Chapter Seventy: A Second Chance
It was the most harrowing thing she had done in her life, but Dr. Calvin had given Nadiya the injection.
She clutched tiny Nadiya to her body, rocking her as she cried. Just as hope had returned for the girl, it had to be dashed by a few drops of a clear substance that might have been mistaken for water. Nadiya did not…could not…comprehend that her life was about to end.
She had lived for twenty hours before the injection. Dr. Calvin knew that she would not live to the end of her first day.
She rocked the silent girl in her arms, cursing Hojo with every fiber of her being between the sobs that shook her shoulders. Nadiya looked at her with wide, innocent eyes that tore her heart even more.
Sephiroth and Aralyn would be heartbroken.
A sharp rap on the door forced her to her feet. She tenderly laid Nadiya back in the cradle, tucking her small body in a hand woven blanket. She wiped her eyes on the sleeves of her white lab coat, ignoring how the makeup smeared across her face.
She opened the door to find the two she wanted to see the least at that moment: Hojo and Rufus.
Hojo walked in, pushing her aside and walking toward the bassinette. Dr. Calvin couldn't suppress a cry as he picked up the tiny infant in his cold, cruel hands. "I take it you gave her the injection?" He looked skeptically at her, frowning as he saw the state she was in. "You're not cut out for this."
"Why did you have to…I mean weren't you going to…?"
"Experiment?" Hojo laughed harshly. "Do you think this runt could withstand anything I tried? No. All she's done is proved that the second generation of the Jenova project can be prone to…frailty. She's a failure. She needed to be disposed of." He found the puncture wound from the injection and nodded in approval. "Good, good. Shouldn't be long now."
Dr. Calvin couldn't bear how he was handling her, how he referred to this miracle as a worthless failure.
"Although," Hojo continued, "I was surprised that she could have wings. I didn't know they could be passed on genetically. Sephiroth wasn't born with his, it were grafted in when he was eight, and he only had one while she has a full pair! Fascinating, really…"
"Please," Dr. Calvin pleaded, "Let me have Nadiya. I'll let you know when…" She had to force herself to say it. "When…it's over."
Hojo frowned deeply and adjusted his glasses. "You may, so long as you fulfill your last part of the deal. I promised you they could be parents for one night. In the morning, I'll be back for the boy and the body."
Rufus, who had stood as a silent witness, now spoke. "Does anyone know of this except you, Dr. Calvin?"
"A couple of the nurses that helped Aralyn with the delivery…"
"Will they talk?"
"No."
Hojo grinned. "This has been quite wonderful, Rufus. Thank you for the tip. The boy will be a wonderful specimen."
"I know Shinra will benefit from your research, Professor," Rufus said smiling.
As they walked away they discussed the fate of little Aidan. Dr. Calvin wondered fleetingly if she had spared Nadiya from a life of pain, one that her brother could not escape.
She was surprised at how long Nadiya was lasting. It had been an hour, and she was still blinking her wide eyes, her chest rising and falling as she breathed in tiny puffs of air.
Another knock on her door jarred her, and she worried that it was Hojo again, but when she opened it, she found Sephiroth.
What was she going to tell him?
"Good evening, Doctor," he said kindly. "Is Nadiya doing all right?"
"She's stronger," Dr. Calvin blurted out before she could stop herself. "Her heartbeat has regulated and she's breathing without the respirator."
She felt guilt slam into her as his eyes lightened with hope. A hope that would be destroyed as she soon succumbed to the poison.
"Could I take her back to the room?" he asked. "We want to be a family…the four of us."
Why did her feet take her to the cradle, gently lifting the infant and placing the tiny angel in his outstretched arms? Why was she consenting? Did she want Sephiroth and Aralyn to watch, helpless, as the life was sapped from their daughter?
A calm that she'd never seen on the stern general's face spread as he took the girl. He handled her like a butterfly, with tenderness one with his strength should not have possessed. His eyes were glowing. "Thank you," he said as he walked away, talking gently to his daughter.
"B-Bring her back in the morning," she called after him. He nodded, and left.
That began the longest night Dr. Calvin had ever lived through.
She woke up to a steady knock, finding that she had fallen asleep with her head on the desk. She rose to her feet and answered it, greeted by a smiling Aralyn and Sephiroth.
"Thank you so much," Aralyn said. "It's good to be with the whole family. Did you need her back?"
Dr. Calvin passed clean out when she saw that Nadiya was still moving in her mother's arms.
If the poison hadn't taken effect over the ten hours that had passed, then the only solution was that somehow, impossibly, she was immune.
Nadiya had been given a second chance to live.