The first seeds of this piece came to mind as I was watching some Crisis Core cutscenes; I hope you enjoy!
(Admittedly, this is not my best piece - however, the plot bunny for it simply wouldn't go away.)
DISCLAIMER:
I do not own any part of Final Fantasy VII, its Compilation, or its characters; I am merely a fan who enjoys writing about it.
All rights belong to Square-Enix.
.:Hindsight:.
What could have happened, what would have happened?
If she had been braver...
If she had talked with him...
If she had not chosen another...
If she had at least listened to him...
If she had not been so selfish...
If she had been wiser...
If she had been stronger...
If she had fought for him...
If he'd known...
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Hindsight, retrospect...they're no good at preventing first blunders - unless they're someone else's - only at preventing future failings.
And sometimes, by then, it's too late. Sometimes, the first chance is all we have.
How many times had she tried to end her life since then? Twenty times? Thirty times?
In the end, it hadn't mattered. In the end, she hadn't succeeded.
But it was only fair. She was the cause of all this misery - why should it be so easy for her to escape her own? To live with the weight of her sins...that was only right.
If she'd only been strong enough, brave enough to talk to him. She had never meant to hurt his father, he understood that; he had never held any animosity toward her because of it. Not truly. If Vincent could forgive her that, why could she never forgive herself?
If she had only listened to him. Closer and closer, and then nine months came and went. How stupid she had been; Hojo's true love, always had been and always would be, science. A cruel and sick science. He had no love of her, no love of their son, beyond their function as experiments. Vincent had cautioned her against it, tried to convince her otherwise, but she heeded him not...thinking only of her pain, and yet a new hypothesis.
If she had not been so selfish as to think only of herself and her science. She had made one mistake for the sake of her work - hadn't her mentor been enough? Vincent never told her exactly what became of her baby, but somehow, she knew. And now countless other people must also suffer at the hands of her once-revered son...countless other lives that could have been saved...
If she had been stronger, when they had taken him away - if she had fought for him a little harder - surely she could have found away around Hojo - or died trying. Hojo was not above such things; he just might have done it. He might have succeeded. But what was there to die for, if not one's own child?
If he had known his story, his true background, his mother - his true mother who loved him, despite the countless sins between them - that he was a man and not a monster (save the one he had become), a person and not a tool...if he had not been sad all those years...lonely, used...
Had Sephiroth known his true story, would Nibelheim still stand?
Would those countless people still live?
Would the world be in such danger?
Had she been wiser, stronger, braver, selfless...more concerned with the well-being of her child, more aware of Hojo's true nature, more insightful as to the possible dangers of such an experiment, more concerned about the morality of the entire issue, and what possible repercussions the situation might have on the boy...
Don't blame my baby. Sephiroth was innocent. It was on her shoulders, not his, that responsiblity for the world's destruction should be placed; he was a child, one whose corruption was wrought from his father's deranged actions and his mother's inability to learn from her mistakes.
It was her fault. He was just another victim, yet another name to add to the growing list. He was really just a puppet himself, a tool to everyone and everything around him. It was her fault, not his.
...But hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
Author's Notes:
(For those who don't already know, this is meant to be Lucrecia reflecting on her life as she lies frozen within the mako crystal.)
You learn a lot of things about a character - or in this case, characters - when you write an introspective, reflective piece like this one. For instance, before I wrote this, I had no idea that "innocent" and "Sephiroth" could be used in the same sentence together, at least not post-Nibelheim. Wow.
I actually do like Lucrecia - mainly for that whole "might-have-been" stuff - but I hate how completely stupid she is. The fact is, a lot of events in FFVII wouldn't have happened if she'd put her child before her work, or fought harder once she screwed up with him the first time. *And why didn't she ever try to find him once he was in SOLDIER?
Ah, but those are questions for another time ;) All-in-all, this was a highly interesting piece to write, so I hope y'all enjoyed it :) Thanks for reading!
*Edit: A reviewer has brought to mind the likelihood of Lucrecia having sealed herself inside the crystal prior to any events of the Compilation; this would explain her absence in any game prior to FFVII. (And makes her an even bigger idiot - Sephiroth grows up eventually, relatively free to do as he pleases and clearly longing for the family he never had. She could have eventually seen him.)