Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, along with their respective characters, places, events and scenarios are all property of Square-Enix and their intellectual owners, not me. I understand this so no suing! I'm just borrowing them.

A/N: Edited for content and the like.

"Mother...?"

The gentle voice of a young man rang out, tinged with confusion – a muttered call for his mother. His weary eyes were still lidded as his silver hair pooled around his head. He no longer looked like a badass, motorcycle-riding Hellion, but closer to what he really was.

His face was still slightly plump from the last traces of baby fat that would one day melt into his handsome face. His eyes, now devoid of malice, were wide and childlike, and brightly colored like pale leaves. He was still good-looking in his leathers and tall boots; but with the new, innocent shine to his form, you could tell that he would look just as good in maybe even just a normal shirt and jeans.

"Kadaj..."

A warm, maternal voice replied to his call, as soft hands and gentle arms scooped him up into an affectionate embrace, full of care and the kind of gentleness that only a woman could offer.

Pale green eyes fluttered open and met a warm, forest-green gaze.

For a moment the young man could have imagined that these eyes, so full of warmth and concern, were those of his mother. Surely such a placid, comforting hue might have been able to spawn the cold green eyes he knew that he possessed. That was until a lock of light brown hair came cascading over his face; and then all his illusions faded and fell away. This could not be his mother.

The silver-haired teen jerked away from the woman, untrusting and unwilling to accept affection from someone other than his mom.

"You're not my mother." The teen spat at her angrily.

"You're right...I'm not." The brown-haired woman stood, looking at Kadaj with nothing but patience.

Confused, afraid, and vaguely lonesome, he lashed out at the figure in front of him.

"Get away from me! Where are Loz and Yazoo? Did you take them from me too?"

A panicked look spread across his face at the thought of his siblings being taken away from him just like his mother.

"No, I did not take away Loz and Yazoo from you. They are in a different place now. They are atoning for their sins."

"Sins?"

"Sins."

"Then, why am I here? I should be with them! I led them to their fates."

"Stop it. This is how things are. Accept it for what it's worth."

Kadaj stopped speaking and took in his surroundings. It was no longer the same white pool of light that he had been drawn into at first. Now it was an ethereal garden, full of flowers and water, and hazy, sparkling lights that glowed like a million multi-colored fireflies filling the air. He breathed in deeply, as though for the first time; but instead of feeling the life-sustaining oxygen coursing through him, he felt as though he died a little inside.

"Mother..."

Another choked whimper escaped from his lips.

"Come to me Kadaj. It's alright. No one can hurt you anymore here."

He gave her nothing. Just a glare full of hate and mistrust.

She extended to him open arms, her brown hair spilling over her pale skin. Forest-colored eyes misted over with sympathetic tears.

"Come to me...she can't hurt you here."

"H-hurt...me..?"

He knew what he was made of – a cold green glare and strands of silver hair. He was all creamy skin and cherubic features, which soon twisted in pain at the first blooming sting of betrayal.

"She'd never hurt me..."

"She used you, Kadaj. You aren't even who she claims you are."

And suddenly it hit him like a blow to the chest or a slap in the face...

Or maybe it was with the sad innocence of a scraped knee or a bruised forehead.

She had used him.

He wasn't really her son, he was just a remnant. A shard of a long-lost memory from a tasteless nightmare that chased the dead from slumber. He wasn't really born of her blood or of her flesh and her bone; he was nothing more than a pathetic vessel through which she summoned the only one she could ever accept as a son. The one man he'd come to resent because "mother" could only think about him. The one man that he would love nonetheless for keeping mother "alive".

"She...used me..."

Suddenly his head was full of swimming sounds and images.

He heard his own voice crying out for mother. The call was denied.

In his weakest moment, he had still fought for her, and she had denied him. She used him...She used him. Oh Holy, it hurt.

She's still there with open arms, and he finds himself gravitating towards them. Like a baby towards the embrace of a loving mother, he's crawling on hands and knees and whimpering, holding back searing tears, but all that he needs are those warm, soft arms around him.

Suddenly, he half-collapses into the arms of a woman dressed in pink, her hair loose and cascading around her, making her look like some kind of angel. He feels a cheek pressed to his damp forehead -- he didn't realize that he had been sweating...his leather-gloved hand gripping at soft flesh. He's tearing at said gloves, craving the full effect of the skin that was surely pressed against him. He lost the will to be strong -- lost the will to disdain.

"You...you're the first person to ever hold me like this. I could die now...happy"

"No more death and despair for you in this world. Stay with me and I can teach you. Teach you right and wrong, and how to love again; be good again."

"Again?"

"No one is born evil, Kadaj. I will make you pure again."

"Stay by my side...please, teach me."

"Yes."