I Can't Remember
Vamptress RayZor
I know how it used to be... I just don't really remember our time together. I know what she was like... I just don't remember her. I know that we were in love... I can't remember how or why we met, how in love we were, or why she ever loved me.
I wake up in the morning to a picture of three people, but I don't remember their names. By the time I've fallen asleep, I've figured out their names. I know I love them, I just don't remember why...
Yuffie Sasha Zanard walked down the hall, her heels click, click, clicking on the linoleum, a small girl at her side. "C'mon, Tyger," she urged softly, tugging gently on her daughter's hand.
"Mama, do I hafta go in?"
This question caused the twenty-nine-year-old to freeze in her tracks. Tears sprang into her eyes, but she sniffed and mentally batted the offending drops away. Yuffie knelt beside her five-year-old to look into her eyes. Tyger's green eyes reminded her mother so much of the man she was going to see.
"Baby, I know that you don't really know him. I know that it's scary, but please do this... For your daddy, okay?"
Tyger hesitated, then nodded. "The doctors are gonna fix him this time, right, Mama?"
Yuffie forced a brave smile on, even though she had given up her faith in modern medicine long ago.
Standing, Yuffie fixed her pretty denim skirt and straightened her low-cut red blouse. The two females continued their brave walk down the hall and to room 239B. Every day, they walked the same hall at the same time. Every day, they walked into the same room. Every day, Yuffie would take Tyger to Rude's home so her daughter could play with his and Elena's son, Jake. Every day, Yuffie sobbed on Rude's shoulder.
They walked into the room with false smiles on their faces. The man who resided in the room was only thirty-two, not yet greying or getting wrinkles. His long crimson hair, which matched Tyger's, was held back in a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck with a thin black elastic band. His MAKO-enhanced green eyes looked at the two who had entered his room in utter confusion.
"You're not nurses," he stated in blatant confusion. "Who are you?"
Every time he would ask that question, Yuffie would have to fight back the tears. "I'm Yuffie Zanard," she replied. "I'm your wife of six years. This is Renee Zanard, but we call her Tyger." She paused. "She's our daughter."
He looked at them, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember you."
Yuffie leaned over to his bedside table and picked up the framed photograph. "This is you," she said, pointing to a tall red head smiling, his hands upon a woman's shoulders. "This is me." Yuffie, at age twenty-four, smiled happily, her hair barely brushing her shoulders. "And that baby is our daughter, Renee Devlynn." A two-month-old baby girl stared dazedly at the camera.
"Oh," he said softly. "We look... happy."
She smiled sadly. "Yeah..."
He turned to her, MAKO turquoise meeting amethyst. "Could you... Could you tell me why I don't remember, please?" He cleared his throat and continued hoarsely. "I don't even know my own name."
A tear streaked down Yuffie's face, only to be wiped away by his large, warm hand. "Okay, Reno..."
"You were in a program called Turk. You were an assassin assigned to do an evil corporations "dirty work". They genetically enhanced you with MAKO, making you stronger, faster, and better with materia. The MAKO not only made your eyes glow, but took away your memory two years ago when you were thirty."
Reno looked down at the ground, trying to remember. He tried to remember being a Turk, to remember the day he married the beautiful woman next to him, the day the little girl sitting on the edge of his bed came into his life. "I... I can't remember," he whispered. "I'm trying, but I... I can't."
Yuffie bit her lip to keep from crying. At least he's trying, she told herself. On a normal day, reno Zanard would merely listen to what the former ninja would say, but not really respond.
"I've got to go, Reno," Yuffie whispered, hugging him and kissing him chastely on the lips. "I'll be back later, after... Well, later."
Tyger hugged her father, though she hugged Rude tighter than she hugged her own paternal unit. "Bye, Papa," she said, scampering to the door. "G'luck!"
Reno smiled a forced smile. "Goodbye," he replied. "I'll be waiting, Yuffs."
She paused and looked back at him. "Wha... What did you just call me?" she asked, hope sparking deep within her, praying that she had not heard wrong, that he had used his nickname for her.
"Uh... Your name is Yuffie, right?"
Her shoulders slumped. "Yeah. I just thought... Never mind, Reno. I love you. I'll be back later."
Yuffie and Tyger got into the truck Reno had bought just before Tyger's birth. The girl watched sadly as her mother let tears slip down her cheeks and started up the engine. They rode in silence, the child and mother, to the Rodriguez residence, hand-in-hand.
Reno Zanard allowed himself to be wheeled from his room toan operating room. Doctors spoke to him, but his mind was on the woman to whom he was married. She seemed so depressed, so down. If he ever got his memory back, he wanted it to be for her. His last thought before they gave him the sleeping gas was of Yuffie and Renee. Of his girls.
Yuffie asked Elena and Rude to watch Tyger while she went back to the hospital to await Reno's results after his surgery. After she left, Tyger went outside to play with Jake and his new plastic swords.
"She's only hurting herself more," Elena told her tall, dark-skinned husband.
Rude put an arm around his blonde counter-part. "Wouldn't you if that was me?" She sighed. "It could have been me if Reno hadn't accepted the responsibilty for my mistakes so often. ShinRa was always sending Reno to see Hojo..."
She nodded in knowing. "Tseng took the responsibilty for my mistakes, so I only had the initial infusion. But Reno..."
Rude nodded in knowing. "We got off lucky."
Yuffie has given up on being awake during the operation and had pulled two chairs together, curled up, and fallen asleep. No one bothered her as she slept, afraid to awaken the former AVALANCHE member before she was needed. She was paying obscene amounts of gil for her husband's care. Word was, she could still throw a shuriken as accurately as when she was sixteen and helping Cloud Strife and his gang of rebels.
She was aroused by a nurse when Reno's surgery was over. Yuffie looked up with hopeful lilac eyes. "Is he awake?"
The nurse shook her head. "Sorry, miss, not yet."
Nodding, Yuffied stood and collected her purse. "Where is he right now?"
"Recovery Room, miss. I'll show you." Yuffie followed the nurse, though she knew where to go. Reno had been through three previous operations, of course she kew where to go.
As soon as the doctors allowed her, Yuffie sent into the room with her husband. She took his larger hand in her much smaller and kissed it softly. "I'm here, Turk Boy," she said softly, sitting in a chair beside his bed. "No more waiting for me to get here."
"Good, 'cause I was gettin' tired uh waitin'," he said hoarsely from the bed.
Her eyes widened and she looked at him, his sea green eyes watching her with amusement. "Reno? she asked, almost afraid that she was hallucinating or dreaming.
He smirked his trademark smirk. "Yeah, Babe... It's me."
Tear filled her eyes, then spilled down her cheeks. "Tell me you remember, Reno. Tell me what our son's name is!"
His brow furrowed. "Son? Tyger's a girl, Yuffs."
She grinned. "You remember!"
He chuckled and pulled her closer to him. "Yes, I remember, Yuffie." He kissed her tenderly. "And I remember our meeting earlier." He kissed her again. "And I can't wait to get home."
Tears spilled down her cheeks as she kissed him again and again. "I love you, Turkey. I love you so much!"
He returned every kiss. "I love you too, Yuffie."
Tyger and Jake laughed together on her sixteenth birthday. She tried to blow out her candles only to have Reno pull the cake away, making her look like a fool in the picture that Elena took.
"My bad, Princess. Did you want to blow them candles out?" the red head asked with a trademark smirk.
Jake, Tyger's best friend and boyfriend, laughed at his girlfriend, blue eyes twinkling merrily. Tyger glared at her bi-racial boyfriend, whose obsidian locks were nearly as long as her own fiery tresses.
"Jake, if you keep laughin', this cake's gonna be in your face," she threatened.
Reno laughed. "Okay, okay. Make a wish, Princess."
Yuffie watched her daughter proudly. Rude leaned against the wall beside a stoic gunslinger name Vincent Valentine. Tifa Chauver and her sixteen-year-old twins, Sean and Sky, were also there. As well as Lacey Highwind, her husband, and their new baby boy. Cid, Shera, Barret, and Elmyra looked on like proud grandparents, Nanaki like a cross-species uncle.
Tyger made her wish as the candles were blown out and everyone cheered happily. Jake's arm was slung around her shoulders and she grinned at her parents. Her father, who had missed two years of her life, and her mother, who had been Tyger's inspiration and confidant. She loved them more than anyone could ever know.
Yuffie kissed her husband, feeling old since her only child was sixteen. Reno felt the same way, but was thankful that he could remember his wife and child. His arm rested comfortably around Yuffie's still-petite waist. "I love you," he whispered down to her.
She grinned up happily at the forty-three-year-old. "I love you, too."
.fin.
VR: That was written many, many months ago when I still had my Yuffie Kisaragi2 pen name. Scary, huh? Anywho! Hope that you all enjoyed this non-realistic fic that was nothing short of stupid. Thanks for reading.
-Vamptress RayZor-