All standard disclaimers applicable.

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Xehorista Tora

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Chapter Nine

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"I wish for a place,

Where the earth doesn't shake,

If the earth won't be still,

Then I will."

- "Anywhere But Here", by Lisa Loeb

----

"It's not good, is it Reeve?" Cloud stood at the windows of Reeve's office and stared out into the blackness of the storm, looking for something that couldn't be seen. Beside him, Vincent stood, a dark and slender shadow.

Reeve sighed, and it took Vincent several seconds to realize how tired it sounded. "No, Cloud, it's not."

The blond shifted, reaching one hand up to run it through tangled yellow strands, wincing slightly as his gloved fingers caught in a knot. Outside, the city was a mass of dark shapes and the angles of buildings rising and falling into the night. Occasionally, the space before them was light up by the flash of lightning, and in those flashes Vincent could see a myriad of shapes against the sky.

Vincent could remember being interested in flight once, remember going to a library in Midgar and digging up a book on the mechanics of flying. He was strange even then, strong and too serious, and people gave the man in a suit a wide berth as he read. There, it had said that wings were merely modified and fused arm bones, and nothing could biologically posses wings and arms at the same time. It was a memory that stuck with him; rekindled the first time he changed into chaos and looked at this strange new-old body, before the mind of the beast took him.

Nothing human could fly. He wasn't sure if he was human anymore, and clearly the beasts flying outside like black death had never been.

They violated rules – rules of nature, rules of science. You shouldn't be able to do things like that, to become things like that, and yet he was, and Hojo was, kept existing, a stain on a world already tarnished by war and humanity's selfishness.

Dark thoughts, with a dark night to match it and the dark prospect of battle looming before them.

Behind him there was a rustle of fabric as the Turks shifted position, standing at attention (or what Reno thought passed for attention) but anxious, eager to be told what to do, what to kill. It must be an easier, almost, way to live – following orders, shedding blood on command, a simple weapon to be trained onto the enemy, a loaded gun.

If any of his Turks could hear his thoughts, especially Reno, Vincent reflected, he'd probably get an earful and more besides for writing them off so.

"...and nearly two thousand troops in reserve stationed in Midgar that we can – and have already, in fact – called up into service. Outfitting them all is the problem. Scarlet?" Reeve's voice, commanding but strained with worry, broke through Vincent's thoughts.

The blond woman had been writing the entire time, pen flying furiously over paper as she calculated the equipment and weapons she knew that they had and how they could distribute them. She paused, as if coming to a consensus, and then grimaced, the scars twisting her face into something grim and terrible, like a monster from a story created to frighten children. Knowing Scarlet, she would no doubt find it amusing that she could frighten children.

"All of the troopers and SOLDIERS have the gear that they've been issued, but that doesn't mean all that much. In terms of materia, we're dealing with resources of shit. The SOLDIERS have some of it, but almost none of the troopers were issued any at all. They're well enough equipped with guns and weapons, and I'll tell the factory here to pull anything out of storage they have."

Zack shifted his weight from foot to foot, dark mane of hair shining under the dim office light. "In other words, Scar...?"

"If the numbers are what the last report says they are we've got enough provide all the fighters with passable equipment, but little else." She reached into a pocket in her pants and pulled out a phone, flipping it open and dialing as she rose and moved away from the group to stand in the corner speaking with urgent, hushed tones.

"Most of the regular army isn't strong enough to handle materia of any power anyway. We'll distribute it to the SOLDIERS and break them apart – at least one for each unit of troops."

"How many troops and SOLDIERS are stationed here anyway, Strife?" Reno spoke up from the back, stick out and tapping against the side of one leg.

Cloud narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment before he spoke. "All told, we'll have just over seven thousand Shinra army, including the reserves. There are around an even hundred SOLDIERS currently stationed at Midgar, and about half of those are second class." From her corner, Scarlet looked over at Cloud and nodded, agreeing.

"It won't be enough."

Sephiroth's voice broke through the blond's musing and drew everyone's attention. A lesser man might have been unnerved under the sudden gazes, but, even insane and under Jenova's allure, Sephiroth had never been easily intimidated.

"What are you basing that on? Or do you just feel like being pessimistic and gloomy, because, you know, the Boss has that department down far better than you ever will." Behind him, Vincent heard Elena utter a shocked "Reno!" followed by the swift sound of her delivering a kick to his leg. That, in turn, was followed by an eruption of cursing, however muted, from the redhead. Rude, characteristically, remained silent.

Vincent raised his hand to silence Reno, the effect no doubt heightened by the fact that he chose to raise his claw, gleaming dully under the flickering office lights and flashing stormy night. "Why won't it be enough, Sephiroth?"

The white-haired man looked almost confused for a half a moment, perhaps trying to place his face amongst the many pictures he had seen in the file he had been given. Or maybe he was even comparing the half-hidden features of the man before him with any he'd known in his time at the Shinra of the past, searching for a match.

He wouldn't find one, of course, but Vincent allowed the swordsman his mental calculations, waiting for a reply. One could not spend half a century and more in a confined in a coffin with naught but the smell of decay and the weight of guilt without learning patience.

"I have only been in this time for barely more than a day, but I have experienced the several times." Sephiroth's green eyes were cloudy under the dim lights; gaze turned inward as the man chose his words carefully. "Once, when I was asleep, and when I was awake – most recently, when the Ancient and I collapsed prior to this meeting." The man paused again, uncharacteristically long for the precise general. Anything and everything he'd heard from Reno and Rude had told him that much about Sephiroth and besides, even when he'd been insane, he had been precise.

Scarlet tapped her fingers once on her folders, a soft but stern drumbeat. "We're listening. But please, feel free to keep us here all night. It's not like we have an impending invasion to stop or anything pressing to do."

Sephiroth turned to glare at her, although Reeve beat him to the verbal rebuke. The president's voice was too soft for his words to carry much sting.

"Let him talk, Scarlet. I'm sure you can contain your enthusiasm until he finishes." The woman, predictably, scoffed but quieted herself, her eyes trained on Sephiroth's face, which did not react to her gaze beyond a slight narrowing of eyes grown cold.

"I have been contacted by the version of myself native to this timeline, or rather, by the consciousness that exists under the Jenova possession. It is him, or rather, myself, who told me about the numbers and plan of the approaching force."

In the retrospect of that statement, Vincent reflected that it was just as well he did not speak often; there was really nothing anyone could say to that, and at least no one expected him to.

"In other words...you're having.../chats/....with your future self, who is currently possessed by an evil alien space bitch. Just so we're all on the same page here."

And really, why bother broaching uncomfortable subjects at all when Reno did it for everyone, and with such grace and poise?

"Thank you, Reno, for that clarification." Cloud's voice was calm and cool and contained an undertone of 'shut the hell up' that was about as quiet and discreet as a full blown Ultima casting. "Feel free to continue, Sephiroth."

"And as soon as you're done, we can discuss why you didn't feel like telling me this." The mutter rose up from the corner of the room – one of the Zacks. Vincent didn't bother concentrating enough on the speaker to discern which one; in the end, the two iterations of the man probably shared the sentiment.

"I didn't think I should bother you with the ramblings of my other self."

Zackery sighed before he spoke, and the future Zack clenched his fingers, as if itching to hit something, or someone, most likely being Sephiroth.

"For the record, for all future occasions: Bother. Me."

A brief smile flitted across the silver-haired man's face. "Duly noted, Zackery. As I was saying, while the ramblings of my other self are, for the most part, tempered by nonsensical tangents and subjective commentary, there are several important pieces of information he felt fit to include.

"Primary among these is the fact that the mass of...things – Jenova's army – will soon be here, and they are in full force. Ten of thousands – he...I...did not provide an exact military count, but they are 'legion'."

"Brilliant." This time, the sarcastic murmur emanated from Scarlet, instead of Reno. Reeve shot her a brief glare before motioning for Sephiroth to continue with a slight wave of his hand. Perhaps it was only the adrenaline and anxiety from the upcoming disaster that lent him this confidence, but it was still odd to see the president so collected. In Vincent's mind, Reeve was irrevocably fixed to the image of a large white moogle with a far too exuberant cat riding on its head and spouting random fortunes.

"They will come in from the North, from the sea and sky. Although, by this point, they are close enough that that is nearly useless information. They will also use the tunnels and sewer systems to first take the slums, then move onto the plate. I would – " Sephiroth stopped short then, and paused to consider something, and Vincent marveled at the change. The Sephiroth he was more familiar with was first tainted by madness and then by the long and draining work of being a General in a war with everything on the line. The experience, if nothing else, had made the Sephiroth of Vincent's time less prone to tangential information and more focused.

If the Sephiroth he knew had stopped talking while preparing orders, he's have thought the white-haired man was mad or worse.

After all, you've seen him mad before...

But this Sephiroth didn't play by the same rules. And when he paused, and focused his gaze inward just right, green gone cloudy with thought, then...

He looked like Lucrezia, like his mother, sitting by a window in the Shinra mansion, late in her pregnancy and swelling with child. And that look, that same look in eyes a different hue and shade as she cradled her hands about her stomach with a gentle touch and began to sing, softly, in defiance of the dust and the ghosts.

They were too much alike, and he couldn't see Hojo in the silver haired man at all. Just as well; he did not want to hate Lucrezia's son. There was a difference between fighting from hate and from necessity, and Vincent knew it well.

This Sephiroth was too different and too familiar to hate.

"He's right." The words were so soft-spoken that they were almost missed in the tension of the room, but the last of Cetra commanded attention from all who knew her.

"On which count, Aeris?" Vincent spoke, interjecting a degree of common sense into the discussion.

"All of them, I think." The flower girl shook her head briefly, as if listening to something inside, before raising a hand to her temple. "The Cetra...the lifestream...Mother says that the other Sephiroth...he's still in there, underneath it all. He could contact this one. And did. The Cetra felt the connection."

"And they did not feel like sharing this with us because?" Zack, with his own practicality, and Aeris dropped her eyes, staring at her boots for a spare few seconds.

"They...um...thought we knew. And felt's the wrong word – they facilitated the connection. They did it, as much as either Sephiroth did."

"Wonderful." Zack muttered, shaking long dreadlocks of hair. "Someday we will iron out that little thing called communication."

"With a bunch of people who barely put two sentences together on a /good/ day...yeah, that's going to happen real soon, Zack. /Real/ soon." Reno, again. Predictably.

"There's always hope."

"Gentlemen! And I do shudder to use the term. Can we hold off the pointless bickering for all of five minutes?" The blonde woman shifted in her chair as she spoke, checking figures on her clipboard, multitasking to the last.

"Legion. He called them a legion, a force beyond anything you have seen, beyond any of you. He was...quite descriptive about that point. Very emphatic." Finished, Sephiroth began, or rather resumed, a dedicated study of his hands and the leather gloves that encased them.

"Legion. Wonderful. Why don't we ever get hordes of enemies who call themselves by sweet, unassuming names, like the Reign of Inefficiency or Horde of Most Weak and Terrified?"

"Because, Reno, then they'd take all the good names and there'd be none left for you." Elena responded sweetly, with a smile forced on her face. It looked unnatural, and her humor was dry, the joke delivered with the speed of reflex rather than genuine humor.

"Keep that up, Elena, and I'll start to think that you don't like me after all."

Elena twitched, tension running high in her and in the room as well, and Vincent could see that this would not stop of its own accord.

"Reno. You're not helping."

The redhead responded with a cheeky, if resigned, grin.

"Right, Boss."

Vincent did not reply to that; it would do no good to encourage him and Cloud had begun to speak.

"We need to mobilize what forces we have, and we need to do it now."

"We're running very short on time, though." Cloud said, emphasizing the fact with the speed that he gathered his sword and started to his feet.

Zack grinned at that comment, and the smile that stretched across his face was full of nothing but confidence.

"That's convenient, then, that there are two of us, isn't it?"

"Zack...?"

"It's not that difficult – I'll go with you, Spike, to head up the attack against the space bitch's troops while –"

Cloud caught on. "Zack....that, is the other Zack...can command the other divisions. You, I mean, he, can sweep around – go through anything you need to – to come around and meet us, trapping the main force. Take Vincent with you, although the city is much the same as the one you knew."

They turned to look at Zackery, and he shrugged. "I'll do it. Should be easy enough to pretend to be myself, after all."

"You'll take over part of Spike's troops, just in case. And I'll go incognito not to confuse them. That front needs to hit hard, and, no offense, I'm better than you are. We'll lead mine and half of Spike's –"

Cloud interrupted him again, and Vincent could see how they worked, interacting with each other, building off of each other to form a plan.

"Not half. The force will be so large that we'll need something more effective than just a pincer. Tifa, you'll go with Reno – you two know the slums better than any of us - and take the first and third divisions of Zack's troops. You'll also take a number of SOLDIERS – twenty firsts and twenty seconds."

Reno nodded. "Swift and strong. We'll surprise the bitch."

"The rest of the SOLDIERS will report to their usual positions. Rude, Elena; I want you to take a division from my troops – the ones that will travel with Zack and me – and use them to defend the plate as best you can. Stay around the Shinra tower; they'll come here first when they reach the plate."

Elena's hand twitched at her side; Vincent was sure she fought against the desire to raise it, and raised her voice instead. "Why will they attack the tower? Rape and pillage is more Jenova's style."

Looking at the storm outside, it was long moments before Cloud answered. "Because /he's/ leading this attack. And he hates Shinra almost as much as Jenova does. They'll come here first when they reach the plate."

Cloud looked as though he wanted to say more, but frantic footsteps pounding outside, followed by the harsh sounds of the door to the room being thrown open, interrupted him.

"Sir! General Cloud, sir!" The man, a radio operator, saluted Cloud swiftly, and nodded to the rest of the room, nearly out of breath, gasping at his words. "We've just received radio contact with General Kisaragi, sir! She said that she'll" and the man began to read off of the sheet he held, "'deal with the incoming from the northern beach, but you'll have to deal with what's already made landfall by yourself.'"

"We've been trying to raise Captain Highwind for a while sir, but the messages have been garbled at best. When we did manage to get through, he said he'd do his best but the storm's keeping him mostly grounded."

"Keep trying. Put out the emergency broadcast system – all residents of the slums are to evacuate to the plate; Shinra tower if possible. Reeve, you'll have to deal with it."

Scarlet looked up and muttered. "An occupation by the common folk. Lovely."

"Deal, Scar." Reeve dealt her a look that was as edged as a knife blade, and she quieted under the swift and sharp force of it. Difficult to remember, with all the time the President had spent under of guise of a bumbling stuffed toy, that he could be as cruel? forceful? as the rest of them.

Still, that must have been a happy façade, almost like a game, hiding behind a creature that was more like a creation of a child's innocent mind than anything else. Vincent wondered if Reeve ever missed it.

"Alright. Everyone, try not to get killed." Cloud flicked his gaze to the ground before looking at each of them in turn.

"Let's move out."

----

It was a blur of men shouting and running and equipment being collected and distributed. Noise and light formed a chaos that subsided far more quickly than Zackery would have expected it too.

He whistled, long and low, in appreciation. "You people are...efficient."

The leader of the Turks, the man the others called Vincent, looked at him and Zack suppressed a double take when he say the man's eyes; a cold, disturbing shade of red.

The man gave off 'cold, aloof and lethal' in a way he'd only seen Seph do when he was pissed or at the board meetings he had attended with him, before he'd 'accidentally' spilled coffee over Hojo /and/ Rufus and was /politely/ told that his valuable time was better spent elsewhere.

Vincent had the looks and the style to pull it off damned well, but he talked to the Turks the way Tseng had; softly, casually, and with pride.

"We've had to learn to be. Jenova's armies are less than forgiving, particularly when they are at our doorstep, clamoring for admittance."

Zack restrained a retort of 'so you /can/ speak' and instead settled for checking his materia, with growing appreciation. Say what you will about the future, they gave out some nicely high-level shiny rocks.

He started at an explosion that rocked the slums they were descending toward; softly, an inhuman roar floated up to meet them.

"What the hell...?"

Vincent barely paused, forging ahead. "Battle has already joined. We have little time."

Another roar, louder now, and now, running forward, they were getting close enough that they could begin to hear they screams of the soldiers. And there was a shuffling, snuffing noise in the maze of metal around them; heavy breathing and sound of inhuman footsteps padding closer and Zackery knew what it was to be hunted then.

"No time." Vincent said softly, and drew his gun. "He knows we're here."

"What?" Really, would it have been too much to ask to be briefed, moreso than the orders of 'go here with this guy and kill this'?

"He's sent them to meet us." And the dark-haired man raised his voice, shouting to the men. "Assume formation."

"It's come."

----

Tifa was feeling many things right now; tired and irritable and confused rounded out the top of the list, but 'covered in grime and slime and gore and oh god what is that I think it just moved' was a definite contender, edging its way up into higher and higher positions still.

Happy and collected were not near the list. Especially not with the way the asshole Turk was smirking at her, really it wasn't her fault that she'd slipped finishing off whatever monster of the week that thing was.

Smirking was the wrong word. Leering was a much better description of the expression on Reno's face, and damnit, if she'd /known/ that she was going into the /sewers/ she would /not/ have worn a /white/ shirt.

Fuck. And the SOLDIERS were staring, too, although the sideways glances they gave at least attempted to be polite. All men. Why were there no women in SOLDIER? Why did she have to be stuck in a stinking sewer with an asshole Turk and a now less than substantial shirt (bra notwithstanding, it was still damned embarrassing) with a crew that was almost entirely male? Why?

Because, Tifa Lockhart, the brunette told herself firmly as she picked herself up out of the muck, scraping grime off of her gloves as she did so, there is a cosmic force in this world, and it most decidedly /hates/ you.

At least the newest group of monsters gave the SOLDIERS something else to do.

"Well, Lockhart, you're looking –"

She cut Reno off with a violent hiss. "If the next word out of your mouth is, in any way, shape or form, 'perky', I will rip off your balls and shove them down your throat."

And amazingly, astoundingly annoyingly, the Turk continued to...to.../smirk/ at her, and whispered back:

"But, in those moments before you ripped my balls off – that would almost be getting some, wouldn't it?"

She was going to kill him. Screw needing him to watch her back, she was going to kill him.

And Reno kept talking as he aimed a spell at a snake that was both bright yellow and twelve feet long. "Why, Tifa, I never knew you felt that way about me. Really, I'm flattered, and if we weren't fighting for our lives I'd return your attentions."

Correction: she would /maim/ him, horribly, leaving a tattered wreck of a man, until he begged her to kill him, and them she would laugh. Death was too good for him. It was too quick.

----

The sky had become a maelstrom of scales and flesh and blood. Crackling lightning raced from cloud to cloud, natural and materia-cast. The screams of the dead and the dying echoed in the turbulent air, nearly drowned out by crashes of thunder.

Really, if it wasn't for the fact that the odds were against them and not getting better, and that she had no idea what Midgar's position was instead of likely Very Screwed, and they hadn't been able to establish radio contact with the old bastard of a pilot, Cid, again, or with Midgar /at all/ after their initial, frantic message, and that /she was on a plane/ and apt to kill the monsters with projectile vomit...

If one were to remove those factors, Yuffie was having the time of her life.

Something that looked like a cross between the late Heidegger and a very big and scaly chocobo flew at her, mouth open and gaping, displaying a full set of large and undoubtedly sharp teeth.

"Show-off sideshow freak!" Yuffie spat at it, the words followed by a flick of her wrist that launched the Conformer in an arc that neatly decapitated the bird-monster-thing, the body and head slamming into the side of the plane before tumbling to the ground below. The ninja had a brief second to gloat in that victory before the proximity of another monster, a two-headed blob of flesh with bat-like wings, became to close to ignore.

But the conformer snaked its way through the air, smacking back into her hand hard enough to sting, and she cast as soon as the weapon was in her grip, power thrumming through her as the temperature suddenly dropped, ice coalescing in the air in front of her, around the beast, freezing it solid. It fell to the ground, light reflecting on the faceted ice.

Pretty.She thought abstractly and distractedly, wanting, for some reason, to spin around in victory. Spinning around and nearly falling over wasn't something she could do now, though, if only because she was on a /plane/, in the /sky/, and would fall over or vomit. Possibly both.

She used to do that with Avalanche, though, after their battles; to piss Cid off (not that that took much), and make Vincent stare at her (not that Vincent didn't stare at /everyone/, stupid Vampire Valentine) and Cloud sigh, counterpoint to Tifa's soft chuckling, and Aeris's laughter, a sound that was soft but carrying, like the bells of the temples home in Wutai, ringing in the air to bring the people to pray.

She'd missed the Ancient when she'd died, more than she'd thought she would, because she hadn't known her /that/ long, really, and ninja were supposed to be used to people they cared about dying.

Fuck that. Her father certainly didn't take well to her mother's dying.

When she saw the flower girl again, in Midgar during a meeting, she'd jumped over the table, spilling Reno's drink all over his shirt, an act that had merited some choice words from the Turk, and had seized the older girl in a hug. Afterwards, she'd asked her if she was a clone.

You never could be too sure these days.

One of the SOLDIERS screamed out her name and title, followed by an order to duck, allowing the man to charge forward and slice through yet another monster, this one in the shape of a bizarre flying crab. It was a wonder how Hojo managed never got tired of coming up with completely nonsensical monster designs, she thought as she chased the man's strike with a Bolt 3 casting, the bolts ripping through several monsters in the area.

"Sir." The man, a Second class, saluted, amazingly, and Yuffie wanted to hit him for bothering.

"Save it..."

At least he had the grace to look slightly sheepish. "Johanssey, Sir. I've just spoken with one of the second's from the pilot's cabin – they say that one of our engines has been hit. The pilots don't think we'll be able to stay aloft much longer.

Yuffie tried to squelch the part of her that was currently rejoicing with cries of "Ground! Yes! Ground!" as this was clearly Bad News. They needed to get to Midgar, to the others, and try to organize some sort of counter against this horde.

But still, even if they somehow got to the Shinra tower, with radio communications nearly nonexistent because of the storm and all the shit Jenova was throwing at them, there was no guarantee that they could even find them. Or be of any real help mired in the thick of it.

The monsters just kept coming, from the sea and the sky, but everything had a source, a root.

And around her arm and in the Conformer, the two red materia glimmered in the crackling lights, shining and more precious than any stone.

Assuming they still worked, of course. She hadn't used either in a long time, one in nearly a year, because there had been no cause to, not with Cloud and the others strong enough, and nothing the space bitch had cooked up since then had been worth the trouble to cast Knights of the Round.

Well, Sephiroth would be, but since she hadn't seen the walking puppet since he became...well, a walking puppet, so that point was fairly moot.

They would work because at this point, they were running out of options.

"Tell the pilots to do their best. And to fly us to the north of Midgar. First priority has now become the protection of this plane, over anything and anyone else."

The SOLDIER voiced the surprise and question in his eyes.

"/North/ of Midgar? Sir?"

Yuffie grinned, wild and vicious. "North. To kill an army you cut off its supply lines, SOLDIER Johanssey. Didn't they ever teach you that in training?"

This would work. It /had/ to.

----

Cloud saw him right away, and froze when that curtain of silver hair filled his sight. How could he not, after all, see and recognize the man that his life had revolved around for so many days and nights, so many years?

Even if he isn't really a /man/ now, is he? Isn't really /human/ at all?

His heart hurt, as if the familiar length of metal the man held was thrust through him already – after all, it had been there before.

The man was dressed in black leather that was cut and torn, remnants of a once proud uniform that had cloaked a once proud man. His silver hair was dirty and matted but still long, the ends ragged, as if he had shorn them himself, with a knife.

Or a sword. The weapon he handled was exquisite, a finely crafted and cut piece of metal, its immense length making it look almost unwieldy. But the man handled it with grace and precision, barely looking as he used it to cut into the body of an attacking soldier, too young and brave and stupid to know better. Pieces, the man was cut into pieces and they tumbled to the dirty ground, the best burial the soldier would get.

And still, the blond could not move.

Somewhere in the blur of battle and storm behind him he heard Zack screaming at him, words, his name, but it was so faint, and from so far away. Everything was so far away, and he couldn't find his way to where they were.

In Nibelheim, the children were warned never to wander away from the town at night, for the dark paths of the mountain woods were impossible to tread in the dark. There were no forests in Midgar save the tall trees of buildings, metal and concrete, and maybe that was more than enough as the man moved forward.

The man's lips curved upward in a smile, and there was nothing sane about it, a wild rictus grin, like some horrible joker, as if the man – SephirothnotSephirothJenovaSephiroth- found all of this funny, and stretched his amusement cruelly across a face he loved.

This was so much worse than before. He hadn't realized how much more it could hurt.

Burning, his eyes were flat and hollow and blazing green with the /other/, the stranger, alien in more than name. The man spoke, and his voice was dark and low; Cloud had heard it before, but there had been love in the velvet of it, and the memory of callused fingertips and coaxing touches in the dark assailed the blond. Now, everything he remembered was twisted and warped, and it hurt /so much/, he couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't think.

"Hello, love."

Oh god.

"Did you miss me?"

Oh god no.

----

Author's Notes –

1. I am terribly sorry about the long delay for this chapter. A hell of a lot of stuff got in the way. Still, terribly sorry.

2. I may, at some point in time, redo this chapter, as it does not satisfy me. It annoys, me, actually. Or I may not.