Chapter TwentyOne


Kit was never sure afterwards how long they had spent passing through the mountains of Nibelheim, but to her, it was an eternity. Tifa said many of the old paths and bridges had given way in the last five years, and they spent plenty of time backtracking. They camped the first night in a valley, the cliffs blocking them from the worst of the cold winds, and when they awoke the next day to continue their journey, the throbbing pain Kit had been feeling a few days ago returned.
With it there was the same nausea, the dizziness, the uneasy sensation of something buried deep within her clawing its way to the surface. She remembered trying to ignore it, then trying to fight it, then all she remembered was someone's arm around her waist, trying to help her make it through the mountains. Occasionally there would be a lucid moment, and during those she pleaded with Cloud to leave her there in the mountains. "I'm only slowing you down!"
Cloud always looked at her with frustration, and she wondered whether it was because she kept insisting they go on without her, or because she was slowing them down. "We're a team," he always told her. "This isn't like Shinra - we're not going to leave a member of AVALANCHE to die alone on a mountain just to make better time." He never said a word of actual concern, but Kit had the feeling that was as close as he got. Certainly it was closer than most SOLDIERs ever got.
Still, she had to protest. Slowing them down wasn't her main concern, of course. In fact, it might have been a good thing, keeping them from reaching any kind of confrontation with Sephiroth. But they'd been kind to her, and whatever it was that was struggling inside her, she didn't want it to change her before their eyes. If she became a monster like the ones Sephiroth had killed in the reactor... they'd been humans once, driven mad. She could turn on AVALANCHE just as easily.
But no matter how many times she begged Cloud to leave her behind, he refused, and soon the illness would overtake her again. Sometimes, during her brief moments of consciousness, she thought she saw Vincent staring at her oddly. Each time it happened, she tried to get a better look at him, but he would turn away to stare off into the distance.
On the morning when she finally woke up feeling more like herself, they were camped in the middle of a grassy plain. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up, and saw that the only mountains in sight were far off on the horizon in the east, where the sky was just beginning to turn pink.
Aeris was considerably closer. "Take it easy," she cautioned Kit, getting up from the bedroll she'd been lying on, just a few feet away. "You've barely been able to keep water down for the last few days, let alone food. You're very weak right now, just lie back down and relax until we're ready to go."
"I don't need to be smothered like I'm a child," Kit said, keeping her voice low so she wouldn't wake the others who were camped all around them. No one else seemed to be awake yet, except for Vincent, who had apparently been keeping watch. At the sound of her voice, he glanced back over his shoulder at the two of them, and then went back to his watching. "Listen, Aeris - I'm really grateful for all your concern, but I can get by on my own. I'm feeling better now, really." Strangely enough, she didn't feel as though she'd been sick for days. Actually, she felt rather well-rested and comfortable.
"You've said that before," Aeris sighed. "We're AVALANCHE, Kit. We help each other, and right now, you need help. None of us knows what's wrong with you, and even Cloud seems worried. Just stay with us for now, please? There has to be another town around here, and when we get there, we'll get someone to take a look at you."
"No," Kit said firmly.
Aeris frowned and started to say something in reply, but before she could speak, a soft voice came from behind her. "Your friend says she's fine," Vincent said simply, glancing back over his shoulder at the two of them. Aeris looked back at him in surprise. "Are you calling her a liar?"
Aeris looked startled, and Kit was just as surprised. Granted, she hadn't been conscious for much of the time since they'd met Vincent, but Aeris always seemed to win everyone over instantly.
"This has happened before, Vincent, and I've warned her not to-" Aeris began, but he cut her off.
"Then if it happens again, it will be her own fault, won't it? Besides, you've been hovering now for a few days, with little sleep. If anyone needs to rest before today's travels, it is you." From anyone else, the words would have sounded grouchy, or arrogant. But Vincent's voice was completely nonchalant.
Aeris lowered her eyes. "I suppose you're right... but Kit?" she said, turning back to her. "Don't push yourself, okay? Keep in mind, whatever's going on with you could be serious."
Kit nodded. "I'll keep that in mind," she agreed. Aeris didn't even realize how serious it could be, she thought to herself.
Seeing that Aeris was settling down into her bedroll again, Vincent went back to gazing off into the distance. His calm mannerisms reminded Kit of Sephiroth, in an odd way. And that thought reminded her of something else. She stood gingerly, and was mildly surprised that her legs did indeed have the strength, if what Aeris had said was true.
Vincent, however, didn't appear at all surprised as she made her way past the bedrolls and blankets - and the bulky form of Cait Sith's moogle where it lay sprawled on its back on the ground, with the cat sleeping on its stomach. The man barely looked up as she sat down next to him. "I've only seen someone be that well, then that ill, then that well again so quickly once before in my life," he said.
Kit looked at him sharply. It did lead in to what she was going to ask him... But if she was right, it would give her away instantly. "What you said in the mansion... You knew Sephiroth?" she asked, changing the subject.
He shook his head slightly. "I saw him only once," he replied. "As a newborn babe, when they carried him from the room where..." His voice trailed off, and he sighed.
"Where what?" Kit prompted him.
Vincent paused, and his stoic expression seemed to turn melancholy. "His mother died," he finished bitterly. "And they would not allow me into the room, even though I heard her cries from where I waited outside."
Kit caught her breath. "How awful," she managed to say. This was what she'd been wanting to ask him... "Are... are you his father?"
Vincent smiled tightly and shook his head. "No. Lucrecia had a husband. He too was a scientist - the one thing they had in common."
Kit didn't hear his last words, as something flickered in the back of her mind, a memory she'd put aside. Lucrecia's husband? she thought, raising her hands to her temples in concentration. Something she should remember about that... Lucrecia's husband...
The touch of Vincent's good hand on her shoulder startled her back to awareness. He was regarding her sternly, and she forced herself to smile at him sheepishly. "I guess Aeris was right, and I shouldn't be up and around yet," she said.
He nodded. "I thought she might be."
"I... I'll go back and lie down some more then," Kit said, standing. She still felt perfectly fine, strangely enough.
He nodded again and went back to his gazing at the horizon. Sephiroth was right, she thought as she crawled back into her bedroll. Vincent definitely was worth keeping an eye on, even if he wasn't Sephiroth's father as she'd suspected.
Kit lay awake, staring at the brightening sky and trying to remember what it was she should have remembered about Lucrecia's husband, until everyone else woke up a few hours later. Even by the time they were ready to move on for the day, she still hadn't come any closer to remembering.
To Chapter Twentytwo.
To the intro.
© 1998, 1999 by Andrea Hartmann.
That means it's mine, not yours!