Lucrecia, My Reflection
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII. It belongs to Square-Enix.
A/N: This is an dea that's been banging around in my head for awhile. Bonus points if you can guess where the inspiration for the title came from. :p
"Lucrecia…"
Your name escapes like a prayer from my cold, pale lips. I am unworthy to utter your name, but I cannot help it. I so cherish the lovely sound of your name. You look so beautiful, so impossibly perfect as you lie there in your crystalline encasing, hovering between that precarious threshold of life and death. You are like a trapped butterfly that will never emerge from her cocoon to spread her wings. If only I could free you from your prison.
We are both cursed, you and I. We are sins against nature, abominations. We are a violation of the natural order of things, and thus, we are punished. For us, there neither can be heaven nor hell, only this purgatory, this eternal limbo. The Planet will not have us because we are tainted, corrupted. There can be no salvation, no deliverance for either of us, for we are damned. I was the one that damned you, when at the very least, you, my angel, my greatest love, should have been granted peace. What I would not give to ease your suffering. Words cannot express how it torments my soul to see you like this, and not be able to hold you close, kiss you, or brush the tears from your doe-brown eyes.
If I could, my dearest Lucrecia, I would bear the burden of the sins you carry, if only to spare you. I would do anything for you, if you asked it of me. I would sacrifice my very own black soul to the devil himself, to ensure that heaven would welcome you with open arms, and you could take your rightful place amongst the choirs of angels.
Day and night, I curse the fiend that did this to you, that took the soul of someone as innocent and pure and loving as you are, and stained it so. Stained it with blood, violence, pain, torture, exposed you to horrors no one should ever have to bear witness to. Hojo, that twisted demon. I can only hope there is a special place in hell reserved for him. I pray that he suffers.
I cannot help but wonder if we had met under other circumstances, how different would things have been? If you weren't the brilliant scientist that I knew and so admired and adored upon my first sighting of you, and I were not a member of the Turks, could we have fallen in love? Married? Had children? Perhaps we could have had a quiet, simple carefree life together. I will never know.
So many questions. So many what-ifs. What could have been, might have been. If only I'd had the courage to get you away from Hojo when he injected you and your unborn child with those damned Jenova cells. I would have gladly abandoned the Turks for your sake. It did not matter to me that it was his child you carried; I would have been glad to raise him as my own.
There are so many regrets. I cannot begin to count them all.
I cling to the hope that one day we will die, and thus at long last granted merciful release.
As I press my human hand to the cold stone of your sarcophagus, and place a kiss upon it's chilled surface, I imagine I can hear your voice, echoing in my brain.
"Vincent…I'm so sorry my love. Please, forgive me."
There is nothing to forgive, my darling. There never was.
Perhaps someday, Lucrecia, I will embrace you on the other side.
Fin.
