By Kristen Gupton-Williams

Several minutes later, Cid came returned to the room with a box full of tools in hand. He sat next to Vincent and stared down at the injury. "How do I open up that part of you to get inside?"

Vincent cocked an eyebrow at the sheer oddness of the question. He then reached down with his left hand and flicked open the damaged panel. "Like that."

Cid inspected the inner workings now exposed to him and huffed. "You know, you got some really weird shit in here."

"Just get on with it, okay?" Vincent replied, looking over at Tifa who was obviously amused at their interaction.

"Fine." Cid rummaged around his toolbox for a moment before coming up with a length of tubing. "I think this will work."

Tifa and Vincent just watched in silence as Cid proceeded to pull out the severed line and install the new one. The pilot inspected the line he had removed thoughtfully. "This is weird."

"What?" Vincent asked, trying to see although he was still unable to move well.

"There’s a wire imbedded in this tubing." Cid said, before turning his attention back to Vincent’s insides. "There are terminals at both ends of the line where the wire hooks up. I wonder what the hell that’s for."

Vincent, not knowing himself was intrigued. "I have no idea."

Cid frowned and again started digging through his toolbox. After a few moments he managed to find a short length of wire. He reached back into Vincent’s body and installed the two ends of the wire into the terminals. "Well?"

Vincent smiled weakly. Cid had stopped the pain he was in by replacing the wire. "It doesn’t hurt anymore."

"Good." Cid sat thoughtful for a moment. "Now, I’ve fixed the line, but you lost a lot of fluid. I’m gonna have to recharge your system with hydraulic oil before you’ll work right again."

"Okay." Vincent nodded.

"Don’t get excited yet," Cid got up from the bed and looked down at his patient, "I’m not going to completely fill you up. I’m going to give you enough hydraulic oil to allow you to move, but not enough to give you back any sort of speed or strength. I’d be an idiot to put you in top form when God knows how often your going to flip out."

"As long as I can get to the bathroom on my own, I couldn’t care less." Vincent mumbled, sinking down into his pillow.

"That’s the only reason I’m fixing you at all." Cid called back as he retreated back toward the garage to get the fluid to recharge Vincent.

Tifa took this opportunity to return to Vincent’s side. "You’re okay?"

He avoided eye contact with her. "Yeah, I’m fine."

She took up his immobile right hand. "Look, about earlier…"

Vincent looked at her and cut her off. "Don’t worry about it. I know why you’re angry and I can’t blame you for it."

"It’s just that I’m so scared that you won’t make it." Tifa held back her tears as best she could. "I know it’s really important to you to have a normal body but I’m not willing to lose you in order for you to have that. Maybe it’s selfish on my part, but I would rather have you like this than not at all. Because to me, it seem selfish of you to risk losing your life for something I don’t think you really need."

"I know," Vincent didn’t want her to worry, "but look, I have every intention of surviving this, okay? I mean, I haven’t come this far just to die now. And it is selfish of me to risk everything for this, but if I don’t do this, Tifa, I’ll never be what you deserve. I want to be normal again so that I can live the rest of my life with you, growing old with you. Then, when it’s time, I’ll die. Those are all things that I can’t do like this. I will never age, and unless Cid gets a hold of me again, I probably won’t die."

Tifa couldn’t help but smile at his words. "Well don’t give Cid a reason to kill you before you do get your stupid body, okay?"

"I’ll do what I can." Vincent smiled back at her.

Soon Cid came back with a few cans of oil in his hands. He sat back down at Vincent’s side after Tifa moved out of the way. He looked around for a bit before finding the fill port. "Okay, listen to me real careful, Sunshine. Don’t even think of moving for the next few minutes. If you do and I get sprayed with this fluid I’m going to be god damned pissed."

"I won’t." Vincent replied, all the while thinking how amusing it would be to have Cid dowsed in oil. Deciding on the better part of valor he relaxed and resigned not to give Cid what he had coming.

After pouring some of the oil into Vincent, Cid replaced the cap to his hydraulic reservoir, flipped closed the panel, and sat up. "Can you move at all?"

Very weakly, Vincent was able to raise his right arm again. He then attempted to get up which took a considerable amount of time as the low pressure in his system made the hydraulic rams work slowly. He did finally manage to get up. "Seems I can get around."

"But not well enough to go chasing anyone, right?" Cid asked, as he picked up his toolbox from the floor.

"Doubtful." Vincent replied as he hung onto Tifa for support.

Cid grumbled to himself as he heard his son begin to cry again. "Great, spend all my free time between feedings messing around with you. Fabulous."

***

After several moments of knocking, Tseng gave up and opened the door before him. Quigley was sitting before a computer terminal, completely absorbed in something. Tseng walked right up behind him and placed a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. "I need to talk to you."

Quigley jumped up from his seat and screeched, having been taken entirely by surprise. "God Tseng, where did you come from?"

Not able to help himself from the obvious, Tseng smiled. "Wutai, but I thought you knew that."

Quigley smirked as he relaxed. "Nice one."

"Seriously, you didn’t hear me beating down the door for the last five minutes?" Tseng asked, crossing his arms.

"No, I’m afraid I didn’t." He shrugged, pointing back at the computer screen. "I was reading some more of the research I pirated out of the lab."

"Oh, I see." Tseng walked over to a chair and sat down. "I need to talk to you about something."

"What?" The scientist asked, turning the chair he had been occupying around to face Tseng.

"It’s my brother." He sighed heavily as his own mind agonized over the news he had received. "You know that when he was taken into the lab by Hojo several weeks ago, that he was given some sort of injection that presumably removed the Chaos demon from him, right?"

"Yes." Quigley leaned forward in his seat; his interest was instantly piqued.

"Well, I just got a call from Mr. Highwind and he told me that Vincent had displayed that same demon this morning and attacked him." He shook his head in disbelief.

"Wow…" Quigley was at once set to thinking. "I wonder what happened."

"That’s what I need to know, and also if there is anything that you can do about it." Tseng knew that the man before him was most likely his only hope. "That demon is dangerous, I don’t need to tell you that. There must be a way to end it once and for all. Do you think you can help?"

Quigley raised his eyebrows for a moment. "I downloaded just about everything from Hojo’s computers in the lab. If he has any information on it, I probably have it. Let me search my files and I’ll let you know."

"All right, but please be fast." Tseng remembered clearly Cid’s threat. "Lives depend on it. I’m going up to the bridge to have this airship turned around. We will be back in Rocket by tomorrow morning."

"Okay, I’ll see what I can do." Quigley ended the conversation by spinning in his seat and getting back to the computer.