Sephiroth could only sit there looking boredly interested with his arms folded over his chest as his mind went a mile a minute. He had not only willfully given himself over to pleasure so wantonly, but had been deflowered by a woman and impregnated by her.
It hadn't been a dream!
All that had occurred between Tifa Lockhart and himself was real. A large part of his psyche wanted to seek some sort of vengeance. Another part, the rational part of him, the smaller rational part enjoyed that feeling despite the outcome.
Pregnant? He couldn't be. He wasn't built to carry a child and there was no way for it to exit his body. Wait? How was it to be born and from where? he questioned himself and then Dr. Campbell.
"A simple c-section" he explained.
That thought was making Sephiroth feel queasy at the idea of his midsection being split open and a slimy thing being fished out of him; this caused him to shiver a bit.
It was inside of him, he didn't even like the feeling of people touching him and now something was inside of him, something growing like a parasite inside an organ he didn't want inside of himself anymore than he wanted… that thing.
He wasn't even able to call it what it was. It was a human baby, small, helpless and growing inside of him. Yes Hojo had talked about breeding Sephiroth with other "specimens" but it never came to pass and he'd assumed he meant a female specimen. That was yet another reason he had avoided intercourse in the first place.
It's hardly a turn on when even the own virginity of his body was to be given to science and any resulting offspring, merely more specimens for the evil professor to "play" with.
Tifa had no idea what was going on when Reno showed up at her place in a limousine with a nervous looking Yuffie already in the backseat and saying that she was to come to WRO headquarters on the orders of President Shinra.
"Why?" she asked the redhead.
"I was just told to bring you, I wasn't told the circumstances of the orders, yo" Reno replied in all honestly, whatever it was, it had to be big with this level of secrecy.
"Yuffie what is going on?" Tifa asked her.
"Can't talk; too busy praying to Leviathan, the Goddess, Aerith, the Planet, heck, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, even Harold, the Great Purple Cabbage in the Sky: anyone who will listen if what I suspect is waiting for us at the end of this ride is true and I suggest you do that same" Yuffie moaned.
"What do you think it waiting for us?" Tifa asked her.
"Not what; who" Yuffie cryptically said then began to pray again.
"Our One Creator Which Flies and is Spaghetti and a Monster, I believe Thou art the Creator of Goodness and Nourishment, and of Sustenance. I thank the Pasta, and the Sauce, and the Meatballs, for they provide me all my needs.I thank Thee for the Many Beverages that Thou provides, for they engender true fellowship, and I will quaff them heartily, be they Beer, or Wine, or Sweet Iced Tea, or even Milk or Kool-Aid..."
Tifa just glanced at her friend's bowed over form with her hands pressed together and just under her chin and glanced out the window and wondered where the heck Reno was taking them.
She, along with a shaken and pale looking Yuffie, was escorted into the clinic of the WRO where Rufus was sitting beside Sephiroth, who although the expression was neutral on his face, his eyes seemed to flare venomously at her for a second before he shifted his gaze away from her. He sat in a chair with his arms crossed before him but seem about relaxed as a tightly coiled rattlesnake about to strike.
"Tifa, would you care to explain to me why you knocked up my General?" Rufus asked her without preamble, causing both people involved to startle at this.
"What?" she stated, her mouth agape in shock and confusion.
"Knocked up? But that expression only applies to woman. Yes I do admit that Sephiroth and I had sex under strange circumstances, but I am certainly not pregnant" she insisted.
"Yes, thank you so much for your gift" Sephiroth said glaring at her, barely controlling going over and shaking her by the shoulders at such a velocity that her little neck snapped.
"Tifa, I think you had better sit down, no one is accusing you of being pregnant" Rufus said and looked over to see Sephiroth blush.
"Now Tseng, please enlighten Tifa with what you told us about this delightful little Wutaian Materia that you two so enjoy playing with, that Yuffie failed to explain to Tifa before her own conquest of General Sephiroth" Rufus insisted, causing the General in question to blush.
"Honey I'm sorry!" Yuffie called to him.
"Now you see why I refuse to use it on myself" he complained.
"Yes, we get that you enjoy being a woman in other ways. The information please" Rufus interrupted them both, making them both blush.
Tifa could only listen while Tseng explained what could happen if protection wasn't used with a genetically modified male during materia sex shifting intercourse and then Dr. Campbell explained his findings.
"Oh Goddess Sephiroth, I'm so, so sorry" Tifa said flustered head to toe so fast she became light headed.
"Your apology is grossly exaggerated to this situation and very tardy don't you think?" he said, still not wanting to look at her, see her treacherous face and know that once again he had fallen victim to another creature who offered him love as long as he submitted and obeyed.
"Wait are you sure this isn't some trick?" Yuffie said standing up.
"Dr. Campbell, it looks like we will have to go with the worst case scenario; go get the ultrasound machine" Rufus ordered him.
Tifa noticed that Sephiroth looked nervous at this.
"Please undo your trench and remove your belt" Dr. Campbell said, unable to believe he was about to perform an ultrasound on a pregnant male.
"Is this really necessary?" he snapped from where he lay, feeling magnificently overexposed.
"It won't hurt a bit, the gel will be a bit cold, but it is good to check the progress of your pregnancy, sir" Dr. Campbell added lowly so as to not gain the other male's ire further. He wasn't ready to die and Sephiroth was still Sephiroth.
"Fine" Sephiroth said in a long suffering sigh and exposed his firm belly. He winced as the cold gel was applied to it. The transducer was placed on his belly and everyone looked at the image as it was moved around on the firm flesh by the Doctor.
"That is the fetus: that is the head, that is it's body, and those are it's limbs. There isn't much to see at the moment, it is only about the size of a kidney bean" Dr. Campbell explained as they looked at what he pointed out.
"No way. He actually is pregnant!" Yuffie said in shock.
Tifa looked to where Sephiroth seemed to be frozen in place, transfixed by the motions of the grainy image. He could see everything the doctor could see with such clarity it actually scared him. There was a tiny person in him and it was moving. It was alive and…
Breathing in and out erratically as his sight became all encompassing of the…child. Sephiroth sucked in too much and not enough air for his lungs. What remained on the ultrasound was his final thoughts before he fainted again, overwhelmed by the realization. To hear it and semi scoff was one thing; to see it was another.
"Sephiroth" Tifa cried in concern, as she rushed to his side. Realizing as if for the first time, she was going to be a mother, er father.
"Relax, he seems to do that often. He's good. Flat, cushioned surface, yes" Rufus said dismissively.
Tifa helped him sit up when he roused and then his stomach heaved and he made a sound to try and contain it but Tifa just swept up the small garbage can from the floor. She placed an arm around him as he leaned over it and held as much as his hair back as possible while he heaved up what little remained in his stomach.
"Yuffie get him a glass of water" Tifa ordered her friend.
"You should become a nurse" Dr. Campbell complimented her at her natural bedside manner.
"Unhand me, haven't you done enough?" Sephiroth said, pushing her away and getting redressed while glaring at her.
"I said I was sorry, I didn't know that this could happen. Don't worry, we'll figure this out" Tifa said through clenched teeth, getting tired of his attitude but also feeling really guilty about the situation.
"There is nothing to figure out, all I need is a skilled surgeon and I'll be just fine" he spat back.
"Surgeon?" she asked him suspiciously.
"To remove this abomination from me and the fetus too" he replied.
"You would murder an innocent child?" Tifa gasped in outrage.
"How is it you women say? Oh, I remember, "my body; my baby" and I choose not to have it" he stubbornly said.
"That's my baby too" she said glaring up at him while he glared down at her.
"It's not like I wanted to have sex with you. I thought it was a dream" he intoned.
"Oh and you were so difficult to get into bed, you could have stopped me" she snapped.
"Are you trying to imply that I'm easy? I'll have you know that..." Sephiroth said, narrowing his eyes at her.
"Shut up and sit down the both of you" Rufus said. "Okay here is the problem, you don't want this baby, correct Sephiroth?" Rufus asked him.
"Not in the least, I resent how it even got there in the first place" he said, glaring almost childishly at Tifa.
"You sure weren't complaining at the time, in fact you were too busy ripping my back open with your nails and shattering my eardrums with your orgasm" Tifa shot back.
"Do you really have to divulge such personal information in public?" he snapped, trying not to blush and failing miserably.
"Well you know what they say, if it looks like a tramp, orgasms like a tramp, it's a..." Tifa snidely said.
"I will end you if you do not back away from me now-" Sephiroth said all calm suddenly, though he flushed hotly.
"Okay enough!" Yuffie yelled. "Look, Tifa's can't bear children because of you not only almost hacked her into two pieces, you ruined her uterus beyond repair."
"I-I... did not know" Sephiroth said, actually looking contrite. There were things that he was not proud of. Tifa's almost death at the end of Masamune in the peak of his mental breakdown was one of them. For Goddesses sake he even killed her only family, her father and burned her town.
Sephiroth felt nauseous again for another reason. She had been just a mountain guide. He sucked in deeper breaths calming his stomach and himself.
"I want this baby" she firmly said.
"And I want it gone" Sephiroth said in a softer voice.
"Sorry General, it seems you owe the lady and she's a kind and loyal friend of mine and you just piss me off. You will carry this child to term and give it to Tifa to be raised by her. Or you can go into a mako coffin like Vincent with a label on it saying "do not open for two hundred years" that will make Vincent's thirty years seem like an afternoon nap" Rufus threatened him and Tifa noticed how that seemed to take the wind out of Sephiroth's sails and he actually looked terrified…and resolved to his new lot in life.
Tifa, though spirited about the child, didn't like that look on someone as powerful as Sephiroth.
"You wouldn't" he said with more bravado then he had, any of his life dealings with mako made him hate the stuff, it was his personal hell. The Lifestream had no love for him, which Mako came from.
"Try me" Rufus drily shot back.
"Okay" Sephiroth agreed, feeling low.
He had tried so hard to overcome his image as a freak or monster, only to be thrust into an even more insulting role as a pregnant man and a laughingstock.
"Okay we shall need somewhere private for him to go to for the duration of his pregnancy" Dr. Campbell said.
"And he needs comfortable clothes that are breathable, more for when he gets bigger" Yuffie volunteered.
"Why do I have to go into hiding? What do you mean get bigger?" Sephiroth demanded, his nerves frazzled already.
"You can't walk around with a huge pregnant belly. Your belly will expand as the child inside you grows" Tifa said slowly as if he were particularly dense and Sephiroth went even more pale at the idea of him going around with a hugely swollen belly.
It would look like he had a beer gut! He wasn't vain about his appearance but the idea of looking like that was simply insulting to the well toned man!
"There is a farmstead my family owns in Dr. Campbell's hometown, he can go there. That way he will have access to medical care" Rufus said. "We'll announce tomorrow that you are campaigning in some remote area, I'll have my personal assistant figure out some backwater little place to tell the reporters."
"Tomorrow?" Sephiroth questioned him that so soon he was to be yanked from the life he had built for himself, granted it wasn't much of one. He was still pretty much the same figurehead he had always been, but he had won the trust and respect of the men who worked under him and he was proud of that.
His social life was a work in progress, he often found himself at Seventh Heaven because there were people there who remembered him before the whole Jenova thing. He really liked the loft he had bought too. Was all he worked for to be taken from him simply because of a lusty woman and a lapse in judgment?
"I'll go into isolation with him and take care of the household chores and look after him in any way he needs. This is my fault" Tifa finally admitted looking downward at what havoc this was doing to a man of Sephiroth's caliber.
"What about sexually?" Yuffie asked her.
"I have no problem with that" Tifa offered.
"Great, you hear that Sephiroth, you'll have the beautiful Tifa to take care of your pregnancy hormone induced sex drive when it starts acting up" Yuffie said, clapping him on the shoulder.
"What do you mean when?" he demanded, looking about, eyes wild with fear, confusion, and a hint of murder as everyone looked at him as if in sympathy.
"Pregnancy makes you crazy for sex. My mother told me that she used to have my father dragged out of important meetings" Yuffie explained.
"No, I refuse to ever have sex again, obviously it doesn't agree with me. I shall go along with this insanity you propose, shall live where you bid me to and allow Tifa to accompany me but under no circumstance will I condone having to have sex with her" Sephiroth snapped.
Everyone was shocked at his emotional display, having never seen him break his calm exterior to date.
"If you prefer a male her, I can order more materia for you. Obviously you don't have to worry about the possible side effects" Yuffie said looking poignantly at his belly.
"Honey, I don't think that is the problem," Tseng said.
But deep inside, Tseng knew it could not hurt for them to have a supply. Sephiroth would bow. It was a matter of time and willpower. The man had a lot of both…but it was not indefinite
"I guess I had better go pack" he stiffly said.
"More clothes will be provided for you as need them, as well as everything else you need. Your place will be kept in tiptop shape and all bills shall be paid on time. As for your rank, that is secure" Rufus said, finally feeling sympathy towards him now that the euphoria of sweet revenge on him for being a colossal asshat had worn off.
Sephiroth just nodded and left.
"He'll be fine" Rufus assured everyone, not feeling that was very true even to himself.
And so one unmolested ride to the mysterious homestead that would be their new home and one box of two dozen change materia secreted away by care of Tseng this time as Yuffie was not really wanting that female form nonsense, not after this fiasco but was still considering it.
Tseng really did underestimate who he was courting.
They both stood, encumbered with bags and the like in front of the doorway that held the beginning of their lives as pregnant but lonely male and the mother/father to be.