Needles. If I could pray - yes, if I could still pray - then I would beg the gods to let me forget the needles.

This one, Mr. Valentine, is special.

You'd never imagine how terrifying it is to be unable to close your eye as a needle approaches.

Nightmares. In a panicked, half-awake state I realize that I am dreaming... but it doesn't matter. It never matters.

Half-images, impressions. He kept me awake for most of it but the pain made me delirious. How much do I remember? How much have I imagined? I don't know. I truly do not know.

The restraints, I remember, digging into my skin. The smell - that putrid, sickly sweet smell of blood and urine and Jenova, Jenova underlying all of it. The way he would hum - wretchedly off-tune - while he worked. Never quite awake, never truly sleeping, he delighted in keeping me lucid.

They taught us... oh, they taught us how to break a man in the Organization. Men are wretchedly, stupidly attached to their own flesh. Even the strongest heart will break eventually. It just becomes a question of stimulus, of pressure. Some things move beyond pain. Break a man's body to break his spirit; that is what they taught us.

Oh, I tried to fight him, in my own stupid ways. I tried. Early on, he would address me, goad me, and I stubbornly refused to speak. It only angered him. I would... I would try to keep quiet - to keep from screaming.

The first time was the hardest. The first time I gave into the pain. I felt... defeated.

I stopped caring eventually.

There was no relief. There was only continuous, agonizing, unending pain. He wouldn't let me sleep. If my body gave way he would wake me and we would start again.

We always started again.

Take a man and tear away his illusions, one by one. A man is an animal like any other. Force us to face something primal and we snap. We always snap. Teach us to fear, teach us the meaning of pain and our true colours show through eventually.

One particularly sadistic form of torture they taught us was to leave a man alone in a room, bound and gagged. Just that. He will imagine any manner of things if you leave him long enough. They always break in the end.

The shadows and the nightmares show me for what I truly am.

This - Mr. Valentine - this is the greatest piece. They say it's impossible but they're wrong. There's a forty-two percent chance of survival.

There is a metal-on-metal tinkling. I strain my eyes trying to make him out. I am already sickeningly afraid.

When he shows it to me - lovingly, like a parent holding a child - I don't understand. Then, there is the saw and I am suddenly, nauseatingly, horribly terrified. He smiles when the blade touches my skin. Smiles.

I always wake up screaming.

Dark - dark - dark - and I can't breathe - I can't -

Fingers fumble for a light switch. Blankets - chains, metals and wires - no, no blankets - are thrown away and... breathe breathe breathe breathe. I can't - no I can't - no...

"Vincent...?"

Eyes close, hands - no, hand - clench and there's that sound again. Soft, metal-on-metal. The smell, it's pervasive. Jenova, she followed me here. Jenova, she...

Cold, I'm cold and there's sweat on my skin. I shiver...

Breathe, Vincent.

There are hands on my skin and for a moment I start... but I know those hands, those fingers... and I sigh against the touch.

Tifa sneaks up behind me and wraps her hands around my waist. My good hand rests against hers. She lays her cheek against my back.

Chest still heaving but... but when she's there it's easier to remember the small things.

We have grown accustomed to this. It has almost become a science. Tifa and I, we've grown used to nightmares.

Tifa... for Tifa it's different. She has never enjoyed killing. When it became necessary, when we traveled, it upset her. Her guilt gives her nightmares.

There is little that I can do for her in that. And my nightmares... my nightmares are insidious.

"Are you alright?" she asks me quietly against my back. She never really expects an answer but she asks all the same. Her voice is comforting. I speak to her at night when she wakes up crying too.

I swallow and nod. She sighs against my back.

Subtly, she leads me to lie down again. I lie down on my left side, she on her right. We move close to each other - proximity, contact, they are so key these nights.

I pull her close to me with my good hand; she wraps her arm around my neck and digs her fingers in my hair. Our faces are inches from touching.

I close my eyes and breathe out. The warmth, the contact... it is brighter here, in this room. There is a deep, earthy scent that I associate only with her. Tifa smells very distinctly like a Tifa muddled with sleep. There's peace here and I drink it in.

"What was it?" she asks quietly, whispering in the night. This is the difficult question, one that we always ask each other. Tifa believes that people can banish their monsters. I am not so sure. I... I always debate what to tell her. My wife, I love her. I don't want her to know my demons.

There is no easy way for me to answer this question. If I lie - and she can always tell when I'm lying - and I dismiss it as nothing, it hurts her. But... but if I tell the truth and she knows them for what they are, well then, she hurts still. Sympathy and understanding are two very painful things.

A compromise then.

My hand brushes the hair away from her face. I look at her, truthfully.

"The lab," I say quietly. I don't need to explain; she understands.

Her hand touches mine and they move to rest in between us. I look at our fingers intertwined. She rubs the back of my knuckles comfortingly.

There is not really anything that she can tell me and she realizes this. Her presence though, her warmth, is enough.

She brushes her lips against mine and moves our hands to her stomach. She lets me feel the tiny life growing there...

Life, it is enough.

I kiss her lightly and our noses brush up against each other. I lie there, drinking her in, feeling the tiny life inside of her.

We both realize why I am having nightmares. It's simple. It's the hospital.

Tifa... they never believed that she could carry a child to term. It's a miracle, they say. When she was sixteen years old and Sephiroth nearly killed her, they believed that the damage to her system was too great to allow her to ever become pregnant. She lost one fallopian tube just from the straight trauma and the other was severely damaged. Her uterus, ovaries... they estimated that, at best, she might have a five percent chance at a successful pregnancy.

She had given up on children. Until...

I smile slightly at the memory. I'd never seen my wife cry like that before. It was one of the best moments of my life.

Even then, the doctors were not optimistic. The trauma was extensive, they told us. We needed to prepare ourselves. Tifa... Tifa has a penchant for believing in miracles. Her hope is contagious.

It would be far too dangerous for her to try and give birth naturally though; the doctors forbade it. There is only one option for a case like Tifa's.

A caesarean is a relatively simple procedure, they promise me. But...

But there is not so much difference between an operating table and that... that...

I am afraid for my wife. That is why I am having nightmares.

Tifa brushes her lips against mine again.

"It's going to be alright," she murmurs. I nod. I believe her. I understand that she is right... but it frightens me all the same.

No one has ever said that there is logic in fear.

The operation is two weeks from today. It was scheduled early, specifically to prevent the threat of an early birth. I do not... I do not like the statistics in that scenario.

This is the only way. I realize this. Tifa realizes this. Our daughter, Tifa calls her a miracle and she can have such a smile when she talks about her. Her joy, her love is contagious. It is only the night that reveals my fear for what it is.

I shift and move to hold her close to me. Tifa lets herself be held and rests her chin against my chest.

"One day," she says quietly, "you'll stop having nightmares."

I sigh, exhausted, and shut my eyes. It is a promise that she is making me... it is not one that she can keep but it is a promise all the same.

She brushes her lips against my cheek and shuts her eyes as well. We fall asleep together.

The morning dawns clear and bright like any other. It is only the night that shows us for what we truly are.