"Mommy," Cloud had said softly, almost one year prior to the day, brimming with barely containable excitement when his mother answered the phone from Nibelheim. "…Guess what?"

"…Oh, Cloud," she whispered.

Cloud sobbed, "I made it this time! I made it! I did! I really did!"

Cloud was a SOLDIER.

All the joy in the world made audible wouldn't have sounded as beautiful as Cloud did in that moment. He cried out wordlessly, and eleven strangers in Sephiroth's apartment building looked up from what they were doing for a heartbeat, smiling at the victorious noise of a soul enraptured.

As any mother would say : "I am so proud of you. So, so proud of you, Cloud."

Cloud panted restlessly, "I want you to come visit me, mom! The ceremony is next Friday, I want you to come here before then, I have so much to show you!"

"Aren't you going to be visiting here?"

There was only a pinprick of negativity in Cloud's being, and he smiled broadly as he said, "Yes, but the ceremony! And... I just – I have so much to show you!"

There was a pause before his mother smiled from across the world, "Of course I'll visit you there. And you'll come back with me, then? Maybe for... oh, I don't know. A few days at least?"

Cloud's smile wouldn't, couldn't have been erased, but his voice wilted slightly. "I don't think so, Mommy…"

There was an injection of silence, before Cloud began to happily babble, "I mean, right after I get registered as a SOLDIER, I have to go to an orientation camp, and then I have to start mako therapy immediately after, and then I get set up with a mentor, and then I have training like you wouldn't believe! I'm just… I'm gonna be so busy, you see!"

"I worry about you, Cloud."

Cloud winced a little before sighing happily, "I have everything I've ever wanted. Why would you worry?"

"Don't you want a family?"

Cloud smiled, and it was a bit goofy as he chuckled, "I have a family! I have you, I have my friends, and I have... y-you know what they say, the military is one, big clusterfuck of a family!"

"That city… I'm sure it's changed you in ways, but you have got to remember where you come from, Cloud, and what's important to you. You have to hold on to your morals."

"Mom – " Cloud interjected, but was cut off.

"I know how boys are, and off on your own I'm sure you've most likely had many women."

Cloud's stomach turned.

"But you have someone here waiting for you. A nice girl. Those city girls might seem sophisticated, they might throw themselves at you for being in the army… but here is someone who chose you for you. I think Tifa knows best who you really are, don't you? She likes you for you, Cloud, wants to love you just for you. The real you. The one I love, too."

"But what if I don't love who I was?"

Cloud's mother didn't have an answer for that.

"You're happy, Cloud?"

Cloud nodded against the phone. "Yes. So happy."

"…How could I wish for more?"

Cloud's smile was blinded by unshed tears. "…Really?"

"However!" she barked, causing Cloud to blink to attention, "When you do finally find a nice girl – a nice one… know that I would greatly appreciate brunette grandbabies."

Cloud slowly let his eyes wander over the shirtless, lounging form of his lover, definitely not a brunette, and definitely not a nice girl. Sephiroth had been listening to the entire conversation with a lazy smile that promised no drama, no conversation, just a good, stiff fuck as soon as the phone was hung up.

"No promises…" Cloud had smiled.

"You were never good with them," his mother sighed. "And…honey, I wish you all the luck I can give. But, I just don't see myself traveling all the way to Midgar. I think I belong here. And maybe you belong there."

Cloud couldn't, wouldn't frown. But he kept the light out of his voice as he stated, "If you're disowning me, just say it now and save me some grief."

He saw the glimmer of lust ebb on Sephiroth's features, a slight shadow of concern.

"I wouldn't ever say something like that to you. After all, it would be impossible to disown a son who has abandoned me."

Cloud's joy finally buckled. "Ooooh, pleeeaase! I didn't abandon you, mom! I just want something different. You never asked me about Tifa, anyways. You never talked to me about it, you just assumed."

"Maybe you don't know what's best for yourself. You men rarely do."

"I love men, mom," Cloud finally blurted. "I love… a man, mom. With all my heart."

Sephiroth's eyebrows knitted. Cloud had never said this before.

His mother might have been saying things, and they probably echoed with disapproval. But Sephiroth slowly sat up on the couch, and Cloud was transfixed by the movement. He opened his arms, and Cloud's hand drifted the phone away from his ear, and right onto the receiver.

A choice had been made. Cloud chose Sephiroth.

Sephiroth was Cloud's family, from then on. Sephiroth had never had one before.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sephiroth dreaded what he would find when he went home. Despite this, he opened the front door casually, impersonally… petrified.

Boxes. Some were taped shut, some were open, half full.

Sephiroth stopped to look down into one, and saw Cloud's movies dumped in, along with some of the small knickknacks that he liked to have around. He looked in another and saw a pair of dirty socks balled up, a rats nest of electric cables for his various electronic gadgets.

Cloud's junk. He was actually packing.

He heard the rip of duct tape from the bedroom, and stepped around the boxes on the floor to find the source.

Standing silently against the door frame, he frowned at the scene Cloud had made of their bedroom. It wasn't the mess he frowned at, but rather the obvious anger the mess had been created with. Cloud emerged from the bathroom to put a full, taped box on a stack of three others, his clothes strewn in a large pile on the bed.

"I'm sorry you're home and I'm not out," Cloud said breathlessly, hoarsely. Sephiroth winced, as he recognized that slight hoarseness as coming from a long afternoon of crying. Cloud sighed, "I have more shit than I thought possible. I had to go down to the warehouse twice for more boxes. You'd think they were fucking gold or something the way they horde them. But, I just got a garbage bag for my clothes, that'll do. I'll tape up the rest of the boxes and then get them all out. It should be about another hour or so if you want to go somewhere until I'm gone."

Sephiroth leaned in the doorway as Cloud chattered and moved about the room, snatching this or that from shelves and from under the bed, speaking as if there wasn't the gloss of tears in his eyes.

"Where are you going?" Sephiroth finally had to ask.

"No idea!" Cloud laughed humorlessly. "But I think I might end up somewhere under the plate for tonight. I just want to get drunk and fuck someone I don't love, for once. I think that's the best place to meet those goals," Cloud began to hiss as he stuffed his clothes and SOLDIER uniforms into thin white trash bags. "Then tomorrow I'll see if Zack wants a roommate."

Sephiroth's heart ached over a lava flow of jealousy. He crossed his arms and looked past the careless words and frantically busy movements of his lover. "Cloud…"

The blonde froze at the soft tone and shot Sephiroth a glare that could peel paint, "What?"

Sephiroth stared at him, slowly shaking his head.

Cloud stared back. "I'm so sorry, Sir, that I don't have the ability to read minds, because I'm not sure what the fuck that meant."

Sephiroth sighed, "You don't have to go."

"Oh!" Cloud exclaimed. "You mean it? I can stay in my home? With a man who'd rather snap my neck than talk to me and discuss things that effect both of us like a grown up? Who criticizes everything I do, and who only shows me the slightest bit of affection when he wants something to fuck? I can really, really stay, Seph?"

Then, Cloud actually spat in Sephiroth's direction. He looked momentarily terrified at his own action, wiping his bottom lip carefully with wide watery blue eyes before going back to stuffing his clothes into bags in double time.

Sephiroth looked at the wad of spittle that had landed on the carpet near his boot in complete shock. He was too blown away by the sheer distaste one would need to spit in another person's direction to react, and to think his small, slight, loving partner harbored that sort of distaste for him…?

He didn't know what to do, what to say. He considered wrestling Cloud to the floor.

Instead he went with, "I want you to stop this."

Cloud stopped at once, and slowly put the box in his arms down. "Can you give me a reason? To stay?"

Pride burned in his eyes – or what Sephiroth perceived to be pride, they were only his tears, but maybe that was the same thing. As Cloud blurred and wobbled in his vision, he spoke clearly, "I have one reason. A reason and a half, rather. The whole reason is that I put your name on the lease two months ago."

Cloud reacted immediately, cooing before he could stop himself.

Sephiroth took it as a good sign, and softly continued, "And the half reason… is that…"

Cloud cut him off abruptly, "I'll buy myself out of the goddamn lease."

He turned to continue packing his things before he fell to pieces, hiding his face in his hands and sobbing. Sephiroth pushed off the frame and went to him, taking the items of clothing out of his hands, ripping them away when Cloud tried to yank them back.

Sephiroth took his wrists and put them around his neck. Cloud seemed to be a little repellent to the idea at first, but his venom quickly dissolved into a desperate embrace.

"Seph, I love you," Cloud whispered.

"I love you. I love you," Sephiroth whispered back. Then he said two very rare words indeed. "I'm sorry."

Cloud smiled through tears before veering his eyes away from Sephiroth, to the mess that he had made of their bedroom, the meaningless pieces of his life that had been scrapped together to be packed away, "Seph... Maybe it would be best if I did leave, maybe just for tonight."

"No fucking way," Sephiroth said, holding him tighter. "I need you here."

"Talk to me, then," Cloud demanded, his arms wrapped fiercely around his lover's neck.

Sephiroth set him on his feet, backing up a little to really look at him. "Can you please try to understand how… fucking horrifying today was for me?"

Cloud's eyes were vomiting tears. "Horrifying? How?"

The complete look of 'duh' was so out of place on Sephiroth's regal features that Cloud had to smile, but bite his cheek to snuff it out.

"I saw that. I don't appreciate it," Sephiroth whispered with a small smile, bucking his nose against Cloud's forehead.

Cloud put his arms around Sephiroth's thin waist, his own stomach turning at the idea of losing what might have been inside of him. "…Tell me what scares you?"

"Everything," Sephiroth answered without reservation or guard.

"We both knew you were different," Cloud said softly.

Sephiroth shuddered a little at the implications, that something as unnatural as this could have been in the realm of possibility for Cloud, that it didn't revolt him as it should have. "But this… it's too different. Too much."

He began to draw away again, but Cloud didn't let him escape this time, tightening his hold. "It is different… but don't you think it could be something wonderful?"

Sephiroth's expression said that he did not.

Cloud had to smile at the scowly pout, "What do you think? You have little aliens that are going to pop out of your chest?"

Sephiroth's eyes widened. "No, Cloud. That horrific thought had not yet occurred to me."

"Two weeks," Cloud recovered quickly, still not letting the General that had begun to squirm in his arms free. "Maybe Aerith will be able to tell us more?"

Sephiroth closed his eyes, "I don't want to know more. I want to be done with this, and forget about it."

Cloud then gripped him in a tightness that startled Sephiroth. His first year training for SOLDER was beginning to really show. But despite the rugged hold, Cloud's voice was the softly masculine coo it always was, "I want them, Seph."

"You don't know what they are."

"I don't care."

Sephiroth believed that.

"…I care, though. I feel that this is… a punishment."

Cloud sighed miserably, "Sephiroth! I never meant to punish you or hurt you!"

"Not you, fool. I feel like this is a punishment from my mother. For not being what she needed me to be."

Cloud blinked as he mentally worked through this muddy information. "But, I… don't see how she could punish you. She's… she's a dead fish, Seph."

Sephiroth sighed grumpily, pinching his nose at the old argument bubbling to the surface. "She's not dead. And she's not a fish, for fuck's sake. And it's very possible that this could somehow be her doing, her influence…"

"It still won't hurt to wait and see."

"Well, what if you're right? What if they are… chest popping aliens?"

Cloud said seriously, "Aerith will know long before anything could hurt you. We'll take care of it, in that case. No matter what, you're going to be fine."

The strength in that statement, and in Cloud's arms around him… Sephiroth knew that he was absolutely, head over heels in love with Cloud. He couldn't fathom anyone else having the talent to comfort him as he did, in his own unique little way.

"Maybe…" Sephiroth ventured, "Someday… we could think about having them another way. A normal, natural way. Like a test tube."

Cloud was moved. "Would you really want that?"

"I want you happy."

Cloud clutched him, only relenting when Sephiroth gave a small, barely audible squeak of discomfort. Then Cloud bounced a little against him. "Two weeks. No major decisions for two more weeks. Please?"

Sephiroth's jaw set, and he gazed beyond Cloud, his green eyes squinting in harsh, but level headed consideration.

Slowly, and only once, Sephiroth nodded.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

There came a teensy little knock on Sephiroth's office door.

He hadn't the foggiest idea who that could have been. And right after a donut and coffee delivery?

"Come on in, Zack," he invited.

None other than Zack Fair carefully poked his head in. "…Morning.."

"What do you want?" Sephiroth asked easily, taking a big bite of a blackberry scone.

"Um…" Zack faltered, staring at Sephiroth's stomach before his eyelashes fluttered and his eyes shot to Sephiroth's face, where a dark scowl was brewing.

"Whatever happened to patient confidentiality?" Sephiroth wondered, snatching a krueler from the box before Zack tried to descend upon it.

Zack didn't descend, only covered a mouth with his hand, fully entering the office to lean on the door weakly. "…So it's true?"

Sephiroth bit into the pastry with a bored nod, inwardly finding himself deliriously happy this morning. Might have been the passionate, intense make up sex with his amazing, beautiful lover the night before. Might have been the feeling that he was completely harmonious with nature on such an early spring morning. Might have been the shining sun, the singing birds, the lovely sheen of dew.

Or the kruelers. He took a second one.

"It's true that I am currently having technical difficulties. That's all I'm going to say about it. And I'd appreciate if you would say even less about it, or that'll be the last thing you say, Zack Fair, so help me God." Sephiroth's usual venom was snuffed out slightly by the sugar on the corner of his mouth. He licked it away before daintily selecting a chocolate on chocolate with chocolate sprinkles.

He bit down – ohh! Chocolate cream inside!

Zack sat at the chair opposite his desk in astonishment, "Seph… are you… gonna have a bab – "

Had it been 24 hours prior, Sephiroth would have already driven every single writing utensil on his desk through Zack Fair. But it was different, this day. Different.

Sephiroth clenched his fist on his desk, anyways. "There's nothing wrong with me that's not going to get fixed permanently, and soon. Rumors about me are ugly enough as it is without the entire company knowing I have a parasite problem."

"She only told me, Seph. Nobody else."

"And how many people have you told?"

"Who would believe me?" Zack crowed, sparkles of amazement and humor lighting his eyes.

"True enough," Sephiroth grumbled around a cherry filled pastry. "But still. Keep your mouth shut."

Zack beamed. "What are you gonna name it?"

Sephiroth shot him a dry look, "I'm not going to name anything, Zack. I swear to Christ you thrive off of my disdain."

"Disdain, my ass. You're glowing!"

"And you're going. Get out!"

Zack leaned on the desk. "Did you… you just smiled!"

"It was the maple frosting," Sephiroth mildly defended, chowing down. "Out."

"I like this new appetite of yours. It's nice to see some meat on your skinny ass."

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes again, "Now you're just making shit up, I'm can't gain weight. My body composition is specifically designed to maintain a perfect physique!"

"Riiight," Zack smiled, dipping his finger in a pool of chocolate cream, the only thing left in the carton that previously held half a dozen donuts. He left Sephiroth's office whistling.

Sephiroth huffed when he was gone, dipping his own gloved fingers into the rest of the chocolate residue and sucking it off. He was hungry from the severe case of rug burn he gave little Cloud last night, that was all.

Cloud… Sephiroth suddenly swooned, sitting back in his chair with sleepy, catlike contentment. Cloud, clawing him and arching up at him, generously allowing him to reassert his manhood in the most primitive way possible. Cloud, so beautiful when he was sweaty and sticky in those perfect moments of shameless need.

Sephiroth decided then and there to make it up to him, for the confusion, the fighting, the harsh words. He needed to do something special, preferably something to get both of their minds off of all of this mutant viral intestinal parasitic nonsense.

A vacation would have been ideal. But while time off would have been simple for him to request for himself, in Cloud's position of a new SOLDIER, a leave of absence was out of the question.

A gift would have been perfectly appropriate. But what? Maybe he'd like something shiny, like a nice, big sword. Or maybe something loud, like a motorcycle. Or maybe something expensive, like an island.

Or maybe he already had the perfect gift for Cloud. Something priceless.

Who thought that!? Sephiroth screamed in his head, jolted out of his reverie.

Nobody answered.

He pursed his lips before hitting the intercom. "Hey Susie. I'm out of here."

"Out of where?" his secretary asked in a bored, distracted sort of way.

"Here. I'm going home for the day," Sephiroth didn't leave it open for discussion.

He was tired. And hungry. And hot. Out the door he went.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Cloud arrived home from training to a smell that was heavenly. As famished as he was, any smell coming from their kitchen would have seemed divine, but this scent was not only unexpected and appreciated, but truly delicious.

He peeked around the corner, feeling like a kid that had walked in on his parents wrapping up Christmas gifts.

"Don't creep around," Sephiroth rumbled from the stove.

"I'm afraid I've died and gone to heaven," Cloud dramatized, tracking in a little bit of dirt as he crossed the room to wrap his arms around Sephiroth. "What is this?"

"This just happens to be your favorite dish," Sephiroth informed.

"But I don't know what it is!" Cloud giggled.

"Well, it's about to become your favorite." Sephiroth untucked one of his arms from Cloud's embrace and wrapped it around his neck.

Cloud didn't even verbalize out loud how shocked he was that his beloved could cook, as it would have been a moot point. Over the course of their relationship, Cloud was well aware that Sephiroth could master anything he wanted to, usually on the first try. From things like card games and sports, to odd handyman tasks around their apartment, to mending a rip he had made while tearing off Cloud's favorite jeans. He'd often asked how long Sephiroth had been practicing a particular skill, only to get the blythe answer of, 'Never done that before'.

The Shin-Ra company party that year had been held at the Golden Saucer, Rufus shutting it off to the general public for an entire weekend so the army personnel and executives alike could run amok. Cloud was having a ball, but could tell that Sephiroth was bored.

Rides messed up his hair. The play almost put him to sleep. The food was gross. The training grounds were too easy. Sephiroth didn't complain out loud, but Cloud could tell he wasn't having any fun, so he decided to try and make his lover laugh by making a fool of himself on Dance Dance Revolution in the arcade. He'd chosen the easiest song on the lowest possible difficulty, and while he actually got a couple of the steps right, he'd bombed miserably.

But he had succeeded in making Sephiroth laugh, so he didn't mind the fact that he'd drawn a crowd of spectators to view his public mortification. Then, Sephiroth had astonished him and everyone by saying that he'd like a try.

"Have you played this before?" Cloud asked, fluffing up his hair so it wouldn't dry sweaty.

"No," Sephiroth answered, causing a wave of commotion through all that were present. People whipped out cell phones to take pictures and video, and to call over their friends to witness General Sephiroth make an ass of himself.

Sephiroth had gone through almost the entire list of songs before stopping at one he liked. It just happened to be one of the hardest ones on the game. Then it asked him what difficulty he'd like to play at, and Sephiroth had chosen 'Hades Spawn'.

Cloud balked, "That's really hard, Seph!"

"Oh," Sephiroth had frowned. When the arrows came flying up the screen, Sephiroth kept his hands in his pockets and stomped away. He didn't get a perfect score… but was pretty damn close.

"Ha!" someone shouted, drunk. "The greeeaat Seffffiroth isn't so perfect, afterallll!"

Sephiroth put in a few more tokens and chose the hardest song on the entire game on Hades Spawn mode. His intention to get a perfect score was clear. He took his hands out of his pockets.

The rest was YouTube history. Sephiroth got a perfect score, and the jeering drunk, who turned out to be Hollander, broke out from the crowd to worship him with cries of, "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"

While Sephiroth may have had a love/hate relationship with his own perfection, Cloud could tell in that moment that he really fucking enjoyed it. He asked Sephiroth later in their hotel room how he did it, and all he could come up with as an explanation was, "I slowed it down."

"How?"

"I'm not sure. But, I slowed it down with my eyes, like I do when I'm fighting and a lot of distraction is going on around me. I slowed down what wasn't important; the colors, the people, the arrows, and I focused on what was important – the beat."

It was one of the sexiest things Cloud had ever heard.

And surely, as Sephiroth grated cheese on two plates of whatever delicious meal he had been possessed to prepare, he'd have some sort of similar, supernatural explanation. I wanted to try out sucking culinary knowledge out of Betty Crocker's soul, perhaps.

Cloud ventured, anyways. "What made you wanna cook?"

"I wanted to do something nice for you."

No, that was the sexiest thing Cloud had ever heard. He hugged Sephiroth tighter, "Daww! I should eat you up, instead!"

"I won't stand in the way of that."

Cloud was entirely too smitten to remain on his own two feet. He hopped up to sit on the counter next to Sephiroth. "I can't wait to try it! What's in it?"

"Zack actually made it for me before, it's from Gongaga. Chicken Parmesan."

Cloud leaned on his palms, giddy as a schoolboy, "Let me guess; you knew all the ingredients and how to make it just by remembering how it tasted?"

Sephiroth only smiled. "I don't enjoy bragging. Anyways, it's done."

Cloud reached for a plate and put it in his lap, prepared to eat right there in the kitchen as they typically did. Sephiroth snapped his fingers at him when he opened the drawer between his legs and began to dig out a fork.

"What?" Cloud asked innocently.

"I thought we'd eat at the table like human beings," Sephiroth muttered, flowing out of the kitchen, but right past their little breakfast table, previously fucked on, but currently cluttered with materia and opened mail.

Cloud tilted his head, following Sephiroth with his plate.

They had a dining room in their apartment, but it was empty, and usually the place they stored their equipment, weapons, and bulkier pieces of their uniforms. When Cloud took the initiative to put a beanbag chair in the room for plopping down to undress on, they stopped referring to it as a dining room entirely, since it was somewhat dishonest.

But as he followed Sephiroth, slightly puzzled, he found that all the equipment had been cleared out. In place of the mountain of shoulder guards and old, mission dirty boots, there was an actual table. And chairs. And placemats. And napkins. And salt and pepper shakers.

Like a real home.

Sephiroth lit one of Cloud's scented candles that he usually kept in the living room, just by touching the wick. He sat with his plate, and looked up at Cloud uncertainly. "Like it?"

The table sat four people, but Cloud noticed that there was a divide through the middle of it, meaning there was another panel that could be added to make it larger. Fully assembled, it would be able to seat eight.

Cloud knew Sephiroth hated it when he cried about his own happiness. And he also knew that this could mean something wonderful, or absolutely nothing at all. His lover was always so difficult to read.

Deciding not to waste time crying or pondering, he sat next to Sephiroth instead of across from him. He curled a leg around his, and tried out his new favorite dish.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"This feels ridiculous," Sephiroth groaned, trying not to squirm under the freezing cold jelly that was being smeared across his lower stomach. His perfectly toned, flat stomach. 'Chiseled' would have been the perfect word for it.

Aerith had asked him to don a pair of drawstring patient pants, and they were rolled down far enough on his hips to make her blush most unprofessionally. He certainly didn't look inhabited by alien, body snatching eggs.

Sephiroth decided that Aerith was a quack. There was a high probability that this was all some huge oversight on her part. He laid his head back on the rough tissue covering the table and pondered the possibility that this was all a mistake that was about to be rectified. Maybe there had been nothing inside him all along.
What a relief that would have been…

Sephiroth realized he was being spoken to, and came up out of his thoughts. "What, Cloud?"

"I said... are you okay?"

"Of course. I'm fine," he declared, staring at the monitor that would show what exactly the creatures inside him were, if they existed at all, and what they were planning to do to him.

"Okay..." Aerith beamed, in a hushed, reverent way. "Let's take a peek."

Childishly, Sephiroth clamped his eyes shut.

After a few long moments, he heard Cloud say, "Oh, Sephiroth…"

"Ng… What is it?" he asked, terrified.

Cloud reached over, and with two thin, nimble fingers, he forced Sephiroth's eye open. He stubbornly kept them on Cloud, who was gazing at the monitor with parted lips. Then he glanced over at Aerith, who wore an identical expression.

Sephiroth finally looked for himself.

So it was true. There were five eggs. They didn't just look like unidentifiable circles anymore, but actual, ellipsed eggs.

And inside each one, was a tiny creature.

Sephiroth squinted, sitting up on the bed, wanting a better look. Aerith carefully followed his movement with the transducer, making sure the image wouldn't be disrupted.

The creatures were only vague little shapes. But Sephiroth could easily make out large eyes, the beginning formations of legs, and tiny hands with even tinier fingers. There were three eggs completely visible, one somewhat hidden behind the others, and one nestled out of sight entirely.

To Sephiroth's astonishment, one of them actually moved. Inside one of the eggs, a little, half formed hand reached up behind where its' ear would have been, and it scratched at itself lazily. This seemed to set off a chain reaction of movement in the other eggs. The one closest to it stretched a little. The one next to that opened its' little mouth and appeared to have yawned.

Cloud and Aerith both gasped loudly.

"These things are humanoid," Sephiroth murmured, breaking the silence.

Aerith nodded, still watching although the creatures had all settled down into stillness once again, "Yes. They might look a little funny, only because they're still developing… they actually grew a little faster than I thought they would. But they're real babies. They already have their eyelashes."

Sephiroth squinted a little. "How can you tell?"

"See?" She said, pointing at one that had its eyes open. The tiny thing took that exact moment to blink, then roll over in its egg, turning around entirely and presenting its little rear end. Sephiroth could hear an echo of Cloud's tinkling laughter, but he was focused on a new revelation.

"Is that a tail?"

Aerith went quiet, and looked closely, "It might be… or this one is a big boy, already."

Cloud went close to the screen. "Well, I hope his peepee isn't growing out of his back!"

"Jesus, Cloud…" Sephiroth groaned. Peepee?

Then Sephiroth realized with a bolt of lightning that Cloud was already… attached. Both him and Aerith had seemed to forget that this was supposed to be an abortion. He watched as Cloud touched and tickled at the monitor, stopping to stroke his fingers at the top of one of their heads.

They were babies. With tails.

It should have been Cloud, Sephiroth thought furiously. If their roles were reversed, there would have been a moment of hesitation or fear on his lover's part.

However, at this point, Sephiroth couldn't deny his own curiosity. He felt himself eager to know what these things were, and what their purpose was. If they were indeed a punishment sent from his mother to kill him, or if they were something else entirely. But what?

"How big are they?" Sephiroth wondered aloud.

"Almost as big as a Cadbury egg," Aerith guessed.

"Where are they?" Sephiroth frowned, looking down at himself.

She looked at Sephiroth. "Well, the doobie is located right behind your penis."

Sephiroth balked. "How are they planning to get out?!"

Aerith bit her lip. "… There's a small tube connecting the doobie to your anus. That's how the impregnation happened..."

Sephiroth was glaring daggers.

Aerith shrugged a shoulder. "Er, the magic happened. And I assume that's how they're going to get out."

"I'll have to crap them out," Sephiroth stated blandly, wondering why those words sounded so goddamn familiar.

Aerith nodded. "It's the most likely answer."

Sephiroth frowned, "What about a c-section?"

"Wait," Cloud gasped sharply, clutching Sephiroth's arm, "So, we can keep them? We really can?"

Sephiroth looked at the screen. "We're watching them. If they get any weirder than they already are… then…"

One of the little creatures yawned again and turned itself upside down in its' egg, seeming perfectly happy to lie on its' head in a lazy pile of half formed limbs. Sephiroth couldn't not smile, and it was the first he had cracked all afternoon.

Cloud jumped for joy. "I'm gonna be a mommy!"

"What about SOLDIER?" Sephiroth asked point blank.

Cloud looked at the screen, pursing his lips before saying, "I'm only 18... I can take a couple years off, if that's what it takes." His blue eyes flicked back and forth over the screen. "Or I'll give it up."

Sephiroth stared at his lover for a long while before finally saying, "You'd give SOLDIER up?"

Cloud was resolute. "For our babies? Anything."

Spending a little time with the General had given Aerith the impression that he was a rather cold, callous, grating individual, always trying to knock everyone down into a position underneath him. She knew he treated Zack worse than dirt, but for some strange reason they called each other best friends. She saw that he treated Cloud like a bothersome child, and also for some strange reason, the beautiful, kind natured blonde looked at him as though he was an angel.

So Aerith was actually rather shocked to see Sephiroth grab up the smaller male to hold him, his long fingers delicately and affectionately weaving through blonde hair. She saw in an unguarded, emotional moment, a glimpse of the warmth and softness that Sephiroth gave Cloud in private. She could see what a gift that would feel like.

Sephiroth turned to Aerith, ending the tender moment by slowly disengaging from a swooning Cloud. "If I do finally decide to go along with this insanity… what can I expect? What's gonna happen to me?"

Aerith had a million possible responses, but she decided to tell Sephiroth the truth.

"I have no idea."

A/N

1- MPREG!!!!!! (Old horses; I beat them.)

2- I got fancy and googled the name for the little thingy that you put on a mama's stomach to see the baby. It's called a transducer, apparently! Wizardry!

3- See what I did, there? I sandwiched the drama in-between big slices of happiness. I'm sorry, I just don't like angst in big doses. I'm sure there are other fics full of rape and carnage and blood letting and scat that layer the negative emotions in heavy. That's not my way.