He was beginning to recognize the feel of her presence, though it may simply have been the growing ability to identify her particular scent, the characteristic sounds of her breathing, moving, slipping hair behind her ears. The last time he'd woken up it had been her. Lily's apartment, but her concerned expression, telltale smudges under her eyes that meant she'd been sitting over him instead of sleeping.

And remembering his loss of control with a pang of shame and guilt, remembering as he'd fought against his own body, then in the hands of Hellmasker (a psychotic intelligence, a warped sense of logic -- the slipperiest of all four of them when it was hungry), Tifa against the wall, looking frightened but not running...

And then moving as if to lead a blood-thirsty nose away from the door Lily had disappeared into. And him, fighting against the hunger, suddenly afraid that Hellmasker *would* follow. Saved from the water, only to make her a desperate sacrifice to an insatiable appetite. No, no. Not another death...

And then Lily. And remembering how it had almost been a relief to feel those bullets, to feel Hellmasker fleeing from the pain. To know that he would not cause harm today.

Tired. Almost tired enough not to want to open his eyes. Nibelheim again. Though this wasn't Lily's apartment, which always smelled faintly of warm food. His own apartment; his living room, he was fairly sure -- the air was that of an open chamber. Though he wasn't on the couch. The floor? Under a blanket, his head on a pillow. How long had he been out? Long enough for her to have somehow gotten him here...

He listened, but didn't hear footsteps or the sound of another mouth breathing. She was alone. And he was already feeling sort of rested. As much as he hadn't wanted to concede the point, she had been right, out there in the rolling grasslands that he almost considered his own property sometimes. If he had been attacked too close to Kalm it could easily have turned into a dangerous situation. Too dangerous to risk it. Something he hadn't even considered when he'd left...

So maybe it really had been the best course, to have returned here. He could still leave again before Lily realized he was back.

And maybe this time Tifa would mind her own damn business and let him go unhindered.

She was doing something. Small movements, the tiny click of two minor objects being brought together, apart, together.

"Ow, shit." A whispered curse, a pause. Click, click.

And he was curious despite himself. Time to 'wake up', he decided. He opened his eyes.

She didn't notice at first, busy as she was hunched over something that looked suspiciously like one of his black shirts. Holding it carefully at one point between two fingers, eyes squinted in the low light coming in through the windows, her other hand curled around what he eventually identified as a threaded needle. Sewing...replacing a button, he recognized.

After a couple of moments, she stopped her movements and lifted the material to inspect her work. Tugged gently on the button to make sure it was secure. And then she caught his eye. And stiffened. Suddenly uncomfortable under his scrutiny where she had been so casual a second ago.

And he almost wished she hadn't noticed.

Lucrecia, his mind remembered against his will. Some of her most beautiful moments had been those when she had believed herself to be unobserved.

Tifa. Absorbed in the moment. Long hair, no longer tied back as she had done in Avalanche, unhindered strands slipping into her face. Bathed partially in the fragile evening light, partially in shadow. Recovering, becoming stronger, even to the point of questioning his motives and standing up to him on issues she didn't understand. Taking chances, being foolhardy and brave. Prepared to lead Hellmasker away; prepared to stay in the Northern Crater 'just a few minutes more' as Barret fumed and swore and tried to convince her that Cloud wasn't coming back.

Frustrating, stubborn.

And, as much as he didn't want to admit it, beautiful. Still thin, a legacy of her pain that would probably last for a few weeks yet. Still weak, though knowing the woman she had been, proud and independent, that would eventually change.

Still a strange and unexplainable temptation.

"Your shirt," Tifa said, gesturing it up a little as if to draw his attention, as if he might've been staring a moment too long. "Sorry, I ripped some of the buttons off when I tried to catch you. When you fainted."

He didn't reply. After a second she dropped her eyes and, putting the sewing aside, turned away. And then presented him with a glass and some pills. "Here, take these."

He glanced into her hand. Painkillers. Carefully, he pushed himself up onto an elbow, gauging the ache in his side and his hip as he moved, and reached for the pills and then the water. Slowly took a sip and swallowed, and then again. And then put the pills in his mouth and took another sip...

And choked. Down the windpipe instead of the esophagus. And once he started coughing he couldn't stop. One lung punctured and irritated, trying to work to help him catch his breath, but only serving to compound on the problem. Eventually coughing up blood; he could taste it in his mouth, feel it on his lips. Gasping for air until his left side felt like it had been scored open with a hot knife, until he had tears in his eyes.

And her hands on him, on his back and chest as if to hold him together. Patting and rubbing skin and bandage alike as if to calm down the rage in his lungs.

"Breathe. Take a breath, Vincent."

Not like he wasn't trying. But without any plan of his own at the moment, he did what he could to repress the urge to cough and took a large, shaky breath. And another. Burning, and wheezing, but he was breathing. Tifa's fingers pressing the glass gently toward him until he gave in and took a drink. The compulsion to cough began to fade. And Tifa quickly took her hands away, pulled back from where she'd been leaning over him.

He tried not to consciously notice the brush of cold air as her hovering body heat dissipated.

Blood on the rim of the glass. Wearily, he ran his hand over his mouth, smudging his palm with red, and wiped his eyes dry with the back of his wrist. No use wishing he'd been alone to suffer unobserved. At least Tifa had so far proven that she was not the type to be smotheringly concerned. Let him out the door this morning when Lily would've stood in his way no matter how he'd tried to explain...

She was holding something in her hand and smiling a little, as if she was trying to be encouraging. "Want to try this again?"

More painkillers. He shook his head. "Later."

"Okay." She picked up his shirt again and made herself comfortable beside him, ostensibly to continue reattaching the buttons. And, as he carefully lay himself down again beneath the blanket, she spoke without looking at him, as if offering an apology. "Lily knows you're here. She helped me bring you up the stairs."

He couldn't help a sigh. Well, maybe it had been inevitable.

"She's downstairs making you something to eat."

The simplest thing for her. 'When you don't know what to say, bring food.' But she was bound to say something. He suddenly wanted to be miles and miles away. She would ask questions, she would be afraid. She would draw away, like Avalanche had drawn away once they'd known. He wasn't human. He wasn't like her. He smoked, he drank sometimes, he played poker. But he was nothing like her. He would live up here, she would live down there. She would never come to his door again, never leave the vacuum in his living room, never warn him about the chill night air.

He didn't want to be here to experience it. The next chance he got, he would go to Kalm. It made more sense to be there, anyway. He'd only really stayed in Nibelheim because of Lily.

He'd never expected this to happen. He'd been so careful. Until Tifa had arrived, and then everything had been turned on its head. Dammit. Shouldn't have brought her home that night. Everything had been just the way he'd wanted it...

The sound of her coming up the stairs. After a few seconds, Tifa obviously heard the footsteps, too, and got up to open the door. And Vincent had to force himself not to watch her walk away. Maybe she didn't have the same muscles or skills right now, but he'd already noticed many times that she still had the grace of a fighter. A perfect opportunity from this position to watch the gentle sway of her body, if he'd let himself.

Lily glanced at him as she entered, met his eyes for a moment, and then turned away to head into the kitchen. Firm jaw, resolved steps. She wasn't happy, he realized. But maybe she would just put the food down and leave.

Too much to hope for. She was approaching with a roll of clean bandages in her hands. And he knew it would be simpler and quicker if he just gave in. With an inward sigh, he pushed himself up again, into a sitting position, and pushed the blanket away.

Lily knelt beside him without a word, smelling faintly of banana bread. And without looking up into his face, she began to unwrap the bloody, gauzy strips from around his torso, not making any effort to be gentle. But he made no complaint to her. This silence wasn't going to last, and he knew anything he said would only serve to speed its end. Her temper only needed a small spark to come into full, blazing maturity. And she had every right to be angry. Betrayed. He'd never told her the danger she'd been in every day he'd lived in her house.

It didn't take her long to reveal the wounds, and then she was fairly glaring at the bloody bullet punctures, the bruising. "Tifa, get me a wet cloth and the antiseptic from downstairs, would you?" Short, clipped words.

It was a moment before Tifa went to do as Lily asked. And Vincent had the impression she wasn't sure what to expect from this encounter, half-tempted to stay just in case everything blew apart suddenly. As if there was something she might be able to do. After all, it had sort of been her doing.

But right now, Lily was not someone to contradict, and Tifa seemed to realize it. And so she headed out the door.

Once they were alone, Lily huffed out a breath and leaned away from him. Didn't meet his eyes, didn't say anything. And he felt it like a small death inside of him.

What did you say to a monster, after all?

You didn't say anything. You just fired a gun. He took a silent breath. Better just to address it head-on and get it over with, and then he could leave for Kalm.

"Lily..." He fumbled suddenly for the words and frowned. What did a monster say to a human? Especially to a human who'd been bold and foolish enough to trust it. "I put you in danger without letting you know..."

She glanced up and he could see her anger, and something else, in her hard expression. "Shit, what did I say when you first came to live here?"

It was an unexpected reply to his attempted apology. He'd been half-expecting her volatile agreement. And then he blinked for a moment, trying to recall. Shook his head. She'd said a number of things, he couldn't remember what one in particular she was referring to.

"Everyone has secrets. I never asked you to tell me yours. I knew from the first that you might be dangerous. Dressed in all that get-up, with that gun. But I still didn't ask. Decided to take that risk, and knew I could protect myself if I had to." She glanced away suddenly and ran a thumb over her chin. "I'm not pissed about that, Vince. Just pissed at the way it turned out, and that you just took off this morning."

Met his eyes again, and he was abruptly made aware of the lines on her face, early signs of stress and hardship from years of loss and worry. Not even that old, but it was hard sometimes to think of her as his chronological younger. So much older than her years...

"I can't blame you for not telling me. Not something I guess someone would just come out with. But..." She frowned suddenly. "Goddamn it, you just...fucking left."

But this he could justify. "I didn't have a choice, Lily. They needed to feed or else..."

"Oh, don't give me that," she interrupted him briskly. "I knew damn well when I woke up to an empty couch that you didn't plan on coming back."

He couldn't deny it. If not for Tifa's interference, they wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

"You...goddamn run from everything. Thought you knew me better, Vince. You know I've seen my share of weird shit, and I never made conditions for my friendship. Thought you knew you could trust me."

Maybe he should've known better, he realized; not exactly an ordinary secret, though. Old reflexes died hard, he supposed. Turks didn't trust even the trustworthy. First instinct was for survival and self-preservation; and, if need be, to hell with everyone else's feelings on the subject.

He didn't notice right away when she raised a hand and was startled into a flash of anger when she slapped him. Not hard, just a quick cuff on the cheek, just enough to sting for a few seconds; he could count on one hand the number of times she'd touched him before. Always respected his privacy about some things, always given him his own physical space. Never gone quite so far, even when her temper had been at its worst.

But she always had an explanation for crossing the line. "That's for being a selfish, careless bastard," she told him abruptly. "Letting me shoot you, making me think I'd damn well killed you. Up and leaving without an explanation, full of goddamn bullet holes..."

And then she kissed him.

It was done very quickly, very simply, like an equal token for the rap on his cheek. Swift to anger, equally swift to forgive. A rough brush of her lips against the side of his mouth, the brief impression of toughened fingers against the side of his face as if to erase the ephemeral smart of her previous touch. And then she drew away again. "And that's because I love y'," she told him in a hoarse sounding whisper. "Now don't fucking let it go to your head."

Tifa on the stairs. Lily turned to look at the door. And then she glanced back at him. One corner of her mouth twitching into a familiar smirk, and for a moment it was hard to believe she'd been angry at all. "You still keep alcohol in your cupboards? Because this might sting a little."

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