FicWad: fresh-picked original and fan fiction

In retrospect, it started before Lu died. I want to say I'm projecting, that just because we disagreed I think he wasn't rational, but that isn't true. There was a desperation in him born of paranoia, and a refusal to acknowledge consequences. He didn't want Lucrecia to leave the Project so much as to make it never have existed.

I didn't pay attention at the time. I should have. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I'm a scientist. I should know better, be more observant.

I could see in his every movement that he blamed me for what happened to Lu. I didn't really mind, though. I blamed myself too.

In the first dark days, we held each other together despite the unspoken accusations. As I started to recover it seemed like he did too, and I let myself get distracted by work so that I didn't have to think. Gast left me to go deeper into the basement, deeper into the Jenova Project, because he didn't know how to pull me back. He thought it best to wait and see. Ifalna tried, but she couldn't speak my language, and she had been left in a house full of men with a newborn. She didn't have time.

Jenova called me and I answered her gladly, staying in the lab for days without sleep. I'm not sure when I abandoned my pretenses and started talking to her out loud. I'd caught myself doing it before and stopped, afraid of what Gast would say if he heard, but I didn't care. He didn't come down to the basement much anyway; preferring to stay out of my way, he'd moved some of the equipment upstairs and delegated everything else to me.

Photos of Lu started disappearing from around the mansion. Gast mentioned it to me, asking if I'd taken them.

"What? Pictures? No," I answered without looking at him. Jenova was telling me the secrets of the universe and he was talking about pictures?

The months crept by and it was summer again soon enough, and Sephiroth was nearly two, speaking in sentences and running up and down the stairs, driving Ifalna to distraction. She tried to bring me dinner when she had a minute to spare, often literally dragging me over and watching me eat. Today she was chatting about the roses as she crossed the room with a plate of pasta. I turned and watched her, noticing lines around her eyes that hadn't been there two years ago.

She was just setting the plate on the counter when the intercom screeched alive and William's voice echoed through it. Noodles and glass skidded across the tile floor, sauce spreading like a blood stain, and I became aware that William was shouting my name. I had to hurry. It was Vincent.

I sprinted up the stairs, Ifalna following behind, and by the time I reached the top I could hear Vincent's shouting outside the open window. He was in the rose garden, with a shovel and an empty grave.

"Oh, god," I whispered as the warm summer night when I dug up my dead wife flooded into my head. I ran downstairs without stopping to wonder why Vincent was digging up her grave.

I flinched at the sunlight. I hadn't seen any in weeks, and it nearly drove me back into the kitchen as my eyes struggled to adjust to the light. The warmth made me acutely aware of just how filthy I was -- how long since Ifalna last bullied me into changing clothes? A week? Two?

I held my hand over my eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the light, and in a minute Vincent was in front of me, screaming. I couldn't make out his words right away.

"Where is she?!" was the first intelligable thing I heard him say. "Where is she?" I looked at William, who was shaking his head back and forth quickly and trying to stay out of Vincent's vision.

"I just-- I put her somewhere I thought was more--" I stuttered, my thoughts racing too fast for my throat.

"Give her to me!"

"I'll take you where she's buried, Vincent, but it's been two years..."

"Don't lie to me!" he shouted, pulling his gun from its holster. I hadn't seen him pull a gun in years, and never on me.

"What?"

"She's alive, isn't she? She's alive and you're keeping her for yourself!"

I stared at him for several long breaths, thinking I could see his face cracking in front of me. The strong, romantic Turk was crumbling, and before I knew it I was laughing.

"Don't laugh at me!" he went on. "I'm not stupid! I've heard you down in the basement, talking, and a woman's voice. Gast might be too nice to confront you on it, but I'm not!"

"You... heard her?" I asked him quietly, forgetting that he thought he heard Lucrecia and not Jenova, forgetting the gun and the grave and the sunlight. Someone else heard her.

"Of course I heard her! Do you think we're all deaf?" I looked at William, questioning, and he shrugged. He had no idea what Vincent was talking about. I'd accepted years ago, before Lu and I married, that Jenova's voice was a trick of my mind. And now Vincent could hear her? Why now?

"That's not Lucrecia, Vincent. That's Jenova," I told him. I saw confusion on Gast's face, but I didn't have time to worry about him right now.

"Liar!" Vincent was shaking now. "Jenova's just dead meat, she's disgusting. How dare you compare her to Lucrecia? You can't lie to me!" I heard Jenova hear him, heard her scream in fury and he twitched. His fingers wrapped tightly around the gun, around the trigger, and I wondered if he would mean it if it went off. Jenova did not like his choice of words.

I had to get him away from Gast and Ifalna, put him off his guard, do something.

"Come downstairs, Vincent. Stop scaring William and Ifalna. Come downstairsand I will show you," I said quietly.

He must have believe the defeat in my voice, because he stopped shaking. The gun never dropped, though, and the cold Turk demeanor took over.

"March," he growled. When I turned toward the house, I felt his gun press against the small of my back. Turks, I reminded myself, were hired killers, little better than animals. There's nothing more dangerous than a cornered animal.

Ifalna started to ask something as I walked back into the kitchen, but the sight of Vincent and, as we passed, his gun quieted her to a gasp. The door slammed behind, then opened again. I heard Ifalna distantly, William's voice low and comforting, before I led Vincent upstairs and through the passage to the basement.

"You're not getting away with anything," he hissed quietly as we went down the spiral staircase. "Not a damn thing."

"I'm going to show you the absolute truth," I said, hoping Jenova would know what needed to happen, would be able to do it.

"I'm doing this to protect her," he said, sincerity frothing from his lips. I thought he might cry.

"I have to protect her, Hojo. Do you understand that? Can you understand the desire to protect somebody?"

I thought about Lucrecia and about Jenova before I said "yes" very quietly.

He dug the barrel of the gun into my back, shoving me forward off the bottom stair. "You have no idea," he growled. "You tried to kill Lucrecia! And when that didn't work, you locked her up down here, didn't you? Were you keeping her to yourself? She was going to leave with me. She was."

I glared but didn't turn as I led him through to the back room, muttering, "Can't you at least make your delusions internally consistent?"

"What?"

I ignored him, pushing forward into the room that held her body. "This is the woman I talk to every night, Vincent." I didn't bother to turn the lights on -- I rather liked the effect of having her tank's systems as the room's only light source.

Vincent blinked once, twice, and pointed the gun at me again. "Let her out."

Clearly he was not seeing what I was seeing.

"Jenova. Show him."

"He's hateful," she answered in my mind, and I could see by his reaction that he heard it as well.

"Show him anyway." Vincent's gun was against my neck now, and I could feel him shaking again. He watched the tank with wide eyes and demanded I give her back. When I didn't react fast enough, he fired his gun at the tank. Jenova screamed and Vincent and I both shuddered under the noise. The impact glass cracked like spiderwebs and a small trickle of makou bled down the side.

I dove at him then, with all the speed I could muster. He fired again, this time at me, and as I came into arm's reach of him I felt a burning pain along the top of my shoulder. Vincent was screaming, but I wasn't listening. The gun was in my hands now and I stepped back, again out of reach, and pointed it at him.

"You bastard..." he whispered.

"My parents were many things, Vincent, but unmarried is not one of them." He glared at me. I glared back.

"What you're doing to Lucrecia, it isn't right," he said. There was sincerity in his voice. He still believed I had her down here somewhere. "You can't use people like that."

Jenova was still screaming.

"I can use people however I want, Vincent."

The room and my thoughts were suddenly crystal clear.

"I can even use you, keep you down here."

My heartbeat was slow, steady, loud in my ears.

"She's not here, Vincent. But it's a good idea you had."

There was sweat on his face, and probably tears.

He shook his head at me. "You can't fire."

"I can't? Vincent, of course I can. You taught me." A third shot echoed in the small room. I didn't want to kill him. I'd gotten close to his heart, but with luck I wasn't too close. I laid the gun down in on my desk and dragged his body up onto the counter. I'd need to work fast, stabilize him, tranquilize him, find someplace to put him, because Gast would ask to see the body...

I cut off his shirt and used it to bind the wound once I removed the bullet. I administered the tranquilizers, making sure his heartbeat didn't slow too much. I patched the tank as well, before I could forget. I remembered the closet at the base of the stairs. It was normally locked, but I'd made a copy of William's keys several months ago. I laid him down in a casket, the one we'd ordered for Lu and decided not to use. I shut the lid. I locked the door behind me.

The stairs seemed longer on the way up than they did on the way down.

I knew they must have heard the gunshots upstairs. I wondered how much they'd guessed of what came after. The room at the top of the stairs was empty when I emerged, but I could hear Sephiroth crying outside. In the hallway I saw Ifalna holding the toddler with William standing behind her. Their faces were pale and grim, but there was surprise as William looked up and spotted me. He hadn't expected me to be the one to walk away.

"Hojo!" Ifalna called in relief when she realized. "I thought for certain someone was going to get killed down there! I can't believe... Where's Vincent?" I took Sephiroth from her arms as she said this, and he laid his head on my shoulder and quieted.

"He's..." I would simplify. They couldn't understand. "He's dead. I had to-- I shot him. Buried him down there."

Ifalna bit her lip, looking at me, then at William. He sighed. "I'd better go call Shinra."

"And tell them what?" I asked.

"That you killed a Turk," he answered with a hint more viciousness than I liked.

"And what else? That you stood by and let a security agent threaten my life? That he went crazy under your command and you never noticed? There isn't a jury in Midgar that would convict me, Gast, and you'd lose everything you've built."

"What do you propose, then?" Sarcasm never sounded good on him.

"Tell them he ran off. We need the security. Just say you have no idea where he went."

William sighed and looked at Ifalna. She turned away. "Fine, Hojo. Have it your way."

I took Sephiroth into his bedroom and laid him on the small mattress. Half his face and chest were covered in my blood, a disconcerting effect on a toddler. Just then, though, he needed sleep more than a bath. Besides, Ifalna would take care of him.

I took one last look at him as he slept and then returned to the basement.

Log in to rate and review this story

You won't see stories with a lower score when you browse or search. Log in to adjust filter.