Guilt’s Cost: Part V

By Kristen Williams

The only sound heard was the faint click of the gun misfiring, and Tseng’s horrified gasp at his brother’s attempted suicide.

Never in all his years of careful handling had one of Vincent’s weapon’s failed, but the jar of having been dropped just a few moments before had caused the one small malfunction that had saved his life.

Not wishing to give Vincent another opportunity to try to kill himself, Tseng rushed forward and knocked Vincent to the ground, casting his gun into the riverbed below the bridge. Vincent dazed from both shock and alcohol lay on the ground blinking up at the sky.

Tseng outraged and frightened pulled Vincent up to his knees by his collar. "What the hell was that? You selfish son of a bitch!"

Vincent’s only reply was a weak smirk he gave before passing out.

"Oh jeez, not now…" Tseng tried to shake his brother back to consciousness, but it failed. "Shit…get up!"

Tseng heard a noise behind him and looked over his shoulder. Tifa and Cid were coming up behind him. All they had seen was Tseng charge Vincent and knock him down, which made them think he was out to hurt their friend, not help. Wishing to avoid a confrontation, Tseng let Vincent fall from his grip and immediately took off into the night.

Tifa at once went to Vincent’s side, while Cid attempted to pursue the suspect, but years of smoking had taken their toll, and Tseng soon outran him.

Cid returned to where Vincent lay. Tifa was cradling the unconscious man in her arms, tears in her eyes.

"Is he alright?" Cid knelt down beside Tifa.

"I don’t know…" Tifa cried. "Vincent? Come on…"

Vincent scraped the surface of lucidity momentarily and opened his eyes. "Lucretia?"

"No, Vince, it’s me…" Tifa’s frustration was tangible.

Vincent passed out again.

Cid looked around. "I think we better get back home before whoever that was comes to finish the job."

With that, he picked up Vincent’s limp body in his arms and they made their way home.

As they walked, Tifa kept fretting over Vincent. "Cid, he’s gonna be okay, right?"

He smiled at her through his exhaustion. "Come on, woman. We’ve seen this bastard take a lot worse hits than that. I think it’s his attempt to out drink me that did this."

"Yeah, I just can’t stand the thought of losing him, not now." She walked a little closer to Cid. "Do you think that was Tseng?"

Cid attempted to shrug, but his burden hindered the action. "Well Hell, I don’t know. Could have been I guess, looked like him as far as I remember."

They got to the house, and Cid took Vincent to the spare bedroom and laid him on the bed. "Alright Tifa, I’m leaving him in your hands. That bastard is heavier than he looks, and I’m wiped."

Tifa watched as Cid retreated and closed the door behind him leaving her and Vincent in peace. She sat down on the edge of the bed next to her companion. After a few moments, his eyes opened. "Tifa?"

She smiled from relief. "Oh thank God, I’ve been so worried!"

He placed his human hand against his head. "How bad is it?"

"What?" She asked.

"Where I shot myself…I can’t believe I missed that badly…I’m still nauseous and my head hurts…" He said; only half-aware of what was going on.

"What are you talking about?" Tifa frowned. "Your head’s fine, other than the hangover your probably coming down with."

At once, his memory came back completely, including the misfire. "My gun…failed?"

Tifa stood up, suddenly understanding what had happened. "Vincent! You tried to kill yourself?"

He rolled over in embarrassment and disappointment at having failed.

In immediate anger, she kicked him in the back, throwing him from the bed. "YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU SAID YOU WOULD NEVER DO THAT! CLOUD JUST KILLED HIMSELF AND NOW YOU TRY? HOW DARE YOU!"

He gathered himself from the floor, steadying himself against the wall. "Tifa, you don’t understand…"

Her anger wasn’t receding. "Understand what? That you’re a fucking liar? That you are going to leave me just like Cloud?"

Still emotional from his talk with Tseng, tears soon came to his eyes. "No, I wanted to protect you. Shin Ra is out to get me, and I didn’t want to put you in further danger. I didn’t want them to be able to use you anymore. If you had any idea of what they did to you in order to try to catch me, you would have shot me yourself."

Her voice dropped. "What are you talking about?"

"You’ve been implanted with a bug that has allowed them to find me." Vincent sat heavily on the bed.

"How?"

"They killed your baby, and then had you implanted during surgery." Vincent buried his face in his hands. "I’m sorry…"

Tifa went and sat next to him. "How do you know that?"

"Tseng told me. Then I decided that the only way to protect you was to kill myself, and then have Tseng and ASRIO hide you until they figured out how to remove the implant." Vincent sighed. "As long as you are near me, they will hear everything I tell you."

Tifa placed her hands over her flat stomach and began to cry, remembering the pain she felt at the loss of her child. "Why? My baby was killed by Shin Ra?"

Vincent could see Tifa coming unraveled before his eyes, and he moved closer to her and placed his human arm around her shoulders. "I’m sorry. If I had known this was all going to happen if I came out of hiding to find you, I would have stayed away."

She smiled faintly at him. "Vincent, it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known."

He couldn’t say anything else, and just sat holding her.

Several hours later, they had both fallen asleep on the bed. Tifa awoke in the middle of the night. She had the presence of mind to realize that Vincent was going to wake up sick and thirsty in the morning, and so got up to go to the kitchen. While getting a glass of water to take back to Vincent, she heard something just outside the back door. Pulling the robe that she had found in the guestroom around her, she stepped out into the cool night air, curious as to what was stirring at this hour.

She looked around in the darkness, hearing someone crying. Making her way around the corner of the house, she spotted Shera sitting on the garden bench, with a hastily packed suitcase lying at her feet.

Tifa rushed to her side and sat down. "Shera, what’s wrong?"

She brought her tear filled eyes up to meet Tifa’s. "I want to leave, but I don’t know where to go…"

"What are you talking about?" Tifa placed her arm around Shera.

"I heard Cid talking to you and Vincent this afternoon. I know that he badmouths me around town, he always has, but you guys are his friends and I thought that if he really cared about me he wouldn’t say things like that to you." Her tears started anew.

"He does care about you, Shera." Tifa leaned closer. "Cid’s an ass, I’ll give you that, and I don’t know how or why you’ve been with him this long. But he does love you, I can see that even if he isn’t saying very nice things about you. Heck, you should have seen the way he was talking about that baby you’re carrying when we were at the bar."

"Really?" Shera let a faint smile cross her face.

"Yes." Tifa returned the grin. "Tell me this, has he even mentioned another woman around you?"

Shera thought for a minute. "No, he hasn’t."

"Well, don’t you think that if he wasn’t in love with you that a good looking guy like him would have found another girl in all this time?" Tifa asked.

"I never really thought of that." She replied.

"If you left now, it would kill him." Tifa looked up at the stars. "After being gone with us for several months while we fought Sephiroth, you know what he said when we were done?"

"No."

Tifa laughed. "That bastard said, ‘Well, I better get back home. I’m sure Shera’s worried.’ From most people that wouldn’t have meant much, but from him that was pretty Earth moving. He was more worried about you than he thought you were for him."

"It just would be nice to hear him say something nice to me every once in a while." Shera looked back down at the ground.

"I know, but men are idiots. What they feel and what they say are usually not related. Another thing, do you think he would have slept with you or married you after you were pregnant if he didn’t care? I don’t think he would have, that isn’t his style."

They both fell silent when they heard the back door to the house fly open.

"Shera?!" Cid called out as he looked for his missing wife. He stumbled around the corner spotting Shera and Tifa in the garden. "God damn, woman! I wake up in the middle of the night with you missing and I think you’ve gone off to calve prematurely or something. I swear you-"

His words stopped short when he spotted the suitcase on the ground, and the tears in Shera’s eyes. "What’s going on?"

Tifa got up and made her way to Cid. "Shera is really upset. She overheard what you said to us this afternoon and she’s feeling really bed. I caught her out here, ready to leave. She doesn’t think you love her."

Cid rolled his eyes and pushed past Tifa. He sat heavily next to Shera, and at once began to talk to her. Tifa knew they needed to be alone and went back in. She retrieved the glass of water for Vincent and returned to their room. She sat on the edge of the bed, realizing that the bench Cid and Shera were sitting on was right outside the window to the room.

"…Shera, please don’t go." Cid’s voice wavered. "I don’t know what I’d do without you here."

"But you never act like you care at all." Shera was clearly crying again.

"Oh, Shera. I wouldn’t have come back here seven years ago if I didn’t." Cid’s voice grew quieter. "I love you, I always have."

Tifa had to cover her mouth to suppress her squeal of delight. She turned around when the bed jostled behind her.

"Was that Cid that just said that?" Vincent asked, still half asleep.

"Yeah." Tifa whispered.

"Oh…" Vincent sat up. "What time is it?"

"Tifa looked at the clock on the night stand. "Two thirty."

Not wishing to spend the entire night in his clothes, Vincent unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off.

Tifa just sat and watched as he striped quietly in front of her, without any of the trepidation he had displayed the night before. Soon, he climbed back in bed and pulled the sheets over.

A few moments later, Tifa hung her robe back up and also returned to bed. She slid over to Vincent and draped her arm across his chest. He looked over at her lazily and smiled.

"I’m really sorry about tonight." He whispered to her. "And about what you’ve been through because of me."

"It’s alright." Tifa replied. "But what should we do if they can track you by following me?"

Vincent stared back up at the ceiling. "We should split up, at least until Tseng and his men find a way to get that bug out of you, or deactivate it somehow-"

Vincent suddenly sat up straight in bed, looking horrified. "Oh God, I’ve let them know about Tseng being alive…"

Tifa propped herself up on her elbows. "We didn’t let them know anything they probably didn’t suspect."

Vincent fell back to the pillow. "You’re probably right. Their intelligence certainly knew that for awhile. Shin Ra probably never announced a manhunt for him in order to save face, since they had declared him dead long ago. Just don’t let me talk about anything else."

"Okay." Tifa agreed. "But you really think we should go our separate ways until they find a way to disable my implant?"

"It will protect us both. If we’re not together, Shin Ra will leave you alone, knowing that I’ll be with you again at some point. And they won’t be able to track me in the meanwhile." Vincent sighed.

Tears came to Tifa’s eyes and she turned away from him. "If you think it’s best…but I don’t want to go."

Vincent rolled over, placing him cybernetic arm around her waist pulling her close. "I don’t want to be without you, but I don’t see any other way to keep us from being found."

"No, I won’t go." Tifa grew angry. "God Damn it, Shin Ra has taken everything from me, but they aren’t going to get you! As long as we keep moving, they can’t catch us, and you are more than a match for anyone they could send to find you."

"Look, I’m not going to force you to go, it would kill me to be alone again, but I’m worried about you’re safety." Vincent kissed her cheek.

"I can take care of myself, and I can take care of you." Tifa was determined. "There is no way they are getting between us. I have nothing left to lose but you, and that isn’t going to happen."

"Then tomorrow we’ll leave." Vincent smiled to himself to hear Tifa’s demand to stay with him. "I just hope I get a chance to talk to Tseng again. I have a feeling there is something else important he isn’t telling me. He was never very good at keeping secrets from his big brother."

"Hey, Vincent?" Tifa asked.

"Yeah?"

"Would you think it horrible of me if I said I was falling in love with you even though Cloud has only been dead for a few days?" She whispered.

Vincent was taken aback by this question. "No, I wouldn’t. It’s not like we just met for the first time. We have known each other for awhile."

"Then I can say-" She found her words cut short when one of his gold clawed fingers was pressed to her lips.

"Tifa, don’t say it if you’re not ready or sure." His tone was flat. "It would kill me if you said it now, only to realize that you didn’t mean it later."

She reached up and pulled his talons away from her mouth. "I know how fragile you are inside, and I wouldn’t toy around with something like this. It isn’t out of desperation, and it isn’t out of fear of being alone. I do love you Vincent, and after all that has happened today, I know it’s true."

A smile came to Vincent’s lips, and he leaned over and kissed her.