Chapter 7
Cloud took the first shift driving; not that the truck's controls proved any great mystery, but he said he preferred it, and Vincent was still tired. At least the beast in his veins was quiet, but he wondered if it would return once he'd rested, waiting somewhere just beneath his skin.
When he slept, nightmares enveloped him, a familiar icy mire of despair. He watched as Hojo raised his son in the wake of Lucrecia's death, but it was worse than anything he imagined in his waking hours, because in the nightmare, he hadn't been locked away. He was there for every moment of it, following Hojo's instructions, complicit in his son's dehumanization. He was no more help to Sephiroth than he'd been to Lucrecia.
Maybe Sephiroth was better off without him.
The thought lingered as he woke, and in an attempt to push it away, he sat forward to scan the landscape to determine how far they'd come. But rising in the east were the mountains surrounding the crater lake... The sight made his heart ache. Only a few times had they been able to escape to it, but alone in that place with Lucrecia, he had been able to imagine she belonged only to him. It was the happiest he had ever been.
In their absence, had other lovers found the cave hidden behind the waterfall? Had they carved their names together in the rock, foolishly thinking they might create a testament to an eternal love?
His feelings remained all these years later, even if she had declared an end to hers well before his slumber. She hadn't loved him more than anything, more than her work, more than her fear of Hojo. And now Sephiroth had him wondering, how enduring would have been her love for her son?
He felt heartsick, questioning her, but he could see the damage Hojo had done to their son, and even had she lived, she would have allowed that man a hand in raising him. Vincent could fantasize all he wanted about her changing her mind and choosing him after all, but when he looked at all she'd said and done...
Had he been a fool?
Lucrecia had never made any promises she hadn't kept. She had spoken sometimes of the same fantasy, of a life with just the two of them, but in her mind it had only ever been that. A fantasy. Their time together had been a respite from Hojo and nothing more.
"We're almost at the river crossing," said Cloud, mistaking his long stare for a confusion as to their location.
Vincent sat back. "Yes," he said. "The ferry, still?"
"I think so. It's been a while since I've been there either."
Vincent wondered how long he had been away from home, letting Shinra turn him into a soldier. He was so young. About the same age that Sephiroth had been, when Shinra had sent him to war.
Would that have bothered him, before? He'd known what sort of beast Shinra was when he had joined the Turks, and he'd thought nothing of it. It was only the fear of losing Lucrecia to that beast that had shaken his complacency. And, even that hadn't been enough. He hadn't done enough.
After a short silence, Cloud spoke up again. "Sephiroth was acting weird again last night. With that Jenova woman."
Vincent glanced at him. "He sees her as his mother. I'm sure he's wanted to meet her for a long time."
"...is that why we're doing this now?"
"Hm?"
"Proving you're his father. You think he'll be like that with you, too?"
Vincent shook his head slowly. "No. I don't expect that at all."
He was lucky that Sephiroth hadn't already rejected him, but he didn't want what Jenova had with him. He wanted to earn Sephiroth's trust, respect, affection--not to manipulate his way into them with false promises and the violation of boundaries.
Vincent took over driving south of the river, as the terrain began to change. It was unfamiliar to Cloud, but Vincent saw little change in the landscape. The canyon walls that rose around them were as they always had been. Not everything, at least, had rushed on ahead of him.
They arrived at Cosmo Canyon late in the afternoon. As they climbed the long stairway, the settlement that came into view was not so drastically altered either. A few new buildings jutted from the canyon walls. Perhaps another windmill or a new shop stall. High above it all, the same observatory that Gast had helped these people to build.
A man stopped them at the gate.
"Excuse me," he said. "What exactly is Shinra's business here?"
Cloud glanced down at himself; he had taken his helmet off after they'd left Nibelheim, but he still wore the uniform. He looked uncertainly to Vincent.
"None," said Vincent. "We are no longer affiliated with Shinra."
The gatekeeper looked skeptical. "It seems like a very recent separation," he observed.
"For my companion, yes. It has been some years for me." Years that had passed him by, though he would have parted with Shinra in a heartbeat, had Lucrecia only wanted it. "I was once acquainted with Bugenhagen," he went on. "I had hoped I might seek the assistance of his colleagues now."
"Why not ask Bugenhagen yourself, if you know him?" asked the gatekeeper.
Vincent blinked. "He is still alive...?"
"When did you say you last came here?"
"...many years ago."
The gatekeeper shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I think I need more to go on, if I'm going to let you in."
"Please," said Vincent. "It's a personal matter, but an urgent one."
"Is something the matter, Ira?"
One of the guardians of the canyon had approached from behind the gatekeeper. Cloud took a step back in surprise and alarm, but Vincent had observed the unusual felines on his visits with Gast, even if he didn't recognize this one.
"Nanaki," said Ira, turning to the guardian. "This man says he's an acquaintance of Bugenhagen's and he's looking for his help, only they both seem suspicious to me."
"Do they?" Nanaki tilted his head up at Vincent. "How is it that you know my grandfather?"
Grandfather? Vincent wondered. "...I was a colleague of Professor Gast," he said, hoping the connection was still worth something. "I accompanied him on some of his visits here."
"Gast hasn't visited this canyon in decades," Nanaki stated.
"I know."
Nanaki regarded him unblinking for a long moment. "Well," he said, "I think you would pique Grandfather's curiosity, so I'll take you to him. But I must ask you to surrender your weapons."
"Very well," said Vincent.
They handed their weapons over to Ira, and Nanaki led them on through the gate, and up the many steps to the observatory. The complex was no different than Vincent remembered, but he felt strange coming here on his own business. Gast's research hadn't much interested him; he'd contented himself to be the man's shadow, letting his mind wander through Gast's conversations with the canyon's historians.
Cloud hung back near the door as they entered; Vincent had a shadow of his own now. Nanaki called out for Bugenhagen, and the old man soon floated down from the second floor on that contraption of his. Impressively, he looked even more wizened than when Vincent had seen him last; he had already been pushing a hundred then.
"Grandfather," Nanaki said in greeting. "These two strangers have come. One of them claims he once worked with Professor Gast."
"Is that so...?" Bugenhagen's eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark glasses, but Vincent felt his scrutiny. "Hmmm......"
"My name is Vincent Valentine," he said. "I was once employed with the Turks. You and I wouldn't have spoken much directly, but..."
"I do recall a young man of similar appearance used to keep vigil on some of our conversations," said Bugenhagen. "Almost like a statue he was! The strange thing is, you don't look a day older."
"It is a strange thing to me as well. But I wonder if it would come as any surprise to you that Shinra has been performing experiments on humans."
"...no. No surprise, certainly," said Bugenhagen, his shoulders slumping ruefully.
Nanaki spoke up cautiously. "Has Shinra really found a way to stop humans from aging?" he wondered.
"It seems to come with some unpleasant side effects," said Vincent.
"And to live forever..." Bugenhagen added, shaking his head. He glanced at Nanaki. "Still! I must confess to a flash of jealousy. If I could look half my age--well, I'd still be an old man, but it would be a marked improvement! But I digress. What is it you've come for? Do you have news of Gast?"
Vincent hesitated. "No... I did hear that he died some years ago, but the source is unreliable."
"An unreliable source, you say... I may just hold onto that, because it would be a pity if it's true."
"Indeed. But, my real purpose for coming..." Vincent faltered. Where did he even begin?
Bugenhagen tilted his head. "...something difficult, is it?"
Was it difficult? Vincent had never found it easy to ask for help, and he certainly hadn't expected to come here and ask it of Bugenhagen himself. But it was important, and he hadn't come all this way to be tripped up by his own lack of social ease.
"I've discovered that I have a son," he said. "At least, I am convinced he is my son, but he requires proof."
Bugenhagen glanced behind him at Cloud, but seemed to decide from the boy's manner that he wasn't the 'son' in question. He shifted his attention back to Vincent. "You came here for a paternity test?" he wondered.
"It was the nearest place I could think of that might be equipped for it. And, you aren't affiliated with Shinra."
"You don't trust a Shinra lab to perform it."
"No," Vincent confirmed.
Bugenhagen shook his head slowly. "This must be some scandal you're sitting on."
A scandal? Vincent had never even considered a public reaction to the information; it wasn't as though either he or Sephiroth would choose to announce it. Perhaps there were certain high profile members of the company whose reputations might be harmed if it were discovered they were the illegitimate children of an ex-Turk... Would Sephiroth's reputation suffer? Who knew. His background had to be as much of a mystery to the public as it had been to Sephiroth.
But it was from Sephiroth that the company had sought to keep this secret.
Vincent shook his head. "I have no interest in what the world at large would think. But my son... Shinra has lied to him his entire life. I need to give him some truth to hold onto."
After a thoughtful pause, Bugenhagen said, "Well, I daresay it is something we can help you with, and I've got no reason to turn you away."
"But?"
"I have this feeling there's something significant you aren't telling me. This isn't just any question of paternity."
"...it isn't," Vincent conceded. "But if you'll help me regardless, then I can't tell you more. It would be against my son's wishes."
"Trying to be a good father?" Bugenhagen said, and he smiled. "I can respect that. Nanaki, would you mind showing them to the clinic?"
"Of course, Grandfather."
Their visit to the clinic was a more unpleasant business than he'd anticipated. Vincent handed over the napkin with Sephiroth's blood, and then of course they required a sample from him. The prick of the needle in his skin made that fire spark in his blood, as though this small thing was another opening. He clenched his fist and shut his eyes, concentrating on his breathing. Calm. There was no danger, no enemy. This was a mundane medical procedure that had never troubled him before.
The buzzing in his veins subsided, but worry took its place. What if he was so altered from what he had been before that the test wouldn't show a match? What if Sephiroth was? Neither one of them was human, anymore.
"Don't feel you need to get up right away," the doctor told him, mistaking his reaction. "You can sit as long as you like."
"I'm fine," said Vincent. He wasn't. "How long until the results?"
"We should have them sometime tomorrow."
Vincent nodded. "Then I'll be back to wait then."
He left the clinic, Cloud following.
"You okay?" Cloud asked him, and he realized the boy had to hurry to match his stride. He forced himself to slow, and shook his head.
"A day isn't so bad," Cloud went on. "It might feel like longer, but... it's still just a day."
Vincent glanced at him. He was right, but that didn't make it any easier. "I'm worried about Sephiroth," he said. "The longer we're away..."
"What?" Cloud prompted, his brow furrowing. He didn't know about the night's altercation, and Vincent had dismissed his earlier observation on Sephiroth's behavior.
"Never mind," he said.
"...you think Zack's okay on his own?"
Vincent couldn't answer that the way Cloud wanted him to. Zack would likely be Jenova's next target, in one way or another. As Sephiroth's friend, Zack had sway with him, and she wouldn't like that.
Cloud hesitated, but declined to press his question, maybe sensing that Vincent had no optimism to offer him. Instead he asked, "Since you've been here before, do you know where the inn is?"
"Yes," said Vincent. "I'll take you."
He didn't think he would need sleep again tonight, but he wondered which was worse: his waking anxieties, or their subconscious manifestation in his nightmares? There was something easy, even comforting, about relinquishing control. He'd spent decades awash in his worst fears, powerless to stop them, but on some level he had always understood that there was nothing real to stop, that he had already failed.
He hadn't failed Sephiroth yet, but he might. Yes, that was worse.
Cloud parted ways with him at the inn; he booked a room and chose to take his dinner inside of it, away from the wary glances of the canyon's residents. The people here understood Shinra better than the villagers of Nibelheim, and they chose rightly to fear it. Even if Cloud was only a child, the uniform was an uncomfortable reminder of the canyon's tenuous independence.
Vincent sat at the bar and ordered a light meal, though he wasn't hungry. Did he need to sleep and eat now, only to feed the beast? Was it sated? He ate mechanically, not tasting the food.
What if the test didn't provide the proof he hoped it would? If he returned to Sephiroth empty-handed... Sephiroth had granted him a reprieve, but if it turned out they were nothing to each other, if Vincent was only his mother's lover... Would Sephiroth reject him completely? How could Vincent possibly reach him then?
A man slid into the seat next to him. "Well, yours is a new face," he said. "Come to study Planet life with us, have you?"
Vincent glanced at him. He was an older man--probably not so much older than Vincent should have been. The years had turned most of his hair grey and brought wrinkles to his eyes, and it was hard to say if he looked familiar.
"...no," Vincent answered, realizing some answer was expected of him.
"No?" the man repeated, tilting his head curiously. "Not many people visit this place for any other reason... You didn't run into some sort of trouble out in the canyon, did you?"
"I would prefer not to discuss it."
"Hmm. Sounds like trouble to me. Buy you a drink, friend? If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but maybe you'll at least let me try to take your mind off of it. I can talk enough for the both of us."
Any other time, Vincent would have declined, but the hours ahead would be long. If he could force himself to focus on this man's rambling for even a little while, maybe it would make that time more bearable.
"...all right," he said.
The man ordered them each a beer, and Vincent stared at it as it was placed in front of him. When was the last time he'd had a beer? He'd never been much of a drinker, and Lucrecia had preferred wine.
He'd always deferred to her tastes, her choices, wanting nothing more than to make her happy.
He took a cautious sip.
"The name's Bugah, by the way," said the man, offering his hand.
Vincent blinked, looking at him anew. "Bugah?" he repeated. He had been one of Gast's closest friends here. They had spoken several times in this very pub, laughing together over drinks while Vincent waited in the corner, like a statue.
Bugah lowered his hand, giving up on the handshake, and gave Vincent an odd look. "That's right," he said.
"Bugenhagen mentioned you," Vincent lied. "You were a friend of Gast's, if I recall."
"You know Gast?"
"I... heard some things about him, when I worked for Shinra," said Vincent, not caring to explain his age. Bugah clearly didn't recognize him either.
"Good things, I hope," said Bugah. "Though, hell, he never seemed like he would fit in with those people, so maybe they don't speak so highly of him. I do wonder what happened to that man. Must be going on twenty years now since he visited us."
Twenty years. He'd come here after Vincent had gone into his slumber. While Sephiroth was a child, in his care.
"Did he say anything about his work, when he came then?"
"You mean his last visit?" Bugah wondered. "It was the strangest thing. I'll never forget it. You know, he'd come here plenty of times before to talk about his research, compare notes. He told me about that Ancient he found--the find of a lifetime!--and how Shinra was funding what he called the Jenova Project. He never could tell me the details, but he was immersed in that for years..."
Bugah paused to take a drink. "But the last time he came here, he was completely distraught, like I'd never seen him. He told me he'd done some terrible thing--that Jenova wasn't an Ancient after all."
Vincent froze. Even his breath stilled in his chest. "What?" he managed.
"I never could get out of him exactly what that meant," said Bugah with a shrug, "but I heard he cut ties with Shinra after that."
"You're sure that's what he said?" Vincent said slowly, deliberately. "Jenova isn't an Ancient?"
Bugah nodded. "I remember it clearly, because it was so strange. If Jenova wasn't an Ancient, then what was she? And what could he have done that was so terrible, researching a cadaver? It's never made much sense to me."
It was second-hand information, and nothing that Vincent could possibly verify, but the moment he heard it, he'd felt it was true. Jenova was no Ancient.
But she certainly wasn't human.
She wasn't only manipulating Sephiroth, she was lying to him about what she was, what they both were. What had Gast done to his son?
His body felt hot, and he pushed himself up from his seat.
"You all right?" Bugah asked, looking at him in concern.
"Excuse me," Vincent managed. "Thank you for the drink."
"You've barely touched it," he heard Bugah say distantly as he stumbled away from the bar. He concentrated hard on walking, and his legs carried him outside into the twilight. It was growing cooler now, and a welcome breeze reached his face.
He felt sick, but this time it wasn't the beast. He'd been complicit in all of it--from Sephiroth's conception to the progression of the experiment, and now to the perpetuation of the lies Sephiroth had been told about himself. Sephiroth still hadn't found the truth of his origins; Vincent hadn't had the answers for him, just another story.
He hadn't known, but would that make any difference, after how many versions Sephiroth had heard of his past? Starting with what Hojo had told him...
Did Hojo know? Had Gast shared his findings before he'd gone? If he'd made the mistake of suggesting they put an end to the Project, then maybe that was what had killed him.
Vincent leaned against the wall outside the pub, wishing even Gast were here to help him now. Sephiroth seemed to respect him, and he might have had more to say on his findings. Just what was Jenova, if she wasn't an Ancient and she wasn't human? Was she instead some kind of monster, like the one that lurked in his veins? Had they ever really seen her true form?
One by one, the stars were coming out. Nightfall. Vincent wondered how Sephiroth had spent the day, and what lies Jenova had fed him. How long would it take her to get what she wanted from him? How long would she use him before she discarded him? Or would she be able to get her hooks in him so deep that she never had to?
Vincent had no idea how he would get Sephiroth to believe him, but he had to try to warn him. He couldn't stand by again and do nothing.
He took another few steadying breaths, went back into the pub, and strode across to the bartender.
"Is there a telephone I could use?" he asked.
"I'm afraid not," said the bartender with a shake of his head.
"Shinra owns all the phone lines," Bugah put in. "Haven't got one anywhere in the canyon."
Vincent's hands clenched at his sides. Then he had to go back.
But the test--
Damn the test.. was what he wanted to think, but it was important to Sephiroth. If he returned without the results, it would make it that much harder to convince him of the truth about Jenova.
One more day. Sephiroth had said he would wait before returning to the reactor. Vincent would have to trust in him, in his ability to think for himself. Surely he wouldn't allow Jenova to change his mind so swiftly.
Surely...
"You really should sit down," said Bugah. "I'm afraid I've given you some sort of shock, and I'm sorry. It seems I've been the opposite of helpful."
Vincent shook his head as he sat back down. "No. It isn't your fault at all."
Everything had been set into motion decades ago, when Gast had first found that thing. And they were all of them culpable for the nightmare they had visited on Sephiroth, and for whatever might befall him now. Gast, Hojo, Lucrecia, and himself... They had all done this terrible thing together.
Now, Gast and Lucrecia were gone, and Hojo would never regret what they'd done. The responsibility to fix it fell to Vincent, and he doubted he was up to the task. How could he be, when he hadn't been able to stop it in the first place, before it had even begun?
He wondered what Lucrecia would do if she were here. Would she feel as much regret as he did? Would she wish that she had chosen differently--not so that they could have a life together, but for Sephiroth's sake? What might she do for her son, for their son?
Anything. Vincent would do anything. It didn't matter what it cost him; he had nothing more to lose.