"You sold the shop?"
Elira nodded, chewing her mouthful of homemade stew. "I had to."
"I still don't understand why." Her father ran a hand over his thinning black hair and sat back in his chair as the two of them reclined at the table in the middle of his sparse kitchen.
Elira swallowed. "Like I said, this friend needs my help."
"That's all well and good, Elly, but what will you do once you've helped your friend?"
Elira frowned a little and took another bite. "I don't know. I'll find something. I just needed some gil, and selling the shop was the quickest way I could see of getting some. Maybe it was a little rash, I admit, but he needed me to..."
Her father leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands in front of him. "He?" he asked, interrupting her. "Your friend is a man?"
Elira smiled and shook her head at her father. "It's not like that, Dad. He's just a friend."
Her father continued to smile expectantly. She waved her fork at him. "Dad, really, he's just a friend."
He withdrew from the table, leaning back again in a relaxed position. "Well, some friendships can grow into something more."
Elira felt a cold surge go through her. She looked into her bowl of stew so her father couldn't see the tense expression on her face. Eagan...was a friend first...before I killed...
"Elira? Are you all right?"
Elira glanced up and tried to smile. "Oh, yeah. Definitely." Her father's gaze was still a little concerned. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell him about the guilt and the pain she'd suffered through for years. She wanted to explain why she hadn't come back to him when he'd urged her to. But she couldn't. It would only make him worry, and the only things he'd be able to say were the overused words: It wasn't your fault. Only Vincent...only Vincent with his way of listening, with his understanding; Vincent was the only one she could trust with the truth. She lay a hand palm down on the table top and he lay his fingers over it. She smiled, a real smile this time. "I've missed you, Dad."
A corner of his mouth quirked up, a gesture Elira recognized so well. "I've missed you, too, El. I've worried about you. How have you been?"
Elira nodded. "Good. I've been good. I loved working at the shop and I made some friends in Neo-Midgar. It's been all right. What about you?"
"Eh." He made a 'so-so' gesture with his hand. "Being a barber has its perks, I suppose, but I guess I've been a little lonely. After you left, I met someone, but she moved out about six months ago, so I've been alone, cooking and cleaning for myself..."
Elira raised her eyebrows. "Stop right there. Don't you dare ask me to move back in."
Her father laughed suddenly. "No, no. I would never do that. You have your own life now." He sobered and leaned forward. "Elira, I know you probably want me to mind my own business, but..." He frowned a little. "Do you think it was a good idea to sell the shop to help this friend? You said it was going well and you loved it. Is it really...well, fair to you, dropping your whole life like that for a friend?"
Elira sighed, smiling at her father's protective instincts. "Dad, I..." She paused and bowed her head. Selling the shop to Benita had been one of the hardest things she'd ever done; it had felt as if she was selling her own child. She'd seen the shop grow over the years; she'd cared for it, nurtured it. But she'd been sure Benita would take the responsibility seriously, running the shop to the best of her abilities; Benita had even said so herself once Elira had convinced her to buy it.
And Elira had known she had to go. If Vincent was leaving, she had to follow him. There was no decision involved. She needed him. And he needed someone he could trust to accompany him to the Forgotten City. A couple of times, she'd stopped to try and think out the consequences of what she was doing, but then she'd realized something. It didn't matter. It didn't matter because, no matter what the consequences, she would end up going anyway. Vincent was the answer to her loneliness and her key to getting over her pain. She would follow him to the mouth of Hell if need be.
And, in truth, she did care about him, though she would scarcely admitted this to herself. It was hard for her not to care about someone who needed her help. Part of the reason she was going was to help release him from the crushing grip of Chaos for his own sake.
Elira raised her eyes to meet her father's. His brow was creased as if he was concentrating on reading his daughter's mind. She smiled a little. She loved him, but he would never understand. "I know what I'm doing, Dad. You don't have to worry about me, okay?"
Her father nodded after a moment. "All right, I'll let up. But tell me, what is it that you're helping this friend with?"
Elira pursed her lips, her mind racing over all of the reasons she could tell him. And then she smiled faintly as it came to her. "I'm helping him find someone."
"Oh, yes? Who? A family member?"
No, himself.
Elira nodded at her father. It was something like that, anyway.
Elira declined her father's offer to let her stay with him as long as she needed to. She knew already that she wouldn't be able to spend a night in what had once been her house. She was no longer Elly; she was Elira. She'd grown up into a person she somehow felt her father might not be proud of if he knew the truth. And if she saw her room, all of the innocence her father had probably preserved would burn her with its accusations. She told her father that she was staying with some friends and that she would try to visit again before she moved on. He nodded as he re-opened his barber shop up for business. He was smiling and laughing as they said good-bye, but Elira could see beyond his manner into the hurt she'd caused with her distance.
I'm sorry, Daddy. You don't know me anymore, and I'm not sure I want you to know me again yet...
She walked without a destination for a few minutes, just glancing around the town, amazed at how much she remembered. It wasn't until she was standing in front of an all-too familiar house that she realized where her feet had unconsciously been taking her, following a route that had been forever branded into her mind.
Eagan's house.
As she stood, looking at it while memories flooded over her, the door opened and a tall, well-built, if pot-bellied, man with graying hair stepped out. He glanced at her a moment before turning to check the mail box. Elira's breath caught in her throat. She was just starting to pivot slowly to walk away when the man did a double take. And then a frown of recognition creased the skin between his eyebrows.
"El?"
Ignoring the sudden impulse to run, Elira faced her ex-employer, her ex-father-in-law. "Hello, Mr. Dayle."
His eyebrows rose suddenly and, his mouth open a little, he walked hesitantly from his door until he was standing in front of her, towering by a few inches. It was a moment before he spoke. "What are you doing here?"
The question wasn't angry or accusing, merely curious. Elira took a breath.
"I was just passing by and I thought I would visit my father."
He nodded a couple of times, his expression unreadable. His eyes traced her face and she felt her cheeks grow hot. The last time she'd seen him had been at Eagan's funeral, his eyes glazed as he'd rigidly supported his pale and silent wife on his arm. Elira had been unable to keep herself from looking at them; finally, she'd ended up meeting Mr. Dayle's eyes. The look of incapacitating loss she'd seen there had been imprinted into her memory. It had been the main reason she'd never returned to Kalm. This meeting had haunted many of her dreams. How did one go about apologizing for causing the death of someone's only child?
Finally, he took a step backward and Elira realized she hadn't been breathing.
"How are you doing, El?"
Elira licked her lips. "I'm fine," she answered, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat. "You?"
Mr. Dayle shrugged casually, a gesture that caught her a little off guard. "I'm enjoying my retirement. I don't know if you noticed but the shop's under new management."
Elira nodded distractedly after a moment. "Oh...yeah, I...I noticed, actually."
He smiled. And then he glanced around with a chuckle. "I'm sorry. Here I am talking to you on the street. Did you want to come in, catch up on old times?"
Elira hesitated, feeling herself start to sweat nervously. "Um, I don't know. Won't your wife mind?"
Mr. Dayle's smile faded slowly and he lowered his head. Elira cringed inwardly, almost knowing what was coming.
"My wife is gone. She died about four years ago."
"I'm sorry." The words were so heartfelt, it was painful.
He shook his head. "No, she'd always been a frail woman. Her health had been deteriorating for months. After Eagan's death, it was almost as if she lost the will to live. I realize now that there were things I could've done to help her, but we'd drifted apart." He shrugged again.
The urge to leave was increasing. She had to leave; she had to leave before the accusations began. "I should be going, Mr. Dayle. I'm sorry, but I..." Her mind raced, but her scattered thoughts were unable to come up with a suitable excuse. "I have to be going."
Mr. Dayle nodded, apparently oblivious to her discomfort. "Yeah. Everybody's busy nowadays. Where are you headed? Costa Del Sol?"
Elira nodded. Yes, yes, answer anything. Just get away. Just leave.
"I think the ferry's scheduled to return in a couple of days for another trip up there. Do you have a place to stay?"
Elira nodded again, a little too quickly.
Mr. Dayle's eyebrows twitched. "Are you all right? You look a little pale."
Elira nodded again. "Just...a little tired, I guess," she said, though she knew that wasn't the reason. She was pale with fear. Fear that he would suddenly throw off the buddy-buddy routine and tell her she deserved to die. She could remember his volatile temper; he and Eagan had been in some heated arguments when Eagan had finally told his father that he wanted to go to Neo-Midgar.
Elira had supported his decision. An accomplice to his death.
"I should let you go then. Well, it's been good to see you, Elly."
"Yeah."
Mr. Dayle nodded and, smiling, turned back to his house. Once the door had closed behind him, Elira made up her mind that she would go back to Vincent. But her body wouldn't obey. She continued to stand completely still, staring at the door as if expecting Eagan's father to come storming out with a rifle.
She'd ruined his life. She'd killed his son, which in turn had killed his wife. He'd probably been forced to sell the shop to allow him to care for her. She'd never meant to hurt anyone. She'd never meant to hurt...anyone...
Dazedly, Elira began her trip back to Cloud and Tifa's house. But, when she got there, she couldn't go in. Vincent would still be asleep; she needed to talk to him. The pain was so bad. She was horrible; she was a monster. Vincent...Vincent would understand. But he was asleep. She wished she was asleep, numb to the pain.
Just to be numb for a little while.
The bar was filling up even though it was only the early evening. Elira discovered why as she found a seat on a stool. Seemingly, the bar was the place where news passed from ear to ear.
"And did you see how it changed when it landed? It looked like it was turning into a human," the stocky man beside her muttered to his neighbour quietly, rubbing unconsciously at a white scar that ran beside his ear.
"Yeah. Maybe there aren't as many monsters as there were before, but the ones that are around now are getting trickier. You know, I can't say I really like that guy, Cloud, but at least he's got the guts to get rid of the nasties that wander into town. You see how he just threw it over his shoulder?"
The man beside her took a noisy gulp of his drink. "I dunno. He's not the only one with guts, you know. I could've killed it."
"It was unconscious, of course you could've killed it," his neighbour scoffed. "And anyway, it doesn't matter who kills it, as long as it's dead. That's all I care about."
"But, what if it isn't dead," the man beside Elira offered suddenly in a hushed tone. "I mean, he took it into his house. He's never done that before."
"Oh!" his neighbour exclaimed in mock horror. "I'll bet he threw it on the kitchen table and his family ate it raw."
"You think so?"
His neighbour laughed. "You're stupid when you're drunk, you know that? He probably figured it would be easier to kill the thing by dumping it in the ocean."
The man nodded dumbly for a second before frowning and mumbling, "But that still don't explain why he took it into..."
His neighbour sighed. "Shutup. I don't know and it doesn't matter. You wanna know, you go ask him. Now, will you let me drink? My wife wants me home in a few minutes."
The man beside her fell silent. After a moment, he glanced at her. And then he squinted, staring. "Hey," he said, pointing an unsteady finger in her direction, "you're that girl who went into his house!"
Elira suddenly felt numerous pairs of eyes on her. She didn't respond to the allegation, staring at her hands on the long bar table. Attention was the last thing she was looking for right now.
The man lowered his finger a little. "Aren't you?" he asked.
She looked at him, but still said nothing.
"Naw, it ain't her," someone in the bar piped up. "Nobody who ever visits that guy comes out to wander the town. They all just hole up in that house."
There were a few murmurs of agreement and the matter was dropped. Inwardly, Elira breathed a sigh of relief. The bartender, a large woman with crew-cut brown hair and a tattoo on one forearm, stopped in front of her. Elira glanced up.
"What'll ya have?"
A drink to calm her nerves. All she needed was one drink.
Vincent forced his eyelids up and glanced around in the darkness, finding himself on a bed in a room that wasn't familiar. However, there was a scent everywhere he recognized, though his hazy mind couldn't place it.
But he was alone. Where was Elira? She'd always been beside him when he'd awoken. Was it possible he'd harmed her and just...couldn't remember? He sat up suddenly and pushed his legs over the side of the mattress. As he stood, though, his knees gave out. He managed to grab ahold of the bed, however, before gravity was able to sprawl him ungraciously on the floor. Pulling himself up, he sat on the mattress, trying to recall the events before his induced sleep.
Though Chaos seemed not to be in his conscious mind right now, perhaps forced out by the sudden deadening of his body, it had been there before. And now Chaos knew. It knew where they were headed. Elira, through no fault of her own, had revealed their secret. He cursed himself for not telling her that Chaos was in his mind, but it had felt so very personal and shameful. Around Avalanche, he hadn't cared if they saw his transformations; perhaps it would make them warier, push them further away. Around Elira...it was different. A part of him he was having less and less luck at repressing didn't want to push her away. A part of him wanted with her what he'd wanted with Lucrecia...
It was irrational, but it was as if he was trying to keep the uglier parts of himself hidden, though she'd already seen him transform, and she already knew his greatest sin.
It was easier to admit that he was keeping things from her because he felt that revealing everything would make him vulnerable. But it wasn't entirely true. The secrets he'd been keeping about himself and his past had, so far, only made him weaker: Lucrecia's rejection and the guilt that followed had left him exposed to Elira; Chaos had stripped him of a good portion of his prized self-control. It was becoming more and more that the telling of his secrets to Elira made him stronger. She hadn't rejected him so far; she hadn't become cold and distant and afraid the way many had before. She'd grown closer, in fact. And, although everything about being a Turk had been based around one being able to take care of oneself, something he'd always excelled at, even in Avalanche while the others had talked of teamwork, he had to acknowledge that it felt good to have someone standing back to back with him. It felt good, especially when the battle wasn't with an external enemy, but an internal one.
And Vincent realized suddenly how much he'd come to rely on Elira already, less than a week into their trip. The mere fact that she, who reminded him somehow of Lucrecia, hadn't run away, gave him strength.
It gave him hope that, perhaps, he wasn't a monster.
That, perhaps, he hadn't been created unlovable...
He frowned, remembering the dart that had gone into Chaos' shoulder. And he remembered using the power of his will to force Chaos away from her. From that point on, things were a little unclear in his mind. He couldn't recall harming Elira, but he couldn't recall not harming her. He stood from the bed and his legs held him. And his eyes fell upon his things that had been thrown haphazardly around an old desk. Close by was a second pack and the tranquilizer gun. Vincent sighed to himself. Elira had been here. He stepped into his boots and shrugged into his coat.
And recognized the scent in the room. A tiny portion of it was from Elira, but the rest filtered back to him from his days in Avalanche: Cloud and Tifa. They had reached Kalm.
The door was ajar. Vincent pulled it the remainder of the way open and winced at the light in the hallway. Looking downward, he began to walk, following his ears. Someone was writing; he could hear a pencil scratching on paper.
The hall emptied into a spacious living room. Vincent stopped to glance around, taking in every aspect of the room in one sweep of his eyes, before settling his gaze on the source of the pencil scratchings.
There was a small brown-haired girl kneeling on the floor in a flannel nightie with her back partially turned to him; she appeared to be scribbling on a piece of paper that lay on top of a coffee table. After a moment, she gave a frustrated grunt and flipped the pencil around in her fingers to use the eraser, madly negating whatever she had previously written.
"Mom," she called out in a whine suddenly, looking up and toward the kitchen, "you made these questions too hard! I don't know how to do the things with the decimals!"
"Yes, you do," came a voice from the kitchen Vincent was able to identify immediately. "We went over it yesterday."
"But, Mom, that was yesterday, and now it's today's night. How am I supposed to remember for that long?"
"You'll have to learn, unless you want me and your father to send you to live in Neo-Midgar for your schooling."
The girl jerked into a straighter kneeling position at this threat and looked back at her paper. After a moment, she spoke again. "But, I don't remember. Can you get Daddy to help me?"
"Daddy's tucking Doria in. I'll help you if you promise to pay attention."
The girl shifted her seating, propping herself up on her hands and stretching her legs out beneath the table, wiggling her feet. "I promise."
"Okay." Footsteps approached the living room from the kitchen and soon Tifa emerged from the doorway, a dish towel draped over one shoulder. Her eyes fell first upon her daughter, but were soon distracted by the dark figure standing motionlessly in the mouth of the hallway. She stopped walking to stare.
She'd changed. Though it was most definitely Tifa, with the same hair she had obviously been loathe to cut and the same wiry build, she wasn't the child she had once been. Her eyes no longer shone with innocent optimism, but seemed to fairly glow with contentment, and her voice had deepened with ten years.
Her lips stretched into a smile.
"My God. Vincent."
The small girl on the floor glanced over her shoulder to look at him and her eyes grew wide. Moving quickly, she shuffled over to her mother and stood, her little mouth hanging open in curiousity and some mistrust. Tifa placed a hand on her daughter's head.
"It's all right, Aeris. This is Vincent, a friend of mine and your dad's."
The girl continued to stare, her eyes moving from Vincent's face to his feet to his face again and again.
"Aeris? Aren't you going to say hello?"
The girl glanced distractedly at her mother before turning back to Vincent. "H-hello," she stuttered softly.
Vincent nodded his head in greeting. The girl continued to stare and he realized her eyes had found the hand of his prosthetic peeking out of the cuff of his sleeve. An uncomfortable silence followed.
Tifa cleared her throat. "Well, um, Aeris, why don't you go tell your father that Vincent is awake, hmm?"
Aeris didn't respond for a moment.
"Aeris?"
The girl turned her head to look at her mother, her mouth still hanging open. And then she blinked. "Oh. Okay." After stealing one more glance at Vincent, she made her way into the kitchen. The thumping of feet on the stairs was heard moments later, along with muffled cries of, "Daddy! Daddy!"
Tifa smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, Vincent. She didn't mean to offend you by staring. She's just curious."
Vincent shook his head faintly. "No need to apologize, I was not offended."
Tifa stepped around the coffee table, but came no further than that, tracing his form with her eyes. "You look...exactly the same," she marveled.
Vincent didn't respond.
Tifa cleared her throat again. "Well, Barret says you're living in Neo-Midgar. Or is it you were living in Neo-Midgar?"
"I was," Vincent stated solemnly. And then he asked, "Do you know where I could find Elira?"
Tifa frowned a little. "You mean that woman with the red hair? The last time I saw her, she was headed for the room you were in. I suppose she could've slipped out while we were eating."
Vincent wondered why she would've gone out of the house. And he realized that she'd never mentioned where she'd lived, where she'd met Eagan. It could've been Kalm as easily as another sector of Neo-Midgar. Perhaps she had family here; perhaps she had Eagan's family here.
He frowned inwardly at this thought. Had she gone to visit them? That sounded almost like an invitation for pain. Were he able to recall the identity of his family, he would not be inclined to see them. Even if he was to discover suddenly that Lucrecia was still alive somewhere, he would hesitate to go to her. The risk of agony at seeing the blame in her eyes, at hearing her voice her accusations would be too much. Did Elira think she was so strong? Maybe she was. The strength of the will he'd seen in her had often surprised him.
But their pain had ended up being so the same. Would the effects be the same on the both of them? If so, what would he do in this situation? He thought back to the fateful night Lucrecia had told him she didn't want to be around him anymore. The pain of his slowly warming heart being torn in two had been unreal. The unbelieving shock had staggered him; him, Vincent Valentine, the Turk who hadn't flinched once at the sight of blood spurting from a bullet wound. And he'd gone to get very drunk.
The bar was easily distinguished from the other buildings of the town; the familiar sound of rowdy men and the smell of alcohol and cigar smoke made it almost impossible to miss. Vincent opened the door and stepped in, doing his best not to wrinkle his nose as the unpleasant scents multiplied tenfold. The time after the incident with Lucrecia had been the first and last time he'd entered a bar with the intention of staying for a drink; the closeness of the air and the press of bodies had always made him uncomfortable.
No one looked up as he entered. Vincent surveyed the room quickly but thoroughly. There was a heated card game progressing at one corner table, and one other table was occupied. A heavy-set woman behind the counter was wiping a glass mug clean with a cloth. Not many of the people in the building were drunk, Vincent realized; it was too early.
But one person was definitely drunk, mumbling and sobbing quietly to themself as they lay, their left cheek cushioned in their arms which were folded on top of the bar.
It was Elira.
She was alone at the bar except for a man who sat to her left. Vincent approached her and, after briefly peering at her tear-stained face and her slowly moving lips as she murmured incoherently, put out his right hand and shook her shoulder gently.
"Elira?"
She opened unfocused eyes, glassy with tears. She inhaled slowly, blinking lazily. A dewdrop of wetness escaped to flow down the bridge of her nose. "I...I didn't...mean...to," she whispered unsteadily.
Vincent sat on the stool to her right and stared into her eyes until her pupils centered on his. And then she gave a twitching frown. "Vinchent?" she slurred.
Vincent couldn't be angry at her for her irresponsible act, even though it would probably set them back half a day as she recovered from the hangover she would undoubtedly have in the morning. The pain was evident on her face; she'd probably seen no other way of dulling it. He wondered fleetingly if she would've come to talk to him had he been awake. The thought made him feel good somehow, but he thrust the feeling away; the feeling of being needed by someone, wanted by someone, was something he didn't need cluttering up his mind. Not now, when there was so much else going on in his head.
Not now when it would be more than a bad idea to try to do something about it.
"Elira," he said again, if just to keep her attention, "can you walk?"
Elira's frown deepened as if in inebriated confusion, giving her face an almost comical look. "Of courshe I can," she asserted, pushing herself up from the bar. And then she stood, wavering for a few seconds in spot, blinking as her body gradually adjusted to the change. As she took her first step, however, she stumbled. Already prepared for such a development, Vincent was able to steady her before she tripped over her own feet and fell to the floor. She gave him a grateful, if drunken, smile, and giggled.
"I...I think I'm a little drunk," she admitted thickly.
A few of the people in the bar were now looking at Vincent and Elira, watching more because nothing else was going on than from any real interest. There was one man, however, whose glazed eyes were opened wide with fear and fixed on Vincent. He was the occupant of the stool at the counter beside the one Elira had been seated on, a slightly overweight fellow with a white scar on the right side of his face. Used to such stares, Vincent ignored him.
Although the contact made him a little uncomfortable, Vincent put Elira's listless left arm over his neck and his own right hand around her waist. And then, starting slowly, he began to walk toward the door, waiting with each step for Elira to put one foot in front of the other.
Because of the relatively small size of Kalm, cars were nearly unknown here. Vincent supported Elira as they made their way across the darkened square, almost completely empty at this time of the evening. The air here was very different from what he had gotten used to in Neo-Midgar. There were no factories to pollute the atmosphere, no vehicle exhaust to be carried on the wind.
Vincent found himself reminded of Nibelheim.
He and Lucrecia had taken some evening walks once upon a time, talking easily about things long since forgotten. He'd been tempted at points to reach out and take her small hand in his, or to slip an arm around her waist, but he had never followed through on the impulse, worried by what her reaction would be. He'd been so naive with women, though he couldn't say he had been innocent considering that he'd made a living out of death. Maybe he was still naive, he realized, grimacing at the distracting feel of the small waist beneath his firm grip.
Elira stumbled suddenly on her own feet and gave a choked cry. She didn't fall, however, because of Vincent's hold on her. Vincent attempted to hoist her back to her feet, but she couldn't put the soles of her sneakers flat on the pavement again, her knees curling up in the shock the near-fall had caused. Not willing to wait in the mire of his memories for her to calm down, he put his prosthetic arm under her knees and picked her up, holding her gently to his chest. She made a small noise at the sudden movement but didn't struggle.
He knocked at the door of Cloud's house with a knee and Tifa opened the door for him. He ignored all of her worried questions as she followed him, her eyes secured on Elira's prone form; he just kept walking until he reached the hallway. Tifa stopped following at that point, seemingly resigned to not getting an answer at the moment. Vincent entered the room he had awakened in and, closing the door behind him with a foot, approached the bed and lay Elira carefully onto the mattress. She opened eyes weary with too much drink and gave a soft murmur.
"I...didn't mean to...hurt anybody..."
Vincent stood over her a moment before resolving that he would attempt to make her comfortable, the way she had when he'd drugged himself in his apartment. Moving to the foot of the bed, he undid the laces on her sneakers and pulled them off of her limp feet, dropping them quietly to the floor. And then, after a heartbeat's hesitation, he came around to sit beside her on the mattress. Lifting her into a seated position gently with his right hand, he began to pull her coat off of her shoulders with his metal fingers.
Elira gave a little moan and leaned into him, resting her forehead on his shoulder. He froze for a second at her closeness before continuing. Once he'd maneuvered the material over her shoulders, it fell to her elbows. Vincent was preparing to draw the sleeves over her hands when she lifted her head unsteadily and lay her cheek against his. It was wet with newly shed tears.
She nuzzled her nose against his face tenderly. Vincent closed his eyes as a shiver went through him. Trembling fingers slipped automatically over her shoulder blades, pulling her closer. She brushed his skin with trembling lips. He took an unsteady breath through his nose. Her skin smelled so sweet; he lowered his head and pressed his mouth gently to her neck.
And then he realized what he was doing. He sat up and moved away from Elira in fear of what she was able to stir within him. She teetered to one side as he withdrew the hand that had been holding her up, but her own reflexes kicked in and she caught herself with a hand on the blankets, her coat stretching at the movement of her arm. The dulled expression on her face brought home what he knew already in the back of his mind; she wasn't aware of her own actions. She'd merely reacted to his touch; perhaps she'd been looking for some physical comfort.
Searching for the comfort they'd found in each other on a night that seemed so long ago in his apartment in Neo-Midgar.
But he wasn't the one to give it. He was cursed...
And he was weak; she made his defenses crumble, the way Lucrecia had. She made his apathetic heart flutter.
Vincent stood and, without looking back, left the room, nearly crashing into Cloud and Tifa who were waiting in the hallway outside. They looked like they wanted to ask some questions, but he didn't want to answer. Not right now. He needed to leave for awhile. Shoving past them, he went to the door.
He walked quickly. The fresh air soothed his burning mind and body at first, but his memories had been waiting for him, some of Lucrecia, some of Elira. He walked beyond the last house, off of the pavement and over the wild grass that grew around the town. Even when the hissing voice in his head returned, he didn't stop striding forward.
will never have her, Vincssssent. You are nothing more than a killing-machine trying to have a heart. But machinessss don't have heartssss, Vincssssent.
Vincent said nothing.
Why do you let her sssstay with you? Chaos asked, its voice changing from the mocking tone into something sober, as if it was giving advice. It can only lead to more pain. Sssshe could never love you. And you are rissssking her death by allowing her to follow you.
Vincent continued to say nothing.
Sssshe hassss nothing to do with ussss, Vincssssent. You sssshould ssssend her away before the worsssst befallssss her.
Vincent kept his pace heedlessly. "I need her to help me rid myself of you."
You are a fool! Chaos screamed, its voice again becoming the scornful hiss Vincent recognized. I promisssse you that sssshe will die! I will gouge her heart out and eat it! And then I will crussssh you! You will regret ever taking up this futile journey!
Vincent was expecting to have to battle off a transformation and he cursed himself for not taking any of the tranquilizers with him. But Chaos withdrew, seemingly seeing no reason to emerge into the open fields. Vincent was content to have escaped the encounter unscathed.
But the words of Chaos still rang in his head with every step. And with each echo, another tiny seed of doubt was planted within him, another brick was replaced in the wall Elira had been tearing down ever since the first invitation to her apartment.
And Vincent kept walking.