Here is the updated chapter, thanks to my wonderful beta, Bjanik!

2. The General and the Flower

The next night, after hours, a dark figure walked under the red night lights of the laboratory corridor, red glinting off the silver armor, the silver hair, the hilt of a sword. This was the first time Sephiroth had come to the laboratory on his own accord and it was an unusual feeling to have nobody awaiting him with tests. Nobody knew that he was there. He could leave any time.

He stopped in front of the cell and listened. He sensed that the girl was awake though didn't hear any noise from her. Inside it was completely dark; the lamps of the corridor too weak to reach into the cell. Suddenly a bed creaked, light steps sounded on the stone floor, and the girl appeared before the bars. She wasn't smiling now. Her eyes were grave, maybe because of the night, maybe the hours also passed slowly for her in the dark. Sephiroth studied her face to see whether she cried. He thought he had cried at night, a long time ago. But he could not read from her face what she felt now.

"Are you still sad?" He asked at last. Recently he only spoke when giving orders. Angeal had died, Genesis had died, and Zack had stayed in Nibelheim to clean up the rest of the clones. Whom would he speak to? He felt casual speech unfamiliar. As if it didn't fit him to speak to people.

The girl shook her head and smiled, but her eyes remained serious.

"It's just bad to be locked up."

Sephiroth nodded. He had nothing to add to this.

"It was kind of you to come here." said the girl, her voice caressing the man like a warm breeze.

So this is kindness? He suddenly felt like he had found a well in an endless desert and some unknown thirst filled him. He remembered the warmth of the girl's hand, the closeness of another person. Maybe he had always been waiting for this for so long that even the feeling of expectancy had faded. Had he truly given up longing? For how long had he wandered in an empty desert, in a nightmare? Had he ever lived any other way?

"What is your name?" The girl's question brought him back to the present. Hojo never forbade him to talk with the other test subjects although he'd always taken notes meanwhile. But this time Hojo wasn't here.

"Sephiroth."

"I am Aerith Gainsborough. Nice to meet you." All at once the girl started to laugh most naturally and her voice sounded like the music of bells. "Although it would have been better if we met somewhere else."

A faint smile formed on Sephiroth's face, maybe visible in the dim light or maybe not. He nodded.

"The light of the mako is strong in your eyes. Are you SOLDIER? What rank?"

"General."

"And what does such a high-ranking officer do in the laboratories? I haven't seen any other SOLDIER here, only the researchers."

"Tests. My father wanted to continue them." He shrugged. "I was raised here."

"Who is your father?" Aerith whispered, stunned.

"Hojo." No emotion reflected in his voice, nor on his face as he said it. There was a time when he had difficulty admitting the fact, but by now he had grown accustomed to it. Aerith, however, flinched and took a startled step back, the terror clear in her eyes as she covered her mouth with her hands. She spoke shakily.

"And he experimented on his own son?"

Sephiroth could only nod. Yes, he understood most parents did not use their children that way. But he had never lived otherwise and more than twenty years were enough to get used to many things. To learn to survive them.

Aerith most likely thought otherwise as she stepped next to the bars and reached out her hand. Sephiroth involuntarily took a step forward and let her grab his hand. Her touch gave the same warm feeling of the previous day. Aerith looked up to the man, tears running down on her face as she shook her head.

"That monster..." she whispered. Despite the dark Sephiroth now clearly saw her eyes; the sympathy almost glowed in her look. A heat he couldn't name overflowed him, clenched his insides so he could hardly breathe, as if he were being pressed and torn apart at the same time by the sensations. They burned his throat and he could do nothing to relieve himself. Any other time he would grab his sword and train until he was rendered empty and calm, but now the girl held on to his hand and he found he didn't want to let go. He lowered his head, leaned into the bars and breathed deep to regain his self-control. He didn't want a breach in the solid armor he'd built with so much hardship.

Suddenly he felt a soft touch on his hair. Aerith gently caressed him like she wanted to console him for all the pain he endured, and as she sang something softly Sephiroth surrendered. They stood there for a long time, holding on through the bars, the small girl comforting the man.

From then on he didn't go to the deserted corridor only when he had to go to his tests, but slowly spent all his free nights there listening to the girl. Aerith told him about the Cetras, the ancient inhabitants of the planet, and that the planet was a living being with its own will, and the Cetras had been able to communicate with it. She said her mother was the last Cetra and that she was half, and could hear the voice of the planet too, and she was brought here for the scientists to study the Cetras' abilities through her. She had been there before, as a child, but then somebody helped her escape. She told him about her friends with whom she grew up, the shimmering forest where her mother had lived, the flowers she had tried to tend under the eternally clouded sky of Midgar. She spoke about her concern that the planet was more and more angry with the ongoing exploitation and was primed for revolt. Sephiroth listened and wondered that the girl didn't think of him as one of her enemies and that he might use what she told against her. He didn't remember if he'd ever seen such trust. Slowly he opened too, and briefly spoke about himself, about how it was to be an elite SOLDIER- the fights, the friends who were dead. But he never spoke of the recurrent dream that haunted him since first looking at the girl. In his dream Aerith knelt on the floor in the dark, with eyes closed and hands clasped, and he stood behind her, raised his long sword and stabbed her until his bloody blade came through her chest as she collapsed, lifeless. He startled out of sleep every night, unable to decide amid the turbulent voices of chaos inside whether he dreaded this dream or desired it. But when he stood face to face with the girl the memory of the dream sank into oblivion and Sephiroth was calm. Until each night the dreams started over again.

Three months had passed since they first met when one night Sephiroth stood before the bars as usual, and waited for the girl. The minutes passed but nothing moved in the cell. He sensed that the girl was there but no matter how he listened, he didn't hear her breathing. Not even the subtlest noise indicated that there was a living human inside.

"Aerith." he whispered.

No answer came. He called the girl a little more loudly but she gave no reaction. A gasping breath then broke the silence, followed by a low, a strained groan and whining crying. He didn't know what to do. Worry tugged at him and he wanted to go in, to see what happened, to relieve her pain if he could and make certain her life was not in danger. He knew the code to all of the closed cells of the laboratory but the alarm triggered in the central office if one was opened after working hours.

"Seph..."

Aerith's voice was dim, she couldn't even say his name fully. A barely audible yet horrible sound tore up from her as she screamed through clenched teeth. Sephiroth opened the door and ran inside. He had about eight minutes, he calculated, before the guards would arrive. He kneeled beside the girl and checked her for injury but only found a small strip of plaster on her arm. He touched her, felt her muscles trembling with perpetual spasms under his hand. Aerith gasped for air, panted, then her whole body strained and a drop of blood ran down her lip where she bit it. When the cramp eased, she tried to sit up while holding onto Sephiroth but a loud whine escaped her mouth and she stooped over and started to retch. Relieved a bit, she fell back to the bed.

"What did he use on you?" asked Sephiroth with so much fierce hatred in his voice that it surprised even himself.

"Poison," she answered. She tried to say something more, but her words were hardly intelligible from the constant shaking. "Whether I can stop it. Lasts two days, he said. This morning."

Sephiroth knew this serum; indeed its effect ceased after two days and didn't cause permanent damage. Only terrible pain. He helped the girl to a sitting position but saw that her cramps were worse this way, and he was powerless to help. He was seized with the impulse to take her out there, to save her from Hojo and his vicious testing. Sephiroth had healing materia in his room, which would dissolve the poison in a minute.

"Can you stand? We will go to my room, I have healing materia there."

Aerith feebly nodded that she would try, but as she stood up she collapsed like a ragdoll. This was exactly the moment when two guards stepped into the cell. Before they knew what hit them they were down on the floor, unconscious. Sephiroth sent a reply to the central system through one's phone, false alarm, he wrote. This earned them a few hours until someone found the guards and got them conscious, because when he knocked out somebody they did not get up anytime soon. He bent down to Aerith, who was barely conscious now, and lifted her, placing her on his right arm like a small child. In his left he held his unsheathed sword, ready for anything. Although he chose the most vacant corridors, his determined expression alone would likely deter anyone who dared to stop him. Luckily they didn't meet anybody and they only paused once to wait for Aerith's next seizure to subside. As he looked at the fragile girl in his arms who now sobbed, clutched his uniform and tried her best to restrain the screams, a determination solidified inside him: no matter what, he would rescue this girl from here. He couldn't imagine what kind of monster Hojo must be to cause such pain to this defenseless creature.

Yay I did an update! I'm honestly curious what you think of it, so any review is warmly welcomed :)