I paused for a moment, and glanced up at the dark man.

What? I don't get it…

From the dark looks of my companions and the determined look on Vincent's I had a feeling there was something personal in his and Sephiroth's history. For some reason he was determined to help out the silver haired man.

Nodding, I turned back to the group. "Well… what about Kadaj and them?"

Cid cleared his throat and looked to Tifa. Slowly she nodded and began again.

Okay, when we take Sephiroth, he will probably fight back, so you need to be down there to talk him out of it, Sam.

Vincent will be headed for the execution block; but due to his… abilities… he won't be killed. Sure chopping off his head will kill him, but Rufus is going to intervene.

He will at the last moment, say that the death is too gruesome, and quick, and instead they will electrocute him. Luckily one of Vincent's demons is rather adept with electricity so Vincent will be just fine. When they go to dispose of the body, Rufus will help Vincent get back to us.

"And from there, we will all drive off into the sunset, mission accomplished!" Cid cheered and took a puff of his cigarette.

"Of course, you youngsters will have to lay low for a while, but soon enough all the rumors will quit and everyone will forget Sephiroth! Haha!" Bugenhagen laughed joyously, as if it was all in the bag. I wasn't so sure. The margin for error was tiny; the smallest mistake and it could all mess up, and more than one person could end up in jail, or dead. I was worried for Sephiroth and Vincent.

"Well, if it's the best we got." I sighed. Tifa gave me a look.

"It's the most we can do I'm afraid." Reeve muttered, brushing his hair back. I looked up.

"Where are my friends? Crystal, Jamie? Loz, Kadaj, Yazoo?" Frantically I looked for a sign as I said the names that someone was in trouble. No eyes flashed.

"They've all left." Cid put his hands behind his head.

"Huh?" Glancing around I looked for some sort of explanation. Why would they leave?

"As soon as we told them about Cloud's disappearance, they left to find him." Tifa explained with a somber smile. "I hope they find him."

"The fools insist he's gotta show up and help out. I say, hell yeah he does, but when does that fool listen to his elders?" Cid laughed. I really liked him.

"Well, whatever happens lets get this show on the road." Proclaiming loudly I stood and looked around for agreement. "I can't sit here and not do anything."

"Hell yeah!" Taking a big swig of his tea, Cid grinned. "Let's get the ship fired up!"

The group seemed to agree. We all hurried up the secret elevator, a few at a time, Cid hollering about something down below. I smiled a little as we rose through the air.

It'll be okay

It'll be all right, everything will be –

Heart wrenching pain. As soon as we came out of the lower level and slid to a stop, we came face to face with a few children playing. And they stopped to look at us. And the little boy looked right at me.

I could see through him, into him, within him, all around him, as my eyes dissected his soul and he stood transfixed by me. As Tifa and Bugenhagen stepped off, they were surprised to see me standing still, unable to move, transfixed by the boy's eyes.

It was a predator feeling. A hunger, deep in my heart, to feed on something. And the boy had already been touched, been tainted, by the black waters, by Jenova's blood. I could feel it in his marrow, I could feel his heart beat, his blood flow, I could sense the eye muscles twitch as he stared at me. It was all surreal as I slowly stepped out towards him.

"Sam, are you hungry? We can have lunch before we… go… Sam?" Tifa stared at me as I quietly stepped across the room to the boy. Like it was far away I could hear his friends taunt him for staring dumbly at me, but he didn't respond. As prey would realize there is no escape the boy stood still, watching me come closer. When I was deathly close, he backed away.

The elevator rose again. I heard shouts. "Samantha?"

Jenova felt Vincent realize what was happening and she forced me to leap for Denzel, but thankfully the dark man had me first. My teeth had grown over my lips, my eyes dilated and turned dark, my nails grown longer; I thrashed and hissed as Vincent held me, and the demons in him hissed and snarled to prove their domination. I fought too, inside me, to knock her off. The spell over the boy Denzel broke and he raced up the stairs, just as I came to my sense.

"What the hell was that?" Cid gawked, staring at me as I took long, hard breaths on the floor.

Rolling over slowly I looked up at everyone. Tifa had raced upstairs to find Denzel. Reeve was staring in horror and total confusion, a cold sweat having broken on his skin. I could actually hear the sweat droplets rolling down his porcelain skin. I could see Cid's breath leave his mouth from feet away, as his smoke ridden lungs worked double time.

Upstairs, I heard Tifa and Denzel, word for word, I heard the children playing and talking, their heartbeats and their breathing and their footsteps…

"Tifa who is she? What just happened? Tifa?"

"Don't worry, Denzel, its okay, she won't hurt you. She can't hurt you anymore."

"Tifa! Tifa!"

My own lungs heaved, and in my head I heard Vincent and Jenova fighting in a battle of words that I was not strong enough to enter into. They all stared at me like I had suddenly changed without reason. The children, the adults, everyone…

So this was what it was to be a monster.

0-0-0-0

No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.


Bram Stoker

(For those who don't know, Stoker wrote Dracula.

Bram's birthday is November 23, 1842. Happy Birthday Bram!)

I was sitting in one of the ship rooms with my head against the glass, staring at the lifeless, desert scenery outside as it flew by. My hands handcuffed with materia powered chains and the door sealed with some sort of spell, I sat and waited for our arrival at the Saucer.

It was my idea to seal the door, and Tifa's idea to handcuff me just in case. Bugenhagen stayed behind to comfort the boy, which made our journey just a bit more difficult. It was my fault. Part of me wondered if in the end I would be the one who caused our failure. If Sephiroth or Vincent died I would never forgive myself.

Somehow, I was still shaking – literally, physically shaking from the adrenaline rush that Jenova was still basking in. She was feeding off of my soul now, off of the pain and hate radiating from it – and for each painful, hateful thought I grew weaker; and her stronger. So I stopped thinking about the pain and the hate. I thought about grassy fields.

I thought about years in my childhood during which graveyards were places other people buried their dead and the house was a home, a warm place I wanted to be in.

I could run through the backdoor after a hard day of playing in the forest to see my mother making Jamie's favorite chicken parmesan and I could smell it in the air. My father would be in the reading room, looking over the newspaper, or writing a new novel. My mother wouldn't be dead.

My heart ached and wondered why I let Jamie drift away the years following our mother's death. I suppose I became such an emotion wreck that we simply didn't get along anymore. It made sense that it was my fault. I simply hoped that before it was all over I could thank him and beg forgiveness for what I'd done in the past.

But before all of that, I had to save Sephiroth, and keep Vincent from dying in the process; I had to get rid of Jenova. Somehow.

I heard the door open, but Jenova didn't bother moving. She had no care for anyone outside the room; it was me she wanted to suffer and suck dry. So I didn't bother looking up when my visitor walked in. I was sure it was Vincent at first, but then I smelt smoke.

"Hey there, missy." Cid smiled and waved his cigarette hand at me. How he could smoke all the time I didn't know. Even though I made no response, Cid walked a little closer.

"You don't want to do that. At the moment she's content but I don't want her to hurt you." Quietly I whispered to him, hoping he would simply leave.

"I've killed that bitch so many times she don't even lift the hairs on my neck. Though that performance of yours earlier… that was on the creepier side."

I smiled at Cid's attempt to be funny. He was funny actually. And what he said was true.

"I – I'm so sorry."

"Hey, you didn't do nothin to me." Cid chuckled and leaned against the window. "Now, that kid, you might wanna say somethin to him next chance you get."

"I hope I never have to cross paths with him again. I don't need to put him through that." I rubbed my nose and looked back out the window.

"Hey, kid."

Slowly, I looked up to the older man. His voice had changed.

He nodded towards what was under his arm. It was the folder Rufus had given me. "Vincent told me a bit more about the story than some of the others. Thought I might take it better. I guess he figured ya might need someone to talk to bout it and he ain't exactly the jabber mouth of the century, huh?"

Nodding, I smiled and agreed, wiping my eyes. Cid smiled too. "See, you've still got a heart, I know that. Just cause Jenova's tryin to beat you out, don't let her. You've got more to ya than that, I know."

I looked up at him, genuinely curious. "How do you know?"

It was Cid's turn to smile and nod. "I knew your mom."

Somehow that didn't surprise me. "Let me guess… "Maria"." Grinning as he put his cigarette to his lips again, Cid winked at me.

"We knew her as Maria, all right… always got pissy about my smoking."

"Smoking killed my dad." I told him. Cid looked surprised.

"Oh. Well, anyway… what I'm saying is, your mother could light the darkest hours with a smile and those pretty eyes of hers. She was always lookin out for all of us, even Yuffie when that little brat stole our materia! I was gonna harpoon her ass, but Maria stood up for her. What was her … well, her real name?"

To stretch my aching muscles, I stood and rolled my neck, my shoulders, and so forth. "Her real name…" I smiled.

"My father use to call her by her full name sometimes when they were playing back and forth. 'Rebecca Judd Wiley' he said 'where have you been all my life'? He made her smile. I didn't like him as much, but… I loved my mom."

Smiling, Cid nodded to me again. "You look just like her. Even in your eyes. Yours are a lot darker and afraid of a lot, I know, but even with Jenova lurking in there, I see your mother more than anything. Hold her close she's your best weapon against that leech."

Surprised by that train of thought I looked up.

"My … my mother?"

As he turned to leave, Cid smirked and gave me a thumbs up. "What's better to fight off a psycho mother in law other than your own mom?" He told me. It made sense.

Before he left I called after Cid.

"Did my mother like it here? I mean… well, what happened to her?"

Almost as if he knew it was coming Cid sighed and turned back to me.

"After the battle with Sephiroth few years back, she settled down in Edge and got married, had a kid. Maybe a year ago, she started… well, having attacks."

A sudden memory drifted to me.

"An old friend of mine has a friend who has recently been having these… attacks. Screaming and going unconscious for days.

When she awoke, she'd tell us about these dreams, seeing memories, but not remembering them. It was as if she was dreaming of someone else's life."

I remembered seeing Cloud in the dream, and I remembered him telling me about his "friend" who was having attacks…

"Well, she kept having these nightmares and spasms and stuff, so we asked Shinra if they could help him out. I don't like him much, but he's got connections. So, we asked him to help her. Maybe a day or two after that… she disappeared. Just plain gone. Rufus himself had no fucking clue… well, that's what he told us."

So the friend Cloud had been talking about was actually "Maria"; my mother. "She … disappeared?"

"Haven't seen her since. And hell, we've looked. But… well, eventually we found this note. "Don't follow me". We truly did try… she was our friend. Her husband was devastated. Her son… was simply too young to understand."

"I… have another brother?" And a step father?

Cid nodded, and turned to walk away again, flicking the last bits of his cigarette into a nearby ashtray. "I guess she simply couldn't take it anymore, and she left."

"Like Virginia Woolf." I muttered. "She simply couldn't take being crazy anymore, and flung herself into a river, leaving a family and her husband behind."

Cid watched the sad realization on my face, and he left without a word. We both had made the same realization, and deep in my heart I was very afraid of it. I looked over at the door.

I had to kill Jenova somehow. If I became less and less myself and more like a psychopathic murderer...

I just might make that river plunge.

0-0-0-0

I saw the saucer in the distance coming closer as I thought over everything I had learned. The connection between Sephiroth and I grew stronger, but I could feel him cutting it off. I had to speak to him before he made a grave mistake.

I just hoped Jenova let me live that long.