Insight

Disclaimer: The characters Cid Highwind and Vincent Valentine belong to Square not me, I'm not making money from this, etc.

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Summary: Takes place after "Wish". Could be read alone but wouldn't really make that much sense. Vincent has to deal with learning about what Cid did for him.

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-Insight-

Vincent woke up gasping. Without knowing what woke him he rushed over to Cid's room. The pilot's sickness worried him that he feared he would die in his sleep and he couldn't even be there. Not that he could do anything about it, but he wanted to be there for his lover, after all the pilot had done for him.

Rushing into Cid's room, he stopped at the doorway, clutching onto the frame for support. His claw arm cracked part of the wood, but he paid it no mind. Cid wasn't in bed. In fact, the bed didn't even look slept in. But he specifically remembered watching the pilot get in, and then turning out the light himself and leaving. What was going on?

His mind was suddenly struck with a barrage of images and words, all memories he didn't remember. And those memories he had either disappeared or changed. When his mind cleared, he found that he was clenching onto the door frame with shaking hands. What just happened?

"Vincent? Is that you?"

The man came to his senses when he saw he was outside the doorway of his room. He heard his wife inside, and wondered how he had gotten out here without the light on. It was so dark. "Yes Lucrecia, it's me."

"Stop fooling around, you'll break a hip out there. Come back to bed." The female voice was soft, though obviously irritated at being woken.

"All right." Vincent walked over to the bed carefully. "And I'm not that old. If we had skipped celebrating my birthday like I said we should, I'd be even younger. So maybe you should listen to me next time." He crawled under the covers while he heard his wife chuckle.

"Was it that dream again?" Her voice was a little muffled, since it seemed she was falling asleep while talking.

Vincent nodded, even though he knew that she couldn't see it. Sitting up, he responded to her. "Yes. About that man who killed Hojo. They've been getting more and more common recently, but so strange that they're not disturbing. Not really."

"You go drinking with 'im again?"

"No, we went fishing. I'm sorry, you go back to sleep, OK?"

"OK goodnight Vincent."

The retired Turk stayed sitting up as he considered the parts of those dreams that he knew would certainly disturb her. In his dreams, he loved this man. And the man loved him. He had once talked about them to a psychologist at his work, but she had said it was his guilt for killing him. But Vincent had killed a lot of people in his job. That's why he was all ready retired and with a large pension to boot. And he never dreamed about any of them. It was odd. Sighing, he decided just to get some more sleep and not worry about it. Their son was going to stop by in the morning, on the way to another job. Sydney was an intelligent young man, but he was musically gifted. He wasn't recognized EVERYWHERE he went, but his stardom was getting better and better. And to think he wanted to be a gardner when he was growing up. As he tried to convince himself to fall asleep, Vincent wished he had some sort of answer to his dreams, some explanation.

He suddenly felt fully awake, but was no longer in his bed. He found himself in an odd building, which certainly looked lived in. It was some kind of church, he realized. Some flowers grew near the front area from the sunlight shining in on them. It was very peaceful. He jumped when a female's voice startled him.

"Do you like it?"

Turning, Vincent put his hand on his chest, habitually reaching for his gun. Of course, he hadn't carried his gun in his suit for a long time. Recently, he didn't even wear the suit itself anymore. The young lady who had suddenly been behind him had long brown hair and beautiful green eyes. He didn't recognize her, but seemed to know she wouldn't hurt him. "Who are you?"

"Aeris. You don't really know me. But I know you Vincent. Or do you prefer Mr. Valentine?" She smiled at him and walked a little closer, putting her hands behind her back. The young lady seemed pleased to see him.

"Either, I suppose. Is this some kind of dream?"

"No, but it might help if you think of it that way. I don't know how much I should tell you... but there are things that you don't know. Things that you've been wanting to know. But it would probably be easier if you didn't know them.

You have a happy life, this could make it not so happy." Aeris walked past him and crouched down near some flowers, tending to them. "But, if you want, I can make it so that those dreams don't bother you anymore, and you can forget about... that man." Aeris couldn't look up at him, because she knew her expression would only make him curious and bias his decision.

The ex-Turk didn't need any push however. "From Nibelheim? Yes, I want to know why I can't stop thinking about him. It was my job to do that, even though I was too late to save the man I was protecting."

"If you're sure, you can know everything. But I think that might be it, you won't have a chance to forget him after that." Aeris wished she could also help Vincent, but the planet was only going to do one thing for each person.

Vincent sighed, and rubbed his temples. "Yes. I want to. I have to know, before I go crazy." He expected the young woman to start talking, but suddenly he found his mind assaulted by a lifetime of experiences and memories. But they weren't his. Or were they?

The man, his name was Cid. He liked to smoke, and occasionally drink, but he hated the color yellow and lizards. His son's name was Sephiroth (why had he named him Sydney?), and he tried to destroy the world. Hojo tortured him, made him suffer, almost broke him but did make his sanity questionable. Cid was dying. Cloud helped him out of his coffin. Lucrecia was a ghost barely hanging on in some waterfall cave. When he met Cid he thought he was loud and abrasive, but cute. 30 years away from the world was a shock, but he managed to handle it with help from all his friends. Aeris was killed by Sephiroth like a sacrificial animal. Reeve, in both lives, was still a good man. Poor Zack, dead in both before he was even middle aged. Cid would let Vincent top him whenever he wished, he wasn't afraid to give up control. He had no arm, only a metal prosthetic. Demons inside him. Cid taught him how to fly. Their first kiss was sweet, not what he had expected at the time. This house WAS Cid's. The happy town he and Lucrecia lived in had practically been a shanty town, full of broken dreams. Cid loved him, showed it in so many ways, and he had shot him.

Vincent found himself kneeling on the ground, holding his head as the lifetimes separated clearly now, and he could tell one from the other. He wasn't too surprised to find that he was crying. "How... How could I forget about him?"

Aeris had walked over to him and had a hand on his shoulder. "You never met him. It's all right, he wanted you to have a good life. And I suppose it worked out. I mean, Sephi-err, your son is living a normal life! Lucrecia's alive, technially I'm alive too, out there."

"But that isn't how things were SUPPOSED to happen. I'm sorry... You do deserve to live. And all those people killed by... that version of my son deserved to live too." Vincent could hardly believe how dramatically different his life, and even the world itself, was from the death of one man. "And Cid... how is he? Since I don't know him in this life."

"You can't find him." Aeris sighed softly. "You asked for the truth, so there it is. Now I can't take away your dreams, but at least they'll make sense to you now. It was a future that never was, and never will be."

"I... I can't change it?"

"No. The planet offered you all this one wish. You wanted to know the truth, and now you do, but it won't drive you mad or anything like that."

"..." The dark-haired man got up, wiping away the last of his tears. "If only I could find him. I have to... apologize, or something. Help him out as much as he helped me. But...he's dead here."

"No, he doesn't exist here. He had to have existed to make this wish, to make this happen. But if he lived in this time, he would never do it, and it wouldn't exist. It's complicated, but he also wiped hismelf out completely to make this happen. So you would be happy. He thought it would be better for you."

"Isn't there anything I could do? This life is better for a lot of people, like you said. For me too, in a way. But... I want him back. I feel the love that I felt for him. Lucrecia does not compare to it." Vincent's auburn eyes looked up at Aeris. "Can't I... do something? Anything to stop this from even happening?"

Aeris chewed on her lip as she thought about it. "There might be. I could let you send a dream to yourself, the night Cid made his wish. Maybe you could stop it then...though it might be hard to convice him."

"What do you mean? I don't care about this false life! I'd give up both my arms to have him again!" Vincent gripped his fists tightly, desperate to change things.

"All right, I'll send you then."

"Thank you." Vincent had barely spoke when he discovered hismelf to be inside his own dreams. Dark clouds barely allowed any moonlight to hit the vast barren landscape. His other self was sitting on the ground, and looked startled to see him. "Vincent, you have to stop Cid!" It felt very odd to be taking to himself, but he knew he had to do it.

The other Vincent looked curious, but not too surprised to see him. He knew it was just a dream, though he wondered why he was seeing himself look older. That could never happen. "Stop him from doing what?"

"It's a long story, so I'll have to be quick. Aeris said the planet owes us favors. Cid thinks the only way for you to be happy is to go back in time and kill Hojo. I am you in that lifetime. I married Lucrecia and your Sephiroth never went crazy and tried to destroy the world. But he.. he doesn't exist. I didn't understand it all the way myself, but he makes you-er-me, well us, kill him. And that means he doesn't exist anymore."

The one-armed Vincent stood up, concerned for his lover. "But why would he do that? I'm happy with him. He's my everything."

"But I don't think he knows that. He does this for you. He must have believed you would prefer a normal life. You have to stop him."

"And everyone else? If Sephiroth isn't crazy, then how many people are alive that he killed?"

The elder Vincent shook his head. "Probably all of them. But that's not the way things really happened, it's all a lie." He felt horrible to do this, but he was desperate to save Cid. And it would be better if his other self didn't really realize the difference for so many people in the separate lifetimes. He should bare that burden. "Please, do something."

"I will." The red-eyed Vincent woke up suddenly, remembering only bits and pieces of a strange dream that startled him awake. He knew he had to go talk to Cid, but he wasn't sure why. Still, there was an urgency that burned straight to him. He got out of his bed and ran to the pilot's bedroom, turning on the lgiht when he went in.

The blond was lying quietly in his bed, though there was a fresh bloodstain on his pillow. Vincent felt his heart ache to see that, as it always did when he felt Cid's mortality make itself apparent. "Cid, wake up, please." He sat on the bed at his side and rocked his shoulder lightly.

"Urgh...what time is it?" Cid squinted at the bright light. He made a face when he tasted the familiar iron in his mouth. "Aw shit, I didn't mean to wake you up. I didn't even feel it." He hated coughing spasms at night worst of all. But it worried him that they weren't waking him up anymore.

After what had been told to him, Vincent realized what he had been doing wrong. He had tried to take care of his lover by constantly watching over him, but he had stopped being with him, for fear of tiring him out, plus that he hated to see him sick like this. But just from really looking at the blond, he saw how wrong he was. Cid looked so happy to see him, but was frightened, trying to hide what was wrong. //He also must have made his choice because I was hurting him so much.// "Cid, I... I think I just had a strange dream. But it didn't feel like a dream. It felt more real."

//Vincent's...talking to me. Like before.// The sick man was eager to keep Vincent talking to him. "Yeah, me too. I was talking to Aeris, at that church in Midgar. She said that you needed to talk to me before I could talk to her.

She was all happy, like she always when when she had something up her sleeve that was gonna make us all smile. Weird, huh?"

Vincent smiled at him lightly, though when he saw how much it delighted Cid, he tried to make it a little bigger. He was hesitant to speak, but managed somehow, "I found out... that I have been treating you badly." He quickly held up his hand to stop Cid as he was about to deny it. "Let me finish, please. I've retreated from you, as if you were a duty. I take care of what I can physically, then I'd leave you, ignore you. It just hurt to see you leaving me. But, I promise that if you give me another chance, it'll be like before, when you first invited me into your home, when you told me it was my home too." Tears threatened to fall from his blood red eyes, but he manged to hold them just a bit longer. "If we only have a little bit of time together, then I want to treasure it. I know I may live for a very long time, maybe even forever, but... as long as I can have wonderful memories of you and being with you, I can live well, because I won't ever forget you. You'll give me peace."

The pilot was speechless, having no clue what to say. He didn't think Vincent felt like this. He thought he was being a burden on him. The blond wrapped his arms around him tightly, swallowing a sob out of habit, hating to cry when anyone, especially Vincent, was around. He needed this so much, to know that his love would be all right when he was gone.

In that Elsewhere that Aeris was in, she smiled as she tended her flowers. Things worked out between her two friends, and the planet had considered that neither had really asked for anything, since Cid hadn't done it, and it was another Vincent, not this one that had helped to save it. She was sure that whatever they asked for, they would be given it.