Disclaimer: All Final Fantasy 7 characters are copyright SquareEnix. I don't own 'em, and I'm too broke to make suing me worthwhile.
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CHOICE
by Ouri
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She has two suitors, and can't for the life of her figure out how this happened.
In high school, the boys seemed to have a rule that girls with IQs higher than the sum of their measurements didn't get any attention. Even in college a science-geek female (even a moderately attractive one with good hair and skin) only tended to attract other science geeks. So one of her would-be lovers, she understands.
Hojo is the familiar and understood. He rants and rails and complains how the others underestimate him. All of this is recognizable behavior that she's seen in her schoolmates for years, and Lucrecia has become a very skilled listener for this sort of venting. She nods and murmurs in all the right places, and Hojo tells her she's the only one who really understands him.
He is the identified and measurable quantity. She knows what he requires: reassurance, stroking of his ego to counter his own insecurities. She also knows the effects of her actions on his behavior, that her calming influence stabilizes him at least to some extent.
The other…him, Lucrecia doesn't understand at all. Tall, dark and – 'handsome' doesn't suffice, for Vincent is beautiful – such men do not romance shy brainy types, do they? His attention flatters her, but he speaks little and the intensity of his dark eyes unnerves her, sometimes. She thinks perhaps the quiet Turk is toying with her; a light flirtation to kill time and make his stay in remote Nibelheim tolerable.
She has no idea why he should find her attractive, and he does not seem to need anything from her. The privacy he wraps around himself makes it hard to deduce his reactions to what she says and does. It leaves her feeling helpless, like she has no control over the relationship.
But oh, she wants to believe that such a man might really want her. There is something wildly romantic in the thought of loving a wild Nibel wolf, rather than settling for a tame dog.
Being a logical woman of science, she decides to conduct an experiment. She will give herself a set amount of time, one month, to luxuriate in the attentions of Vincent Valentine. If, in that period, she is able to quantify his interest, then she will allow herself to accept it.
Time passes while she basks in a giddy romantic glow, but as her self-imposed deadline nears Lucrecia realizes that in the past weeks she has learned almost nothing. On a physical level they've explored each other inside and out, but she still has no clue as to what motivates the Turk. There is no empiricial evidence that he loves her, and he certainly doesn't need as Hojo does.
There's nothing to hold him with her… and the thought that her beautiful wolf might some day just walk away, without looking back, terrifies her.
She stares at her notes, then at the calendar and factors in one more variable without writing it down.
Her period is five days late. There might be more than her own welfare to consider, now.
Wolf or housedog?
Risk or security?
Being a woman of science, Lucrecia firms her resolve and makes the rational, logical choice, never suspecting that it will be her downfall.
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Author's Notes:
Just an odd little drabble that attacked one day last winter while I was shoveling snow. I have never understood why Lucrecia would pick Hojo (gack!) over Vincent, and I guess the back-brain was trying to make sense of it.