Chapter 78 - The Remains of Guilt

November, 1996

"How long?"

Sephiroth asks it and his voice is rough from the hours of disuse. The driver's side door slams shut as Mariella gets out. They are on their way back to Midgar. From the way the countryside is collapsing back into the desert, they must be only a few hours out. The air is getting drier as well. Still, Sephiroth could care less. The drive has taken a lifetime.

The doctor looks at him from across the hood of the car. Mariella is showing the exhaustion of their trip more than he is. It's plain in dullness in her eyes and the way she moves as if she is constantly breaking.

"How long what?" She lays a hand on the hood and appraises him. They are supposed to switch drivers but instead the division of the car gives Sephiroth enough space to ask his question.

"How long is Orlin going to live?"

She blows out a breath and glances away.

They can't talk with each other now.

How they understand each other has fundamentally broken. How can he see the same woman he knew before? He looks at her now and sees how she had leaned over Orlin as he sat collapsed on the porch. His chest had started straining and his eyes squeezed shut in effort. Mariella hurried, her hands spreading over his body, finding out exactly where the pain was. Somehow, she already knew, asking about his heart, his head and his chest as he slowly nodded back.

Her case rattled on the porch. Inside it was a nightmare of vital and medications. These were the things that she had poured into him until the wrinkles of Orlin's face eased and he slipped unconscious. She had gone through four injections before he settled entirely.

Mariella had been professional the whole time working over him like a problem until she found out a solution. What had Sephiroth done? He had stood by useless, his mind wondering if the last thing they were going to say to each other would be in an argument.

Her fingers had tracked his pulse against her watch before she finally sat back on her heels.

"We should get him inside and start a line. He's dehydrated. As always." She looked up at him before standing. The words were said so plainly. It was as if someone that they both cared about hadn't collapsed less than five minutes before appearing near death. She seemed used to it.

Sephiroth's words had failed him.

Just like Mariella had failed them both.

"I don't know the answer to that question," Mariella says and brushes strands of hair away from her face. "He could have six months, another year or even seven or eight more. His body is reacting very well to stabilizers."

"I thought you were supposed to track his degradation, not cure it." This back and forth is frustrating. He's dying. He's not. He could live into his golden years. He could die tomorrow. Science is supposed to be straight forward and this is anything but that.

She nods. "Once Hojo had confirmed for himself that Orlin was degrading, he stopped paying attention. I immediately started him on the sunset regiment." She catches herself. "That's the program that degrading SOLDIERs go on."

It's so normalized for her.

"So he has plenty of time."

There shouldn't be kindness in her eyes. "He's unstable. Degradation is just that. It breaks apart the body. It may affect his mind eventually. I can't give you either one of you hope when I've seen rapid degradation cases. He could be fine today and be dead in two months. Orlin knows that. I know you've seen those reports too."

Sephiroth's face turns. He can feel it. He knows what she is talking about. It had also been Orlin's choice. It had been Mariella's choice. Yet, Sephiroth had just been given back someone he cares about and now he is being taken away. It rests against his heart in a way that doesn't make sense. It hurts.

"You did this to him." It comes out quiet and petty.

"Orlin has good days. Lots of them. Seeing you, having that much excitement and emotion, it was a lot for his system. You saw him the next day. He was fine."

It's true. Sephiroth and Orlin had sat together at his dining room table, trying to remember each other. Orlin had been alert and happy. The pain was gone from his face. His laugh had returned as they had drank coffee. His old mentor was extremely interested in his new friendships, asking and joking about Angeal and Genesis.

Learning that Genesis Rhapsodos was commanding multiple sets of troops as First made him cough into his coffee.

"Desperate, aren't they?" He had laughed when he got his voice back. "Probably for the best, Rhapsodos couldn't take orders anyways."

It felt too easy to slip back into something almost normal but it isn't normal. Nothing about his situation is normal. Orlin is just glossing over everything, trying to make him forget.

"This shouldn't have happened," Sephiroth says to Mariella and means about her actions but it bounces back. The only reason that Orlin got as hurt as he did was because of him. That makes his fingers wrap around the edge of the door before he forces them loose.

She sighs and moves across towards him. "I won't keep repeating the same points. I've done the best I can. I've given him time that Hojo would have never given him."

The sound of Orlin sitting down heavily on the porch is hollow in his ears.

He hadn't been here. Orlin had supported him while he grew up. It was Orlin that dragged him away from Shinra to eat takeout and yell at TV. Orlin had walked by his side until Sephiroth had shoved him away. Then he had gotten hurt and Sephiroth hadn't even gotten the option to come back.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

She stops in front of him. "I didn't think you could handle it. I was right, wasn't I?"

His words jam his throat. It's all jumbled in him. Part of him wants to talk, to try to sort this out in a way that makes some sense. That would be what Angeal would do but then the pain of what has occurred flares higher.

"Take over driving, Sephiroth. We're almost there."

Getting back into the car feels like crawling back into a coffin but he forces himself to change sides. The leather of the steering wheel is smooth under his finger. The car pulls back onto the highway. Mariella's arms are crossed. She stares out the passenger window.

Orlin had made the choice. It was on his terms that he was going to die. Still it rests against his heart in a way that doesn't make sense. Orlin ran away. Sephiroth is running away from him now. It's tangled and complicated, a morbid impossibility of what should have happened. All Shinra staff know trying to leave Shinra without permission meant a Turk's bullet to the head.

He had escaped that. Sephiroth should be happy but his mind keeps showing him the pain bubbling up in Orlin's face. The weakness that is sewn into him. There would be no more late nights for him. Sephiroth is sure that even using magic is beyond him now.

The silence sits between them, sucking the air out of the car.

"I'm not like him," she says without looking at him.

It takes him a moment to connect it. Hojo. She's not like Hojo. He stares forward and says nothing.

She turns sharply and looks at him.

There is guilt there.

And he says nothing to stop it.