Warnings: None for this chapter except subject love geekiness

Chapter 2. One Step Beyond

Zack looked at his commander, his friend. He looked him right in the cold, scary eyes that were Sephiroth's but not, and saw the balance starting to shift toward death.

"Is it safe, or should I start running for the tunnels in fear for my life?" Cloud's soft voice hung in the air. At the sound of it Sephiroth's 'Death Angel' aura slipped away. His eyes lost their icy sheen and became almost uncertain.

It was a reaction Zack had noticed a couple months back when discussing his young friend. He'd thought it intriguing at the time, sure that Seph had a crush on the young blond. It was also one of the reasons he'd decided to drag the still-recovering corporal out of bed and through the big, scary mansion. He'd hoped that Cloud's mere presence would be enough to knock Sephiroth off balance. It looked like he'd guessed right.

The Silver General was crushing big time.

"Shit," Cloud probably hadn't meant for that to be overhead he'd said it so quietly, but enhanced hearing made it seem almost like a shout. "You know, Heidegger's going to blame me if you two kill each other. I don't want that kind of attention, thanks very much."

General and SOLDIER exchanged a long look. There was a whole conversation that took place without one sound being made.

You brought him here?
We're worried.

I can't let him see me like this.
We just want to help.

I can't appear weak.
It doesn't matter. We're your friends

Sephiroth didn't break eye contact with his 2IC when he invited the young trooper into the room. "It's alright, Corporal Strife. No one's going to die. At the moment." Zack just grinned at the pointed addendum. He'd won this battle and that was enough for now.

Cloud entered the room, hesitating only slightly when he confirmed that Sephiroth really hadn't skewered his impulsive friend. He moved to the table and snapped a crisp salute. "General, sir!"

Sephiroth noticed scrapes and bruises on his face and arms. "What happened to you, Corporal?"

Cloud's brain shut off, as it often did in the General's presence. Thankfully, Zack explained about Genesis' attack at the reactor. How Cloud had protected Ms. Lockhart and been pounded on for his trouble.

"Then why isn't he recuperating at the inn?"

"Because this is more important. That was some pretty strange shit we found at the reactor and then you started acting weird and buried yourself in here. We were worried."

"We?" Sephiroth questioned, completely ignoring everything else Zack had said.

The SOLDIER looked over to his friend, who was politely ignoring their discussion by browsing through some of the books on the table. "Well," Zack temporized. "He was worried once I explained everything to him."

"There was no need." Sephiroth stated. "I finally have the answers to who I am and why I was created."

"Really?" Zack enthused. "Lucky bastard, most people never figure that stuff out."

"I thought you were created to be the perfect soldier and warrior, but that Hojo wasn't really happy with you because you became too independent," Cloud interrupted without thinking, his mind on the book in his hand. When the attention snapped to him, he felt it. He lifted his head to see two pairs of eyes, one brilliant blue and friendly; the other cat green and distant. He flushed bright red, his eyes went impossibly wide, and they could hear him swallow. "Sorry, sir. It's one of the things they say in barracks. Everyone one thinks that's a good thing, though, sir. Nobody wants to serve under Hojo, not even indirectly."

Sephiroth blinked, and then looked away in obvious dismissal. "I was designed with a much broader purpose in mind. It is here in Professor Gast's notes and in Hojo's journals. The Jenova Project wanted to produce people with the powers of the Ancients. Gast, leader of the Jenova Project and genius scientist, produced me."

"These scientists left journals, containing information on their secret projects, just lying about an empty basement?" Zack asked, not believing it. "Excuse me if I'm skeptical. I never met this Professor Gast but Hojo is a crazy, sadistic fuck and secretive as Shiva. You've never trusted him before. Why now?"

"Because I never before understood his vision. The project was too vast for me to comprehend."

"Bullshit!" Zack coughed. "You're one of the smartest people I know. I can't believe you're buying into any scheme of that psycho fuck."

Sephiroth ignored him and instead repeated the information he'd found in Hojo's books. "Long ago, disaster struck this planet. Your ancestors escaped. They survived because they hid. The Planet was saved by sacrificing the Ancients. After that, your ancestors continued to increase. Now all that's left of the Ancients is Jenova. And me. It is all borne out by the information in these books." He gestured at the scattered tomes.

Cloud's soft snort startled the other two men out of their narrow focus on each other. Each trying to convince the other of what they were saying was correct, that what they believed was more important. "You have another comment, Corporal?"

Cloud froze. He hadn't meant to be heard - especially after the reaction to his last interruption. Plus, he didn't want to get involved in the argument that was brewing between the two First Classes - the two very large First Classes.

Unfortunately, neither of his superiors were looking away, so he once again swallowed the lump in his throat and spoke up. "It's just, if he relied on these books for accurate information, he was probably misled, sir." Cloud thought that was a nice, tactful, way to phrase it.

General Sephiroth raised his eyebrow in silent disdain although he kept his voice cool and unemotional. "Those books were most enlightening."

Cloud closed his eyes and Zack could almost hear his prayer to be swallowed by the floor. "What's wrong with the books, Spike?"

"Well, um." Deep breath. "They're mostly fakes."

"What?" Zack laughed at the same time Sephiroth sneered, "Ridiculous."

"I assure you, sir, these aren't as old as they seem to be. My mother was a librarian at Kalm University before my father got transferred to Nibelheim."

"And that qualifies you to judge the authenticity of these works?" Disbelief dripped from the general's words.

"She, uh, used to tell stories, funny stories, about the ways people tried to defraud the library or the university or even some of the professors, with fake first editions or 'rare' finds. She talked of the mistakes the forgers made and how the staff caught them. She was quite proud of it. I remember Father was too." A small smile quirked Cloud's lips; he had so few happy memories of his dad. "She once saved the university ten thousand gil when she recognized a fake volume about the Northern Cave. They gave her a reward." He laughed. "She bought books with it." He looked up at his audience, suddenly remembering their presence, "Um, sirs."

Zack had walked over to Cloud's area and was thumbing through the books. This was all good news as far as he was concerned – anything that undercut Hojo's 'Grand Design.' Plus Zack had never heard the young blond babble like this before. It was cute. He'd thought his friend would start to stammer and stutter like he usually did when faced with one of the high level SOLDIERS, the general in particular, but he was doing great. Still, a little moral support was always welcome.

"So how do you know it's a fake?" he asked, picking one up.

"It's, um, different from book to book. Like, this one-" he took it from Zack's hand, "-is okay, as far as I can tell. This one, however..." He picked up a thin, gilt-edged volume. "THis is definitely a fake. It's obvious if you know any history of printing, or just plain history."

Zack snorted. "Yeah, well, I don't so, y'know, show your stuff, little guy." He grinned.

Cloud glared at him. "Puppy," he muttered in revenge, but he obligingly opened up the volume in his hands. "This book claims to be a reprint of a 300-year-old work by a Professor Kaslaka Pet-Pet... " he stumbled.

"Petrovienovich, of Kalm University. It was very useful"

"Huh," Zack interrupted. "I thought Kalm U was only a hundred years old or something." He turned to his CO. "Didn't they just have a party, Sephiroth? You got the invite."

Sephiroth frowned. "One hundred twenty five. I ignored the invitation. Why didn't I see that?" His eyes went distant as he processed this information. "What else did you see, Corporal?"

Cloud blushed faintly but picked up another volume. He opened it to the first page. "This is the title page," he stated. Even Zack could see it made sense as the title was printed large across the paper. "The back side of the title page is called the 'verso'. It's where publishers put printing information: where, when, who, stuff like that."

"I see nothing wrong with it," Zack said staring at it, puzzled. "It looks like all my other books"

"You have books?" Sephiroth teased dryly.

Zack could've jumped up and down like a little boy. Sephiroth was teasing him - he was thinking again. He was coming back!

"It contains all the standard information," Sephiroth said to Cloud.

"Yes, but that's what's wrong with it, sir. This style of information, the content, the layout, all of it, didn't become standard until Shin-Ra bought up most of the publishing houses. Before that, Vançome and Sons wouldn't bother putting in that the book was printed in Nime because they only published in Nime." He put that one down and picked up another.

Zack, who'd walked over to stand next to his general, whispered, "Where's Nime?"

"It's what Rocket Town used to be called," Sephiroth answered just as quietly.

"This was supposedly printed in Wutai two hundred years ago," Cloud picked up another leather bound book.

"So why wasn't it printed in Wutaiinese?" Sephiroth finished for him.

"Yes, sir," Cloud smiled a little. "This one was a lot of work." He picked up another, even larger book. Its pages were uneven and water damaged. Thick leather straps formed hasps for keeping the massive work closed. "Hemp paper, hand bound and hand cut. It's beautiful and old-fashioned, but the letters are too even to have been hand written. And there's no guidelines that scribes would've used to mark their edges. It was printed using an old mechanical typeset machine." He rubbed his hands over the tooled leather. "It's possible this is an antique forgery."

"You already said it was a fake, Corporal."

Cloud blushed, "Sir! I meant that this forgery was made long ago - maybe a hundred fifty to even two hundred years ago. If that's the case, it's priceless in its own right. Any university library would love to have it."

Zack had long ago given up following the conversation. He leaned against the table, hands folded casually across his chest, and just grinned as the mountain boy showed his stuff. He barely refrained from doing a happy dance. 'This was good,' he thought as he watched Sephiroth ask questions of the trooper. This was better than good. The general was involved in the world around him again.

He'd been so right to bring his cute, unexpectedly nerdy, little friend.

"How many of these books do you figure are fake?" Zack asked waving his arms at the book filled room and interrupting the engrossed duo.

"I don't know but..." Cloud hesitated, stealing a quick glance at the magnetic general. He didn't want to embarrass General Sephiroth because he'd so obviously read and believed many of the books on display. "There's twelve volumes here on the table. Five I know are fake, and I'm not sure about another three of them."

Zack whistled in shock. "That's amazing." He frowned. "And, when I think about it, pretty weird."

"Hmm," Sephiroth agreed. "Some of Hojo's journals quote liberally from these works to support his theories and justify his research. How could he have not seen–" He trailed off, perplexed. It didn't fit with the Hojo he'd interacted with all these years. Except that it did. Hojo was always willing to bend or ignore the facts in order to pursue a particular result.

"Yeah, Dr. Spooky may be a sadistic nutcase, but he's not stupid. I can't believe he'd be taken in by stuff that can't fool a small-town mountain boy. No offense, Cloud"

"Too late, mildew brain," said the mountain boy. "If I may ask, sir; what are the professor's theories?" From conversations with Zack, Cloud knew that Sephiroth had been raised in labs by Professor Hojo and most aspects of the general's upbringing were either unusual or outright torture. Zack also thought that part of the current problem stemmed from Sephiroth's dislike of being unique, without a family – alone.

And then there was the whole monster thing.

Zack had outlined what Genesis Rhapsodos, legendary First Class and warrior who was supposed to be dead, had hit the general with yesterday. Words chosen deliberately to cause the most anguish to his former friend and comrade. Cloud was reluctant to add to that pain in any way.

"He said that the body recovered from the Northern Cave was that of an Ancient Professor Gast called Jenova."

"Jenova?" Zack blurted. "Isn't that the name of your..."

"Mother. Yes."

"Dude! I mean, General," Zack corrected. "I know Hojo's grasp on sex is only theoretical, but Jenova's encased in Mako or something. I doubt she could carry anything to term."

Obviously, Zack didn't share Cloud's concern about causing Sephiroth pain.

Sephiroth frowned at him. "He took live cells harvested from Jenova and implanted them in me when I was a fetus."

"Okay that's disgusting." Both Zack and Cloud wrinkled their noses. "Who'd let Psycho Doc near their unborn child?"

"He says the mother was willing."

Zack snorted. "He wouldn't have stopped even if she wasn't. You know that."

Cloud glared at his dark-haired friend. For someone who was trying to reassure his genetically-designed leader of his innate humanity, Zack was doing a lousy job. He seemed to realize it, and gave General Sephiroth an apologetic look. "Sorry, Seph. I just don't like Hojo."

"Understandable." Sephiroth was quiet, looking down at the table with a frown on his brow, and Zack felt really, really small. He'd essentially suggested that his friend was the child of an odd sort of rape.

"What was Hojo's vision?" Cloud's question was softly spoken, but it was relevant and probably important.

"He says he wants to bring back the race known as the Ancients. They had the power to rule the planet, to make it do their bidding," Sephiroth responded. He pulled one of the journals towards him and flipped through the pages. "He discovered Jenova was an Ancient, but that she became so powerful the others of her kind, with the help of mortals like you, encased her in mako. They feared her, isolated her and eventually turned on her and imprisoned her. As her son, I should seek her vengeance!" He'd half-risen from his seat. His eyes were blazing mako green now. Not a good sign.

"But if the Ancients are all dead, who are you supposed to take your vengeance on?" Zack asked calmly. If you ignore the angry lion, it will eventually go away.

"And why do you need to take vengeance anyway?" Those glowing cat-slit eyes turned toward the young corporal. It's just as well he was skimming through one of the journals or his mouth would have frozen shut. "If Hojo's making babies from her cells then, in a kind of a way, she's already won. It's not like there are any other surviving Ancients."

Zack snapped his fingers in realization, "Ancient; isn't that another term for Cetra?"

"I'm surprised you know the term, Commander. It's what the ancients called themselves."

"Huh, that explains the Turks," he muttered cryptically.

Sephiroth sat back down, the glow dying from his eyes. Cloud's soft voice and Zack's oddball comments had served to bring him back from the edge. He waited a moment, then a moment more. "What Turks?" he asked his 2IC.

"Mmh? Oh, yeah," he exclaimed, reminded of his audience. "I know a Cetra. She has Turks watching her 24/7."

This time it was Cloud who asked, "You know an Ancient?"

"Yeah, you've heard me talk about her. It's Aerith."

"Your flower girl?" Sephiroth specified in case Zack knew two women with that name. It wasn't likely, he conceded, but it was best to be certain when it came to Zack and women.

Zack smiled at the description. It was perfect for his Aerith. "That's the one. I was out with her, selling flowers as it happens, and I saw Tseng hanging around. I cornered him and we got talking. Her mom was, like, half-Cetra or something."

"She grows flowers in that church under the plate, doesn't she?" Cloud asked. Sure he'd met her, but he'd met so many people when he was with his outgoing friend that it was hard to keep track of them all.

Zack nodded, "If Cetras, or Ancients, had some connection to the planet, that could explain how she gets them to bloom where there's no sun."

"Then Aerith can control the planet." Sephiroth didn't ask, but Zack chose to answer anyway wanting to divert Sephiroth's mind from pursuing that path. Although the words 'Aerith' and 'control' had put his mind on a path that involved leather whips and handcuffs. Damn, she'd look good in that.

"Can she?" Cloud prompted recognizing the blank look as Zack daydreaming.

"Not control it. Definitely not. If she could, would she be living in a shack in under Sector 5?" He shook his head. "Nah! But she must have some connection to it though, 'cuz, like I said, she makes flowers grow like you wouldn't believe." He paused to think. "Even if she could. I don't think she would."

Despite his casual pose thumbing through the books, Cloud had been very aware of the silver-haired warrior from the moment they entered the room. Something had set him off at the reactor. It was serious enough that Commander Zack Fair, legendary SOLDIER First Class had dragged a no-account army grunt along with him to confront the Silver General and there was no guarantee that whatever it was, was gone. The general could still decide to pull out six-feet of steel and slice them in half.

To be fair, there was no indication that General Sephiroth was going to start lopping off body parts, but there were signs of stress, major stress. His face had the pinched look of someone fighting a headache, and his shoulders were drawn tight. He was currently massaging his skull as if the pain was buried deep. His fingers were working underneath his long hair. His palms were covering his ears as if he wanted to block out a noise, but the lab was quiet, without even the hum of machinery to distract them.

Cloud fully intended to cower under the table at the first sign of weaponry. Zack was a First - let him handle his boss. Except, the general looked so….

"Have you had anything to drink recently? Sir."

Sephiroth's head came up, startled. It was such a, mundane thing. Yet he was as vulnerable to dehydration as the next person. "I am unsure." That bothered him as well. He had a near perfect memory thanks to Hojo's genetic manipulation and his training, and yet much of the past two days were blurred. Events that had happened earlier also seemed skewed, as if someone had taken them and warped them.

Cloud frowned. Zack was off in his own little world again so it was obviously up to him to give the general some water - which meant he'd be putting himself within the seven-foot safety zone. Shit. He took another look at his idol. He seemed so vulnerable.

With no other choice, Cloud walked over, within sword's reach, and placed his canteen in front of the general.

"Maybe Jenova wasn't a Cetra," Zack said out of the blue. He stood casually, hip-shot, hands clasped behind his head.

"What else could she have been?" Cloud asked.

A shrug. "Dunno. Something else. Something powerful enough to scare a whole race." He scratched his head, trying to think of an explanation for the thing he'd seen at the top of the reactor. Considering how she was housed, someone at Shin-Ra valued her, and that was another worry.

Zack wasn't stupid. He was, maybe, a little lazy when it came to brain work but it was just that he liked to have a clear-cut mission with easy-to-identify victory conditions. Send him in to kill monsters? He'd chop away until they were all dead or his arm fell off. Same with terrorists. He did a good job rescuing civilians from immediate danger, too. He liked doing that stuff.

What he didn't like was trying to figure out the possible motives of long-dead people, or predicting the actions of psycho nutjobs, which was 90 percent of the Shin-Ra brass. This situation with Sephiroth was making his head hurt, and he wasn't happy.

"She looked weird," he said. "But that could've been the stuff she was hooked up to."

"She's here?" Cloud squeaked and immediately blushed at having made such a sound.

"Yeah, she's up at the reactor behind a shielded door."

Cloud snuck another look at General Sephiroth. He'd finished the canteen and was back to rubbing his temples. Jenova, his supposed mother, was here in Nibelheim stored at the reactor? No wonder he'd gone a little nutso. As he watched, Sephiroth stopped his useless massage and dropped his head tiredly into his braced palm. He looked almost… defeated. It looked wrong.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" he snapped.

Sephiroth smiled, a little half quirk of his lips, at the idea that the little corporal was only asking permission now. "Yes, Strife."

"You seem to be a little tense." He cleared his throat, his mouth was suddenly dry. "I happen to give a pretty, decent massage. If you think that will help. Sir."

"Massage? You never told me that!" Cloud ignored Zack's indignant squawk to focus on the general's quiet response.

"I don't think a massage would help, Corporal, but thank you."

Cloud's flinch was all but invisible. He was going to shut up, scared of being rejected again. He never opened himself more than once to anybody, but… but, there was something pulling at him. Something telling him to push it, that this was somehow important. "Is it muscle strain, sir?"

"No, Corporal, it is not." Sephiroth's curt reply denied him the right to push. Zack however had picked up some undercurrent in the mountain boy's voice. He was Zack Fair, he always pushed – besides, he wasn't feeling too good either. Like there was a hum in his head or something.

"Maybe he's hearing voices," he suggested.

"What did you say?" Sephiroth's voice was ice, and friend or not, Zack knew he was this close to becoming a kebab.