A Second Chance
By Arian
Cloud faced the mysterious figure with a sense of deep disappointment. He hadn't really expected it to be Aeris, but he had hoped.
Tifa dipped her head while her grief for Aeris fought with her own love for Cloud.
"Lucrecia?" Cloud asked eventually, remembering where he had seen her before.
Looking around her, the woman didn't seem to hear Cloud at all. In fact, she hadn't even noticed their presence yet. "I used to sit in this room…" She mused to herself. "I sat in that chair and sang lullabies to my son. He was so small…" She wandered around the room as if she were lost in a dream.
"Cid." Cloud turned to the pilot with a worried look on his face. "Get Vincent. He should be here."
"Well, yeah, I'll do that… Just as soon as you tell me where the &%$£ he is!" Cid retorted.
"Try the mountains." Tifa suggested. "He walks up there a lot."
"The mountains…" Cid muttered to himself, disgusted, as he left. "It would be the $&*%(& mountains."
Looking back to Lucrecia, Cloud saw that she had stopped flitting around the room and was stood motionless, staring at him.
"Vincent?" She asked, having heard Cloud say the name. "Where's Vincent? He was with you when I saw you before."
"He'll be here soon." Tifa tried to soothe the woman, but her face changed quickly from slightly dazed to show an overwhelming anger.
"You left me! Vincent, I hate you! Don't let him near me!" She implored the confused Tifa. "He left me because he was jealous and spiteful. He left me with the monster that called himself Hojo, even though he knew what Hojo was like. He knew what Hojo would do! I didn't have a clue," She continued bitterly. "But he did and he left!"
"Sephiroth…" She murmured, her face regaining some of its softness. "I can't regret you. No matter what they tell me about you. I didn't get to see him grow up, you know." She turned her face back to Tifa, tears in her eyes. "Hojo stole him from me as soon as it was practical to do so and returned with him to Midgar. I was left here, stranded."
Tifa looked up at Cloud, who shrugged helplessly. This wasn't their story, they didn't know what to do or say.
At that moment, Cid cursed his way back through the door, carrying what could only be Vincent. Dumping his burden carefully to the floor, Cid sighed. "Stupid $^%£&! Looks like he fell from one of the ledges up there."
Cloud looked down at the twisted, bruised form of his friend. He was not in a good way, but he was alive.
"Are you sure he fell?" Cloud asked Cid slowly. Tifa looked quickly at him in surprise and frowned at the question.
"He was at the bottom of a £$%^& crevice! Of course he…" realisation of what Cloud was asking dawned. "Stupid son of a –"
"He wouldn't do something like that, Cloud. I don't believe he would." Tifa told him firmly, flipping her hair back over her shoulder.
Lucrecia, who had started at the initial sight of Vincent, edged closer and peered cautiously at the ex-Turk. "Is he dead?" She asked, half-hopeful.
"No." Cloud replied, cross at her almost cheerful tone of voice.
"He should be!" She turned angrily and walked to the other side of the room, as far from the unconscious Vincent as possible.
"We have to get help for Vincent quickly." Tifa said quietly, reminding Cloud of his priorities. She looked up at him for guidance. "What can we do?"
"I don't know where to take him, Tifa. There isn't anyone medically qualified in Nibelheim and we can't get him to another town fast enough now that the Highwind is out of action. Apart from that, what doctor will treat him? He… he isn't even entirely human…" His voice trailed off helplessly as he knelt at Vincent's side. "I don't know what to do."
As Cloud looked up, his eyes fell on Lucrecia. "You're a scientist. You must know enough to help Vincent!" He stepped quickly over to the woman as a scornful smile twisted her face.
"You think I'm mad? There is nothing you can do to make me help that traitor! He left me at Hojo's mercy, whether I knew it or not at the time. And because of him, my only child lies dead."
"How do you know he helped us kill Sephiroth? We never told you! How the £$%^& could you know that?" Cid burst out, unable to contain his curiosity.
"Everyone on the planet has been talking about it, that's how."
Cid opened his mouth to speak again, but closed it quickly when Cloud glared at him.
"I have absolutely no idea what went on between you two. I don't know what happened back then, but Vincent is my friend and I don't want him to die. Please help us." Cloud pleaded gently with the angry scientist. I've seen one friend die, and one is already too many. Don't make me live through another death that I cannot prevent.
"He deserves to die! He left me alone!" Lucrecia was nearly in tears at the remembered pain of that desertion. Even if she had not wanted Vincent to love her, the sudden departure had cut her.
"But he didn't leave you." Tifa put in, remembering what Vincent had told them of his past. "Didn't you realise? He told us the story when we found him here. He found out about the experiment and fought with Hojo to try and stop it, but Hojo pulled Vincent's own gun on him. Hojo shot him, then experimented on him, leaving him locked up in the cellar of this house. That's why you didn't see him again. He didn't leave you, not of his own will."
Lucrecia stared blankly at Tifa, not comprehending what she had been told for a long while. Slowly, very slowly, Tifa's words sunk in and began to make sense. They fitted perfectly to what had happened and Lucrecia began to tremble. She knew the account was true.
"What have I done…?" She whispered, horrified, her dark brown eyes wide as she stared down at Vincent's unconscious form. "Oh no… Vincent, I never… What have I done?"
"You've done nothing that can't be fixed." Cloud sighed, impatiently. "Now help him! Please!"
Lost in the terror provoked by what she now perceived as her wrongful judgement of Vincent, Lucrecia didn't even hear Cloud.
"Vincent, Vincent, I'm sorry!" She fell to her knees besides him, hands clutching at him in despair. "I didn't know… You idiot! Trying to confront Hojo! You knew how utterly insane he'd become, why did you…?" Lucrecia wept into her hands, realising the answer. Because of her. Because Vincent couldn't stand by and do nothing while Lucrecia and her child were turned into Hojo's latest lab project. It simply wasn't in him to stand helplessly and observe.
"Table." She looked up suddenly. "I need a table or a desk, some flat surface or other."
"Cid?" Cloud looked questioningly at the pilot who had stood silently observing with Red.
"Yeah, I know." Cid started to check the other doors of the large mansion, muttering to himself. "How come I have to do everything? Red just £^*%$ sits there, but me? Noooo. It's "Cid do this", "Cid do that" all the – Here's one." He called back to the others.
"Is it OK for us to move him again?" Cloud asked.
Lucrecia nodded. "He's Jenova infused, like me. It takes a lot to kill us."
"We know that from first hand experience." Red muttered, thinking of Sephiroth, but the comment went unnoticed.
Having cleared the desk Cid had found and carried Vincent to it, Cloud and the rest of the group were about to leave Lucrecia to her work, but she called out. "Tifa, is it? Could you stay? I'll need a hand."
Tifa nodded and Red gave her the medical equipment he'd found in the basement. She watched as the woman fussed frantically over Vincent, trying to find what was wrong.
"Will he be OK? Do you know what's the matter with him?"
"I have an idea, but I don't know if I'm right, yet." Lucrecia pulled a small syringe out from the kit the Red had found and bent to take a blood sample.
"He's… a bit pale. Should you do that?" Tifa asked, shifting nervously from foot to foot, feeling useless.
"He's always been pale." Lucrecia gave the girl a wan smile. "This won't do him any harm." She paused for a while, thinking to herself. "Hojo should've had a microscope in the basement somewhere."
"I'll ask if they can find it." Tifa peered out the door and asked Cid to look for a microscope in the basement. Cid didn't even bother to frame a reply, he simply glared. She turned to Cloud instead.
"I'll find it, Tifa. Don't worry."
***************
When Cloud returned, Tifa took the small microscope in to Lucrecia who spent some time adjusting it.
She peered down at the blood sample she'd taken from Vincent and gasped in disbelief.
"What is it?" Tifa responded instantly, worried.
"Hojo… didn't just inject Jenova cells into Vincent. There are… things in here that I didn't know we had in the lab. I didn't even know they existed! I don't know what they are!" She left the microscope and walked back to Vincent, still lying on the desk they had commandeered. He looked like he was sleeping, just a little bruised, the cuts had been cleaned now and he didn't look such a mess. She ran a hand softly down the side of his face and shook her head. "What did he do to you?"
"You know what's wrong? Why he won't wake up?" Tifa pulled a chair out and sat, patiently waiting.
"Yes, I know." Lucrecia nodded gravely.
"Can you fix it?"
"Yes, but I don't know if I should." Seeing the confused look on Tifa's face, the woman started to explain. "Vincent doesn't have such a high proportion of Jenova cells in his body as I have, or as Seph…" Her voice stopped, her face filled with an inconsolable grief but she shook herself and continued.
"Vincent has enough Jenova within that it prevents him from dying from this, but not enough to heal him and pull him back. He's in limbo right now. I could help him quite easily by injecting more Jenova." She held up her own arm and looked at it with a curious expression on her features. "There's enough Jenova in me to pull Vincent back. A small blood transfusion would be adequate – he's lucky we're the same blood type – but I don't know if I should do that." She paused. "To inject more Jenova… he would probably never be able to end it… He'd never have the freedom to make that choice for himself. He might even live until the end of the world, like me… I don't know if I should take that bit of mortality away."
"It's selfish." She sighed. "I don't want him to die because then I'd be alone. I'd be the only one left from that time, the only one who knows what it's like to live under this sentence. I don't think I could stand that."
"If Vincent was awake now, and you gave him the choice, he would choose to stay with you. I know he would." Tifa said softly, earnestly, flipping her long hair back over her shoulder from where it had fallen forwards.
Lucrecia looked down at the pale face for a long while, the battle she was fighting inside showing plainly on her features. She nodded slowly. "I think you're right. But I'm going to need your help."
***************
"It won't take long." Lucrecia said as she perched on the edge of the desk, next to Vincent. Her arm was held up a little, to keep the blood flowing down, and she clenched and unclenched her hand to help the flow. She watched the dark liquid that filled the slender tube as it ran from her arm to Vincent's, and she smiled a little at the warmth of it as it lay along her forearm. It felt strange, but comforting in a weird sort of way.
Tifa stared, amazed at the casual manner in which the scientist watched her own blood flowing out of her. She wasn't squeamish, but… She shuddered a little, unable to suppress the reaction. She stood in silence, tired from helping Lucrecia.
"I love him, you know." Lucrecia said suddenly, breaking the silence, glancing fondly down at the sleeping figure, then looking back at Tifa again. "I did then, as well."
"But… not long ago you were saying that you hated him, and… Ohhh, I'm confused!"
"So am I." The woman smiled. "But I'll try to explain it for you. I did love him, back then, but he always seemed to be so far removed from me. I don't remember when Hojo started his scheme, but he seemed to be so very much easier to talk to. He was always around and I saw him everyday day at the lab. The Jenova project seemed so magnificent then. It was all like one long dream. When Hojo started to tell me about the idea of infusing a child… Oh, how could I have known he'd been carefully influencing me so that I'd volunteer? That was one of the reasons that finally stopped me from seeing Vincent. I wouldn't harm his child. How could I? And he wasn't a scientist, like we were; he wouldn't be able to understand it. It would hurt him."
"Not long after I married Hojo, Vincent disappeared." Her voice filled with undisguised anguish at the memory. "He left me. Stupid, naïve, foolish Lucrecia was left alone. I didn't know why he left, but all kinds of reasons passed through my mind. And although I had told him that I didn't love him, I did. I don't think I knew what I wanted. But I didn't want him to go." She paused. "I thought that I would die when he left. I wanted to die. But the Jenova… It was already too late for that. Hojo never left me alone long enough for me run away, and even if I could, where would I go? I was from Midgar. I didn't know my way around here at all."
Tifa said nothing, simply letting the woman continue with her story.
"Hojo started to show his true nature once Vincent was out of the way. He despised me and he made sure I knew the only reason he tolerated my existence was the experiment. He hit me often, always careful to avoid my stomach." She smiled bitterly. "He was too clever to allow rage to jeopardise his precious project. I honestly thought that he was going to kill me after the baby was born. And, you know, I think he thought about it, but in the end he just took off for Midgar, taking Sephiroth with him." Lucrecia gave a dark laugh at that. "I wish he had killed me. It would have been better than this!"
Tifa was silent for a while, unsure what to say to and worried about how dark the other woman's words were becoming, and then she looked up. "You don't have to think like that anymore. Vincent'll be with you when he wakes up. You don't need to worry about the past or anything that happened then anymore."
A strange expression crossed Lucrecia's face at that, but Tifa didn't notice, walking to the door to tell Cloud and the other's what was going on.
Lucrecia watched mutely as the girl left, only the sound of Vincent's breathing breaking the silence. She clamped the plastic tube that ran from her arm and pulled the needle out, wincing slightly, even though there was not the slightest pain. Taping a wad of tissue to her arm quickly, she fixed up Vincent's arm in a similar fashion.
He was a much better colour now, she reflected, absently running a hand down the side of his face.
She waited patiently, listening to the faint murmur of voices outside, and after a few minutes, Vincent's eyes drowsily opened. Red! She realised immediately, startled at the colour. His eyes weren't red before… They used to be blue. Gorgeous blue eyes, he had. You bastard, Hojo! I loved those eyes!
Vincent, meanwhile, was concentrating on regaining the ability to see properly. Everything was blurred and indistinct through the mist swathed vision sleep leaves in its wake. There was a face leaning over him… An angel? Vincent wondered. Did I die from that cliff fall? He blinked again. No, the face was human, not ethereal.
"I'm so glad you've woken up."
He recognised the familiar cadences immediately. Lucrecia… He smiled blissfully to himself. Angel… my first idea was right after all. "I was going to look for you…"
He reached out, seeking her hand and wincing at the pain that shot up his arm. She let him close his hand around her own and Vincent was content to have that simple contact. He almost couldn't believe she was really here, besides him, but he had long ago learned to believe the evidence of his own eyes. Lucrecia was with him again, after such a long time… She had become as necessary to his well being as the air he breathed, but so many years had passed without her that it had had to be enough for him to know she was there, somewhere.
In the waterfall cave, it had been the hardest thing in the world for Vincent to walk out and leave her, but she was safer there, he reasoned at the time. Sephiroth had to be dealt with and Lucrecia would be safe in the cave, he would find her again after it was over.
There had been hostility and anger in her voice then. Still, she wasn't hostile now, so Vincent dismissed it.
Lucrecia explained what had happened to him in a quiet tone, all the while thinking over some of the things that Tifa had told her. He's been unshakably loyal to me since before Hojo locked him up… what did I do to deserve that? What did I do to deserve years of dedicated devotion? He thinks always of me, only me, never even does he worry about himself, just me. And what did I do? Refused to help him when he was injured, screaming my hatred while he was lying unconscious on the floor. I don't deserve him. I never did.
"You have even more Jenova cells in your body now. It's what I had to do to help you get better." She said simply, her mind still tracing out dark thoughts of its own.
"Jenova? Where from?" Vincent's forehead crinkled slightly under the dark hair.
She held up her arm and tapped it, with a faint smile. "Me. Blood transfusion." She explained.
He nodded. Lucrecia's blood running through his veins… the notion made him smile in pure whimsy. He quite liked the poetry of the idea.
"The increased percentage of Jenova means that… that you're even less human than you were. I think you would have to contrive to end it, it couldn't happen by accident now. You're like me."
"Like you…" He echoed thoughtfully. "I'll be with you always now, won't I?"
Lucrecia was silent at that and the blissful expression on Vincent's face was suddenly replaced by abject guilt as he misinterpreted her reaction.
"Lucrecia, forgive me!" He burst out, clutching tightly at her hand in desperation. "Forgive me for everything I've done to you and for what I did to your son!" His voice faltered. "Forgive… forgive me for what I am…"
"There is nothing there to forgive anymore, Vincent. I can't hold anything against you. But if you need me to grant you your absolution, then I will. I will grant you any absolution you feel you need, but it is unnecessary." She told him softly.
She watched him for a long while, staring into the deep crimson eyes, before she spoke again. "I love you." Such a simple comment. No grand declaration, just an unadorned statement of how things were, so typical of the scientist that Lucrecia was.
She leaned over him hesitantly, his hand releasing hers and moving a short way up her arm, then she bent to kiss his lips.
Eventually drawing back, Lucrecia gave a faint sigh before noticing how drowsy Vincent's eyes were becoming. "You need sleep." She advised.
"There's nothing now that… that can possibly… part us, is there?" Vincent slurred, half-asleep already. Lucrecia gave no answer, watching sadly as his eyelids closed, peaceably. "Love you." He muttered, falling into slumber, a heartbreakingly happy expression on his face for the first time in decades.
"No Vincent." She said quietly, once she was sure he was asleep. "Nothing can part us now. Except me. Everything that has happened to you is my fault. You're not the one that needs to atone for your past mistakes, it's me. It was never you who was at fault. Everything will be fixed when you wake up. I don't deserve to be on the pedestal you've placed me on. I'm not infallible. I've made so many mistakes. I don't deserve to be in your life and I'll make sure that I'm not."
Lucrecia's brimming eyes fell on Vincent's gun where it lay on a shelf. Tifa had put it there for safekeeping, but now it had a purpose. With a last look at Vincent, she picked up the gun and hurried from the room.