He wasn't all that bothered by it. It was that fact that bothered him the most. Vincent had stopped keeping track of the times, more afraid that if he tried, and lost count somewhere along the line… No, he kept the exact number from his conscious mind, knowing emphatically what it was and denying it at the same time. The eyes would always haunt him in the night, every one of them searing him with hateful, scared or expressionless gazes.

His first hit had been the worst. Veld had to hold his hand like a child the entire time, and then sat back and watched as Vincent struggled to pull the trigger. The blood had splattered up his arm, but it was nothing like in the movies where it gushed and covered everything. Instead, the wound had a gentle flow, pulsing with the slowing of her pulse as her heart slowly realized how futile it was to keep pumping. He tried not to stare at the damage to her pretty face, the matter and meat that had been displaced from the side of her head, but the more he tried the more his eyes focused in it. It was how he got the image of her eyes burned into his head, clear blue and panic sickened even after death. She had done something to deserve it, but what it was had never been told to Vincent, or had been lost in that moment.

Veld had to pull him away, maybe drag him to his feet, it was too hard to recall properly. Veld was talking, saying something, orders maybe, but his ears where ringing with that final shots and the words didn't match with the motion of his lips. "Don't tell my brother." Vincent thought he said, "He doesn't know and I don't have the heart to tell him what I got his son into." Vincent's father and Veld were brothers; twins in fact. Veld had always been on the straight and narrow path, while his dad had always done as he pleased. It was probably why he'd ended up with Vincent at the age of 16, not that his father had ever complained. Grimoire never treated Vincent like a nuisance and it was because of his father that he had traveled nearly all the world in a short time. He could only nod numbly in reply.

No, neither of them could tell him the truth, they didn't have the heart.

His key clicked quietly in the locked door.

Yuffie was fast asleep in his room. It was late, Vincent collapsed onto his couch, staring up at the ceiling. He had a routine; he and Kage had begun it when he had joined the Turks. After a hit like this the two of them would hit a bar or two, maybe go home with a girl; and forget it all. This time however, he'd waved Kage off, the older Turk looking something like a kicked puppy, and went home. He couldn't do it, not with thoughts of her swimming in his head. He cursed Veld for the hundredth time under his breath, blaming him for shoving Yuffie into his mind like this. He'd only known the girl for a few days, it shouldn't be like this.

Lying here, however, was worse. He was contemplating calling Kage up, but that required movement. It was easier to shut his eyes.

His ears were ringing and the room blurred around him as he stumbled through the halls, grey halls all around; walls far too close. He was trying to find the way out; every path was blocked.

He could hear breathing; loud like it was right next to his ear.

He was trying to find it.

At the point of panic the walls swirled around him and he was in a room. Empty. Red. It was red.

She was on the floor.

The whole floor had turned red.

He leaned over her, searching for the breathing he could still hear.

Grey eyes stared up at him; glared at him.

"Vincent.?" She asked, but her lips didn't move.

He realized it was his own breath he was hearing…

"Vincent?" Yuffie asked again, a little louder. Apparently Vincent had always been a really deep sleeper. He flinched awake like she'd scared him; she probably did. "You were muttering in your sleep, you okay?"

The Turk sat up from the couch he slept on, rubbing his face with both hands. "Yeah." He replied his voice muffled as he stared almost blankly ahead. Yuffie must have woken up at some point; he didn't remember grabbing the sheet that tangled around him out of the closet. "Did I wake you?"

Not counting the days he'd been away, this was his third, maybe fourth day with Yuffie. She had her quarks, and sometimes he'd have called her out right annoying. She liked to push buttons and test limits, two or three times. Vincent had to admit, however, that her energy was infectious and that small fact had made it easier for him, just a little. It wasn't something he'd exactly share with her; she'd take it and run without a thought.

"Nope, it's almost 7, I'm always up about this time." He lay back on the cough, covering his eyes with an arm. Unlike her, he was absolutely not an early riser and despite the shock he woke up with, Vincent was already falling back asleep. "Veld called." He didn't answer and Yuffie rolled her eyes, she picked up a discarded throw pillow. It was funny, that these where called throw pillows, considering what she was about to do with it. With a flick of her wrist, it hit Vincent in the chest and he jumped up with a half formed curse.

He was glaring at her, but she could only grin. "Veld called. Says you need to be in A-sap." She said again, this time pointedly. "I didn't know you owned a phone." He rolled his eyes at that, probably because he hated phones, for whatever reason.

She watched as he haphazardly folded the sheet she'd thrown over him in the night moving almost mechanically as he went about his morning routine. She frowned as she watched, he was having one of his worst days and it came very pointedly to her mind that this was (her) Vincent almost every day. He would perk up, he hoped, even (her) Vincent had good days, few and far between as they were. Maybe if she just let him be for a bit he'd pull back together on his own.

She hoped anyway.

It was the strangest sight to see.

The feral monster, the demon that walked in human skin, Chase himself lay under Shinra's nice little tree, a small silver music player in one hand and earbuds in his ears; placated like she'd not seen. "Am I seeing things?" She balked trying to keep it quiet, wondering if the man in question could hear her over the music. Maybe he couldn't, maybe he just didn't care to comment.

"Probably had to get prodded by the scientists, they can't do anything to him unless he's doped." Vincent at least was doing a bit better, maybe it was the sight of the monster pacified. Maybe it was her quiet jabbering to keep his mind of the nightmares, Yuffie at least liked to think it was the latter.

"Why… would they need to?" She asked, wondering if anyone besides her knew the truth of the man.

"Not sure. Something they did to him to save his life, he and Kage don't talk about it." So he didn't know, that means he wouldn't have known what happened, would happen, later. Though by that time, her time (she was confused again, but she gave up trying to get it straight), he'd probably made the connection.

"So… he's high." She asked a disbelieving look on her face as she pointed at the uninterested Turk.

"Yeah." Vincent sighed, rubbing the back of head in that way he did when he wasn't sure what else to do but agree. "He's high."

Yuffie was utterly gleeful. A wicked smile played on her face, if only she could decide what to do!

His reaction to their presence was slow, and when he finally inclined his golden eyes towards them, Yuffie could see that they were bloodshot, oh this was so good, and he clicked his music off, waiting for them to ask their questions. It was finally Vincent who thought of what to say. "Where's Kage?"

"Home…" The demon… purred? No that was too cutesy, although probably very accurate. Yuffie knew from her encounter with him how he hated being touched, how his skin burned him just by being skin. He probably didn't feel any of that now, that actually explained why the demon would hang around this place; they'd gotten him addicted to painkillers.

Yuffie tried not to snort a laugh.

But no, not purred. He kind of rolled it in the back of his throat, almost like he was about to fall asleep at any moment. "Sick." He finished, over accenting the click of the K as he did so. Oh, he was so gone, and all the will power Yuffie possessed not to fall to the floor laughing.

"Would you like me to take you back, Chase?" He was friends with the other Turk, Chase's supposed older brother, so it made sense that Vincent would watch out for him when possible. When Chase would actually accept help, anyway, and not bite back like a wounded animal.

"Cant." The demon replied, rolling his head to the side with a sigh. "Still needed." The demon's words where practically slurred as he spoke. "After. If… your still here." Vincent nodded and pulled her along as the demon clicked his music back on.

"Don't even think about it," Vincent warned softly. "He still remembers everything when he's like that and he'll get you back tenfold."

Aww, there went all Yuffie's devious planning.

It occurred to Yuffie that she was staring at the height of her own civilization. Midgar was new and shiny; like a toy right out of the box. The scratches would come, the delicate pieces broken off in time, the paint chipped and faded; that was the Midgar, the world, which she knew. She could remember the rubble, the pieces of technology that no one seemed to understand anymore; the dingy, polluted, dirty and rusted metal that had become Midgar.

It was like, in a few years' time, the world had ended.

The word 'post-apocalyptic' always seemed to bring thoughts of wasteland; of lifelessness and emptiness. It brings thoughts of a hand full of survivors and of struggle and maybe a few zombies. It doesn't bring to mind that whole cities live on, that the world hardly even realized its survived Armageddon. But, honestly, seeing the world as it once was, Yuffie couldn't deny that things have gone backwards in her own time.

Sure, there had been a war, and sure, people fought and died, but she would have never thought the world had been set back- by years!- after that war. It was… normal for her; you never question what you see every day. The rubble was just rubble, it was always there and she never thought once of why it was there or where it came from or why no one seemed to know how to use it.

Eyes should be open, the demon in human skin had said (when he wasn't high as a kite, he had good advice). Well, her eyes where plenty open now.

The days rolled into weeks that in turn rolled into months. Yuffie kept working under the table for Veld, saving Midgar one kitten in a tree at a time. She stayed at Vincent's for no better reason then he hadn't asked her to leave, and things almost felt normal. She still was absolutely baffled (heh, that was a funny word, baffled) on how to return home, but dwelling on it did little for her. She was too spunky for dwelling.

At some pint she realized something about Vincent that nobody else seemed to, or did and preferred to not mention it out of politeness. Happy really wasn't what described his overall mood. He didn't possess boundless energy, or the sunny outlook on life that she had. He was content, or maybe calm, most of the time. This was Vincent on a good day and most of his days were good.

Every once in a while however, almost inexplicably because sometimes Veld game him a rough assignment and she was sure that didn't help at all, he'd taper off. He'd sink so low that getting up in the morning seem too painful even to her eyes. Only the methodicalness demanded of him by the jobs Veld sent his way would keep him moving and eventually he'd manage to pull himself up and out of a sudden hole he'd find himself in. Veld she realized, did his best to keep him busy during these times, as busy was probably the only thing that kept him from falling down completely. It almost came in a cycle and on one of his better days she confronted him about it.

"You're depressed." She stated simply pulling his gaze away from the TV( as Vincent had a TV, she was shocked). It was a strange thing, that TV; there was a projector under the wooded coffee table pointed at the blank wall in front of the sofa. The picture quality was like a screened TV, even in broad daylight. How did they not still have this kind of stuff? But, she was getting distracted.

His brow had nit in confusion, at her statement. It was quite out of the blue, but that was how Yuffie rolled and it had the added benefit of getting unfiltered reactions out of him. "No, I'm not."

"I mean, you have it." She corrected, leaning on the counter even though it made it that much harder for her to see him, he didn't like it when she sat on the counters. "Depression."

"Oh." He sighed reaching for the remote to mute the sound so they wouldn't have to talk over it. "I guess it's kind of hard not to notice."

"So you know." Her matter-of-fact-ness was lost with the uncharacteristically serious discussion she'd volunteered for. Honestly, this explained almost everything, she felt so bad for him now and in the future where she'd first known him. She doubted whatever icky things Hojo did to him helped at all with these problems, knowing the sick Professor he probably made them worse, on purpose. "They have medicines for it, don't they?"

"They make me feel worse." He muttered making a face. He'd obviously tried them once, probably at someone's badgering, Vincent would never do such a thing on his own. "Besides, it's never gotten so bad that I..." He trailed off, he didn't like talking about it, he rarely liked talking about anything especially himself, but just as Yuffie volunteered for a serious conversation he had to comply too.

"And if they did?" Yuffie felt the same way, not about talking, she loved talking, but only if it wasn't serious. If it was mindless babble she could do it all day, Vincent didn't seem to mind as long as she didn't expect him to talk back. They got along so well.

"Veld knows. He comes and checks on me when he sees it. And..." He paused, a subtle shrug to his shoulders. "Now I've got you around."

Oh, under any other circumstance she'd have beamed, how dare he steal such an amazing moment with a serious conversation? She could kick him, she had half a mind to go over and do just that. She didn't, but she wanted to. "And if it ever got that bad?"

"Veld's already got my promise to try the medicine again, guess you do too." Vincent replied with a sigh.

Yuffie's brow knitted. She never thought Vincent could be more of a pain in the rear then he'd already been when she'd known him (she was so tired of confusing herself with timelines; if it happened to her, it was in the past, that was it!). "You worry me. You know this, right?"

He chuckled lightly at this and she resisted another urge to walk over and kick him. He was stealing all the good moments again! "I do now."

Grim's only picture (That I've ever found) is such a bad one, it's hard to tell. But to me, He and Veld have the same hair style thing going on, so why not brothers?

I'm terribly sorry this took soooo very long. I'm also terribly sorry that it's so much shorter than my other chapters have been. On top of going back to school, I was having such a hard time trying to figure out how to move the story along, and I actually used a bit of what I was saving for later, just so I can get this back up and running. I hope none of you are disappointed, but I promise the next chapter will NOT take me another year, I am determined in this!