A/N—My mother's surgery went very well—a triple bypass to her heart and a clean-out of one of her carotid arteries. Angeal Valentine and I are back home now; however, when I looked at "Part II" again after a week and a half of not touching it, I realized I needed a major re-organization and rewrite of the next four chapters! While I'm now out of my comfort zone, at least the "back burner" of my brain was working on the story while I was occupied elsewhere… It is now the morning after the attack on Shinra in Midgar and Tessa has not yet been found…

(8 am – 10 am, Midgar; 10 am – 12 noon, Mideel; 4 am – 6 am, Gongaga; 12 midnight – 2 am, Wutai)

"I'm sorry, sir. No one is being admitted to Shinra today."

It was the morning of the fifth day since Dr. Romera had confined herself to a tube to undergo enhanced mako treatment, and Dr. Leonard Caperton had arrived as scheduled to determine whether she could now be released. When he arrived at Shinra, however, he was stopped at what had been the front gates—now barred by concrete barricades and troops in riot gear carrying machine guns. He had seen reports on the morning news of an attack on Shinra, but he had not expected to not even be allowed to approach the building, much less not see his patient. Instead, a scowling guard was sticking a gun in his face looking at him as if he were a terrorist suspect or a bug to be squashed.

"But I have a staff i.d. I'm a doctor, and I have a patient in that building. I have to see her today. Please, I need to speak to someone in charge."

"I'm sorry, sir. No one is being admitted to Shinra today."

Dr. Caperton frowned. The man was a broken record. "We'll see about that." He turned away from the entrance, pulled out his PHS, and dialed the number of Tessa's lab. "Glenn, Leonard Caperton here. The guards won't let me in!"

ccccccccccccccccc

Tseng stood looking at his maps of the area about the Shinra building and Midgar, trying to get in the heads of Tessa's abductors. Every way in and out of the city was sealed—no airships or ground transportation were moving without being searched. Midgar was effectively cut off from the rest of Gaia. "Give me your expert opinion, Valentine. If you had kidnapped Tessa Romera, where would you be?"

Vincent was perched at Tseng's window wearing much the same expression of outrage and intense concentration that Tseng's face wore, as if he could see just where Tessa was outside the building—could reach out and pick her off the street. "Somewhere Sephiroth would never find me." Vincent's voice was pitched low and harsh in its answer. "It has to be Rhapsodos. Sephiroth is dead certain that he and Hollander want Jenova cells. He's sure Rhapsodos' body is degenerating, unstable without Jenova."

"Indeed. I'd go somewhere Sephiroth couldn't get to me." Tseng nodded. "Rhapsodos, hm… Banora then?"

"Banora is his base… and Reno and Rude have disappeared."

"Valentine, I'm going to call him. Do you want to be here when I make the call? After all, we need all the help we can get."

Vincent glanced at the Turk commander. Tseng was nervous. Vincent considered this for a moment before nodding. "Go ahead."

Tseng pushed speed dial number one on his PHS; however, he was completely unprepared for the voice that answered. "Goddammit! I thought I told you, ya keep calling the wrong number! Ya damn bill collectors!" and the line went dead.

Tseng pulled the phone away from his aching ear and stared at it as if it were a snake that had just bitten him. It had been a woman's voice on the other end of the line. "Better check that number again." He pulled a tiny scrap of paper from his wallet and compared it to his speed dial code. "No. That's it. Let's try that again." Tseng hit the redial button.

"Bastards! I thought I told you…" the voice on the other end trailed off for a moment. "You're not a debt collector, are you?"

"No." Tseng paused. "May I speak to Verdot, please?"

"Oh, my apologies!" the voice was suddenly polite. Away from the receiver Tseng heard first, "Boss, phone for you!" then shuffling and grumbling.

"Yes?" A man's calm voice finally came over the receiver.

"'You heard it too, didn't you?'" Tseng asked.

A pause, then "'The voice of the wind,'" the countersign. "Tseng, m'boy, how are you?"

"Fine, and you, Mr. Verdot?" Tseng asked politely despite the urgency of the situation.

A humorless laugh came over the phone, "we can save the small talk until later. Right now, I want details."

Ccccccccccccccccc

"I'm sorry about the reception. Please come on inside. After the attack on the building last night, everyone is traumatized. Shinra is 'open for business,' but no one is really working today. In fact only a few of our techs even came in." Dr. Glenn Riordan, Tessa Romera's second, had met Dr. Caperton at the barricades and vouched him into the building, but rather than go through the gutted lobby, he had taken Dr. Caperton up a service elevator to the laboratory's home in the sixty-ninth floor. The few technicians present had turned their heads at the doctor's approach then looked nervously back at their assignments.

The tension was so thick it could be cut with a knife. "What's going on?" Leonard Caperton stopped and frowned. "Something else is wrong."

"Yes, I'll explain shortly. Please come with me." At that point they entered the hallway to the tube room. Blue-suited Turks and Shinra security people were going over the hall dusting every square inch for fingerprints. "There," from the tube room door Glenn pointed across the room.

Dr. Caperton gasped. "Where is she?!"

"Tess has been kidnapped… The entire terrorist attack on the building last night was a cover for the kidnapping. The kidnappers got out of the building and may even be out of Midgar by now. Who knows where they could be." Glenn shook his head sadly. "The Turks are heading the investigation rather than security." He paused and looked at Dr. Caperton, "They want to talk to you."

"Me?!" Dr. Caperton shook his head. "I don't know anything. Nor do I understand—why would anyone want to kidnap Dr. Romera?"

"I'm not sure, but you should talk to the Turks before we discuss anything. Come with me please. They've taken over Tessa's office and are talking to one of the Soldiers who was guarding her at the time."

Inside Tessa's office a very tired looking, young blond Soldier sat knee to knee with an almost equally blond girl roughly the same age but dressed in a dark blue suit. The girl had a sketch pad on her knees drawing what seemed to be the face of a lovely, dark haired woman. Dr. Caperton glanced at the sketch, then did a double take.

Glenn made introductions, "Leonard, this is the Soldier I mentioned, Cloud Strife," then turned to a tall, blond, twenty-something woman in the shadows, "this is Jayna, one of the Turks, and her trainee, Elena," indicating the girl. "Jayna, I believe you wanted to talk to Dr. Caperton if he came in?"

"Yes, thank you." Jayna stepped from the shadows. To Glenn her steps seemed somehow predatory.

Dr. Caperton raised a hand without looking up from the drawing. "Just a minute..." He indicated the drawing on the trainee's lap. "Could I take a look at that?"

The girl glanced up at the older Turk, who nodded with a raised eyebrow, then shrugged. "Sure."

Dr. Caperton stepped behind the girl's chair and peered over her shoulder. "I think I've seen her before," he mumbled.

From behind him the Turk asked, "Where? Who is she? It could be very important."

Dr. Caperton looked up, startled by the woman's voice. "Well, it just reminds me of a woman who's gone missing at the hospital. Her friends put up posters with almost this same picture wanting information on her whereabouts… You know the sort of thing I mean."

"Yes, I do," the woman said intently. "Do you know anything about her? Name? Department?"

"Name? Uh, Samantha… maybe?... Medical records, I think."

The woman flipped open her PHS. "Commander, I think we have a lead."

Ccccccccccccccccccccc

Tseng looked at a sketch, a "Missing" poster, a hospital personnel file, and a copy of Tessa's medical file that had been placed on his desk. Samantha Silverton had worked part-time in medical records at Midgar University Hospital for the past five years. Her personnel file listed her as a graduate of a local high school and junior college, with a post office box for an address. The transcript of Tessa's last visit to Dr. Caperton ended with the initials of the transcriptionist, "SS." Clearly, Samantha Silverton was more than a secretary.

"Good work, Jayna, and you too, trainee Elena, on your first successful assignment." Tseng looked up at his agents.

"Thank you, sir." Tall, blond, built Jayna was conducting her sister, Elena's, orientation into the Turks. Jayna was his "evening gown" agent, usually escorted by her partner, the suavely handsome "Richard." Dick and Jane always were the life of any elegant affair and held everyone's eyes while performing executive protection duties in plain sight. Sixteen-year-old Elena's artistic talent seemed to have already come in handy.

Elena looked shyly at Tseng. "Thank you, sir." Tseng's breath caught in his throat at the sight of the blond girl's huge brown eyes… Hm… evening gown detail…

Jayna looked between her boss and her sister and smirked. "Come on, 'Lany. We've got to finish getting ready to leave for Mideel." Elena glanced again at her new boss and gave a quick smile—no more than a fleeting upward curve of her lips—before she followed her sister out the door.

Tseng shook his head and mumbled, "Tseng, you are almost old enough to be her father... Keep telling yourself that, too." Glancing down, Tseng finally came back to his original train of thought. He looked up at his assistant standing at the windows. "Cissnei, run Samantha Silverton's name and face through our internal databanks. Talk to her coworkers. See if anyone knows where she actually lives. I want her residence gone over with a fine-toothed comb."

Ccccccccccccccccc

Cloud sat dejected on his bed in the Third Class dormitories. Almost all the Third Class Soldiers had been selected to go to Wutai with the General. He, on the other hand, had received no such orders. So here he sat, nearly alone in the building. Despite Zack's assurances, clearly he was being punished for his failure to prevent Dr. Romera's abduction. He flopped back on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and started counting dimples in the ceiling tiles—again ("8, 9, 10,…"). His career in Soldier was over—almost before it had begun... Doomed… He'd join the regular army ("31, 32, 33,…"). They'd usually take young Soldier washouts… Usually… ("51, 52, 53,…"). Of course, no one had ever lost the General's wife to kidnappers before, so who knew… One thing was for sure though, he was never going back to Nibelheim! At least not to live—although seeing her might not be so bad ("107, 108, 109,…," nuts—lost count.) He rolled over and looked at the framed photo on the shelf above his bed. It was a picture of his mother and her. Tifa Lockheart—the girl, well not quite next door, but a girl he'd known his whole life. Great. Just the thing to improve his depression. Would she even want to leave Nibelheim, even for him, now that he was a Soldier washout?

Suddenly his PHS buzzed with a text message. Cloud sighed—just what he needed, one of his excited friends giving him a play-by-play from the launch field. Cloud considered just ignoring it, even waiting a day or two to read the message. Instead what he saw caused him to sit bolt upright on the bed. "Orders: get to transport #36 NOW!—Z."

Cloud grabbed his Baby Buster and ran out the door. He paused halfway down the hall for an instant when he realized he had no other equipment or gear with him of any kind. Oh well. Zack did say "NOW!" and on he ran.

Ccccccccccccccccc

"Then I'm partly responsible for Dr. Romera's kidnapping?!" Leonard Caperton looked aghast at Glenn Riordan who leaned against the wall in much the same spot in Tessa's office that the Turk had stood. "But I still don't understand why anyone would want to kidnap Tessa Romera!"

Glenn, seeing Caperton's concern, relented, "you commented once to me about the oddness of the baby's genetic code, remember?" Caperton nodded. "Well, the reason it's odd, is from genetic manipulations that were done to the General when he was a fetus. That he was experimented on is no big secret. I don't know any of the details, but, as I understand it, there are people in this world who want to get their hands on his tissue. Barring being able to get their hands on him, it seems they've decided to go after what may be to them the next best thing, Tess's baby."

Leonard Caperton felt his knees give out, and his hands sought one of the chairs in front of Tessa's desk. "What would…? Why would…? How could…?" Caperton waved a hand about in a wiping gesture. "Wait!.. Do you mean they want the baby for an experiment?! At twenty-two weeks, that baby is what about the size of your hand. It weighs a pound, maybe a pound-and-a-half, tops! The odds against it surviving outside its mother are twenty-to-one against… Would they kill the baby just to get General Sephiroth's genes?!.. Would they kill Dr. Romera to get the baby?!"

Glenn shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, "I don't know the answers to any of your questions." He had been trying not to think about any of this. He sighed. "I doubt they would kill the baby… After all, if the baby were dead, in a day or two its body would return to the Lifestream, and they'd have no tissue. Unless they cloned it very quickly, I suppose, and that might not even be possible. As to whether they would kill Tess, again I don't know, but they might not keep her alive longer than it would take for the child to be able to exist outside her body. Then she'd no longer be of use to them—except maybe as a shield to keep the General at bay."

"How could they?! How dare they threaten a mother and child, especially a child whose parents want it as much as this child is wanted by these parents?!" Leonard Caperton felt anger—at the kidnappers and at himself. "Since I'm responsible for this, I want to help, Glenn. If—no when!—Dr. Romera is found, I think I'd better be nearby. It sounds like she and the baby might well need my help."

Glenn considered the possibility. He had no idea where Tessa was, but with Soldier and the Turks leaving shortly, he'd bank on the Turks—after all the Soldiers were obviously going to Wutai, into a war zone. Glenn nodded. "Come on. Let's talk to Commander Tseng."

cccccccccccccccc

General Sephiroth stood looking out over his assembled troops, regular army and Soldiers alike, on the plane before the entrance into Midgar. In the distance, transport ships stood waiting to carry his people to Rocket Town and thence to Wutai City. On any other day, the grand sight would have made him proud… happy… his heart glad. That was the problem, wasn't it? His heart. Tessa and their baby were gone, and he didn't know where they'd been taken. If he hadn't had a heart, none of this might have happened. Even Godo's rebellion could be traced in part to his recognition that Sephiroth had acquired a "vulnerability" at that last conference.

"Seph," Zack whispered. He and the other First Class Soldiers in Midgar stood on a platform behind Sephiroth looking out over the plane. "Seph, they're expecting you to say something."

Sephiroth raised his chin and glared. "What is there to say?" he growled.

"Yes, sir." Zack blanked his face and resumed his attention stance.

Col. Gavin McIntyre stepped forward then, and the General turned to face him. McIntyre saluted, and the two men clasped right hands. "General, with your permission, I hereby take command of all forces on the eastern and western continents until you return. Good hunting."

"Thank you, Colonel. Command is yours." McIntyre stepped back, saluted again, then returned to his position at the head of the line.

"Command, attention!" Zack shouted, and the troops snapped their feet together. "Salute!"

Sephiroth glared and snarled, "To your ships! Move out!"

Ccccccccccccccccc

In the courtyard of the Shinra building, another group was making ready to depart Midgar. Tseng and roughly fifty Turks, including Vincent Valentine, were milling about—Rufus Shinra was already on board one of the waiting transport ships.

"Commander!" Cissnei approached Tseng with Tseng's secretary, Derek, in tow. Derek carried several file folders in his hand. "There are few more items to sign."

Tseng pulled a pen from out of his jacket and scrawled his name. "Any word on the kidnappers?"

"As you suspected, the bodies of the two men Cloud Strife killed yielded little additional information. One was a small time muscle-for-hire. The other was an anti-Shinra fanatic. Both bodies have begun returning to the Lifestream. I have security personnel following up on the investigation."

Tseng raised an eyebrow. "People you trust?"

Cissnei nodded. "People I trust sufficiently—ones who want to do a good job for the Turks now that the Turks are in charge."

"All right. Keep me posted on anything they find. Anything else?"

Cissnei nodded again. "Yes, sir. Samantha Silverton—two things. We were able to find out that she was living in an old warehouse at Seventh and Brine on the lower plate. The whole building is heavily booby-trapped, but there's evidence that Genesis Rhapsodos and Vester Hollander were using it as a combination laboratory and training center, and that they had been there within the last month. The other thing is that when we ran her name through the Shinra databases, we found a single reference to her in Hojo's old records. Seems she was recruited by him for some kind of experiment. I'm going to check with Glenn Riordan to see if he has any info concerning her."

"Was anyone hurt at the warehouse? You mentioned booby-traps."

"No sir—we're Turks after all—but we haven't got everything opened yet. I hate to say this, but I wish Reno was here."

Tseng nodded and smiled slightly, "Let me know if anything turns up." He paused. "I assume there has still been no word from Hutchins in Mideel?" Cissnei shook her head in response to Tseng's question. "The man has the gall to lie to me, then he doesn't even try to make amends. Perhaps he really did run. No matter. We'll catch him, sooner or later, whether on Mideel Island or off…"

"Yes, sir!" Cissnei nodded sharply—the Turk salute. The Turks headed for their transports.

"Commander Tseng!" a lab-coated, spiky-haired man was running across the courtyard toward Tseng. At the sound, heads snapped sharply, and guns were pulled from jackets by twitchy Turks. Tseng, Vincent, and Cissnei on the other hand, recognized the man.

"Speak of the devil… Dr. Riordan?! Everyone, stand down!" Tseng moved to the perimeter of the watchful circle of Turks. "Dr. Riordan, what is it?"

"Commander. This is Dr. Leonard Caperton. He's Tessa's OB/GYN. You may have heard of him." Glenn turned toward a small, dark-suited, blond man behind him.

"Ah, yes. What can I do for you, Doctor?"

"I believe I need to go with you, Commander."

"Excuse me?" Tseng's eyebrows went up to his hairline.

"From what Glenn has told me, I'm partly responsible for Dr. Romera's abduction. I don't know where you're going, but I believe it has something to do with her and the baby. If Dr. Romera or the baby is hurt when you find them, then I may be the best help you can get. You won't have to worry about me. I spent two years in Wutai as a medic. I can help in that regard too."

Tseng thought for only a second. "Welcome aboard. Cissnei, get Dr. Caperton a medical kit, and a gun."

Cccccccccccccc

"&#(!))(#&(&)#)." Cid Highwind was still angry, perhaps even angrier than he had been in Rocket Town. "Here we are, as ordered, sitting on our asses in Junon! No sign of Tuesti, that budget-cutting SOB. Nobody's here to tell us what's going on. Nobody's here to help with refueling. There are no spare parts to fix anything that needs fixing…"

Shera sighed. She'd heard the whole litany of things that were wrong with their current assignment multiple times on the way from Rocket Town. She didn't mind looking at Cid though. She could tune out his words so easily… She smiled.

"And what the hell are you smiling about?!"

A/N—When I started planning this story, I decided that Tessa would be at the same stage in her pregnancy as I had been in mine when her complications set in, 22 weeks. On 4/16/08, however, an article entitled "Study: Gender, other factors guide preemies' survival" appeared on the internet from the AP. It was horrifying. A study on 4,200 extremely premature infants born at hospitals across the U.S. had appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. Of those births, half the children died within two years while 12 percent had severe physical or mental disabilities and an additional 12 percent were impaired (e.g., blind, deaf, or had cerebral palsy). Even more frightening for me was the finding that of babies born at 22 weeks, 95 percent died (at 23 weeks, about three quarters died; at 24 weeks, less than half died; at 25 weeks, only about a quarter died). I could have moved Tessa up to 25 weeks—I even considered changing biology on Gaia but decided against that (after all, once you start, where do you stop?)—but all this added potential complications to my story. I decided to go with it—Dr. Caperton became far more important as a character than I'd originally intended. Poor Tess and Seph, though. Talk about new parents being put through the wringer: would they take the extraordinary measures required to help the child survive?; how might Sephiroth react to fathering a physically less-than-perfect child?; would all this hurt their marriage? I'm still not sure. I guess we'll find out…