Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII. I depend on my daughter, Neku the Last Reaper (the author formerly known as Angeal Valentine—yes, she changed her name again!), and on Bjanik for all my information on the subject.
A/N—Oh no! I've been making a game-related conceptual error that no one has taken me to task over! When I wrote the initial bits about the Highwind, I had assumed that it was similar to a V-22 Osprey, the tilt-rotor aircraft utilized by the U.S. Marines and the Air Force. Was I ever wrong! I recently pulled pictures of the Highwind off the internet and found that, not only did it have a number of rooms inside, but it also didn't "land." In some ways the Highwind is more similar to a passenger-bearing dirigible from the 1930s (remember the Zeppelin from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?) than to a modern airplane: the Highwind can hold 34 passengers, has a crew of four, and ties up to dock while still hovering in mid-air (you get into it by climbing ropes and ladders thrown from a "main deck" located under the main "fuselage"). It even has a stable for one chocobo (complete with "hay, water, and various chocobo feed for the avid breeder"). Hardly what one would expect in an experimental, high-speed aircraft, but Cid may have had to start with what he could get, I suppose. Anyway... This chapter takes place almost completely on the Highwind. Sephiroth is about to catch up with Vester Hollander…
(7:30 am, Mideel—Mid-air, north of Mideel Base, approaching the north coast of Mideel Island; 9:30 pm, Wutai; 5:30 am, Midgar; 1:30 am, Gongaga)
What was that?! Something penetrated Dan Hutchins' ears even though the intercom headset he wore blocked most of the sounds around him. Hutchins pulled the headset off to listen more closely. It wasn't the thump of the helicopter rotors, nor Vester Hollander's continuing tirade he had heard. Whatever the noise was, it was coming from behind them. Dan Hutchins, the former head of Shinra Security in Mideel, turned his bulk slowly to look out the rear windows of the helicopter.
No! A large airship was gaining on them!
A man leaned out an open doorway in the ship's side near its nose, grasped the ship's wall, and glared at the helicopter as if he were personally going to attack it! The man wore a long black coat, badly cut up, that swept about him. Long silver hair whipped about the man's face and shoulders. There was only one man on Gaia that looked like that! The General! Sephiroth had found them!
Hutchins' jowls shook in anger. He pulled on his headset and roared an order. "Faster! We're being pursued! Move it!"
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Standing in the open portside doorway near the nose of the fastest airship on the planet, Sephiroth glared at the helicopter attempting to escape from him. His ragged coat swept about him while his hair whipped around his face and arms and strands caught in his shoulder guards. Sephiroth held tight to one wall of the doorway. The Masamune lay on a shelf sticking out of the wall on the opposite side of the door. Malik's head was outside the doorway also, but he was bent over in an attempt to not block Sephiroth's view. There was a glass window at the front of the airship, but the Soldiers wanted unimpeded views of their quarry.
Sephiroth ground his teeth at the thought of Hollander, his quarry. Bastard. Freaking, soul-sucking, spineless coward! Hollander, you were always so jealous of that damned Hojo, it was pathetic, contemptible. I never understood it. How could anyone have ever been jealous of Hojo?! Idiot. There was a time Genesis, Angeal, and I were friends. It was you that turned them against me! You made Genesis as jealous of me as you were of Hojo. I won't let you take anything else from me—not my family, not my friends, not my people.
Damn—and how much had it hurt Zack to fight Angeal again? Sephiroth's grip on the door frame tightened at the thought. Zack hadn't replied when Sephiroth had asked about the Hewley clone back at Banora. The answer to Sephiroth's question had come from Niven, not Zack: Strife, not Zack, had killed the clone, "dead and gone." For a moment Sephiroth's mind returned to his last drink with Zack in Zack's apartment—was it really only three days ago?!—Zack had actually said Angeal's name! Zack had finally seemed to be over Angeal's death, but in Banora Zack had been confronted with the man again.
Hollander, you conniving bastard! When I catch up with you, I won't just put you in a bag, I will rip your heart out and feed it to you, then I'll cut off your head and stick it on a pole… Sephiroth smiled slightly as the wind rushed by his face, ripped at his hair and coat. Yes. He knew exactly which of his deadly techniques he'd use on the jealous scientist; the same one he had used on Hojo and on Old Man Shinra—sliced in twain from nock to tip. Hm. Somehow it was appropriate that Hollander die in the same manner as Hojo… For an instant, Sephiroth pictured himself flying from the Highwind to the helicopter then cutting the chopper from the sky with Masamune and slicing Hollander in turn as well. His slight smile turned to a true smirk, but, while the idea definitely had merit—it would truly be satisfying—he had no data on how fast he could actually fly. It wouldn't do to be left behind by the airship and helicopter at a time like this. Better to experiment at a less critical time… The helicopter bearing Hollander and his rescuers was just minutes ahead of the Shinra airship. Not long now…
Suddenly the airship pitched and bucked. Sephiroth remained standing—he had a strong grip on the edge of the open door—but Malik was thrown against the doorway's front wall, and the pilot's assistant tumbled across the deck from the navigator's station.
Stumbling across the bucking floor, Malik grabbed the pilot by his shoulders from behind. "What's wrong?!"
Cid Highwind had a death grip on his pilot's wheel. "Fuckin' starboard stabilizer's come loose again! Sher-ra!!"
"I KNOW!" Highwind's female assistant rose to her feet while grasping the deck's rear railing. After pulling herself along the rail to the stairs to the lower level, the woman left the control room.
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at the assistant's insubordination, but she was Highwind's problem, not his—potentially Tessa's problem, however, in the overall scheme of things. Sephiroth instead turned his attention back to the helicopter ahead of him then shouted orders to the pilot.
"Highwind! Get above that damn helicopter and force it to land!"
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Malik, who had made his way over the bucking deck to return to Sephiroth's side, felt his PHS rumble. At the sight of Niven's name, Malik swung it open, stuck a finger in his opposite ear to cancel out the screaming wind from the open doorway, and tried to listen.
"Malik here…" Malik found himself shouting over the wind. "Alex…?! Alex, say again! I can barely hear you!" At the mention of Niven's first name, Sephiroth's head swung sharply away from the helicopter to lock onto his subordinate. Malik shook his head slightly and shrugged, then motioned to the control room's aft door as if asking a question. Sephiroth nodded then returned his attention, and his glare, to the chopper. "Alex, hang on!"
Rather than take the stairs to the lower command deck, Malik set one hand on the rear railing, leapt over it, landed on the lower deck, then made his way through the aft door. Entering the ship's dark, multi-leveled engine room, he closed the door behind him, then leaned against a wall and hoped for some stability in addition to the relative quiet.
"Okay, Alex, tell me again… What?!... No-o!" Malik felt his heart sink. Not Zack! Blast! "It's up to me to tell Seph, isn't it?" Malik sighed. "Okay. Tell me what happened."
Unfortunately, Malik could now hear Niven clearly. "Yes, you'll have to tell him." Niven's voice paused before recounting his story. "During Fair's fight with Hewley, the clone used a Bio2 spell on Fair. I was late getting to him with an Antidote, but when I did, he seemed fine. It was only later—after your group left—that Fair started weaving, and he passed out. We got him to the hospital, but I've just been with the doctors, Malik. Fair has decomposition sparks in his eyes, and his organs are shutting down!"
"What?!" The ship gave a stronger lurch than usual. Malik flung out a hand to grab a pipe automatically. "Alex, what's that mean?! Decomposition sparks?! And organ failure?!"
"During his fight with Hewley, Hewley poisoned Fair. One of the Banora clones identified the poison as a 'disposal solution'—something Hollander developed to rid his lab of unwanted specimens. This 'disposal solution' is eating Fair, as she put it, 'from the inside out.'"
"That's despicable! But what's being done for him?" Seph would want to know.
"Before we got to the hospital, I gave him four Antidotes, and he's received six Cure3s from a Turk medic. The hospital personnel are continuing to apply these treatments alternately every ten minutes; however, while each treatment helps decrease the degeneration temporarily, nothing we've tried has reversed it. Dr. Romera has sent samples of the disposal solution out for analysis, and she clearly has an idea she's working on, but…" Malik could feel Alex's reluctance. Worse, he could guess what was coming. "Everyone here agrees, Malik… Zachary Fair is dying. You had better let the General know ASAP… Perhaps… get him back here…"
Damn, this was bad. Everyone in Soldier knew Seph and Zack were close. All of First Class had been thankful when, several years prior, Zack had begun to work on their commander, to humanize him, to the point Seph had even recently married. Nuts. Seph had to be told. Malik sighed. Would Seph turn the ship around? Or keep chasing Hollander? Malik wasn't sure. Indeed, he wasn't sure about anything. Only that it was Seph's call. "Yeah… Any idea how long…? We're chasing a helicopter with Hollander on board."
"Ah… Malik, every treatment Fair receives helps for a short while, then the sparks come back like before, and he is simply getting worse. Just a few minutes ago, the head of your base hospital gave him two hours to live, three at the very outside…"
"No... Damn it!" Malik sighed again. If Laral Singleton had said it, then he knew it was true. "I'll tell Seph and … let you know… I guess you trust this female clone to know what she's talking about?"
"Hm. I sure she does. She worked in Hollander's lab, helped the captive Turks escape, and helped rescue Dr. Romera. The Turks think highly of her… Yes, I trust her too."
"… And Dr. Romera's working on him too, right?"
"Yes. She has a plan, but I don't know what it is. If anything, she's more worried than the doctors about Fair. I'm taking her to a meeting right now with the General's father and Verdot's daughter in connection with her plan."
"Right. At least that'll be good for Seph to hear—as long as Dr. Romera's staying in her wheelchair."
Malik could hear a slight smile in Niven's voice. "You can assure the General that I am now his wife's wheelchair pusher. She's currently in the bathroom. I understand pregnant women need to go there fairly frequently."
"Hmph. Right." Malik paused. "Okay then, I'll deal with this end… Alex, as long as I have you on the horn, there's something I need you to do for me. I'd like you to check on my substitute second. I'd given command authority to her, but Lyllea Rosen is a civilian, and when I left the base the situation was still somewhat chaotic. If, after you've talked to her, you feel you need to take formal control, I'll text you the encrypted command codes. I'd appreciate it if you'd check on her. I'd planned on talking to Zack, but…"
"Right. I'll see to it… I'm sorry to lay this on you, Malik, but my calls to the General's PHS haven't gone through… I wouldn't want to be in your position for the next few minutes."
"Yeah… That makes two of us, Alex… Okay. I'll talk to Seph."
"Right. Niven out."
"Malik out." Malik sighed, snapped his PHS closed, and dropped his head back against the engine room's wall with a thump. Damn. He already knew how he was going to tell Seph: straight out—the way he'd want to hear it. It didn't help knowing how to do it, though, when the message hurt so damn much, and it would be especially hard on his commander, a man he admired. While death was understood by every Soldier worth his salt, this was no way for anyone to die, "eaten from the inside out…"
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Shera lay on her stomach in a crawlspace at the rear of the ship's main fuselage and surveyed the scene before her with chagrin. While the equipment looked innocuous, it was possibly the most critical system on the ship: this was the main connection site of the Highwind. In this crawlspace the ascending tilt-rotor engines connected to the forward propulsion engines. It all came together here in a custom design of Cid's: four stabilizers—really just equilateral triangles about six inches on a side sticking out of metal poles, two vertical and two horizontal, that connected the operations of all those engines and kept mechanical control of the ship by complicated, heavily lubricated, metal gearing. Yeah, Cid was a genius, all right. A piece-of-crap, jerry-rigging genius!
Shera sighed. She tapped on the starboard vertical stabilizer vane before her lightly with a wrench and shook her head in dismay. Damn. The shaking stabilizer was shot; worse, the nuts holding it in place were stripped. She'd fixed the damned thing so many times, it was unfixable now. The stabilizer was shaking violently, and its trembling was bouncing—destabilizing—the entire ship. Nuts. The entire unit would have to be replaced! Not a hard or long job while docked—with a new part, of course—but one that was not possible to perform while underway in mid-air!
Shera pulled her gloved hand, and the wrench it held, back to threaten the inanimate object, but then thought better of it. Why did the blasted thing have to give out now?! Just when she and Cid had a real opportunity to build quality ships, were showing their new boss's husband what they were capable of—what Cid's genius was capable of!—the piece of shit failed. Crap! Oops. Shera's face reddened. She'd been spending too much time with Cid; she was beginning to think like him, was even acquiring his vocabulary! Oh well…
There was only one thing to do. Setting her wrench aside and wriggling forward on her elbows, Shera grabbed the flapping piece of metal between her forearms. Gloves or no, this was going to hurt! Hopefully, the General wouldn't want too many acrobatic moves out of this bucket of bolts…
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With a shudder, the airship settled from its pitching and bucking, to a barely felt tremble, then started to rise.
"Woo, hoo! Way to go, Shera!"
Cid nudged the slide of his accelerator controls on a panel on the left of his captain's wheel to give them the speed they'd need to overtake and get above the nearby helicopter. Next he pulled back on his stick to the right of the wheel to gain altitude and finally turned his wheel a few degrees to port. Checking his trim, he was satisfied. There. That should put them above the laboring, zigging chopper.
Tearing his glare from the helicopter, Sephiroth glanced at the crazy pilot, moved away from the open door, and walked to the front of the airship to look through its huge window. He wanted the chopper to land, but rather than being forced down by the ship's moving over it, the more nimble helicopter skirted starboard and took a new heading more due east. Damn. It seemed that Hollander wanted to play this game for a while longer. So be it.
"Highwind, he's moved starboard. Drop us and bring us alongside!"
"Right." Cid turned his wheel to the right, backed off on his altitude, and let the ship settle.
With the airship now alongside the helicopter, just a few hundred feet away, Sephiroth moved to the right-hand side of the ship and jerked its starboard-side door open. The airship bucked violently. With a shriek, the pilot ran to the port side to close the sliding door where the General had initially stood.
As the outside door closed with a clang, the door to the aft hallway whooshed open. Flinging out a hand to keep his balance, Malik returned. With the equilibrium of the ship largely restored, the floor's bucking returned to a tremble. The pilot scrambled back to his post while Malik jumped the stairs to the upper command deck. With slow steps, Malik made his way toward his commanding officer. Damn.
"General." The word got Seph's attention, as Malik had known it would—formality in the midst of near-chaos. Seph's head turned with a jerk, and he raised an eyebrow at his Mideel commander. Malik lowered his eyes for fear they might be greening up.
"There's bad news. Zack Fair is dying."
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With a roar, the helicopter had put on speed, but other than out-maneuvering the large airship, the chopper had made little progress in its getaway. Vester Hollander had turned in his seat next to the pilot and was spitting near-incoherent epitaphs at their pursuers.
Dan Hutchins sighed. There was only one good thing about Hollander's tirade: his screams were breaking up over the intercom and couldn't be heard.
"Atkins," Hollander called to the pilot over the intercom. "Are we anywhere near the boat yet?"
"Sorry, chief. Even at this speed, it'll be another ten minutes."
Rats, and they were leading Shinra right to their getaway craft! Briefly Hutchins considered. What would the General do if he pushed Hollander out the door? Which would the General want more? Vester or the chopper? Confound it all! Hutchins could feel his retirement fund slipping from between his fingers. At this point he'd be lucky to escape with his life. Oh well, he needed to lose a few pounds anyway. No money equaled no food…
Suddenly Vester Hollander turned with his knees on his seat, grabbed a gun from one of the guards, opened the chopper's door, and began firing wildly at the airship.
"Vester! Stop!"
The chopper rocked wildly for a few heart-pounding seconds until the pilot brought it under control.
Oh well, Hutchins thought, what was that old saying again? "If you're falling, you might as well try to fly" or something like that? He just hoped he wouldn't have to literally attempt to fly.
"Give me that." Hutchins took the other guard's machine gun and began firing it in three shot volleys at the airship.
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At Malik's news, Sephiroth had turned away from his subordinate and looked out the ship's open doorway once again, but this time Malik could see that Seph's eyes weren't focused on the helicopter. Malik hadn't believed it possible for the General to pale, but Sephiroth's skin seemed whiter than before. Worse, Seph's jaw was clenched, and his eyes were greening.
"What happened?"
Malik looked to the floor and saw that it had taken on a greenish cast—his own eyes were changing as well. "It seems that when Zack fought the Hewley clone, it injected him with some solution Hollander invented to get rid of bodies in his lab. It wasn't until after we left that the solution affected him though, else we could have brought him to the hospital with us."
"Where are they?"
"Alex said they're at the base hospital, and Dr. Romera's working on him."
Sephiroth shook his head slightly. Tessa would do anything to help Zack—he was in the best possible hands!—but in her condition that might not be such a good thing. Sephiroth caught himself grinding his teeth and clenching his fists again.
"Seph… Alex did say… " Sephiroth turned back to Malik. "He said that… Zack has maybe two hours… left... His organs are shutting down…" Still looking at the floor, Malik could tell by the movement of the edge of the General's coat that Sephiroth was again looking out the open door. Raising his head, Malik found that Sephiroth's greened-up eyes were again glaring at the helicopter. Malik stepped back to leave the General alone. From the look on Seph's face, he was glad he wasn't on that chopper…
Sephiroth's chin rose. Just three days ago he'd held Zack in his arms, made love to him; now, if he didn't hurry, he might never see Zack again. Pain wrenched Sephiroth's chest—pain again reminded him that he indeed had a heart! A vulnerability—Zachary Fair. Sephiroth shook his head, and his whipping hair rippled in the wind.
Images of Zack raced across Sephiroth's mind: the miserable way Zack had looked when he had tried to transfer to the Northern Crater; the startled way Zack had gripped him when Sephiroth had awakened from his nightmare of his child turning into Jenova; Zack hovering over him as Sephiroth had lain sick on the airship to Mideel; the ecstasy on Zack's face the first time they'd made love; the concern in Zack's eyes when Sephiroth had emerged from the operating room when he'd nearly lost Tessa and the baby; Zack fighting beside him on a platform above the Nibelheim reactor pool; Zack carving a bullet out of his leg by the swamp outside Reactor 20; Zack falling asleep on his desk while writing reports after Reactor 20. Suddenly the roars about Sephiroth were gone, and there was only Zack's voice:
"You got laid last night," he said.
Sephiroth turned his head to Zack, mouth agape.
"That's it, isn't it? You got laid. Well glory to the Planet, about fucking time! It was Tess, right? I knew it; you went down there and never came back."
"Zack! Y- " Sephiroth stammered in a loss for words. "Out!"
"Was she noisy? How many times did you do it? Are you going to see her again tonight?"
Zack almost missed the bright spark arcing between Sephiroth's fingers. He darted out the door, leaped over Sylvia's desk, then jogged sideways just in time to avoid the thing as it hit the wall, left a sizable scorch mark and caused the fluorescent light above it to wink out.
"Missed me!"
Sephiroth reminded himself no pleasure went unpunished in this world.
Indeed…
Energy tingled about Sephiroth's trembling left hand—the bright spark arcing again—almost of its own volition.
Damn you to perdition, Vester Hollander! Mother, if there is a hell in the Lifestream, please keep Hollander there with Hojo. Forever. I wanted to kill Hollander with my own hands, but now there isn't time…
A door opened in the side of the chopper, and bullets began to fly through from first one, then two, machine guns. As Sephiroth watched, the bullets streamed away from the chopper then arced downward gracefully to the ground without approaching the airship. A smirk twitched the edges of Sephiroth's lips. Was that your last throw, Vester Hollander? No materia? No spells? No Soldier sons to save your sorry ass?! Hmph. You're dead, and you don't even know it…
Sparks built around Sephiroth's hand, played up from the floor about his legs, curtained from the edges of the doorway about his shoulders and left arm. As the charge increased, the metal frame of the ship began to moan, then shriek, as waves of electricity ran from the engines and across the deck and ceiling. Enough. Sephiroth raised his hand and released the lightning at the helicopter.
Light glinted and danced off individual bullets before swirling into a cage about the chopper then coalescing around the rotors. Sparks sped from the helicopter's rotor blades, down its axle, and into the cabin. Within seconds, smoke curled outward from the base of the axle. Suddenly someone appeared in the chopper's doorway, desperate to survive.
Sephiroth recognized the man. It was Vester Hollander, complete with his normal tee-shirt and its ad for canned Banora apples—funny how Hollander always seemed to wear that shirt. The shirt awakened a memory in Sephiroth's mind. Hollander had been wearing it on the day that Genesis had been injured in their three-way fight on the simulated Junon cannon. That day Hollander had rejected Sephiroth's offer of his blood for a transfusion. Hollander had wanted only Angeal's blood that day—the last day of the Soldier Triumvirate. Sephiroth squirmed at the memory. Why hadn't he known how very wrong things were on that day? Genesis had deserted Shinra, and Angeal had hunted him, never to return… Things had never been the same from that day…
Hollander didn't jump as Sephiroth expected, at least not yet. For a few seconds longer, Vester Hollander stood in the chopper's doorway. With a last glare at the airship, Hollander tumbled toward the ground still firing his machine gun at the ship only to be caught by the explosion from above. The remaining pieces of the helicopter plummeted toward the ground in fiery chunks. Finally. A few odd body parts tumbled from the chopper amidst the flaming metal and glass. After feeling the wind from the explosion brush his face and rock the airship, with a final sneer, Sephiroth turned from the door and walked toward the ship's front window.
Hm. Hollander had jumped—shooting as he went. Sephiroth wasn't surprised that Hollander had fought to the very end. Vester Hollander would never give up trying to destroy him because he was Hojo's product. That thought brought Sephiroth up short. That was right. Even if he were dead, Hollander would never give up, and that meant that Hollander had a contingency plan in place to destroy him. Somewhere, somehow, someday, Hollander's legacy would almost certainly return to attempt to destroy Sephiroth again. For today, however, Hollander was almost certainly dead…
Pausing at the pilot's station, the General growled an order. "Highwind. Circle the wreckage once. If there's nothing there, take us to Mideel Base at maximum velocity. Now."
Cid Highwind nodded his head. For once, Cid had nothing to say.
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(7:30 am, Mideel—North coast of Mideel Island; 9:30 pm, Wutai; 5:30 am, Midgar; 1:30 am, Gongaga)
A young woman with strawberry blond hair stood outside a shed at the edge of the Mideel Strait. Clutched in her arms, tight to her chest, was a thin black laptop computer she had taken from the administration building in Apple Town. A worn sticker of a can of Banora apples could be seen peeking around the woman's arms from its home on the laptop.
Rather than look at the beautiful water to the north that glinted in the bright morning sunlight, the woman's gaze was locked on the southern horizon. Far to the south, a helicopter had exploded inside a sparkling net—lightning perhaps?—and had fallen from the sky. A strangely configured airship had circled once about the flaming helicopter debris then moved quickly back over the southern horizon.
Well, that's that! Vanessa-1 turned to the boat awaiting her inside the covered dock and smiled. While Vanessa-0, a/k/a Lynette Hiland, had stolen Dr. Hollander's laptop from his office in New Banora when the battle between Shinra and the clones had looked to be turning against them, Vanessa-1 herself had planted the cameras in Vester Hollander's office that had let her acquire the laptop's initialization codes.
Anticipation glittered in Vanessa-1's eyes. To certain parties, the info on the computer was potentially priceless: Dr. Hollander's research results from his genetic experiments—two years worth of work since he'd ceased keeping his results on paper—the formulas for his various chemical concoctions, and the locations of his caches of genetic materials complete with access codes. There were even new spells he and Genesis Rhapsodos had been researching.
Since she had the start-up codes, only Vanessa-1 could now access the laptop's information; she knew that anyone who attempted to access the laptop without the codes would cause the machine to self-destruct. Dr. Hollander had proudly, arrogantly, emphasized his enhanced computer security to anyone who would listen; indeed, Vanessa-1 had heard him describe it often. She paused. It was true, however, that most of Dr. Hollander's samples were now buried under rock in New Banora, thanks to Shinra, but Dr. Hollander had another lab in Midgar. The deal Vanessa-1 had made with Deepground would make her a very rich woman indeed. If Vester Hollander had gone down in that helicopter explosion—as Vanessa-1 suspected—the price of the laptop had just gone up dramatically. Vanessa-1 nodded. Yes. She was sure Dr. Hollander hadn't survived that explosion; if there had been anything remaining of him, the airship wouldn't have left. She planned to be far from Midgar before she sent Deepground the laptop's initialization codes. She smiled. Yes. "Costa del Sol" had such a lovely ring to it…
"Nero! Argento!" Vanessa-1 called. "Let's go. Dr. Hollander isn't coming…"
A/N—A great deal has happened since I last posted. Neku the Last Reaper turned 18 at the end of September. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, NEKU! For her seventeenth birthday, I wrote her a special Turk chapter for her birthday present, but I've recently posted several chapters featuring the Turks, so her dad and I gave her professional quality yo-yos instead. Just what she wanted!
Over the summer, my dad broke his hip, and my mom had to finally put him in a nursing home. His Alzheimer's has won, and she's not sure he recognizes her any longer. My mom, on the other hand, is doing well since her heart surgery in July 2008 and is talking about moving in with my sister's family. With five grandkids, a grandson-in-law, and two little great-grandkids around to spoil, I think she could enjoy living at my sister's.
My mother-in-law, who was diagnosed with cancer in September 2008, passed away on October 10. We miss her, but her pain is finally over. When she was diagnosed last year, she was told she had six months to live. Thirteen months later she proved the doctors wrong by seven months. I was aghast to realize how very similar her symptoms in her last days were to Zack Fair's—it seems I can now recognize organ failure.
My husband and I spent a week in my mother-in-law's home state after she passed away while we waited for the funeral. During that week, Neku stayed with Bjanik before joining us for the service. I wanted to thank Bjanik for many things—for letting Neku stay with her, for taking Neku to school (I'm sorry, I know you're not a morning person, so "thank you" double!), for picking Neku up from school (How far is it between your house and her school? 20 miles? How much do I owe you for gas?), for feeding her, for teaching her to drive (I just couldn't do it!), for teaching her physics, for being our friend. THANK YOU! Once again, I owe Bjanik BIG TIME! I asked Neku what we could do for Bjanik in return: "Post at least five chapters to start with, Mom. After that, we'll see." Yikes.
NaNoWriMo is once again upon us. Good luck to everyone, including Neku, who will attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days! May you banish your inner editors and produce your 1667 words per day quota. Once again, good luck!