The first thing Lily did when they arrived in her half of the house was to draw Tifa a bath. She didn't ask if Tifa wanted one; she didn't make any comment on the way she looked or, perhaps, smelled. She just disappeared into the bathroom and started running the water. And then she handed Tifa a brush, some clean clothes of her own that she must've set aside earlier, and ushered her gently in the right direction.

It was such a simple thing. Hot water, soap, shampoo; she hated the way she could feel her ribs, her sharp hipbones under her fingers. Too thin. But it felt good to scrub and scrub and scrub at her skin until the old, dead layer was flaking off. And it felt good to submerge her toes, bend her knees until most of her body was resting in heat. Though she couldn't quite make herself dunk her head under. She still felt fragile, and she wasn't sure her lungs could take it right now, this early in the morning.

Lily was sometimes outside the door, left open a crack, probably listening for the sound of splashing water, just to make sure. And this time, Tifa didn't mind. Maybe because it was Lily. Maybe because something had changed in the night. Maybe because she was afraid she might slip back into the nightmare if she was left alone again.

Lily made tea and pancakes for breakfast, and they sat in her cluttered kitchen as they ate, surrounded by an atmosphere of cozy idiosyncrasy: a white table cloth dotted with patterns of fruit; pictures of far-away landscapes on the refrigerator door held up with magnets shaped like small pencils and teacups and cookies; a jar of negligible change on the counter; towels and pans and oven mits suspended from nails at various altitudes on the walls. *This* felt like a home, Tifa decided.

Once they were both sipping at their tea, Lily sat back a little in her chair and cleared her throat. "Did Vincent tell you why he was leaving this morning?"

Tifa shook her head. Lily didn't look surprised as she rubbed at a drop of tea that had seeped into the table cloth. "He works between here and Kalm, killing the monsters. Not a lot them anymore, most of them have learned to avoid the area. But it's nice to know someone's patrolling." She gave up on the tea stain and slipped a hand through her feathery hair. "He's usually back within a few days."

Tifa nodded and swirled the tea around in her mug.

"Can I ask you something?"

Tifa glanced up from the brown liquid lapping against the rim, feeling her stomach tighten. "I...what do you want to know?"

Lily shrugged a little. "Nothing says you have to answer."

But sometimes refusing to answer said just as much. Tifa pursed her lips and took another sip from the mug.

Seeming to read her discomfort, Lily stood from the table and returned after a moment with a pack of cards Tifa recognized. "Here. You can still say no. But I'll split the deck, and whoever draws the high card asks a question."

She evidently had something with cards. Even though she primarily lost against Vincent, she kept coming back to his kitchen table. Tifa thought a moment. Nothing said she had to answer, and there were things she was curious about, too. She nodded. "Okay."

Lily cut the deck in half and handed her her share of the cards. And then she drew from her own pile and came up with the ten of spades. Tifa nibbled for a second on her lip before lifting up her own card. The four of hearts. She sighed a little and lay it on the table.

Lily flipped the card to the bottom of her pile. "Where do you know Vincent from?"

Tifa was a little surprised. She'd been expecting a question about that night in Kalm, on the bridge. "Well...how much do you know about him? Do you know...what he was doing three years ago?"

"You mean Avalanche? Yeah, I read the papers, saw the news. Were you part of that, too?"

"That's two questions."

Lily scoffed a little. "It's part of the first question. You still haven't answered."

Tifa felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "Yes, I was."

Lily raised her eyebrows, though Tifa could read no skepticism in her expression. And then she picked up a package of cigarettes from the table and pulled one out with her lips. "This okay? You don't smoke, do you?"

"No. It's all right."

She lit the end and took a drag. "Okay, next cards."

They drew again, and Lily had the high card once more. She blew some smoke to her left before asking, "Ex-lovers?"

Tifa guessed that her shock must've been comically obvious because Lily laughed suddenly. And then Tifa wondered if the woman might've noticed Vincent's uneasy attraction. If they had been ex-lovers, she imagined it would've explained that, and the reason he'd rescued her in the first place.

"No, not...ex-lovers."

Lily shrugged. "Just a question. Next cards."

Tifa drew the high card this time and, feeling the need for a reprisal against this woman who seemed too blunt to even know the meaning of embarrassment, asked, "Are you...were you and Vincent lovers?"

Lily laughed again, a throaty kind of chuckle that lasted for a few seconds. The woman wasn't that much older than Tifa herself, and though she was by no means dainty or what society might've deemed 'beautiful', with her shrewd eyes and a strong chin, she certainly wasn't unattractive. Or without her charm.

Lily was shaking her head a little as she looked down at the table, her laughter dying away. And then she glanced back at Tifa, her eyes alight with wry amusement. "That man has enough skeletons in his closet to fill a mausoleum, and I doubt he'd know what to do with my pants if he could get into them."

Tifa grinned despite herself and looked back into her tea. It was indeed difficult to imagine Vincent being romantic, in any sense of the word.

"Next cards."

The high card went, again, to Tifa. She had to think a moment. "Where did you live before you moved here?"

"Who says I moved here?"

Tifa gave her a level look. She'd seen Nibelheim burn with her own eyes. Lily dropped her gaze after a second and shrugged one shoulder, nodding. "Most people try and deny there was a Shinra cover-up. Midgar. In the slums, sector four, with my husband." The word 'husband' was hardly out of her mouth before she was taking another drag from her cigarette. And then she sighed the smoke back out, her eyes still lowered. "Next cards."

Lily's turn. "What was life in Kalm like?" She said it simply, as if it was just another question.

Tifa felt something heavy settle on her chest and she took a few slow sips of her tea, though it was cooling quickly and she needn't have been so cautious. "It...it was..." She licked her lips and swallowed. "It used to be...good. I...had a bar..."

"A bar? Serving drinks?"

Tifa nodded.

"Sounds interesting." She reached for her pile and Tifa was glad not to have to elaborate.

A king against Lily's nine. Tifa took a breath. "Where is your husband?"

Lily didn't look surprised by the question. She took another draw on the cigarette before answering. "Dead. We were living in Midgar when the meteor hit."

Tifa had half expected something like that and she pursed her lips. "I'm sorry."

Lily shrugged and glanced up to meet her eyes. "These things happen. Besides, my husband wouldn't have liked Vincent. Too quiet." She looked across the room and chuckled a little. "He never would've offered him the upstairs apartment." She gave another faint sigh and reached for her cards again. "One more?"

"Okay."

Lily smiled a little over her ace. "Never had this kind of luck with Vincent," she said.

Tifa didn't know whether she meant luck at cards, or luck at getting him to answer questions.

"Have you ever been married?"

Tifa shook her head and then came close to finishing off her tea in a couple of gulps. "Not married, but...I did have...someone..." It was coming out wrong and her hands were starting to tremble. She shook her head again.

"I think you need to get outside."

Tifa glanced up. "What?"

Lily was turned around in her chair, looking out of a window. "The sun's up, now. I've got a garden out back. Not much; a couple of perennials, some rows of tomatoes and beans. Needs to be watered and weeded everyday. You want to keep me company?"

Tifa fingered a strand of drying hair and thought about the sun and the grass and the breeze. And then she consciously pushed all other thoughts away.

"Okay."

        * * *

Vincent grimaced at the long gash on the underside of his forearm as he peeled off the sleeve of his shirt. He dipped a cloth into the spray of water from the bathroom tap and rang it out between his metal fingers. It wasn't too often, now, that he came away with injuries.

The day had been successful, though -- gil enough to get a room in Kalm for the night and still enough to pay Lily, and who knew what tomorrow would bring? Another fight, maybe, in the air or on the ground, half caught up in *their* excitement for the hunt, for blood...

He gingerly wiped the wound clean, and then bound it. And then he spent a moment studying the rip in his shirt and the one in the arm of his coat. Unfortunate, but not irreparable. He'd have to ask Lily for needle and thread again.

The time difference was not so great from Nibelheim. An hour or so ahead of them. It was probably only just turning to nine o'clock there. Vincent thought about this as he began to try and scrub the dark, angry stain out of his shirt sleeve. It wasn't often that he called. Maybe twice in three years, and those had been particular circumstances.

Some of the blood was coming out, but it would have to be soaked. He rinsed the cloth out and hung it to dry on a rack behind him. And then he sighed. If he was going to call, it would have to be now, before he left his shirt in the sink.

Though it wasn't as if he couldn't trust Lily. It wasn't as if she would have been careless, left Tifa alone long enough to let her...

Dammit.

"Can I use your phone?"

The desk clerk glanced up from the ledger he'd been scribbling in and then gave a tight smile of recognition. "Of course." He lifted the phone into view. "The number?"

In a few moments, Vincent was listening to the tone of Lily's phone ringing in Nibelheim.

"Hello?"

"It's me."

"I thought it might be."

He glanced around as if someone might've been trying to listen in and then cursed his own hesitation. "Is Tifa there?" He winced inwardly at how the question sounded.

"Yeah, you want to talk to her?"

"No." He knew he'd answered too quickly.

Lily was silent for a moment and he could almost see her cocking a speculative eyebrow. "Well, we're doing fine. Spent the morning in the garden and spent the afternoon making a stew and getting the dirt out from under our fingernails."

He found it hard to picture Tifa -- the Tifa he'd encountered the previous evening -- digging around in a garden or puttering around a kitchen making food.

"So...was that all you wanted?" He could nearly hear the smug smile. It made him feel foolish.

"Yes."

"Okay, well, we're heading to bed. G'night, Vince."

"Good night."

He handed the receiver back to the clerk and then headed back up to his room.

He was a fool. A damn fool.

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