Author's Note: OH MY GOD! I'm FINALLY able to upload this! For a while, I thought I'd NEVER be able to upload the third chapter! curses problems Ahem, right. Thanks to ALL of you guys who gave reviews to this story. I appreciate it and it pushes me to keep on going! I know that it takes a while for me to upload but after all, I don't stop writing it. Anyhow! I hope you will ALL enjoy!
Chapter 3 - Lies
Pushing every little bag, box or can to see if there was any other hints as to where the Wutain was, Vincent growled with anger. The raven-haired man had been there for more than ten minutes, searching vainly for something without finding anything valuable. Finally giving up on any hopes of finding her, Vincent leaned on a wall, his face as emotionless as always. A small sob came to his ears and he looked towards the same garbage can as earlier. The poor kid was still there, crying all the tears of his small body. Looking at him with his crimson colored eyes, the tall man reached for the boy and took his small hand in his own-gloved one.
"Come on, kid, I'm going to bring you to someone." He said calmly. Seeing the same man as earlier, the little boy calmed down and simply nodded to what Vincent had told him. Leading the kid silently, the mysterious man brought him to the 7th Heaven, knowing that Tifa would probably be more than glad to take care of another orphan.
When he got there, Vincent opened the door and let the kid get in first. As soon as the brown-haired woman laid her eyes on the little boy, she understood that he had no parents and that he needed someone to take care of him. It did even take two minutes that she had already accepted him within the family and treated him like her own kid. When he saw that everything was fine, the dark man left the bar and walked back towards the alley where he had found the pouch.
Vincent wasn't expecting to find anything; he just needed to think. But what he found was more than he would ever imagine. There was a cloaked man there, standing right besides a pile of five, empty boxes. While arriving close to the mysterious man, Vincent saw that the he was holding something that looked like an envelope in his hand. At the sight of this, the dark man didn't really have a good feeling about what was going to come up next. Why was that man suddenly there?
Now standing only a few centimeters away from the man, Vincent waited for a reaction. What he got wasn't what he was expecting. The man handed him the envelope, still keeping totally quiet. As soon as he took a hold of the envelope, the mysterious man walked away and seemed to disappear in the darkness of the night.
Vincent stayed there a while, only looking at the sealed envelope, not daring to open it. After at least ten minutes, the mysterious dark man opened the envelope and looked at the letter inside. What he saw made his crimson eyes widen in shock. The handwriting on the letter was more than familiar to him; it was Lucrecia's. The letter read like the following:
"Dear Vincent,
There was another point that I wanted to talk to you about. When you were still a Turks, you told me that you were in love with me. You also told me that, five years ago, when you came to the cave to talk to me. I had rejected you back in the past, but I was simply scared, scared of what I felt for you, Vincent Valentine. I was blaming myself for the death of your father, Grimoire, and I couldn't bear thinking that I would cause your death too, unfortunately, I almost did. But I am now over all that and I am ready to be with you, Vincent.
I am truly sorry of what happened in the past. I didn't want all of it to go that way, especially what happened to you. Perhaps you were right back then, I shouldn't have used my own son for the Jenova project. Unfortunately, we are not able to go back in the past and thus, I cannot change all the things I have done.
Meet me at the cave you know so well at seven tonight, I'll be waiting there.
-Lucrecia"
After reading that letter, the dark 'vampire', like he was often called, placed the paper in his cloak and then thought carefully of what he should do. He knew that Yuffie was probably in grave danger, but he hadn't forgotten his feelings for the woman he had protected once, Lucrecia Crescent. When he was still a member of the Turks, Vincent had fallen in love with the scientist yet she rejected him and later got in a relationship with Hojo. The gunman had been upset about that decision and if she was saying to him now that she loved him, he wasn't going to refuse that.
Of course, even if he was going to go meet Lucrecia, he couldn't stop searching for hints of where the Wutain girl had went. Then something struck him; maybe that Lucrecia could help him with that.
With the idea that he would get a bit of help, the vampire began to make his way back to the 7th Heaven where everyone was. He knew that Cloud and the others wouldn't really agree to him going to see a supposedly dead woman and that was why he decided to keep it to himself.
Now standing in front of the 7th Heaven bar, the man looked at the doorknob a while before putting his hand on it and turning the knob to finally get inside. All the heads turned towards him as he silently made his way to a corner of the room and leaned on the wall, like he always did.
Tifa made her way to him and waited for him to look at her. Seeing that it wasn't going to happen, the young woman sighed and then crossed her arms on her chest.
"Vincent, what plan do you have?" she asked, noticing that something about her friend was different compare than when he had first left the bar. The dark man looked at her with his crimson eyes and then turned his head to the side, evading her eyes.
"Nothing." He answered simply. What was going on wasn't concerning them or Yuffie, so he didn't see the importance of telling anyone about what he was going to do at seven that night.
After a while of simply standing in his corner, the mysterious man walked upstairs in the room that Tifa had passed him for the time he would be residing in Midgar. Finally alone, Vincent sat down on the bed and looked at the time. There was only an hour left before he would be seeing Lucrecia again. Suddenly, something came to his mind. What if it wasn't Lucrecia but someone passing for her? He did remember going to the cave to see Lucrecia and he tried practically everything to revive her, but nothing worked, how could she be alive now? Shrugging those thoughts away, Vincent laid down, staring at the ceiling. All he could do for an hour now was think, think of what he would do if it was indeed the woman he had loved long ago and still loved.
No matter how many times Yuffie had told him that he should move on, he never did. He had too many sins to move on and try to love again, he only loved one woman and he had let her die without doing anything, at least he thought that it was what had happened.
Looking on his newly bought cell phone, the raven-haired man leaned against a wall of the cave. His phone indicated seven p.m. and now, all that was left to do was wait for the woman he loved to come. Closing his eyes for a little while, Vincent took in deep breaths, taking in the scent of the well-known cave.
When he had gotten there a few minutes ago, he had checked the crystal in which Lucrecia had been before just to make sure that it was indeed her that he was going to meet. To his big surprise, the woman's body wasn't in the crystal anymore and in fact; the crystal was broken.
A noise coming from outside the cave brought the mysterious-looking man out of his thoughts. Taking a hold of the Death Penalty, Vincent got ready for what was going to come up next. It was then that he saw her, the long brown hair tied in a ponytail, the same old scientist robe and the sweet smile.
Letting go of his gun, Vincent stood straight as he watched the woman approaching him. It had been so long since he had seen her walking that it seemed as if everything was only another one of his dreams.
Lucrecia advanced towards him and placed a hand on his arm.
"Vincent, it's been so long since I've seen you like this." She said softly, her eyes looking deep into his crimson ones. A small smile appeared on the dark man's face. It was so rare to see him smile like that. If one of his friends would be here, they would probably think that something was wrong with him.
"Lucrecia, I've been wishing to see you moving again." He whispered, bringing his gloved hand to the woman's cheek softly. Leaning in the gentle touch, the woman smiled and closed her eyes. It was then that Vincent realized something; he had NO idea as to how she had come back to life. Taking his hand off her cheek, the dark-haired man looked at her carefully.
"Tell me, how did you?" he asked, his crimson eyes almost asking the question by themselves. Understanding what the man was asking, Lucrecia nodded once and smiled warmly.
"It's a miracle really, I don't even know myself." She said with a smile on her lips.
They spent hours in that cave, talking with each other, catching up with the lost years. Vincent really did look different when he was with her; there was no doubt about that. He could only imagine what Yuffie would say.
Yuffie! He had totally forgotten about her. Turning to Lucrecia once more, Vincent looked at her and then took her hands in his.
"Lucrecia, one of my friends have been kidnapped and I was thinking that maybe you would know where she was." He said. Hearing that question, the woman lowered her eyes, knowing that she will have to tell him soon enough.
"Vincent, promise me one thing. When I will tell you what I know, you won't be mad at me." She said, only raising her eyes at that moment. The vampire looked at her and gave one small nod, waiting for what the woman had to say. He had an awful feeling about what was going to happen next, but he didn't care. If Lucrecia indeed knew something, it was a good thing for him to know it now.
The brown-haired girl sighed and got up, now looking away from the man's piercing red eyes. Taking a deep breath, the woman than began to explain what had happened.
"I… Hojo revived me, Vincent. He is the one who brought me back to life; who took me out of that crystal that kept me captive for years." Slowly, she walked deeper in the cave, finally getting to where the crystal was, now shattered.
"I don't know how he did it, all I know is that I was brought back to life, somehow. When I woke up, he told me that I was free to leave. It surprised me, but I was able to get out of there without many problems. Unfortunately, I think he had something planned." Said the woman, finally looking back at the tall man. The walls of the cave were shimmering from the moonlight that passed through a small overture in the ceiling and made the surroundings look almost angelic.
When he heard that, Vincent got up and looked at her.
"You think that he might have Yuffie? But why her?" he asked as he looked at the woman before him. Raising her shoulders innocently to Vincent's question, the woman looked at him softly.
"You don't hate me, do you?" she asked. Shaking his head negatively, the dark man smiled a bit and walked to her.
"I could never hate you." He whispered.