Yuffie figures that the Planet hates her, or something. Her cats brush against his legs, traitorous furballs that they are, and she dumps the bag of food on the ground. The only one who turns to look at her is Vincent, and while he doesn't have much of a facial expression, seems to be immune to them as a general rule actually, his eyes burn like a red burning thing.

Unforgivable.

The word's like an acid-coated whip lashing her mind. For a second, she actually has to repress the urge to wince.

"You know," she drawls, calling bravado to her with the same ease she throws her shruiken with or steals from idiots in forests, "My cats aren't really people persons."

"Something we have in common, then," he says.

It makes her choke. "You talked," and then she grimaces because he caught her off-guard and that is so not on.

He crouches to pet one of her cats with the not-clawed hand, and he's watching her with those eyes of his, and she juts her chin out, because she's felt remorse already. Now she's done with it.

"I'm not sorry," she snaps. "So lay off."

His silence is response enough.

Her sharp-limbed anger is something to behold. In fights she is all deadly grace, smooth muscle. Outside the battlefield, she is all teenage clumsiness, gawky limbs and awkward. But this is different, and he's surprised he's interested enough to watch.

"Wutai flea," the woman snaps, "Go swim home."

And Yuffie moves forward with one sharp stride, dagger in hand. "You're going to sell me the armlet," and her tone is low, a threat caught in the growl.

The woman's eyes fly wide, looking at the weapon, and then at Yuffie. Words get caught in the back of her throat, and Vincent finds himself smirking. Oh, but he remembers people like this from his days as a Turk. Remembers derision that melted away to reveal a pathetic mess of a person.

Though, this is rather more intimate than a kill for hire. Yuffie's hand shakes with all that fury of youth, and he clears his throat.

She twists her head to look at him. He shakes his head; she bares her teeth.

"Yuffie," he says, and she spits a Wutain curse and turns away.

The armlet is pushed at her, along with curses, and mercy wins a harsh battle this day.

"I've never been in love," she tells him, sprawled out on the floor of the cave. It's cold.

"I cannot give you what you seek," he snaps, "Leave me."

She doesn't move, stares at the ceiling instead, wonders about death, and what happens when she dies, and wonders about everything she'll miss because she's dead. "Why'd you fall in love with her?" she asks, jerks her head toward the crystallized woman.

"Do not mock me."

"I'm not," she says, "You that embarrassed?"

Vincent looks at her from where he's sitting. "No."

"So tell me, sheesh. It's not like I'm asking you to compare dick sizes with me or anything."

He's silent. "For the record," she says, "Mine's bigger."

"I don't know why I fell in love with Lucrecia. I merely—I realized one day, that she meant more to me than... anything. That I would do anything," his words are slow, quiet, an admission he doesn't want to make.

Yuffie thinks about it for a moment. "Yeah. Guess I understand that."

"Oh?" his tone is harsh, "I thought you'd never been in love."

"Not with a person."

She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand and leaves him there.

Her fingers are sticky-wet with blood, and she grins up at him. "I got this for you," she says, pride the threat of laughter in her voice.

It's a long, sharp shard of crystallized Mako, and it gleams with many colors; deadly and beautiful and slicked red with Yuffie's blood. He arches an eyebrow, waits for more of an explanation, and only dimly acknowledges the way her grin falters that fraction of a second. "I thought it kinda looked like a stake," she blurts, "You know, we could like... exorcise you. Before you take Tifa as your vampire bride."

He blinks—waits.

"Or, like, so you can't take Barret as your vampire bride. Because I totally see the way you check him out all the time. Probably because of your sexy metal arms," and she holds the shard out to him again.

Vincent takes it, and she beams at him. His mouth tilts up at the corners and he's glad she can't see it. "Yuffie, am I to... exorcise myself?"

"Yup," she says, "It'll be heroic and poetic and shit. A tale they'll sing of for like... ever."

"Your concern is touching."

It's only after a pause she realizes to laugh.

Her grin pretty much tears her face apart. The others have already headed off, but she catches Vincent by the edge of his cape. "Hey, let me treat you to a drink."

"I don't drink," he says, automatic.

"Well then," she says, because he always makes things difficult, so she has to be more difficult. "I'll treat you to watching me drink."

His eyebrow arches and he asks, pointed, "Aren't you a little young?"

It earns him her best champion-of-the-whole-fucking-universe sigh.

"Sixteen is the drinking age in Wutai, dumbass."

Vincent represses the urge to shoot her, she judges by the way his human fingers twitch, and then he gives a sharp nod that has her beaming again, and she leads him through the streets of her city to a bar.

It's not like she's planning on getting drunk anyway. She's celebrating.

The materia in her pocket is still warm from Godo's hand. Yuffie drinks one single cup of sake, and lets the warmth wash over her, happiness a tide. Her mother's clip, All Creation, a gaudy heart-shaped thing from North Corel, gleams in the low light when she pulls it out.

"You fought well," Vincent says softly.

Her grin widens.

The tavern at Icicle Inn is actually rather warm. Cozy, he supposes after a moment. His fingers tighten around the cup and he drains the last of his tea, and glances over at where Yuffie is sitting, palming the red materia. Vincent briefly thinks about warning her that her drink will get cold, but she is not a child and he is no mentor.

Tomorrow will come, warm drinks or no.

Truth be told, it's rather surprising she didn't decide to return to Wutai for the night, but, he muses, perhaps she doesn't want to see her father. Or perhaps she simply doesn't know how to say goodbye.

Or perhaps she merely wants time to reflect on her own feelings.

She turns the materia over in her hand, her mouth turning down at the corners, and then she glances up, and smiles at him, lackluster energy pouring into it, making it obnoxious and wide. "So, yeah. Stellar conversation, Vincent. We're like..." she pauses, flounders, looks down again at Leviathan. "Like—something. Totally. Yep."

Yuffie takes a too-large sip of her hot chocolate and chokes on it, droplets flying onto the table.

"I will be returning tomorrow."

"Yeah," she says, "Me too."

Lightning forks in the sky—she thinks briefly that she should get down, should move, because trees and lightning aren't good things to mix, but she likes the forest. It reminds her of simpler days, when the most she had to worry about was whether or not the next set of travelers would have good materia.

The boom of thunder, the pitter-pat of rain, and a lonely starry night. Things, she figures, could be better and could be worse. So there's really no room for complaint.

Yuffie shifts, so that she's perched more comfortably on the branch and wonders vaguely, distractedly, whether or not everyone will be there to stop these fucking kidnappers. Tifa will be, Nanaki will be, Cait Sith will be, Cid will be—she knows because they actually pick up their phones. Barret, who's been too busy to answer his phone she's heard, probably will be there too, because Marlene's there and the man's a good father in a way she can appreciate.

Cloud and Vincent are the wildcards. Cloud doesn't answer his phone, ever.

And Vincent?

Yuffie shakes her head. Who knows what goes on with that man.

But, she thinks, it'd be nice to see him again.

Her phone conversation is brief, angry, and in Wutain. His skills with her native-tongue are rusty enough that he can recognize only simple, ordinary words like 'father' and 'fight', though, in context, he rather thinks it's more like 'argue' but he's not positive.

Yuffie hangs up with a huff, then rejoins the celebration by sitting cross-legged on Tifa's bar. It's lucky Denzel and Marlene and the other children are already outside playing, because in her next breath, Yuffie begins talking about how cats have oral sex as though it's the most natural thing she can think to talk about, and then, when the bar falls silent, even Tseng watching her with eyebrows raised, her topic changes to thick Turk dicks.

No one says anything, and eventually Yuffie claims some of the silence for herself. Her gaze flicks around the bar, and she flashes a grin at Tifa, and holds up a peace sign. "See you cats later," she says, and her retreat to the door is all scrambling gracelessness, and she nearly catapults herself out into the night.

"Guess she doesn't need a ride home," Cid says.

There's another beat of silence before the party picks up again.

Vincent frowns.

She's not sure who's more surprised by the meeting, her or him. Reflexively, he clutches the bag of materia tighter, and she lets herself smirk. Doesn't ease his fears by saying she doesn't really want any of the Gongonga materia, anyway.

"Thought you were in your coffin," she says, blithe, she gestures vaguely, awkwardly in a direction that is decidedly not near Nibelheim.

"I am not," he says, watching her, "I thought you were in Wutai."

She bites back mimicry, and then gestures grandly, using all of the extra arm span she has gained since they last saw each other. Vincent doesn't look impressed. Briefly, she wonders if he'd be more impressed if she takes off her shirt and shows how her chest has grown, but then she grins at him. "I'm taking a break. You know. I have to learn some new talented kinky ways to have sex so that I can single-handedly repopulate the Wutain race. It's a hard life. My jaw's a little sore."

Now he really doesn't look impressed. In fact, he looks at her like she might be a Tonberry in disguise.

"Right. We should do this more often," she says too-loud, and scurries away.

"Hey, Vince, I can lick my toes."

Next message.

"So, I was climbing Da Chao today and I thought of you. I was wondering if you were any good with rope..."

Next message.

"Do you get reception in the coffin?"

Next message.

"Gawd, my nipples are so fucking sensitive."

Next message.

"Hey, Vince, do you know how to snowboard in sand?"

Next message.

"Man, I love breaking fucking aristocrats' noses. You should try it."

Next message.

"I wonder what it'd be like to be inside out..." a pause. "Shit. Reeve."

Next message.

"Gawd, Vince, why do you have a phone if you never answer it?"

Next message.

"Valentine, this is the Turks. You've got a new mission: suck Rufus's dick." The way she lowers her voice doesn't fool him.

Next message.

"Reeve, I found a way under the old Shinra building..." there's the sound of Reeve talking. "Yeah, there's something going on down there. Not sure what yet," there's another long pause. "Records? What did you find?" Reeve's voice grows so quiet Vincent can barely tell he's even speaking. "Fuck. Okay. I'll go in first, see what I can find. Yeah." a pause. "Shit. I butt-dialed Vincent."

End of messages.

He's nearly surprised when Shelke comes to find him. There's a cast to the world he hasn't seen in a long time, and he wonders at it, wonders at himself, and turns his face toward the sky he had streaked across the night, day, year, week, second, lifetime before.

Shelke looks at him, expression muted but not bland, and thinks she might understand this fluttering emotion making riots all through him.

It might be a smile that graces her lips. It might not be.

The riot of his mind is quiet, demons usually so fierce and pressing seem settled, napping, perhaps. So maybe nothing is changed within him, but he seems—seems—different, and he supposes that is more important than reality, because his feelings are rare, small things, and he should listen to them more often. Humanity lies in that—and perhaps he cannot claim such any longer, but he'd like to.

"Well?" Shelke says and he nods.

Silence, something he has come to expect from Shelke, hangs over their trek back to Seventh Heaven, and it does not disturb him. He opens the door, and the collective choke (shock, disbelief, relief) is enough to make him feel—feel more.

It is enough.

Bone Village is exactly the sort of hopping fun-filled place she expects to find Vincent. And by expects, she means the opposite. "Vincent!" she yells, and he turns to examine her. "Long time no see."

It's been less than a week, and she's already left more than a dozen messages on his phone.

"You're not in Wutai?" he asks.

Well, no one can say that Vincent doesn't know how to pick a girl up. "Nah," she says, waving her hands around vaguely.

He doesn't seem particularly distracted. In fact, his eyes narrow a little, and he simply waits, like he's demanding some sort of answer from her, and she opens her mouth, to tell him something that will totally make him understand her in a way that no one else can, when he answers his own unasked question.

"You're doing work for the WRO," he supplies. "Still."

"You're not," she counters, means it as a blow, but he doesn't even flinch.

Instead, she's the one who flinches, regret an ache in her too-flat chest and she wants to snarl and choke on his expectations, except she doesn't know how to read him anymore. "Right," she says, "Nice to see you."

This time, they meet in Kalm, and he half-wonders if she plans these meetings. But, he decides, even if she does, he probably won't be able to catch her at it, so it hardly matters, does it?

She grins at him in a way that speaks of actual sentiment, rather than compensation.

Vincent realizes—belatedly—that she's not sixteen anymore, and she twirls around, arms spread, and he thinks about forgetting again. "Yuffie," he says; she stills.

"How ya been, Vince?" she asks.

"Well enough," he says. "And you? Still working for Reeve?"

That earns him a laugh. "Of course. Who else is smart enough to be his head of intelligence?"

Vincent represses an almost-smile, and is silent, waiting. Her grin falls, and she watches him with serious intent that he finds more surprising than half of the things that have ever come from her mouth.

"I think I know what falling in love feels like," she blurts.

And he stops. Because the look she gives him is one that shouldn't be directed at him. There's a pause. She turns her head. "I wasn't talking about you," she says.

But he can see retreat in her sudden movement.

He lets her go.

She sits on the low wall, legs swinging, and asks, "So, like, I know why I'm running all across the world," she pauses, squints at him. "What the hell are you doing?"

Vincent gives her a level look, like he can't quite believe this is happening again, but, then, he probably doesn't know about the tracking device her and Reeve put into his phone. Not that he really needs to know. Not that, she admits to herself, she should have access to the information if she keeps abusing it, but Reeve knows, Reeve has to know, which means he's condoning it, and, obviously, if Reeve doesn't care, it's okay.

"I've been helping Mideel rebuild," he says, but that doesn't explain why he's here in Costa del Sol.

For a moment, she thinks about asking, and then she just shrugs, smiling at him. His eyes narrow—she wonders if he remembers their last meeting, hopes not, and then he says, quiet enough she has to use her supersonic ninja hearing, "I'm not what you're looking for."

She nearly scoffs. Way to be full of himself. "No, you're not," she tells him, flat, "I'm looking for myself."

And then she runs, like always.

Her office is not the mess he expects it to be, papers neatly stacked and pens in cups. "Yuffie," he says, and she looks up, expectant.

"Hey, Vince," she says.

She doesn't ask why he's here, merely gestures at the threadbare chair in front of her desk, and he marvels at the sight of her, eyes scanning over a paper, pen held tight in her hand. That her foot is tapping an erratic rhythm is somewhat comforting. Expected.

Still, he's not sure why he's here. Tired of surprise meetings more dictated by her whim, tired of questions left unanswered for years.

Vincent holds up the Mako shard she'd given him so long ago and she chokes. And the question slips out before she can stop it. "You still have that?"

"Why?" he asks, because the answer to her question is obvious as the gleaming crystal in his hand.

She looks at it, and not at him for a long moment, and then she says, "I wanted to," another pause. "But it's eighty percent interest. You owe me 3,000 gil."

At that, he nearly laughs. Because she is more at home with greed than gift, and he can understand that. He sits.

Yuffie kicks at the dirt road, despondent. Wutai's hot in summer, and she's already getting darker. Her fists tighten in her pockets, and she nearly jumps at Vincent's sudden appearance. She can't help but wonder if this is how he feels every time she runs into him, words like poison caught in her mouth, emotions like endings caught in her chest.

He says nothing; she wants to punch him for it.

Or maybe—

"Lemme see your claw," the command is haphazard, sloppy, and she winces before it's all the way out.

Vincent steps back. "No."

"C'mon, Vincent," she says, too far in to let go, "I just wanna see. You trust me, right?"

It's a low blow, but she's best at those. When she closes the distance between them, he meets her gaze, eyes burning, and he holds up the not-arm.

Surprise gets caught in her chest, but she reaches out without hesitation. The metal's warm beneath her fingertips, and she runs her index finger over the ridged, warped skin where metal becomes flesh. He winces; she notices.

Her hand travels down, and she cuts herself on a pointy-sharp not-finger, and grins, not for his benefit.

Vincent shakes his head.

Mideel's mostly Mako-free at this point, but that doesn't stop Yuffie from tracking it into his house. The sigh he represses is not lost on her.

"Yes?" he asks, standing from where he'd been getting ready to settle-in for the night.

Her grin is wide, mischief glinting like sunlit water in her eyes, and he has a feeling he will not like what she's planning. She moves to him with that grace of the battlefield, and there's purpose in her eyes he has an inkling of—

"How ya been?" she asks, cuts off any answer he would give, "You don't answer my calls."

This does not surprise either of them. He has never answered her calls—but he does listen to her messages. Briefly, he wonders if she knows. "Yuffie—"

The bark of laughter is genuine and clear, and she pokes him in the chest.

"Oh, relax. I'm not mad."

That is probably more frightening than the alternative.

Silence stretches taut and he watches her, the way her eyes are alight with some emotion he can (but doesn't want to) name.

She kisses him hard, and he thinks maybe they've been working their way here for a while.

It's not unpleasant.