Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII

Warning: Fem!Cloud; Time Travel; OOCness

Un-Beta'd

When Sephiroth returned from his mission, his Cloud-detector had gone off. And with that, he jumped off the helicopter, ignoring the infantrymen's startled yelps.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if his Cloud had sensed him as well. By the time he got to the ShinRa building – the place where his Cloud's presence had originated – she was already gone.

Instead, only Angeal, Genesis, Zack, two Turks, and the two ShinRa's were standing in the lobby.

His Puppet had escaped him again.

The President greeted him and scrutinized his appearance, as if judging him in a different light, before nodding to himself and leaving without another word. The Vice President just nodded to him in greeting before leaving with his Turks to "experiment with his new gun."

Zack and the other two SOLDIERS welcomed him back, though Angeal and Genesis had a rather odd expression on their faces.

"Sephiroth," Genesis started as they headed out of the lobby and into the main building, "do you know a Cloud Strife?"

The General turned to his red-clad friend and nodded. "Yes," he said. "We've… met. How do you know her?"

"She was here just before you came," Angeal answered.

"I met her in Wutai," Genesis said casually. "Twice, in fact. She gave me something the first time." Genesis took note of Sephiroth's subtle tensing and the, dare he say, jealous gleam in the General's eyes. "I saw her again in the Kisaragi palace."

"That is of no surprise," Sephiroth said. "I recall that she is close with the Wutaian princess."

Angeal raised a brow at that. "Even though she's the President's niece?" He only got a nod in reply from the General and a shrug from Zack.

"She left rather quickly," Genesis said, observing his silver haired friend. "I wonder why..."

At that moment, Zack decided to speak up, hands on the back of his head.

"You know," the puppy started, amused, "if you want Spikey to stop avoiding you, you really should stop messing with her."

He was ignored. Sephiroth had no intention to stop seeing his little Puppet.

"How long have you two known each other?" Angeal asked. "Zachary said she threw you in a… reactor," Angeal said, disbelieving his own words, "when you two first met."

Sephiroth raised a brow at Zack, who only smiled unrepentantly, before turning back to the two Firsts' curious faces. "Yes, that is true," he said, not at all embarrassed at the admission. "And I've known Cloud for… a rather long time. Long before I met either of you."

Which was technically true, with the exception of his original life.

The two Commanders had nothing to say to that, probably believing that the Reactor Incident had happened when the General was just a child. It was a logical conclusion. After all, Sephiroth had met the two Banora natives in his early teens in all of his lives.

And really, it was true.

Sephiroth had snuck into Neibelheim as a child, without Hojo's consent, and then had proceeded to antagonize the blond child, only to be pushed into the reactor by a toddler-Cloud.

Needless to say, Hojo had been upset with him, though Sephiroth hadn't cared. He had successfully occupied his Cloud's thoughts after that affair.

Plus, he had gotten acquainted with his Cloud's mother as well. The woman had never minded whenever he dropped by to antagonize Cloud, although whenever he did, he always arrived just when Cloud had left for a delivery. She had apparently found his efforts to "gain [her] daughter's attention" to be adorable, or something along those lines.

Of course, his Cloud's mother was the reason he knew about those stupid fiancés in the first place.

When Zack had started on again about his Puppet's avoidance, Genesis took over, exclaiming that with Sephiroth's "social retardation," he, the great Genesis Rhapsodos, would be taking it upon himself to teach the General "the fine art of wooing women."

Because apparently, Sephiroth was obviously trying to catch the young woman's attention the wrong way. Genesis, and apparently Angeal, had most-likely reached that conclusion with Zack chatting away and telling the two about the many instances "Seph pushed Spikey too far" and how "Spikey started avoiding Seph" because the General always (figuratively) "pulled her pigtails" whenever they crossed paths.

Of course, it probably didn't help when Zack decided to tell the two Firsts about the various times the General decided to… confront Cloud's fiancés.

And somewhere along the way, Angeal had come to the conclusion that Sephiroth had "not taken responsibility." For what, Sephiroth had no clue, but it didn't stop Angeal from lecturing him about shirking his "responsibilities," whatever they were.

The General had an idea that Angeal's sudden sermon had something to do with his Puppet.

This just happened to spur Genesis on even more about teaching the General how to "woo a woman properly" so that Sephiroth could "win her back."

Zack,on the other hand, wasn't helping at all. The puppy was off to the side, vainly trying to hide his snickers and muttering something about how he had to "tell Aerith about this."

Honestly, he had no idea what they were on about. He did have the slight suspicion, however, that it had something to do with those messages Cloud's mother kept sending him and the look the President had given him earlier.

So Sephiroth decided to just go with it.

Resisting Genesis' whims was futile. Especially when the red Commander was motivated.

So Angeal has come to the conclusion that Cloud's dislike of Sephiroth is based on the assumption that Sephiroth "didn't take responsibility" for supposedly impregnating Cloud. Multiple times. And thus, the lecture.

Genesis thinks that Sephiroth either knows about the kids and just passed them off to his father, Vincent (which is why Cloud dislikes him), or that Sephiroth truly doesn't know about the kids because he wronged Cloud somehow (and probably by accident because the General's socially stunted).

The President was giving Seph the look-over because after finally seeing his darling niece's kids, he finally believed his sister's claims that her daughter had the General's children. So he was kinda judging Seph in a new light – not as a useful tool/SOLDIER, but as an in-law.

Mama Strife had been in contact with Sephiroth. She really believed that he and Cloud were in a relationship so she told him about the fiancés the village was forcing on her baby. She's also been sending him letters about the kids, but she didn't say any names and worded everything rather vaguely, having been told about Hojo, so she wrote it in a way that only people "in the know" would understand. But since he didn't know, Seph didn't really understand what the hell she was talking about.

Plus, Mama Strife thought Cloud and Sephiroth were keeping the kids and the supposed "relationship" secret since Cloud and the others never let the kids go out without a hood on, and Sephiroth hasn't exactly openly visited.

...

Sigh. Gosh, that was such a long A/N. Sorry for the chapter's choppiness.