Why do I do this? Why can't anything ever go right for me? It's not fair·
It never is fair·

She saw him before he saw her, because of his wild, almost jerky movements that set him apart from the peaceful, still mountains that they stood in. He wore the same immaculate dark blue suit that marked him as a Turk; but calm and composed he was not. Her hands were shaking badly. The sky was, ironically enough, a bright blue dotted with white clouds that scattered across the sky like birds. A perfect day.
"Vincent," she murmured. He whirled around from his agitated, nervous pacing, and looked at her directly, his dark hair whipping in the wind. She would have cried again if she understood what was behind Vincent's eyes in that one moment, but she did not, and was thus saved, in her own way.
"Lucrezia," he said, stopping and standing still, his hands folded across his arms. As open as his expression was a moment ago, it was gone, shuttered behind some hidden doorway that let no one in. No one, except Lucrezia. But she did not know this. "I suppose you're engaged to Hojo?" His voice was cool and controlled, like the Vincent she met on the first day in the plane.
"Yes, I am," she said steadily. The expression on his face did not change a hair. "I suppose you'd like a reason why." She leaned against a rock, hiding her hands behind her back, praying that he did not see them shaking.
He did not. "I would," he said, his voice as cold as before.
"Because," she said, looking away-because she didn't want to see his eyes-"because I'm pregnant." She paused, and said gently, "I've been pregnant for over two months already, Vincent," she said.
He stiffened, now; it was her oblique way of saying it was not his child. He had been in Midgar for the last four months; in no way was this child his. So, it was Hojo's-
"You're right," she said evenly, reading the quick thoughts that skittered across his head like frantic ghosts, things that could not be held for more then a moment. "It's Hojo's child." But she did not turn to look at him. She knew what she would read: betrayal.
Vincent nodded; he was willing to accept that. Never mind the fact that his insides were fire now, shouting at him to scream at her, to despise, to hate, to call a whore of the woman in front of him. But he wouldn't-couldn't, because it would destroy everything that was him that was still alive anymore. The demon of perversity forced him to ask, "Do you love Hojo?" Waited, almost eagerly, for the answer, wanting to see him suffer. Or was it he that waited to see himself suffer?
Lucrezia made an almost soundless noise, like a startled gasp, that she swallowed. She refused to look at him, and forced herself to look at the mountain range that spread before her, across the chasm spanned by a rickety bridge, against a backdrop of a brilliantly blue sky. The baby within her moved, and she pressed at her stomach, willing herself not to gasp again. She heard Vincent made an inarticulate, grief-stricken noise, but she still refused to look at him.
I don't love you.
But I love Hojo.
Can I tell you this? She swallowed again, tasting bile, and then swiftly made her decision. She straightened up, and gave him a smile. Pushing back the heavy locks of her hair away from her face, she gave him an oblique look from the corner of her eye. She had a trick of looking at him like that, as if she was willing to spill all her secrets to him. "Yes," she said, giving him a sweet smile, of past memories and broken friendships, of innocence lost and dying love, "I am."
Like he did, so many years before, in the dark, wet streets of Midgar, Vincent ran, never knowing what would have happened if he stayed.

Hojo looked at up at the interruption of his work, watching with cool, composed eyes at the disheveled, panting man, whose eyes were a mixture of pain and loss and regret. And-something else, but what it was, neither Hojo nor Vincent knew.
"What do you want?" Hojo asked coldly, turning back to his work, glancing briefly at Jenova. There was so much work to be done, experiments to be performed--ah. His lips curved. A beautiful experiment, he thought, almost absently. With Jenova. But that was still in the future, still. Not so far, though. With Lucrezia and Gast. They both had agreed. Science was everything, after all, compared to one unborn child.
His reverie was again broken by the Turk in front of him, and he felt a flash of irritation. Who was this man, to interrupt him and his work? He was a fool, then, to do so-
"Did you make her do this?" the Turk said, wearily, desperation in his eyes. "Did you!?" He fell to the ground, exhausted, like a rag puppet being controlled by someone else. "Did you?" He looked down at the ground, at his hands, stained with blood. Where had the blood come from? Vincent thought, almost morbidly, fascinated.
"Who? Lucrezia, you mean?" Hojo said, smiling, tainted with satisfaction of seeing an opponent beaten and fallen. "It was her decision, really. Not mine. Not yours, true enough." He saw the flash in the Turk's eyes, and laughed. "Do you really think that she ever loved you? She even told me herself that she never loved you. You, Turk, was nothing more then an amusing diversion. I'll admit, however, she was clever enough to use you; people who are in love make the greatest slaves."
Vincent felt his hands clench. "So you don't love her," he muttered dully. He wiped his face, and realized that he was bleeding, in the face, at the scar at the side of his temple. The same scar he had earned so long ago in Midgar, when he fell face first into shards of glass, glistening wetly like dewdrops on grime. The night he ran.
Hojo turned back to the computer with a curl of his lip. "Love is not real," he said shortly. "It's nothing more then a delusion. I thought all children grew out of that phase. Apparently you haven't, my dear sir." And he continued typing, his thoughts again lost in the pure realm of science.
Vincent stared at the ground, feeling almost betrayed. And then he lunged. A sudden scuffle, a spasm, and then a soft groan; Vincent slid limply to the ground, knocked unconscious as Hojo stood over him, tranquilizer gun in hand.
"Really, Turk," Hojo said coldly, standing and shedding the limp body, his eyes faintly ironic, "I thought you'd be a faster shot."

"Hojo, why isn't Vincent on the plane?" Lucrezia asked worriedly, her hand touching her stomach protectively. "I thought he was supposed to come with us to Midgar."
Hojo did not look up from the laptop. "The Turk decided to stay at Nibelheim; President Shinra ordered him to," he said curtly. He did not stop from typing. "And he also said he had things to think over."
Lucrezia sighed, a soft sigh, and looked out the window, a blizzard of white, the same white as when they first went to Nibelheim. Now, after a year and a half, they were back to Midgar again. "I suppose so," she said finally. "Well, at least Vincent's all right." She sounded faintly relieved, but Hojo could not tell what was going on beneath the pale surface of skin, nor did he wish to know. It was her business, after all.
Hojo still did not look up from the laptop, his glasses gleaming from the pale light that emanated from the screen. His lips curved into a faint smile. "Yes, dear," he said, without a trace of irony, "I'm sure he's all right."