocks were renowned to cause, Tifa eventually hauled herself into the orange cradle and swung her legs over without much incident.

The hole-ridden boat sail held most of Tifa's focus as she squirmed beneath it, worming her head up to rest on the makeshift pillow of her leather vest. Finally she settled, tired russets seeking out the sky through holes in the canopy like a navigator charting stars through a telescope. Vincent watched her for a moment, or rather the shiver of her form through the hammock's fabric, before he turned away. Her scar persist throughout his mind until time was kind in recollecting a memory for him.

'It matches the same distinct pattern I caught marred on her left shoulder in Junon. But for the two to be connected would mean...' Vincent's eyes narrowed at the imagery. An injury that ran longer than neck to navel. A trench carved in flesh and blood. '… It was a grave wound indeed.'

Clearly the woman had survived this stroke with death. And yet the idea that something had almost killed Tifa Lockhart... it sent a niggling under his skin he couldn't quite identify. Vincent swallowed down the sickness steeped deep in his stomach and straightened, shaking himself from his own morbid musing. When he peered back at the fighter with new eyes at this revelation, he instead found his brow jumping to disappear under his sweat-ridden bandanna.

In what could have only been a few short minutes, Tifa had finally succumbed to slumber.

Vincent breathed a quiet sigh of relief and released the taut muscles of his searing shoulder. Her fatigue had been growing predominantly worse as the night progressed, to the point sleep deprivation had crossed his mind more than twice. While it was an ironic notion that he may have been the one to direct her to bed, he wasn't above the idea if it meant ensuring her well-being. On further study, he noted at some point during his brooding she had unhooked the leather duster that normally hung from her waist, instead utilising it as a blanket. And a very poor one at that, his mind pointed out, given it only covered her legs at best.

Failing to ignore the tremble of her arms or bumps of her skin, inhuman eyes scoured the rooftop and scrutinised each and every crate stacked around him. Rope, steel poles, scrap, and drained oil lamps, their contents drew a blank as did the rest of the area itself. The glow of his eyes moved to join that of its astral brethren. The celestial river offered no solution, nor did it condemn. It simply glittered and flowed as steady and placid as a summer stream. Vincent was at a loss.

Red hot agony struck his shoulder then, blazing a trail across his collarbone that took the gunslinger off-guard. He grit his teeth and weathered its rage, briefly toying with the idea of using Tifa's Curative Materia. One glance towards her serene form, however, rebelled the notion.

'This wound is my own to carry. I will not risk waking her on account of my own shortcomings.' After all, it was he who'd failed to notice Denzel follow him during those parlous moments at Mt. Corel. In doing so, he'd inadvertently placed the child in danger. And so this was his price to pay.

Another fervid torrent of pain stoked the flames in his shoulder and twist his muscles like a white-hot poker. Golden talons flexed in answer, but only caused a jerk in his arm that set off a tremor of grinding bone. His vision swam and he flinched to grasp the injury when the movement caused a telltale clink to emanate from his cloak. Vincent paused. Lowering his hand, he instead pushed aside the folds of his mantle to reach for the forgotten vials of medicine residing within.

He was a fool.

Pulling one from its seat, he held the crystal blue in reverence; especially so when he recalled it as the very same bottle Tifa had given him beside a mountainous waterfall. He made to peer once more at the fighter over the folds of his mantle, when his eyes followed the valleys of fabric down to the tattered ends of his cape fluttering in the breeze.

Now he felt like the very Planet and stars were laughing at him. All this time, he had everything he needed. He was a damn fool, indeed.

Vincent carefully set the Potion down on the adjacent crate before twisting to catch his cape's edge. Surveying the gap between himself and the hammock behind, he found it to be small enough and, satisfied, the gunslinger flicked his wrist. A billow of crimson surged forth and swallowed the fighter, momentarily held aloft on currents of air before drifting to settle and drape around her slim form. Tifa barely stirred, scarcely a murmur passing her lips.

Vincent cast an eye to ensure she was appropriately covered before he unwittingly fell into watching her. A brief flicker under long lashes, her tousled wisps of chocolate hair, the slow rise and fall of her chest...

The tremors of her arms ceased.

Though his eyes moved back to the demitasse cup and sapphire blue Potion that sat beside it, his mind lingered. He was unused to sharing company on an evening, let alone his very cape. The slight pull to the fabric caused him distraction, but it was the throb of lava through his veins that spurred him into action. He plucked the Turkish coffee from its crate with thumb and forefinger. Its contents was ice cold at this point, if the chill seeping through his fingers was any indication. He also noted Barret had forgotten the customary glass of water to accompany his drink. A wry smile tugged at the corner of his lips like a necessitous ghost. Or perhaps, Vincent thought, the man hadn't forgotten at all, and this was his own way of adding discreet scorn to his hospitality. Either way, Vincent couldn't help but feel slightly amused.

And that the idea of Barret crossing his grave was truer than he thought.

Carefully drawing down his cowl with a trembling talon on account of his injured shoulder, Vincent took a tentative sip of Barret's brew. It was smooth, bitter and rich, with a fine texture of grain that came when nearing the powdered grounds used in its making. Even cold as it was, his larynx hummed without provocation. It had been too long. Far too long indeed.

'Ack-! This tastes so bitter, Vincent! Could you pass the sugar, please? Thirteen lumps should do it.'

He watched the tide of encrusted gems glimmer overhead as he partook of his coffee, mind wandering to brief reminisces and fleeting memories. Lucrecia wandered past but not through them, brushing her fingers over each one like she was surveying a delicate set of glass beakers and tubes. Each caress was as fleeting as her ghost, carrying all the weight of her spectral form.

Only when his cup was half drained and the coffee began to thicken did he come to a decision. It was by no means conventional but, given the events of the evening, the whole night was anything but. Setting down his cup, he twist the incised crystal cap from his Potion bottle come gift, before pouring the medicine into his drink with a steady right hand. Thick and black, the brew bubbled in annoyance, but it was a pale imitation to the fire that raged through his shoulder. He eyed the tar-like concoction and, after a moment of considerable steeling, downed it like a choice liquor.

His tongue curled, the acrid brew proving hard to swallow with a bitterness that surpassed biting into a lemon five-fold. The sweet and acerbic herbal properties of the Potion mixed with the Turkish coffee brought a whole new meaning to, 'take the bitter with the sweet.' Vincent could no longer hold off the wrinkle to his nose. He coughed deep, the upheaval of his diaphragm setting his collarbone to grind and scream. He grit his teeth and gave a course grunt that resonated through his chest as he fought to keep the medicine down.

Only when the initial siege to his palate subsided did he notice the stretch of cape at his back.

Glancing over his shoulder, he was met with the muffled gasp of Tifa Lockhart. Glazed russets locked onto his own of pained crimson before they moved wildly to peer around the area like a startled animal. After a terse few moments, Tifa settled, fists and muscles unwinding with a yawn. "Just... surprised," she managed, wrestling with a drowsy tongue. "By your eyes."

Vincent held his silence, frozen by the awareness of his position but also her words. What was he but another monster of the night? A glower in the black? She had every right to wake up beside him in fear. He waited for the realisation and repulsion that would surely follow. Instead, she smiled.

"Like lights... in the dark. Like how they glow..." she mumbled, snared in a soporific state. "Mmm... it's warm..." The gunslinger barely resist cocking his head to the side, unsure what to make of the fighter's words. That her mind was fogged with exhaustion was evident. Weighing his response, Tifa unwittingly saved him by slurring something he, for once, assuredly knew the correct answer to.

"'Night, Vince..."

She shift and lay her head down once more, unwittingly curling into his cape. Vincent stared at her back before the glow of his eyes softened, and dimmed. He stretched his legs and leaned further back, allowing her better claim of his mantle.

"Goodnight... Tifa."

Her soft breaths answered him as did the slight creak of hammock ropes. Vincent took a minute or two to ensure she was comfortable and indeed asleep before returning to his drink. He poured himself another shot from his Potion bottle, his mind now occupied with two apparitions; one intimate, one a stranger. He felt a familiar pain in his chest then; heavy and solid, it sunk deep like a tombstone and left a hole as empty as an unfilled grave. He glanced back at Tifa bundled under his cape and dreaming sweet dreams beneath the cosmos; blissfully unaware of his midnight plight. He heaved a sigh through his nose and turned back to down another dose.

Tifa's tired, carefree smile joined the two ghosts that drifted through his mind as easily as he worked his way onto his second Potion bottle. The inferno of his shoulder finally began to cool and heal, remedied under his skin like a salve to a burn, though his drink did little to salve his conscience. He straightened and gazed up at the star-crested heavens. His conviction to find Cloud steeled.

'If it is heartache I can save her from, then I will gladly do so.'

Vincent resumed his solitary toast to the stars.