Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Once a Man ❯ Hope ( Chapter 11 )

Once a Man

Chapter 11: Hope

 

Alive.

 

I have never been so happy, or so frightened. Alive meant he was with me. Alive meant he could be taken away from me again. Alive meant all my crazed dreams could come true. Alive meant that all her crazed dreams could come true. My Vincent was alive, but so was her Chaos.

 

I wasn't so idiotic to believe that she brought him back to life because she wanted the best for him. In all honesty, and I cringe to say this, he would have been better off dead. He would have been free and at peace in the lifestream and, with my continued drinking, I would have joined him there in a short time. She brought him back because of Chaos and her insane quest to prove her thesis correct.

 

I sat on the scaffold holding him in my arms, rocking, crying, and covering his face and hands in relieved kisses. I knew I had to get up and find things to help him. A blanket, some kind of equipment, a towel, anything, but I was frozen in place. If moved, I was sure it would all be nothing but a dream and he'd be no more than a weeks old corpse and I'd be nothing more than a pathetic drunk who was in the middle of a hallucination on a bar room floor. Perhaps, I was passed out in an alley near the bar and I was imagining this, and if I moved, I would wake up.

 

I sat there for hours when the Turks finally came back from their witch hunt.

 

“She got away.” Andre (or was it Andy…maybe Arty… I don't know. I barely knew him since he was usually assigned to the area around where Rocket Town now is to keep an eye on Gordo, and he died in an assassination attempt against my piggy puppet a couple of weeks after our return to Midgar) called out coming into the lab. “We'll…” He caught sight of me holding Vincent's body and frowned. “Look, I know you love him, but this is going a bit far.”

 

I couldn't care less. “Shh.” I didn't want any sudden noises to wake me up. “Be quiet.”

 

His frown became more pronounced and he marched forward. “Vincent…well, he was a great guy, but…”

 

“He's alive.” I whispered.

 

“He's not…”

 

“I don't know what she did, but he's alive.” I held him tighter, terrified that now that I had said it out loud, the dream would end. “He's got a pulse.”

 

Andre (Andy? Austin?) walked closer looking doubtful. “Hojo, I know you've had a hard time, but…”

 

“Come here.” I brushed Vincent's hair out of his face carefully. He'd been out of the mako so long that his hair was now dry. “See for yourself.”

 

Andre (Alphose? I wish I could remember…) sighed and came up the steps to kneel at our side. “Okay. When I find out he's not, I'm going to take him down to the town morgue and….” He put his fingers to Vincent's neck to check for a pulse and fell silent.

 

I waited. This was it. Either Vincent was dead, and I was going to tackle Andre (Antonio?), get his gun, and kill myself, or Vincent was alive and this wasn't a dream.

 

Andre looked at me, shocked. “Sweet Planet…”

 

I nearly whimpered.

 

“How?” He did as I had, checking Vincent's eyes, touching his cheek, looking at the gunshot wound. “How did she…”

 

I needed the words. Oh, Dear Leviathan, I needed to hear the words.

 

A few more weary Turks came into the lab, rubbing sore muscles, and calling greetings. Andre looked up at me then down at Vincent. He just kept looking back and forth for a long few seconds the turned to the others.

 

“You guys, get up here! The boss is alive.” He stood up and began giving orders for blankets, a stretcher, medical equipment, and all the things I should have instantly gotten.

 

The Turks scattered. I didn't pay any attention. He'd said the words. I had Vincent safe in my arms, alive, and if not well. The nightmare was over. We'd won. I was sure I could help him.

 

I learned better soon enough.

 

In a few moments, Vincent was carefully bundled into blankets and, with me latched to his hand, carefully lifted onto a stretcher. The twisting stairs up to the mansions main floor took a bit of maneuvering, during which I had to let go for a few agonizing minutes, but soon we were tucked back into the old bedroom we'd originally been lodged in when we first came to Nibelheim with Vincent tucked under the sheets as if he was doing nothing more than taking a nap.

 

Equipment appeared from the recesses of the labs to carefully monitor and help Vincent. An IV set up was first -who knew how long he'd been alive and how dehydrated he might have become floating in the mako. I also quickly set up a heart monitor to fill the room with soft reassuring beeps that kept me from having to check his pulse every few minutes in a panic that he might have died again. While his color was pale, he didn't seem to have any problems breathing, so the respiratory equipment was shoved to the side, there in case it was needed. Someone even found a nifty little oxygenation monitor that clipped neatly over his finger to tell me if he suddenly needed any assistance breathing.

 

When everything was in place, I could only stand at Vincent's side and look at him in shocked wonder as the Turks behind me whispered together.

 

“I can't believe the boss…”

 

“…till Veld…”

 

“…drinks….”

 

“Just wait till the others get here and we'll party till…”

 

“…that bitch do?”

 

“…brain dead?”

 

I hadn't thought of that. She needed a host for Chaos. I wondered if the host had to be mentally functioning. I tried to reassure myself that his eyes had reacted normally to light, but what if Chaos was now in Vincent's body and the one I loved was now floating in the lifestream yelling at me to run for the mountains. I jittered in place, trying to figure out how to tell the difference.

 

When he woke up, who would wake up? Vincent? Chaos? Or maybe Omega?

 

My cracked mind shuddered under the pressure.

 

I only dealt with all of the conflicting emotions by ignoring everything I didn't want to face. I had Vincent back. He was alive and safe with me. All the atrocities were over. There would be no more Lucrecia. There would be no more Gast. Everything was going to be fine. All my pathetic, broken dreams were given new life. I could call Veld and tell him the good news. Sephiroth would be coming back to us. Vincent would wake up and he'd be so proud of his son. We'd go back to Midgar and our apartment. He could spend the rest of his recovery in his own bed being coddled and treasured till he was well enough to swat me away, which would mean I would have to coddle him and treasure him out of arms reach, but I could work with that. Our friends would come to visit. We'd celebrate his return to us. I would never, ever, let another day go by where I didn't thank the Planet and all the deities that Vincent was in my life. I'd convince him to retire and we'd move to Costa del Sol or Wutai. We'd raise our son.

 

For a few days, I even dreamed of Sephiroth becoming a professional surfer and having a surf shop in Costa del Sol. Vincent and I would buy a beach house and our son would come home tanned and relaxed to barbeques on the back porch. -Wouldn't that have spoiled her and Jenova's plans to have a beach bum as a puppet? Can't you hear it… “Hey, dude, like world domination is just totally bad karma.”- Some days when I'd be stressing out over how to counteract all the lovely things his mother had bequeathed him with, I would sit back and picture that tanned, happy, easy-going son that I had once dreamed of. It would inspire me to get back to the lab and find something…gene, mako treatment, bio-agent, anything…that would wipe the Jenova out of his system.

 

Vincent and I would have our life back. He might buck a bit at retiring, but Sephiroth and I needed him. I was sure he'd understand. He'd been playing with the idea for a couple of years and Veld was more than capable of running the Turks (which the years have proven to be true) so he shouldn't have too many reservations. He could become a trainer and work with new recruits. I could also semi-retire. I could get my swinish stooge to send me off to research tidal currents or some such thing. I would make sure Gast was properly rewarded with a quick firing committee of vengeful Turks and place one of my more talented and trustworthy assistants in charge. I'd have to make a few trips to Midgar to meet with my puppet and make sure all continued to go well, but that would be fine.

 

I stayed next to Vincent for days, afraid that if I even looked away, he'd be gone. I sat at his side, watching his chest rise and fall as he softly breathed, smiling at every soft sleepy snuffle, and crying softly as I thought of how happy we were going to be. The Turks came in and checked on us, bullied me into bathing and eating, and kept Veld, who was hounding them hourly for details, well informed about Vincent's health.

 

Everything was going to finally be fine.

 

I was a fool.

 

Trouble started less than a week later.

 

I had gone downstairs to the Turks that where scuttling around in their usual morning chaos of shift changes, breakfast acquisitions, and their eternal quest for a good cup of coffee. I was feeling a bit more confident since someone had found another “baby monitor” the night before, and I had set it up so I could hear the heart monitor beeping its steady calming tempo from my pocket. I grabbed a few pieces of bacon off the breakfast table and went to find Vincent some clothes to wear. I'd peeled him out of his suit the night after his… his return, and he'd been wearing nothing since then. Embarrassing things like catheters and other necessary things aside, I thought Vincent would be happier if he had some real clothes to get into once he woke up.

 

I began my search in his old room, the one across from hers. When I arrived back in Nibelheim, I had found the things that I had left still mostly in my room. A few things, the more valuable ones, had disappeared, but for the most part, everything had just been left. When I opened the door to his room though, I was surprised to find it a disaster. Things were pulled out of drawers, cut, shattered, destroyed. At first, I thought that Vincent, in the last stages of whatever madness had seized him the night I shot him, had done this, but as I picked through the things, I realized that it wasn't random.

 

A person in the throws of an insane fit generally just grabs and flings. (I'm an expert here, so you can trust me on this.) Sometimes, if the madness has a focus, certain things will be destroyed, while others are left alone. In this room everything was destroyed. Clothes were systematically ripped. Books were torn, defaced and shredded. Files, papers, notes and other work related things were crushed and ripped. Shoes, belts and harder to destroy items looked like they'd had a knife taken to them or shoved in the fireplace and burned. All valuables, like in my room, were gone. The destruction was too thorough and too focused. It took time, which a person in the middle of a rampage would not take. Whoever had done this had even gone to get a hammer to smash things with and had left it on the bed.

 

What had Vincent ever done to them for them to do this?

 

Weeks later, I found a few of his things (a ring I had given him on our third anniversary, a pocket watch with his mother's picture inside that Grimiore had left him in his will, and his gun Quicksilver, that Veld had given him as a gift when Vincent got promoted to head of their department) in the local pawn shop. I sometimes kill time trying to figure out if Gast pawned these things or if darling Lucrecia did it. Then again, maybe they threw the things in the trash and one of the Soldiers guarding them dug them out and decided to use for a bit of drinking money. I suppose it doesn't matter in the end. I got them back and put them in the crypt with him so he'd have something to remember when he woke up.

 

He probably melted the ring down and used it to shoot me, now that I think of it…

 

I eventually went back to our room and decided I'd have to have one of the Turks go find him something to wear in town. I needed to check his measurements, since he might have lost weight and definitely had lost muscle mass. I found all the Turks crowding around our door.

 

Something had to have happened. I shoved my way through them till I was caught by Andre, “What's with his eyes?”

 

I frowned. What had they been doing checking Vincent's eyes? “I don't know yet. I'm going to be reviewing Dr. Crescent's notes this afternoon for answers.”

 

He glanced toward the bedroom door uneasily. “Okay, but …”

 

I didn't want to hear anything else. I was living on an eggshell and I didn't want anyone jumping up and down right now or my world would collapse. “I'll let you know what I find.”

 

I brushed by him to find Vincent had woken up and was peering blearily around himself. A couple of his fellow Turks were trying to talk to him, but he didn't seem to be hearing them. I quickly made my way to Vincent's side, smiling a huge relieved smile.

 

“Vincent?” I reached out and touched his hand. “Vincent, can you hear me?”

 

He didn't respond. His eyes were glowing brightly from all the mako and were now tainted with more red than I could remember. At least they weren't that frightening gold color I still saw in my dreams.

 

“Vincent?” I caught his chin and made him look at me.

 

“Is he alright?” Someone whispered over my shoulder.

 

I nodded. “It's not uncommon for someone waking from a coma to be disoriented.” I quoted from a text I had read on medicine. “It might take awhile for him to fully wake up.”

 

They all shuffled around till Andre ordered them out. I didn't pay attention. My world had narrowed down to Vincent's bewildered gaze.

 

“You're in Nibelheim. Do you remember?” I held his chin, trying to get him to focus on me.

 

His eyes kept drifting around, not seeing me. I sighed and let him go, tucking the blankets more firmly around him. The heart monitor kept bleeping softly at me. He was now at the very least semi-conscious, and all was still fine in my world. At least until he decided to talk.

 

“Lucrecia?” His voice was barely a whisper. “Lucrecia?”

 

Her.

 

He was calling to her.

 

“She's gone.” I hadn't thought of that, that he might still be under the effects of the drugs. “She left.”

 

“Lucrecia.” He breathed still looking around blindly.

 

He slowly went back to sleep, occasionally whispering for dear, sweet Lucrecia. I sat and fumed. What had they done? What had they given him? The drugs I had been given had processed out of my system in a matter of weeks, so why was Vincent still under their effects? I didn't believe, not for an instant, that his calling to her was anything less than drug inspired. I seriously doubted that after living with and loving Vincent for years that he'd suddenly fall madly, hopelessly in love with Lucrecia after two weeks, and forget that I ever existed or ever cared for me.

 

When he was sleeping soundly, I went back into the lab. I kept the monitor on so I could hear the heart monitor, and started my search. I wish I could say I found what I was looking for. I wish I could say that it was an easily done away with side effect and that the next time Vincent woke up he reached out to me with a smile.

 

As you can see by his actions since he's been back in the world, that didn't happen.

 

I spent days pouring my attention over every computerized notation, every page of hastily scribbled lab notes, every memo or scrap of paper with even halfway legible chicken scratch writing on it, and I found nothing. Another triumph to Gast's idiotic inability to make good research notes.

 

In truth, I was also distracted as the full horror of what Lucrecia left behind in Vincent's body began to manifest itself.

 

I had just collected another armload of Lucrecia's notes and was trudging my way to the music room where I had started spreading them out into piles to organize them into some coherent order -she apparently took after Gast and his lack of record keeping and poor organizational techniques. The Turks had been dropping in to check regularly on Vincent since he woke up, and I thought it would be a good way to gently prod his memory back on track to have his old friends and colleagues talking to him. I had gotten so used to their appearance, that I only nodded as I passed a couple on their way into our room. They waved back and I went to drop off my pile.

 

I had just put the stack down and was stretching my back, listening to it pop back into line, when I heard yells and screams followed by a deep, bestial roar from our room. I promptly jumped to the door of the music room, intent on getting to Vincent, when the door to our room was torn out of its frame and thrown across the hall. Half of one of the Turks that had just went in to Vincent was thrown after it, entrails and blood splattering in its wake. I ducked behind the door, crouching down, and peering through the crack by the hinges.

 

That was when I met, or almost met Chaos. I'd caught glimpses of him before, but now there he was dragging the dead body of the other Turk in one massive clawed hand as he stepped into the hall. I was frozen behind the half closed door, when he casually tossed the body to one side and started looking around for more playthings. I stayed still, not even breathing as his gold eyes swept around.

 

“Hey? What are you guys…” A Turk appeared in the foot of the staircase, and was instantly ushered to the lifestream, his body thrown in a boneless sprawl across the steps as Chaos leapt down in a flourish of bat-like wings to introduce himself.

 

Chaos looked up the staircase then around the entryway of the mansion.

 

Go destroy mankind, or go explore the new, interesting place that he'd woken up in…

 

Chaos, by the way and contrary to what people might think, is actually quite intelligent and often curious about things around him. When not fulfilling his destiny of destroying all life on the planet, he seems quite interested in the things around him. I once watched him play with one of Sephiroth's abandoned musical toys that had been accidentally left in Vincent's room, nudging it slightly with his claw to make it rock and play music. He then tried to go off on a killing spree, but by then I'd gotten a containment field in place and his destiny was thwarted for another day.

 

His decision was to remain a mystery as his body shuddered and collapsed. In seconds, Vincent was laying on the floor, naked, covered in blood, and shuddering. I unfroze myself, yanked open the door and darted downstairs, jumping over the dead bodies between us to get to his side.

 

“Vincent?!” I pulled him into my arms, ignoring the blood soaking through my clothes.

 

He shoved me away hissing angrily, “You… you…”

 

Me? I didn't know what he was trying to say, but whatever it was, I thought it wasn't more important than the recent sudden change into a destructive demon and the dead bodies gracing the mansion.

 

“It's okay, Vincent, just stay calm.” I tried to check him over, to see if the transformation or the excitement had harmed him. “It's all okay. Just relax.”

 

“What did you do to me?” He tried to scrabble away from me, but was too weak to do more than flail around.

 

Again…me? It still wasn't important. I could explain later after I knew he was safe and clean and not about to turn into a demon again. “Calm down, Vincent. It's just a few side effects. Calm down.”

I know now, I should probably have at the very least tried to explain a few things to him there, like who did what to whom, but my priority was his welfare, not my reputation. Add to that, I probably just cemented in his confused mind that I was the one who's experiments cause those side effects, and you have me being shot by my beloved, years later, on the scaffolding of a stupidly named cannon.

 

Honestly, the Sister Canon? Who, and this is an insane person asking, came up with that witless name? Heidigar?...probably.

 

More Turks were rushing to the area with drawn guns and wild eyes.

 

“What the hell happened?” One overly bright fellow yelled, waving his gun around.

 

Well guys, Vincent turned into the demon Chaos, who is prophesized to destroy the world, and romped around doing a bit of decorating… My mind hysterically giggled. While I was pleased that I managed not to start with the insane laughter again, I didn't think I wanted to share my thoughts either. I know Turks. They'd have shot Vincent and looked for explanations later.

 

“A monster.” I gasped. “Upstairs, I think… I don't know…I was in the music room and I heard screaming. They were trying to get Vincent down here, I think… and the monster…” I looked around as if wondering where the thing could have gone. “It was…”

 

Vincent, of course, had to take that moment to greet his brother Turks by trying to kick the nearest one while sinking his teeth into my arm. I yelped, jerking away. He thrashed around, snarling.

 

“Let me go. Get away.” He tried to stumble to his feet, but a few of the Turks promptly pinned him to the floor.

 

He yelled, cursed, and shrieked at them, accusing them of keeping him prisoner and handing him over to me to be tortured. He screamed at me that I was a sadistic… I guess bastard would summarize nicely… and demanding to know what I'd done to him.

 

The Turks were even more horrified. Many here were his friends who'd known him for years, and all of them worked with him. Each Turk, at one time or another, has to trust his fellows to keep him alive. There is a bond between all of them that is rivaled only in the closest and deepest of relationships. They may get rowdy, fight each other, bully each other, insult each other, but they also care for and trust each other unconditionally. To have a fellow Turk, not to mention their friend and leader, act like they were the enemy was nearly as distressing as finding their fellows massacred.

 

I felt my world shudder and crack.

 

I was sitting in the middle of gore, after watching three people I knew die a brutal death, listening as my lover screamed accusations at me. Vincent… Chaos… I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to do. The Turks didn't know what to do. Andre, who apparently was in command, ordered a handful to arm themselves and hunt down the monster and got a group to begin clean up. I sat on the floor wide eyed and shaking as they dragged Vincent back upstairs to our room, screaming and struggling each step of the way.

 

“Get up, Hojo. We need you in a secure area.” Andre hauled me to my feet.

 

Secure? What was secure? Vincent was the monster, and if Lucrecia's thesis was anything to go by, there was little that could stop Chaos if he chose to come down and take another bow. I wanted to go down to the lab and find too much sedative and take a very, very long nap; one that I wouldn't wake up from.

 

Andre dragged me upstairs and shoved me into the room with that led down to the labs. “Get downstairs and stay there till I tell you to come out.”

 

Ask and you shall receive.

 

I nodded numbly and my feet took me downstairs. I wondered where the sedatives were. I had looked for them when Vincent had died the second time, but Veld had hidden them away. I started in the storerooms with my search. They had to be somewhere. I had previously checked the lab and the library. I could guess he wouldn't store them in the old family crypt (Veld, at that time, was a tad superstitious about some things.) I was left with the storerooms, the utility closets, and the machine rooms that kept the mansion running.

 

I was teetering on a chair, trying to reach the back of one of the upper shelves behind a rather charming embalming pump, when I came up with The Idea.

 

You know THAT one. The one that plunged me and Vincent straight into hell.

 

I was going to save Vincent from Chaos.

 

I had a state of the art lab. I had all her and Gast's research notes. I had her delightfully entertaining thesis, and I had my little puppet who would gleefully finance the whole project. I had an expert support staff back in Midgar to handle the aspects I couldn't. I could do it!

 

Wasn't I the best scientist of my age? (Actually, one of my assistants, a man from Costa del Sol named Jorge Velazquez was the best, but I digress.) If an insane twat could control Chaos long enough to infect Vincent with him, couldn't I control him long enough to remove him? Couldn't I destroy him? Of course I could!

 

It wouldn't be hard. All I had to do was isolate the infection and destroy it. Simple!

 

I jumped down off the chair, smiling happily. Everything was going to be great! I'd dispose of Chaos. I'd figure out what drugs Lucrecia and Gast had controlled Vincent with, and all would be perfect. What had I been so upset about? Chaos wasn't a problem that couldn't be overcome. He was a nuisance. Vincent was just confused from that witch's brew she'd poured into his veins. He still loved me.

 

Well, first things first, I needed to find out what kind of drugs she'd given him. I huffed a bit when I realized that I'd put all her notes upstairs in the music room, but then I shrugged and went to the lab. I could check the computers first, and when Andre let me back upstairs, I would go through the notebooks and papers. I could also get some blood and hair samples from Vincent.

 

So I settled myself down in front of the main computer terminal and went to work.

 

When Andre came downstairs and asked if Sephiroth's old room was in use, I barely paid enough attention to shake my head no. When two Turks came down with a heavy metal grate door, removed the old wooden one, and installed the metal one with long heavy bolts, I only took enough note to grumble a bit over the interruption. When they left, taking what few things were left in that room upstairs with them, I just absently stepped out of their way as I walked over to check a few of my calculations on another screen. It was only when they dragged a still struggling, but now cuffed and gagged Vincent down and shoved him into the room, locking the new metal door behind him, that I paid attention. I walked over to them and tapped Andre, who looked unhappy and pale, on the shoulder.

 

He turned and looked at me tiredly. “Found the monster.”

 

That hadn't taken long. I suppose the lack of bloody footprints, an entry point, or an exit probably tipped them off. Still, I wanted to make sure.

 

“Vincent?” I arched an eyebrow questioningly as I listened to Vincent shriek through his gag at us.

 

“Veld told me he transformed into something before.” Andre ran a hand through his hair and frowned. “Look, just find out what she did to him and undo it.”

 

“I'm already working on it.” I waved behind myself to where my research was spread out.

 

“Good.” He motioned to the others to go and handed me the keys to Vincent's cuffs. “Do what you have to.”

 

They all left, and for the rest of my stay, few ever willingly came back down to the lab. I didn't blame them. If I was sane, I would have stayed away too. Even insane, I spent days at a time crying because I had to be there. There is just something unspeakably horrible to see someone you love, and have them not only not recognize you, but hate you with as much passion as they once loved you with.

 

There have been times that one scientist or another would ask me about those months. They'd ask very clinically, as if they were only intellectually interested in the subject, but I could see their eyes. I could see the curiosity, the heat of forbidden interest. I'd brush them off with a few snarls and innuendoes about if they were so curious I could arrange a demonstration.

 

The fact of the matter was, it was really for the most part dull.

 

Science isn't an exciting, thrilling adventure. There are days of doing nothing but waiting for lab cultures to mature, weeks of testing minute, infinitesimal differences in data, and long periods of disappointment and failure.

 

Vincent did his best to make my life exciting. He enlivened many an afternoon by trying to kill me if I stepped to close to the grated door. At times, especially when I needed a blood sample and had to use a paralyze spell to get it, he would surprise me by coming out of the spell sooner than I thought and try to escape, only to be hauled back by the nest of jumpy Turks upstairs. There was also that joyous afternoon, when he'd managed to get the door open and beat me unconscious before sneaking upstairs and out a window. I doubt the Turks loved it, since they had to go search the town of Nibelheim for him, only to discover Chaos had ripped through a small house, killing the family inside, leaving Vincent in an half delirious heap in the middle of the carnage. They really didn't love it when I didn't regain consciousness for two days and they had to replace the door with a stronger barred door and babysit Vincent. I got a containment field in place after that.

 

I realized quickly, that I had to deal with Chaos before I dealt with anything else. The more time passed, the more Vincent began showing signs of being taken over by the demon. At first, it was just his temper and perhaps Chaos was responsible for his continued amnesia. Vincent became volatile and destructive. He'd destroy things if you gave them to him. Food, instead of being eaten, would be thrown, mostly at me along with the tray or bowl the food arrived in. Clothes would be shredded. Blankets, mattresses, pillows, books, games, and any other comfort item I'd give him would be smashed, or torn to pieces and shoved out between the bars of the bars of the door or thrown. Vincent would spend hours screaming insults, hurtling taunts, or cursing me in language he'd never have used before. Later, more of his personal habits began to change. He became less vocal and dirtier. He'd snarl instead of talk. He'd defecate in the corner of his cell instead of use the small toilet I'd gotten a workman to install when I realized that Vincent would be staying in that room for quite a while. He wouldn't change his clothes and sometimes would soil himself. His hair grew matted and he refused to wash.

 

I became desperate. I ransacked Grimiore's research, searching for something to counter these effects. I reworked mako experiments in a desperate effort to purify the tainted mako that transferred Chaos into Vincent. My assistants back in Midgar came up with a psychotropic that separated the mind into pieces. They had tested this by somehow combining a normal frog and an underlizard with a combine materia then separating the two by using this drug and putting the underlizard into a mako crystal. Theoretically, with this drug, I could separate Chaos from Vincent's mind and bind Chaos into a crystal as a new summon materia.

 

It ended up separating Vincent's mind into Vincent, Chaos, and four beings that were combinations of the two. I managed to get the smallest and weakest one into mako, but the three stronger ones: Galian, Deathgigas, and Hellmasker, couldn't be contained. I didn't even try to contain Chaos.

 

Isn't it lovely. Vincent and Chaos had kids. I nearly went to Midgar and killed my research assistants for that little present.

 

In a way it did help. Instead of turning into Chaos, he'd sometimes turn into a large purple dog, or one of two monster movie rejects. I knew my movie fetish would come back to haunt me, but even I couldn't guess it would bite me on the ass like that.

 

Vincent continued to deteriorate. He stopped all talking and huddled in his room, glaring at me with red, mad eyes that rarely had any comprehension in them. If approached he'd either mindlessly attack, or cringe into a corner whimpering like a beaten animal. He didn't respond to even the simplest of directions. He had to be pulled whining from his room like a dog and dragged into a shower to be bathed. His room had to be hosed out like a kennel. He'd hide in the corners. He shrank or darted around in a panic at loud noises or unexpected movement.

 

I finally resorted to sedating him. Andre was convinced to give me back those medicines and Vincent became a drugged zombie. He'd sit in his cell and rock back and forth staring at nothing. I tried having him come out and be in the lab with me, but he'd only sit on the floor, or scuttle behind furniture and hide. Sometimes, if I was very quiet and moved slowly, I could persuade him to come and cuddle in my arms for a few moments while I stroked his hair.

 

I came up with a new treatment, g-genes. For a few hopeful weeks, it looked like it worked. Vincent started talking again. He kept himself clean. He even started asking for showers and combing his hair. I weaned him off the sedatives and his behavior stayed stable and even improved. He asked for books and would occasionally sit with his back against the door talking to me about what he was reading. I was ecstatic. It ended with Vincent tearing the barred door off its hinges and killing three Turks while I was off taking a celebratory shower and had left the containment field off since I hadn't needed it for so long.

 

The door was replaced with an even stronger one and Vincent smirked happily.

 

“Fooled you, asshole.” He grinned, his eyes glowing golden in the dimness of his room.

 

I went back to work.

 

Since the g-genes had produced the best effect, I concentrated on those. Vincent became sneaky and deadly. I always had bruises, cuts, and the occasional broken bone. The Turks that still remained stayed out of reach or only approached Vincent's door with drawn weapons. I did insist on their using tranquilizers, but I wasn't always sure they hadn't loaded real ammunition in their guns. I resorted to having to use a tranquilizer dart to do even the most routine things such as draw blood, check his vital signs, or even care for him.

 

I finally came up with a combination of g-genes and mako that sent Chaos and his offspring into retreat. The problem was that it nearly killed Vincent. He became feverish and delusional. He ranted at me for hours without once using a recognizable word. His temperature skyrocketed. He cried and curled up in a terrified ball on the floor. He flung himself against walls, hurting himself, but refused to stop. Terrified, I sedated him and spent days sitting on the floor carefully spooning medicine into him to bring down his temperature and soothing him as he thrashed around. I discarded that combination of medicine and tried to find some kind of variation that would destroy Chaos but wouldn't endanger Vincent.

 

I might have gone on like this for years, but I couldn't. Vincent couldn't take it. I couldn't take it. Even with nothing but sedatives in his system, he was wasting away. He'd lost weight to the point I could see each one of his vertebrae. His skin, which had never regained its natural golden-tan color, became grayish and hung off his bones lifelessly. His eyes looked shrunken. He'd gone back to being like an animal in a cage, whining, snarling, unreasoning, violent.

 

In the end, I sat outside his door and cried like a child. I couldn't save him. Unsedated, he was frightened, unpredictable, murderous, and demonic. Sedated, he was little more than a vegetable. While I had, in my experiments, improved his physical ability to heal, his mind was gone. The moody, loving, devious, caring Vincent that I loved was dead and had been dead since the first weeks in Nibelheim. All I was left with was months of horror, a row of graves in the back of the mansion, and an animal that looked like Vincent.

 

I only had one thing I could still do. I could try the g-gene and mako combination one more time then, before the side effects took hold, put Vincent to sleep. By this time, a mere fever couldn't kill him, but asleep he'd be able to ride out the delirium and hallucinations without losing his mind. The only problem…the new medicine I'd developed was more powerful and less risky but slower acting. It would take years for it to completely eliminate all of the Chaos gene from Vincent's body.

 

Decades.

 

Even then, there was no guarantee that Vincent would be Vincent when he woke up. There was a very, very good possibility that all that would be left would be an animal in human form.

 

But it was our only chance. Our only hope.

 

They say that the death of hope is the worst thing that can happen to a person.

 

I wish to differ. The worst thing that can happen is to have hope given to you then to have it ripped away only to have it handed back to you again. If this keeps going on long enough, even when you have hope in your grasp, you don't know what to do with it anymore. It cuts into you, making you want to scream and cry and plead for mercy, but you can't…won't put it down and walk away from it. You can only hold it in your bleeding hands and wonder if this time you will be able to keep it, or if it will be taken away again.

 

I had no alternatives. I had to hold on to it, letting it slash me open for years, but I still never let go.

 

It is all I still have.

 

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