A/N: Thanks, Ducky, for your review, and the favorite story. Yeah, I'm nosy. Comes from being on Elfwood. Really, you guys are the ones that fire me along. Well, here we go again. This chapter was a bitch to write, unsurprisingly. It's just too serious for this time of year, and even the muses are getting hyper. As usual, nothing's mine, except Diane and the plot. If you try to sue me, I'll throw a textbook at you, and medical tomes are heavy. My cat owns your soul, too.

Chapter 3

Nibelheim

The group arrived in the rather traumatized town of Nibelheim after nightfall, walking, after Bronco—Cid's chocobo—had nearly run into a building in the dark. Mutually, they decided to rest the night at the inn, gladly paying the two hundred gil for a chance to sleep in a bed. Diane was nearly sleeping on her feet, guided upstairs by Red, and fell asleep as soon as she hit the pillow. Cid watched as Vincent fastidiously cleaned his gun, as he did every night. "So, tomorrow we're gonna go to the Mansion, clean it out?" he asked.

Vincent nodded once in reply.

"You, me, an' Red? Leave the Doc here?"

Again, Vincent nodded.

"Jesus, can't you even say something, rather than nod?"

Vincent just gave him a look.

Cid threw his hands up in the air. "Christ, you're cold! Fine!" Grumpily, Cid pulled the blankets over his head, effectively shutting out the sight of the dark gunman, trying to sleep.

Risking life and limb, Red woke Diane in the morning. As he already knew, the professor didn't like getting up, but she needed to know what was going on. "Diane, wake up, please.

"…'way…" she muttered.

"Diane, Cid, Vincent, and I are going to the Mansion."

"Huh, wha—" she demanded, sitting up, hair going everywhere.

"There are monsters there that need to be cleared away before any work can be done," he explained. "It's for your safety."

"Oh." She thought for a moment, trying to push off the haze of sleep. "But I can fight! I have some materia—"

"And no real skill in using it," Red said, as gently as he could. "You're more use here, where you can start organizing your papers and things to help Vincent."

Her shoulders slumped, but only a little. "You're right, I guess…" she said with a sigh. "I'm just trying to help."

Red nosed her hand, a near smile on his feline face. "You're a help, just by being able to bring hope to one who'd lost it."

Impulsively, she gave the cat a hug. "Thanks, Red. Now go kick some monster butt—and don't get hurt."

He smiled again, and padded off, tail flicking.

Diane flopped out of bed, deciding Red's advice was good to follow, and she got to work, unloading a worn leather journal, mountains of notes, and a pile of computer discs. Sitting on the bed, she began sorting through them, humming a tune that had been popular thirty years ago.

It didn't take long for the trio to clear the monsters out of the Mansion. What took the most time was the checking of every room, making sure nothing was lurking in a corner, waiting to pounce on a tasty meal of unsuspecting doctor. They also tried their best to make the gloomy Mansion suitable for living, but that was a difficult battle, fighting thirty years of clutter and grime.

"Shit," Cid complained. "If Shinra was gonna leave this place alone this long, they coulda at least sent a cleaning crew every so often!"

"They would have been forbidden, for what they might find," Vincent said quietly.

"Oh. Right." Awkwardly, Cid ran a hand through his hair. "I forgot."

Lucky you, pilot, lucky you… Vincent thought, helping Red drag an unidentifiable corpse outside to be burnt.

That evening, the trio returned to the inn, grimy, smelly, and unpleasant, but unhurt. Even Red headed towards a hot bath, eager to get the scum of the Mansion out of his fur. When he batted the door open, he could only sigh.

The room looked like it had been hit with a paper hurricane. Sheets were everywhere, some covered in her tiny script, others in different men's writing, while more still were the neat printing of a computer. Most were scattered across the room, in single sheets, or a small pile.

The culprit of the mess was sitting in the middle of it, pouring over the sheets, talking to herself, even as she put papers aside, or Planet forbid, made more notes.

"But that makes no sense. If his body rejects the Jenova proteins, why is he still affected? Maybe he was just cracked at this point, and didn't know what he was talking about. All the Mako he was exposed to, it'd be no small wonder. But still, there's something not quite balancing out here…" she muttered around a pen, frowning.

Red just shook his mane, wandering toward the bathroom, trying to avoid leaving dirty pawprints on the papers. Diane never even appeared to notice him, until he stuck a cold, wet nose on the back of her neck, bringing out a faint, startled scream.

"Red!" she squealed, hand clapped over the spot. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Trying to get through that thick, distracted skull of yours that dinner's here, damn it," Cid put in from the door way.

"What? How long have you been back?" she demanded. "And what did you get?"

"We've been back for about two hours, and Vampy ordered some weird Wutaian stuff from the kitchens."

Diane stood, taking care not to disturb the papers on the floor as she hustled to the door. "Oh, I hope there's spider rolls…"

"Spiders?" Cid asked in a low voice as she scooted off. "I thought chicks hated spiders…"

Red just let out a chuckle, padding after her. He too was hungry, and could smell the delicacies in the room down the hall.

"Sushi!" Diane's happy cry rang out. She rarely got to enjoy one of the Wutaian delicacies, and when she did, she meant to enjoy them completely.

Red sniffed the miso soup dubiously. "What's this?"

"Tofu," came Vincent's soft answer. The dark man was removed from the food, as though he didn't want to taint the meal with his presence.

Red sniffed it again. "I think I'll skip the soup, Vincent. Thanks, but…"

Diane was already into the food, eating as if her body had never slowed down from its adolescent metabolism. Pausing, she looked up at Cid. "Spider rolls, Cid, have crabmeat in them. And not all women are afraid of spiders. I had a tarantula for a pet as a kid, until my mother made me get rid of it."

"All of five years ago?" Cid remarked sardonically. He still didn't believe that Diane was who she claimed to be.

Diane dropped the bit of sticky rice she had been about to eat on her plate, lowering her eyes. After a time, realizing Cid was still staring at her, she said quietly, "Closer to sixty." Setting the plate aside, she stood up, walking out of the room, muttering about wanting to go to bed early.

Red glared angrily at the rough pilot, displeased with his roughshod handling of the little woman.

"What?" Cid demanded defensively. "I didn't do a goddamn thing!"

"That's exactly it. You were completely insensitive and insufferable to her. By the Planet, Cid, she's not Shera!"

"Fuck this," Cid announced, throwing his fork down. "The hell if I have to listen to this! I'm gonna go have a fucking cigarette…" Storming off, he went to do just that.

Diane was bundling her papers together, anticipating the move to the Mansion. Sighing, she added another bundle to the ones on the desk. She wasn't really angry with Cid, but he had touched a nerve. "If I knew then what I know now, what would I have changed?" she wondered aloud.

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.

"Enter," she called in a weary voice. If it was unpleasant company—like the Turks—she'd just make enough racket to bring the men down the hall to her room. After all, the Turks can't kill anyone without making speeches first anymore, she thought sardonically. Discipline went to hell after Vincent disappeared, and Slim, ET, and Vjay never really cared after that.

Cid poked his head in. "Uh, Doc…?"

"What do you want?" she demanded, a bit more cold than she'd meant to be.

He came in, shutting the door behind him. "I, uh, wanted to 'pologize…"

"I'm listening."

"Well, Red pointed out I'd been pretty nasty to you… didn't mean to, but guess that's just me." He ran a hand through his hair. "What'm tryin' to say is sorry."

"It's alright, Cid. You don't know me very well, so you can't be expected to know what will upset me."

He leaned against the wall, fiddling with an unsmoked cigarette. "Why don't you tell me about it? So I don't do it again, that is."

"As I told you before, I was a medical student back when Mako was first starting to be used heavily. We didn't know much about it then, so we handled it without proper protection."

"You handled the fucking stuff?" Cid burst out.

"As I said, we didn't know about it. We never touched it barehanded, but there were traces on the equipment we used, and that got touched. No one thought anything of it until people started getting sick. We had our first cases of Mako poisoning.

"I was one of the last people put on the research program, so I absorbed the least Mako. Still, it was enough to have an effect on me. Mako, so it seems, has an effect on aging, particularly the lack thereof. Once I crossed the threshold point of absorption, I stopped aging, but at the time, it wasn't apparent. I was still young, so it didn't become apparent until many years later."

"Same as Vampy…" Cid muttered thoughtfully.

"Yes, the same as Vincent. He, however, was exposed to a great deal more than anyone I've head of, except Sephiroth. The loss of aging is one of the first "benefits" you get from Mako, apparently."

"How old…" Cid started to ask, but thought better of it.

"How old am I?" she asked. At Cid's nod, she answered, "Over seventy, I believe. I stopped counting years ago. I don't know how long it will last, either."

"Shit, Doc… I'm sorry. I really didn't have a fucking clue…"

"I know, Cid," she answered in a world-weary tone. "It might extend our lives, or it just might hide the corruption behind a pretty face. I guess we're all just lab rats in a giant test tube. But first, I'm going to help Vincent. That's why I'm here."

"We're going to go to the Mansion tomorrow," Cid said.

"That's the first step then. From there, we'll move as fast as we can, until I undo what was never meant to be done."

Cid reached out and roughly hugged the little professor, who let out a squeak at the sudden contact. "You're alright, Doc. You're alright."

She smiled up at him, glad to have found an unexpected ally in the gruff pilot. "You too, Cid. You're alright."

A/N: Yeah, another lame-ass chapter. More character development though, which is good. And no, I'm not going to turn this into a romance fic, Jill—if you're even reading this, brat. Oh, Onni-chan, this fic is gonna start going away from our storyline, so ya might wanna read. Grins The action's going to kick up in the next chapter.

On the technical side, my computer has decided to attack me unfairly. I can't access my emails through anything, browse certain websites (including parts of FFN!), and have to sweet-talk almost anything internet-oriented to work. However, this doesn't affect my ability to write, since Word isn't connected to the 'net, so you'll still get your dose of Saving Grace. But there's also a small issue with that: it's showing one chapter less than what actually is! As in, I have three chapters up, but you guys are only seeing two. I'm getting on it to fix it, I promise! For now, I've put in a "bumper" to make the next chapter appear. Once the bug is fixed, I'll remove it.