Never Leave

 By Paine Kisaragi

Disclaimer: I will say this only once... I am poor, therefore I cannot afford to buy the characters, so I merely borrow them for a short time. I do not own them.

"You wanted to know what he was like before Nibelheim? I can tell you, but it will cost you... It will cost you a small amount of your time. You see, I've known him since we were children. I grew up in that damn company, same as him. I was used, same as him. Maybe you shouldn't hear about this... Then, again... You wouldn't have been sent if you weren't meant to hear this from me, now wouldja?" The dark-haired beauty smiled at the pink clad girl. "Why do you want to know about him, girlie?"

Aeris smiled sweetly. "You see, my friends are the ones battling him. I was hoping there could be another way to stop him. Other than killing him, that is."

The woman shook her head. "I'm terribly sorry, dear, but once he's made up his mind..." She let out a small chuckle. "Oh, even before the war and Nibelheim and all he was stubborn. Stubborn as a jackass, I'd say. I don't think that I caught your name, but I'm not sure that I gave out mine, either."

The younger woman kept the innocent, sweet smile on her face. "My name is Aeris Gainsborough, ma'am. Actually, it was Aeris Gast, but I was adopted when my mother died."

MAKO tinted grey eyes looked at her with a knowing smile. "I knew your pa pretty good, Miss Aeris. I'm Adrian Alkinese. Are you sure that you want to know about my general?" The Ancient nodded. "Very well, then. But I'm warning you, my story is not going to be fixed for your sensitive ears. I'm gonna tell it how it is."

"That's fine, Ms. Alkinese."

The woman laughed. "Honey, it's not Miz anymore, it's Missus. I married my knight in shining armor... That was before the war, though... Before he went insane in Nibelheim..." She sighed and laid back into the yellow flowers. "It was about twenty-eight years ago..."

A girl laid back into the yellow flowers that surrounded her and her friend. "Ain't this fun, Seph?"

He looked at her, his MAKO tinted green eyes full of boredom. "Not really. I wanna go fight something!"

She sighed and nodded, picking up her nunchaku. "Okay, then... Let's go find Joey! Ain't he s'posed to be comin' back today?"

"Joe!" Sephiroth yelled suddenly. "I forgot! He's s'posed ta be teachin' us all about materia today!" He ran toward the mansion where they had been staying for two nights. "C'mon, Adrian!"

She laughed and followed the twelve-year-old boy. "I'm comin'!" Her long black coat nearly tripped her, but she kept running, not willing to let her friend see Joseph Blackhert before she did.

The older SOLDIER was fifteen and frequently visited the ShinRa Mansion in Nibelheim, where Adrian, Sephiroth, and Hojo stayed occasionally. When the hassles of ShinRa Inc. got to him, Hojo would take his experiments to the quiet Nibelheim. Little known to the two children, but they were his experiments. They never thought that the injections the got daily and the fact that they did not have a mother or father was abnormal. Neither child understood that the pain they were forced to deal with was slowly driving them mad. That no matter how hard they tried, they would never fit in anywhere.

Adrian saw the truck that brought the SOLDIERs and spinted inside, running right into the slightly shorter Sephiroth. "Ow! Seph! Why'd you-"

"Shh..."

She looked over her shoulder and saw why he had stopped suddenly in the doorway. "President ShinRa," she gasped in awe.

Sephiroth nodded slowly, afraid to speak. He knew what the president would want. It was the same thing that he had been trying to avoid since he and Adrian were five. "Now, Hojo. You know that she's quite capable of takin' care of herself in SOLDIER."

"I do not doubt that," the man replied, his hands clasped behind his back and slightly hunched forward. "I am merely saying that I would like to further my experiment on women before we let her go into the program."

Sephiroth turned around to say something to Adrian, but she was gone. "Ade?" he whispered, but he couldn't see her.

"She may not mature as quick as normal women, or she may mature quicker. We have yet to see," Hojo continued, shoving his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

President ShinRa was irritated. "Fine! Three years from today, we will have her in the program, otherwise, I will have your lab shut down and you thrown in prison for child endangerment!"

Hojo merely shrugged. "If you want her now, take her. I am not stopping you. I am just saying that when her hormones kick in, I do not know what will happen."

A tall dark-haired man stepped behind Sephiroth and bent low to talk to him. "Where's Adrian?"

"I dunno," the boy replied equally as soft. "She took off, Joe."

Joe straightened and walked past Sephiroth, shoving the boy outside so that he would not be seen over-hearing the conversation. "Sir, what am I to do?"

President ShinRa glared at Hojo, then looked at his elite SOLDIER. "Find the girl, we're taking her with us today. You will show her to her new quarters and she will begin training immediately."

With a salute, Joe turned and left. "Dammit," he cursed to himself. Sephiroth jogged up behind him.

"What's wrong? Why are they takin' Ade?"

Joe shook his head, letting his shoulders sag. "They want her in SOLDIER. Because she's already thirteen, they want her now. She's not going to be allowed around you anymore, Sephiroth."

The child stopped dead in his tracks. "Wh-What?"

Joe slowed and turned around to face the silver-haired child. "Adrian is going to be a SOLDIER, okay? She's not going to be able to play with you anymore. She'll be hanging out with me and other important adults." He performed an about-face, then continued toward the flower field where he knew she would be. 'Probably heard the whole damn conversation, poor girl.'

He crested the hill and saw her sitting there, her blue-grey eyes staring straight ahead. He walked up and sat beside her, an arm wrapped around her shoulders. "Why, Joe?" He looked at her. "Why me? Why couldn't I be normal like everyone else?"

The SOLDIER looked down at the grass. "I don't know, Ade... I don't know."

Her face turned and looked up at his before falling into his chest and letting the tears dampen his navy blue SOLDIER uniform. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "I am so sorry, Ade. I really am. If only there was a way to keep you from going, I would. But there isn't. No matter what I say or do, it won't help. I'll only get into more trouble."

Blue-grey eyes looked up and met his MAKO enhanced brown. "It's not your fault, Joey..." She felt his arms tighten around her waist and her face drift closer to his before their lips met briefly.

"Adrian?" they heard a voice calling. Both hurriedly jumped away from each other, their faces red as Sephiroth found them. "Ade... I'm sorry you hafta go..."

She smiled at her younger friend. "It's okay, Seph. I'll be fine." She hugged him tightly. "Don't forget about me! And when you join SOLDIER in a year or two, we can talk again!"

He sniffed and nodded, then watched his friend walked back down the hill toward the ShinRa Mansion with Joe. As he heard the truck start up, the tears formed in his eyes. 'I ain't gonna cry. I ain't gonna cry. I ain't gonna cry."

"Boy! Get in here this instant! You need your shots!"

Sephiroth nodded and hastily wiped away his tears, then ran down the hill. "Comin'!"

Aeris looked at the woman in front of her, whose eyes were wide. "You and Joe?"

The woman nodded with a smirk on her face. "Oh, yes... Me and Joe... Unfortunately, I could not see him until meal times... Even then we weren't allowed to speak. The best I could do was salute him and hope for a smile. He always did... Smile, I mean."

The flower girl smiled sadly. "Were you in love with him?" Adrian laughed loudly, causing the younger woman to be confused. "What's so funny about that?"

The older woman shook her head and calmed down. "I'm sorry, honey. It's just that... I've never truly been in love with any man other than my knight in shining armor... Well, maybe at one time, but definitely not when I was thirteen! Sure, Joe was great to mess around with when I got older... And maybe..." She shook her head, trying to hold back the laughs that threatened to emerge again.

A seventeen-year-old Adrian ran down the hallway of a hotel, quickly putting her SOLDIER uniform on. "Shi-it! I'm gonna be late!"

"Hey! Hurry it up, Sleepin' Beauty!"

She glared at the older Joseph Blackhert. "Shut up!" she hollered back, jumping into his SOLDIER jeep. "Why the hell didn't you go in and wake my ass up!? HUH!? God dammit! Now, this fuckin' general is gonna think that I'm a poor excuse for a SOLDIER!" She was hurriedly fixing the straps of her bra before catching the amused look on Joe's face. "What?" she snapped angrily.

"Nothin'," he replied softly.

She rolled her icy grey eyes and pulled the navy blue top on over her white bra and tank top. "Good gods, I think that this general had better be able to lead. Otherwise, there's gonna be Hell up at ShinRa Inc.!"

Joe laughed. "What? You didn't like Bernstein?"

She scoffed. "He fuckin' groped me his first day there!" A sly smirk spread across her features. "How long did he cry after I grabbed and twisted?"

"About three hours," Joe answered with a pained expression. "You nearly tore 'em off!"

She shrugged. "He shouldn't have been tryin' ta screw me!"

Joe quirked an eyebrow. "You never did that to me."

Heat rose to her face and she shot him an evil glare while lacing up her boots. "You're a different case, Joseph. Besides, it's one thing to sleep with a guy of your own ranking... It's another to sleep with the damn general!"

Joseph laughed. "Yeah, sure... Whatever you say, Wonder Woman."