Timeline twist: What if Sephiroth and the Remnants were literally brothers…from the same mother? An angsty drabble on an interesting idea I got at 4 in the morning and whipped out in an hour.

They had always been able to sense each other, as naturally as it came for them to breathe. So when Yazoo woke in the dead of night and knew that his brother was in danger, he did not question.

As he had thought, Kadaj was gone. His tiny cot was empty.

Yazoo softly hissed his annoyance. The boy was clever. Too clever. He had gotten out of the cell somehow, and now, to rescue him, Yazoo would have to find a way out as well.

"Loz," Yazoo said. "Kadaj is gone."

"Where'd he go this time?" By the clarity in his elder brother's voice, it seemed that he had already been awake.

"I think I know," Yazoo said. "Can you get us out?"

"We just got out from last time," Loz whined. "They'll put us in tanks again for sure!" There was the hint of childish tears in his voice.

Yes, Yazoo thought. They had just been allowed into a relatively low-security room. It was a hard-won privilege, and any escape was sure to be punished.

He hated it, cursed his brother's stupidity, but would not leave his younger sibling to suffer the consequences of his escape alone.

All they had was each other. It was the only thing the madmen could really take away from them.

"Can you get us out?" Yazoo repeated.

"Yeah," Loz said, and it was done instantly. The door was ripped from its hinges and that was that.

"Follow me," Yazoo said.

They had all heard rumors, of course. Even as tight a hold as they had on them, the aides often slipped, and the brothers had heard enough pieces to put together.

Kadaj was the quickest of them all to realize the truth.

It had happened during one of his examinations. The aide had left the room to talk to another about a different matter.

The aides knew, on some level, that the boys possessed exceptional hearing. But it was a fact that the brothers downplayed. They kept silent, feigning ignorance, but secretly knowing much more than the scientists would have liked. It was the only way they were connected to anything except each other and their immediate surroundings.

But today Kadaj had heard too much.

Something about Subject L was discussed in the hallway. Kadaj had never heard of her before, except that she was apparently female, as they spoke of her scheduled artificial insemination. Later, Kadaj had kicked the aide when they tested his patellar reflexes, and, under his breath, he had murmured, "Hopefully your next brother isn't as spiteful as you three."

Kadaj, only five, was smart enough to put two and two together.

He was getting another brother, which meant that, somewhere, Subject L was in the lab.

And for them to be brothers, Subject L would have to be his mother.

He knew he had to see her.

And so he had slipped out that night. He knew the layout of the building well enough, as well as which ducts led to where, and so he slipped, undetected by security, from room to room.

"Mother!" he called down one hallway. "Mother, are you there?"

The echo of his own voice was the only reply he received.

He was starting to panic. It was almost dawn, and the scientists would be back. But he hadn't found the slightest trace of her yet. His tiny, bare feet slapped against the tile with every step, faster and faster.

"Mother!"

"…Sephiroth?"

Kadaj skidded to a stop, out of breath. A woman's voice, weak and tired as a dying breath.

It had to be…

"Mother!" Kadaj screamed again. "I'm here! I'm coming!"

His heart pounded in his ears but rested heavy in his throat. All that time he had wanted something, reaching for it…it had to be her. She was the answer. He knew it with all his tiny heart and soul.

There she was, sprawled on the floor of an examination room, soaked to the bone in poison mako. She had raised her upper half, supporting her weight with trembling arms, breathing heavily. The shards of the glass mako tank were scattered around her like stardust. Her long, brown hair hung in heavy strands, the tips dripping the planet's green lifeblood. Her bangs fell across her face, and the rest of her body was draped in the sopping remains of a tattered gown, white, but tainted the color of the mako.

"I…heard my son…call…" she rasped. "Where…is my son?"

"Mother," Kadaj said, tears springing to his eyes. "I'm here."

"You…" The strength in her arms deserted her, and she collapsed to the floor.

"Mother!" Kadaj cried in alarm, and ran forward, arms outstretched.

But his mother, Subject L, extended her arm, palm forward. He ran into her hand, but she pushed him back. Kadaj stumbled, slipping on the mako before regaining his bearings.

"I said," the woman spat, hatefully hissing each word. "Where. Is. My. Son."

Kadaj blinked, not understanding. "Mother, I'm your son. Can't you…see me?"

The woman did not move, did not even look beyond the bangs that veiled her eyes.

"You are not Sephiroth."

Kadaj's breath left him. That name…what was this Sephiroth that his mother wanted?

"Leave me, you filthy imposter."

Kadaj opened his mouth, extended one hand. "Mother—"

"Leave me!" the woman wailed, her cry echoing from the walls, the ceiling, hitting the tiny boy again, and again, and again…

At that moment his world shattered. He barely registered his brothers dragging him away, didn't hear their scolding words. All that was in his mind, echoing in the empty chambers of his soul, the words ricocheting:

Mother wants Sephiroth more than…

She hadn't meant to be so harsh, she thought again and again. She had been confused, and broken so many times and kept under such sedation that she hadn't even recognized the three silver-haired boys that had come from her own womb.

She had thought it a hallucination, or perhaps a trick of the sadistic scientists that only used her to further the Jenova Project.

In this, too, she had failed. Not just Vincent, her true love, or the firstborn ripped from her body the moment he emerged, but now three more silver souls…her sons.

As her spirit wandered the lifestream, free of her entombed body, she tried to reach her youngest with tendrils of love. "I'm sorry!" she called again and again. "I did not understand! You are my son! Jenova…she is the imposter!"

But he was too far gone. As far out of reach as her firstborn was. Obsessed, possessed by the alien who now claimed to be his mother.

And when she heard it from his own lips, she knew that she was the one who had sealed his fate.

"I've never known Sephiroth. It's just…I sense him there. It's unbearable! To think that mother might want Sephiroth more than…"

She had wanted Sephiroth, and pushed him away. And in his madness, he expected this of Jenova as well. The seeds she had planted in him as a child had grown to thorns in his heart.

He could not accept her healing now. He wouldn't know how.

"Because I had never been able to move on…" she lamented every single day. "Now….I have passed that to my son."