Disclaimer: I, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, do not own, think I own, or will ever own Final Fantasy VII or its compilation. I don't even want to know what I'd do with it if I did.


Sephiroth did not know what he could say to Angeal, so they sat in silence for what seemed to be an eternity. It was difficult to look upon Angeal's face, and sometimes he would take a sneaking glance up to see his friend, who was just as clearly trying to hide his own stealthy glances. There was something palpable in the air and Sephiroth know that if Zack had better there he would have broken the tension with some kind of joke or bizarre behaviour. That was what Zack had always been good at.

Sephiroth wanted to go back to his computer, to pull up all the information what was available on Zack. How old was he? Had he already joined the Company? Or would that happen soon?

If Sephiroth were a better man, he would delete Zack's file, throw up boundaries, prevent that boy from having any chance to join SOLDIER. Zack would be in Gongaga, playing in the soft glowing light of the sun breaking through the jungle above. He would live for years, get married, have children, have the opportunity to be happy. He deserved a fulfilling life.

With his flower girl.

Sephiroth shut his eyes and gripped the coffee mug. Yes, the girl. She had been a mistake, though only partially that of his own. When he had woken after Strife had thrown him straight into the lifestream he had been unwhole, only pieces of himself. The rest was Jenova acting as a glue, trying desperately to get him to the lifestream of the Northern Crater.

Aeris had been collateral.

But she had been innocent and pure, and he had ruined that. Oh, yes, Zack would have murdered him with his own hands had he known what fate he would give that girl. And he definitely deserved it. No matter Jenova, no matter the experiments and Hojo...

He had failed.

But this was the chance to right that wrong.

"Sephiroth, what happened during your tests to put you in this... to..." Angeal began, but cut himself off. "I am a little concerned."

Sephiroth shook his head and let go of the now cold cup of coffee. "It was just a long day, Angeal."

Angeal did not ask anything but Sephiroth knew he wanted to. This was still a time where Angeal didn't want to hurt him, and knew when to push and when not to. So, Angeal would skirt around the entire situation until Sephiroth was ready.

He would never be ready.

"It is okay Angeal. Thank you."

Angeal knew this thank you was for more, but Sephiroth did not care to elaborate further.

"It is still fairly early. Are you feeling well enough to go with Genesis and I to the canteen? I think he may be worried about you. You know how he can be."

Did Angeal say something to Genesis? Maybe a text? Sephiroth shook his head. Genesis... Sephiroth was not ready to see Genesis.

Genesis would see him.

"No, enjoy your evening with Genesis. I think I'll take a walk below plate, try to clear out some of the monsters." Even now there were monsters in the slums, and it was a perfectly acceptable excuse. It was something he had done long ago, and was not an unfamiliar thing for him to do when he wanted to be by himself.

"You enjoy yourself," Angeal responded and shortly left Sephiroth's apartment, Sephiroth making sure not to watch as Angeal gathered the Buster sword from the other room. He only turned around when he heard the door click shut.


Sephiroth stared at the building before him, the glass refracting the sickly green light from above. There was still some natural, human light that Sephiroth knew came from the above plate, where they had left certain sections open to help prevent the slums from filling with poisonous mako fumes.

There were trickles of sunlight peering down onto the roof. The wooden beams looked weak, and he could tell that yes, this was the place where Zack would one day fall through the roof. He had heard the stories so many times that though he had never paid attention to the church before this day, it was already part of him.

He could feel her there before he could see her.

There was wood and glass and stone between Sephiroth and the little flower girl, but he knew that she was in there. She may have even been tending to her garden, soot catching on her pink dress. Sephiroth imagined she was wearing a pink dress, the same one she wore when he ran his sword through her belly while Cloud screamed out her name.

It was a silly thought. She was still a child, maybe thirteen or fourteen, no more. She wouldn't look the same, and she would certainly not notice him. She couldn't...

Sephiroth peered at the church and the front doors, wishing they would open but knowing the he would need to push them, to break the serenity between the present and the past, the past and the future.

And he knew that he was being watched. Turks, no doubt. He had always known of Tsung's pet project, especially after Zack had met the girl and Tsung's words in regards to Aeris's safety were as sharp as a blade to the throat. They would ask thinly veiled questions and Sephiroth would lie. But at this moment, that was none of his concern. His true concern was what was just beyond the wooden door.

He braced his arm against the door and pushed, and it gave with the slightest of strength.

She was a tiny slip of a thing, wearing a green dress and a blue bow in her hair. Her green eyes were staring straight at him as she stood in front of the door with one arm pressed against her chest and the other arm outstretched to the door handle.

She looked like her mother.

Sephiroth had known Professor Gast and Infalna throughout his childhood. When they left, he had cursed the two for leaving him stuck with Hojo. Infalna and Professor Gast had been the only two people on the entire planet, before Genesis and Angeal, who had given even a shred of warmth to him. And Sephiroth had hated them both with such intensity that even now, looking at their child, he felt the twinge of their abandonment in his bones.

Yet, it had not been Aeris who had sinned against him, and neither Professor Gast nor his vivacious wife would have abandoned him without reason. One day they had been there, and the next they were a whisper of a memory.

Everyone ran from him, in the end.

"You aren't Tseng." There was accusation in her tone, and wariness. She stared at him with a trembling mouth, and though she was clearly nervous and confused, she stared out at Sephiroth as if daring him to try something. She was strong, obviously unwilling to accept anything that Sephiroth would do. "You should go, there are Turks around here, y'know."

"I know... Tseng is someone I know well." It was almost surreal, this wasn't what Sephiroth had expected. Not from the little girl. "I was hunting monsters near this area."

Aeris looked over his shoulder and some of the wariness left her face. "I... I guess. Can I help you? There aren't any monsters in here."

Sephiroth looked between the doors, and he could see the little garden set up under the small holes in the ceiling. No, there wouldn't be any monsters here, even if the Turks weren't standing vigil outside protecting the little girl. This place was inherently good.

Sephiroth licked his lips and noticed that the girl was staring at the hilt of his sword. He knew that the sword made people uneasy, even before it was used as a PR stunt by Shinra during the Wutai War. It was clearly something that made her uneasy.

It made Sephiroth uneasy now, too.

"May I come in and rest for a moment?" Sephiroth didn't quite know what he was supposed to say to the little girl with her big green eyes staring out at him with only a bit of fear. It was nice to know that despite what would come later, at this moment he was not yet the monster he knew he was.

Something chuckled in his mind and Sephiroth winced, again being reminded of Vincent Valentine.

The girl backed up and gestured a little with her shoulder blade, and Sephiroth did not question it. Instead, he accepted what was closest to her permission to enter the church.

It was much bigger inside, the steepled roof hanging so high that Sephiroth wondered even with his super human strength if he would be able to jump up. The garden was in the front, hidden by several rickety pews that had long ago seen their last praying knees. The church was a relic of times long gone, where there was religion in the remnants of an equally dead city Shinra had built Midgar over. There was a hum in the air, not that of the ever-present mako reactors, but something Sephiroth had never noticed...something like a mother's caress against his cheek.

Sephiroth lifted his head and listened closely to the sound. It was something new, something he had never heard before... What in the...

"Can... Can you hear it too?" Aeris asked as she crept behind Sephiroth as the two slowly walked toward the garden. Her voice was meek, as though she was waiting for him to turn around and strike her with his words. Tip-toeing, always tip-toeing.

Sephiroth stopped at the last pew and looked down at the girl. Yes, he could hear it, the whisper of something against his mind, and Sephiroth knew it could not be Jenova; she was gone from his mind, Bahamut said so himself. He tried to call out to Bahamut, but was met with silence.

"And if I did?" Sephiroth said as he tugged his Masamune, sheath and all, from his back, resting it down on the pew. He leaned down and touched the rotting wood, noting that most of the pews and even the floorboards were covered with a coating of mako sludge and grime.

Aeris breathed out so loudly that Sephiroth turned to stare.

"Then... are you like me?"

Sephiroth felt his lips pull together against his teeth. He knew what she meant, even if she herself did not fully understand.

Ancient. Cetra.

He was not one of them, that Sephiroth knew and knew well. Jenova was nothing but a pitiful monster that crashed from the heavens. She was the Calamity from the Sky, and he was born from her monstrous loins. Hojo and Gast had done their damage, the experiment of their own creation, and neither had ever thought of what havoc Sephiroth would wreck the planet with. Genesis had called him the perfect monster, and Cloud had assured him of it three times.

But... why could he hear the whispers?

"I don't know." Sephiroth did not know if the girl would appreciate his honesty, and from the small smile spreading across her mouth and her eyes staring at him with something unadulteratedly happy, he knew that he had done something very, very wrong. "It is probably just the mako they gave me."

Aeris nose scrunched and she lost her smile. "Oh... are you, are you one of those... things?"

Her words stung more than Sephiroth would dare to admit. A thing, a nothing, an insignificant test tube experiment. Hearing such a thing from such an innocent girl shouldn't have hurt so much. Yet, it did.

"SOLDIER. Yes." Sephiroth doubted she had ever seen one in action. It was funny, he was not yet turned into the war machine that the world would later know him as. There were some whispers, but no way that a little girl would know him. Sephiroth idly wondered if Cloud knew who he was yet. "My name is Sephiroth."

She turned her head and inspected him again. Sephiroth could see why Zack and Cloud both had been infatuated with her. Though her lips were smiling, Sephiroth could see the wheels turning in her head, before finally her eyes widened.

"You... knew my mother."

Sephiroth looked away. "Yes, I knew her when I was a small child. She was... a very nice woman. How... how did you know?"

"She always talked about a little boy named Sephiroth. She said that she would tell you bedtime stories and would tuck you in to bed whenever she had the chance."

Yes. Infalna had done what she could when she could. It was something that had stuck with Sephiroth in the worst of moments, when he had truly needed someone to care for him, when the mako showers became too much and he had needed a mother to care for him. She had been the warm comfort, the sweet touch of what children should feel, the things that he should never have been denied.

It was also how Jenova had so easily gotten into his head. Sephiroth would never dare to admit that the tender voice of Jenova had taken the eerily similar timber of the long dead Cetra. She had been the closest thing to a mother he had ever had, and when she left, the voice had truly come forward as a comfort. It had done what Infalna could not.

Abandonment. It was a long-ago cauterized wound that, while healed, had never lost the phantom twinge of pain.

"What happened to her?" Sephiroth asked, though he already knew that she was long gone. She had returned to the Planet a long time ago.

"We escaped... they shot her." It was not right for the little girl to be able to say that without cracking in emotion. It must have been a long time, but no child should be able to speak so blasé about the death of their mother.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Sephiroth sat in the silence, watching the breeze gently ruffle the flower petals and the young girl who tended to them. She would occasionally look over to him, but he did not know what to say or how to react appropriately.

Sephiroth wished that he could send the little girl to Gongaga. There, she would be safe and with Zack. But he was selfish and unsure, and the girl did not recognize who she was, not yet. And, if he were honest, Zack... he needed Zack's cool head and charm to get through this. Zack had been something of a rock after what happened to Angeal and... and if he were true to himself...

Genesis.

He needed as much help as he could get.

It was surprising that despite the girl's inquisitive nature, she did not ask any questions. Sephiroth imagined that she was uncomfortable, but she never much as whispered a word of it. It would be no doubt uncomfortable to be in the same room with him.

And Sephiroth needed the time to think. Hojo was far enough away and the planet was just loud enough to drift in the wind to allow himself to gather his thoughts. What would he do? What could he do?

Jenova was his first and major matter that he would have to take care of. She was the catalyst to most of what had gone wrong within Sephiroth`s life-that and Hojo. But he couldn't kill Hojo, not yet. There was the matter of Angeal and Genesis's degradation that would happen no matter what he did to Jenova. Given this chance, this ability to right the wrongs of his past, Sephiroth would not let them die.

He would not let him succumb.

There had been almost no studies when Sephiroth had been sane, and even the life from the soil around Midgar had not been completely suctioned when he had made his trip to Nibelheim, but had known something was wrong even then. During the period of time where Jenova had used his soul like a sand buggy to cross the planet and lead Cloud to the Northern Cave, he had gotten to see the mess that Shinra wrought against everything it touched.

If he were going to fix the Planet, right the wrongs he had wrought, then Shinra would need to burn as well. While he held no love for President Shinra or SOLDIER, he would not allow his men to languish alone. He would not abandon his friends.

He would not abandon...

So many issues, and no idea where to begin.

Shinra. Hojo. Jenova. Degradation. WEAPON.

Sephiroth had been a master at the game of war, a General they had all feared and respected. He could move troops with an ease that had won massive battles against terrible odds. But sitting there, in the church with a girl he had killed so long ago, he could not even think of a single possible solution to the mess.

Maybe running President Shinra through again wouldn't be a half-bad idea. Rufus was young, easily influenced...

The wheels turned in Sephiroth's head until the sun's last few rays kissed the earth and disappeared. How long had he been there?

"Mr. Sephiroth? I need to go home for dinner."

Sephiroth looked up at the girl and gave a short nod, gathering himself up from the broken pew. "Then let me see myself out, Miss...?"

"Aeris... Aeris Gainsborough." Sephiroth looked up and watched the girl grab one curl, wrapping the hair tightly around her finger. "The planet says you can come back next time. Just be careful about Tseng."

Sephiroth doubted the veracity of her claims; the planet was a vindictive thing. He could hear the hissing and it did not sound calm and gentle. But Aeris had more experience understanding the voice of the planet and the lifestream than he ever would, and he needed time to understand it.

"Then I shall, Miss Gainsborough." Sephiroth wondered if he should offer to walk the young girl home, but she smiled and made a little gesture with her chin to the door, where Sephiroth saw the shadows. He was more than a little perturbed; how had he forgotten the Turks hiding in the church?

You are still shaken from the day's events.

Sephiroth resisted the urge to sigh. Of course Bahamut would not leave him be.

"It was very nice to meet you, Miss Gainsborough."

The girl gave a short wave and headed out of the church.

When the door closed with a loud thunk, Sephiroth allowed his hands to gently drift down to his side, though he was itching to grab his sword and cut down the weapon from the Turk's hand.

"Tseng."

*Sephiroth." Tseng looked young, younger than Sephiroth could really remember the man. The last time he had seen Tseng was in the Temple of the Ancients. Sephiroth had done his damage then, too. Tseng did not have his weapon drawn but his fingers were gently resting on the hilt of his gun. It was the most natural state Sephiroth had ever seen Tseng in; Masamune was still resting against the pew, and would not come to him if called.

"Did Hojo send you?"

"I am not Hojo's lapdog, Tseng." This Tseng was still new, still green enough to not understand the reality of those who went into the mako chambers, particularly those who did manage to come out. He did not hold it against the man. Sephiroth was young still and war had not broken him, yet. The truth of the Company's corruption and of his friends' deaths had done its damage. If he were honest, and only in his mind where he could hide his thoughts from even himself... he had been teetering upon the precipice between insanity and sanity long before Nibelheim. He had only kept himself together because he had to care for his friend's charge, he had to protect his men.

It wasn't even himself, his feelings, his emotions that brought him from the edge of cerulean-tinged madness.

It was his duty.

It was his promise.

Tseng smiled genially, though there was a hardness to his eyes that Sephiroth remembered. Turks were not to be messed with; they only cared about themselves...

"Miss Gainsborough is under Turk jurisdiction. I am sure Veld would rather this be kept off the record-"

"As would Lazard." Things had always been tense between SOLDIER and Turk divisions. It had taken years to even put the two divisions on the same floor with one another without causing catastrophe. The sheer number of coffee mugs lobbed at window, let alone the vicious emails or barely-veiled threats had led Sephiroth to personally discipline some of the lower rank SOLDIERs to make the sheer stupidity and foolishness come to an end. It wasn't even the punishment that had led to the terse truce between the SOLIDERs and Turks-his men did not like the sound of Sephiroth's disappointment.

"Then we must have an accord?"

"Certainly."

Sephiroth reached for his sword and slowly reattached the straps, making sure to do so in a way that would not be taken threateningly. The last thing he needed to do was cause chaos, only having been back for less than 24 hours.

The cogs in Sephiroth's head began moving and his mouth seemed to form the words with supernatural grace and precision. Once upon a time, Tseng had been close to what he could have called a friend. "Hojo mentioned Vincent Valentine."

Tseng said nothing, but Sephiroth knew that he had caught the Turk's attention.

"Are you sure he is dead?"


Sephiroth arrived back at his apartment and knew the moment he opened the door that he was not alone; there was a smell wafting through the rooms, the sound of meat sizzling on the stove, a chatter of the television he knew he never turned on.

"Have you slaked your thirst for killing?"

He hadn't prepared to see Genesis there, standing in his kitchen with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and hair pulled back at the nape of his neck. Genesis had known when his presence was and was not needed, and at this moment, with his Masamune still covered in monster gore and his head filled with an entire decade of life not yet lived, Sephiroth hadn't realized how much seeing Genesis before him hurt.

Genesis was still young and whole, his auburn hair pulled back with some of the wisps curling around his ears. The piercing Sephiroth had bought for his 24th birthday hung starkly down against his pale neck.

This was when he had decide to grow out his hair; Sephiroth always assumed that it had been vanity, but now he understood it was Genesis's way of...

No.

Genesis's blue eyes stared at him in a way that Sephiroth had pushed back as far as he could into the recesses of his mind.

I don't know what images you've conjured up in your head, but...

A perfect monster indeed.

You will rot.

"I imagine not."

Sephiroth had to physically restrain himself, hands shaking in fists at his side- a sign of weakness he would have never shown to anyone other than Genesis, though it seemed the man was oblivious. The man lifted his hand to his eye, shoving the hairs out of his face (such an arrogant move, always having to be the center of attention...) and went back to his task,turning his back to Sephiroth, pushing around the sizzling meat in the pan.

"Well, you may as well clean yourself up; no point in getting blood all over the floor. You never are yourself after Mako." Genesis peered over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. "Or you can leave. I am sure the canteen could feed you."

Sephiroth had sat face to face with Angeal and had never once thought of running his friend through with his sword. But Genesis, cocky and arrogant and with his ever-present sneer...

Genesis turned and crossed his arms, still holding the fork a distance away. His lips were pursed and nose nose slightly upturned, but his blue eyes were calculating. Then, deciding something in his own head, he sighed and dropped his chin, uncrossing his arms and tossing the fork onto the counter.

"Or we can continue this ridiculous fight. It is your choice. Either way, we only have a few more days of leave."

Sephiroth breathed in and looked at Genesis, noting the open hands and mouth turned down in a frown.

"Do you remember that story you told me? The story of Bahamut?" It had been Sephiroth's first mission on his 16th birthday, and it was the first time that Genesis had said a kind word to had been the rivalry between Hollander and Hojo... and, if Sephiroth was honest with himself, he himself had been the main issue in forming that relationship. He had been told he was special, unique, second to none. Both Genesis and Angeal had been older and even with Sephiroth outranking them, he had known the two -mostly Genesis- had first harbored issue with deferring to what they considered a child.

Genesis winced. "It isn't something one simply forgets, Sephiroth."

Don't you dare, Sephiroth. You can not tell him.

Sephiroth knew better than to dare go against Bahamut, instead shrugging off Masamune's sheath. "Can you tell it to me again?"

Genesis laughed and the tension from the room bled out. "A strange request, but if it makes you less likely to kill me with your eyes..." Genesis turned around and continued cooking, as though it was the most natural thing on the planet.

This Genesis had not been the monster Sephiroth knew. He had yet to succumb to his own madness.

It had been Genesis's fault just as much as his own. Sephiroth had done what Genesis had not; Genesis stopped. Somehow, he had stopped. Had it been Zack? Had it been remorse? Had it been watching Sephiroth lose himself?

He learned. Just like you will.

Sephiroth unlaced his shoes, kicking them unceremoniously into the corner of the front walkway. Ignoring the look from Genesis-because since when was Sephiroth not the perfectly neat man who relaced his boots before even thinking of putting them away in the cupboard- Sephiroth stepped into his bedroom, shutting the door. He rested his head on the wood, feeling his temples beating against in sync with his heartbeat.

This was too much.

The bathroom was sparse, only holding what was necessary for daily life of a soldier, but there were little hints that he had forgotten of so long ago. A blue toothbrush on the sink next to his, the gentle smell of aftershave and mouthwash, the bottles of toiletries tucked unceremoniously under the sink with little fanfare. Even the towel on the floor was wet, and Sephiroth knew it had not been him.

He wished this would go away.

Sephiroth turned on the water to the shower and slowly removed his clothing, feeling the leather peel from his skin, a snake removing its skin. He threw the clothes in the corner of the bathroom and climbed into the tub, feeling the water against his skin like a prayer to the heavens, a soft healing rain.

How long had it been since Sephiroth had felt such a small comfort?

Sephiroth found his knees grow weak, his head pounding, the blood in his ears pumping so quickly that the cacophony of sound made him woozy. His hair was a wet rope around his throat and he couldn't look away from the white tile under his feet and the mako and blood tainted water flowing down the drain. It spun and spun, getting closer and closer.

He braced himself with his hand, but the power left his knees and he found himself crouching his tub, the water running against his hear and down the curve of his back, his eyes staring down at the never-ending hole into the ground. It would only take, never giving back.

What had he done?

Sephiroth choked as he felt the bile rush up his throat. The fire from the acid hit the back of his tongue and he gagged, the dregs of his coffee covering the whiteness. His hands grasped for purchase but his nails could not grab anything but his hair. His body heaved and more coffee, bile, blood and that ever-present tinge of mako greeted him.

Pull yourself together. I did not rip you from nothingness to have you give in.

Sephiroth could not even think of a retort as his chest heaved and one of his nails snapped, fumbling like a newborn without a mother. He made a low, high-pitched keel, a sound that Sephiroth would have never admitted he could make. He tried to push himself to his knees but found that the strength had been bled away.

When a SOLDIER returned from the war, there were certain things that were never mentioned.

It was not the blood or the gore nor the cries and whimpers of their brothers and enemies in the sweltering nights. There was a stickiness to the humidity of the Wutai jungle that made even your soul sweat, but it was not that, either.

It was the silence.

There was always that one moment in war, and those who survived could recall with perfect clarity when it happened for them. The entire world would hush. Gone was the sound of the trees swaying, the guns and cannons firing, the screams as the wounded became the dying and then the dead. You couldn't hear the blood in your ears, your heartbeat, not even your own breath.

You could scream and no one would hear it.

After Da Chao, Sephiroth had screamed for hours until his voice had gone hoarse and his throat bled and he could do nothing but whimper.

He hadn't hear a single screeching moment.

Sephiroth tried to wrap his arms around his head, wishing that the sound would return. He could feel the water on his skin but could not hear the splash. He could feel Genesis grabbing him and lifting him out of the tub. He could even see the words Genesis repeated like a mantra or a prayer.

But he couldn't hear a word.

Sephiroth felt the tops of his feet drag against the tile and then the carpet as Genesis pulled him, naked and trembling, into his room. He felt the bed under his skin, Genesis wrapping his blankets around him like a cocoon. His hair was choking him, couldn't Genesis see? It was a noose.

He could see the red rock in the sky, floating above and his will pulling it down. He could taste the mako as Cloud threw him into the mako reactor in Nibelheim, feel the mako eat through his leather and boots. Her hair was like wet silk in his fingers...

There was metal and blood and magic down his neck. He could taste the anger and hatred, the fury, the pain. He could feel his hair at his waist, could smell the hint of what had been his shampoo once a million moons ago.

This was his noose.

Shivering, Sephiroth curled in on himself and did not push away when he felt Genesis pull him towards him. It was Genesis, who had done the same thing once upon a time, when no one would come near him. They had thought him mad, had threatened to terminate him when he could not control himself.

Genesis.

His own personal monster.

Sephiroth felt the laugh bubble to his lips, but found that he could not do so as Genesis took that moment to force Sephiroth's face against his shoulder, stifling sounds he could not hear.

Maybe you are too broken. Too weak.

But Sephiroth was not weak. Fumbling and grabbing for Genesis's shirt, he finally managed to snag and pull closer, an anchor to the real world. There were no WEAPONS, there was no JENOVA, no dead flower girls or silent screaming.

There was this, this life he did not want, did not deserve, did not know how to manage.

And for the first time in his life, Sephiroth wept.


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