I don't own FF7 or its characters and make no money from writing these stories.
Tifa felt nervous as she got ready for her first day on the job as a Shinra Social Worker. The ink was barely dry on her certificate and she had gotten hired right away and felt proud of herself for this fact. All those nights attending night school while working in the typing pool had been worth it!
Well aware that she looked years younger than her actual age of twenty-six, she dressed to look every bit the young professional she was. Her long, long brown hair had been bound up into a tight bun in back of her neck, drawing attention to her large dark brown eyes and dark lashes. She wore no makeup on her pretty heart-shaped face but pale pink lip gloss on her full lips, it serving its purpose more than enough with her natural beauty.
The brand new outfit she had bought for her first day consisted of a light grey business suit with a skirt the reached mid thigh on her, a pair of pale pink nylons and matching ruffled blouse and a pair of medium height light grey suede pumps. She got dressed and added a pair of pearl stud earrings and was pleased by her new look, she thought she looked every inch the professional social worker as she was stepping into the world to be that today.
She petted her cat, Ms. Snazzypants, goodbye and gave her teddy bear a lingering hug goodbye and a kiss
"I'll be home as soon as I can" she promised to nothing and everything that mattered to her in her world in her home. She got into her car and drove in for her first day at the office.
She felt a juvenile sense of excitement go through her, to have to put her purse and lunch through an x-ray machine and to go through a security checkpoint herself. She caught a glass elevator to the floor above. She walked out into grand waiting area that connected to the office of her destination and said the words she had been rehearsing all morning to the receptionist: "I'm Tifa Lockhart, I'm the new social worker" she said giving her a confident smile.
"Please take a seat, the social worker director will come to get you and show you around" the young woman, Elena, as her plaque dictated, had almost finished stating when the door flew open and a balding middle aged man came out, followed by a handsome blond man wearing a white suit, " Palmer, you can't quit, you work so well with him!" the young man called after the older man.
"Sorry, I but I refuse to deal with that asshole anymore. I would sooner get a job in an old age home where I have to change diapers all day long. That would be preferable to dealing with him" he said, throwing his badge at him.
The young man shook his head at the loss of another good social worker who was simply not strong enough, patient enough, or just honestly didn't have to take that shit and the man knew it. He looked at Elena his administrative assistant seeing his feelings reflected but noted the other person in the room. His sharp, ice blue eyes landed on a vision and immediately he started scheming, hoping that this was the new worker.
"Are you the new worker perhaps?" the blonde asked curiously and deviously, his mind going a mile a minute.
"Yes, I'm Tifa Lockhart the new social worker" she stammered recognizing immediately who he was. Rufus Shinra himself was speaking to her on her first day of the job!
"Social worker, you don't say? Great, come with me" he insisted and she could only exchange looks of surprise with the receptionist and proceeded into the large office, while completely missing the cat that got the cream look that Rufus in all his smug glory had given to his receptionist, following Tifa into his office.
"Would you like some bourbon?" he asked her.
"It's eight thirty in the morning" she said.
"So we'll put it in some coffee. I dare say I need your help. What just left is the social worker of a very special client and I need you to be his replacement" he said handing her the folder.
"General Sephiroth? But I thought he was dead?" she said and frowned when she could have sworn he mumbled "I wish" under his breath.
"No he's alive and kicking enough to be a pain in my ass. He's one of the survivors of the human experimentation fiasco that my father condoned. It has been proven that he was under the influence of…something that was added to his DNA from birth, that caused him to have a temporary lapse of…sanity. Well there are three known survivors and all of them have been well paid off to live quietly. However, one of the conditions of their pay off is that we are allowed to monitor them, for their mental stability and continued support of course, nothing more. The other two don't have a problem but the ex-General is very...temperamental about this. What do you know of him?" he asked her.
"Not much" Tifa said with a blush, not wanting to mention that he'd heralded in her puberty and she'd taken up being been president of his fan club and had kissed a life sized poster of him good morning and good night each day.
"He's an asshole. He has no time for people he feels are not at his intellectual level. He has almost no personality to speak of; no social skills worth mentioning. If you look up the word arrogant in the dictionary, you will find his smugly smiling picture there. He's demanding and thinks us mere humans were put here to serve him. Those are just his good qualities" he said. "Every single of his social workers have quit. Palmer had been the longest to last a month" he explained.
"But I thought that as a social worker, I would be helping the elderly and young children?" she said in confusion.
"And you will, but for now I need you to make a visit to him and get a report from him. Can I count on you for that?" he asked her.
"Of course, I look forward to meeting him" she said enthusiastically.
"Before you go, there are a couple of things you should know. He is not your friend and don't try and make him one; it won't work. Don't let him get under your skin, he can be very manipulative. Finally, he doesn't like to be touched, so don't under any circumstances" he said.
"Come on, how bad can he be? I'll go get your report and be back by lunch" she promised him and could have sworn he muttered "if she only knew" to which she focused a peculiar gaze on the man again to which only Rufus smugly smiled himself, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.
Once the young woman had left his office, Rufus gather up his PHS and quickly dialed a number in rapid succession, speaking when the voice greeted him at the other end of the line. "I do believe we have found the dear General a prettier chew toy this time. Maybe he will even keep this one longer based on that fact" Rufus said with mirth in his voice which turned into a chuckle then an all-out laugh at the young woman's misfortune he'd caused and he drank his bourbon once more, ending the call on his PHS and pleased with himself.
Tifa drove her car towards the address her GPS gave her while singing at the top of her lungs to one of her favorite songs and then frowned when her car seemed to be limping and pulled over and got out and noticed that not one, but two tires seemed to be deflating. She looked in her trunk, and sure enough she only had one spare tire.
She pulled out her PHS, no signal. She looked at the mud on the road and her new shoes and started walking in the direction of the grey stone manor house that was already visible. She had been walking for fifteen minutes when she heard a car coming and turned around to try and signal them, but the large black truck didn't stop. In fact, it seemed to speed up. In its haste past her, the tires hit a pothole full of muddied water and splashed it all over her.
She blinked in surprise and looked down at her ruined suit and shook her fist at the truck and could have sworn that a swath of long pale silver hair blew out of the window as if the driver had been looking back at her.
She was livid when she arrived at the house, but fought her temper down when she knocked at the door again and again and again for ten minutes. When the door opened, there in all his godliness stood the real Sephiroth at the opened door. Tifa had been knocking for so long she had almost knocked right into his actual chest with her small fist.
"Come in" he said without so much as a greeting or question about her appearance, turning away from the entrance, hair swaying after him like a silver veil.
"Hello I'm Tifa Lockhart, I have been appointed as your new social worker" she said holding out her hand and he just stared down at it like she was offering him a dead bug and back to her face with his unnerving, yet unusual eyes and remembered about the no touching thing and let her hand drop.
"I don't care. Where's Palmer?" he asked her impatiently.
"He decided to change careers" she said.
"So they sent a girl instead? What are you, twelve?" he asked her as he turned away again, intent on walking her back to his entry door and putting her right back outside again. Something about her being a 'her' intimidated him more. He didn't do intimidation.
"I'm twenty-six and a fully qualified social worker" she said in irritation.
He suddenly turned back to study her. She was struck by his physical, yet masculine beauty as they both silently sized each other up.
He wore a pair of faded blue jeans and some kind of button up shirt but that didn't detract from his unique looks and well developed body that her teenaged inner self imagined naughty things to do with.
"Only freshly graduated I would wager based on how you're over dressed for the job. I would also guess that you're single and probably have your profile on dating sites. You are an optimist and always try to see the best in people. You became a social worker because you want to help people. You recently moved to the area and live alone expect for a cat. Am I close?" he asked her looking at her head on with an arrogant look on his face, like he'd told her the secret of life.
"How did you know all that?" she asked him, slightly flustered by his asshat antics but didn't let it show. Rufus had said he was manipulative and he wasn't lying, she could tell.
"I've had a lot of social workers. I bet you have a romance novel in your purse" he said.
"I do not" she said, though she did, shutting his analysis down because it was uncanny and it was unnerving. "Now I'm here to-"
"To keep track of me" he said leaning against the wall and folding his arms across his powerful chest.
"That is not the case" she said, her anger still not in check for some reason and trying to linger under the surface though he'd not really done too much, unless you count playing 'open book reading' of her life status. Was she really that transparent?
"Ask me your questions and I'll translate them for you" he said, taking a seat in a large chair and indicating to another one. "I'm sorry where are my manners, can I get you something to drink?" he suddenly asked her.
"I'll have a pink lady" she said, feeling annoyed with him.
"With the egg white or without?" he smoothly asked her.
"I was joking. What do you have with fizz it in?" she asked him.
"Nothing, I don't like carbonated drinks. Unsweetened grapefruit or orange juice?" he returned.
"Orange juice" she requested.
"I just finished the carton" he returned.
"Grapefruit it is" she agreed and tried not to gag on it, noticing he didn't offer up any sugar.
She did her interview and he answered the questions as briefly as possible and she tried not to stare too hard at him. She did wonder why so many of the questions seemed to focus on him dating or planning to date.
"You can stop, just tell them that I'm still single and don't expect that to change" he interrupted, gesturing with one of his large hands lifted in the air towards her.
"Why would Shinra be concerned about that?" she asked low to herself before she caught herself.
"They want to monitor us to make sure us "experiments" don't attempt to breed with you 'normal people'" he said.
"What?" she said.
"Didn't they tell you about the alien DNA that was added to our own? Well expect for Vincent. They did other things to wreck him to make him unfit for society like the rest of us. After all, having a form of physical manifestation of multiple personality disorder where you transform into said personalities, even if one is a baby behemoth, a chain-saw wielding sociopath, monster made of other parts of people, oh and a Demi-Demon is bad for the public eye. Oh and not aging is frowned upon as well" he said to her facetiously.
"Alien DNA, physical multiple personality disorder transformation… what are you talking about?" she asked him.
"Oh I suppose you don't know about my wings, one physical and one ether?" he asked her.
"Wings? Can I touch them?" she asked him before she caught herself.
"No you may not. You really don't know about any of this?" he looked at her with his brows drawn down in confusion, his stare intense.
"No. I know about the human testing from your birth, that you were a great General, exploited, and about your...breakdown subsequently, but that is it" she said in all honesty her head bowing in slight in embarrassment under his continued intense stare.
"Okay. I'll give it to you, if very briefly. Myself and others lived in a lab most of our lives being human guinea pigs to the person who was apparently my father. I know little about my mother other then she consented to it and her name was Lucrecia Crescent, the surname I took once I was granted citizenship as there wasn't even a birth certificate. I was raised to be a weapon of war and nothing more. I was given to SOLDIER at the age of fourteen, you know the rest I suppose. I had my melt down. Here's what you don't know. I was found alive and well three years ago and Rufus didn't want to have to court martial me because he knew that his father was just as reprehensible as my own in a lot of ways. So he made amends in offering me the same deal he offered to the other Hojo survivors: that he pays me off, establishes myself as a citizen, and make sure I have all money owed to me as long as I live out my days quietly. I took his bribe money, he got me my pension from SOLDIER and used DNA to establish me as heir to my mother's estate. There are two other survivors. There were more but they were killed on the day the news about us went public" he explained.
"That's horrible" she as her faced conveyed great sadness for them all, even the ones that had been slaughtered.
"It's life" he said dismissively, trying to disregard the way her face was showing that raw of emotions for him and the others made his chest feel tight. What was that?
"Do you see the others?" she asked him genuinely curious.
"Once in a while. It's not like our gatherings prompt happy memories." he said to the point.
"Don't you get lonely?" she asked him.
"No, why should I? I cherish my own company and have my books. What else do I need?" he answered, looking at her quizzically, quirking a thin, elegant eyebrow at her.
"Companionship!" she said not even knowing she was being excitable while trying to make her point." Maybe a girlfriend or a boyfriend. The possibly of a spouse, or even just a friend. Someone to spend time with, to give you comfort when times are tough or share the joys in life with" she said winding down realizing he was looking at her confused again as if it was the most absurd thing in the world.
Her speech was making him feel inadequate again and with it, his ire was rising. He didn't know anything about these things she spoke of, so he went with the one thing he was comfortable in again: being condescending.
"Oh you're a hopeless romantic? I was right about you. You probably have a man picked out as your future husband, know how many children you will have and the names for them" he said flippantly.
"You couldn't be more wrong but what's wrong with that? It's called being normal" she said and this gave him pause at how she suddenly sounded so bitter. Though they'd just met it just didn't seem right on her.
"I'm not what anyone would call normal, besides I'm not that interested in your life anyway" he said indifferently, having already categorized the girl as yet another do-gooder, bleeding heart type that would be easy to work with, but not that stimulating a conversationalist and wondered why the educational standards to become a social worker weren't more stringent. "We're done here" he said with a finality that caused her to gather up her notes and stand up.
"I need you to sign the report" she said shifting her articles in her hand, remembering that she was still soiled from the earlier pothole adventure, dried dirt and bits flaking onto his floor and he stared at her and then down to the bits and then back at her.
"Do you have a pen then?" he said holding out his hand.
She fished around in her purse and handed him the first round object her hand encountered and put it into his hand. She blanched when she realized half a second too late that she had handed him a tampon. He didn't pay attention and went to put it to paper and then frowned when he studied what he held, having never heard of the brand name Playtex before and wondered at the words 'gentle glide' written on the small package.
"Is this some type of birth control?" he asked her, having never encountered a tampon before.
"You could say that" she said with a flaming face, assuming he was joking and not just naive when it came to the opposite gender to him and quickly replaced her feminine hygiene product with a pen and he signed it and handed her the document, sparing her a slight glance before striding significantly towards the door.
"Can I get a ride back to my car? I encountered two flat tires and that is also why I am a mess" she asked him and could have sworn from his slight smirk that he was enjoying how she had to humble herself like this.
"No need, I called the local garage when I saw you on the road, it should be here any minute" he said.
"So you saw me and didn't offer assistance?" she snapped in irritation.
"I wanted to make certain I was on time for our interview" he said with a shrug.
"Thank you for your time" she said, controlling her anger that had cooled and now was back with a vengeance as she left, eager to be on her way. He was such a blowhard!
"I'll be seeing you soon" he politely said, giving her a tight smile as if unaccustomed to doing so even offering a slight wave of his hand.
"I understand that I am only required to take a report once a month" she said.
"You never know" he said and shut the door without a single goodbye and this caused Tifa wonder what he meant as she stood outside the forbidding manor house that was just as ominous looking as its owner.
She was angry and frustrated and upset that her teen hood idol had was nothing more than an obnoxious asshole. How had she ever thought him a benevolent angel? He was atrocious! She had a horrible first day of what she thought would be her new life and now her new outfit was ruined and she would be late getting home.
She stood on the steps and sure enough her little car drew up and she pulled out her check book. "How much do I owe you?" she asked him.
"The General already paid, he apologizes but the blowouts might have been caused by something on his driveway" he said giving her keys.
"I bet it was" and roared off his driveway, relieved to be rid of him.