"He does not!" Yuffie said. "He needs someone to make him happy."
"No one has that much Valium!" Tifa complained. "Like I said to make him happy you need someone who understands him."
"Nuh, uh. I said happy. He needs to forget all that stuff. I say leave him alone with a woman with big jugs and a great ass. Hey Tifa—"
"This isn’t Cloud we’re talking about!"
"Just say you were drunk at the time," Yuffie said.
"I’d have to be. He’d have to be. He’s like ten years older than me," Tifa said.
"Seven."
"Same thing. Besides look at him, he does want to sleep with anyone short of a teddy bear."
"Eww! Tifa, that’s gross."
"That’s not what I meant! Now look, I am not—"
"Hi, Vincent!" Yuffie said, cheerlily.
Tifa screamed a leapt so high she hit her head on the ceiling of the plane.
"Sorry," Vincent said drearily.
"For what?" Yuffie asked.
"Scaring Tifa."
"No Vincent, it’s not what you think," Tifa said. "We were just talking about you."
"Oh, okay. I don’t think I’ll take my chances though and go somewhere else in case you talk about me again."
"No, wait Vincent. We want to ask you a question," Tifa said, hoping to change the subject.
* * * * *
Five minutes later, Vincent ran through the door of the cafeteria and dove under Cid’s chair. Cid was the one person who didn’t piss Vincent off or scare him, at least unintentionally. He was also the only person who helped Vincent off the ceiling and out of hiding in the ducts when Vincent freaked, but that was mostly due to the fact that Cid was the only one who knew where the ladder was.
"What is it this time?" Cid asked, taking a bite of his burger. "Cloud ask if he could put materia slots in the arm again?"
"Hide me," Vincent answered.
"You gotta tell me who from," Cid said. "The only place to hide you from Yuffie is anywhere people do chores. Cloud won’t go in anyone’s bedroom since he saw Barret changing, Nanaki keeps away from the stables since the last Chocobo had a heart attack…"
"The girls," Vincent said, too late.
The girls came in and suddenly had eager smiles on their faces. "Look, keep me outta this one," Cid said.
"Cid, you can help us!" Tifa said.
"Shit," Cid said, suddenly no longer hungry. "Okay, this is going in my little back book."
"Your address book?" Yuffie asked, dragging Vincent out from under the chair.
"No my book of stupid ideas you all came up with," Cid answered. He only called in little because it wasn’t the size of the dictionary yet. It contained Cid’s account of the time Cloud wanted to fight flying monsters form the wing of the plane, Tifa’s idea of cooking with some ‘herbs’ Yuffie ‘found,’ and the whole account of bringing Vincent along—he was, after all, found in a coffin, an experiment of Hojo’s, and had spent the night in the Haunted Hotel glued to the ceiling out of sheer terror.
"C’mon, it’ll be fun," Yuffie said.
"Cloud said that to himself before going to the honeybee inn."
"What was so bad about that?" Tifa asked.
"Whatever it is, he refuses to talk about it. Even when drunk."
"That’s pretty bad," Yuffie conceded. "But this is different."
"There’s some famous last words," Cid said.
"We thought Vincent needed a girlfriend," Tifa said, as if this weren’t a new and disastrous idea.
"You can’t get him a girlfriend! What are you thinking!"
"Cid, I didn’t know you felt that way," Yuffie said.
"Leave me outta this," Cid said, making a cross with his fingers. "Look, you gotta do baby steps with this guy!"
"What’s going on?" Nanaki asked as he and Cait Sith came in to see what all the noise was about.
"We’re going to get Vincent a girlfriend, that’s all," Yuffie said.
"I’m suddenly wondering why my species hasn’t become extinct yet, considering the fact that I hang out with you people," Nanaki said.
"You gotta go slow," Cid continued. "Get him a sandwich first, see how he likes that."
"I did. He hated it."
"See, he’s not ready yet," Cid said.
"This isn’t that thing from one of the lower levels of hell, is it?" Tifa asked.
"Hey, marshmallows and pickles with ketchup taste great!" Yuffie yelled.
"Why do fighters for worldly justice think it’s a good idea to get living beings for other living beings?" Nanaki asked.
"Hey, that’s a great idea!" Yuffie said, finally letting go of Vincent, who was still halfway under the chair—and now took the opportunity to run away. "Let’s get him a pet!"
"Let’s get him something fluffy," Tifa said.
"No, he needs something cool and scaly," Yuffie said.
"No, he needs something cuddly," Tifa argued.
"He needs something independent!"
"We have a pet!" Cid interceded.
"I am not a pet," Nanaki said.
"Not you, that!" Cid said, pointing at Cait Sith. "All it does is complain."
"I do not complain!"
"Yeah, we’ll need something quiet," Yuffie said.
"No, that’ll just make him worse, we need a nice interacting pet."
"That’s too much for him. Let’s just get him something that looks cool."
…And so it began.