Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII.

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Con

I. Introducing the Marriage

"Sure," said Yuffie, though her enthusiasm lacked its usual peppy punch, "I'll marry him."

Vincent scowled. Had he known this matter was to be this impossibly ridiculous, he would have ignored the summons to Reeve's office.

"That's not quite what I'm asking you to agree to," replied Reeve.

"But that's the idea, isn't it? I have to pretend I'm married to this, uh," Yuffie fumbled for the appropriate noun—because there were so many things Valentine was not, the most important of which was husband material—and settled on, "Vinnie here."

"Your cover is married to his cover," corrected Reeve. "This is a sensitive recon operation, Yuffie. You must understand that, as of next week, you will be living this cover's life. Very few people are aware of your deep undercover work, and it will remain that way."

"Cloud? Tifa?" began Yuffie curiously.

"They do not know."

"No, I mean—why didn't you choose them for this, instead? Or even Cid—or hell, Barret would make a more believable husband than Mr. Chatty-Vamp over here! All you would need to do is fix up his gun arm with a prosthetic or, I don't know, a cute, little water gun would work."

Vincent tried to maintain faith that Reeve knew what he was doing, but he was finding the plan just as flawed as she was. And he hadn't even uttered a word of protest yet.

Reeve sighed, turning in his chair to stare out the window. "I could not ask this of Cloud or Tifa, for obvious reasons." Yuffie arched an eyebrow expectantly. "They have private responsibilities. They are not active WRO operatives like you or Vincent. As for the others," he shook his head, "they lack your expertise in intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance. No, I'm afraid this job falls on the two of you."

Yuffie eyeballed Vincent dubiously, looking all surly and unsociable hunched up in his cloak. "Why Vincent?" Sure, he had the looks to be a hot, sexy, powerhouse of a—wait, what was her question again?

"Vincent is an ex-Turk. He has experience in these types of matters."

"You're sure about this, Reeve?" asked Yuffie.

"You're the best we have. We've been preparing Operation Herring for some time now. We have operatives trained to take over your responsibilities at the WRO temporarily, as well as arranged for several operatives to be secreted into the company you will be involved in."

Yuffie knew Reeve was speaking sense, but she just couldn't wrap her head around it. It was an awful lot to ask of someone who, to her knowledge, possessed the social quotient of a paper clip. Not that she minded too much before, since he was an extremely attractive paper clip.

"Everything you need is this file," said Reeve, holding out two identical packets.

Yuffie knew taking it meant accepting it, all of it: the responsibilities, uncertainties, and potential for failure. But Yuffie Kisaragi would be loath to fail something as simple as a recon assignment. She never had before. Vincent took his copy, leaving in Reeve's hand only hers. Well, if he was going for it, so was she! Yuffie flipped through the file, dark eyes darting through key pieces of information. "I call dibs on Marc!" she declared.

Reeve looked like he wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, or hers, for that matter. "You cannot be Marc Conlin unless you have male gonads, Yuffie."

"But he's clearly the de facto head of Koma Industries," protested Yuffie sourly. Reeve couldn't possibly be asking her to marry Vincent and play second fiddle, could he?

"Male. Gonads."

Yuffie's eyes diverted from the file and pinned themselves to Vincent's pack. Vincent shot her something of an indignant look and draped his cloak over himself. Reeve coughed to attract Yuffie's attention. Her eyes returned reluctantly to Reeve; Vincent appeared visibly relieved. "Fine. I guess I'll be Yuki, then."

"A fine choice. You may take those files with you for review. There is a time and location printed on page six. I expect you both to be ready to depart by that time. You may go."

Vincent did not linger, exiting the room in a fluid silence. Yuffie, however, flipped through several more pages and approached the desk. When she looked up, her eyes revealed a thread of apprehension. "Reeve, you're absolutely certain about this? We're talking about me and Vincent here. I just don't know if this will fool anyone."

"Yuffie, you've made it through worse. And you've fooled plenty."

Yeah, but could she fool herself? Yuffie sighed, but straightened. "I guess I there's just one last thing. Who's our handler?"

"All in the file."

But it really hadn't been. Otherwise, she never would have said yes.

Later that evening, Yuffie retired to her bedroom, where the innocuous file sat in the middle of her chocobo bedspread. Sipping at her chocolate milk, she slowly crawled over her sheets. Her Midgarian bed was soft and plush, different from the futon she slept on in Wutai. At ease in her WRO-issued flat, Yuffie began to assimilate the information.

Her cover's name was Yuki Conlin, neé Asagi, wife to Marc Conlin. She was 25. Yuffie puckered her lips. How did Reeve expect her to pull off looking that old? That was a four-year difference! Then again, how was Vincent going to pull off being hip was the real question. Reading on, Yuffie discovered that Yuki wore glasses—anyone who wore glasses was blind, in Yuffie's opinion—and dressed professionally for work. Yuffie glanced down at the tank and shorts combo she had been in since work this morning. She popped the highlighter cap and made a mark next to this point. Yuki used to be the head of ENrich, an airship fuel supplier company, before she merged it with Koma Industries. Koma Industries was the sister branch of Sun Circle Marketing, a company that had been pivotal in the proliferation of commercial mako use. Her husband, Marc, used to be a top executive working for the budding Koma. The addition of ENrich to Koma allowed him to shoot up the ranks into the top job with his wife, two years prior. Yuki knew Wutainese. Yuffie had to reread that portion. Wutainese, huh? That was mighty convenient of Reeve to set up. Yuki's hobbies included going to the gym, water-skiing, and reading—for pleasure? Yuffie gawked at the last one. Who could possibly enjoy reading? That was something Vincent would do! With an almighty groan, she circled the foul term. Did she even have books in this place? She surveyed the flat with a smug sense of satisfaction. Not a single tome to be found. Good for her.

It was only after she finished reading over the provided bio that Yuffie stopped to wonder about how to behave around Vincent during the mission. Was she allowed to be her usual motor-mouth self? Or was he expecting her to be suddenly thirty years wiser? Because the second one was not going to happen. There simply wasn't a lot about how Yuki and Marc got along. They had been married three years, took their honeymoon on Cactus Island. Scanning Marc Conlin's bio, Yuffie found Marc to be a clearheaded and methodical individual, with the same athletic interests as his wife. Marc possessed a spare, but charming, sense of humor. At this point, she nearly spilled her chocolate milk and had to snort it back it into her nose before it dripped onto her precious chocobos. Grinning, she highlighted it in pink. Swimming through the rest of bios yielded few private details, except for one. In explicit writing, it said both spouses were faithful to each other. She wondered what that had to do with anything.

A yawn escaped Yuffie's throat, and she rubbed her eyes to keep them from watering. Yuffie set the file into a locked safe, rinsed out her cup, and got ready for bed. As she switched off the light, she decided to go into mission details tomorrow.

Yuffie didn't get up until noon. At first, she panicked, her hand accidentally knocking the alarm clock to the floor where it continued blaring like a dying animal. Late for work again! Yuffie sat up, forcibly rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Wait—wait a second. Yuffie squinted down at the clock. It was Saturday. Her day off. She was tempted to roll right back into the blankets and sleep for another hour for three, but padded out to the bathroom instead to relieve herself. Her hair was a mess. Yuffie tried to pat it down before going back out again, but it insisted on sticking up like the business end of a chocobo's butt. So, with a great deal of internal whining, she turned on the shower and prepared to wake up for real.

As she sat down for breakfast, Yuffie propped the file open on her lap. In the mission details, she learned more about the urgency of her mission. Apparently, a series of strange company merges tied back to Lexing Corp, a mako fuel refiner that took a huge blow after the Meteor incident. It had been more resistant to using oil than other companies. WRO analysts suspected that it targeted companies that were either vital to or on the brink of signing long-term oil contracts. WRO required confirmation of collusion and underhanded takeovers before it could take action, and that was where the Conlins came in. The Conlins were, at least in name, the head of Koma Industries, and were going to be interested in signing an oil contract. But Koma was only a diversion before Lexing targeted Sun Circle Marketing. Lexing had a pattern of coming into contact with a company, and within months, bringing it under their control. If they merged with Sun Circle Marketing before oil companies could, then it was over for oil. Mako would make a comeback, despite everything.

Yuffie flipped over the last page, hoping to find more, but, to her consternation, there wasn't much left to go. What about the mark? She needed more information. Where and how to get close to him, his habits, the company floor plan—she needed all of that. But then she remembered all of that usually came with the handler. She had to be "on the ground" first. Yuffie returned to the last bit of the file, cursing Reeve for failing to include the name of the handler; only an estimated date was provided.

The last line read: "Mission term: Undetermined. Months estimated." Yuffie sat back, milky spoon abandoned on the table. Of course, she knew this was going to be long-term, but months? Months away from here? Stuck with Vincent Valentine, her fake husband?

Yuffie would be lying if she said that some really deep, very girly part of her wasn't secretly thrilled at the idea of spending more time with the monotone-wielding gunslinger. She hadn't been grouped on a mission with him in almost a year, which was why she compensated by popping in to bug him every once in a while. Or stalk him. But the problem was, she had a tendency to get flustered around him. Her, the Great Ninja Yuffie: flustered! Didn't anyone realize how hard it was to concentrate with him breathing and stuff around her? Why hadn't Reeve picked up on the hint that Vincent plus her was A Bad Idea? This was why Yuffie thought subtlety was a waste, because it was. The mission wasn't even cut-and-dry. She had to flirt or—Heaven forbid—talk dirty to him. The idea sent shivers up her spine. She had to focus on the assignment. But the assignment was asking her to pour oil on the fire. And that was a really hot fire.

Yuffie groaned, suddenly dreading the next time she would see him. It was at times like these that she wished she could call up Tifa, but since she wasn't in the know, Yuffie was stuck figuring all this out for herself. She had one week. One week to pull it together. Okay. Professional and flirty. She could do it. She'd just try to pretend Vincent was hideous or something. Yep, easy as pie.

Yuffie wondered how she'd make it out alive.

Yuffie ended up going to Seventh Heaven despite herself. She wasn't going to tell Tifa a thing, but she still wanted to see her. But the moment she walked in, she knew she shouldn't have.

"Yuffie, did you pick the lock again?" A frown. "I keep telling Cloud we need better security in here."

Yuffie violently quashed the impulse to tell her every stinking thing about her imminent matrimony with Vincent.

"You grew out your hair," remarked Tifa as Yuffie slumped against the bar counter. "What's the occasion?"

Yuffie plucked at the strands that barely grew past her shoulders; they were longer than she would have liked by a long shot. "I got this memo at work a few months back."

Tifa quirked an eyebrow. Yuffie couldn't help but notice how much it resembled the same quirk that Cloud made. "Is this related?"

"It told me to cut my hair!"

"What?"

"'About time for a haircut?' That's all that was on it! Obnoxious, right? It was typed, too, so it was untraceable. I haven't taken a scissor to it since."

"Out of spite?" chuckled Tifa, lips curved into a smile that reaches her eyes. "That's very like you."

Yuffie harrumphed, crossing her arms over her admittedly tiny chest. "I'm not listening to a piece of paper about what I do with my hair! It's mine and I'll do what I want with it!"

"Okay," replied Tifa with a laugh in her voice.

"Where are the kids?" Yuffie asked with the tact of a sledgehammer.

"At school." Tifa glanced at her curiously. "Why?"

So much for a last visit. Yuffie pinned her gaze at the plush toy she got Marlene for her last birthday. "Oh, no reason! I was just around and I thought I'd finish teaching them that stuff about rope escapes. Comes in handy, you know."

Tifa smiled at her sympathetically, having seen through her. Yuffie's flagrant simper disappeared. "They'll be back soon."

"How's Chocobo-Head?"

"Yuffie, you know he hates that name." Tifa laughed all the same. "He's doing fine. He's happy. We're happy." Yuffie spied the brilliance in Tifa's eyes knew that she, of all people, deserved it most.

"I see he still uses that 'Closed for Business' sign I got him." Yuffie felt a swell of pride as she jabbed her thumb at the plaque hanging on the back of the door. "Glad he could take a hint." Cloud used to be such a nitwit.

"Thanks, Yuffie." For a second, Yuffie stared at her.

"What?" For Cloud being a nitwit?

"I never thank you for that sign," she explained, gesturing to it.

Oh. "No big deal. I nicked it from some musty, old bookstore." She actually went through a lot of trouble getting that particular sign. If only she hadn't stubbed her toe and set off the alarms, it would have been the perfect crime.

Tifa's expression dampened, just minutely, into a scowl. "Yuffie."

Yuffie beamed at her, but did not address the felony. "Hey, now that I'm old enough, won't you make me a raspberry daiquiri?" She loved getting free alcohol. Tifa used to be so strict with her when she was underage, and now she could guzzle gallons without so much as a "Yuffie, slow down! Yuffie! You're not getting another one!"

Tifa shook her head. "Seems like it was just yesterday you weren't even legal."

"Almost yesterday," contributed Yuffie sagely.

"Coming right up," said Tifa the barmaid.

Yuffie just finished the last of her second drink when Denzel and Marlene unlocked the bar door, backpacks dangling over their shoulders by a single strap. Both of them brightened up upon seeing their favorite ninja. "Yuffie! Hi!" Marlene ran over, slamming her with a bear hug. Denzel walked up, giving her his reserved-for-special-people smile. "When did you get here?"

"An hour ago. Took you long enough to get here!"

"Did you bring presents?" whispered Marlene.

Yuffie glanced at Tifa furtively. Yuffie had a habit of spoiling the kids with gifts—usually stolen goods. "Not this time, sorry," piped Yuffie at Tifa's hawkish look, "but maybe next time."

"Just here for a visit, then? Where's Vincent?" asked Marlene.

Normally, she would have jumped up out of her stool and listed Elusive Vincent Vampire Coordinates, but with the impending doom of being basically glued to him for the next few months, she just couldn't bring herself to. Soon enough, the Coordinates would be: stuck with Yuffie indefinitely.

"Marlene, you know Yuffie can't keep track of him all the time," said Tifa, her eyes trained on the ninja's resigned expression.

"Of course, because he's Elusive!" cried Marlene, striking the same ridiculous pose Yuffie made during her own declarations.

"I thought you were Head of Intelligence," said Denzel. He had taken up a healthy measure of reverence upon exposure to her Very Important Title. He thought she knew everything there was to know about the unknown. Which was why, to Tifa's everlasting mortification, he had once asked her what "riding Tifa all night long" meant: Cid's words when Denzel asked why Tifa looked so tired one day. Denzel was of the belief that people like Cloud could only ride bikes, chocobos, and occasionally the coaster at Gold Saucer. Yuffie had cackled madly, eyes glinting with blackmail gold, and told him that it meant Cloud and Tifa were involved in special training, training that only adults past a certain age could do.

"Well, I was going to keep it a secret this time, but he's sleeping in the bat cave right now so he can't make it," twittered Yuffie. Although she didn't know for sure this time, there was a still a large chance he was, in fact, doing the human equivalent of that.

"Aww, that's too bad," grumbled Marlene.

"Everyone needs sleep, Marlene."

"But not everyone sleeps in a bat cave, Tifa!"

Tifa sighed. Oh, the lies these kids had been fed.

"Anyway, I should get going," announced Yuffie, swinging her legs off the stool. "Have lots to do!" She crushed the munchkins against her in a hug and released them off to do homework at Tifa's stern reminder. Yuffie watched them disappear up the stairs.

"Will you be alright?" asked Tifa quietly.

Yuffie blinked. Did Tifa know? Was it possible that Reeve had informed them, after all? If he had, Yuffie was planting her butt on that chair and spewing her mushy guts out about what torture it had been for her the last few days. After scrutinizing the expression on her face, Yuffie realized it was just Tifa's intuition talking. Sometimes, that woman had the perception radar of a telepath. "Me? The Great Ninja Yuffie? Of course!" Tifa smiled as if she didn't believe her, giving Yuffie's hand a small squeeze. Yuffie threw her arms around her, but pulled away in the blink of an eye, not giving Tifa enough time to hug her back. Tifa had hugs that made you never want to let go. "Bye! I'll try to bring the kids something nice next time."

"Take care of yourself," Tifa managed to say before Yuffie had disappeared through the door.

To be continued.

A/N: Because, of all the people that could go undercover, Yuffie made the most sense. She always seemed like someone who took her job very seriously, so I took liberties in writing an older, more mature Yuffie. I know this may not be the most original idea on the face of the planet, but it took a hold of me while I was on vacation in Hawaii and simply would not let go. I apologize for the chunks of dry exposition in this introductory chapter. I thought it would be too confusing to flesh out their covers along the way. Not to worry, I haven't played all my cards. They are still several surprises in store.

Chapters 1-3 have been revised as of 08/03/11 in an attempt to provide a smoother story and a more consistent narrator (i.e. Yuffie). Some things have been added, some things have been cut, but nothing major has been messed with. I hope the pieces have improved, even if only a little bit. Comments are welcome and critique is encouraged. Thank you for reading.