Later in this chapter I'll be using ( and ) to signify someone's thoughts.

Nothing To Do With Your History, Sir.

Chapter 2

Sephiroth awoke the next morning to see Zack piled up on the floor in a rather uncomfortable position. Every so often the poor guy would twitch and move a little. And then suddenly the man rolled over into the wall, and then bounced back. The green eyed general had never been one for humor, but seeing that ridiculous maneuver from a sleeping man did manage to bring a smile to his lips.

Taking a glance back down at his arm he noted that the wound had healed over nicely, into a massive glob of red. The metal protruding from his chest looked a lot less likely to cause him to die of blood loss if he pulled it out now. But he still refused to risk it, he'd seen plenty of people over the past two years bleed to death, and he didn't feel like joining them. Pulling himself slowly to his feet he felt a sting of pain as the little piece of metal scrapped against some organ inside him. He shrugged it off and head out into the materia room.

The glinting little pieces of materia glared at him, and carefully he started to each of the fully formed versions. He managed to find a pair of ices, one thunder, and miraculously enough a cure. Using it on his arm seemed like the best option until Zack woke up. And carefully he casted it. Normally the materia would have done very little, yet Sephiroth always did have a certain affinity for materia which few other's possessed. He supposed it had to do something with the fact that he had more mako in him then most humans did.

A little while later as he finished poking his arm back into heath with the materia Zack stumbled out into the room like he was in a drunken stupor or something.

"Sorry… all stiff." He murmured before looking my arm over. "Oh hey, yeah found some cure stuff out here?"

"I did."

"Awesome. Who knows, maybe I'll life to see that promotion." He fluffed his hair and blinked his eyes. "What about the shrapnel?"

"I was waiting for you to wake."

"I see." He shrugged, "well I'm all awaked now."

"Catch." Sephiroth said chucking the materia over Zack. "When I pulled it out, cast the strongest cure on me you can."

"Sure."

In an emotionless sort of way that really made Zack wonder how human his general was, Sephiroth plucked the shrapnel from his ribs, and Zack managed to cast the spell before even a tiny amount of blood poured out. Sephiroth looked up at the younger Soldier and nodded in approval. "I'm heading out to check on the weather, we need to leave by tomorrow."

"Defiantly inhuman." Zack murmured when the man was out of sight and hearing. He then proceeded to rub the side of his face an yawn. Back still aching he placed the cure materia into his sword instead of Leviathan. The summon seemed rather useless in a place where everything was already frozen water.

Sephiroth came sweeping back into the room, although he was still devoid of his trench coat. "The storm's lightened up, I think we should leave now.

"Alright." Zack gave him a nod and then followed him back into the room they had spend the night in to grab what little they had with them.

Zack followed Sephiroth through the sprinkling snow. A fresh layer of snow crunched beneath their feet, and puffs of breath appeared from their mouths in the cold temperature. A rip in Zack's cloak slowly became more an more irritating as it let the little heat he had out into the open air. He sighed and watched Sephiroth who walked with cat like grace in front of him.

The man maintained an unnatural grace constantly, which to Zack seemed particularly inhuman. The simple amount of inhuman qualities which Sephiroth kept up always interested Zack.

"I should make a list." He murmured to himself, and as if reading his thoughts Sephiroth turn and glared coolly into Zack's eyes.

"A list of what?"
"Ah…. Just things to do when I get back to Midgar."

"Such as?"

"Well…" Zack rolled his hand while he thought of something he actually had to do. "Call Jonia is one thing, I have to apologize to her for leaving on this with out calling her first."

"She's your girlfriend?"

"Girl friend is a little extreme, more like fuck buddy really."

At that Sephiroth raised an eye brow, but didn't press the issue further.

(Well at least I know the guy's prude, after all it's not like he's interested in my sex life. Most people are… Sort of... That's kinda disturbing actually.) Zack let the thought trail off, and looked up ahead towards the mountains. He could swear he saw something up there that looked like a house.

"What is that General?"

"Icicle Inn, a small town, one of the only ones located this far north."

"Sweet, and here I thought we were just wondering around, sir."

"I happened to be very familiar with this area actually, seeing as I went over the air rout and other information." Sephiroth responded condescendingly, and Zack shrugged when his back turned.

"Have you ever been there before Soldier?" The general asked on a surprising run of talkativeness, at least for him.

"No, have you?"

"Not since I was much smaller. Professor Hojo brought me along when he visited this place around 16 years ago."

Zack did a quick piece of mental math and realized that Sephiroth would only have been five years old. "I didn't know you were associated with ShinRa when you were a child…?"

"I've always been with the company." He replied in a ruff and annoyed tone, Zack decided not to ask any further questions. He still wanted his pretty little promotion after all.

And then suddenly, "What about you, how long have you been working under ShinRa?"

"Ah… Well I'm twenty now, but originally I joined up at sixteen. It's been a little over four years."

"I noticed that you're the youngest Soldier in the program."

"Yes. Ah, my uncle Fencher Hardin recommended me for the program."

"Hardin is a somewhat reckless general. I'm surprised your not being run under him, surely you requested it."

"Ah, no. Actually I requested to be under you sir." He paused wondering if he should explain that his uncle had offered him a nice position in Nibelheim, some horribly boring town in the boonies of civilization. Worse yet the man had told him the new reactor being placed there would make everything quite exciting.

"Perhaps due to my past history?"

"Nothing to do with your history, sir. I would have been assigned to some boring town called Nibelheim if I had gone under him."

"Nibelheim?" Sephiroth asked quietly.

"Yes, it's located near a nasty patch of mountains where they're placing a new reactor. My uncle wanted to assign me there so I'd be, 'closer to home'."

"Which isn't exactly your priority."

"Not at all sir."

"I was born in Nibelheim." He stated calmly.

"Oh, well I'm sorry."

"I don't remember it at all so it's quite alright." Sephiroth found himself reassuring the man. "I know that my mother, Jenova, lived there. Gast, knew her and spoke of her once and a while before he disappeared… However out side of that there is little I know about my home town, after all I was being raised at ShinRa by the time I was one."

"Trust me your not missing much with the mother thing. My own practically wouldn't let me outside."

"I can imagine why."

"Hey." Zack grinned at the General's back, oddly enough the man was being far more conversational then he had ever seen before. "I'll have you know the reason she never let me out was due to the fact that I was a weak and sick little kid. I caught the flu every other say and every so often I'd break a bone or something."

"What a pity." Sephiroth stated with a hint of sarcasm.

They continued on as the day grew lighter clouds shifted from their position overhead to allow some sunlight through. The temperature rose to around freezing, which made the rest of the hike at least bearable.

As they marched on they encountered a total of two packs of the northern wolves, each Sephiroth zapped with his own mastered lightening materia.

The silence drew on until finally Zack, becoming annoyed with it, asked his general a question. "What about you sir? You get sick at all when you were little?"

"I was constantly sick, and still according to most, am." That was Sephiroth's disturbing reply.

"Ah well you never can trust those medical types, their always out to shove some more pills down your throat so they can make a few extra gold." Zack waved his hands about. "It always gets to me how they act so friggin superior."

"I'm not particularly fond of them myself."

The silence loomed again. Yet Zack managed to believe that he could hold out till they got to the tiny village.

AN: Don't you hate it when you get almost all of a chapter done, and then just can't finish off the last few pieces? It suckiths, and currently I'm going through that with almost every fic I'm writing. Ah well.