Chapter 37 - In The End

February, 1991

"So are you going to tell me the truth about that black eye?" Mariella asks.

The air is cold as they walk back to HQ together. Sephiroth studies the mush on his shoes. The city has gone quiet at night in this residential strip that Mariella lives in. Half the lights are turned off. The snow muffles the sounds of machines in the distance.

Mariella pushes when he doesn't respond. "I don't even think Thea believed your 'I fell in gym class' answer but she's too polite to ask at a dinner table."

"I'll work on that, I guess." His stomach sinks lower and he wants to disappear. Sephiroth almost laughs in awkwardness instead. He wishes that she would stop pushing and leave him alone. Even the food in his stomach swirls around threateningly.

About twice a month, Thea invites him over for dinner. Sometimes he comes, sometimes he doesn't. It all depends on if he has the time with homework and training. Mariella's girlfriend is relentless so over time, it has become a strange part of his life. It's weird but there are good things. Mariella joins them most of the time. The house is comfortable. Thea is good company. He gets to visit Charlie. The food is always better than the cafeteria brown stuff.

Although knowing Charlie is part of his past scares him. Everything related to what was in that journal scares him. It all hurts him.

He's locked those written memories away, physically and mentally, and scrambled back up the hill he had fallen down. In the beginning, his mind had tried to put together the pieces, to solve the questions, but the emotions overwhelmed him. A bout of illness was never far behind.

It has been six years now knowing something he shouldn't. The last of the curiosity had flickered and died. Did it matter? He couldn't remember it anyways. Any time he tries to think about it or even ask Mariella questions, he finds himself back in the ICU in R&D.

"I thought everyone leaves you alone at school now," Mariella says next to him.

Sephiroth blinks, comes back to the present. "They do."

"What did it?"

The sense of ease that he gets from going to their apartment finishes sliding off him. HQ starts to appear in front of him. This is the sterile professional building that he keeps bleeding in.

"Just the sim."

"The simulation room? Again?"

"Don't worry about it. I just made a few mistakes and got slammed by a couple soldiers that I didn't see coming." Her concern makes him want to run. He digs his chin into his chest and tries to ignore the pain in his chest.

"I know Dinand is tough but he shouldn't…" she breaks into a hum.

"No. It's my fault. Please don't talk to him. I'm old enough now to handle it." He kicks a drift.

Sephiroth is in a pressure cooker because he keeps making mistakes. Professor Hojo wasn't wrong those months ago. After the holidays slipped by, the newspapers returned to the war. Now peace talks have ended. Wutai is standing strong and aggressive and Shinra is calling for volunteers for the army. If they don't get enough, there will be a draft.

The thought of Wutai makes his skin crawl. Those are memories he is thankful he doesn't have. Maybe going to and fighting them will give him some relief. Maybe he will stop looking over his shoulder or waking up covered in sweat in the middle of the night for no reason.

But before that, he needs to get strong and stop failing in the sim.

The bruise on his face from Dinand's fist tells him exactly how far he has to go.

Mariella looks at him and sighs. "How's school?"

"I got a hundred and four on my history midterm." The words are molasses in his mouth.

"Out of…?"

"A hundred. I missed three of the extra credit questions. I could have made it a hundred and ten." A prick of annoyance comes out with that. It had soured his whole day when he realized that had he restudied the revolution one more time, he would have gotten those as well. The teacher had given almost no indication that the exact days of the battle would be important. He'd know for next time at least.

"You know we're happy with anything that is passing."

We're . She's still at work in her mind. This is a Shinra representative next to him. Now he could see it in her shoulders. They are square and level. Only when she feels like herself do those fall.

"Right, yeah, okay," he snips the words out.

She focuses on that bruise. The purple ring must be shiny as they come under the lights in front of HQ. He can even see the swelling. He looks away, studying the closed storefronts. He hopes that they will split up in the elevator. Mariella said there was some last minute work for her.

"Do you want me to help you heal that?" She asks carefully as she swipes them into the building.

Now he squirms. "It doesn't hurt. It's nothing to worry about."

The care that has been there disappears. Her lips turn to a tight line.

" 'Nothing to worry about.' Don't lie to me, Sephiroth even if you think you are being helpful." Mariella's voice is tight as she walks towards the elevator. "We're going to my office and getting that bruise handled. I can't stand to see it on your face."

He's stopped by the door. What did he say? He runs through what he had said. Had he made her mad by trying to make her not worry? And now he's lying?

"Sephiroth," she calls. It's sharp and leaves no room for excuses.

The trip to R&D is quiet. Mariella holds herself tall and her jaw moves without words. Sephiroth goes back to studying the tops of his combat boots watching the snow drip off them. The floors chirp as they pass. He swallows as his floor number disappears. He wishes that this would be over.

Mariella pulls out her keycard as they exit. She doesn't even look at him as she leads him through the dark office spaces. Most of the computers and lab spaces are quiet. A janitor gets spooked as she blows past him. Sephiroth's apology almost makes it out but he swallows it. Apologizes have gotten removed from him.

She swipes the card to her office door.

"Wait here in the hall, I have classified paperwork on my desk."

Sephiroth slumps down, sitting against the wall. He plays with his hands, feeling the calluses. The sooner this is over, the sooner that he can go to his room. This is a disaster. How could he be so stupid to come? If Dinand has the sim beat him up again in a visible place, he is going to have to decline going to dinner.

The idea hurts but this is even worse than eating in the cafeteria and if it is going to result in an angry Mariella, it is better to be alone.

He rubs his face, touching the bruise, feeling the swollen skin. Poking it makes pain flicker in his head. He needs to sleep more so his body heals faster. He also should practice more to be better SOLDIER. That is the only way. Dinand is trying to help him and Sephiroth is being an idiot.

It's all his fault really.

"Are you a ghost?" Someone asks from the corner of the hallway.

Sephiroth presses his hand against his face and closes his eyes. He is done. He is making things up now. He doesn't want anymore people, imaginary or not, in his life. He doesn't want any more echoes of past teasing. He wants to go to bed. That question is his mind throwing stupidity at him.

""cause I've bet this place is haunted," The voice is light and young as it gets closer, "I actually know so."

Sephiroth winces. This is not his imagination. He gives up and looks down the hall. In the dimness, a kid wanders toward him. She's wearing her pajamas covered in flowers. Odd. Why is this happening?

"I'm not a ghost. It's just the color of my hair," He answers anyway. It's the same answer he gives every time. He barely has to think about the words anymore. Dying his hair is a luxury that he can't afford.

"Really?" Her bare feet slap the tile as she runs up to him. He doesn't move. She looks young, maybe in middle school.

"Where's your parents?" He presses the back of his head against the wall. He doesn't want to deal with this.

She stops in front of him. "My mom is busy. My dad is dead. Where are your parents?"

"I'm seventeen. I don't need parents." He snorts and closes his eyes. He could be dreaming all of this. Maybe he is.

"Oh, sorry."

He opens one eye and looks at the green ones blinking back at him. She meant that apology.

"What are you doing here?" He asks, "It's late. The building is closed to the public."

He doesn't want to escort her down but he will if he has to.

"I live here, silly."

He blinks. "How?"

"Take the elevator up to the 69th floor, take three rights, a left, swipe this stolen keycard." She holds up a card. "And you'll find my room. I share it with my mom."

She sits on the tile in front of him. "The building is closed, shouldn't you be home?"

"I live here but my room is on the 27th floor."

"Ooh." She drags out the noise. "Are you not supposed to be here either then?"

"No. Not technically."

She grasps one of his hands and tries to jerk him to his feet. "Come on, let's explore before they find us. I think there is a vending machine with Star Bars in it."

He weighs triple hers. She gets nowhere pulling on him. She stumbles back after a second of effort.

"No, I'm supposed to be here," Sephiroth says as the girl giggles at herself, "but you aren't. Shouldn't you be in bed? It's late."

"Oh, you are boring."

"I'm not."

"Prove it. Why are you here?" She smiles sweetly with her challenge.

He pauses and combs through what he can and can't say. So much of his life is completely hidden from everyone else. The SOLDIER project has barely gone public. The edge of the night is sinking into him and things feel more complicated than they are.

Orlin's training comes to mind. The few missions they have gone on together into the slums. The relieved faces he saw as the monsters finally collapsed into harmless nothing.

"In the end…I think I'm supposed to save people," Sephiroth says. The bruise on his face flares as he winces.

The girl's smile becomes real. "Me too but I'm an Ancient so that's easy. What are you?"

"I-I'm just a guy."

They hear the shouts together. The smile grows bigger as she steps back. "Guys are pretty powerful too. I know so. Good luck with that, okay?"

"You too."

She winks and tears down the hallway. Brown hair flashes in the dimmed lights.

The Turks arrive a minute later and Sephiroth shrugs at every question. He doesn't know anything. If they look back on the security cameras, he will deal with that.

Mariella calls him in a few minutes later.

"Sit there." She points to her desk. It's a small office with a window outside. It's neat but full with folders and paperwork. Since the SOLDIER program has started drafting the public, she has become even busier in mako exposure. A whiteboard looks like she has just wiped it down.

Sephiroth leans against the edge of the desk.

Materials in the drawers crash into each other as she opens a drawer. Idly, he looks over the files that are stacked in piles. Most of it means nothing to him: charts and graphs that have numbers but no context. In her handwriting, she's circled things. Notes cover a margin. Nothing is exciting. The graph on the paper starts to make a little bit of sense the more he stares. It is a fluctuation of mako with what he's guessing is temperature.

While Mariella is always available to him, it can be hard for him to remember everything she does in R&D. Still, it is her personal cell phone number on the bracelet around his wrist, not the lab's.

His fingers snag the corner of a picture frame under the lamp and he realizes that it is Mariella grinning with Thea on a beach. That unbounded smile on Mariella's face imprints hard and unfamiliar in his mind.

"Last year's vacation?" He lifts it.

She brushes back her hair as she looks over her shoulder. "Yes, Sephiroth."

The sounds are short so he sets the picture back down. A green orb rolls in her hand as she comes back to him. Mariella has no aptitude for materia. There are people that cannot summon the natural energy. He finds the idea strange but true. There is a balance in everything.

That doesn't mean that she can't assist in a casting which is something he needs to heal himself. The edges of her eyes tighten as she hovers her fingers over the black eye. She touches it gently, making it water.

"These impacts look like knuckles here, not sim damage," she says softly.

He tries to turn away but holds himself straight. Instead he stares at the dog hair on her pants.

"Let's get you patched up." She places the orb in his open hand. It warms to his touch. The magic sings in the back of his head like a familiar song. He closes his eyes, relishing it. Magic is comfortable, almost tasting sweet on his tongue. Mariella has missed out.

Healing wounds on your own body is the most challenging. The pain is a good distraction and not being able to see it is even harder. Cura is not always the tidal wave of healing that the public thought it is. In a pinch, it can do such a thing but the effects are broad and unsatisfying. The wound might be healed enough to keep fighting but the amount of internal damage is impossible to ignore in the long run. It takes time and specialized casters to heal someone completely.

This does not include Sephiroth's added challenge of the heavy amount of mako already in him. Casting spells on himself is like trying to force two positive magnets together. The mako rejects more energy entering inside of it, corrupting spells, making them skate off of him ineffectively. He can feel it sometimes, the alien force in him, fighting against the spells.

"We start with the point of impact." She holds out her hand and he lays his left hand in it. His right one tightens on the glass. She's not talking about lying. He'll take that as good. She brings his fingers up to his own face and he concentrates on the warmth in his other hand. He thinks about his face, the blood vessels that have exploded and clearing the damage away.

The customary green glow forms on his fingertips. Mariella's face is highlighted with them as she presses his fingers to the sorest part of his eye. He winces and the magic falters but he focuses. He doesn't have to worry about directing it, just keeping the flow going outward. The magic skitters across his skin and then soaks in.

The swelling burns and dissipates. Her focus inches across his face and the touch feels less painful. A few threads of the bruise hang on and then with one last burst of energy, they drift away as well. He sighs and lets the materia go loose in his fingers.

His hand slips away from hers but she presses her palm against his cheek. He opens his eyes to her earnest ones.

"I need you to stay honest with me. I can't help you if you don't tell me what is going on."

"Nothing is going on." His stomach twitches and he pulls back. Her hands fall to her sides.

"I am being serious. If Dinand is-"

He shrugs and cuts her off, strengthening his voice. "Becoming a SOLDIER isn't easy. I know I got the mako early but there is still a lot more work to do. We get hurt. You know that. I'm tough."

"There is a difference between getting hurt in combat and getting hurt in training. One of those things is absolutely unacceptable." She pushes onward. He blows out breath between his teeth. It whistles in the room. She cares about him. That is what this is all about. She needed to leave this alone.

"Dinand makes the best. I want to be the best."

"There are many ways to be a good SOLDIER. Dinand is not the only way." She shifts and eyes the door behind them. It is still closed. This is not going to be like one of his checkups where Hojo wanders in and takes over.

A good SOLDIER. That sticks in him.

"I want to be the best."

A haunted smile comes across her face. "You don't have to be for me."

"No." Now he's smiling and it's a greedy thing. "I want to be for me."

He is his own competition. He's never been around others enough to care. The students at school don't study like he does. The other SOLDIERs he is around aren't exposed to the same amount of mako. There are only a few people's opinions that he cares about. These people know who he is and what he's gone through.

Mariella takes the materia that has rolled out of his hand and gets up. Her face has changed at his words. It isn't disappointment but she's hollow. He waits for a response. She moves away, turning back to the drawer. It opens but she doesn't move to put it back. There is no response coming.

"He knows what he is doing. It's my own fault anyways. I'm not keeping up with the standard," he says to her back. "Someday. Someday , I'll get back at him. I'll win it in the end. Promise. No more black eyes."

The materia clicks into the corner of a drawer. She stares down at it. Her shoulders rise and fall as she puts her weight on the edge. Maybe she hasn't heard him. He runs his teeth over the cut still in his mouth, worrying it. He didn't ask her to help with the other bruises and cuts because she doesn't need to know about them. She's worried enough already.

She turns and stares him down. "You'll tell me if he hurts you on purpose."

It wasn't a question. Sephiroth sucks in a breath. "Of course."

"Okay. Win it in the end then."

Mariella's worried eyes follow him all the way to bed.