Prologue:

October 2002

Location: Sector Three General Hospital, Midgar

The woman began the process of putting on her clothing as rapidly as she could, her bare feet chilled by the cold, tiled floor of the hospital room.

Beside the abandoned bed, in a little square, wooden bassinet stirred a newborn baby. A boy with luxurious platinum hair, cherubic cheeks and fierce green eyes. Though the child possessed his mothers ruddy, tanned skin and his face was a combination of both his progenitors, there was no denying whose child it was that lay on its back, sensing his mothers agitation.

The woman herself looked tired, but was moving relatively quickly for someone who'd just had a child cut from her womb. She was careful when she bent, holding her stomach gingerly. Every movement she had to preform involved muscles in her lower torso that brought a new sensation of pain rippling up her body, shuddering her spine. She ignored the pain and dutifully continued her task.

She had to get out of Midgar now. She didn't know where she could go or how she would get there but she had to get away.

They would find her and her baby. They would take her and her baby.

Hojo knew the truth now, he knew what she was and where she came from. He also knew she had no where to go now that…

The television finished its advertisement and returned to the broadcasted program, which was the Midgar City News. A female newscaster with shoulder length blond hair and a male with gray hair and glasses were on the screen, sitting behind a tall desk.

"And in the news tonight," The blond haired woman began. "President Shinra and his fellow chairmen gathered outside the Shinra Headquarters this morning to announce the death of General Sephiroth Lightblade."

The television screen showed a press conference that had been held earlier in the day at the steele monstrosity known as the Shinra Building. There was President Shinra and Heidegger, both of their fat asses feigning sorrow and remorse, standing behind a podium just outside the glass entrance to the tallest building in Midgar.

"General Lightblade had been a dedicated member of SOLDIER for years and played a crucial role in the winning of the Conflict in Wutai that ended the Wutai War." The woman continued.

Here the screen flashed recorded video of the woman in the hospitals husband in combat with Wutai Militants. Another recording showed him standing tall and straight, silver hair whipping back from his head, using a lightning attack with his materia against an entire field of enemies. President Shinra and Heidegger were shown on the screen again.

"We here at Shinra Incorporated are sad to announcing the passing of a great SOLDIER, General Sephiroth Lightblade." President Shinra spoke into the microphone set up on the podium in front of a crowd of spectators and reporters. "General Lightblade was killed in action during a mission that went horribly wrong."

There was a rush from the crowd as many people began shouting out questions. President Shinra answered none, but continued to speak into the microphone.

"There will be a city wide memorial service on Friday, complete with a burial at a newly constructed tomb in which he will be laid to rest."

The female newscaster's face occupied the screen once again.

"Alright, very sad news there from President Shinra, you know, a lot of people didn't know the General was married." The newscaster continued.

"Really?" Her male counterpart voiced. "I didn't know that."

"Yes, really. I've had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Lightblade a time or two, but that was so long ago. My heart goes out to her tonight, wherever she may be." The female newscaster smiled into the camera sympathetically. "In other news, no word yet on the reopening of The Gold Saucer."

"That's right, Erica." The male newscaster turned his face to the camera as it changed. " Chocobo Breeders and Racing fans alike gathered outside the Sector 5 stables-"

The woman finally found the switch to the television and turned it off, plunging the room into silence. The baby in the wooden crib stirred again, his tiny hand peeking out of its swaddled blanket. It stretched and curled, searching for the finger that should have been there for it to grasp.

Now she knew why she had gone into labor. She knew why the child came early. He needed to be out of her body and breathing before its fathers consciousness hit the Lifestream. The child needed its father to know he had been born, needed to cry out with new life as his fathers life perished.

The woman pulled her thoughts together, she had dwelled in the room long enough. She had been in the hospital for one and a half nights, the first full night being the night she arrived and had to have an emergency cesarean section. That was the night her husband died, the night she lost the connection the Planet had established between them nearly ten years ago.

She had witnessed so much since she moved to Midgar from the small island she called home. The past was so far away and the future didn't look too bright.

She ignored the pain as she gingerly stooped to her knees and tied her sturdy boots tightly. She didn't want to be relacing them anytime soon. She was very grateful that she'd worn the long, loosely flowing black dress Sephiroth had given her to wear home from the hospital. She remembered the look in his eyes as she modeled it for him.

Those eyes, wintery evergreen and ethereal, were eyes that she would now never see again.

The woman walked around to the other side of the bed and peered at the small child that lay on the flat bassinet. She picked him up gingerly and cradled him in her arms.

The baby's little mean face peered back at her, platinum brows scrunched together in momentary uncomfortableness. He opened his tiny, cupid mouth and yawned, letting out a little coo as he settled into his mothers arms.

The woman held the slight little bundle close to her bosom, taking in his baby scent. She traveled over with the child to the window and looked out onto the city below.

The woman on the television had tried to warn her. Shinra was looking for her. That's why she said that little bit on the television.

Well, she would heed that warning. She would heed it well.

The woman left the window and placed the child back in the bassinet abruptly. For his part, the child did not protest but was startled as his green, everwinter eyes opened wider for a moment. The woman went to the closet and retrieved her black leather waist coat. Before she put it on, she fiddled with the sleeves and pulled out her weapon, pulling it from its sheath. The Kazuyama was a katana her mother had forged before her death. Traveling up the blade and down the hilt were three materia slots each, all six filled with materia Sephiroth personally mastered and placed there.

Nibelheim was to have been his last mission.

By the Goddess, they'd waited so long to become parents. Ten years. Ten years of waiting, of promising and then nine months ago, when he discovered he had one more commission for SOLDIER, he decided he wanted to get an early start on expanding their family, this way when he came back from Nibelheim he'd announce his retirement from SOLDIER and then begin a new chapter in his life.

"It didn't work out that way, did it, Seph?" The woman whispered to herself as she regarded the materia on her sword silently. She staunched the tears that threatened to flow and resheathed her sword. She placed the leather coat around her frame, slipping her arms into its sleeves and returned to the closet. She pulled out a suitcase she had packed hastily the night she'd gone into labor.

She opened the case and stuffed diapers, wipes and anything she could take from the hospital room into the the piece of luggage. She went inside the small bathroom and grabbed soap and feminine necessities from the shelves bringing them out and placing them in the suitcase. Once everything was inside the case, she zipped it closed.

She instinctively knew that the boy would have to be nursed, which meant he would start to fuss in a few moments. If she was going to make her move without being detected by the nurses she was going to have to make it soon.

Her eyes fell on the small, black diaper bag the hospital gave to its new mothers as a courtesy gift. She grabbed it and emptied it of its contents of bullshit magazines and poisonous powdered baby formula. She searched the bassinet, that was more like cart, really and found a few more hospital issued receiving blankets. She placed these inside the bag and then when a sufficient layer of support had been achieved, the woman slid her hands under the baby and placed him gingerly inside the diaper bag. The bag didn't zip, but had a long strap that she could wear across her chest. Once the bag was properly positioned she saw she was able to peer at her baby's little handsome face. He peered back at her curiously, but quiet. She was starting to feel a connection between she and her son. He could not speak, but he apparently understood the need for silence at this time.

Genevieve picked up the suitcase from the bed and glanced at the digital display facing the wall opposite her. It read 12:17 a.m. The woman was fairly certain the nurses had already changed shift. Fortunately for her, they'd put her in a room that was nearest the main hallway that lead out to the elevators. She merely had to exit her room and open the heavy, automatic doors to the main hall and get on the elevator. She chose this hospital for its more, simpler floor design, after all.

One would expect the pregnant wife of Sephiroth to go to a posh, upscale hospital such as the one located in Sector One, but Genevieve Hawthorne Lightblade was good at staying out of the spotlight. After spending ten years with the poster-boy of SOLDIER, she learned she had to stay hidden and reclusive. Especially these last few years.

After Genesis went AWOL and the whole business with AVALANCHE, Sephiroth had been on edge. Always cool and professional to those who crossed his path, until he'd met her.

That day on the island when he'd come as a sort of break from the constant fighting in Wutai. He'd been taking over for Genesis who was not yet SOLDIER 1st Class.

This. is why you were born, why I coaxed your bloodline into existence. The voice of the Planet had said to her all those years ago. She had been born for Sephiroth, had chosen him over what Genevieve believed could have been true love, waited nine years to bare his child, only to have him ripped away. General Lightblade had been a cold, calculating bastard, but unlike the rest of the world, whom he conveyed no emotion to, Genevieve knew all sides of him. His dream to fight for the fun of it, not because it was necessary. The betrayal he felt when one of his closest friends turned out to be a deserter, the sadness he felt when he lost Angeal and the conflict he felt at having to hunt both of them down and kill them, he confessed all those emotions to her.

She had been the journal Sephiroth could not keep.

The baby stirred from the diaper bag. He was getting restless.

It was now or never, Genevieve decided and as softly as she could, opened the heavy hospital door of her room.

She stuck an eye to the crack she'd made and peered out into the hallway. She heard the sounds of heart monitors and a few crying infants from other mothers rooms, but there was no sound of anyone walking in her direction.

Adrenaline filling her system, Genevieve opened the door wider and slipped out of the room. She took a quick glance down the hall towards the nurses station. She caught a glimpse of one of the nurses heads as she peered over a patients chart at the desk. She could hear the nurses co-worker talking about something or other, but the pair were not paying attention to her.

"-So sad to hear about it." Genevieve could just barely make out their low voiced conversation.

"I know!" The nurse who'd been overlooking the patient file said, turning to her counterpart. "He was so young, too. Only twenty-seven according to his fanclub page."

"I heard his wife was pregnant, very near to term from what I understand."

"Wouldn't it be something if General Lightblade's kid was born here?"

Genevieve didn't stick around to hear the rest of the conversation. She walked the few paces from her room to the door and pushed against one of the metal bars, releasing the lock and exiting the maternity ward.

She found herself in the main hall of that floor, the 5th floor, she noted as she glanced at a diagram of the hospital that had been placed at the maternity ward entrance. She studied it for a moment, mapping the path of her exit in her head. She was located right below the emergency room entrance.

She didn't see why she couldn't walk out of the ER exit as people were always coming and going in that section of the hospital.

Genevieve walked down the hall, eyes studying the outside as the main hall was lined with thick, clear paned glass. She could see the central structure of the Shinra Building in the distance and vowed to stay away from it.

She came upon the elevators and pressed the down button. She glanced at her son who'd fallen silent in the bag. His little eyes were closed in sleep, thankfully.

Kids already a genius, Genevieve thought to her herself as the elevator doors finally opened. The interior was empty, to her relief and she stepped inside and pressed the button for the first floor.

The Emergency Room was a busier than the Maternity Ward. Still, Genevieve kept her head down and maneuvered her way through the occasional crowd of doctors or orderlies she encountered.

Finally, the exit was near, right in front of her. She hurriedly crossed the Emergency Room lobby and made her way to it.

"Hey-hey!" Someone exclaimed right before she stepped outside. "I know you, you're General Lightblade's wife!"

Heads turned towards Genevieve's direction, but she took no heed as she continued through on towards the double doors. They slid opened automatically and finally she was greeted by the warm night air of Midgar City.

"Well, there you are." A voice stopped her cold. "You're such a difficult person to find."

Genevieve turned to the voice she recognized, but didn't want believe was standing in the spot she too occupied.

"You're supposed to be dead." Genevieve said to the man in the red leather coat. Her eyes refusing to meet his.

"Your husband is dead, not me." The man said. He'd been leaning against the building, obviously waiting for her to make an appearance.

"You don't look too well, are you still deteriorating, Genesis?" Genevieve asked throwing the insult at him. "I know all about the degradation the Jenova cells are causing you."

"The same cells your husband refused to give to me to save my life." Genesis retorted. He walked towards Genevieve slowly. "Why was he such a bastard?" He asked. "Oh, I know, because he thought he was too good for his own good. I told him the world needed a new hero."

"And who might that be? You?" Genevieve forced a contrite laugh, even though it caused her extreme discomfort in her abdomen. "Keep dreaming, Genesis. The last I checked, heroes didn't kill innocent people."

Genesis stopped his slow advance upon her. His face contorted in a painful grimace and suddenly a huge black wing burst forth from the right side of his back.

"What the hell-" Genevieve started, backing away from Genesis in horror. What had he become?

What had they all become?

"You will come with me." Genesis said softly, voice barely audible. The comment had not been a request. It had been a command.

"I am not coming-"

Genevieve didn't get to finish her statement as Genesis rushed forward so quickly she didn't have time to react. He overpowered her easily as he caught her arm behind her back, holding it there.

"Now, now." Genesis said, covering her mouth with his red gloved hand. In that hand was a chloroform laced cloth that he pressed gently against her nose and lips. "Shhh-don't fight me, Genevieve. Despite what you two did to me, I still will never harm you."

Weak from the recent surgery and unable to resist the physically stronger Genesis Rhapsodos, Genevieve felt herself slipping from consciousness.

She closed her eyes and felt herself falling deep into the memories of her past. She fell back to the little island where the nightmare first began.