It was Cloud Vincent found himself looking to when the others became too insistent in their suggestions that he should be more cheerful, more social, more... normal. The others treated him as their leader, some kind of hero or font of military experience, but Vincent didn't see why. What he did see was a too-young face and eyes that echoed his own feelings: confusion at a world that had moved on without him, guilt, pain, suffering. The knowledge of a terrible inadequacy.

Time moved on. Aeris died, and the guilt in Cloud's eyes grew stronger. Sephiroth was defeated, but it was a victory that bought neither Vincent or Cloud any joy. The others settled back into ordinary lives. Vincent was told to let go of the past, to be happier, and he heard the same things urged upon Cloud. The look in the young man's eyes hadn't changed much, though, and Vincent still found it oddly reassuring. Here was someone who understood: just because they'd escaped the labs didn't mean they'd escaped the hell one madman had made of their lives.

The sheer normality of it bought a measure of peace, though, until the reality of Vincent's existence once again reasserted itself. He watched as the others aged while he stayed the same. As did Cloud. Whatever Hojo had done to him seemed to have halted the effects of time on his body, so that he was forever sixteen. He could see the dawning horror in blue eyes as the children grew up, grew old, and Cloud did not. And one day, realised that Cloud looked back at him with that same desperate need for some kind of connection.

It was a terrible thought, but a comforting one: if this was hell, at least he wasn't here alone.