The Twelve Days of X-Mas
Chapter Five

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Cloud had never felt more betrayed in his life than at this very moment.

"Denzel? Marlene?" Tifa said, sounding as if the foundations of her very universe had just fallen out from under her. Cloud knew how she felt - when Yuffie had brought up the possibility after Barret's murder, Cloud hadn't taken her seriously at all. He'd all but raised the both of them, up until they'd left for that school.

He had to admit that he hadn't thought much about the two children the last few years; at seventeen and eighteen (almost nineteen) respectively, Marlene and Denzel had been accepted to a stellar preparatory boarding school near Cosmo Canyon. That had been two years ago this September, and they'd taken to spending their holidays at the school as well. Tifa had thought that the two of them had romantic interests at the school, and so they only ever saw the kids briefly during the summer holiday. Their school uniforms – which matched, he realized, down to the shoe size even though Marlene was swimming in them – did nothing but emphasize their youth.

"The Headmistress said you'd been in school the whole break," Cloud blurted out, belatedly realizing how stupid it sounded. He'd never quite gotten the hang of being a father, even now.

"Of course she did," Denzel sneered. "I cast confusion on her throughout the week. She's an idiot; the spell wasn't hard to hold up."

Marlene stood next to him, timidly, mouth clamped shut. She had a gun in her hand, though, so Cloud wasn't about to underestimate her.

"What the literal fuck, man?" Yuffie exclaimed. Marlene swung in her direction, gun pointed forward, but Yuffie was so incensed that she didn't even notice. Yuffie had just turned twenty-nine years old the month previous, but she stomped her foot as if she were still an impatient sixteen-year-old girl.

"Yuffie -" Cloud began.

"No, fuck this, man!" Yuffie said, incredulously. "You cannot be serious! The two big bad murderers are the two kids who should be the most fucking grateful to us? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

"AVALANCHE killed my family!" Denzel yelled at her. Yuffie shut up. "They killed my mother and father when Sector 7 came down! They stole my childhood from me! Everything I was supposed to be, supposed to do, AVALANCHE ruined!"

He spun around, gesturing at Cloud with his pistol. Absently, Cloud noted that it was a standard-issue Glock 9 mm, and resolved to have a stern talk with the quartermaster at WRO Headquarters.

"He killed my parents! He ruined my life!" Every time Denzel emphasized "he," he jabbed the pistol at Cloud. Cloud did not flinch; he'd survived gunshots before, and he'd survive them again. As long as Denzel was pointing a gun at him, he wasn't pointing it at Yuffie or Tifa.

"That's twisted. That's fucking twisted," Yuffie said. "You guys are fucking idiots. We didn't drop that plate; hell, half of AVALANCHE wasn't even in AVALANCHE then. You're killing innocent people and doing a piss-poor job of it!"

"Yeah, well, it worked, didn't it?" Marlene shot off, the words tumbling out of her mouth. Denzel shot her a look of annoyance and she clammed right up again.

"Why, Marlene?" Cloud wondered aloud, stalling for time to try to piece together a plan.

"Barret," Denzel said, smiling triumphantly.

Yuffie slapped her hand to her forehead. " Goddammit. She even went to see a psychologist about it, remember Cloud?"

He did. She'd been having nightmares and went to the psychologist, who'd diagnosed her as having trust issues after Barret confessed the truth about her biological father and what had led to his demise.

"She tried to tell me," Tifa said, quietly. "She tried to tell me that Denzel was making her do things, poisoning her mind, and I thought she meant she was having bad dreams."

"You all deserve it," Marlene said, her anger coming forth now, her timidity toward her older brother-figure forgotten. "You left me to rot and you deserve to die. All of you."

Cloud could practically see the scars on her soul, and for a brief second, he agreed with her. They'd failed her as parents and they deserved what they got.

Then common sense reasserted itself. "We were trying to save the goddamn world," he snapped. He immediately regretted the harsh words, as Denzel grinned maniacally and pointed at Tifa with his pistol.

Yuffie stretched back into a stance that Cloud recognized, although he didn't know if Marlene or Denzel did: it was her battle position. Cloud wondered if she had any ninja stars hidden in pockets or if she was going to try to go after the two teenagers by hand. She was nearly as good at hand-to-hand combat as Tifa was, but he doubted that either of them could outrun bullets.

"Don't even think about it, Yuffie," Denzel said, switching his aim to her. "I'll kill you first."

"I dare you, punk," Yuffie said, eyes flashing. Cloud knew that Yuffie was terrified of guns. They weren't like swords or shuriken. They didn't forgive. They just made dead bodies. But she was covering up that fear excellently, because she was well and truly pissed off.

"No materia immunity this time, Yuffie," Denzel said, dispassionately. "Bullets are for real."

"Blah blah blah," Yuffie said, crouching down low. "I was friends with Vinnie Valentine for thirteen years and I never once got shot. And he was a way better shot than you are." And then she took off, darting around like liquid silver and leading Denzel away from Tifa and Cloud.

A gunshot rang out, and the world turned red.

Marlene gasped. Her gun fell to the ground as her hands flew to her mouth. Red blossomed brightly over her white shirt.

"When you decide to kill someone," a familiar voice said, sardonically, "it would be in your best interest to make sure that they can, in fact, die."

Denzel rushed to his sister's side. "How is that possible?" he cried, hands fluttering around Marlene, trying to staunch the blood.

Vincent Valentine, wearing what Cloud could only assume was a stolen pair of jeans and a T-shirt, stood at the back of the cave. The clothing bore singe marks and Cloud realized that Vincent had literally come through the depths of the fire caverns to get here. Cerberus glinted brightly in his right hand, and his left was gauntlet-clad as usual.

Cloud would ponder the specifics later, but right now he was so very happy that Yuffie had insisted on burying him with his gun.

Marlene's breathing was coming in shorter breaths, and then just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended and Marlene Wallace was no more. No theatrics, no drama – she was just gone. Denzel cried out in anger and took up his gun again, this time focusing exclusively on Cloud.

Cerberus issued his cry, and Denzel fell short of his goal a mere three feet from Cloud.

"Next time," Cloud said, "let's not leave it so late." He sat down very heavily, seeing but not seeing his adoptive son's dead body.

He'd deal with his feelings tomorrow. Today, they were alive.

Yuffie didn't like the idea of leaving their bodies in the fire caverns to be consumed, but she agreed that it was really the only way to ensure that the two would never be found. They'd simply come up missing, and no one would ever know the truth.

By the time they finished the grisly work of binding the bodies and letting Vincent disappear with them into the bowels of the fire caverns, it was nearing noon, and the snow was letting up. Cleaning up the mess had taken more time than Cloud had thought it would.

Tifa was dead on her feet, Yuffie not so far behind her. Even Cloud, with his enhanced metabolism, could stand a nap. In fact, the only person in their group who looked utterly normal was Vincent.

"How the hell are you even alive?" Yuffie demanded, as they began the trek down Da Chao.

"As I said," Vincent replied, "I cannot die. It is the curse of Chaos. I very painfully reconstituted in my casket. They would have done better to cast Flare on my heart."

"Huh," Yuffie said. "I guess Shera's catholic sensibilities saved your ass." She blinked. "We were gonna have you cremated, but she was horrified when we mentioned it."

Vincent was quiet for a second. "That may have prevented my reconstitution."

Yuffie grinned wickedly.

They sneaked back into town, getting to Yuffie's house via her super-secret underground passageway that Cloud was in no way surprised to discover existed. Yuffie's reasoning for the subterfuge was that no one knew Vincent was alive yet. Vincent's reasoning was that they didn't know if Marlene and Denzel had been working alone.

Cloud was pretty sure they had been – they'd been alone for so long that reaching out for help seemed unlikely at this juncture. But Vincent had survived this long on being paranoid (and, apparently, immortal), and Cloud wasn't about to gainsay him.

"How did you get into the fire caverns?" Yuffie asked, as they slid up a trap door that led into her basement hallway.

"There are several entrances and exits to most cavern systems," Vincent said. "This is not my first time in Wutai."

They all went silent, pondering the implications of that statement.

"I found the entrance when I was a Turk," he explained further.

"Right," Yuffie declared, as they entered her kitchen and she stoked the fire. "As soon as we get the matter of you still being alive settled, you are so totally showing me everything you know about Wutai."

Vincent merely looked resigned.

They slept well into the evening, but Yuffie drew the line at actually allowing them to miss the start of the holiday. At eleven thirty she woke the lot of them up with hot cocoa (Vincent refused to even consider drinking it, which Yuffie pouted over for a solid ten minutes) and Christmas cookies. Cloud was surprised to find, but said nothing about, the fact that while they'd all slept, she'd apparently fussed with her altar. It now bore smoking incense, a bowl of rice, and plate of pickles. Chopsticks stuck out of the bowl at right angles, and Cloud suspected she'd left the food out for their dearly departed friends.

Yuffie seemed determined to remain cheerful, even going so far as to put Christmas music on, but as the clock tower struck midnight, her happy facade crumbled.

"You don't have to pretend everything's alright," Cloud pointed out, taking a sip of his hot chocolate, which Yuffie had doctored with peppermint schnapps.

"I know," Yuffie said, wiping tears from her eyes and sniffing loudly. Vincent pointedly looked out a window, and Tifa leaned over to touch Yuffie's arm, sympathetically. "It just feels wrong to have Christmas when they're all gone."

"Life goes on," Vincent said. Cloud was startled to hear anything resembling words of comfort passing his lips. "The best way to honor those who have gone before us is to go forward, not to live with one foot in the past."

They stared at him.

"I am aware of the irony of my statement," Vincent continued.

It was like a dam had broken inside him, and Cloud laughed. And laughed and laughed, and when Tifa and Yuffie joined in, he laughed some more, and eventually the three of them were in a pile under the table, slightly drunk and laughing hysterically. Vincent looked vaguely amused.

"I think this is the start of a wonderful new tradition," Yuffie said. "The Christmas Morning Drink-Off. Same time, same place, next year?"

"Sure thing," Tifa said gamely. "Next time, though, I'm making the drinks."

Cloud chuckled. He glanced up just in time to see Vincent smiling a legitimate smile at the group of them, and he nodded understanding.

Broken things could be fixed. Vincent was living proof.

They were going to be alright.