The next morning, Tifa worked to make as little noise as possible getting back through Lily's front door, but she needn't have bothered she realized as she entered. Lily was already awake with a tea and a smoke at the table.

"There you are," the older woman greeted her, ruffling a hand through her feathery hair. She was dressed already, as if she'd been up for hours. "Have some tea. Where've you been?" She didn't sound worried, exactly; curious, and maybe a little surprised that Tifa had left in the night. But not worried.

"Upstairs," Tifa answered, closing the door behind her. "On Vincent's couch."

"My couch too uncomfortable?"

Tifa smiled as she sat down in a chair and shook her head. "No, your couch is fine. I just wanted some company, I guess."

"Was he awake?"

"Yeah. I think he's sleeping now, though."

Lily nodded and knocked some ash from the end of her cigarette into a tray. "That's good. He doesn't sleep enough." She took a sip of tea from her mug. "If you're hungry, there're scrambled eggs in that covered pan."

Tifa got herself some eggs and tea and made herself some toast. And then she sat down again and started eating.

"So, did you guys talk last night?"

Tifa shrugged a little and waited a moment to finish chewing. "A little. Just about how he came here to Nibelheim. Though I'm not sure he appreciated me being there."

"Why's that?"

"Well, he hardly said anything."

Lily waved a dismissive hand. "He hardly ever says anything. The man's a closed box. Just do what you want. He'll let you know if you've stepped over the line. He's got this glare." She dropped her chin, forced her mouth into a stern line and stared hard at Tifa.

And the impression was fairly good, Tifa thought; recognizable from Avalanche. She couldn't help but laugh.

Lily broke into a grin and gestured with her cigarette. "Don't let the 'cold' act fool you. Sometimes he wants to be left alone, and I've got my own life down here, around town. But he wouldn't want to be alone forever." She took a drag and blew the smoke away from the table. "He reminds me of a man I knew in Midgar a few years ago, really...what's the word? Taciturn. That's what my husband called him. Lived alone; never married; ran a pharmacy by himself. Then the sector seven plate fell, and there were a lot of people without kids, parents, houses. A lot of injuries, a lot of people grieving. And, this guy, he opened his store to people, opened his home. Completely unexpected. He was still kind of gruff, and I can't say I ever really held a conversation with him, but people recognized him after that and talked to him in the street. And he seemed a lot happier. No longer so alone." She sighed suddenly and glanced away, pursing her lips. "Wonder what ever happened to him."

So many deaths, Tifa thought suddenly. So many who didn't make it out of Midgar, who'd had lives ahead of them.

And she'd wanted to kill herself. How unbearably absurd it all was. She broke off a piece of toast and stirred her eggs around with it. "Is Vincent happy, do you think?"

Lily raised her eyebrows and a corner of her mouth curled upward. "Doesn't he look happy?"

Tifa chuckled quietly and put the bit of toast into her mouth.

Lily shrugged. "As happy as anyone, I guess. You'd have to ask him." She took another pull on her cigarette and puffed out the smoke. "Why'd you ask?"

"I don't know. Maybe I want to know there's hope for me." She gave a quick smile and poked the eggs with her fork. "Did he ever talk to you about...his past?"

Lily gave a small laugh like scoff. "A closed box, remember? And I don't open someone else's boxes without permission." And then she sighed a little and smiled gently at Tifa. "I think I know what this is about. Not everyone deals with things in the same way, you know. I needed to talk about my husband; maybe Vince just needed time. Everyone's different. You know you can talk to me, if you need to. And you can talk to Vincent. He doesn't say much, but he listens. You can see it in his eyes; he knows what it's like to lose someone. Or you can just stay here for a little while, until you've got things sorted out inside yourself. Whatever you need."

Tifa nodded toward her plate and reached for her tea. "Thanks, Lily. Maybe I'll stay for a little while longer, if it's okay. I don't..." She stopped to take a sip from her mug. "I don't have anything to go back to in Kalm, really. Just mounds of debt."

Lily seemed to sit up in her seat. "You want a job in town?"

"What?"

"Just to earn a little money, you know. And it would keep you busy. There's a man who runs a kind of herb and health store a couple of blocks away. A few weeks ago his daughter went off to Cosmo Canyon to get educated, and he's got no part-time help anymore. He'd be grateful for any time you could give, and he'd pay you."

Tifa thought about it for a moment. "Maybe. It might be nice to have something to do." And then she caught herself with an apologetic wince. "Not that cooking and gardening and playing poker aren't good things to do, too."

Lily scoffed again with an unoffended smile and knocked the ash from the end of her cigarette. "Hey, to each her own, I guess. And I do more than just cook and garden and play poker." She smiled and brought the butt to her mouth to take a drag. "I smoke, too, remember."

        * * *

The more she thought about it as the day went by, the more Tifa expected that she would like a job. She didn't really have any skills beyond fighting and running a bar, but she'd always been somewhat of a quick study. And it would give her an income. Some she could save, and some she could give to Vincent and Lily for letting her stay there.

She spent the morning in the garden with Lily, and then managed to make up a suitable excuse as Lily prepared lunch that left her free to go upstairs and warn Vincent that they were coming.

She found him in his kitchen with black sleeves folded up to his elbows (one metal, one flesh and bone), doing his dishes. He barely glanced at her as she greeted him.

Her first impulse as she watched him was to leave him to what he was doing. But Lily had told her to do what she wanted; Vincent had told her to do what she liked; if he didn't like it, he would let her know. She took a breath and came to stand beside him, one hip leaning into the counter. He continued washing the dishes, unaffected.

"Do you want some help?"

He didn't reply. There were a few strands of hair, too short to fit back into a ponytail, that fell into his face as he hunched over the sink. It was an old urge, one Cloud had said he'd hated, to push the hair aside, sweep it over his ear, out of his way. But she curbed the impulse, feeling a little embarrassed by it considering that this was not Cloud but Vincent, and went to look for a dish towel. When she found one, she set herself up to his right and started drying what he put into the rack. He didn't protest.

A couple of minutes passed this way. Tifa was interested to watch the way he held the dishes in his metal hand: loosely and with his fingers out of the way, so there was a smaller chance he would damage them, she thought. But still he scoured them with a nimble kind of swiftness that soon left her in his dust. Before he was done, however, Tifa found herself glancing toward the door between plates, as if she expected Lily to burst into the apartment without warning. As if it was her responsibility to make sure Vincent didn't get caught. Silly, she chided herself, but she couldn't help moving to the kitchen doorway to look again.

"You don't have to keep doing that," Vincent said quietly as she peeked once more around the corner. "I'll hear her coming up the stairs."

"Oh." She put the dried plate on the table with the others. And then pursed her lips. Well, what did she have to lose? "You know, you really shouldn't be standing on that leg at all."

It was almost a sigh. But not a glare. He kept washing.

"I could finish these for you, and you could sit down for a minute before she comes."

Vincent still made no reply. And Tifa fought with herself for a moment. It was a little like what arguing with Cloud had been like in the end: she'd talked and he'd ignored her -- until she'd hit some particularly volatile topic, and then he'd blown up at her. Eventually she'd learned when to stop talking. Maybe she still knew when to stop talking.

But this wasn't Cloud. She'd screamed; she'd thrown things; she'd been difficult. And he hadn't gotten angry. Did she really think he was liable to fly into a raging temper if she stepped on his toes a little? This wasn't Cloud, she told herself again. He would let her know. She quietly cleared her throat. "It's only going to take longer to heal if you keep trying to..."

Vincent closed his eyes and raised a sudsy hand up from the sink to interrupt her. "I know." And then he glanced at her, looking faintly resigned; and she had the sudden notion that he'd had discussions like this with Lily. "I'll dry." He hitched himself away from the sink and pointed at the towel she was holding.

"Oh." She handed it to him and he dried his hands off. Then he moved toward the table and lowered himself into his usual chair.

And Tifa couldn't help smiling as she took over where he'd left off, handing dishes to him as she finished with them.

Like pulling the queen of hearts.

        * * *

Lily said nothing when she arrived about the fact that Tifa was doing Vincent's dishes, though Tifa had been inwardly composing an excuse. They simply had lunch once the dishes were put away, and then Lily got up from the table, saying she had some things to do in town.

"You want to come with me? We can check out that health store, see if he's still looking for help."

Tifa glanced up as she swallowed the last of her leftover stew. "Sure, that sounds good." She stood and picked up the plates from around the table to put them by the sink.

Lily was smirking a little as Tifa turned back to her. "Don't do too much for him." She indicated Vincent with a wink. "He'll get used it and then I'll have to do it all when you leave."

Vincent didn't dignify her playful barb with a response. Tifa only shrugged with a smile. "I guess it just comes from years of waitressing."

Lily looked like she might continue with the light-hearted teasing, but then her expression sobered a little as she seemed to remember something. "Oh, Vince, before I forget again. You got rent money for me? I need it before I go out."

He nodded and Tifa caught his eye as he gave her the briefest of glances, just a flicker of red, before he put his hands on the table as if to push himself up. "In the bedroom."

And Tifa seamlessly picked up her cue. "I'll get it."

His gil was in piles on his dresser, glinting dully yellow in the sunlight. One pile was a little removed from the others and, just to confirm it further, there was a small folded piece of paper beside it with the name 'Lily' scrawled on it. She pulled the pile into her hand and left the bedroom.

It wasn't until they were outside and about a block from the house that Lily finally brought it up. And Tifa found that she wasn't really surprised.

"Okay, what's going on? I get the feeling you and Vince are keeping something from me."

Tifa tried to look suitably unassuming. "What do you mean?"

Lily narrowed her eyes, though she was still smiling. "Don't do that. I can see right through that fake innocence." She fished around in her pockets for her cigarettes and lighter. "So, you going to tell me, or am I just going to have to find out on my own?"

Tifa sighed, not sure how to answer. Vincent had his reasons for not wanting Lily to know, and she'd fairly promised to keep it a secret. She opened her mouth to fumble through a reply, but Lily waved a dismissive hand.

"Nevermind. Told you not to say anything, right? Well, it's not your responsibility anyway." She pulled a cigarette into her mouth and lit it. "Goddamn stubborn," she muttered. "He probably wouldn't tell me if he was at death's door."

And Tifa thought she was probably right.

Mr. Fallowfield at the health store was a tall, overweight man with a pleasant smile and a quick way of bantering that nearly outdid Lily. It wasn't hard for Tifa to see that he'd likely been a very good-looking and charming young man, years ago. When he was introduced to her, he shook her hand and seemed delighted by the idea that she wanted to help him out. Soon, they were arranging her first shift for that week, a few hours like a trial run to see if it worked for everyone involved. And by the time they left, Tifa was looking forward to getting out of the house and doing something that felt like a landmark on the road to earning a living.

It had been such a long time since she'd felt she could stand on her own two feet.

        * * *

Vincent had slept until almost half past nine that morning, a record for him. And it had been uninterrupted sleep, far below the reach of his nightmares and the fiery ache in his leg. And it had been wonderful to wake up in the same position he'd gone to sleep in, without having the sheets tangled around him as if he had been fighting with something in the night. Wonderful enough for him to wonder what exactly it had been that he'd done differently than other nights. Not the alcohol; that was nothing new. Not the weariness in his bones or the injury in his thigh; not the first time he'd been tired or hurt before.

It didn't take him long to come to the most obvious conclusion, as unfounded as it seemed. Tifa had come up to his apartment in the night, drowning in her own grief and looking, he presumed, for some solace in company, conversation and, when those had failed, whiskey. He didn't know why that would make a difference. Maybe because he had been forced to watch that pain he understood outside of himself. Maybe simply because he hadn't been alone in the dark.

Maybe because she'd had the nightmares, out there on his couch. He was tempted to ask her, as odd as the question would sound.

And he decided to try an experiment. That evening, after supper, after a few rounds of poker (Lily seemed particularly vengeful for some reason and she managed to win a couple of hands against both himself and Tifa), after the others had gone downstairs, he took some painkillers and went to sit on his couch.

And he wasn't disappointed. It was nearly midnight when he could hear her shuffling around outside his door. And then she gave a timid knock.

He took a breath. This was Tifa. It didn't matter if she was in a nightie again. It was Tifa. And maybe, this way, they were helping each other out. He wasn't selfless; he wasn't a hero. But tonight it didn't matter. It didn't matter, if he could just sleep like a normal human being for a few more hours...

"Come in."

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