Part 3

I bobbed up and down in the waves of unconsciousness, trying to make sense of everything that went on around me. Pain and hurt infused along with the black waves, and they threatened to pull me under between times. I screamed and thrashed, but like the liquid had mind of its own, they always made tangles around me, winding around my wrists and ankles, around my neck and my body and pulled me.

I never stopped struggling, because whenever I did, I might break to the surface, and the pain would fade away for a bit. Then I would hear snippets of conversations, conversations of familiar voices that I camw to recognize.

“Commencing proto-materia injection in 3…2…1…” The passive voice of the young girl I knew as Shelke sounded at one point of time, before I had been dragged forcefully back into the sea of pain and blackness, crying out and screaming in terror and fear and pain. I thrashed painfully for long, until I lost sense of time, and it felt like an eternity had passed before I surfaced again.

“But I don’t understand!” Lucrezia’s voice cried out, desperate. She sounded close to tears. Why? Wasn’t she happy with Vincent? “It worked with Vincent, why isn’t it working with her?”

“Because you introduced the Chaos in large volumes into Vincent and infused the proto-materia almost concurrently. With Skye, you infused only a small amount, and it remained dormant until recently. Forcing the proto-materia into her now would be no help and prove only harm.” Shelke’s impassive voice replied evenly again.

“I didn’t mean to do this…” Dr. Crescent cried, and I suddenly got a flashback of years ago. I had been a young girl; wandered straight to Shinra’s facilities to look for my big brother who had been tied in the mess of the Shinra, the Mako Reactors and Sepiroth. The Shinra soldiers captured me, and since their scientists had asked for a willing victim for experiment, they had volunteered me. I was kept drugged and barely conscious throughout, but the lucid moments I had were always when Lucrezia failed to find anything to fit her theory.

She was always there, apologizing to me, telling me that one day, it would be better.

“We can attempt to remove the Chaos from her body.” Shelke suggested, but Dr. Crescent’s reply was sharp and instantaneous.

“No! Removing the Chaos now will kill her. The Chaos had been infused right in her cell. Even if she doesn’t die from that, her cells would shrivel up without the Chaos over time. She will be spent five times faster than the average human being.”

Shelke must have made a reply by then, but I was dragged back into the pained sea of darkness by then, slowly choking off.

“Commencing synaptic net dive in 3… 2… 1…” Shelke’s voice echoed inside me again. “Net dive successful. Retrieving information of Chaos and research materials on Vincent Valentine… successful. Downloading… successful. Replicating production process… successful. Commencing transfer of Chaos materia…”

The jolt of pain this time was too strong, and the waves of blackness crashed entirely over my head without warning. I couldn’t even scream.

“Skye…” Vincent’s low voice sounded after an eternity. I felt strangely light, floaty. I felt like I had no weight, as if the anchor tethering me was gone, or had somehow lightened. “Skye, please wake up.”

‘Please’? Vincent wasn’t someone to say please often. Vincent just ordered, and people listened. In fact, Vincent didn’t even need help often. It was also nosey people in his life offering help, and he was totally fine with accepting them. Maybe it was a thing about his pride.

“Skye, don’t go like this. There are still so many things to say. Cloud can’t stand to see you go. Don’t let him down. Don’t let us down.” Vincent was still keeping his short sentences, but I could hear the emotions clashing in, crashing down with every word. Was I really so important to him? After all that I’d gone through to reunite him with Lucrezia, he still cared for me?

“We’ve tried everything, Skye, but we just can’t control the Chaos inside you.”

I had to see his face. I couldn’t hear these words without looking at his face. I couldn’t hear these emotions without looking at his face to make sure that they were there, to make sure I had heard the right things. I clawed my way back to the surface, ignoring everything else. I just had to see Vincent Valentine again, even if it was my last time.

Slowly, I opened my eyes, and my vision focused on the face hovering above me. He didn’t give much reaction at my waking up, but his red eyes were full of worry. He tried to hide his face behind the front of his cape, but I could see the frown.

“Well, that’s too bad. I’m the only one who can control it. Other than you." I smiled tiredly at him. Strange; I had somehow been transported to my own room in Cloud’s place. Vincent’s face in the background of my baby pink, baby blue ceiling was a strange one, and I suppressed childish giggles.

“We were all worried about you.” He stated, not moving.

“I know. But there’s no need. I’m fine.” I smiled bravely at him, even though the strange feeling of light-headedness was a scary sign of something very wrong going on. The numbness of my body was an alarm that I purposefully turned off in my brain. Even if I was going to… go off, I was going to do it with a smile.

“Skye…” He said my name with such a frown that I felt my smile slip. My eyes pricked, and the tear rolled down the side of my eyes.

“Please take care of Cloud, Vincent. Tell him I’m really sorry I haven’t been a good sister. Tell him I love him… and I hope he won’t be too sad after I pass.”

Vincent didn’t say anything, but gave a curt acknowledging nod.

“Tell Tifa I love her, and she’s the best mother and sister anyone could ever have. Tell Reeves I’m sorry for quitting even before I started on my job.”

Again he nodded, seemingly to know that it was my last chance to talk. I blinked, and more tears squeezed their way out of closed lids.

“Tell Lucrezia that it isn’t her fault. I know she and Shelke tried their best to save me. It isn’t her fault that I was made like this. The Chaos sustained me for more years than I could count. If I never had the Chaos, I would never have survived until now. I would never have been this happen. I would never have met my brother.”

“You will never have to die so painfully.” Vincent stated, and the words seemed to pain him as much as it did me.

I forced the smile on my face again, much as it hurt to do so. “Dying isn’t painful. This is peaceful. Comfortable. I like dying like this, without people having to see me cry.”

“Don’t say such things, Skye…” His frown only got deeper. I raised a very weak hand, and pressed my finger on his forehead, where it was creased with his frown.

“Why don’t you ever smile, Vincent? I found Lucrezia for you. You should be smiling –at least for her.”

“You… found Lucrezia?”

There was no point keeping things a secret now, since I was on my deathbed. “I found Lucrezia, because I wanted you to smile. I hope you are happy with Lucrezia. It makes me happy if you are happy.”

A cold metal claw sandwiched my hand with his warm one, and his red eyes glowed even more.

“I’m not happy like that, Skye. You don’t know what makes me happy. It isn’t Lucrezia. I forgave her and myself after Omega. I found something else that made me happy.” Vincent said after a long moment of hesitation, as I blinked slowly.

“Something else… that makes you happy? Does that make you smile too?”

He closed his eyes briefly.

“I don’t smile, Skye, because you took it all from me. Watching you smile every day, I am happy inside. I am happy knowing that I give all my smiles to you, and you in turn show it to the entire world, to make them all happy.”

The smile I had on my face only grew brittle and resigned as I closed my eyes again, the tears streaming down the sides.

“That’s why you never smiled? Because I stole them all?”

“Because watching you smile was enough.”

“But if I go, Vincent, then will you smile again? I won’t steal them from you ever again.”

His hands on mine closed tightly, as if he couldn’t bear the thought.

“If you want me to, then I will try.”

I was reminded by how I had told him I would try not to do anymore foolish things. How funny, I’d gone out of my way to look for his love, for his smile, only to realize that I had been the one who had stolen them all.

I dragged in another painful breath, and forced a smile on my face despite the pain.

“I want to see you smile, Vincent. One last time.”

And he did.

I smiled at him, and I closed my eyes.

It was stunning.

Who said he was a Valentine without a Smile?