Days had passed. Vincent awoke as early as he always did the next morning, to find that Lucrecia had woken earlier. He hadn't talked to her much since that first night, hadn't even seen her. She rose, probably, at the crack of dawn, so he never saw her in the morning. Only occasionally did she make an appearance at mealtimes, if they could be called that... the residents of the mansion would all gather together in one room and select what they could stand to eat from a vat of frozen, packaged foods, which they would then take turns heating up over the stove. They ate them straight out of the containers. Nobody felt like taking the time and the trouble to first find the where dishes were kept in this creaky old building, and then wash them once they'd been used. At nighttime, depending on how late Vincent returned to his room, he would either fall asleep before Lucrecia ever arrived, or enter to find her already in a deep slumber on her own bed.
He kept mostly to himself during the day, having never really had a clear briefing on this assignment. He wasn't exactly sure who he was supposed to be protecting, the scientists from the villagers, or the villagers from the scientists. He tried not to think too hard about this, having long since learned how to suppress a naturally curious mind when in situations where it was inappropriate to ask questions... and, personally, he'd much rather go along with the humorous plotline going on in his head that was taking on a more and more Frankenstien-like feel to it, than confront the more-than-a-little-crabby elder scientists about what they were doing. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to open fire on a mob of angry villagers bearing torches and pitchforks.
Not as if the scientists would tell him what they were doing anyway, even if he did get up the courage, or release the necessary amount of interest from behind the wall of indifference, to ask. Well... Lucrecia, maybe, but his difficulty in finding any time for just meaningless smalltalk meant that there would be no good moment to bring such up such a grave issue as that.
So with no orders, and no objective, the Turk youth had taken to the dusty library of the building, spending long, humid summer days turning page after page in a crumbly tome, hidden from the harsh light of the sun beneath the cool shade of stone walls. He had a growing pile of unfinished books he'd been taking to bed every night on his nightstand, the majority of which had since been completed, however neglected to be put away. It was on one such occasion, that the Turk, dressed in half-buttoned cotton pajamas, so fully absorbed in what he was reading, slightly boring though it may be, was surprised by the unusual occurrence of Lucrecia coming back early.
As with the first night, his trained senses had been off-guard due to his distraction, and he had not heard her coming towards the room, or even coming into it. "Your father was Grimoire Valentine?" she asked, causing him to jump only slightly, and put down the book, glancing around to look at her, confusedly. How had she known that?
"Sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you..." she said quickly, "I pulled your file the other day when I had some spare time during my lunchbreak... and before my dictator of a boss could catch me and make me do other stuff again." she gave a nervous laugh, obviously unused to insulting her superiors, even in jest, behind thier backs.
"Why would you do that?" he asked softly.
Lucrecia receeded back, as if she had taken the question more harshly than Vincent had meant it to be dealt, "Well... well I..." she swallowed, "Your name." she explained, "When you told it to me, Valentine struck a nerve, I remembered it from somewhere... and a lousy Midgar U graduate I would be if hadn't!" her timid enthusiasm had seemed to come back, unbruised by her earlier misconception of his comment, "He's only the most famous out-of-nowhere scientist to pretty much start the ShinRa science program singlehandedly." she grinned, "I owe my profession to him… never believed I'd be in the presence, and the safekeeping of his only son." she seemed impressed. Vincent did not.
He sighed, "So what if my father's famous? None of that transfers over to me... none of his merits, none of his skill... what did he do that was so great anyway?" he asked, "I hardly knew him." there was no bitterness in his tone, despite his words, just a sort of hollow sound, as if he regretted these facts, or that he'd never known so much about his father as this practically-a-stranger did.
Lucrecia shrugged, and obliged to tell him, "Well, unlike most scientists of his day which concentrated solely on the Lifestream, and it's workings, he preferred to study the creatures of this planet... he's brought in alot of great research that nobody cared to go out and get before."
Vincent listened intently... he literally had not known what his father did for a living, having never taken much interest in the man's work while he was alive... he only had a few vague memories of him.
Seeing that his attention had not wandered, Lucrecia continued, but not before sitting down on the bed next to him sliding over, her eyes were alight... she was really in her element here. "He found a race of highly intelligent, wolflike beings living in Cosmo Canyon..." she began, "He even studied, and provided DNA samples of four now-extinct species..." a smile of wonder was on her face, and Vincent found himself paying more attention to it than what she said, "The Galian Beast, Gigas, Hellmasker, and iCruentusHasta AbOcaSus/i, and since then alot of work has been put into discovering more about the Cetra that they were created from... that's even part of the project we're doing right now." At this, he perked up slightly, but not before she had begun to say, "But I can see you've lost interest..." the disappointment was obvious as she started to get up and return to her own bed.
"No!" he said suddenly, a little louder than he'd intended. His hand darted out against his own will, and he caught her wrist while it was still on the bed, and looked at her... now was the time... the time to ask, "What... what is the project you're working on now?" well, it was blunt, but it did the trick, "I'm afraid I wasn't told much about it, or given any orders concerning my position here."
"Ah..." Lucrecia began, the hesitance audible in her voice. Vincent winced slightly at this... by now the story had gone too far, and had touched a deeper part of his interests that, he knew from experience, could not be quelled when attempting to seek the source of their unrest.
She cleared her throat, "Well, the project concerns..." she began, then stopped once more, looking him in the eyes, her face now completely serious, "Promise me, Vincent... that you will not say a word about this to anyone... anyone, but me. Do you understand?"
Vincent nodded. He was used to taking orders and following them.
"Say you promise..." she urged.
"I promise."
"And I will hold you to your word... for your own safety, if nothing else."
This last statement concerned Vincent slightly, for as she said it, Lucrecia turned away, and looked down at the ground. "Lucrecia..." he murmured.
At her name, she looked back up again, smiling once more. "Right. I'll tell you... it's the Cetra that this project concerns. We call it the Jenova Project..."
"I have heard of its name." Vincent reported.
She nodded, "Well, I'd expect you knew that much. You may or may not also know that Jenova is, rather... was a Cetra. Her fossil was found right here, in the mountains just outside Nibelheim! Dr. Gast named her, but he's since... resigned his employment." she said it in such a way that Vincent was sure there was more to that, but he didn't press it, instead letting her continue to talk. "That's why I was called in as Hojo's assistant, even though I'm right out of school... and not even the most fit for this position. I sometimes wonder why I was selected, out of so many..." she stared wistfully out the window a moment, before her attention snapped back to him. "But I didn't mean to go off on a tangent like that..." she babbled.
"Think nothing of it." Vincent assured her, with the ghost of a smile forming on his pale lips. "I don't mind. But please, continue."
"Well, compiling the research done by your father with Dr. Gast's, we've determined that the creatures Dr. Valentine studied were the victims of a horrible virus that wracked the Cetra who arrived here on this planet..."
"Then those beasts... were the Cetra?" Vincent asked, surprise evident on his face.
She nodded slowly, "That's why it's so rare to find such a well preserved specimen like Jenova. She must've died before the virus fully affected her, but we've found remnants of it in her still... currently, we're working on purifying her body and genes of it, to discover what the Ancients were really like." she seemed quite excited. "But where we go from there... still a mystery."
"Fascinating." Vincent smiled, "Thank you, you've put to rest a great gnawing curiosity of mine."
"Glad to do so!" she said happily, standing. "And now, I'm afraid, I really must get my sleep. We're getting an early start tomorrow... as always." she rolled her eyes.
"I understand." Vincent answered, himself curling up on his bed. "And don't let that... Dr. Hojo," he had to search for the name a moment, "...be too hard on you. If he is, remember, it's my job as a Turk to watch over this facility, and guard it's inhabitants... that means guarding you from him, if it comes to that." a tiny smile played on his lips.
She giggled softly, slipping beneath the sheets on her bed, "All right, if he ever gives me any trouble, I'll come running to you, Vincent."
"Say you promise." he pressured.
"I promise." she smiled.
"And I will hold you to your word... for your own safety, if nothing else."
Lucrecia leaned over towards her nightstand, and the light went out, shrouding the two in darkness. In that oppressive shadow, which the moonlight didn't even lift, the cloudcover had only just rolled in on the nighttime breeze, Vincent closed his eyes and listened to her steadying breathing. There was something about her... something that commanded the words from his lips with as much force as his Turk superiors suppressed them, yet this shy, bookish girl had three times their beauty, and twice their grace, without even trying. He didn't know what he felt of her yet... at the least she was his... friend.
He turned over under his blanket. He'd think of it more another day... perhaps tomorrow. For now, he was content simply to have had this one real conversation with her, though he hadn't contributed much to it... it was still more than he would normally dare to say, and as minutes passed in the darkness, Lucrecia long having since slipped into the realm of sleep, he dared to say one more whispered word: "Goodnight."
