All characters and all settings taken from Final Fantasy 7 are property of Squaresoft, I'm just toying with their lives to make me happy. Olivia, however, is mine... And if you want her, Squaresoft, you're gona have to pay me for her... Enjoy :-)

Life leads to Love -Chapter 2-

As he walked up the stairs quietly he could hear her boots squeaking on the wood of the stairs. The sound, being an annoyance to him, he blocked out and concentrated on other things. What had brought him here and why was she here too. He had never really thought of another woman as being attractive before, except for Lucrecia. Lucrecia was gone, let into the lifestream when her son had died. Vincent had given her peace. He had tried so well to hide his feelings, and had got to the point where even he didn't know they existed. Why was this woman causing these feelings to stir?

"So what's up here that's so bad then? Big scary monsters?"

"It's not what's up here," he said pausing at a brick wall that looked solid, he opened it and continued, pointing down "It's what's down there"

Olivia peered in and looked at the spiral staircase that seemed to go down for forever. She gulped and looked at him, "W-we're going down there?\"

"I'm going down there, you are free to follow me if you wish. This is not my home therefore I can not stop you." Vincent said before starting down the steps.

Olivia quickly followed behind him, hoping that if some big scary monster did decide to attack her Vincent would come to her rescue 'Mmmm... My hero' she thought giggling to herself.

Keeping her eyes firmly fixed to the old stairs under her feet, as an act of caution, she did not notice until it was too late that Vincent had stoped walking, and had turned around to face her. She collided right into him.

"Oh, Shit. I'm sorry. It's these stairs. They look like they are gonna give in any moment now." She blushed.

Vincent looked at her with a puzzled expression, "What did you find so funny? I'm sure it wasn't the stairs."

"I.. uh.. uh.. I," 'I what? Found my own joke of you being my hero extremely funny? Yeah, that'll go down well.' "I just found the fact that you uh... make no noise while walking amusing" She smiled sweetly at him and he couldn't help but notice the little flip his stomach did when he looked into her eyes and realised the smile was genuine affection.

At the bottom of the stairs he waited for her to catch up with him. As she did so he noticed the scared look on her face and before he realised what he was doing he had slipped his arm around her shoulders and had pulled her close to his right side. She looked up at him and smiled her thank you as her left arm snaked its way around his waist.

Vincent did the one thing she thought he never would. He smiled back, not a big smile, but one she most definitely noticed. All she could think was 'Great, we're making some progress! Hopefully he'll feel like opening up to me a little, soon.'

They walked through the dusty passageway quietly. Vincent had to remove his arm from where it was protectively covering Olivia, from time to time, to get his gun out and shoot some of the remaining monsters that resided in the mansion.

As they got to the end Vincent opened another door and led Olivia into a large library. She looked in awe at all the books obviously containing knowledge and hoped that maybe one of them could hold the answer to why she could do what she could do. She turned to look at Vincent and noticed that several emotions were passing over his face. Mainly hurt, pain and loss.

"Umm, Vincent?"

"Yes.?"

"Do you know which professors wrote these books?"

He looked at her with now an emotionless expression, "Professor Ghast and Professor Hojo" he almost spat out the name Hojo. He still bothered him after his death. "Some are just small notes made by the technicians that worked under them. Others are reference books. You might find something interesting about Materia in them."

For some reason the name Ghast seemed to be a name Olivia knew. Why she knew of that name was one thing she didn't know.

Vincent looked at her troubled face "You know of these Professors?"

Olivia, startled out of her deep concentration, stared at Vincent for a while. "The name Ghast rings a few bells, but I can't remember anything for certain."

He looked at her sceptically and proceeded further into the library. She followed staring at all the books trying to find a title or something that might connect to her abilities. She picked up one that looked promising and went to the desk and chair at the back of the library to start on the book.

Vincent didn't say a word, nor did she expect him to. From what she knew of him, Vincent was not one for talking without reason. Vincent walked around for a while, gazing over at Olivia from time to time to watch her. After seeing that she seemed content to just sit and read he left to go and look in the room that held him for over a decade.

Back