Bright Seraphim
Four

Katie's door opened as soon as they turned the corner in the hall; She'd been watching through the peephole. "Jaz, please tell me that you two have eloped, because if you haven't I'll be very disappointed in you."

Jaz rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Katie. I just met 'im." She pushed Sephiroth in ahead of her so that they could get the door closed that much faster.

"You mean he's free?" Katie enthusiastically grabbed up Sephiroth's hand. "And who exactly do I have the honor of meeting? I'm Katie Sanderson, I'm her house mate." She nodded at Jaz.

"Sephiroth," he answered, guessing that the familiar introductory rituals meant the same in this culture as they did in his.

"Oooh, foreign?" Katie asked Jaz, neglecting to let go of his hand. He tried to pull away with little success.

"Sort of, I guess," Jaz responded, feeling a little uncomfortable. "He doesn't speak English."

"Well," Katie said as she led them further into her suite. "Why don't you tell me how you ran into this gorgeous foreign hunk o' meat, then?"

"Katie!"

"Well, you said he doesn't speak English --"

"AAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEG!!!"

The scream came just as they entered the main room. Katie's nephew, who'd been playing video games on the system he'd hooked up to the suite's television, was now trying to hide behind the couch. He defensively brandished the lamp from the couch's end table.

Katie scowled. "Jamie, what is wrong with you?"

Jamie looked genuinely terrified. "You - he - he's not real!"

"What, him?" Katie looked back at Sephiroth. "Well, I thought he was too good to be true..." She grinned. "Jamie, if you're going to swing the lamp around like that, could you at least unplug it?"

Sephiroth was frowning. He didn't know what world this was, but it appeared that someone recognized him. He was ready to turn and leave - then he felt a hand on his arm. Jaz was looking up at him with concern... then again, that might have been an I-am-going-to-be-really-pissed-if-you-turn-out-to-be-a-mass-murderer-or-something expression.

"But - he's -"

"Spit it out, Jamie," Katie said impatiently. "What do you think's wrong with him?"

Jamie got mad and momentarily forgot to be afraid. "Well, if you must know, he's -" the boy took a very deep breath. "Sephiroth is the psycho-villain from Final Fantasy VII who went nuts when he found out that he was genetically engineered using DNA from this unkillable alien-monster-thing called Jenova and he freed the Jenova thing and generally set about destroying the world. He summoned a meteor to crash into it and everything. The good guys defeat 'im and stop the meteor in the end, but the game never makes it clear if they saved the world or not... Or even if it was him in the end battle or Jenova... or... well... it's not a very clear game sometimes..." He trailed off, out of breath.

The three of them just stared at Jamie. Finally Katie snapped out of it. "That's it, Jamie. Time for bed. I don't think you should play any more video games for a while, either."

"Well then where'd he come from?" Jamie squawked indignantly. "You said he doesn't speak English. What language does he speak?"

Sephiroth reached for the back of a chair. The boy had named Jenova three times, and his head was pounding with the sound of it. He could almost hear her smiling in his mind. He closed his eyes, hoping that the room would stop spinning, and leaned heavily against the chair.

"That's enough, Jamie," Katie said in a flat voice.

Jaz, however, answered Jamie. "I've never heard the language he speaks," she said, suddenly a bit bewildered. "And I -" she decided to leave out the part about hitting him with the Pontiac. "I found him in the snow on the road in Somerset. I thought he was on the way to the convention, from the way he was dressed, and I thought his car must've broken down..."

"Don't you start," Katie growled at Jaz. "Look, all of us here are sci-fi/fantasy fans. What's the one big thing we always have to be aware of, eh? IT'S NOT REAL! None of it is really real, no matter how much we wish and write and play. Cross-overs happen in fanfics only. We all know that, right?"

"...But what if it did happen?" Jaz murmured, not quite able to believe what she was saying. "What if all these unreal things that we like could be real?"

Katie glared alternately at Jaz and Jamie. "I am not debating the mutable nature of reality with you two," she snapped. She turned to Sephiroth. "Where are you from, Sweden? Germany? Russia?"

"Look at his eyes," Jamie suggested. He'd lost his fear somewhere several minutes back. "Tell me if it's possible for human eyes from this world to look like that."

Sephiroth had been rubbing his forehead with one hand, but was now just holding his hand there, trying to stay conscious. He was barely breathing, his eyes still closed, his muscles tensed. Her jaw set, Jaz reached up and laid her hand on the far side of his face, turning him toward her.

She looked into his face; he didn't open his eyes at first. She noticed something else strange about him - though his eyebrows matched his silver hair as expected, his lashes were long and dark gray, nearly black. It was an odd, but beautiful, combination.

He opened his eyes and stared back at her. As she'd seen before, they were crystal, icy sea-green in color... and at the moment, they looked particularly deep...

"Contacts," Katie said from where she'd been hanging just over Jaz's shoulder. "Contact lenses." Katie moved away.

Jaz jumped at the sudden voice, nearly looked away, but Sephiroth moved to hold her gaze. He stared in wonder at her. The moment she had touched him, his head had cleared.

Jaz realized that his hand now hovered a centimeter above hers at the side of his face. She felt her cheeks reddening and quickly tried to snatch her hand away - and stopped with the shadow of her hand lying across his eyes.

"Ummm, Katie... They, um, they glow..." She moved her hand back and forth a little, making sure that the faint luminescence wasn't a figment of her currently overstimulated imagination.

"You can do that with contacts too," Katie snapped without looking.

"And he's got slitted pupils."

"You can do that with -"

"Not and have them contract and expand," Jaz responded, sure of what she saw now. "I know, I've been hoping for contacts like that for a while now..." The shock of his eyes had lessened, and she was even more fascinated than she had been before.

Jamie was still behind the couch, but he'd put the lamp down. "See?" he demanded, arms righteously folded. "I told you..."

Katie was still trying to hold on to what reality she had. "All right then, Mr. Know-it-all," she challenged Jamie. "You beat the game. Doesn't that mean he's supposed to be dead? You said he was defeated."

"Sure, he was defeated," Jamie said sagely. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that he's dead."



Some time later, after much arguing, Katie finally gave up. While Jamie enthusiastically told them the story of Final Fantasy VII, she dug her tea kettle out of her luggage and made hot chocolate, stating that none of them really needed coffee at the moment.

"It's just my luck, really," Jaz sighed. "Realities finally collide in my vicinity, and they spit out somebody I've never heard of." She accepted the hot chocolate that Katie offered her and settled herself onto the couch. she sipped her drink, glancing sideways as Katie tentatively handed a mug to Sephiroth beside her. "...I stopped playing video games at the wrong time," she added with remorse.

"I'd like to point out something here," Katie said, waving her hand for attention. "He doesn't act like he's lost his mind...

"Maybe he found it again," Jaz said softly. The expression she wore when she looked at Sephiroth set off alarm bells in Katie's head.

"...And why the heck is he alive, Jamie?" Katie demanded. "You didn't tell us that."

"I don't know!" Jamie was becoming exasperated. Why wouldn't his aunt just look and see what had happened? It was obvious! "Maybe he was Jenova's puppet the whole time and the Lifestream took pity on him and spit him back out. Maybe he's a clone or he regenerated or something; Jenova could do that. Maybe he's from before the end of the game."

Jaz glanced at Sephiroth, who had tensed the second that Jamie had mentioned Jenova. "Jamie, he doesn't like it when you talk about (Jenova)," she said, mouthing rather than speaking the name.

"I think he knows what happened," Katie quietly mused.

Jamie pounced on the thought. "Aha! You do believe it's him now, don't you!"

Katie stuck her tongue out at him in answer. "So," she continued, "what are we going to do with him? Are we just going to let him hang around until he berserks again?"

"I'll keep an eye on him," Jaz found herself saying. She stopped, surprised at herself.

Katie raised an eyebrow. "You shouldn't have any trouble with that."

"Katie!"

"I know I wouldn't," Katie added with a smirk.

Jamie rolled his eyes. "And here I'm supposed to be the one with the rabid hormones," muttered the pre-teen.

"Shut up," Jaz and Katie simultaneously commanded.

After a momentary lull, Jaz shook her head. "I've been driving all day and he looks beat, so I hereby declare it to be bed time," she yawned. "I'll come down and help you tend the booth tomorrow..."

"Bring him along," Jamie piped up. "I'll show him how to play Tekken 2." He eagerly held up a game CD case.

"Uhh... OK," Jaz responded with raised eyebrows. She motioned for Sephiroth to get up as she stood and handed her empty hot chocolate mug to Katie. He followed suit.

"Time for you to go to bed too, it's 2:00 AM," Katie told Jamie. "Go brush your teeth."

"Awww --"

"Hey, I don't want to have your dad mad at me. I grew up with him, I know what he's like. You have not yet experienced the full horror..."

"All right, I'm going, I'm going..." Jamie rolled his eyes and made a great show of stumbling off toward the bathroom.

Katie followed Jaz and Sephiroth to the door and opened it for them. "Um, Jaz?" she asked hesitantly, leaning on the door's edge.

"Yep, I've got my key card," Jaz instinctively answered.

"Er... That wasn't what I was going to say..."

Jaz looked at her friend with a slight frown. "Couch," she said in a flat, slightly irritated voice.

Katie sighed with relief. "Whew. OK. Good."

"I'm your house mate, Katie. What kind of girl do you think I am, anyway? You know I've got more self control than to... you know."

"Just making sure. Sorry."

"It's all right... Good night, Katie."


Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII, its story, and characters (particularly Sephiroth) are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes. The same goes for Clock Tower, Tekken 2, Soul Blade, Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Lost in Space, Pepsi, and any other games, television shows, movies, etc. mentioned in this fanfic: all belong to their respective owners. Clock Tower, its story, and characters (particularly Scissorman) are the property, copyright, and trademark of Ascii Entertainment.