Guilt’s
Cost: Part 200
Trying
That night, Cid found himself unable to sleep. Although he had managed to drift off initially when he had gotten to bed, he’d promptly had a nightmare about Shera and had been up ever since. His baby was sound asleep in his portable crib; his small snores the only thing breaking up the silence. Tifa had stayed with him, and she too was soundly sleeping leaving Cid alone. Resolving that he was up and was going to stay that way, he quietly slid from the bed and pulled on some pants and a shirt. Knowing that there was nothing he could do within the confines of his room that wouldn’t result in waking the others, he slipped out.
The
rude glare of the lights in the hall forced him to squint for a few minutes
until his eyes adjusted. He shoved his
hands into his pockets and wandered the halls for a while before finding
himself outside the doors to the infirmary.
Something compelled him to go inside to check on Vincent just for the
sake of doing so.
Inside
the lights were dimmed and the sounds of the various monitors within seemed
muted somewhat. On this night, Vincent
wasn’t the only one in the infirmary. In
another bed on the opposite wall was some poor sap who’d managed to get injured
earlier that day while working construction inside the base. Tifa had told him the story, it of course
being the gruesome type of incident that often plague
those who work with power tools for a living, but the man would be fine when
all was said and done.
Cid
went to Vincent’s bedside and pulled up a nearby chair. Although it was against his normal character to do so, he reached out and placed one of
his hands over Vincent’s. Cid then
spoke, quietly enough to ensure that if the other man in the room was awake, that
he wouldn’t hear. “I wish I knew if you
were listening to me right now, but I guess you can’t show me at the moment,
huh?”
Vincent
of course, provided no response, but the fact was that he was awake and
listening.
“Yeah,
well…” Cid slouched in his chair and let his hand fall away from
Vincent’s. “In case you’re interested,
it’s about three thirty in the morning.
I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been
having these nightmares about Shera lately.
They’re stupid, just the image of walking in after the doctor told me
that she was gone; seeing her lying there on the bed.”
Again,
a small pause passed, as though Cid was giving Vincent the chance to respond.
“I
think it’s a little strange to be getting these dreams now, after all, it has
been a while. I would have thought that
I would have gotten these when she first died, but hell, I ain’t no psychiatrist. I
guess I’ll just blame it on you, since you can’t defend yourself for the time
being. Maybe it’s just the thought of
Tifa losing you if you don’t pull out of this that’s making me have them.” Cid sighed, feeling
a little uneasy discussing this with anyone but at least Vincent was in a state
where he couldn’t ridicule the pilot for doing so, although in his heart Cid
knew Vincent wouldn’t have.
As
Vincent listened, he felt sorry for Cid.
He was aware that Cid would have to be deeply disturbed at the moment to
be talking about this at all. Vincent
wished that he could give some show of sympathy but it wasn’t to be.
“Tifa
is being a real trooper about all of this, though. With all the bullshit you’ve put her through,
I can’t believe she hasn’t cracked under the stress, but somehow she
hasn’t. Yet I can just go through one
crisis with Shera dying and I’m barely able to pull it off. I guess you’re woman is stronger than me,
Sue.”
Inside,
Vincent still cringed at hearing himself referred to by one of Cid’s pet
names. One of his first goals when he
was finally able to move was going to have to be to get people to quit making
up names for him.
“Yeah,
she’s been through the ringer, you know.”
Cid shook his head and looked at the floor. “Going through Cloud’s death, all that crap
with that implant, watching you fight Chaos and all that entailed, being held
hostage by Hojo, watching Tseng’s last hours, and now having to watch you go
through this. I know I’m forgetting a
bunch of other crap, but you get the point.”
The
fact that Tifa had endured so much hadn’t escaped Vincent’s notice and he
himself couldn’t believe her resiliency.
“She
needs… we all need you to make it out of this, Vince.” Cid felt a sting in his eyes that he never
would have imagined having for Vincent.
“Look, I know we haven’t always gotten along so well, and a lot of
that’s my fault. Since you’ve been with
Tifa though, I’ve slowly started to realize what exactly it is that she sees in
you. I feel like a grade A ass for
saying that, but it’s true. I don’t have
a lot of friends, Vince. Tifa, Brad, and
you are about it. There’s Jin too, but
that’s a little different. I guess I
don’t really open up to people. You guys
are the only ones that I ever have talked to, really talked to.”
Although
Vincent had long suspected that this was all true, to actually hear Cid say it
was incredible. In a way, Vincent found
it profoundly sad.
Cid
wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“You know, it wasn’t until just tonight that Tifa told me what really
happened to you in Hojo’s lab. How he
cut you up while you were awake, how he took your arm to Tifa in a garbage
bag. God damn, I knew it was bad what he
did to you, but I really didn’t know. Up
until then I was wondering how you could stand to go through with this, but I
think I get it now. I don’t know if I’d
be brave enough to do it if I was in your position, but I do understand.”
Vincent
wouldn’t have known what to say if he had been capable and for the moment, he
was grateful for his physical state.
“If
it’s okay with you, I’ll think I’ll just sit here a little while longer,” Cid
said, settling back into his chair. His
exhaustion was finally starting to sink in.
***
Cid’s
baby woke up at six in the morning, rousing Tifa from her sleep. Once she realized that Cid was nowhere to be
found, she got to the task of changing and feeding the infant. After the baby’s needs had been met, she
quickly took a shower and dressed. She
thought that maybe Cid had gone up to the hanger to get working and she decided
that she would head up there to see him after stopping in and checking on
Vincent.
She
entered the infirmary and stopped in her tracks. There was Cid, sleeping in a chair at
Vincent’s bedside. She smiled to herself
and then looked down at the baby in her arms.
“Looks like we found Daddy.”
Tifa
went forward until she was right in front of Cid. She gently reached out and placed a hand on
his shoulder. “Cid?”
He
startled out of his sleep, looking up at Tifa wild-eyed. His embarrassment for getting caught here
sleeping immediately crushed in on him.
“Crap…”
“I
was wondering where you were.” Tifa bent
down and handed him the baby. “I thought
you’d be in the hanger. I didn’t figure
I’d find you here.”
Cid
stared at his baby and tried to change the subject. “Did he eat yet?”
She
laughed, amused at his attempt to take the spotlight of himself. “Of course.
I changed him, too. What are you
doing here?”
With
an incredible effort, Cid managed to get out of the chair that his body had
molded to. The stiffness within him was
obvious. “I just couldn’t sleep. I figured I could keep Sunshine here company for
a while.”
“How
long have you been in here, Cid?” Tifa
could see that it had been a while by the way the pilot was moving.
Cid
admitted the truth, not having the strength to lie. “Since three thirty.”
“Wow…”
Tifa was genuinely amazed.
***
Vincent’s
next sign of recovery started later that day.
Although his eyes were closed, he started seeing flashes of light and
color. As his optic nerves healed, the
light show intensified until like the ringing in his ears it began to
abate. When Dr. Arlin came by that
evening to check and see if Vincent had any sort of pupil light response yet,
not only did Vincent see for the brief moment that she held his eye open, but
there was a reaction to the light she was shining into it. Janice checked his other eye, and saw that it
too, reacted to the light. She gasped
with excitement as she slipped her pen light back into her pocket.
Tifa
had grown familiar with the nightly routine of checks that the doctor had been
making over the weeks, and she knew that something was different. “What is it?”
Janice
continued to stare at her patient. “His
eyes are reacting to light. They aren’t
just completely dilated anymore. I think
he can see.”
Tifa
launched from her chair and stood over Vincent.
“I want to see.”
Again
the doctor took out her light, held open one of Vincent’s eyes and clicked on
the light. Not only did his pupil
constrict, but this time it seemed as though he tried to close his eye to shut
out the light.
Tifa
and the doctor stood there speechless. Vincent himself was amazed. Not only could he see, but he had actually
felt himself try and close his eye.
Having been so focused on listening to the world around him, he hadn’t
noticed the day before when the slightest bit of sensation had started to return
to his eyelids. With every ounce of
effort that he could manage, Vincent opened his left eye a tiny amount and saw
his wife standing at his side.
Tifa
saw him do this and immediately reached down and grabbed his arm. “Vincent, you’re looking at me!”
Dr.
Arlin needed evidence that this was a conscious action on his part. “Vincent, if you hear and understand me, I
want you to blink as best you can.”
Although
it took him several seconds to respond, Vincent managed to slowly close and
then reopen his eye. This time, the
right one peered open a little as well.
Janice
smiled widely and looked at Tifa. “This
is very good. I need to go call some of
the neurologists and tell them of this progress!”
With
the doctor gone, Tifa found herself alone with Vincent. As she looked at him, Tifa realized that his
eyes were no longer the crimson that she had become accustomed to. Instead, they were now a deep reddish brown;
another small change that she would have to get used to. She smiled down at him, grateful for this new
sign of improvement. “You’re getting
better. I’m so happy!”
Vincent
ached to be able to speak in response but the connections just hadn’t been made
yet. All he could do was again blink
slowly in reply.
Now
that he was at least able to communicate in some fashion, Tifa had one question
she desperately needed to ask. “Vincent,
is your mind okay? I mean, you remember
everything and can think normally, right?
Blink if you can.”
Once
more, he did what was asked, this time his response was a little faster as he
was getting the hang of moving at least in this small way.
Tifa bent down to give him a kiss, noticing that he closed his eyes as she did so. When she straightened back up, she saw that he opened his eyes once more. He was definitely responsive to things going on around him.
***
Cid came to
take Tifa to dinner as usual, seemingly thrilled at the new progress that
Vincent had made. Tifa left for a moment
to go to the bathroom, leaving Cid alone with Vincent.
Cid leaned
over and into Vincent’s line of sight.
His expression betrayed how self-conscious he was feeling at the
moment. “Hey… were you listening last
night?”
Vincent
just blinked slowly in response.
Cid nodded
slightly, understanding Vincent’s reply as affirmative. “Good.
‘Cause I sure as hell ain’t gonna say it again.”
Inside,
Vincent was amused and closed his eyes for a second. He never would have imagined in a million
years that Cid would have actually shown genuine concern for him.
Tifa
finally emerged and she kissed Vincent quickly before leaving for the
evening. “I’ll see you in the morning…
and I guess you’ll actually see me, too.”
***
When they
had finished eating, Tifa suddenly looked thoughtful. She realized there was something that she
needed to do.
Cid caught
her expression. “What’s on your mind?”
“Well,” she
started while pushing her plate back, “I was thinking that I should stop by the
lab and thank Quigley and Porter. None
of this would have been possible without them.
Plus the times they fixed Vincent’s cybernetic body when it got messed
up... I really owe them a lot.”
Cid nodded
in agreement. “Yeah, they’ve really come
through. Me and the kid are gonna go
turn in. I’ll leave the door unlocked if
you want to come by later.”
“Okay.” Tifa remained where she sat for a few minutes
as Cid got up and left. She found it
endearing how he walked around with the baby in his arms all the time. He had become a very good father and she was
proud of him.
She
eventually made her way to Porter and Rayna’s room, fully expecting to find him
there at this late an hour. Tifa knocked
on the door and Rayna answered.
“Is Porter
in?” she asked.
Rayna shook
her head and smiled. “No, he’s with
Quigley in the lab still. They’ve been
working on something that’s been keeping them pretty engrossed.”
“Oh,” Tifa
wasn’t too shocked to hear this, “I’ll go check with them in the lab then. I sort of wanted to talk to the both of them
anyway.”
Rayna just
nodded and shut the door.
Once at the
door to the lab she tried to enter, but found it locked. Not knowing what else to do, she knocked.
A few
minutes later Porter opened the door, but instead of letting her in, he stepped
out into the hall and closed the door behind him. “Tifa, what are you doing here?”
“I was
hoping to come in and have a word with you and Quigley,” Tifa answered,
immediately curious as to what was going on inside.
Porter
looked back behind him at the door and then drew in a breath through clenched
teeth before turning to face her. “Yeah,
uh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea at the moment. I don’t think you want to go in there right
now.”
Whatever
they could be hiding inside couldn’t possibly be worse than what she had
witnessed in Hojo’s lab and she grinned.
“Why, what is it you’re up to?”
He instantly
grew uncomfortable with what he was going to have to tell her. He ran his hands over his face, trying to
come up with a way to tell her without sounding morbid. “Well, you know that Quigley and I were given
Vincent’s old body after the surgery, right?”
“Of
course.” Tifa had been aware of this
fact from the outset and hadn’t been bothered by it in the least. She knew full well that there was a wealth of
knowledge to be gained from studying what had been her husband and hadn’t
objected.
“Okay,
well, Quigley and I dissected the tissues from the body quite a while back, so
those are gone, leaving just the cybernetic portion.” Porter looked into her eyes for any negative
sign.
“That isn’t
all that bad, Porter.” Her smile
returned. “Seeing just the mechanical
part of what was once attached to him lying around isn’t that shocking after
what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah, it’s
not just lying there though.” Porter
braced himself for any reaction.
Tifa just
became more interested. “What?”
He sighed
and hung his head. “I’ll let you
in. Quigley’s inside.”
With the
door opened for her by the former Turk, Tifa went in. What she saw was strange to say the
least. There in the center of the room
stood Quigley and standing next to him was the remainder of Vincent’s
body. There were several wires hanging
between the scientist and the cybernetic form.
When Quigley turned to see who was coming in with Porter, Vincent’s body
mirrored his actions perfectly.
Tifa
brought her hands up to her mouth. “Oh
my God, what are you doing?”
Porter
placed a hand on her shoulder. “We
wanted to see if we could get the components to respond to our own nervous
signals so we could study how it receives and interprets them.”
Quigley
smiled at seeing Tifa and interjected, “However, we found out that we can do
more than just move it.”
“What do
you mean?” Tifa asked, stepping closer.
The sight of Vincent’s decapitated form standing next to the scientist
mocking his every move was bizarre.
Quigley
raised up his right hand, causing the machine to do the same. “Not only can I control it, Tifa, but I can
actually feel it. We never thought that it was possible to get
real feelings transmitted through cybernetic components, but… but we do. With this technology, the things were are
going to be able to do for amputees is incredible.”
Tifa
suddenly had a strange request. If they
could not only move the body but feel what it felt, she somehow needed to
experience it for herself so that she could know what Vincent had been through. “I want to try it.”
Porter put
his hands on his hips and frowned. “I
don’t know, Tifa. We not only have
electrodes on Quigley’s body to patch him into the thing, but there are a few
needles going into some of his nerves.”
The
prospect of a little pain wasn’t enough to divert her from wanting to
experience it herself. “I don’t care, I
really do want to know.”
Quigley,
always one to accommodate others and let them do things for themselves didn’t
have a problem with it. The fact was
that he had been hooked up to the thing now for about twelve hours and he was
ready to be done with it. “All
right. Porter, help me get unhooked from
this thing.”
Porter
shook his head as he walked to Quigley, disbelieving that Tifa was willing to
go through with what seemed to him a foolish want. It took them a good fifteen minutes to get
Quigley separated from all the electrodes and then a few more minutes to remove
the needles that had been driven into a few key nerves of his body.
Once he was
freed, Quigley pulled back on his shirt that had been thrown across a chair and
he waved Tifa over.
After
watching what the scientist had just gone through to get separated from the
thing, she modified her request a bit.
“Can we just hook up one of my arms?
I think that will be enough, I don’t want to put you guys out too much.”
“Sure, no
problem,” Quigley said with his usual lazy smile. “Push the sleeve to your shirt up over your
shoulder.”
Tifa did as
requested and watched as Quigley began taping several electrodes to her upper
arm. When they were in place, he picked
up a small paper envelope from a nearby table and opened it. Tifa could see that it was filled with things
that didn’t look too different from acupuncture needles. “How many of those are you going to use?”
Quigley
made eye contact with her. “For just the
arm, you’ll need three of them in order to get back signals from the body. It’s actually not that bad. I promise I won’t hurt you. I put the ones that were in me myself so you
know it can’t be that awful.”
Suddenly
Tifa felt a spike of anxiety but forced herself through it. “Okay, just be quick about it.”
The
scientist again smiled, knowing that what she thought she was going to feel as
the needles were placed was worse than reality.
It only took him a little over a minute to get all three needles
inserted into her arm and then hooked up to the corresponding wires.
When she
was hooked up completely, Quigley walked over to the cybernetic body and put
his hand inside an opened a panel on the torso.
He looked back at Tifa. “Are you
ready for this?”
She just
nodded, waiting for any sort of sensation.
“All right,
get ready for the weirdest thing you’ve ever felt.” Quigley flipped something within the body,
causing it to power up.
Tifa’s arm
was rocked with what felt like an electric shock for a moment before suddenly
feeling very heavy. Her brain struggled
to cope with the sensation of not only her actual arm, but the feeling of the
cybernetic one as well. Her eyes went
wide with awe as she slowly raised her arm, causing the mechanical body to do
the same. “Oh dear God…”
Quigley
walked around her, watching as she slowly rotated her wrist and opened and
closed the hand several times. “It’s
unusual, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…”
Tifa was speechless as she watched Vincent’s former arm copy her every
move. When she closed her hand, she
could feel the cybernetic one close and touch itself. The amount of tactile sensation she was fed
back from the limb was incredible.
Pressure and touch were readily sent back to her by the machine,
although in a slightly different manner than what her own body gave her. Moreover, she could sense the servos and
hydraulics working within the arm as it moved, parts that she didn’t know could
ever be felt. It was so surreal. “This is what he felt all that time?”
“Right,”
Quigley knew exactly what it was like.
“Having the whole body hooked up to you is really some stuff.”
The oddness
this arm gave her alone was enough and she now had no desire to feel what the
rest of the body was like. After just a
few more minutes of manipulating the arm and hand, Tifa had experienced
plenty. “Okay, I think I’ve had enough.”
“All
righty.” Quigley soon came over and
began to disconnect her.
As she was
freed of the machine, she realized she had a new understanding for
Vincent. No wonder he had been so
desperate to have his own body back.
Even just having been hooked to the machine for a short while, she knew
that the feelings and sensations from it were alien and although better than
nothing, would not pass for something natural.
When the
last electrode and needle was pulled from her, she pushed her sleeve back
down. “That’s amazing… I always wondered
what he could or couldn’t feel with that thing.”
Quigley sat
down in a chair, exhausted from his day’s work.
“I know, it’s different, that’s for sure. I wish Porter would try it, but he won’t.”
The former
Turk frowned as he also landed in a seat.
“There is no way I’m doing that, I have absolutely no desire
whatsoever. Gives me the willies.” He turned his gaze to Tifa. “So, you said before that there was something
that you wanted to talk to us about?”
“Oh,
right.” With what she had just gone
through, the initial reason for her visit had slipped her mind. “Well, now that Vincent is showing some real
signs of improvement, I just thought that I should thank the two of you. Without you guys, he would have died a long
time ago and he never would have had the chance to get his body back.”
Both
Quigley and Porter were unaccustomed to such praise. The two of them exchanged glances.
“Tifa,”
Quigley started, “we were happy to do it.
It was good just to see that something that we got from Hojo was
actually effecting some positive change.
Vincent deserves to be normal and getting him there, well, it’s our
duty.”
“Yeah,”
Porter agreed, “there’s no need to thank us.
All in a day’s work, although be it an odd line of work to be in. After all that this organization did for me,
I’ll do anything to help anyone here, especially Vincent. If it wasn’t for him and his convincing me
that ASRIO could help Rayna, she would be dead.”
Tifa
appreciated their humble attitude, but nonetheless, they had saved the most
precious thing in her life several times and for that she would always be
grateful. “Well, I do thank you and owe
you two a huge debt. If either of you
ever need anything, I’m here for you.”
***
As the days
passed, Vincent began to feel more and more of his face. His sense of smell came back and he began to
be able to move his lips, although the movement wasn’t coordinated in anyway
and he wasn’t yet able to mouth out words.
This didn’t stop him from trying whenever he was alone. He knew the only way to learn how to move
again was to practice and since he really had nothing else to do, that is
exactly what he did.
About a
week after he had opened his eyes, he heard some sort of monitor next to him
begin to go off. Tifa, who was at his
side put down the book she had been reading to him and stood, trying to figure
out where the noise was coming from.
Dr. Arlin
quickly came in and pushed a button on the machine that was breathing for
Vincent.
With her
heart rate returning to normal, Tifa looked at Janice. “What was that? Is something wrong?”
The doctor
looked thoughtful for a moment. “No,
that was just the ventilator alerting to the fact that it’s meeting some
resistance.” She pointed at Vincent’s
chest. “He’s fighting the machine.”
Had Tifa
been watching, she would have noticed that over the last hour Vincent’s breaths
given to him by the machine had started to sound less smooth. His nervous system had now healed to the
point that the unconscious functions of his body were beginning to re-establish
themselves. She saw between the breaths
he was now receiving that his chest would move slightly, as his lungs tried to
change the rate at which they were receiving air. “Does this mean he can come off of the
ventilator?”
Janice
raised her eyebrows and pulled off her glasses.
“Most likely. Are you going to be
here for the next few hours?”
It was
still early enough that Tifa had no intention of leaving. “Yes.”
“Okay. If you’re going to be here to watch him, I’ll
unhook him from the ventilator. I’ll
keep the endotracheal tube in him hooked up to an apnea monitor to make sure
that he keeps breathing on his own and that if he doesn’t, we can get him
hooked back up quickly.” She reached
down and disconnected the ventilator tube from his tracheostomy. “Even if the monitor doesn’t go off, if you
think anything seems amiss, you come and get me, all right?”
Tifa nodded
in agreement, thrilled that Vincent had made yet another large step towards
regaining control. Before the doctor
left the room, Tifa did have one question, “Doctor, if he keeps breathing on
his own, when can we get the tracheostomy in his neck closed up and let him
breath normally?”
“Well,
theoretically, his healing should be a one way street and if he does well
throughout the rest of the day, I will take care of it tomorrow morning.”
Tifa
accepted this in stride, just wanting to no longer see the unnatural sight of
the tube protruding from her husband’s neck.
“In the morning it is, then. I
know he’ll do just fine.”
Vincent
listened to all this, more than pleased with this development. Since he couldn’t feel any of his body below
his neck he had been surprised to learn that he was breathing on his own and he
knew that if these sorts of signals were getting through that his spine must be
well on its way to being healed. He
suspected that it wouldn’t be much longer before some sensation came back.
With the
ventilator now unhooked, Tifa stood over Vincent, staring intently as he took
the first breaths on his own. The smile
she was wearing grew a little with each respiration. “One less machine, one less tube.”
He blinked
up at her, trying his best to smile and to his surprise, he felt the left
corner of his mouth actually obey and pull up into a faint grin.
Tifa saw
this and squealed, “You just smiled!”
The doctor,
who hadn’t gotten very far heard Tifa’s outburst and ran back in. “What’s wrong?”
Tifa at
once realized that the doctor had just been scared that something was
happening. She pointed down at
Vincent. “He just smiled at me!”
Janice
sighed, relieved that nothing was amiss.
“Oh… well, that’s good to know.
I’ll write it in his chart.”
Being by
far more razzed at the fact that Vincent had just done what he had done, Tifa
quickly turned her attention to her husband and away from the doctor. “You’re going to put the expectations of all
the doctors to shame, I’m afraid.”
Again,
Vincent managed to smile ever so slightly.
***
Cid
came to get her and as the evening wore on, they turned into his room. He put the baby to sleep as usual in the
playpen and then slipped into bed. Tifa
laid down beside him, as she had grown rather accustomed to doing since
Vincent’s surgery. Things were normal
until Cid started to dream.
This
time, it wasn’t the nightmare he had been having about Shera, although he would
later prefer that to have been what he had dreamt. Instead, he found himself having a dream
about he and Tifa making love. It was one
of those dreams that one has without any reason to it, but none the less leaves
the dreamer feeling uneasy. Just as he
was about to climax in his sleep, Cid woke with a start and hastily got out of
bed. He stood there for a moment trying
to calm himself down and gather his nerves.
Tifa
was jostled awake by his leap from the bed and she sat up, afraid that
something was terribly wrong. “Cid,
what’s going on?”
There
was absolutely no way that he was going to confess what he had just envisioned,
intentional or not. He tried to think of
something else to tell her but drew a blank in his momentarily confused
state. All he could do in response was
shrug weakly in the darkness.
It
was obvious from his body language that something was very wrong with the pilot
and Tifa felt the need to try again.
“Cid?”
He
gathered himself as best he could and sat back down on the edge of the
bed. Cid still found himself breathing a
little harder than normal. “Tifa, we
can’t do this anymore.”
She
reached over and flicked on the lamp next to the bed. “What?”
He
motioned at the bed. “This… we can’t do
this anymore. It’s not okay.”
“But
you always said that as long as it was just sleep as in sleep, that it was
fine.” Tifa was confused and a bit hurt
by his sudden need to separate himself from her. “Why is it a problem now when we’ve shared a
bed dozens of times?”
“Look,”
Cid slouched before continuing, knowing that he had just hurt her feelings,
“it’s not that I think something is going to happen or anything. Somehow, despite everything great about you,
I’ve never been compelled to try. Even
though nothing ever has happened, nor will it, this just can’t keep going on.”
Tifa
soon had an inkling that Cid had just had a dream of some sort or another, but
whether it was about her or another nightmare regarding Shera she didn’t know
and didn’t dare ask. “Well, if that’s
how you feel, than that’s that.”
He
turned so he could look at her straight on.
“Tifa, I know we’re friends, really good friends in fact, but the truth
is that I am a man and you’re… well, you’re obviously not. Tell me this; how would you feel if Vincent
and you switched places and you weren’t around for whatever reason? Then say, and I hate to use this example but
I’m too tired to give a rat’s ass, that Aeris was around and they started
sleeping together. Just like us, no sex,
just sleep. Wouldn’t you still be a
little unhappy with that?”
Tifa
had never thought of it in those terms before.
Cid and her had clung to each other, perhaps a little too much but only
out of their mutual need for support, not sexual attraction. She knew that even though Vincent had seemed
all right about what he knew was going on, Tifa was well aware that if the
tables had been reversed, she would have been upset with Vincent on many
levels. She suddenly felt selfish for
never having looked at it this way and she hung her head. “Oh my God, you’re right…”
Cid
reached over and patted her leg through the sheet. “I don’t think it’s a big deal if we sleep in
the same room, but I think from now on we shouldn’t sleep in the same bed.”
Tifa
was relieved that he wasn’t going to push her that far away. She still felt she needed him nearby and
being in the same room with Cid would at least give her the security that she
required to get through the nights. “So,
do I get the couch or you?”
He
smiled at her. “I sleep on that couch
enough during the day to be pretty damn used to it by now. I can crash there.”
“Are
you sure?” she asked, not wanting him to sacrifice his physical well being for
her sake.
“Yeah,
it’s no big deal. Besides, this way I
won’t wake you up when I get the baby taken care of in the night,” Cid said
while standing back up and grabbing his pillow.
“Now go back to sleep so that you’ll be ready for yet another riveting
day of reading to Sunshine.”
***
In
the morning, Tifa returned to Vincent’s bedside to find that he had managed to
go all night without being put back on the ventilator. He opened his eyes as she neared him and
pulled off another smile. Truth was, he
had practiced doing so well into the night to make sure that he could keep it
up. Seeing Tifa’s reaction made it worth
while.
Dr.
Arlin saw Tifa arrive and came over.
“Well, looks like he gets the tube out.”
Tifa
clasped her hands over her chest, excited for this. “Great!”
“Actually,
this will give us an idea of what some of his reflexes are,” Janice said as she
reached down and began to undo some of the tape holding the trecheostomy collar
in place. Once it was loose, she
deflated the cuff to the endotracheal tube in preparation for pulling it
out. She looked at Tifa
momentarily. “If he can feel in his neck
and throat, he may do some coughing and gagging when I pull this out. I just don’t want you to be surprised, okay?”
Tifa
nodded in response and then looked down into Vincent’s eyes. Instantly, she saw fear there. She bent down, took his hand into hers and
spoke to him quietly, “This will only take a second. It’s nothing compared to what you’ve been
through, okay?”
He
made a piteous expression with his eyes before closing them.
Janice,
upon seeing that he was ready, pulled the tube out in one fluid motion.
Vincent
suddenly felt the uncontrollable urge to both gag and swallow at the same
time. He felt his body wracked with a
coughing fit and without realizing it, he managed to squeeze Tifa’s hand.
Tifa
was so engrossed in watching Vincent go through his momentary troubles that she
almost didn’t realize that he was grasping her hand in return until she tried
to let go. “Doctor! He’s holding my hand, look!”
Janice’s
eyes went wide as she watched Tifa raise her hand slightly with Vincent’s
latched on for all it was worth. “From
the research we had from Hojo, by all accounts he shouldn’t be able to do that
yet!”
Vincent’s
eyes went wide as he realized that he was holding onto his wife. He’d had no sensation anywhere in his body
until now. He had felt the tube pulled
from his neck and now felt his hand.
Vincent didn’t dare let go of Tifa, fearing that once he did, it might
be a while until he figured out how to control his hand well enough to touch
her again.
Dr. Arlin continued to stare at their joined
hands for a few moments. “I’m going to
go get a suture kit so I can close that hole in his neck. When I’m done, I’ll call the physical
therapist to let him know that it’s time for him to come down and start working
with Vincent.”
“Even
though the only thing he’s moved so far is his hand?” Tifa asked, still
clinging to him.
“Yes,”
Janice replied while pushing her glasses up higher, “the therapist can start
with that, helping him to begin building strength and trying to stimulate him
into moving other parts of his body. The
sooner we start that sort of work with him, the better the outcome will
be. He has a lot of coordination to
re-master and muscle to build.”
Tifa
nodded in agreement as the doctor’s words made sense. Not wanting to be left out, she asked, “Do
you think the therapist will show me how to help get Vincent moving? I’d really like to take part in that. It would make me feel like I was helping.”
“Actually,
I think that’s a great idea.” Janice
smiled. “The more he’s worked with, the
quicker he’ll get back in control. I
know the therapist pretty well as I’ve sent a lot of patients to him over the
years and he’s always willing to help family members learn some of the
exercises.”
Tifa
seemed pleased to hear this and grinned.
“Great. When do you think he’ll
start coming by?”
“I’ve
had him alerted to this for a while now, so he’s been expecting it. I’d bet he comes by today at least to get
aquatinted with the two of you.” Janice
had one more suggestion before she left the room, “For the time being, you
might want to keep touching his hand.
The more he feels stimulus there, the better his ability to control it
will be. It will help his mind make the
connections faster.”
“Okay,”
Tifa replied, looking back down at where their hands were touching.
***
Cid
was in the cafeteria getting something for lunch. He sat alone at a table, his son resting in
his carrier beside his chair. After a
while, he found himself day dreaming and was startled when he felt someone come
up and put their hands on his shoulders.
He turned to look behind him.
“Oh, Jin, it’s you.”
She
smiled down at Cid and then bent over and gave the sleeping baby a kiss before
landing in the seat next to him. They
had gone out several times since he had returned to the base. “Yeah, I just thought I’d come down and see
what you were up to.”
He
couldn’t help but reciprocate her grin.
Cid had become increasingly interested in her with every date they’d
gone on, but he had yet to try and even kiss her. He was taking it slow, perhaps a little
slower than Jin would have liked. Cid
shrugged and replied, “Not much. Just
been hanging out, dragging Tifa away from Sue every now and then.”
“How’s
he been doing?” Jin asked, not having gone to see Vincent for herself as she
had a huge aversion to going into the infirmary. She wouldn’t even go there when she was sick
or hurt, so it went without saying that she wouldn’t go there for social
visits.
“Seems
to be getting better. Tifa let’s me know
every time he does anything. I guess
that’s all she’s got to do for the time being, though.” Cid stared down at the remainder of the
sandwich on his plate, suddenly realizing that whenever he spoke to Jin, it
seemed that he only really talked about Tifa.
Certainly the mechanic was bound to get annoyed at some point with his
constant talk of the other woman. “I’m
sorry…”
She
narrowed her eyes and leaned forward.
“Sorry about what?”
He
shoved his plate back and turned in his seat to face her straight on. “I just realized that I seem to talk about
Tifa a little too much. You’re probably
sick of it.”
Jin
shook her head. She had never been the
jealous type and hadn’t given it a second thought. “She’s your best friend and she’s going
through a lot right now, of course you talk about her. It doesn’t bother me.”
Part
of him suspected that she was just being kind.
He had to make a confession that might end the relationship right here
and now. “I’ve let her spend the night
with me in my bed. Several times, in
fact. All we did was sleep, but the
other night, I started to feel really bad about it, like it was wrong and I put
and end to it. It was bothering me that
even though nothing was going on between she and I, that it was inappropriate
considering that she is married and that I’m with you.”
Two
things immediately struck Jin. First,
she was a little surprised to hear that they had been sleeping together like
that, but Jin knew that if he said that nothing had happened between them, then
nothing had. Secondly, this was the first time that Cid
had given any mention to the fact that she and he were a couple. “You’re with me?”
Cid
raised his eyebrows, not sure what her response meant. “Yeah, we’ve been going out for a while…”
Her
smile returned. “You know, with the fact
that you’ve never once called me your girlfriend nor have you so much as kissed
me, I was starting to think that we were just going to be friends.”
He
became thoughtful for a moment. Even
though they never had discussed having a relationship, Cid had just assumed
that they were in one after about the third time they went out. After all, he and Shera had ended up together
without ever having addressed the subject and he had tried to slide into
another relationship with Jin in much the same way. As for not having made any advances, again,
that just wasn’t his style. As outgoing
as he was, when it came to physical intimacy, Cid had never been much of an
instigator. He was too laid back in
these ways and it had led Jin to think that he wasn’t interested. Swallowing his pride, Cid decided to address
the subject now and get everything out onto the table like he should have done
before. “I’ve thought we were a couple
for a while now. I really do like you.”
“I
like you a lot, too.” Her smile didn’t
fade. “I’ve been waiting for you to give
me some sign that we were going to take this to the next level for a while, but
I didn’t push it since I knew that you were still taking your wife’s passing
pretty hard.”
“Yeah,
it’s still hurts but it always will. I
can’t let that keep me from getting on with my life though, right?” Although this sort of conversation would have
made him die of embarrassment with almost anyone else, with Jin it felt all
right.
“Hey,
when you’re ready, you know I’ll be here.
None of the other men around here ever had the stones to even ask me
out. You’re not like them. You’re a real man, and that’s what got my attention
in the first place,” Jin said, dropping her gaze away, feeling color come to
her cheeks.
Cid
had noticed how the others, especially the crewmen of the airship, seemed to
have a general consensus going that Jin was, for lack of a better term, a bitch. He had seen that for himself on his first
encounter with her, but since then she had shown him a side that no one else
had ever been privy to. Truth be told,
he in turn had shown her his own softer side, the one that only Tifa and Shera
had ever witnessed. “They don’t know
what they were missing.”
She
giggled to herself, feeling self-conscious.
He
continued to look at her, realizing that having her with him more than just on
their occasional dates was really appealing.
Since Shera’s death, he had been very lonely and although he had used
Tifa to some degree to try and fill that void, he had always known that she
could never completely be his. Jin
however, could be and was willing it seemed.
It was becoming increasingly clear to Cid that he wasn’t doing as well
on his own as he pretended. He needed a
woman at his side who cared for him beyond friendship. Jin was that woman. Even the way she interacted with his baby
seemed completely natural. When they
were together and had the child with them, she always managed to pick up the
baby whenever he fussed before Cid could.
He needed to let her know that he was serious about this
relationship. Cid leaned toward her
slightly and reached out to place a hand beneath her chin. He pulled her forward until their lips met.