Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII. I depend on my daughter, Angeal Valentine, and on Bjanik for all my information on the subject.

A/N—Sorry this took so long to post. We're having internet problems at my house, and the plot bunnies have deserted me again…

(3 am, Mideel; 1 am, Midgar; 9 pm, Gongaga; 5 pm, Wutai)

The entry to Mideel Base was uneventful, and that was the problem. As soon as the gate security personnel realized it was base commander Malik at the wheel of the RV, he and his passengers were passed immediately into the compound—in violation of regulations, both Malik and Sephiroth noted—security was just a bit lax! While Sephiroth had wanted quick entry onto the base, this was just a little too quick! A very strongly worded reprimand was in the offing for someone. As they pulled into the base, a line of roughly half a dozen small military trucks that Malik had called ahead and ordered to reinforce the Soldiers at Banora pulled off the base.

"There go probably half the people I still have here." Malik looked in the overhead mirror at his commanding officer.

Sephiroth caught Malik's yellow eyes in the mirror; people always thought he had strange eyes! Even Sephiroth found Malik's eyes greening up to be a very strange sight. "Sounds like I left you thin, Malik."

"Yes, I'm thin, but my people are needed elsewhere. We're primarily a regular army training installation after all. We'll get by. Nothing much ever happens in Mideel." A malicious smile streaked across Malik's face. "I'm just glad we got to see some action here. You've left poor Gavin in charge of Midgar. I understand he's chewing the insides of his cheeks to ribbons with frustration."

Sephiroth nodded. "Wouldn't surprise me in the least… I'll check in with him later."

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As the RV took the fork in the road leading along the south perimeter fence, one of the gate guards requested relief for a few minutes. Inside the bathroom in the gate command house, he opened his PHS.

"Mr. Hutchins, I believe you wanted to be advised when Col. Malik returned?"

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At the base hospital, Malik was instantly off the RV. He quickly heard base status summaries and issued orders to a civilian aide. Two armed MPs were awaiting him to take the prisoner into custody. Also present were several members of the hospital medical staff. Sephiroth exited the RV into a pool of light before the entrance.

"General, this is Dr. Singleton, the head of our hospital." Malik indicated a small, round, dark-haired woman in pale green scrubs and lab coat. A cardboard quality came to the face of the local doctor at the sight of the General. Seph tended to have that effect on people. "Doctor, this, of course, is General Sephiroth. His wife, Dr. Romera, and her OB/GYN, Dr. Caperton, are still inside. Doctor, if you would lead the way for the General's party, I need to deal with a prisoner for a minute." Malik faced his commanding officer and saluted smartly. "Sir, I'll join you shortly." Sephiroth rarely required salutes from his First Classes; this occasion, however, involved civilians, and it was therefore needed. Sephiroth nodded slightly in response then climbed back into the RV.

"You okay?" Sephiroth gathered Tessa in his arms.

"I guess. Another couple of days, though…" Tessa shook her head and her mako-encrusted hair clattered slightly. She laughed and caught the amusement in her husband's eyes.

"Strife! You're with me. Grab my sword." Sephiroth headed off the RV. The MPs hauled Hollander off the vehicle and strapped him, bag and all, to a gurney. Dr. Caperton wanted to examine Hollander at the hospital's high-security area before the prisoner was sent to the base's jail facility.

Cloud's hand trembled as he reached for the Masamune. The General's sword had been lying on an overhead shelf above the RV windows. The Masamune! Wo-ow!

"Strife! Move!" The General had stuck his head back in the RV. Cloud grabbed the weapon and, looking as though he'd never held a sword in his life, clutched the Masamune in both hands as he clambered off the RV. Outside Cloud assumed a defensive stance at the General's back with the sword; the Masamune looked as though it would pull the shorter man over. Malik raised an eyebrow at the General. Sephiroth shrugged slightly. Tessa, seeing Malik's amusement, laughed. "Are we ready, Malik? If so, let's go!"

The party finally entered the hospital. At a bank of elevators, the gurney, Malik, and MPs took an elevator down to the high-security area to await Dr. Caperton's examination while the General and his party took a separate elevator up to the third-floor maternity ward. Sephiroth and Tessa could hear the doctors' conversation ahead of them as they exited the elevator.

"We'll be taking Dr. Romera to a labor suite in maternity." Dr. Singleton paused. "As you can see, Doctor, our hospital is small by comparison with the university hospital in Midgar." Singleton was apologizing to Dr. Caperton. "We can, however, at least offer you gentlemen the use of our doctor's showers and changes of scrubs, if you'd like."

Dr. Caperton resumed walking and thereby forced the woman to continue guiding them. He wanted to get to their destination. "I'm sure your facilities will be fine. What do you have in the way of neonatal facilities for very premature infants?" Sephiroth approved of Caperton's movements.

Dr. Singleton raised an eyebrow. Caperton clearly was in a hurry. She waved a hand in the direction they needed to go and moved ahead. "We usually divert such patients to the main hospital in Mideel, but, as I understand you specifically want the baby to be born on base, we'll make due. After we get Dr. Romera settled, I'll show you what we have available. Since Mideel Base is primarily a new-recruit training facility, our patient base tends to be very young and family-oriented. We have very good maternity and pediatric facilities."

"Good." Dr. Caperton paused and caught Dr. Singleton's eye for emphasis. "I need to ask that none of your staff enters Dr. Romera's room without specific permission."

Dr. Singleton looked surprised, but this was a military installation after all, and she was used to taking orders. "As you wish. I'll let them know."

"Do you have other patients in this part of the hall?"

Dr. Singleton nodded. "We have two women in other labor suites and one in a birthing room."

"And 'birth' is where?"

Dr. Singleton waved a hand behind her. "Back in that area."

"If you have the room in your birthing area, I want all the other patients cleared from the labor suites."

Dr. Singleton again looked slightly surprised. "Yes, sir. I'll issue the instructions… If it meets with your approval, I believe we'll put Dr. Romera in here." Dr. Singleton opened the door of a labor suite at the end of the corridor in the maternity department near a nurse's station.

Dr. Caperton entered and wandered about the room to inspect the facilities. Sephiroth with Tessa stepped inside as well. Dr. Caperton turned and caught the General's eye awaiting his approval. Sephiroth nodded slightly. "Yes, this will be fine." The small woman turned away toward the nurse's station.

"Strife! Bring my sword inside then you're on guard outside this door. Understood?"

"Sir!" Wow! Cloud rushed inside and set the Masamune on a counter, where it hung over the edge of the tabletop and its tip quivered slightly above a large sink. Back in the hall, Cloud pulled the Baby Buster from his back, assumed a fighting stance, and glared at the staff and Dr. Singleton, who was at the nurse's station issuing orders to move the department's other patients.

In the labor suite Sephiroth continued to hold his wife in his arms while the doctor completed his inspection of the facilities. The room was set up for birth, if necessary, but typically mothers were moved from a labor suite to a birthing room for actual delivery. A small bathroom with a shower was part of the suite. Good.

Dr. Caperton turned to the couple. "It's all right to set her down now, General…" Leonard Caperton was careful not to smile at the chagrined expression on the General's face as he let Tessa stand. "Tessa, there's a bathroom with a shower here and a gown's been laid out. I'm sure you'd like to get the remainder of the mako off you before the baby comes." At Tessa's vigorous nod, the doctor did smile. "General, Dr. Singleton has offered us the use of the doctors' shower facilities and changes of scrubs if you and Mr. Strife would like to get cleaned up as well."

"I'll stay here and shower, though I'll take you up on the offer of the clothes. Strife can use the doctors' facilities shortly if he wants."

"Then I'll leave you two alone for a bit. I'll hold the door while Mr. Strife is gone. When I return, we'll get Tessa on the monitors to check her contractions. Normally I'd do that immediately, but since we're going to hold off labor, it can wait a few minutes." Sephiroth nodded his agreement, and Dr. Caperton left the room.

"Thank goodness! Finally, we're someplace safe!" Tessa winced and leaned over clutching her stomach gently. She rather thought the contractions were coming farther apart, but she wasn't sure. Suddenly, she felt Sephiroth's hands reaching around her to feel her stomach.

"Are you all right?" His breath tickled her ear.

"I suppose I'm as well as can be expected under the circumstances…" Tessa turned to face her husband, but his hands went right back to her stomach in its grimy, mako-encrusted lab coat. The skin continued to ripple under his palms.

It was shocking, alarming, to feel the motion under his hands. "Too early…" Sephiroth suddenly realized how small Lucy would be right now and that she might possibly join Angel with his mother! Sephiroth wanted this to stop. Badly. "Tessa, there might be a way to stop this, and let the baby grow inside you as she should."

"What?! You said something along those lines in the RV…" Tessa shook her head. Her head felt full, as if she were getting a cold—as if she were disconnected from the scene. Even the Lifestream voices were muffled. "What are you suggesting anyway?"

"When I was dead, I met some… one…" Sephiroth paused. This wasn't coming out well. What he'd experienced probably couldn't be described to someone who hadn't been through it personally—which was probably just him in all of Gaia. Try again. "You said yourself that the baby starts the birth process. If I could communicate with the baby and get her to stop the release of the hormones, then the membranes could be restored with materia. We could reverse this process."

Tessa knew better than anyone that souls continued to exist in the Lifestream after death. That Sephiroth had met someone while he was dead, she didn't doubt. "How? Is this some variation on the way you and Vincent communicate?"

"Essentially, yes." Sephiroth paused. She didn't know about this, but she needed to… "There was a period yesterday, during which both Vincent and I were in terrible pain that had no clear cause. We think it was because the baby was in pain—that Hollander had started the process of taking Lucy out of you…"

Tessa looked away from the desire to help her written into her husband's features. "Yesterday? The whole time I was in the tube was one long dream—most of it was truly beautiful." She looked back at Sephiroth, raised her hand, laid it along his cheek, and smiled. "These tiny baby girls came to be with me—Angel and Lucy—and I held them in my arms, slept with them there. I pictured for them the people who were going to be important in their lives: their Uncle Zack, who's always happy and laughing; their somewhat grim grandfather, Vincent; and most important, their magnificent father, who came striding toward them, with his shining hair…" She sighed. "They were so precious, Sephiroth, so beautiful and perfect... That I had could have lost one of them…" Tessa's eyes squeezed shut, and tears leaked out. Her hand slipped from his face. "Maybe that's it. I want to see it so badly, I've caused the baby to come too early. Just by wanting it…"

Sephiroth gathered Tessa's wrists in his hands. "You know that's not true. I rather think Lucy wants to see us so badly that she's coming now."

"What?!"

"Sweetheart. I think your dream was somehow real." Sephiroth kissed a tear that ran down Tessa's face. "When I was dead, I met little Lucrecia, and Angel, too, and I knew you'd want to see them both so badly…" He paused. "Was there a time in your dream when something bad happened?"

Tessa nodded her head in small jerks. "Yes, there was. Later. When I'd been sleeping with the girls in my arms, Lucy pushed back from me. She had a fever, and her body convulsed and her skin rippled. Then my skin stretched and cracked, and I was sick also. It was awful. Here I am a medical doctor, but I could do nothing to help my own child. The whole thing seemed to go on and on, but after a while the girls settled back into my arms, and we went back to sleep."

"Remember what Hollander said? That he'd given you an accelerant to speed up the baby's growth? I think that was what you were feeling, you and Lucy growing fast… Remember too, when we were in Nibelheim, you said you could hear Jenova trying to talk to the babies? Like I said, dreams can be real, and the baby can communicate—not just receive, but send."

"So, what are you planning? How can any of this stop labor?" She paused. "Please don't tell me you're planning on sticking me back in a tube and giving me growth accelerant! That dream was horrid—the baby and I were so sick…"

"I know—Lucy broadcast that pain. Vincent and I both were incapacitated by it. Fortunately we weren't in the middle of a fight when it happened." Sephiroth paused. She seemed ready for the truth. "When I was dead, love, I learned that someone is watching over me, over all of us, and I can communicate with them in dreams. I think I can get them to help to stop the contractions and keep Lucy from coming so soon."

"All right." As far-fetched as it sounded, Tessa was willing to try Sephiroth's idea if it could help Lucy. "Dreams… You'll have to be asleep. Yes?"

"Yes. I'll try to get Vincent to do this as well… Maybe even my loud-mouthed 'sister' too."

"And if it doesn't work, we'll do it Dr. Caperton's way?"

"We'll have to. We should probably let him go ahead and give you the drugs anyway. A tocolytic? Was that it?"

"Yes." She paused. "When do you want to sleep?"

"We both need to get cleaned up, and I want to use Malik's com system to contact Midgar to find out what's going on in the rest of the world, especially Wutai. Then, after that, I'll sleep."

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Out in the hallway, Cloud continued to hold his Baby Buster in a defensive stance. He couldn't believe his luck! The General was giving him a chance to redeem himself after Cloud had lost the General's wife to kidnappers! Excellent! He had hoped that after his performance against the Hewley clone earlier, he wouldn't have to leave Soldier and join the regular army. Now it looked for sure like he could stay in Soldier! Yes!

Cloud glared at the passing medical staff members. They skittered away from the young Soldier, half amused and half alarmed. Bring 'em on! Nobody was getting near the General's wife! Not this time!

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"I see. So General Sephiroth has brought his pregnant wife here to Mideel Base—complete with Jenova tissue. And Dr. Hollander is here as well… All right." Hutchins, the former head of Shinra security for Mideel Island, nodded his head, his jowls shaking in the process, broke the connection on his PHS, then dialed a new number. "We're mounting an attack on the Mideel Base hospital. I want everyone in Mideel to move in—quietly. The hospital is along the base's south perimeter fence. I want the attack to commence in," Hutchins glanced at his watch, "two hours." He looked annoyed at the reaction at the other end of the line. "Don't worry. Most of the Soldiers and military personnel have been transferred elsewhere. You shouldn't have any real trouble. Move!"

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Tessa's hands shook as she tried to unbutton the filthy lab coat and another contraction rippled through her abdomen. She realized her motor control was poor. Indeed her knees were wobbling and began to buckle. Sephiroth, alarmed, slid his arm around her waist and helped her to stand.

"I'm sorry. I seem to be a mess. Could you help me undress?"

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at his wife. "Anytime. You have to ask?!"

Tessa leaned against his arm and laughed softly. "You may need to hold me up in the shower, too."

Sephiroth tilted his head to the side, looked at the ceiling, and seemed to consider his answer. "I guess I could handle that…"

"Are you laughing at me?!" Tessa laughed softly and smiled.

Sephiroth, with his arm still around Tessa's waist, helped her move into the bathroom, locked the door to the labor room, and let his wing come out through his torn battle coat. Wrapping the wing around his wife, his hands were then free to work her buttons. He could feel her trembling through his feathers and wing bones.

"Tess?! Your skin is like ice! You're freezing!" Sephiroth suddenly realized that Tessa's eyes were closed and her head was sagging toward his wing. "Tessa, look at me. Tessa, come on, Tessa… Wake up, sweetheart…" Sephiroth located the bathroom's emergency call button and nearly smashed it in his haste. He'd seen these signs before—on the battlefield! Tessa was going into shock!