Disclaimer: FF VII is not mine and this is done purely for pleasure, nothing more.

Summary: Revived by the Cetra, Sephiroth is thrown back into the real world where the struggle to redeem himself, ward off old enemies and falling in love slowly but surely convince him that he is human after all… (Seph/Ti)

Genre: Romance/Drama

Pairing: Sephiroth and Tifa.

Ever After

II. Ghost of the Past

Usually Tifa looked forward to mornings. There was something about a brand new day that sparked off just that much optimism in her. This morning though, Tifa was having a hard time opening her eyes. Just lying still hurt. Her nose wrinkled as the smell of caked dirt and blood registered. She must have fallen into bed immediately and judging from the brightness behind her lids, the sun was definitely up.

Remnants of the previous night's events flashed in her mind as she tried to motivate herself to rise. Sephiroth wielding Masamune, silver hair and blade flashing as he cut through monsters like confetti. Her feeling of panic as he was stabbed through the shoulder by razor sharp claws. Pain from the blows and cuts inflicted on her. They had made it to the gates of Midgar when he finally collapsed. She had almost fallen over while catching him and in spite of her vigorous shaking, Sephiroth remained firmly unconscious. It had been a miracle that she had managed to drag the both of them to her place.

With a muffled groan, Tifa finally pried her eyes open and the first sight which greeted her was of a bloodstained Masamune lying next to her, her hand still clutching it. 'I must've been more tired than I thought.' It was the first time she had gone to bed with a weapon in hand. Last night had been a night of many firsts.

'Sephiroth'. She had to check on him. Ignoring the agony of stiff protesting muscles, Tifa pulled herself up and shoved the sword under her bed. Slowly she made her way to the other room. There were three in all, hers, the one that been Cloud's and the guestroom. She had dumped Sephiroth in the last one. It would have been wrong on so many levels to let him sleep in Cloud's bed.

He lay in an almost foetal position, curled on his side with his black cloak surrounding him like a protective shield. Silvery hair fanned over his cheek but even the serenity of sleep could not erase the apprehension she felt while watching him. There were many questions that needed answering. Aside from the obvious ones, there was another that troubled Tifa deeply. 'Should I tell the others?' she wondered. She basically knew that whatever Barret and Cid would suggest would involve large amounts of torture and slow, painful death. Probably Yuffie too, especially since her grudge with Sephiroth went beyond to Wutai's war with Shinra. And speaking of Shinra... There was a good chance that they would come knocking on her door to take him away. Rufus would want him dead; the current president knew too well how dangerous Sephiroth could be.

'And why should I stop them anyway?' Tifa wondered silently.

His eyes opened and Tifa found herself staring into depths of green that were impenetrable. Like Cloud's, his eyes gave nothing away. 'Mako eyes.'

"You look troubled."

His voice, raspy and low in the morning sent a shiver down her spine. "You are trouble," Tifa told him curtly before retreating from the room. Minutes later she came back with a small bottle in her hand. "Drink this." And then she left again.

It occurred briefly to Sephiroth that she might poison him but he dismissed the thought instantaneously. Lockheart wasn't that kind of person and she had had plenty of chances to kill him in his sleep. Downing the clear tasteless potion, Sephiroth placed the bottle on the small side table next to the bed before closing his eyes again. He needed sleep to recover. And to dream. For in his dreams the faceless transparent beings came again. Perhaps they would give him the answers he sought.

Tifa looked at the sign once again before hanging it up on the door. For once she had a perfectly legitimate reason to use it.

As the first of her customers came strolling by, he gawked in surprise. "Since when does 7th Heaven close for the week?" he muttered in bewilderment.

Sephiroth slept for two days. Occasionally he would wake when she came in to check on him and she would make him drink potions to speed up his recovery process. It did down on Tifa that she could simply use her Cure materia on him but the thought of Sephiroth and materia in the same room was too troubling. Within those two days, Tifa had taken out Premium Heart, slotted in only her Neo Bahamut summon materia and had begun wearing her Ribbon again. The rest of her materia she had hidden in a secret basement along with the Masamune.

So far Sephiroth had been harmless or at least non-threatening but Tifa was prepared for that to change. Perhaps Sephiroth was back but his mind was shattered. He could be insane, she had reasoned, not that he wasn't before but just not in this fashion. It was always best to be ready. Besides they were in town now. Even if he did run rampage through the place the others would hear of it and track him down. So would she, if she could survive that type of encounter.

Sephiroth was awake before he opened his eyes. Unfortunately, he had awoken as confused and clueless as when he had fallen asleep. The Cetra had been in his dreams but as always, they had chattered much and said nothing. He could not understand them. 'Why can I not comprehend what they are saying?' He was a son of Jenova, one of the last Cetra who had stood against the previous crisis the planet had suffered—

"...Once the planet is hurt, it gathers Spirit Energy to heal the injury. The amount of energy gathered depends on the size of the injury. What would happen if there was an injury that
threatened the very life of the planet? Think how much energy would be
gathered! Ha! Ha! Ha!..."

A streak of cold horror shot through Sephiroth. Suddenly the room was filled with the sound of his voice, his mad laughter. Were those words...his?

"No," he whispered vehemently, eyes hard with denial even as his mind acknowledged that it was indeed his. A gloved hand crept to his throbbing head. The laughter grew louder.

"Are you alright?"

At the sound of Tifa's voice, silence returned. The pain in his head eased, much to his relief. But he remained shaken. Still, this was neither the time nor place to reveal any of what he had heard to Lockheart. 'She probably remembers it all too well. As do I now...and yet...' He knew he had spoken those words, he recalled being in the Temple of the Ancients, but at the same time, there was a strange disembodied quality, as if he had been there and yet not fully there. But he had wanted to hurt the planet, it had been him. Or was it?

"Sephiroth!"

Even though he was her mortal enemy, Tifa still felt considerably alarmed that he hadn't eaten anything aside from potions for the past forty-eight hours. She had come up to check on him and was just entering the doorway when she saw him quiver and clutch his head. He had muttered something but it was too soft to be heard. Her mind flashed back to the past, to the times when Cloud had seemed to go into a trance, the way he would clutch his head and mutter to himself. Unconsciously, her hand, encased in Premium Heart, curled into a fist.

This was no time to indulge in his thoughts; he could examine them later. Sensing Lockheart's nervousness, he sat up, keeping his movements slow so as not to alarm her. "I'm alright," he said almost curtly. Looking around, he realised what was missing. "Where's my sword?"

It would be useless and rather stupid to deny that she had taken it. "I've put it somewhere safe."

The corner of his mouth lifted as the shadow of a wry smile touched his lips. "I do hope you realise that my Masamune is hardly the source of my powers. It is a weapon, not the key upon which my victory stands."

"In other words, you mean that you can still kick my ass even though you're weaponless," Tifa stated flatly.

"I am glad that we understand each other so well Miss Lockheart." She bristled and he widened his smile deliberately. She bristled more. The woman was too easy to tease, rising to the bait as expected. Tifa Lockheart could be all smiles and soft big brown eyes a man could drown in but Sephiroth was quite willing to bet that none of her friends, especially Strife, had seen her glare and scowl in such a manner.

Usually it took a lot to rattle her but Sephiroth was getting under her skin and he had been barely awake for more than five minutes. When she had first met him in Nibelheim, he had seemed so cold and aloof, the consummate professional. She had nursed the biggest crush on him then and had sought out opportunities to speak with him, about Midgar, SOLDIER, anything. She was quite sure he knew, how could he not have known when the entire town had, but he had indulged her as long as his duties for the day had been carried out. Back then, she had suspected that a rather warm person lay hidden behind an icy veneer. Until he had killed her father.

She watched as Sephiroth peel back the bandage she had put over the injury to his shoulder. It was the most serious of the lot. She had removed his cloak and the armour he wore on his shoulders, trying to remain as detached as possible as she had dressed his wounds.

"Thank you."

"I don't want your thanks Sephiroth."

They both knew she was not being rude.

With one hand rubbing her arm, a habit she had developed whenever she felt awkward, Tifa decided that it was now or never. Besides, he owed her. "What's going on?" she asked abruptly. "You're supposed to be dead."

Clearly someone wasn't happy to see him alive and well, in spite of the fact that she had helped with that last part.

"I did die. But apparently there are some who disagree with that and therefore, here I am."

In spite of his deadpan tone and expression, Tifa could practically feel the sarcasm rising from the silver-haired man who was still seated on her bed. "Who are those some? Was it..." she felt dread rise in her mouth, constricting her chest and fought to keep her voice even. "Was it Jenova?"

That had been a question that had been nagging away at the back of his mind. Had it been his mother? Turning towards the window so that Lockheart couldn't see his face, Sephiroth stared out into the street below. There were people dressed in nondescript blue, brown and grey clothing. It looked like the uniform of the average Midgar citizen. What a change from the wealth and influence Midgar had once had. Meteor and Weapon must have changed all that.

"I'm not sure. But I know that they are Cetra. My mother's people decided that I must live after all."

Tifa actually felt her stomach twist in nauseous coils to hear Jenova being called one of the Cetra. It was an insidious lie that had propelled Sephiroth down his chosen path of madness. It was a blasphemous one lie that was an insult to the memory of a lovely flower girl and her ancestry. "That can't be true. How can that be when you killed the last real Cetra?" That last part came out in a heartbroken venomous hiss. "Aerith was the only Cetra. Not you. Not that monster Jenova."

Only the cold control in his tone gave away the anger he felt. "You should not speak of things you know nothing about. My mother—"

"Was a liar and a murderer! She almost got you to kill this planet! Is that what Cetra do? Kill planets and take their life force to become gods?" Tifa knew she was shouting but she didn't care.

Her words hit him harder than her fists had. Mentally, she left him reeling. It was as though she had peered into his thoughts and torn open his doubts. "You...your kind, you stole the planet..."

She didn't know if humans really were the descendents of cowardly Cetra but that was hardly the point of contention here. "I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know this. Cetra don't destroy the planet. Aerith didn't hate humans, she tried to help. Whoever had the planet was not important to her; what was important w-was saving it." To her dismay, Tifa felt the familiar burn of tears at the back of her eyes.

The throbbing had returned. As much as he wanted to deny her words, to defend himself and his mother, Sephiroth could not. 'Mother...'

Silence greeted his call. Usually Jenova was only a step away, a mind within his mind; he carried her with him, in his cells, in his blood and heart. But this time, there was no response, only an emptiness that resonated within his being.

'...Sephiroth...'

His eyes widened...that voice...and in the reflection of the mirror, Sephiroth looked up to see a familiar girl, clad in pink with ribbons in her hair and light in her eyes standing next to Tifa. Only Tifa was completely unaware of her presence.

It was Aerith. Or rather, her ghost.

A/N: I certainly hope I haven't got anything wrong here. Although I did complete the game several times, it has been a while and apparently my PS2 will not play my PS games. Cripes. In any case, please do correct me if I have any of my facts mixed up. If memory serves me right, humans are the descendents of Cetra who decided to abandon the search for the Promised Land and settled on the planet.

A very big thank you to all who reviewed: Spatial, dragonfly63126, Pandora, Teef Lockheart, Metsudo and especially to CWolf2 and Lucian's Angel87 for taking time to point out what aspects of the story worked. I appreciate constructive and intelligent criticism; it helps me work on my writing.

To DarkValentine, thank you for the encouragement and support! Like you, I do hope to do justice to Sephiroth's character; there's so much to explore and develop.