Blood & Sympathy (FFVII: Vincent x OC)

Ch6 - Alarmed

It's only been a few weeks ever since that day. Things had started to blend into normality. Jocasta postponed lots of times to deliver her resignation to Dr. Gast Faremis. She no longer wanted to work for Shinra but that would come with a price. Vincent would no longer have to be her bodyguard and the Turks would take him back to assign him other missions.

She'd scoff at herself every time. When did I start caring for him so much?! She'd ask herself and then she'd shrug it off.

She didn't know why she felt this way and at some point, she convinced herself that she no longer cared. She just wanted to dive deep into her work. And maybe help Vincent deal with his depression. 'Cause that's what good friends do. Right?

Jocasta sighed once again as she took off her glasses and tossed them off onto her desk. She rubbed her stinging eyes and she looked satisfied at the messy scribbling she'd done on the blank spaces of another book she'd been studying. She was a Heart Surgeon, not a Geneticist, and if she was to keep up with the JENOVA Project, she had to study Genetics.

She never really got why Shinra would hire a Heart Surgeon for a Project that really had nothing to do about it. Well, almost nothing. The first few years they'd have her open up that being's chest and searching for anything that would possibly work as its heart. It had a similar mechanism that very much differed from what she'd studied.

Jocasta slipped her gaze by the clock that hung on her wall. It was nearly 1:40 am. She'd have to be up for work in less than seven hours. She shook her head as she tossed the pen she still had in her hand, and she took off her lab coat. She'd forget to take it off most times and she wasn't surprised about it.

A knock came from the other side of her room's door and Vincent walked in. She noticed her phone in his hand as he spoke "Dr. Faremis wants to speak to you," he said.

Jocasta arched an eyebrow. If Gast was to call her in such late hours, something important had happened. She got up and lent her hand over grabbing her phone as Vincent handed it to her. She placed it by the side of her face close to her ear and rested one hand by her waist.

"Gast, what can I help you with-"

He cut her. Vincent watched her as her eyes widened in surprise. Terror? Possibly. He looked at her trying to read her face. An expression of disbelief painted on it.

"What?! What are you- ...an Ancient?! Are you sure?!"

It sounded urgent. Her hand found her desk behind her as she tapped her fingers nervously. Unbeknownst to her. He'd noticed she kept doing that. That tap, tap, tap of her fingers on whatever surface she could find. Whenever something bad happened this was a habit of hers amongst the many he'd learned recognizing.

"I'm coming..." she said nodding and Vincent flinched in his place ready to stop her. It was a bad idea to go out this late in the middle of the night. "...Of course, I'm gonna help- Gast, calm down, where are you now?" she asked as she grabbed the pen she'd tossed earlier and whatever paper she could find. She scribbled down an address and nodded "Alright. I'm on my way," and that was the end of the call.

She bit her lip and mumbled something to herself that Vincent didn't quite catch up. The curiosity was killing him though. "What's going on?" he asked.

She shook her head "I don't wanna drag you into this," she mumbled as she turned on her bookcase and she hastily started searching through the endless books. She kept mumbling to herself as she hastily slipped her gaze all around the books. Her teeth gritted, her hands almost shaking as her fingers brushed over each book.