Deepground Chapter, and we all know what that means.
The following is most emphatically Not Safe For Work, or intended for readers under 18. Here there be Squick.
You know who you are, now shoo. For the brave souls willing to read on...
Trigger Warnings: Rape, Non-con, and general needless violence against those who can't defend themselves. Hey, it's Deepground. :P
If you don't want to read on, the Cliffs Notes are thus: Weiss has his "Normal" ruined.
That is all.
Nero found Weiss in his thinking spot. Few people ventured so close to the ancient reactor, but the leakage wouldn't do a thing to Weiss or any of the other colored Tsviets. If they hadn't died of makou poisoning by now, they never would. The buttresses that held up the cooling tower angled in just above the access walkway, forming a ring of over-sized chairs that looked out over the subterranean city. Weiss sat hunched in one of them, arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees.
"Something on your mind?" Nero asked, making himself comfortable on the floor. "You were awfully quiet at practice."
"It was my turn with the Mothers," Weiss began, not lifting his chin from where it rested on his knees. "And…" he paused, searching for words. Nero waited patiently, hoping Weiss would elaborate. Due to his dependence on stagnant makou, nearly all of Nero's interpersonal encounters were second-hand. Listening to Weiss, Rosso, Azul, and Argento allowed him some measure of intimacy even if it was only in his own imagination.
"I figured something out," Weiss said at last."I'm not sure the Mothers like being Mothers. I'm not sure they want to be Mothers." Turning his head, Weiss' ice blue eyes searched Nero's face for an answer. "...does that make sense?"
Nero blinked. It didn't make any sense at all. As far as he knew, Mothers existed for one reason: to bear children. If they were lucky enough to survive the birth, they might nurse and take care of their babies until they were old enough to be admitted into the nursery. If they were able, the Mothers went right back to having more children; if not, they would be admitted into ranks as JANEs.
"Not really," he admitted. "Why do you ask?"
"Because of Rosso."
Nero squinted, wondering if he were seeing things. Although the luminance of the energized makou cast everything in an eerie green light, Weiss' face and shoulders had flushed an unmistakable pink.
"It never happened like that for her before. You saw. She liked it. She said so. A couple of the Mothers liked it too, I think." Doubt pulled at his features, creasing his brow. "But most of them didn't."
Nero blushed a bit himself at the memory. Before then, Rosso had never seemed all that interested in sex, and had beat more than one soldier to a bloody pulp for invading her personal space. Rosso didn't feel pain, barely felt physical sensation at all. Maybe that was why she'd never done anything besides put up with Weiss until he was done. Sometimes she would shout or smack him if he did something she didn't like, but ordinarily she let him get it out of his system without much fuss. She'd never… He tried to think of a word for it, but couldn't find one.
"How do you know?" he asked, curious. Rosso was one thing, it had been easy to see the last time had been different for her, but he'd only had one short-lived experience with a Mother himself. He hadn't gotten very far before she'd become surrounded by his shadows and disappeared out from under , she hadn't been hurt and had been found a few days later in a broom closet. He'd been banned from rotation after that.
"Well," Weiss began awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand- an uncharacteristic gesture. "You've had sex with a girl, right?"
Nero shrugged. "I didn't get to finish."
Weiss chewed his lip, trying to think how to explain. "Right, well, they'll push back with their hips if they like it. They'll help, like Rosso did." Scarlet spread across his shoulders, up his throat and into his face, and he looked away, suddenly shy. "A couple of the Mothers helped too, but most of them didn't."
Nero nodded, trying hard to follow. "So...you think they didn't like it?"
Weiss did not answer right away. "...you know where adult recruits come from, right?"
"Sure. Convicts, prisoners of war, vagrants, people like that. People from the Outside."
"These women...the Mothers...they didn't sign up for this the way Azul did. They don't want to be here, and they don't want to be mothers, at least not like that."
The stricken look on Weiss' face hit Nero like a punch in the gut. Not knowing what else to do, Nero got to his feet and went to stand next to him.
"I don't know why he didn't tell me," his brother went on. "Azul used to tell me to be nice, to be a gentleman. I still don't even know what the hell he meant by that, except I think now maybe I do? I didn't want to hurt them...not any of them… They're Mothers… I just…"
"You...didn't know," Nero told him awkwardly, trying to be comforting.
"But now I do."
"Does that change things?"
For a long while, Weiss said nothing. Elbows leaning on his knees and chin in his hands, he thought long and hard. Thought and thought, until he thought a hole in the ground, as Azul liked to say. After many minutes, Weiss straightened and stood.
"Yes," he said decisively. "It does."
Ordinarily, Weiss didn't pay much attention to the other troops unless he was directly engaging them in the arena. He didn't think much of killing them; never had. Many of them were what Azul called "Dogs": heavily engineered beasts barely capable of comprehending human speech. Most of the "Natural Born" troops- as the children of the Mothers were informally known- were still too young for him to bother with. The oldest were around ten and would not be added to ranks for another three years at least. Normally it was the Recruits- the troops brought in from the Outside- that were the most interesting. They also had the hardest time adjusting; it seemed they couldn't get it through their heads how things were done in Deepground. They were always getting into trouble with their COs, with the Restrictors, the other troops, with everyone, really.
At present, there was a JANE having trouble with one of the JOEs. He was one of the older soldiers, though not an officer. Weiss had seen him more than once in ranks. The JANE was obviously new. The JOE had one of her arms twisted awkwardly behind her back and a knife against her throat. Her trousers had been torn off in such a way that they hung ragged and ruined around her knees. His merely sagged around his hips as he pushed her harder and harder against the wall.
This was none of his business. He should not be watching, but Weiss stood still as if frozen in place, an unwilling witness. Tears had begun to stream down the JANE's cheeks. If she didn't like it, she should fight him off. That was the way it worked. Rosso had had a JOE try to force himself on her when she was nine. Weiss and Nero had ganged up on the soldier in question and had been punished severely for their interference. However, their counter-attack had been vicious enough that no further attempt was made on Rosso until she was nearly thirteen. By then, she was big enough and strong enough to fend for herself.
The JANE was of middling height for a woman, but thin in a way that suggested malnutrition rather than a naturally slender build. Blood had begun to bead up from her skin beneath the knife blade. Weiss had seen people bleed so often it had become trite and unimportant. He, Rosso, and Nero slaughtered dozens of troops a day in the arena. But this was different. This was not a fair fight. This was just mean.
In three long steps he crossed the hall, seized the JOE by his collar, and tossed him calmly over his shoulder. The man went sailing through the air and then the wall. Dust rose in a gray cloud as bits of brick and mortar crumbled from the hole he'd left. The JOE's head lay bent at an odd angle, highly indicative of a severed spine. Weiss didn't care. His satisfaction at the soldier's death was different from his smug victories in the arena. This seemed at once smaller and larger, and a good deal more honest.
Turning away from the dead soldier, he looked at the JANE. She shrank back against the wall, pinching her knees together and trying to use her hands to block his view. The JOE had ripped her trousers so badly that they were useless. Stooping, he yanked the trousers off the JOE's inert body and offered them to her. For a moment she just started at them, then at him, and again at the trousers.
"Here," Weiss said in what he hoped was a non-threatening tone, pushing the trousers into her hands. She took them wordlessly, continuing to stare at him open-mouthed. After a moment she shook herself, hastily stepped into them, and took off running. Turning around, Weiss noted the reason for her flight. A Restrictor stood just behind him, arms crossed beneath its black cloak.
"What?" Weiss dared to ask it. The thing just stared at him from behind its mask.
"Does it matter if they're male or female? What's one more dead soldier to you?" It dawned on him then that the JOE would not have let her live. He would have killed her when he was through.
The Restrictor considered him for a moment more before replying, its voice like an ancient loudspeaker: "Nothing at all."
Without further comment, it moved on down the hall, and Weiss stared after it, wondering.
When he had questions- delicate questions- Weiss usually consulted Azul. However, the big man had not yet returned. There were rumors he'd been captured, or that he had defected, but Weiss didn't believe either one for a minute. Azul would return when the mission was complete and not before. In the meantime, he would ask Argento. Indeed, she might actually know more about it, being a woman herself.
As usual, Argento was in busy in her forge, a pile of damaged specialty weapons sitting on the shelves, waiting for her attention.
"Immaculate," she greeted him with a smile and a nod. It was an old joke between them since Weiss was rarely neat even if he was clean. "To what do I owe the honor?"
She handed him a set of tongs and a pair of gloves. Her work must not stop, but that didn't mean she would refuse him. Pulling the gloves on, Weiss took the tongs and lifted the indicated bit of glowing metal out of the furnace.
"Where do they keep the Mothers?" he asked, positioning the bent steel on the anvil and holding it steady. Argento blinked, arm poised in mid-air, hammer in her hand.
"Why would you know?" she countered, bringing the hammer down with a resounding clang. She pounded away for a few minutes before asking: "Has something happened?"
At her direction, he put the metal back into the hot coals. While it heated, he briefly related discovering that Rosso could feel pleasure, and the pains he had taken to ensure that Jane had a similar experience. Argento listened thoughtfully, face impassive. Weiss took the steel from the fire and held it for her as she worked it, banging away as if forging her answer from the twisted metal.
"All knowledge comes with a price," she said at last. "If you would know what it is to be a Mother, ask your brother. He will know of what you speak. He can show you where to find your answer."
Weiss had originally thought about going to the medical bay and asking about Jane. Although that wasn't her real name, and he didn't know her serial number, it would be easy enough for one of the doctors to look up whom he'd been with last. However, that would draw attention to her, and he didn't want anyone thinking she was special to him. No good would come of that. Argento was right. Nero would know where to find her.
It wasn't all that difficult to locate Nero if one knew where to look. The younger man was nowhere to be found when he wasn't scheduled to be somewhere like sparring practice or mess. Nero had always preferred to hide in the shadows whenever he could. Turning his back to one of the dim, greenish overhead lights, Weiss called into his own shadow: "Nero?"
His shadow rippled like a pond disturbed, and after a moment, Nero's head surfaced from the darkness.
"What?" he asked.
"I need you to take me to Jane."
Nero blinked. "Say what?"
"I need to talk to her," Weiss went on. "Argento said you'd know where she is."
"Well, yeah…" Nero said slowly. "But men aren't supposed to go in there. No one is."
Weiss huffed an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. "I don't want to fuck her, I just want to talk to her. It's important."
For a long moment his brother just looked at him. Eventually, he nodded and grabbed Weiss' hands. "Okay, come on."
Taking a deep breath, Weiss let Nero pull him into the shadows.
Because Deepground had been built over like a lost civilization, virtually every square inch was cast in darkness and therefore available to Nero. Wherever there were shadows he could wander freely. As children, all three of them had often snuck off to explore, courtesy of Nero's gift for shadows. However, the empty blackness was cold and deep to those infused with bright green Light Makou, and the shadows left red, chapped patches like chilblains on Weiss and Rosso's skin, giving them away. Only Nero still disappeared into the darkness when he was not needed, and Weiss envied him the luxury of escaping, even if temporarily, the Restrictors' ever-watchful eyes.
The Mothers, it turned out, were kept beneath Sector Three in one of the many networks of caves deep below the substructure of Underplate, beneath even the subway, the sewer, and the service tunnels. The walls of the natural tunnels were stained a pleasant mako-green, making it seem as if the caves were underwater and not underground. Little wooden doors painted pastel colors lined the walls. Had he known what a college dormitory looked like, it might have reminded Weiss of that. Women dressed in either smocks or scrubs wandered the hall and in and out of doors. Shadow to shadow, Weiss and Nero followed them. One of the women- her stomach huge under her smock- was heading down another corridor. Hurriedly, Nero leaped into her shadow, and she pulled them along unknowingly, like a Chocobo with a cart.
Nero craned his neck, trying to look up her skirt, and Weiss elbowed him sharply. Nero elbowed him back, but refocused on the task at hand. The woman pulled them past more colorful doors and an area with plastic chairs gathered around circular tables. It took Weiss a moment to work out that this was the mess hall. They were forced to leap to another woman's shadow- this one dressed in scrubs with soil pressed into the knees. She was much thinner than the pregnant Mother they'd just left, her stomach flat beneath her baggy shirt.
The corridor she went down was at once darker and brighter than the others. Nero shrank back as warm, yellowish light expanded her shadow and the smell of earth rose up around them. Unless one counted the gray lichen that grew on the rusty bunkers, or the black and slimy mold in the showers, Weiss had never seen plants up close. The overwhelming greenness of it all made him want to sneeze. Dust and pollen floated thick in the air under the bright lights. Stretching as far as he dared, Weiss craned to look as Nero had.
There was green everywhere- and not the poisonous yellow-green of the miasma from Reactor Zero. Bright green, deep green; leaves so dark they looked black, blades of grass so vibrant they hurt his eyes. Plants grew up from the ground in raised boxes, and hung down from the ceiling like frilly green light fixtures. Amid the green hid other colors: red, orange, yellow, and pink. Blossoms, seed pods, and what could only be whole fruit dotted the bushes and vines, adding a deeper, more nuanced fragrance to so much green.
"What is all this?" Weiss breathed.
"It's a garden," Nero whispered. "For growing food. You can eat just about everything in here, both the different colored parts and the green."
"Really?" Weiss asked, fascinated. All his life he had only seen food in its final form: diced, stewed, salted, and packaged in plastic so it would be safe to eat any time in the next three years.
"Yeah," Nero whispered back. "I've seen them pull stuff up and take it to the kitchen. They cut it up, put it in pots, take it out again, and eat it."
"Think it's any good?"
Nero shrugged. "Probably."
"We'll take some back with us," Weiss decided. This was not a treat they should keep to themselves. Rosso should know what green tasted like as well.
The woman pulling them had stopped and dropped to her knees in front of one of the raised boxes where she began to dig. Nero jumped, pulling Weiss into another shadow and out of the garden. Like the last woman, her stomach was invisible beneath her scrubs. Weiss and Nero trailed her through the beautiful maze of sea-green corridors.
"Do you see her?" Nero asked, glancing at the other women who wandered past.
"No."
How they were going to find Jane among so many other women, Weiss honestly wasn't sure. Perhaps it would have been smarter to try to search for her in the Breeding Program's database? Although that probably would have made her easier to find, it would have raised too many questions and gotten all of them in trouble. He didn't want Jane to be punished too.
Nero hopped from shadow to shadow while Weiss scrutinized faces. Some looked worried, others sad, a handful reasonably content, but most were distant and carefully blank. Despite the warm yellow light, their green food, and pretty doors, none of them looked happy.
"There!" It took an effort not to shout or point. Obligingly, Nero leaped to a different shadow, but Jane had already moved away. It wasn't easy to follow her and Weiss lost sight of her as she went through a wide, arched doorway. Nero dragged them through and into the narrow shadow of the doorpost. Weiss blinked. The Mothers had a training simulator, too.
If he let his eyes relax, he could just make out the bent and wavy lines of light that made up the hologram. The benches and stones scattered around the large, vaulted room were real, as were a handful of statues, and a fountain in the middle. A couple of the plants were real as well: some flowering bushes, low blossoms that must be flowers, and -to his surprise- the short grass underfoot. The trees and larger plants were merely images. Squinting past the yellow lamplight, Weiss could just make out the projectors and the machines that generated the fine mist on which to display the images.
Nero shrank back even further from the light and the green. No one had come by, and shadows were scarce in this underground park. Although much of the cover was projected, it would be enough to hide them from view. Cautiously, he stepped out of the shadow, creating a larger patch of blackness for his brother to hide in. Silently, Weiss made his way along the wall, being careful to stay out of sight. At first glance he had thought the stone facade was part of the hologram, but the neatly stacked rock against his back and beneath his fingers was real. Very curious.
Almost all of the women present were heavily pregnant beneath their smocks. Most of them sat on the benches- alone or in a group- hands on their bellies and contemplative expressions on their faces. There was a small group of thinner women clustered around a bench near the fountain. Nearly every woman had a smile on her face. Curious, Weiss edged over to investigate.
At the center of the group was a woman seated on a bench. In her arms she cradled a bundle wrapped in a pale blue blanket. The other women were cooing and twittering over it. Craning his neck, Weiss tried to see what all the fuss was about, but he was too far away. Motioning to Nero, he fell forward, stretching his shadow until the edge just brushed that of a nearby statue. Nero caught him as he fell into the blackness, carrying them both from the statue, to the fountain, to the little arch of shade just behind the woman's shoulder.
Wrapped in the blanket was the tiniest human Weiss had ever seen. Its head was smaller than his fist, and covered with fine, silky fuzz. Bright blue eyes- already glowing with makou- stared curiously out of its little face. It smiled toothlessly at one of the women and waved a minute pink fist at her. Weiss had known abstractly what a baby was, but had never seen one up close before. It could not have been any bigger or heavier than the five pound hand weights in the gym that no one ever used. Outside of its blue eyes, it was too young to have any distinguishing features. Weiss didn't remember its mother, but couldn't help wondering if it was his.
Jane was facing them, gently poking at the baby, a sad smile on her face.
"How old is he?" she asked. Weiss blinked. Although he had come here to talk to her, he had not expected to hear her speak.
"Ten days," the baby's Mother replied. "He'll be mine for one whole year before they take him away and put me on the front lines." Her words grew sad and heavy as she spoke, and she cuddled the baby close. "But he's mine for now. He's mine. All mine."
Jane looked sad, and tears were welling up in several of the other womens' eyes. This woman was one of the lucky ones. She had survived the birth of her baby and would live to take care of him and then be put in ranks as a JANE. This was supposed to be the best possible outcome for a Mother, but she didn't seem very happy about it. None of them did.
Jane turned and wandered away from the Mother and her baby. Weiss felt the world lurch as Nero lunged for her shadow. They waited, following silently behind her as she walked. Either she was on the short side for a woman, or her trousers were too big. The cuffs had been rolled up so she would not trip on them. She'd pulled her brown hair back into a low ponytail that curled a little at the ends, and swayed against her shoulders as she walked. Weiss waited until she had wandered out of sight from the others before climbing out of her shadow.
She did not even stop short at the soft crunch of his boots on the grass. It was too easy to lock one arm around her waist, clap his other hand over her mouth, and lift her off the ground. She tried to scream, to wiggle away, but Weiss held her fast.
"Calm down," he told her softly. "It's Weiss."
This did not seem to reassure her much, for while she stopped struggling, her body remained tensed.
"If I put you down, do you promise not to scream?"
She nodded, her heart beating rapidly against his ribs. Carefully, he set her down and took a step back.
"Oh my gods!" She gasped, putting a hand to her heart. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"
"I wanted to talk to you," Weiss said simply.
"You… what?" she echoed, bewildered.
"I wanted to make sure you were okay."
Jane just stared at him open-mouthed. Something poked at his ankle and Weiss glanced down, noticing a pair of golden eyes hiding in the shadow beneath a stone bench.
"Apologize!" Nero hissed.
"I'm sorry if I scared you," Weiss began rather awkwardly. "And...and for earlier. I know now that you weren't there because you wanted to be. I hope I didn't hurt you."
It took several minutes and a couple of false starts before Jane managed a reply.
"You couldn't just call me?" she said at last, a decidedly sarcastic slant to her words. It was Weiss' turn to look at her stupidly.
"Call you?" he asked. He had no PHS, nor did she. Neither one of them had any use for a phone. Communication between the Mothers and the rest of Deepground was strictly prohibited. If anyone caught him here, all of them would catch hell for it. Jane looked as if she could not decide if she ought to be amused or not.
"Well, usually the gentleman calls the lady after an evening together," she said, a sardonic smile pulling at her lips. "And he buys her dinner first."
Now Weiss was thoroughly lost. "Didn't they let you eat? I thought Mothers got the best food?"
"You really don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
Weiss shook his head. "Not really, no."
"Oh man…" she groaned, sinking down on the bench. "They told me you were nice behind closed doors, but they didn't say anything about this. Though I guess you wouldn't need to date, not with us around." She gestured broadly, the sweep of her hand taking in the entire park and the women within it. Weiss wasn't sure what to say to that and settled somewhat awkwardly into parade rest, feet apart and hands clasped behind his back. He had a short list of things he had wanted to address with her, but was having trouble remembering what they were. Her remarks made no sense. In his effort to decipher her comment, he remembered what he'd wanted to say.
"Do you have a name?" he asked her.
"Yeah," she said slowly, "it's-" Weiss cut her off.
"Please don't. If I don't know, I can't tell the Restrictors. I don't want to get you in trouble too. I just wanted to know."
"O-kay…" Jane drawled, her confusing deepening by the minute.
"Do you mind if I keep calling you 'Jane'?"
Jane shrugged. "Your house, your rules."
Weiss took that as a 'yes' and moved on to the next item on his list: "Do you want to be a Mother?"
Jane blinked. "Well, I thought maybe someday I'd have kids, but not like this."
"What did you want it to be like?"
"I… I thought I'd fall in love," she stammered, "maybe get married. I never thought…" Swallowing hard, she looked away and crossed her arms over her chest as if she were cold. Weiss went over and sat down next to her, close enough to touch, but Jane shied away, almost falling off the bench in the process.
"Careful," he told her, pulling her back from the edge as gently as he could. Although she didn't try to move over, or get up to leave, she looked away. She shivered, and he rubbed her shoulder with one hand.
"Please don't," she said, voice small and strangled.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, taking his arm back. "I thought you were cold."
She laughed a little at that, though there wasn't much humor in it. "Right. That's what you said the last time."
"Weren't you?"
"Well, yes," she admitted, "but mostly I was scared."
"Scared?" Weiss echoed. "Why?"
Jane stared at him as if his hair were on fire. For a long moment her eyes searched his face, her expression too complex to read. Although she could speak now, Jane was so much more difficult to follow than Rosso. It wasn't just because he'd known Rosso longer, either. Rosso said what she thought, and meant what she said. It was almost impossible for him to tell what was going on inside Jane's head.
"Not all the JOE's sent in to us are nice," Jane began softly, not looking up. "Mostly you just close your eyes and get it over with. None of us expect flowers and chocolates, but there are a couple of guys who don't care if they break bones or draw blood. Everyone prays that they'll get one of the sane ones, but only the luckiest get you."
Now it was his turn to stare. "Me?" Weiss asked, tilting his head in confusion. "Why?"
"That's what I said. When I first got here, I heard plenty of horror stories, but I also heard how you're easily the nicest one. You at least try to be careful. I didn't believe it until…" Trailing off, she shrugged.
"Azul always told me to be a gentleman," he told her. "I wasn't even sure what he meant by that until recently. He never liked the Breeding Program. He never went himself, but he didn't try to stop me either. He just kept warning me to behave myself and telling me that if I didn't go, someone else would. Someone rough."
Jane nodded slowly, processing this. "So...is that why you went to so much trouble with me?"
"No, that was actually Rosso." Weiss was powerless against the heat creeping into his face. "Maybe I wasn't rough, but being a gentleman wasn't enough. I wanted you to like it too."
A moment ago she seemed to be following, but at the mention of Rosso, Jane's perplexity deepened. "I don't understand…"
"I didn't want to hurt you," he shrugged. "I'm really strong, it's easy for me to cause pain and not realize it. I wanted to make sure that didn't happen with you. I wanted you to enjoy it."
Jane had yet to look up. For a long moment she contemplated her lap, the back of her neck flushed pink beneath her ponytail. "I...I did enjoy it…" she stammered. "I feel like I shouldn't have. I didn't want to be there. I was glad that if I was going to have to go through it, that I at least got someone who wasn't going to leave me bleeding, but I didn't expect…" She trailed off, her pink skin staining scarlet.
"Is that why you did that thing with your lips?"
She looked up at him sharply at that, surprise plain on her face. "Thing with my lips?"
"Yeah." Leaning, he briefly touched his lips to hers as she had the last time they were in the same room together. "That."
Too stunned to move, Jane sat there, blinking in disbelief. "...do you have some kind of weird crush on me?"
It was his turn to look dismayed. "I hope not! I didn't think I touched you that hard. I don't want to crush you."
Jane was giving him the hair-on-fire look again. At first he thought she was choking, but a strangled smile had split her face, and he realized she was laughing. "Oh gods…" she groaned once she had managed to recover somewhat. "You've got a sense of humor."
"I wasn't trying to be funny," Weiss insisted, confused. Again Jane studied him, taking his measure with only her eyes.
"You're not messing with me?" she asked, tone serious. "You really don't know what a kiss is? I can't believe no one's ever kissed you before. What about your mother?"
Weiss shrugged. "My Mother died when I was born. I never knew her. Rosso, Nero, and I grew up down here. We don't know who our parents are. No one's ever kissed us, or held us close with their arms. I don't…" He shook his head. This was not what he'd come to talk to her about. On the point of changing the subject, he opened his mouth but closed it again as Jane laid her hand on his knee.
"I'm sorry," she said. Weiss looked at her, feeling his brow crease in confusion.
"Why? I should be apologizing to you. I'm not the one who-"
"No one ever told you different," she interrupted. "I shouldn't have been your first kiss."
For a long moment Weiss could not think of anything to say. He'd come here to apologize to her, to ask her something, but the conversation had taken so many twists and turns that he'd been unable to work any of it in. He didn't understand her at all. Jane had every right to be angry with him, to be afraid of him. She shouldn't have to suffer him or anyone else if she didn't want to.
"Where do you come from?" he asked in attempt to get things back on track.
Jane blinked at this. "Midgar," she said. "Sector Seven. My family never had much. I guess Shinra thought no one would miss me."
"Do you want to go home?"
Jane just stared at him. "Are you playing with me?" she breathed, eyes welling up. "Don't offer me something like that. We both know there's no way out of here. Even if I tried to escape, the microchip they put in me would explode as soon as I went outside the borders of Deepground."
"No it won't." Getting to his feet, Weiss pulled her up as well. "Nero!"
The blackness of their joined shadows rippled and Nero's head appeared. Jane shrieked, and Weiss hurriedly clamped a hand over her mouth.
"Jane, this is my brother Nero," he told her evenly, waiting until her panicked breaths had slowed before removing his hand. Jane's expression remained one of undisguised terror as Nero rose out of the puddle of darkness. Although he stood with hands crossed over his chest as if the long sleeves of his straight jacket were tied, without his rig he was long, black, and skinny as a sunset shadow himself.
"Hi," he said, respirator crackling.
"H-hello," Jane stammered.
"Nero, I need you to keep Jane safe."
Nero nodded. "Okay." Turning to Jane, he commented: "I hope you're not afraid of the dark."
"The Restrictors can't track us when we're in shadow," Weiss confided. "Don't tell anyone."
The terror had melted from her face, and it looked as if she couldn't decide whether to laugh or to cry. With something like a laugh and a sob, she launched herself at Weiss, throwing her arms around his neck. Weiss started, stumbling back a step and arms spread awkwardly at his sides before the memory kicked into place and he clumsily put his arms around her in return.
"This is a hug," she whispered into his neck. "It means 'thank you', and 'I love you', and happy things that you can't put into words." Stretching, she touched her lips to his cheek. "A kiss is like that, but more." Cupping his face in both her hands, she pulled him down and pressed her lips to his. "On the lips, it's way more." Stepping back, she let her hands slide down his arms and then took his hands in hers. "Thank you, Weiss."
Weiss smiled back at her, feeling his cheeks warm, and tilted his head enough to briefly touch his lips to her cheek in return.
"Thank you."
Once he'd visited a place, Nero could simply warp there and didn't need to hop from shadow to shadow as he had earlier. It was Weiss's turn to cringe when he realized where Nero had taken them.
"The dark makou caverns?" he asked. "Seriously?"
"What?" Nero demanded. "They'll never find her here. Don't worry, I'll bring her food and stuff."
Jane didn't look exactly thrilled with the arrangement, but nodded. "It's fine, really."
"I'll come and see you," Weiss promised. He was rewarded with a smile and Jane telling him:
"I'd like that."
He hated to leave her there, but Nero promised to bring her things- a flashlight, blankets, food, and so forth- and Jane insisted she didn't mind. Weiss got the feeling she wasn't being entirely honest about that, but he and Nero had been gone too long already. They stopped only briefly in the Mothers' kitchen before heading back. Some colorful vegetables had been left on the counter, and Weiss scooped them into the shadows along with a small knife. When they reappeared in his room, Rosso was sitting on the bed, polishing her bow.
"Where have you two been?" she asked.
"Takeout," Weiss told her with a grin, arms full of produce. Dumping them onto the bed, he picked up a round, red fruit.
"Try it," Weiss urged, holding it out to her.
Rosso took it and examined it for a moment. Apples had always been imaginary things, a colored, cartoon line drawing vaguely remembered from childhood. This apple was indeed red, but streaked with yellow and dotted with little brown specks like freckles. The yellow condensed in one area as if someone had tried to paint a highlight on it with a brush. It smelled like the sun and sky, though, like them, it had never known either. Lifting it to her mouth, she took an awkward bite. Beneath the red skin, its flesh was white and crispy. It sheared off in a larger chunk than she intended, and she had a little trouble getting the whole thing in her mouth.
"Mph!" she exclaimed, using her other hand to catch a drip of juice that slid down her chin. "Oh my gods…"
"Is it good?" Weiss asked.
Rosso nodded, taking her time chewing, apparently reluctant to swallow.
"Try it!" she insisted, pressing the bitten apple into his hands. Nero looked at it longingly. Before taking a bite himself, Weiss fished the paring knife he'd stolen from the Mothers' kitchen and cut a slice for his brother. He waited until Nero had slipped the piece of fruit behind his mask and into his mouth.
The taste, the texture, everything about it was so alien that it took Weiss a moment to sort it all out. Before all else it was sweet, but tart as well. Although the flesh was crunchy, it was surprisingly wet, his teeth crushing more and more juice out of it.
"Mmmm…" Nero's respirator made a harmonica-like chord out of his contented sigh. "Oh man…"
"I know, right?" Rosso agreed, taking the apple back for a second bite. "This is amazing!"
They passed it around until all that remained were six small brown seeds lying in Weiss's palm. Carrots, it turned out, were bright orange and stiletto-shaped when not cut up, and Weiss and Nero dueled with them before tasting them. They weren't as sweet as the apple, but were delicious in a different way. The long shoots of celery with their crown of frilly green leaves were also good, and just as wet as the apple, though Nero found them stringy. The seemingly endless supply of ruffled leaves on the head of lettuce confounded them for a moment. Tearing them off one by one, they passed it around as they had the apple, Nero rolling the leaves up like cigarettes before tucking them behind his mask.
"Chow's gonna be a disappointment after this," he remarked.
"It'd almost be worth being a Mother to eat like this all the time," Rosso said, toying with the lettuce's woody heart- the only thing they hadn't managed to consume.
Weiss looked at her, the remark sounding strange on her lips. Rosso wasn't and never would be a Mother but he'd expected her to have a bit more sympathy for the other females. Then again, Rosso had never been treated like a female. Rosso was a JANE, a woman in shape but not in function. She was a soldier first and foremost, the difference of anatomy little more than a superfluous detail.
The JANE he'd defended came to mind, and the taste of the garden food turned to ash in his mouth. He had always asked Rosso because he liked her, because she was as good as family, because he wanted to hear her say 'yes' no matter how bored her tone. No one had asked the JANE, or the woman he called 'Jane', not even him. The JOE had known the JANE would yield no children yet he'd forced himself on her anyway. That had nearly happened several times to Rosso. Everyone knew better than to cross her now, but looking back, he couldn't help feeling angry that she'd been assaulted at all. No one should be assaulting any of the JANEs. Hell, no one should be assaulting anyone at all.
Scooting closer, Weiss leaned against Rosso a little. Reflexively, she leaned against him in return. Weiss rubbed his cheek against her hair and rested his chin on her head.
"What's gotten into you?" she asked, amused.
"I'm glad you're not a Mother," he told her. "I'm glad you're here."
Smiling, she rubbed her cheek against his. "Me too."
