I want you/ yeah, I want you/ But nothing comes close/ To the way that I need you/ I wish I could feel your skin/ And I want you/ from somewhere within.

It feels like there's oceans between me and you once again/ We hide our emotions under the surface/ and try to pretend. Seafret, Oceans.

-0-

Chapter 5.

-0-

He recalls the moment he thought he had fallen in love with her.

It had been raining.

The grass glittered with raindrops, as if the heavens had poured diamonds unto the earth. April showers.

His shoes quickly became coated with slickness as he traversed the lawn; the mansion, having been so recently inhabited, had an overgrowth path that snaked up to its entrance, not yet worn away by the passage of many to-ing and fro-ing feet.

Quite ignorant to the beauty of the moment, Vincent felt irritated. The sudden downpour had caught him unawares and forced him to take shelter in the village store. Here, so far away from the reach of ShinRa, until of course Hojo wished to base a study here, the townsfolk were suspicious of him. He cared not to linger in their presence for longer than was necessary – the wise ones stayed away from him, knowing what the navy suit meant. The younger children, before their parents managed to grab hold of them and chide at them for their rudeness and carelessness, were not so wise; they hovered around, even followed, if chance allowed, asking question after benign question.

He was almost at the door, mid-stride, when she caught his attention. Benignly smiling to herself beneath the canopy of a blossom tree.

She must have got caught out in it, too.

"I believe the rain has stopped." He calls to her, across the unkempt lawn. She only laughs in reply, seemingly oblivious to the wetness that soaked her shoes.

The rain had knocked free petals of blossom, carpeting the grass beneath the tree in delicate, velvety pink.

"Dr Crescent?" He lingers still, bemused by her mirth. Curiosity biting, he approaches her beneath the sun-dappled canopy.

"Oh, please, won't you call me Lucrecia, at least!" She pouts, tugging the sleeves of her lab coat over her knuckles. She was trying to ward of the chill, he could see, still clinging on despite the evidence that spring was here, and summer loomed. "I don't want to go back inside just yet… I want to feel the sun on my face and smell the grass. Don't you think it's wonderful, Vincent?"

He peers into her beautiful face, so earnest and full of life. "Yes… I suppose it is."

He didn't know that in a matter of months, he'd be dead.

-0-

Days and nights roll by in gentle rhythm, as naturally and uneventfully as breathing.

The Highwind, whilst it presented a much more convenient method of getting from A to B, had a rather inconvenient downside, especially when one considered recent events concerning looming astral objects that threatened, in a matter of days, to wipe everyone and everything from existence. Traversing land on foot sapped one's attention as well as energy. Yet in the absence of the requirement to hike, to navigate, to hunt for firewood and a good prospect for camping, not to mention the continual fight to stave off the would be threat of monsters or enemies alike, the members of Avalanche have nothing to do except wait.

They were all of them restless on their several hour flight, scheduled to take them from Kalm to Cosmo Canyon. Some sought company as a remedy to their irksome inactivity (Tifa, Cid), whilst others, Vincent namely, sought solitude.

They had all the time in the world – such a small measure of time; Like water cupped in your hands, only to have it trickle away between your fingers.

His cabin aboard the airship, sparsely populated with basic furniture, had undergone very little by way personalisation since he had taken up occupation of it; A cot that folded up against the cabin wall; a small desk, fixed to the wall also, such that the natural turbulence of the airship would not disturb its position in the room; a small sink, above which a mirror was affixed.

It is here that he stands, bereft, examining himself with a critical eye. He arms braced against the rim of the sink. His face is damp from having recently been splashed with water. He was neither dirty, nor in need or cooling down, but it felt like something to do; something that didn't involve sitting upon he cot and staring at the walls.

Vincent considered the face of the man who stared back at him from within the small 'O' of glass upon the wall. He no longer sees the man he feels that he should remember; he doesn't correlate the pale, sharp cheek-boned man with wild swathes of ebony hair down past his shoulders with his memories; memories that feel as abstract and unrelated to one another as dreams might be.

He is a stranger to himself, in both visage and temperament.

He can remember laughing, enjoying a drink with his Turk colleagues, but he recalls nothing of how he felt towards them, wondered if they would even recognise him now, thirty years on and different and yet still, somehow, the same. He can recall the scent of Lucrecia's skin, how soft she was beneath his wandering, traitorous fingertips; Yet, he feels nothing for her now.

I'm not her. You're not him. Not anymore.

A particularly weighted exhale fogs the mirror.

Vincent, whoever he was, died on that operating table.

A further, laden out-breath obscured his reflection entirely.

Pushing back, his turns upon the mirror and contemplates the room once more, as if something new may have appeared there, whilst he was distracted. With a wave of disappointment, he reminds himself that if it was truly change and company that he wished for, he would need to seek it out.

Solitude was not his preference in usual circumstances. He may appear to prefer, or even seek out isolation to the casual observer; lingering at the periphery of activity presented many advantages for those previously in his line of work, after all; remaining close enough to listen, to view, and to absorb. Given the predicament that meteor placed their entire existence under, however, observation of any of their number held no relish or gain. Only sorrow, and stark reminders of what they – what he - stood to lose.

This… this was all her fault. Hers, and Hojo's, too. They both had no idea what they were messing with – forces that were far more powerful than they had any right to trifle with. And now…

Thought what good blame would do…

Until confronted with the unavoidable truth, Vincent had sequestered all thought of Lucrecia's sins and instead, focussed on his own; Apathy, Hesitation, and bad-timing.

Tifa… She wanted to be – she deserved to be – loved. And if he were to offer her his heart, what was left of it… would she take it? Would it be enough?

He thought of happier times; on this very ship, taking her hand in his, dancing with her in the rec room. He'd told her, as they revolved slowly to music from a time he had no memory of, how important she had become to him; To the stoic ex-Turk who shared his body with a monster, when push came to shove.

He wanted to reach out again now, to offer some words that could tell her every incomplete thought and feeling that swirled within (whether they might offer comfort or insight). He ached inside, to know what she was thinking, and feeling, but what he lacked for in apathy, he more than made up for with hesitation and poor timing.

They had exchanged no words since she had left him at the stables that night; she did not seek him out, and he did not anticipate her.

Perhaps, he tells himself, it is better this way.

Perhaps seeing the love of his past, alive (in some sense of the word), had brought back feelings of rejection, a fear of failure; of being chosen last, or not at all.

Tifa had, after all, remained tight-lipped in response to all admissions on his part; feelings she did not return, either in whole or at all; Words that were best left unspoken were words that could break him open again, cracking the fragile shell constructed around an already fragile heart.

Perhaps she did not want to hurt him. That, he can be somewhat grateful for.

Perhaps she wanted him, more madly than she could ever hope to put into words or action, but feared rejection, just as he did, having borne witness to his encounter with the ghost of his past love.

Perhaps, he didn't really know what he could say to a woman who wanted someone whole, to be hers: Totally, and completely. A woman who deserved nothing less.

He was less that whole. He was a collection of broken parts, shattered into fragments so small that he might never hope for repair; didn't think he would deserve it anyway, were it even an option.

Vincent, as ever, was somewhat content enough to leave things well alone and avoid the confrontation all together; After all, it had not worked out well for him before.

Speaking out lead him to an operating table and a coffin.

They were, both of them, fools.

-0-

At last, they arrived in Cosmo Canyon.

Seeking the wisdom of Bugenhagen one final time, though all of them knew it was a last desperate grab for straws that were all of them cut short – it seemed the inevitable was upon them, after all, and their fate, however grave, awaited them in the North Crater. Cloud and Red made to journey up to the observatory with a few of the others, though some chose to remain behind – Barret, Cait, Tifa and himself.

She glowered into the fire as the sun went down. Such was her evident fury that Barret dare not try to take her on – he in fact chose the wiser path and retired to the inn. Vincent, it seemed, was content to take the path of the fool.

"Tifa…" He doesn't know where to begin, as he isn't sure on the focal point of her anger. "Do you not wish to hear what Bugenhagen has to say?"

He decides it is safer to go with a question that avoids the subject of her feelings, at least until he can get more of a steer as to its source.

She has her arms drawn tight around her body, making herself small. Her shoulders are tense, brittle. "I don't need to hear it. I already know what he's going to say."

"We must face Sephiroth in the crater, soon." The temperature seems to drop in the desert valley, despite the dancing flames they both huddled before.

"Lucrecia's son. You told her he was dead."

He closes his eyes, exhaling deeply. Of course. He hadn't had confirmation that she had heard… but now he knew.

"He is as good as. He knows her not as his mother – he accepted Jenova in that position, and I doubt the truth would change much now." He chances a glance at Tifa through the dark strands of hair that fell into his eyes.

"Maybe. I wonder… is that how you see yourself?"

"Tifa?"

"As good as dead?" She turns to him now, jaw set. "You asked her, why she had not let you die. As if you craved release. As if you had nothing to leave behind."

"Is that why you are angry with me?"

"You think I'm angry with you?" She asked, incredulously.

"You're not angry with me?" He retorts, equally incredulous.

A flicker of a smile; a sunbeam peeking through cloud cover. "I had no reason to be angry… that doesn't mean I wasn't, for a short while. I'm… I'm struggling to put everything together, you know? Since Aeris died, and since all that crazy business with Cloud… everything that's happened has just come along so fast, and we've all barely even had time to think about what it all means before we're planning hurling ourselves headlong into a suicide mission..."

She rubs at her arms, warding off the chill that beset her flesh. "That day in the cave, I thought you were being all heroic, going off all by yourself. I didn't appreciate that there are just some things we all must face alone. And what you had to face was… Her."

He swallows the lump that had formed in his throat, painfully. "I… I didn't know what I would find there. I sure as hell didn't find answers, but… I think I found an opportunity to say what I wanted to say. Sometimes… I think that's enough."

She looks at him hard, amber eyes doubtful. "I… I hope that it is. We're going to need to have our shit together, facing Sephiroth. We don't… we don't know what we're going to find in that crater before we even get to him and… I'm scared." She admits, tucking her arms around her body even tighter.

"Are there any loose ends that you need to tie up before the end?" He asks, his mind on the blonde swordsman who, at that moment had returned into their line of sight, a grim expression on his visage.

"Sometimes, there's never enough time to say what it is that you need to say." She sighs, shoulders all the more rigid for having noticed their leader's return, contemplating what news he might have to share.

Whatever it was, they could both tell it was not the kind that would warrant celebrating.

-0-

He recalls the moment he thought he had fallen in love with her.

It had been raining.

Lain in the mud, covered in blood, deaf and blind to his calls for her to return, she remained stubbornly dead throughout his attempts to resuscitate. He remembered thinking, even now, with something oddly like amusement at so morbid a moment, that it would be their first and only kiss.

She had been snatched from his reach. She had never been within it, anyway. That was until she came hurtling back, broken and ghosting the edge of death once more, but alive. Alive.

He wouldn't waste this chance. He wouldn't waste it. He wouldn't.

-0-

All of their number are gathered in the Cosmo Candle.

Cloud had told them it would be a matter of days before they would make their final assault on Sephiroth. They would spend the night here in Cosmo, and from tomorrow would have a mere two days to carry out personal affairs, before they would meet here once again and board the Highwind.

To their final destination.

The timer had been turned, the slow trickle of sand telling of the passage of what precious time remained.

Tifa feels strangely empty, devoid of any sort of emotion. Her anger and rage, the sense of righteous injustice that had fuelled her to this spot, to this moment, had dissipated in a breath of wind, resolving in her bereft of any driving force at all.

First instincts had been to drink – to swallow down fiery liquid until she plummeted into thoughtless oblivion. At least, asleep, she could not despair at her own emptiness. Yet, as she stares into the bottom of a cracked ceramic cup, mouth soured by the taste of her first shot of Cosmo moonshine, she found she did not have the taste for seeing it through after all.

She squeezes the cup tightly, only to have it crack clean in two in her fist. She sets it aside with a wearied sigh, and rests her head upon her folded arms, eyelashes softly brushing her skin as they flutter closed.

He finds her like that, forehead pressed to the table, fingers interlaced and resting at the back of her neck. He would have thought her asleep but for the fact that her foot jiggled restlessly, as it was wont to do when she was frustrated.

A few others congregate on a nearby table – Cloud and Barret sit in agreed reverent silence – though none joined Tifa, perhaps having sensed her earlier mood, and perhaps unresolved in their own feelings on the matter of impending doom to find it within themselves to comfort her.

Vincent notes the broken cup resting atop the table before her, alongside the forgotten earthenware jar. He reaches forward, hooking one finger in the loop of the demijohn and the fingers of his other hand into the crook of her elbow. She raises her head from the table, wearily.

"Come, drink with me."

She acquiesces, following him mutely to a seat in a shadowy corner of the tavern. The candlelight casts flickering shadows against the walls, creating intimate warmth through the swathes of luscious fabrics, draped about the place to soften the harder angles of the cave network.

He leaves her only briefly, returning furnished with two new, uncracked cups. To her bemusement, he brings with him the two halves of the broken cup, carefully ensconced between the metal digits of his gauntlet.

He takes the seat adjacent to her, close enough that their elbows touch. The proximity is comforting.

"Have you heard of Kintsugi, Tifa? Or perhaps Kintsukuroi?" He asks, gently. The words he speaks of are foreign, musical to her ears, and from the careful way he constructs his sentence around them, she knows what he wants to tell her is important. Precious, perhaps even delicate.

She flushes a little under his gaze. Vincent had always carried an intensity with him, and that intensity was often projected in his stares; Weighted, piercing, or direct, even; Expressions of urgency, or manufactured to encourage distance.

But this… it was different. Gentle, caressing. Perhaps it was the candlelight creating a cocoon of intimacy and gentle play of warmth and shadow. His head is titled slightly to one side as he considers her, ordinarily ruby irises a smouldering, near-ebony in the glow. Her body seems to warm, to lean in to him, a reaction to the gentle hold of his observations - a truly unjust way to describe how he held her close, and intimately, without the employ of touch.

She doesn't know what this look means – she has never seen it before; never has something like it been directed at her, and whatever it is, she understands it even less, from him. An enigma at the best of times, despite his willingness to open up to her months of teasing, chiding, and pestering.

His proximity could not be called intimate, for he certainly sat no closer than anyone else seated beside one another in this place, yet she is aware of every angle of his posture, the position of his body in relation to hers.

"No." Her throat feels tight and her tongue clumsy and large in her mouth, catching on her molars.

"Hm." He gives a soft smile before shifting, unfolding his arms and resting a hand upon the tabletop, a few inches from hers. With his free hand he reaches over, leaning forward to reach the demijohn. She passes under his shadow completely as he does so, dwarfing her as he did. His extended fingers close around the Cosmo Brew he had rescued from her table, before he draws back and fills the two, whole cups that he had procured.

One cup, he places before her. The other, he tips it gently in her directly with a gentle nod of the head, before he drains the contents with the slightest of grimaces.

"Not the best example I can give, but it will suffice," He presents the small ceramic cup, now empty, resting atop his pale, steepled fingers, roofing his upturned palm.

"In Wutai, ceramics are a valuable commodity. Yet so often used, and everyday… things break. Sometimes in two, other times into a collection of smaller fragments. If you place the pieces flush together, sometimes you can imagine it might never have been broken at all, so clean is the break between the pieces. But some breaks are a lot more complicated than that.

"However," He adds, setting the cup aside, before gathering into his pale fingers the two cleanly broken pieces of the cup he had rescued from her table. "It doesn't mean that they should not, or cannot be repaired. Kintsugi literally means 'golden repair'. Craftsmen put the pieces back together, fused with precious metal. The piece will never look like it did before it was broken - the repairs are visible —yet somehow the piece, in all of its summation of fragments, becomes more beautiful; Beautiful because someone saw it worthwhile to take the time to put it back together and allow it to continue to be admired and of use."

To illustrate his point, he presses the two halves together. The edge is so clean, it might never have broken at all, yet careful examination would prove that indeed, it had been broken, once. Vincent leans closer, yet this time she does not bend away from him. She can feel the heat coming from his body.

"Why are you telling me this?" She asks breathlessly, hating herself for being so obtuse at moments like this, and cursing her wits for having so evidently abandoned her when she could do with their employ.

"You are not in anyone's shadow, Tifa. Not for me. I might be less than a whole, but I… I'm willing to take the time to… to help with healing. Whatever time we have left it… it's yours."

She blinks. "I… I'm an idiot. A godsdamned idiot." Her eyelashes flutter closed, and a single tear carves it way down her cheek. "I said those things in anger… I didn't mean… I never meant…"

"It's alright, Tifa." A brief hesitation stirs his outstretched hand, a fleeting worry in case someone sees, but then he realises he doesn't care. She is more important than that. His thumb glides gently across her cheek bone, sweeping the unwelcome tears aside. "I know what you were trying to say. I understand completely – more than I think you realise."

"So what does this mean?" Her breath hitches in her throat, eyes widening a little as she peers into his face.

"What do you want it to mean?" He asks, holding what cards he had left tentatively before him. If she would only give him a sign, anything… He'd go all in.

"We have so little time." Her voice is small, a desire expressed so faintly within her sadness it might distract from the power of it.

He allows himself to exhale. "I know." He tucks a strand of hair behind the soft shell of her ear. The contact is so tender, she aches.

Something within the pit of her stomach, so tightly clenched and tangled and buried so deep in her core that she has not dared to try and unearth it, flickers into life and begins to slowly unfurl like a bud in spring. It uncoils, spreading warmth to her fingers and toes, releasing knots of fear, worry and negative thoughts that had haunted her for years. They bubble angrily, yet the warmth and light within her burns them away into nothingness. Her knees and fingers, unbidden, betray her by trembling, whilst her voice abandons her completely, a bubble rising in her throat to still her tongue in her mouth.

She closes the final few inches between them, the knuckles of her left-hand whitening as they grip the table's edge, tucking her head beneath his chin to allow her forehead to rest against his chest.

She can only breathe in, and then out, drinking in his subtle, musky scent deeper and deeper, until it is all she can feel. His lips come to rest on her crown, fingers inching to rest at her elbow; Still reserved, politely waiting for some form of permission to touch her further, but content with whatever it is he is at liberty to take.

They sit there like that, for what feels like an age. She is warm, she feels safe, and wanted. The bar is a gentle hum of sound and light, the soft babble and the glow enveloping them in their silent embrace.

"I am glad I found you, Vincent Valentine," She sighs into his shirt, soothed by the steady pulse of his heartbeat beneath her forehead.

"As am I," He kisses her crown softly, before enfolding her gently in his arms as much as their seating arrangements would allow. She reciprocates in turn, sliding her palms to the planes of his shoulders and pressing her cheek into his chest.

For that, she is grateful.

-0-