Chapter Thirty-Two: One More Time
by thelittletree
'...you need to be willing to forgive yourself...'
Vincent woke suddenly and was momentarily disoriented. He was in a room, but it was not his room, or any other room he could remember waking in before. Something was also wrong with his eyes and his sense of smell, he realized shortly after and, feeling nearly blind, he pushed his way up in bed.
Elira made a small sound of protest as she slipped off of his chest and after a moment her weary hands were touching him, questing over his back and abdomen as if she might find the answer for the disturbance written on his body. "Vincent?"
Her voice was soft and he wouldn't have been surprised to find she was still half-asleep. "I'm sorry, Elira, go back to sleep."
"Mm, what's wrong?"
"Nothing." He urged her hands back and tried to see her settled again. "Just a dream."
She made a drowsy sound of acknowledgment. "Do you want to..." She stopped to give a long yawn. "...talk about it?"
He couldn't help a small smile. She would be drifting off again in seconds he had no doubt. "In the morning. Go back to sleep."
"'Kay, if you're sure." He heard the sound of springs as she rolled over, and nearly immediately her breaths were lengthening. Carefully, he slipped out from under the blankets and then hastily pulled on his pants and shirt before stepping into his boots.
The night was cool and silent and he spent a moment looking up at the stars before beginning to walk. They were not the stars of Neo-Midgar, and he unexpectedly found himself feeling a little homesick. It was an odd time to be feeling it, but he chalked it up to the fact that everything had changed. He hadn't been happy in his old life, living alone and cursed with Chaos, but at least it had been familiar. Now he was human again, with both human freedoms and limitations, and he couldn't help but feel as if he'd been picked up and plunked into another body, into another life. The Vincent Valentine of Avalanche, of Neo-Midgar had been cold and blood-stained, cursed and immortal. This Vincent Valentine...
He sighed to himself as he came up to a small grove of trees just outside of Bone Village and gave into the urge to get his feet off the ground. Suddenly aware of the drop below him as never before in this frail, muscle-sore body, he climbed cautiously and then balanced himself on the lowest branch of the tree he had chosen.
This Vincent Valentine was mortal, and no longer so cold and alone. And despite what he'd been told in the Promised Land, he couldn't help but believe he was still blood-stained by his past in Midgar.
'...you need to be willing to forgive yourself. She can help you, if you'll let her...'
But she didn't know. And the thought of telling her, of watching her mouth open in horrified disbelief as she pictured him aiming his gun at other humans, made everything in him shudder. She would...she would hate him. No matter if she'd already forgiven him, no matter if he'd told her he trusted her. She would hate him for it; she wouldn't be able to help it. And there would be a rift there between them that he could only imagine growing wider as time passed. She would eventually walk away, leaving him to gnaw on his own bitter self-hatred.
He was half expecting Chaos to jump into his pain with some scathing remark but, of course, he was alone in his own mind.
'I want to trust you, Elira. Gods, I want to. But how could you love me enough...'
Chaos had been his punishment. Being alone forever had been his atonement. But he'd escaped it. Elira had fought alongside him for a second chance.
'...to forgive something so inhuman?'
A second chance he hadn't deserved. He could imagine her saying that a lot of people get things they don't deserve, good and bad. And maybe it was true. But could he just pull a blanket over all of his sins and pretend he hadn't committed them? Something within him began to ache and he winced.
'It's unforgivable, Elira. How could you help me forgive myself? You would hate me if you knew.'
It was the first night since they'd left the temple and he allowed himself the guilty pleasure of thinking over the evening. Their first night as real lovers, without the fear of the demon, of insubstantial fate, or of time. So there had been time to be gentle and generous, time to appreciate the different textures of skin on her body, the warmth and pressure of her mouth, the inflaming noises she made. She was so adept at making him forget everything else...
Just thinking about leaving her behind felt like he was tearing out his own heart. He couldn't stand the thought of waking up without her, of not knowing that she was safe, of causing her more pain. He'd all but promised not to run, so he wouldn't. But could he lie to her at the end of all of this, to protect her and himself?
'I don't deserve you, Elira. And in the end, you would hate me. It's inevitable. It would be more merciful to go and figure this out on my own, to save us both the pain. You don't need the burden of my sins...'
It was strange to be able to feel the cold now, and he hadn't brought his coat. Carefully, he dropped to the ground and made his way back to the village's hotel.
Elira woke again as he slipped into bed and the presence of her warm body against him and her intoxicating scent around him made the time outside seem like nothing more than another part of the dream he'd had.
"Oh, you're cold," she murmured. "Where were you?"
"Outside," he told her quietly. "I just went for a walk."
She hummed softly and pulled him closer. "Let me warm you up." And the tone of her voice was impossible to mistake.
He raised an eyebrow, ready to ask, 'Again?', but the word was soon fumbled and forgotten. Along with all thoughts and worries about what a sinner deserved.
Elira was nearly certain she'd never felt as happy as she did during the three weeks in Bone Village. Maybe the time with Eagan was a close second, but it still fell behind where it counted. Eagan had been off every day to the Metropolitan Building, talking to people, trying to gain votes. Vincent...Vincent was here with her every moment, talking with her, letting her hold his hand without the damned glove, letting her share his bed, and every day she felt like she was getting to know him better. Even when he said nothing.
He didn't say so, but he liked having his hair brushed and her fingertips running along his back. He liked walking in the evenings, and when they found a deck of cards left behind in their room she discovered that he was very good at poker (though he wouldn't say where he'd learned). He liked hearing about her childhood and could really get into a conversation about the make, model, and workings of guns. He liked tea better than coffee and, besides his ribs, the backs of his knees were also deathly sensitive to her touch. Everything about him was something worthy of fascinated reflection, she thought, and she was ready to give all of the time in the world to exploring every nook and cranny.
But there were times, every once in a while, where she would catch him with that brooding, world-weary look in his eyes. And, as always, he wouldn't tell her what was wrong, even when she made attempts to persuade him. It worried her a little, but most of the time she managed to push it to the back of her mind. He was here with her and it was all she wanted; she wouldn't demand more of him until he was ready to give it.
Pooling their resources gave them enough to pay for the room and food without either of them having to get a job, and even when the barge came they had enough to buy supplies to last them back to Neo-Midgar, if they were frugal. The trip back across the ocean was made in beautiful weather and Vincent spent most of it staring silently over the railing toward Costa Del Sol. Elira tried to make some conversation but he seemed preoccupied and she eventually left him to his thoughts. Something about his silence this time tried to call a warning to her, but she didn't heed it, brushing it off as paranoia.
And, in the end, she was almost too late to recognize it.
Vincent had been fighting a war with himself for three weeks. On one side, the guilty conscience he couldn't quite repress, and on the other, the part of him that couldn't bear to leave her behind. And neither side could ever subdue the other without compunctions. He was a fool, and weak, he told himself again and again. He knew what he had to do: either tell her about his past and risk her hatred for the hope of forgiveness, or go and hope that one day he would be able to come to terms by himself with what he had done. If he was going to go, however, he knew he should explain himself first.
But he was a coward; she'd been right. She'd been right about him from the beginning. He was afraid of emotional pain, afraid of watching everything slip away, afraid to trust her that much. She was the strong one, and her continued faith in him had buoyed him up more than once. And it was a faith he didn't deserve because he didn't reciprocate it. So damn jaded by the falseness he'd seen in love and humanity that he couldn't accept what she said at face value, no matter what he'd seen of her already.
'Gods, Elira, I'm so sorry. I never should have let myself stay in Neo-Midgar. It would have saved you the pain of loving and losing a man who could never be worthy of you.' Her fear in the temple had been justified. She would never forgive him for this final breach of trust.
They'd agreed to spend one more night in the Strifes' villa, and he thought the location ironically appropriate. Two hours after she fell asleep, when he began to feel that any longer spent looking at her, listening to her breathe, would change his mind, he got out of bed and dressed himself before collecting his things and heading to the dining room. There, he continued getting ready in the dark, cursing under his breath as he fumbled without his enhanced eyesight. It was going to be harder this time to make a life for himself when he now had to worry about things like eating and shelter and his health, but he tried not to think about it. There would be time enough for that later, when he was miserable and lonely again.
He slipped into his boots and coat, and then into his pack. He was leaving her the tent and the remaining supplies, and he'd already decided that he would shadow her until she reached Neo-Midgar, just to make sure she made it all right. But tonight had been the last time she would see him -- the last time, too, he would ever feel her smile under his mouth or hear her laugh or inhale her scent as he buried his nose in her curls. Once she was back in the city, he would go and start up another life somewhere else. Maybe...maybe if he could someday forgive himself, he would come and find her again. Assuming by then that she wasn't married, or that she didn't hate him so much that she never wanted to see him again. That was a risk -- so far into the future it was hardly substantial -- that he felt willing to take. Then he would deal with the pain he'd caused her. Because right now he was still too much of a coward and a fool to do it.
'Good-bye, Elira. I love you. I should have told you.'
He turned, ready to leave.
His hearing was not what it once had been. He'd taken every precaution not to wake her. But there she was in the doorway to the dining room, dressed in a housecoat she must've purloined from somewhere. Even in the dark, he could see her trembling as silent tears slipped from her eyes.
"You said..." It was hardly even a whisper. "You said you wouldn't run..."
His shame threatened to swallow him whole. Death was too good a punishment for someone as wretched as he was. He was breaking her heart, and he wouldn't even be able to explain.
Her face was contorted with an almost tangible grief and her shoulders were shuddering with quiet, hitching sobs, but he expected she was holding the worst of it back. Something in him was twisting, wrenching, hurting. He felt sick to his stomach with it. He was a monster, with or without Chaos.
But he made himself stand against her, though it was so hard to meet her eyes when all a part of him wanted to do was find an escape. She would hate him either way, and he would rather she hated him for being a coward than a killer. "I know what I said, Elira."
"Then..." He heard her teeth chatter for a moment as she shivered. "Then why are you doing this? Do you hate me so much?"
He had to set his jaw at the stab of pain her accusation caused. "I don't hate you, Elira."
But she was shaking her head and turning away, her lungs heaving with sobs she was trying to keep quiet. "You must. Why else would you do this? Why else would you plan to just leave and let me wake up alone to figure out..." She stopped suddenly as she choked on her words. "...to figure out that you'd left me? Leave me to guess why..."
"Elira, you already know this has nothing to do with you..."
"God!" She turned to face him and he nearly took a step back from the unmitigated rage in her expression. "How can you say that? How can you lie right to my face? Of course it has to do with me! If it didn't, why wouldn't you tell me?" She turned from him abruptly and began to sob into her hands. After a few moments, however, she managed to collect herself enough to drop her hands. "It doesn't matter." She sounded resigned and angry. "You never tell me what's wrong, why should you start now? Just go. You want to leave; I can't stop you. Just go."
He was tempted, so tempted to do as she said. His mind was screaming that it was what he should do, what he'd decided to do. But his guilt was like a hot poker in his gut; he'd hurt her, he couldn't leave her like this. He would have been able to stand it if he hadn't seen her tears, if he'd been able to leave before she noticed that he was gone from the bed. But this way, it was so much harder. The last time he'd tried to leave, he'd been convinced she had Leo to run to. This time, he knew she was alone. "Elira..."
"Dammit, just go!" Her vehemence startled him. "I've already said it's not about tying you down! I've never asked you to love me. I just asked you to trust me enough to tell me the truth, but..." From the back, he saw her shoulders droop as she shook her head. "But if you can't even do that, just go."
Still, he didn't move, caught between love and fear. It was going to hurt her either way. If only she understood what he was trying to save her from, save them both from. But...
But she didn't understand. She...she couldn't understand his motives. He loved her and he was trying to protect her, always protecting her from the ugly truth. He had the soul of a killer, he was dangerous. But she wouldn't understand. She'd always ignored or brushed off his warnings because...
Because why? Because he'd deserved a second chance?
Dangerous as he was? A monster? Death in a blue suit?
No.
Then why? Because she loved him? Who did she love? She didn't know him. She didn't know what he'd been. And if she knew, that love would turn to hate. She would hate him. She would discover that her poor, fate-trodden Vincent wasn't what he'd made himself out to be. He'd deserved everything he'd gotten. The experiments. The demon. Fate's apt punishment.
And, abruptly, he realized that he was getting angry.
She thought she loved him? She thought she wanted to know about Midgar, about why he was leaving? Love was so fickle, she wouldn't be able to stand the knowledge that he wasn't an innocent. All of her talk about not being afraid, of taking risks -- what would she think when she realized that he really was something to fear, that he hadn't been worth it after all?
She would understand then...
Something in the back of his mind was warning him against getting too angry, against saying something rash, but the sight of her standing there, so sanctimonious about her own love like it could conquer all, was disgusting him. She didn't know! Suddenly filled with a rage he couldn't stop to examine, he stepped up to grab her arm. She gasped in surprise as he swung her around to face him and something about the fear in her expression excited him. 'You'll know, Elira. And you'll regret not listening to me when I told you to leave me alone!'
He let his eyes bore down into her own. "All right. You want to know why I'm leaving? I warn you, it's not a pretty reason."
She tried to back up a step from him, but he kept his grip on her arm. This was what she wanted; she wanted to know. Was she already regretting the decision? It was too late now... "I told you I was dangerous, Elira. But you wouldn't believe me. You never believed me. You thought I was a human, just like you, burned by someone I loved and then left to chafe against my own cage of guilt. But I'm not like you." He realized that he was nearly seething in her face. "I worked for Shinra in Midgar, Elira. In the..." He searched his memory for the euphemism. "...the Manufacturing Department in Administrative Research." It had been there on the top of every pay stub he'd ever gotten from them, as if to deny the guns and the blue suits. It had always struck him as particularly funny, and he found himself giving a stilted chuckle through his teeth.
Elira only stared at him, her eyes wide. And then she spoke, her voice quiet and still thick from crying. "I...I don't know what that means."
"I wouldn't expect you to." There had even been those involved in Shinra that hadn't known. He couldn't help another stiff chuckle. "It was another name for the Turks, Elira. I was a Turk!" He could see in her face that this name also meant nothing to her and he smirked. "A hired gun; an assassin; a kidnapper; a torturer. I was all of these things, and I was one of the best they ever had. You wanted to know once where I learned to use a gun? They taught me. And I killed hundreds of people; I tortured people to death. I was a killer, Elira. And there were times I even enjoyed it!"
She was trembling, staring at him in horrified denial. But it was true. It was all true. And he watched with a certain sick satisfaction as she began to cry. "Do you see, Elira? I'm not what you think I am. I've done unforgivable things! You've helped to save a cold-blooded murderer from his own sentence!"
But she was shaking her head. "No. No, Vincent..."
"Yes! That's who I am! A monster, a thing without pity!"
"No!" With a burst of something he hadn't expected, she pulled her arm away from him and stared up into his face, a desperate fire in her eyes. "That's not who you are! You've changed! That's not who you are anymore!"
But he couldn't hear it. "You don't know me!"
"Yes, I do! And you're not that man anymore! That man suffered and died! You've been given a second chance so you can live it differently!"
Her words were eerily reminiscent of those spoken by the being who had called itself the Guardian of the Promised Land. He'd died to his old life, and a new life required a new mindset. She'd already forgiven him it had said, even when she didn't know. But...but how was that possible? "I've never deserved a second chance!" he retorted.
"That doesn't matter! That's what you've been given! Are you going to spend it punishing yourself again? And punishing me, too?"
This gave him another burst of anger. "I didn't ask for your love, Elira! I didn't ask for your help! It's not my fault if..."
"No, you didn't ask!" she interrupted him. "But you could've turned and walked away at any time! It was your choice, too, to get rid of Chaos! Some part of you wanted a second chance! Some part of you thought you deserved it!"
He moved away from her suddenly and realized that he was shaking. No, gods, no. Where were the tranquilizers?
"And now, after you worked so hard for it, after we both risked our lives, you're just going to throw it away?"
He couldn't remember. He searched his pockets but they were empty. Why weren't they prepared?
"Vincent!" Elira was suddenly there in front of him, beautiful and terrible, the robe forgotten in her anger and hanging open to show the barest hints of her body in patches of moonlight. "I could understand it if you were leaving me because you don't love me, but don't leave to go and hole yourself up somewhere again for something that doesn't matter anymore! I love you, and I can't stand the thought of you doing that! I don't care what you've done in any lifetime!" Her hands were suddenly there on his forearms, gripping him as if to keep him from turning away again.
And it was overwhelming: the fear of Chaos, the crushing guilt over his past, the anger at Elira's stubbornness, the mix of emotions at her proclamation of love despite everything he'd done, and the sudden feel of being restrained. And he could feel something snapping inside him. His mind screamed for escape and, like breaking through a barrier, he recoiled from Elira's touch. Dimly, he heard her cry out, and then he was stumbling back into the table, hearing his own heavy breaths before he could recognize the ache in his eyes.
And then he felt the first tear trickle down the side of his nose. Surprised, he lifted his hand up to brush it away. Elira had managed to convince him at one point to get rid of his glove, and now he rubbed the moisture together in his fingers. Something he'd heard somewhere was suddenly there in his mind.
'...out of every creature on the planet, only humans can cry...'
Another tear slipped down, this time skimming his cheek, and then another followed. As he worked to repress the unexpected reaction, his anger began to fade. No Chaos, he realized. 'Of course not. He's gone. Why did I think...?'
Elira was giving slightly panicked breaths from somewhere near him, he recognized suddenly, and he felt a twisting sense of shame for what he'd done. His self-loathing was not her problem or her fault, and after everything she'd done for him he'd repaid her with anger and blame like the ungracious bastard he was. "Elira..."
And then, even without an enhanced sense of smell, he could detect the all-too-familiar scent of blood in the air. 'Oh gods...what have I done?'
He found her standing near one of the walls, slightly hunched over and trying not to cry. "I think it's just a scratch," she rasped to him, and even in the dark he could see that she had her left hand up and covering her right collarbone. Hastily, he ducked away and searched in frustrated alarm for a light-switch somewhere. When he eventually found one a few seconds later, he punched it firmly and dashed back to Elira's side to try and pry her hand away.
The wound was long and thin, curving a little from the top of her breast to a spot about an inch from her neck, and though it bled profusely it wasn't deep. It looked as if she'd been cut with a knife, but Vincent knew better. There, on the tip of one metal finger, was a tinge of red. He stared at it and swallowed back a sudden bout of nausea as he realized that another inch closer, another inch to the right, and he might've given her a much more serious injury. "Elira...I..."
She glanced into his face and tried to give him what he imagined was supposed to be a quick, reassuring smile. "It's all right. It's just a scratch," she said again, and then she was slipping out of the robe, although the right side was already a little blood-stained. "I should probably get something to stop the bleeding," she murmured as if to herself, and then she was walking toward the kitchen.
Vincent followed her, feeling a little useless as she first rinsed the blood off her hands and then reached into a cupboard for a roll of paper towels. When she'd ripped a square off and folded it, she pressed it to her chest. "There," she said, and she was trying to smile again. "No big deal."
He was still shaking, he realized. So fragile... He could've killed her with his reckless action. He was dangerous.
And yet, here she still stood, strong despite her fear and smiling a forgiveness he didn't deserve. She...she loved him, and he suddenly remembered his own love for Lucrecia, once upon a time, that had allowed him to forgive her for everything she'd ever done to hurt him. A love that had bordered on obsession, ready to do anything for her, even at the expense of his own life.
'Oh Elira, no...I don't deserve that kind of devotion...'
But, gods, he wanted it. He understood now how she could forgive him. He understood that kind of love.
And he'd almost turned away, almost repeated what Lucrecia had done to him, leaving him to pine with an unrequited passion that had nearly consumed him. 'Oh Elira...'
Before he was fully aware of what he was doing, he was pulling her into a tight embrace and burying his face into her soft, scented curls. "I'm sorry, Elira. I'm so sorry..." He felt like he was cracking under the burden of guilt, and the tears were there again; he didn't understand why, but he thought he might have been crying for everything: all of the pain he'd caused her, the spiral of rejected agony he'd suffered through and had almost forced her into, all of the things that had been lost and gained when everything had changed, the fact that he wasn't the man she deserved.
She slipped her small hands inside his coat and tried to rub his back through his shirt. "It's okay," he heard her whisper. "It's okay."
It wasn't okay, though. Not yet. But she could help him, the Guardian had said, and he knew it had been right. Her love, her faith in him...if anyone could help him use this second chance to make up for the life of sin and pain he'd lived, it was her. And he promised her silently that she would never have to be afraid of being hurt again.
After a few moments, Elira was stirring and he let her withdraw enough to look into his face. There were tears on her own cheeks, but she ignored them in favour of lifting a hand to wipe his away. "Oh, Vincent..." She sniffled quietly, and then her eyes traveled down to the front of his coat. "Oh, god, I'm sorry." The paper towel had fallen off of her wound and she quickly glanced around for it. "I bled on you."
The triviality of the fact made him smile a little as he located the towel and bent down to pick it up for her. "It doesn't matter, Elira." He placed it back over the cut and waited until she had a hold of it to let go. "It's just a coat."
"I know, but, here..." She began to pull at the straps of his pack. "I know how to get blood stains out."
The statement startled him with its appropriateness and something ached in him as he looked down at her sincere expression. Oh, how he loved her, and she had no idea... But now there was no fear -- not of fate, not of Chaos, not of love -- and he thought he'd never felt so absolutely released. Quickly, he pulled her back into his arms and held on. "Elira..." he whispered, and though a part of him wondered if he could say it, he knew that he had nothing to be afraid of. "Elira, I love you."
She stiffened at first in what he expected was surprise, and then she was holding him tightly with trembling muscles. After almost a minute, he began to wonder if she ever intended to let go, but then she was muttering something into his shoulder. "Does this..." She paused to clear a throat still thick with weeping. "Does this mean you're not leaving?"
He couldn't help a small, breathless chuckle and he pulled back to look into her face. "What do you think?"
Her trembling lips opened in a teary grin and she managed a quick sob of laughter before her expression crumbled with hurt anger and she lowered her forehead to his chest. "Don't ever do that again," she told him quietly. "Don't ever try to leave like that again."
"I won't. I promise."
It was another moment before she sighed and he felt the tension drain out of her. And then she raised her head and there was a half smile on her face. "Now, get out of all that get-up and come back to bed."
And Vincent, trained in the Turks to recognize an order when he heard it, hastened to comply.
All the fear has left me now
I'm not frightened anymore
It's my heart that pounds beneath my flesh
It's my mouth that pushes out this breath
And if I shed a tear I won't cage it
I won't fear love
And if I feel a rage I won't deny it
I won't fear love
Fumbling Toward Ecstacy
---Sarah McLachlan