Since Vincent's arrival, she had decided to close the shop every day between twelve and one to allow her staff a lunch break. So the forge should've been empty.
But Vincent never seemed to need to eat.
He sat at the table closest to the furnace, polishing the cylinder of a revolver he'd finished that morning as he waited for the new molds he'd put over the coals to harden. As Elira took a step through the doorway, he looked up sharply, as if unhappy about the intrusion, even though it was her shop and she had a right to go anywhere she wanted. Elira gave him her best smile. He merely looked at her a moment longer before returning to his work.
"You know, you don't have to stay here. There're another forty minutes left of the lunch hour."
"I'm not hungry," he said quietly without looking up.
She shrugged. "You don't have to eat. It's just a time to get away from here for a little while. A break."
He didn't answer, seemingly engrossed in what he was doing.
Elira carefully made her way over to him and with slow movements, as if afraid of scaring him away, pulled a stool over to sit across the table from him. He stopped for a fraction of second as she put her elbows on the table, looking at him, but then continued polishing the cylinder as if it required his full attention.
"I know of a neat little cafe a few doors down," Elira started after a moment, watching as he put the cylinder down and started running the cloth along the barrel of the gun. "They serve fresh donuts and cappucinnos with chocolate sprinkles. Did you want to check it out with me?"
He placed the cloth and barrel onto the tabletop and, using his metal fingers, pulled the molding tray out of the furnace. After inspecting the parts, he slid the tray back over the coals, dipping the fingertips of his prosthetic into a barrel of water to his left. "No, thank you."
Elira sighed quietly through her nose. This was not progressing as well as she had hoped. Contrary to her earlier idea of him, he seemed quite content with the distance he had placed between himself and others, not unwilling to make the first step as she had first believed, just unwilling altogether. And despite her previous claims that he had a right to his privacy, she found herself, like Terry, becoming a little indignant.
"I don't bite, you know," she said, adding a slight edge to her good-humored tone.
Vincent flicked his eyes up and then back down before resuming his labor on the barrel of the revolver. "I know."
Elira sighed again, containing the temper Terry was always bugging her about. "Well, then what's the problem? Am I a personality type you can't stand? Is it my breath? What?"
He put the revolver barrel and cloth down again to check on the molds. Deciding that they were ready, he placed the molding tray on the burner pad and removed a cylinder piece that looked like an exact replica of the one he had been polishing. After glancing over it once, he dipped it into the barrel of water. The cylinder hissed and a trail of steam curled upward slowly, encircling his arm.
"It's not you. It's me."
Elira frowned. What kind of an answer was that? Torn between anger and pity, two of the emotions he seemed to evoke most often in her, she was about to demand what he meant by his cryptic response when the bell over the front door chimed. Elira looked over her shoulder as Terry entered the forge, a smile on his face. The smile faded, though, when he saw Elira leaning on the table across from Vincent. Elira sat up quickly, smoothing down her shirt even though it didn't need it.
"Hey," Terry greeted them in a somewhat subdued voice.
"Hey, Ter. What are you doing back so early?" Elira cursed inwardly herself for asking him that. If he wanted to come back early from his lunch break, it was his choice. And, just by asking him, she had given him reason to suspect that there was something going on between she and Vincent. She didn't want him thinking that. Maybe she didn't want to date him, but that didn't mean she wanted to make him jealous or hurt his feelings. He was still one of her closest friends.
"What, you want me to leave?" Terry asked, chuckling, though Elira could see that her question had, indeed, pained him.
"No, of course not. I was just wondering."
"Ah, of course. Oh, by the way, I bought you one of those mocha coffee-things you like so much." He raised a plastic lidded styrofoam cup into the air. "Still warm."
Elira smiled and approached him, taking the drink from his hand. "Thanks, Ter. You're so sweet."
He grinned and shrugged. "Ah, hey. You know. Just thinking of my favorite girl." He sauntered over to the lathe where he'd been fashioning a piece for the long wooden barrel of a rifle that morning. As he readied the lathe to continue his work, Elira heard him say, "Hey there, Vince. How're ya doing?"
Vincent didn't answer.
"Oh, good," Terry proceeded as if Vincent had made a reply. "How am I? Oh, I'm fine, too, thanks for asking."
Elira frowned again, this time at Terry's behavior. What was it about men? "Leave him alone, Ter," she found herself saying.
Terry didn't turn to look at her, but said nothing more. Heaving a sigh of pent up irritation, she removed the lid of her drink before taking a sip. It was still warm; the heat and flavor soothed her a little. Nursing the drink in her hand, she walked back into the front room of her shop.
By the time one o'clock rolled around, the other employees were back from lunch and the shop was ready to re-open.
Elira was just finishing up the order forms when the bell over the door sounded. The heavy clomp of boots was heard as a tall, well-built, dark-skinned man entered. Elira's smile transformed into a wide grin as she recognized him. He laughed.
"Hey there, sweet-thang!"
Elira did her best to make her expression admonishing. "Barret, you know I hate you calling me that."
Barret Wallace shrugged, taking long strides up to her desk. "Sorry. Can't say yer real name. Just hearing it outta my own mouth melts me." He chuckled as a blush coloured her cheeks.
"Barret!" she scolded, attempting to bring her embarrasment back under control.
He continued to chuckle for a moment as he let his eyes roam the front room of her shop. "You've changed the place a little," he commented.
Elira nodded, herself looking around as if to see for the first time what she and Terry had spent a weekend doing. In light of the coming hunting season, the usual assortment of decorative weapons had been replaced with various shotguns, each a splendid model. Most of the models had been done by Vincent, Terry had observed rather tightly. Elira had asked him if he was jealous of Vincent's natural talent, but Terry had replied, "Not his talent." Elira hadn't been sure of how to take his words. So maybe she had been spending a little more time with Vincent than with the rest of her employees, but that was only because he was new. Besides, it wasn't as if she knew him any better for it. Terry had no foundation for his jealousy and if he wanted their friendship to last, she thought, he would be wise to shape up.
"Yeah, a few things around here have changed."
Barret nodded. "Around my place, too," he mumbled, leaning his right elbow on her desk. And then he began to drum his fingers. After a moment of this, Elira glanced at his arm in irritation, about to remind him of how much that annoyed her. But the words died in her mouth. He was drumming his fingers. The fingers of his right hand. His right hand.
Barret watched out of the corner of his eye as Elira's jaw dropped, his lips contorting.
"Barret," she managed a little breathlessly after a moment. "Wh...what...?"
"What happened to my gun?" he finished for her. Smiling mysteriously, he turned to face her. "Well, I know it's 'bout ten years too late, but I finally traded it in for this 'lectric contraption."
Elira couldn't believe it. After telling him he should get rid of that grafted gun every time he came in to upgrade it, and having him shrug off her words every time, the stubborn blockhead finally went out and had it done. She wondered how long he had debated the change; she hadn't seen him in here in over three months. "What finally converted you?" she asked. "Did one of my long-winded sermons finally get through that thick skull of yours?"
Barret scoffed. "No. Actually, it was a bunch a things. Maybe yer 'sermons' were one of 'em, I dunno. But, well..." He ran a hand over the close-cropped hair at the back of his head as he hesitated. "It's been ten years since I was in Avalanche. When I was a part of that, I felt...like I was doing some'n with my life that was gonna make a difference to the world. But then, afterwards, when I got back together with Marlene and tried to start a normal life, I found it really...humdrum. You know, boring." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "And, instead of settlin' down and waiting to get used to the change, I tried to convince myself that some'n else was coming, some other disaster that would need me. And so I kept the arm." He smiled ruefully. "I didn't realize how obsessed I was with fighting until real recently. Came home early from work to find Marlene 'bout to chop off her right arm just below the elbow."
Elira was unable to stifle a gasp. She put her hands over her mouth. "Oh no, Barret..."
Barret nodded and absently scratched the back of his neck, a sign of flustered shame. "Got home in time to stop her, thank God. As soon as I'd gotten the knife away from her, she began bawlin'. I asked her what she had been thinking of doing. And she said she'd wanted to cut off her arm so that she could get a gun grafted in, just like me. That way, she'd be safe from the wars when they came back."
Elira blew her breath out. "My god, Barret. I can't believe Marlene was able to even think of cutting off her arm!" She shuddered, imagining of the blood that would gush out of a wound like that.
Barret shrugged. "Well, she hasn't 'xactly had the best upbringing a girl can have. I prob'ly should've remarried a long time ago. A girl like Marlene needs a mother."
Elira was almost more surprised to hear Barret say that than to see the automated latex hand where his gun had been. A few months ago, he had been 'both mother and father, and Marlene's fine with that!'. The one time she'd tried to set Barret up with Benita, he had rejected the idea so forcefully you'd have thought she was offering to take Marlene and feed her to a Midgar Zolan. She'd never brought it up again.
Elira realized that her shock must've been showing on her face, for Barret chuckled and said, "Yeah, well takin' care of her the way I have been for so long has been takin' its toll." He ran a hand over his stubbly beard, drawing attention to the white dotted through it. Elira could also see the white beginning to track through his hair, and she thought she detected a few new creases around his eyes. "I'm forty-five this year, after all. It's gettin' tough to take care of her by myself, and it's only gonna get tougher as she gets older."
Elira nodded her agreement, remembering her own restless adolencent years with only a father to take care of her. And then she smiled slyly. "Well, Benita's still available if you're looking."
Barret gave a sudden loud laugh, startled out of his sobriety by her comment.
Elira grinned and played with the edge of an order form. "So, you had a day off today and came by to see me?"
"Well..." He shrugged. "I was in the neighbourhood, an' I wanted to try out my new pick-up line." He chuckled quietly when she made a face at him. "And, of course, to show you my new hand. But, also, it was 'cause I heard a rumor that you hired someone new."
"You heard a rumor?" she asked in surprised pleasure. She wondered how far her small shop's fame had spread. If Barret had heard a rumor in sector one, three sectors down, who was to say that people in sector eight weren't talking about the goings on of her little business?
"Yeah. They say this fella is making the best guns in all of Neo-Midgar. They also say that no one's ever seen 'im, that he never comes out of the forge."
Elira nodded. "Yeah, he really doesn't like interacting with the customers."
"Some say," Barret continued, "that he's some kind of a freak and that's the reason he never lets anyone see him."
Elira raised an eyebrow, wondering how far that was from the truth.
"Some say you have him chained up back there, as yer slave." Barret winked and grinned.
Elira scoffed and waved her hand in front of her face. Maybe having rumors like these ones circulating around Neo-Midgar wasn't such a great thing. Then again, if they had been enough to bring Barret up from sector one when he wasn't even here to get a weapon, maybe they'd be enough to bring others, intrigued by the stories, into her little shop.
"Some say he doesn't really exist, that it's just a ploy to bring in customers."
Elira frowned indignantly. This was getting ridiculous. Obviously, rumors like that one weren't going to help her as much as she'd thought.
"Some say..." Barret continued, but Elira held up a hand to halt him.
"Barret, what's the point you're trying to make?"
Barret just smiled. "Some say his name's Vincent."
"Yeah, so?"
"A pale fella?"
"Yeah."
"Wears black all the time?"
"Yeah..."
"Has red eyes?"
She raised a surprised eyebrow. "That's right."
"And a claw fer a left arm?"
"Yeah! How did you know all of that, Barret?"
Barret's mysterious smile returned. "I know the guy. Well, I knew him. Thought it might be him and thought I'd check it out."
Elira nodded slowly, still a little confused. As things started to sort themselves out, though, she began to wonder what a guy like Barret and a man like Vincent would have in common. Vincent must've been at least somewhat close to the man or Barret wouldn't have come looking for him. And then she started, standing hesitantly from her stool. "Do you...do you want me to go get him for you?"
Barret shrugged. "Sure. I'd like to see him again, see how he's doin'."
Elira nodded once more and made her way into the forge.
The sound of the lathe had been present all day as Terry worked on the barrels of a set of rifles he was preparing, but it had become so constant that Elira had unconciously tuned it out. Now it blared in her ears like the buzzing of hundreds of bees. Fighting the urge to put her hands over her ears, she walked over to where Vincent sat, a finished revolver in his hand. Elira stopped a few steps in front of him to watch him inspect it.
It was beautiful, flawless, a real work of art, even without the designs on it, which was the next step. But her attention was drawn away from it as Vincent continued his examination. He turned it in his hands in a way Elira had never seen anyone handle a gun. He handled it not only with a caution born of an appreciation for things beautiful, but with with a certain wary respect, as if he knew something about it beyond the way it was made and the way it fit together. As if he knew intimately what it was for.
Elira started as Vincent looked up at her suddenly, his red eyes searching her face. Elira felt her cheeks become hot at his scrutinizing gaze and dropped her eyes, ashamed to have been caught staring. Rasing her voice over the noise of the lathe, she said, "There's a Barret Wallace to see you in the front room. He says he knows you."
Vincent's expression didn't change even a fraction, but he did stand from his stool and start to make his way over to the door. Elira followed him as far as the last table, but then stopped, deciding that if they were really old friends, they would probably like a moment to talk together alone. But, as the talking began, she found herself unable to deny her curiousity. Inching forward and trying not to look obvious about it, she headed for the door frame, intent on staying out of sight even though she was close enough to hear every word, the lathe droning away behind her.
"Hey there, Vince! Long time, no see! You look exactly the same as when I last saw you! Where've you been?"
"Around. Here, mostly, in Neo-Midgar."
"Really? Shit, man! I've lived here fer the ten years it's been built and I've never seen you 'round!"
"Neo-Midgar is a big place."
"Yeah, I know. A good place to get lost in. Well, you did manage to lose us for a while there, but lemme tell ya, none of us have forgotten you. A few of us thought you were dead, but none of us forgot."
"How nice to know."
Elira almost expected to hear Barret get angry at the obvious sarcasm in Vincent's words, but Barret only gave a laugh.
"Well, Vince, you can pretend you don't care, but I'm gonna go on as if you do. I dunno what it's been like for you, but for me and the others ten years has gone by real fast. Marlene's already fourteen. Cloud and Tifa're married and they're living in Kalm with the two kids they've got. Aeris and Doria, their daughters, are...lemme see, I think Aeris' eight and Doria's five. Nothing much is happening with Red; he's just takin' care of Cosmo Canyon. I go see him 'bout once every year. Cid married Shera after all that crap he spouted 'bout hating her and everything, and now they've got a son. Reeve's the representative fer my sector, sector one. He's a family man now, too, but fer the life of me I can't remember his wife and kid's names. And Yuffie's running the show in Wutai. Her dad, Godo, died about a year ago. Yeah, she's grown up a bit."
Elira found herself somewhat lost within the conversation, confused by the names of people she had never met, and would probably never meet. This feeling of being on the outside looking in reminded her, oddly enough, of her mother's funeral. She could remember sitting in the hall of the funeral home, staring up as all of the tall people had filed into the room where the service was to be conducted. No one had spared her a glance. A few had even stumbled over her. While they were all in the room, she'd sat playing with some wilted flowers she'd found in the garbage, the murmur of the priest's words floating passed her ears like so much air. Though she couldn't consciously remember feeling left out, she must've felt it. Her daddy had pushed her out of his lap, telling her with red and puffy eyes that her mommy had gone on a long trip. She'd smiled, hoping her mother would bring her back something nice.
Elira was startled out of her distant memory as Barret said hotly, "I'm not saying you should move, I'm just saying that you could visit us. Hell, some of us live in Neo-Midgar already, you don't even have to leave the city!"
Elira wondered suddenly if, perhaps, Vincent had been part of Avalanche, one of those nine people that Barret had talked about before. One of the ones who had fought with him against that evil creature Jenova. But no, that wasn't possible. Vincent didn't look like he could be over thirty, so he would've been twenty or under when accompanying Barret and the others. And though that might've been, Barret didn't talk to him as if he remembered him as 'just a kid'. Elira knew that she would always be a kid in Barret's eyes. He had met her four years ago when she was nineteen, and although she had grown so much in those four years, at least in her own eyes, Barret could not change his attitude toward her. She was Elira, the little girl, to him. And so she would always be. That was just Barret's way. So why would it be so different with Vincent?
Feeling frustrated at the number of questions she was now faced with when she had sort of been anticipating answers, she gripped the door frame in her fingers, listening in the hope that someone would say something that would clear anything up.
But the conversation seemed to be over.
"That there's my address, and the address below it is Cloud and Tifa's in Kalm," Barret was saying, sounding kind of defeated. "If you ever change your mind, you know where to find us. Well, it's been good to at least see that yer alive, Vince. I'm gonna tell the others where you are just in case they want to drop by, and don't tell me not to 'cause I'm going to anyway. Hope you have a nice life." Elira could hear Barret's heavy footfalls leading him away. Then the bell over the door chimed. And all was silent.
And then Vincent walked through the door of the forge, his steps as muffled as if he were walking barefoot on carpet. Elira jumped with a gasp and stumbled backward a step or two, losing her balance. Before she could fall, though, landing hard on her behind on the cement floor of the forge, Vincent shot out a hand, grabbing her wrist as she windmilled, pulling her up until he had righted her. His grip was firm, but not painfully so. It felt strange to have him touch her when he barely spoke to her. The red eyes she met with her own were not angry, or accusing, or even amused at her eavesdropping. They were emotionless, as if he couldn't care less what she had heard. As if it didn't matter in the least.
The man was a mystery.
"Thank you," Elira managed to say as she regained her feet. Vincent nodded only once before letting go of her wrist and heading back toward his aborted projects. Elira watched him for a few moments in consternation before going back into the front room. A mystery wrapped in a puzzle encased in an enigma, and somehow she knew there was no easy answer or simple explanation for Vincent Valentine.