Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The teen stopped in her tracks when she first heard it. Some kind of growl. She wasn’t that far from the village yet, and there shouldn’t be monsters this close to town. Then, the sound came again, and she jumped. It sounded like a low groan this time. Wait. This didn’t sound like a monster at all. It sounded... human.

The girl’s eyes grew wide, and she started running toward where she thought the sound came from. She knew there was a natural mako spring closeby, and now she wondered if someone might have fallen in. Unless they were attacked by bombs which would be bad. Master Zangan had made her promise not to fight those on her own yet; she needed more training first. For a moment, she thought about running back to town to get some help, but she quickly discarded the idea. She wasn’t even sure if she’d really heard a person--or anything at all. She would look like a fool if ever she was wrong.

She rounded a bend in the trail and almost stumbled when she caught sight of the figure lying on the ground near the mako spring. Definitely human and the sight of blood had her eyes grow round. Looking around, there were no monsters anywhere close by that could explain it.

She approached the fallen figure carefully. Now that she was closer, the teen realized it was a woman lying there on the ground, and not one she recognized. The village of Nibelheim wasn’t big and she knew everyone, by sight if not by name. So, who was the stranger? She looked around, but she saw no clue as to her identity, or how she might have ended up in her current position.

Then, the woman groaned feebly, making the girl jump.

“Miss? Miss, can you hear me,” she said as she went to kneel beside the injured woman.

Her words had no effect, nor did her touch when she dared to put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. She thought about trying to flip her over so she could take a better look at her face, but thought better of it. Who knew what kind of injuries the woman sported. Moving her might be dangerous.

“Just... just wait here. I’m going for help. I won’t be long,” she said out loud. There wasn’t anything else she could do.

*****

“Dad! Dad!” The teen yelled as she ran into town, going directly toward her house. Her father was hopefully inside.

“Tifa? What’s wrong?” A worried-sounding Brian Lockhart hurried out of the living room at the sound of his daughter's distraught voice.

“Outside town... there.. Someone... need help...”

Brian frowned. “Take a deep breath and calm down. I can't understand what you’re trying to say.”

Right. Tifa leaned on her knees and gulped a few needed breaths of air. She’d run all the way home, and was panting from the exertion. “I was on the trail leading up mount Nibel, just out of town,” she finally said once she could string a sentence together again, “I found a woman on the trail. She’s injured and unconscious, dad, she needs help.”

At the news, his eyes sharpened, “Where?”

“Near the Mako spring.”

“Alright. I’ll round up a few men. Stay here and be ready to lead us back to where you found her.”

Eyes a little wide, Tifa nodded. “Yes, dad.”

Without another word, Mr. Lockhart hurried out of the house and headed to the town’s only pub, where he knew he would find at least a few of the regulars, even at this hour. He wasn’t disappointed. Five men were already lined up at the counter, enjoying their afternoon beer and chatting amiably about the warming weather and their plans for spring hunting. Quickly, he explained the situation, and their small group returned to the Lockhart’s house to pick up Tifa before heading back up the Nibel Mountain trail in search of the injured woman.

Tifa ran on sure feet along the rocky trail, making sure the six men followed closely behind her. Her heart still beat madly, and she worried about the stranger’s condition. She knew very little about first aid, and she had no idea how badly hurt the woman was. But there had been a lot of blood.

It took the little group about fifteen minutes to reach the spot where Tifa had first seen the injured woman. To her relief, she was still there, and she hadn’t moved. Brian Lockhart immediately took charge of the situation. He approached and knelt down beside the woman, gingerly taking her wrist and checking for a pulse. What he felt had him frowning. “Marcus,” he called out to one of the men, “Return to the village and get the midwife. She should have a cure materia and some potions. Have her wait for us at my house.”

“Right, Mayor Lockhart.” Without another word, the man ran back down the trail.

Brian returned his attention to the injured stranger on the ground. He didn’t want to move her--he could already see at least one of her arms was broken, and who knew what other injuries she had sustained--but she couldn't stay there either. Nibelheim was too small a village to possess a hospital, or even a clinic, which didn’t leave him with many choices. The other men with him were already scouring the edges of the trail for some sturdy branches to craft a makeshift stretcher. “We’ll take her to my house,” he decided. The Lockhart family house was the biggest and most modern in town, if you didn’t count the old Shinra mansion--which he didn’t--and it would have to do.

At that moment, the injured woman groaned feebly. Tifa, not able to do anything else and feeling useless, knelt down beside her and took hold of the woman’s good hand, patting it awkwardly. “You’ll be alright. You’ll see. My dad will make sure of it,” she babbled.

To Tifa’s surprise, the woman opened her eyes just a fraction at the sound of her voice. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but her eyes seemed to glow for a second. And then, it was gone and Tifa was looking into glazed hazel eyes. “Hmmm... hey there,” she said, not knowing what else to do.

The woman’s eyes rolled back into her head.

At the sound of Tifa’s voice, her father looked her way, “What is it, Tifa?”

“I--I think she woke up for just a moment,” the teen replied.

Brian Lockhart nodded and gave his daughter an encouraging smile, but he was no doctor. He had no idea if this was a good or bad thing. And then, there was the fact that he could see no hint of how the woman had ended up in the state she was in. They got very few visitors in Nibelheim at this time of year, and this woman wasn’t one of them. Furthermore, her injuries looked nothing like a monster attack. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that she’d been hit by something fast moving, like a car or truck. But, the Nibel mountain trails were much too narrow and steep for any kind of motor vehicle. And so, her presence here was a complete mystery. He would have to wait for her to regain consciousness before he could learn the truth.

“We’re ready to move her, Mr Lockhart,” one of the men with him said at that moment, breaking through his musings. He looked back and saw that the men had strung a few of their jackets between two pine branches to create their improvised stretcher. Now, it was just a question of carefully moving the unconscious woman onto it.

“Put it there,” Brian said, pointing to a spot next to the injured woman. He then carefully rolled her over, making sure to support her neck as he did so. He couldn’t tell if her spine had sustained injuries, but it was the best he could do in the present circumstances. Once she was lying on her back, he was able to take a better look at her, battered and bruised as she was. The woman appeared somewhere in her mid-to-late twenties, with light skin dusted by a few freckles and long brown hair a shade or two lighter than his daughter, now caked in blood thanks to a deep gash close to her hairline. She wore a pair of dark slacks, high-heeled ankle boots and an outdoor jacket over a once white t-shirt--of a style he’d be more likely to see in one of the big cities like Junon or Midgard than in Nibelheim. Standing up, she would probably be around 5 foot 4, he judged, and she was surprisingly heavy for her size. The muscles of an outdoors-woman or maybe a fighter, he figured. None of that gave him any more clues about her identity though.

“Careful,” he advised, as the four men with him carefully hoisted up the stretcher between them.

Tifa hovered closeby, looking worried. He gave his daughter another encouraging smile. “She’ll be fine,” he told her, hoping it was true. The woman was badly injured, but her pulse had been strong still, and her breathing shallow but even.

The little group made their way back down the trail with Tifa leading the way. This time around, it took them almost half an hour before they were in sight of the village, but they needed to be careful not to jostle the injured woman and the path wasn’t exactly well maintained.

The midwife was already waiting at the Lockhart house when they arrived, having been apprised of the situation by Marcus. “You know I’m not a doctor, Mayor Lockhart,” she said in lieu of greeting, giving Brian Lockhart a somewhat terse look.

“I know that, Amanda, but you’re all we have until the doctor makes his round next week,” he replied, somewhat apologetically. “And you're the only one in the village with a cure materia.”

The midwife sighed, but nodded. “Alright. Let’s get her inside and I’ll see what I can do.”

They ended up putting the woman in an empty guest room. Once this was done, Amanda shooed all of them out of the room but Tifa, who she asked to boil some water and bring back as many clean rags as she could find. Once alone, she took a pair of scissors from the midwifery kit she carried with her and went to work getting rid of the woman’s bloody clothes.

Pain jolted Lilly back into a semblance of awareness. There was someone leaning over her, holding up her arm and-- Oh fuck, that hurt! Green luminescence washed in front of her closed eyelids and she felt like a thousand needles had suddenly been plunged into the flesh of her right arm. She tried to pull away, she really did, but she felt about as weak as a kitten.

“Hush, it's alright,” a woman’s voice crooned reassuringly from somewhere nearby. “It’ll be over in a few seconds.”

The pain left Lilly panting, on the verge of passing out again. She tried to curse, but all that came out of her mouth was a weak groan. “Just one more,” the unknown woman continued in that gentle but firm voice that usually belonged only to teachers and medical professionals.

Lilly cracked her eyes open just in time to see another wave of green light wash over her, weirdly cool, and then the needles were back with a vengeance. This time, she could almost swear she felt her ribs knitting back together, and that was the weirdest, most uncomfortable thing she’d ever experienced.

At that point, she blacked out.

The next time she came to, the pain had greatly diminished, although she still felt like she’d been run over by a truck. God, what happened to her? Her memories were in shambles. She’d been walking back home from work, hadn’t she? The library had closed at 9pm, as usual. It was raining and rather windy, but apart from that it was a normal weeknight. And then... and then... Fuck. She couldn’t remember anything else, other than the screech of tires on wet pavement and sudden blinding pain.

Had she been hit by a car? That would certainly explain a few things.

She forced her eyes open a sliver, but then closed them back almost immediately with a pained hiss. Daylight was pouring from the tall window on the right side of the bed she was lying on, blinding her in its sharpness.

She focused on her breathing for the next several minutes. Her ribs still felt awfully tender, and so did her right arm and head, but nothing actually seemed broken, which was a relief. Had she dreamed of the cool green light and accompanying needle-like pain? It wasn’t impossible. She’d been pretty out of it. Drugs maybe, although they must have been the strong kind to give her such vivid hallucinations.

Finally, she was ready to try opening her eyes again. At first, she saw nothing but the blinding sunlight, but as she got used to the brightness level of the room her surroundings came into focus. What she saw confused the hell out of her. She’d been expecting a hospital room of some kind, but this looked more like her late aunt’s guest room. Clean, if a little old fashioned, with a floral bedspread pulled over her and lacy curtains covering the room’s single window.

Where was she?

Lilly groaned and tried to sit up, but that didn't go so well. Her arms shook like leaves in the wind and refused to support her weight. She huffed in frustration.

Her voice must have caught someone’s attention, as only a second after she let herself drop back down on her pillow an excited voice exclaimed, “You’re awake!”

Blinking owlishly, Lilly turned her head toward the doorway and saw a young teen standing there, grinning back at her. She had the strangest sense that she knew that girl, despite the fact that she was almost sure she’d never seen her before. But, she looked so damn familiar...

“Hi,” she finally croaked, her throat protesting the strain of speaking.

“Hi,” the teen replied, still grinning. “Are you thirsty? Hungry? The midwife said you would wake up soon, but she wasn’t sure.”

Midwife? Why a midwife? She wasn’t pregnant. Then she took a moment to get her muddled thoughts focused on the girl’s actual questions. “Could I get... water?”

“Of course. I’ll be back in a minute.” With that, the girl ran off and Lilly heard her tumbling down what sounded like a flight of stairs before receding farther into the confines of the building. She was on the second floor of some kind of house, then. But, where was “here”?

A few minutes later, the strange girl walked back into the room carrying a full glass of water in one hand and a small clear vial in the other. “Midwife says to drink the potion first. It will help build back your strength.” Before Lilly could ask a single question--because, potion, really? What?--she had the vial shoved into her good hand and the girl was motionning her to drink it.

What the hell? She was too tired to protest. Bottoms up!

The concoction tasted weird. Kind of sweet, but also a little tart, and it tingled down her throat as she swallowed it, before releasing a burst of warmth throughout her body. A bit like alcohol, yet not. And she did feel a bit less shaky afterward.

“Feeling better,” the teen asked, and when Lilly nodded she held out the glass of water for her to take.

Lilly hadn’t realized until that moment just how thirsty she was. She gulped down the content of her glass quickly enough she ended up choking on it. Her coughs brought tears to her eyes and a worried expression to her companion’s face. “Are you alright?” the teen asked uncertainty and Lilly nodded, still coughing the water out of her lungs.

After several long, uncomfortable moments--her ribs were not happy with her right now-- she finally managed to catch her breath again. “Wha--what was that?” she asked.

“Hmm, water?” The girl sounded puzzled by the question.

“Not that. Before.” She pointed to the now empty vial she still held in one hand.

“A... potion?” Her companion looked even more confused now. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had one before. My dad forces them on me every time I get so much as a scratch.”

Potion? Not medecine? What--

“So, what’s your name?” The teen suddenly asked, swiftly changing the subject and forcing Lilly to keep her budding questions to herself, at least for now.

“Lilly,” she said, her voice a bit stronger this time. The water helped. “What about you?”

“I’m Tifa. Tifa Lockhart. And you’re in my house.” She grinned until she saw the injured woman’s--Lilly’s--face lose all color. “Lilly? Are you sure you’re alright?”

Tifa Lockhart? As in Final Fantasy’s Tifa Lockhart!? Lilly’s mind reeled. She knew the girl had looked familiar, but this was impossible. Tifa Lockhart was not a real person. This had to be some kind of bad joke. Or a hallucination. It had to be.

Heedless of her lingering fatigue, Lilly scrambled out of bed, leaving Tifa to gape after her as she rushed to the window to look outside. And then, she stared at the impossible landscape in front of her eyes, on the other side of the glass.

She’d started her day in Montreal, Canada. On planet Earth. She definitely wasn't in Montreal anymore, from what she could make out of the mountains in the distance, the dusty single street, standing water tower, and the few wooden buildings she could see from where she stood. And she had the sneaking suspicions that she wasn’t on planet Earth anymore, either.

This... this couldn’t be Nibelheim. That just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t happening.

She saw more than felt her legs give up from under her. Her view of the window tilted, growing dark.

And then, she knew no more.

Chapter Text

The next time she woke, Lilly was back in bed. The light in the room had greatly diminished since the last time she’d been conscious. Was it evening already? And why had she fallen asleep in the middle of the day? She should be at work; it was still the middle of the week. But she felt bad enough--weak and sore, and with a pounding headache--that she could only conclude that she’d been sick. If that was the case though, why was it that she couldn’t remember taking a sick day?

And then, her memories came flooding back. And she wished they hadn’t, because none of it made any sense. She had been walking home from work when she was pretty sure she was hit by a car. And then... and then she’d woken up in a strange bed in an even stranger land.

Nope. She just couldn’t believe it. She must be under the influence of some really strong pain meds and having weird dreams, if truly she’d been hit by a car. Or maybe she was in a coma. That made a lot more sense then thinking--

Thinking she’d woken up in Nibelheim, of all places.

When she opened her eyes, however, nothing had changed. She was still lying in the same strange bed, covered by a slightly worn floral bedspread, and the room was exactly as she remembered it. If she were to get up and look out the window, would the view still be the same? Her throat constricted and she cleared it with some difficulty, realizing that she was afraid to find out.

“You’re finally awake. I’m glad. You gave Tifa quite the scare earlier,” a man’s voice cut through her rising panic, making her jump in surprise.

Lilly turned her head and watched as a middle-aged man walked inside the room, holding a tray with a steaming bowl of... something on it--maybe soup? Or stew?

“Who are you?” she said after she realized she’d been staring at him for an uncomfortably long time.

“My name is Brian Lockhart.” He smiled at her reassuringly. “You are in my house. My daughter found you injured on one of the trails outside of town. We brought you here and healed you as best as possible, considering our resources are... not what you’re used to in the big city.”

“And where am I?”

Brian’s expression grew slightly concerned at her question. “You are still in Nibelheim, of course. Do you remember--” He let his voice trail off as Lilly shook her head almost violently.

Nibelheim. She refused to believe it. This had to be some kind of dream. Or a prank. Please, let it be someone’s idea of a prank.

But, even she couldn’t quite believe that.

As she’d done once previously, she tried to get out of bed, but this time she was stopped by Brian’s hand on her shoulder. “You were badly injured, and the potions and cures can only do so much. You should stay in bed for now,” he told her.

Considering Lilly had fainted dead the last time she’d gotten up--and still felt tired to the marrow of her bones--the man had a point. She sighed and let herself drop back down on the bed.

“Good. I brought some soup for you. Amanda--the woman who healed you--said you would probably be hungry when you woke up,” Brian continued speaking as he set his tray down on the bedside table. The enticing smell of the hot soup had Lilly’s stomach growling in anticipation. She blushed, surprised to find out the man was right. She was hungry, ravenously so.

“Can you sit up on your own?” he asked, hovering beside the bed in such a way that he’d be able to help her if she needed it.

She pushed herself up, glad to find out she could at least sit up on her own without her muscles doing more than dully protest the strain. Moments later, Brian had the pillows propped up behind her back so she’d be more comfortable while eating, and handed her the soup bowl and spoon.

She thanked him with a smile. “This smells wonderful.”

The man’s cheeks turned an interested shade of pink at the compliment. “It’s my mother’s recipe. I make it any time Tifa gets sick,” he explained somewhat awkwardly.

A widowed father raising his daughter on his own would have needed to learn how to cook at some point, mayor or not, Lilly reflected, and then immediately pushed the thought away. She could only know that information if she believed this was really Tifa Lockhart’s father sitting on the edge of her bed making sure she ate her soup.

She started eating mostly to hide her discomfort. The soup tasted as good as it smelled, tangy and savory all at once, only she couldn’t recognize most of the vegetables used to make it. A lump formed in her throat. No prank or dream could have that level of detail.

“So, my daughter said your name is Lilly?”

Lilly nodded, not trusting her voice not to crack--or worse--were she to open her mouth right now. And so, she kept eating in silence, not quite daring to look at her host for fear he’d see the moisture in her eyes.

It wasn’t until she was done with her meal and he’d taken the bowl back from her that Brian cleared his throat. “I know it might not be something you want to talk about, but I need to know what happened. Did you get attacked by monsters?”

The lump in her throat threatened to choke her. That was the question, wasn’t it? Just what had happened to her? She feared learning the answer to that question.

She shook her head again, trying to muffle a sob that came out of nowhere. Brian’s eyes grew round, like he wasn’t quite sure how to react at this show of emotion. He awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. “It’s alright. You don’t have to say anything right now. You’ve gone through quite an ordeal, and you’re still healing,” he reasoned. “Answers can wait. For now, get some rest.”

He took back her empty bowl and quietly left the room. Once alone, Lilly finally broke down, crying into her pillows as silently as she could manage it.

That night, she heard whispers. Or, at least she thought they were whispers. The house was so quiet now that everyone had gone to bed, and for a while she thought she was having auditory hallucinations. And maybe she was. After all, she was literally hearing voices and that couldn’t be healthy. She couldn’t make out what they said, but somehow they left her with a feeling of... peace, for lack of a better word. And then, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Lilly spent the next two days mostly sleeping as her body recuperated from both its injuries and the healing it had received. Tifa came to keep her company several times while she was awake, but their conversation stayed light, with Tifa mostly babbling about school, friends, and her training with Master Zangan. Lilly suspected that Brian had told his daughter not to overwhelm their guest with her curiosity. Whatever might be the case, she was grateful to have some time to put her thoughts in order before the questions came in earnest.

After waking up--still in the same bed in the same room--on the third morning since her injuries, Lilly finally gave up on the idea that she was dreaming. She still wasn’t sure she believed that she’d ended up in the Nibelheim from Final Fantasy VII, but she couldn’t deny the facts any longer. She wasn’t in Kansas anymore, even if she made for a very poor Dorothy.

This put her in a difficult position. She was seemingly stuck in a world not her own, with no way to know how long it would last or if she would ever manage to get back home, and the truth of her situation was so improbable that there was no way anyone would ever believe her. She dreaded the questions she was sure would come soon, now that it looked like she was feeling better. What could she tell them that wouldn’t end up with her being carted to the loony bin--or did loony bins even exist on Gaia? She grimaced. She better figure out something soon.

Later that morning, a knock on the doorframe announced the arrival of visitors to her room. Brian stepped inside first, followed by a balding man in a white lab coat holding a doctor’s satchel. Lilly’s mind immediately went to Hojo and the Shinra Science Department, but she rejected that thought almost at once. There was no reason for Shinra to take an interest in a random case of a civilian supposedly getting injured in a monster attack in the middle of nowhere.

“Lilly, this is Doctor Edgard. He comes once a week to Nibelheim to see patients, and he’s here to make sure your injuries are healing correctly,” Brian explained, maybe in light of the rather worried look she was giving the good doctor..

Doctor Edgard didn’t smile, but his expression was not unkind and he looked benign enough, not unlike most doctors she’d met back home. “It’s nice to meet you, doctor,” she said after a few moments.

“The pleasure is mine, miss...”

“Hmm, Ashford. Lillian Ashford. But please call me Lilly; everyone does.”

“Very well, Miss Ashford. Let’s see now...”

The doctor spent the next several minutes listening to her heart and lungs, testing her reflexes, looking into her pupils with a light, and finally examining her right arm, ribs and pelvis--those had suffered breaks he told her, although she couldn’t remember anything other than the pain. All in all, it wasn’t unlike the physicals her own doctor performed during her check ups each year.

Looking satisfied, he finally put his instruments into his bag before turning to look back at her. “Your injuries have healed quite nicely,” he announced. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” she replied truthfully. “And stiff.”

“Normal in the circumstances. Casting several cures in such a short amount of time is hard on the body. They might have sped up your recovery, but it doesn’t mean the human body is meant to mend itself so quickly. A single curaga, followed by rest and enough time for the bones to finish healing on their own would have been better.”

“No one in Nibelheim has access to a mastered Cure materia, and Amanda thought it best to heal her completely since she couldn’t tell how much internal damage Lilly might have suffered,” Brian replied, sounding defensive. “We did what we could with what we had on hand.”

Doctor Edgard didn’t look pleased, but he accepted the explanation with nothing more than a huff and a wave of his hand.

Lilly smiled at her host. “It’s alright, Mr Lockhart. From the looks of it, Amanda saved my life. I can do with a little discomfort for a few days.” She would need to remember to thank the midwife at some point.

“Now, can you tell us what you remember?” the doctor asked her next, and she tried very hard not to wince.

Now was the time to put into action the very rudimentary plan she’d been mulling over since earlier that morning. She hoped they would buy her story; she’d never considered herself a good actress. Fortunately, she didn’t need to fake her unease...

“I... I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember.”

Amnesia might be a cliche of novels and games alike, but she’d found nothing better to try as she couldn’t lie a damn.

Doctor Edgard frowned. “What do you remember?”

“I am Lillian Ashford. I am 29 years old. I work as a.--” she hesitated, but quickly decided that her profession probably wasn’t unknown on Gaia. She’d never seen a library in game, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist, if only just for corporations like Shinra. “--a librarian.”

“Where do you live? Mayor Lockhart tells me you’re not from Nibelheim.”

Lilly scrunched her eyes closed like she was trying to remember. “I don’t know,” she eventually said in a small voice. “A big city.”

“Midgar or Junon?” Brian offered, but Lilly just shrugged helplessly.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know how you arrived in Nibelheim?” Brian asked, more gently than the doctor had.

She didn’t have to fake the sob that crawled up her throat as she managed to repeat, “I don’t know.”

“What is the last thing you do remember?”

“I remember walking back home after work.” Not a lie, just not the whole truth. “And then... nothing.”

“Hmmm,” the doctor said. “You did suffer from a rather severe concussion, so some memory loss is not unexpected. It may or may not come back in time.”

“I see,” Lilly replied with a straight face.

“Do you have family we can contact?” Brian said after several moments of weighted silence.

She shook her head. “I don’t have any living family.” Not on this world at least.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “You are welcome to stay here as long as you want, unless you can think of someone else we might contact for you?”

“No. No, I can’t think of anyone. I‘m sorry.”

“Don’t worry. Tifa for one is happy that we have a guest.” He chuckled. “Not much usually happens in Nibelheim, so it’s been very exciting for her.”

Lilly looked down to her lap and gulped, feeling overwhelmed all of a sudden. Brian and Tifa had shown her so much kindness since she first appeared on their doorstep, and yet they had no idea what she was hiding from them. “Thank you,” she murmured at last. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Doctor, may I escort you back outside?” Brian gestured to the corridor, making it obvious that he considered the doctor’s visit over.

Lilly gave him a grateful smile. She needed a few moments to herself to get a grip on her runaway emotions. She really hated lying to people, and she felt guilty that she couldn’t explain to her host what had happened to her. But, she couldn’t, especially as she didn’t even know quite what to believe herself yet.

Doctor Edgard held his hand out to Lilly, and she shook it a little gingerly. “Thank you,” she told him sincerely.

“Hmph. Take care of yourself, Miss Ashford. I will come back next week to monitor your progress. In the meantime, get outside, breathe some fresh air and stretch out those injuries. It will help with the stiffness and any remaining soreness. And don’t forget to eat and stay hydrated, and rest as much as you can.”

“Yes, doctor.”

“Good.” On that word, the doctor let Brian lead him out of the room, and she heard the sound of a door opening and closing somewhere downstairs, indicating his departure.

Lilly sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. What was she going to do? Get better first, she thought wryly, and then she could figure it out...

The next day found Lilly bored out of her mind--she could only do so much brooding while staring at the wall--and she decided that if she was to ever get better, she needed to get out of that bed. Even if she still felt like she could sleep for the next week and still wake up tired. Doctor’s orders.

Those cures had really done a number on her stamina. It was nothing like the game at all, and she seriously doubted anyone would be in any shape to fight after one was cast on them, much less several. Well, maybe SOLDIERs. They were supposed to be enhanced, after all. Still, back on Earth it would have taken her weeks in the hospital, followed by months of rehab to get back to even a semblance of normality after the kind of injuries she's suffered, so she couldn’t really complain.

Getting out of bed was not as hard as she’d imagined. Her legs were still a little on the shaky side and her hips and ribs gave her a twinge of discomfort at first, but it was more due to lack of movements for days on end than real pain. On her way out of the room, she caught sight of her own reflection in the dresser’s mirror, and she winced. She really needed a shower and a change of clothes; she looked and felt more than a little grungy wearing a too-large nightgown that wouldn’t have looked out of place on her grandmother. Her hair was more like a bird's nest than actual hair at the moment, and she already knew she smelled. Fortunately, someone had thought to leave a bathrobe hanging on the bedroom door, and she slipped it on before making her way outside.

She was also quite hungry, and as good as Brian Lockhart’s soup was, she wanted something a bit more substantial today. So, food or shower first? Decisions, decisions.

Once she stepped into the corridor, the smell of something cooking--it smelled like bacon. Did they have bacon on Gaia? Oh please let it be so!--had her stomach deciding for her. She would see about breakfast first, and then a shower.

After making her way carefully down the stairs, she ended up in the living room. She looked around, curious to see all that the games had never shown her. The Lockhart’s living room was much like the guest room where she’d spent the last few days. A little old-fashioned to her Earth-born eyes, maybe little cluttered and in need of a good dusting, but homey all the same. So, this is where Tifa lived. And in just a few years, all of it would be gone forever. Turned to ashes and tears. She shuddered at the thought and walked a little faster toward where she could hear Tifa and her father chatting.

“You’re up,” Tifa exclaimed when she caught sight of Lilly in the doorway to the kitchen.

She answered Tifa’s grin with one of her own. This young Tifa--before all the tragedies hardened her--was so sunny and enthusiastic, Lilly just couldn’t help feeling better when she was around the teen.

“I thought I would start to grow mold if I didn’t get out of that bed,” Lilly replied, which earned her a chuckle from daughter and father both.

“Are you hungry,” Brian, who was standing at the stove with a skillet in one hand and a spatula in the other, asked.

She nodded. “When I smelled the cooking, I couldn’t help it. I had to come down and see for myself.”

“Sit down then, the omelette will be ready in a moment.”

Making her way to the first empty chair, she sat down, not unhappy to be off her feet. She felt like one those days after running a half-marathon, or maybe trying a new particularly intense workout. It would take some doing before she was back to her old self.

Her eyes drifted and then snagged on the tv playing quietly in the corner. The screen displayed a newscast of some sort. “Would you mind turning the volume up?”

“Sure. The remote is on the counter.” Brian nodded to his right, too busy with the cooking to get it himself.

“I’ll get it,” Tifa said quickly, jumping up to grab it before either adults could reply.

She fiddled with the remote for a second, and the newscaster’s voice grew loud enough for Lilly to understand it. “...on the western Wutai front. During today’s press conference, Director of SOLDIER Lazard Deusericus assured those present that the situation is under control. Although General Sephiroth is back in Midgar for the time being, Commander Angeal Hewley has been dispatched to Wutai in his stead, and the advance against the Wutainese rebels is still going according to plan. Director Deusericus expects an end to this campaign in the coming months--”

Lilly filtered off the rest of the newscaster’s report, her head swimming at what she had heard and seen. The images accompanying the newscast were of a young man with long silver hair and gleaming cat-like green eyes wearing a long black leather coat and holding a sheathed sword that should by all accounts be much too long to wield, walking up the stairs toward the entrance of a building--Shinra Tower maybe?--followed by a crowd of journalists and fans clamoring for his attention. Sephiroth in the flesh, so to speak.

It was shocking to see the SOLDIER First class on television like that. There was no more shying away from her new reality like she’d been trying to do while bedridden. This was real. This was all real.

“What’s today’s date?” she asked suddenly, trying not to sound as shaken as she felt.

“March 21st.”

“And the year?”

Brian gave her a worried look but replied readily enough, “2000.”

Lilly barely managed not to curse. Her recollections of the events of Crisis Core were muddled, but she seemed to remember that Genesis got himself hurt late summer summer of 2000, and would desert some time in the fall. After that, everything slowly fell apart.

And that was only a few months away.

“Didn’t you know what year it is,” Tifa asked, tilting her head curiously.

Lilly shrugged uncomfortably. “I couldn’t be sure. My memories of the last several months are... not good.”

She had lost her appetite by then, but she thanked Brian for her share of the huge omelette he’d prepared--what had he used for it, freaking chocobo eggs!?--and ate it without complaints, along with the slices of bacon taste-alike he’d served all three of them and, miracle of miracle, a big mug of coffee.

“Is there a way I could take a shower? And huh... get some actual clothes,” she asked Brian after they were all done with their breakfast and her host had already stopped her from helping him clean the dishes.

“Tifa can show you to the bathroom and get some fresh towels for you.” He thought for a moment before continuing. “I’ll look into what's left of my wife’s old clothes. There should be at least a few things in there that’ll fit well enough.”

Any guilt Lilly might have felt at the idea of wearing Tifa’s dead mother’s clothes died a quick death when she remembered that she had no choice. In this world, she possessed nothing. Not a single gil to her name. She would need to get used to the kind of strangers of she wanted to survive long enough to--

To do what, exactly? Now... that was the questions, wasn’t it?

Chapter Text

After her shower, Lilly felt significantly more human. Gone was the dried sweat and sickness smell that had clung to her skin, and her hair was back to looking like hair--although that had taken her fifteen minutes with a hairbrush and a lot of cursing. True to his word, Brian had left a selection of clothes on the guestroom’s bed for her to choose from. From these, she figured out that Tifa’s mother had been an inch or two shorter and definitely bustier than she was. Still, she managed to find two pairs of pants, a few shirts, an outdoor jacket, socks, and even a pair of hiking boots that fit without pinching her toes.

She also found her own bra, cleaned and folded beside the pile of second-hand clothes, along with a pile of new underwear still in their packaging. She blushed at the idea of Tifa’s father buying them for her, but she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth--or was that a gift chocobo in the beak? She was clean, she was wearing clothes instead of that ugly nightgown, and she felt ready to brave the outside world for at least a little while. As the doctor advised, moving around would help with the stiffness.

Nibelheim... I’m about to visit Nibelheim.

She felt hysterical giggles bubbling up, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to contain them. This whole situation was insane, even though she now believed it was also very, very real. It made her want to crawl out of her own skin, or maybe scream at the top of her lungs until the panic went away.

Shit, I need to stop thinking about this before I really do drive myself crazy.

She took a shaky breath, then another, doing her best to calm down. Now wasn’t the time to lose it. One step at a time. First she would see the village with her own eyes. Then she’d do her best to regain her strength and stamina. After that... she didn’t know what she would do, but she would figure it out. She had to.

When Lilly returned downstairs, only Tifa was still in the house, sitting at the kitchen table doing homework. Brian had left to do whatever small town mayors did with their days, she supposed.

Tifa got to her feet the moment she saw Lilly enter the kitchen. Anything to get out of doing school work, Lilly thought in amusement. Gaia or Earth, some things never changed.

“Hey, Lilly. I thought you’d go back to bed after your shower.”

“I’ve had enough of either sleeping or staring at the wall for the moment.”

“The walls are pretty bland, I’ll give you that. I keep telling dad we should repaint that room something other than beige.”

Lilly chuckled at that.

“So, what do you want to do?” Tifa asked, curious.

“I was thinking that I could go check out the town for a bit. At least until I get tired again. I don’t seem to remember anything about it...”

The teen grinned, her homework completely forgotten. “Why don’t I show you around? It’s nothing like Midgar, but it’s still pretty neat, you’ll see.”

Lilly raised an eyebrow rather pointedly at Tifa’s neglected textbook and worksheets on the table. “Shouldn't you finish your homework first?“

“Bah. I can do them later. It’s not like math is that hard.”

Tifa’s father might not be too happy with her for keeping his daughter away from her chores, but at that moment, Lilly decided she didn’t care. She wanted to see Nibelheim through Tifa’s eyes, and the teen was supposed to be the best guide in town.

“And maybe we can go see the midwife, Amanda? I want to thank her for healing me.”

“Sure. And I’ll bring you to meet Master Zangan too! He’s my martial arts teacher, you know.”

Yes, she did know. Not that she told Tifa as much.

Tifa grabbed her coat from the peg beside the door and ran outside, leaving Lilly to follow at a more sedate pace. Crisp, cool-on-the-verge-of-cold air hit her as soon as she stepped out, and she shivered in spite of her borrowed coat. Right. Brian did say this was the end of March, and the town was situated at the foot of the Nibel mountains. She was actually surprised to see that her surroundings were mostly free of snow, although she was certain such wouldn’t be the case were she to make her way to a higher elevation.

The village’s red-roofed buildings, with their naked wooden beams serving as architectural embellishments, gave her the impression that she was visiting some sleepy town somewhere in Central Europe. More than that though, she recognized them from their representation in the games and that was one eerie feeling of deja-vu if ever there was one.

That feeling grew even worse when she caught sight of the “famous” water tower in the center of town--that same tower where a young Cloud would one day soon promise Tifa that he would save her if she was ever in trouble.

“Lilly, are you ok?”

Lilly had frozen in the middle of the road and was staring ahead like she’d just seen a ghost, and the teen worried she might faint just like she’d done the first time she’d looked out the window--she had a very similar expression on her face at the time.

Then Lilly shook herself, and some color returned to her face. She blinked and sighed, before turning to smile at her guide. “Yes, I’m fine. It’s just a little creepy that I can’t remember anything about coming here. I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“Oh. Right. I suppose that would be creepy. But it’s ok. As dad said, you can stay with us as long as you want! I’m sure your memories will come back soon.”

“Thank you, Tifa.” She kept her smile firmly in place. If only Tifa knew the truth. But the truth wouldn’t help anyone at this point. Not even her.

“Come on. Amanda’s house is that way. It’s Sunday, so she should be there unless she was called out for a birth.”

Lilly let Tifa guide her farther into the village. It was bigger than she’d expected. In game, it looked like nothing more than a few buildings clustered around the water tower, but the reality of it was quite different. Smaller streets radiated outward from the town’s center, leading to more houses, shops, the inn, a small school building, and even a park. It made sense, she supposed. You couldn’t cram the entirety of Nibelheim’s population in the few buildings shown in the game, but the developers hadn't needed to portray the rest of it.

It was still a small village though. Lilly estimated the population at perhaps a few hundred people, although there were hints that it might have been higher in the past. The place had the air of a once prosperous town fallen on hard times: boarded-up houses, closed shops, and rundown streets. Maybe things had been better while the team of Shinra scientists still worked at the mansion, she thought. It would also explain why they thought to build a Mako reactor for such a remote village. Well, that and the Jenova project.

She shivered at the thought.

“Here we are,” Tifa announced, breaking through Lilly’s musings.

They had stopped in front of one of the houses, and Tifa had already rung the bell. Before Lilly could say anything, the door opened to reveal a dark-skinned woman in her late thirties holding a steaming mug in her hands. “Oh, hello Tifa,” she said, sounding a little surprised at the sight of her visitor.

“Good morning, Amanda,” Tifa replied with a smile.

“What can I do for you today? Is it about your guest?” Amanda asked, but then she caught sight of Lilly further down the way and raised her eyebrows in question.

“Actually, I’m the one who asked Tifa to bring me here. I wanted to thank you for all you did. You probably saved my life.” Lilly stepped up beside Tifa and held out her hand.

The woman snorted as she shook Lilly’s hand. “There’s no probably about it,” she said plainly. “You were in really rough shape when they brought you back.”

Lilly grimaced. “So I heard. I don’t remember any of it.”

“Mayor Lockhart said as much. Asked if there’s anything I could do.” She snorted again. “I’m no doctor, I told him. But, if you still suffer from headaches or nausea, I have a few things that might help.”

“Ah... no. I’m fine. Just stiff and tired,” Lilly told her, just as she had Doctor Edgard. “But thank you. I’ll keep it in mind if I ever need it.”

The midwife nodded, bidded them good day, and closed the door in their face. Lilly blinked. Well... the woman didn’t have the most engaging bedside manners, did she? Beside her, Tifa giggled. “Don’t take it personally. Amanda’s always like that.”

She made her way back to the street and waved Lilly over. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to Master Zangan; his house isn’t far.”

Tifa led the way back toward the center of town, and Lilly had to call out to her to slow down as she was already getting winded. Damn, she hated feeling so weak and tired. She slowed a little more and stretched, trying to help with the tightness of her muscles.

Voices then caught her attention, coming from the alley at the back of a row of houses.

“So, chocobo-butt, you wanna be a SOLDIER, huh?” a boy’s voice called out, trying to sound all deep and manly, but cracking at the end.

More male voices laughed. How many of them were there, she wondered, frowning.

“Come on, guys. Just let me pass,” another boy, sounding younger and unsure, pleaded.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the first boy replied. “Big, strong SOLDIERs don’t run away, do they guys?”

The other boys laughed again, and then there was a short silence followed by a yelp and a crash. Lilly cursed under her breath. That didn’t sound good at all. She turned around and stalked into the alley where she’d heard the voices. She had worked as a librarian in a rough area for years, and it wouldn’t be the first time she broke up a fight between a bunch of young punks and a younger kid. She hated it every time, but she was used to it. Usually, the presence of an adult was enough to diffuse the situation.

“Hey!” she yelled when she saw them. Four boys crowded around another one that she couldn’t see--they’d pushed him down and looked like they were about to pummel him. “Hey you!” she yelled again “Get away from him.”

All four teens--the oldest couldn’t be more than fifteen--looked up at her with a mix of surprise and anger on their face. Lilly planted her hands on her hips and stared them down. She hated bullies; they pissed her off. “What do you think you’re doing,” she snapped. “Get away from him before I tell both your parents and the mayor.”

They kept glaring at her for a few seconds more, but finally the group’s leader looked down and muttered. “Come on, guys. Let’s go.” They filed out of the alley while Lilly kept watching them to make sure they were really leaving. Once they were out of sight, she returned her attention to their victim to make sure he was alright. The boy was just now getting back on his feet, grimacing as he tried to brush the dirt out of his clothes and hair. Lilly’s eyes grew round as she got a better look at him. He was as short as she was, still slight in the way only growing boys could be, with a shock of yellow hair sticking every which way and baby blue eyes.

That’s Cloud, she realized, her breath catching in her throat from shock. Having the bully call him “chocobo-butt” should have clued her in, but she hadn’t been paying attention to the insult at the time.

“Thanks,” Cloud mumbled, not looking at her. Probably not too happy to have gotten his ass saved by a girl, Lilly thought. She would have laughed at the whole situation if not for the fact that she was still too rattled to get her mouth working properly.

“So, hmm...” he continued, sounding like he had no clue what to say next.

Lilly finally got a hold of herself. “Let’s get out of here. You can stay with me until those boys lose interest in you.”

“Not gonna happen,” he muttered darkly, but he followed her out of the alley anyway.

Tifa was waiting for her in the street, scowling in the direction the bullies had left. “What’s going on? I saw Kevin and his gang running away a minute ago.” She stopped when she noticed the boy walking behind Lilly. “Oh, hi Cloud,” she greeted him and... was that the start of a blush Lilly saw on the girl’s cheeks?

“Tifa,” Cloud squeaked, making Lilly want to wince at the expression of utter embarrassment that took over his features. He really couldn’t hide his emotions worth a damn.

She intervened before things could become even more awkward for the poor boy. “You’re Cloud, right?” she asked him. Like she didn’t already know. “I’m Lilly by the way. Tifa was just showing me around town since it’s my first time here. Come with us.”

“Okay,” he said after a moment of hesitation.

He ended up falling into step beside Tifa, who took one good look at him and started trying to touch his face. “What happened to you?” she exclaimed. “It looks like you’re getting a black eye. We need to find you a potion.”

Cloud tried--in vain--to pull away from her, muttering all the while that he felt just fine and Tifa didn’t need to fuss over him like a mother chocobo. Lilly wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cringe with second-hand embarrassment for Cloud. Tifa was certainly... forceful when she got an idea in her head. A trait that wouldn’t change in the future, Lilly thought with a smile.

Now, if only she didn’t have to live through the murder of her father and the rest of her village...

Her smile dropped, and she grimaced instead.

Tifa had them stop at the general store so she could purchase a potion for Cloud using her weekly allowance--and that in spite of Cloud’s vocal protests--and then stood in front of him with her arms crossed and a fierce expression on her face until he relented and gulped it down. Lilly watched in fascination as his burgeoning black eye changed color from an angry, puffy red back to his normal skin color.

She felt herself swaying on her feet, exhaustion settling in her bones. Meeting with Master Zangan would have to wait; she needed to lie down before she passed out. Maybe it had been a bit much to confront those bullies so soon after getting out of bed for the first time, but she couldn’t find it in herself to regret it. It had allowed her to meet Cloud Strife! Who of course had no clue he was such a celebrity in her mind. At this point in time, he was just a teen with a dream of one day becoming a SOLDIER, like his idol Sephiroth.

“Hey, are you ok? You look a bit pale. Should I have bought another potion for you?” Tifa looked at her, concern clear on her face.

Lilly shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I think I just overdid it a bit.”

“Do you want to go back home? Master Zangan can wait.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“Alright. See you later, Cloud. Say hi to Mrs Strife for me.” Tifa waved at Cloud, who looked rather relieved to see her go.

She hovered beside Lilly the entire way back, ready to catch her should she trip and fall, which was probably not a bad thing. Lilly’s legs felt rather like jell-o by the time they made it inside, and she sprawled down on the living room couch to catch her breath. She’d return upstairs later, once she was sure she could climb the stairs without faceplanting before she reached the top.

It wasn’t in Lilly’s character to take advantage of people’s hospitality. The Lockharts had already done so much for her, and she felt bad that she hadn't offered anything in exchange. And so, the next evening, she found herself sitting at the kitchen table and trying to convince Brian Lockhart to at least let her help with dinner. He was having none of it. “You are a guest here. I don’t make my guests work for their keep,” he told her with a frown.

“Let me at least help. You’ve already done so much for me, and I don’t know how to repay you,” she replied. She could be just as stubborn as he was, if it came to it. She wasn’t about to partake of his hospitality while she sat on her hands, doing nothing.

Brian chuckled. “I’ve been cooking on my own every night ever since my wife died. I don’t need the help, but thank you. Now, did you see Tifa when you came down?”

Lilly shook her head. “She wasn’t there.”

Brian’s expression turned somewhat unhappy at those words. “She must still be at Master Zangan’s then.” He sighed.

“Is that a problem?”

He didn’t answer, but his tense body language spoke for him. He didn’t like the idea of his daughter practicing martial arts with Zangan.

She was sure Brian didn’t need her advice, but she felt the need to say something anyway. “I think everyone should be able to protect themselves. This world can be dangerous.”

She just wished she’d taken her own advice. Her last brush with martial arts dated back to when she was no older than Tifa, and she definitely hadn’t been as good as the girl was. She regretted it now; knowledge on how to defend herself would have been useful against Gaia’s many dangers.

“Well, I suppose so, and there isn’t much else for a kid to do around here,” he relented. “But, she knows not to be late for dinner,” he added, his frown returning.

“Why don’t I go get her?” That would keep her busy and get her out of his hair, since it didn’t look like he’d let her help him with the cooking.

Brian looked on the verge of arguing against her going, but Lilly was already reaching for her coat and didn’t leave him a chance to do so. He huffed in defeat. “His house is the third one on the left, passed the intersection. Tell her we’ll be ready to eat in fifteen minutes and I expect her back before then.”

“Will do.”

Lilly found Tifa in the backyard of the house Brian had indicated, practicing her katas while an older man looked over her form and sometimes corrected her. “Tifa,” she called out. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

Tifa froze in the middle of her kata, her eyes moving to the watch around her wrist. She grimaced when she saw the time. “Oh shoot. I didn’t realize it was this late already.” She made a quick bow to Master Zangan and rushed inside the house, possibly to grab whatever she had left in there.

This left Lilly alone with the old master, and she watched him curiously. Other than his name, there wasn’t much she remembered about the man from the game. It had been too long since she played it, and the longer she lived in this world, the harder it became to think of any of Nibelheim’s inhabitants as game characters. They weren’t. They were as human as she herself was.

“So, you’re that girl Tifa found on the trail.” Master Zangan’s gruff voice matched his appearance, and he couldn’t quite hide his own curiosity as he looked back at her.

Him along with at least half the town, she was sure. It wasn’t every day that a stranger appeared--quite literally in her case--on their doorstep without an explanation. Small towns like Nibelheim rarely saw such excitement.

“So I am.” She smiled and walked closer. “Lillian Ashford. Nice to meet you Master Zangan.” She bows at the waist the way Tifa had done, before shaking his hand. He perked an eyebrow at her.

“Are you a martial artist too, Lillian?”

“Lilly, please. And no, I’m afraid not. My only experience with martial arts was when I was a kid.” She blushed. Why had she bowed to him, of all things? It must have looked so weird. She’d just been trying to imitate Tifa.

“You should come back with young Tifa tomorrow. Heard that you were growing bored, and the exercise will do you good after your accident.”

The offer took her by surprise, but she was quick to agree, seeing the advantages of it. Physical training to regain her strength, maybe a few tips on fighting monsters, and a way to pass the time while she figured out her next steps. Yes, that would do nicely. “Thank you, Master Zangan. I’ll do that.”

At that moment, Tifa returned, carrying a sports bag on her shoulder. She ran past Lilly without stopping, muttering under her breath about her dad being mad at her, again. Lilly exchanged a glance with Master Zangan, an amused smile floating on both their lips, before she shrugged and followed the teen back to the house they shared.

When she arrived, Tifa had already made her way to the kitchen, and plopped herself down on her chair while refusing to look at her father. Thunderclouds rolled between father and daughter. The remnants of old arguments about her training with Master Zangan, maybe? Whatever it was, the tension broke when Lilly sat down in turn, and they ate while Tifa recounted her day and Brian and Lilly listened. It was almost like they were family.

Weird didn’t even begin to describe it...

Now that her body didn’t need to rest so badly anymore, she found it hard to get any sleep during the following weeks. The longer she stayed in Nibelheim, the harder it got for her to think about anything but what loomed on the horizon. She knew what the town’s fate would be in two year’s time. Burned to the ground while a madman watched the flames and smirked. The thought of it happening was growing more intolerable each day.

At first, she almost managed to convince herself that she couldn’t--shouldn’t--do anything. Who knew what would happen if she tried to mess up with the future. She wasn’t so self-absorbed as to believe she had somehow been designated the savior of Gaia simply because she had some insight into upcoming events. Her meddling might just make matters worse, if it did anything. She was only one person; one lonely woman with some knowledge of the future, but very few means of doing anything with it. It was more likely that any attempt she made at changing things would end up in disaster--for herself, or for the Planet.

And yet... Nibelheim was a real town. Amanda the midwife, Master Zangan, Brian and Tifa, even Cloud’s bullies. They were all real people with real lives to live. It was one thing to learn of a game character’s tragic past and believe that the pain made them stronger. It was quite another to think of all those real people losing their lives at the hand of Sephiroth.

She would be nothing more than a coward if she didn’t at least try to save their lives.

She felt sick to her stomach at the enormity of the task ahead. Midgar was almost halfway around the world from Nibelheim. She had no money, no connections, and no way of doing anything even if she managed to somehow travel all the way there. Where would she even start?

She would probably earn herself a bullet to the brain for her attempt at conspiracy against Shinra, courtesy of the Turks, she thought with disgust. Or--a much worse outcome in her opinion--attracting the wrong kind of attention from Hojo and his goons from the Science Department. It was hopeless.

Night after night, she lost sleep while her thoughts ran in circles. Over and over again she went over her options, and still she couldn’t come up with a useful plan. Maybe she shouldn’t do anything after all. She could simply make sure she was still in Nibelheim two years from now so she could evacuate the townspeople. But that felt like too little too late. It wouldn’t stop Sephiroth’s descent into madness, nor would it prevent the rest of it from happening.

There had to be more she could do, but what? She wished the Planet had an answer for her, but it kept mum about the whole deal. A shame.

Her lack of sleep took its toll on her. It was bad enough that Master Zangan ended up commenting on the dark circles he saw growing under her eyes. Fortunately, she had a ready-made excuse in her memory loss and the anxiety it caused her at night, and he let it go after giving her a few tips on meditation to help her relax.

The man had been true to his word. Starting on the day after their first meeting, he had her practicing katas alongside Tifa--who was quite excited to share her training sessions with her--and the physical exercise helped both with the muscle stiffness and in building back her stamina. It was a slow process, but Doctor Edgard assured her it was normal when he returned for a second visit to check up on her. It would take her a few weeks before she was back to normal, and that was primarily because she already was an active young woman in good overall health. Otherwise, it would take longer.

She was walking back to the Lockhart house on a sunny April day when she took note of Kevin and his gang loitering on the corner of the street. This time, Cloud was nowhere to be seen, and instead the boys were roughhousing between themselves, boisterous and loud enough that she clearly heard Kevin’s taunt. “I bet you'll piss yourself before you even made it inside.”

“That’s--that’s not true,” replied one of his friends.

“Prove it then. I dare ya.”

The third boy shuffled his feet, clearly uncomfortable. “The mansion’s haunted, Kevin, I tell ya. My sister’s boyfriend said he saw a ghost walking in front of one the window when he went up there. Scared the shit out of him, he said.”

“Ya,” the last of the boys agreed. “It’s those Shinra people that used to live there. My dad said they shot a man in the mansion, and his ghost has been haunting it ever since, looking for revenge. There’s no way I’m going up there for nothin’.”

Lilly stopped dead in her tracks, feeling like she’d just been hit by a brick. How could she have forgotten about this? She could have smacked herself for her oversight.

Vincent Valentine. At this point in time, he was still asleep in the basement of the old house. He had known Sephiroth’s mother, knew about the Jenova project, and he was probably the only person capable of helping her at the moment. She just needed to convince him of such.

She doubted it would be easy, though.

Chapter Text

It took Lilly three days before she was able to make her way up the hill on the north side of town that led to the abandoned Shinra mansion. She didn’t want anyone to know what she was up to, and so she waited for a time when Tifa was in school and Brian out of town on business.

She used those three days to come up with a semblance of a plan. The mansion would be dangerous to explore. It might not actually be haunted, but monsters were supposed to roam inside. She was no fighter--wasn’t even armed--but she managed to find a sturdy branch during one of her walks around town that could serve as a club. Hopefully, she wouldn’t encounter anything that required a more deadly weapon. For all she knew, the game was wrong and only added all those random encounters because, well... it was a video game and video games required combat.

April was well on its way by now, and she knew she was running out of time if she wanted to arrive in Midgar before summer. That knowledge made her sense of trepidation all the worse as she reached the wrought iron gate leading to the mansion’s grounds. It was shut using a padlock bigger than her two fists put together. Despite the rust coating it, it was more than sturdy enough to bar her entry.

She cursed. The fact that the building was surrounded by a tall stone fence had completely slipped from her memory. It wasn’t a complete bust though. The mansion had been abandoned a while--at least fifteen years, if not more, if her recollections were accurate--and the fence had started to crumble in part, while it was covered in overgrown vines in others.

A huge security risk, the Turks in charge of the scientists’ protection would certainly have said. But of course, they weren’t there to complain anymore. Well... apart from the one sleeping in the basement, but she doubted he minded.

It was a good thing for her, in any case, as this would be her way in. She took a moment to stretch her arms and shoulders before walking a ways to her right to reach a cluster of vines clinging to the wall. At this time of year, they were barren of leaves, which would make things easier for her. It looked like the vines had been left to grow unchecked for years, long enough that the oldest of the bunch had reached almost the circumference of her wrist. Strong enough to hold her weight, hopefully.

She almost smiled. It had been a while since the last time she had scaled anything. This wasn’t like rock climbing at all, but she got a little thrill out of it anyway.

It took her two tries to throw her club over the wall, and then she climbed up herself. She only had to scrabble for purchase once, after the stone disintegrated from behind the vine she had just grabbed onto. Once she reached the top, she threw her leg over the edge and sat there for a moment to catch her breath. Not yet back to full endurance, she thought with a frown. Before her accident, such a short climb wouldn’t have left her needing to take a break. But no matter, she had to go on.

Looking down, she estimated the distance to be about ten feet. Not too bad; she’d definitely dropped from higher elevations before. She leaned on her stomach and let herself slide until she was dangling from her arms. Then, she let herself go, bending her knees and catching herself with her hands on the ground to soften her landing.

Once she finished plucking dead leaves out of her clothes, she looked for her makeshift weapon. She found the branch awaiting her a few feet to the left and grabbed it, before turning around to get her first good look at the mansion itself.

Just like the fence surrounding it, it showed signs of long-term negligence. The mortar had started to fall away from the brick walls of the main building, the plaster was peeling from the walls of the annex, and what windows she could see were all so dirty that anyone who swore they saw someone walking inside the mansion had to be lying.

And the roof was probably leaking, she thought wryly.

The front door, unfortunately, was still solid in spite of its peeling paint and rusted hinges. It was also locked, just as the gate had been. Next, she made her way around the building in search of a back entrance, but the service door she found was just as sturdy and locked as its counterpart. No luck there.

That left the windows. If Shinra didn’t want intruders to enter its property, they should have boarded them up. It was a testament to the power of the rumors about the mansion being haunted that none of them had been broken in the years since it had been abandoned.

It was time for Lilly to remedy that.

She picked the biggest rock she could find and went to work.

She learned one thing very quickly: lattice windows were a real pain in the ass. Breaking the glass wasn't a problem, but she found out almost at once that the bars used to hold the window panes together made trying to slip inside near impossible. Maybe that’s why they never bothered to board them up?

It took her a good fifteen minutes of slamming her rock on the bars as hard as she could before she got rid of enough of them to allow her entry. She was only lucky that the bars were made out of wood; if they had been iron, she never would have made it.

Broken glass snatched at her coat and pants as she tried to wriggle her way inside without cutting herself to ribbons. She was thinking she was in the clear when her hips snagged on something, bringing her to a sudden halt. There she dangled, half-in, half-out for several long uncomfortable moments. Now would be a great time for a random monster attack, she thought, grunting in frustration.

She pushed at the windowsill with her arms and wriggled some more in an attempt to free herself. Eventually, something ripped--and she really hoped it wasn’t her pants--and she almost hit her face on the floor as she landed inside in a lump. Owww. Good thing she was alone. This hadn’t been a particularly graceful attempt at breaking and entering.

After she was done mentally swearing at her own clumsiness, she got back to her feet and inspected her clothes. She found a long rip at the bottom of her jacket, and grimaced. She’d need to fix that once she returned to the Lockhart's. She just hoped they wouldn’t ask her how she got it.

Dust floated in the air around her as she looked around herself to get her bearings. She only had a few vague memories of that part of the game to guide her, and she couldn’t remember the long gallery where she was now standing.

No matter. She knew where she needed to go; she remembered at least that much. The entrance to the secret basement was situated on the second floor, in a room with a curved stone wall. It shouldn’t be too hard to find. She just had to find the stairs and she’d be set.

She stumbled upon the conservatory first and gave the broken down grand piano in the corner a curious look, but she quickly left the room again. She had gone as far as she could on this end of the mansion and the stairs weren’t that way.

She returned to the gallery and went to explore the other end of it next. This time, she was in luck. The first door she opened led to the foyer, with its grand staircase leading to the second floor. It must have been beautiful once, but right now it was only desolate and creepy.

Surprisingly enough, she hadn’t seen any hint of monsters since she first got in. Her arrival had been far from quiet; it should have attracted attention if there was anything in there to attract.

Or... she might have spoken too soon.

She heard a rustle and a hiss coming from behind her and she twisted around to face the threat, her club held in front of her for defense. She came face to face with a couple of floating pumpkins with white streamers hanging at the bottom of their round... bodies. The two monsters leered at her with wide, empty grins.

“Shit,” she shouted, and swung her club like a baseball bat at the closest of the two, sending it flying back. It smacked against the wall and stayed there, bobbing up and down as though dazed.

The second one she bashed over the head until it crashed to the floor, where it started to trash feebly. Another blow from the club brought its twitching to a permanent end. She sighed in relief. One down, one to go.

At that moment, the dead monster started dissolving in front of her eyes, slowly turning into glowing green flecks of light that floated up and disappeared into thin air. The sight startled her so badly that she almost missed the first monster coming back for more. As it was, she barely managed to avoid its foul breath. She didn’t know what effect it would have--she really wished she recalled more about this area of the game now--but if it was anything like a malboro’s breath it would be bad news if it hit her.

Once again, she swung her club at the monster. It connected with a loud whack, and the monster crashed back into the wall. This time, she didn’t wait for it to recover. She kept hitting it until it stopped moving and began dissolving. Only then could she be sure it was dead.

“Well that wasn’t so hard now, was it?” she said out loud, like she wasn’t still shaking from the fear and the adrenaline rush.

Her first monster kill, and with nothing more than a tree branch for a weapon. She grinned at the empty room, feeling a little giddy. This was... kind of exhilarating, actually. It made her hopeful that she could do this after all.

Luckily, the two pumpkin heads--or whatever they were really called--were the only monsters she encountered on her way to the second floor. She found what she was looking for almost at once. No other room in the mansion contained anything remotely similar to the curved stone wall that hid the stairway leading to the basement. Not much of a secret entrance, was it? Any Turk worth their salt would notice the wall’s unconventional appearance and come investigate.

An hour later, Lilly’s optimism had taken a hard hit. It might have been easy enough to find the right room, but she couldn’t figure out how to open the secret passage and she was wasting daylight. What a poor excuse for a Turk she made, she thought with a disgusted huff. There had to be a switch, or some other hidden mechanism, somewhere, but she simply couldn’t find it. She had inspected every single stone of the wall, explored the bedroom from top to bottom along with the two rooms adjacent to it, and still found nothing. Where could it be?

She was losing patience, and she was beginning to lose hope. This couldn’t be how it ended, defeated by the first real obstacle she faced. At least she hadn’t encountered any more monsters. In spite of her rather hazy memories of this place in the game, she knew she’d been lucky she hadn’t bumped into anything more dangerous than those two pumpkin heads.

She allowed herself a five minute break while she tried to think of any spot she might have forgotten. She’d looked through all the bookshelves, examined the floor of all three rooms, the wood paneling covering the walls, the light fixtures, the desks. She had even checked out the ceiling, not that it had produced any better results.

The... corridor, maybe? It was worth a try, and she couldn’t think of anything else.

She started by the window at the far end, and slowly worked her way back toward the stairs, in search of any element out of place. Eventually, she stopped in front of the round columns decorating the corners of the walls, at the junction where the hallway widened into the second floor landing. The one on her right looked exactly like all the other columns she’d come across, but the one of the left--

She moved closer so she could examine it more thoroughly. She wasn’t completely sure what had first caught her attention, but there was something a little different about it. She ran her fingers along each dip and protrusion in its surface, looking for anything out of the ordinary. And then, she found it, hidden amongst the carved embellishments at around shoulder height: a small rectangular area that gave slightly under her touch.

Could that be what she was looking for?

She pushed on it and something clicked, and before long she heard a low rumble coming from the room on the other side of the wall.

She would have whooped in joy if not for the fact that her voice might attract monsters.

She returned to the room, and saw that an opening had materialized in the stone wall, revealing a spiral staircase leading down into the darkness. Good thing she’d thought to borrow a flashlight from the Lockhart’s, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to see her hand in front of her face down there.

Well, here goes nothing.

She took a deep breath and stepped into the unknown. Down, and down, and down she went, farther down than any normal basement should be. How deep exactly was this secret part of the mansion, she wondered.

Eventually, she reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into a large room carved out of the bedrock. Unless it had once been a natural cavern that Shinra had repurposed for their use? Not that it mattered much, but she was curious.

Now, if she remembered well, the room where Vincent’s coffin was should be close. She wished she could explore this place more thoroughly, as she knew Hojo’s secret lab and office were also somewhere down here--and oh did she wish she could torch the whole room before Sephiroth had a chance to find it--but she didn’t want to push her luck. Monsters might be lying in wait in the darkness, and she wasn’t keen on meeting any of them.

She swiped the flashlight along the rock walls until she found a closed door. There it was, just as she recalled. Unfortunately, she was in for a nasty surprise when she reached it.

It was locked.

Lilly cursed. How had she managed to forget that detail? She glared at the door, but of course that didn’t miraculously unlock it.

Now what?

Wait, hadn’t Hojo left the key to the door in a safe, along with hints about the combination to open said safe? Those hints should be somewhere on the first floor, either in the foyer or in one of the connecting rooms.

She had to pace herself on the way back up so she wouldn’t arrive completely out of breath. Despite that, she still had to take a short break when she reached the top, before she returned to the foyer and began her search for Hojo’s note.

She finally found it in a small parlor off the left side of the front door. The first sheet of paper included Hojo’s taunt to potential visitors of the mansion, handwritten in a chicken scratch scrawl she could barely decipher.

”I must get rid of all those that stand in the way of my research. Even that one from the Turks. I scientifically altered him, and put him to sleep in the basement. If you want to find him, then search the area. But, this is merely a game I thought of. It is not necessary for you to participate if you don’t want to.”

She scowled at the words. What in hell had the mad scientist been thinking when he wrote that and left it there? Then, she shook her head and shuddered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to delve too deeply into the workings of Hojo’s mind. There be monsters, and not the kind she could beat back with a stick.

She dropped the note back to the floor like it was contaminated, and went to read the second sheet of paper she had found. On it were three clues she needed to find the combination to the safe. She vaguely recalled that there should be a fourth one on the paper itself. Written in invisible ink, was it? She pulled out the matchbook she had in her pocket, and used one of the matches on the back of the note.

The paper started curling in on itself from the heat, before faint brown writing faded into view on the bottom left corner.

Right 97

Here it was. The fourth number. Now, she only needed to find the first three of them.

The first of those she found in what must have at one point have been a sort of greenhouse. The round tower room, filled with windows, was situated on the second floor lodged between a bedroom and an office. That office also contained the safe she needed to open, which saved her the time to look for it. The plants inside the greenhouse room had long since died and turned into brown, desiccated corpses, but it must have once been the “room with the most oxygen” as the first clue alluded to. The combination number had been scratched onto one of the terracotta flower pots.

Right 36

The second clue brought her back to the conservatory. The only thing with any “ivory” that she could think of was the piano. She searched for the number on the keyboard and inside the lid, but ended up finding it inscribed on the floor under the instrument instead.

Left 10

That left the third number. That one led her to the second-floor corridor where she’d found the basement's hidden switch. She had to retrace her steps several times before she could make sense of the instructions contained in the clue.

“The creak in the floor near the chair on the second floor.” Really, now? To her ears, the entire damn floor creaked in some way or another.

Still, she found a chair, and the floor did creek near it, and she counted in her head as she walked: five steps to the left, nine up--she had to estimate what “up” even meant.--then two to the left again, and finally up six more steps. She crouched down to brush the dust from the floor and found what she was looking for: the last of the safe combination numbers.

Right 59

She beamed. Now, she only needed to open the safe and get the key, and she could return downstairs to rouse Vincent from his slumber.

She should have known it couldn’t be this easy. Should have known that her luck would run out at the worst possible moment. And yet, she was still not prepared for what jumped out at her the moment she entered the last of the safe’s combination and pulled the door open.

The monster was huge, much too big for the space that had contained it--how had it even gotten in there!?--and loomed threateningly over her. Half shaggy red beast, half purple ogre, it left Lilly gaping at it in fright, frozen on the spot. It growled at her, the sound making her break into a cold sweat, and raised one huge fist over its head.

Lilly threw herself out of the room with an ear-splitting scream. She hit the wall opposite the doorway, almost knocking herself out from the impact. She screamed again as the monster followed her into the corridor, looking like it really wanted a piece of her hide. She stumbled, caught herself with a hand, and ran back toward the foyer, the monster hot in pursuit.

Chapter Text

A shrill scream wrenched Vincent Valentine out of his deep, nightmare-filled sleep. He blinked his eyes open to the complete darkness of his cramped surroundings, his mind struggling to grasp the situation. What could have interrupted his long slumber, this penance for his sins?

Another scream reached his sensitive ears, coming from somewhere high above him. It had definitely been female.

Lucrecia?

He had forced open the lid of his coffin--Hojo’s sick sense of humor knew no bounds--before his muddled thoughts caught up with his actions. With graceful movements, almost liquid, he stood up and rushed to the door while up above, he could hear faint thumps and crashes, followed by yet another female scream.

Lucrecia. She was in danger.

The locked door posed no problem to him. One swift kick and it shattered into a thousand shards of wood under his heel. He charged up the stairs, barely noticing that his speed, just as his strength, was far more than it used to be. Far more than merely human. He was not thinking of anything but protecting Lucrecia. He had already failed her so badly; he wouldn't do so again.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he heard it more clearly: a monster’s roar, followed by a loud crash and a high-pitched yelp and the sound of running footsteps; a human’s frightened, shallow breathing and a female voice’s running commentary of muttered curses.

Vincent had never heard Lucrecia swear like this, and the voice sounded somehow wrong to his ears. Nevertheless, he reached for the gun at his hip and was relieved to find it there, still in its holster. His faithful Quicksilver pistol--tainted as it was by what it had been used for--was ready for his use.

He dashed up to the second floor landing, before taking a few seconds to assess the situation. A monster, at least nine feet tall and unlike anything he’d seen before--Hojo’s work again?--had cornered a young woman inside the foyer, and she faced it with nothing more than a tree branch to protect herself.

For one breathless instant, Vincent thought she really was Lucrecia, but what he first thought was a white lab coat covering her upper body was in reality a light-colored outdoor jacket. Although the stranger’s long hair was also pulled up into a high ponytail, its color was a shade darker and more reddish than Lucrecia’s honey brown, and what he could make out of her face didn’t look like Lucrecia’s at all.

This didn’t matter to his well-honed instincts, however. His pistol was in his hand before he consciously thought about it--his right, human hand--and he started shooting even as he jumped over the balustrade and landed silently behind the monster.

She was trapped.

Lilly looked up at her impending, bloody death, and reevaluated her life choices. How had she managed to get herself into this situation? Damn that monster for jumping at her when it did, damn her own faulty memories for forgetting what was inside that safe, and damn her luck that she hadn’t even made it to the front door before it cornered her.

Around her, the air started to crackle with static electricity, making all the little hairs on her arms stand on end. What the--

Oh shit! Bolt spell incoming.

She dove to the side in a bid to get away from the spell. At that same moment, gunshots erupted from above her head. The monster howled in pain and the spell it was casting sputtered out.

From the corner of her eyes, Lilly saw a red and black shape land without a sound behind the monster. Vincent? She twisted around to get a better look, but the shape had already turned into a blur of movements and more gunshots.

The monster turned toward this new threat and slammed one of its enormous fists on the floor, but it missed the gunman entirely. He was much too fast for the attack to do more than leave a few cracks in the tile flooring.

With a roar of rage, the monster began casting another bolt spell, and the atmosphere in the foyer grew charged with its imminent release. Panicked, Lilly looked around herself in search of a place to hide. If that spell hit her, it might well kill her. Even if it didn’t, she was in for a world of hurt.

She wouldn’t have made it to safety if not for the gunman abruptly appearing in front of her, pushing her to the ground and covering her with his own body. A moment later, the spell hit them in a flash of light and heat, and she heard her savior grunt in pain as he took the brunt of the damage for her. She smelled burnt flesh and winced, even though she knew Vincent was much more resilient than she was.

She opened her mouth to thank him for saving her, but he jumped away from her and was gone in a flurry of red cape before a word passed her lips. He fired at the monster several times, forcing it to back away from Lilly’s position and focus instead on the biggest threat: himself.

In a bit of a daze, Lilly watched Vincent run circles around the enraged monster in a dizzying show of speed and agility. Each gunshot chipped away a little more at its life, and blood darkened both its red fur and purple hide. One carefully aimed bullet took out one of its eyes, and it reared back, shaking its head as if stunned.

It was working! A few more minutes and she was confident Vincent would put it down for good.

And he probably would have, if the situation hadn’t suddenly taken a turn for the worst. He was about to finish the monster off when it started to glow so brightly Vincent had to take a step back and protect his eyes with his gauntleted arm. When the light dissipated, its red half was gone, leaving behind only the purple ogre, whole and healed.

Ohhh... that couldn’t be good.

Vincent wasted no time. He aimed his pistol between the monster’s--two intact--eyes and pulled the trigger. He was standing close enough that the bullet should have exploded its brain, but the monster barely seemed to register the hit. His next few shots had just as little effect, and he had to dodge out of the way before the monster took off his head with one swing of its arm.

Lilly swallowed a scream. Now wasn’t the time to distract the gunman; he was no close-quarter fighter as far as she knew, and he was barely able to keep out of the monster’s reach now that it had changed form. Its enormous fists had already left several craters in the floor and walls of the foyer, and she didn’t want to imagine the kind of damage one of them would do if it actually landed a hit on Vincent.

“Get out of here,” a deep, slightly gravelly voice, called out to her. The first words out of the mouth of her would-be rescuer.

She thought about running for the front door, but remembered it was padlocked from the outside. There would be no leaving the mansion that way. Worse, the monster stood between her and the door leading back to the gallery and its broken window, making that means of escape also unreachable. She was left with only the staircase leading to the second floor.

As soon as she saw an opening, she sprinted for the stairs. The monster must not have considered her much of a threat, as it scarcely paid any attention to her even as she almost brushed against its side to reach the bottom stair. It was much too busy trying to flatten the gunman into a human pancake instead.

Once on the second floor landing, Lilly hesitated. She should find some hiding place, but she didn’t want to leave Vincent to battle the monster on his own. Logically, she knew the man was a much better fighter than she could ever hoped to be, but still. It would do her no good if he got himself killed before she had an opportunity to convince him to help her. She looked down at the branch she was still holding in a death grip, and winced. It wasn’t going to be of much help, that was for sure.

She muttered a curse. What was she supposed to do now? The answer popped up into her mind in a flash of half-remembered gameplay. There was supposed to be a summon materia in the safe, she was almost certain of it.

She rushed back to the office, while downstairs the fight raged on. When she got there however, the safe was empty of anything but the key to Vincent’s room--useless now that Vincent himself had left it. There were no traces of a summon materia anywhere inside.

She looked down at the floor a little desperately. Could it have rolled out and fallen to the ground? It had to be here, somewhere. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. What did materia look like in real life? Something round and red, that was the only thing she was certain of.

As she was about to give up her search, she noticed something glinting softly from under a stool. She crouched down and finally spotted the materia, half-hidden by one of the stool’s legs. It was bigger than she expected--almost the size of a tennis ball--and slightly warm to the touch. A shiver of... awareness ran along her arm the moment she wrapped her fingers around the sphere.

She ran back out of the room, holding the materia at arm’s length like she was afraid it was going to blow up in her face. It had started to glow a deeper, vibrant red the moment she grabbed it. Energy vibrated painfully up her arm and into her chest, making her heart pound, and she hadn’t even tried to do anything with it yet.

She made it to the landing not a second too soon. The moment she arrived in sight of the monster, the summon contained within the materia exploded forth with an ear-popping release of magic. She watched in a stupor as it formed in the air over her: a larger-than-life warrior in full armor mounted on a white steed and holding a deadly-looking sword in one hand. Odin. The summon charged down toward the battle, his sword erupting in flames the instant before he slashed it at the monster’s head.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still as monster and gunman both froze in place, waiting. Lilly held her breath and prayed that Odin’s attack had landed. If it didn't, she didn’t know what she would do.

Finally, the ogre’s head slowly began to detach from its body, and then both disintegrated into a shower of green sparks. Odin turned his mount toward her and seemed to hold her gaze for a moment before dissolving back into the ether.

The summon materia stopped glowing and returned to its dormant state.

Lilly sank to the floor, weary in a way she'd never felt before. It wasn’t the bone-tiredness of physical exhaustion. Instead, it felt more like the summon had taken every last drop of her mental stamina along with it when it disappeared, leaving her trembling and light-headed.

She didn’t know how long she stayed there, on her hands and knees, just trying to breathe and not faint, when a pair of bronze sabatons and the tattered ends of a red cape appeared in her field of vision. Slowly, she looked up--damn but he was tall--and got the breath knocked out of her when her gaze met with a pair of faintly glowing red eyes set in an aristocratic face, its lower half hidden by a high collar. Black hair fell in an unruly mess around his shoulders, held back by his trademark red scarf.

He looked... gaunt, she noticed. Almost malnourished. And not happy to see her there, if his scowl was anything to go by.

“Who are you and what are you doing here,” he asked, eyes boring into hers.

Lilly found that not a single word would leave her mouth when she opened it. The gunman had managed to strike her speechless.

That didn’t seem to phase him, as he didn’t wait for her to answer before he continued. “I don’t know you. You should leave, now.”

He turned on his heels and walked away.

Belatedly, Lilly found her tongue. “Vincent, wait!” She stumbled back to her feet and ran after him. “I came here especially to find you. I really need to talk to you.”

He barely slowed down long enough to glance at her. “How do you know my name?” But then, he didn’t give her an opportunity to answer this question either. “It doesn't matter. Leave. Let me go back to my penance.”

She caught up to him at the top of the stairs leading down to the basement. “No way. Don’t you think you’ve slept long enough already? There’s no way you’re ever going to redeem yourself if all you do is hide in your coffin and sleep away the years.”

He spinned around to pin her down with a glare. “How--” The word came out as an almost growl. “You know nothing of my sins.”

She wouldn’t be so sure about that if she were him. “I know enough to know it wasn’t your fault. You can’t change people’s minds when they don’t want to listen!”

He turned his back to her again and made his way down the stairs.

“Please,” Lilly tried again. She grabbed her flashlight and turned it on. Vincent might be able to see in the dark, but she certainly couldn’t. “Just listen to what I have to say before you decide what you want to do. I need your help. Gaia needs your help.”

Vincent didn’t even seem to register her words this time. They arrived into the basement, and he made an immediate beeline for the broken door down leading back to the room with all the coffins. She was losing him, Lilly thought, frantic. If she didn’t figure out something to say to convince him, he was going to go back to sleep and she would be left with no ally and no backup plan.

“Vincent, it’s about Sephiroth. He needs help and I can’t do it on my own.”

She thought she saw him falter for a moment, but then he simply continued on his way to his coffin. After he stepped inside, he finally said, “I cannot help him. I never could.” Then, he slid the lid shut, leaving Lilly to gape after him.

“Arrgh!” she exclaimed, anger flashing through her.

What a churlish, thick-skulled man. She had known it wouldn’t be easy to convince him, but she thought Sephiroth’s name at least would get him to listen to her.

She kicked the side of the coffin, and it didn’t make her feel any better. “Vincent Valentine, you listen to me!” she yelled. “I know you loved Dr. Lucrecia Crescent, but she was an adult woman who made her own decisions, good and bad. You’re not responsible for them. What you are responsible for, though, is your own decisions right this moment. You know what Hojo did to Sephiroth before his birth; you know about the Jenova project. Well, his upbringing since then hasn’t been much better.”

Wait, that probably wasn’t the right way to go about this. If she understood anything about the character of Vincent Valentine, knowing about Sephiroth’s childhood would only lead to more guilt that he couldn’t protect Lucrecia’s son from Hojo.

“Forget I said anything,” she corrected herself quickly. “What’s important is that there’s a good chance Jenova will end up controlling Sephiroth’s mind if we don’t do something. If that happens, he’ll go mad and try to destroy the world.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I don’t want that to happen, but I can’t go to Midgar on my own. I wouldn’t know how. And I have no idea what I’d do once I get there even if I somehow managed it. Please, Vincent. I need your help.

At first, Vincent didn’t think much of the strange woman he’d saved. How she had learned his name, he didn’t know. Perhaps she had worked with Hojo at some point, although she looked too young to have been an employee while the mansion was still in use. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. He was not interested in hearing her pleas, even if she seemed to know too much about him and his situation.

And then, she mentioned Sephiroth. What did she know about him? He almost asked her to explain herself, before thinking better of it. There was nothing more he could do for Lucrecia’s son. He had already failed him--failed them--enough for one lifetime.

It was time for him to return to sleep, to let the nightmares overtake him once more in atonement for his failings--

--if only the woman would stop kicking at his coffin and shouting at him.

He tried to tune her out, but when she mentioned Lucrecia’s name--and how did she know he had loved her?--he couldn’t help but listen to the rest of her rant.

Could she be telling the truth? Was Sephiroth in danger due to the Jenova Project? He still remembered Lucrecia’s fears and the terrible visions she said she’d seen of her son’s future. He hadn’t known what to believe at the time. Now, with the unknown woman speaking about the end of the world and begging him to help her, he was starting to think there might be some truth to those visions.

He pushed on the coffin lid and let it clatter to the floor. The woman jumped back at that, and he thought she would bolt when he pulled himself up in one single fluid motion that screamed “inhuman” to anyone watching. Once again, though, she surprised him. Instead of running away in fear, she met his stare and held it, looking angry for a reason he couldn’t quite fathom. Her flashlight nearly blinded him, and he grunted. “Get that thing away from me, you are killing my night vision.”

She startled and immediately moved the light away from his face. “Oh, sorry.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, pinning her down with his glare. Once upon a time, this look alone had gotten several prisoners of the Turks talking, and it seemed to have a not dissimilar effect on her as she shuffled from foot to foot nervously.

“Who are you?” He repeated his question from earlier.

“Lilly,” she replied at once. “Well, Lillian Ashford, but it’s Lilly for short.”

“And what do you know about Lucrecia, Sephiroth, and the Jenova project?”

She grimaced, and her eyes dropped to the side--deciding how much to say? “Not everything, but a lot. Look, it’s a long story... Can we do this somewhere else? It’s really dark and creepy in here, what with all the coffins, and not conducive to me spilling all my secrets to you.”

On the contrary, that kind of unnerving environment was very conductive to the spillage of secrets, he thought wryly, but he would give the woman--Lilly--at least that much comfort. “We can return upstairs then.”

She sighed in relief and looked back up at him, her lips curled up into a grateful smile. “Good. Thank you.”

She preceded him up the stairs and he observed her closely as he followed her. Who was this woman, and what did she know? She was a mystery he intended to unravel. And then, he would decide if he would go back to sleep.

Chapter Text

Lilly stopped once she reached the bedroom at the top of the hidden stairs. This was as good a place as any for their “talk”, and she didn’t think Vincent would let her procrastinate for much longer. She hadn’t figured out how much to tell him--she hadn’t planned that far ahead!--and she needed to come up with something. Quickly.

A cloud of dust flew up as she sat down on the edge of the bed. For his part, Vincent went to lean in the doorway leading to the second floor corridor. She didn’t believe for a second that his positioning was accidental. He now stood between her and the room’s only exit apart from the hidden basement stairs--and she certainly wouldn’t be escaping that way. The man was an ex-Turk; of course he would put himself in a position to prevent her from running away.

Now that she had a calm moment to look at him more closely, Lilly could admit that the man intimidated her. In spite of being too thin and too pale, he exuded an aura of tightly-leashed menace that made her wary of taking her eyes off him. Part of it, she was sure, was because she knew about the beasts hiding in his soul. Mostly though, it was the complete lack of expression on his elegant features that threw her off.

Vincent crossed his arms over his chest and said, voice flat, “I’m listening.”

He didn’t sound even remotely curious, and Lilly had to wonder if he was at all interested in what she had to say, or if he was just humoring her. But that couldn’t be right. He wouldn’t have left his coffin again if he wasn’t at least somewhat eager to hear her explanation.

“Right, right,” she muttered. “Where do I even start?”

“At the beginning. How do you know my name?”

She couldn’t help but snort softly, and replied, “Now, that’s a loaded question.”

His expression never changed as she stared at her. Waiting for her to explain.

Eventually, she sighed and wiped her clammy hands on her thighs. He was making her nervous. “This is going to be hard to believe, but please listen to me until the end, alright?”

“You’re stalling.”

She was. She totally was. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

As he’d requested, she did her best to start her tale at the beginning. “I’m not originally from around here.” And wasn’t that an understatement... “I woke up in Nibelheim about a month ago, having no idea how I got there. From what I’ve been told, it seems like I was attacked by a monster outside of town and left for dead. Villagers found me near a natural mako spring, and the only reason I’m still alive is because they brought me back to a healer in time to treat my wounds.”

This part of the story was accurate as far as it went, but she chose her next words carefully. She knew she wasn’t much of a liar, and wanted to stay as close to the facts as she possibly could.

“When I figured out where I was, I also realized that I knew stuff it shouldn’t be possible for me to know. I think... I think the Planet showed me.”

Which was a lie, but still easier to believe than telling him the actual truth: that his world was nothing more than mass entertainment, a video game, where she came from. And who knew, the Planet might truly have been the one to bring her to Gaia.

She looked down to her hands and shrugged. “I know things now. About people... and about the future.”

At that preposterous claim, Vincent's eyebrows raised a minute amount, but he showed no other outward signs of a reaction.

“That’s how I knew your name,” she explained. “And how I knew where to find you.”

Would he believe her? She hoped so, but frankly, she wouldn’t even believe herself if she was in his shoes.

“And what else do you know about me,” he asked her in a hard voice.

As she considered how much to tell him, Lilly licked her lips anxiously. Not only had Vincent been a Turk once--Shinra’s doers of dirty deeds--but she couldn’t be sure of his current mental stability considering his years spent as one of Hojo’s lab rats. He might not like learning just how much she knew about him, and she didn’t know how he would react to having his life laid bare like this.

“I know you used to work for Shinra as one of their Turks,” she started cautiously.

No reaction. This bolstered her confidence and she continued, “I know you came here about twenty years ago to serve as a bodyguard for Professor Gast and his team of scientists while they worked on the Jenova project. I know you were in love with Lucrecia Crescent, but she refused you in the end. And I know that Hojo shot you after you tried to stop him from experimenting on her and her unborn child, and then used you as a lab specimen for years before leaving you to rot in that coffin.”

She also knew about the existence of Chaos and the protomateria in his chest, but that revelation might be better left for another time, once he actually trusted her not to divulge his darkest secret to the rest of the world.

The meerest of flicker, dark and threatening, had appeared in Vincent’s eyes by the time she finished speaking. “Where did you learn about all of this? Do you work for Shinra?”

Lilly shook her head emphatically.

“Definitely not. Do you really think I could have gotten away with that information if I was working for Shinra? I would have earned myself a couple of bullets first, courtesy of either the Turks or Hojo. You know that better than I do. And then, no one inside Shinra knows what really happened to you and that you’re still alive. Hojo covered his tracks too well.”

Vincent conceded her point with a slight nod of his head.

Steeling herself to finish her tale, Lilly raised her head and met Vincent’s eyes. If she had any hope of convincing him that Sephiroth needed their help, she had to tell him everything she knew.

“Professor Gast was wrong to believe that Jenova was one of the ancient Cetras. Jenova isn’t a Cetra. She is what killed the Cetra: the Calamity from the sky. As far as I can tell, she’s some sort of alien parasite, and she has the capacity to warp the mind of anyone who possesses some of her genetic material. When Hojo decided to use Lucrecia’s unborn son in a bid to recreate the Cetra race, he in fact flooded the fetus with Jenova cells. It’s made Sephiroth stronger, faster and tougher than a normal human being, but it’s also made him susceptible to being controlled by Jenova.”

She paused, and waited to see if Vincent had anything to say, but he remained quiet, utterly immobile. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing. It was a little unnerving.

“He’s a SOLDIER now, you know,” she eventually said. “An elite fighter, a general, and a war hero. But if nothing changes, he’ll one day find out about his origins in the worst way possible, and that will push him beyond the point of madness. You see, he doesn’t even know that Lucrecia Crescent is his real mother; all his life Hojo has told him that his mother’s name is Jenova. When he finds her remains inside the Nibelheim reactor--”

“Jenova is here? In Nibelheim?”

Lilly had to think of her answer for a few moments before she replied, “I believe so, yes. I can't know exactly when she was moved to the reactor, but I’m pretty sure it’s been done already.”

In a hurry to finish her tale, she was quick to return to the subject at hand. “As I said, when Sephiroth finds Jenova’s remains pickled in mako alongside some of Hojo’s failed experiments, he’ll come to believe he’s some sort of monster. He will feel very alone, with no one to turn to for the truth, and no one to reassure him of his humanity. That moment of weakness will allow Jenova to insinuate herself into his mind and whisper her poisonous lies to him. If that happens--”

She shook her head sadly. “If that happens, he’ll go on a planetary-wide rampage, starting with Nibelheim itself. In the end he will be stopped, but not before he almost destroys the Planet and kills tens of thousands of people, if not more.”

Finally, she fell quiet, watching Vincent expectantly for a sign--any sign--that he believed her.

He seemed to mull over her words for a long time, before asking, “And do you have proof of any of this?”

She shrugged helplessly.

“I suppose you could search Professor Hojo’s office down in the basement, but I don’t expect you’ll find anything close to the “truth” in there. I can’t be sure of it, but I suspect that the research notes he’s left in Nibelheim contain half-truth at best, and complete lies at worst. He only left them behind so that people who might one day come looking for them end up believing what he wants them to believe.”

That Jenova was a Cetra. That she was Sephiroth’s mother. That he was special, and a god, and a monster... Whatever was needed to break down his mental barriers.

“People... like Sephiroth.” It wasn’t a question.

The ex-Turk couldn’t be accused of being slow to arrive at his own conclusions, Lilly thought with a small smile.

“Exactly. And that’s why I wouldn’t trust a word of those notes. Frankly, the whole lot of them should be burned before they cause us all grief. I would have done it already if I hadn’t been worried about the monsters.”

“I see.”

“I know it’s a lot to ask when you don’t know the first thing about me, but please. You have to believe me. Everything I said about Sephiroth and the Jenova project is the truth.”

If Vincent caught on to the fact that she hadn’t said that everything she’d told him was true, only that she’d said the truth about Sephiroth and Jenova, he didn’t question it. Rather, he lowered his head and closed his eyes for a moment, as though Lilly’s revelations pained him. And then he sighed, half angry and half forlorn.

“I never should have let Lucrecia--”

“Lucrecia Crescent was an adult woman and a brilliant scientist,” she cut him off. “She may have made some really crappy decisions for all the wrong reasons, but I can't believe she didn’t know what she was getting into at least in theory. If knowing the risks wasn’t enough to change her mind until it was too late, why do you believe your words alone could have made a difference?”

Vincent’s blossoming scowl made it clear that he didn’t appreciate her interrupting him, but Lilly would be damned if she let him fall into a new spiral of self-loathing.

Answering his scowl with one of her own, she refused to look away until he either decided she was right, or sent her packing. “You are not responsible for her actions or their consequences.”

She knew that words alone would never be enough to absolve him of his guilt, but if they could help alleviate it even a little, she would count it as a victory.

“Perhaps,” he finally admitted.

A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Features relaxing a fraction, Vincent shifted his weight forward. This had the effect of making him look less like a cold-blooded Turk conducting an interrogation, and more like they were having a relatively friendly conversation.

“You said the Planet showed you all of this... Are you a Cetra?”

It shouldn’t have surprised her that he would think so. After all, he had worked alongside Professor Gast and Lucrecia at a time when they still thought of Jenova as a Cetra, and he must have picked up at least some Cetra lore from them. Despite that, she hadn’t expected him to make that connection.

“Oh god, no!” she exclaimed, and almost started laughing at the outlandish thought. “I’m nothing of the sort. I’m a librarian. Or... at least I was. I’m pretty sure I don’t have a job anymore.”

“Then, why is it that the Planet talked to you?”

It was a good question, and one she wished she could answer sincerely, but there was only so much truth she felt like she could give Vincent in one day. It looked like he was at least willing to entertain the idea that she wasn’t lying to him, and she didn’t want to push her luck.

“I wish I knew. But now that I have that information, I can’t just do nothing. I couldn’t bear to see everyone in Nibelheim die because I refused to act.”

“So, it has nothing to do with Sephiroth...”

“Yes, and no. I’ve never met the man, but I know he doesn’t deserve the fate Jenova has in store for him.” Neither did Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley. “Ultimately, though, we have a common goal. I want to keep Sephiroth from destroying the world, and you wish to protect Lucrecia’s son. Won’t you help me? Please.”

Please, let this have been enough to convince him. If not, she didn’t know what she would do.

“What would you have me do,” he asked after what seemed like an eternity to her.

Lilly sighed in relief. Those had been the longest twenty seconds of her life.

“We need to head to Midgar, but I don’t know the quickest route and I have no money for travelling.”

“Wouldn’t it be best to stay here? Jenova is being kept at the reactor. If what you say is true, our first priority needs to be destroying her.”

Before he even finished speaking, Lilly was shaking her head in denial. “We can’t do that. At least not yet. If we can’t manage to destroy every single trace of her, whatever’s left will end up in the lifestream and corrupt it. The consequences for Gaia’s population would be deadly. I’ve seen it. Rushing in to destroy Jenova without first figuring out a way to prevent this from happening would be worse than doing nothing at all.”

Vincent didn’t miss a beat. “Then, we wait until Sephiroth travels to Nibelheim and we stop him from reaching the reactor.”

Logical as this plan was, she knew it wouldn't work. She shook her head again.

“I wish it was that simple, but if we wait that long I’m afraid it’ll be already too late to change things.”

She paused long enough to gather her thoughts, before she explained, “I didn’t mention this before, but there exist two other SOLDIERs like Sephiroth, Commanders Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley. They too were infused with Jenova cells before their birth. They were part of a parallel experiment to the one that led to Sephiroth’s birth, conducted by Professor Hollander. That experiment, unfortunately, wasn’t quite as successful as Hojo’s, and Genesis at least has a limited amount of time left before his body starts rejecting his own J-cells. That process will lead to his slow degradation and painful death unless something is done.”

At Vincent’s slight frown of incomprehension, she quickly clarified, “Both men are Sephiroth’s friends. His only friends. If we can’t prevent the degradation from happening, they will both defect, leaving Sephiroth feeling betrayed by the only people he ever trusted. That’s... not going to help with his mental state when he comes to Nibelheim. It would be much better if we could prevent it in the first place.”

“How long?”

“Huh?”

“How long before this “degradation” starts?”

“Oh. Four months, maybe? The event that will serve as a catalyst for Genesis’ degradation should take place some time at the end of the summer of this year. If we can’t stop it from happening, both he and Angeal Hewley will have defected by the end of the year, and their defection will lead to a failed revolution against Shinra that will leave a lot of people dead.”

Including the entire village of Banora, and quite a few citizens of Midgar. Moreover, she couldn’t simply ignore the horrible fate that would befall the Second and Third class SOLDIERs Genesis brought with him. Turned into copies and sent to die at the hand of their old comrades. That was a horrible way to go.

“That’s why we need to go to Midgar, and we have to find a way to get close enough to Sephiroth and SOLDIER to be able to act. Surely, as an ex-Turk you still know people working at Shinra, even if it’s been twenty years.”

Vincent huffed softly, and she wasn’t sure if it was in amusement or bitterness. “Turks don’t tend to live to be very old; it’s in the nature of the job. But, maybe if we’re lucky, my old partner Veld--”

“Wait, Veld?” That name rang a bell. She frowned as she tried to figure out where she’d heard it before. And then, it came back to her in a flash. “I think he's the head of the Turks now!”

“He’s still alive then,” Vincent murmured, and he sounded... pleased by the news.

“Do you think he would help us?”

“Turks have each other’s back. He’ll help us if I ask.”

A smile spread on Lilly’s lips. She felt more confident now than she had since first waking up on Gaia. They just might succeed in changing the future after all. “Sounds like we have the beginning of a plan.”

“Hmm,” Vincent agreed wordlessly.

“You’ll really help me, then?”

She still couldn’t quite believe that the Vincent Valentine had just agreed to come with her to Midgar. It was kind of mind-blowing.

“I’ll help you as long as your goal is to help Sephiroth.”

“And maybe get rid of Hojo too,” she added almost as an afterthought.

Something needed to be done about the mad scientist of Shinra before he did any more damage.

Nothing but a slight glint in his red eyes betrayed the ex-Turk’s thoughts on the matter, but Lilly chose to believe that he was pleased at the idea of killing his torturer.

“We should probably leave soon,” she went on when it became apparent that Vincent wasn’t going to offer his opinion. “I don’t know how long the trip to Midgar will take, but we’ll need time to approach the SOLDIERs once we get there and August isn’t that far off.”

“There are some things I need to do before we leave,” he finally replied.

Things like confirming that Jenova really was inside the Nibelheim reactor? She couldn't fault him for wanting to see for himself--he would be foolish to trust her without corroborating her claims--but she hoped he’d be prudent.

“If you’re going to look for Jenova, please be careful. She’s dangerous, even as a corpse.”

The look he gave her was unreadable, and his voice dry as the desert when he replied, “I will be. I also want to search Hojo’s office. If what you said is true, then it's better to get rid of his notes before Sephiroth sees them, but I want to go through them first.”

Once again, trust but verify.

“We will depart in two days,” he continued. “We’ll need to cross the mountains on foot, but it’s the quickest way to reach Corel. From there, we can find transportation to Costa Del Sol.”

“How long will this take?”

He thought about it for a moment. “About a week if the weather holds. The hiking trails are well maintained, or at least they were... before.”

Before his long sleep inside that coffin, no doubt.

“I see. At this time of year, snow might still be an issue, though.”

“Will that be a problem for you,” he asked, almost sounding like he was issuing her a challenge. “You did say we were in a hurry.”

“No, no. I have done my fair share of winter trekking and camping before. I’ll manage.” She would figure something out about camping gear before they left. Maybe Brian could lend her some. “I was thinking about you, actually.”

From what she could recall, Vincent had lived in Midgar for most of his adult life. Wilderness survival might not be one of his skills.

“It won’t be a problem for me,” he simply said.

Right. How could she have forgotten that he wasn’t quite human? The cold probably didn’t bother him.

The ex-Turk moved away from the doorway, and nodded for her to precede him out of the room. “I’ll be waiting for you at the eastern edge of town at daybreak in two days.”

Jumping to her feet, Lilly almost bowed in a bid to show him her relief and gratitude. In the end, she settled for holding her hand out to him and grinning. “Thank you so much for agreeing to help.”

He looked down at her hand but didn’t make a move to take it. At that moment, Lilly realized that she’d extended her left hand without thinking, and could have cursed herself. Vincent’s left forearm was covered by that deadly-looking metal gauntlet, with its razor sharp claws. Whether it was a prosthetic or a piece of armor concealing warped flesh, it didn’t matter. She figured he didn't like anyone touching it. Without a word, she switched hands, and after a moment of hesitation Vincent went to shake it.

His long fingers wrapped around hers, feeling warm even through his glove. Lilly stared at their clasped hands in fascination. His hand was so much bigger than hers. If Vincent wanted to, he could probably crush her bones without any effort, but there was a gentleness to his grip now that made her heart beat just a little faster.

“I’ll see you again in two days then,” she said, voice strangely breathy.

They didn’t exchange another word as Vincent accompanied Lilly back to the broken window that had served as her entry point inside the mansion. He helped her break a few more of the wooden bars holding the leaded glass together so she could more easily slip back out, then waited for her to disappear over the fence before he returned to the second floor.

What a strange woman this Lilly Ashford was, he thought with a frown. He didn’t quite know what to make of her. By all account, she ought to be lying. Her tale was too extraordinary to be anything but a fabrication, and he had noticed how she glossed over her arrival in Nibelheim and a few other discrepancies beside.

And yet...

How had the woman known so much about him? There were very few ways she could have learned about his feelings for Lucrecia--and how Lucrecia had been the one to reject him. No one knew about it, not even his old partner Veld.

But, why would the Planet take such an interest in him that it found it useful to share his failures with Lilly?

As if to answer his question, a rumble deep in his mind--almost like a mocking laugh--had Vincent clutching at his head and wincing in pain. Chaos. He would be damned if he let the entity take over. Not now. Not ever.

His fight for control left Vincent panting, a light sheen of sweat covering his skin and the materia in his chest feeling uncomfortably hot, but he finally managed to push Chaos back to the deepest recesses of his subconscious. He tasted bile, and wiped at his mouth viciously.

Maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to go to Midgar. If Chaos ever woke fully and took over his body, he might become just as much of a threat to Gaia’s population as Lilly purported Sephiroth would one day be. The thought was a bitter one. Damn Hojo... and damn Lucrecia. She should have let him die.

But she hadn’t.

And now, if there was anything he could do to protect Sephiroth... protect her son? He couldn’t simply walk away.

Chapter Text

It was later than she had hoped by the time Lilly returned to town. Her trip to the Shinra mansion had taken all afternoon, and it was now well past dinner time. Tifa and Brian were surely waiting for her back at their house, and she hadn’t even left them a message. They had to wonder where she went.

She heard the voice before she saw anyone. Someone was calling out her name, and they sounded concerned. As she rounded a street corner, she spotted Brian and she waved at him to catch his attention. The moment he saw her, his expression turned to open relief, and Lilly realized that she’d caused him more worry than she’d anticipated.

“I’m sorry I’m so late. I went for a hike and forgot about the time,” she lied, wincing internally at the too-innocent tone of her own voice. She really needed to work on her lying skills.

“Oh, there you are. Thank the Goddess,” he replied as he stopped in front of her. “When you didn't show up for dinner, and no one had seen you since this morning, Tifa and I... well, we started to worry. The trails outside of town can be dangerous, especially since...”

His voice trailed off before he finished his sentence, but it was easy for Lilly to figure out what he wasn’t saying. It was especially dangerous for her because of her supposed memory loss, and no one knew if her amnesia might be linked to other cognitive issues.

“As you can see, I’m totally fine.” She smiled at him reassuringly, positioning her arm in such a way that it hid the tear in her jacket. “I just needed some time to myself today.”

She fell into step beside him and they walked back to the house in silence. They were almost at the door by the time Lilly spoke again, choosing her words carefully. “While I was on my hike, I met someone.”

“Oh?”

“He’s originally from Midgar. We got to talking and he agreed to go travel back there with me. It’s a big city, and once I get there I’m hoping I can find some clues... about my past.”

From his closed-off expression, she could tell that Brian did not like that idea. Not one little bit. But he waited until they had made their way into the kitchen and he had closed the door behind them to prevent Tifa from hearing their exchange before he said anything.

“What brought this about all of a sudden? You never talked about leaving for Midgar before.”

She shrugged. “It was always in my plans to go at some point, but up until now I had no easy way to do so.”

“But... going with a complete stranger? Don’t you think that’s taking too many risks? If you can wait until summer, I’ll arrange for transportation for you with a traveling salesman I know.”

Brian was trying to keep his voice calm, she could tell, but his disapproval came through loud and clear anyway. It was starting to irk her, to say the truth. He wasn’t her father, and he wasn't her lover. He was her host, and maybe even her friend, but he didn’t have a say in her decisions.

“That’s very kind of you,” she said, hard-pressed to curb the edge of annoyance from her voice. “Unfortunately, I can’t wait until summer. I’ve stayed in Nibelheim too long already.”

If his frown was any indication, her explanation--or rather lack of explanation--about her sudden urge to leave Nibelheim didn’t sit well with her host. She thought he would ask her about it, but he chose instead to focus on another issue. “And how will you travel? That man, where did you meet him? He didn’t drive into Nibelheim...”

And this being such a small village, he would of course know all there was to know about visitors driving into town.

She ignored his second question. Explaining how she met Vincent would be too complicated.
“We’ll trek through the mountains. It’s the fastest route to reach Corel.”

“This is madness, Lilly! No one uses those trails until June at the earliest. Between the snow and the monsters, they’re much too dangerous.”

She gave him a mullish look. “We’ll be fine. I’m used to camping in all weather, and Vincent--my traveling companion--is a very good fighter. He can take on anything that might attack us in those mountains.”

They continued to argue back and forth for a while longer, Brian sounding increasingly distressed by her refusal to reconsider her plans while Lilly struggled for patience. She understood his reservations, she really did, but in the end the choice was hers alone and she needed to go to Midgar. It was non-negotiable.

“Brian, please. I really appreciate everything you and Tifa have done for me, but my decision is made. I’ll be leaving in two days. I thought I could borrow enough money to buy camping equipment, but if that’s not possible I’ll find some other way.”

Not leaving him the opportunity to answer, she turned on her heels and left the kitchen. They both needed some time to calm down, and she needed fresh air to clear her head. God, she hated arguing with people like this. In some ways Vincent had been easier to confront, if only because he hadn’t tried to change her mind.

This would make her last days living with the Lockharts rather uncomfortable, she thought with a sigh.

The next day was tense. Everytime their eyes met, Brian looked like he was chewing on words he refused to say out loud, while Lilly tried to avoid him as much as possible. She had enough to worry about with her upcoming trip to Midgar and... whatever would happen once she got there, and she didn’t need Brian’s disapproval on top of it.

Tifa, stuck between the two brooding adults, acted like she didn’t know what to do with herself. When she finally asked Lilly what was going on, Lilly admitted that her father and she had had a slight disagreement regarding her plans to leave Nibelheim in the coming days.

“You’re leaving?” Tifa exclaimed, obviously shocked.

Her smile fell, and Lilly’s heart squeezed at the teen’s obvious unhappiness at the news.

“I’ll miss you guys, but I really need to go to Midgar,” she explained as gently as she could.

So I can prevent your father from being murdered by a madman in two years, and so you never have to witness your entire village go up in smoke...

“Is that where you’re from, Midgar,” Tiffa immediately asked. “Does that mean you finally remembered? Will you come back to Nibelheim some time?”

So many questions, and Lilly wasn’t sure what to say. It was one thing to refuse to explain her decision to Brian--the man was an adult and could live with the rejection--but she felt the need to tell Tifa at least some version of the truth. Knowing how future events would impact the girl if Lilly didn’t manage to change things first, she wanted to offer her at least that much.

“No, I’m not from Midgar. But there’s something important I remembered I needed to do there. Now that I feel better, it’s time for me to go.”

“Alone?”

The disbelieving expression that accompanied the single-word question made Tifa look a great deal like her father, Lilly noticed, and she made a face.

“Not alone,” she replied, hoping to put Tifa’s mind at ease. “I’ll be traveling with a very good sharpshooter named Vincent Valentine. Don’t worry, he’ll keep me safe on the road.”

Unlike her father the night before Tifa didn’t think of asking where she’d met such a man, who was an obvious stranger to Nibelheim.

“I... guess that’s alright then,” the teen said after a moment. “Will you come back for a visit some time?”

“Definitely. I’ll come visit again as soon as I’m done in Midgar.”

Tifa held out her pinky finger, the way Lilly had seen some of the kids in town do. “Promise?”

Lilly curled her own pinky finger around Tifa’s, and they shook on it. “It’s a promise!”

Brian surprised her that same evening with an offering of peace. Lilly was in the guest room packing her few possessions--the few gils she’d managed to earn helping out at the general store, her clothings, and most importantly the summon materia she'd taken from the mansion--into the backpack she’d bought that afternoon when he knocked on the doorframe to announce his presence.

Looking up from her task, Lilly arched her eyebrows in surprise at seeing him there. “Brian,” she greeted him cautiously. She really didn’t want to rehash their argument from last night.

Not quite meeting her gaze, Brian cleared his throat. “Since you seem bent on leaving, I thought--” he trailed off and frowned at nothing, before he tried again, “I... have some things here that should be useful.”

He grabbed something from out of Lilly’s sight, and pulled a backpack into the room--an honest-to-god hiking backpack, much sturdier than the one she’d found. “It contains a two-people tent and a winter-grade sleeping bag, along with cooking implements and some dry food rations. It should be enough to last you a week or so,” he told her.

“This is... unexpected,” Lilly finally said after opening and closing her mouth twice, at a loss for words. “Thank you.”

A slight flush heated Brian’s cheeks. “Least I can do, since it doesn’t look like you’re going to change your mind.”

Grumbling under his breath, he turned away and made to leave her to her packing, but then he stopped and turned back around. “I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket and took out a sheathed knife about seven inches long. Holding it out to her, he said, “Hunting knife. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. Use it if you need to.”

It wouldn’t do much against the monsters nesting around Mount Nibel, but it would be more than enough to keep a man at bay if necessary--at least an ordinary man. Vincent... not so much.

She perked an eyebrow. “Do you expect I’ll need it to protect myself?”

“Better safe than sorry,” he replied in a rough voice.

He still didn’t like the idea of her traveling into the mountains with a stranger, it seemed, but he had at least come to term with the fact that she wouldn’t change her mind.

The morning of her departure, Lilly found Brian waiting for her at the front door, his expression set into a stubborn frown. He brooked no argument; he would be walking her to the edge of town and that was that. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he met her unknown traveling companion and saw for himself that the man was no axe murderer.

If only he knew...

With a sigh, she capitulated and allowed him to accompany her. It wasn't worth the aggravation of trying to talk him out of it, and it would hopefully put his mind at ease.

They walked in silence for a while, their footfalls echoing through the empty streets. The pre-dawn air was crisp in that way only mountain air could be, and Lilly was glad for the scarf and gloves she wore. She would warm up soon enough once they started their trek up the trails, but for now the wind chilled her.

She shifted the weight of her pack a bit from shoulder to shoulder in a bid to find the most natural way to carry it. It already felt heavy and cumbersome and she hadn’t even started on her journey yet. Heedless of her companion, she muttered a curse under her breath.

“Won’t you reconsider,” Brian asked, snapping her out of her thoughts.

She sighed. “I don’t want to have this conversation again. My answer hasn't changed. I need to go to Midgar, and I’m leaving today.”

“Tifa will miss you...”

Emotional blackmail, really? Her expression turned into a scowl. “And I’ve talked to her about it. She’s thirteen, Brian, not five. She understands, and we’ve said our goodbyes last night.”

As she spoke, they arrived in view of the last house at the eastern edge of Nibelheim. Vincent already waited there for her, leaning against a tree, his tattered cloak drawn around him like a shroud. Despite the lack of light so early in the morning, blood red eyes glinted behind his long dark bangs, giving him that otherworldly appearance that tended to unnerve people.

At the sight of the tall gunman, Brian froze in his tracks. He started taking a step back, before seeming to recover his wits and puffing out his chest in an all-too-obvious challenge.

Oh, for the love of--

She was going to regret this, wasn’t she? She should have insisted that Brian stayed home.

“Brian, this is Vincent Valentine, who will be traveling with me,” she said as she greeted Vincent with a wave of her hand and an apologetic smile. “Vincent, Brian Lockhart, my host since I first woke up in Nibelheim. He wanted to see me off this morning.”

Vincent didn’t move from his spot, his gaze flickering only the tiniest amount as he took stock of the other man’s stance. It happened so fast she would have missed it if she’d blinked, but Lilly could have sworn she saw his eyebrows crease in what could be either annoyance or amusement.

“Now, listen here you--” Brian started to say, levelling Vincent with a glare.

Lilly quickly stepped between the two men and scowled at Brian, hissing, “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. You’re not my father, and I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“That man is--he can’t be human. He’s dangerous.”

She could have rolled her eyes at him--did so in fact. “And yet, I trust him with my life. He won’t hurt me.”

She wasn’t facing Vincent, otherwise she would have seen the look of shock that crossed his features at her bold words. Brian, however, did see it and it did little to reassure him of the gunman’s intentions.

“Lilly, how can you say that? You don’t know anything about him.”

“I know more than enough,” she replied stubbornly.

With a sigh, Brian sidestepped Lilly and approached her would-be companion. Vincent still hadn’t moved, but he straightened up slightly when Brian came to a stop in front of him.

“You will make sure she arrives in Midgar in one piece,” he said in a voice that managed to be threatening in spite of the fact that he stood several inches shorter than the gunman and was unarmed.

The two men stared at each other for a long tense moment, and Lilly imagined she could hear some old western film music playing in the background.

“No harm will come to Miss Ashford while she is with me, Mr Lockhart,” Vincent finally spoke, his voice surprisingly soft.

Whatever Brian saw in his interlocutor’s eyes, it was enough for his posture to visibly relax. He huffed. “I’ll hold you to your promise, Mr Valentine. My daughter would be heartbroken if anything happened to Lilly.”

The gunman inclined his head in acknowledgement, while Lilly tried not to roll her eyes again.

“We should get going,” she interrupted their stare-off before things could take a turn for the worst again..

After grabbing his small pack from the ground at his feet, Vincent turned his attention to her. “As you wish.”

Looking at Brian one last time, Lilly smiled. “Once again, thank you so much for everything you’ve done. I won’t ever forget it.”

“Just give us a call once you get to Midgar,” he replied in a gruff voice. “Tifa’ll want to know that you’re alright.”

He held out his hand, and she hesitated only an instant before going to shake it, the action feeling stiff and awkward for both of them. “Will do,” she said simply.

With a wave and a murmured, “Goodbye,” Lilly finally followed Vincent out of Nibelheim.

Chapter Text

The first leg of their journey was to be spent going almost exclusively uphill. The steep trail they followed snaked its way back along the pass separating Mount Nibel and its closest neighbor. Lilly and Vincent walked side by side in silence, punctuated only by the sound of their boots on the snow and gravel, and Lilly’s increasingly labored breathing.

She didn’t realize how obvious her fatigue had gotten until her companion raised his arm to call for a halt a few hours into their trek and she almost walked right into it, too focused on keeping pace with him to pay attention to her surroundings. A flush creeping up her cheeks, she mumbled an apology, not quite daring to look up at him and see his expression.

“Give me your pack,” he said calmly--unlike her, he wasn’t out of breath in the slightest--and then simply stood there and waited until she complied.

For a few seconds, she thought about arguing with him, but really... why would she? Her backpack was heavy and she would walk more easily without it weighing her down.

“I’m not usually that bad, I swear,” she still felt the need to say. “All those cures they used to heal me took a lot out of me. It’s been weeks, and I’m still not completely back to normal.”

He hummed softly in what she thought might be understanding, but said nothing more as he shouldered her pack like it weighed nothing at all. When he resumed walking, he made his steps deliberately shorter, which she was thankful for.

Now that she felt lighter on her feet, walking became relatively easier. She hadn’t done any serious mountain hiking in a few years, but she was slowly getting back into the rhythm of it. Beside her, Vincent glided over the rocky terrain so effortlessly that she would have felt jealous if she wasn’t already aware of the hell he'd gone through to gain this skill. His silence didn’t really bother her. It was a comfortable silence, the kind that didn’t need to be filled by idle chatter. It gave her the opportunity to soak in the breathtaking beauty of the Nibel Mountains, as cold and windy as they were at this time of year.

They didn’t encounter many dangers on that first day, only a few insect-like monsters that Vincent called Kyuvilduns--and there was no way she was going to remember that name. The ex-Turk made short work of them, firing a single bullet each time before walking away without even waiting to see if the monsters were truly dead.

Looking back at one of the dead monsters dissolving back into the lifestream, she couldn’t help but mutter, “I’ll never get used to bodies just disappearing like that.”

She was too distracted to notice Vincent’s questioning glance as he replied. “Only the mako-infused monsters. Actual animals and humans usually won’t.” He used the kind of matter-of-fact tone that told her it was common knowledge to Gaia’s inhabitants.

“Of course, but, it’s still a weird thing to witness,” she quickly explained, hoping he wouldn’t make too much of her slip of the tongue.

That evening, they took shelter in a shallow cave Vincent discovered a short distance away from the trail they followed. Thanks to the rock walls serving as protection against the elements, Lilly didn’t need to figure out how to assemble her tent and simply laid her sleeping bag down in the most sheltered corner she could find.

They got a small fire going, and Vincent sat down cross-legged to clean his Quicksilver pistol in the light of the dancing flames. Lilly didn’t know a whole lot about firearms and watched him curiously as he worked, every one of his movements precise in a way that told her he must have done the same thing hundreds of times before.

On that night he taught her, without ever saying a word, the first lesson in how to care for the tools that kept you alive. It was a lesson she would not forget.

Once they finished eating--and Vincent barely ate anything at all--the gunman went to stand at the mouth of the cave with his back turned away from the fire. After a while, Lilly went to join him and they stood in quiet contemplation, listening to the sounds of the night and watching the moon rise up in the night sky.

As their vigil continued, she couldn’t help but steal glances his way every so often. There was something so very lost about his expression just then that she felt her heart squeeze in sympathy. How must it feel to be outside again after spending so long in his own private hell?

“The sky is so clear tonight. It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” she finally broke the silence. She immediately cringed at her own asinine comment, but it seemed better than letting him drown in his own dark thoughts any longer.

She didn’t expect for Vincent to reply, but after a time he did. “Seeing that the stars are still as I remember them... it’s somewhat reassuring.”

She nodded. It would be, she supposed. But, looking up at those same stars, she was hit by a pang of homesickness the like of which she hadn’t experienced since her first few days after waking up on Gaia. As familiar and comforting as they were to Vincent, they looked so alien to her. None of them were anything like she was used to seeing back home.

“I don’t recognize any of them,” she admitted quietly, only realizing once the words were out of her mouth that she might have said too much. Anyone from Gaia would recognize at least a few of them, unless they’d lived all their lives in the slums of Midgar--and she’d already told him she was used to camping, so she certainly would have watched the stars before.

She immediately tensed up, certain he would call her up on her lies any second now. And he did give her a look that was somewhere between curious and suspicious, but all he said was, “You should get some sleep now. We’ll leave early tomorrow morning.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve already slept long enough to last me a lifetime. I will stand guard tonight.”

His answer bothered her for some reason, but... what could she say? Maybe he truly didn’t need sleep anymore. That wasn’t something the games touched on, so she couldn’t tell if that was the case or not.

“If you’re sure,” she finally replied, sounding uncertain.

Expression blank once again, he looked down at her and nodded, and there was nothing else for her to do but retreat to her sleeping bag. She ended up staring at his back for what felt like hours before sleep eventually claimed her.

Two days later, Lilly and Vincent found themselves facing their first real challenge since leaving Nibelheim. Not long after they reached a particularly narrow mountain pass, they were forced to stop, as snow and jagged boulders taller than they were completely blocked the trail they had been following until now.

“A landslide,” she said out loud, looking at the scene in consternation.

Standing beside her, Vincent frowned. “A recent one. We’ll need to find an alternate route.”

“Right.” She observed their surroundings for a moment longer, before she pointed to their right. “This way, I think. The terrain looks more stable closer to the cliff.”

With a nod, Vincent let her take the lead. Her experience with hiking and mountain climbing would come in handy in finding the safest path for them to use, while he brought up the rear and watched out for attacking monsters.

Despite his vigilance, the zuu’s attack seemed to come out of nowhere. One second, the sky was clear, and the next the monster was diving in from high up on the cliffside and heading straight for Lilly’s exposed back.

Vincent had the Quicksilver out and firing before she even noticed the danger. The shot tore through the zuu’s left wing, sending it crashing down to the ground in a great flurry of snow and gravel. It recovered almost at once, screeching in fury as it lunged at his attacker. A grounded zuu was still a dangerously fast opponent, and Vincent had to hurriedly jump backward to avoid having his arm ripped off by a maw full of razor-sharp teeth.

While the monster’s attention was elsewhere, Lilly scurried away from the fight, her heart in her throat. Where had that thing come from? If not for Vincent’s quick reflexes and excellent aim, it would have torn her to shreds before she could even scream.

Just then the zuu’s jaws clamped over the gunman’s leg, almost pulling him off his feet from the power of its bite. With a hard kick his other sabaton-covered boot, Vincent sent the monster tumbling back, but he also staggered backward himself, gritting his teeth in pain and obviously favoring his injured leg.

Seeing this and the blood smeared around the zuu’s maw, Lilly’s stomach lurched at the realization that, as good a fighter as Vincent was, he might not actually come out of this encounter unscathed.

Of course he wasn’t indestructible, she mentally berated herself. He might be more than human in some aspects, but he was still not Superman. He bled and he hurt like anyone else. He could even--most probably--be killed. She had brought some potions along for the journey, but she knew from experience that they were not a cure-all.

Did phoenix down even exit in this real-life version of Gaia?

Vincent’s voice cut through her increasingly frantic thoughts, “Watch out!”

Looking up, she realized that the zuu had somehow managed to take flight again while she hadn’t been paying attention. Each beat of its great wings lifted dust, snow, and even rocks off the ground and flung them in every direction with enough force to draw blood. Vincent was forced to retreat, protecting his face with his cloak, while Lilly cursed and dove for cover behind the closest boulder when a stone the size of a golf ball nearly took her eye out.

Slipping her hand in her coat pocket, she grabbed the Odin summon materia she had thought to retrieve from her backpack that morning. She had to do something to help before the situation degenerated more than it already had. She had no weapon other than Brian’s hunting knife--which would be absolutely useless as she knew nothing about close quarter combat--but surely Odin would be enough to get rid of the zuu, just as it had done for the monster from the safe.

Surely.

She eased back out of her hiding place and held out the summon materia in front of her the same way she had done once before--

--and nothing happened. She felt no pull on her energy, and the materia was dark and cool to the touch as though she was holding a glass bauble and not a magical piece of crystalized mako.

“Come on,” she muttered at it. “Why aren’t you working?”

The summon stayed unresponsive to her plea, however much she tried to focus on it, or even physically shake it like it was some kind of misbehaving electronic device. She was so caught up in trying to get it to activate that she didn’t notice the zuu diving for her until it was too late for her to dodge out of the way.

Just as it was about to strike, Vincent rushed between her and the monster, gun poised to shoot. Before he could pull the trigger, the zuu barreled into him, sending both of them crashing to the ground and then rolling downhill, narrowly missing taking Lilly down along with them. The Quicksilver had flown out of Vincent's hand from the impact of several hundred pounds of angry flying monster, and it was all he could do to keep its talons from disemboweling him as he tried to fight it off him.

Lilly hurried to retrieve Vincent’s weapon from the spot where it had landed, but once she had it in her hands she realized that trying to use it would be foolish. She had never fired a gun before, and chances were good she’d end up hurting Vincent instead of the monster if she were to shoot now.

Since the summon materia in her hand still refused to answer to her, she was left with nothing to do but to watch the fight and pray that Vincent would come out on top.

For a bit, it looked like the gunman might gain the upper hand and would manage to kill the zuu, even if he had to use his bare hands to do it. That was, until the monster succeeded in throwing him off with a violent jerk of its body and he landed hard on his back, looking slightly dazed. The zuu then reared back and fell upon him with an angry screech.

“Vincent,” she cried out, watching in horror as the monster’s talons raked deeply across the gunman’s chest.

There was no way he was getting back up after such an injury!

Vincent’s grunt of pain turned into a wet gurgle midway. His eyes met hers, glowing eerily red, and he gasped, “Run,” before he started to seize, back arching in pain.

What had once been a man transformed into a beast as she stared, rooted in place at the sight. Long curved horns grew out of his forehead, and his features elongated into some kind of vaguely canine shape. Clothing turned into coarse purplish fur, and he gained at least another two feet in height, and quite a bit of bulk to go along with it.

Oh, shit... Vincent had hit his limit break. And the Galian beast looked like it meant business.

Vincent’s alternate form grabbed the monster’s neck in one large clawed hand--or maybe it was more accurate to call it a paw--and wrenched it away so violently that Lilly heard its spine snap from where she stood. The zuu convulsed, while the enraged Galian beast tore into its flesh with his claws. At that point, she had to turn away, sickened by the sight of all the blood that had begun to dye the snow red like the most garish of paintings.

She didn’t look back until a low growl right behind her warned her that the zuu’s grisly death had not led to Vincent returning back to normal. Slowly, very slowly, she turned around, and came face to face with Galian’s bloody snout and feral eyes.

She didn’t dare move or make a sound, afraid that any action on her part would lead the beast to attack. She should have run when she had the chance, she thought as Galian took another step toward her. He was so close now that she felt each of his warm exhales on her face and she could have touched one of his horns if she’d raised a hand. He would be able kill her before she could move.

She closed her eyes and gulped.

Galian didn’t attack, however. Instead, he inclined his head toward her and brushed his nose--wet like a dog’s-- against the side of her face, and whined. She reopened her eyes to stare at him, completely dumbfounded. What was going on?

When she didn’t react in any other way, the beast nuzzled her a little harder and whined again. Only then did she realize that the feeling of wetness on her skin wasn’t only due to Galian’s nose. There was blood dripping from a cut to her temple that she hadn’t noticed until now. She winced in delayed pain.

Oh... that rock that had almost blinded her earlier. She hadn’t even felt it hit, as she'd been too focused on the fight happening in front of her.

She reached up to gingerly touch the wound, as Galian sat back on his haunches in front of her and cocked his head to the side. Lilly could have sworn he looked worried, but it probably was just her imagination. Still, she ended up telling him, “I’m fine. Just a shallow cut. Nothing a potion won’t fix.”

The beast huffed, as though he could understand her. She wondered how intelligent Galian really was. He certainly didn’t act like just a mindless predator.

“Thank you,” she spoke again, as he seemed to like the sound of her voice at the very least. “Without you that monster would’ve probably killed me. Killed both of us.”

Then, she remembered the materia she still clutched in her hand, and shoved it angrily back into her pocket. “I thought I understood how materia works... Damnit, what am I doing wrong? This world is so confusing.”

She was rambling and she knew it, but Galian’s silent presence made it easy to just pour out her frustration to him. “I was completely useless, and you almost got killed because I couldn’t do anything right. I’m so sorry.”

A big shaggy head bumped into her, the gesture forceful enough that she stumbled back, and Galian whined at her again. Was he... trying to comfort her? She huffed a laugh, because the whole situation was getting just too ridiculous. He was splattered with blood--and now she was too--and he looked like he could gore her with one swipe of his horns, and yet he acted more like some kind of overgrown dog in need of petting.

Carefully, she reached out to run her fingers through his mane, just behind his ear. Galian leaned into her hand happily, as if to show her that he was fine and she didn’t need to apologize anymore.

“You’re just one big puppy, aren’t you,” she whispered, amused.

The look Galian gave her could only be categorized as “offended” and she laughed harder. “Looks like you don’t like being called a puppy...”

He growled in answer, but it didn't contain any real aggression, sounding more playful than anything.

She shook her head. “What am I going to do with you,” she asked him, not expecting an answer. “How much longer before you turn back? I always thought this only happened during particularly hard fights...”

The big beast shook his head--was that in answer to her comment?--and then nudged her again, a little harder this time. She staggered backward before catching on to what he was trying to do. “So you're saying we should leave, huh? Yeah, you’re probably right. We shouldn’t wait for another of those zuu to attack. I wonder if they live in groups...”

She saw no sign of imminent danger, but that didn’t mean much. After all, they’d had very little warning before the first zuu appeared. They should leave the area before anything else happened.

As she started walking, she realized she was still holding on to Vincent’s Quicksilver, but Galian certainly didn’t need it at the moment. With a shrug, she slipped it through her belt at the small of her back so she could use both hands to more easily pull herself over rocks as needed. Galian followed closely behind her, sometimes giving her a little push to help her over a particularly large obstacle, and once causing her to tumble face first into a pile of deep snow. His lolling tongue might have easily passed for a grin, and she gave him a dirty look for it.

They had almost reached the other end of the landslide when Lilly heard Galian whine again. Unlike before, this whine sounded pained and she immediately turned around so see what was wrong. She did so just in time to see the beast shudder and fall to his side, where he started twitching. Lilly didn’t truly have time to worry before she realized what was happening. Vincent was reverting back, as became apparent when his body began to shrink and fur transformed back into clothing. The gunman was left to kneel on all four, his head hung low and panting audibly.

When he made no move to get up, Lilly approached him and tried to get a good look at his face through his long dark bangs. “Are... you alright?” she asked in concern.

Vincent nodded. “Just give me a moment.”

She frowned. He looked like he needed more than just “a moment”. She couldn't tell if the wounds he’d received from the zuu were still there, but his face was the color of ash, only contrasted by the dark circles under his eyes, and he was covered in blood.

“Let’s find shelter and make camp for the night. I think we both need a break after this,” she told him.

She went to grab his arm so she could pull it over her shoulders, but he beat her to it and staggered back to his feet without her help. Surprisingly, he only swayed once before he straightened up and started to walk away. Lilly figured that this was more due to his sheer stubbornness than any evidence that he was feeling better, but she didn’t try to help him again. She didn’t think he would have appreciated it.

Chapter Text

Lilly led a silent Vincent farther away from the landslide, scanning their surroundings for a defensible position where they could stop and make camp. After spending the last few days watching him while he picked a suitable shelter for them each evening, she fortunately knew what to look for.

The fact she was now the one in charge, though, made her nervous. As ineffective as she’d been during the fight with the zuu, she didn’t want to let Vincent down again. She kept stealing glances back at him, but he continued following her without complaints, his expression one of total concentration--probably trying to stay on his feet, she thought worriedly.

Luckily, about fifteen minutes later she discovered a rocky overhang that would suffice for the night. It would protect them not only from the wind and snow, but also from any flying predator that might want to snack on them.

“Come on,” she said, just as much to herself as to Vincent. “It’s not much farther now.”

As soon as they made it to the overhang, she pointed to a nearby rock and told him to sit down before he fell over, earning herself the smallest of smirks from Vincent at her bossiness. That had her flushing and turning away with a few muttered words about catching his breath while she started a fire and put their tent together.

Doing both of those tasks on her own took her longer than she would have wanted, but eventually she had a small fire going and their single sleeping bag laid out inside the tent. Vincent’s own pack, she had realized that first night, contained only his weapon cleaning kit, some spare ammo, dried meat for the road, and a small leather-bound book she’d only caught a glimpse of. He carried nothing else, leaving her to conclude that he hadn’t planned on sleeping at all during their trip through the mountains.

And he hadn't, that she knew off. He was awake when she went to sleep at night, and awake--and often still standing in the same position--when she got up the next morning.

Leaving aside the fact that it just didn’t feel right for her to be relying on her companion to such an extent that he felt the need to be on guard twenty-four hours a day, he clearly needed sleep right now. She planted herself in front of him and pointed to the tent. “Use my sleeping bag and take a nap. I can stand guard for a few hours.”

She was unable to to interpret the look that crossed his features--anger? fear?--and then it was gone again and he was shaking his head. “I’ll be fine.”

That pronouncement made her want to roll her eyes. He definitely didn’t look fine. He’d almost been killed not an hour before, then had transformed into a huge beast, and that seemed to have sapped him of the last of his energy. But... okay, fine. She wasn’t going to force him to sleep if he didn’t want to; he wasn’t a toddler she could order around.

She went to forage into her pack and threw him a potion, taking a second one for herself. “Here. This should at least help a bit, then,” she said, and he nodded his thanks as he caught it from the air.

Next, Lilly gathered snow to melt over the fire so they could both clean up as best they could in the circumstances. The cloying smell of the zuu’s blood was making her want to gag, and she couldn’t wait to be rid of it. She couldn't imagine that Vincent was feeling any better about it, seeing how much of the stuff had ended up on his clothes and skin--and she didn’t want to think about the fact that at least some of the blood was his.

While she worked, she felt his eyes following her every move. It didn’t take long for his gaze to start making her skin itch with the weight of it, and she wondered what could be so interesting about her that he felt the need to stare like this.

In the end, she just couldn’t take his silence any longer and she turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow questioningly. “Is something wrong,” she asked, more curt than she had planned.

“You didn’t look surprised or disgusted by the Galian beast,” he said without preamble.

She blinked in surprise. Was that what had him looking at her like she was a particularly perplexing mystery?

“Hmm,” was the only intelligent thing she managed to utter.

“Most people would be. My transformations... they aren’t a pleasant sight.”

Shrugging uncomfortably, she replied, “Well, your limit break did take me by surprise, but I can’t say it wasn’t welcome. Without Galian’s arrival, that zuu might have killed you.”

“Galian,” he repeated, as though something about the way she talked of his limit break like it was a person troubled him.

But then he frowned as something else seemed to click in his mind. “You knew about it already. About my limit breaks...”

Oh, hell. Lilly hadn’t expected this, although she definitely should have. Vincent wasn’t stupid; it was only natural that he would put two and two together, considering what she’d already told him.

“Yeah, I knew,” she admitted in a quiet voice. “Not all the details, mind you, but enough to know about Galian... and the others.”

Several emotions flickered across Vincent’s features, pain the most recognizable amongst them. When he opened his mouth to speak, though, he had regained enough of his usual equanimity that his tone was impassive, which made his question hit her all the harder. “What else have you been hiding from me?”

“What do you mean,” she replied, her heart lodging itself firmly into her throat.

“Some things you’ve said over the last few days do not make sense. Why is it that you don’t seem to know much about monsters? And you admitted yourself that you don’t recognize the stars, yet you obviously have experience camping in the wild.”

At that point, he paused, perhaps to give her a change to explain, but words had completely fled her mind and she was left staring at him and shaking her head helplessly.

“Why don’t you know anything about materia,” he continued when she wouldn’t speak. “Most people have at least passing knowledge on how to use it. And why does this world confuse you?”

She gaped. He... remembered that? She hadn’t expected him to have any memories of his time as Galian, but it looked like she’d miscalculated. Badly.

“I believe it is time you told me the whole truth.” His voice softened slightly as he added, “Don’t you think?”

If he’d been angry about it, or even just accustory, it might have been easier for her to deny him answers. As it was, though, she could do nothing but look away before her expression revealed her distress.

“You already know my darkest secrets,” Vincent went on, unknowingly playing into her guilt at hiding her own past from him. Or... maybe not. He probably knew exactly what he was doing by bringing it up. “But I know next to nothing about you. Yet, you’re asking me to trust you...”

And that trust couldn’t be built on lies--by omission or otherwise. He didn’t say as much, but Lilly understood anyway.

“I know I’m asking a lot,” she murmured, feeling her face heat up.

Vincent fell quiet, but he kept watching her. Waiting. He was very good at that, Lilly had realized almost from the moment she met him. In situations like this one, his silence and seemingly infinite patience grated on her nerves. It wasn’t quite like he was judging her, but he was definitely expecting a certain response from her.

She finally snorted, “You must have played good cop a lot back when you were a Turk. You’re too good at it.”

He gave her an unreadable look but didn’t reply, and she pointed an accusing finger at him. “This. This is exactly what I mean. Do you know how unnerving that is?”

From the slight crease of amusement that appeared at the corner of his eyes, yes, he knew exactly how unnerving that was.

With a muttered curse, she turned away from him and went to busy herself with checking the temperature of the pot full of melted snow that she’d set beside the fire. The water was warm now, and ready to be used, so she pulled it away from the flames.

“I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” she finally said. “But I’m not sure how much it’ll help.” Her story was so hard to believe, after all. As she spent more time here on Gaia, even she sometimes started to wonder if she hadn’t dreamed her own life back on Earth. “Just... give me a few minutes, okay?”

She needed time to gather her thoughts first, which Vincent seemed to understand as he didn’t press her.

She quickly washed her hands and face, before moving aside so he could do the same. He couldn’t exactly wash his cloak and clothes in this cold, but he did his best to wipe the worst of the blood off using one of her spare shirts--that she thrust at him for that purpose--as a washcloth.

While he did so, and thus wasn't looking at her anymore, Lilly started speaking. “I know it’s going to sound insane, but I wasn’t born on Gaia. I come from a planet called Earth. It’s a place similar to Gaia in some ways, but very different in others. Materia doesn’t doesn't exist there, for one, or monsters. That’s why I have so little concrete knowledge about either of those things. I lived in a city called Montreal, until--” At that point she choked, unable to voice the horrible truth she had never admitted even to herself until now.

Possibly sensing her anguish, Vincent stilled. For a long moment, only the sound of the crackling flames punctuated the silence between them.

“I think I died,” she eventually whispered, voice so low that only Vincent’s extra-sensitive hearing allowed him to understand her.

The words hung between them, and Lilly desperately wished she could take them back. Now that they were out there, it made everything feel all the more final. The fact she was now living in this world; the fact she could never go home again. Until now she had held hope, in some corner of her mind, that her stay on Gaia was only temporary, that she would one day see her family and friends again.

But she now understood that it would not be possible ever again.

She fought the whimper she could feel crawling up her throat. If she let it out, she was afraid she’d start crying and wouldn’t be able to stop. Falling apart would help nothing, and yet...

“Lilly?”

Her name on Vincent’s lips caught her completely off guard. She had only ever heard him call her Miss Ashford when talking to Brian Lockhart, and it struck her as somehow surreal to hear him use her first name now.

“I’m okay,” she replied, forcing the words through the lump in her chest.

He obviously knew this was a lie, if the look he gave her was any indication, but he allowed her to keep pretending until she managed to regain control of her emotions.

Eventually, Lilly felt like she could continue with her explanation without falling apart, and started speaking again. “I told you the truth... back at the mansion. I am--or was, I suppose--a librarian. I was working late one evening, and walked back home like I used to do every day. It was raining and windy, and the traffic was still heavy despite the hour.” She closed her eyes and shuddered as she recalled her last moments on Earth. “I remember the headlights coming at me way too fast, and the horrible sound that tires make when they slip on wet pavement. I don’t really remember the impact, but I have this vague recollection of being thrown back and hurting everywhere. And then... nothing. Nothing until I woke up in Nibelheim where I was told they thought I’d been attacked by a monster.”

She waited for him to call her a liar or worse, a crazy woman, but Vincent did neither of those things. He settled back on the rock beside their tent, still holding her now bloody shirt in one hand, and looked to be seriously considering her story, which surprised her.

“Did the Planet truly tell you about the future,” was what he finally asked. “Is that why you were brought here?”

Lilly hesitated only a second before she shook her head. No lie, she reminded herself. He had been right in saying that she knew his deepest, darkest secrets while he knew next to nothing about her. It was her turn to share her own secrets. “No, the Planet didn’t tell me anything,” she admitted. “I don’t know what links our two worlds together, but back on Earth, we had... stories about Gaia, and about some of the people living there.”

She didn’t mention that those stories were in the forms of video games, however. It wasn’t something she felt Vincent ever needed to know. She didn’t want him thinking that her world made light of his suffering. Which... it kind of did, now that she thought about it. She wouldn’t like learning that people thought of her as nothing more than a character to play with either.

“They had stories about Sephiroth... and about me?” Vincent sounded taken aback by this. Surprisingly enough though, he didn’t sound skeptical.

“The stories mostly revolved around how Sephiroth went mad after discovering his origins, and the true nature of Jenova and then tried to destroy the world; what came before that event, and what came after it. You... you would have been part of the group that finally managed to kill Sephiroth. That’s why I know so much about you. You had a role in the story.”

When she dared glance at him, he looked lost in thoughts, frowning slightly.

“Do you... believe me,” she asked tentatively.

He took his time before replying, “If you wanted to lie to me, you would have found a more believable story, and you know too much about me to be making this up from whole cloth.”

“Oh.”

She supposed it made sense when viewed that way.

He considered everything she’d said until now, before asking, “And do you have a timeline for when this ‘end of the world’ is supposed to happen?”

She closed her eyes and sighed deeply, before reiterating what she had told him at the mansion, “If nothing is done to change things, in about two years Sephiroth will visit Nibelheim and discover Jenova along with Hojo’s notes in the mansion’s basement. He’ll lose his damn mind because of it and burn Nibelheim to the ground after killing everyone there. The aftermath--”

She paused and reopened her eyes, expression growing uneasy. “Look... if you really want me to, I’ll tell you everything I remember, but I don’t think that knowing that much about a future I’m hoping won’t ever happen will do you--or anyone else--any good. It might even make things worse. Things have already started changing from what I know, and the more they change the harder it’ll be for me to predict what might happen next.”

Vincent scowled unhappily but nodded anyway. “Knowledge is power might be a truism, but it’s one that all Turks have a great respect for. I can live with not knowing everything, at least for now.”

“Thank you,” she replied, relieved that he wouldn’t press her for those details, at least until she had a better idea of what she should and shouldn’t tell him. “Just know that, five years after Nibelheim burned, a group of adventurers trying to stop Sephiroth would have found you, woken you up, and gotten you to help them. I only did it a little earlier than they would have.”

“You know who those adventurers are?”

“Yes. But half of them are still just kids at the moment and I’m not going to tell you their names. One of the reasons I’m meddling in things is so they don’t ever have to become the people from the stories.”

“Is there anything else I should know?

Frowning slightly, she tried to think if she'd missed anything important. “There are still quite a few things I haven’t told you, but I don’t think--- oh!”

How could she have forgotten? Although she might have preferred to keep that information to herself, if he learned later on that she always knew about it... She might lose all trust she had ever managed to earn from him.

“There is one more thing I believe you have a right to know,” she said. “Lucrecia might still be alive.”

Vincent’s face lost what little color it had. “What!?”

“The stories were never all that clear about it so I’m not sure about the details, but after she gave birth to Sephiroth it seems like she fell into a deep depression.” She grimaced, as she knew that what she was about to say would not be easy for her companion to hear. “She... tried to kill herself, but something about the J-cells she’d been injected with while she was pregnant prevented her from dying.”

“They’d made her so sick...” Vincent murmured, almost more to himself than to her.

“I can only imagine,” Lilly replied with a sad smile. “In any case, after her attempt failed, Lucrecia ended up isolating herself inside a mako-filled cave. I have no clue if it’s really what happened, but the stories say she’s now resting in stasis inside an enormous mako crystal inside that cave. Or she might have died there. I really don’t know for sure.”

“Do you know where that cave is?”

She nodded grudgingly. “Somewhere in the Nibel mountains between Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon. I wish I could be more precise, but it’s been years since I saw the map and I can barely remember it.”

If ever Vincent decided to go look for Lucrecia it could take him weeks, or even months, before he found her. By then, it might be too late to stop Genesis from getting wounded.

Luckily, he seemed to realize this too. “If what you say is true, there is nothing you or I can do for her right now.”

“No,” she agreed. “Even if she’s not technically dead, I have no idea if it’s possible for her to ever wake up again. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Staring into the fire with that same lost look Lilly had seen in his eyes before, Vincent stayed quiet for a very long time. Lilly wondered what kind of nightmares were playing through his mind’s eyes at that moment, but maybe it was better for her not to know for sure.

“Thank you for telling me,” he eventually said, looking like he had to forcefully pull himself back into the present. “I’m... glad to know she might still be alive, after a fashion.”

“Maybe later on--” After they made sure Sephiroth wouldn’t destroy the world... “--we can figure out how to help her,” Lilly added, although she didn’t hold much hope that this was something she could fix.

Vincent’s shoulders drooped, and he rubbed at his face tiredly. Once again, Lilly was reminded of how bone-weary he looked, and how much energy he’d expended during his fight with the zuu. And her revelations about Lucrecia certainly hadn’t helped any; he had taken an emotional beating on top of everything else.

“Now, won’t you consider sleeping for a few hours? Please? You’re going to be of no use to either of us if you drop dead from fatigue tomorrow. I can’t cross these mountains on my own.” Not when she couldn't even use her one materia reliably against monsters.

And then, she also needed some time away from her companion’s ever-watchful eyes. Vincent wasn’t the only one needing to process some hard truths.

Looking like he’d come to a difficult decision, Vincent nodded at her--or more precisely at the Quicksilver still threaded through her belt. Lilly followed his gaze and was surprised to find out she still had the gun in her possession. How could she have forgotten she still had it? She tried to give it back, but her companion refused it with a shake of his head.

“Do you know how to use it,” he asked her instead.

“I’ve never had to learn how to shoot guns before, so no.”

“You’ll need to learn if you are to be of any use standing guard while I’m asleep.”

Lilly wanted to wince at that. He wasn’t holding back his punches, was he? Unfortunately, he was also right.

“Unless your summon materia--”

She interrupted him, “It didn’t work at all with the zuu, and I don’t know why. We can’t count on it for protection.”

“Then let me teach you at least the basics.” He got up and waved for her to follow him farther away from the tent.

“And then you’ll get some rest?”

“If you can manage to hit a target at five paces, I’ll think about it.”

Chapter Text

Hitting a target at five pace wasn’t quite as difficult as Lilly had feared. The Quicksilver had quite a bit of a recoil, but once she learned to account for it she found out that she wasn’t such a bad shot. Of course, she was far from proficient with firearms yet, but she should manage to keep the monsters at bay long enough for Vincent to intervene in the event that anything attacked their camp while he napped.

Despite this, she had to insist yet again that he needed to get some sleep before he--rather grudgingly--agreed and slipped inside their tent. Lilly heard him move around for a few minutes before silence once again blanketed the camp. With a sigh, she went to sit on the rock Vincent had occupied earlier and looked out onto the snowy landscape spreading in front of her.

It felt more than a little odd to be sitting there with Vincent’s gun laying on her lap, keeping watch for monster attacks, an activity so far removed from her old life that it barely computed. She was a librarian, not a fighter, so how was it that she’d ended up in this situation? Oh right... she’d woken up on Gaia and decided that it was her responsibility to prevent Sephiroth from trying to end the world. Not because the Planet had “asked” her to, but because she possessed some knowledge others didn’t and felt the need to act on it.

Not for the first time she asked herself if she was doing the right thing. Or was she fooling herself into thinking she could make a difference? Was she letting hubris dictate her actions?

Her doubts weren’t something she could share with Vincent. Would he keep helping her if he realized she had no idea what the hell she was doing? That she didn’t even know if she should have taken action in the first place?

But it was too late to change her mind now. By seeking Vincent out and waking him up, she’d already changed the future. There was no other way but forward now, for either of them.

She looked up into the sky--the stars still looked utterly foreign to her--and felt her heart squeeze in her chest. She missed her friends and her family so much, and her grief at the idea that she would never see them again brought tears to her eyes. Only the fact that she was supposed to be standing watch and paying attention to her surroundings prevented her from completely falling apart.

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to be alone right now, after all. It allowed her way too much time to contemplate her situation, and her thoughts were taking a definite turn toward dark and gloomy.

Lilly shook her head and forced herself to focus back on the here and now. It would be the pinnacle of irony if they got attacked because of her lack of vigilance now that she had finally managed to convince Vincent to trust her to watch his back.

Luckily for her, the next few hours were uneventful, making for a rather dull time on watch. That is, until she caught a rustle of fabric followed by a whimper coming from inside the tent. At first, she frowned, not sure if she’d heard right. Then, there was a second whimper, louder this time.

Was that Vincent?

Still, she hesitated to abandon her position on the rock until Vincent’s voice pierced the night a third time. This time, his voice was loud enough to be almost called a shout, and that convinced her that something was clearly wrong with her sleeping companion.

Lilly slipped the Quicksilver back into her belt--not the safest place for it to be, but Vincent was the one with the holster--and quickly made her way to the tent. An oppressive silence had descended by the time she opened the flap to peer inside. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss. Vincent slept on his back on top of her sleeping bag, his cloak wrapped around himself for warmth, his face barely discernible in the semi-obscurity of the tent’s interior. But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noticed the pained expression he wore even in sleep and the sweat beading his skin. His eyes moved erratically behind his closed eyelids, in the throws of some intense dream.

“Vincent,” she called out to him softly.

He showed no reaction to the sound of her voice. Another whimper passed his lips, followed by unintelligible whispers. Lilly might not understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable. Panic. He sounded like he was pleading for something, to someone...

She finally realized what was happening. Vincent was having nightmares, bad ones by the look of it. Knowing what he had gone through, it made perfect sense that his memories would be haunting his dreams. Still, seeing him so undone, so defenseless against his own demons, was like a punch to the gut. Ever since meeting him, Vincent had been like a rock to Lilly: cool under pressure, ultra-competent, and always there to help her when she needed it. She had begun relying on him to an extent she wasn’t proud of, never realizing that he might not actually be okay under his calm facade.

In spite of her best efforts, part of her had still thought of him as a fictional character in a made-up world, not a fully-realized--and tormented--human being. She could have slapped herself for not recognizing sooner that his gaunt appearance and his stubborn refusal to get any sleep were rooted in more than some vague idea of “character development”.

“Vincent, wake up,” she repeated. “You’re having a nightmare.”

Her voice still had no effect on Vincent, and his dream seemed to be getting worse as he started to twitch while still muttering fearfully under his breath.

At that point, it might have been better for Lilly to leave him be, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Whatever his dream was about--and she would bet a good amount of gils that a certain mad scientist featured prominently in it--it was causing him obvious distress. She couldn’t let it go on while she was in a position to do something about it.

Her decision made, she crawled into the tent and went to touch his shoulder. Shaking him gently, she called out his name again. This time, his reaction was explosive. Before she could do anything but squeak in shock, he opened unseeing eyes that glowed a feverish red and lunged at her. She fell back, taking some of the tent’s poles with her, and Vincent’s weight pinned her to the ground.

In the chaos, she felt a metal-clad hand wrap around her throat, claws digging into her skin and cutting her airflow. She started to panic, knowing it wouldn’t take much for Vincent to break her neck. He certainly was strong enough for it.

Grabbing his gauntleted wrist and trying to pull his hand off did nothing. Neither did her attempts at calling out to him. She could barely breathe, much less speak intelligibly. Still, she had to get to him somehow. “Vin...cent...” she wheezed, her struggles to get free growing weaker and weaker. Black began to dot her vision as her lungs desperately demanded oxygen.

Just when she thought she would pass out, Vincent’s grip on her throat suddenly slackened. Her frantic efforts to pull away from him now that she was free of his hold snapped a few more of the tent’s supports, trapping them both underneath its collapsing canopy.

Lilly was the first to escape the damaged tent on her hands and knees, coughing her lungs out as she tried to catch her breath. Her throat burned with each inhalation, and she could feel the warm stickiness of blood snaking down her neck where Vincent's metal claws had broken the skin.

A few seconds later Vincent himself followed her out of the tangled mess of broken poles and slack fabric. He took one look at her and froze, his eyes fixed on her bruised and bloody neck.

“I... did this,” he said, a hint of horror in his voice.

She opened her mouth to tell him she would be fine, but nothing came out but a rather pitiful croak that then transformed into another coughing fit. Tears of pain welled up in her eyes, and she turned her head away before he noticed them. They would only make him feel worse, and he looked like he was already beating himself up for what had been her mistake to start with.

With such obvious signs that he was experiencing flashbacks in his sleep, was it at all surprising that he had lashed out at the person who suddenly shook him awake? She should have known better, Lilly thought with great deal of self-deprecation.

While she was lost in her own thoughts, Vincent had gotten back to his feet, and moments later he crouched down in front of her, making her jolt in surprise.

“Let me see,” he entreated her, and then waited, moving no closer to her.

When she didn’t flinch away or otherwise reacted badly to his proximity, he guided her to sit down beside the fire and gently tilted her head back to examine the marks his hand had left on her skin. He frowned, and after a long moment he inquired, “Do you still have potions in your pack?”

Since talking was impossible at the moment, Lilly simply nodded. Without another word, Vincent left her side to pick up her backpack and bring it back to her. Ever the gentleman, he allowed her to look for the potions she’d packed inside herself. Fortunately, she still had a few, although her stock would run out before they reached Corel if they kept using them at the rate they had been.

Swallowing the potion wasn’t a pleasant experience, but her throat felt almost immediately better after she did so. She was becoming rather fond of potions, one of the nicest things about being on Gaia.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice still a little hoarse. But it didn’t hurt to talk anymore, which was a big improvement. “I’m all better now. No need to hover over me like an overgrown mother hen anymore. Or, should that be a mother chocobo?”

She offered Vincent a reassuring smile, hoping he would stop looking at her as if he’d just killed her favorite puppy and was expecting her to punish him for it at any moment.

Her smile didn’t seem to do much for his current mood, unfortunately. If anything, his expression grew even bleaker as he took a few steps away from her and ran a hand through his hair. “I should apologize,” he started, his voice sounding like it was coming through gritted teeth. “What you saw... I wasn’t...”

He fumbled over his words, as if fighting with himself to get them out. It was a painful thing to watch, and Lilly felt even worse knowing that her rash actions had him believing he had to justify himself to her.

She got to her feet and stepped up to him. After a moment of hesitation, she laid her hand on his gauntleted forearm--which earned her a shocked look from him--and shook her head.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain. Not to me of all people. I already know.” She shrugged. “I shouldn’t have tried to wake you up like that. If not because of your... past experiences, then because you’re a Turk and I should’ve known you would react aggressively to someone shaking you awake. It's not your fault that I was an idiot.”

If the gradual loosening of Vincent’s muscles was any indication, he seemed grateful that he wouldn’t need to put his nightmares into words just yet. She might not manage to convince him of anything else tonight, but if she could at least put his mind at ease on this one thing...

After a few more seconds he pulled away from her, gently but firmly. It was in complete silence that he went to check on their damaged tent. He did what he could to repair it, and after a while he managed to get it back up, although it listed badly to one side. It would never be quite the same again, but it would hopefully hold for a few more days until they left the mountains.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be getting any more sleep tonight?”

Although she’d been aiming for a light tone, Lilly’s words felt forced even to her own ears. It didn’t help that Vincent seemed to have retreated into his own mind while he worked on the tent, and he barely acknowledged her as he returned to sit on the rock, facing away from the camp.

With a sigh, she walked to him and held out the Quicksilver for him to take. “Here. You’ll want this if you intend to sit here all night.”

His hand brushed hers as he took the gun back, and he nodded in thanks before turning his attention to a point somewhere far in the distance.

Sighing, she gave her companion one last look and retreated inside the tent.

Needless to say, she didn’t sleep much that night

Vincent had never been the most personable of man, but he became completely withdrawn after the incident. He would walk behind Lilly, not looking at her unless she directly addressed him, barely saying a word unless it was to warn her of danger, and generally keeping his distance from her as much as he could during the day.

In spite of this, he also insisted on carrying on his teaching on the handling and care of his gun each night after they made camp. He seemed determined to get her to a point where she could do more with it than simply defend herself as a last resort.

Was it because she’d admitted to him that she was still unused to the dangers of this world? Or maybe he thought she might need to protect herself... from him. Whatever the case may be, he would spend up to an hour each night watching her shooting at ever smaller targets, then cleaning the weapon, until he was satisfied with her daily progress.

They encountered two more zuus over their mountain trek, but neither of them managed to get the drop on them the way that first one had. For that reason, Vincent didn’t need to hit his limit break again, and after days of enduring her companion’s dour mood, Lilly started to think this was a shame. Galian’s playfulness would make for a nice change of pace at this point...

They finally reached the foot of the mountains on the eight day of their journey, and arrived in Corel by the evening of the ninth. Tired, hungry and feeling so filthy that all she could think about was a nice warm shower--or even a bath, she wasn’t difficult--followed by food and a night in a real bed, Lilly could barely spare a bit of curiosity at her first sight of the small mining community that was presently home to one Barret Wallace, coal miner and future eco-terrorist.

Corel’s architecture was industrial in style. It reminded her a bit of photographs she’d seen of nineteen century English mining towns, including the coal dust that left a coat of dark grime on all the buildings, but there were also hints that this wasn’t Earth. The few cars that drove past were a strange mix of fifties esthetic and modern technology unlike anything she was used to, and posters advertising the upcoming construction by Shinra of a mako reactor close to town reminded her that this town too would become a pile of rubbles in the future--how long, she couldn’t remember--unless things changed.

It didn’t take them very long to find Corel’s one inn, and she made a beeline for the entrance without asking her companion’s opinion first. He probably wouldn’t have answered her with more than a shrug even if she had, in any case. She was already dreaming of hot water and clean sheets when she pushed the door open and walked into the small reception area.

It was only when the clerk quoted what seemed to her to be a ridiculous amount of gils for a one night stay that she realized that the small amount of money she had managed to earn back in Nibelheim would not be enough. And, if she couldn’t even afford a night at an inn in a nowhere town like Corel, how was she supposed to get all the way to Midgar on her meager funds?

As she stood there thinking furiously, Vincent approached the counter and pulled out a wallet from his pants pocket. It was surprisingly well padded for a man who had been asleep for twenty years--maybe he’d managed to hide it at some point before he got shot? He pulled out several bills and deposited them in front of the clerk without a word. There was enough there to book two rooms for the next two nights. Almost as an afterthought, Lilly requested connecting rooms, thinking it would make things easier for both of them.

They received their keys and were directed to the second floor, where they found the correct room numbers at the end of a short corridor. Before Vincent could disappear inside his, Lilly stopped him. “I saw a laundromat on the way here. I know you don’t have any clean change of clothes, so if you give me what you’re wearing, I can wash them along with my stuff.”

When he hesitated, she added, “You look like you were in a close-quarter fight with a zuu and only barely won.” She smirked a bit. “And I’ll mend that gash in your shirt while I’m at it. It’s the least I can do.”

“Alright,” he finally agreed. “Thank you.”

He unlocked his door and stepped inside, leaving her to make her way into her own room. Inside, she found the bare minimum of modern comforts: A single occupancy bed, a small dresser, and a chair. There was no en-suite bathroom; she would find one of those at the other end of the corridor, shared with the rest of the floor. The mattress looked hard, the pillow lumpy, and the sheets threadbare, but compared to sleeping on the cold hard ground like she had been for the last week it would be paradise.

Her first order of business was a shower, as hot as she could make it--which sadly wasn’t much. After she dressed back into her one clean change of clothes, she knocked on the door separating her room from Vincent’s. After a long moment, the door cracked open and a forearm enclosed in metal held out a bundle wrapped in Vincent’s tattered red cloak.

Did he ever take that gauntlet off, she wondered. Could he? Some fans of the game back on Earth theorized that Vincent’s left arm was a prosthetic. She couldn’t tell either way.

“I’ll try to be quick,” she told him. “In the meantime, you really should try to rest. You haven’t slept at all since... since that night. You might be tougher than a regular human, but that can’t be healthy, even for you. I promise I won’t intrude this time.”

It would do neither of them any good if he became so tired that he couldn’t focus anymore. Considering what they planned on doing once they reached Midgar, that could get him, her, or both of them, killed.

Vincent’s answering grunt promised nothing, but Lilly hoped he would at least consider getting some sleep. She worried about the dark circles under his eyes and the slight shaking of his hands when he thought she wasn’t looking, both signs that he was seriously sleep-deprived.

“I’ll be back in a few hours with your clothes and some food,” she announced. She had enough money for that at least.

There was no way to know what was happening in the other room, but she took it as a good sign when she heard Vincent sigh softly before he pulled the door closed. He left it unlocked, and she wanted to believe it was a sign that he trusted her to keep her word.

The next day, the two of them made their way to Corel’s small marketplace in search of supplies for the next leg of their trip. They also hoped to find transportation to Costa Del Sol, either as passengers with one of the traveling merchants, or perhaps by paying for passage on one of the trucks transporting coal to the coast.

Vincent looked slightly better than he had the day before, although part of it was probably due to the fact he had showered and was wearing clean and mended clothes. He was still too pale and gaunt, but he didn’t emit that aura of complete exhaustion that used to surround him.

While he was busy at one the of the stalls, bartering on more equipment for himself, Lilly wandered further into the market, her gaze snagging on commonplace household accessories, colorful fruits and vegetables, and even a vendor whose table displayed a range of materia, mostly green with a few blue ones scattered throughout. When she saw those, she couldn’t help but approach the table to take a better look. She’d never seen that many of them in the same place before.

The vendor must have thought she was a promising customer as he immediately started trying to sell her a range of offensive and curative materia. Curiously, Lilly reached for the green sphere he indicated was a fire materia, but nothing at all happened when she touched it. To her, it was just as cold and unresponsive as the summon materia she carried in her pocket. Although she didn’t know what should have happened, she suspected this wasn’t it, if the vendor’s perplexed look was anything to go by.

Vincent’s arrival put a stop to any comment the man might have made on the matter, however.

“Did you find everything you need,” she asked her companion after she returned the fire materia back to its owner.

Vincent didn’t carry a bag, but she couldn’t tell if he had anything new underneath that cloak he wore.

With a nod, he answered, “I have.'' Then, he held out a small circular object in his flesh hand. “This is for you.”

She blinked in surprise. “What is it?”

“A bangle to carry your summon materia. More convenient than your pocket, and it makes materia easier to use.”

It was so pretty with its silver filigree, as much jewelry as it was protective gear. About two inches wide, it possessed two sockets designed for holding materia, both empty for now. The holes though... they were much too small to slot the tennis-ball sized summon materia she had--or any of the other materia she saw for sale, for that matter.

Vincent must have seen her look of confusion, for he nodded to the bangle. “Give me your materia. I'll show you how to equip it.”

The red orb she pulled out of her pocket had the materia vendor gasping, but she paid him little heed. She let Vincent take it from her, and he held it over one of the bangle’s two sockets. For a moment, nothing happened, then the sphere glimmered and appeared to.. melt is the best way she could describe it. One moment, it was as solid as a rock, and the next it turned to liquid light and formed back inside the socket, now looking much smaller than it had been.

“Here,” he said, offering her the bracelet. “You can try it yourself later on.”

Feeling her cheeks heat up, she replied, “Thank you,” and slipped it on her wrist.

She was a bit of a loss at his sudden change in attitude. Over the last several days, they’d barely exchanged any words that weren’t tied to instructing her on the use of the Quicksilver, and now he was giving her presents? Could he be trying to apologize for his previous attitude?

Whatever the truth was, she didn’t have the opportunity to ask him about it. She had only just finished inspecting the bangle--interestingly enough, the open socket revealed a network of hair-thin wires and connections that made her think of some kind of circuit board--when Vincent held something else out to her. It was with shock that she realized it was the Quicksilver and its holster.

“What...”

“Take it. You know how to use it well enough now.”

“And what about you?”

He grimaced, the expression half hidden by the high collar of his cloak. “I’ve already purchased another weapon. I can’t use this one any longer.”

All she could do was gape at him. “But... why?”

“In my time, Turks--at least those that favored handguns--used to carry Quicksilver-model pistols. When I went to confront Hojo, he... used my own service weapon against me.”

Hojo had shot Vincent using his own Quicksilver!? Lilly stared down at the gun in her hand as if it had turned into a live snake. If not for the fact it would have looked really strange while she stood in the middle of a busy marketplace, she might have dropped it and walked away. As it was, she didn’t know if she would ever manage to look at it--and much less use it--without thinking about the pain it had inflicted in the past.

“I’m sure you’ll make better use of it than he did,” Vincent concluded, and held her gaze long enough to make it clear that he meant every word.

And really, there was nothing she could reply to that.

Chapter Text

“You know, the laws of physics should make this impossible,” Lilly commented idly once they returned to the inn.

She held her new bangle at the level of her eyes and poked at the red materia slotted into it. It felt just as solid as it had been while in her pocket, but now it was no bigger than a marble.

“You don't have materia back in your world?” Vincent sounded genuinely curious, without a hint of disbelief in his voice, reminding her that he actually believed her crazy story. That was comforting in a way she couldn't quite put into words.

“Definitely not. We have nothing like it back on Earth. The... stories talked about the materia used on Gaia, of course, but it’s different than seeing it with my own eyes.”

It really was magic. But one she couldn’t use, it seemed. Vincent had ended up buying the fire materia, along with a mid-level cure and an “all”, from the materia vendor. Afterward, they’d found a quiet spot where she could try them both. Even after Vincent tried to explain to her how they worked, Lilly was unable to coax either the cure or fire to life. She didn’t have much practice with materia, but she should have at least gotten them to respond to her mana, or so her companion said. He’d demonstrated how a materia glowed softly when handled, a sure sign it recognized the presence of the handler’s mana, and how it would do the same thing once slotted in his weapon the moment he focused on it.

Odin’s summon materia had glowed like that the first time she’d touched it back at the mansion, but hadn’t reacted in any way since then. And she hadn’t consciously called it forth, which was something else Vincent said was necessary for using all materia. He had little experience with summons, though--those were rare even when you worked for Shinra--so maybe they were different?

It was all rather confusing, and quite disappointing. Materia was one of those things she’d always found fascinating, even when they had been nothing more than an interesting gameplay element. She’d been hoping to learn how to use the crystallized mako spheres now that she was on Gaia, but it looked like she was out of luck in that regard unless someone figured out why they weren’t responding to her the way they should.

“So, did you manage to find us transportation?”

Lilly hadn’t thought to ask him until now, having completely forgotten that, aside from buying supplies, this had been their reason for heading to the market that day. She had been too consumed by her curiosity regarding materia, when she wasn’t still trying to come to terms with the fact that Vincent had just gifted her the weapon that had almost killed him all those years ago.

The gunman nodded. “One of the merchants I talked to is leaving for Costa Del Sol tomorrow morning. He’s agreed to let us tag along as long as we help him with loading and unloading his truck. He’ll be expecting us at dawn.”

Which meant waking up way too early once again, but she supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers. Maybe she’d get the chance for another real night of sleep--a full ten hours at least--once they reached Midgar.

She could always dream...

Now that he’d answered her question, Vincent made to walk back into his room. “Wait,” she stopped him. “Do you want to get something to eat first? It’s been a long day...” And she hadn’t seen him ingest anything, even when she’d stopped a quick lunch at one of the market’s food stalls.

He hesitated a fraction of a second before he replied, “I’m not hungry at the moment, but thank you.”

On these fairly curt words, he retreated inside, leaving her to stare at the door as he closed it in her face. This hadn’t gone so well, she thought with a sigh. After appearing more relaxed earlier, Vincent had reverted back to his previous, dour, self. Had she done something to bring about this change in mood? She couldn’t figure out what, if anything, she’d done wrong, but she still had trouble understanding her companion sometimes, even while knowing so much about his past.

But no, she reflected, chances were good that this had little to do with her. For all she knew, being out and about at the market had been difficult for him, and he needed time to unwind. It had been twenty year since he had last been out in public, and who knew what Hojo’s sick experiments meant for his capacity to tolerate crowds.

If that was the case, however, she had to wonder how he would fare once they arrived in Midgar. Corel might be bigger than Nibelheim--a few thousand inhabitants instead of a few hundreds--but it was nothing compared to the busiest metropolis on Gaia. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do about it at this point, especially as she was only guessing at his state of mind.

Still, he should really eat at some point, even if he did so while alone in his room. Lilly would make sure she brought something back for him when she went out to get her own dinner.

The trip to Costa Del Sol took the better part of twenty two hour over two days, more often than not spent driving on potholes-infested roads in a truck with bad suspension, and by the end of it Lilly’s lower back muscles made it a point to remind her that she was going to turn thirty in less than six weeks. She groaned as she staggered out of the truck, followed by Vincent, quiet as always but also looking slightly amused as he watched her mutter curses under her breath while she stretched the kinks off her back.

If Corel had looked to her to be copied on an English coal mining town, Costa Del Sol had a bit of a mediterrean feel going for it. The temperature was also much warmer than even in Corel, making for quite a shift from the week Lilly had just spent slogging through the snow. She wouldn't complain, though. It was nice being able to take off her coat and bask in the sun for a little bit.

Once they were done helping the merchant with the unloading of his truck, Lilly and Vincent made their way to the harbor in search of a ship that could take them to Junon. It became evident quite quickly that they both had a problem. A big one. Neither of them had any ID that could be used. Lilly because, well... she possessed no legal documents at all that proved her existence here on Gaia, and Vincent because his were twenty years out of date and referred to a man presumed dead for just as long.

Showing their ID was necessary for any tickets they might legitimately purchase, which at least one of them should have realized before they tried to do so. After all, Shinra controlled the sea routes between Costa and Junon, and it wasn’t surprising that they would keep track of everyone traveling between the two continents.

Vincent looked unhappy with this development, but he didn’t stay idle for long. If boarding a ship legally was impossible, then he would find another way. Twenty years spent sleeping in a coffin wasn’t enough to dull his skills as a Turk, and Turks were a resourceful bunch.

He put his plan into action that same night.

Why are we sneaking around the docks at dark-o’clock dodging armed patrols, again Lilly wondered nervously as she crouched alongside Vincent behind a shipping container, waiting for yet another group of Shinra troopers to walk past their position.

Oh, right. Because they were trying to become stowaways on a ship bound for Junon; that’s why.

She had not expected to be playing hide and seek with Shinra quite this soon into her crazy plan, and her heart was threatening to jump out of her chest from nerves. Her companion might know what he was doing, but she... didn’t. Where was spy school when she needed it?

Vincent waited until the coast was clear before grabbing her wrist and sprinting toward the next available cover, his footfalls completely noiseless while she could only do her best to follow without tripping on her own feet and get them noticed. He gestured for her to stay behind him while he surveyed the pier ahead of them.

Docked ahead of them was a large cargo ship, and their destination. A quick search of the dockmaster’s files while Lilly kept watch outside the port authority’s offices earlier that evening had given Vincent the information he needed to select a ship set to leave early the next morning. They only had to steal inside the cargo hold before then.

“This is crazy,” she mumbled to herself, but a sharp look from her companion had her snapping her mouth shut and wincing, before mouthing an apology.

She knew they had to be quiet. Up until now, all the patrols they’d avoided had consisted of unenhanced troopers, but that didn’t mean there weren't SOLDIERs around somewhere. This was war-time, and harbors like this one made good targets for sabotage by enemy forces. It would be foolish of Shinra to leave such a vital part of their supply route toward Wutai undefended.

If SOLDIERs found them, it would spell trouble with a capital “T” for them both, even if she was convinced that Vincent could take out most SOLDIERs without too much difficulty. Killing some of Sephiroth’s men before they could even meet with the silver general would make convincing him of their good intentions... difficult, to say the least.

They needed to avoid such bloodshed unless they had no other choice.

Luckily, the ex-Turk was indeed very good at his job, helped even further by his heightened senses and more-than-human speed. In spite of Lilly’s lack of experience with such things, he led their infiltration of the cargo ship with unerring calm and efficiency, depositing them both safe and sound inside the hold without raising the alarm.

Glad that they hadn’t encountered any trouble, Lilly sighed in relief. Vincent, on the other hand, shook his head indignantly when she mentioned this to him. “I don’t know who’s in charge of security for the port, but they should be fired. Their patrol schedule is so full of blind spots an entire armed contingent could have slipped through the cracks. It’s a disgrace. And where are the Turks? You’d think President Shinra would have them involved in protecting such an important strategic asset. The Turks wouldn't make those kinds of mistakes.”

His sudden outburst left her staring at him with her mouth agape. Then, the absurdity of the situation hit her all at once and she desperately tried to stifle a--admittedly slightly hysterical--laugh behind her hand. She never would have expected the incompetence of Shinra’s security team to be the thing to coax such a strong reaction out of the stoic ex-Turk.

“Don’t go looking at a gift horse in the mouth,” she finally said once she managed to calm down some and catch her breath. “Or so the saying goes back home. Could be it’s a chocobo’s beak around here.” She wiped a stray tear away, and went on, “Shinra’s incompetence means we managed to get on this ship without having to kill anyone. That’s definitely a plus in my book.”

Killing monsters was one thing, but human beings? Just thinking about it left her feeling queasy, and that was aside from the whole Sephiroth and SOLDIER issue.

“True,” he admitted after a few seconds.

Vincent’s amused half-smirk might have been mostly hidden by the high collar of his cloak and the relative darkness of their hiding place, but it was still unmistakable. It was nice to see him smile, even if it was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

Lilly grinned back at him, heart feeling strangely fluttery. A consequence of the adrenaline rush probably...

Their ship spent four days at sea before it reached Junon, the Eastern continent’s second largest city after Midgar. They spent that time in cramped quarters, in the dark, avoiding sailors whenever one of them came down into the hold to check on the cargo. It was a nerve-wracking four days, and Lilly didn’t think she would have made it to shore undiscovered if not for Vincent’s particular brand of talents and his constant vigilance.

Once they entered the town proper, they began to see a lot of military types walking around, as was expected for such an important military garrison, but fortunately none of them gave the duo more than a passing glance. After all, strangers were not uncommon in Junon, and even Vincent managed to blend in the crowd in spite of his rather odd sense of fashion.

They also saw their first glimpse of sword-wielding SOLDIERs, third class mostly with a smattering of seconds, if their uniforms’ colors were to be believed. She recognized none of them, and it was somewhat of a relief. It was always a little unnerving to come face to face with someone she knew from the games.

Junon was built on a cliff, and its one distinguishing feature was the enormous mako canon jutting out from the highest section of the city like a--

Lilly snorted at the direction her own thoughts had just taken. Really, the jokes wrote themselves as far as that phallic symbol was concerned.

Her companion, for his part, looked nonplussed at the sight of the huge weapon casting its shadow over the sea.

“Did it exist the last time you were in Junon,” she asked him, curious.

He shook his head. “No. The city has... changed a lot since I was here last.” He thought about it for a moment. “That would’ve been the year before I left for Nibelheim on my last assignment. Shinra hadn’t even finished building the airfield then.”

Vincent wasn’t the kind of man to show much of his own inner turmoil, but she’d seen that same lost look in his eyes a few times since they first stepped onto shore. The realization of all the time he’d lost because of Hojo must be hitting him hard, she thought. Corel hadn’t seemed to affect him the same way, possibly because he’d never visited the town before, but Junon was another matter entirely.

“I suppose it must be disturbing to come back to everything looking so different,” she mused aloud. “Will you be okay?”

For a second, he looked stunned by her question, but his expression soon cleared and he nodded.

“The last time I visited, there was a train line running between Junon and Midgar. Unless things have changed more than I thought, it should still be in function. We should head for the station,” he then said, deftly turning the subject away from his current mental state.

The train... it would really be the quickest way to reach their destination, she thought. So, why did she have the feeling it wouldn’t be this easy? It was only several minutes later, as they were already making their way toward upper Junon, that she figured out what her mind was trying to tell her. “I... don’t think that's going to work for us,” she told him as she recalled the games again.

Vincent perked an eyebrow in silent inquiry, waiting for her to explain.

“We’re going to have the same problem we had back in Costa. We could probably sneak onto the train easily enough even without tickets, but unless the stories I’ve heard are wrong, all trains go through a series of automatic ID checks once they reach Midgar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same is true here in Junon.”

“Automatic checks,” he repeated, now frowning.

“Right. I guess that’s a thing that didn’t exist either twenty years ago. I don’t know much about it, other than we’ll be immediately flagged if we don’t register in Shinra’s database. A stay in a Shinra-run prison is probably not the way we want to make our entrance into Midgar.” She sighed. “We need another way to reach the city.”

They found that alternate method at the edge of lower Junon: a chocobo waystation housing several of the big yellow birds, the sight of which made Lilly squeak excitedly. Earth’s ostriches had nothing on chocobos, she thought as she made her way to the paddock for a closer look. They were huge, easily as high at the shoulder as a horse, with long muscular limbs that spoke of speed and endurance over a variety of terrain.

The birds kwehed softly at her approach, more curious than anxious at the sight of a stranger. Obviously, they were used to humans. She held out her hand, and one particularly friendly bird lowered its head so she could pet it.

Lilly sighed happily. Some parts of living on Gaia confused and even scared her, but chocobos were just as awesome as she thought they would be.

While she was busy making cooing sounds at her new best friend, Vincent went in to talk to the waystation’s employee and secured two chocobos for them to travel up to the edge of the Midgar wasteland. From there, they would need to find another means of transportation, as there were no chocobo waystation any closer to the city. The helpful employee, though, assured him that delivery trucks heading into Midgar often stopped by the wasteland station and usually accepted to take passengers along, for a fee.

When she learned they would be riding the chocobos, Lilly had trouble hiding her enthousiasm. It certainly made for a nice change from sneaking into ships and dodging Shinra troopers. She’d never ridden before--not unless you counted that one summer camp years ago where they’d brought the kids horseback riding--but she didn’t expect it would be much of a problem.

She had conveniently neglected to take into account just how uncomfortable you could get doing an activity your body wasn’t used to, and riding on chocobo’s back certainly fit in that category. As fun as it was to experience the big birds’ top running speed and watch the scenery fly by almost as fast as if they'd been riding in a car--faster than a horse’s gallop, certainly--a few hours in she found herself already starting to dream about the her next hot bath... or maybe a massage.

Unfortunately for her and her complaining muscles, it would still be another two days at least before they reached the wasteland. At least, she managed to rest for a bit when the time came to find passage on one of the small ferries carrying passengers across the river running south of the mountain range bisecting the north and south part of the continent.

Once on the north bank, they followed the ferryman’s directions and kept close to the coast, which allowed them to steer clear of the peaks and saved them days of travel, even if it meant that the chocobos waded in water up to their bellies in several places, getting them and their riders soaking wet in the process.

Wet chocobo smelled even worse than wet dog, Lilly quickly found out.

The next day, after a quiet night spent camping on the beach, they cleared the last of the mountains and veered eastward. They barely needed to steer the chocobos anymore. The birds, like the well-trained mounts they were, seemed to know exactly where their stable--and their next pile of gisahl green--was situated, and were in a hurry to get there.

They eventually reached the waystation a few hours after dusk. That day’s leaden skies made for a dark night, but even in these conditions the chocobos’ gait never faltered. Their night vision had to be much better than her own, as Lilly could see little of the path ahead of them. Vincent, of course, didn’t have the same problem, and he was the one who pushed for them to make it all the way to the station that evening instead of stopping and waiting for the next morning.

Once the chocobos were happily munching on greens in their paddock, they settled down for the night in one of the waystation’s two sleeping cabins. It wasn’t much better than camping--the cabin didn’t even have beds, although it did possess a barebone bathroom--but it would at least keep the coming rain off them, as they had abandoned their battered tent back in Corel.

Dawn found Vincent standing at the edge of the wasteland, looking toward Midgar. From this distance--over thirty kilometers--it was nothing more than a hazy cloud of smog, visible only because he knew it was there. The demarcation between the wastes and the rest of the plains was so clear-cut that it couldn’t be natural. It was like the tentacular city in the middle of it all had sucked all the life around it dry.

To be fair, it was pretty much what was happening, even if the general public wasn’t aware of that fact yet.

A while later, Lilly went to join him, stopping beside him to stare at the dry landscape stretching in front of them.

“I... didn’t think it would be quite this bad,” she whispered in horror. The games hadn’t quite prepared her for this stark reminder that Jenova wasn’t the only threat Gaia faced.

“What happened? This... didn’t exist twenty years ago,” her companion replied, sounding just as horrified. But then he frowned, memories resurfacing. “Although, even then agriculture had become impossible close to the city, and there were rumors that plants were failing to thrive even in greenhouses.”

She gulped. “It’s the mako reactors. They are sucking the Planet dry, slowly but surely. Shinra has been burning through the Planet’s lifestream to keep the lights on in Midgar and elsewhere. It won’t end well if they aren't stopped.”

Vincent looked down at her, his expression unreadable, but she thought she knew what he was thinking. She might as well have admitted that she wanted to topple his old employer. She couldn’t be sure how much loyalty he still had for the people who put him through hell--or at least had condoned it--but his strong reaction to Costa’s lack of competent security hinted that he wasn’t yet ready to entertain treason to Shinra.

“It’s not a priority right now,” she said with a shrug. “But, it’s still a problem that will need to be tackled somehow, and sooner rather than later. Jenova and Sephiroth aren’t the only ones with the capacity to destroy the world.”

Still, she realized it wouldn’t be an easy problem to solve. It wasn’t simply a question of blowing up the company and letting the chips fall where they may, whatever terrorist groups like Avalanche might think. Over the years, Shinra had become a world government of sorts. Its sudden disappearance would destroy a lot of people’s lives, and that might well cause more violence than she could stomach. Another solution would have to be found, even if it took longer.

It would have to wait until after they’d dealt with Sephiroth and Jenova, though. Lilly only had enough brain-space to take care of one world-ending threat at a time.

In a few hours, if they were lucky enough to find transportation, they would enter Midgar. It would finally be time to put their plan into action.

Today was May 4th, 2000. If her calculations were right, they had a little less than four months left to change the future.

Chapter Text

True to the waystation employee's word, a truck transporting fresh produce to one of Midgar’s numerous grocery stores agreed to take Lilly and Vincent along for the ride, for the right price of course. Seeing the outrageous amount of money the jaded driver charged them before allowing them to climb on board, she had to be making more money from ferrying passengers than from the goods she delivered.

Not even Vincent's rather impressive glare managed to lower the amount by a single gil. The driver knew she was their only alternative... and considering that they were asking her to smuggle “illegal aliens” inside the city, it was money well spent, at least in Lilly’s opinion.

They ended up giving the driver almost all the money Vincent still had. There might be enough left to buy lunch, but that was about it. Lilly hoped they would have reached their destination by lunchtime, though, and perhaps Veld would be kind enough to offer them sandwiches.

That was if he believed their story and they didn’t end up on the wrong side of a Turk’s weapon first.

“Do you think Veld will believe us,” she asked Vincent once they were both sitting in the bed of the truck alongside crates of what looked like some kind of root vegetable.

The truck had departed shortly after they forked over the money, and headed toward the closest of Midgar’s entrances.

Her companion took a moment to think before he replied, “Even if he doesn’t believe us outright, he knows me. He’ll at least trust me enough to verify the facts for himself. Getting to meet with him in the first place will be more difficult. Turks don’t exactly allow walk-ins into their offices.”

She snorted at the incongruity of that mental image. “No, I suppose not.” Then she bit on her lower lip in consternation, as this hadn’t been an obstacle she had anticipated. “How do we manage it, then? I doubt they allow the general public to roam the Shinra office floors without supervision either.”

To answer her question, Vincent patted his pant pocket. “The Shinra tower was still under construction when I... went missing, so I’ll need to check the layout first, but, it should be possible to attract Veld’s attention so the Turks are the ones to come to us.”

“I’m not sure it’s ever a good idea to attract the Turks’ attention--or so the stories said--but I guess we don’t have a choice,” she commented and smiled at him somewhat nervously.

Today was the day her half-baked plan was either going to be allowed to proceed... or would crash and burn spectacularly. Her hopes rested firmly on the former, as she knew the latter would spell trouble for her--while she suspected Vincent would be alright either way, if only because he would never let himself be taken alive again. Just how deep that trouble would be, that was left to be seen. It could be anything from being kicked out of Midgar with no money and no way to return to Nibelheim and the only other people she knew in this world, to attracting the wrong kind of attention and ending up as a “guest” of the Science Department.

Lost in her own thoughts, Lilly was unaware of Vincent’s reaction to her quip about the Turks. His lips pulled down, and his gaze grew shuttered an instant before he looked away, making it a point of staring at the road instead of at his traveling companion.

If she had noticed any of this, Lilly would have apologized for inadvertently insulting--or maybe even hurting--the ex-Turk. But by the time she managed to wrench her mind away from useless what-ifs, the moment had passed and Vincent’s expression had cleared.

They spent a good part of the trip hunched low in between the vegetable crates to protect themselves from the cloud of dust their passage sent up. Only the previous night’s rain saved them from looking like miniature earth golems by the time the truck slowed down on its approach to the city wall.

Rows of cars and trucks moved slowly forward, while somewhere at the front of the lines armed Shinra troopers inspected each vehicle. It reminded Lilly of crossing the border between Canada and the US, and she had to wonder if they would be authorized inside the city without the Shinra equivalent of a passport.

Their driver, though, hadn’t seemed bothered at all when they brought up their lack of legal ID, back at the waystation. Lilly had to trust that the woman knew what she was doing and wouldn’t be taking undue risks for complete strangers.

When their turn came, the soldier manning the security booth looked bored out of his mind as he approached their truck. Interestingly enough, he perked up quite a bit when he caught sight of their driver. The two of them exchanged a few words before both of them leaned in--and was that money changing hand? Huh. Bribery was alive and well on in this world too, it seemed. No wonder the driver had asked for such a high fee before allowing them to ride with her.

After this, things went quickly and smoothly. The trooper took only the most cursory look around the truck bed and didn’t even blink when he caught sight of the two armed strangers sitting among the vegetables. He let them through without so much as asking them a single question.

Vincent looked like he’d swallowed a lemon--or the Gaia equivalent--at this further showcase of the military’s corruption and incompetence. He couldn’t complain, though, as it was this same corruption that allowed them entry into Midgar unimpeded.

“Heidegger is getting complacent,” Lilly commented when she saw him scowling back at the trooper.

“Heidegger?”

“Shinra’s current head of Public Security. From what I know, it’d be his style to turn a blind eye on bribery of his troops as long as it doesn’t become a problem for him.”

“...I knew of a Heidegger working in that department when I was still a Turk. If it’s the same man, power won’t have fixed his personality.”

If the games were to be believed, Vincent had the right of it. Heidegger was a blowhard with an anger problem, and she hoped they wouldn’t have anything to do with him even if they managed to approach General Sephiroth. At least, at this point in the timeline, he wasn’t yet in charge of SOLDIER or the Turks. Thanks Gaia for small blessings.

With nothing left to say on the subject, Lilly turned her attention to her first view of Midgar proper. And what a view it was... if one liked their cities grey and depressing, that is. In some ways, it reminded her of many a big North American city back on Earth, a mix of older grungy-looking buildings and big modern skyscrapers. If she didn’t already know about it, she never would have been able to tell that all of this was built on top of enormous metal plates suspended hundreds of feet off the ground, with an entire second city of slums living underneath them.

The smell was indescribable, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

At the sight of her scrunched up nose and perplexed expression, Vincent pointed back the way they had come. She turned her head and only then noticed the large oblong structure protruding from the city wall in between two of the plates. An enormous “Shinra” inscription was painted in white on its face, along with the number “6”. Steam and faint green light poured from the top of it, fluctuating in intensity as though the building was somehow breathing.

Mako Reactor number six. Things really didn’t get any more real than this.

“The mako. It pervades the air everywhere in the city. That’s what you are smelling,” Vincent explained. He then frowned. “It’s worse than I remembered, though. There were only four reactors operational twenty years ago.”

“There are eight of them now.”

He nodded. “That was always Shinra’s plan, I believe.”

He fell silent for a long moment before he added, looking as if the words hurt him but he felt the need to get them out anyway, “My senses are also a lot sharper than they used to be. Everything is... worse, now.”

Lilly didn’t offer him any empty words of sympathy or reassurance, as she imagined they would mean very little, but she gave him an understanding look. It had to be difficult for him, but he seemed to be holding on remarkably well, all things considered.

The truck eventually arrived at its destination: a grocery store situated in a quiet neighborhood of sector seven. From there, it took them almost an hour to reach sector zero and the center of the city. It would have been quicker if they had hailed a taxi, but with the state of their finances, such a thing was a pipe dream at this point.

And so, they walked. It wasn’t like they hadn’t done a lot of walking during their journey already.

From the sun’s position in the hazy sky, it was midmorning by the time they finally got their first unobstructed view of the Shinra Tower in all its grotesque glory. Lilly couldn’t help but gape at the sight of it. None of the games had prepared her for just how massive the building was, thrusting into the sky like a--

“First Junon’s canon, and now this? Now I know someone’s trying to compensate,” she muttered under her breath.

She could have sworn she heard her companion muffle what sounded like a quiet laugh, and she smirked at him.

“It’s true,” she went on, warming to her subject now. “No one would think to build something like this unless they were trying to make up for some other... inadequacy.”

This time, she was certain she heard him huff a soft laugh, and his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners from amusement. It was the first time since she’d met him that he had made such a sound, and it filled her with a sense of triumph she couldn’t quite explain. It felt good to hear him laugh--as subdued and short-lived as it had been--and even better knowing that she’d been the source of it.

When they arrived at the building’s main entrance, Vincent guided them to one side and came to a stop behind one of the decorative pillars outside the lobby’s glass doors. From there, they had a good view of the interior without attracting too much attention. What she could see of the foyer’s decor looked more futuristic than anything else she’d seen on Gaia before. Just like the skyscrapers she’d noticed elsewhere in the city, it wouldn’t have been out of place in a city like New York, or maybe Tokyo.

There were no troopers working security that she could see, but she still gave her companion a dubious look. When she compared his outfit--and that wasn’t even including the very visible weapon in its holster at his hip--to the business suits worn by the Shinra employees, he stuck out like a sore thumb. “They’ll call security the moment they see you walk inside the building,” she said with a frown.

“That’s why you will be the one to go,” he replied, pulling a white rectangular piece of paper from his pant pocket. When he handed it to her, she saw the name “Veld Verdot, Department of Administrative Affair” written in a blocky script that had to be his. Apart from being a little wrinkled, it was just a normal-looking white envelope.

She perked an eyebrow. When did Vincent have time to write a letter to Veld? Back in Corel, maybe? He had spent a lot of time alone in his room. Could he have been planning on a way to contact the Turks’ director even then? Quite possibly.

“There is enough information in this letter to verify my identity. Give it to the employee at the information desk. It should reach Veld, if only because he’s always had a good rapport with the secretaries.”

Lilly looked down at herself and winced. Her clothes weren’t quite at the level of “homeless person” yet, but they had seen better days. And she still smelled of chocobo and the dust of the road. Wonderful. Hopefully, the reception desk employee wouldn’t call security on her.

With a sigh, she unbelted her most visible weapon and left the Quicksilver in Vincent’s care, before making her way into the Shinra building lobby like she totally belonged there. She could feel people’s stares like an almost physical thing and had to make a conscious effort not to hunch her shoulders and look around nervously.

She walked directly to the information desk and cleared her throat when the young woman working there didn't look up from her computer when Lilly stopped in front of her. “Excuse me?”

The employee looked annoyed when she eventually turned her attention to her customer. “Yes,” she said curtly enough that Lilly started frowning.

She knew she didn’t look like much right now, but that was no reason to be rude.

“I have this letter here for Mr. Veld Verdot. Please make sure it reaches his desk quickly,” she replied in the most annoyingly polite-but-firm voice she reserved for situations like these.

The employee looked like she was about to refuse to take the envelope, but Lilly cut her off before she could open her mouth. “You’ll do yourself no favor if the Turks’ director doesn’t get this as soon as possible.”

The young woman paled at those words.

“I see we understand each other,” Lilly said, and she smiled brightly as she slid the envelope across the desk’s surface. The employee took it with a hand that had begun to shake slightly.

Lilly turned around and waved over her shoulder, positive now that the letter would reach its intended recipient, even if it might take some time. “Have a nice day!”

She dropped her confident demeanor once she was back outside and sighed in relief. “It’s done,” she told Vincent.

He nodded. “Now, we wait.”

For the next three hours, nothing happened. Lilly saw the reception desk employee leave her seat around lunchtime, but otherwise, nothing stirred in the lobby. She frowned, beginning to think that her vague threat hadn’t been enough to get the woman to relay their message to Veld.

Vincent, on the other hand, looked like the picture of calm. Either he had more patience than she did, or he was better at hiding his restlessness, or both. She was about to ask him if there was anything more they should do when she noticed the two men wearing identical dark suits walking toward them at a leisurely pace. If the uniforms weren’t enough of a clue as to their identity, she also recognized one of them.

Reno, with his fire-engine red hair, goggles, and shit-eating grin, was a hard man to miss. Idly, she wondered where Rude was, as she couldn’t identify his current partner.

Lilly tensed and nodded minutely toward the two Turks. “We’ve been spotted,” she whispered.

Vincent showed no reaction to this announcement even though he shouldn’t have been able to see the two Turks from his position leaning against the cement column. But maybe he’d heard them approach already.

“You the woman with the letter,” Reno said without preamble the moment he and his partner were close enough. “Bossman wants to see you, yo.”

The young Turk gave Vincent a quick once-over--if she hadn’t been expecting it, Lilly might have missed the flickering of his eyes entirely--and his grin grew visibly less amused. Reno was intelligent enough to recognize a possible threat when he saw one.

“He’ll want to see both of us,” Lilly replied with more confidence than she felt. She didn’t know what she would do if Reno refused to bring Vincent along and definitely didn’t want to meet the head of the Turks without him at her side to give her story credence.

Reno didn’t bathe an eyelash at this. “Ya. Veld said you might not be alone.”

With no more words exchanged, the two Turk fell into step on each side of them--in easy reach of their gun arms if they ever thought of pulling out their weapons, Lilly noticed--and ushered them toward an unmarked metal door situated around the corner of the building. Once there, Reno raised a hand and they all stopped.

“Your weapons,” he ordered, giving their guns a pointed look.

Lilly hesitated at first but followed suit when Vincent took off his holster without complaint and dropped it in Reno’s waiting hands. She also unclipped her bangle and added it to the Quicksilver after the second, unnamed Turk, pointed at it. Since she couldn’t use the summon with any kind of control, she’d forgotten she was even wearing it.

Reno stepped closer to her and smirked in a way that made her want to take a hasty step back. But there was nowhere to go, and showing them fear would serve no purpose. She had to make an effort not to gulp or otherwise show him any sign of her growing discomfort.

“Hope you won’t take this the wrong way, sugar, but I’m gonna need to pat you down, yo.”

“Sugar,” she sputtered, her fear all but forgotten all of a sudden. “Seriously!?”

Reno shrugged, unrepentant. “If I knew your name, I’d use it. If I felt like it. But I don’t, sugar.”

Lilly was caught between laughing and throwing her hands up in the air in defeat. “Urgh, you’re obnoxious,” she settled on instead.

“And you love it,” he quipped back with a wink before he starting patting her for any concealed weapon, while his partner did the same to Vincent.

Surprisingly enough since this was, well... Reno, the search was done in a professional manner and was quickly over, without any attempt to touch her inappropriately. That might have to do at least partly with Vincent’s glare burning a hole in the back of Reno’s neck, but Lilly wanted to believe the red-haired Turk also possessed some human decency under all that swagger.

Once Reno was done searching her backpack--she had forgotten about the hunting knife she still carried but fortunately, he didn’t seem to hold it against her--Lilly realized they might have a problem. While she wasn’t paying attention, Vincent and the second Turk had become locked into an angry stare-off.

“What’s wrong,” she asked her companion.

It was the as-yet-unnamed Turk who answered, however. He pointed to Vincent’s left arm and growled, “All weapons must come off.”

If Vincent’s eyes could have frozen the man on the spot, they would have.

Lilly sighed in aggravation. “Oh for the love of-- It’s a prosthetic, not a weapon! He can’t take it off.”

She didn’t actually know if that was the case, but the end result was the same. Vincent wasn’t going to take his gauntlet off in front of those people. To her knowledge, he never took it off, not even to sleep--what little sleep he got. He probably even showered with it.

Her explanation didn’t please the Turks, but Reno nodded anyway and they were escorted into the building. Interesting. Whatever Veld’s orders were, making sure they both made it to Administrative Research’s offices was apparently more important than stripping them of all weapons.

The side door must be some kind of emergency exit, as it led to a set of service stairs. Remembering that the building possessed something like seventy floors, Lilly prayed they wouldn’t need to climb quite that high. On top of everything else, she didn’t want to meet the director of the Turks while a sweating and panting mess.

The Planet must have been listening to her prayers, as they stopped once they reached the thirteenth floor and Reno led along a long empty corridor to a bare room containing only two chairs and a desk--all three of them bolted to the floor, she saw with some trepidation. An interrogation room?

Before she could ask what was going on, the two Turks left and closed the door behind them. the sound of the lock sliding into place ringing ominously in the quiet space. Looking around the room nervously, she noticed the camera set high on the wall in one corner, a glowing red light indicating it was recording. Were they even now being observed from somewhere else in the building? She refrained from flipping the camera the bird, if only because she didn’t want to antagonize their unknown watchers.

Looking entirely unconcerned by their present predicament, Vincent went to lean against the wall, as was his habit. His attitude did a lot to calm the anxiety she could feel rising in her mind. If he didn’t consider their current situation abnormal, then it was probable that they were in no immediate danger.

Still, the whole thing left her feeling on edge... which was probably the whole point of this set-up.

How long they were kept waiting was hard to determine. The room had no window, and there was no way to calculate the time accurately. Eventually, though, the lock clicked open again and the doorknob turned. Lilly had been sitting on one of the room’s two chairs, tapping her foot on the floor rhythmically, but she jumped back to her feet the moment she heard the door start to open.

The man who entered the room was older--she’d put him at around fifty--with greying brown hair and a long scar running down his left cheek. He wore the same black suit as the other two but possessed the recognizable air of authority of someone in charge.

This had to be Veld, then.

Veld’s eyes roamed the room until they fell on the man leaning against the wall, face half-hidden by the collar of his cloak, and froze. For all the attention he spared her, Lilly might not have existed at all at that moment.

His focus never once wavering, the director of the Turks stalked in, while Vincent purposefully stared at the floor instead of at the man making a beeline toward him. Veld stopped not two feet away from his ex-partner and the world seemed to hold its breath as he took in Vincent’s unchanged--if gaunt--appearance, which the ex-Turk tried to hide behind his too-long hair.

“Vincent... it is really you,” Veld choked out after several seconds.

Vincent finally looked up, but he couldn’t hold Veld’s gaze for long. After a moment, he looked away again without a word.

“Shiva’s tits, you look like you haven’t aged a day,” the older man whispered in a mixture of awe and horror. And then, he swung back the hand he’d kept fisted at his side, leaving Lilly to gape in shock when it connected with Vincent’s jaw with a loud thwack.

She wasn’t sure who that punch hurt worse, Vincent or Veld. What she did know, though, was that Vincent could have easily stopped or dodged the hit had he wanted to. That he hadn’t moved out of the way spoke volumes about the two men’s relationship, and about Vincent’s sense of guilt toward his old partner.

“I thought you were dead,” Veld spat furiously. “Hojo, the bloody bastard, said you were dead. I saw his autopsy report, including the pictures!”

Slowly, Vincent went to touch his smarting jaw, and he shrugged helplessly. “I... news of my death were not... quite accurate,” he managed to say, sounding like he could barely get the words out past the lump in his throat.

Before he could say or do anything else, Veld closed the last of the distance between them and enveloped him in a bear hug. His shoulders started to shake and what sounded like sobs escaped his lips. Vincent’s arms hovered uncertainly at his side for a long moment but eventually, he wrapped them around the older man’s back and lowered his head to hide his own tears from view.

Before long, Lilly looked away to give the two men some form of privacy for what had turned out to be a very emotional reunion. She dabbed discreetly at her own eyes, less their wetness betrayed her.

She didn’t quite manage to hide her smile, though.

Chapter Text

It took Veld and Vincent some time to regain their composure even after they finally pulled away again. During that time, they stood a few feet apart in that awkward manner that men unused to displays of strong emotions sometimes did, and deliberately didn’t look each other in the eyes.

Lilly tried hard to keep her expression neutral at the scene unfolding in front of her, but it was a difficult task. “Adorable” wasn’t an adjective she would normally use to describe either Vincent or tough-looking Veld, but it fitted them well enough right now. She knew this moment of levity wouldn’t last long and she still had a hard conversation to face, but she welcomed it anyway

Eventually, Veld finished grappling with his emotions and gestured for them to follow him out of the interrogation room. It looked like the upcoming conversation warranted a more suitable location.

They garnered some curious stares from the few Turks working at their desks when Veld led them toward his office, the older man making it a point of not acknowledging his employee’s raised eyebrows and frowns at the sight of his reddened eyes and stooped shoulders. In Lilly’s opinion, he looked like he had aged ten years since he first laid his eyes on Vincent. It must have been a shock for him to find that his old partner was alive. Especially if, as he said, he’d seen autopsy pictures of the ex-Turk’s body.

And how was that even possible? Of course, Hojo might have faked those pictures, but Lilly didn’t think he would have bothered to do so. It didn’t fit with what she knew of the arrogant professor’s personality. That only left one possible explanation.

She stole a glance Vincent’s way, wondering if she’d see the distinctive “y” shaped scar of an autopsy’s incision if he took his shirt off. She hadn’t thought she could hate Hojo any more than she already did, but this... this made it personal. Vincent was her friend, and this further proof of the agony he must have endured made her want to punch something, Hojo’s face in particular.

Seeing how green Veld complexion had become, she guessed his thoughts were going down the same path as hers, but he hadn't asked Vincent any questions. Not yet. It would come soon enough, no doubt about it, but it wasn’t a discussion to be had in public.

Veld had them precede him into a cluttered office and closed the door behind them, but not before telling his men that he didn’t want to be disturbed unless the Tower was on fire. He offered them both chairs to sit on but only Lilly took him on his offer. As usual, Vincent leaned back against one of the walls, positioned in such a way that someone opening the door from the outside wouldn’t see him at first.

This action didn’t go unnoticed, as Veld gave his ex-partner a questioning look and said, “Suspicious even here? I trust my own men, Vincent.”

Although his tone stayed light, his words carried some censure and an unspoken question: What’s going on?

Vincent shrugged but offered no explanation for this show of paranoia.

At long last, Veld turned his attention to Lilly. “We haven’t been introduced yet. I am Veld Verdot, director of Shinra’s Administrative Research Department, also known as the Turks.”

She inclined her head politely, doing her best not to squirm under his scrutiny. “Lillian Ashford, a huh... former librarian. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Verdot.”

“Miss Ashford, I expect I’ll have a great many questions for you, but first...” He glared back at Vincent and almost yelled, the sudden change in pitch enough to give Lilly whiplash, “Where the hell have you been for the last twenty years? Didn’t it ever occur to you to let me know you weren’t dead?” Then, in a slightly calmer tone, he added, “What happened to you?”

“Hojo happened,” Vincent replied shortly.

The ex-Turk’s answer did nothing to help with Veld’s complexion. If anything, the confirmation of his worst fears had him growing a few shades greyer. As director of the Turks, there was no doubt in Lilly’s mind that Veld knew at least some of what happened inside the Science Department. But he had probably always looked the other way, just as he carried President Shinra’s orders without questioning them. He wouldn’t have survived as a Turk as long as he had otherwise.

Still, it was a good sign for the future that Veld now looked like he wanted to hurl. Nothing else Lilly had to tell him would make the company--and especially the Science Department and Hojo--look any better. Vincent, though, had already warned her to be careful with what information she shared. He might trust his old partner implicitly--and Turks had each others’ back--but Veld was still beholden to Shinra first and foremost. Any hints of possibly betraying the company would not go over well at this point.

“How--” Veld asked after a weighted silence.

Teeth gritted, Vincent answered, “Shot me with my own damn service weapon when I went to confront him about the experiment he was conducting on Lucrecia.”

His failure to keep his gun out of Hojo’s hands sat badly with him, even after all those years.

“Lucrecia? Experiment?” Veld blinked once but then held out his hand before Vincent could begin to explain. “Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Start from the beginning.”

Lilly glanced from Veld to Vincent, whose forbidding expression made her fear he was about to clam up and refuse to speak, and wondered if she should intervene. In the end, though, it wasn’t her story to tell. Not only that but if it came to light that she knew so much about Vincent’s past, it would lead to questions neither of them was ready to answer.

Ultimately, she didn’t need to decide if she was willing to take that risk in an attempt to prevent him from rehashing traumatic memories, as he began to talk before she could make up her mind. He kept his explanation short, but he touched on all the pertinent details.

He told Veld how, during his assignment, he grew close to Dr. Lucrecia Crescent--he didn’t mention falling in love with her, but Veld seemed to catch on anyway--and how she one day announced her decision to marry Professor Hojo. His sense of helplessness when he discovered that the professor had started experimenting on a pregnant Lucrecia using cells from the creature “Jenova” that Professor Gast had found years before at the Northern Crater. How Lucrecia had rebuffed him when he tried talking sense into her, telling him that she was a willing participant in the experiment. And finally, he recounted how he had gone to confront Hojo after Lucrecia grew so sick from the alien cells that Vincent feared for her life and that of her unborn child.

“I was careless,” he concluded with a shrug. “I was too distraught to keep an eye on my gun, and Hojo used my distraction to wrestle it away from me and shoot me with it point-blank.”

“The autopsy report said it was a hunting accident,” Veld said with a frown. “The other Turk on duty with you in Nibelheim confirmed it.”

Vincent snorted at that. “Bribed, no doubt. He was always in Hojo’s pocket. What happened to him?”

“Killed in action a few months later.” Veld growled. “The sonofabitch. I might need to take a second look at that report, if it even still exists.”

“Silenced, most probably” Vincent agreed with his ex-partner. “Dead men tell no tales.”

The older man snorted in disgust. “Thing I don’t understand is I saw the autopsy pictures with my own eyes. Hojo can’t have faked those. He’s not that good.”

Vincent’s gaze took on that thousand-mile-away quality that was a sure sign he was caught reliving some seriously painful shit.

“Vincent?” If Veld’s worried expression was anything to go by, Lilly wasn’t the only one to have noticed this.

With an apparent effort of will, the ex-Turk blinked away the memories plaguing him. “I was only half dead when he cut me open,” he finally ground out.

“You got to be joking...” Horror blossomed across Veld’s expression. “No, you’re not, are you? Bahamut’s ass, how is that even possible?”

Vincent shrugged, his expression haunted. “That shot didn’t immediately kill me and Hojo... he experimented on me for weeks. Or maybe months. Years. I cannot... my memories of that time are hazy at best.”

It hurt to hear him stumble over his words, and Lilly wished there was something she could do to help. But nothing she said would make the horrors of twenty years ago disappear, and the truth of it broke her heart a little.

“What he did to me... is what kept me alive through the vivisection... if only barely. That he took pictures and sent them to you along with an autopsy report... it doesn’t even surprise me. He must have known there would be hell to pay if my absence wasn’t explained somehow.”

“Motherfucking bastard!” The director of the Turks couldn’t contain the expletive any longer. “What did that man do to you?”

Shaking his head, Vincent admitted, “I... I’m not sure, but I’m not quite human anymore, Veld.” He looked down at his gauntleted hand and flexed his fingers, a mix of emotions--shame, disgust, sadness--crossing his features. “And it wasn’t just Hojo. By the time the professor deemed his experiments on me a failure, my body had started to... rot, for lack of a better term.”

“While you were still alive!?”

A minute nod was Vincent’s only answer, and then he went on, “Lucrecia found me like that and she... she decided she would save me, whatever the cost. I think she felt guilty and thought it was her fault I got shot. I... I don’t know. I never got to ask her.”

“Do I want to know what happened next,” Veld asked, his voice sounding even hoarser than usual.

It looked like Vincent would be unable to go on, as he only managed to shake his head wordlessly, his rapid breathing echoing too loudly in the office. Catching on to his old partner’s burgeoning panic attack, Veld was quick to change the subject in the hope of giving him the opportunity to calm himself down.

As for Veld, he would take the time to process what his partner had shared later tonight when no one would be able to see him fall apart. He’d always been good at compartmentalizing.

“And where do you come into this, Miss Ashford?”

Lilly licked her lips. Now, it was her turn to tell her story. “I lived in Nibelheim for a bit, and about a month ago I broke into the old Shinra mansion there.” All true and it avoided the matter of how she’d gotten to Nibelheim in the first place.

“You found Vincent there,” Veld interrupted, frowning.

She nodded. “He was in the mansion’s secret basement. He had been asleep in a coffin ever since he was placed there by either Lucrecia or Hojo.”

She felt that it wasn’t her place to mention that this had been a partly self-inflicted form of isolation on Vincent’s part, a way atone for what he considered his sins. He would explain if and when he felt ready to do so. She hoped Veld gave him a good talking-to when he did, though; Gaia knew the man was more than capable of making Vincent’s ears ring with his cursing.

“How did you know Vincent was there at all?”

“I... I didn’t know,” she stuttered. “Not really. You see, there have always been rumors circulating around Nibelheim that the mansion was haunted. I just wanted to see if it was true.”

Shit. She still sucked at lying, and she was growing nervous now. This is where her story took a turn for the unbelievable, and Vincent was in no shape to back her up just now.

“Care to try that again, Miss Ashford,” Veld asked, clearly unimpressed by this poor attempt at dishonesty. “Believe me, I’m glad to have my old partner back in Midgar alive, and it looks like I have you to thank for it, but I will know the truth. How did you know he was there when even the Turks--even I--had no idea?”

“Ahhh, well... you see,” she started, stalling for time while she searched for the right words. “It’s a long story and it will probably be hard to believe at first.”

This was even harder than it had been when she’d first met Vincent. At least, she knew many things about the gunman and had been relatively certain he wouldn’t try to harm her even if he didn’t believe her. Veld, on the other hand, she knew very little about, other than his name and the fact he had partnered with Vincent once upon a time and considered him a friend.

Veld’s eyebrows raised a good inch, and he opened his mouth to say something. Before he could, Lilly cut him off. “Yes, I realize I’m stalling. No need to point it out. Vincent already knows it’s a bad habit of mine when I don’t know where to start.”

She had the pleasure of seeing Vincent’s lips quirk up the tiniest bit at her comment. He must also be recalling their first encounter, and it was an encouraging sign showing that he wasn’t so lost inside his own head anymore.

Veld watched this small interaction with interest, noting that his old partner and the young woman appeared somewhat close. And it looked like there might be more to the story, as Lilly looked at Vincent for support before she started speaking again.

“You’re right. I already knew he was there, and in what shape I would find him. And I knew--well, hoped, really--that he would help me once I told him about Sephiroth and Jenova... How they will try to destroy the world if we don’t prevent it.”

She had to give Veld his due. He barely reacted to that bombshell, only glancing at Vincent who confirmed her words with a nod.

Lilly huffed, half a nervous laugh and half an acknowledgment of the craziness of her claim. “I know how this sounds, believe me. Let me try to explain, at least.”

“Yes. I’d love to hear your explanation,” Veld replied, sarcasm tinging his tone.

She studiously avoided looking at the head of the Turks as she told him most of the same things she had to Vincent that first day, including the fact the Planet might be behind the knowledge she had. She left out any mention of coming from another world and learning about Gaia through “stories”, and kept the details of what she knew about each of the Firsts’ future actions to herself, but she gave him enough information about Hojo’s--and Hollander’s--shenanigans to hopefully convince him that something needed to be done before it was too late.

By the time she was done talking, you could have heard a pin drop in the room. She finally dared to look at Veld to gauge his reaction. Maybe all Turks took training on how to hide their thoughts, however, as his expression was just as unreadable as Vincent’s at his most stone-faced.

Eventually, Veld leaned forward and skewered her with a glare. “You aren’t telling me everything. What more are you hiding,” he accused her.

Lilly grimaced, but she wasn’t about to change her mind. There were things she wasn’t willing to disclose. “Frankly? A lot. But there are things I simply cannot tell you,” she told him firmly. “That knowledge won’t do you any good, and might even be detrimental.”

How would he feel after learning about the possible mass murders committed by his own men in the future? About the horrors of Meteor, or Geostigma? That knowledge would only bias him against the very people they needed to help. It was bad enough that she had trouble looking Reno in the eyes knowing what he might one day do, and she didn’t know how she would react to meeting Sephiroth.

Veld’s glare grew more furious, and she felt the urge to hide under her chair. Finding herself on the wrong side of the Turks’ director’s anger was not a pleasant thing. But she held firm, knowing Vincent would back her up if needed. “I’ve given you all the information you need to act. The rest is irrelevant.”

Veld chewed on her words for a long moment, still looking on the verge of exploding at her, and she did her best to steel herself against his temper. But he surprised her by dismissing her entirely and turning his attention to Vincent instead.

“And you believe her,” he asked almost accusingly.

Holding his partner’s angry gaze without flinching, Vincent answered, “She’s given me no reason not to. She knows things about me that she couldn’t have learned any other way. If she says the Planet has given her the knowledge necessary to prevent this calamity---” What an appropriate choice of word, Lilly thought.”--then it’s enough for me. I trust her.”

Veld raised an eyebrow, not quite believing what was coming out of the gunman’s mouth. “Since when have you started believing in this religious malarkey?”

Vincent’s answering smirk was tight and held no humor. “Twenty years spent in a coffin leaves one with a lot of time to think, Veld.”

“Well, shit,” Veld said with feelings. “What do you want me to do with this information? You’re saying Commanders Hewley and Rhapsodos and General Sephiroth--the hero of Wutai for fuck’s sake--are going to become threats not only to Shinra but to the Planet itself. If that’s true, they need to be eliminated before they have a chance to become a problem.”

Vincent shrugged slightly. “Maybe. It would be the most expedient way.” Even if he disliked the idea of killing Lucrecia’s son, he was above all a practical man, and Veld’s solution had the advantage of being simple and straightforward.

“No,” Lilly exclaimed, unable to simply sit still and say nothing while the two men in the room with her discussed murder in the same way others discussed the weather.

How could Veld decide they needed to die on nothing more concrete than her say-so? It was terrifying to think that these three men’s lives hung on her words.

But, no. That wasn’t quite the truth, she realized. In the end, it all came down to Veld’s complete trust in his partner, even after twenty years. Vincent believed her, and so Veld believed her too. And because he trusted Vincent’s judgment, he was willing to contemplate killing Shinra’s strongest SOLDIERs without batting a lash.

Veld looked back at her with a scowl. “Miss Ashford...”

“No,” she repeated more calmly. “This can’t be the solution. There must be another way to prevent the worse from happening.”

“What do you propose we do, then?”

“The three of them need to be told the truth before it becomes an issue. That way, no one will be able to use this information against them.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” It wasn’t quite scorn that colored Veld’s voice, but he certainly sounded impatient. “Walk up to them, tell them everything, and hope they believe you? You, a complete stranger with a tale so extraordinary that most people would call you insane? Commanders Hewley and Rhapsodos, and especially General Sephiroth, aren’t likely to trust your word without proof.”

Left unsaid was the fact that Veld himself would have thought her mad if not for Vincent vouching for her sanity.

“Then we find those proofs first,” Vincent intervened before Lilly could find the right words to tell Veld to go to hell.

Veld grimaced. “That won’t be easy. Hojo’s a paranoid motherfucker at the best of times, and he guards his data better than anyone at Shinra.”

“When has that ever stopped the Turks before?”

Veld straightened up when he heard his old partner’s obvious challenge. His smirk was positively predatory as he replied, “Never, that’s when. I’ll put a few men on the task, but we’ll have to be cautious. I don’t trust Hojo not to retaliate if he finds out we’re investigating.” And Vincent’s case made it plain that the Professor wasn’t above killing Turks--or worse.

“He can’t know,” Lilly agreed. “He considers Sephiroth his greatest creation, and any hint that we’re trying to counteract his influence on the general could lead him to do something drastic.” And as this wasn’t part of any of the games, she wouldn’t be able to predict his actions.

She hesitated a great deal, but then she felt like she had to say it. “Ultimately, Hojo might have to die. He’s at the root of most of our current issues, along with Jenova. And Jenova will also have to be dealt with, but... I don’t know how to do that without contaminating the lifestream in the process yet.”

Veld’s eyes glinted dangerously. “Oh. Hojo will die, make no mistake. No one messes with the Turks the way he did and gets away with it.”

“I have a lot to repay him for,” Vincent added, and Veld nodded.

“The first bullet is yours, of course.”

Lilly gave them both a wan smile, feeling nauseous at the idea of cold-blooded murder even while she knew it might be for the best in Hojo’s case.

“It’s decided, then” Veld got up from behind his desk. “In the meantime, Vincent, I want to resume your position as senior Turk for the time being. Miss Ashford will serve as your junior partner.”

“Wait... what!?” Lilly gaped. Her, a Turk? Was that a joke?

“Did you expect to just walk away from the Shinra Tower and wash your hands off everything? I’ll be keeping an eye on you--on both of you--until we’re done with this mess. Also... Turks watch after their own. You’ll be safer here.”

She could see the benefits in that, and yet... “But I can’t be a Turk! I don’t know the first thing about the job.”

“Reno told me you were packing an old Quicksilver when he found you. Vincent’s service weapon, I expect. He wouldn’t have entrusted it to you unless he knew you could use it, and he’s always been an excellent instructor.” Lilly nodded unhappily. “The rest can also be learned, and your research skills as a librarian might come in handy.”

“I won’t be killing anyone,” Lilly blurted out, feeling the net tighten around her without being able to do anything about it.

“Considering the path you’ve chosen for yourself, you might not have a choice in the end, miss Ashford,” Veld replied somberly. “Now come with me. The Turks have an apartment in the building set aside for... special guests. It’s well protected.”

And bugged too, Lilly would bet. Veld didn’t completely trust them after all. Only to be expected of the Turks’ director, she supposed. Paranoia ran in the blood in that department.

“You’ll both be using it for as long as you require protection from the likes of Hojo. I apologize in advance; it only has one bedroom.”

It was the least of Lilly’s issues with this arrangement. “It’s alright. We’ve already spent a month living in close quarters, and this definitely beats peeing in buckets.”

Veld barked a laugh at her quip and slapped Vincent on the shoulder. “You’ll have to tell me about your journey to Midgar sometime. You owe me twenty years’ worth of beer, in any case.”

Vincent’s answering smile was small but genuine.

Chapter Text

Before heading to their new accommodations, the three of them stopped by Reno’s desk to retrieve their confiscated weapons. The red-head looked like he was about to perish from curiosity as he glanced from his boss to Lilly, and then Vincent.

“Yo bossman, care to share what’s going on with the rest of the class?”

Veld let out a long-suffering sigh. He was used to the young Turk’s antics and had given up trying to rein him in a long time ago. “This is Vincent Valentine--”

“The Vincent Valentine? The old partner you keep yapping about after we get a few drinks into ya? Thought you said the bloke was dead. He don’t look dead to me.” He turned to the black-haired gunman and whistled. “You a legend around here, yo.”

Lilly had to stifle a laugh at the vaguely horrified look that crossed her companion’s features at hearing this. Most people would have missed it entirely--Reno certainly did--but she had gotten used to reading his subtle facial expressions over the last few weeks.

Clearing his throat, Veld gave his subordinate a warning glare before he continued, “He’ll be rejoining the team now that he’s back in Midgar.” He offered no explanation for Vincent’s reappearance, and even Reno knew better than to ask where anyone could be listening.

And the other Turks definitely were listening. The sounds of low-level conversation, and even typing, had ceased. They had an audience now.

Veld knew it too, and he raised his voice for the next part of his announcement. “And this is Lillian Ashford. She’ll be our newest junior Turk starting tomorrow morning, partnering with Vincent. I expect everyone to help with her training until she’s up to speed with the work.”

Conversation resumed, louder than before. Lilly caught on to the fact that several of the Turks wondered about their director’s strange decision to hire a woman he’d picked off the street only hours before. This wasn’t the way things were usually done. None of them asked him about it, though. She figured that the questioning wouldn’t start until the department’s newest employee was out of earshot. That was usually how those things worked.

“So, the name’s Lillian, eh sugar?” Reno said, leering at her.

“Lilly, not Lillian.” Her full name sounded so stuffy; she’d never liked it. “And definitely not “sugar”... sweetcheeks.” She glared at the red-head, who started laughing uproariously.

“Oh, you’ll be fun to tease, I can feel it. Pleasure to be working with ya, yo.”

She wasn’t sure the pleasure would be mutual.

Veld had had enough. Before Lilly could come up with an appropriate reply for Reno, he said, “Stuff it, Reno. We aren’t here for your sass. Now, where did you put their gear?”

“You’re never any fun, boss,” Reno whined, but he produced her backpack and all their weapons from somewhere under his desk.

Vincent picked up the gun he’d bought back in Corel without a word, but he exchanged a nod with Veld when the older man gave the pistol a disdainful look. Lilly figured that a new weapon would be replacing the obviously low-quality gun very soon.

When Lilly took back her bangle and slipped it on, Veld noticed the red summon stone slotted into it and raised his eyebrows. “That’s a rare materia you got there.”

She shrugged a little self-consciously. “It’s Odin. I found it back at the mansion. I can’t really use any other type of materia, but I seem to be able to summon it... sometimes at least. It’s been temperamental.”

“Hmmm, if that’s the case, we might need to find you someone who can train you in using it. Odin’s an unusual summon and it could be a real asset to you, but only if you can summon it consistently.”

She didn’t know if it would help, as she was almost certain that her issues with materia were related to the fact she didn’t come from this world, but she nodded. “Maybe Commander Rhapsodos would be interested,” she joked. “I hear he’s the materia specialist around here.”

“Not such a bad idea, actually. I’ll see what I can do.”

Her suggestion hadn’t been a serious one, but now that she thought about it, it did make sense. If they managed to meet the Firsts and gain their trust at least somewhat, it would make the rest of their plan easier to carry out. And Genesis might even have some good advice for her. It would certainly be nice to be able to control Odin at will, even if she never managed to use any other materia.

With their weapons back in their possession, Veld finally led them out of the Turks’ offices. Their promised apartment was situated one floor up, reachable through a different set of service stairs from the one they’d taken before. Veld used a keycard to open the door and then stepped aside to let Lilly walk in first.

The lavishness of what she saw surprised her. The space wasn’t very big, but all the furniture looked expensive and the decor could only have been designed by a professional. There was no balcony, though, and she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the windows didn’t open and were bulletproof. She raised her eyebrows. This definitely was an apartment decorated for V.I.P. guests--either for protection or surveillance, or most probably both.
While she explored their new living quarters, making sure not to touch anything with her dirty self, Vincent pulled Veld aside and started to discuss the issue of their lack of legal IDs. Luckily, this wasn’t a difficult problem to remedy for the head of the Turks. A few headshots using his personal PHS later, he promised them he’d have everything they needed, including their brand new Shinra employee cards, ready by the time they started work the next morning.

“I’ll have someone bring you both your new uniforms once we find some that’ll fit you.” He gave Vincent’s left arm, especially, a thoughtful look. Contemplating how to get him a shirt and suit jacket that would fit over the gauntlet, Lilly guessed. He must have caught on to the fact that his old partner wouldn’t be taking it off, if he even could.

Veld’s old partner, and now also Lilly’s new one, starting tomorrow.

Ohhh... that was going to take some getting used to, she thought, her stomach doing an uneasy flip. Becoming a Turk had not been in the top ten of her list of future careers on Gaia. It had not been on that list at all, actually. The Quicksilver she carried in the holster at her hip felt like it weighed a ton now that she knew she might need to use it against another human being at some point. And possibly on Shinra’s order, just to make things even more messed up than they already were. She could only hope that Veld wouldn’t willfully put her in that type of situation, but she didn’t know him well enough to be sure.

As she was trying to wrap her mind around her new employment situation, the two men finished their conversation and shook hands. Before Veld could leave, though, Lilly approached him.

“Yes,” he asked her curiously. She hadn’t spoken a word to him since he’d shoehorned her into becoming a Turk, and he had to wonder what she wanted.

“Food,” she replied at once. “We haven’t eaten since this morning and we have no money left to buy anything.”

“I see. There should already be some non-perishables in the cupboards, but I’ll have someone bring you enough groceries to last you a few days. There’s also the employee cafeteria on the 61st floor, but it’d be best if you stayed away from it until I’ve had time to... legitimize both of your situations. Just stay inside the apartment, at least for today.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “Not a problem. And... Miss Ashford?”

“Please, call me Lilly. You’ll be my boss starting tomorrow, after all.” She did her best to smile at him even though it was the last thing she felt like doing at the moment.

“Lilly it is, then.” He nodded toward Vincent, who’d moved farther into the apartment and was looking around the kitchen, and he lowered his voice before he said, “Keep an eye on him, will you? I don’t think he’s doing as well as he wants me to believe.”

She could have told him Vincent had almost certainly heard every word that came out of his mouth. His enhanced hearing meant he missed very little. But she didn’t. Instead, she simply nodded. She didn’t need his prompting for something she was already trying her best to do, but if it helped allay Veld’s guilt--what must he be thinking after he realized he’d left his friend to suffer in Hojo’s “care” all those years ago?--she would agree to it all the same.

After a gruff-sounding “good day”, Veld turned on his heels and left them alone to settle into their new living space. After taking a moment to engage the door’s lock, Lilly went to join Vincent in the small kitchen. To her surprise, he’d already found a box of crackers in one of the cupboards and gotten it out for her, although he didn’t appear interested in them himself. She frowned slightly when he refused her offer to share and left her side to return to the living room.

She didn't know how much food--if any--he really needed to eat to stay alive, but he looked much too thin under his clothes, almost emaciated, and that couldn’t be healthy. Maybe she should ask for a recipe book to go along with the groceries. She wasn’t much of a cook at the best of times, but it might do them both some good to start eating better food than travel rations--or cafeteria food now that they lived inside Shinra Tower.

The crackers were barely enough to calm the worst of her hunger pangs, but they would have to do until they received the promised groceries. In the meantime, there were a few things she wanted to straighten out with her new roommate.

“You should take the bed,” she said as she joined Vincent by the window. “The couch looks like it’ll barely fit me, and you’re a head taller than I am.”

She should have known her companion’s sense of chivalry would interfere with her plans to get him to sleep in a bed. The moment she finished her first sentence, he started shaking his head. “I don’t need a bed. I can use the couch for what little sleep I still require.”

Ever since it happened, neither of them had brought up the subject of his accidental assault back in the mountains--the subject was a minefield she didn’t know how to approach--but this time she thought she’d at least try.

“I thought you might prefer a bit of privacy at night, all things considered. And you look like you could use the sleep... When’s the last time you had any? Definitely not last night, or the one before that. I know, I was there too and you spent the entire time outdoors.”

Vincent looked at a loss as to what to say, as usually happened when the subject of his... issues arose. She quickly added, “Look, if it bothers you that much, we can switch around each night. That way, we both get some use of the bed.”

“I’ll... think about it,” he said after a long moment of silence.

Lilly smiled. It might be only a small victory, but she’d take it. “Deal. For now, I call first dibs on the shower. I smell like chocobos, sweat, and dust, and I’m surprised your sensitive nose can stand being anywhere close to me.”

He huffed softly, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Go ahead.”

Humming happily under her breath, Lilly left in search of the bathroom. Her enthusiasm dampened only slightly when she discovered that the apartment possessed no washing machine, forcing her to choose the least grimy of her remaining clothes to put back on after her shower. Hopefully, a solution to that problem would be found soon, since asking the Turks for clean underwear was one awkward conversation she hoped never to have. Reno at the very least would never let her live it down, she could tell.

The knock came a few hours later, while Lilly practiced taking the Quicksilver apart under Vincent’s watchful gaze for the third time, using the coffee table to lay the pieces down. “Ah. That’s probably the Turk with our suits...” she commented, putting the half-dismantled gun carefully down beside their shared cleaning kit. “Hopefully, they’ll have brought the food too. I’m famished.”

He shocked her when he also got back up, pulling his weapon out of its holster, and stood in such a way he had a clear shot at the door. She frowned. “Huh... should I be concerned that whoever’s on the other side of that door is going to jump me the moment I open it?”

There was a moment of hesitation before Vincent shook his head. “Probably not.”

But he still considered this enemy territory, Lilly mentally added, and he acted accordingly. Was this what becoming a Turk did to a person’s sense of safety? She wasn’t sure she liked it, but his paranoia was contagious, and she made sure to position herself so she didn’t block his line of sight before unlocking the door.

Opening the door revealed a young female Turk with shoulder-length, wavy auburn hair standing on the other side holding on to two garment bags, with more bags at her feet. One Lilly knew she’d seen in one of the games before, although it took her a few seconds to recall her name. Cissnei, that was it. She relaxed, knowing the woman had been friendly with Zack in-game--even though she doubted the two had even met yet in this real-life version of Gaia, as this wouldn’t happen until some Genesis clones attacked Midgar if she remembered well.

“Is that the groceries,” Lilly said in lieu of greeting, giving the younger woman a grin. “You’re a real life-saver!”

Lilly stepped away from the door and invited Cissnei to come in, but the young woman shook her head and took a step back after giving Vincent a circumspect glance. “Ah... I still have more to bring up,” she explained her refusal. “Someone felt like it wasn’t his job to help me out, and I only have two hands.”

“Let me guess... That someone’s named Reno, right?”

Cissnei barked a laugh. “Got it in one. How did you know?”

“I had the pleasure of meeting him earlier.”

“Well, that explains it, then,” the female Turk said with a knowing nod. “Now, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

With that, she handed over the garment bags and walked away without a goodbye, leaving it to Lilly to deal with the grocery bags sitting on the floor in front of the doorway. She hardly had enough time to put everything away before the same knocking pattern let her know Cissnei was back. By now, Vincent had loosened up enough to lean back against the wall with his weapon out of sight, but Lilly didn’t think for a minute that he wasn’t ready to spring into action at the first sign of danger.

Cissnei was holding a few more bags this time around.

“I come bearing more gifts. Veld didn’t say it in so many words, but I caught on to the fact you arrived in Midgar with pretty much nothing. So... here are shoes. The boss still had his shoe size memorized for some reason, but let me know if yours don’t fit and I’ll exchange them. Also, I brought some toiletries, and--” She leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “underwear for both of you, new and still in their sealed packages. I had to guess the sizes there too since I only had the boss’ approximate measurements for your suits. I think his exact words were, ‘she looks the same as you, one of your old suits should fit her for now,’ and ‘the bastard’s as tall as me but scrawny as a beanpole, he’ll need something tailored to fit.’”

She did a good impersonification of Veld, Lilly had to admit, including his mannerism and general gruffness.

“I think I could kiss you,” Lilly said, meaning every word. “We have nothing but what we carried with us.”

“I’ll bring you shopping for more tomorrow after work if the boss allows it. I’ll even filch the departmental credit card first. As for any kissing... I‘m saving myself for my one true love, sorry.” She gave Lilly a cheeky grin.

She could get to really like Cissnei, Lilly thought as she felt her mouth twitch in amusement. The younger woman was practical, possessed a good capacity to think ahead, and could keep a cool head in all kinds of circumstances, being a senior Turk already in her early twenties. She could roll with the punches too, seeing as the presence of two weird Turks in the V.I.P. suite barely seemed to phase her.

“That sounds wonderful. Thank you.”

“Alright, then... I’ll see you at some point tomorrow, I’m sure. Good luck on your first day. Don’t let any of the boys push you around.” She coughed into her fist, “Reno” and smirked.

“Got it,” Lilly chuckled. “See you tomorrow.”

After she closed the door for the second time, she returned to the living room. “I’m preparing dinner,” she told Vincent. “I’ll be doing enough for two, so I hope you’ll eat some.” She didn’t make it a question, hoping it would make it harder for him to decline.

It still seemed like the idea of refusing crossed his mind, but in the end, he only said, “Finish putting your gun back together first.”

The woman staring back at Lilly from the bedroom’s full-length mirror was barely recognizable. Dressed in the Turks’ distinct black business suit, with its white dress shirt and dark tie, she looked... well, perhaps not exactly lethal, but like she meant business. Of the unpleasant kind.

The suit didn’t quite fit in the way it might have had it been tailored explicitly to her measurements, but it was close enough that the difference wasn’t noticeable unless you looked closely. What was noticeable on the other hand was the shoulder holster she also wore, which had come with the Turk uniform. Although less visible than the hip holster Vincent had given her back in Corel, it still appeared bulky under the suit jacket. No way anyone could look at her and not notice she was packing some serious heat under there.

As a last step before she left the room, she pulled up her hair and pinned it into a tight bun using some of the hair products Cissnei had left for her. There. It was out of the way and couldn’t easily be used against her in a fight--and wasn’t that just great, she was already thinking of possible weaknesses and she hadn’t even started her first day of work.

With a deep breath, she turned on her heels, leaving the bedroom and its mirror behind. She had only taken a few steps into the living room, however, when she stopped dead in her tracks, gaping at the tall man in black standing several feet away, waiting for her. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

It was the first time she saw Vincent wearing anything other than his shredded red cloak thrown over faded black clothes. How Veld had managed to find him a uniform that fit--including over his bronze gauntlet--in such a short amount of time, she didn’t know, but he’d done a smashing job of it. The smart business suit accentuated his tall-but-lean frame and wide shoulders, while also masking the fact that he was almost all skin and bones.

He had taken off the red scarf holding his hair out of his eyes, instead choosing to pull it back into a low queue held with what looked like a black leather cord. Some shorter strands had already escaped the tie’s confines and framed his pale, sharp-featured face in a fall of glossy black.

Now that she saw him for the first time without the high collar and scarf concealing a good part of his face, she realized just how terribly, heartbreakingly beautiful he was. Not even the otherworldliness of his faintly glowing carnelian eyes could diminish his allure in her mind.

She had known he was handsome, of course. She had spent all her time with him for the last several weeks, after all, but somehow it hadn’t hit her in the same way until now.

What a time to come to that realization, she thought as she felt her throat grow dry and her heart speed up.

“Lilly?” Vincent’s voice, deep and slightly hoarse and becoming oh so familiar to her, pulled her out of her daze.

Could he hear her heart suddenly thumping in her chest? She really hoped not. Not only would that lead to some awkward questions, but she doubted Vincent was in the right kind of headspace to welcome the idea that she might be attracted to him. And besides, there was also Lucrecia, and that kind of heartbreak wouldn’t heal any time soon.

It was the worst idea imaginable, at the worst possible time. She better put it out of her mind and not think of it anymore.

Struggling to get her mind back under control, Lilly managed to answer, “I’m ready. Should we head down?”

He shook his head. “Veld said someone would come to get us. They should be there soon, I expect. It’s almost 8:00.”

“How do I look,” she asked him nervously. She wasn’t even going to try to analyze why his opinion mattered so much to her. It just did.

“Like you are one of us,” he answered after a short silence. Time enough to think about an appropriate response, maybe.

Her smile was rather wobbly when she replied, “I guess it’s left to be seen if that’s a good thing or bad thing. But I’ll take it as a compliment.”

At that moment, someone knocked on the door, two short raps followed by silence. It wasn’t Cissnei; it didn’t sound like her at all. This time, Vincent went to open the door, leaving Lilly to stand several steps behind him with a clear view of the doorway--a clear view and more importantly still, a clear shot.

Shit. Was everything they did together going to be this way from now on? She wasn’t sure if that thought terrified her, or if she felt a kind of pride that Vincent trusted her to protect his back in this small way. Or perhaps he was simply falling back into his old habits as a Turk, used to having Veld as a partner instead of an inexperienced librarian.

She was already feeling thoroughly rattled when Vincent opened the door and greeted the man on the other side with a slight incline of his head. The Turk--younger than she was by at least a few years--wore his long black hair pulled back into a high ponytail and had what looked somewhat like a black bindi marking the center of his forehead. His eyes, dark as a moonless night and just as unfathomable, took both of them in. No expression crossed his delicate features, but he gave the impression that a shrewd mind was hard at work behind those bottomless eyes.

Cold. Calculating. Beautiful. Such was Tseng, second-in-command of the Turks. The man who would one day order the death of tens of thousands of citizens of Midgar by dropping a plate on them.

She hissed out a breath. “Tseng...”

One of Tseng’s eyebrows raised the tiniest bit. “Do we know each other,” were the first words he ever said to her.

Lilly gulped, realizing the mistake she’d just made. “Nope. Never met you before. I just wasn’t expecting Veld’s second-in-command to play errand boy this morning.”

Vincent didn’t miss a beat, fortunately, and added, “We were expecting that young female Turk from yesterday.”

Whatever he thought of this, Tseng made no comment. Instead, he turned his back to them and said, “Follow me,” before heading back toward the stairs leading down to the Turks’ offices without waiting to see if they followed him.

Chapter Text

Meeting Tseng for the first time had unnerved Lilly more than she anticipated. She hadn’t counted on her instant dislike of the Wutaian Turk, and even Vincent realized that something was bothering her. When he looked at her and raised an eyebrow in silent question, though, she shook her head and mouthed “later”.

There was no explaining her reaction without also revealing what she knew about the Turk’s future decisions, and as she’d told Veld the day before, that knowledge could hurt more than it helped. This Tseng didn’t deserve to be judged on events that might never occur--would never occur if she had anything to say about it.

Even if those future events said a lot about the kind of man he had the capacity to become...

She would need to hide her feelings better from now on, she decided, before Tseng caught on to her animosity and started asking her pointed questions. He was one man she never wanted to cross. He could make for a terrific ally, but an even more formidable enemy. Lilly knew which camp she wanted him in, even as she had a hard time getting past his hypothetical crimes.

In the end, though, he was a Turk. He already had blood on his hand. So did Vincent, for that matter. His missions with Veld before he made his way to Nibelheim had consisted of more than simple surveillance and protection, she knew.

What had he been doing halfway across the world on bodyguard detail and without his longtime partner, anyway? The games hadn’t offered an explanation for this, and she had no clue how to ask him about it. Maybe she should try Veld instead...

She rejected the idea the moment it crossed her mind. Veld was her superior now, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to try to wheedle information out of him about her new partner.

Lilly distracted herself with those musings until they reached the Turks’ offices, which consisted of an open plan series of desks with a few closed doors lining the wall at the back. One of those was Veld’s office. Another had to be Tseng’s. The third door probably led to a conference room, and the last one might hold computer equipment, or maybe filing cabinets.

All conversation ceased the moment they crossed the threshold. Several Turks, including Reno and Rude--sporting visible bandages that made her think he’d been wounded on a recent assignment--were already working at their desks. All of them stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at the newcomers. There were a few calls of “good morning, Mr. Valentine” and “good morning, sir” thrown around, along with assessing glances sent her way.

This must be what being put under a microscope felt like, she thought with some apprehension. She had a tough crowd to impress on her first day of work... unless they were all too busy being in awe of Veld’s fabled partner, that is. Although she’d attracted some attention, most of it was resolutely turned toward her companion.

“If it isn’t the legend himself, yo!” Reno’s voice resonated through the room, louder than anyone else’s. The guy really had no concept of an indoor voice. “See Rude, I told ya I wasn’t pulling your leg. Guy looks like a vampire,” he continued in his best stage whisper.

Rude didn’t say anything--not much of a surprise there--but nodded to Vincent with a lot more respect than his partner was showing the gunman.

Tseng cut in, a rather impressive scowl now marring his symmetrical features. “Reno, you have a report to finish writing. I expect it on my desk by nine this morning.”

“Urgh, you’re such a killjoy, Tseng,” Reno threw back without an ounce of remorse.

By then, they had reached the director’s office. Tseng knocked on the door and, when Veld bid them come in, he announced, “Vincent Valentine and Lillian Ashford here to see you, sir.”

He then bowed slightly at the pair in the Wutaian manner, “If you’ll excuse me,” and left them to return to his own office. Lilly was the one who ended up opening the door and peeking inside.

“Good morning,” she greeted Veld before stepping into the office.

The head of the Turks had been hard at work for some time already, it seemed. He had discarded his suit jacket at some point and rolled up his sleeves, as his office felt somewhat stuffy. Lilly’s eyes snagged on the sight of Veld’s left arm. It was made out of metal, not flesh, and a green materia stone shone faintly from a socket set in the joint at the elbow. How had she not noticed the prosthetic the day before? Of course, she’d been preoccupied, but even so she shouldn’t have been this oblivious.

But then she recalled that he’d been wearing gloves, which she hadn’t thought much of at the time. Paired with a suit jacket tailored to hide the fact that his left arm was bulkier than his right and the prosthetic would have been almost impossible to discern. No wonder he’d found something for Vincent to wear so easily. It might even have been one of his own jackets he’d had taken in to fit Vincent’s leaner frame.

Lilly wasn’t the only one to have noticed Veld’s metal arm. Her new partner was also staring at it, his expression hard to decipher. “What happened,” he asked after a few seconds.

Veld’s smile turned pained, and he grimaced. “It’s a long story, and it’s definitely too early in the morning for it. Ask me some other time, preferably after a few strong drinks.”

Vincent’s eyes met hers for an instant, and she shook her head. For once, she had no idea what this was about. She remembered little about Veld and his story, as he had not been a part of the main games.

Before she could think about it too much, Veld brought her attention back to the present. “I need a little more information from you to finish up the official paperwork. Better stick as close to the truth as you can make it. I’ve already put your hometown as Nibelheim.”

Lilly shrugged. “That’s fine with me.” It was close enough to the truth, after all. “What else do you need?”

“Date of birth?”

“June 11th...” Her voice trailed off as she quickly calculated. She was turning thirty this year, so that meant-- “1970.”

Veld definitely noticed her hesitation, but he typed the information down without comment.

“Height is around 5 foot 4 or so, correct?”

“Yes, and I weight 130lbs... before you ask. Need anything else? Pets’ names? Blood type?”

Veld smirked at her tartness. “That’s all I needed.”

He typed a few more things into his computer before closing the program he was using and moving to a small printer set in a corner of the office. It spitted out a couple of plastic cards of a size similar to ID cards back on Earth. The perfect size to put in a wallet. He brought them back to his desk and put them on top of two brand new PHS and handed one of the stacks to each of them.

“Here you go. Shinra employee cards, official driver’s licenses, passports, bank cards, and new PHS. Best damn encryption technology we have, or so Hacker tells me. I’m not much for electronics myself,” he told them as he handed them the devices and their new IDs.

“Ohhh, new phone,” Lilly crooned, just now realizing how much she’d missed having a cellphone. Who knew what had happened to the one she’d carried before she arrived on Gaia. She would need to relearn how to use one, but hopefully, it wouldn’t be too different from what she was used to. Who knew how technology here functioned.

Vincent took his own PHS gingerly and held it in front of him like he didn’t know quite what to do with it. Veld and Lilly realized almost at the same time what the issue was. Veld slapped his forehead and grumbled, “Of course, you’d have no idea what that is; PHS weren’t around twenty years ago.”

He sighed. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Let me finish setting Lilly up for her training today, and then I’ll go over everything with you. You got a lot of catch up to do.”

It might also do them some good to spend time together again without her playing third fiddle, Lilly thought, even if she would miss Vincent’s presence after spending all her days with him for the last several weeks. Hell, it might do her some good to spend time apart from him too, if her reaction to him earlier was any indication.

“Lilly?”

She jumped. “Yes, sir?”

“You didn’t hear a word I just said, did you?”

Lilly felt a deep flush rise to her cheeks at Veld’s admonishment. She had not been listening, that was true, and she was now being called out on it. “Ah. Sorry, sir. That won’t happen again,” she said quickly, trying her damned best not to squirm.

If he only knew where her thoughts had been drifting...

He snorted. “Being easily distractible is not a good trait for a Turk. It could get you or your partner killed.”

She looked down and winced. “Understood,” she replied, feeling thoroughly chastised by this reminder that she was expected to have Vincent’s back at all time, and not just her own.

She didn’t see Veld exchange a look and a smirk with Vincent, and by the time she dared to glance back up at him, he had returned to his usual professional self.

“As I was saying, I’ve scheduled you for unharmed combat training with Reno’s partner Rude, now that he’s back on active duty. He’s the best instructor we have. Vincent tells me you don’t know much about hand-to-hand...”

With a shrug, Lilly replied, “I’m in good physical shape, but otherwise not really. Other than practicing katas with a martial arts master back in Nibelheim, I’ve never learned to do any close-quarter fighting.” When would she have had the opportunity? She was a librarian, not a soldier--or a trained Turk.

“It’s a start. You’ll practice two hours every morning for the time being, unless Rude is away on business. Vincent’ll continue to oversee your training with firearms--you’re also welcome to use the practice range at any time, like the rest of the team.”

Lilly was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed, but she nodded. “Okay,” was her attempt at an intelligent response. Good thing Veld was not expecting anything more.

The Turks’ Director got to his feet and made his way to the door, gesturing for them to precede him back out into the main office while he continued speaking, “I’ll have Cissnei sit down with you this afternoon and go over the basics: protocols, procedures, computer log-ins, the usual. Any questions?”

“Not really a question, but I’ve been thinking... I want to try approaching some of the SOLDIERs soon. The Firsts will be hard to pin down, but I’m thinking of a young Second called Zack Fair. I know he’s the protege of Angeal Hewley--”

“Did someone say Zack Fair,” Reno’s exclamation interrupted them like some sort of vocal jack-in-the-box.

“Reno,” Veld growled. “What have I told you about eavesdropping?”

“Only to be done on the targets, boss,” the young red-head replied in a sing-song voice. He did not sound sorry at all. “But back to Zack, what do you want with the guy?”

“Do you know him,” Lilly asked, surprised.

“You betcha. Me, Zack, and a bunch of others, we go drinking almost every Friday night. Unwinding after dealing with assholes all week, ya know.”

Reno was friends with Zack? Now, that was news. But also perfect for what Lilly had in mind. “Can I join you next time?”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Sure thing, sugar.”

She rolled her eyes so hard she almost saw the inside of her own skull. “What did I say about that nickname... sweetcheeks.”

“Oh yes... keep talking dirty to me, yo. I like it!”

Shiva’s tits, as Veld would say. The guy was relentless. And took nothing seriously.

Still standing beside Lilly like a storm cloud dressed in a business suit, Veld cleared his throat. Loudly. “Rude,” he said to Reno’s partner. “I’ve already explained to Lilly that you’d be taking over her hand-to-hand combat training from now on. You can use the usual training room.”

“Nice to meet you,” she told Rude in a polite voice. She had to crane her neck to look him in the eyes--or would have anyway if he hadn’t been wearing his signature sunglasses even in the office. Gaia, but he was a giant compared to her five foot four, easily several inches taller than Vincent.

Rude unbent enough to reply with a low-voiced “hello”, making her wonder not for the first time if the Turk was shy, or simply a man of a few words. Hopefully, he’d become a little more talkative while training her, or it would quickly become a problem.

Satisfied that they both had their marching orders for the day, Veld turned to Vincent. “Now, I got a few more things to go over with you...”

Reno threw his arm around Lilly’s shoulders, heedless of Vincent’s irked glare and Lilly exasperated one. “That’s our cue, so let’s go,” he said, obviously intending to tag along to her first training session with Rude.

Oh... but that wouldn’t work. She was in no mood to have an audience while getting pummeled by Rude. Especially not when that audience was called Reno and couldn’t help but be an ass. She gave the red-head standing too close to her her most dazzling fake smile. “Don’t you have a report to write, Reno? Tseng said he wants it on his desk by 9:00, and it’s almost 8:30 now...”

Reno immediately turned to his partner, looking insulted, and whined. “Rude, you heard that, right? She’s picking on me, yo. I’m the senior Turk here and she’s picking on me!”

“That’s cute, Reno. Real cute,” she replied, not missing a beat.

He winked. “And don’t you know it.” Finally, he stepped away from her again. “See ya tomorrow night, then. I’ll be waiting in the lobby at 21:00. Wear something sexy, yo.”

She waited until he had returned to his desk and started putting on a show of working very diligently on his report before she followed Rude to the training room.

Just as she had promised, Cissnei brought Lilly to buy a new wardrobe after they were done working for the day. And just as she’d told her, the younger Turk “borrowed” the departmental credit card, assuring Lilly that their little shopping spree wouldn’t even register to Shinra’s accountants, seeing as they were already used to seeing prostitutes’ fees and hush money on the card’s monthly statement.

Lilly felt better once she was the proud new owner of several pairs of pants that fit and were free of dirt, a bevy of shirts and socks, a few sports bras, and even a pair of pajamas. She also bought a few things for Vincent, with Cissnei there to help her gauge his size. He hadn’t asked for anything when she mentioned the shopping trip, but he possessed even fewer clothes than she did. She couldn’t quite see him wearing the dark jeans and long-sleeved v-neck shirts she got for him, though, and told Cissnei as much.

The younger woman bit her lower lip and started to giggle, of all things. “Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?” She’d only ever seen the man twice in passing, but he’d managed to make quite the impression on her nonetheless.

“Doesn’t he ever intimidate you,” she asked once she got her laughter back under control.

Lilly thought about it for a few seconds before shaking her head. Did he ever intimidate her? Maybe... for a few moments when he’d first demanded she explained how she knew him, but that hadn’t lasted long. “He’s a kind man,” she said simply.

“Really? According to the boss, he’s the epitome of everything a Turk should be, and “kind” is the last thing I’d use to describe one of us.”

“I think Veld might be wearing rose-colored glasses where Vincent is concerned.”

“Rose-colored--” For a few seconds, Cissnei looked confused by Lilly’s use of the idiom. Did it not exist on Gaia? But then the younger Turk nodded. “Oh. Never heard it described that way, but I think I see what you mean. You might be right about it. I can’t understand why he thought the man was dead, though. He doesn’t look dead to me, although it probably wouldn’t hurt if you got a few good meals into him. And some sun.”

“I can’t talk about it, sorry. It’s not my story to tell.”

“Eh, no worry, I wasn’t looking for an explanation. We Turks all keep secrets. That’s just one more of them.”

By the time they returned to the Tower, Lilly thought she had made some inroads into making a new friend. She liked Cissnei just as much as she thought she would. The woman was funny and didn’t ask too many questions that Lilly couldn’t answer, content to steer their conversation toward lighter subjects. She wouldn’t put it past Veld to have tasked the female Turk to keep an eye on her, but she wouldn’t worry about it for the moment and simply enjoy the company of the other woman.

Cissnei walked Lilly all the way back to the apartment door, giving some credence to the idea that this shopping trip hadn’t only been recreational on her part--unless it just was one of those Turks things--and bid her a good evening before leaving.

“I’m back,” Lilly announced as she opened the door using the keycard Veld had left for her earlier in the day.

Vincent was nowhere to be found when she stepped inside. She frowned, wondering if he had returned to the apartment yet, considering she hadn’t seen him since that morning.

“Vincent,” she called out.

A low mumble coming from somewhere deeper into the apartment answered her. What--

Her frown deepening, Lilly tiptoed farther inside the living room, her hand slipping inside her jacket to hover defensively over her gun holster. Could there be something wrong? Or was this a case of the Turks’ general paranoia already infecting her?

Eventually, she found the gunman in the bathroom, unharmed. He stood in front of the mirror holding a pair of scissors in his flesh hand and scowling down at it. Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline at the unexpected sight.

“Is something wrong,” she asked after a moment of hesitation.

The horrible notion that he might be thinking about hurting himself crossed her mind, but before she figured out what she could do about it, he said, “My hair is too long. It’s been bothering me and hindering my vision.”

Oh. So that’s what this was about, she thought with an internal sigh of relief.

Vincent was still staring at the scissors in his hand with what she could only describe as a despondent look, and wasn’t moving.

“Do... you need any help,” she asked him after an even longer moment of hesitation.

Finally, he growled, sounding frustrated. “I can’t--” he started saying, and flexed his clawed hand without finishing his sentence.

“The claw’s making it difficult,” she realized almost at once. “Want me to do it for you? I don’t know how good of a job I can do, but seeing as you’ve been trying to do it yourself, I guess a barber or hairdresser is out of the question.”

He did not look at her, not even through his reflection in the mirror, when he admitted, “I don’t like the idea of someone I don’t know wielding a sharp object this close to my neck.”

“Makes sense,” she replied like it was the most normal thing in the world to be wary of hairdressers and their pointy scissors. He shouldn’t feel any shame for having issues with strangers wielding potentially lethal tools close to his jugular. “Will you trust me with the scissors, then?”

She waited, holding her breath. It could be that he didn’t trust her enough, either. She promised herself not to feel hurt if he refused her offer.

At long last, he turned around to face her and handed her the scissors with a nod. This show of trust floored her, and her hand shook slightly when she took them from him. She hoped he didn’t notice it.

“Alright so, huh... first thing first, we’ll need to get your hair wet. It’ll make things easier.”

They ended up in the kitchen, which was barely big enough to contain both of them. After taking his jacket and tie off--the left sleeve of his white dress shirt was rolled up to the elbow to accommodate the gauntlet, Lilly saw--and opening the first two buttons of his shirt, Vincent leaned over the kitchen sink at her instruction. He let her run warm water over his head, and she used the shampoo and conditioner she’d brought from the bathroom to wash his hair.

She ran her fingers through the long uneven strands to squeeze out the suds, feeling like she was having a very strange dream. Of all the things she thought she’d be doing at the end of her first day as a Turk, this wasn’t anywhere close to it.

“All done,” she said after a while, and she was shocked to hear how breathy her own voice sounded.

Lilly cleared her throat self-consciously and stepped away from Vincent to give him enough space to straighten back up. The two undone buttons of his shirt offered her a quick glimpse of a pale expanse of flesh marred by at least one long ropy scar, but he closed the gap before she could see more. He struggled with the task for a few seconds, but he eventually managed to close the buttons using only one hand and in such a way that he must have practiced doing so before.

Realizing that she was staring, Lilly turned around and pulled one of the kitchen chairs in front of her. “Sit down, please,” she said politely, almost formally.

While he did so, she grabbed the towel she’d also brought from the bathroom and started sponging off the excess water from his hair. Once this was done, she picked up a hairbrush and went to work combing through the tangles. Vincent sat utterly still through it all, letting her do as she pleased. When she glanced over his shoulder at his face, she was stunned to find out that he had closed his eyes at some point and his expression appeared serene. Either he was very good at hiding his discomfort, or he actually found this relaxing in that way some people did.

“I really like your long hair,” she eventually broke the silence.

And then she wondered why she’d just blurted that out. Really, though, it would be a shame to cut it all off now, although she understood his issues with it.

Vincent grunted. “Just cut enough of it that it’s more manageable for me.”

“Okay.” That, she could do.

The twenty years he’d spent in that coffin had left Vincent’s hair a bit of an unruly mess, which almost reached his lower back at its longest point. She could easily take a good eight to ten inches out of it and still leave it more than long enough to tie back. For anything more elaborate, however, he would need someone who knew what they were doing better than she did.

She made him bend his head forward and went to work, the snip-snip of the scissors the only sound in the apartment for the next while.

Chapter Text

Reno was going to be disappointed, Lilly thought as she glanced at herself int he bathroom mirror. She was not wearing a sexy dress to the Friday night bar crawl. Actually, she didn’t own any kind of dress, hadn’t thought of buying one on her shopping trip, and wouldn’t receive her first paycheck for another two weeks. So, she wore jeans instead--at least they were new and tight enough the red-headed lecher might just approve--along with a floral button-down shirt that was as far from her work uniform as she could have made it. Her hair was down for once, making her look younger and softer.

She stopped once she reached the living room and raised both eyebrows at the sight that greeted her there. Vincent was sitting on the couch that served as his sleeping spot--she had yet to get him to use the bedroom in spite of his lukewarm agreement to switch with her every night--as though he was waiting for her to finish getting ready. He still wore his Turk suit, although he had taken off the jacket and tie. Just like the last time she saw him without his jacket on he had rolled up the sleeve of white dress shirt to accommodate his metal gauntlet.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him about it, but he looked mostly relaxed for once, and in a good enough mood that she didn’t want to spoil it with her curiosity. He would open up--or not--in his own time, she told herself.

“Are you coming too,” she asked him instead.

They hadn’t really discussed the bar outing before now, but she had presumed he wouldn’t be coming along with her. Crowded bars just didn’t seem like his kind of scene. To be perfectly honest, they weren’t hers either--hadn’t been since her university years--but if it allowed her to make friends with Zack Fair, she would visit all the bars in the city if necessary.

In lieu of an answer, Vincent got to his feet and walked to the door, grabbing his jacket from where he had laid it down on the couch’s back. She noticed he was still wearing his weapon, even though they were not on duty anymore. She had left hers in the bedroom; there was no way she was packing heat for an evening out. She wasn’t quite that paranoid just yet, and she couldn’t imagine being in any kind of danger while hanging out with a bunch of enhanced SOLDIERs--and now Vincent too.

“It is important to you to meet this Zack Fair,” he eventually said, a hint of curiosity in his tone.

Lilly nodded. “I can’t tell you all the details, but Zack also had an important role to play in the stories I know. More importantly, though, he is close to Commander Angeal Hewley. If we want to get in contact with the Firsts, he’s a good person to befriend. I know Veld is looking for proof right now, but it might take a while and we don’t have a lot of time left, so I thought a two-pronged approach would work best.”

“It is a good idea. Otherwise, Veld would have said something.”

“Oh, really,” she replied with a small smirk. “Don’t think he could have changed my mind, boss or not.”

Truth was, she really wanted to meet Zack and learn for herself if his nickname of “puppy” was the real deal. She simply hoped she wouldn’t make a fool of herself, as she knew how the young SOLDIER would die a horrible death in a few years if she failed with her plan.

A small crooked smile floated on Vincent’s lips, snagging then holding her attention until it faded again. She blinked.

“Okay, time to go. It’s already passed nine, and Reno is probably waiting for me downstairs,” she said quickly.

Reno was already waiting for her in the Tower lobby, also wearing civilian clothing consisting of a pair of faded jeans and a leather jacket thrown over a t-shirt sporting a logo she didn’t recognize. His eyebrows disappeared under his ever-present goggles when he caught sight of Vincent a step behind her. “Yo,” he greeted them with a wave. “Didn’t think Silent and Deadly here would be coming with us.”

Lilly groaned. “Reno, do you know what a filter is? You don’t need to spout out everything that goes through your mind, you know.”

Reno’s answering grin was positively devilish. “Filter? Nope, never heard of it.”

He made for wrapping his arm around her shoulders again, but this time she deftly sidestepped him and started walking toward the exit.

“Sooo...” The red-head hurried to catch up with her, leaving Vincent to follow them at a more leisurely pace. “Why do you want to meet with Zack so much, anyway? Isn’t he a bit young for ya? How old are you anyway?”

She rolled her eyes. “Filter, Reno. And stop fishing.”

“Awww, come on, yo. You can tell me.”

“Turk business,” she finally said, not knowing how else to explain her interest without actually saying anything about her reasons for it. “Ask the boss if you really want to know.”

Her curt reply had the effect of making Reno stop short in his tracks and stare at her for several seconds before he resumed walking. He had not been expected that answer, it seemed. Especially as she’d been a Turk for all of forty-eight hours now.

“Ooookay, then, hot-shot.”

He gave her a shrewd look, and Lilly had to remind herself that the young Turk was no idiot, whatever facade he decided to project to the world. Now that she had piqued his interest, she doubted he would stop trying to figure out what her deal was anytime soon.

“Just leave it alone, Reno. It’s our night off and I’m looking forward to a beer or two.”

Reno opened his mouth to say something probably obnoxious, but one look at Vincent, who had rejoined them and was now walking beside Lilly, seemed to change his mind and he snapped it shut again. Fortunately for her, the bar they were heading to wasn’t very far from the Shinra Tower--at the corner of 3rd and Loveless Avenue, actually, the name of which she of course recognized--and the silence didn’t have time to grow awkward by the time they got there.

The first thing to hit her when Reno pushed the door open was the noise of many people talking at the same time, raucous laughter, and the clinks of glasses. Normal sounds for a Friday night at the bar, but she had become unused to so much noise in the last few months, and she almost recoiled. She stole a glance at Vincent, who must be feeling much the same as her, if not worst, but had put on what she was starting to recognize as his “Turk face”: expressionless; unreadable.

The place wasn’t unlike a pub back on Earth. Dark furniture, muted lighting, a bar with several high stools on one side with a television playing in the corner, tables scattered around the rest of the space, servers weaving around the patrons with orders of fried food and drinks. The sight was familiar enough to bring a smile to her lips once she got used to the level of noise.

“Reno, man, this way,” a male voice called out to the red-headed Turk over the din of the crowd.

Lilly’s head snapped in the direction of that call, and she inhaled sharply when her eyes found the tall, black-haired young man gesturing at them from a circular table at the back of the room, where he sat along with a couple more people. He wore the navy blue fatigues of a second-class SOLDIER instead of civilian clothing, but his sword was nowhere to be seen.

Zack.

He looked even younger than she imagined he would. How old was he at this point in the timeline? He couldn’t be more than seventeen, could he? Truly, he was was the puppy he was nicknamed after, and just as exuberant as the game portrayed him if his infectious grin was any indication.

In a bit of a daze, she followed Reno to their table, and she and Vincent received enthusiastic greetings from the small group already there.

“Who’re the new guys,” asked another of the young SOLDIERs--he introduced himself as Kunsel, which didn’t help Lilly’s budding heartache. “Never seen them around before.”

“That’s Lilly and Vince. They just started with the department this week,” Reno announced. “Thought I’d show them a good time tonight, yo.”

Vince? Lilly winced. She very much doubted Vincent appreciated that shortening of his first name. Not that Reno cared, of course.

“New blood, eh?” Zack got up and trusted his arm out. “How do you do? I’m Zack Fair, SOLDIER second-class. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands, the young SOLDIER’s callused hand dwarfing hers. “Kunsel’s already introduced himself, and the shy one in the corner there is Luxiere.

“It’s nice to meet you all,” Lilly replied with feeling. “Lilly Ashford. And that’s my partner, Vincent Valentine.”

Zack sat back down on and scooted aside to free some space beside him for her. “Come on, sit down. Reno, get something for the pretty lady, will you?”

“What am I now, your gofer,” The Turk scoffed.

Zack ignored him completely and asked her, “What do you want to drink?”

Lilly snorted, amused at being hit on by a guy who would still be in high school if this was Earth. “Just a beer will be fine.”

“Beer all around, then. Make it two, Reno.”

The red-head cursed at the black-haired SOLDIER, but he complied readily enough, returning several minutes later holding two pitchers full of foaming amber liquid. He slapped them down in front of Zack with a glare and went to spawl down on one of the last two available chairs, leaving Vincent to use the other.

“So, where are you from, Lilly,” Zack inquired once everyone was sipping their drinks.

“Most recently? Nibelheim. Village in the middle of nowhere west of the Nibel Mountains.”

“Oh, a country girl after my own heart. I’m a country boy myself, you know.”

“From where,” she found herself asking.

“Me? Gongaga.”

She simply couldn’t help it. She started chuckling at the huge grin he gave her.

“Hey, what’s so funny about that! You know Gongaga?”

She froze for an instant, her sense that she was playing someone else’s role suddenly so strong that she had to look around to reassure herself that she was still sitting in a crowded bar, in Midgar.

“Huh... no, but it’s such a backwater name,” she said, not immediately recognizing that she was still parroting another’s words, from a time that might never come.

Would Cloud and Zack ever meet, now that she had started meddling into their future? And why did the idea made her so sad when it was for the best, as it meant that Zack would never need to go to Modeoheim to investigate Genesis Rhapsodos?

“Ditto Nibelheim,” Zack continued to defend his hometown, oblivious to the fact that his seatmate had lost her smile and grown a few shades paler.

To clear her head, Lilly grabbed her glass and downed almost half its content at once, eliciting some raised eyebrows from her companions.

“Hmm, you okay,” Zack said. “Did I say something wrong, or--”

“Nope. It’s just been a long week and I really needed that beer.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Kunsel, fortunately, cut in and clinked his glass with hers. “Tonight, we drink to asshole superiors and irritating paperwork!”

The rest of the group, except for Vincent, echoed the cheer and drank their beer.

Luxiere spoke up for the first time. “Eh, Zack, you heard anything about Commander Hewley yet?”

Zack shook his head, his expressive face turning into a worried frown. “No. No news from ‘Geal. I know the situation in Wutai’s volatile and communications can be challenging, but I really wish I knew what’s going on. I still don’t see why I wasn’t deployed along with him; I’m his trainee after all.”

“You thought about asking the general?”

“Sephiroth? Are you insane? I only ever met the man once when I made Second, and he barely said two words to me. And then you know how they’re always keeping him away from us rabble, even if he’s supposed to be our commanding officer. I wouldn’t be able to talk to him even if I wanted to.”

Lilly exchanged a glance with Vincent. She didn’t know who “they” were, but it was interesting--and slightly worrying--to learn that Sephiroth was kept isolated even from the rest of SOLDIER. It might make their mission more difficult if they couldn't gain access to him.

“You’re Commander Hewley’s mentee, aren’t you,” she asked the young SOLDIER when he finished speaking.

“You got that right.”

No further prompting was required for Zack to launch into a series of funny anecdotes about the man he called ‘Geal. It quickly became clear how much he respected the other SOLDIER, and he had a hard time hiding his concern about the Commander’s safety as he was the only First currently fighting in Wutai.

Lilly let the others’ conversation flow around her after that, happy to simply listen to them talk about their weeks and other inconsequential subjects while she drank the rest of her beer. At one point, Reno’s voice caught her attention, just as he said to Vincent, “You really the same age as Veld? For real? They got some real good genes in your family, yo.”

Vincent did not dignify that observation with an answer, so the red-head turned his attention to her next. “Where’d you find him anyway? A coffin?”

Lilly answered with a completely straight face, “I could tell you, I guess, but then I’d have to kill you.” She held up her glass at him. “Cheers!”

Reno looked taken aback for a second before he started laughing so hard he bent over the table, holding on to his stomach as tears pooled in his eyes. “You had me going for a sec there,” he wheezed. “Silent and Deadly been rubbing off on ya.”

“Who says it was a joke? “

“Come on, sugar. Don’t be like that.”

“One of these days, Reno, you’ll annoy the wrong person. I might even be that wrong person...”

The three SOLDIERs who were observing the scene wore similarly puzzled expressions as they listened to that exchange. “Man, Turks are weird,” Kunsel commented, to which Zack nodded in agreement.

A while later, somehow, the discussion turned to the subject of food, or more specifically the lack of good home-cooked meals for young, still-growing SOLDIERs. Zack punctuated his enthusiastic recollections of his mother’s cooking with wild wavings of his arms, threatening to slap Lilly a time or two before she could get him to stop gesticulating so much.

Laughter rang around the table, and even Vincent didn’t seem to mind the boisterous atmosphere too much, even though it must be grating on his sensitive hearing.

The beer had continued to flow freely while they talked, although it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the SOLDIERs--and Vincent had barely touched his. Lilly thought she had stayed circumspect in her drinking, but maybe it hadn’t been enough, as she found herself saying, “You know... I live in an apartment at the Tower--”

“They have civilian housing at the Tower?” Kunsel interrupted, which got him shushed by Luxiere with a “Turks aren’t exactly civilians, Kunsel.”

She shrugged. “At least some. Anyway, I was thinking... why don’t you and the others come to my place next Saturday. I have a kitchen, I could cook something.”

It was a fantastic idea if she said so herself. Make is a weekly tradition and she’d have regular contact with the SOLDIERs that wasn’t at a noisy bar. Maybe she could even get some of the Firsts to attend at some point.

She didn’t miss Reno’s curious and somewhat calculating glance, and she added sweetly, “You’re invited, of course. Bring Rude as well. Hell, I might invite Cissnei too so it’s not just guys.”

Cheers went up from the small group of SOLDIERs at the idea, and the men immediately went into planning mode, promising to bring drinks and dessert for everyone if she provided the main course. And that’s how she found herself on the cusp of hosting her first pot luck since arriving on Gaia for a bunch of SOLDIERs and Turks, and unable to stop smiling about it.

Zack leaned toward her at some point and flashed her one of his signature grins. “It’s so sweet of you to agree to feed us. Are you sure you’re in the right place amongst the Turks? You don’t look like... you know...”

“A cold-blooded killer?”

“Exactly.”

“And Reno looks like an idiot. And yet...”

Zack guffawed and pointed at Vincent. “Well, he looks like he could kill me and not think twice about it...”

“But he won’t,” Lilly replied, immediately feeling protective even though Zack hadn’t been serious.

“He might just kill Reno, though,” Kunsel noted with a smirk.

Whatever Reno had just told Vincent, the older man was now looking at him like he’d like to shut his mouth for him. That was a feat, as the gunman rarely showed his irritation in such a visible manner. Lilly rolled her eyes. “Reno has that effect on people.”

Kunsel chuckled. “How long have you known him?”

“Forty-eight hours or so?”

“Oh, ya. That would be long enough, all right.”

She pushed her chair back from the table and got up, surprised to find herself swaying a bit as she did. She might have had a little more to drink than she should have. “And it’s a sign that we should leave, I think, before Reno really puts his foot in it and we have to scrape him off the floor.”

“Hey Lilly, what are you doing tomorrow night,” Zack inquired as she was about to ask Vincent if he was ready to go. When she turned around and stared at him, he grinned back and waggled his eyebrows. “I’m on leave. We could go out, just you and I.”

“Zack,” she chided him with a laugh and a shake of her head. “You’re cute, but I’m not into robbing the cradle.”

And he didn’t know it yet, but there existed a very sweet girl waiting for him down in the slums of Sector 5. Even if nothing else happened according to the original timeline, she’d make sure he and Aerith met at some point. Their relationship might never amount to anything more than a fleeting teenage romance, but at least they would have the chance to find out this time.

Her rejection got Zack roasted by his friends and allowed Lilly to gently touch Vincent’s right arm while no one was paying attention. She nodded toward the door and said in a low voice, “Let’s go?” knowing he would hear her even over the other’s shouts.

The gunman nodded and got back to his feet without a word. She waved at the rest of their group before making her way to the exit, Vincent close behind her. The night’s cooler air breezed over her the moment she stepped outside, and she sighed in relief. “I’m getting too old for this,” she said, earning herself a side-glance from her companion.

“How are you holding on,” she continued. “It was damn loud in there. I was starting to get a headache.” And it had been crowded too. It must not have been pleasant for him, but he had endured it most stoically.

That fleeting smile made its reappearance on his lips, looking a little bit surprised and a little bit pleased that she would ask. “I’ve worked in worse conditions before,” he said after a few seconds.

“Well, I for one am ready to return to the quiet of our apartment.”

Walking side by side on the empty sidewalk, they made their way back to the Tower in companionable silence. Lilly looked up for a moment, but the stars weren’t visible in the too-polluted sky and even the moon wasn’t much more than a pale, hazy version of the one she’d gotten used to seeing while traveling in the wilderness. She somewhat missed it, although she knew she wouldn’t be leaving Midgar again anytime soon, considering the current situation.

By now, she was so attuned to Vincent’s subtle body language that she could tell when he was scanning the night for threats, ever watchful, without having to look at him. Luckily for Midgar’s criminal population, however, they met with nothing more dangerous than a passing stray cat--who took one look at them, hissed, and decamped as fast as its legs could take it--and before long they were taking the elevator back to their current home.

It was with a huge yawn that Lilly opened the door and stepped inside. After taking her shoes off, she made a beeline for the couch and plopped down on it without allowing Vincent the opportunity to protest. “You get the bed tonight. I’m sleeping here.”

She grabbed the folded blanket and pillow from under the coffee table where Vincent stored them during the day and made herself comfortable. “Good night,” she said and closed her eyes.

With a deep sigh, Vincent left her to it, knowing she could be just as stubborn as he knew Veld to be when she wanted to. He knew how to choose his battles, and this wasn’t one of them. Steeling himself for another restless night, if he even slept at all, he walked into the apartment’s lone bedroom.

Lilly wouldn’t realize until much later how Vincent’s enhanced sense of smell would pick up on her presence all over the place, and especially on the sheets and pillow...

Chapter Text

Why had she ever thought for a moment that preparing a meal for a bunch of hungry SOLDIERs was a good idea? She could barely manage to cook at the best of time. Vincent could testify as to her failed experiments, after a little more than a week of sharing meals. She cursed at the recipe book opened in front of her--an emergency purchase from the day before--and glared at the vegetables on her cutting board.

From her spot on the couch in the living room, Cissnei laughed at her. Vincent had long ago made himself scarce, knowing how she got when she was in the kitchen.

“Need any help,” the younger Turk asked, still smirking.

“No,” Lilly growled back.

“Suit yourself. When are you expecting your SOLDIER friends to get here?”

Lilly glanced at the clock on the wall and started cursing again. It was later than she’d realized. “Thirty minutes,” she eventually replied with a groan.

“Are you sure you don’t want any help?”

“Oh, For fuck’s sake-- fine. Otherwise, I’ll never finish this in time.”

She had chosen to prepare something that reminded her of an Asian-inspired stir-fry, thinking it would be easy to make enough of it to feed everyone, but she might have overestimated her non-existent cooking skills.

Cissnei waltzed into the kitchen and took away the kitchen knife Lilly was holding like it had personally offended her. “Give me that, you’re a menace with it,” she commented, pushing Lilly out of the way so she could start slicing up the vegetables. “Good thing you’re not thinking of using a knife as your main weapon. Now, tell me again why you thought it was a good idea to throw a dinner party when you obviously can’t cook?”

“I was drunk, okay. It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Lilly grumbled.

Truthfully, she hadn’t been drunk--well, maybe a little buzzed--when she’d offered, and she definitely had an ulterior motive. But she’d also been looking forward to it, at least until the time came for the actual meal preparation. Now, she regretted not ordering pizza instead, even if she had promised everyone a home-cooked dinner.

Cissnei laughed again. “And where did that partner of yours disappear to? You share the apartment, right?”

Gossip traveled just as fast amongst the Turks as anywhere else, it seemed, seeing as Cissnei was already aware of their living arrangement. It definitely wasn’t something they’d advertised, although it wasn’t that uncommon a situation. Reno and Rude also shared an apartment, she’d learned, although she could barely wrap her mind around how the two of them could be roommates and not have killed each other after a week.

“Probably hanging out on one of the Tower’s higher levels. He knows better than to stick around when I’m cooking, I’m afraid.”

When she had first noticed Vincent disappearing from the apartment every evening, she’d had no idea where he was going, and she worried. That is, until one night a few days ago when she decided to follow him from afar. It soon became clear that this was a terrible idea, as the crazy man took the stairs all the way up to the sixtieth floor, instead of the elevator. When Lilly eventually found him again, he had made his way to the roof using one of the emergency exit doors and sat on a narrow ledge overlooking the city two hundred meters below. This high above the ground the wind blew fiercely, and the sight of it pulling at Vincent’s hair and clothes was enough to give her vertigo in spite of her experience with rock-climbing. But he didn’t seem to mind it, or the danger of a fall that would certainly kill even him.

She stayed inside, observing him through one of the bay windows, for a while longer but he never moved and didn’t appear to notice her presence. Eventually, she returned to their apartment, figuring that he needed this time on his own, and she didn’t mention anything to him the next morning.

“Ah, I see. Is he coming back?”

Lilly shrugged. “No idea. He’s not really fond of parties, I think.” She would leave food for him in the refrigerator and hope that he would eat it later on.

At least, he had begun eating one good meal a day, most days. Either out of pity or simply because he didn’t feel like arguing about it with her, he had become her guinea pig for all her cooking attempts, good and bad. And cooking for two was better than doing it for herself alone, so she was also eating better than she would otherwise.

This strange new life she had been coerced into--hand-to-hand-combat training followed by target practice in the mornings; theory on surveillance or some other similar subject, and paperwork in the afternoons; evenings at home cooking for her quiet roommate--was beginning to feel almost normal.

Lilly was busy manning the wok--another emergency purchase--while Cissnei supervised when the first knock came. Soon, the apartment was filled with people, as three SOLDIERs and two more Turks invaded the space with their boisterous presence. The food was... okay, although not great, and the SOLDIERs ate an industrial quantity of it, to the point that she had to hide Vincent’s portion or it would have disappeared too. They shared Banora hard cider and conversation in equal measure, and by the time everyone left again, they had promised to make it a weekly event and to invite a few other young SOLDIERs of their acquaintance.

Sitting on the couch and feeling utterly exhausted, Lilly was grinning from ear to ear when Vincent finally returned, looking windblown but otherwise calm. He raised an eyebrow when he saw her. “Everything went according to plan, I expect?”

“Yup.” She yawned. “Commander Hewley shouldn’t be in Wutai for that much longer--” All three Firsts needed to be in Midgar together before the incident in the Training room could take place. “--and when he does come back, I’m hoping to talk Zack into inviting him to one of our Saturday night dinners.”

Getting close to her target through ordinary domestic activities. This at least was easy enough; she felt only slightly guilty about using Zack in this way as she genuinely liked him. But she told herself that, in the end, it would save his mentor’s life so he would hopefully forgive her in time. Cissnei would be proud if she knew what Lilly was actually doing. But she didn’t. The fewer people knew about her goal, the better. Vincent and Veld both agreed.

She was simply surprised that they would let her put that plan into action without any kind of supervision, considering she was so new at this game...

“Go to bed, Lilly. I can finish cleaning here.”

Vincent’s suggestion left her blinking up at him sleepily. “Are you... sure?”

He nodded without a word.

“Oh... okay then.” She was too tired to argue about it. “I put some leftovers in the refrigerator for you,” she added.

With one last look at Vincent, who was already heading into the kitchen, she walked into the bedroom. She didn’t even wonder how he would manage to wash dishes with those metal claws of his. That question was less important than the idea of sleep.

It took over three weeks before Veld could pin down Genesis Rhapsodos about taking a few hours out of his busy schedule for a training session with his newest Turk recruit. And even then, he had to pull a few strings before the fiery Commander would agree to it. It wasn’t in his habit to train anyone, much less a Turk. In the end, it was the mention of Lilly’s rather odd lack of an ability to use most materia other than summons that piqued his curiosity and made him relent.

During that time, the situation didn’t much evolve. Veld’s man, Hacker--a junior Turk who specialized in corporate espionage and computer hacking--still hadn’t managed to find a way into Hojo’s files without being detected, and things were moving slowly on that front.

The morning of her meeting with Genesis, Lilly was a nervous wreck, and even Rude noticed she wasn’t her usual self during their training session. She sported more bruises than usual by the time he was done with her.

“You are distracted today,” he commented as she was stretching out the ache in her muscles.

Although he would never be called garrulous, at least Rude had started speaking to her a little since she first met him.

“Yes, I know. Sorry. I’m supposed to be meeting with Commander Rhapsodos in a bit for materia training, and I don’t know what to expect.”

She needed to make a good impression on him, but the last thing she wanted was having to listen to the man try to get into her pants. Although she didn’t mind trading barbs with Reno and laughing off Zack’s clumsy attempts at flirting, they were both more like little brothers to her--little brothers she wished she didn’t have to deal with, in Reno’s case. Genesis would be different, she suspected.

But maybe she was judging the man too harshly, seeing as she had never actually met him. Since first arriving in Midgar, she had found out that things both were and weren’t the same as in her recollections. The people she met were more complex than she expected, the city itself not quite how she remembered it.

“Don’t let him intimidate you,” Rude said out of the blue, surprising a laugh out of her.

“Since when do you try to cheer me up?”

He gave her one of his patented dead-pan looks. “I’ve seen you stare down Reno and win. You won’t let the Commander intimate you,” he repeated.

“Okay, then. I won’t.” She shook her head ruefully.

Feeling slightly better, she went to change out of her gym clothes and back into her usual suit. It had been only a month, but it was already getting to be second nature for her to put on the holster, slip into the jacket, and straightening the tie in front of the mirror before she left the changing room. The perfect Turk getup for a less than perfect Turk.

Genesis had arranged to meet her on the 49th floor, where she knew the virtual reality training room--or Training room with a capital “T”--was situated. She had visited that floor only once before, briefly, while touring the Tower along with Vincent and Veld as part of their onboarding process. Since then, she had been mostly studying the Tower’s blueprints--and so had Vincent--to learn about its every nook and cranny, weak points, and possible hiding places. She was starting to know those plans very, very well.

She took the elevator up with a couple of young SOLDIERs she had never met before, and they kept as much distance from her as the small cabin allowed. Even SOLDIERs were wary of Turks, it appeared, and Lilly would have found that fact funny if only it didn’t unsettle her so much. In reality, any of them could have snapped her in half if they’d wanted to; she should be the one afraid of them, not the other way around. But Turks had a certain... reputation for ruthlessness that everyone at Shinra knew about. The uniform was enough to give one a lot of respect mixed with fear from most everyone, the rest displaying a kind of silent disdain that she was still getting used to.

One night, at dinner, she had asked Vincent if that was normal, and he’d shrugged, saying he didn’t even notice it anymore.

She wasn’t unhappy to part way with her elevator buddies once they arrived on the 49th floor. Once she was alone again, she looked around the landing in search of a tall red-headed man wearing a red leather coat. She was a few minutes early and didn’t really expect him to be there yet, and so she had to hide her surprise when she saw him waiting for her with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl pulling down on his handsome features.

“Commander Rhapsodos,” she said as she got closer to him.

His frown transformed into a look of shock, and then a charming smile, and he bowed slightly. “Infinite is the gift of the goddess, truly,” she heard his whisper.

Oh, hell. There it went.

“You must be the junior Turk Director Verdot was so keen to have me train. He did not mention you were such a lovely woman or I would have agreed to it much sooner.”

Even though she knew how important it was to make a good first impression on the Commander, she simply couldn’t avoid her sigh of annoyance. “Do you speak like that to every woman you meet, Commander? Even the armed and dangerous ones?”

“Only the beautiful ones,” he replied without missing a beat. “And between you and I, you aren’t much of a threat to me, even armed.”

She snorted. Confident, wasn’t he? Rightly so, too. “You’re probably right. Even a trained Turk wouldn’t have much of a chance against a First-class SOLDIER, and I’m not one of those just yet.”

Genesis’ smile brightened a little bit more. “And this is where I come in. Please follow me; I have booked the next hour in the Training room for our use.”

“We haven’t been introduced properly yet,” he continued as they made their way down the corridor toward the training rooms. “I am Genesis Rhapsodos, SOLDIER First-class, and it is truly a pleasure to meet you.”

Lilly tried very hard not to roll her eyes at the man’s theatrics. She couldn’t yet decide if this was a facade he projected, much the same way Reno did, or if this was just how Genesis was all the time.

“Lilly Ashford,” she replied shortly.

“Lilly, such a lovely name. Pretty as a flower.”

This time, she did roll her eyes. “Commander Rhapsodos--”

“Genesis, please.”

“Can I ask you for a favor?”

“Of course. Anything you want.”

“Careful there... I could take advantage of this.” She smirked. “Good thing I’m not about to ask for the impossible. But I would really appreciate it if you were to drop the act.”

“Act?” Genesis sounded--

Actually, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his tone. Affronted, or amused? Unless it was both. Maybe she should have kept her mouth shut, instead of possibly angering him. He was said to have a rather explosive temper, after all. Now that she had, though, she could do nothing but forge ahead and hope for the best.

“I know all about your reputation with ‘the ladies’. Everyone knows about it, thanks to your fan clubs. But I’ll tell you right now that I’m not interested, and I really wish we could start again without all the heavy-handed flirting. I think you’re a great SOLDIER and I want to learn all I can from you about materia, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself from slapping you if this goes on for much longer.”

Genesis stopped walking and turned to face her fully, and she thought for a moment that she’d gone too far. He was about to roast her with one of his infamous fireballs. But then she realized he wasn’t mad. Indeed, his eyes danced with mirth when he looked at her, and he confirmed it when he started chuckling.

“Wel now, that’s a first,” he said with a large grin--one more genuine than the smiles he had been giving her up until now. “Women usually love my complimenting them.”

“Not when we’re trying to simply go about our days and do our jobs,” she grumbled back.

“Point well taken.” He sounded slightly remorseful, which gave Lilly hope that they could get over this bad first impression. “Let us start again, then.” He held out his hand to her. “It’s nice to meet you, Lilly Ashford of the Turks.”

His handshake was firm, professional, and his touch didn’t linger. He was taking her words seriously, which was a relief and made her smile. “Nice to meet you too, Commander.”

“Do call me Genesis, please. We SOLDIERs aren’t very keen on formality. No one ever calls me Commander unless it’s at a press conference or I’m in trouble with Lazard.” His charming smile returned, but it had lost its lascivious edge.

Lilly was much less tense when they finally arrived at their destination. They stepped inside and she left Genesis to fiddle with his PHS while she looked around the huge room curiously. It was round in shape, with a domed ceiling and blank, white walls and floor. Then, with a push of a button on Genesis’ part, it suddenly sprang to life and transformed a landscape of rolling hills and orchards full of bent and twisted trees bearing purple fruits. Lilly gaped at how realistic everything looked. If she hadn’t known she was inside a VR training room, she would have sworn she had just stepped into the countryside. The only thing missing was the usual smells that came with the territory--earth, vegetation, and fertilizer.

“Are those dumb apples,” Lilly asked, taking a few steps toward the closest virtual tree.

“So you recognize them,” Genesis came to join her, still smiling. “This simulation reproduces the outskirts of Banora, my hometown.” He sighed somewhat despondently. “I haven’t been back to visit in much too long.”

Had he chosen this scene because he missed it? The thought of a homesick Genesis Rhapsodos humanized him in such a way that she suddenly felt sorry for him. He might be arrogant and somewhat irritating, but he didn’t deserve the fate the future had in store for him.

“Now... Director Verdot told me you have some issues with materia,” the First said, deftly bringing the subject back to the reason they were both standing there.

“Issues... I guess you can call it that. I can’t use them at all, other than a summon, that one time.”

When she raised the arm where she still wore the bangle, the red summon materia caught the light and shimmered for a moment.

“May I see it?”

“Oh, of course.”

She unclipped the bracelet and held it out to him, and he spent a long moment looking at the stone before saying. “An Odin summon... Not something I’ve seen often in the past.”

“The first time I touched it, it reacted to me quite strongly. I didn’t even have to do anything for it to appear. I’ve tried again since then, but I’ve never managed to summon it again.”

“Were you under attack at the time,” Genesis asked her, sounding like he was thinking out loud.

“Yes. And if that helps make sense of it, we were in a pretty rough spot at that point.” And she’d gotten banged around some before she got her hands on the stone.

“I see... Some summons, especially the stronger ones such as Odin, sometimes appear to have a will of their own. Even to someone like myself who has trained to use summon materia, they can be tricky to command.”

He gave Lilly back her bangle and took off his own, popping a green materia out of its socket and holding it out for her. “This is a cure materia,” he reassured her when she hesitated to touch it. “You cannot hurt anyone with it.”

Oh... there would be no hurting anyone, that was for sure. This wasn’t why she had paused. She just knew what would happen once she touched it. And she wasn’t surprised when it fell dormant the moment he released it into her palm. She didn’t need to watch Genesis’ eyebrows climb into his hairline to know this wasn’t normal.

“As you can see, Director Verdot wasn’t exaggerating when he told you I can’t use materia.”

“Hmmm...”

For the next hour, Genesis tried everything he could think of to coax her into using the materia she held, going so far as to cut himself deeply using Rapier and having her try to heal him. Nothing worked. He looked increasingly irritated, but also intrigued, as time went on and she became more apologetic with each of her failures. Finally, he walked out of the Training room with a curt “I will be back,” leaving Lilly alone and discouraged.

If even Genesis didn’t know how to help her with materia, chances were good she would never be able to use the mako spheres. Worst yet, she still had no clue why Odin had responded to her that one time, at the Shinra mansion, and not afterward.

Genesis returned before she had time to get a good brooding session going, however. He held another red stone in his hand and smiled when she frowned at it. Another summon materia?

“A carbuncle,” he said when before he handed it to her. “Much easier to use than Odin, and much less dangerous. I borrowed it from our materia supplies.”

Carbuncle... Lilly wracked her mind trying to recall the summon’s abilities.

“It serves as a support and healer, and will cast shell, protect and cure on your allies,” he continued as if he’d read her mind. Or more likely interpreted her clueless expression.

For the first time since Nibelheim, a materia reacted to her touch. A red luminescence started swirling inside the sphere when she closed her fingers around it and Genesis pulled his hand away. They both stared at it, and Genesis asked her, “Did you call it?”

She shook her head. “I... don’t think so.”

“Interesting... Then, it has decided it’s a good time to make an appearance.”

“Can summons really do that?”

“It’s been known to happen, although rarely.”

As they spoke, a small ball of white fur formed at her feet. The carbuncle looked a bit like a small canine with a head too big for its body. A red crystal shone on its forehead and it looked like it might be smiling in that way dogs sometimes did. Lilly wondered if it would let her pet it, or if it would move away before she could touch it. She didn’t have time to find out, though, as it almost immediately started to prance around their feet, gathering energy around itself. It then jumped high in the air, releasing a flow of healing magic that washed over Genesis and herself and then popped out of existence.

She blinked, surprised to see that the cut Genesis had inflicted on his own arm earlier was gone as though it had never existed. The fiery First looked rather pleased with this development.

“Most interesting,” he said again. “You did not command it, but it knew exactly what it needed to do. If you paid attention--”

Of course, she’d been paying attention!

“--it did not try to cast either shell or protect on either of us. It appears that it realized we were in no danger. So it simply cured my wound and left. Your relationship with summon materia is unusual indeed. I have never seen one of them act without clear directives from its handler before.”

Lilly shrugged helplessly. She had no answer to give Genesis about this mystery, although she was happy to learn that her summoning of Odin that one time hadn’t quite been a fluke.

“Some believe that materia contains the crystallized knowledge of the Ancients. Summons, in particular, are supposedly imbued with a certain... personality, for lack of a better term, that’s theorized to be a leftover from those Ancients whose life force was used to create them.” Genesis was grinning now, as he warmed up to his subject. “I still do not understand why other types of materia don’t react to you at all. It’s almost as if you don’t exist on the same planet as they do...”

Could that be it? The idea that she might be going through her new existence on Gaia like some sort of corporeal ghost left her feeling chilled to the bone. What could that mean for her future? Would she one day just disappear without a trace? That was a... disquieting thought.

Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Genesis went on, “But it looks like those summon are trying to help you in their own way. I would love to conduct more tests, but it will have to wait for another day. I am expected in Lazard’s office shortly.”

That fact seemed to irritate him, but not even The Commander Genesis Rhapsodos could disregard a summon from the Director of SOLDIER.

“Tell your director that I will contact him to schedule our next session at his earliest convenience.”

It was on the tip of Lilly’s tongue to tell him that she was quite capable of scheduling her own meetings, thank you very much, but she managed to refrain herself at the last moment. If that was the way interdepartmental politics was done at Shinra, she would play along. She doubted Veld would refuse Genesis’ request, in any case. He understood why it was important for her to stay close to the fiery SOLDIER.

“All right. I’ll tell him to expect a call from you, then.”

She held out her hand for him to shake but he had her rolling her eyes again when, instead, he gallantly bowed over it and said, “I shall look forward to our next meeting. And remember... There is no hate, only joy, for you are beloved by the goddess.”

Perhaps he had not been as oblivious to her unrest as he’d make it look, as it almost sounded as if his Loveless quote was meant to be reassuring.

Still, she had a lot on her mind when she left the Training room to make her way back to the 13th floor.

Chapter Text

Reno’s toothy grin welcomed Lilly into the Turks’ offices when she came in at her usual time that morning.

“Hey, if it isn’t Summon! Heard bossman was finally allowing you in the field today.”

What the--

“What did you just call me?”

The red-headed Turk plopped himself down on her desk, scattering the papers on top of it, and replied gleefully, “Summon. Don’t ya know, all Junior Turks go by an alias.” He pointed at her bracer and its two red summoning stone--Genesis had left Carbuncle with her at the end of their second meeting the day before, once he was sure she could use it reliably--and smirked wider. “You been with us for what... almost five weeks now? So it’s about time you got yours.”

“Wait... aren’t those aliases supposed to be based on our main weapon?” Summoning materia definitely wasn’t hers, since she couldn’t trust them to always do as they should. “Shouldn’t I be ‘Gun’? Or ‘Quicksilver’, or something?”

“Nah. We already got a ‘Gun’. And a ‘Two Guns’. And a ‘Shotgun’. But Summon’s a new one, yo.”

Lilly groaned. The five other Turks already in the office, including Cissnei--the traitor--all nodded in agreement with Reno’s reasoning. Just great. There would be no getting rid of that nickname now.

“Could be worse,” one of them, alias Nunchuck, said with a laugh. “Reno’s alias was ‘Rod’, and he hit his last growth spurt really late. The ‘small dick’ jokes would just keep coming... and coming, and coming.”

“Oh, shut up,” Reno grumbled back.

“We all know that’s why he worked so hard to become a senior as soon as he could,” Nunchuk went on like Reno hadn’t told her to shut up a second ago. “So he wouldn’t be known as Short Rod anymore.”

Vincent joined at her desk her just as the room devolved into laughter. It didn’t take much for the younger Turks to do so, Lilly had found out over the course of her employment with them. When you lived your life on the edge and your job could get you killed you at any time, moments of hilarity were precious and not to be wasted, she supposed.

“Veld is ready to see us,” her partner announced. Despite looking around the room with a slight frown, he didn’t say anything to the other Turks about their continued merriment. He probably understood them better than she did. Had been in their shoes at one point.

Without another word, he led the way into the Director’s office, leaving Lilly to close the door behind her after she stepped inside. Sitting behind his desk, Veld looked up from his computer screen the moment he heard them come in. He appeared tired, she thought. It might be that he was burning the midnight oil working on finding their proof, on top of his already full plate as head of Shinra’s Administrative Research Department.

“Sit down,” he told them in lieu of greeting. Lilly complied at once but as usual, Vincent didn’t, earning himself one of Veld’s glares. “Just sit your ass down for once, Valentine. I won’t be getting a crick to the neck on your account, and no one’s gonna jump you while you’re in my office.”

He grumbled, “Damn stubborn man,” as Vincent stared at him in stony silence and sat down on the chair beside Lilly’s.

“You’re looking better,” Veld next said to his ex-partner.

He had been busy these last few weeks and didn’t have as many opportunities to spend time with his old friend as he would have liked, something he would need to remedy soon. Perhaps he should invite Vincent out for a drink some evening. They still had a lot of catching up to do and war stories to swap, most of them the kind that required a good amount of alcohol to be imbibed before they could be recounted. Life hadn’t been kind to either of them.

Glancing at her partner’s profile, Lilly saw what Veld had noticed. Vincent had gained some weight in the last several weeks, thanks to the regular meals he took along with her, and he didn’t look quite so gaunt anymore. He still wasn’t sleeping enough, however. She suspected that he only ever got a few hours of rest every second night, if that, and she hadn’t managed to get him to use the bed again since that first time after the dinner party. There wasn’t much she could do to help him, unfortunately. The demons haunting Vincent’s nights--both metaphorical and literal--were not ones she could fight for him.

Hearing his ex-partner’s words, Vincent raised an eyebrow, as if to say ”was it so bad before?” and Veld huffed in amusement.

“You never liked to be fussed over. I see that hasn’t changed.”

They exchanged a long look that contained years of mutual history Lilly wasn’t privy to.

“Now.. on to the reason I asked you here this morning...” Veld eventually said.

Lilly perked up. “Have you found anything more about Hojo’s secret projects?”

June had started the week before, and Lilly was getting slightly worried about running out of time.

“Nothing new. Bastard’s even more paranoid than I gave him credit for. But I’m not giving up and neither’s Hacker. He’s started looking into the data coming from other departments, looking for clues, but he tells me it might take a while and I can’t spare anyone else to help out at the moment. Is there any more information you can give us that might help?”

Lilly thought about it a moment, before saying hesitantly, “...Maybe.”

Seeing Veld’s scowl, she could tell that he still disapproved of the fact that she was withholding information from him. She guessed that Vincent’s presence by her side was the only thing preventing him from pushing her for more, and she was ever so grateful for his silent support.

“What is it,” Veld grunted.

“You should ask Hacker to look up information about the Neo-Midgar project. It’s not linked to Jenova and Sephiroth, at least not directly, so that might make it easier to uncover. It also involves more than just the Science Department, so Hojo can’t have hidden everything.”

If she was correct, it would also lead them straight to President Shinra and his role in condoning Hojo and his inhumane experiments, but this was something the Turks’ Director was better finding out for himself.

“The Neo-Midgar project, eh?” Veld frowned. “I’ve seen that name pop up in reports a few times before...”

The calculating look he threw her way made her wonder what puzzle pieces had just fallen into place in his mind. She didn’t have to wonder for long, as the next few minutes gave her a pretty good idea of what they were. “That actually brings us to your assignment today.”

“Assignment... sir?” She gulped.

Reno had mentioned something about her going in the field today, hadn't he? She had been training full-time for over a month now and all her instructors were happy with her progress, so she should have expected this. But she still didn’t feel ready.

“Routine surveillance work. Most Junior Turks get assigned to this target at one point or another early on. It’ll be the perfect assignment for Valentine to evaluate your progress.”

An assignment and a test? Hell... But something about Veld’s tone warned her that there was more about this target than he was saying. Could it be--

“Who is the target,” she asked, trying not to sound as eager as she felt.

Veld’s voice gave away nothing when he replied, “A young woman living down in the slums of Sector 5,” but his eyes never left her face.

Aerith... He wanted to send her and Vincent to keep watch over Aerith... And Veld not only knew that the half-Cetra was linked to the Neo-Midgar project, but he also knew that Lilly knew. He had to, or he wouldn’t be staring at her the way he was, waiting for her to give herself away.

Lilly did her best to keep her expression neutral, but she wasn’t sure how successful she was at it. “I see. We are to... simply watch her, then?”

“Yes, and then report to Tseng at the end of the day. Also... Making contact isn’t part of your assignment. She shouldn’t notice that you’re there.”

“Understood.”

She made to stand up, in a hurry to get going now that she knew she’d be seeing Aerith with her own eyes today, but Veld cleared his throat before she could do so, giving her a very pointed look.

“I do like a certain degree of enthusiasm on the part of my Turks, but shouldn’t you wait to hear the rest of the briefing before you run out of here?”

Shit.

“I, huh... I apologize, sir.” She felt her cheeks grow warm in embarrassment as she quickly lowered herself back down.

Veld spent the next several minutes going over the details: the target’s whereabouts, the current situation in the slums since she wasn’t familiar with the area yet, possible monster threats, and finally what she should be reporting on at the end of the assignment. It was all easy enough, and Lilly was glad that her first official job as a Turk would include nothing shadier than keeping an eye on a teenage girl for a day. She already knew that Aerith didn’t need to worry about Shinra for several years still and so had nothing to fear from the Turks.

“You’re dismissed,” Veld said once he was done speaking. “If all goes well, you’ll be put on the scheduled rotation after today, and report to Tseng about it.”

As she turned to leave, she heard Veld apologize to Vincent in a low voice about “straddling him with a trainee and a boring mission”. She didn’t catch Vincent’s answer, if he even said anything. Knowing him, he probably just shrugged it off.

For the last several weeks, while Lilly was in training, Vincent hadn’t been sent on any official assignments either. He had chosen instead to spend most of his time exploring the Tower and the city of Midgar and getting reacquainted with the world after his twenty years nap. It had been training of a kind for him too, even if they never officially call it that.

Lilly walked out of the office while Velf continued speaking to Vincent. “It’s good to have you back,” he was saying as she closed the door behind her, followed by something about getting those beers he’d been owed for the last twenty years.

Smiling, Lilly walked back to her desk to wait for her partner, leaving the two men to finish their conversation without her eavesdropping on it.

She wasn’t Reno, after all.

The smell hit her first when the train stopped at the Sector 5 Under Station and the wagon door opened. A mix of open sewers, dirt, and the pervasive smell of mako that had to be leaking from somewhere Lilly couldn’t see. The station itself was old, but not completely derelict, dating from a time before the plates had been built and Midgar became what it was now, when the slums were still independent towns whose name had been forgotten by most.

Or so Vincent told her as they walked out of the station side by side, keeping a close watch for signs of belligerence coming from the natives. Their uniforms didn’t exactly blend into the crowd, even though many Shinra employees made their homes in the slums and business suits weren’t such an uncommon sight. The Turks’ black suits differed enough from the norm to make them easily identifiable, and the people of the slums had little love for Shinra’s lapdogs.

The inhabitants’ barely concealed animosity to their presence on their turf made Lilly’s stomach churn. She wanted to yell that this was only temporary; that she wasn’t a Shinra enforcer by choice and was just trying to do the right thing.

“How can you bear it,” she finally asked Vincent in an almost-whisper that wouldn’t travel any farther than his ears.

He gave her a curious look, and she explained, “Everyone’s hostility. My shoulder blades are itching and I feel like the only reason no one’s attacked us yet is fear of reprisal.”

He appeared to think about it a moment before he answered, “I don’t think about it anymore unless it becomes an actual threat of violence. People hate what they fear, and they fear Shinra’s reach.”

“With good reason,” she muttered darkly.

There were many ways people could disappear without a trace in the slums, and it made for a good hunting ground for people like Hojo, always in search of new test subjects. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn that this was the case and people knew about it.

“We’ll take to the alleys as soon as we leave this market area,” Vincent continued. “We’ll reach the church more quickly that way while avoiding most people.”

On the other hand, they might encounter monsters, but there was nothing living in the slums that would cause much of a problem to two armed Turks.

Lilly nodded, her mood growing noticeable lighter at the thought of Aerith’s church and of the girl herself. This didn’t go unnoticed by her companion, and he looked at her closely as he said, “You know our target.” He knew her well enough not to make it a question.

Still, she nodded. “I know of her, just like I knew of you, and Sephiroth, and the others. She had an important role to play in the stories.”

“How important?”

“Do you remember the first day we met... you asked me if I was an Ancient.”

It was Vincent’s turn to nod.

“Well, as I said then I’m not, but she is. A half-Cetra actually, as her father was fully human. That’s why Shinra is so interested in her, and the Turks have kept watch on her ever since she and her mother escaped Hojo’s lab when Aerith was about seven.”

“What does this have to do with the Neo-Midgar project?”

So, Veld hadn’t been the only one to put the pieces together...

“President Shinra--and possibly Hojo too--think that a Cetra can lead them to a land of infinite mako, where he could build the perfect new city. It’s bullshit of course, but that’s what he believes.”

“And the link between the Neo-Midgar Project and Jenova?”

Lilly shrugged. “They thought for a long time that Jenova was a Cetra and that they would be reviving the ancient race when Lucrecia gave birth to Sephiroth. He’d then grow up and lead the way to the promised land, or something like that. That didn’t work so well for them, so now they’re keeping an eye on Aerith instead.”

“I see.”

Lilly would never learn if Vincent had more to say on the subject, as just at that moment they came across a small group of rotund monsters rummaging through a pile of refuse, and the humans’ presence in their territory drove them into a frenzy. The monsters--hedgehog pies, according to Veld’s briefing--jumped around the alley as if they were made out of rubber and began throwing fire spells at the intruders, which started a fire in one of the garbage piles and added to the already odoriferous atmosphere of the slums.

Like a well-oiled machine, Lilly and Vincent dove to either side of the group of monsters in a pincer maneuver that had been drilled into her head over the course of the last several weeks. The Quicksilver was already in Lilly’s hand; she had drawn it out without even thinking about it, her training alongside Vincent paying off with some newly honed reflexes.

Vincent kept mostly out of the fight, only offering support when needed and leaving Lilly to deal with the threat on her own. Hedgehog pies were not very strong, although they could get annoying when encountered in groups, and it was good practice for the new Junior Turk that was a step up from the usual target practice.

Lilly counted her bullets as she fired them so she could make sure not to run out mid-fight. One-two and the first monster disappeared into green sparks. Three more to drop the second one--that was one too many and her aim wasn’t quite as precise as it should be, but the always-jumping hedgehog pies were difficult to target.

Out of the blue, another one of the spiky monsters jumped right at her. She recoiled back before side-kicking it as hard as she could. Rude would probably have scolded her for her sloppy form, but it did the job anyway. The monster stumbled back, dazed, and it kept still just long enough for her to shoot it point-blank. It too disappeared into a shower of green lights, leaving her to look around for the last of the group.

During the few seconds she’d lost track of it, the last hedgehog pie had found its way toward her unprotected rear. She would have suffered the painful burn of a fireball to the back if not for Vincent’s timely intervention. A single shot from the Peacemaker he now carried sent the monster tumbling to the ground and bought her enough time to finish it off.

“You took your eyes off one of your targets,” Vincent commented after Lilly finished doing a last sweep of the alley for threats she might have overlooked.

She grimaced. “I know, my mistake. Thank you, by the way. Without your assistance, this might have been... unpleasant.”

He gave her one of his small fleeting smiles. “That’s what partners are for.”

Any onlookers they might have attracted with the sound of their firearms had disappeared again by the time they made it out of the alley and onto the deserted plaza in front of the dilapidated church where Aerith spent most of her days tending her flowers.

“So, what do we do now,” Lilly asked, unsure of how to proceed. “Find a way to the church’s so we can see inside, or just keep watch from the plaza?”

She really wanted to see the teen--wanted to talk to her too, but she knew that wouldn’t be possible without getting her in trouble for it--but she would follow Vincent’s lead in the matter, as he was the one with experience spying on people.

Vincent’s eyes swept around their surroundings and Lilly did the same thing, trying to see it the way he undoubtedly did: a series of blind spots, possible hiding places, and vantage points. That’s how she first caught sight of the slight figure wearing a blue sundress hurrying toward them from the other side of the open square.

She hissed out a breath. “Shit, that’s Aerith. And I think she’s noticed us.”

How could she have seen them? They were standing in the shadows of a crumbling wall, out of sight of the church and most of the plaza. She shouldn’t have been able to know they were there. But then, this was a girl who heard the voice of the Planet. Did it tell her about them?

Lilly glanced back toward the alley they’d left just minutes before, wondering if they should retreat now that their cover was gone, but Aerith’s voice stopped her before she could come to a decision. “Wait... Please, wait!”

The girl stopped a few feet away from them with her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath from running all the way there. “You... you are a Turk,” she said with some surprise, looking straight at Lilly. “Who are you? The Planet... The Planet warned me about your presence here.”

Warned her? That sounded somewhat ominous.

Standing farther into the shadows beside Lilly, Vincent scolded the girl, “And are you in the habit of running toward everything that the Planet warns you about?”

Aerith seemed to realize he was there only when he opened his mouth to talk, and she gasped out loud when she got a better look at him.

“Oh my goodness! I thought you were Tseng. But you’re not. You’re--” Her eyes grew unfocused for a moment, and then her expression turned confused.

If this was in reaction to listening to the Planet talk about Vincent, Lilly imagined that Aerith was baffled by some of the strange things It had to say about him.

“This is Vincent, my partner. And I’m Lilly,” she said, trying to get the teen’s attention back on herself and away from Vincent, who probably didn’t appreciate the scrutiny.

“And I’m Aerith. But I guess you know that already. Are you new on the job? I haven’t seen you around here before.”

The girl was babbling at least partially out of nervousness, but she didn’t appear scared of the fact that Turks were hanging out outside her church. More like resigned and trying to make the best out of it.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Lilly looked around the plaza warily, half expecting Tseng to spring out of nowhere to yell at her about “making contact” with the target.

But Aerith had started it, a small petty part of her grumbled. So there.

“Come inside,” Aerith reached out and took Lilly’s hand, taking her completely by surprise, and started pulling her toward the church. “I don’t understand it all, but... there are some things the Planet wants you to know. I think.”

Lilly glanced back at Vincent and shrugged before following the younger girl, intrigued almost in spite of herself. Could the Planet wish to finally explain why Lilly had one day woken up in Nibelheim?

Aerith looked back at Lilly’s partner at the same time she did, her eyes reflecting a sudden wariness bordering on fear, and Vincent said in a low, almost gentle voice, “I will wait outside. Shout if ever you need anything. I’ll hear.” He also understood the girl’s unease.

“You don’t have to be afraid of him, you know,” Lilly told Aerith as they stopped just outside the church so that Aerith could get the doors open. “I know he’s not quite... normal, but he’s a good man.”

“The Planet-- I can’t grasp what it’s trying to say about him. Something about a weapon? About protectiveness, and pain, and danger. And chaos...” She shook her head, looking troubled.

“It’s okay. He won’t hurt you.”

Aerith hesitated. “You know what the Planet is trying to tell me, don’t you?” she finally said, turning to face Lilly fully and searching her face for answers.

Lilly winced, wondering how much to tell the half-Cetra. “Hmmm, yes. But it’s also Vincent’s story to tell, not mine.”

“Well, if you say he’s not dangerous...” Aerith said uncertainly.

“I wouldn't say he’s harmless, exactly, but he’s not a threat to you or the Planet.”

The girl gave her a curious look, chewing on her lower lip as she seemed to think about her next words. Finally, she said, “You already know about me... about the fact I’m a Cetra, don’t you?”

“I know.”

Seeing Aerith frown, Lilly quickly reassured her, “Tseng didn’t tell me.” The girl’s relationship with Tseng was close than with the other Turks assigned to watch her, wasn’t it? Her recollections were a little hazy. “I don’t think most Turks know why you’re being watched. I wasn’t told much when I was given the assignment.”

Aerith giggled. “Oh. I wasn’t worried about that. I know Tseng wouldn’t go about spilling my secrets to just anyone. Actually, I was just wondering if the reason you know about me is also why the Planet is saying you’re... different.” She looked away from Lilly, seemingly listening to a voice only she could hear. “Apart... Not of the lifestream.” she added after a moment and then shrugged. “I’m not sure what it means, but it’s coming to me very clearly and that’s rare. Usually, the Planet isn’t that coherent. You are ‘apart’ and you need to be careful. The Planet cannot protect you.”

Apart? Not of the Planet. That made some sort of awful sense. She wasn’t born here, hadn’t come from Gaia’s lifestream, which meant she had no connection to it. It would certainly explain why most materia reacted like she didn’t exist. Not why summons acted without her input, though.

Aerith went to grab Lilly’s hand again, obviously trying to offer her some comfort in spite of the fact that she barely knew her. “It’s trying though, and It is sorry that It can’t do more,” she went on.”

“Did it... did It tell you why I’m here?”

Aerith looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Lilly didn’t hesitate more than a few moments before she told her her deepest secret. If anyone could tell her more about her strange trip to a world not her own, it would be Aerith. “It might be hard to believe, but I come from another world called Earthy. I just... I woke up here, one day, and I don’t know why. I thought maybe the Planet had the answer.” And she told Aerith a little bit more about her journey to Midgar, the stories she’d heard about Gaia, and what she was trying to do to change the future, leaving aside most of what she knew about Sephiroth so she wouldn’t scare or worry the younger girl. “I think I’m meant to help, but the truth is I don’t know. I’m just trying to do my best.” And hope it wouldn’t end in tragedy.

The girl’s eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline as she digested Lilly’s revelation. “I wish I could help you more,” she finally said. “The Planet... as I said, it’s not that coherent most of the time. Usually, It speaks to me in... images and impressions, and rarely actual words I can understand.”

Lilly sighed. It was too much to hope to get a clear answer from an organism such as an entire Planet, she supposed.

“Don’t be too sad,” Aerith told her reassuringly. “I can tell that the Planet is watching over you, even if you don’t belong to It. But It’s also... worried, I think. What you’re trying to do is dangerous.”

“I know.” And it could go wrong in so many ways.

“Come on. Let me show you my flowers. They always make me feel better when I’m down. I’m sure they’ll help you too.”

Lilly let herself be pulled toward the front of the church where a patch of yellow and white flowers grew under a beam of light coming from the broken roof, sparing a thought for Vincent still standing guard outside. He had to be wondering what they were talking about in here.

Aerith started showing her around, talking happily about her gardening and her plans of one day selling the flowers around the slums and maybe even topside. Lilly was just starting to relax again as she listened to her young companion, even kneeling down to help her with picking flowers to give to the orphanage in Sector 5, when the door to the church opened again with a loud creak.

Immediately, Lilly was back on her feet, her hand going for her gun in its holster. But then, she saw who was standing at the church’s entrance, and she winced just as Aerith exclaimed, “Tseng! I didn’t think I’d see you today.”

Tseng inclined his head in Aerith’s direction without a word before turning that cold, cold gaze on Lilly. “Summon,” he said, staring daggers at her. “I expect there’s a good reason for your presence here instead of outside, standing watch. As you were supposed to.”

“I think I’m in trouble,” Lilly muttered, and Aerith giggled again.

Chapter Text

Standing in Tseng’s office and getting a dressing down from the Turks’ Second-in-Command for yesterday’s botched assignment was not Lilly’s idea of a fun time, especially not so early in the morning. She thought back wistfully to the cup of coffee she had left on her desk. It would definitely be cold by the time she was done here.

Beside her, Vincent looked faintly bored. As the senior Turk in charge of yesterday’s mission, he should have been the one to stop her from “making unwelcome contact with their target”, but he didn’t seem to particularly care that Lilly had gone against her orders. He understood why she had done so in a way that Tseng didn’t.

“Anything you wish to say for yourself,” Tseng cut through Lilly’s thoughts, bringing her attention back to him.

“No sir, other than what Aerith told you herself, yesterday. She is the one who approached me first, and since our cover was blown anyway, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to talk to her.”

Well, okay, she did have some more things to say after all.

“You were supposed to watch her, and nothing more,” Tseng replied, cutting. “A Turk who can’t follow orders has no place in this department.”

She gritted her teeth. It’s not like she’d wanted to be a part of the Turks in the first place. Still, the remonstrance left her biting her tongue not to answer something acerbic about how the ability to take the initiative when needed wasn’t a bad thing.

Vincent wasn’t saying anything, and Lilly wasn’t sure if she appreciated his silence, or not. On one hand, she was more than capable of speaking for herself. On the other, it would have been nice to have his support, as Tseng continued to make her nervous.

“You do realize that she already knows she’s being watched, right,” she told the Wutainese Turk before she could think better of it.

It was the wrong thing to say, as Tseng’s dark eyes grew a few degrees colder still, to the point that Lilly thought ice might start forming on the office’s walls.

“That is not the point.”

He was gritting his teeth while he spoke, she could hear it in his voice, and that reaction baffled Lilly. It was true that she had gone against orders, but she didn’t understand why it made him so angry. Nothing bad had happened, after all, and the man didn’t strike her as being particularly emotional, most of the time.

“Aerith...” He stopped himself and took a deep breath as if asking the goddess for patience. “The target--” he corrected himself. “--is to be left to live her life in peace. From now on, you do not make contact unless expressly ordered, even if she approaches you first. Do I make myself clear?”

The truth finally dawned on her, and she wondered how she hadn’t realized sooner. Tseng... cared about Aerith, in his own strange way, and he didn’t want her getting mixed up with the Turks. He had no choice but to keep up the surveillance since it was on Shinra’s orders, but he would do all he could to let her live as normal a life as possible.

“I understand, sir. It won’t happen again.”

At least not during work hours. She might yet need the girl’s help with Jenova and Sephiroth, even if she would prefer to keep her out of the line of fire. In this, she and Tseng agreed, but she simply wasn’t sure if it would be possible in the long run.

The look Tseng gave her said that he didn’t believe her. It also conveyed quite clearly that he had many unanswered questions about her and her presence amongst the Turks. Unlike Vincent, who everyone knew used to be Veld’s partner once upon a time, she had no obvious reason to be there and no unusual skills the Turks might want to take advantage of. But Veld must have told him to keep his doubts to himself, as he voiced none of them before gesturing at his office door, a clear indication that he wanted the two of them out of his office.

Evidently, the meeting was over.

Lilly exited first followed by Vincent, who as usual walked as quietly as a ghost. She still hadn’t figured out how he did it--if it was part of his Turk training or something that came... afterward. She certainly couldn’t make her steps as silent as his were, even when she tried her best.

“Yo! I hear you got chewed up by the boss’ right hand.”

Reno, as per usual, was grinning from ear to ear, and he sounded awfully pleased that she got herself in trouble.

“Not now, Reno. I’m already late meeting up with Rude for training.” And she definitely didn’t want to hear him gloat about this.

“Nah, you’re good. He knows you were in Tseng’s office.

“Still doesn’t mean I want to hear you run your mouth... Short Rod.”

“Fuck. I’m gonna kill Nunchuk for this.”

Lilly smirked. “See you later, Reno.”

“You know it, sugar!”

He winked, and she rolled her eyes.

“Vincent. Lilly. Do you have a minute?” Veld’s head peeked out from his office, and his expression told Lilly that, whatever this was about, it was important enough to be worth making her even later to practice.

“Of course,“ Vincent answered him smoothly, and he walked into the Director’s office with Lilly close behind him.

“You have news,” Lilly asked after she’d closed the door.

“Sephiroth has been dispatched back to Wutai this morning,” Veld said without preamble. “He’s been released from medical and sent on his way almost immediately.”

She frowned. “Medical? Was he sick?” That sounded unlike the Sephiroth of the games.

Veld shook his head. “Not at all. Hojo’s doing... something about conducting his annual checkup. It’s the reason he was back in Midgar in the first place.”

A quick calculation made Lilly realize that Sephiroth had been back for over two months now, as she remembered hearing about his arrival in Midgar on the television back in Nibelheim. Had he been in Hojo’s “care” for all these weeks? She blanched at the thought of what might have been done to him during that time.

“What is it,” Vincent asked her quietly when he saw her grow white.

“Sephiroth has been back in Midgar since late March,” she said haltingly.

She didn’t need to say anything more for Vincent to understand the direction of her thoughts, and his eyes glinted almost gold for a moment.

Veld looked from Lilly to Vincent and frowned. “Will that be an issue for your... plan?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. As long as not all three Firsts are in Midgar together, I know we still have time.”

“Yet, this news clearly bothers both of you.”

Vincent was the one to answer, “It rarely bodes well when Hojo keeps someone for “checkups” for this long...”

“You can’t mean-- Sephiroth is Shinra’s most prized SOLDIER. Hojo wouldn’t dare--” Veld’s sentence devolved into a series of curses that wouldn’t have been out of place on a shipping dock.

“Of course he would,” Vincent replied, impassive. “He considers Sephiroth his creation, and his to do with as he pleases.”

“Obviously, he’s feeling well enough to return to Wutai,” Lilly added with a slight frown. That didn’t mean much, though. By all accounts, the silver general was one tough cookie, and probably much too used to whatever pain Hojo put him through during those checkups of his.

“There is nothing we can do about it now,” And it sounded like this bothered Vincent just as much as it did her.

“We’ll make sure it’s the last year it happens,” Veld vowed, and shared a look of understanding with his old friend.

Vincent nodded without a word. That morning, a solemn promise was made. Sephiroth didn’t know it yet, but two of the most deadly Turks alive today were about to make sure he would never have to suffer Hojo’s tests again.

After hand-to-hand practice that day, Lilly was scheduled to meet with Genesis for another one of his training-slash-experimentation sessions. He had promised to bring a few more summons for her, and she had to admit that she was looking forward to trying them.

Most of her trepidation, however, was related to the man trailing after her as she made her way to the capital-T Training room on the 49th floor. Vincent had decided to come along with her this time, both to meet Genesis and to assess her progress with materia--or so she figured, as he hadn’t given her an explanation for his insistence in accompanying her.

She didn’t mind his presence, though. Not... exactly.

She didn’t like examining her feelings where he was concerned too closely. He was her friend and her partner. He had her back when she needed it, and would help her no matter what. Even as she found herself getting lost watching him moving around their shared apartment with the grace of a big predator more often than she wanted to admit, she reminded herself there could be nothing more between them.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted there to be anything more, but that didn’t stop her growing fascination with him. Strong, beautiful, damaged man that he was.

She felt some nervousness at the thought of his meeting Genesis up until the point when they actually stood face to face, eyeing each other with a mix of curiosity and wariness. They were almost the same height, with Genesis just a hair shorter, but also broader chested from practicing with that Rapier of his for years on end. Two handsome men, she thought, although she preferred Vincent’s long black hair to Genesis’ shorter auburn, and his kind red eyes to the SOLDIER’s amused mako blue ones.

She made the introductions when the silence began to grow awkward, and after inclining his head in quiet acknowledgment Vincent moved to one side of the room to observe their training session.

“Don’t mind him. He’s not much of a talker,” she said when Genesis looked offended by this cavalier treatment of his person.

For a long moment, the SOLDIER’s eyes traveled from her to her partner, and back again, to the point that Lilly asked, “Is there a problem? If you really don’t want him there, I can ask him to leave.”

“Hmmm, no. That won’t be necessary,” he answered, and then added under his breath, “So, that’s how it is... My friends, the fates are cruel.”

Lilly scowled at him. She wasn’t sure what this was about, but-- “Can we start now?”

With one of his more charming smiles, Genesis agreed and they got to work fighting the illusionary monsters brought to life by the simulation. Odin wouldn’t be fooled by the false threat and didn’t make an appearance again, but Lilly managed to coax Carbuncle out, along with Genesis’ Ifrit. That summon almost brought her down to her knees, just as Odin had done back at the mansion--an ether helped with the sudden exhaustion.

Although she had no control over any of it, it was becoming evident that the summon materia were tapping into her mana reserves when they appeared. That she possessed mana at all was strange, as mana didn’t exist back on Earth. Yet another mystery to add to the pile of them surrounding her presence here.

At the end of the hour’s session, Genesis looked satisfied with the results of their training and declared that she should get a different bracer so she could equip more than the two summons she already carried. With Odin still making itself scarce, it was his opinion that she needed another offensive summon, like Ifrit.

Having learned how expensive most summons were to purchase, if they could be purchased at all, Lilly snorted. “They don’t pay Junior Turks enough for that. I’m lucky I found Odin...”

As well-meaning as his suggestion was, it sounded completely out-of-touch to her.

“Just ask your Director to put in a request with SOLDIER. I’ll sign up on it,” he replied with a wave of his hand, as though it was totally fine for her to dip into their materia supplies while not even working for SOLDIER.

“I’ll tell him,” she lied, already knowing that she wouldn’t say anything to Veld about it.

The First might not think it was a big deal, but she wasn’t sure Director Lazard would think the same thing, and she didn’t want to get herself or Veld in trouble with SOLDIER when it was so important for them to stay on their good side. It was bad enough that she had “borrowed” Carbuncle from them, even if it was a pretty common summon and there were plenty more where it came from--at least according to Genesis, who said that the quartermaster would not even notice it was gone.

Leaving Genesis to clean things up in the Training room, Lilly and Vincent walked back to the elevator side by side, each lost in their own thoughts. When the doors opened, it didn’t immediately register to her that the cabin wasn’t empty. That was until the sudden tension in Vincent’s shoulders warned her that something was terribly wrong. Puzzled, she glanced at him before following his fixed gaze toward the elevator.

Her breath froze in her lungs at the sight of the man wearing a white labcoat who stood inside, back slightly stooped as was his habit. She started taking an instinctive step back, but Vincent’s right hand encircled her wrist and squeezed, almost to the point of pain. He didn’t say a word or even looked at her, but she nevertheless understood the message. Do not attract Hojo’s attention, do not let him see her sweat. She wouldn’t like the consequences otherwise.

“What are you waiting for? We don’t have all day,” Hojo’s peevish voice threatened to turn her knees to jelly and caused Vincent to tighten his hold on her arm a tiny bit more. Lilly hid her wince as they stepped into the elevator, quiet and tense. She would have given a lot to be able to turn around and take the stairs down instead, but it was too late for that now.

In spite of feeling her skin starting to crawl at being this close to Hojo, she deliberately put herself between him and Vincent, attempting to keep the oily scientist’s focus away from her companion. After almost twenty years, she didn’t know if he would even recognize his old test subject, but she didn’t want to take that chance. With a bit of luck, they would make it back to their floor without incident.

Unfortunately, they were not that lucky.

“Well, hello there. I haven’t seen you around before.” A woman’s voice this time, throaty and deliberately sensual. Almost a purr.

Hojo had not been alone in the elevator.

Lilly jumped, and then wondered how in hell she had managed to miss the other woman’s presence before now, especially considering who it was... and how she dressed. Who else would wear skin-tight dresses with a cleavage that left absolutely nothing to the imagination in the middle of the workday?

“Director Scarlet,” she mumbled, just as much to be polite as to warn Vincent about the woman’s identity, in case he didn’t already know.

“I wasn’t talking to you, dear,” Scarlet replied, a sneer on her face.

She stared fixedly at Vincent, seeming to like what she saw very much indeed, and a flirtatious smile played on her lips. “Who might you be? You must be new with the Turks, or I’m sure I would have remembered you.”

The conversation caught Hojo’s attention, and he gave all three of them an irritated glare. Lilly’s breath caught in her throat when the scientist took a second, longer look at Vincent and his eyebrows shot up at the sight of the Turk’s unusual red eyes. His expression turned angry, then calculating, all in the span of a few seconds. He had recognized Vincent, there was no doubt about it.

Vincent gave Scarlet a glare that could have frozen water, but that didn’t seem to phase her. For the remainder of their--thankfully short--trip down to the 13th floor, the Weapons Development Director continued to undress him with her eyes, all but licking her lips in anticipation. Hojo, for his part, stared at him with such malice that Lilly had to stop herself from moving protectively closer or otherwise give herself away.

The instant the elevator reached the 13th floor, she grabbed Vincent’s hand and dragged him out of the cabin after her, not giving Hojo or Scarlet the pleasure of glancing back at either of them.

Was it just her imagination or were Vincent’s fingers trembling just slightly in her grip?

It didn’t matter even if she was wrong. She just wanted to get him as far away from Hojo as she possibly could.

The elevator doors closed with a musical ding, and she let herself sigh in relief, her shoulders sagging. It took her a long time before she was able to say. “Well, that was one uncomfortable elevator ride. Let’s... not do that again, if possible.”

It took Vincent even longer to reply, in a voice devoid of any emotion, sounding so empty that she gave him a worried look, “It was only a question of time before we crossed path with Hojo.”

“He’ll get what’s coming for him,” she promised him. Promised herself. That man... that man would pay for Vincent’s nightmares.

At that moment, she realized she was still holding his hand and he hadn’t made a move to break contact. And neither had she. He wore a leather glove over his flesh hand and their skin didn’t actually touch, but there was still something intimate about holding hands that brought heat to her cheeks.

Reluctantly, she let go. “Sorry about that,” she muttered, not daring to look at him.

Their return to the Turks’ offices was subdued, the silence heavier than usual between them.

By that Saturday, things had mostly returned to normal. Half an hour prior, Veld had knocked on their door to invite Vincent out for that long-awaited drink. Lilly was happy to see that Vincent only hesitated for a few seconds before agreeing, and she shared a quick smile with Veld as the two of them left together. They both understood Vincent’s acquiescence to be a victory in itself. Lilly wasn't sure that he would have agreed to go out even a month ago.

Not long after Vincent left, the first of her guests for the evening showed up. When she opened the door and saw the man accompanying Zack, she had a hard time hiding her feeling of triumph.

“Hey there, Lilly. I hope it’s alright that I brought another guest?”

“Of course. I did say you could.” She grinned. “Come on in, both of you.” Her eyes wouldn’t leave the giant of a man--taller and broader than even Zack--standing behind the young Second and smiling politely at her.

She held out her hand at him. “I’m Lilly. It’s nice to finally meet you, Commander Hewley. Zack has told me a great deal about you.”

She didn’t even pretend not to know who he was. As he was wearing his First’s uniform and there existed only three of them at present, it would have been easy enough for her to figure it out, even if she hadn’t already recognized him.

“Nice to meet you,” the man replied a little bashfully.

He didn’t seem to quite know what to do with himself now that he was in the apartment, making Lilly wonder what Zack had told him to convince him to come. Whatever it was, she was delighted to finally meet him, even leaving aside her plan. Zack always spoke so highly about his mentor.

“I didn’t realize you were back in Midgar,” she told him as she led the way to the living room and indicated that they should sit down.

“He came back last night,” Zack said with a huge grin. “I didn't learn about it ‘til this morning.”

Now that Sephiroth was back on his feet and on his way to Wutai, it seemed that they had recalled Angeal to Midgar. She supposed it made sense to only deploy one of the Firsts to Wutai at once, as there were so few of them, but it meant Sephiroth would be on his own, isolated from his friends, even now that he was free from Hojo’s clutches.

Always the motor-mouth, Zack almost immediately launched into a recounting of a monster-hunting mission he went on earlier that week, while Lilly returned to the kitchen to make sure her stew was still simmering as it should and not bubbling out of the pot as it had done earlier--now that had been a huge mess to clean up. She could still hear Zack’s enthusiastic voice and Angeal more sedate replies to his wilder claims, and she smiled. Seeing those two interacting like they didn’t have a care in the world... yet one more thing she wanted to protect.

Soon afterward, the rest of her guests showed up and the apartment grew rowdy with friendly ribbings and laughter. Angeal, always the gentlemen, popped into the kitchen and asked her if she needed any help. She gratefully accepted, both because she wanted to get to know the First better, and because she needed the help. It wasn’t long before Angeal also roped in Zack into carrying plates and drinks around to the rest of the guests, scolding him for not offering to help sooner.

Thoroughly chastised, Zack pulled her aside later in the evening to apologize. That made her laugh, and she teased him about needing his Commander to teach him manners before reassuring him that she wasn’t mad at him.

All in all, it ended up being a very successful night. Vincent was out socializing for the first time since she met him, and she had made contact with Angeal Hewley. That only left Sephiroth, but she feared that getting to him would be harder than the other two, especially as he was in Wutai for the foreseeable future.

Hopefully, Veld’s Hacker would find a way into Hojo’s files soon and, armed with those proof, Lilly would finally be able to put an end to the scientist’s machinations.

Chapter Text

The consequences of their chance meeting with Scarlet and Hojo inside the elevator--or at least one of them--didn’t become apparent until the next Monday. Veld was in a foul mood when Lilly returned from target practice that morning, and he immediately asked to see her in his office.

When she stepped inside, Vincent already sat in one of the chairs. He couldn’t have been there long, as he had left the training room only minutes before she had. Lilly’s eyes traveled from her partner to her boss, and she frowned. She didn’t know what this was about yet, but she had a bad feeling about it. She desperately hoped that it wouldn’t be about Hojo.

And it wasn’t.

That said, what it did end up being about wasn’t all that much better.

“I have a new assignment for the two of you,” Veld announced with a frown.

He didn’t look happy about it, and that definitely wasn’t helping Lilly’s nerves. After her blunder from the week before, she didn’t think she would be returning in the field for a while, so this new assignment was coming as a surprise.

“The Director of Weapons Development has requested Turk protection for an upcoming trip to the Sister Ray in Junon later this week. She specifically asked for ‘that new Turk with the black hair and red eyes’.”

Scarlet...

“Now, why is it that she knows you,” Veld asked, looking from Vincent to Lilly and back again.

Lilly sighed. “We met her in the elevator last week.” And she had seemed very interested in Vincent. “And she wasn’t alone. Hojo was also there.”

Veld’s gaze sharpened, and he scowled at Vincent. “You didn’t mention this on Saturday.”

Vincent shrugged. “There was nothing to say about it.”

Lilly didn’t agree with this assessment. “Hojo recognized him, I’m sure of it,” she told Veld since Vincent wouldn’t. “Could he be scheming with Scarlet? Could it be why she’s requesting Vincent personally?”

Veld took a moment to mull this over but then shook his head. “The two of them can barely stand each other at the best of time, and more importantly none of our surveillance indicates they’ve been in contact over the last several days.”

Still, this request from Scarlet couldn’t bode well, even if it had nothing to do with Hojo.

“Is asking for Turk protection that unusual,” she asked, trying to figure out how much trouble Vincent was in.

“It’s not unusual, no. Between Wutai rebels and ecoterrorists, Shinra’s executives are always under threat when they travel outside of Midgar, and it’s part of the Turks’ job to make sure they stay alive.” Veld still didn’t look any happier, however. “I don’t usually get requests for a particular operative, though. I wish I could have refused, but she would have made all our lives... difficult if I had. Be careful, Valentine, Scarlet has a well-deserved reputation as a man-eater.”

Vincent’s twitch of the eyebrow conveyed his “oh, really...” without having to speak it out loud. It wasn’t like he didn’t already know; two minutes spent in Scarlet’s company had been enough to apprise him of that fact. “I can deal with her,” he eventually said.

Veld then turned his attention to her. “Lilly, as his partner, you’ll be accompanying Valentine to Junon.”

“But I know nothing about being a bodyguard,” she replied, taken aback. Scarlet might give her hives, but she still wouldn’t forgive herself if something happened to the woman while under her watch.

“I’m well aware of this. You’ll be leaving on Thursday morning for an overnight stay. Until then you’ll be getting a crash course on everything you need to know for the job. I don’t expect any issues to crop up during the trip, and your partner has years of experience working protection details. Lean on him if you need to.”

A cloud passed over Vincent’s expression when Veld spoke of his “years of experience”. No doubt he was remembering exactly how that last bodyguard job had ended for him. Neither he nor Veld mentioned it, though, and Lilly kept her peace. It was enough that she was trying not to panic at the thought of leaving for this assignment in three days’ time and everything she would need to learn beforehand.

But at least it was only bodyguard duty. She wouldn’t be killing or otherwise maiming anyone unless things went completely pear-shaped. As far as Turks’ missions went, this was easy. Safe. It could have been far, far worse.

“All right. I’ll do my best.” Her voice sounded a lot more confident than she felt, which wasn’t much.

“Cissnei is waiting for you to start on your training,” Veld told her, before turning an impressive scowl on his ex-partner. “As for you... you and I have some more talking to do...”

Clearly, Lilly had been dismissed. She hurried out of the office before Veld started yelling at Vincent about keeping things from him. She didn’t want to be there for that, thank you very much.

At the crack of dawn that Thursday, Lilly found herself cooling her heels on the rooftop of Shinra Tower with a helicopter idling nearby. Vincent had instructed her to wait there for their charge while he ran the pre-flight checklist inside the cockpit. Learning that he could pilot helicopters had come as quite a surprise, but maybe it shouldn’t have. Several of the other Turks could do so: Reno, Tseng, and Cissnei being the three she knew about. It made sense that Vincent would also have learned at some point during his years of employment at Shinra.

He’d looked faintly relieved when they first stepped onto the rooftop half an hour ago, commenting that it was good to see that the older model he was used to flying was still in service even after twenty years. Lilly figured Veld had made sure to get them a helicopter Vincent was already familiar with. This mission wasn’t the right time for him to be familiarizing himself with a new model. Scarlet would undoubtedly complain about a rough ride, and Lilly already expected her to make both their lives miserable for the duration of the trip.

She was rather looking forward to the trip to Junon in spite of it all, she had to admit. Flying in a helicopter would be a first. When she mentioned to Vincent that planes were much more common than helicopters back on Earth, he had looked intrigued. No one on Gaia seemed to have come up with the idea of commercial airlines yet, and airplanes were reserved for military transports exclusively. It was strange that Shinra wasn’t all over the idea, seeing how much money they could make with it. But perhaps their technology, although similar to Earth’s, didn’t make it a viable proposition.

She blinked away her musings when the sound of high heels clicking on concrete announced Scarlet’s arrival. Lilly straightened. “Ma’am,” she greeted the Director of Weapons Development.

“Oh. It’s you.”

Scarlet’s sneer was no more attractive this time around than it had been in the elevator, and it still made Lilly feel like little more than dirt on the woman’s shoe. She gritted her teeth and worked hard on keeping her expression and voice neutral as she said, “We’ll be departing in a few minutes. Please take your seat.”

Who knew that being a bodyguard to an executive also meant playing flight attendant to a difficult customer...

Scarlet completely disregarded this instruction, choosing instead to look around the rooftop, her pinched expression promising retaliation if she didn’t get what she wanted. “Where is the Turk I requested for this trip?”

“His name is Vincent Valentine... ma’am,” Lilly answered curtly. She wanted to wring the executive’s neck already and they hadn’t even left Midgar. The next twenty-four hours were going to be hell.

“Yes, yes, whatever. I specifically ordered your director to put him at my disposal. Where is he?”

“He’ll be piloting the helicopter, so he’s already inside preparing for our departure.”

It was quite a thing to see Scarlet’s expression transform from a rather unattractive scowl to one of practiced sensuality. It might almost be funny if it wasn’t directed at Lilly’s partner and friend. Teeth still gritted against the urge to get snappish at the older woman, Lilly gestured for her to step into the helicopter. She intended to make sure her charge was settled down in the back before joining Vincent in the cockpit and taking the copilot’s chair. Anything to put some distance between the two of them.

That was the plan, at least. Scarlet, however, had other ideas. As Lilly did a last sweep of the rooftop for hidden threats--a necessity Cissnei had hammered into her skull over the past three days--the blonde executive used this opportunity to enter the cockpit and slide into what should have been Lilly’s seat. She wasted no time either, sliding her fingers along Vincent’s jacket sleeve as she murmured something husky close to his ear.

Lilly could have slapped her... might still do so before the day was over if she didn’t keep her paws to herself.

“I haven’t flown a helicopter in several years,” Vincent warned, giving Scarlet a cold look. “This trip will go more smoothly if you keep your hands to yourself.”

Scarlet laughed. “Oh... you’re a spunky one. I like that.” She answered his frostiness with a hungry smile.

Left with no other choice, Lilly took the seat at the back of the main cabin that was supposed to have been Scarlet’s, feeling bad about abandoning Vincent to deal with the woman on his own. There was nothing she could do about it, though, as her orders were clear. While on an assignment as a bodyguard to one of Shinra’s executives, their words were law unless their safety was compromised. For the next twenty-four plus hours, both she and Vincent had their role to play, like it or not.

The few hours it took them to fly to Junon felt like an eternity. It started raining somewhere over the mountains, and by the time they landed, it was pouring, making the visibility almost nil. Despite what he’d said about not flying in years, Vincent’s grip on the flight controls never faltered, and not even Scarlet had any complaint about the way he handled the landing in this awful weather.

A car with a chauffeur awaited them on the tarmac. Vincent produced a black umbrella from somewhere and opened it to shield Scarlet from the worst of the rain when she exited the cockpit, which left Lilly to curse her luck as she followed closely behind them and got wet.

And thus commenced a series of trips all across Junon for the various meetings Scarlet had to attend that day. What those meetings were about, Lilly couldn’t have said, and she wasn’t curious enough to find out.

In any case, she wasn’t given the opportunity to try. The moment they parked at their first destination, a restaurant where Scarlet was meeting city officials for a late breakfast or early lunch, the older woman turned to Lilly before she could open the car door. “You will wait outside for us to be done.”

Lilly tensed. “Ma’am,” she protested. It was still pouring rain out there and there was no reason for her to be standing watch outside the restaurant when inside would work just as well.

“I don’t like to repeat myself, dear, and this is how my security team always operates. One inside, one outside. I will have Vincent with me today.”

His name sounded somehow obscene on her lips, and Lilly bristled. She hated this, but a quick look at Vincent confirmed that she had no standing to refuse the executive’s command, even if it made little sense strategically.

Damnit.

“As you wish, ma’am,” she finally replied, not giving the other woman the joy of seeing her seethe.

She grabbed the umbrella and stepped outside, snapping it open just as Scarlet exited the car a moment later. If it sent water droplets everywhere and some of them hit the older woman in the face, well then, well, it was too damn bad.

Without a word, Lilly escorted Scarlet to the restaurant door, before handing the umbrella to Vincent and taking position under the building’s eaves while the two of them made their way inside. Unfortunately, the overhang wasn’t wide enough to offer much protection against the rain, and Lilly spent the next hour and a half getting drenched while trying to stay focused on her task of watching the street and guarding the door.

The day wasn’t a particularly cold one--it was June after all--but it wasn’t particularly warm either, and when one added the cooling effect of the breeze blowing from the sea it made for a wretched experience. Lilly was pretty certain her lips had started turning blue by the time Scarlet finally walked out the door again, followed closely by her personal Turk shadow.

The female executive couldn’t contain her sardonic smirk at seeing Lilly’s drowned-rat look, making Lilly fervently wish she could rip her a new one. Clearly, the older woman brought out the worst in her personality as she usually wasn’t this vindictive. It didn’t help that Scarlet brushed against Vincent any chance she got, which was often since he was holding up the umbrella for her this time, and he did nothing to stop her.

Their next stop was the Sister Ray itself. This time, Lilly was ordered to wait outside the conference room, right under an air conditioning vent, while Vincent accompanied Scarlet inside for the duration of the meeting. From her position, she was able to hear indistinct voices coming from inside the room, but not understand what they were saying.

At that point, she couldn’t have cared less. She felt too cold to think of much else. She thought about moving out of the cool draft caused by the air vent, but military personnel kept walking past her, the men staring at the fabric of her suit sticking to her figure more than usual--or worse, giving her pitying looks. With so many witnesses, she refused to show weakness. She was a Turk, damnit, and would not let her discomfort show.

Even though she was shivering in her wet clothes and wondering if she would catch a cold before the end of the mission.

This time, it took over two hours before Scarlet reappeared with Vincent in tow, and Lilly hadn’t moved from her position beside the door. She showed no sign of emotion when the older woman gave her a scornful glance as she walked by, but her neutral mask wavered slightly when Vincent wouldn’t even meet her eyes as he followed behind the executive.

She wasn’t used to her partner ignoring her in this way, and it bothered her more than she could put into words.

Mentally cursing Scarlet’s very existence, Lilly fell into step behind the two of them. Back at the car, Vincent slipped in the back seat along with Scarlet, leaving Lilly to sit in the front beside their driver. A glance in the mirror showed her Scarlet leaning against her partner’s side invitingly, and Lilly thought she just might see red.

Fuck. She realized she was jealous of the blonde bombshell getting closer to Vincent than she had ever dared.

She prayed for someone to shoot her now. This was torture.

Things did not get any better for Lilly once they reached their hotel for the night, a beautiful old stone building that dated from before Shinra took over Junon and made it into the military town it now was. Once again, she didn’t even make it inside the lobby.

“You stay here,” Scarlet ordered, pointing across the street from the hotel’s entrance.

Although it was true that this position allowed for a view of all the possible entry points into the hotel, including the service door, Lilly was more sure than ever that this wasn’t the reason Scarlet had chosen it. She just wanted Lilly as far away from Vincent as possible, while making her miserable in the process.

Petty b***h.

Once again, she tried to catch Vincent’s eyes, but he still wouldn’t look at her. Lilly felt the strongest urge to scream at him not to act like she didn’t exist, but she reigned it in at the last moment, knowing it wouldn’t do anything but make her look and sound like a lunatic. “Yes, ma’am,” she answered Scarlet instead.

Straightening her rumpled suit, she stalked to her designated position and turned to face the street only to watch Scarlet slide her hand under Vincent’s right elbow and cling to him as they walked inside, where it was warm and dry.

Why wasn’t Vincent stopping her? This was his gun arm; Scarlet shouldn’t be holding on to it. If someone were to attack them right now, he might not be able to free himself from Scarlet’s octopus grip in time to react and could get himself hurt.

Damnit, Vincent, what are you doing?

The two of them had long disappeared inside the hotel by the time Lilly stopped fuming about the whole situation. A small part of her wished she could stay angry longer, though. If nothing else, it had kept her somewhat warm. But now that she had calmed down again, the rain dripping down her hair into the collar of her shirt was starting to really get old... and cold. She shivered in spite of herself.

This was just for one night, she reminded herself. They would be on their way back to Midgar in the morning and then it would be all over and she could take a hot shower and sleep off her anger and resentment. Hopefully, she wouldn’t catch a cold on top of it all. If she did, she’d be sure to blame Scarlet, as she blamed her for the rest of this poor excuse of a mission.

Time seemed to crawl forward at a snail’s pace, the rain never abating in the slightest. If not for how miserable she felt, Lilly might have appreciated the melancholy beauty of the stately old hotel and empty street glimmering softly under the glow of the streetlights. Usually, she liked watching the rain, but not when she had to stand in it, soaked to the bone, for hours on end.

She didn’t know what time it was--maybe around midnight--when she heard the hotel’s front doors open, then close again. She had been staring at the nearest lamp post, half hypnotized by the rain falling through its light like a glistening curtain. She blinked, realizing that she hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings and that her distraction could prove dangerous.

She turned her head to check on whoever had decided to leave the hotel so late, and she blinked again as she saw the dark suit and darker hair framing a pale face.

Vincent?

What was he doing here instead of keeping watch over Scarlet? Obviously, the two of them had grown close today, Lilly thought peevishly, so shouldn’t he be with her?

Vincent unfolded the same black umbrella they’d used all day and made his way toward where she stood, his hard-to-read expression one she had never seen before. He stopped less than two feet away from her, and this time it was Lilly who refused to look at him.

“Shouldn’t you be inside? Scarlet will be wondering where you went,” she said after a long moment of weighted silence. She barely managed to keep herself from sounding as jealous as she felt.

Vincent's low, gravelly voice washed over her, warming her to the core even though she was still mad at him. “She has retired for the night.”.

Lilly could feel his gaze on her like it held physical form, and she ended up scowling at the pavement beneath her feet. “Look, could you just... look somewhere else? I know what I look like right now, and I’m really not in the mood for one of your silent stare-off.”

She had noticed him staring at her several times over the course of the last few weeks, leaving her wondering what he saw in her that made him look like he might just have found something precious he had lost a long time ago. But each time she caught him doing it, Vincent looked away like nothing happened, and it became one of those things they simply did not discuss.

“Lilly--”

“I’m wet, I’m cold, I’m tired, and I just don’t know what you’re doing here, Vincent,” she interrupted him, on the wrong side of sounding angry. “We’re in the middle of an assignment and I know that Director Scarlet needs to be our first priority.” And being wet and cold for a few hours was nothing for a Turk. She knew she could end up in much worse situations in the future.

Vincent took another step closer to her, so close she could almost have gone on tiptoes and kissed him, keeping the umbrella angled in such a way that it protected both of them from the falling rain. “Lilly,” he repeated, and sighed. “I could not let Scarlet think that we were in any way intimate, or she would have made you pay for it.”

Oh, was that why he let her drool all over him all day?

Lilly finally looked up and opened her mouth to snipe back at him, but she completely forgot what she was about to say when she noticed the red welt blooming on his left cheek and the three scratch marks running almost all the way from his ear to his nose.

“What happened to you,” she exclaimed in shock.

It must have occurred only minutes before he left the hotel or it would have healed already--that is unless she was mistaken about his regeneration capabilities.

Vincent’s mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “She slapped me when I refused to follow her inside her hotel room. She has long nails.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “There are things even I will not do for the sake of an assignment like this one.”

Before she could think better of it, Lilly raised her arm, letting her hand hover over Vincent’s cheek. For several heartbeats, she watched him, motionless, before gently running just her fingertips along the shallow wounds.

His skin felt so warm, she thought, and only slightly scratchy from a day’s worth of beard growth.

Lilly gulped and searched Vincent’s eyes for a sign that he didn’t welcome her touch. She saw nothing but his usual kind red eyes looking back at her, however, half-closed as though he was trying to commit this moment to memory.

“I’m sorry, Vincent. What Scarlet’s been doing to you all day... it wasn’t okay. I should have said something.” Instead of marinating in her own jealousy like the idiot she was.

Logically, she had always known that he wasn’t a willing participant in the older woman’s little games, but she hadn’t even tried to stop it from happening. Shit. She really was a horrible partner.

“I was such a fool,” she muttered.

“No, I am the one who was a fool,” he replied, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Then, let’s agree we were both fools and leave it at that.” Her poor attempt at a chuckle turned into a full-body shiver. Damn but she was cold.

Vincent shocked her by closing the last of the gap between them and wrapping his free arm--his left, gauntleted arm--loosely around her back. His other hand, still holding the umbrella somehow firmly in place, went around her shoulders. He pulled her flush against his chest and held her close while raindrops kept beating a quick staccato on the umbrella’s canopy.

Tensing up in surprise, Lilly squeaked. “Vincent?”

“Your lips are blue,” he said simply, as if it explained everything.

But it explained nothing. Vincent... Vincent was holding her in his arms, and she could feel not only his body heat through his clothes but also some strange bumps on his chest that had to be scars, or perhaps even the protomateria implanted close to his heart. He smelled faintly of gun smoke, Scarlet’s cigarettes, and something indescribable that was his and his alone.

Eventually, her shoulders sagged and she let herself relax into his gentle embrace, closing her eyes and resting her head on his chest, listening to his slow heartbeats and deep breathing. He laid his chin down on top of her hair without a word, his arms tightening just the tiniest fraction around her back.

Whatever she had done to deserve this... she would enjoy it while it lasted.

“I’m getting you all wet,” she mumbled into his jacket lapel some time later.

She didn’t want this to end, but she was soaking wet and he had managed to stay dry... until now.

She felt just as much as she heard the soft huff of his almost inaudible laughter. “The water won’t damage me.” He did pull back a little later, though, when he said, “Now, let’s get you back inside before you get hypothermia.”

“But what about Scarlet and our assignment?”

“Forget about Scarlet. I will make sure nothing happens to her tonight.”

With those words, he guided her back toward the hotel lobby, not quite touching her anymore but walking so close that she could feel his jacket brush against her arm.

Unbidden, a happy smile curled up her lips. She didn't feel quite so cold anymore...

Chapter Text

Lilly sniffed miserably and reached for another tissue, while at the desk beside hers, Reno muffled a laugh--and not very well at that.

“Can it, Reno, or I’ll shut you up myself,” she muttered, and glared at him. Her threat might have held more weight if her eyes weren’t watering and her nose wasn’t red as Reno’s hair from all the nose-blowing she’d been doing over the last several days.

“I still can’t believe Scarlet had you standing in the rain all day,” her colleague snickered. “She really must hate you, yo.”

“Don’t talk to me about that... that woman.” Lilly growled like she did every time the subject of Scarlet came up ever since her return from Junon, a fact which sent Reno into peels of laughter.

Feeling another sneeze coming, she cursed and turned away from her desk to shield her face into her elbow. Damn Scarlet to hell and back. Although... without her petty scheming, Lilly wouldn’t be able to bask in the memory of Vincent’s arms around her, of his warmth and his smell--

“Earth to Lilly... What’re you smiling like that about? You’re creeping me out, yo.”

“Leave the poor woman alone, Reno,” Cissnei called out from her own desk. “Although... do tell, Lilly. What else did happen in Junon? You’ve both been acting weird since you came back.”

Weird? Had they really been acting weird? Lilly couldn’t see it, but maybe she hadn’t really been paying attention. Perhaps Vincent had been a little more considerate of her than usual, but that was mostly due to the fact that she had come down with a fever the day after their return to Midgar and been nursing a bad cold ever since. She was just now feeling good enough to return to work.

“Do you think so,” she finally said rather lamely.

“Hmh-mhm.” Cissnei smirked. “You can’t fool a Turk, you know.”

“Nothing else happened,” Lilly lied.

“Reeeeally,” Reno drawled, drawing out the single word to the point that it sounded like it had an additional syllable.

At that instant, Tseng stepped out of his office, saving Lilly from having to come up with an answer that would make the two Turks stop asking questions she didn’t wish to answer.

“Don’t you all have reports to write?” The Turks’ second-in-command glanced around the room with a scowl. All the Turks present in the office but Reno suddenly made sure they were very busy typing, including Lilly. Reno, for his part, stuck his tongue out at Tseng’s back.

“I saw that, Reno. Now, go back to work.”

Reno’s expression of shock was comical. “How did he know,” he mouthed at Lilly and Cissnei silently, but he did go back to writing his report.

Several minutes later, once Tseng was safely back inside his office with the door closed, Cissnei leaned toward Lilly across the aisle separating their desks. “Are you doing anything next Tuesday night?”

Lilly blinked. “Tuesday?” Today was Wednesday, so that made it almost a week from now. “Huh... I don’t think so, why?”

The younger Turk grinned. “Great. Keep your calendar open, then. We’re going out.”

“In the middle of the week?”

“Come on. You’re not old enough to sound like Veld.” She fake-coughed into her fist, “Grumpy old man”.

Lilly’s snort of laughter ended up hurting her still sore throat. She grimaced and got back to work, although Cissnei’s snickers made it hard for her to focus. Unfortunately, she had to finish up her report on the Junon mission. She was stuck writing it as Vincent’s handling of computers... wasn’t the best, to say the least. Between his twenty years’ gap in technological knowledge and the metal claws making it difficult to type, he had more or less given up trying to learn how to use a laptop--but only after breaking two keyboards in the span of three days.

The report was already a few days late and Tseng had let her know in no uncertain terms he needed it before she headed home for the night. In her defense, she had been out sick for most of that time. It was the most boring report ever to write too, considering that nothing actually happened during the mission. Scarlet’s petty scheming didn’t really count, although it still needed to be reported in case it mattered later on, but she definitely wouldn’t be mentioning how Vincent held her in the rain for much longer than was appropriate.

She didn’t know if the department had actual, written-down rules forbidding fraternization between employees, and she would much prefer never having to find out.

By six-thirty, she finally put the report down on Tseng’s desk with a little flourish. The man barely looked up from his screen long enough to nod in acknowledgment before returning to whatever he was working on. She pursed her lips but left the room again without a word. Even after weeks of working in the same office he did, she didn’t quite know what to think of Veld’s right-hand man. He was serious to a fault, put the other Turks to shame when came time to erase all trace of his thoughts and emotions from his expression, and if not for the fact that Lilly knew that the man had a soft spot for Aerith, she would have thought he didn’t know how to care about anything other than his job and Shinra. It was evident that the Director trusted him, however, in spite of his young age.

He still made her uncomfortable, through no fault of his own, but she had at least gotten better at hiding it.

When she finally made it back to the apartment she shared with Vincent, she was about ready to go back to bed, dinner be damned. She was too tired to bother with food and hoped Vincent wouldn’t mind going to the cafeteria for another night. She stopped the moment she stepped inside, though, at the sounds of someone moving around in the kitchen.

“Vincent,” she called out uncertainly, but really, who else could be in the kitchen?

It took some time before her partner and roommate answered, and when he did he sounded almost... bashful. “In here,” he said, before stepping into view holding a ladle in his good hand.

Lilly bit her lower lip at the sight of him, doing her best not to laugh. He was still wearing his Turk suit--actually, she had yet to see him wear anything else since they started working for Veld--but he had slipped on one of her aprons over it and the sheer domesticity of him wearing it made her heart skip a beat.

“You worked late,” he commented, at the same time as she exclaimed, “I didn’t know you could cook.”

He tilted his head to the side and gave her a droll look. It was subtle, but she was getting good at reading him.

“Who do you think cooked while you were sick,” he eventually said, perking an eyebrow at her.

Hmm... that cold must really have done a number on her mental faculties because she hadn’t wondered even once who had made the enormous pot of vegetable soup that she had been eating for the last several days. Cissnei, or perhaps even Angeal would have made more sense to her than Vincent, though.

“I’m still sick,” she whined, rather lamely in her own opinion, but she couldn’t find anything more intelligent to say just then. Vincent in an apron had short-circuited her brain.

At that moment, the oven timer rang and Vincent returned to the kitchen without another word, leaving Lilly to blink owlishly at his back. Not knowing what else to do, she took off her shoes and went to change into something more comfortable. By the time she returned, dinner was served. Vincent explained somewhat sheepishly that it was something his mother used to cook when he was a child, and one of the few recipes he still remembered from all those years ago.

Still feeling a little like she was dreaming, Lilly sat down at the table and tasted her first spoonful of something that reminded her of mushroom risotto back on Earth. Her clogged nose wouldn’t allow her to smell it, but she could imagine it would be mouth-watering.

Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. “This is delicious,” she said with so much surprise that Vincent looked offended for a second. His expression cleared again quickly, though, and a light dusting of pink appeared on his cheeks.

Did she just make him blush? Oh hell... now she could feel her own cheeks heat up. She looked down at her plate and focused on eating for the next few minutes, before finally muttering, “If I’d known, I would have asked you to cook sooner.” Instead of busting her ass trying to make meals for both of them that tasted alright.

“I... have not been interested in food in a long time now,” he replied after a long moment of hesitation. “And then, you always look like you are having so much fun in the kitchen.” His mouth twitched in amusement.

First blushing, and now he was teasing her? What the hell happened to impassive and gloomy Vincent?

She hid a smile behind a mouthful of risotto. She rather liked those changes to his personality.

“Where are we going?”

Lilly let Cissnei lead her through the streets of Midgar, but she didn’t like it. She hadn’t liked it when the younger woman first pulled the scarf out of her pocket, and she still didn’t like it now that she was wearing it as a blindfold and couldn’t see anything.

What if she walked straight into a lamp post?

“You’ll see,” Cissnei giggled back

“If you let me walk into a wall, I swear I’m going to kill you dead.”

“Well, that’s usually how killing works,” her companion agreed readily.

When she had agreed to go out with Cissnei on Tuesday, Lilly hadn’t expected their outing to include secret destinations and blindfolds, and the fact that it was a Turk who came up with both ideas was making her a little nervous. Not that she didn’t trust Cissnei, but... Turks were also known for their pranks.

In her mind’s eye, Lilly tried to keep track of her position as they walked farther away from Shinra Tower. She had studied maps of Midgar for hours on end, and it was one of those spacial orientation tricks she should be able to do by now.

She could tell they were moving into Sector 8, somewhere around Loveless Avenue, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint their destination, especially since Cissnei seemed to relish taking detours to confuse her.

Just when she was about to complain about it, Cissnei pulled her to a stop. “We’re here,” she said in a sing-song voice.

There was the sound of a door opening and the clinking of a bell, and then noise assaulted her. People talking, shouting, laughing.

Cissnei untied the blindfold from around her head and gestured inside with a grin. “Tah-dah!”

Lilly stared. Why was Reno there? And... Zack? Kunsel? Vincent!? Even Angeal, Genesis, and Veld sitting awkwardly beside Vincent at the bar.

“What--”

“Happy 30th birthday!” Most of the room erupted into cheers, leaving Lilly even more baffled.

True, her birthday had coincided with the weekend she’d spent sick in bed, but-- “How did you even know?” She hadn’t ever told her age or date of birth to anyone.

“Reno looked into your employee file and saw you were turning thirty on the 11th.”

“I heard my name. S’up, Babe?”

Reno tried to drape himself across Cissnei’s shoulders, but with a nifty little twist of her hips she almost sent him sprawling to the floor. In a great show of agility, Reno still managed to keep his beer upright and didn’t spill a single drop.

“Really, Reno? Did you snoop through the employee files? What for? And you do realize Veld will have your hide if he finds out, right?”

“HR needed some of your info for their own files. I wasn’t snooping; there just wasn’t anyone else in the office at the time, yo.” He shrugged.

“Suuure,” Lilly replied, not believing it for a moment.

Reno might be her friend now, but she also hadn’t forgotten how curious he’d been to discover her true purpose in coming to Midgar. She knew that he’d never believed that Lillian Ashford, little nobody from Nibelheim, could one day simply appear in their offices with Veld’s old partner in tow, and become a junior Turk at an age when many Turks had already been “retired” the hard way. He wouldn’t have given up an opportunity to gather more information about her.

Good thing Veld himself had crafted her file and IDs. They were as foolproof as the Director of the Turks could make them.

“The birthday party was Cissnei’s idea,” Reno added quickly when Lilly continued to glower at him a little too intently.

“It’s not every day one of us turns thirty,” Cissnei confirmed with a grin. “Didn’t have much time to organize everything, though, and this was the only night I could get everyone together. Seems like a battalion of Seconds and Thirds are leaving for Wutai tomorrow afternoon, including Zack and Kunsel, so I couldn’t make it any later in the week.”

A surprise birthday party... She hadn’t had one of those since the day she turned eighteen. Lilly was hit by a powerful pang of homesickness, mixed with joy at seeing all her new friends and acquaintances gathered together. What a strange, strange life she lived. She almost choked at the thought, and blinked away the moisture in her eyes before anyone noticed she was on the verge of falling apart.

Vincent, watching her as she spoke to Cissnei and Reno and knowing her every expression all too well, did notice, but he would keep this secret of hers just as he kept the rest of them.

After Lilly arrived, the party really got started. Cissnei had somehow managed to book the entirety of the bar where Lilly had first met Zack, and their group of SOLDIERs and Turks was going to make the best of it. Tables were pushed aside, a makeshift dance floor created, and soon people invaded the space, moving to the music from the bar’s sound system.

With a bewildered smile on her face, Lilly accepted a drink from Cissnei and let Reno and Zack pull her into the throng of people. Zack’s laughter, loud and infectious, rang throughout the bar as he encouraged her to start moving in spite of her protests that she was a horrible dancer. His enthusiasm was so infectious that she soon found herself following suit, doing every silly dance she could think of until she ended up panting and exhausted and laughing herself silly.

This might be her party, but Lilly could readily admit that those people would dance--and drink--her under the table before the evening was out. More than a little tipsy after finishing the third--or was that fourth?--pink fizzy drink Cissnei had pushed into her hand, she retreated to the bar where the old guard, Vincent and Veld, sat and observed the revelry with twin expressions of vague bafflement. She plopped herself down on the nearest stool and grinned up at Vincent, flushed and happy. “You kept all this from me, you sneaky man,” she said, her first words to him since she’d made it to the bar, and then she giggled.

Vincent’s eyebrows twitched at the sound of her girly laughter. Lilly wasn’t usually prone to giggling. But he had also rarely seen her this carefree, this happy. She normally appeared to carry a heavy burden on her shoulders, worries and fears that never truly disappeared; she hid it well from everyone else, but he knew her better than most after spending so many days in her company. He couldn’t remember the last time this had happened. Not even with Lucrecia, all those years ago, had he enjoyed a woman’s company so thoroughly. The beautiful scientist had always been somewhat distant with him, although he hadn’t learned why until later on. Lilly, on the other hand, had never pushed him away in spite of knowing his darkest secrets. She had never judged him for them, for the monsters he hid inside.

Lilly waved her hand in front of Vincent’s face. His eyes had taken on that thousand-yard quality again, but something told her that he wasn’t remembering his captivity at Hojo’s hands this time. He just looked... contemplative. “A gil for your thoughts,” she said with a smile when he finally turned his attention back to her.

Vincent blinked slowly. He watched her but didn’t answer, so Lilly turned to Veld to complain, “Was he always like this? Sometimes, getting words out of him is little like pulling teeth.”

Veld seemed to consider his answer for a moment. “Eh, he was always kinda quiet...”

But he had become much more so since his return to Midgar. Now, though, he could see signs of his friend returning to his old self, maybe not ever to be whole again--few ever did after going through such long-term trauma--but doing better. Thanks to the woman sitting beside him and grinning widely, cheeks flushed by alcohol.

“You should’ve seen him when we first both joined the Turks,” Veld continued, deciding that now was a good time to poke some good-natured fun at his ex-partner, as he looked more relaxed than Veld had seen him in a long time. “For the longest time, I thought he was this shy little city boy who’d drop out of training at the first sign of blood. You should have seen him... all baby-faced and round-eyed.” He guffawed.

“Veld, you don’t need to--” Vincent started to say with a frown, but Lilly turned to him and put a finger on his lips, quite literally shushing him before he could get Veld to stop telling his story.

“Hush, I want to hear this.”

And then her foggy brain caught up with her action. She was touching Vincent’s mouth... Oh God--or Gaia, or Minerva, or whatever. What was she doing!? She wanted to disappear under the carpet. Wait, no. There was no carpet inside the bar. Behind the counter, then. Yes, that sounded like a good plan.

And yet, she still didn’t move her hand away, her index finger still pressing unto those soft, slightly chapped lips. For a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, the two of them stood in tableau, both frozen by their respective surprise, before Lilly finally snatched her hand away and burbled an apology, “I’m so sorry Vincent. I wasn’t thinking, I--”

Her words were drowned by her nervous laughter, and she hid her face in her hands, completely missing Veld’s shrewd eyes following this exchange with interest.

Soon afterward, Lilly ordered another drink and drowned her embarrassment in her pink cocktail while Veld continued with his anecdotes of a seventeen-year-old Vincent’s shenanigans. The shy boy hadn’t been shy at all, Veld had soon found out, and seemingly possessed a mischievous streak a mile wide and sniper skills to put senior Turks to shame.

“Do you remember our prank war,” Veld asked Vincent fondly.

Vincent nodded, a ghost of a smile curling his lips upward. “How long did it take the Director to find that rotting fish in the air vent? Two weeks?”

“Hmmm, that’s about right. Now, better change the subject before one of the young’uns decide it’s a good idea to try the same thing in my office.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m taking notes,” Lilly piped in, smirking. She was having the time of her life imagining Vincent and Veld as two junior Turks pulling pranks on their superiors. She wished there had been pictures.

“You wouldn’t,” Veld replied with a scowl of feigned anger.

“Nah, probably not. But I could always let Reno see those notes...”

Veld looked comically horrified at that prospect. “Don’t give him ideas.”

Lilly snickered, but then her mood took a turn for the decidedly somber in a one hundred eighty degrees change that only alcohol could accomplish in her.

“So fucking young,” she muttered, looking at the dance floor and the SOLDIERS and Turk having fun there. Even Angeal had been cajoled into dancing, by Zack most probably, and Genesis had carved his own little spot between two young female Turks and looked like he was having fun basking in their admiration.

The two older men sitting with her gave her equal looks of “you’re not that much older than they are, you know.” She didn’t pay them any heed as she went on, waving in Genesis and Angeal and Zack’s general direction. “Look at them! How old’s the oldest of them? Twenty-two? Twenty-three? And Zack... Zack’s just a kid and he’s already being sent to war. And Sephiroth, damnit. I read the file we have on him. Back home, he wouldn’t even be allowed to drink legally for a few more months. They’re all too young for the shit that’s coming for them!”

Broken; mad; dead.

And that didn’t even include silly Reno with his eyes already too jaded, being forced to sully his hands with the blood of thousands of innocents, or Rude the teddy-bear who hid his gentle eyes behind black sunglasses and was losing a little more of his humanity every day. And what of Tseng, still probably working alone in his office, trying so hard to be the perfect Turk and having to commit war crimes for the sake of evil people. They weren’t really good men, no Turk was, but they were her colleagues, and her friends in the case of two of them.

“They don’t deserve any of it,” she concluded.

Her impassioned speech was made only slightly worse by the slurring of her words at the end and the sniffle she punctuated it with.

Vincent and Veld exchanged a look. “How much have you had to drink,” Vincent asked her after a moment.

Lillys shrugged, looking down at her empty drink. “No clue. Too much probably.”

Veld gestured to the barmaid, and a few seconds later, a tall glass of water was placed in front of Lilly. “Here, drink this or you’ll regret it in the morning,” he advised her, voice gruff but not quite hiding his amusement.

She did so without so much as glance at the content of the glass first, which had Veld shaking his head and wondering when was the last time he had been this trusting of anything put in front of him to eat or drink. Vincent’s new partner was still lacking that edge of paranoia that was sometimes all that kept a Turk alive.

But since she was good for his old friend... they would simply have to watch over her a bit more closely while she learned about the rest of it.

“Lilly?” Vincent leaned toward her once she put down her empty glass back on the bar in front of her.

“Hmm?” She looked back up at him and tried to focus her eyes when he appeared a bit blurry.

She really had been too generous with the alcohol, it looked like. If anyone asked, she would swear it was all Cissnei’s fault; the younger woman had kept plying her with those sweet fizzy cocktails... Never mind the fact that she’d ordered two more of them once she sat down with Vincent and Veld.

“Time to head back, I think,” Vincent said next, smiling one of his little secret smiles.

“Oh... Right. Sure. My party can keep having fun without me.” Lilly nodded emphatically, only stopping when the movement made her head spin.

Following Vincent’s example, she jumped off her stool--neither of them mentioned the hand he held out to steady her while she got her unsteady feet to support her weight--and yelled a hearty goodbye to the room at large before following him to the entrance. Reno’s loud whistle and Cissnei cheerful goodbye accompanied by a suggestive eyebrow wiggle were completely ignored by them both as they left the bar and stepped into the warm June night.

Outside, the air smelled of smog and mako but it was blissfully quiet after all the noise inside the bar. “Thank you for coming to the party,” she suddenly told Vincent.

He huffed in reply and shrugged his shoulders.

“No, no. Really, thank you. I know the noise and crowd can’t have been comfortable. But, I’m glad you came anyway.”

She swayed on her feet, but only a little bit, when she went to bump her shoulder into his--or rather somewhere around the height of his elbow, because damn but he was tall. But she knew that already, right?

“Lilly?”

“Yes?”

Vincent looked down at her, and she looked back, too drunk to feel awkward or shy as her gaze lingered a little too long on his features to be accidental. For a moment, she thought he might be about to tell her something, but then he only sighed and shook his head. “Let’s return to the Tower,” he said instead of whatever else he’d had in mind.

Lilly suddenly wished she knew what he initially meant to say. She had a feeling it would have rocked her world.

Or maybe she was just drunk. That was a more likely explanation.

Chapter Text

Lilly didn’t know it yet, but that birthday party would mark the last relatively peaceful day she would get to experience before the clouds started rolling in on her and her friends. It was bound to happen at some point, of course, but she didn’t expect the first rumblings of thunder to be heard during Veld’s morning meeting, while she was nursing a hangover from her party the night before.

The entire team had crammed themselves into the conference room, as was the habit any time Veld called a team meeting, usually to relay some information on the latest threat to Shinra’s continued existence. This, Lilly had learned, happened at least once a week. A lot of people were after Shinra blood, and with good reason, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see the Tower bombed in the middle of work hours, like the plot the Turks had uncovered a few weeks before. A lot of innocent people worked for Shinra--also... she lived there and didn’t particularly fancy her apartment being turned into rubble.

That morning, the subject of discussion was a new eco-terrorist group that called themselves Avalanche. When she heard that name, Lilly immediately tensed, thinking of Barrett and Tifa and Cloud. But... no. It was several years too early for that. She had left Cloud and Tifa back in Nibelheim, and as far as she knew Barrett lived happily enough with his wife in Corel at the moment.

This had to be the original Avalanche, the one Barrett’s group took their name from. There was something about them... something she felt she should remember.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to concentrate on Veld’s words despite the pounding headache she’d woken up with. She glared at Cissnei’s back sullenly. That hangover was all her fault.

“...last sighted in Wutai,” Veld was saying. “At this time, there is no intel to show they have made contact with the Wutaian resistance--” Wutaian resistance my ass. Shinra was the one who’d invaded their country. “--but the possibility can’t be ignored. Known leaders at this time are a woman named Elfe, and two men, Shears and former Shinra scientist Fuhito. Further--”

Lilly tuned Veld out at this point, as the name “Elfe” kept echoing in her mind. Something about it struck her as important. Essential even. But, as Veld kept speaking, it became apparent that he had very little information concerning the Avalanche leader. Not even a picture. And as he brought the meeting to a close, it also became clear that he didn’t consider Avalanche to be much of a threat on the grand scale of things. They were a small group, badly funded, and as long as they didn’t join forces with the Wutaians, the department wouldn’t spend precious resources attempting to infiltrate them.

Turks started filing out of the room, discussing the morning’s briefing between themselves, but Lilly stayed in her seat, frowning down at the conference table in front of her. Vincent waited until everyone else but Veld had left, before asking, “What is it, Lilly?”

She rubbed at the bridge of her nose again. It would be much easier to think if not of that damn headache.

“There is something about that eco-terrorist group...” she answered and looked up at him, an uneasy frown creasing her brow.

That caught Veld’s attention right away. He approached the two of them, looking unhappy. “Yet another thing you’ve been hiding from me?”

Immediately, Lilly raised both hands to forestall Veld’s lecture. “I’ve already explained why I can’t tell you everything I know. But in this case, it’s my memories that are hazy.”

But she knew there was something important... about Veld and that woman, Elfe. If only she could remember it more clearly.

“So, now you’re going to tell me to look into it,” Veld concluded unhappily.

Lilly bit her lower lip and nodded. “I think you should, yes.”

“Does it have anything to do with what you’ve already asked me to investigate?”

“Not... exactly. But I believe it’s important anyway. You should try to get more information about their leader, Elfe. Photographs if you can.”

Veld’s scowl deepened. “That’s awfully precise. What are you hiding from me?”

Lilly only shook her head silently. She didn’t want to say anything in case she was remembering wrong. Better to have him mad at her for “hiding yet another thing from him” than give him false hope.

“I can only say that Avalanche might play a bigger role in the future, and they should be investigated before that happens.”

Let him learn the rest on his own...

A week passed before Lilly heard back from Veld. In the meantime, she and Vincent continued working as usual. They were sent on several short assignments during that time, usually outside the Tower to keep them out of sight of Hojo and Scarlet.

They made a trip to Kalm to talk to a potential recruit for SOLDIER. The young man, a daredevil who called himself Roche, was more than receptive to their spiel and came back to Midgar with them without needing much convincing. That was one mission that ended in success, at least.

They also returned to the slums, and although Lilly didn’t speak to Aerith again, they waved at each other when the teen noticed them standing in the shadows of her church.

She even got to spend time with Hacker, the junior Turk searching through Shinra’s databases for any proof of Hojo’s inhumane experiments. The work--long searches through a ton of corporate documents, leading to searching yet more obscure files--was the closest thing to her previous work as a librarian she had done since arriving on Gaia, and if the stakes weren’t so high, she might have found the exercise almost relaxing.

And then, on the eighth day after the meeting concerning Avalanche, just as she was about to wrap up her paperwork for the evening, the shit finally hit the fan.

“Lilly. In my office. Now,” Veld called out in a tone she had never heard him employ before. It was different from the times he’d yelled at Vincent. He actually sounded livid.

Reno, who had just returned to the office after an assignment somewhere in town, whistled and opened his eyes wide as he looked at her. “What did you do? Bossman’s pissed as hell, yo.”

She shrugged, getting to her feet only after closing her computer for the night. She was not going to be returning to her desk today, she was pretty sure of it. “Sounds like it. I better go see what he wants.”

She nodded to Vincent as she walked past him, and he followed her inside Veld’s office without a word. He also had to have a good idea of what this was about.

“Close the door,” Veld snapped as soon as they made it inside.

Lilly did so before going to sit in her usual seat. When Veld glared at Vincent, she immediately jumped to his defense, “He doesn’t know. I didn’t tell him anything, so don’t be mad at him too.”

And then Veld started swearing. Vehemently. Lilly let him, unsure of how to proceed from there. There was a vast well of anger and hurt bubbling up with each of Veld’s uttered curses.

Shit. She knew it would be bad, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She didn’t know Veld all that well, but he was her boss, and more importantly, he was Vincent’s friend. She took no pleasure in his obvious pain.

“I guess you found more about Avalanche and Elfe, then...” she eventually murmured, subdued and uncertain.

Veld threw a pile of printed pictures on the desk in front of her. “One of our operatives in Wutai just sent those back to me.”

All of them showed a young woman with medium length brown hair wearing a khaki green uniform with a white cape thrown over one shoulder, a katana hanging at her side. In some of them, she was alone, others she was accompanied by one or two men--Shears and Fuhito most probably. All the pictures seemed to have been taken in a small Wutaian village.

She looked slowly at each picture, before passing them to Vincent, who sat beside her and took in the whole situation in his usual watchful way. Lilly could see a bit of Veld in the woman, in the shape of her eyes and the jutting of her chin, and she sighed. She had been right after all.

After glaring at her for a while longer, the head of the Turks lost the last shred of his temper and roared at her, “How long have you known about Felicia? That my daughter was alive?”

Lilly wouldn’t look at him and didn’t know what to say. If only she had remembered sooner...

“What else have you been hiding from me? Fuck! Is my wife--is she--”

She shook her head sadly, wishing she had better news for him. But no, she was pretty certain his wife had died in the bombing of Kalm, unlike Felicia.

“Did you ever intend to tell me? If Avalanche hadn’t started making trouble...” He trailed off and then swore at her again.

“No! Veld, I’m so sorry. It was never my intention to keep this information from you, but I didn’t remember until the briefing last week, and even then I couldn’t be sure. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything, in case I was wrong!” She was handling this whole thing horribly.

“Veld, that’s enough,” Vincent told his old friend, frowning at him, and then turned his sharp gaze to Lilly. “Give her a chance to explain.”

Veld didn’t seem to appreciate the interruption from his old friend, but Lilly couldn’t be more grateful. She’d never liked having people screaming at her, as it made it hard for her to think clearly. A fatal flaw in a Turk, most probably, but there it was anyway.

She licked her lips and took a moment to gather her thoughts. “There isn’t a ton I can tell you,” she finally told Veld. “When you mentioned Avalanche and their leader Elfe, it rang a bell but I couldn’t be sure if I remembered correctly. It’s not... it’s not like the Planet talks to me all the time.”

The lie came more easily now, and she hoped Veld would buy it and not ask for details. Luckily, chances were good he was more interested in Elfe--Felicia--than in her “ability” to talk to the Planet at the moment.

“I know things, it’s true,” she continued, “but some of that knowledge is vague and patchy. And that’s if I even remember it at all.”

She dared to look back at the incensed man sitting in front of her, beseeching him with her eyes to believe she hadn’t meant him any harm. She hadn’t intended to play games with what information she possessed; she was doing the best she could in this really fucked-up situation.

“What else can you tell us?” It was Vincent who spoke, more gently than Veld would have, but the core of steel in his voice would not be ignored.

A glance at him confirmed that he looked none too happy with her if the crease between his eyebrows was any indication. Lilly hadn’t told him about her suspicions, either--and he hadn't asked, trusting that she knew what she was doing--and now she regretted it. She would have to apologize to him later, once they were done here.

“I...” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. What else could she tell them? Elfe was a character in a game she never played, which was never available in English, but she had read enough fanfiction once upon a time that she was at least aware of a few things. Now, separating the facts that were actually canon from the inventions of imaginative writers was another matter entirely.

Which is why she was quite hesitant when she spoke next, “I know Felicia survived the bombing of Kalm, and that she was in Hojo’s hands for some time after that. At least, I think so.”

Veld and Vincent both visibly recoiled. Hojo was never good news, although in Felicia’s case things weren’t as dire as they could have been.

“He’s implanted a shard of some unusual materia in one of her hands, supposedly to save her arm. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know it’s given her abilities that are similar to that of a SOLDIER. That’s what makes her such an important asset to Avalanche. Unfortunately, it’s also bad for her health.”

Veld lurched forward, and for a moment Lilly thought he might grab her by the lapels of her jacket to shake the answers out of her. “What do you mean, bad for her health? Are you saying it’s killing her?”

“I... That, I’m not sure. Possibly.” She hesitated a moment longer before grimacing and adding in a softer voice, apologetically, “Probably.”

That sent Veld into another swearing fit, which lasted even longer than the first.

When his curses dried up, there was nothing left in his expression but the look of an anguished father in search of answers she wasn't certain she could give him.

“Felicia... my baby girl. If she’s alive, why didn’t she ever contact me? She was almost twelve; she was old enough to know how to reach me, or have someone do it for her. I would have done anything in my power to help her...”

“She doesn't remember you.” Lilly spoke kindly, trying to soften the blow somewhat. “I don’t know if it’s because of the trauma or something Hojo did to her, but she has no memories of her life prior to the Kalm bombing. I’m not sure how she ended up being called Elfe and leading Avalanche, though.” Then she added in a whisper. “I’m sorry, Veld. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and it feels like it’s the only thing I’m good at these days.”

The Turks’ Director spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the spread of pictures on the desk between them. He ran a finger slowly down one of them, following the contours of Felicia’s--Elfe’s--face. Finally, he spoke again. “How sure are you about this? You say your memories aren’t all that great, so could you be wrong?”

Lilly couldn’t tell what exactly Veld was asking her. Did he hope it wasn’t Felicia in those photos, now being called Elfe? Or was he looking for reasons to believe she was with Avalanche against her will? She simply couldn’t say. In the end, she had to shrug helplessly. “Ninety-five percent sure,” she replied. “There might be details I’m not remembering correctly, but the gist of it is accurate.”

Now, it was up to him to choose what he wanted to do with this information. What he did end up deciding, however, left her so shocked that she could do nothing but stare at him with her mouth slightly agape while she tried to process his words.

“Valentine, I want you and your partner on the roof of the building in two hours. A helicopter will be waiting for you to take you to Junon. From there, you’ll take one of the military transports to Wutai. I’ll alert General Sephiroth of your arrival; he’ll be expecting you and should be able to provide a few troopers to accompany you.” He looked at his old friend, expression serious. “I wish I could go with you, but my leaving Midgar at the moment would raise suspicion. So, I’m asking you: retrieve my daughter. Alive.”

Huh... what? Not that she was particularly surprised that he would ask Vincent to lead the mission to get Felicia back--he trusted his old partner implicitly and probably couldn’t spare anyone else on a non-work-related mission--but did she really hear him say that she would also be going!?

Veld took back the stack of pictures and slipped them inside a folder, which he then held out for them to take. “You’ll find everything we know about Avalanche’s current whereabouts in there. I’ll let our operative in Wutai know to communicate anything else they learn to Shinra’s advanced base of operation on the Eastern front. It’ll be waiting for you when you get there.”

“Wait... wait, hold on,” Lilly stuttered, finally finding her tongue again. “I understand trusting Vincent to deal with the situation, but you can’t mean to send me along with him... right?” She was barely out of basic training. She had no place on a search and rescue mission in the middle of a war zone.

Veld’s angry scowl had her snapping her mouth shut before she could argue her case any more than that. “For two months now, I’ve gone along with you keeping your secrets and I’ve sunk a great many man-hours digging into the research of a very dangerous man, all on nothing but your say-so. I’ve tried to keep you on mostly innocuous assignments because Valentine asked me, but you are a Turk now and I can’t keep out of the line of fire forever. Now’s the time to prove you got what it takes.”

Several times, Lilly tried answering him, but nothing would pass her lips. She was at a complete loss for words, and for once Vincent wasn’t coming to her rescue. Whether he agreed with Veld or simply thought this wasn’t a fight he could win for her, she didn’t know, but she would need to deal with the situation herself.

It was becoming increasingly clear that she needed to come to a decision quickly. This latest revelation had broken what trust there had been between Veld and herself. He was giving her a way to make up for it, but the thought of hunting for terrorists in Wutai was enough to have her break into a cold sweat. She didn’t think she had much of a choice, however.

Not if she wanted to keep relying on the Turks’ resources to investigate Hojo.

“I understand, sir,” she said at last. “I’ll do everything in my power to get your daughter back.”

Veld stared at her a while longer while she refused to look down, before finally nodding. “You’re dismissed,” he said shortly.

Lilly was relieved to get out of the director’s office, truth be told. Still feeling her hands shaking slightly, she got back to her feet and left without a word, needing a moment to herself to come to terms with the upcoming mission.

She had to remind herself that she wouldn’t be alone. And since they were headed for Wutai, that meant she would finally get to meet Sephiroth, which had been part of her plan from the start.

Right. Everything would be fine. She only had to keep repeating it often enough and she would hopefully start to believe it. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms in a subconscious effort to ward off a chill only she could feel.

A hand landed lightly on her shoulder and made her jump halfway out of her skin. She whipped around, already gearing for an elbow jab, and barely managed to stop herself in time to avoid hitting Vincent in the solar plexus. “Shit. Sorry. You startled me.”

He arched a concerned eyebrow at her. “So I see.”

Around them, the few Turks still working at their desks, Reno included, stopped working to stare at the scene they made. Turks... worst gossips than a bunch of teenagers, really.

“Huh... you okay, sugar?” Reno asked, scowling at Vincent like he was the one at fault for her current state of mind.

Get a grip, Lilly thought, taking a deep breath. Then, she turned to the red-head not even trying to smile as she was certain it would look horribly fake. “I’m okay, Reno.”

“Bossman didn’t ream too badly, then?” Despite his expression staying the same, Lilly had come to recognize when the younger Turk was fishing for information, and he definitely was fishing now.

“No,” she replied blandly. “Just assigned us a new mission. We’ll be gone for a few weeks this time, I guess.”

Before Reno could pick his jaw off the floor--Lilly guessed it wasn’t every day a junior Turk just out of training was assigned on a weeks-long mission--Vincent touched her arm again. “Let’s go. We need to stop by the armory before we pack, and there isn’t much time.”

He was right, of course. They still had a lot to do before boarding the helicopter, and only two hours to do it all. She gave him a tight smile and nodded. “Lead the way.”

She waved to a still dumbfounded Reno as she walked out of the office in Vincent’s steps. “Later,” she called out to him.

Hopefully, they would both return in one piece, and with Elfe safely along with them...

Chapter Text

When the military Gelnika finally touched down on the long segment of jungle cleared of vegetation and serving as a landing strip, Lilly sighed in relief. It had been a bumpy trip, squeezed in between crates of medical paraphernalia and munitions, all heading to the Wutaian Eastern front.

As Veld had mentioned a military transport, she had expected to be traveling alongside troopers, or perhaps even SOLDIERs, and not supplies. She wasn’t sure if it was an improvement over sharing a plane with a bunch of soldiers. If nothing else, it might have made the pilot a little more careful. They had passed through several zones of heavy turbulence on the way, and it appeared to her that the man had taken sadistic pleasure in riding the worst of them.

Not only did she end up with a few new bruises from the plane bumping around so much, but she got airsick. She never got airsick! “I think he’s doing it on purpose,” she complained to Vincent after a particularly heavy series of turbulences forced them to hold on to the tethered crates for dear life.

It might be only her paranoia speaking, but their pilot really hadn’t looked pleased when he learned he’d be carrying the two Turks to Wutai.

Vincent had done nothing more than grunt in response, but he looked no happier than she felt at being shaken like a leaf in a storm.

The moment the cabin door opened, Lilly hurried out of the plane, glad to be on solid ground again. If not of Vincent following behind her and their smirking pilot already supervising the unloading of his shipment, she might have knelt down to kiss the ground. For a while there, she thought she’d never see it again.

“What now,” she asked once she was done thanking the Planet that their plane ride was over.

“Someone should be there to escort us to the general,” Vincent replied blandly.

The general... Sephiroth. After months of anticipation and apprehension, she was finally going to meet the legendary hero of Wutai. She wasn’t sure what to expect of the man. The file the Turks had on him gave his age as twenty, soon to be twenty-one, and had become a general a bit more than a year ago. A soldier in some capacity or another since he turned twelve, the year the war in Wutai first begun, he had grown up knowing nothing but war and Hojo’s lab. Not an upbringing she would wish on her worst enemy.

“Lilly! Vincent! This way,” a voice Lilly had grown to know very well called out, bringing a huge grin to her face.

“Zack!”

Of course. Zack had been in Wutai for the last week and a half. If he’d heard about their arrival, there was no way he wouldn’t have volunteered to escort them to the SOLDIER camp.

Before she could another word, Lilly was wrapped in a pair of muscular arms and hugged by her favorite SOLDIER to within an inch of her life. In the end, she had to tap him on the back so he’d released her, wheezing, “Zack, I can’t breathe.”

He released her at once. “Whoops. Sorry about that.” He laughed. “I still forget about my strength sometimes.”

He then turned to Vincent and held out his hand. “It’s good to see you too, man.”

She held her breath when Vincent only stared at Zack’s proffered hand without saying a word. It was true that he didn’t know the young SOLDIER very well as he never stayed very long during her Saturday potlucks, but he had no reason to be wary of him. She was about to inquire if everything was alright when he finally made his move and went to shake hands with the younger man.

Zack stole a glance at her, his expression seeming to be asking if he’d done something wrong, and she couldn’t do anything more than shrug. More often than not, even she had no idea what went on in Vincent’s head. She wasn’t sure she wanted to either. From all accounts, it was a crowded place.

The moment of awkwardness didn’t last long. They never did when Zack was involved. He had a way of making people comfortable and making light of most situations. Not taking Vincent’s reluctance personally, he gestured for the both of them to follow him under the tree cover. “Camp’s not far,” he informed them. “So... word is that you’re here to kidnap some terrorist leader?”

He asked this with some curiosity but no trace of judgment as though was a totally normal thing to be doing. Lilly gaped at him, then frowned. “News traveled fast,” she commented unhappily.

Glancing at Vincent, she saw that he was also scowling slightly. The fact that the goal of their mission to Wutai was already the subject of rumors was bad news.

Zack waved aside her worry. “I only heard about it because I’ve been serving as General Sephiroth’s aide ever since I got here. Also why I volunteered to come and get you from the airfield.”

Oblivious to the tension in the air, the young SOLDIER continued recounting his life in Wutai since his arrival. As interesting as it all was, Lilly soon stopped listening, choosing instead to fall back to walk beside Vincent. She had a question for him, one that she’d been avoiding for months now. But as they were about to meet Sephiroth, she felt she couldn’t avoid it any longer.

"Before we get to the camp, I have to ask. Is it possible that Sephiroth is your son," she asked, pitching her voice low enough that she hoped Zack, who was walking at least twenty feet in front of them, wouldn’t hear her over the sounds of the forest.

A lesser man might have gaped like a fish out of water. A less elegant one might have tripped on his own feet and fallen flat on his face. Vincent did neither of those things, but the expression of utter shock that entered his eyes was just as humorous in its own way.

“I guess that’s a no, then,” she muttered.

Flustered, Vincent took a moment to find his words. “Lucrecia and I... At the time I wished we could have, but no... No!” He shook his head emphatically, the ghost of an old pain twisting his expression into something wry and melancholy.

Lilly winced. She hadn’t meant to be reminding him of any painful memories. “I’m sorry. The stories I know, they were never clear if... if he was yours or Hojo’s. I’m not sure if anyone knew the truth of it.”

Her apology seemed to make things worse, which definitely hadn’t been her intention. Vincent’s haunted look grew more pronounced when he replied, “We never did more than exchange a few kisses, before... before she decided that Hojo would be a better partner for her. I was never at her level, intellectually, and then there was the incident with my father. I didn’t blame her for his death, but she thought I should. That I did.” He looked away. “So, no, Sephiroth definitely isn’t mine. But he is Lucrecia’s son. I should have been there to protect him from his father.”

Silence descended between them, heavy with regrets.

“Vincent...” Lilly eventually murmured with a sigh.

The look he turned her way told her he wouldn’t appreciate platitudes about how it wasn’t his fault. So, she didn’t offer him any. Instead, she said. “You weren’t there when he was a child, but you are here now. We will help him, whether he realizes he needs it or not.”

“We’re almost there,” Zack called out to them before Vincent could answer.

Even though his keen hearing had picked up on their conversation, at least the young SOLDIER had enough sense not to comment about it out loud. He also thought that warning them before anyone else heard something they shouldn’t was the right thing to do.

Soon after Zack’s warning, the camp came into view. Although Lilly didn’t really know what military camps looked like back on Earth--unless you counted ones shown in movies--this one didn’t strike her as much different. The jungle had been cleared away and steep ditches dug all around the fortified encampment. Green canvas tents served as everything from command center to cafeteria to troopers’ lodging, or so Zack explained as he pointed them out to them.

The command center is where he led them. Sephiroth was waiting for them inside, he said, and he wasn’t in a very good mood last time the young SOLDIER had seen him. Something to do with guerrilla parties hassling the camp in the last few weeks and being a real pain in the ass.

Lilly licked her lips nervously and exchanged a look with Vincent. That might become a problem once they traveled away front he Shinra camp to look for Avalanche. HIs distant expression made her wonder if he’d listen to a word Zack had just said. Maybe he was still stuck in the past, going over his failings concerning the man they were about to meet.

On impulse, she went to squeeze his flesh hand gently. When he blinked and looked down at her, she smiled tightly. “Are you okay,” she asked in a whisper.

For a long moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer, and then his shoulders lifted in a noncommittal shrug. “As I ever am,” he responded.

Lilly barely managed to hide her grimace, but she didn’t have the opportunity to say or do anything else, for at that moment, she entered the command tent and her gaze fell on the tall man wearing black leather even in this climate, his long silver hair a sure indication of his identity. She sucked in a breath, less quietly than she might have wished, for the silver General heard her and turned around, a scowl pulling his regular features down into something almost threatening.

Sephiroth in the flesh. Despite being almost ten years younger than she was, the man was surrounded by an aura of power that made it difficult for her not to react by taking a step back. Those green cat-like eyes of his were even eerier in person than they were on television. He was, in a word, intimidating.

Good thing she was getting used to dealing with intimidating men.

Looking quickly from Sephiroth to Vincent, she saw that any resemblance between the two men was superficial at best, and had more to do with their comparable height and the air of danger that surrounded them than any real physical similarities. On the other hand, she couldn’t find many similarities to Hojo either. Maybe he took mostly after his mother, Lucrecia.

As Lilly was studying the general, so was he studying them back. Finally, he said, “So, you’re the two Turks I was told to expect.”

Lilly waited for vincent to replied, but when it became apparent that he wouldn’t, she went ahead and introduced them, “Lilly Ashford, General Sephiroth. And this is my partner, Vincent Valentine.”

As they weren’t here undercover, giving him their real names wasn’t an issue, and she did want to start building a rapport of trust as soon as possible.

“You come at a bad time,” he continued, still scowling at them. “Your director has asked that I provide you with an armed escort, but we are stretched thin as it is. That terrorist group you are after is not my priority at the moment.”

Those guerilla fighters Zack had talked about most probably were tying up most of his resources.

“I understand, but we only request the help of a few troopers.”

In the folder containing the information about Avalanche and Elfe, Veld had already indicated that he didn’t want to involve Shinra troops more than was absolutely necessary to accomplish their mission. They were to keep their true objective confidential as much as they could.

Fortunately, Vincent alone was more than enough to fight off most opponents. Any trooper they took along with them would serve strictly as backup. Lilly had also hoped for at least one SOLDIER to accompany them in case their opponents were better prepared than they were expecting, but it didn’t seem likely that Sephiroth would let one of them come along on their assignment.

Considering the cold glare he was giving both of them, it seemed unlikely that he would let anyone tag along with them.

And here she had been hoping to make a good first impression...

The general looked ready to refuse their request, but before he could do so, something caught his attention, and his head whipped around to stare at a point somewhere behind her. What that was, she couldn’t tell. What she did know was that Vincent also reacted a second later, looking back at the flap covering the command tent’s entrance, his nostrils flaring slightly.

Like two dogs picking up on a scent, she thought with a frown.

Sephiroth gave her partner a considering look as he moved to grab Masamune from its stand beside the large table containing maps of Wutai and blinking computer screens.

“What is it,” she asked Vincent, wondering if she should draw out her own weapon.

“Blood,” he replied succinctly.

As he seemed alert but not alarmed, the hand that was itching to pull out her gun relaxed a bit.

“General, our last patrol just came back.” Zack, without waiting to be invited inside, walked into the tent, his expression more serious than Lilly had ever seen it.

“Casualties,” Sephiroth asked, but his tone made it obvious that it wasn’t really a question.

If both he and Vincent smelled blood already, something must have happened to those men.

“Several troopers injured. They are being brought to the medical tent as we speak. And...” He grimaced. “The third who went along with them. He... he didn’t make it. Sergeant Smythe said the Wutaians had one of those vajradhara with them and SOLDIER Mathis stayed behind to buy them time to evacuate the wounded.”

“And where is the Sergeant right now, SOLDIER Fair,” Sephiroth said, scowling.

From his expression, Lilly could only conclude this wasn’t really how a patrol debriefing was supposed to happen.

Zack’s expression grew even more somber if that was possible. “He’s with the medics. They said they might not be able to save his arm, sir.”

Sephiroth nodded, once, more of an inclination of his head really. “Dismissed,” he told Zack, who hurried back out of the tent.

The general turned his attention back to the two Turks for a moment. “As you can see, I have more urgent matters to attend to at the moment.”

With that, he left the tent in Zack’s footsteps, leaving Lilly and Vincent to fend for themselves.

“Well, this didn’t go as well as I was hoping,” Lilly said after a long moment. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “What do we do now? We still need to find the Avalanche camp and get Elfe back.”

That hadn’t changed, but without the general’s cooperation, both of those objectives had gotten much more difficult to accomplish.

“We get rid of the obstacle.”

“What do you mean?”

“That Wutaian guerilla group and their pet monsters are the biggest issue right now. Once they are dealt with, the general should be more amenable to listen to us.”

A look of wonder mixed with sadness crossed his eyes when he mentioned Sephiroth. She wondered how much of Lucrecia Vincent could see in his son. He hadn’t spoken up once in Sephiroth’s presence, other than to answer her direct question with a single word. Being tongue-tied wasn’t something Lilly usually associated with her partner, but he had been too quiet, even for him. Usually, a senior Turk would have been the one to lead a discussion with a general.

And then, the tenor of his words hit her, and she gaped at him. “You can’t mean... You want to go hunting for them!?”

He shrugged. “I am more resilient than a Third, and then I think--” He hesitated, like he did every time he was about to mention something about himself that wasn’t quite human. “I think I can follow their scent. There will be blood, still. But I need to go soon, while their trail is still fresh.”

Well, shit. He was serious.

“You can’t mean to go alone,” she protested, her hand going to grab his forearm as though to prevent him from leaving the tent.

But just the thought of going along with him... bile rose in her throat. And then she gritted her teeth. Turks had each others’ back, damnit. She wasn’t going to let her own fear get in the way of having Vincent’s.

The sound of someone clearing their throat near the tent flap had Lilly turning around, ready to snap at whoever was interrupting their conversation. The sight of Zack standing at the entrance and looking grim only halfway surprised her.

“I couldn’t help but overhear you two,” Zack said, not bothering to sound apologetic. ”Are you really thinking of going after those bastards?”

“Zack--” Lilly started, a warning in her tone. This didn’t concern him. couldn’t concern him. He was under Sephiroth’s command, and the general had made it clear he had no intention to let them borrow any of his men.

“The SOLDIER who died... he was a friend,” Zack cut her off. Lilly blinked; she had never seen the usually sunny Zack looking so angry before. “If you’re going after those Wutaians, I’m coming too. And I know of a few more of us who’d love to come too.”

“What about Sephiroth? He’s your commanding officer. I can’t believe he’d allow this.”

Zack’s lips thinned. “He’s been so busy hunting the men and monsters harrying our patrols lately that he’s barely sleeping. If I can help him out with this, I’ll do it. I can deal with the consequences later.”

“You could be court-martialed,” Lilly protested.

Zack gave her a funny look. “I could get... what?”

Ah, shit. Was “court martial” not a concept that existed for Shinra’s troops? It was hard sometimes to remember they were not truly military, especially with a name like SOLDIER thrown in the mix.

She waved aside the young man’s confusion at the term. “You could get in big trouble, is what I meant.”

Zack shrugged. “As I said, I’ll deal with it if and when it happens.”

He didn’t look like he would be changing his mind any time soon. A little desperately, Lilly pressed on. “What would Angeal say about your sneaking out of the camp without your commanding officer’s knowledge?”

“ ‘Geal will understand. He’s the one who taught me everything I know about honor, after all. And I want to honor my friend’s sacrifice by making sure the monster that killed him won’t get to kill anyone else.”

She gaped at him, rendered speechless. What could she reply to him? She couldn’t tell him off after listening to such conviction.

It was Vincent who ended up taking the decision off her hands. “I leave in fifteen minutes. Gather whoever else you think will want to come. I will not wait for you.”

Lilly could admit it made her feel slightly better to know Vincent would be fighting alone. She also made her own decision. There was no way she was letting her partner walk off into the jungle without her.

“I’m coming too.”

Vincent was on the verge of ordering her to stay behind--he knew this man-hunt would be hard for her and wished to keep her away from the bloodshed if he could--but the look of utter determination he saw in her eyes changed his mind. As much as he hated to admit it, she had made great strides as a Turk, and he couldn’t protect her from the worst parts of their job anymore.

He nodded stiffly. “Suit yourself. I suggest you change into something more suitable before we leave.”

Right. Business suits were fine for the urban jungle of Midgar; not so much for the forests of Wutai. Good thing Vincent had reminded her to bring civilian clothing fit for this mission.

“Understood, partner. And don’t you dare leave before I return,” she warned him with a glare, but he did nothing more than look back at her blandly.

“Fifteen minutes,” he simply reminded her.

She rolled her eyes at him and hurried out of the tent. But at least she now knew he wouldn’t leave her behind...

Chapter Text

Hope you all enjoy! I think they did a fantastic job showing Lilly and vincent in their Turk uniforms

And a second version in a warmer color palette

For anyone interested, here's the artist's website:

https://tardawn.weebly.com/

Chapter Text

Zack was followed by three other SOLDIERs when he returned fifteen minutes later. To Lilly’s surprise, Kunsel was amongst them. Zack’s friend had always struck her as a stickler for rules, so seeing him ready to go behind his commanding officer’s back was startling.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to let them come with us,” she asked Vincent as she watched the SOLDIERs approach.

Did they really want to be responsible for a bunch of seventeen and eighteen-year-old putting their careers and lives on the line in such a way? There was no telling what Sephiroth would do once he realized four of his men had more or less deserted their post to go hunting for their friend’s killers. This would not endear the two Turks to the general, that was for sure.

“Better that than having them go on their own,” he replied, his expression once again hidden by the high collar of his red cloak.

While she had changed into some dark fatigues and hiking boots she had brought along for the mission, Vincent had returned to wearing the clothes he had on when she first found him. He had also exchanged his usual handgun for some kind of three barrels hand-canon that he’d strapped to his thigh. When she’d first seen it, she’d squinted, the sight of it reminding her of pictures she’d seen before, back on Earth. Was that a Cerberus?

“You think they would have?” It was true that Zack was impulsive, and not the most mature guy she knew, but would he really have made a trip into the forest by himself in order to track the Wutaian guerrilla party?

She went over what she knew of him in her head and came to the conclusion that, yes... he was brash enough to have done so. He’d probably have brought the others too. And Kunsel would have gone along, if only to keep his friend from getting into too much trouble. Which was probably why he was there now too, now that she thought about it.

Grimacing, she muttered, “You’re right. They probably would have.”

What she didn’t know was that Vincent’s motivation for including the young SOLDIERs had little to do with keeping them out of trouble. Although he could have--and would frankly have preferred--tracking the Wutaians down on his own, since Lilly was to accompany him, it was better if he had backup. As stubborn as she could be, she was still only human and might need protection not only from the enemy they were hunting but also from himself it worst came to worst. Galian might be fond of her, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the case for the others, if they were to make an appearance. Chaos had been restless recently.

“We should go before the general finishes up in the infirmary and catches us sneaking out,” was the first thing Zack said when he stopped in front of them.

He glanced back toward the medical tent nervously, and Lilly sighed. “Last chance to change your mind, Zack.” She looked at the rest of their little group. “Or any one of you.”

Kunsel appeared thoughtful for a few moments, but then he shook his head. The other two, whose names she didn’t know, did not seem any more inclined to leave.

“Alright! Let’s mosey everyone,” Zack said with an enthusiasm Lilly was far from sharing.

He led the way to the edge of camp, where he stopped to exchange a few words with the sentry stationed at the perimeter, assuring the man that their patrol had been approved by General Sephiroth himself.

Whether the infantryman believed Zack’s lie or not, he didn’t have the standing--or physical strength--to forbid them from leaving. The moment they got out of sight of the camp, Vincent took point, only stopping once to smell the air before they entered the tree line.

Around them, the forest teamed with life. Birds thrilled and small wildlife scurried away at their approach. Lilly soon saw that this forest was not a jungle in the same way as the Amazon back on Earth and more of a temperate rainforest, full of mossy boulders and enormous trees that had to be centuries, if not millennia old. She walked under their canopies with the same sense of reverence she would while inside Aerith’s church. At least, Shinra hadn’t thought to burn down the forest, she thought, possibly because it was too humid and fires wouldn’t spread easily.

Lilly had always considered herself to be in good physical health. In actuality, she probably was in the best shape she’d ever been, considering her daily training sessions with Rude. But she quickly discovered that this meant very little when all her companions were enhanced in one way or another.

Without even trying to, Vincent set a pace that had her quickly start lagging behind the rest of their small group and trying to catch her breath in the 100% humidity of the rainforest. It felt almost more like swimming than walking.

Sweat rolled down her back, gluing her shirt to her skin after a few minutes in the heat. But she didn’t want to complain as she was the one who’d insisted on coming along, and she understood the need to hurry before the trail grew cold. She just hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that her companions were all men over six feet tall, with long legs and boundless stamina.

In the end, it was Zack, and not Vincent, who noticed her struggling. As he realized Lilly wasn’t at his side anymore, he looked back and saw her walking at least fifteen feet behind the rest of them, shoulders hunched and expression pinched in stubborn concentration.

He slowed down until she could catch up with him, before saying, “How are you holding on?”

Lilly glared back at him. “Did you know that you men are all freakishly tall?”

Zack laughed. “Or you’re the one who’s short.” Then, he grew serious once again. “Do you want me to ask Vince to slow down? I’m sure he would have already if he’d realized you are falling behind.”

He would do so, she had no doubt, and yet... She would prefer he not know; she didn’t want Vincent to think of her as a burden. She had been that once before, while they traveled to Midgar, but she should be better than that by now. All those weeks of training had to be of some use.

Realizing that Zack was still waiting for her answer, Lilly shook her head. “No, it’s alright. He needs to track down that Wutaian group while he still can. I don’t suppose scents stay fresh very long in an environment like this forest.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. But thanks for the offer.”

The young SOLDIER didn’t insist, but he did stay right where he was, walking no faster than she did and bringing up the rear of their little group along with her.

Not very long afterward, Vincent raised a hand and called for a halt. That gave Lilly the opportunity to catch up, but it was obvious that this wasn’t the reason why they had stopped. They had reached a small clearing with a stream running through it, and Vincent crouched beside it, examining the ground.

Curious, Lilly approached. But even as she got closer, she couldn’t figure out what had caught Vincent’s attention. When she crouched down beside him, he looked surprised to see her--or perhaps to see how disheveled she looked. He had been so intent on his task that he hadn’t heard her coming, which she found strange. But then she knew he didn’t like to use his... extra senses. Perhaps that was why he looked so lost into his own thoughts. Or why he’d not slowed down to allow her to keep pace with him.

“What is it,” she asked him in a soft voice. Why she was almost whispering, she didn’t know. The situation seemed to call for it.

He pointed to droplets of brownish-red splattered on the rocks beside the stream. Without him to point them out, Lilly didn’t know if she’d ever have noticed them over the background of browns and greens of the clearing’s floor.

“Blood?”

He nodded. “Less than an hour old.”

“You can tell,” she asked him in surprise.

His expression grew more somber, but he nodded again. “From the color... and from the smell.”

Lilly hesitated for a moment, before asking him in an even lower voice, “Are you okay?”

A flash of surprise crossed his eyes. Immediately, she clarified, “You’ve seemed lost in your own head ever since we left the camp.”

That small smile of his curled up the corner of his lips. “I am fine, mostly, but this takes a lot more... concentration than I thought it would.”

Was he somehow in contact with the entities he shared a body and mind with, she wondered? Was this how he could track the blood in the way the Galian Beast, for example, could? She might have asked him that question if they had been alone, but they weren’t. Instead, she nodded and gently laid a hand on his shoulder to indicate she understood, not thinking about what the other members of their group would think about the gesture.

Then she got back to her feet and retreated, leaving him to his task. When she returned to Zack’s side, the young man gave her a curious look and opened his mouth to speak. Lilly raised her hand. Whatever he was about to say, be it a jibe at her relationship with Vincent or her partner’s rather unusual set of skills, she didn’t want to hear it right now. “Later, Zack,” she whispered. “Right now, we have a guerilla group to track.”

It wasn’t long before Vincent got back to his feet and headed north without a sign of hesitation. Once again, Lilly found herself at the back of their group, but this time Zack stayed beside her, making sure she wouldn’t fall farther behind.

As they got ever closer to their targets, they all fell silent, softening their footsteps and communicating with only hand signals. None of them were used to the terrain, though, and their passage might not have been as quiet as they might have wished. As it was, only Vincent’s very sharp nose and ears--better even than those of a Second class SOLDIER, as Zack hadn’t noticed anything--prevented them from walking straight into an ambush unprepared.

Nevertheless, not a second after he raised his hand to indicate they should all stop immediately and draw their weapons, they were assaulted from all sides by men wearing masks and wielding katanas, dual kodachi, and throwing stars.

The same Wutaian ninjas who had ambushed the Shinra patrol earlier in the day.

If that wasn’t bad enough, a crash through the trees warmed them of the presence of the vajradhara only a short moment before it came barreling down into Vincent and one of the Third class SOLDIERs whose name she had yet to learn.

Beside Lilly, Zack stopped a katana before it could cleave his head in two, grunting as he did. Although the Wutaians weren’t enhanced, it was soon obvious they were more experienced in battle against other humans than the young SOLDIERs, for whom it was their first assignment in Wutai. They also fought for their homeland and were ready to die for their country.

Their patriotism and desperation blended together to make them fighters even SOLDIERs feared to encounter.

Lilly quickly jumped out of the way to give Zack the space necessary to fight without worrying about hitting her by accident. She took out her Quicksilver, but when came the time to use it, she realized that the idea of shooting another human being, even an enemy who wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if he could, made her heart jump into her throat.

Even if she had been fine with it, though, the combatants moved too fast to make shooting any of them safe. The risk of hitting one of her allies instead was too great and she didn’t want to make the situation worse for any of them, especially as she found out that her hands were shaking from adrenaline and nerves. The SOLDIERs weren’t the only ones with little real-life experience of combat against other humans. She was even greener than they were.

Rather than trying to engage the Wutaians directly, she retreated toward the center of the group and held out the arm on which she wore the bangle with her summon materia. At least, she could offer them support while they fought. After her weeks of training with Genesis, she could more or less control Carbuncle, or at least get it to listen to her when she requested it appear, and this time was even easier than usual. Sensing the danger, it was shimmering into view even before she called out for it.

It immediately started throwing up protect and shell on herself, the SOLDIERs, and Vincent hopping around the battlefield all the while. With this part of things covered, Lilly turned her attention to the battle between Vincent and the vajradhara.

Vincent was as quick to evade attacks as ever, but he didn’t have much space to maneuver between the rocks and trees while avoiding getting into striking range of the rest of the fighters. The monster, on the other hand, had no such problem. With its bulk and strength, it simply bulldozed over any obstacle it encountered in its bid to squash its target, rendering the whole area even more treacherous than it already was.

Well, shit, she thought while a pit opened in her stomach. No wonder that thing had managed to kill a SOLDIER third class. If he’d been alone, Lilly had no doubt Vincent would kill the monster at some point, but things became much dicier while he tried to keep it away from the rest of their allies and avoided the shurikens two ninjas were throwing at him. She could tell that he might start struggling soon if no one came to his aid.

Not even Vincent was invincible, and unlike the Wutaians, he wasn’t used to fighting in the obstacle-filled environment of the rainforest.

Lilly reached for the Odin summon with her mind, praying to Gaia, Minerva, and whoever else might be listening, that it would answer to her for once. This was a similar situation as the fight in the Shinra mansion, so hopefully--

Red light burst from the summon materia, shocking her more than it should have. It was the first time since Nibelheim that Odin responded to her. The summon materialized in the air in a cloud of smoke and lightning. It raised a long lance and threw it toward the sky. A moment later, it fell back down toward the ground, straight at the vajradhara. The monster didn’t have the opportunity to block or avoid the summon’s attack before the lance plunged into its back. The release of energy when it hit--magic? Something non-elemental for sure--almost knocked Lilly off her feet.

The attack alone wasn’t enough to kill the vajradhara, but Vincent was quick to take advantage of the opening to empty Cerberus right into its ugly mug. Finally, it went down, stiff and slow like a felled tree, dead before it hit the ground and already beginning to turn back into sparks of lifestream.

No amount of training with Carbuncle could truly prepare her for the loss of mana that accompanied Odin’s departure. One moment, she felt fine and the next she was panting and almost bending in two from the sudden exhaustion. Still, some instinct made her glance to her right, and she met the glare of the Wutaian watching her with murder in his eyes as he raised another throwing stars, clearly intent on hurling it at her.

In those few precious moments during which they stared at each other and the ninja raised his arm, she should have shot him. She was still clutching the Quicksilver with the safety off and she had a clear line of sight. But she didn’t shoot; couldn’t shoot. Instead, she stood frozen, heart in her throat and panic buzzing in her head.

Lilly saw the throwing star leave the man’s hand and come whirling toward her while her brain screamed at the rest of her exhausted self to get out of the way. But then, the sight of her impending death was blocked by a flash of red and black jumping in front of her.

The next instant, the sound of metal hitting metal and Vincent’s low grunt reached her ears. Eyes wide, she saw him reach for his left arm and pull out the shuriken embedded deep into his gauntlet. She didn’t have the opportunity to even catch her breath, much less thank him. A second ninja she hadn’t noticed until then had approached her from behind while she was busy with the Odin summon and just as Vincent turned toward her to make sure she was unharmed, he noticed the man looming behind her with his katana raised.

Something in Vincent’s expression, a sudden flash of panic in his eyes, warned Lilly of the imminent danger, and she tried to scramble out of the way. She would not have moved in time to avoid the sword’s downward slash, but once again, Vincent was faster than her would-be killer. One moment, he was standing ten feet in front of her, the next she found herself covered by his strong body, protected by his arms.

The blow that was meant for her fell across his shoulders instead, cutting deep, much too deep, and still, Vincent did little more than hiss in pain.

“Vincent,” Lilly cried out as he started to slump against her.

And then, he started to shake and growled low in his throat, and--oh shit!

It had been one thing to watch Vincent transform into the Galian beast while standing twenty feet away from him, as had been the case back in the mountains. But this time, he was right on top of her while it happened, and the feel his flesh twisting into a new shape was... disquieting to say the least. All Lilly could think about was how painful it must be for him. Her own safety didn’t even occur to her. Galian hadn’t been aggressive toward her the last time she’d encountered him.

Unfortunately for them, the same couldn’t be said of the Wuataian ambush party. It was an enraged Galian Beast who emerged from Vincent’s transformation. One that tore into the ninja who had attacked Lilly before going after those Wutaians the SOLDIERs hadn’t yet managed to kill, all while Lilly watched him, stunned and horrified.

Bile rose in her throat. So much blood. And not only blood but... other things too. And all of it human. It wasn’t a monster Galian was tearing apart this time. Even though the ninjas had meant to kill all of them, it didn’t make their death any easier to witness.

Galian’s presence in the middle of their group caused all the SOLDIERs to move into formation to face this new supposed threat. Zack stepped to the front of the small group, his broadsword held aloft to strike at the beast. Still dazed and nauseous and trying hard not to hurl, Lilly reacted almost too late to prevent the worst from happening. If Zack were to hurt Galian, she was certain the beast would respond in kind, and she doubted the young second class would stand much of a chance against Vincent’s beastly form while it was in that state of bloodlust.

“Zack, no,” she screamed, shrill and panicked.

Zack froze long enough for her to continue in a rush. “Don’t attack him; that’s Vincent!”
Zack gave her a disbelieving look, but he lowered his sword slightly. By then, Lilly had forced herself back to her feet. She very deliberately avoided looking at the carnage around her as she made her way slowly toward a growling Galian, feeling weak and shaky.

“All of you, get back,” she ordered the four SOLDIERs, and glared at them when they first hesitated to obey the command.

After Zack nodded and took a few steps back, though, the others followed suit. Idly, Lilly wondered if he realized that he’d become the leader of the little group without even trying.

She eventually stopped about ten feet away from Galian and started speaking to him in a low voice, her tone as soft as she could make it. Her voice shook, but at least she could form words, so that was a start. “It’s alright. I’m alright. We’re all alright. You did good. You saved me. Can I come closer now?”

While the others watched in fascination, Galian slowly stopped growling, huge fangs disappearing once again behind his jowls. He then sat down on his haunches and tilted his head to the side, as though to invite her to approach. Hoping she wasn’t misinterpreting the beast’s body language, Lilly cautiously walked closer to Galian, stopping once she was about a foot away. With a whine, Galian pushed his snouts into her chest, almost throwing her off balance in his insistence at being as close to her as he could be.

He was covered in blood and... things she preferred not to think about, but Lilly still wrapped her arms around his neck gingerly. “I’m good, big boy. I’m alright,” she crooned at him, as much to reassure herself as she did the whining beast.

“Man, that’s fucking weird,” one of the young SOLDIERs commented from somewhere behind her.

Zack agreed with a nod, too confused to do much more than that.

Lilly had managed to keep the content of her stomach where it belonged until now, but the smell of butchered meat coming off Galian’s fur was too much for her. With a curse, she stumbled a few steps away and started heaving, to the point where she shook with tears in her eyes with the effort.

When Zack tried getting closer to her, Galian growled at him in warning, causing the SOLDIER to freeze in place and ask her instead. “Are you okay, Lilly?”

Was she okay? No, she definitely wasn’t okay, whatever reassurance she might have given Galian previously. She never wanted to see men die like this again. Unfortunately, she didn’t know if she’d have that luxury, considering her current mission to retrieve Veld’s daughter.

“I’ll... I’ll be fine. Give me a minute,” she still answered Zack, wishing desperately for water to wash away the taste of vomit from her mouth. “We should probably get out of here, though.”

The others nodded in agreement, but Kunsel noted with a frown, “It’s too late to return to base.”

When had the sun gotten so low on the horizon? They wouldn’t make it back to camp that night. Sephiroth would be so pissed when they got back in the morning. But the Wutaians and that monster were dead. They wouldn’t be taking out any more of their patrols.

“That clearing we passed earlier would make a defensible campsite for the night,” Zack replied after thinking about it for a few seconds. He turned back to Lilly. “Can you walk? And. huh... will it--” He pointed at Galian. “--follow us?”

“Him, not it. And yes, to both your questions,” she replied wearily.

There was no way she was spending the night beside all those bodies, even if she had to drag herself back to the clearing.