To Know You
Chapter One: Recollection of Rejection
By Darknightdestiny
Hasty, yet firmly planted footsteps echoed throughout the hallway as they quickly made their way to the open doorway. Stronger steps followed after, a lower and less shrill clicking noise joining in as the second followed the first. The clicking was silenced and turned into a low thumping and brushing as two figures exited the ShinRa Mansion and stepped out into the grass yard.
"Lu!"
The sun beat down on the two as they ran out towards the square, stalled momentarily by a cloud passing overhead. The click-clack sound of dress shoes picked up again when the female reached the brick walkway, and was followed by the lower clomping of leather uniform shoes as the male figure chased after her.
"Lucrecia, wait!" He caught up to her and reached out for her arms, grasping her and swiftly turning her around. "Please..." his voice was strained and desperate. "Listen to me."
"Vincent, I can't do this with you," she sighed in sadness and frustraton as she shook her head. Her eyes were weary and misted over, and her overall apearance was as that of a nervous wreck. Her eyes raised to meet his, and then her head fell. She shuddered and would not look at him, would not meet his gaze, face his lost and helpless expression.
He ran his hand along her back in a small effort to calm her. "...Why not?"
She shook some more. "Vincent, you can't keep on doing this, telling me how much you care. It seems so wrong..."
He pulled back and faced her, holding her out in front of him so that he could get a good look at her face. This didn't matter, because she still hid it from him, her eyes cast down near her feet by the beige colored bricks, lined with dark grey sand and olive tinted moss. "Lu, how can you say that?" She shook her head some more, and he lifted her chin up with his right hand so that his eyes burned into her own, so sincere and real that it killed her to hurt him like this, killed her to break that trust. "You truly believe that it is wrong of me to care for you?"
"Vincent...we're living a lie." His brow knitted together and his eyes squinted up in confusion, not quite understanding what she meant by that. Another cloud blew over the town, blocking out the sun, and the warm breeze that washed over them became a cooler gust of wind. Lucrecia's long bangs whipped about her face, and Vincent pulled them back with an outstretched hand, tucking them behind her delicate ears.
"...I am not sure I understand what you mean," he murmured, half to her and half to himself.
"The way you treat me," Lucrecia continued, "with such tender care and dignity...is something I appreciate and cherish, Vincent." One corner of his mouth crept upwards and he continued to stroke the line of hair trailing from her forehead to the back of her earlobe. "But..." -and his eyes darted to her face, though not violently- "sometimes I wonder what I did to merit such favor."
Vincent stroked her temple with his thumb. "It is because I care for you," he said softly.
"Yes, Vincent. I know. You care for me, and for all my well-being, but..." Lucrecia shook her head, not wanting to continue, but knowing that she had to. "Vincent, how can you afford to give such care to me when you murder people without even thinking twice?" Her eyes grew hot and welled with salted tears which began to drip down her face like crystal clear acid. Vincent began to open his mouth, ready to tell her the same thing he always said, the only excuse he had for the things he did to make a living. Lucrecia put one finger to his mouth, knowing that he only did his job, and he was the best at it as well. "Vincent...you're such a hypocrite. And I love you. But I just...I can't do this anymore."
Vincent searched her face for a moment, then began to ask her the question that was the beginning of the end. "...Is it because I kill others that you are upset, or is it because after all of that, I still will not justify the project?"
Lucrecia stared back at him with wide eyes, her throat not cooperating with her voice. It was as if someone had come along and tied a neat little knot where the sound was supposed to be coming from, and after that, she could not give an answer that would satisfy him. Lucrecia backed away, but he continued to hold her hands in his. She finally managed to softly intone in a voice, a whisper so rich with childlike innocence that it was positively horrific, "Vincent, you were supposed to be a part of that project as well."
Vincent hung his head and then looked back up at her through a wild spray of shiny hair the color of gunmetal. "Lu...you know that I already said-"
"That you won't be a part of an unethical project. I know. But, Vincent, you are part of unethical projects every single day!"
"Still, Lucrecia...I cannot-"
"Vincent, I know already. But you know that this is part of my dream. This is part of something bigger than all of us, and I want to help make it possible."
Vincent stroked her hands with his fingers. "Lu, I had always thought...that when the time came for me to have a child with the woman I loved...that it would be ours, and only ours."
"I know, Vincent. I know. And I can't take that away from you. I understand that for some reason, you look at it differently since it would be your child. But it's really not that dangerous. And I know you worry about me. And that is why...we can't stay together." She swallowed the lump in her throat, her eyes on fire and itching like mad, and it hurt when the air passed through her windpipe.
"Lucrecia, you do not mean to go through with this project..."
Lucrecia sighed aloud and let her hands fall away from his. "Yes...yes, Vincent, I do. If not you, then someone else, but...I can't have you holding me back." She watched through his eyes, witnessed his heart break at her words, but she forced herself to keep going. "Vincent, this is my dream as a scientist, and I've been so excited over this for so long. And...I'm not letting go of this...even for you."
Vincent's heart dropped and hung suspended by one threadlike vein, dangling over a pit of stomach acid threatening to tear his insides apart. Lucrecia was really going to leave him after all that they had been through, and she was willing to do anything for that project...the one that was now tearing them apart and had caused a rift in their relationship over the past few months. And then to hear that she thought he was holding her back from something better, and that she was willing to go and be with- with- whoever it took, just to make sure that they had a child for the project...
It was ripping him apart, all of the mixed emotions running through his brain and he standing there before her, trying to keep them all under control and not lose his grip on the situation at hand. Lucrecia stood there before him, now unable once again to look him in the face. "Vincent..." she started, her voice shaking with uncertainty, "I...I'm so sorry."
With that, she took off running across the square, Vincent standing there with an outstretched hand, clad in a leather glove. He had attempted to catch her by the arm and try once more to convince her that it was a bad idea, that she should stay with him where she would be safe from harm. He had failed to hold her in his broken-spirited grip, however, and she had disappeared behind the well in no time. Vincent ran after her, hoping to catch her, to convince her to let it go, to just rest with him and be content to just exist for a while. What he happened upon was something he had not expected.
There she stood, in the arms of the director of the ShinRa Department of Science, her white coat trailing from her thin form and ending at her calf muscles, intertwining with his own white coat. They looked to be a pair, two of the same kind, her thin sheer stockings standing out against his black pants, and that was alright. If she was happy with her decision, if there was no way to change her mind, then he would be happy for her, though what he really wanted was to make sure that she was out of harm's way. The only way that he could do that would be to keep a careful eye on the project, which was what he was there to do in the first place.
Standing there, watching them, he noticed that she was greatly relieved by the comfort the doctor's arms had to offer her, and while Vincent wanted to be happy for Lucrecia, this bothered him greatly. His mind began to wander and the thought briefly entered his head that maybe she already knew who would want to father the child for the project, and whether or not that man might be him, but he shook the thought immediately from his head. For now she looked content, and that was all he cared to venture into for the time being. He would stay nearby, though, and make sure that she was safe.
If any possible danger came to her, he was prepared to do whatever it took to keep her out of harm's way.
Vincent's shoulders slumped over and he strode half-heartedly away from the scene, feeling more alone and rejected than he ever had in his entire life. It was really over, and he had nothing to show for it. He had not even asked her any questions, though he knew that she had told him she loved him. Still...he had a feeling that the two of them were not through yet, and that something bigger was going to happen between the two of them before they left Nibelheim.
As Vincent left the square, stepping over the uneven brick layers and crushing the small weed-flowers that grew between the individual bricks, unawares as he went, the clouds left the sky and the sun began to beat down fiercely on his dark head of hair. Vincent loosened his tie and huffed a small breath of air at his own forehead, his long bangs lifting in time with his pace and bobbing once before finally setting back down into place. He pulled at his shirt collar with one finger, quickly becoming overheated. Whether he was just flustered, or beginning to feel sick, he knew that it must have had something to do with his mood, because his emotions were all askew, and they always had been, ever since the day he became a killing machine.
And he hadn't been able to figure himself out since then.
And the sun continued to shine.
Vincent Valentine pulled his coat up around his neck and raised his shoulders up as he walked away from the restaurant sandwiched between the shopping plaza and the theatre in the busy city of Junon. If he had tried harder, he might have been able to ignore the bright lettering that decorated the sign of the expensive banquet hall, but being Vincent, he was quite observant by nature.
Vincent mused on the party name and the date, surprised to have come upon that specific gathering in that specific city, but his life happened to be full of all sorts of ironies, coincidences and poetic justices, so he figured it didn't really matter. It became clear to him that either he had caused a few people a great deal of pain in trying to find him and they just gave up after a while, or else no one had bothered to look for him in the first place.
Whichever it was, he kept on walking. Life was full of tough decisions.
A/N: Well, there you have it, the first chapter of To Know You. Anything you didn't pick up on will most likely be made clear in chapter two. At least...I plan on making it clear, so if you don't pick up on it then, you're hopeless. Aha...just kidding. It will all be made clear very, very soon. Maybe in two days. I already know what I want to do with the next chapter, so it shouldn't be too long.
If you're reading this and you haven't read the prequel, Vincent's Last Birthday Escapade, go read it now! [grins] You'll like it, and it's only 4 chapters long, so it won't take long. It sets the entire background and mood for this story, plus motivations for certain character's actions. So...if you choose to ignore the Escapade, and rush right into this, then things might seem to move at an unexpected pace, and you'll be left wondering why.
I hope you all will enjoy this story, as I know I'm going to enjoy writing it. I've got a million ideas running through my head, and I have to piece them together and write them down before I forget! [gets spastic and grabs a notepad while screaming] Thank you for reading, and please...let me know what you thought!