Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, Square Enix does.

Thanks to gothicdragon752 for beta reading.

Silent Legacy

"What have you heard?"

"Me? Nothing."

Without another word, she turned back to where she had come from, mere minutes ago. She wouldn't be safe there either, but the urge to put a distance between him and herself was strong. She sat down on her bed, not bothering to close the door, though. Excluding him from her thoughts usually proved to be a more efficient way of resistance...

"Gillian,"

... But not this time. She looked up when she heard him call her by name. She had spoken the mere truth before. She hadn't heard – but she had seen. That face...

"What did she want?"

Hollander shrugged. "Help?"

Gillian stared at him as he crossed the room and leaned against the sill of her window. He looked every bit a person one could go to for help. Hundreds of people did, as a matter of fact.

She might have been mistaken, Gillian thought, returning her gaze to the floor. It could have been someone else. Someone with the very same sharp features and the very same fiery hair... It needn't be that girl. The girl with the voice; standing on a makeshift stage with flowers in her hair, walking on the arm of a young SOLDIER, the glow of the Banora sunset surrounding them. No. It probably wasn't her.

From the corner of her eye, she caught him staring at her as if he had just read her mind. His head half turned, he flashed her a grin and renewed the subject of her question. "Young love", he exclaimed. "Who needs a marriage certificate when you can shack up under a hedgerow with the blessing of that heathen Goddess they worship out there. Just think of the consequences later!"

Realisation sank in. "She came then... for an abortion?"

A rich laugh answered. "On the contrary. She received a proper marriage proposal with all the bells and whistles." His eyes never left hers when he came to the fairy tale ending that her own romance would never see. "But in case you forgot," he smiled, "SOLDIERs are not allowed to marry. If anyone finds out about this one's trust resulting in the birth of a child..."

And he explained to her, Gillian narrowing her eyes, that the fire girl's lover had chosen not to let anybody find out. He told them instead.

Or intended to do so. After confiding in a person of his trust here at ShinRa.

She stood up from the bed and traded places with him. When he stepped back from the window, she could hear the smile in his voice. But underlying it, there was something else. Fulfilled anticipation. As if a coin thrown had landed on the very side it had been expected to. "A fitting choice if I ever saw one. It was I who brought him to Banora after all."

"And with you is how it ends," Gillian concluded with a calmness she didn't sense.

Behind her, Hollander clicked his tongue. "Why end," he said. "It's the beginning."

Author's Notes: I'm still unsure whether this should be a one-shot or the prologue of a multi-chaptered alternate universe story. I keep thinking about what might have happened if Sephiroth had been the one to first find out about the Jenova project and not Genesis.

What do you think? Should I go and write it?