Guilt’s Cost: Part XXVII

Confession

Vincent led the way to the airship with Tifa and Angel following closely behind him. Once they boarded Tseng lead Vincent to a cabin in the back where he could put the luggage. After that, he and his brother went to the bridge where the others were gathered.

Tifa was standing at the head of the bridge, looking out over the airfield as the ship slowly started to lift up. Vincent went over to her and placed his human arm around her waist. Looking at her, he could see great sadness in her expression. "What’s wrong?"

She shook her head slightly, not able to bear looking at him. "It just brings back memories to be standing here, it’s just like the Highwind."

Vincent looked around, realizing that this ship was of the same make as Cid’s stolen craft had been. "It is, isn’t it?"

"Yeah." She rested her head on his shoulder. "Sometimes when I think of what it was like back then, I wonder at all the small things that happened that could have changed everything."

"Like what?" Vincent asked.

"Well, when we were in the Shin Ra mansion in Nibelhiem." She closed her eyes as she remembered. "Had we not found that key in the safe, and then figured out it was to the secret room in the basement, we never would have found you. Or what if we had gotten to the City of the Ancients just a few minutes earlier and had saved Aeris? What would have been different?"

Vincent shrugged, at a loss for an answer. "I don’t know, but I would still be asleep in that stasis box or worse."

Tifa looked up at him, seeing that his expression lacked any joy. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring you down."

Vincent almost laughed. "As though anyone ever has to bring me down."

"You know," Tifa started, "you are a lot different now than you were back then."

"How so?" He asked.

"You’re more personable to everyone." Tifa placed her head back on his shoulder. "You used to just give short answers to people when they talked to you, and you had a tendency to make others think they were bothering you."

Vincent cocked an eyebrow. "I was hurting too much to be distracted by casual conversation. Even though the events I was mourning had taken place twenty-seven years before, I had been asleep all that time, and to me it had just happened. It’s hard to wake up one day and realize that your son is trying to destroy the world."

Tifa took a step back from Vincent. "What..?"

Vincent brought his human hand up and covered his mouth. Even when he had told Tifa the story about Angel’s creation in the lab, he had left out the small detail of Sephiroth also being his child. He had managed to keep this secret between Tseng and himself. Now, it was out.

Tifa lost all the color in her face and took another step back. Her eyes filled with tears as she saw the absolute horror come across Vincent’s face. "Sephiroth?"

Vincent turned his back to her, seeing that the others present on the bridge hadn’t overheard their conversation. Tears were starting to fill his eyes, and he needed to escape before anyone could see.

Tifa watched, frozen to her spot as Vincent ran from the bridge. The others too saw Vincent’s retreat, and looked over at Tifa in confusion. She couldn’t bear their stares and ran after him.

Instinctively, she made her way to the outside deck of the ship. Sure enough she found Vincent there, clinging to the rail of the ship looking down at the ground below.

She walked up behind him slowly; afraid on some level that when he noticed her, it would be Chaos that would greet her. "Hey, Vincent?"

"Go away." He said between sobs.

Although her heart had been stung to hear that Sephiroth was his son, she still wished to let him know that it was all right. "No, I will not. I’m not angry, but I think I deserve an explanation."

"What’s there to explain, Tifa?" He replied, still not looking at her. "Sephiroth was my son. I never told anyone that, and I never intended to. Tseng and Hojo knew, but no one else."

"But why didn’t you ever tell me? Did Hojo steal your DNA and use it to create him? If so, why did he tell us that he was Sephiroth’s father?" Tifa asked, her mind clouded in confusion.

"Hojo didn’t find out until after he created Angel, that’s why he got angry and decided to abort the retrial. He knew that Lucretia and I were having an affair, but he never suspected that we had…" Vincent’s voice trailed off as more tears choked him.

Tifa shook at the thought of Vincent being with another woman, even if it had been over thirty years before. She knew this wasn’t fair as she too had been with other men in her lifetime. Yet she still felt some measure of betrayal at never having been told that Sephiroth had been his son. "You should have told me!"

"How? Wouldn’t you have thought it terrible of me to have helped kill my own son? What kind of monster could spawn a child like that?" Vincent glanced back at her briefly. "It was because Hojo knew of my feelings for Lucretia that he tore my body apart and turned me into what I am."

"How Sephiroth turned out wasn’t your fault!" Tifa stepped closer to him. "Hojo’s the one who turned him into a monster. Lucretia let him have that child for his experiment, it wasn’t your fault!"

He turned on her, furious at her accusation of Lucretia’s guilt. "Lucretia was as terrified of Hojo as anyone else. She gave the child over to Hojo for fear that if he learned that I was the father, that I would be killed, along with her and the baby. She did what she thought she had to do."

Tifa felt his anger tear at her, and she dropped her gaze. "I’m sorry…"

"Not as sorry as I am." Vincent looked away again. "If I had stayed away from Lucretia, there would have been no Sephiroth or Cloud Strife. None of what happened over the last thirty years would have happened. How am I supposed to live with that? How could I expect anyone to not hate me after learning the truth?"

Gathering her courage, Tifa went to him and placed her arms around his waist. "Vincent, I could never hate you. Do you remember what I said the night you came to me in New Nibelheim?"

He turned in her embrace and looked down at her. "What?"

"I said that nothing that happened before you came to me mattered." Tifa held him closer. "I meant it, and I still do. Besides, if Sephiroth was a monster simply because you were his father, then explain how Angel turned out so perfect."

At hearing Tifa say this he knew he needed to make one more confession to her. "I am fairly certain that all that is good in Angel is a result of who her mother was."

Tifa’s eyes went wide. "You know who her mother was?"

He turned away from her again. "Yes, when I was with Tseng in the lab a few days ago, I found out."

She couldn’t stand the suspense. "Well, who is it?"

Vincent closed his eyes, letting a tear fall. "Aeris."

Tifa’s mind spun, disbelieving what he had said. "Aeris..?"

Vincent’s shoulders slumped as he awaited her reaction. "Yes. I was afraid to tell you, since there was the whole Cloud and Aeris thing."

Tifa shook her head, even though his back was turned to her. "Afraid? Why? Yes, Cloud preferred her over me, but that has nothing to do with Angel. Maybe you’ve forgotten over the years, but despite the fact that Cloud turned his back on me for her, Aeris and I were still friends, and I loved her dearly. Vincent, I can’t think of anyone better to have been her mother, can you?"

Vincent looked over, seeing that Angel was standing on the deck close to the stairway. Upon seeing the pain upon her father’s face, she ran over and threw her arms around both him and Tifa.

Angel had heard most of their conversation. "Father, Tseng has told me about my brother. There is no way for you to be blamed for what he did. Sephiroth was driven to madness by several things, but not by you. But I know nothing of my mother, and if you could tell me about her sometime, I would be grateful."

Vincent was being comforted by the acceptance these two women gave him. Inside he was still in agony over Sephiroth’s ultimate fate, and supposed he always would be. He knew he had frightened Tifa with his initial reaction. "I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Tifa."

She smiled up at him. "It’s okay, Vincent. I know why you didn’t, I’m not angry."

Even though the circumstances surrounding the loss of Vincent’s son and her unborn baby were completely different, they now had another level of understanding between them. Deep inside, she was also relieved to finally know who Angel’s mother was. The immature part of her personality was exalted to know that Angel was definitely not another love child of Vincent’s, as the Ancient had been dead far too long to have been personally involved in the girl’s creation.

Tifa’s mind thought about the situation. With Vincent being Sephiroth’s father, it also made him Cloud’s father in a way. Her world was becoming incredibly confusing. She couldn’t help but ask. "How did you feel about Cloud, since he was Sephiroth’s clone?"

Vincent shrugged weakly, not having expected such a question. "He did carry half of my genetic material being Sephiroth’s clone, but I never felt really ‘related’ to him. It’s hard to explain, but there was never any connection between us, beyond being teammates in AVALANCHE. With as many clones as Hojo tried to make of Sephiroth, to have felt some parental obligation to all of them would have been mind boggling."

Except for the spiraling depression in his last years, Tifa couldn’t really see any similarity in Cloud and Vincent, and so she accepted his answer. "Oh."

Vincent gathered himself and backed away from the two women. "I’m sorry, I really am."

Both Angel and Tifa looked at him with pity. They both could see the pain inside him, both from his confession and his memories of the past.

After a few minutes of standing in silence, they noticed that Reno and Tseng had come up to the deck as well, wondering where everyone had gone.

Reno came up and took Angel’s hand. "Hey, babe."

Angel smiled at him. "Hi, Reno."

Vincent looked at Reno without any humor in his expression. Everyone present braced for the worst, but they were all surprised at what happened next.

"Reno, I have something to say to you." Vincent said, taking a step closer to the man.

Reno retracted one step, fearing what Vincent had on his mind. "What’s that, old man?"

"Angel told me about what you did for her after rescuing her from the lab, and I want to thank you for being so good to her. I couldn’t have asked for a better companion for my daughter." He said, still locked in Reno’s gaze.

Figuring that Vincent must be up to some cruel joke, Reno felt uneasy. "What?"

Angel socked her mate in the shoulder. "My father just thanked you, jerk."

Reno realized that Vincent was serious. "Oh, uh, no problem."

Tseng stepped up to them, placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder. Tseng knew that Vincent had confessed the truth of Angel’s mother, and he was proud of him for having the fortitude to tell Tifa. "Are you doing okay?"

He smiled weakly at his brother, feeling the burden of the secrets he had kept lift from his shoulders. "Yes, thank you Tseng."

Being the center of attention of everyone on the deck began to make Vincent uncomfortable. "Can we go back inside and do something else?"