Vincent Comes Home

I have been considering some of the next bits. I finally feel I have a grasp on where I want this to go. One thing I do want to go into is the relationship between Reno and Yuffie. There have been a couple places where I've wanted to put something in--but haven't. Because Yuffie is 'kinky' and I've never written anything 'kinky' before. So it's taking longer than I thought. (If anyone has any tips on how to write something 'kinky' please, drop me a line :D)

This chapter is kinda short. But anyway--

Ready the canons! Hoist the sails!


What was he doing here?

Vincent stood in front of Cloud’s door, willing himself to knock. What was he doing here? Tifa was with Cloud, watching over Cloud. It had nothing to do with him. There was no reason for him to be here. Just coming to check on Tifa? Why? Because she was a friend. Because if the situations were reversed, she would do the same. He scowled.

Vincent opened the door to Cloud’s room. Tifa still sat in the chair by his bed, leaning back on the legs to look at the ceiling. The chair came down with a soft thud when she noted Vincent.

“How is he?” they said at the same time.

“I mean, Nanaki,” Tifa muttered, looking away. “Is he coming?”

Vincent nodded, making an affirming noise in his throat. He shifted uncomfortably. Without his old armor of clothing he felt exposed. He pulled the suit jacket closer around him and walked over. He could have left right then. He’d given her the information. Nanaki was coming with them. He should have just turned around. But he didn’t. Tifa jumped up and grabbed another chair.

“Have a seat. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Vincent smiled. That was the nice thing about Tifa. She just always seemed to know what you were going to say long before you said it. She just seemed to see it coming. She just…

“Vincent?”

He realized he was staring at her. Unsettled, he moved his gaze away. “I apologize. I was thinking.”

Tifa smiled softly. “Anything important?”

“No. Not really.” For a moment, and for a reason he couldn't fathom or explain, he was tempted to tell her everything. Tell her all about Hojo, the Turks, the project, and Lucrecia. She knew the little details, of course. But not the big ones. Not the important ones. He was tempted to just take her by the hand and…

Lucrecia flashed into his mind.

Beautiful, smart, and dead to him. She was still alive, of course—he knew that. But she was dead to him.

And he kissed her.
She drew away, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before.


“Vincent?” asked Tifa, leaning over in her chair so she could see his face.

Vincent shook his head. “How is Cloud?”

Tifa was quiet for a moment. She sat up. “Sleeping…”

Vincent looked at her. He furrowed his eyebrows. Her eyes were dark and shiny. Her fingers were dug into her knees. Her shoulders shook.

“Tifa...?”

She nodded, swallowing. “He’s sleeping. I think he’s dying.”

Vincent sat bolt upright and stared, first at her, than at Cloud. “What?”

“He doesn’t…,” she gasped for breath. “He won’t wake up. He just sleeps…he just. He won’t wake up. I’ve tried to wake him. I call his name. But he doesn’t respond. It’s never been this bad before. Vincent, what am I gonna do? I don’t know what to do. I just—“

“Tifa,” Vincent interrupted. “Calm down. Cloud is not going to die. You said this had happened before—“

“But never this bad!” Tifa looked up at him. Her eyes were wet with tears and her face full of desperation. “He’s never been this bad. He has the little times—where he’ll wander off and act like he doesn’t really know where he is. And then there’s these bigger episodes. He’ll lose himself completely—,” she gasped as she really began to cry now. “—he fights me and Cid. It was even worse before Cid came. I would be too gently in trying to calm him down and get him to take the medicine. But I was afraid if I used my real power it would hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt him, Vincent!” She turned away from him, looking ashamed of her tears but unable to stop them. “Cid just brushed it off! He pulls on that hardass façade and just acts like it doesn’t bother him! I know it does! It bothers me too! But I can’t hide it like he does. Ever since Aeris died I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that you all have that I don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh,” Tifa waved her hand uselessly. “You, Cid, Barret, Yuffie—even Reno. You all just look at the terrible things and brush them off and pretend they don’t bother you. You don’t talk about them or deal with them. You all just push it away! I’ve been through just as much as any of you and still…still…I cry like a fucking…like a fucking kid. A pathetic little girl.”

“Tifa, you’re not a child.” Vincent floundered for words at this point, feeling awkward. “You are different than Cid or myself...”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Tifa said, self-mockery evident in her voice. “I’m different. I’m empathetic and thoughtful and kind, right? That’s why I didn’t want to hurt Cloud—even though I knew I had too. That’s why I watch Marlene whenever Barret needs to go out and do something more important. That’s why I dropped my bar--my bar! Mine! My business! My independence! I dropped it so I could take care of Cloud—just like a good woman should, right?—just like any good friend would. And he never gets better. No matter what I do—he never gets better. He only seems to get worse. We’ve taken him to doctors and everything. They all say the same thing, We don’t really know what’s wrong with him, ma’am. Just give him this when he gets out of hand. I’m afraid to leave the house. I’m afraid to leave him by himself. You know who was really thoughtful and empathetic and kind? Aeris! She was the wonderful, sweet, perfect one who Cloud loved. She would have loved to have taken care of Cloud. She would have done it—perfectly patient. If she were here, he’d be better by now! Sometimes I think I should have died instead of her—“

“Tifa,” Vincent cut her off again, tensing and unconsciously raising a hand and placing it on her shoulder. “You should not have died instead of Aeris. Aeris was the only one who could summon Holy to save and heal the Planet. We each have our part to play—“

“Than what are we? Pawns? I’m sick of being a pawn, Vincent!” She took the hand on her shoulder and wrapped her fingers about it. “You know what I mean, right? You were a Turk. Reno was a pawn, like you. Except you were….you had it so much worse…”

“I was tortured by Hojo.” Vincent ducked away after he said it, the firm hatred he had of self-pity striking out at any sympathy for himself. “But there are worse things.”

Tifa looked down, blinking away her tears, seeming to calm herself. “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling….sorry for myself.” It sounded as though it hurt her to admit it. “I was never like this before Cloud returned. I was a different person. I never cried.”

“If you could go back and change it…would you?”

Tifa gave a very rueful smile. “No…no, I wouldn’t.” She sighed. “I just get so tired of nothing ever working out. Everything seems to fall apart the moment I make it stable. I hate it. I get tired of feeling helpless and miserable. I remember a time when I was happy but it’s like…I’ve lost it. And I…I care about Cloud. I really do. But I just get so tired of things never working out. Of him always being sick, always worse. Like I’m destined to be some kind of sick-maid forever. I don’t want that, Vincent.”

Vincent froze as she was suddenly grabbing his arms, pulling him close to her.

“I want to see places! I want to go somewhere! I hate the slums. I hate staring at those poor little kids and never being able to do anything for them. I hate the memories. I hate Midgar. I hate all of it! I wanna travel…like you do, Vincent.”

How ironic, it seemed to Vincent. That he had decided to come back to Midgar to see the ones he missed—when all Tifa wanted to do was get away from it, like he had. He thought his existence might have been lonely but; he supposed, it was worse to be in a house with two other people and still feel like you’re all alone.

“You want to live your life.”

A miserable-looking smile came over Tifa’s face. “Yes! That’s exactly it! I want…I want to live my life and still be able to..to…”

“You want Cloud to be all right. But you want to live your own life.”

“Yes,” said Tifa, gratefully sinking her head into his shoulder. She sniffed. “Is that selfish?”

Vincent, uncertain of what he should do, raised his right hand and gently patted the back of her head. “You’ve spent most of your life living for others. I would say it’s fair that you might want to live for yourself for once.”

Perhaps it was just that he seemed to understand her but when she looked at him, there was relief on her face. She grabbed Vincent in a very close hug, surprising him, but he did not push her away. Feeling awkward, he wrapped his right arm around her, letting his left—the claw—dangle at his side.


Jeremiah and Cid stood side-by-side in the engine room, poking around at a control panel.

“How did you kno’ ‘bout Vincent?”

Jeremiah, like Cid, continued staring down at the circuit board. “The way y’all reacted. Every one of yeh stopped, s’if sumthin’ su’prised you. Vincent stopped completely. ‘Twas obvious.”

“The girl shoul’ pay be’er attention then.”

“She didn’ know, Cid.”

Cid tensed, scowling. “She shouldn’t open ‘er mouth. Seems as if, if everyone knows ‘bout us they—“

“I dunno the story either. No one talks about that guy. People is scared of him. They thin’ ‘e’s a vampire or a ghost or sumthin.”

Cid was holding onto a very frayed strand of nerves and tension. It stretched further as this conversation continued. “Good then, it’s no one’s fuckin’ business what ‘appened to Vincent.”

“Then why, may aye ask, did yeh git so angry ‘bout it? Y’can’t ‘spect us to kno’ then. If none of you ‘ad reacted, we ne’er woulda known sumthin’ was up.”

“Don’t blame tha’ on us!” Cid turned on him, clenching his fists, ignoring the fact that it would be useless for Cid to fight a man nearly old enough to be his father.

“Well, y’certainly can’t pin it on us. Yer the ones tha’ reacted to a silly story ‘bout a witch. Yeh just said yeh don’ want other people knowin’. So wha’ d’yeh expect?”

Cid was silent. The old captain was right, of course.

“Wha’ ‘appened t’the man?”

Cid was too angry now to consider that Vincent might not have appreciated him telling someone. He laid out what he knew of the story of Vincent Valentine being a Turk and somehow getting involved with the JENOVA-Project. Vincent had met a scientist there named Lucrecia who he had fallen in love with. The woman had rejected him, choosing a mad-fucking-scientist instead. The scientist, Hojo, used the woman and her unborn son in the experiment that created Sephiroth. Vincent had gone to him, objecting to him using humans as guinea pigs for his science projects. Hojo had shot him, kept him alive and then experimented on him. After Hojo discovered the abilities of Chaos, lying mostly dormant inside Vincent—save for extreme circumstances—he declared it a danger to work with the man any further until he, himself, was stronger and he finished training Sephiroth. So he locked Vincent in a coffin in the basement, putting him in stasis to keep him alive and young for as long as Hojo needed.


Jeremiah sat back in a chair. He picked at his teeth with his tongue, looked at his fingernails and then looked up at him. “See now, y’can’ ‘spect ‘er t’know sumthin’ like that.”

The frayed nerve unraveled and snapped. “Y’know Jeremiah, I don’ give a shit about the girl’s feelings! I don’t care what ‘appens to her. I don’t care about what she knows and what she don’t know! I don’t care about Vincent, Cloud, Yuffie, Shithead—any of ‘em. The only thing I giv’ a shit about is gettin’ my goddamn ship back to Midgar in one fucking piece! Tifa’s out of her fuckin’ mind! She agrees to let me move in t’help with the business. I’m grateful to tha’. But now she asks—no, begs!—me to take ‘er the Crater. The fucking Crater! When we nearly lost it all las’ time! But I agree. Why? I don’ even fuckin’ know—“

“’Cause she’s yer frien’.”

“I don’ fucking know! I can’t do shit f’her! If this’ll give ‘er peace—fine. If it don’t, she should fucking deal with it! Or take the goddamn kid to a home! I’m sick of this shit!” He glared at Jeremiah, breathing hard.

Jeremiah leaned back on his chair and his mouth creased into a tight line. “Y’feel be’er now?”

“Fuck you.”

Jeremiah nodded and stood. He clapped Cid on the shoulder. “Go ‘an ‘ave a smoke, you’ll feel be’er.”

“What? You goddamn, fuckin’ old man! I’m fucking Captain—“

“I’ve never been too wrapped up in rank, Cid. I care more ‘bout ‘ow my crew performs. Jus’ like you. Y’jus’ don’ wanna admit it.”

“I--!”

“Now jus’ ‘ear me out. I’ve been where you are. Long time ago, when I was a young man. Now I’m an absent-minded old man. It’s tirin’, puttin’ up tha’ face alla time. I got sick of it. Made me tired, Cid. Stress isn’t goo’ for yeh.”

Cid stared at him, a great wave of exhaustion crested over him and, with a sigh, he collapsed into a chair. He glared at the ground. “S’pose yer gonna tell me t’apologize.”

Jeremiahs shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Tol’ ya, I don’ mess ‘round much with rank. M'not gonna tell ya t'do anythin'. I don’ care wha’ y’do. Zet doesn’t need any apologies. Y’achieved what yeh wanted with yer attitude. She’s already scared o’ yeh.”

Cid blinked at the ground in surprise. He looked up, puzzled. “What?”

“Sh’ won’t admit it. But s’just the’way she changes when y’enter a room. She doesn’t smile. She gets uncomfortable an’ closes up. Unrea’able, even t’me—an’ I’ve known ‘er f’years.”

“That don’ mean shit,” Cid said, darkly.

“Maybe not.” Jeremiah shrugged. “After all. I’m an ol’ man. Maybe she wan’s t’be friends wi’ you.”

The door opened then and O’Malley entered. “Sir. Food’s sent to your quarters. Cook asked me t’find you. S’getting’ cold.”

“Oh,” said Jeremiah, the possibility of food seeming to grab his attention. “Wha’s fer supper, frien’.”

“Noodles an’ cheese sauce. Side o’…” O’Malley struggled to remember. “Side o’ green beans an’ potatoes. Slab o’ bread an’ butter on the side.”

Jeremiah smiled his approval, rubbing his old, calloused hands together. “Soun’s good. M’off t’the mess then. G’night, Cid. Thanks, O’Madigan.”

“O’Malley, sir.” O’Malley smiled, rather fondly, at the old man.

“Dea’ on, man,” said Jeremiah, rubbing his stubbly chin. He left the room.

Cid sat still for a moment, elbows on his knees, staring at the ground and his mind far, far away. He looked up. “I’ll b’there shortly.”

O’Malley, sensing the mood of his captain, nodded. “You want to ‘ave some Scotch sent to yer quarters, sir?”

“Yeah,” said Cid, his face grew darker. “Yeah. Thanks.”

O’Malley nodded and left.

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