the trick is to keep breathing

I never met Lucrecia, but I couldn't help feeling as if I knew her. Of all the people Gast left behind at Shinra, she was the only one whose name he didn't seem to stumble over. He confessed to me what he'd helped do to her, and how she died without really dying, in the hope that I would explain it to him in some way that would make him less guilty.

I couldn't do that. I never lied to him. But his words stayed with me in the years I spent in Midgar, a prisoner of the Shinra building. Every time I spoke with Hojo, I thought about Lucrecia and what Gast had told me.

When Aeris was safe and I returned to the planet, the first person I looked for was not my husband or my family. It was her. It didn't surprise me that she wasn't in the lifestream. I just kept looking.

The cave I found her in was dark and damp, illuminated only by the makou pool and the natural materia formations. "Ah, finally. Dr Crescent, I presume?"

I saw her body outlined in the dim light. I found something eerie about the situation, but I couldn't put my finger on the reason. I'd seen plenty of dead bodies in my years with Hojo, and been in many a dark cave before that. There was a long wait before Lucrecia replied, and I had plenty of time to collect my thoughts.

"Who's there? Vincent? Hojo?" Her words were slow, but still managed to carry a quiet, wavering note of... hope? Panic? I wasn't sure.

"Neither, I'm afraid," I told her. "My name is Ifalna. Gast told me a lot about you."

This time the response was faster and more sure of itself. "What did he tell you?"

"About the Project... and what happened to you. I wanted to see for myself, to see if I could help you."

The sound she made was not quite laughing, more of a chittering echo among the stone walls that made the cave feel hollow and far removed from the Earth. "I can't be helped. I'm infectious. Can't you tell?"

Suddenly I understood what was wrong with this place. It was uncanny to be surrounded by so much makou and feel so little life.

"I can't return to the Planet, even if I believed in that," she continued, the crystalline echo chilling her voice. "The Jenova cells in my body keep me from dying completely."

"Incomplete death?" I mused. I'd heard hints about it here and there, but there was no real answer, and the voice of the Planet was weak here.

I stepped closer to her body, frozen as it was, and wondered if history was repeating itself. If one host for Jenova were dug up, did the Planet require another take its place?

I laid my lips against the smooth surface and tried to convey my warmth to her. "The Planet will find a way, Lucrecia. Sooner or later, it always does."

If she nodded, it was so small a movement I couldn't see it. "I'll see you again when it does."