Yes, I decided to make a sequel! The first few chapters are going to be based on what happened in the past but after that is ALL in the future and beware of some CRAZY twists. Thanks to ALL you people that reviewed to the first story I hope you ALL continue to give me your feedback for this one!

Hope you enjoy!!

Before and After 102

Reflections of the Past

I walked into the empty house. I guess its back to living in silence and seclusion…The silence was quickly interrupted by the dog I bought for her. Yume whined and scratched against the bars of her cage. I took my shoes off and walked over to her cage and let her out. She wandered around for a while before returning to me with her head cocked to the side.

"That's right…she's gone…" I smiled faintly at the animal. She barked at me as if to say she didn't believe me. I sighed loudly and patted my leg so she would jump into my lap. She did so and I stroked her long fur for a while. I couldn't say I was lost in thought. For a while it seemed as if my brain was turned off. All I've had to think about for the past couple years is what Amaya had planned for me next. I wondered how she was doing now. It had already been two and a half hours since her plane took off. I'd hope she wasn't too busy dwelling on my absence rather than focusing on her dream career. Still to this day I do not understand how I mean so much to her.

I retired to the bedroom early that night. There was nothing else for me to do… I decided I would try to sleep this time away. There was a black album with a red ribbon around it sitting on the bed. I untied the bow and opened the album. I smiled as I looked at the picture of Amaya and I back when we lived at the apartments. She was smiling brightly, while I seemed to almost glare into the camera. I wouldn't have admitted it back then, but I was happy with her around. There was a note on a hot pink post it much like the one she left on my door a few years ago that read: "Don't miss me too much." She drew a face next to it with its tongue sticking out. I appreciated her humor… I continued to flip through the photo album that she made for me. I noticed one section seemed to have two photos shoved into a space for one. The one underneath was flipped over. My smile fell when I pulled the picture out and flipped it over. It was the one of Lucrecia and I. The one I kept near my bedside before I fell for Amaya. For the first time I could look at that picture and it didn't make my heart ache. Suddenly, with a brighter future ahead of me, my past didn't seem all that bad…

33 Years Ago…

My footsteps were the only sound in the hall of Shinra Manor. I was to meet the lady I would be body guarding during what they called the Jenova Project. I did not know very well what this project consisted of, nor did I care… I told myself this would be my last mission as a Turk. I wanted out of this shady business. This was not the life for me. I opened the door and stepped inside a room with a table in the middle of it. A lady dressed in a white lab coat with long brown hair tied up had her back to me. I cleared my throat.

"Vincent Valentine, reporting for duty." My voice shattered the silence in the room. The woman spun around and gasped. She appeared to be nervous about something so I asked. "Ma'am are you ok?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, this is the first time I've met anyone from the Turks…" She shook her uneasiness away and introduced herself to me and extended her hand to me. "Lucrecia Crescent. Please to make your acquaintance Mr. Valentine." All it took was the warmth of her smile and the softness of her hand in mine to make my head spin. I've had a few short experiences with meeting women, but no other woman had this kind of first lasting impression on me. After that moment all I could think about was her… Her smile, her laughter, her attempts to cheer me up although I hadn't even realized I appeared to be sad. Within two weeks I was in love.

Lucrecia was in a scheduled meeting with Hojo to discuss the next level in their project. This left me with hours of free time so I strolled out to the yard and picked a spot in the shade of a tree and sat down on the grass. The scenery was quite admirable and the warm breeze made the spot so comfortable I found myself dozing off until I had completely fallen asleep.

"Vincent…Vincent!" My eyes slowly opened as I heard someone calling my name. I looked up and there she was. The way the sun shone behind her made her look like an angel.

"Oh!" I jumped up into a sitting position and looked up at her as she sat down next to me with her picnic basket.

"Care to join me?" she asked sweetly with a smile that melted my heart. And I did join her. We engaged in light conversation for the first ten minutes then suddenly with the mention of the Jenova project the conversation deepened.

"So…you're saying Hojo wants to have a child? With you?" I asked putting down the sandwich I was eating. I wondered if she had prepared this food herself because it was delicious. Thoughts of having her as my housewife threatened to pull my focus off of getting the information I wanted to hear from her.

"Yes, but I haven't agreed yet. He told me I could take as much time as I needed to think about it." She turned away and seemed to get uneasy. I stared at her for a while, unsure of what to say.

"What does he intend to do with the child?" The question seemed to push her away from me.

"That…is not for you to know. I'm sorry I mentioned it at all." She began to gather the food, even took my unfinished food from beside me and packed up her picnic basket. Once packed up she frantically took off. I sighed. Lucrecia…

During the following weeks I allowed her to pretend like nothing was wrong. As long as I could be near her and see her beautiful smile, I was ok. But it was when I began to notice her spark was fading that I confronted her once more.

"What am I going to do, Vincent…?" she wept silently. I held her hands in mind and bent forward as she dropped to her knees in front of me.

"I've asked myself the same question for years…" I whispered. For years I always thought there was nothing I could do about my wishes for a better life. But in that moment the answer was clear. At least to me…

"What?" Lucrecia looked up at me. Her tear stained face was still amazing stunning. Now was the time. If she didn't already know how I felt, I would tell her now and we could get out of this place…

"Lucrecia…" I bent down so that we were both on our knees face to face. Her hands were still in mine. "I love you. I don't want to see you hurting like this… Let's run away together. I promise I could give you a better life than this."

She stopped crying and looked down. "I couldn't… Vincent I never intended… I thought…"

Her reaction puzzled me, but then her answer came in clearer. "Vincent, you've gotten the wrong idea… I could never leave Hojo… I still love him. I just don't want to experiment on our child. I don't know what to do to make him stop this immoral experimenting… I don't want to be a part of it anymore."

I let go of her hands and stood. "Do you mean that?" Something in her eyes when she told me she loved him didn't set right. If she loved him she wouldn't have been spending the past few nights sneaking into my bed to sleep with me. She stood as well and suddenly appeared defensive.

"Of course I mean it!" With that she stormed off and was gone. I didn't try to stop her and after that I made no efforts to go find her or talk to her. However, within a week or two I would wake up again with her under my sheets. This was becoming too much… She had already broken my heart by saying she was in love with Hojo. What more did she want from me? I looked down at her peaceful sleeping form. Her long brown hair was loose and flowing all over my pillow. I took a deep breath inhaling the sweet, flowery scent of her long locks.

Then it happened. There was a loud bang at the door. Before either of us could move, the door was kicked open, off its hinges. A big man whom was one of Hojo's specimens stood there after kicking the door in. Hojo then stepped out from behind him and approach us cackling evilly. "Wench, I knew you were up to something!" he grabbed her by her hair and threw her from the bed. I reached back to grab my gun, but as soon as I turned my back I felt four bullets tear into my skin. I gasped and began coughing blood onto the white sheets of the bed I occupied in the mansion. My vision darkened and my life in its normal form had ended…

Present…

I climbed into the king sized bed groaning at how lonely it felt. After trying so hard, I realized sleep just wasn't going to come. I looked over at the clock. Amaya's plane should have landed by now. As soon as I began to wonder why she hadn't called, my cell phone rang.

"Hello?" I smiled to myself.

"Vincent! I miss you so much already! I swear I'm just gonna come back tomorrow I can't take being away from you." Her voice was shaking with emotion and I heard her sniff afterwards. I sighed.

"Don't cry, Amaya. We'll only be apart for a few years or so… Aren't you coming to visit during the holidays? It won't be so bad." I said trying to be supportive. Although, I wouldn't mind having her back here tomorrow…

"What time is it there?" she asked after a few moments of silence.

"Almost eight-thirty…" I answered glancing back at the digital numbers.

"It's only six-thirty here…You sound like you're tired I thought maybe it was later…" I could tell she had stopped crying. I smiled faintly.

"I plan on sleeping all of this time away. Really nothing else for me to do… Yume misses you. I think the dog is mad at me for your absence." I let a few laugh slip just to lighten the mood. I didn't want Amaya to be sad. She should be enjoying her time there at her dream job.

Amaya laughed softly in return. "Bring her close to the phone."

I rolled my eyes at her ridiculous request, but nevertheless went searching for the dog. She was curled up in her cage even though I had left the door open for her. I bent down and scooped her up putting the phone near her ear.

I heard Amaya's loud voice. "Yume! I miss you too, my little girl! Mommy loves you!" The dog went ballistic at the sound of her owner's voice and jumped from my arms landing clumsily on the floor before taking out running in circles and barking loudly. I then returned to the bedroom where I laid in bed for the next three hours talking nonstop with Amaya. Things had happened so fast with her it seemed. Her absence would give me time to think about how it all started…

23 Years ago…

After waking up as a demon, destroying Hojo's lab and killing the woman I thought I loved, I returned to the city that I called home. This of course meant returning to the Shinra Company. I continued to work as a Turk for another five years as I had nowhere else to go and at the time I feared being discovered and once the organization found out about my demon problem they offered protection. But soon they began to see me as a weak link. I often fainted during missions coming dangerously close to being discovered by the police and having the whole organization exposed. Their solution was to kindly 'let me go.' But I wasn't going to make things that easy for them. After an assassination attempt, which was the organization's first choice in what to do with me, I realized that I couldn't die. Therefore I had nothing to lose, so I threatened to turn the president of the Shinra Company into the police. They counter threatened to turn me into a science lab. I argued that if I was exposed I would then sue the Company as they were at fault for my disposition. However, obviously not wanting to get the law involved either way, we came upon a deal. I was unaware just how well off the company had become, but when I saw the amount they offered me I realized that Shinra had been making more money than I'd ever assumed. They offered fifty million, and we sealed the deal at seventy. I promised to never expose Shinra, and they promised to never expose me.

For the next five years I roamed from city to city, remaining in the Midwest. I bought a black SUV which I kept all of my belongings in. I could never stay one place for long because if Chaos was seen multiple times in the same city. Rumors would start. However one appearance here and there wouldn't do much as there were a tone of nuts that made up stories about seeing demons all the time and no one took them seriously. After many accidents and close calls, soon I began to develop a pattern of letting Chaos out. Previously I had been holding him in until I was so sick with his toxins that he would take over. This could happen at any given moment, day or night. So, I decided that every other night I would release him. Upon releasing him myself, I still had a bit of control and it was never a surprise when he took over. This lead to me to believe that I could actually get a permanent place to live. I drove up and down the streets of the Midwestern city. Finally I stumbled upon some decent looking apartments. "Summer Ridge Apartments…" I read aloud as I parked my vehicle in a spot labeled "Visitors."

"Hey sir, may I help you?" A woman in her late twenties asked me as I walked up to her desk. I nodded.

"Do you have anything available?"

A young man came out of a back room and looked at the woman and then at me. The woman opened a file cabinet and read off what rooms were available and the prices. Price didn't matter to me so I vaguely listened.

"102 sound's fine." I said cutting the woman off mid sentence.

The next day I began loading all of my personal belongings into the apartment. Most of what I had were research papers from the experiment. Also some gadgets that I stole from Hojo's lab, including a gauntlet in the shape of a golden claw. I took a cloak too. It looked decent when I first took it, but after Chaos took over one night, the ends got a bit tattered. I wore it anyway; it was winter now, though I was losing my ability to feel temperature. The harsh cold still gave me a chill. Plus, I liked having my face half hidden. My most prized possession was my gun Cerberus. I received the gun as a Turk, but over the years I made adjustments to it. After redecorating and furnishing my apartment to my taste, I secluded myself inside it for years.

2 Years Ago…

I sighed loudly and slammed my refrigerator door shut. Though I didn't need food to survive. I still suffered the discomfort of hunger. However I only bought groceries every two months. I left my apartment, locking it securely behind me. I turned around and locked eyes with a girl carrying a box. She had short hair, with a purple streak in her bang. She dropped the box and screamed. I was a little shaken up myself, just as the door of the apartment across from me started to open; I quickly retreated back into mine. Not another one… I fought back the urge to groan out loud.

Over the next few weeks I laid low. I wasn't ready for another neighbor yet… It had only been a few months ago that I finished off the last one. I looked at the clock. I had been keeping track of the times this neighbor left and returned by the sound of their door opening and slamming shut. It was eight o'clock and normally the person would have returned already. I really needed to get out and get some groceries so I assumed that I had just missed the sound of them returning and left my apartment. I walked down the hall staring at the floor when suddenly I collided with a stack of books. I mentally cursed myself and instantly took responsibility by dropping to the floor and picking up the books. I noticed a hand with neatly painted nails had already attempted to do the same, but wasn't moving so I took the book out from under her hand and continued to stack the rest of them when I came across the last book in her pile. Vampires… So she's come here to do some studies on vampires. I looked up at her with narrowed eyes. Her flawless features expressed nothing but shock as I glared at her. She then uttered a stammering comment I understood as "Thanks." I didn't respond but stood and retreated back into my apartment again. She might have been cute, but it wasn't going to stop me from disposing her if I needed to…