"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 on LJ.

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CHAPTER ONE:

Vincent sat in the still downstairs of Seventh Heaven. Shelke was fast asleep on his shoulder, red and swollen eyes half closed. His cape was stained dark with the first real tears she had shed for her sister. Odd that they had both come here to escape a nightmare. Funny how both of them hadn’t been truly nightmares, but more like past relived. Funny how there wasn’t much of a difference between their pasts and nightmares.

She hiccupped, and stirred, so he rocked her back to deep sleep. A motion that was familiar to him after time spent with Marlene. He tucked his cheek into her hair, and remembered Shalua. They smelled the same, (He had lost Chaos, but not his enhanced senses. Those had gotten /worse/ after he had lost Chaos.) and their hair was almost the same color. Shalua had reminded him of Lucrecia, and so of course, did the little girl in his arms.

The syndrome had faded, and DeepGround was no more. The planet was now capable of healing, or so it seemed. With Chaos gone from the picture, so was Omega, and Weiss, though to be honest those sorts of things were many headed monsters, not so easily slain.

But for tonight? For tonight the only monsters that remained on the surface were those that had been manufactured by Shin-Ra. And two of such monsters were trying so desperately to remember how to be human again. Two monsters sitting on the worn leather sofa of Seventh Heaven at two in the morning.

Vincent couldn’t begin to even fathom the changes beginning inside of himself. He still wore his cloak, for his eyes were sensitive to the light with all the Mako enhancement. But instead of tight leather, or those ridiculous boots, he wore simple black jeans and a cotton t-shirt. He wore plain black leather boots, and he usually wore his hair bound back into a decently neat ponytail now. It was more comfortable. The claw was a permanent reminder, but he had found that it did not disturb him now as much as it had. It was capable of an odd gentleness, like stroking through Shelke’s hair, without even leaving so much as a scratch.

When the girl in his arms was utterly asleep, Vincent slipped her to the cushions and covered her with his cape. It was dark now, and the cave would be even darker. He wanted to go visit Lucrecia. He knew she could hear him, and sometimes he liked to go sit quietly beside her. This was a good week for sitting, there were many things he thought me might tell her. A good night for a Chocobo ride.

~*~

Vincent was drifting in the glow in the cave, curled up in the sand. He wasn’t sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, like he usually did. He was uneasy, and so he curled onto his side where he could more readily get to his feet and reach and aim Cerberus. (Cloud had retrieved the gun from the wreckage of Midgar after the explosion.)

He had talked to Lucrecia again until the first birds had begun to sing, until the light outside had eclipsed and dimmed the glow of the planets frozen blood that Lucrecia was trapped within.

He breathed in the smell of plains and green grass, the dusty winds of summer overtaking the delicate rain soaked gusts of spring. Midgar was Midgar, even after all of this time and trial.

He turned his head at the patter of feet, but a breath of the breeze pouring into the cave told him without looking that it was Shelke. She sat down beside him in the sand.

“Denzel and Marlene are helping Tifa…this week has been busy Vincent Valentine,” she said in her usual blank tone of voice. “Cloud left for Gongaga not long ago,” she said before quieting, shifting in the sands to follow Vincent’s gaze up to Lucrecia.

The others were out, working on whatever tasks they could, and that had left Cloud, Vincent and Tifa to look after Denzel, Shelke and Marlene. The bar had survived the explosion, and Edge was hopping with activity because many of the construction workers loved Tifa’s drinks and cooking.

“I know why you are here…but do you really think she wants you to sit here every day?” Shelke asked.

Vincent grunted and shook his head.

‘No…she wouldn’t. I just wanted to talk to her, to tell her…”

“That if you wanted to live the life she gave up everything to give you; that you couldn’t stay here?”

Vincent turned his head to gape at her, looking a little dismayed.

“I wasn’t listening,” she promised him tonelessly. “It’s just that since our synapses were once entwined on the Neural Net, I can often hear what you tell her.”

She didn’t add the part about the feelings she had for Vincent that were and weren’t hers. She didn’t have to, because Vincent knew and accepted, even if he did not reciprocate. After all, she was Shelke, not Lucrecia. She needed to love someone someday, and experience it for herself, not through someone else’s memories. It was her right.

~*~

Tifa had been plagued with nightmares all week, and she was stiff and groggy and leaning against the bar, trying to keep up with orders as she rubbed the back of her neck with a strong hand. It was early morning and she didn’t usually open the bar until eight am, but today she had done so early to work through her worry over Cloud leaving.
She never did sleep well when Cloud didn’t, and Cloud hadn’t slept at all before he left. So while he was gone it made perfect sense that it would be insanely busy. She knew her luck, after all.

The bar was full of men just barely awake as well, and she had had to wake Denzel and Marlene to help her wash dishes and stir things. Shelke had crept away after being woken from the couch a few days ago, and she had assumed she had gone to get Vincent, though she didn’t know how long that would be.

It was as she stood with her back to the bar and facing the cellar door that she noticed an unpleasant smell. It was neck-ruffling and thick, like snakes living too long in a small space. Like iced over flesh as it began to thaw. The way slaughter houses smelled.

That WAS NOT how Tifa Lockhart’s cellar smelled. Period. Even the cellar was spotless.

The bar was patchy, but it worked and it was clean, and that was what counted. She thought she heard something slither under the door. Maybe they had a lizard in here again. They had been coming into the bar at night, at least in the spring, to avoid drowning out on the plains.

“Denzel?” She called. “Bring me the shovel!”

The boy wisely said nothing in front of the patrons, heading out the door and to the side of the bar where a shovel and a wheelbarrow rested. It was as he was picking up the shovel that he heard Tifa scream.

And Tifa never screamed about anything. Ever.

~*~

Vincent reined in his Chocobo as his PHS rang. Shelke leaned over and brushing his cloak aside, plucked it from his belt, answering it with a crisp “Shelke.” as he turned the antsy bird in circles, trying to calm it. Finally, Shelke jumped down and took the reins from Vincent as her face went white. She handed the PHS to him without saying a word. The bird calmed with a rider on the ground, but Shelke looked quite disturbed.

“Valentine,” He managed with only a bit more gusto.

He barely recognized the tired sounding voice on the other end of the PHS, but when he did, his stomach clenched.

Reeve.

“Hello Vincent, I need your help,” Reeve said patiently.

So patiently Vincent was inclined to believe the man was utterly exhausted. If it was sundown here, then it was…really damn early in Junon.

“With what?” Vincent asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

No matter how good a friend Reeve was, when the man couldn’t pull the strings on his own and had to ask for help, it was never pretty.

“There has been an…incident.”

“Describe ‘incident’,” Vincent demanded.

“Tifa, Denzel and Marlene are in the best Intensive Care Unit in all of Junon. Cid transported them here in an emergency flight. The Shera was smoking when she pulled into the gates.”

“What the hell happened?” Vincent growled, motioning Shelke back up behind him. She slid back up with assist from Vincent’s claw arm, scrambled up and situating herself behind the dark haired man.

“An animal…a mutant…we’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Reeve…” Vincent growled low in his throat.

“Okay, so we had two other attacks, but we thought they were isolated incidences. We had no way of knowing they would attack Seventh Heaven.”

“They attacked the BAR?!” Vincent could feel his heart pounding in his throat.

“We cannot seem to find how they got in, but it appears they came up from the cellars. We are of course investigating, and you will no doubt want to locate Cloud, which I have been unable to do, and then come to stand by our wounded friends.”

Reeve sounded tense, strung out.

“I’ll be there as quickly as I can. Where did you see Cloud last?”

There was a beeping on the other end of the line. “Incoming call, hold!” Reeve said as Vincent was put rudely down on the counter. He could hear the ex-urban planner scrambling, and then faintly Cloud’s voice. Five minutes later, Reeve was back on the line.

“He is meeting the rest of us here in Junon…will you go pick up a specimen for me from the bar before coming here? I will send Cid to come get you after he meets Cloud in Gongaga.”

“I…yes.” Vincent said, not liking the idea of a detour. “I will be to the bar soon.”

“Good, I will make sure you have clearance. I’m going back to sit with Marlene…she’s sometimes conscious, and she cries for Cloud a lot. I hope to see you soon.”

“The same.” Vincent said, feeling an odd protective stab for Reeve, and a not so odd one for the children and Tifa. “Do I tell Cloud?”

“He will take one look at the bar and know. You will have to tell him. I forbid Cid to.”

That DIRTY no good conniving….

“Reeve…I cannot possibl…”

“I have to go.” Reeve said, and then there was only dial tone.

Vincent frowned at the phone in his hand before clipping it back to his belt.

“What do we do now, Vincent Valentine?” Serious eyes met Vincent’s from around his shoulder.

“We run this Chocobo to death,” Vincent answered her, touching his heels to its sides and gathering up the reins.

~*~

Shelke stood behind what used to have been part of the bar. Her eyes were wide, and blood was splattered from one end of the room to the other. A few indistinguishable parts of patrons lay here and there.

A nervous WRO squad member was still talking to Vincent.

“She pressed them under the bar and held the beasts off. No one’s managed to kill any of them before, but she killed two of the three. We can’t find the third one, but the other two are in those specimen bags out in the yard. One witness lived, and he was an off duty pilot with Captain Highwind, of course The Captain was contacted first…”

Said bags were five feet tall and three feet wide. Vincent eyed them out broken windows.

“They appear to have come from the cellar, but the door wasn’t damaged, and it was closed when we got here.”

Vincent blinked. That was unusual.

Whatever had happened, Tifa had, as usual, given a severe account of herself if the lizard shaped holes in the doors and walls were any indication.

There was the sound of an approaching airship, and Vincent looked away from the carnage to Shelke, who still looked a little frozen.

“Shelke,” he called to her sharply as he turned on his heel, his cape twisting around his legs. He headed out to meet Cid, Cloud and the Shera. Shelke bounded after him, as if just remembering that she could actually move.

Vincent could hear Cloud shouting for Tifa before he even jumped over the railing, pelting towards the bar. He nearly knocked Vincent and Shelke over in the doorway, and they could hear him running up to the loft above the bar, still shouting for Tifa.

They waited for him. When he came back he was tight lipped and frightening to look at. Mako blue eyes were violent with rage.

“Where are they?” his voice was expressionless.

“They are in Junon, being seen by the best specialists Reeve can offer. Let’s go to them.” Vincent encouraged as Shelke cringed slightly when Cloud stepped towards her.

He grasped her chin and was looking her over.

“I wasn’t hurt. I was with Vincent.”

Her voice sounded a little guilty, even to her.

Violence and gore were nothing new to her, but violence directed to those she had grown to care about? She did not know what to think.

She was surprised when Cloud knelt to embrace her, and then taking her hand firmly in his, he lead her to the Shera, and she let him. Perhaps she sensed he needed to protect her as much right now, as she needed a big brother.

“Bring the…specimen.” Vincent said as he nodded to the WRO men.

~*~

Cloud stood at the railing, hands gripping it desperately. Vincent could see that he was willing the ship on faster and feeling frustrated, while knowing that even an airship was limited by the laws of time and space, things like that didn’t stop a determined Cloud Strife.

Shelke was crying quietly in the airship bathroom, not sure what to make of herself, and no doubt feeling guilt for something that was not her fault at all. And Vincent sat here, not one to intrude on quiet grief, and experiencing his own in a way he had not since Lucrecia had…had…

Vincent glanced up at the afternoon sky, and out of the corner of his eye, noticed that Cid was waving him up to the flight deck.

He went. At least it was something to do.

“Did you find Barret?” Vincent asked.

Cid nodded.

“Think I’m never gonna hear out of that ear again. He’s not all that far from Junon…he’ll meet us there. Red’s gonna be here tomorrow if he can make it. Yuffie’s gonna be here soon too.”

Vincent nodded. Cid was one of the few of his friends he had never felt uncomfortable around and here he was, not knowing what to do with himself in front of Cid.

Vincent finally just leaned up against the wall, crossing his arms.

“She’ll be all right? The kids? Right?” Cid said, finally tipping his emotional hand.

“I hope.” Vincent said, and then swallowed hard.

~*~

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed. More chapters to come soon. The plot will pick up.

TBC.