Sephiroth stood at the back of the room and watched the proceedings.
The ceasefire wouldn't last and everyone knew it. The president and the emperor's representatives negotiated as though they really believed in it nonetheless. The rest of the room's occupant's gave the game away though.
Sephiroth and a wealth of Turks stood guard on one side of the room. Masked Crescent warriors stared at them from the opposite side. Crescent warriors, and a red headed woman in black armour.
Sephiroth narrowed his eyes at her. He hadn't expected her here. Not so close to the action.
The Ghost had made her first appearance on a battlefield roughly a year ago, shooting down SOLDIERs like it was a habit and shields were mere decoration. The deafening crack of her rifle gave her away, but they had never managed to track her down.
It wasn't for lack of trying. Rumour had painted the ghost as a woman, but even that was just conjecture.
Until today. The massive ugly rifle on her back seemed to fit the bill. She was older than he'd expected. His imagination had conjured up someone like the Turks around him, young and pristine, all false smiles and smooth suits. She had crow's feet and strange facial scars; she stood at attention in her scratched heavy armour.
She smiled grimly at him.
The scars on the back of his scalp ached. He did not return the smile.
Another sniper hadn't been significant at first. Wutai had plenty of them, even if this one did have a higher kill count.
She shot through his shields the first time they met on the field. He got to cover before the next shot rang out.
She was faster the second time. Hojo had to fly out to Wutai to remove the bullet shards and chips of skull from his brain. The scientist refused to let him die, or live it down.
The negotiations concluded with a handshake, and both parties retreated.
The ceasefire lasted two months.
The next time he encountered the Ghost it was entirely by accident. He was stalking through a forest, the sole survivor of an ambush. Home base was back the other way, but he knew there was a Wutai encampment around here. He would rather take care of it before they could kill any more of his SOLDIERs.
He was practicing the techniques for moving unnoticed that the ninja used. He hadn't quite mastered walking silently yet, but he kept practising. He climbed a tree at the crest of a hill and looked out towards the encampment. It didn't look large by the size of the clearing, but heavily guarded.
His eyes scanned the surrounding areas, looking for traps.
He let out a sigh, it hadn't been a good day. A jerk of movement to his right caught his eye and he spun around.
The Ghost of Wutai was sitting in the tree two trunks down from his, staring at him in surprise.
He threw a ball of lightning at her.
She dropped to the ground and rolled with the impact.
He jumped down after her, his sword already lashing out-
She disappeared.
He blinked, halting his swing. What-?
He heard the click of a gun. He swore at himself and threw up his strongest shield.
CRACK
His shields went down, and she was visible again, rifle aimed straight at him. He dove behind a fallen tree, and heard the explosion of wood as the shot missed. He hurled a wave of ice.
It crashed harmlessly into the tree trunks behind where she had been standing.
He risked a look.
No sign of her. Was she invisible again? He called up his shields and waited. Firing her gun made her visible again. So he waited, tensed, ready to move the second his shield fell.
Nothing happened. He frowned, and strained his ears.
He couldn't hear any breathing. Just… retreating footsteps.
She would warn the Wutai camp!
He leapt out from behind his cover and raced through the trees.
He never found out if he beat her there or not. There was no sign of her by the time the last of the defenders fell.
The war raged on. It raged and raged.
Sephiroth grew accustomed to blood seeping through the seams of his gloves. The drum of rain on tin roofs as they fought through monsoon season. Living in his uniform.
He decimated the Wutai ranks. SOLDIERs fell at his side. The Wutai swordsman weren't fast enough to match them, but grenades and materia made up for it. The Ghost culled their ranks from a distance.
In the end, the island nation couldn't withstand the losses anymore. Wutai surrendered.
The ghost didn't make an appearance at that meeting. He wondered vaguely if she even survived.
He returned to Midgar. The planet kept on spinning and the sun kept on rising, but he didn't know what to do. He had a sword, but no one to fight. He had wanted the war to end, but what was he supposed to do without it? He threw himself into fighting monsters.
He trudged back from the wilds, drenched in blood and feeling hollow.
"By the way, Sephiroth," Tseng said in passing, "We've spotted a dangerous looking red headed woman with a large rifle in Costa del Sol."
Sephiroth frowned. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"Wutai is SOLDIER's area. Do what you want."
He briefly considered ignoring it. He didn't really want to get into that kind of fight again. But then, he didn't have anything else to do, so he set off.
Costa del Sol turned out to be bigger than he anticipated. Finding a single woman in a thriving tourist trap was difficult. Red hair's stood out a lot more in Wutai then it did on the western continent.
Maybe Tseng had just been trying to get him to go for a holiday.
He found her, finally, at the furthest end of the furthest beach from the township, where sand became rocks and the holiday makers didn't bother venturing that far.
He nearly missed her. There was no armour, no rifle, no steely expression. Just a woman in a t-shirt sitting by a rockpool.
She glanced at him while he was still at a distance, but turned back to her rockpool without further acknowledgement.
He stood a couple of meters away from her, overdressed and overheating in his black leather coat and boots, and felt nearly offended at the mundanity of the sight before him. Somehow, he had imagined she'd greet him with bullets.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Collecting seashells."
He crossed his arms. "Why?"
She sighed. "Seemed the thing to do."
He frowned, maybe it was a trick? He sat on a large rock and watched. She quietly fished through dead shellfish. She picked one up to examine it, then sighed again and threw it over her shoulder. She rested her chin in her palm. A lone seagull watched them for any chance of free food.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"Why are you?" he replied, because he didn't know the answer.
She looked out over the sea. "War's over."
That wasn't an answer. "Join Shinra."
"Ha!" She snorted and looked at him over her shoulder. "That was pretty good. Tell me another."
"SOLDIER could use a good sniper."
"As it turns out, I'm not in the mood to be used," she replied, leaning back on her hands.
"Is that why you left Wutai?" he asked with a frown. "I thought their warriors were being conscripted into the rebuilding efforts."
"Conscripted. That's a nice word for it. Sounds so reasonable." She looked at the sea again. "I'm not a Wutai soldier."
It was his turn to snort.
"I wasn't enlisted, I held no rank. If anything I was a mercenary." She lowered her head. "You didn't come here to recruit me."
"No. I didn't."
She sent him a look over her shoulder. "Then why did you come here?"
He looked down at his hands. He didn't have an answer.
"Come on."
She dusted off her hands, got up, and started walking.
He watched her go for a moment before cautiously following. Maybe this was the trap. She led him further over the rocks, then up a tiny path weaving between scrubby cliffs and away from the town.
The path led to a tiny house, although it was probably closer to a shack than a house. The roof was crooked and peeling red paint had faded to orange on the weatherboards. It was good enough for Costa though, where it only ever rained two days a year.
She entered, then came back out and threw something to him.
A beer.
He looked at his once enemy in confusion.
She sank onto a creaky camping chair with a sigh, cracked open her own beer, and stared at the ocean. The rhythmic crash of the surf drifted up from the beach below.
He blinked a couple of times, glancing between her and the cold drink in his hands.
There was a second chair.
He grudgingly pulled it towards himself and tentatively sat, cautious in case it was going to collapse under him. The ocean did look nice from here. He drank the beer.
The sun sank behind them, and the stars began to twinkle.
Sephiroth woke up. The sun was in his eyes. He squinted at it curiously, why was he facing the sun- Oh.
He scrambled up. How on Gaia had he fallen asleep here? What was he thinking? The chair next to his was empty.
His back was angry at him, he shouldn't have slept in a camping chair. Or in his uniform. The sand in his boots grated uncomfortably and his mouth felt fuzzy. He wandered into the house and found what passed for a bathroom.
By the time he was outside again and wondering what he was going to do next, the woman appeared carrying a dented surfboard under one arm.
"Morning," she said with a nod and disappeared down the grassy path
Well. He obviously wasn't going to find… whatever he had been expecting to find here. He may as well head back to the town.
He stopped at the first beachside café and ate breakfast, so he wouldn't have to eat one of Shinra's plane meals.
A little sign by the door proclaimed chum was two dollars a bucket. Not a bad price.
He looked curiously at the fishing rods behind the counter. Angeal had taught him how to fish when they were on leave together in southern Wutai. It had been… some years since he'd tried his hand at.
He didn't really need to be back at Midgar yet.
He strolled back to the beach with a fishing rod, some bait, and a cooler full of ice in his arms. He set up by the rock pools at the far end where there were no swimmers. He could see a red headed surfer further out, paddling up to the next wave. It crashed upon her and the surf board shot up out from under her.
He took off his coat, propped the rod up with some rocks next to him, and waited. Occasionally he recast the line. By the time the sun was low in the sky, he had three fish in the cooler.
The woman returned from the waves, and dug the surfboard into the sand while she watched him reel the last fish in.
She scratched some sand out of her hair.
"I've got a barbeque up at the house," she offered.
He followed her back up the path.
Sephiroth woke up to the sun in his eyes and the steady crash of the surf, again. At least he was on a hammock this time instead of a dubious folding chair. The hammock had been discovered in the tiny spare room, same as the barbeque, pushed up against a wall and only mostly uneaten by insects. He swung himself up and onto his feet. The light of dawn was beautiful out here, no smog to interrupt it, the sun lit the entire sea ablaze as it rose. It made the tiny house look worse though. He frowned at the uneven deck.
Then he got up to find his fishing rod. There was almost no wind today. Excellent conditions.
"Could you teach me?" the woman had asked him the night before.
He hadn't known what to make of the assumption that he was going to stick around another day. He still said yes. She learned quickly, she was a natural sitting down and waiting. They spent the day in contemplative silence before the sea. It got hotter and hotter. He swapped out his boots and leather trousers for shorts and sandals before midday.
Afterwards, she taught him how to surf. There was something engrossing about the balance act and momentum, cutting through the water. It was almost like combat, except water didn't stain. And it was addicting. He got up before dawn to surf before the heat kicked in. The sea crashed around him and he let himself get lost in it.
When he walked back up to the house, there was no sign of the woman outside, but newspaper spread out on the floor inside and a bucket holding bent, rusty nails.
Curious, he stepped over the bucket, and found her in the corridor, one hand on the wall, the other holding a plaster scraper.
He watched her for a moment, wondering why she wasn't moving. He could see she'd done half the wall already, nail holes filled up and smoothed over nicely.
She stood in front of a row of nail holes, lined up in a diagonal slash like a spray of bullets.
Oh.
He gently took the plaster scraper from her hand. She looked at him, something so empty in her eyes. He took her hand and led her outside, where the stars were just beginning to shine.
Stars were important to her, somehow.
She gazed up at them, and her shoulders slowly sank. Eventually she sighed and collapsed into a chair.
He sat next to her, and together they shared the silence.
When she was ready, she cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, and went back into the house.
He watched her disappear across the uneven deck, and frowned.
He set off for the Costa township the next morning.
He came back with a sander.
Working on the deck was hard. The position he had to hold strained muscles that didn't see a lot of work in swordplay, and the temperature just kept on rising. It was oddly satisfying though. He could see every inch of progress he made, the wood changing texture before him.
He switched it off for a moment to sit up and wipe the sweat out of his eyes.
A loud banging noise happening on the roof took the place of the roaring sander. He looked up with a confused frown. Were they under some kind of attack?
The porch ceiling trembled. He moved to the side, grasped the edge of the roof, and pulled himself up to chin level.
She was fixing the roof.
He dropped back down.
He smiled, and got back to work.
Both of them were aching by the time the sun set. Grumbling about the uncomfortable chairs, they sat together and shared quiet laughter. Sephiroth couldn't remember the last time he'd built something. He'd spent so long learning how to break things.
He looked at the woman next to him, who had killed so many of his own men, and wondered why he was more comfortable here with her than he was in Midgar.
Days passed with little change. The sea kept crashing and the fish kept biting. The SOLDIER kept working and the sniper did too.
Dark heavy clouds rolled up from the sea, blocking out the golden light and lingered over the coastline. The heat remained, but the air grew humid.
Sephiroth was inside, considering a dubious looking frying pan, when it finally broke. Big raindrops fell, tapping against the tin roof, rat-tat-tat. Sephiroth froze, and dropped the pan. He flinched against a flash of lightning. His breathing grew shallower. The rain thundered on the roof, relentless, inescapable. He needed to duck, to cast something. He couldn't move.
The woman moved cautiously into his line of sight. He fixed his eyes on her, trying to make meaning of what he was seeing.
She reached slowly for his hand. He felt the texture of her fingers. They felt strong and calloused, but not like his hands, not like a swordsman.
The rain thundered. He swallowed. He ran his thumb along the inside of her palm, feeling the texture of her scars, counting the callouses. One. Two. Three. Four.
He took in a shaky breath. He nodded, more certain of himself.
She led him out onto the porch. The echoing rattle of the rain on the roof didn't make it past the door, out here it splashed, drippled off the eaves, and slurped down the drain. Rain. Just rain.
Good thing she fixed the roof, he thought distantly.
It was dark out, and the temperature was finally dropping. They were isolated in their little house, the blanket of rain drowned out the rest of the world.
He breathed in deeply, and let it out slowly.
"What's your name?" he finally asked.
She smiled up at him. She hadn't let go of his hand. He hadn't let go either.
"Jane. Just… Jane."
Angeal arrived a week later. The coast had been washed clean and then gathered all its usual dust and sand back up again. The temperature was uncomfortable.
Sephiroth and Jane sat on the deck.
Angeal came up the path with purpose, then saw them and grew more tentative.
Sephiroth nodded at him. He nodded back.
He looked curiously at the woman next to him.
"Want a beer?" she offered.
"You can't just throw beer at everyone," Sephiroth said lightly.
She gave a half smile. "Sure I can."
"Angeal, this is Jane."
He nodded at her respectfully, warily. "That's not what they called you during the war."
She looked back calmly, in her floppy hat, an oversized t-shirt, and faded sandals.
"War's over."
He looked dubiously between them. "Is it?"
She smiled. "Sure is."
She threw him a beer.
A/N: Thanks for reading! This was intended to be a riff on my main crossover fic, N7SOLDIER, a 'what if Shepard landed in Wutai?', but somehow turned into 'Shepard retires like an Australian.' This is part two of a prompt challenge centered around Shepard and Sephiroth. Expect more of these oneshots over the next fortnight or so. N7SOLDIER isn't dead, I'm just taking a break because I wrote nothing else for three years.
Reviews are always appreciated!