Chapter 6: The Morning Comes

Tifa had stopped crying. She looked almost content and she still clung to my shirt like her life depended on it. By now I had abandoned all thoughts of leaving the hotel. It wasn't that I didn't want to leave; it was just that I couldn't leave. Tifa's grip was very strong and everytime I tried to pry her hands off of me or try to get off the bed, she'd shed fresh tears and mutter things like, "You promised..." or "Don't leave me!"

"How strange..." Uma muttered after being silent for quite a while. She still stood near the kitchen chair.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, but I remained silent. When I did not ask her to elaborate, she spoke again.

"I usually know who people truly are even when they seem to be something else." She said while looking at the linoleum tiles of the floor.

"Why is it that I couldn't see past you?" she asked more to herself than to me.

I remained silent. I figured that she was too lost in thought to notice even if I did try to speak. She was still tapping her chin and staring at the kitchen floor. It seemed that it was a habit for her when she's deep in thought, from what I could analyze.

Then her head rose and she looked at me. "I just realized that I've never asked you your name." she stated.

I didn't answer her. She didn't exactly ask me for my name. She merely stated that she didn't do so. Therefore, I was not obliged to say anything.

"Tell me" Uma said, apparently not bothering to find out my name, "how did you meet Tifa?"

"I am not obliged to answer." I muttered before looking at Tifa. She still slept soundly, but I knew that the morning would bring a killer hangover.

"Oh, but you are." Uma said in a confident manner.

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that so..."

"There's something about you that makes you seem... bad." She said, seeming to be at a loss for a word to describe me.

"You seem misguided... like you do wrong things." She continued, "But you have a good heart."

Ah, so this woman reads people on her spare time. Interesting. She wasn't too far off. Sure, I do wrong things. Killing people is among that long list. But she was wrong about my heart. My heart is frozen. I can't feel. I can't show remorse.

I can't love.

I looked at Uma and nodded silently. I didn't want her here, but she had no intentions of leaving obviously. And I was too tired to pick a fight. I was becoming drowsy and sleep was arriving. Normally, I would be able to stay up as long as I could, but the alcohol's effects, which mysteriously wouldn't go away or even fade, wouldn't allow that.

"Miss Madrena, please leave. I'm tired." I told her.

"I still don't trust you. Just go to sleep. I am the innkeeper." She stated as if it gave her some level of authority over me.

"I don't sleep when someone watches me." I informed her. I doubted that it would make her go away, but my grit was inexistent at the moment.

"Then you'll be sleepless, because I'm staying here until Tifa wakes up." She said in a tone of finality.

"Don't you have a job to do?" I asked her, getting increasingly irritated. I felt like forcing her out, but I couldn't do that. I don't hurt innocents.

"No. I have employees. I just make sure that people pay the correct amount of money and don't cheat their way into a free room." She told me.

I ignored her. I was too drowsy to answer anyways.

"Tifa lives here." She randomly informed me. That's nice to know, but frankly, I was too tired to care.

My eyelids closed for a few seconds and I was about to fall asleep when I heard a light chuckle. I opened my eyes in irritation and glared at her as fiercely as I could. My glare didn't seem to work though. It made her laugh harder.

"You seem to have had too many drinks at that bar, too." She chuckled. "Just go to sleep. It'll do you some good."

Too bad she didn't know that I wanted anything but good to happen to me. The only good thing I wished for was her leave and I couldn't even get that. I felt like protesting again, but I was getting very sleepy. Then my eyelids closed and everything went dark.

---

Sunlight leaked through a window and filtered through my eyelids. It was causing me great irritation and made the continuous pounding in my head worse. I moved an arm to my eyes to block the sunlight and groaned in irritation and pain. I couldn't remember anything from last night except that my former boss got shot.

"I see that you're awake." A familiar voice said.

I opened an eyelid slightly, but it just made the intensity of the sunlight's effects worse, so I quickly shut it again.

"Close the curtains" I groaned. I heard the person chuckle.

Every movement they made seemed to echo and pound through my head and it was really painful. I heard the soft scratching of the curtains being drawn closed, the slosh of a drink in a glass and the patter of footsteps approaching the bed, all with intense clarity.

"Open your eyes and drink this."

I obeyed and got up slowly while trying to open my eyes. The room was fairly dark without the sunlight, so opening my eyes wasn't such a difficult feat. Uma was sitting in front of me holding a glass of Lord knows what. It looked like some gross concoction.

"What is that?" I asked while holding my head with a hand and squinting at the contents of the 'drink', if you could call it that.

"It's something that will help you with that hangover of yours." Uma said.

I looked at the glass with uncertainty before reluctantly taking it and sipping the contents. It was probably one of the most horrible tastes I've ever experienced, but its effects were immediate and the horrid pounding died down just a little bit. It was then that I noticed that I was sitting in a hotel room that looked nothing like mine or Uma's.

"Where are we?" I asked her before taking another disgusting sip of the hangover remedy.

"Someone's room. They claim to know you." Uma replied. It hurt to move my head, so I just asked her who.

"He's lying right there." She gestured to a place behind me.

I sighed before taking another sip and turning my body ever so slowly in the direction she pointed at. What I saw was completely unexpected. Chris Johnson, a.k.a. Vincent, was lying there sleeping soundly. The dream came back to me with such force that I doubled back in pain and almost spilled the contents of the drink all over the bed.

"Tifa, are you all right?" Uma inquired in concern while taking the glass out of my hands to insure that I didn't drop it.

I shook my head. The memory of the dream made the pounding and sickness I was feeling increase. My stomach was churning and I felt bile rising up my throat. My hand flew up to my mouth as I got up from the bed and unsteadily walked to the bathroom. Uma got up, too and gently guided me to the toilet where I immediately began to wretch. She rubbed my back soothingly as my stomach's contents spilled into the toilet bowl. I guess I drank too much and having eaten nothing before going to Barret's bar couldn't have helped my state be any better.

Once I finished vomiting, I breathed heavily and waited over the toilet just in case there was more. There wasn't though, so I rose, trying to ignore the familiar stench of vomit, and went to the sink to rinse my mouth out. I gargled a few times and brushed my teeth with a hotel toothbrush to try and get the nasty taste out of my mouth.

"I'm sorry, Tifa. The drink usually works, though." Uma said while leading me back to the bed. She had turned on the vent of the washroom and flushed the toilet.

"No, no... It had nothing to do with the drink..." I muttered vaguely while staring at the sleeping dark-haired man. He looked so troubled even when he slept. More troubled than when he was awake when we spoke on the train ride.

I rubbed my temples gently when I moved my gaze away from him. The hangover was still there, but it wasn't as bad as before. I took the drink and recommenced sipping it.

"What happened last night?" I asked after a long while.

Uma then proceeded to tell me about how he walked into the inn with me in his arms unconscious and of how she followed him here to ensure my safety. I smiled at her concern. She was probably the greatest woman that I've ever known. I loved her for being so motherly and kind to me and I wondered if she had a child of her own. I never asked her before.

Then she told me of how she thought that he was some madman and that she wouldn't leave me alone even when he insisted she leave. Then she told me how he was about to leave when I grabbed his arm.

"I did that?" I asked. It was just all too strange. It resembled my dream too much and I wondered what it all meant.

Uma nodded. "Do you remember what you were dreaming last night?"

I was silent and unmoving for a while before I nodded and agreed to tell her about my dream. I had so much trust in her that it would be of no purpose to not tell her. My head no longer throbbed as forcefully. It turned out that Uma's little hangover remedy worked after all. After a few moments of hesitation, I told her of the black void all around and then the sudden glowing rectangular screen that showed my memories. She had a look of sympathy but never interrupted me. That's what I loved about Uma; she always listened and only gave her opinion once she was sure you were finished talking.

"And then I saw one memory that was out of place." I said, "It was the one of when I met him." I gestured to the dark-haired man still lying unconscious on the hotel bed. Uma turned towards him and her eyes widened in realization. She smiled embarrassedly when she looked back and me.

I gave her a kind, apologetic smile before saying, "It's all right. I appreciate your worry for me." She then beckoned for me to continue.

"Well, I just saw a quickened version of our conversation and then the screen was replaced with an actual figure of him." I said. "His back was turned from me and he was walking away. I was running and running and then I finally reached him and begged him not to go."

The faraway look of remembering had disappeared from my face and I turned to Uma.

"What do you think it means, Miss Madrena?" I inquired.

"It's Uma, honey. And, no, I don't really know what it means. I guess that you should get to know this guy, though, to find out." She suggested while she jabbed her thumb in his direction.

"Well, Tifa, I've gotta go." She informed me, pointing to her watch. It was 8:30 AM and she usually watches over the front desk during this time. I just nodded and she left the room in a hurry.

When she had left, my mind was blank for a while. I didn't think of anything. But then I looked at him. He was lying neatly on his back. He looked very alert for a sleeping person and I wondered what made him to be like that. His attire hadn't changed from the day I met him, except that he'd abandoned his gloves. I then looked at his face. He was very attractive with sharp features. His hair was black and it contrasted with his very pale complexion. He had that slightly pained look as if memories of his past haunted him in his sleep, just like mine had. And I wondered if he really knew how I felt.

I glanced at my cloth-covered wrists and pulled off the black, fingerless gloves. The cold air of the hotel room penetrated the warmth and made the skin tingle. I had been cutting for quite a while now. The scars criss-crossed in every direction, the newest ones standing out more. My latest cut was still kind of raw, but it was beginning to scab. I wondered why I cut. Well, that's pretty foolish to think, though. I was depressed. I was lonely.

I was betrayed.

My thoughts strayed back to Cloud and that fateful afternoon. I felt the hate, anger, and pain rise up in me and I had the impulse to cut myself again. I needed to relieve myself. I glanced around, but I saw no knives. Uma didn't provide the hotel rooms with free steel cutlery. Only the cheap plastic ones were provided with the little amount of extra money she had. Without a knife or any means to cut myself, I felt those tears I hated so much reach my eyes. I wiped them away angrily and punched the mattress. I didn't want to cry. I felt even weaker than I already was whenever I did. I hated crying for Cloud. I hated Cloud even more.

The tears wouldn't cease to reach my eyes. They threatened to fall, but I wouldn't let them. My throat was tightening and I was about to sob. I couldn't let myself, though so I choked it down. I almost gave up and let myself go when I heard movement in Christopher's direction. I quickly pulled my gloves back on to hide the scars and I hurried to the bathroom to wash out my eyes a bit.

I heard a groan similar to mine when I had awoken. He must have had a slight hangover from drinking, but then again, he did get me here safely, so maybe not. He was awaking in any case and I wondered if maybe I should leave. Oh, damn. He was already getting out of the bed and shuffling towards the bathroom.

He appeared in the doorway clutching his head. Well, now I knew he had a hangover.

AN: Yeah, I'm having trouble with endings. Oh well, this will probably be re-written in the future anyways. I haven't had a hangover before, only seen my dad have one after Christmas and New Year's, so if I had the effects and feelings wrong, then forgive me. Oh yeah, and thank the Lord that has that review reply thing. Now I'll be able to properly thank all of you without adding an out of date message in the chapters. (I pre-write these. Some of the chapters are written waaaay before the next update) Erm, and sorry if Tfa seemed a bit, say, schizophrenic?