You always walked ahead of him. It was easier that way.

Easier not to look at him. Easier not to imagine what he might see when he looked at you. Easier to pretend he did not notice how your hands shook sometimes, just after healing too many.

Vincent never said much.

But you knew how to read silence. You had lived in it for years.

Your whole life had been confinement. Observed. Altered. Named half-Cetra, though you had never asked for it. Mako in your veins. Skin that refused to wrinkle with time. Bones that remembered agony better than comfort.

You aged slowly. Too slowly. Like him.

That should have meant something. But all it did was deepen the distance.

Because you had seen him before.

In dreams. Since childhood. Always him. Always just out of reach.

You knew he was your soulmate. You just knew.

But he had not looked at you that way. Not once.

He kept to himself. Eyes never lingering. Words always clipped. And when the others spoke of Lucrecia, you heard the way the silence around him deepened.

You heard the grief in it.

You believed he still loved her. Still waited for her. Still mourned what could never be.

You never said anything. You just did your job.

You healed wounds. Collected breath. Sat beside Cloud when the others could not. Mended what you could. Spoke when required. Disappeared when not.

And you told yourself, quietly, that this was the best you could ask for.

You were not Aerith. You were not Lucrecia. You were not even fully human anymore.

You were just the one left behind. The one who lived too long. The one who knew your own soulmate's face and stayed quiet anyway.

And Vincent?

Vincent watched you when you were not looking. He had known your face since before he knew how to name hope.

You had walked through every dream he had during sleep that was supposed to be eternal. He had watched you grow. Change. Look for him.

He knew who you were.

And he saw it, the way your eyes never met his. The way you stiffened when someone mentioned Lucrecia.

You believed he did not know. You believed he loved someone else. You believed you were not enough.

And he did not know how to tell you that you had always been more than he ever deserved.