Keeper of Cerberus

Vincent closed his eyes, fanning his dark lashes against his cheek. She smiled at him.
“I am the one who needs to speak,” He finally said.
Faye’s smile faded as the situation became serious, but her eyes never strayed. However serious she needed to be she was finding it horribly difficult to keep her mind from straying to far and falling into the gutter. She couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes opened and hooded ever so slightly.
“I am sorry for the pain I have caused you,” he started, “I am sorry for ignoring the things you stirred in me now and so many years before.”
She already didn’t like where this was going and she felt a lump rise up in her throat at the guilt that surfaced for a brief moment in his steady gaze. “Vincent…” she began her voice nothing but a gentle whisper.

He shook his head. “Faye when Chaos gave me control and I saw you dying…I have never felt fear like that,” he looked away from her, his eyes burning holes into the wall.
She was acutely aware that THE Vincent Valentine was spilling his very soul to her. He was admitting to the fact that he had feared something, anything! She wanted so badly to speak of the fear she had herself felt and then the utter calmness of simply being in his arms as she left this world for the next, or even the overwhelming relief she had felt when she woke next to him. To know that she would be alive to simply see him made her grateful for the time she had been restored to. Faye bit her lip. The pain that burned inside of him rolled across her with a ferocity she had never felt before.

“When I could do nothing but watch you fade away…I realized I could no long lie to myself… my heart wanted so desperately to deny it,” he mumbled lowly, he concealed the emotions in his voice perfectly. His eyes finally turned back to her.
She was utterly shocked to see the softness that had taken over him. In the days she had spent around him… there had never been a moment she had seen his eyes so gentle. She had seen him around the kids and he was different from normal but this was beyond what she had ever expected. A moment of unreserved weakness, on display for only her to see.
“I love you,” He whispered.

Tears burned into the corners of her eyes. Faye had been waiting all her life to hear those three little words. She had suffered for years hoping against all she knew as truth that one day she could hear these words spoken in that silky smooth baritone voice of his. It made her bleed inside. Bleed in unspeakable ways, so much that she felt she might simply melt into a whimpering pool of nothingness. She held onto her solidity if only for a moment long should he say something else of such magnitude.

There was a pause and when she was sure her voice would not die on her tongue she spoke. “I have always loved you,” she returned in a soft whisper, “I would have done anything to see you happy, even if it meant that she had your attention and not me. That’s why I never said anything… I saw the way you were around her, I didn’t have it in my heart to take that away from you.”
He turned his gaze from her again and for a brief moment she worried she had said something that upset him.
“ She was like you were… in the past, I fell hard. I will not lie to you, but dwelling on the past has gotten me nowhere… I think it is time I look forward instead of backwards,” He finalized. There was a finalizing tone to his last comment.
She accepted that, but she couldn’t help the tears that somehow managed to slip past her lashes.
When he looked back at her he reached up and ever so tenderly brushed the silvery tear from her eye with his knuckle.
This side of him was going to completely destroy her. It reminded her so much of the Vincent she had lost those many years ago. She trembled with an unvoiced cry of sheer turmoil. She was lost, awed by his change of demeanor. She didn’t really know what to do or say. Finally, after so many years she had found him. He was buried deep inside the hardened interior of this crimson clad sharpshooter, but he surfaced now to show that he was there. She would ask nothing more of who he had become, for he was not the only one that had changed.
“Thank you…” she closed her eyes to avoid the tears that had pooled behind her lids.
He kissed her forehead, “just rest now. The others may come to see you but I will have them go home tonight.”
His moment was over and he had returned to the cool headed gunslinger she had grown attached to. His eyes however remained a bit softer than they usually were.
Faye nodded quietly opening her eyes to watch him go. He paused in the door way and gave her one final glance before sweeping out and silently clicking the door shut behind him.

‘How do you feel?’ Mai asked.
‘Better…shocked… I want to find Lucrecia,’ Faye returned in her mind softly.
‘I will go through Chaos’s memories and see what I can find,’ Mai told her.
‘Thank you… for bringing me back,’ Faye thought.
‘You are welcome…Vincent was in terrible shape after what had happened,’ Mai admitted quietly.
‘Do not speak more of it,’ Faye said not wanting to imagine the pain he had felt. She clearly remembered the pain she had felt when she had watched him bleed out on the floor at the hands of Hojo, she did not want to relive that.
‘As you wish, sleep well and untroubled,’ Mai told her gently.
Faye let herself drift off into a dreamless sleep.
She woke when the weight on the bed shifted to one side. A deep rumble rolled over her, resonating all around her. She blinked to clear the haze from her mind. Red fur filled her vision and its familiar thickness met her hands.
“Do you feel better?” The voice was familiar.
She could hear the age that hid in the depths of this voice.
“Yes, Thank you Neneki,” she mumbled as she buried her face into the short mane. The feline returned the affection.
“You scared me,” he told her. The weariness clung clearly to his words.
“I couldn’t do anything, he had Mai trapped inside, she couldn’t heal the wound for me,” Faye mumbled miserably.
“So long as you are healing now,” he sighed.
She let herself drift off again. The soft familiar fur stayed with her for a while before finally he departed.

Amaya paused to look at the woman she had known for so many years. She looked like a child for once, not the strong defiant woman she had come to depend on for strength. She was not imposing or cold, but fragile and small. Her face gave away no hint of her age, she was as perfect as a porcelain doll.
“She looked innocent,” a voice startled Amaya out of her thoughts. She glanced over at Cloud, a tiny nod her only reply.
Clouds face gave way to small lines of stress and slight signs of insomnia.
“You need sleep Cloud,” Amaya said quietly.
Cloud gave a sheepish nod, “we can come see her tomorrow.” The two left to find Tifa and the others.

The fur next to her shifted and she heard his heavy paws thump against the floor. Faye shifted onto her side seeking his warmth. She let her stiff body sink into the pillow top mattress.

“I was worried… Chaos made a rash move provoking her like he did,” Neneki spoke softly to the gunner.
Vincents red eyes turned down to look at the large feline.
“She attacked him… drank from him so that she could bring Faye back,” Neneki told the silent leather clad gunner. Because he was washing his cape to get rid of the dark patches he could not hide behind the tall collar. Shock pushed his brow into the red cloth tied around his head.
“Take care of her Vincent,” Neneki told him before leaving the house.
Vincent was left alone with the slumbering vampire.