Yuffie let her bladed weapon fly, slicing through the last of the many frog-like creatures that had attacked them from the trees. The shuriken whipped around a tree before coming back toward her. She leapt forward into a handspring and caught the shuriken midair before landing in a perfect crouch. Yuffie looked up to where her friends should be watching in awe and adoration, only to find Aeris kneeling on the path with her back turned.

"I swear, you guys only ever watch when I fall on my butt." Yuffie complained loudly. She walked to where Aeris was kneeling, "Whatcha looking at?"

Aeris turned to look up at Yuffie, trying to hide her amusement and failing. Cradled in her hands was an angry looking green frog with red eyes. Beyond her, Vincent's black cloak lay in a puddle on the ground and his gun sat on top of it.

She stroked a hand over the frog's back, trying to comfort him, "One of the frogs managed to hit Vincent. Cloud didn't give me any Maiden's Kiss and my materia isn't capable of the spell we need to reverse it yet. Do you have anything?"

Yuffie pulled her pack off of her back and dug through it for her potions roll. She found the soft leather easily and pulled it out. Her fingers worked out the knot in the cord that kept the leather rolled up. The leather cushioned the precious potion vials and kept them from breaking. She opened the roll and set it flat on the ground. Almost half the pockets were empty, a sign of how difficult the fighting had been for them. She looked through the remaining vials she had to see if there was anything useful.

There were three full of the cloudy green liquid that was an antidote to any poison. One was full of clear liquid and closed with an eye dropper to cure the magical darkness some creatures could inflict. She had several capped syringes full of the milky liquid that acted as a tranquilizer for fury or motion sickness and one of a clear red liquid that always made her jittery. None of them were the creamy, rose colored liquid they needed.

Aeris's eyes were skimming over the vials. She knew they were out of luck before Yuffie shook her head. The amusement drained out of both their expression as they turned to look at Vincent. He looked back and forth between them and then back at the vials on the ground before letting out one long croak that seemed like a groan.

Yuffie packed up her potions and put them back in her bag, "What do we do? I've never not had a cure when something like this happens! I could kick Cloud for this. I just might! Right in the back of the knee so I can watch him fall down."

"Yuffie, that's not very nice. I think that it wears off eventually, but I'm not certain." Aeris smiled at Yuffie and then down at Vincent, "Don't worry. Everything will be fine. I'll take the PHS and call Cloud to let him know what happened."

Aeris leaned forward, setting Vincent in Yuffie's lap, "Hang on to Vincent for a few minutes."

Yuffie let out a small squeak as Vincent's cool, slightly waxy skin touched her bare legs. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to pick Vincent up and hold him in her hands. At least he was not slimy like some frogs she had encountered.

With a soft sound of triumph, Aeris pulled the PHS out of her pack. She looked down at the display and frowned, "No service. Sometimes I think this thing is useless and that's why the innkeeper gave it to us for free. I'll go up the path a little to see if I can get a signal."

As she reached the bend in the road, Aeris stopped suddenly and spun back, giggling behind her hand. She smiled sweetly at Yuffie and said, "You know... the story behind the name of the cure tells of a princess who once kissed a prince who had been cursed to be a frog. She was able to turn him back into a man."

Yuffie could hear the emphasis Aeris put on the word princess. She gave Yuffie a meaningful look before hurrying down the trail. Vincent let out several croaks before settling back into sullen silence in Yuffie's hands.

"Don't worry, it's not possible." Yuffie grumbled, "My being a princess would not make my kisses magical."

Vincent croaked again, Yuffie took it as his agreement.

"People told me that story when I was small." Yuffie said, "I always thought it was a dumb story."

She looked down at Vincent. Even with his froggy features, she could tell he was miserable. Aeris's voice was ringing in her ears, teasing but with a hint of truth. Her tutors used to tell her that most fairy tales came from true stories. In all seriousness she could not picture it working, but the longer she sat there, the harder the thought was to ignore. Something deep inside of her wondered if she could do it. If she was honest with herself, she wanted to try and save Vincent from his current predicament. He was always saving her.

"This is crazy. It'll never work..." Yuffie said, lifting Vincent to eye level, "Okay, look, I'm going to try it. It'll bug me forever if I don't and this will probably be the only chance I get to see if it's for real. You can't get mad at me, okay? I'm trying to help you! If it doesn't work out, you have to promise to never tell the others. Especially not Aeris and Tifa, they'll never let me hear the end of it. Deal?"

If frogs could look panicked, Vincent would have. He was so shocked by her words that he did not make a sound. Yuffie decided not to wait for his reaction, afraid that she would lose her nerve. With a deep breath, she screwed her eyes shut and pressed her lips to the line of his mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened. Yuffie cracked an eye open and stared at the top of Vincent's head. Just as she was about to pull away and do her best to forget what she had done, a shock crawled up her spine. A light flashed where her hands met Vincent's froggy skin. She could feel his body shift and change. In a matter of moments she went from holding a frog to having a handful of his long black hair.

His hands and arms lengthened until he was gently holding her upper arms. The tips of his clawed fingers barely touched her skin. His lips were warm and very male, nothing frog-like about them.

Yuffie leaned back away from Vincent, breaking the kiss and releasing his hair. He blinked rapidly in surprise, looking first down at himself and then quickly back up at her. Without the collar of the cloak to hide his face, she could see his mouth drop open a bit in surprise. She was shocked to see that his features were fine and very attractive.

Suddenly, she realized what had happened. She grinned at him, "I can't believe that worked! Look at you!"

Her enthusiasm was infectious. His lips quirked up in a tiny smile. She grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet, "No weird side effects? No left over froggy feeling?"

"No." Vincent replied, pleased to hear that his voice was clear and sounded normal.

Yuffie clutched his hands in hers, "That's great!"

When her eyes met his, her train of thought came to a dead stop. For all that he had been a frog when she kissed him, he was a man when it ended. Her brain conjured up the memory of it in perfect detail, as if it were waiting for her to realize the enormousness of what had happened. She had kissed Vincent Valentine. Once he was himself, he had kissed her back.

A nervous giggle bubbled up in her throat. She pulled her hands away from his and said the first thing she could think of to change the subject, "If this fairy tale is true, just think of some of the other ones that might be!"

Vincent chuckled quietly as Yuffie began to pace in front of him, tapping her forehead with the heel of her hand, "Gotta think, gotta think..."

She could feel his gaze burning into the side of her face. His eyes were intense and they had never been focused so intently on her before. She mind raced, but she could not think of a single fairy tale or anything else to break up the awkward tension. With a groan, Yuffie stopped pacing, "I can't think of anything right now. I'm going to buy a book of fairy tales in the next town we go through!"

Yuffie snuck a glance at Vincent. When their eyes met again, he forced his lips into a neutral line. She could still see the vague amusement in his eyes. She realized that he was trying to maintain his cool, unfeeling demeanor to put her back at ease. Their kiss had not unbalanced him at all.

Something that felt like relief spread through her stomach. She had made more of it than she needed to. He had actually smiled after she pulled away from their kiss- so it had not been terrible for him- but he would not read more into than was there. Which was great, since there was nothing to read. Nothing at all.

Giving him her sunniest smile, Yuffie said, "Better stop Aeris from rounding up the others."

Vincent nodded and picked up his gun and slid it back into the holster. He picked up his cloak. It only took him moments to undo the heavy buckles that held it closed. He settled it on his shoulders carefully.

"You know..." Yuffie said, coming over to him and studying his face, "You're kinda cute under that huge collar. It's a shame you're always hiding under there."

She reached up and flicked one of the buckles with her fingers and gave him a mischievous wink. Just because she was not madly in love with him, did not mean she could not tease him a little. His shoulders stiffened and a dark eyebrow shot up in surprise.

"Ae-RIS! Vince has his cloak off! If you ever wanted to know what he looked like, now is the time to see it! He's a cutie!" Yuffie yelled over her shoulder, in Aeris's direction.

When she turned back, Vincent was quickly doing up the buckles of his cloak. Yuffie laughed and turned to the path Aeris had taken. She doubted that Aeris had actually heard her. She had only wanted to tweak Vincent's tail. She hurried off without waiting for Vincent to catch up.

If she had looked back, she would have seen Vincent's eyes skim over her with new interest.

A/N: I want to write more to this one, but I haven't been able to make it work the way I want it to. It'll stay a one-shot unless I get inspired... and that HAS happened before! We'll see what happens.