She watched the departure of the red cloaked man with undisguised relief. It would never do for the young man to know the truth or to see her for what she really was. Lucrecia grimaced as she looked down at her frail arthritic hands. They were a constant reminder of her advanced age now as they laboured to type in the necessary commands at her command console. His pale, youthful countenance occupied the screen once more, filling her with bitterness as she looked down to regard her hands again.
"You haven't aged a day, Vincent. Time left you untouched... Bastard. I hope you like the Chaos limit break." A grim smile pulled at her lips. "Not that it will do you any good against my son. Poor, poor Vincent. At least you finally did one thing right. Hojo is dead--"
"I got better."
Lucrecia sucked in a deep breath at the sudden appearance of the voice. The only indication of her shock appeared in the slight trembling of her hand.
"So... the incompetent failed even that." The aged woman turned in her wheelchair to face the scientist who was her husband. She held back a snarl to see his un-aged form. "Bastard."
"Bitter, Lucy?" The scientist bowed to her, showing off his still youthful appearance.
She bristled at the mocking address, but before she could say anything else, Hojo approached to flick a control on the console before her. The image of the young Lucrecia appeared in the light of the altar again. "Ahh, you did look so very pretty 30 years ago, Lucy dear."
"And you look nothing like the reports I've received over the last few years." Her eyes narrowed at him suspiciously.
"That is because you were observing my clone, Lucy." He grinned at her. "I am hurt. Did you really believe that I went mad all those months ago? You should have guessed that it was my clone. They are unstable creatures."
"Clone?"
"Just like our dear 'son' currently prancing around the earth. The real me left Shinra after his true death. I had other things to think about." He sighed distantly.
"That sounds *so* convenient, Hojo." The aged woman sneered at him. "Do you mean to say that you really aren't responsible for all those atrocities attributed to you after your alleged Jenova poisoning?"
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out before he spoke again. "Perhaps I cannot avoid *some* responsibility for the actions of the clone, but I refuse to be held accountable for its deeds. I merely removed myself to work on an admittedly selfish project. Myself." Hojo smiled at her as he looked pointedly at her gnarled and arthritic fingers before glancing at his own smooth youthful looking hand. "No doubt the clone also tried to do the same, but I had far more patience and wisdom in applying that knowledge."
"We haven't met in 30 years, did you come just to gloat over me?"
"You never were a very good geneticist, despite the... success you had with Vincent." Hojo turned off the image projector and turned to study her wrinkled and aged form.
"What do you want, Hojo?! To finally kill me?"
"No, Lucy. I did realise that your time, to put it bluntly, is short. And we never did speak after... what you did to Vincent."
"He still hates you, Hojo." Her eyes narrowed at him, filled with its own venom.
He chose to ignore her hate filled look. "Why, Lucy?"
"I could ask you the same, Hojo." She snapped back. "You loved him. Do you care to actually admit that now?"
"Why do I need words? Did my actions not prove it enough to you?" His eyes turned steely as he reached over to grip her frail wrist. "Lucrecia, I respected y--"
"Did you?" She jerked her hand out of his grip. "You married me just to make sure he'd stay nearby! You were so afraid that I'd marry him and move away... raise three and a half kids. Ha! You should have known me better." She sneered at him mockingly. "The Turk was hardly my type."
"And all you really cared for was advancing your career." Hojo nodded in acknowledgement. "*That* was your only reason for marrying me."
"Love matters little to the likes of us, Hojo. We had Jenova, the research with Mako energies... We had Sephiroth! Why did you have to complicate matters with Vincent?"
"He loved you!"
"He did not know me! And I was sick to death of his always putting me on a pedestal. Yes, I dated him. All I wanted was a quick roll in bed to get him to stop obsessing over me, but he refused to touch me! I would have been perfectly happy to *play* with that delicious body." Her finger pointed accusingly at him. "That's what you first noticed about him too, isn't it, Hojo? 'Handsome' would have been the least of his descriptions. Vincent Valentine had a chiselled and finely sculptured body. Was that what you fell in lust with?"
"His beauty isn't just skin deep, Lucy." Hojo's voice turned cold as he tried to control his temper. "Why can you never recognise that? If you bothered to really talk to him, you would have found him to be as cultured and intelligent a man we could ever be privileged to meet. But you couldn't stand him, could you, Lucy? Always hovering in the background, ostensibly to protect us, but watching you most of the time."
"Watching me with those sad eyes, so filled with puppy love. I couldn't believe it when he presented me with that ring. I thought I'd die from suppressed laughter and he thought the tears I shed were from sorrow?" Lucrecia rolled her eyes at the memory. "He was such a *pathetic* creature. I thought he'd finally leave when he saw me with you."
"So... you *did* engineer that. To break his heart? To try and drive him away from us? Shows you that I knew him better. I knew he'd stay anyway, out of obligation to protect you. *Just. Because. He. Loved. You.*" He gritted between clenched teeth. "As long as you were happy, he would be happy for you!" Hojo backed away to the far end of the room again, afraid that he'd be tempted once more to strike out at the bitter, old woman. "Why did you care that I loved him?"
"When I collapsed after Sephiroth's birth... you never visited me while I was recovering. Instead, you spent all your time with *Vincent!*"
"What? You were jealous?" Hojo swung around to stare at her in surprise. "You had Gast with you! Vincent would have died if I left him!"
"If you were so concerned about Vincent, why did you shoot him?!"
"I was--it-- he-- he-- accused me of not knowing how to love. Of... of endangering your life because--" Hojo's hand shook with the frustration of trying to explain his rash actions of so long ago. "I didn't-- I loved him and to have him-- I was-- shocked-- It was an accident! I never expected the gun to go off so easily! I almost killed him...
"Anyway." He waved his hand dismissively. "I trusted you to be safe in Gast's hands. Vincent needed me. If I hadn't stayed and operated to stabilise his body, he would have died. Why did *you* need me to visit..." Hojo trailed off as the revelation hit him. "Jealousy? Is that it, Lucy?" He strode closer to tower over her. "Is that why you did your damnedest to make him a monster? Why you forced those mutations on him? Why you replaced his left arm with that claw when you damn well knew you could have saved it?! Damn it, Lucrecia! I though I could trust you to heal Vincent while I attended to Sephiroth."
"Hojo, I may never have loved you either, but I still needed attention!" Her frail hand reached out to grip the lapels of his shirt. "At least to know that I was of some importance to you, *my husband*. You couldn't even show me one shred of concern ... you cared only for him!"
"I loved him! And you knew that before we agreed to marry to produce Sephiroth!" Hojo knocked her hands away from him and forced himself to walk to the far end of the room again. He wanted so much to latch his hands around her frail neck, he knew he had to put some distance between them or they would never finish their talk. "May the spirits forgive me, I thought that our son was in greater need of my attention; that of the two, our son was more helpless. I thought I could trust you to take care of Vincent, not-- not--"
"'Beware the fury of a woman scorned.' I couldn't 'touch' you, but your little toy... He would scream so sweetly." Lucrecia's lips pulled back in a parody of a smile. "Did you know, Hojo? That when he first awoke and saw the claw that replaced his left arm, he immediately thought it was your doing? I didn't see any reason to change his mind. It worked so well to make him hate you."
"You did that just to spite me?" His expression turned incredulous. "Was it really *just* to spite me? To poison his mind so that he'd believe that I was his tormentor?"
"If you want to think of it that way? Yes." She met his eyes defiantly.
"Of all the-- have you any idea how long it took me to stabilise his body?!" Only by a force of will did Hojo prevent himself from flying across the room to reach out and slap the old woman. "You injected so many vials of Jenova's cells and infused so much Mako energy in him... Do you realise that in the space of a week, you forced on him the equivalent of what I had been planning for Sephiroth over a period of ten years?!"
"He is a survivor."
"You nearly killed him! Was it any surprise that I sent you away from the project as soon as I found out what you did?"
"And more, wasn't it, Hojo?"
"And more, Lucy. Are you so proud of it?" A shadow fell across his eyes again. "I found that rod you used to-- to rape him." Hojo seethed at the memory of that discovery. "I did not want you anywhere near Sephiroth."
"Dear, precious, Sephiroth." Lucrecia sighed theatrically as she placed a hand over her heart. "Only he could drag you away from your beloved Vincent, wasn't he, Hojo."
"I only put Vincent away because I didn't have the time to heal him when I had Sephiroth to take care of too. He was stable enough for me to entrust him to a death trance. That in itself helped him heal as well."
"But in suspended animation for *eighteen* years, Hojo?" Hojo refused to look at the old woman. He knew without looking that the expression on her face would be one of mock horror. "Tell me the truth, you also enjoyed the reputation you gained from this, didn't you? That little urban Legend of the missing Turk, especially one of Vincent's calibre?" She laughed gaily at him. "'Foremost assassin and Turk, matchless even by today's standards, missing after a disagreement with Head scientist.' I'm surprised Gast let you do that."
"He had his own little experiment going with the Cretes. Neither of us had the time to give Vincent the attention he needed."
"Still... eighteen years, Hojo." She arched one knowing eyebrow at him. "Are you sure you didn't conveniently forget?"
"No! You should know as well as I that Sephiroth's upbringing and the development of the Mako infusion process for SOLDIERS took up almost all of my time. And when Sephiroth was at that age of rebellion..." Hojo rolled his eyes at the memory. "I would *swear* he was in SOLDIERS because he knew I didn't approve."
"I've heard different accounts, Hojo." Her whole expression turned conspiratorial. "So will you enlighten me? Is it true that our little Sephiroth found Vincent... in a coffin of all places." A little smile touched Lucrecia's lips again. "Having a gothic hang-up, were you? And long hair... I always suspected you had a long hair fetish. You cultivated that purposely, didn't you?
"I wonder what Sephiroth thought when he beheld that gaunt, pale figure with the waves of long, raven black hair. Neither of us could resist Vincent's beauty, I'm not surprised our son fell for him too." Her lips pulled into a leer that Hojo honestly thought was absolutely hideous. "I understand that his Turk attire had effectively crumbled to dust over the years. He must have been much too tempting for Sephiroth to resist, wrapped up as he was in near rags that left little to the imagination.
"But the clothes you chose for him later... I should compliment you, Hojo. The outfit you settled on for Vincent accentuates his beauty perfectly. And it's good that you remembered to dress him in something much more resilient against the passage of time too." She winked at him. "A double-breasted shirt teamed with jeans, black to match his hair... Red cape and headband which matches his eyes. And so many buckles and belts... He cuts such a dashing figure. It's a pity he has so many monsters within."
Hojo was about to retort angrily when Lucrecia interrupted him again. "So? Did Sephiroth try to kiss him awake like Sleeping Beauty?"
"I can hardly attest for what he did in the basement" Hojo growled.
"You sound defensive, Hojo. So, he did kiss your beloved?"
"If you must know, Sephiroth did kiss him before me, if only to deliver a necessary tranquilliser. The boy disturbed the death trance by trying to awaken Vincent. He went into convulsions not long after he woke up." Hojo shuddered slightly as he remembered a panicked Sephiroth running into his lab, carrying the pale, almost naked man whose body was wracked with violent spasms. So violent, in fact, that he was afraid of approaching Vincent with a needle for fear of breaking it while he injected the muscle relaxant.
Fortunately, Sephiroth had been quick enough to grab a vial of ingestive barbiturate, take the contents in his mouth and force the liquid past Vincent's lips. Hojo understood the necessity of the motion to make Vincent swallow the potion then, but he had to admit that he was inflamed by jealousy to see his son in a lip lock with the man.
"Ahh, I'd wager then, you would have liked to be the one to have delivered that life saving kiss. How did you feel, Hojo? To see our son kissing Vincent just as you always wanted to?" She grinned at him, noticing the slight flush in his face at the memory.
"You appear to know more about this then pure speculation can supply." Hojo's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he regarded her.
"All right, I confess. I did eventually speak with Sephiroth, Hojo." She waved at him dismissively at being found out. "Even after all this time, even through his madness, our little boy was still distraught over what happened between him and Vincent." She raised her finger to point it at him accusingly. "*This* you can't blame on me, Hojo. So... Why did you drug Sephiroth into raping Vincent?"
"If Sephiroth told you this... I *did not* make--"
"Not unassisted," she interrupted him. "And I could draw my own conclusions, Hojo. Sephiroth did say that Vincent hardly responded to you. He claimed that Vincent would only speak with him. So... *you* were jealous, weren't you?"
"I got along fine--"
"He only did for you what was necessary and what he thought were reasonable requests related to his own health," Lucrecia corrected him pointedly. "As you say, the boy was hardly stupid. He must have understood that you were trying to help him and putting him through physical therapy to get used to the changes in his body.
"What did it take, Hojo? A slightly altered treatment of Mako energy? Did this have something to do with the alcohol you finally allowed Sephiroth to have?"
Hojo looked away in guilt. His mind instantly brought him back to the past nearly twelve years ago, when he found Vincent sobbing piteously under a drunk and passed out Sephiroth in the labs. His claw, almost smashed beyond repair and sparking with loose wires, gave silent attestation to the violence with which his son had attacked the other man.
"Did you finally get what you wanted, Hojo? To have Vincent crying and clinging to you in pain from the betrayal?"
"I did not-- I couldn't have predicted..." Hojo's fists trembled in his guilt and anger. All he had thought to cause was Vincent's withdrawal from Sephiroth when the drunken teenager made inappropriate advances. He never truly thought Vincent was in any danger, or that Sephiroth would turn so violent. It still made him sick to recount the score of injuries he was left to bandage and treat after he pulled his hung-over son off the battered and broken man.
"And Vincent went running back to his coffin, didn't he? The poor, forsaken child." Lucrecia shook her head as she sighed.
Hojo gritted his teeth in frustration. It was not a time that he cared to remember. Harassed by his work at Shinra, he had no time to properly deal with the fall out from that tragic event.
Vincent had been his most immediate concern at that time. The man was deeply traumatised by his rape, and furthermore the event had served to drag up all the painful memories of his abuse at Lucrecia's hands. He had totally withdrawn into his own mind in misplaced self-recrimination, blaming himself for the events that led to Sephiroth birth and his rape at that man's hands.
The man at the centre of the predicament was himself guilt ridden and horrified by his actions. Indeed, Sephiroth had no idea how he could make it up to the other man. He felt much too ashamed to approach Vincent to apologise for what he had done. His regret and guilt over the events of that night hung like a dark cloud over him for many years to come. Hojo had been at his wit's end at what to do with either of them.
Eventually, Vincent had removed himself from their presence and returned to the coffin to 'hide'. Hojo knew that that was the absolute last thing he should have allowed the traumatised man to do, but he had to acknowledge that it was the most convenient action in their current situation. It at least provided Hojo a postponement of the time he currently didn't have to properly deal with the trauma. He promised himself then that he would have the time and knowledge ready to help Vincent when he next woke him. In the meantime, he had to deal with Sephiroth's guilt and loathing over his actions. Something he was also at a loss to handle.
"Did you stop loving Sephiroth then?" Lucrecia's words interrupted his thoughts.
"No man likes to acknowledge that his son is a rapist," Hojo gritted. "But he was my son. I did not stop loving him for that-- mistake."
"Are you sure? Wasn't this the event which put that final wedge between you, enough that you didn't care when our son started to go mad from his guilt and thoughts of being a monster?"
"No! Don't you dare try and blame me for Sephiroth's madness! I did not record the lies of Jenova..." Hojo's eyes narrowed as he looked sternly at the old woman. "Do *you* admit to this, Lucrecia?"
"Does it matter?"
Hojo stayed silent for a moment before he reached over draw a finger over the wrinkled skin of her hand. "We *are* already beyond regrets, aren't we?"
Lucrecia snatched her hand away at his unsubtle reminder of their differing appearances. "Will you answer me this, Hojo?" She arched a questioning eyebrow at him. "If you left Shinra years ago... Why *didn't* you take Vincent with you?"
"It took me this long to learn enough about Jenova and Mako infusions to stabilise my current form, Lucrecia. What you accomplished with luck when you experimented on Vincent, I wanted to understand fully." Hojo huffed in frustration. "Besides, the Chocobo boy woke Vincent and spirited him away before I was ready to do the same."
Lucrecia shook her head. "Vincent is delusional if he thinks he and his ragged band of 'heroes' can stop the inevitable."
"He is a survivor." Hojo came up beside her and reached out to take her hand.
"What do you intend to do?" Lucrecia felt a premonition of unpleasantness when she realised Hojo wasn't going to let her pull free of his grip this time.
"A favour... in a way. I did notice your-- envy over Vincent's and my ability to stop aging."
Lucrecia's eyes widened when she noticed the syringe in Hojo's other hand. She tried to grab the needle , but her hands proved to be too weak.
"There you go, Lucy." Hojo patted her hand after he released it. "You don't have to worry about dying of old age any longer."
"You-- you--"
"That is my revenge, Lucrecia. For all the pain you caused Vincent. For the son you corrupted and drove mad. For all your efforts in making Vincent hate me when all I wanted was his love." With that statement, Hojo casually reached for the mug sitting on a side table and threw it at the monitor of the console. "Maybe... a few years down the road, I will tell Vincent about all this."
"If we're all still alive!" Lucrecia's eyes widened as Hojo continued to smash the console that represented her only connection to the world beyond the waterfall. "Hojo! Stop--"
"You should give Vincent more credit, Lucy." The man turned towards her as soon as he was satisfied that her control console was destroyed.
"He will never listen to--"
"I have my doubts, Lucrecia." Hojo smiled at her nastily. "Did you even pay attention to him as he left, Lucy dear? Your final dig at him... giving him the Chaos limit break. Did you even consider that he might begin to doubt your feelings for him? You discharged in him the most fearsome *monster* he has ever encountered. Do you *really* think he would thank you for that? You should have stuck with a sole presentation of the Death Penalty."
He nodded to her in slight acknowledgement. "Perhaps... I should thank you, Lucy dear. He is starting to have his doubts about the past now.
"Once this is all over, I will finally have the time, Lucrecia. I can *finally* devote as much time as I desire to help Vincent recover from the traumatic events of the past," Hojo told her evenly as he started to walk towards the exit. "You know as well as I do that Vincent Valentine has no family remaining in this age. And with what you have just done to him, he will continue to stay apart from other people.
"I intend to wait for him at the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim. I have little doubt that that is where he will eventually go after this affair with our son is finished."
"Hojo! Wait you can't leave me here like this!" Lucrecia stared at her destroyed command console in rising fear as the man walked away.
"Goodbye, Lucy. Live long."
"Hojo!"
He did not look back. He had many more plans to make for the future. Once he picked up his 'guest'... Costa de Sol sounded like a good place to retire.
A determined smile pulled on his lips. Gone were the days when he was too shy to initiate a relationship for fear of being rebuffed. Lucrecia was no longer a threat who might take Vincent away from him. And he had left Shinra, was believed to be dead, with no more ties to a job and to projects which might have once stolen every possible free moment he had. There were no more distractions. He could not have planned it any better.
Alone in a world vastly changed during his 30 years of slumber; without family or anything remotely familiar to cling to; and carrying the still un-dealt with trauma of the abuse suffered upon him, Vincent Valentine would be at his most vulnerable. The smile drew into a grin as Hojo plotted how he would exploit this weakness.
He had already allowed 30 years to pass waiting for a chance to strike, he wasn't going to waste any more time. There was much to atone for with his love alone, and he finally had the time and leisure to do a good job of it... provided his son was stopped. But... Hojo had a lot of faith in Vincent.
Once his 'son' was dealt with and AVALANCHE disbanded, he would make his move. Then Vincent was most assuredly going to be his sole project for as long as it took for Hojo to make him return his love.
The End