Here's a nice long one, and in over 3000 words it somehow manages to barely move the plot forward at all. Aren't I awesome? :P Seriously, though, I promise there will be some more senseless violence soon.

I didn't sleep at all. What a horror of a night... Then, we got caught in a storm around dawn and had to stay out at sea until it blew over, which wasn't until early afternoon. It was not pleasant; hour after hour of the ship heaving up and down and up and down and rolling disturbingly from side to side, shrieks and breaking glass from upstairs... Vincent and I were probably almost the only people who weren't seasick, and if I had tried to read or write or focus on anything I would have been ill myself. We were lucky to be on the bottom, where the least amount of sideways motion was. I tried to go watch the storm from the windows upstairs, but the restaurant floor was covered with broken glass. There really should have been some crew around, cleaning up the mess and advising me not to wander around so recklessly, but no-one was there... Out the window I could see that huge waves were lifting us high up in the air and flinging us back down again to be slapped violently by smaller waves. The wind was roaring, blowing rain sideways. As the massive ship tossed and turned, pools of spilled drinks, condiments, and vomit rolled slowly back and forth across the shards of ill-fated kitchenware. The restaurant was deserted, and I wisely retreated as well. The acrid smell of bacon, eggs, boiled-over coffee and stomach contents was too much for me... But the view out the window really was spectacular. The power of the sea is fascinating, and somehow, although my common sense told me our situation was dangerous, the waves themselves didn't frighten me at all.

Back in our room, Vincent and I looked over the train schedule Reeve had provided and determined that we wouldn't make it to the Golden Saucer until much later than planned. Reeve's envoy would have to be notified – but out at sea, there was no signal for the PDA to work with. It would have to wait until we were ashore, and the wait was frustrating. I began to worry; our safety depended on us getting away, and I felt that this storm was holding us conveniently in place. The ship was rocking too violently for me to even write my thoughts down, and I began to feel helpless, a feeling I can't stand. I told Vincent my concerns, explaining what I had seen upstairs the night before. He assured me that since I hadn't been noticed, we had no reason to fear, and we simply had to wait it out. What patience... In the end, he was right. The waiting was nightmarish for me, but in the end no harm came to us. The storm cleared up, and we were able to land around 1 in the afternoon.

Once we were off the boat, I quickly sent a message to Reeve, and received a prompt reply: "No problem. Guide already at Gold Saucer; works there. Spend night at Haunted Hotel, meet in hotel lobby at 0700 tomorrow. Guide will pay for dinner; see hotel reception." It was simple enough, and would give us a chance to rest. At the same time, it irritated me that we were delayed; I preferred to get to our final destination as quickly as possible. I still had a lingering fear of being followed, and I hated knowing that we were running away. Once we get to where we can just stay in one place, I think I'll relax a little more – hiding is easier than running.

Costa Del Sol is an oddly contradictory place, blending natural beauty with bad taste. The moment I saw the beach, I wanted to stay. The sand was very fine and almost white. The water was surprisingly clear, with a greenish tint to it. Trees like I had never seen before were standing all around; I know from the tourist pamphlet Reeve sent with us that they are called palm trees, and are native to the area. Their sharp-edged fronds waved invitingly in the wind, still blowing strong from the storm. I watched the storm-blown green waves rushing in to shore and wanted very much to forget my current quest and let them sweep me up. The sand and sun were warm and inviting, and the wind, though strong, was warm as well. I wanted so very badly to take off my shoes and bury my feet in the sand, and get splashed by the waves – but I knew from reading the pamphlet that the water would be warm, and so I also knew that if I got so much as my toes wet I would never leave. Not without some regret, I tore my eyes away from the beach and we headed into town.

The town itself I did not like. It was made up mostly of hotels, spas and restaurants, all of them overpriced. In the middle of it all was a nucleus of fast-food, bars, dance clubs and gift shops; this is where the train station was. It seemed like very few people were actually residents there – the place bases its entire existence around tourism, and most of the locals work at the hotels. On the other side of the railroad tracks, behind a hospital, there is a village of tiny, ramshackle houses; from what I can tell, this is where the non-tourists live. Though I could have spent day after day on that sunlit beach, I felt ill at ease among the other people in town. People in expensive summer clothes meandered by with cocktails in plastic cups, wafting a combination of alcohol and sugar that smelled like rotten fruit. Some of them eyed us with mild disdain, but most of them seemed to not even notice that we were there. I could tell that some of them were high, and it made me angry. I wanted to yell at them, beat them up (as I knew I could); I wished I could somehow show them the suffering they were contributing to... But you can't teach someone empathy. I tried not to stare, and held my anger inside.

We consulted the train schedule (or rather, to keep up our charade, I consulted the train schedule and discussed it with Vincent) and determined that we had some time to kill. I went and got us some fried seafood at a stall, and then we sat on a bench in the station and ate it in silence. I had thought food might do me some good, but after only a couple of bites I felt full. My stomach was full of other things: the anger I had swallowed, the fear I had been struggling to keep down, and the ache of longing that had been slowly building over many days.

The more time I spend with Vincent, the more it aches. Lucrecia's data, though mostly defragmented now, still responds to his presence. It's always been like that, of course, and most of the time I can fight it off or ignore it. It's such a minor, frequent annoyance that I've never bothered to write the associations down; I figured if I didn't dwell on them, they would go away. And yet, even the simple act of letting him hold my arm brings associations to the surface, only some of which are mine; I shove them back and focus on the present and on my own perceptions. But last night, when it began to happen, there was nothing I could do. I was trying to sleep, and I knew that writing more wouldn't do any good. Finding me defenseless, the memories began a morbid dance around my brain. Everything I had spent time repressing until then came to the surface, the surreality of painful memories not even my own. So many regrets bubbled around me; I was awash in a sea of Lucrecia's pain. Whenever I tried to close my eyes, I was faced with events that happened before I was born; whenever I tried to open them, I was faced with the reality of the present. Both were uncomfortable and unalterable, and however much I might struggle, there was no escape. I had no choice but to lie there and let the memories rage, and they raged all night. Exhaustion had made me vulnerable; my mako-enhanced body could carry on, but my mind and spirit were utterly worn out, and needed rest that I couldn't seem to find. I had held it together, more or less, throughout the storm, but now things were catching back up to me again.

So I sat staring sullenly at my food, and Vincent noticed. This put me in the unfortunate place of having to explain myself. I couldn't lie – he would know immediately. Nor could I tell the full truth; that would be unbearably awkward. I felt his eyes watching me from behind the sunglasses, and it made me terribly self-conscious. All the tragic history he carried with him was perilously close in my mind.

"I... I'm..." Words were failing me, and tears sprung to my eyes. I managed to hold back a sob, but I couldn't stop the flood. I hid my face in my hands and wept silently, trying to regain control.

"I'm a little stressed out," I finally squeaked, mopping at my eyes with a napkin.

Vincent watched me inscrutably for a moment. Then he snorted.

"Hmph. The girl who saved my life and helped save the planet, single-handedly sabotaged the biggest drug operation currently known and grew ten years in a week says she's 'a little stressed out?' Don't make me laugh."

I relaxed a little at his familiar sarcasm, knowing that he didn't think less of me for being weak, and realizing at the same time that I wasn't nearly as weak as I thought I was. Even by Avalanche standards I had been through a great deal. It was just as he said, but with the added weight of what (I hoped) he didn't know about my inner turmoil. I was entitled to a breakdown at this point, and I could count on Vincent to be functioning at 100%. I didn't have to be stronger than I was, and that was a relief.

At the same time, his choice of words made me wonder just what it would take to make Vincent actually laugh. Yuffie would have taken "don't make me laugh" as a challenge; I wondered about the possible consequences of tickling him, but didn't get very far because the very idea was beyond imagining.

Unable to tell anymore whether I was crying or laughing hysterically, I let whatever it was run its course. Vincent was silent again. I suppose he was amused, or perhaps even sympathetic, but I was beyond paying attention. When I recovered a little, I realized I was ravenous, and devoured my seafood. It was greasy and no longer hot, but that didn't matter. When the carton was empty, I sat back with a huge sigh. I was too tired to be embarrassed about how tired I was, and didn't object when Vincent took the empty carton and plastic fork out of my hands and pulled me close to him. The contact should have been agonizing, but it seemed as though my brain was a computer trying to conserve battery power, and the applications "Lucrecia" and "Angst" had been shut down automatically. (If only I knew how to delete them altogether...) So I let him be a pillow if he wanted to, and dozed off against a muscular shoulder that still smelled faintly of leather in spite of new clothes. As I faded into sleep, his hand was gently ruffling my hair – remembering it, I could almost purr. In retrospect the feeling is almost jarring, because of one thing that was different: because Vincent was in disguise, he didn't have his usual leather gloves on, or the brass gauntlet. The tantalizing bareness of that hand was oddly comforting then; thinking about it now drives me wild.

My rest was probaby brief, but it was mercilessly dreamless. I woke up to a deep rumbling and Vincent's voice softly in my ear: "Time to go." I nodded groggily and steeled myself for the rest of the journey, knowing what our disguise required of me: it had to look like Vincent was depending on me, and not just vice versa. I had to act like I knew what I was doing.

I shuffled out onto the platform with Vincent holding my elbow, gradually becoming alert to our surroundings. The rumbling grew louder as the train pulled into the station. I had not seen a train in many, many years, if indeed ever, and it was fascinating to watch. The driver wasn't immediately visible, and so it was easy to imagine that the train was autonomous or even alive. A great, dark caterpillar-serpent monster with one luminous eye, belching fire from its head and roaring as it hurtled from place to place... I felt disturbingly like I might be still asleep on the bench, and dreaming.

The massive black steam engine screeched to a halt, and all the cars behind it opened their doors and disgorged a few people, then proceeded to let everyone on. A massive number of people had showed up while I had been sleeping, but we were able to get a seat quickly because of Vincent's supposed handicap. The ride was brief, and we reached North Corel in late afternoon, just as the sun was getting low in the sky. Someone came by selling coffee, which helped revive me a little. On the way, Vincent gave me a brief history of North Corel – how it had been a coal-mining town, its ill fate at the hands of the Shinra company, how Barret got his grudge and his gun-arm, and how Marlene came to be in his care. Barret's misfortune and subsequent redemption was a story I had never heard before, nor had I even paused to wonder about Marlene. It was the longest I had heard Vincent speak for, and though I don't remember his exact words, his voice held me captivated. He is not a man of many words, but the few he speaks carry all the weight of those that are left unspoken.

We got off the train and were quickly swept up in the crowd that was headed for the Gold Saucer cable car, which called itself the Ropeway. Vincent stayed calmly attached to my elbow, but the sheer number of people jostling all around was making me nervous. My anxieties about our mission were beginning to resurface.

"Shouldn't we lose our disguises somewhere?" I said quietly, getting impatient.

"At the hotel. It's safer that way."

"Somehow I'm not convinced that the Gold Saucer has many activities for the visually impaired," I pointed out. "We might seem peculiar."

"Then we'll say we're there for the rollercoasters. They're more exciting when you can't see." Vincent seemed confident, so I humored him, and tried to remember that being afraid of the situation would not improve it.

In the end, nobody asked us any questions. We were universally ignored as part of the crowd; it seems everyone was so absorbed in their own companions and the excitement of what was to come that we went unnoticed. I was going to describe the view to Vincent just in case anyone was paying attention; it seemed like what a good sister would do. But as we drew near, a mob of small children raced to the front of the car and loudly and enthusiastically did that job for me. Though Vincent still held my elbow when we stood up, I didn't even have time to tell him to watch his step; we were caught up in a veritable river of people. It was just as well he isn't really blind – had he tripped on the stairs we would surely have been trampled.

The Gold Saucer is the most absurd place I've ever seen. It is a massive, gold-plated... thing that rises up out of the desert like some sort of fantastic plant with "amusements" on every leaf. Immediately on arrival, I was assaulted by a cacophony of sights and sounds the likes of which were completely new to me. I wasn't sure if I was enchanted or appalled. Overstimulated, definitely; though I have yet to taste alcohol, I found myself suddenly wanting some in order to cope with my surroundings.

The Ropeway emerged into a brightly lit room with a lady at a desk at the far end. To my relief, Vincent did the talking, and due to his supposed condition, the lady handed me a map just in case we had trouble navigating the place. As it happens, it was easy to find – a sign that said HAUNTED HOTEL directed us to slide down a chute that somehow, after many twists and turns, spat us out in front of the very place we sought. Vincent let go of his pretended blindness, we checked in under our false names, and finally I felt that we were safe. I showered for the first time in many days; it was exhilarating.

And then, at last, some time to kill! We left the hotel and explored. The map was helpful for getting around the various areas; getting in between them was simple enough, and everything was clearly marked. This was a relief, because the place is huge, and the strange chutes that lead from one platform of activities to another and seem to defy physics are disorienting. We went on several rollercoasters, and Vincent's theory proved true – they were even more exciting with eyes shut, hurtling blindly through space... It seemed we could ride all night, but eventually I got dizzy. Reeve's envoy had left a gift certificate for us at the hotel's reception desk; it was for The Gold Platter, the park's famous restaurant. I put on the most presentable clothes I could manage, and off we went. We were treated with a smirkingly delicate manner that made it obvious we were assumed to be a couple. Embarrassing though that was (at least for me; it's hard to tell how Vincent takes anything), it turned out alright: the waiter gave us a free pass for the gondola ride, a cable car that runs all around the Saucer. If we left right after dinner, he said, we could make it in time to watch the nightly fireworks display from the sky. And so we did, narrowly escaping the offer to share a dessert by using the time as an excuse. ("Will you be wanting dessert? Our special tonight is our signature Golden Love-Boat chocolate fondue – it's for two..." I wanted to order a cream pie just so that I could smack it onto the winking waiter's face.)

The gondola ride was actully beautiful. We stared out the window, watching the view in silence, until the fireworks started. They seemed dangerously close at times (some of the bigger explosions caused the gondola to sway just a little), but everything was carefully planned, and the display was spectacular. I would have enjoyed it a little more if explosions had not been such an integral part of my recent history. But I could easily understand why this was a popular thing for couples to do, and that brought back the dull ache that has been with me all this time, the bittersweetness of constantly being ever-so-close to the unattainable.

After that we stopped for ice cream, and I ordered my beloved orange sherbet – but it was nothing compared to what they had at the little stand in edge. It was sickly-sweet and insipid, and I guessed that real oranges hadn't been anywhere near it. I tried to make up for it by slurping the last third of it out through the cone, but Vincent wasn't looking, and I felt almost offended. I did, however, earn a cross look from a passing mother when her son tried it a moment later, which made me feel better.

Now, back in the hotel room, I am left to my own devices again: Vincent has knocked himself out, and I am not quite tired enough to sleep but not energetic enough to do much of anything. Lucrecia is keeping quiet now, for which I am thankful, because now the ache I feel is only my own. I don't mind my own longing; it's familiar, and I can accept it for what it is. I hope I can sleep eventually, that the memories of what cannot be undone (and what I didn't even do) don't bother me...

Later: It's almost dawn now. After writing the above, I slept a little and had the dream about the giant tree. As I suspected there would be, there was a variation – this time, when I found myself up on the cliff overlooking the now-green city, I felt as if there were other people up there with me. I tried to turn around and see who they were, but that motion awoke me. I didn't feel very rested, but it was still a pleasant change from the night before and its parade of regret.

Since then, I've been lying awake this whole time plagued not by the past, but by the present. This is, of course, the Haunted Hotel, and as such it has built-in "ghosts." Sometimes a holographic something will flicker across the room; other ghosts manifest themselves in the walls with a modest thump, creak, or moan, or occasionally the faint rattling of chains. Unfortunately, not long after I woke from my dream, from the room above us began a series of unmodest thumpings, creakings and moanings that were not made by anything supernatural or even electronic. This continued for longer than seemed reasonable, and then a fight broke out in the room next to us. This woke up a small child in the room on the other side of ours, the irate father of which came knocking on our door. I directed him, with many apologies, to the room where the fight was and advised him not to meddle with it as it sounded to my (sadly experienced) ears like it could turn ugly: one man owed the other some money, and I had a terrible feeling that I knew exactly what that money had been for. We called security (who I presumed would be on my side if I were recognized, since Reeve has had connections here for a long time), and the situation calmed down almost immediately when the guards arrived. But by the time it was quiet again, I was too full of adrenaline to sleep. At least I rested a little, enough to have a genuine dream instead of too-real nightmares.

I just hope today goes smoothly. Right now, that's really all I ask for.