Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time

V: Dark Secret Love

He wanted her to

Hurt him. Cut him. Kill him.

Rip his heart out and serve it on a platter made of his bones.

Lead him to unbearable agony, all so long as she touched him.

So long as she was near him.

So long as she was...there.

He could stand anything, anything she did, so long as she loved him.

Standing on top of the cliff, looking down at the dark vortex of Nibelheim reflected in his own eyes, ready to be swallowed up or swallow itself with darkness, Vincent thought:

There's still a long way to fall.

Flash.

"That's a long way to fall," Tseng said out loud to himself, his voice hollow, as he stood on the edge of the Shinra building, staring down into the layers and layers of Midgar. The wind whipped his hair back into his face painfully, nearly sent him off balance and spiralling off the side of the skyscraper, but he didn't notice. Or mind. He kicked a pebble off and watched it whistle down, skipping off some fat executive's finely polished window.

"Tseng?" crackled the walkietalkie on his belt. It was Reno. "Tseng? That bastard Hojo wants us all downstairs to restrain the specimen chick. Y'comin'?"

Tseng lifted one foot.
Tseng?

And flung his broken heart over the edge.

His tortured soul crashed into the asphalt, impaled by streetsigns, ripped open by traffic lights, crushed into the dead, dead ground.

Then his empty skin walked downstairs to find Reno.

Unflash.

The petals of the winter rose crumpled and fell from their crimson buds: bloodstains, omens upon the snow. But on a day like this, Vincent had no time for omens...he waited, waited, until it was dark. And then he came out.

"Lucrecia..."

They were alone in the park, his favorite spot on the bridge. She was staring in a daze at the frozen bank beneath the bridge, buried in the powdery snow. She knew he was going to ask her, and a tear fell from her eyes, hit the snowbank, and melted away in a blur.

She continued staring down, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of her true reflection, but the snow concealed. Somehow she liked it that way.

The question was- Red or white roses?

or

What did she want? That was too easy. Red roses for the lover, the passion, that want, that need within her. But red roses dig deep, too deep into her heart, her soul for her liking. The deeper they dug, the more aware she was of the emptiness, the holes inside herself. She couldn't bear the thought that she might open her heart to someone, and find that that door let to absolutely nothing.

Lucrecia stared off into the distance. The falling snow had blanketed the droplets of red petals, smothering them.

White roses, then, please. White roses to smother, to cover, to hide the ugly, bloody red emotion beneath. Or lack of. White roses that will fold, and crumple, and rot-too quick to loved, to be missed. White roses that failed at a whim, a flitting feather finger touch. She needed that power, could not stand before the red rose that would not die. She looked over the bridge, contemplated jumping. The white would be waiting, and hold her down, steady, solid. But the dark, the red would swallow her up, never ending, and she'd keep falling... and falling....

She lifted her eyes, saw the platinum band in its case.

"Do you want it Lucrecia?

It's yours if you want it."

His voice was so gentle.

"I love you..."

He pulled her close, she closed her eyes, her hand raised dangerously close to accepting.

"Marry me...?"

Oh how she wanted to keep her eyes closed and fall into him and kiss him and take the ring and tell him "Yes I love you and I'll never leave you and I want to marry you want to be with you forever and ever for all eternity..."

But then she opened her eyes, and looked into his, and they were black holes, endless, and now she was scared, scared of falling, even though she wanted to. She wanted to enter those eyes, but they were too deep, his love, his kiss was too deep for her. She saw herself, her own emptiness within them.

But she still wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and be with him until all of it, it all ended.

But instead she closed the box, withdrew her hand, gently pulled away, and looked up into the mournful eyes of the man who loved her.

"You're a fool for loving me," she whispered.

And then she walked away.

Hojo. He was pacing the front yard of the Shinra Mansion, mumbling out loud to hisself as he often did ever since the Jenova specimen had arrived. "But that would require testing during the foetal stage, my dea-" The professor cut hisself off as he saw the slim figure of Lucrecia approaching. Slowly, a smile not unlike the one pasted on the face of Jenova spread across his pale face. "Ahh...yes, but would she...?" He stopped speaking as she half stumbled, half jogged straight towards him. "Lucrecia."
"Hojo." Her voice vibrated like a tightly drawn guitar string.
"I'd like to propose, Lucrecia, an extension to the Jenova Project," said Hojo, head held high.
"Is that so?" Her head kept darting around to look behind her. "What would that be?"
Hojo squinted at her. "Something wrong?" When she shook her head from side to side quickly, he continued. "I'd like to run additional tests to a child starting from the embryonic stage all the way until after adolescent development. And I'd like to have that child be of two scientists directly tied in with the Jenova Project."

"Are you asking me to have a child?" She wrung her trembling hands together frantically. She looked behind her at the bridge at some shadow beneath a tree, and fell into his arms as if terrified, pursued. "Who's to be the father?" He was watching her, he could feel his eyes boring into her back. Oh why doesn't he just go away, just leave me alone, I can't stand wanting him like-

"Me."
Lucrecia's eyes suddenly refocused on Hojo. "Yours?"
He smiled coldly. "Of course. I'm head of this program, aren't I?"
"I..." Her voice faltered. She swiveled her head around and saw Vincent take a step off the bridge towards her. "Yes!" she shouted.
Hojo studied her curiously. "...yes?"
"Yes," she repeated. "On one condition." She swallowed. "People will talk about strange things if I become pregnant. I... Marry me Hojo. That's my condition."
A cross between delight and relief crossed Hojo's icy features. "That's a reasonable proposition. Anything else?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucrecia could see the inky figure of Vincent walking towards her. She fell into Hojo's arms as if terrified, pursued. "Yes..." I'm sorry, Vincent, but... "Kiss me already." she said, moisture collecting in painful clots within her tear ducts.

Pressing his cold stiff lips against hers, ice sculpture embracing ice sculpture, Hojo saw from over Lucrecia's shoulder a shadow buckle to its knees and disperse, shattered, in the snow.

From that day on, Vincent was a ghost. Dead, slaughtered by her small army of words, his unfinished business-- his neverending guard, his reason: Lucrecia, kept him here. She walked away from him, and he walked in the opposite direction As long as she's happy. The red rose died, but left its ghastly, ghostly shadows haunting in the snow. As long as she's happy, he told himself frantically. God is love, Vincent had said, and his love, his one love, his one true love, his own Goddess Peace had left him. Where did that leave him with God? He could choke himself, hang himself with his own Rosary beads. He was left...he was left standing alone in the snow, for the sun had faded. He was left there by himself, abandoned by even his shadow, even the light, even his f*cking God.

And he was utterly, utterly alone.

Flash.

Tseng was alone. His Turks, his faithful, beloved Turks were no longer behind him, and before him was a ghost: an image from the past that could not be real. But it was. Sephiroth smiled slowly, eyes distant, unsheathed his sword. In the flash of Masamune, green eyes, silver hair, Tseng's own gun was up and pointed at Sephiroth's head. For the first time since that faroff day when he was 14, before Nibelheim and its nightmares, his hand was shaking. He couldn't shoot him...he just couldn't. This was Sephiroth, child who he held in his lap, Sephiroth, his only friend through his teenage years, Sephiroth...who had suffered just as he, and more. And now, now there was no one to back him up, no shadow of Turk leader, of Vincent cast over his shoulder, and his hand wavered. In that nanosecond, the blade plunged forward, into the Turk's stomach. Then Sephiroth was gone, laughter drifting off, and totally alone, completely abandoned, Tseng fell, keen eyes slowly glazing, and hit the ground with a deadening thump.

Unflash.

Lucrecia thumped her heels against the wall, legs swinging like a little girl as she sat on the examination table, watching Hojo's back as the Professor went about fiddling with his Jenova specimens. He wasn't really a bad-looking man, no, not at all, thought Lucrecia, holding her swollen stomach tenderly. And he had given her her little Sephiroth. Sephiroth. Funny that Hojo had picked a name with such strange religious connotations despite his vehement stance in atheism. Yes, he had given her her dear child, a child unborn as of now that would doubtless love her in a way Lucrecia would understand fully. A child- a bond against all thoughts Lucrecia might have outside of matrimony, of love. A child...so incredibly perfect that Hojo could make even more perfect. Yes her, and this child, they would be perfect together...and when Hojo smiled at her as he turned around, with that syringe full of something she knew was liquid hell, about to be injected into her, her child, the woman simply wiped away all thought of past or future, even the realistic present. She simply cradled her dillusions of perfection close, and smiled back at her husband.