Tifa had desperately wanted to refute it; He was no monster. He was... He was Vincent Valentine. Nothing more, nothing less. He was the man who could take anything without so much as a cry or a whimper. How could he think such a thing?

How could he not?

After all, wasn't she the one who gaped at him in horror that day before? What thoughts had filled that mind of his when terror etched itself onto her face? Tifa groaned as her head fell into her hands.

"I'm a monster," he had said. And his soft, certain tone had sent chills to overrun her body. He didn't want pity. No, not Vincent Valentine. He had simply stated what he thought true.

And what was her response? It should have been "No way, Vincent" or "You're human to me, Vincent". But what did she do? What did she say? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. After those words had been spoken, after they had dissolved to silence, after nothing was said in response, Vincent had simply laid back down on the bed and went to sleep. A simple shake of her head would have been something, but her mouth froze at that moment. How could I be so damned ignorant? She closed her eyes tightly.

After Vincent had gone to sleep, Tifa pulled a chair up besides the bed. It felt as if hours had passed since he last decided to leave her alone. The reality, she knew, was that it had only been twenty minutes. She couldn't blame him. What else could he have said? Especially since her damned mouth had decided to die at that moment, had refused to answer with anything comforting, even if it had been a stupid, meaningless cliche. "Things will turn out all right in the end." Tifa sucked in her lower lip. Twenty minutes of silence.

She decided not to leave the spot by the bed, not to get up or to even close her eyes for more than a few seconds. Perhaps she thought that if she stayed there, he would forgive her for not trying to care more at that moment. Was he even angry with her? Honestly, she never thought anything really bothered him. Other than a slight frown, a quiet smile or a curve of an eyebrow now and then, he seemed as impassive as a block of wood. But those eyes... Those eyes of his spoke volumes. With a slight turn of his head, his eyes could change from ice to suffocating embers. They could penetrate the very depths of her; they could probe, understand and respond. They were frightening and beautiful.

Frighteningly beautiful.

A slight moan from Vincent made Tifa snap back to reality. She leaned over him in her chair and the loose strands of her hair dripped like water onto his peaceful looking face. Quickly, hoping that she hadn't disturbed him with yet another careless act, she brushed her hair aside. Vincent's dark eyebrows furrowed, then relaxed to peaceful stillness once again. Tifa gripped the bed sheets tightly and leaned over him a little more. For the last twenty minutes - well, more like twenty-five now - she had been searching him with quiet interest. Visually, of course. What else was there to do? She had counted the buttons on his shirt somewhere around sixteen times. There were six. The middle two were buttoned. Four were not. Tifa felt herself groan again. Still, she was strangely fascinated by everything that seemed to be on him at the moment.

She watched his face again, as if waiting for him to open his eyes in bewilderment and ask what on the good green earth she was doing. But his eyes remained covered by slightly trembling eyelids, his lashes resting peacefully on his cheeks. His eyebrows occasionally knitted together in what Tifa could only assume was a dream. Or a nightmare. She moved in closer, just a little bit more, as if her presence would chase away any shadows lurking in what should otherwise be good dreams. He deserved a little light, even if it was only in his subconscious. His lips parted slightly. Tifa suddenly felt the urge to lift his lips into a smile, one of his usual small smiles, then tried desperately to stifle the laugh that accompanied that visual.

Heh. I think a smile suits you better, Vincent. She curled her fingers to her palms. I don't think you'd appreciate me doing that, would you? Her wide grin faded. She knew why he didn't smile very often. Tifa rested her chin on her first as she leaned on the edge of the bed. Smile for me, Valentine? She sighed when she received no response, favorable or otherwise, from the sleeping man. He couldn't read thoughts, now could he? Tifa unconsciously twirled a strand of his hair around her fingers as she studied him. His thick hair was everywhere, stray pieces falling over his forehead and following the curve of his cheeks. The rest of his hair continued down his shoulders like a waterfall, seemingly blending into the darkness of his shirt, which was open near the bottom, just a bit. Or maybe it wasn't open that much. After all, his pants were on his hips fairly low-

She blinked. Despite the fact that her sleeping bounty hunter was completely out of it, and, as she had concluded, not much of a mind reader, her cheeks turned various shades of red. A shy smile spread across her face. It wasn't her fault that Vincent's pants weren't up higher. Tifa tapped his lips with her finger.

Maybe she'd make a big smile instead.

He felt someone's presence hovering over him.

Vincent passed it off as Cid, or maybe even Tifa. Tifa... Yes, that's who it was. She had been there when he last closed his eyes. No doubt her beautiful face would be waiting once he opened them, too. Vincent, however, didn't open his eyes. Perhaps he didn't want to see Tifa's expression, peering down at him. He knew he didn't want to confront her about a number of things that had happened the day before - it was the day before, wasn't it? A small moan came from his mouth.

Now that better not be Cid.

He slit his eyes. The soft glow of the room welcomed him, unlike that time before when he had been injured; that light had been piercing then, burning, like someone had brought the sun over to hover a few inches before his face. He wasn't injured now, at least not fatally. And he found that soft glow and the warm, lingering finger on his lips comforting. The happenings of the day before didn't seem to matter for the moment. As his sight adjusted, he could vaguely make out the cracked and split paint of the ceiling above him. It seemed a million miles away.

The finger left his lips once his head turned slightly to his left.

Tifa. Vincent wanted to smile, but he didn't think one of his slight, fake smiles would suit the moment.

Tifa's face was somber and her still expression reminded Vincent of a porcelain doll, one that had seen too much for its relatively new life. He wanted to reach his hand up, wanted to touch her face, feel her warm skin and come to the conclusion that she wasn't a dream. She had stayed there the whole time. Like the day before, Tifa was some stray, fiery ray of light that shattered his darkness to nothing.

But Tifa wasn't his. She belonged to another ghost, someone who he had promised he would find and bring home to her once again. He had almost forgotten. Perhaps she had too. Perhaps that was why she stayed.

Vincent moved his metal fingers up and down on the mattress, then held his claw up, curling his fingers somewhat. "Stop waiting for ghosts, Tifa."

Tifa finally looked up at him, a small, playful twitch at the edge of her lips, threatening to pull them upward. "Stop chasing them, Vincent."

"I don't think I can."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back slightly. A small sigh pushed through her lips, but since they were so close together, it sounded more like a whistle. "I forgot. It's your job, right?" Tifa's eyes fell quickly to her hands, which were still clutching the bed like it was her only lifeline in this small, nearly suffocating room. "Kinda dangerous to chase after other people's ghosts, don't you think?"

Vincent tilted his head to the side, his eyes quietly observing the still faint smile on her lips. Are you trying to test me, Tifa? Trying to pretend yesterday didn't happen? Or are you afraid that I forgot about your Cloud Strife?

"Afraid of dying, Tifa?"

"I'm not afraid to die," she said sharply. Too sharply.

Fascinating girl.

It was as if she were playing a game. Well, she had started it, whether she knew so or not. Vincent shook his head, clearing his vision from those strands of black ink that made it nearly impossible to see. "You're not afraid of death, not afraid of monsters, not afraid of ShinRa... So, just what are you afraid of, Tifa?"

One point to Vincent.

She watched his red eyes for a time, wondering and probing. She'd find nothing, of course. "I don't know."

Vincent leaned forward slowly, leaving only a whisper of air between their faces. Tifa felt the sudden impulse to move back. It wasn't like those times before when he was close to her. There had always been some strange sort of softness there, past that piercingly cold exterior. But now it seemed only an unfamiliar, empty void.

Vincent's two, unblinking eyes seemed to glow for an unearthly moment. "I know why you wake with a scream and a gasp. I know why you stalk the hallways at the dead of night, like a wandering spirit. I know why." He finally blinked, if only to spare her a moment from those startling red eyes.

Tifa's lips became a thin line when she pursed them together tightly. "If you know then why did you ask me?" Her words left her mouth slowly, hesitantly, as if she was afraid to actually hear his answer. He seemed to know a lot more than he let on. Either way, Tifa refused to look away from him, even if his wraithlike embers burned holes through her eyes. They hid something, she knew they did.

"It's simple," came Vincent's indifferent reply. "If you know what you fear, then you can find ways to conquer it."

What she feared was easy enough to think about on those certain nights when her mind would not allow her the luxury of sleep, when her mind insisted on tormenting her with beautiful dreams and familiar looking people. Those dreams were far worst than the nightmares. At least with the nightmares she knew what she was looking at; what she feared, hated, and what was real was shown to her so clearly that it was nearly impossible to pretend that it wasn't there. No, the dreams were far worse. They showed her beautiful things and beautiful people that weren't real. What frightened her most hid behind those false faces. They never were as beautiful as they seemed to be.

"I think...being alone." Tifa's eyebrows knitted together as she tried to sort out what she meant. She didn't like speaking about this, and certainly never had before. Not like this. "No, not alone. I don't think abandoned is the right word either." Tifa could certainly take care of herself. Living in Midgar had helped with that. She closed her eyes and sort of swayed for a moment, in her place on her seat. When her forehead brushed against Vincent's, however, she immediately stopped moving. "Not being able to save them," she whispered.

"Them? Avalanche?"

"They're my family." They were all her family. Including one Cloud Strife. "I don't want to lose any more of them."

She opened her eyes and looked at him with such burning resolution, etched almost perfectly onto her beautiful face. "None of them." She meant him and Cid as well. They had joined the family, after all.

One point to Tifa.

"She must have really hurt you, Vincent."

Another point to the beautiful brunette in the chair besides him.

Vincent winced visibly. She knew someone had hurt him, besides the professor. Why had she guessed a woman? Was it that obvious? Was it the way he acted that gave it away? "No. I hurt her." Vincent's cold eyes melted so completely and so suddenly that it nearly made Tifa's heart fall to her feet. "I couldn't stop her from falling, so I fell with her." He said it so simply, as if it was painfully obvious, and he slowly turned his head away from her. Perhaps he didn't wish for Tifa to see him vulnerable, or maybe it was just his way of mutely telling her to change the subject.

She didn't. It just seemed too perfect the chance to know more about her bounty hunter. He knew so much about her, such an unfair amount, even with things she had never told him. Maybe she could get a name out of him, if anything.

"We can't save everyone, Vincent." She tucked some of her feathery hair behind her ears. It didn't help; the loose strands escaped, as if just to tease her, and fell against her face once more, tickling her skin and making her mind think of other things. Tifa lifted her hand to brush the stray hair aside, but instead her fingers lingered there on her cheek. Didn't Vincent put his hand there before? So much warmth had ebbed from those long fingers of his, had seemed to flow into her yesterday. "Maybe she didn't want to be saved."

"We can't live in the past, right?"

Stop running around me in circles, Tifa.

Vincent's fingers brushed against her cheek again, moving the stray hairs and sweeping them back. "The past is something we can't escape."

"That's not always true, Vincent."

"We're not ruled by our pasts. We're more than that." Tifa scoffed, shaking her head, making those persistent stray hairs come loose again, a small and bitter laugh parting her lips. "That's what I was told to believe." She wrapped her fingers around his wrist tightly. "I want to believe..."

"I have to believe."

Vincent's fingers slid slowly away from her face and he let his hand fall absentmindedly onto the mattress. "Why do you have to believe?"

It took Tifa a moment to realize that he wasn't actually asking her one of his obscure questions again. He wasn't just looking for her answer; he was looking for any answer. "Because if I don't, if there's nothing but this, then all the people who went before us..." She trailed off at that thought. She didn't want to think about the ones who never made it. "I have to believe."

A slight smile touched Vincent's lips.

One more point to Tifa Lockheart.

"If we could just walk into the damn place, we wouldn't have hired you!" Barret's thick fingers curled into a fist and he raised them upwards, wanting to slam them against the wooden crate next to his seat. The thunderous sound never came. His fist was in mid air, hovering above the crate, only to be lowered slowly a few moments later. "Besides, who the hell said he was in the ShinRa building, huh?"

Cid chewed on his lip. His plan to get his cigarettes back had failed miserably, yet again. He looked quickly at Jessie, who only smiled sweetly. The ex-pilot frowned. "Well, where else would he be? Tifa said ShinRa took 'im-"

"We don't know if ShinRa took 'im," Barret said slowly, the words sounding strained as they forced their way through clenched teeth. "For all we know that jackass went crawlin' back." The big man looked at his gun-arm and sighed when Tifa came to mind. He didn't want to hurt her, but he certainly didn't want to lie to her, either. "Damnit," he murmured. "The pay wasn't so great here."

Cid snorted. "Then ya should've paid him more."

"Most of it's for Marlene." Barret looked down at his daughter, sitting on his lap, her chin resting on his chest and her large, brown eyes peering up at him lovingly. A smile spread across the big man's face. "Yeah. And there's no better way to spend it. Right, honey?"

Marlene nodded, her small face brightening with a grin to match his. She didn't know what her father was talking about, but as far as she was concerned he was correct about whatever it was. Her arms wrapped around her father's chest, as much as they could, and she turned her head towards the pinball machine. "Where's Tifa and the demon-angel, daddy?"

Barret's smile faltered.

"Vincent. His name is Vincent," Jessie corrected.

"He's a what?" Wedge looked through the clear-glass bottom of the cup in his hands, squinting at the blurred and distorted images of Marlene, Barret and Biggs.

"They're downstairs," came Biggs' indifferent voice. He pushed his bandana up and away from his forehead, showing clearly the smooth skin beneath, which was devoid of any wrinkle of worry or irritation.

"Shit, he can speak." Cid flicked away something from beneath his fingernail and picked up his spear, which had been resting against the paneled wall, his gloves back on his hands and squeaking as they tightened around the pole.

Biggs sniffed idly and looked away, pretending that he didn't care one way or another. It was all ridiculously feigned - he had been with the group long enough for them to figure out that he really did care what happened around him. Of course he'd most likely die before he ever admitted that he wasn't as mellow as he appeared.

"Of course he can speak," Wedge said. Once again the chubby member of Avalanche didn't catch that obvious twinge of sarcasm in the ex-pilot's voice.

Cid rolled his eyes.

Biggs looked at his long-time friend through narrowed eyes. "You're an idiot."

Wedge waved his hand to dismiss Biggs' comment and nudged his glass towards Jessie, who happily refilled it.

"Nah. Biggs just thinks he's tough when he's silent." Jessie held the pitcher up towards Barret, wordlessly asking him if he wanted a refill as well.

Biggs' eyes nearly bulged from his head and he shot what he thought was a glowering stare at Jessie. She simply smiled at him as she walked by and turned around with a wink, pouring the clear looking liquid into Barret's mug. Biggs blushed ever so slightly.

Barret groaned impatiently, leaning his head against the fist of his left hand, once he emptied what was in his mug. "Listen, I don't think the two of you are gonna get into that buildin' on your own." The big man looked up at Cid, who was leaning on the wall near the pinball machine.

Cid shrugged. "So?"

"So I'm goin' with ya."

There was another snort. "You?"

"Yeah me. You gotta problem?" Barret picked up a smaller cup next to his, filled with apple juice, and handed it to Marlene. The big man sighed. "I want that..." Marlene peered up at him curiously and Barret decided on a better word for what he really intended to say- "Cloud...back here. I want an explanation. Tifa wants an explanation." Barret fixed the ribbon in his daughter's hair, his voice becoming gentle when he gazed down at one of the few things he loved more than life itself. "She deserves one."

"Fine. You wanna come? I don't give a damn if you come or not. Just as long as you pay us what you said you would, you can blow up the whole damn building for all I care..." With that thought, Cid smiled slightly and pointed a finger accusingly at the leader of Avalanche. "You're not gonna blow up the ShinRa building, are ya?"

"We blow up reactors, not buildings full of workin' people. Hell, I'd love to blow those bastards to hell. But there's always a chance it could... Some people are innocent, awright?"

"Yeah, real friggin' innocent, Barret."

Barret simply scowled at Cid, shaking his head and returning his attention to Marlene. His head, however, poked up again when he heard the shuddering and squeaking sounds of the elevator being lowered.

Cid shouldered his spear and walked over to the pinball machine, stopping a few inches from the vacant shaft of the elevator. He peered down, but all that his gaze found were darkness and blinking red lights. Cid shifted his weight to his other leg. He knew it didn't take long for Vincent to heal - he just hoped the man wouldn't leave this mission. Cid wanted them to get the money, of course, but to be honest, he liked working with Avalanche. There was a strange, comfortable feeling being around them and in having a place to come home to. Cid shook his head. He wanted Vincent to feel that, too.

When the pinball machine came to the top, Vincent and Tifa stepped off at the same time. Once again that red band was wrapped around Vincent's head, most of it lost in his thick, black hair. It didn't do very well in keeping his hair back, however, for stray pieces were still hanging over his face. And back around him was his red cloak, though it wasn't buckled and the top part was curled over, making it look nearly like a collar. Vincent's eyes quietly roamed over the faces of everyone within the room.

Their expressions were a variety of curiosity, discomfort and feigned indifference.

Marlene climbed down from her father's lap and, ignoring her father's protests, ran up to Vincent with an almost comical enthusiasm. "Can I see your wings now? Please?"

Vincent blinked.

Laughter came from behind the counter; Jessie covered her mouth in a vain attempt to stop herself.

Tifa found herself smiling, too, at the girl's naivete. Sometimes she wished she could see things as simply as children did. Tifa took hold of Marlene's small hands and knelt down before her, her eyes still not quite leveled with the girl's. "Not right now, honey. Maybe later, okay?"

Marlene nodded innocently, walked over to Vincent and peered up at him with a wide smile. "Later, 'kay?" she said to the tall man, then pivoted on her black shoes and traced her steps back to her father.

Vincent felt himself almost smile, but his lips never moved. He wandered to the center of the tavern and everyone's eyes, whether they intended them to or not, found their way to him. They were watching him expectantly. Stay or leave, Valentine? Vincent crossed his arms before his chest and looked over at Barret with a slight, fleeting smile.

"So, what now?"

Third time's the charm, remember?

Cid sighed in relief and didn't bother hiding it.

Barret grinned. "Hell, and here I thought..." He let the words hang in the air, then he simply shook his head and dismissed them. "I had just 'bout enough of those damn Turks chasin' us around. I think it's time we go get that damn jackass and bring 'im home again."

Go get Cloud Strife and end it. Vincent nodded his head.

Simple enough.