Summary: Laura was just your average woman, until a freak accident involving her television set, the Advent Children dvd, and lightning strike transported her to Gaia. And that's only the beginning of the story!

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own FFVII or Advent Children. Just a single copy of the movie. Now put the pitchforks and torches away.

Queen's Quornor: Yeah, it looks intimidating. Trust me, the chapter picks up after a bit. My reasoning on this chapter is this: Kadaj won't trust her unless she proves that she is willing to tell him everything, and not keep secrets from him. So we learn a lot about Laura as she tells him about her past in order to gain his trust, and then a bit about Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz's early hell. Don't worry; I haven't totally lost my head. The story will pick up, but you have to bear with me first. And please, for god's sake, leave me a review! Laura isn't a squeaky-clean OC, but she's also not really all that special. There are people just like her living all over the world; tell me if you like this or hate this about her!

Speak of the Devil

"I was never planned for. My mother slept with whoever she wanted, uncaring of the consequences or her safety. To this day, I can't figure out how she hasn't caught a disease yet. I was the only baby she failed to get rid of before birth, and after I was born, her parents began sending money for my care. She kept me alive and around because I was her meal ticket and her slave, nothing more than that. I have no idea who my father was; he could be any of my mother's one-night stands, and she had a new one almost every night. I grew up hiding from Mom when she was drunk or angry, and running wild around the neighborhood the rest of the time. When you live in the one of the worst parts of New York City, you have to learn some kind of self-defense, unless you enjoy getting mugged or raped or whatever on a regular basis. The only good thing my mother ever did for me was to enroll me in ju-jitsu classes. Anything else she ever did always involved physical or verbal abuse. See these scars?" Laura raised her hands, showing Kadaj the scars criss-crossing the smooth skin. "They are from a night when Mom got drunk and attacked me with a knife. I was only nine years old, and if I hadn't climbed out on to the fire escape, she would have killed me, and not felt the least bit sorry." She parted her hair, displaying another scar hiding on the right side of her head. "This one was from a night when she smashed a beer bottle over my head, accusing me of going through her purse." Laura looked at her hands, suddenly ashamed to face the silver-haired man sitting across from her. Tell him everything, Laura. It's the only way to gain his trust. "And those were only two incidents. There were countless others, not to mention all the times she screamed things at me, beating me verbally rather than physically. My childhood was never a happy one. I used to beg the teachers to give me work around the school so I wouldn't have to go home.

"All I wanted, ultimately, was out. I was willing to accept any escape for a few hours of peace, away from the hell-hole I called home. So I was an easy target for that which way too many people fall victim to."

"And what was that?" Kadaj asked. There was no playfulness in the question, no condescension. Merely unreadable seriousness.

"Drugs."

She ran a hand through her hair, taking down the pony-tail and letting the dark brown locks tumble about her shoulders. "I was thirteen when my neighbor, Joseph, asked me out. Mom gave me the usual tongue-lashing, forbidding me to go out because I had things to do around the apartment that she had delegated to me, but I still snuck out to meet him. We did all the usual things; saw a movie, went to dinner. Normal 'date' things. After that, I thought he was going to take me home. But instead, he drove me behind this abandoned warehouse complex and told me to follow him. And he was so serious, completely different from the usual joking, teasing guy I knew, that I never questioned him. Just followed him through the warehouses and never said a word.

"It turned out that he was taking me to this abandoned building where he got his daily fix. He introduced me to his fellow junkies, then tied off his arm and slipped a needle in. Heroin, you see, is an illegal drug that gives you this high, blissful feeling before sending you into this painful, messy spin. Seriously addictive, downright lethal over time, and nearly impossible to break yourself of once you've gotten addicted. Joseph convinced me to try a dose, and I loved how free it made me feel, even though I got sick afterwards." Laura unconsciously rubbed her arm, almost trying to erase the reminder of her dark past. "Every night, after I got back from school, I'd sneak out to that building with Joseph and shoot up, always mainlining. We liked to get the drug's effects as soon as possible, and mainlining was the quickest way to get it. Everybody had their reasons for going, but it was my escape from hell. I knew the dangers, had heard all the stories of people dying from long-term use, but I just didn't care. How could death be any worse than my life already was?

"Heroin does not come cheap. I took what I could from Mom, but that wasn't enough. So I started stealing to get money for my fix. Swiping pieces of cars from chop-shops and selling them, pick-pocketing, smash-n-grabs, the occasional mugging… Just petty, stupid crimes like that. I wasn't proud of my activities, or the fact that I never got caught. But I needed the heroin. It… It hurts when you don't have it in you. It literally hurts. Every vein, every bone, every fiber of your being feels like it's on fire, and only when you have freshly-injected China white running through you does the pain fade. When you're suffering that much, in addition to the usual abuse from your parents, you'll do anything to make it stop, if only for a little while. Anything."

Laura closed her eyes, head falling lower beneath the weight of Kadaj's silent stare. Is he judging me? How could he not? I certainly deserve it. "I stayed on heroin until I was seventeen. By then, we had started experimenting with other illegal narcotics. Pot, crack, morphine, crystal meth, LSD, and a few others. We tried all the usual ways to get them in our bodies, too. Bongs, coke lines, needles, cubes… you name it, we tried it. It was a real crazy night the time we tried chasing the dragon instead of mainlining. But then Mandy, one of the long-timers Joseph had introduced me to, got her hands on some angel dust. PCP. So we tried that, and…" She closed her eyes again, remembering the surreal horror that had been that Richard, Joseph, and Constanza's fight. "Angel dust is a double-edged sword, just like any drug. It makes you super strong, almost impervious to pain, and nearly unstoppable if you get mad. But it comes with a price. Hallucinations, both visual and auditory. Plus, the user can become either catatonic or extremely violent, almost animalistic. I've even heard horror stories of users attacking other people after taking PCP. One circulating around my neighborhood periodically claims that this girl killed her boyfriend after trying angel dust for the first time, and then ate his liver and intestines."

"Is that what happened?" Kadaj finally asked, breaking her chain of thought. "Did one of you eat one of the others after taking this angel dust?"

"No." Laura took a deep breath, desperately needing support to continue the story. Before she could think twice about it, she reached out and grabbed one of Kadaj's hands, holding tightly to him as if he were an anchor to reality, to sanity. He resisted a little at first, but then calmed and merely held her hand. His skin was warm and surprisingly soft against her palm. Probably because of the gloves. Wonder if all that leather had a similar effect on the rest of his body? No Laura! Bad!

She licked her lips, trying to put her scattered memories of that awful night into some kind of reasonable order. "At first, everything was cool. We just enjoyed the trip it gave us, this wonderful euphoria that no other drug, not even heroin, had ever given us. We'd already had our heroin fix for the day, and figured it had been long enough that we'd be okay with the angel dust. We were damn lucky that mix of drugs didn't kill us. In any case, nothing happened until Joseph tried to put the moves on Constanza, this Spanish chick Richard was dating. They got into a fight, and when Constanza tried to break it up, the aggressive part of the drug hit her too. It became this bloody three-way fight, and none of us tried to stop them. We were all nearly comatose with the trip, and even though they were killing each other, we just didn't move. None of us even flinched when Richard slammed Joseph's head into the wall.

"When we finally came out of it, Joseph was dead, Constanza was badly injured, and Richard had a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder. I can vividly remember just kneeling beside his body, staring at him, and feeling so guilty that I had done nothing while he died. Joseph was the one who got me addicted in the first place, but he was also my only real friend, a really great guy I hung around with and trusted. And because of these drugs, he was dead." Laura felt the tears dripping, falling to splash against her arm. "That was the day I swore I'd turn my life around, to get clean and make something of myself. By now, I've accomplished just that. I've got a good home, a well-paying job I enjoy, friends that do more than just shoot up, and a life I can be proud of.

"So to answer your question… Heroin is the drug that almost destroyed me."

She waited for him to say something, anything. An explosion, a condemnation, an expression of disbelief… Laura half-expected Souba to come slashing at her throat after her confession of thievery.

What she was not expecting was for Kadaj to throw his arms around her hand bury his head against her neck. Confused, she put her arms around him and stroked his back and hair, bewildered as to why Kadaj, the cold-blooded leader of the SHM, fanatical killer and heartless son of Jenova, would be holding her like this. As if she was a teddy bear and he a mere child.

"Do you know?" His voice was muffled, but the sorrow was still clearly audible. "Do you know how many of my brothers and sisters went through the same damn thing? Yazoo, Loz, and I all got addicted to the drugs Hojo and his scientists had pumping into us every single day. And when we misbehaved, they upped the dosages, practically killing us before administering the appropriate materia. Some of the others died when they had to go cold-chocobo without them. For weeks after escaping, all three of us were really, really sick. There were times when we really thought we were going to die, it hurt so bad… I remember waking up in the middle of the night because my heart was racing in my chest and I was dripping with sweat, my skin on absolute fire and my blood like daggers in my veins. I can remember several times when I wished we were back in the labs, where we could get the drugs and stop this pain…"

"But you got better. You're clean now." Laura leaned her head against his, fingers still softly stroking along his neck and upper back. "You're free."

"No, I'm not." He rolled his head slightly, nestling more comfortably against her shoulder. There was such anguish in his voice, it nearly broke her heart to hear him. "I'm free from the drugs, but I'm not free from him."

Understanding hit like a bolt of lightning. "Sephiroth?"

"Yeah."

"You can't get free of him because you are his clone. His Remnant." No judgment in her tone. Only soft empathy, putting the truth that haunted him into the open air where it could not hide.

"He's there, always." There was a hot warmth soaking into her skin. He's crying… "Just beyond my reach. I've tried to get him out of my system, but…"

"He's a part of you. And you can't get rid of him, no more than you can get rid of yourself."

"There's no rehabilitation, no help or healing, for a clone."

"I'm sorry."

They sat for long moments, Kadaj softly crying into her shoulder, and Laura holding him to her, offering comfort to a man who had none before.

He's so young… He had to grow up so fast. I don't care what he's done, or what Jenova makes him do. He is worth saving.

Worth more than I ever was.

Her fingers tightened, almost possessively, against his flesh.

Jenova…

Sephiroth…

You won't get your claws into him. I swear it.