"Ergo"

Title: Ergo

Author: jadesilver

Series: Final Fantasy VII (Post D.O.C.)

Timeline: Based off Information from: http://www.answers.com/topic/final-fantasy-vii-timeline

Pairing: ReevexVincent in many forms. I hope.

Warnings: There will be spoilers. Don’t get spoiled now! There will, knowing me, be angst, fluff, drama, action and such. I try to anticipate upcoming things for marking for content. If something changes, I'll add more warnings. This has plot. Lots of plot. We will be getting to the sex eventually.

Criticism: If you see any spelling errors or stupid goofs, go for it. Otherwise this is here for you to enjoy. If you don’t enjoy it, walk away and don’t say anything. If you do enjoy it, let me know. Encouragement motivates me, attention whore that I am ^_~.
This will be a Yaoi fanfiction. There will be the ReevexVincent pairing. I like my timeline, and my interpretation of it. I don't care what yours is. If you whine about any of these things, I personally wonder what you are doing here at this site. XD

Thanks: To everyone on AIM for letting me bounce plot off them, and to my beta Murasakiiro

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CHAPTER TWO:

Vincent sat and cradled Marlene to his chest. She mewled and nuzzled, but she didn’t wake up. Her wounds were limited to a few gashes and a broken arm. What had been hurt the worst was her mind. For the last few hours, Reeve said she had been waking and calling for Cloud and Tifa. Those moments were growing further and further apart. Despite careful examination for head injuries, the doctors found none.

So Vincent was sitting here cradling her while she was still hooked to her IV line. The cast on her arm was heavy, and he kept it tucked close to him. The doctors had encouraged this, as whatever was wrong seemed to be purely psychological aside from some pain.

“Marlene, Marlene…why won’t you wake for me?” Vincent murmured, more for his sake than hers. The doctors had said to speak to her, that a familiar voice might help.

She remained cold in his arms, oddly so. The doctors said they thought it might be shock. Vincent wasn’t so sure.

Cloud was sitting on the edge of Tifa’s bed, his head in his hands, and Yuffie and Barret sat next to Denzel. There was a quiet agony in the room, and yet a sense of closeness. Reeve had come and gone a few times, antsy with worry over his friends, and who knew what else.

It was thinking about Reeve and holding Marlene that made him flash back to the moment he had been certain he had lost Reeve. When he had held that limp shell in his arms, a shell that had been only robotic but felt so very not.

Dark lashes fluttered closed and he took a slow and quiet breath. When he opened his eyes again, Cloud was beside him. He nodded and stood, vacating the chair so that Cloud could take his place. He tucked the little girl into her big brother’s arms, and then straightened and left, as brusque as ever.

~*~

He found Reeve, sitting in the hall all but rocking himself in misery and stress. One arm was limp against the cold floor, clutching paperwork. The other was around his stomach.

Vincent knelt, close, but not too close.

“What is it?” He asked, knowing it wasn’t just the fear of the loss of a friend.

“I should have known.” Reeve moaned, his head tilting back and hitting the wall with a dull ‘thud’ that carried in the dim hallways of the hospital. He proffered the papers to Vincent, who moved to sit beside Reeve and took them to read.

He made no sound as he handed them back.

“I know what it means Reeve…but what does it really mean?”

“There have been two other reports…these things are mostly Mako…like they were engineered that way, not enhanced.”

“So you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that these things, we don’t know how or why they were made, but they are hell to kill. And…they aren’t alone. Even worse is that the bite radius’ didn’t match from victim to victim…which means it wasn’t the same ones that Tifa finished two of.”

Vincent was almost completely silent then, and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Three attacks, close enough to make a coincidence to go by. Where are they coming from Reeve?”

“The source would appear to be somewhere between Edge and Midgar.”

“You don’t think?” Vincent began.

“It’s entirely possible. We can’t be sure we got all of the reactors…hell, we didn’t know about that one until DeepGround threw it wide open.”

Vincent felt something leap in his chest when Reeve tilted his head back and that silky, tied back chestnut slid from his shoulders to the small of his back.

It was an odd thing to think at a time like this.

“Reeve, you must rest. No one can think clearly when stressed and exhausted.”

Vincent stood, holding the biological report from the autopsy of the monster in a clawed hand while the other he proffered to Reeve, who took it without question or insult. When the WRO president swayed, Vincent steadied him with his hip and flesh arm. Only when Reeve looked up and said. “Okay…I’m okay,” did Vincent let go.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Vincent asked.

“Is it that obvious?” Reeve asked, sounding rueful.

He adjusted his ponytail, ran his hands over his goatee, and then glanced at Vincent, as if gauging him.

“Someone tried to kill me this morning, right before I got the call about…this.” Reeve said, waving his arm towards the hospital room.

“Does security know?” Vincent asked.

“They’ve upped their measures according to protocol, of course.”

“You realize you could be baiting a killer into the hospital with Tifa, Marlene and Denzel?”

“No, we’re fairly sure the attacks were intentionally made simultaneously.”

“That really does not reassure me,” Vincent grunted. “Who was it that tried to kill you?” Vincent asked.

“We couldn’t apprehend the being because it seemed to be made of shadow…it was gone when we turned on the lights.”

Vincent gave Reeve an irritated glance.

“No, I’m certain I wasn’t dreaming. There is no way a dream could have done this.”

He unbuttoned the Mandarin collar of his shirt, revealing the white of bandages with tell-tale hints of crimson through them.

Vincent’s breath caught.

“You’ve had this seen to, haven’t you?” The Ex-Turk asked. Almost immediately touching the bandages with worried fingers.

“No! Er…no, there was enough confusion at the time,” Reeve said quietly, wincing.

“Fine, then let’s go somewhere you are more comfortable. I will heal this as best I can.”

“No…that’s quite all right…I’m sure it will be fine…”

“I am not willing to take a chance with a friend’s life after the day I have had.” Vincent said gruffly.

“I…” Reeve began.

Vincent shook his head.

Reeve yielded. The man hadn’t gotten this far by being a complete idiot.

~*~

They sat in the conference room, Reeve on a chair, Vincent kneeling in front of him. Vincent parted the dress shirt, and began to unwind the bandages. The wound was fairly deep and several inches long. Almost identical to the gashes on Tifa, Marlene and Denzel.

“Did they find it?”

“I can’t be sure it wasn’t something different. This was a human, not a mutant.”

“All cats are gray in the dark Reeve,” Vincent smirked.

Reeve sighed. “Well, can you fix it?”

Vincent reached into his pants pocked and pulled out a thin and folded bag of materia. He pulled out a small green stone and closed his eyes, touching Reeve’s bare skin with his flesh hand; the other clutched the stone, which began to glow.

The worst of the wound healed within a matter of minutes, but the rest had to be left to heal on its own, or he would give Reeve Mako sickness. ( A less dangerous but equally unpleasant cousin of manna burn and Mako poisoning.)

It surprised him that this wound had escaped untended as efficient as Reeve’s bodyguards were. So then he really /wasn’t/ surprised when a bodyguard brought him supplies to disinfect and tape the remainder of the wound, which Vincent did skillfully enough, considering one hand had pointy claws.

It was as he was buttoning up Reeve’s shirt that he felt something wash back and forth between them, something he had been trying to ignore while he was healing the other man. And then he noticed the faint blush on Reeve’s cheeks.

This was not anything /like/ what he thought was fluttering in his stomach, and he promised the butterflies bullets if they kept it up. He had never been attracted to a man in his life, and he wasn’t going to start now.

Of course, if he was thinking this now, then he was attracted to Reeve on SOME level. After all, he had spent several days tangled up and talking to Lucrecia about it whether she wanted to hear it or not. (But he had made damn sure before he went that it was at least more than a passing thought. He didn’t want to pain her.) He planned to be single, because he could live as she wanted and still be so.

He didn’t honestly know what to think, and so he marched out into the hall after that. He had done what he could. He looked down and noticed the papers had found their way into his hand again. Hmmm.

“I will be in the research center, if you require me,” Vincent said.

He headed off the way he had seen signs for when they had first entered the hospital.

“Sir, you looked flushed,” One of his bodyguards asked the president. “Are you faint, do you want some water?”

“No.” Reeve wheezed. “No thank you.”

~*~

Cloud sat on the edge of the desk next to Vincent, keeping a lonely and unsleeping vigil for Tifa, which Vincent fully supported. It took a strong friend to sit with someone’s pain and not try to move it or change it. It just was, and like the two typical males they were, they couldn’t bring themselves to talk about the hurt and fear.

“I heard Reeve was hurt.” Cloud said, his voice rough with tears unshed.

“Yes, but the wound is on the mend quite nicely.” Vincent reassured.

“Do you think she is going to make it through the night?” Cloud tried to slip the question in to the discussion, and Vincent let him.

“Are you?” He turned ruby eyes to Cloud, his cape was off, and Marlene was curled into the hospital bed clutching it. It made his gaze that much more potent, he knew.

“Doesn’t feel like it.” Cloud whispered.

“Perhaps you should wake Barret and go lay down on the cot. I’m sure you could sleep beside her even, if you were careful.”

“I can’t touch her.” Cloud whispered.

“It is your touch that will heal her. To ignore her out of anguish and guilt will surely kill her. This is not your fault any more than it is mine Cloud.” Vincent reminded.

Cloud subtly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand a few moments later.

He hopped off the table, and was about to leave the room when he stopped in the open doorway without turning around.

“Hey Vincent?”

“Mh?”

“Thanks.”

Vincent smiled at his keyboard, and then went back to reading the reports in the databases, while the computer next to him was busy analyzing and reanalyzing data from the report.

The report.

He leaned down then, and flipped it over on a whim. He was surprised to see hand written notes on the back. He blinked closer.

Reeve had been using the pages like a journal. Had he been sitting out in that hall writing the whole time Tifa and the children were in surgery? Somehow, he wasn’t all that surprised by the thought. But Reeve had just let him take the papers? Had the engineer forgot? No. Reeve never forgot. So why was he reading this now?”

“Because he feels really damn guilty but he can’t talk about it, that’s why.” Cid said as he ambled into the room and sat down by the busily flicking screen of the computer doing the decoding work.

Vincent surreptitiously and quickly flipped the papers back over.

“He just sat in the hall and wrote like hell was on his heels while they were in surgery. Look, see, these last few pages aren’t the report, just blank paper. He slid them behind the report, you know?”

“But why?” Vincent asked, ruby eyes narrowing.

“When you figger that out, you’ll be the last one to.” Cid said, smirking. “Want a cup of coffee? I’m going to get one.” He grunted around the cigarette in his mouth that he was chewing almost violently on.

“No, I think I will try to rest. Wake me if I’m needed.”

“Suit yerself.” Cid yawned and scratched his ribs.

~*~

He made his way to the ICU room to find Cloud stroking Tifa’s hair gently, and Denzel still sleeping away in his induced coma. Marlene murmured in her sleep as Barret adjusted her blanket and pushed Vincent’s cloak tighter into her grasp.

And with a nod to Barret, and satisfied that everyone was safe for the moment, Vincent took Cerberus to go sleep by the front door. If anything was coming in that was human that he could shoot, it would have to come that way. Only one door in and out of the hospital.

~*~

A/N: The tension is just starting. Hooray. ^^

TBC.