Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time

II: Oh Rose, thou art sick

Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time, laying it perfectly next to its mate. She stared at it for a few moments, then went to the window and carefully opened it, fingers curving 'round its frame to crack it exactly 2 inches open. Thin, pink lips, glossed smoothly, but not made up, curved into a smile. She loved her neat little room in the huge mansion. Just off the corner of the lovely spiral staircase, overlooking the small park that was the highlight of the small town. In the spring time, you could smell the roses all through the place. Surveying her room with a last critical glance, she carefully closed the door behind her, waiting until she heard the click, and walked down the stairs, running her smooth manicured hand down the banister, bright eyes behind rectangular wire frames transfixed on the grand chandelier hanging from the towering ceilings.

"Oh, excuse me," as she suddenly ran into someone.

Professor Hojo harrumphed, nodded indignantly. "Yes. Well. Pay more attention. I don't want to be run over every time I go to my own residency."

Lucrecia flashed perfect white teeth, illuminating the shady mansion. "As I said, very sorry. I was just taken in by the beauty of this place. It's perfect," she said, her tone the very example of polite.

"Beauty? Perfection?" Hojo snorted. "You mean that ridiculous frivolous staircase and that outdated specimen of a overdecorated lamp? Not to mention every window in the house lets in the stink of vegetation from that park next to us."

Lucrecia laughed, refined and smooth. "You'd sleep in your laboratory if you could, Professor."

"It would doubtlessly be more sanitary," muttered Hojo, walking away.

Lucrecia shook her head, smiling, and proceeded on her way, a crisp spring in her step. Hojo watched her go, running a hand through his hair, absently noting it was thinning. Quite a handsome woman, that Lucrecia. Quite a handsome woman, indeed...

Flash.

Aeris swung her legs as she sat on the roof beam of the church, looking down on Tseng.

She was a beautiful woman, now, Tseng thought with something like awe. Quite a beautiful woman, and he hadn't noticed. She had been for so long a little girl, a child in pink with her flowers and toys. But now...he studied her form up in the rafters, and smiled.

The shining figure was suddenly eclipsed with dark, and he saw the shadow of Rude behind her, but lifted a hand and waved him back. Aeris misinterpreted the action, laughing cheerily. "Hello to you, too, Mr. Turk, sir. Have you come to visit?" she said pleasantly. "I've been hoping you'd come and say hello. You're always so businesslike. You won't catch me this time, either, so would you like to chat? I've got some sandwiches Elmyra br-Mrrph!" Her green eyes flashed wide open, betrayed, as Reno jumped out of nowhere and grabbed her, clamping one hand firmly across her mouth before she could move. Legs kicking, limbs flailing, all failing, impotent actions, Aeris thrashed desperately as Reno calmly and nonsogently dragged her down to the church floor where his Turk leader was. He grinned widely, holding the girl before him as if she were a trophy. He ignored the girl's cries, her struggles, the pooling, pathetic tears flowing in rivulets down her face. Turning his head to the side and whipping red hair back, he spit, right into...right into... her flowers.

Tseng masked a wince with an order. "Take your hand off her mouth, Reno. We don't want her suffocated."

Reno dropped his hand, and Aeris gasped, sobbing. "Tseng...Tseng, please. Don't- you know what Hojo will do, I ...I can't go back there, Tseng, I just...can't." She crumpled, just a girl after all, and Tseng's stony cold heart tore in two.

Tseng stared at her with wounded eyes, grabbed her into his arms, and ran, ran far away to somewhere safe where there wasn't Shinra and there wasn't Hojo or Science or even God, and there was never anyone watching them, where they were alone and together and in love and happy forever and ever.

Or maybe he stared at her with wounded eyes, made as if he were going to move, but instead turned on his heel, black hair whipping about him. Perhaps he said "Take her to the lab," roughly, a growl, and clacked across the rotting wooden floor. And Rude looked at him funny, suspecting...something. And maybe... maybe perhaps this time, after Rude and Reno left for Hojo's lab with Aeris, he grabbed, no... clutched, handfuls of her beautiful blossoming flowers, holding them up to his chest, then saw his stained hands, and sobbed into her roses.

Or maybe he just got up and left.

Unflash.

Lucrecia trotted purposely across the corridor, pen neatly in hand as she readied to sign the sheets for the deliveries. They were expecting a great gift from President Shinra today. Reports from Gast said it was something absolutely ancient, frozen solid, an unknown species. Oh, the experiments they could do, the knowledge they could find, the reports she could write, the awards she could win. 'Crecia could almost hear the applause of the men in their tuxes and the women in their evening gowns, envying her, her accomplishment. Still half in her daydream, she pulled open the front door, expecting the delivery man, and stared stone still in shock. A man stood in the doorway. A man, holding a single black bag in hand. His dark, long coat was dusty and bedraggled from the trip, but dark blue suit beneath was impeccable. His hair fell dark and wild, shaggy, strands falling at random into pale face of distinctive features. This...man? He was real? Rather, he seemed like a dream, a fairy tale character, a bedtime story character. Lucrecia stared hypnotized, paralyzed by his eyes. Dark, gorgeous eyes, and suddenly, she felt overdressed, some sort of neat freak in her lab coat and corporate skirt, brown-auburn hair pulled back, hugging her scalp in a painfully tight bun. There was something about those eyes that looked more like gunshot wounds than irises, there was something in there pulling her, and with a gasp, Lucrecia blinked back to reality. "I...well. Hello. You're unexpected. Do you have papers to be here?"

She was surprised to realize her voice was trembling.

He silently handed her an envelope from his inner coat pocket, which, with shaking hands, she checked. She nodded once. "These seem to be all in proper order," she said, her voice back under control, fluid and trained. She smiled briefly. "Welcome to the team Mr. Valentine. What may I ask is your specific job here at the Shinra Mansion?"

He studied her face for a long time. "I'm a Turk," he said quietly. He didn't move, but stood there, curiously still and silent. Not even a boottip ventured past the doormat, as if he was locked behind an invisible wall.

She blinked at him. "Well? Come on in, Mr. Valentine. A Turk of our own. That'll help with lots of security precautions."

Soundlessly, he brushed into the room, his coat flapping about him, muted. Lucrecia, visibly shaken, turned to close the door, when suddenly, her small hand was caught in a strong, bony grip. She looked down to a pale hand lined with years' worth of scars, and her eyes followed the line of a dark-clothed arm, trailed up a tall form to meet his eyes once more. Oh God... "What was...your name, miss?"

The world fell over.

"Lucrecia."

He nodded, and walked off, bags in hand.

She wondered when the world would start spinning again.

If the world was a painting, then Hojo would be the man that was always there to sniff and straighten it when it went crooked. Emerging from his laboratory, he nodded curtly at Vincent, pointing down the hall. "Servants quarters are to the left, and if you consider yourself a guard, you can bunk in the room next to that. Very nice to meet you Mr. Valentine; I trust you will allow us to continue or experiment as before...only...safer." He smiled blandly, the expression plastered on his face coarsely.

Vincent took the hint, and with another glance at Lucrecia, continued his exit.

Hojo turned back to Lucrecia. "Oh, Lucrecia. Fancy...bumping into you. I err...forgot to mention something earlier," he said, falsely dignified. "Your work on those Cetra cell lab reports were quite excellent. Good job."

Lucrecia smiled widely, eyes gleaming. "Oh, thank you Professor! I really don't know what to say," she said happily, a clinical laugh stored in the back of her throat.

"Don't say anything," said Hojo. "And take this." He held out the rosary he had bought at the monastery. "I thought it might make you laugh. Remind you of those crazy loons running about up there in that dusty hole, worshipping statues. Amusing, really."

The object of his attentions raised an eyebrow at him, looked down at the rosary she now held in her hand. "It's strange, and crude, and primitive." She grinned. "I like it. Puts my life in perspective. Thank you very much, sir." And her eyes hid her doubt in his intentions with a glaze of courtesy.

Hojo nodded, and looked off to the side. "You're very welcome. Now get back to work."

She did.

"Get to work."

Tseng stared at the row of women and children, then stared back at his section leader.

"...work?" The 14 year old shifted his eyes to the side. "Work as in...kill?"

"Eliminate them. Eliminate them all. They're witnesses and need to be dealt with."

Scrawny teenage arms lifted in protest. "Sir...sir I'm a rookie. Sir, they're women and children. Sir they're defenseless and innocent. Sir...good God sir, I'm only a kid. I can't do this, I'm only for tactics, I didn't sign up for this, I..."

"You're a goddamn Turk, Tseng. Now do your job."

"But..."

"If you don't, we'll be forced to get rid of you as well. And all those that know you."

Tseng remembered his mother, his father, the hysterics she put on when the took him away, the sad, hopeless look on the other's face. He remembered not being able to fight.

"Yes sir," he said quietly.

His section leader left, closing the door behind him.

He killed every one of them. Every mother, daughter, and son among them. He shot every one in the forehead and he made all of them watch. When the room was silent with the presence of only him and 20 some corpses, he looked down at the pool of blood drifting slowly towards him.

He wanted to vomit. He wanted to cry. He wanted to run away and go home.

He got a mop.

He filed for a transfer.

He left for Nibelheim that night, without even changing his shoes.

Lucrecia, lucrecia. She was a name, a face, a gleaming, penetrating smile. She was a soul who could see him, she was a soul that, though shrinking away, spoke to his. There was something, Vincent intrinsically knew, that was pulling him in. Something that was...calling him?

"Vincent...

Silently, it seemed she kept talking to him, and her few words rang in his ears, resonating almost painfully. Why did, Vincent wondered, her voice keep spinning round and round in his head without stopping, a constant, maddening beckon, call?

He put his bags down next to the bed. He opened the window, and his room flooded with some unfamiliar, beguiling scent. He took off his coat, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep.

He had nightmares the entire time.

He always had nightmares.