Vincent sat looking at the unfinished engraving job on the rifle he'd been working at before he and Elira had gone to the hospital for her ultrasound, and ultimately his surgery. Unfinished, but beautiful and intricate. And likely never to be completed, at least not with the same quality. Though it had to be finished nonetheless. He sighed, but didn't move to pick it up.
The last few weeks had been stressful for him. He'd been unable to work (actually, Elira had demanded that he stay out of the store) because the reopened wound of his left arm had been healing. And then, when he'd finally been fitted with another prosthetic -- this one metal, too, though smaller than the claw and covered in a kind of skin-colored latex -- the doctor had suggested that he wait a week or so to allow himself to get used to it before going back to work.
As he'd expected, the new prosthetic was much more difficult to control than his previous metal arm had been. Even small things like getting dressed were now a chore and they took him much longer to do. So far, it had been very frustrating. Elira had done her best to keep herself from asking him if he wanted any help; perhaps she'd sensed his mood, or the doctor had told her to let him do things himself. Either way, she was leaving him be to learn how to do everything all over again, thus making sure he taught himself how to use the arm and saving him no little embarrassment.
But how could he save himself the embarrassment of learning to forge guns again in front of his employees? They all seemed to be doing their best not to watch him as if trying to give him room to make mistakes, but he didn't want to have to make mistakes. He'd been very, very good at everything he'd done...up until now. The role of the Turks had come second nature to him, and forging guns in Elira's previous shop had been as easy as if he'd been doing it all his life. He'd always had amazing reflexes and an ability to make reality out of his ideas or the ideas of others: in the Turks he'd had the reputation of being able to carry out plans, despite the occasional complication; in Elira's shop in Neo-Midgar he had been able, with very little effort and no training, to put the make and design in his mind onto the gun. His fingers, his hands, his entire body had always obeyed him exactly, even when he'd had the claw. If no one and nothing else, he'd always been able to fall back on himself, on his own ability to protect and sustain himself. But now...now that cursed claw had dealt its final betrayal and, after making sure he'd made it an irrevocable part of his life, created circumstances that required its removal. The final thing he'd always been able to fall back on, himself, was now incomplete; not every part of him would obey him now. He felt vulnerable. He felt useless.
Elira entered the forge from the front room and Vincent looked up despondently from the half-engraved rifle before him on the table. He watched her glance around the room as if she'd come to check on everyone, but from the way her gaze fell quickly on him he knew she'd really come in to see how he was doing on his first day back at work. He suddenly felt a little angry that Elira thought it necessary to monitor him, though, he realized at the same moment, she was right to. He'd been at this table for over an hour doing nothing but moping to himself. Sighing loudly, he stood and removed the face guard. Elira's expression fell a little as she took in her husband and his un-started work. Vincent could almost feel the concerned confusion radiating off of her as she moved to the table. Before she could ask him what was wrong, he whispered so that the employees wouldn't hear him, "I'm sorry, Elira. I can't do this."
Elira pursed her lips as if her fears had been confirmed. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly.
Vincent sighed in frustration. "This," he said, indicating the unfinished rifle. "I can't do this anymore without my..." He fell silent, shaking his head. He couldn't even say it. Without my arm...nothing's going to be the same. Dropping the face shield to the table, he turned from his wife and, ignoring the sudden attentive stares of his employees, walked up the stairs to the apartment. Once inside, he shut the door firmly and headed for the bedroom. He closed this door too and sat on his side of the bed, massaging his forehead with his right hand. After a moment, he looked at the new latex prosthetic. He tried to flex the fingers; there was a buzz of machinery working as the hand moved slowly to comply. Filled with an unexpected hatred for it, he ripped it from the stump on his left arm and threw it viciously against the wall. It impacted with a loud smack and then fell to the carpet with a dull thud. Vincent was a little disappointed by the fact that it didn't break. He would've stood to inflict some obvious damage on it but his anger was ebbing away, leaving in its wake a feeling of hollow dejection. Slipping out of his boots, he lay down on the bed, trying not to look at what was left of his unfinished limb.
Once she'd put Kade, the employee they'd hired almost the first day they'd opened, in the front room, Elira ventured upstairs after her husband. After his initial response in the hospital at losing the prosthetic, Elira had been waiting for some kind of breakdown like this. Over the last couple of days Vincent had been pushing himself to learn to use the new prosthetic as if trying to get it to work like his original one had and she'd known that his frustration would overpower him eventually. It was obvious that the new arm would never work like the one before it had and he would have to accept that. But, because he was Vincent, she knew it would take him a little while to get used to the change.
There was no sound in the apartment. Following her intuition, Elira headed for the bedroom.
He was there on the bed, lying on his back with his right arm over his eyes. His left arm was a stump again and it took Elira a moment to locate his prosthetic as it lay on the floor against the wall. She walked over and picked it up. Vincent didn't give any sign that he had noticed her presence though Elira knew he wasn't asleep. He was an insomniac by nature she'd realized early on and sometimes it took him an hour or more to fall asleep at night.
Putting the metal prosthetic onto the night table, Elira climbed up onto her side of the bed and lay down beside her husband, putting her arms behind her head as if she was cloud-watching. After a moment, she turned to look at him.
Vincent sighed, his chest rising and falling conspicuously. And then he took his arm down from his face, revealing troubled gray eyes in an always impassive face. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and unguarded for the first time in weeks. "I'll never be able to forge guns again," he stated as if it was an unquestionable fact.
Elira pursed her lips and looked back to the ceiling. "Never say never," she replied quietly.
"I don't see how you can say that," Vincent retorted after a small pause. "The new arm is slow to respond and the fingers don't grip well...it will never be the same."
Elira glanced at her husband and then snaked her hand down to entwine her fingers with his. "Maybe not, but a talent like yours won't have disappeared entirely," she assured him.
"It can have if it's like I've lost my arm all over again," he said in some frustration. He took a breath. "I'm sorry, Elira. It's just that...well, I'd gotten so used to the arm, as if I'd had it all my life. Now that it's gone...and Chaos is gone..." He paused again and Elira watched his eyebrows furrow into a frown as he attempted to put words to thought. She turned until her body was facing him, suddenly feeling a little unprepared. She'd thought this was just about the prosthetic, but with the mention of Chaos she realized that what he was feeling probably went much deeper than just that one physical change. And why wouldn't it? His entire way of life had been turned completely around, from cursed to blessed, from being alone to being married with a child on the way. She held his hand tighter, urging him to continue.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "Well, you see Elira, I...I'm not sure...I'm not sure how to say this. It's not that I wish things hadn't changed from what they were before...it's that...well..."
Elira had to bite her tongue to keep herself from supplying one of her own thoughts. She had to let him struggle through this by himself, let him come to the root of his problem on his own. The best way to get him to face it was to let him hear it out of his own mouth.
"I just feel as if...as if when everything changed I was left behind, as if I didn't change with it. I'm not the man I was in Avalanche, if you could have called me a man then, but neither am I the man I was in the Turks, although then I was completely human, at least in body. I...I'm someone I've never been before. Do you understand?"
Elira nodded quickly, though sincerely.
Vincent seemed encouraged by her comprehension and he began to speak a little quicker, as if her understanding was fueling his own. "Things have changed so much from those times. Sometimes, as I've said before, it's hard for me to believe things turned out this way in the end when I believed so strongly that the rest of my existence was going to be tortured and bleak. Sometimes I feel as if I'm watching someone else's life." He trailed off and became silent, staring blankly at the ceiling, though Elira could tell that his mind was racing. Suddenly, he turned to her, his beseeching eyes almost foreign in the face of a man who before had always found it so hard to ask for help with anything. "Who am I, Elira? What kind of man do you see when you look at me?"
Elira was surprised by her sudden loss for words when before she'd had to chew the insides of her mouth to keep herself quiet. She raised a hand to his cheek and was washed away by an unexpected rush of love and the need to take the confusion and pain from Vincent and throw them far, far away as he leaned into her touch.
"Vincent...when I look at you...I see the man I love so much. I see my soul mate. I see the man who rescued me from myself and gave me his trust, and his love, the two most precious things in the world." She ran her fingertips up over his temple and began to stroke some of his hair away from his forehead. "I see a man who's been through so many hurtful things in his life, and yet had the strength of spirit to continue living, to risk the pain of life again...to be with me." She found herself having to blink back the pressure of tears behind her eyes. Swallowing the inopportune lump in her throat, she continued. "I see the man who asked me to marry him, and who helped me set up a weapons shop for our future..." She brought their joined hands to her belly. "...and the future of our daughter." She squeezed his hand gently and gave a watery smile. "That's who I see."
Vincent's features softened as the expression of confusion melted from his face. Elira felt as if she'd made the crucial first crack in the wall of questions and self-doubt he'd likely been building around himself since the City of the Ancients. She gripped his hand and felt the control over her tears begin to slip. "I love you so much," she murmured.
"I love you, too, Elira." A moment later Elira found herself within the circle of Vincent's nearly one-armed embrace, her head nestled against his throat. Sighing, she let the silent tears she'd been holding back trail down her cheeks.
Neither of them said anything for a few minutes until Elira finally stirred. Moving slowly out of Vincent's arms, she wiped her face dry with her fingers. Vincent watched her until she'd finished.
"How is that I make you cry so often?" he asked abruptly.
Elira laughed thickly. "You don't make me cry often," she argued. "I've always been a little weepy, I guess. Sometimes it doesn't take much." She kissed his chin affectionately. "How is it that I make you laugh so rarely?"
Vincent shrugged. "I've never been one to laugh much. You should know."
Elira made an affirmative noise. She did know, though she'd never asked him why. It was likely, considering his past, that he'd just never had much opportunity to laugh out of joy or because something struck him as funny, and so had learned to live without it.
There was a short silence. Elira fiddled with the hem of her shirt for a few moments before starting again on the real reason Vincent had retreated to their bedroom. "So...what do you think? Do you think you need some more time off, or do you maybe want to give the new prosthetic a little more practice before declaring to all the world that your forging days are over?"
Vincent reacted predictably, already touchy about the fact that he'd had to take any time off at all. Elira had to smother a smile as he propped himself up on his elbows and said, "Perhaps I could give it a little more practice."
Elira nodded at his wise decision and moved along the mattress until she was able to ease herself into a standing position on the floor. She was just about to start heading back downstairs when the prosthetic she'd placed on the night table caught her eye. Smiling in amusement, she picked it up and glanced at Vincent who himself was getting ready to head back to the forge. "Oh, I found this on the floor when I came in. Do you have any idea how it ended up there?"
Elira was delighted to see the sheepish blush creep up into Vincent's cheeks.
"Well, I..." He cleared his throat and glanced at Elira. She grinned to show him she was kidding. A corner of his mouth twitched. "I will say, it is resilient to a fault."
Elira nodded, chuckling.
Vincent approached her in a few quick strides and, taking the prosthetic from her, reattached it easily. Elira's laughter dissolved into a smile. "What if we just started this day all over again?" she suggested.
Vincent raised an eyebrow. "I think we should," he agreed after a moment.
Elira's smile widened and she moved toward the door. "Then, I guess we should get down to the forge. The day's got quite a head start on us."
The engraving was left to other employees for awhile as Vincent took the time to relearn how to forge a gun. With some practice, and a little accepted help from Elira and the others in the shop, especially Rory who had been in awe of Vincent almost since he had met him and, Elira suspected, had adopted Vincent a little as a father figure, Vincent's talent began to reassert itself despite the new prosthetic. He even began to feel that maybe a change, even a drastic one, couldn't alter his life that much and, perhaps, was nothing to fear after all.
Until, five days before she was due, Elira came stumbling into the forge from the front room saying she thought it was time. Vincent thought he was doing fine until Elira pointed out in the apartment, as he tripped over her suitcase by the door for the third time, that he was a wreck. Fortunately, his new prosthetic gave him an excuse not to have to drive to the hospital and Rory offered immediately since it was his car.
It didn't take the hospital staff very long to put Elira into a gown and situate her in one of the rooms. There was only one nurse with them as Elira suffered through the contractions, clutching Vincent's hand as if it was the last tie to her sanity. An hour passed slowly as Vincent, dressed in a green gown much like the nurse's and dabbing Elira's sweating brow with a wet cloth as instructed, found himself torn between worrying about his wife and fearing what changes a baby might bring into their lives. By the third hour, he could feel himself becoming mentally and emotionally exhausted. The air in the room had filled with moisture and he was starting to think that if he sat in the position he'd been holding at Elira's side any longer all of his muscles were going to spasm. But he couldn't leave her. They no longer talked between contractions; all Elira had strength left for was lying back and breathing, preparing for the next contraction. Each groan, each terrible muffled scream out of her mouth, made him break out in a cold sweat despite the heat around him. He kept glancing at the nurse as if hoping there was something she could do, but the nurse seemed unfazed by Elira's discomfort as if she saw it every day. It was only as the fourth hour ticked by that the room became busier, as the time of birth grew closer and closer. The doctor even made an appearance, though only to say that he'd be back in an hour or so to see how she was doing. Vincent was starting to get the unhealthy feeling that, if no one did anything soon to help Elira, he was going to have to injure somebody.
It was good thing Benita showed up when she did.
Benita was just as short, plump, and iron-willed as Vincent remembered her. Before she'd even been in the room an entire ten seconds, she was pulling a water-bottle out of one of the half dozen duffel bags she had with her and putting the plastic straw up to Elira's parched lips. Elira drank gratefully and regained a little strength. It was then that Benita turned to Vincent, announced that he needed a break, and nearly pushed him out of the swinging doors.
Vincent took off the uncomfortable green gown he'd had to wear and let himself cool down for a few minutes before he went in search of something to drink. There was a water fountain down the hall. Vincent made his way over and, hearing stiff joints crack and pop as he lowered himself down, took a long drink. A moment after he'd stood again, leaning wearily against the fountain, a familiar voice call his name.
"Mr. Valentine, sir?"
He turned his head and saw the unmistakable freckled face of Rory peering at him from a waiting room to his left. He walked to the open doorway and asked, "What are you still doing here?"
Rory smiled, seemingly unaffected by the tone of Vincent's question. "I thought I'd just stick around in case someone needed a lift home, or anything." He scratched the back of his head through his tousle of brown hair distractedly and Vincent got the distinct impression that the real reason he'd stayed was because he was worried about Elira, too. Realizing he wanted some company, Vincent entered the room and lowered himself into one of the padded chairs. The seat was much more comfortable than the plastic one he'd been sitting in by Elira's hospital bed and he allowed himself to lean tiredly into the cushions.
"So, uh, how's Mrs. Valentine?" Rory asked eventually.
Vincent cleared his throat, determined to be as objective as possible. "I gather from what the nurses say that she's progressing well and the baby's birth should take place in no more than an hour."
"Good." Rory nodded. After a moment, he started and sat up in his chair. "Oh, and did Benita arrive all right?"
Vincent glanced up in surprise. Rory grinned suddenly, looking sort of proud of himself as his ears reddened. "Yeah, I called her from the forge while you and Elira were in your apartment. Elira gave me the number about a month ago and told me to call her in Neo-Midgar before you left for the hospital."
Vincent frowned a little. "How did she arrive so quickly? It's only been four hours..."
"She took a helicopter," Rory interrupted excitedly. "I guess Barret knows one of the Head Council members and was able to pull a few strings."
Reeve, Vincent realized immediately. He shook his head a little. No matter how hard he'd tried to distance himself from all of the members of Avalanche, they were still a part of his life, albeit a small one. Surprisingly, this thought comforted him a little.
There were a few minutes of silence. Rory fidgeted uncomfortably. "Uh...you know," he began falteringly, scratching the back of his head again and staring at the floor, "sitting here reminds me of when my baby brother Arick was born."
Vincent glanced up at the young man. Rory smiled a little. "Yeah," he continued hesitantly. "That was when my step-dad was alive. He was pacing around a waiting room like this one for hours in front of me and my sister when my mom was giving birth."
Vincent sat up a little, his interest unexpectedly piqued. "He was nervous?" he prompted.
Rory nodded emphatically. "Yeah. But there were complications with Arick's birth and my mom had to have surgery to get the baby out." He scratched at the back of his head again and moved to lean his elbows on his knees. "I was kind of nervous, too, I guess," he admitted. "For my mom, of course, but also 'cause at the time I didn't really want a baby brother." He clasped and unclasped his hands, staring at the carpet. "I guess I didn't want things to change."
Vincent frowned, realizing that he felt the same way. "Did things change significantly when your brother was born?" he asked after a pause when it looked like Rory might not continue.
Rory started, looking up at Vincent as if he had forgotten his presence. "Oh. Oh, yeah, a lot of things changed." He nodded to himself for a moment. "But, you know, it wasn't all bad. It was hard when my step-dad died; my mom and sister were working a lot of the time and I had to take care of Arick when I got home from school every day. But, except for changing his diapers and having to listen to him cry..." Rory made a face. "...it was a lot of fun. I played with him and fed him, and I heard his first word and helped him take his first step." He chuckled a little. "His first birthday was a blast. He was so excited about the balloons and the cake..." He trailed off. "You know, it was almost like reliving the birthday parties I'd had when I was little. My mom even said once that having kids is like watching reruns of your own childhood."
Vincent raised an eyebrow. What if you couldn't remember your childhood? He wondered for a moment what it would be like to experience childhood second-hand through his own child.
But a moment was all he was given to wonder about it for a few seconds later a nurse appeared in the doorway.
"Excuse me, Mr. Valentine?"
Vincent glanced up.
The nurse smiled at him. From the surgeon's mask hanging around her throat and the way wisps of her hair had fallen out from under her cap, Vincent guessed she was one of the women who had been in the room with Elira.
"We didn't expect it to be over so quickly," she began, brushing some of her hair back belatedly, "but your daughter seems to be an impatient one. Your wife is holding her now if you'd like to go and see her."
Vincent felt a knot of tension build suddenly in his stomach. He looked back to Rory as he stood from his chair on suddenly weak legs. Rory was beaming.
"Congratulations, Mr. Valentine, sir," he said warmly.
Vincent nodded distractedly. He was about to let the nurse lead him to his wife when Rory called his attention once more. Vincent turned in the doorway.
Rory's smile turned a little timid and he rubbed his hands together for a moment before speaking. "Um...this is probably the last thing you want to hear from a kid like me, but...don't be nervous. My step-dad was, but as soon as he saw my baby brother..." Rory faltered into silence and shrugged a little self-consciously. "Well, you'll understand when you get there."
Vincent almost wanted to ask what Rory meant, but the nurse was already walking away down the hall. Feeling confused, and still somewhat unsure, he followed after her.
He wasn't in the door two seconds before he was being strapped into another green gown and its accessories. He bore it with a tolerance that surprised even himself, anxious and restless as he already was, both a little afraid and a little impatient to get this over with. Benita, whom he noticed had also been forced to wear a gown, was standing to the right of the bed, her normally indomitable face streaked with tears. Elira was propped up on the bed, the white sheets pulled up to her waist. In her arms she held a bundle of pink blankets.
Elira looked up as Vincent approached, her face flushed and her cheeks also wet with tears. The first thing he noticed, though, was the amazing smile on her face that, he had a feeling, she wouldn't have been able to suppress if she'd wanted to.
"Vincent," Elira choked out, crying and laughing at the same time. "Our baby."
Benita moved to give Vincent room to stand by his wife. Once he was at her side, she grabbed his right hand in her left one and held it tightly as if she could transfer her feelings to him through touch.
"Vincent," she said, looking up at him, her eyes glistening with new tears, "this is your daughter, Pegatha Rose Valentine." She glanced from him to the pink blanket. "Pegatha, meet your father." As she spoke, she peeled the cover down a bit so that Vincent could see his baby.
Miniature red fists rubbed at a scrunched face as the light from the fluorescent lights above poured down into sensitive eyes. And then the little hands were taken away and Vincent caught his first glimpse of this new small stranger.
Her face was chubby and shaped almost like a heart, with her mother's cheeks and chin. But her eyes were unmistakably gray and the tiny wisps of hair already curling up from her head were raven black.
Our baby. Emotions swirled around in Vincent's mind unchecked, and although he could still feel that nervousness fluttering in the pit of his stomach, it was now mixed with an odd assortment of excitement, fear, and awe. Rory had been right to tell him he'd understand when he saw his daughter; no words the young man could've used would've come close to explaining this feeling. It was like a rush of adrenaline to the system, and Vincent felt unable to keep still. He looked up at Elira and saw the feeling mirrored in her gaze.
"My God..." he said breathlessly, sinking into the chair that was still by the bed.
Elira gave a shrill, exhilarated giggle and broke into a fresh batch of tears. Vincent watched for a moment before he took his hand from her grip and began to brush the tears away, almost shaking with the need to touch her and make sure this was all happening. She gave another giggle, this one a little shy, and looked back down at their daughter.
Pegatha was making little noises as if feeling left out. Elira brought her arms up and kissed the tiny face gently. "My precious little baby," she whispered. "My precious little Pegatha."
Vincent clenched his hand to keep his fingers from trembling and then reached forward to touch his daughter's face, and then the still damp tufts of hair over those great and curious gray eyes, so innocent, so trusting. He then touched a finger to one of the diminutive palms and watched in wonder as the tiny fingers closed around it, both in an act of complete acceptance and assurance of the love and protection surrounding her.
An unexpected flash of light made both Vincent and Elira start in surprise. Benita, now standing at the foot of the bed, took the camera down from her eye and smiled. "Jus' takin' a picture of the lovely family, tha's all," she explained.
Family. The first family Vincent could recall. This was it. And it was the most precious thing he'd ever had in his life.
As he leaned forward to kiss Elira, not caring who observed them, he wondered how in the world he'd ever thought in his youth that he could've survived alone, without this, for the rest of his life.