Disclaimer for this and all subsequent chapters: Final Fantasy it the property of Square Enix/ Square Soft. I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any material related to it. This is for entertainment only and I make no profit from it.

AN: This is the sequel to "Once a Man." You will appreciate and understand the viewpoints, characterizations, and actions of this story more if you read that story first.

For those who want a recap of major events: Vincent and Hojo were lovers before Nibelheim. Gast and Lucrecia drugged them with mind controlling drugs and Jenova. Vincent was infected by the Chaos gene. Hojo went insane. Hojo tried to save Vincent from being taken over by Chaos, and only partially succeeded. He tried to save Sephiroth from being taken over by Jenova, and in the long run failed. He placed Vincent into a specially made coffin, hoping that he would one day return to normal and went back to Midgar to try to undo Lucrecia's experiments on Sephiroth. Thirty years later, Vincent finds Hojo's memiors (which is what the fan fiction was), which describes all the events that took place and hints that Hojo survived DOC, but hides it from Avalanche.

You may all praise the amazing Strange and Intoxicating –rsa- for beta-ing this. (I think I'll be groveling in gratitude to her for a long, long time…)

Now a Monster

Chapter 1: The Awakening

-Vincent-

I kept the diary to myself. It was mine and I wasn't going to share it.

I confess I was angry—very angry, when I read it the first time while standing in that room in Junon. How could anyone write such things? The very thought disgusted me that I would willingly touch that revolting creature. That I had sex with him. That I loved him! I could barely stand the thought that he once touched me, and now I was to believe that I willingly put my hands on his foul skin? That I kissed him and wanted more? That I once actually initiated intercourse with…with that monster?

Lies! I told myself. Who could cheer for Lucrecia's pain but a sick, evil madman? Horrid! Unforgivable. But I had to wonder, in the privacy of my rooms, why would he lie? The diary was hidden away, tucked in an abandoned room. It was never meant to be read. Yes, he wrote it as if he was talking to someone, but who?

Who would listen to Hojo?

No one.

So I put it away, not wanting anyone to see those lies. They were sick, perverted lies. They were disgusting, horrid, twisted and I was not going to let anyone see them. They were lies, but they were mine. I wanted to keep them to remind myself why I hated the man.

It was only when she stepped out of the crystal that I started having my doubts. I was there when she opened her eyes and smiled at me. I rejoiced when she stepped forward into my embrace, wrapping her soft arms around my neck and whispered her love. I adored her as she took my hand and led me out of the cave into the sunlight, spinning dreams of our future together. I screamed when she brought me to Costa del Sol. Where was my Lucrecia? My beautiful, beloved who sacrificed so much for my sake?

That...that thing was not her. It could not be. Something had to be wrong. There had to be some mistake.

That thing reached out and called out to the demons in my soul and laughed when they responded. She smiled as I lost control of Hellmasker and killed while the victims screamed and begged for their lives. She walked in my shadow as Galian tore into the dead and fed, gorging himself on decomposing flesh. She stood smiling as Death Gigas tossed the dead into piles then hunted for more to make them bigger. When I changed back into myself she cooed comfort, stroked my blood soaked hair from my face and told me not to be upset.

"Don't cry Vincent. It's all right," she murmured in my ear. "Just let go. It's all right. You're a monster. Hojo made you that way. Don't fight it, love. Let go and be what you are. I will always love you."

Where was Lucrecia? Where was my gentle, sweet love?

"You've always been a sinner, Vincent, so why are you weeping?" she'd sigh. "Now, get up. You have work to do."

And I'd get up.

When my tired body finally fell, drained, she'd shake her head and walk away, leaving me to crawl after her. "Where is my Chaos? It was careless of you, Vincent, to lose him. We'll have to find him and get him back."

I didn't want him back. I was free, as free as I could ever be. I didn't want Chaos back. Neither did the other demons in my soul; they had feared him. They had been his slaves, chained to his will and he hadn't been any kinder to them than he had to me. If anything he tormented them more, resenting their presence. They heard her and they feared what she said.

I cannot say they did what they did out of kindness or compassion for me. I was nothing to them but a way to satisfy their cravings for the mortal world, for blood and for death. They thought once Chaos was gone they would be free, but my will bound them. When she came back they gloried in her presence, in her ability to make me free them of the shackles of my mind so they could do as they pleased. But they didn't want Chaos back; it was better for them to seek refuge in the black aether they came from than to stay and ravage across the Planet as Chaos's slaves. So they tore themselves free and fled, leaving me with all their deeds smeared across my soul.

She was disgusted. "How could you, Vincent? How could you lose them?"

As if I had a choice. As if I wanted them to stay.

Where was my Lucrecia? My beautiful, sweet, brave angel?

That was when I remembered Hojo's diary. He had called her his angel. In the depths of his sickness, as he wasted away in Nibelheim, he had called her his angel.

Were the lies true?

Who had I loved? Lucrecia, who gave up so much for me then plunged me and the Planet into hell, or Hojo, twisted, broken Hojo, who went mad because he could not save me from her?

Who was I? Vincent Valentine, ex-Turk, a demon-infested science experiment who was loved by a beautiful woman named Lucrecia? Or was I Vincent Valentine, Hojo's lost lover who was wept for and missed?

I ran away, hiding in the caves outside of Junon; it was a fit place for a worthless beast.

I heard her calls for me to come back.

"Vincent, my love. Where are you?"

"Vincent, my darling, come back."

I burrowed deeper in the dirt of my lair, covering myself in dirt, decomposing leaves and dead things with the blood of the murdered caking my hands and clothes. I didn't want to come out. I wanted to stay there forever. And I wanted my book. I wanted Hojo's diary. In that diary there was another Vincent, one who hadn't been a monster, only a man who had a home, a sweet, foolish lover, good friends and dreams for an even better future.

In the end it was all I had and I'd lost it. I had left it behind in Kalm. All those lies, all those truths, all those dreams, lost.

-Hojo-

Sleep. It's a marvelous thing.

One of the tricks that Turks use to find you is to track down your trail, that flimsy path of railway tickets, receipts, grainy security videos and scattered witnesses. Vincent used to drag home stacks and stacks of minutia to sort through when trying to find someone. He even told me how to hide. The trick was, he told me, to leave no trail for anyone to track. The best way to do that was to just stay still. And what better way to stay still than to take a very, very long nap?

It took me a while to find a suitably unvisited location to settle myself in. I didn't want wandering do-gooders to invade my slumber. I learned that much from overhearing Vincent's adventures; it seemed Avalanche either had some strange radar for people trying to get a bit of rest or the world was truly a small world were no cave, crevice or basement was safe from the overly curious eyes of the pure of heart.

I finally settled on a nifty, little cave in the ruined part of the City of the Ancients. I outfitted it with a durable foam mattress, a few acrylic blankets and a foam pillow. To make sure I wouldn't get woken up by wandering clones, irritated and delusional ex-SOLDIER wannabes, or hyperactive ninjas, I covered the entrance to my boudoir with a small landslide. A small crevice wound its way outside provided plenty of air—and access by small insect denizens. A small addition of a filtration screen solved the bug problem without blocking the air. It was warm, very dark and blessedly Jenova free. In short, it was quite cozy. Too bad the Planet was a bit chatty and I was in its favorite gossip spot.

I quickly got used to its chatter. The batty, old thing had a pleasant voice when it wasn't wailing, shrieking or carrying on hysterically about one thing or another. I contentedly dozed, listening to it talk to itself about seasons changing, tides moving and the infinitesimal drift of the continents. I wasn't entirely sure how I knew what that one-sided conversation was about, but I figured it had to do with my choice of a bedroom. At some point in time it became aware that I was listening—I think an overly nosy Ancient girl just had to point that out to the senile piece of rock—and decided to enliven my slumber with dreams of what was happening outside of my cave.

It was amazingly dull. People, no matter where they are, are people. I tuned the whole mindless parade out, rolled over, and tried to get into a deeper sleep. I must have snoozed for a good year when the Planet decided it wanted my attention. I wasn't in the mood so I pulled my blanket over my head and ignored it. I'm good at ignoring things. It takes practice, but after years of the mindless stupidity at Shinra, I was a pro.

It wasn't until the Planet made me listen to Vincent crying that it got my undivided attention.

Vincent was in pain.

Stupid Planet.

Stupid Ancient girl.

I dug my way out and went to find him. Sure, he was probably going to shoot me again, but I couldn't ignore that terrified, agonized sound. There are just some things I cannot do. I could not turn my back on my son when he needed my help, even though I knew I would most likely die doing it. I could not ignore Vincent when he needed me, either. I had been shot before. It wasn't nice, but I got over it.

My how things changed in just a short time.

Bone Village was actually crowded. People were packed in the streets, huddling in tents, peering around shattered bone structures that even the most desperate of the natives had left alone, begging for gil and wandering around with a lost look in their eyes. I was dodging an enterprising waif that was clinging to passersby wailing for gil to buy food when I bumped into a familiar face. Bettina.

"Excuse me." She was juggling an armload of brown paper bags. "Coming through!"

"Here, let me." I scooped a few out of her arms.

"Than…" she blinked at me. "Uh…"

I smiled. "H.J." I gave her a small bow. "Hojo, junior."

She gave me a relieved smile. "I knew your…" She looked me over, "father."

I should point out here that I actually hadn't aged since Gast and Lucrecia first gave me my coffee with a large helping of Jenova cells. I had tried through the years to make myself look as if I was my correct age—you might want to see the face of a beautician who is told to put gray into your hair. It's quite entertaining—but under the dye, makeup and slouchy clothes I was still as I was decades before. I suppose it had actually come to my aid that I had always been… well, less than handsome. It gives the impression of age if you have a craggy, ugly face to begin with. Standing on the street with Bettina after a long rest and with no makeup, hair tints or other disguises, I looked like my own son.

"Did you? He once told me he lived up here." I looked around as if impressed. "He said he lived in a skull and got chased by lizards."

"Yep. That was him." She nodded and indicated with her chin for me to walk to her house. "I don't care what they say about him; he was a good man."

And you, Bettina, were a better woman than I deserved. I'm glad, in the end, that Davies married you.

"Thanks. I didn't know him well." I held more bags as she dug out her key and unlocked her door. "He was too busy with work."

"Yes, he did love his work." She took the bags from me. "You should go to the store and talk to my husband. Your father owned property up here."

My skull. How joyous. But still, it was better than huddling on the street. I wondered how it still looked after so many decades of neglect.

Thirty minutes later, as Davies, still vigorous and active, unlocked the door, I realized things in Bone Village were built to last. It was dirty and had some ominous scratching sounds coming from the cupboards, but it was still intact and livable. There was the now-dated kitchen that Vincent had once cooked our dinner in. Over behind the curtain was the large bed we had used to acquaint ourselves with each other's bodies. On the back wall, the bookshelf still held a few dusty, time-warped books that we'd left behind. The table that we'd sit chatting and eating at was still sitting in the center of the room with spiderwebs now spun between its legs.

I had a small nostalgic moment as I walked over to the wood burning stove and stroked its surface. Vincent had loved that stove. He'd sit next to it in the evenings reading with the light flickering over his skin and hair, casting him in gold and shadows. When he'd come to an interesting passage, he would look up and call out.

"Listen…"

And I would turn to him, watching him and marveling that someone so exquisite, so vibrantly alive was looking up at me with warm, golden-brown eyes and that later we would be tumbling in the bed in a tangle of limbs and sharp, pleasured cries.

"Your father left a lot here." Davies kicked a petrified rat out the door. "He told me to just sell it, but… well he never contacted us again, so I left most of it."

I had forgotten that. On our way out of Bone Village, Vincent had been nearly shoving me down the street in his eagerness to leave. I only had a chance to call out to Davies to sell things off before my darling Turk shoved me into a helicopter. Once back in Midgar, I'd been distracted by budgets, resettling into my life, and feeling miserable about being abandoned. I never got back to Davies about what happened to my things. When Vincent and I came through on our way to visit the City of the Ancients, I had only stopped to exchange quick pleasantries before being hauled through the forest and being pounced on by an overly amorous Turk.

"The only things I sold where the filing cabinets. One of the researchers was desperate for some, so… I got a good price and put the money in the bank." He looked around. "I guess it's yours now."

"Thanks!" I looked around, still remembering things as they once were. "Uh… I guess I could use a few things."

He looked over at the antique, kitchen stove that huddled to one side. "Come on over to the store and we'll get you set up."

I hadn't planned it, but it was perfect. I needed some place to hide. I needed to find out what was happening and I needed to find Vincent. The best place for that was in Davies' store, where the gossip of all Bone Village circulated. Once I found Vincent, I would need a quick place to retreat to and what better place than my trusty skull?

As we passed the homeless throngs in the street, I tugged at Davies' sleeve. "I'm sorry if this sounds a bit odd, but I've been studying in the City of the Ancients for a few months…"

He tossed a few gil to a beggar. "What's on your mind?"

"What's going on?" I waved a hand around me. "Why are they all here?"

"Hmph. You must have been there quite a while." He stepped into the store. "The Western Continent… well it's hard to say, but some kind of super monsters rampaged through. Destroyed Costa del Sol and I've heard stories about Gongaga getting hit, too. People have been fleeing up here."

"Monsters?" I didn't like that. Vincent was crying and monsters were ripping apart towns.

"Three of 'em. A purple dog thing, a tall thing with a chain saw and a mask, and a tall lighting elemental. Avalanche, WRO and Shinra are hunting them, but so far no luck. People are scared."

Vincent? Vincent was being hunted? And by his so-called friends. As they say, with friends like those…

I barely noticed as Davies started making a list. "Was there anything else?"

I was wondering about Chaos. Had Chaos come back to the Planet? How? Could Omega come back too? That wouldn't have been good. I had my moments, but planetary destruction was a bit too much for my nerves. Sephiroth was enough of a strain the first time, thank you, I wasn't up for a encore.

What I didn't expect was what Davies gave me. "Yeah, some of the people said the monsters were led by a woman."

"Oh." I didn't have to ask to know. Vincent's tears and cries should have told me that already if I hadn't been so stupid.

I was loaded down with firewood, food and bedding. Apparently, the homeless infesting the streets had done little to endear themselves to Bone Village's inhabitants, so they got little in the way of help. Thanks to my previous sojourn I was considered nearly a native—or the son of a native—and by the end of the day I had a warm, cozy, if somewhat dirty, place to live.

Vincent would have had a fit. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and reminiscing about Vincent and his fetishes. By the time I was finished, I guessed that Vincent would have given it a sigh (Translation: I'm still going to clean it behind your back, but it will do.) and would have tugged me over to the bed to mess up the sheets.

After that, I spent the next few days wandering around town, listening to the stories of the refugees. It was pretty clear what had happened; the demons had gotten loose. Knowing what I knew, that meant Lucrecia had her loving hands in things again.

I knew I couldn't trust that bitch to stay entombed.

The only question was: where was Chaos? Had she absorbed his essence while in the crystal? If so, why was she using Vincent to wreck villages? It made no sense. But then, little about her plans ever made sense to me. What I did know, however, was that I had to find Vincent. That meant I had to either slowly track him down—very difficult to do when you were the most hated person on the Planet—or get help.

Damn, I hate that Ancient wench.

I trudged back through that stupid forest, killed the stupid monster that always lurked stupidly by the stupid walkway down to the stupid city, plodded back through the stupid city itself, found the stupid pool of holy, and yelled for the stupid Ancient twit.

"Okay. Where is he?" I snarled pleasantly. I knew she could hear me. She poked her nose into everyone's life, got the Planet to harass me out of my nap, and she was probably floating around in the lifestream gloating.

"Hello, Professor Hojo." She appeared before me smiling pleasantly with her hands clasped in front of her, pretending to be cute.

I wished I was the bastard everyone said I was and had poked her with bigger needles. "Where is he?"

"It's nice to see you again. Sephiroth says hello." She smiled happily at me, as if sending me a greeting from my dead son was something I would treasure.

I didn't. It just hurt. I missed him.

"Vincent." I tried not to lunge at her and shake the information out of her. "Where."

"Junon," she sighed. "He's hiding in the caves outside the city."

I turned to leave.

"Don't hurt him, Hojo," she warned.

I hate her. She knows nothing. I destroyed myself for Vincent; why would I hurt him?

I was on a leaky tug boat to Junon the same day. I closed up my little skull, firmly locked the door against unwanted intruders and was gone to slosh around on the ocean and pray to any loitering deities that the rotting tub wouldn't sink. Still, it was cheap and the captain was a villager which meant that he'd just grunt irritably at any nosy inquiries into his passenger logs, couldn't care less about what I did, and knew how to sneak through the northern waterways without a wisp of suspicion touching him.

Junon hadn't changed. It was big. It was ostentatious. It was a sty. Considering that it had been largely built by a pig it didn't surprise me. I didn't stay too long. There were too many people who lived in Junon who would have liked to talk to me about my previous exploits as a research scientist. I kept my head down and covered, slipping through town like Vincent had taught me so long ago. I hiked out of town and spent a few happy hours getting soaked trying to wade across the river. I got to the caves by nightfall.

I remember there was an old man who used to sleep in those caves. Unlike Vincent and myself, he had no mako, Jenova, or other happy contaminants to send him off to the twilight lands of slumber. He was just lazy. I used to think of having him dragged in for study; he had to have some kind of sleep disorder. I heard that Avalanche nagged him out of his peaceful sleep and he was crankily working in a diner as a cook. I'm sure he was thrilled with the change.

It took me three days of crawling in and out of every nook and cranny of those hills before I found him. He really wasn't well hidden. He was more like a wounded animal that had crawled away than my clever Turk that could hide anywhere he wished without a trace, but instead he was curled in one of the smaller, dirtier caves. I was crawling through, mainly trying to see if a tiny crevice opened up into a larger cave, when I shuffled over something soft. It wiggled a little under me, then it stayed still. At the time, I thought it was some kind of earth monster. Visions of giant maggots danced through my head, and I screamed like a child faced with a spider. Maggots, though, don't whimper, nor do they have matted hair, tattered clothes, frail limbs, and sad, glowing, red eyes.

"Vincent?" I started digging.

He'd buried himself in filth.

"Vincent. Come on, Vincent." I tugged him up. He smelled awful, like an old slaughter house. "Vincent, move."

"Leave me," he said, his voice was barely audible. "Don't…"

"I am not leaving you." I suddenly had a thought. Vincent always equals guns, which generally means me acquiring bullet holes. "Where is your gun?"

He lay limp, passive. "I don't know."

Vincent with no gun.

The end of the world is nigh, my children. Repent. Again.

But seeing that he was unarmed, I wasted no more time. My Turk was not going to wallow in that filthy cave. I hauled him out, whimpering and protesting his unworthiness of being saved all the way. I don't think he realized it was me till we got outside and I put him down.

"Hojo." He covered his eyes, curling into himself. "Why are you here?"

"For you, obviously." I sat down to catch my breath, yanking him out of the cave had been strenuous. He'd piteously tried to cling to every rock and outcropping on the way out, begging to be left to rot. "Have I mentioned lately that you're high maintenance?"

He looked at me dully then looked away. "You're here to put me back in my cage, aren't you?"

"No..I…"

"A monster should be in a cage." He shivered, bowing his head and curled into a near fetal position on the ground.

"Come on, Vincent." I pulled him up and started dragging him back to Junon. "We're going home."

It took some doing. Hauling a blood and gore covered ex-Turk while being hunted by all the major world organizations through the biggest remaining city on the Planet was an experience I was not going to treasure. Luckily, the river washed a lot of the gore off. I managed to get him to part with most of his clothes when we got to the city. He wouldn't part with the cape—what was with him and that stupid, ragged piece of cloth? If I'd known he'd treasure his father's clothes so much I'd have picked up a few more—so I had to bundle the sodden thing up in an old, plastic, grocery bag, steal some clothes out of a charity bin to dress him in and stuff him into them while we huddled in a stinking back alley.

It worried me that he didn't even twitch over all that filth. I also got him to huddle down and keep quiet, pretending to be an old, bent-backed man being led through the street. In a strange way, Junon's size worked for our advantage. There were just too many people to spot and trail a single person when you had no clue that the person was wandering the streets.

I also didn't leave much of a trail. I interacted with no one. I bought no goods. I took no taxis. I stayed in no hotels. I went to no restaurants. I stayed away from security cameras when possible and ducked into crowds with my charge when I had to pass one by. I kept my head covered, but didn't draw attention to myself by acting like I was trying to hide. If he hadn't been such a wreck, Vincent would have been proud of me.

I managed to stuff him back on the leaky tub that brought me here, and we were gone. The captain didn't even blink at his added passenger. When we got back to Bone Village I paid him from my meager windfall and tugged Vincent down the street. It was harder to smuggle him through the village but the old man trick worked well, and it was dark when we arrived. More people had crowded the streets, laying along the sidewalks in miserable huddles and shivering in makeshift camps of old boxes. I hustled us through and shoved him in my skull the second I got the door unlocked.

"We're here." I hustled him through the house, discarding odious pieces of clothing as we went. "Let's clean you up."

He didn't argue. He hadn't argued, or even spoken since outside the cave. Given a chance he'd just curl into a ball on the ground and silently cry.

"Remember this place?" I pulled him into the tiny bathroom. "I used to spend a lot of time throwing up in here."

Vincent stood uncaring as I started the shower and was surprised when hot water actually appeared. He moved like a broken toy as I cleaned his hair and started scrubbing the ingrained dirt off of him. His eyes were dull and he clung to the grocery bag with his cape. When I pulled the thing out of his arms to clean him, and it, he started crying again. I finished quickly and handed it back.

"I really did drink a lot back then, didn't I?" I was chatting to keep myself from screaming.

She'd done it, again. She destroyed Vincent.

I hate her.

It's my new mantra; may it bring me joy and peace. Oooohhmmm…

When I was done, I pulled him back into the main room and toweled him off as he stood wavering on his feet staring at nothing. "Remember when we got the stove? You were tired of sweeping the ashes out of the fireplace, and that one was much easier for you to clean."

I pried the cape out of his hands again and pulled a tee-shirt over his head. It hung off him limply as he stood blinking emptily. He was so thin I was afraid it would hurt him if his cape so much as swished against one too-frail leg. I smoothed the tee-shirt down. He just stood with tears silently spilling down his face, falling warm against my hands and arms as I dressed him.

Too thin. Too broken.

"And remember the pickle jar?" I wiggled him into a pair of flannel boxers that hung off his skeletal hip bones then sat him down on the edge of the bed. I gave a fake strained laugh. "Hardly a brilliant start for a worldwide catastrophe."

He just looked at the floor. I combed his wet hair back from his face, tied it neatly back out of his way, and nudged him into laying down. "It's alright Vincent. You're almost home now. We'll be there tomorrow."

I settled in bed behind him and cradled him in my arms, stroking his shaking body as I pulled the blankets around us. "Go to sleep, love. Go to sleep. We'll be there soon."

I woke the next morning to him clinging to me with desperate fingers and tightly shut eyes, wrapped in the tattered folds of his now dry cape. When I pulled him away so I could get us some food, he hid under the blankets till I returned and crawled back to me to latch on to my shirt, burying his face against my side. I managed to spoon some soup into him, then spent the rest of the day cradling him against me and whispering assurances as he whimpered and stared horrified into his own memories.

When dusk finally fell we went back to the City of the Ancients. He perked up a little as I pulled him through its streets, looking bewilderedly at the shell houses. I led him through along the walkways, letting him reach out to touch a building here or stroke an old fence there. He paused a moment when we came to the lake, but kept walking slowly after me as I kept winding back to the recesses of the city. When I got back to my tiny cave, I nudged him in and sealed it behind us with another tiny landslide—grenades could be useful little things. He trembled against my hand as I gently pushed him down onto the foam mattress.

"Sleep, now. You're safe here." I laid down and pulled him over to me and he turned to cling, his eyes glowing and desperate in the dark. "You're home. We'll sleep here together. I won't leave you again. I won't let her touch you."

I snuggled him close to me and pulled the blanket over us. He shuddered softly, as if crying.

I hate the bitch. Peace… Joy… Ohmmmm…

"Good night, Vincent." I kissed his temple, wrapping my arms around him to keep him safe against me. I wasn't going to let him go again. I wasn't going to repeat my past mistakes. He was safe and I was going to make sure he stayed that way. We were safe. Let her do what she wanted with the pathetic Planet. As long as Vincent was sheltered in my arms, I didn't care. "Welcome home."

Sleep is a marvelous thing.

They say it and time could heal any wound.

I hope, for once, they are right.