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

EVER AFTER

IV. Paths

Down into the darkness they went. On the surface, Midgar was beginning to repair itself from the damage that Meteor had wrought. There was still much to do and it was sometimes too expensive. Shinra had chosen selective areas for repair and upgrading. Sector 5 was not one of them.

The place felt cold and smelled metallic. Tifa tried not to breathe through her mouth at all; she was afraid of swallowing rust particles. Only the truly brave, the crazy or the homeless ventured so far into the depths of the slums and judging by the fact that they were pretty much alone except for the marauders in the shadows, the she figured that the latter two had not survived.

The sound of skittering feet drew her attention. There were at least three of them and the noise made suggested that they had multiple legs. Something dark pink and purple emerged, and she could see the thick scum that dripped from protruding jaws surrounding a huge mouth that dominated its face. "Whole Eaters," she hissed a warning to Sephiroth.

"They're coming from behind too," he said calmly. "I'll take those."

From behind she heard the faint ring that the blade made as it left its sheath. Then the air in front of her crackled with freezing cold as she unleashed an ice spell on all three of the whole eaters which confronted her. Monstrous jagged icicles ripped through the wailing beasts as they flailed ineffectively, trapped and speared before falling dead to the floor. Using a fully matured ice materia on them felt a little like overkill but tonight, she didn't feel like punching anything. Yet.

Silence fell again and she knew that he had easily dispatched of the monsters behind. "You would think that they would have stopped coming by now," she murmured.

"If they don't eat humans, they eat each other. I'm not sure how intelligent these creatures are but desperation can dull any individual's mind."

He sounded like the general he was, talking down to a novice soldier. Tifa rolled her eyes a little. "So, has it ever happened to you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know, desperation dulling your mind." Something crunched under her boot as she walked and Tifa refused to think about what remains were clinging to the bottom. She would scrape the boots clean before she stepped into the church.

It would seem like stupidity, walking and talking in the dark while there were monsters around. Still, no amount of silence was going to hide their presence since their enemies had superior senses of smell and sight. He didn't mind a conversation but would prefer not to have it.

"Hey, you started the conversation."

Apparently Lockhart was more perceptive than he had thought her to be. "No, that I can recall." He was being truthful; he could not recall a single instance of feeling desperate. Still, at the moment, walking down memory lane was akin to walking through a sea of shattered glass. The pieces were scattered about and everywhere he looked, he saw a distorted or partial reflection.

"Not even as a child?" Tifa looked at him from the corner of her eye. Usually she just thought of Sephiroth as something that had been spawned just as he was. But once, he had been a baby, small tiny and helpless. And at the mercy of a madman like Hojo. Or had he known kindness from Professor Gast first?

The mention of his childhood stirred something within. Had he been desperate when he had realised that Professor Gast had abandoned him? He had spent days on end, months even just gazing at the door, hoping and wishing that the person to open the door was the kindly Professor who had conducted all his class lessons. And each time his hopes had been dashed when he was greeted by the smugness of Hojo. "No, not even."

There had been the slightest pause in his voice that led her to suspect otherwise. But Sephiroth was not about to give up his secrets, and she didn't know how many of his secrets she could tell him. So Tifa decided that keeping quiet was the way to go.

For a long while, there was nothing but the sound of their footsteps and the occasional monster that tried to ambush them. When he wasn't slicing monsters into ribbons, Sephiroth thought of asking Tifa about herself. Then again, such a question was hardly wise, given her painful history and his connection to it. "Do you go to the church often?"

She'd stopped going months before. Cloud had been there all the time and she had felt as though she had been intruding. "I used to. And then I tried to move on. Aerith would have wanted that. She is alive, just not visible to our eyes."

"She's in the Lifestream." Once more, the memory of the soft lights and voices came back to him and he knew without a doubt, that he had been there too. And then through the darkness, he could make out the shadowy outline of the church. "We're here."

To his surprise, Tifa stopped at the doorway. "I can wait here," she said. "You'll need to speak with Aerith alone. If she appears."

"Lockhart, it's night and those creatures know we are here."

"They don't come to the church. It's safe—" Her sentence turned into an outraged gasp as Sephiroth took her arm and fairly dragged her into the church.

"If you want to give me privacy, then sit there." And with that, Sephiroth pushed her to sit on one of the church pews. It was close to the front, but at the end near the wall. Far enough away from the door and close enough for him to keep an eye on her. "You can always look somewhere else if you want to. Don't move away."

She would have argued with him but it would have made no difference. And there was something so serene about the atmosphere in the church that she hated disrupting. Sephiroth looked around, she saw him stare at the soft starlight that poured down onto the green grass and white flowers. Like her, he was drawn to its otherworldly beauty. Quietly, he stood at the edge, closed his eyes, and waited.

And waited. As quietly impressed by the beauty that he could see and sense around him, Sephiroth had not come to say any prayers nor twiddle his thumbs at the edge of a flowerbed. He was beginning to wonder how long more he had to wait, or if he was even going about this the right way when a soft giggle broke through the silence. Was Lockhart laughing at him?

Cat eyes snapped open and then widened before he could control his reaction. The scent of flowers assailed his sensitive nose, and a cool wind lifted the ends of his silvery mane. There was no sky above, only light as far as the eye could see. It was warm and soft, not blinding, inviting a person to gaze at it for hours.

You're here. I thought it might be a few days before you came.

He swung around; he could've sworn that the voice had come from behind. But there was nothing, just cream flowers dancing in the light. "Aerith?" The first time he had heard that name was when Zack insisted on waxing lyrical about his girlfriend in front of him in spite of Sephiroth's pointed remarks about his lack of interest. Still, Zack had continued and Sephiroth had let him. After all, one of them had to talk so that there was some semblance of a conversation.

The one and only.

This time, he merely cocked his head to the side, realising the futility of spinning around again. He wasn't so much hearing the voice as feeling it. It was in the light and air, in the flowers and the fields. Wherever he was, she was all around it, in it, part of it.

Are you wondering why we sent you back?

Had she been a part of it? He did not recall seeing her, in fact, he couldn't recall a specific voice amongst the soft murmurs, nor a specific touch to those cool hands that had been on his face. "So you are Cetra?"

You always knew I was.

Then why had he tried to kill her? If she had been the last female, shouldn't it have been more sensible to track her down for a different reason since he was supposed to be the last of the Cetra as well?

Girlish laughter filled the surroundings. No, I don't think I would have been receptive to that kind of proposal either. Although it would have been your first time actually wooing a female. Still, you might get that chance.

Ghost or no ghost, he wasn't taking any cheek from her. "I don't think we're here to discuss my love life. I don't understand though, why would I have killed you if you really were a Cetra?"

It wasn't really you. She had your mind and body, it was always really her. It probably felt like you were doing the thinking but she was there in the background pulling on the strings. You were just the puppet.

Flashes of Cloud writhing in agony, his hands pressed to his head as he thrashed for control of his mind. "Just a puppet…" Sephiroth heard the echo of his own voice, low and taunting.

She liked calling you all her puppets. Those who bore her cells.

His heart was beating faster and harder by the moment. "Mother…"

Jenova, the calamity that fell from the sky. And she's not your mother. And you are not Cetra either.

"That's not true!" His hand went to Masamune, a futile and empty threat, an attempt to silence the girlish voice that was ripping the universe as he knew it to shreds.

Search for the truth. The journey will be worth it. Your life was stolen from you and we've chosen to give it back.

And then the light wrapped itself around his vision and blinded him. "Wait," Sephiroth cried out.

Tifa is the key.

There was an incredible rushing speed and he couldn't breathe. He gasped for air. And broke through to the present. His knees gave way and he grabbed his sword, stabbing down into the wood as he clung to it for balance.

"Sephiroth!"

As he gulped in lungfuls of sweet air, he turned to look at her. She hovered at the edge of the flowerbed, just beyond the curtain of starlight, apprehension and concern so vivid on her face. Kindness for her former enemy, such weakness. It angered and moved him simultaneously.

"Are you alright?" Tifa watched warily, trying not to reach out to him as he swayed.

No. Yes. He didn't know. "I'm fine," he said irritably, forcing himself to straighten his spine and legs. "Let's go."

She looked at him, nonplussed by his coldness. "You saw her?"

As he brushed past her, Sephiroth's arm shot out and Tifa yelped as she was once more dragged unceremoniously alongside him. "Yes I did. She said you were the key."

"The key? To what?" Tifa wriggled and tried to prise his fingers from her arm with a great lack of success. "Let me go!"

"On the contrary Lockhart, I intend to keep you close to my side. Your friend said to search for the truth and that you are the key. Blame her, not me."

It was wrong to think, let alone speak ill of the dead. Still, Tifa couldn't help a sarcastic 'thank you' to Aerith as she struggled to keep up with Sephiroth. "I can walk by myself."

"Good. You'll need that ability for our coming journey."

"Journey?!"

"Yes. We'll start with Shinra military bases that I was assigned to. Like all things, I must have had a beginning. And I want to know what I was like, what I did when I was in SOLDIER. Once we have retrieved that information, I'll decide our next destination."

Sephiroth was going to drag her all over Gaia in search of his past. Sooner or later word of his existence was going to get out. And then she would be in a whole world of trouble when they found out she was with him. "We don't have to do that. I can tell you whatever you want to know." She almost fell over when they jerked to an abrupt halt.

"You know about everything?"

Now that she had his attention, she was starting to wonder if she really wanted it. "Uh, not about your career in SOLDIER. But I know about Hojo and the experiments…"

He remembered reading from books, endless rows of books in a huge library, down in a dark musty room. The knowledge had haunted him for days.

"We'll talk when we get back to your house. But we will be going on that journey."

"Make me!"

It didn't take more than two seconds for Tifa to start regretting those brash words. Blazing green eyes bore down on hers and the fingers that imprisoned her arm tightened imperceptibly, squeezing her flesh. "With great pleasure, Lockhart."

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Please leave comments if you have any.