He received a call from President Shinra hours later. On the verge of sleep, the insistent beeping of the phone roused him into wakefulness, and forced him to fumble for the phone. He opened it, and sleepily mumbled, "Hello?"
"Turk." It was the gravelly, harsh, smoke-stained voice that he remembered very well. Vincent shot up out of bed, wide awake and breathing hard, as if he had run for a very long time.
"President Shinra," Vincent said, shocked. "I·didn't expect you to call." He wondered if something went wrong, or if he had forgotten someone, or if there were dire news.
"Turk, has the plane arrived safely?" No greeting, no pleasant conversation, but instead, straight to the point, punctuated by harsh coughing. "Are they there?"
"Yes, sir." He did not say anymore, but waited expectantly.
"Good. You are to stay with them until I change your orders. In particular, I want you to report back to me on how their research is going along." There was a click, and Vincent held an empty phone, with no one on the other end.
After holding the phone to his ear for a few moments-the silence changing into an droning, insistent beep that grated on his nerves-he closed the phone with nerveless fingers, and returned to sleep.

He ran through the dark streets, the only light penetrating the darkness being the half-broken, flickering street lights. And they only punctured the darkness on the main street; in the alleys, he was nothing more then a shadow in deeper shadows.
His breaths tore at his lungs, white-hot and painful, as he ran, desperately, blindly, slipping on the slick, mud-covered streets. He skidded across a pile of garbage, but he continued running. It was worth his life not to run.
He could hear the enraged cries in the distance, hoarse voices that echoed down the alley and multiplied the number of enemies that he heard-so he ran faster. He didn't know what was real and what wasn't anymore.
There was a girl running beside him, a young fifteen year old girl. He didn't know her name, but he knew that she was as desperate as he. There was very little in the way of feeling when one lived in the streets of Midgar, except for desperation. If you weren't desperate, then you were hopeless. And being hopeless was equivalent of being dead. He, however, needed to protect the girl. It was his job, his duty; she was his sister. Not in blood, maybe, but anyone who helped you out was family, on the dark streets in Midgar. So he gave his misplaced loyalty to her.
She died at the first crack of shot; it was a lucky shot fired by some fool. But it pierced her lungs, and she fell, limply, like a rag doll, like a sack of wheat that was punctured by a needle. She bled, blood spilling from her wound and trickling out of her mouth.
At least that was what he knew; that was how people died, anyway, when they got shot in the lungs. He wouldn't know, though, the exact details on what happened-because he ran. Those who had pursued him before no longer followed him, but it was only hours later, with his life spilling out in ragged gasps, that he realized this. Maybe she would have survived, if he had stopped to help her. Maybe.
But he would never know, because he ran.
He woke up.

"Mako?" Lucrezia said, looking at him with puzzlement. She was stuffing herself with the rich foods that they had ordered in the tiny restaurant that doubled as an inn in the tiny town. "What do you want to know about mako?"
"Everything, that's all." Vincent folded his hands beneath his chin to watch the woman eat. From a closed heart and mind, he watched, with amusement, and a faint feeling of pleasure, at the vivacious woman who had taken direct charge of his social and private life. He wasn't particularly interested in mako-after all, he knew perfectly well its uses from personal experience-but rather, was interested in being allowed a moment to continue watching every single movement of the woman, like her hand movements, her expressive smiles, and her curling hair. How anyone could go through life so full of energy mystified and fascinated him.
The unruly hair had been tied up into a high ponytail, a method she resorted to often when hard at work, and looked particularly nice on her, her hair pulling away to reveal a pretty, attractive face. He wasn't sure, though whether or not it was her expressiveness that made her pretty or attractive or if it was just natural beauty, but suspected it to be the former.
"Well," she said, interrupting him out of his thoughts, "I don't know very much about mako, as it's not my specialty in research. However, Hojo could tell you more about it." She wrinkled her nose at the mention of his name, and Vincent laughed, underneath his breath, a little, at her expression.
There was, though, a little ripple within him, somewhere between his heart and stomach, of something that could almost be called worry. She always talks about him, he thought, a little troubled. She always says how smart he is. Is it professional admiration, or is it more? Though how it could be more was beyond him; it seemed so utterly implausible. Still, there was that nagging doubt, and he couldn't suppress it, however much he tried.
"Vincent?" she said, interrupting her conversation, to look at him worriedly. "Are you all right? You've looked out of it all afternoon."
Vincent straightened in his chair, shaking his head, the dark strands of his hair caressing his cheek. "No, no, it's all right. I'm listening to you."
"Maybe you're tired?" she suggested. "After all, we've only been here for a couple of weeks. Maybe you haven't adjusted to the time zone yet."
Or maybe, Vincent thought sourly, thinking about the president's constant phone calls in the middle of the night, the president hasn't adjusted. He gave her a half-hearted smile, an attempt to reassure her. "No, Lucrezia, I'm really all right. Continue your lecture."
She peered at him for a moment, adjusting her glasses-almost like an extension of her, they seemed to mirror her mood, a trick that he found fascinating-before smiling faintly. "All right, then. Well, like I said before, Hojo's specialty is mako and the manipulation of it. Mine is more in the realms of medicine and genetics. Professor Gast is very interested more in the history of Midgar-you know, like Ancients." "Are they even real?" Vincent asked, doubtfully. "They seem nothing more then fairy tales." His fork paused before the dish before him, to look up at her, frowning. "Professor Gast is a scientist, after all."
Her fork and knife stopped from cutting into the cooked meat, and she looked up, giving him another faint half-smile, a smile that stirred something in him, but what, he wasn't sure. "Oh, yes, I think Ancients are real. After all, if their skeletons can be found, what else can they be?"
"But Ancients look just like humans," Vincent replied, looking down to continue his meal.
"Not really," Lucrezia refuted. "Their bone structure is marginally different."
"But-" Vincent said, prompting her. She looked at him, puzzled. "I hear the 'but' in your voice," he said, teasing her.
She smiled, blushing a little, before continuing. "Well, yes, but Ancients probably look enough like human to be considered one. Professor Gast has a theory that we're probably descended from these beings, considering that we look so much like them, and that the changes we see in bone development is because of adaptations we've made due to climate over the millennia." "A sound theory," Vincent remarked, biting into his slice of steak.
"It is," Lucrezia agreed, setting her fork and knife down to pick up her cup of wine; it was the specialty of this town, and something she liked very much. "But do you agree with it?" she asked. He looked up at her swiftly, and she leaned back on the chair, sipping. "Just out of professional curiosity," she explained, at his strange look.
Vincent shrugged and looked down; cut into his food again for another bite. "I'm not a scientist; it's not really something I'm interested in. But frankly, to tell you the truth, I really don't believe in Ancients and all that, and neither do I see the reason of studying the past. You live in the present, after all." He looked up back at her, with a wry smile. "That's all."
"Oh." Lucrezia fell silent, playing with the wine glass in her hands, looking off into the distance at nothing at all. Vincent sat there, in silence as well, finishing his meal. Having finished, he set his fork and knife down as well, and signaled the waitress to come over to bring them ice cream, another specialty of the town; Vincent was chocolate, Lucrezia vanilla. The dishes cleared and the ice cream served, Lucrezia finally broke the silence.
"Vincent," she said in a soft voice, sounding strange and almost lost, "you know I trust you, right?" He nodded cautiously, wondering if she was leading to some point. She continued staring off into space for some moments before looking up and meeting his eyes; her blue eyes were very dark, almost black. "What do you think of Hojo?"
"Hojo?" Vincent stared at her with shock, her question being the very last thing he expected of her. "Why·.Hojo?"
He did not expect her reaction. She got up abruptly, ignoring the ice cream at the table, her eyes turned away. "It's nothing!" she snapped, a flush coming to her cheeks. "Nothing at all. Come on, Vincent, let's go. I'm not hungry anymore." He got up, not wanting to disturb her, and paid the waitress hurriedly before leaving. She did not even put on her coat, even though it was snowing outside, in thick, fat flakes; she walked toward the mansion, without speaking another word to him.