Chapter 90 - A Refusal
December, 2000
SOLDIER tries to get him away from R&D.
Like a greedy child, they cannot let go of him. Once SOLDIER had decided that he has no part in whatever plot Angeal and Genesis are in, they want him and his time fully.
R&D and SOLDIER fight for his body in one long and bloody meeting. They are like two dogs pulling at a toy and Sephiroth can feel his seams ripping. They sit around and point at each other, spilling out factual evidence.
For a reason unknown to him, Sephiroth is invited and was sat at the end of that table like an object. They do not even look at him.
SOLDIER and Lazard claim in all confidence that if Angeal and Genesis knew that he was in the middle of an exposure, they would attack while he was weak. Sephiroth is their best defense against the two missing Firsts. They need to preserve their weapon. Additionally, he knows their fighting styles. He has killed until the ground ran with blood like rainwater, what is a little more?
It eats into him.
They don't hesitate to think he might kill his friends.
His real friends, Sephiroth has to remind himself.
His stomach still turns in suppressed grief at the amount of Genesis copies that he has killed. Those faces were so familiar but it was like finding a favorite book but finding a different story inside. Despite it, his mind hadn't cared when his first Genesis copy's blood poured out onto his hands. Sephiroth had caught the body from falling and watched the man die. His mouth opened and shut, words choked on saliva. The light faded from the eyes he had come to care for.
A killer.
That's all he's ever been.
It's a cruel joke that he could think otherwise.
Hojo seethes forward, spitting now more than ever that he needs to see the results of his science. That years of research could be lost if the mako exposures do not continue. He should be allowed to finish the program that he has started.
Somehow Sephiroth trying to grow stronger and well is no longer important.
It has become a form of weakness. Nevermind that Mariella's plan to get him free of this situation requires the R&D to finish with him. Sephiroth attempted to speak once and no one even turned to notice. It isn't worth it again. The humiliation is too strong.
Sephiroth concentrates on a scratch on the table instead. It's not recent. Its edges are dulled with age.
The chatter in the boardroom and the clicking of a glass on the table brings him back.
The man at the head of the table sets the glass down. This is one of the few times that he sees the President himself. Shinra sits back on the opposite side of the table and smokes a cigarette. Wrinkles frame his face as he stares Sephiroth down with an indifference bordering on amusement.
The men on either side of the table chatter on his life. Slowly, the president taps off the ash onto a tray.
Smoke idles out of the President's nose. No one asks his opinion. None of them look at Sephiroth. At some point, a tremor started in Sephiroth's hands. The shake sweeps up his arms. He takes a drink of water, trying to cool down the anxiety that is starting in him. His fingers wrap around the glass.
"Well," a voice familiar to him drawls, "I think Sephiroth should tell us what Rhapsodos and Hewley are up to." Rufus Shinra leans forward on the table and looks at him. "Come now, tell us. We will still find out at some point."
The table quiets. Rufus' smile is coy with a false sweetness. "Save yourself the trouble?"
"As I have said, repeatedly, I do not know." Sephiroth focuses on the coldness of the ice in the glass.
He laughs. "Really? Even after all that time together in Angeal's apartment?"
The heat flares higher into his throat and Sephiroth struggles to control the pain and the blush breaking over him. Rufus knows. This man knows his preferences. There is a meaning that is weaved into this that the others at the table might understand. It punches up the beat in his ears. The times Rufus is talking about are some of his most precious memories and they are being dragged into the mud.
Still, Sephiroth is still strong enough to keep himself level. "We were friends, no more."
"Yet they knew you well." Rufus carves a small circle on the polished hardwood with his index finger.
The shake takes hold in his chest.
"What is the point of this?"
The index finger stops and presses into the table.
"Why didn't they bring you along, Sephiroth?"
All these questions have been asked a hundred times over. Sephiroth has to close his eyes against the frustration. The interrogations he sat through were relentless. The Turks have ripped into everything. Any privacy that he had is gone. He's so tired that he has forgotten what it is like to be without it. Nothing could be precious to him anymore.
The only thing they did not do is open up his brain and inspect it for truth.
Yet, that honor is left to Hojo surely.
Sephiroth places the glass onto the table and raises his chin. "I do not know."
Rufus Shinra's teeth flash in a smile. "I think I know."
"Enlighten us."
Rufus' finger hooks against the table and the nail drags against the table. "Weakness."
Sephiroth has to count to ten to calm the anger in him. By five, the emotion is still wild under the surface. By three, it has hardened into something viciously close to striking out. At zero, he has forced it deep within him. It's another undetonated bomb simmering under his heart, the expiry time unknown.
Rufus licks his lips.
He knows what he has just done.
The Vice President rolls his head on his neck and addresses the rest of the room.
"They both thought he was too weak. Weak enough to leave here on our side. They didn't try to kill him. They didn't try to sway him. They left him. Neither consider him a threat. This conversation is pointless." He pushes up from his chair neatly. "This isn't worth my time. You aren't worth the Turks that are put on your detail."
Sephiroth stays sitting as Rufus walks past him.
"Then do not put Turks on my detail," he says when Rufus is close enough.
A gloved hand lands on his shoulder. "My dear, you know that isn't an option anymore."
The fingers slide away before he can pull them off.
"Do what you want," Rufus says over his shoulder. "It won't matter."
The door closes. Sephiroth is breathless against it. Everything is mixed in him, the anger at those words, the slow burning betrayal and the constant question of why. They are all staring at him. They are waiting for a response that Sephiroth does not have because Rufus could be right. At the heart of it, Rufus could be right.
They threw him away without a simple explanation. Genesis had done it without knowing the effects.
Angeal had done it knowing every moment of pain.
Sephiroth is lost in it.
President Shinra taps his cigarette against the lip of his ashtray. It draws the eyes away from him.
"Sephiroth has only," Shinra pauses, waves his hand and glances down at a paper in front of him. "Less than five exposures left and four more examinations. According to this, stopping now might cause permanent damage. Once those treatments are finished, R&D will release him to SOLDIER fully. Make sure that Hollander didn't have a hand in any future treatment plans. End of meeting."
Those words tighten around his throat. The decision has been made. Sephiroth knows his chin drops microscopically. He feels as if he is falling, the floor cut out beneath his feet. It is such a bitter relief at the future chance of escape but what is the point? He has nowhere to run to. Not anymore.
"But-" Hojo starts.
Shinra's fist slams against the table to make the glasses on the table jump. "Enough. This is the end of this meeting."
The meeting adjourns without another word.
The naked woman visits him in his dream that night.
Sephiroth lays under his cover and watches as the door opens. Her fingers push it as she steps in. The light coming through the window shining off her skin. Something about her is becoming more familiar. He blinks, too heavy with grief to try to move. It didn't matter. Not anymore. She could kill him and he would not fight her.
There is no one else to fight for him.
She moves silently across the carpet. A trail of drops color the floor behind her. He is curled on his side, facing the room. She watches him, the darkness of her eyes unreadable as she stops directly in front of him. This close and clear, he can see the perfection of her skin, the muscles moving in sync, the pulse that runs in her neck.
She crouches down to her knees in front of his bed so he can look her in the eyes.
He expects the anger and distrust that he sees in everyone else.
Instead there is sympathy and that is even harder to take than the wariness.
Her fingers hover and move, brushing the bangs away from his face. He blinks as the palm comes to rest against his cheek. It is soft and impossibly warm. A soft smile comes across her face. She doesn't try to talk. She doesn't question him. She doesn't threaten him. Instead she sits and rubs her thumb against his face rhythmically until he falls into it and closes his eyes.
When he opens them, she is gone.
And he misses her.
The sun is rising. His breath cuts into frost in front of him as he lets it out slowly. Up here on the roof, the ice covers the edges of the rooftops. The beginnings of sun catch the frozen edges of roofs, coloring them into bruises, purple and bloody. It is so late, Sephiroth thinks numbly, that it could be considered early. Sephiroth realizes this as he sits alone.
No normal human could sit here for hours without moving, even wearing a coat and gloves. The snow has blown and pooled around his feet. The air is several degrees colder this high up. His scarf pulled half free of his coat some uncountable time ago. He hadn't bothered to put it back.
It's the damn mako from his recent exposure.
It burns in him. It makes the pain from the cold settle into numbness. It makes this bearable.
He moves his hand and watches the snow fall off of the glove. Sleeping has become increasingly worthless. It's been months now. He sleeps on a bed of nails and anxiety. The last time he truly rested was four days ago. The mako tank and the cocktail of drugs pumped into his veins pulled him under. It was a willing surrender.
His right hand is curled around his phone in the pocket. He can feel the messages that sit on it.
It's not because of you.
I think I can fix this.
Then why he asks them thousands of miles away. He had been angry but now the grief of the loss of them has muffled everything else.
The sun rises without an answer. A cloud goes up in flames, first boiling purple before rising into a pink.
There is an email. It was sent late last night. Lazard is telling him to go to Banora.
Their hometown.
It's not written but the undertone is clear. He wants him to talk to their parents and scare the truth out of them. The great Sephiroth knocks on their door and asks about their traitorous children. Unknown to Lazard is that he is known to them already. Angeal and Genesis did away with that over the years.
Angeal's mother has sent him holiday presents. The socks stay in his drawer tucked visibly in a corner. Things that have been handmade have no reason to be used. Genesis' parents had insisted on a few occasions that he should visit. Genesis himself had been horrified.
They had been on speaker at the time and Genesis had yelled into the microphone, "am I invited too? Your own son?"
Sephiroth hadn't accepted their offer.
"Good. By the goddess, I would have counted you as a betrayer," Genesis had hissed at him after they had ended the call. Sephiroth closes his eyes and savors the memory.
Sephiroth pushes off the pipe and stands. The snow moves around his shoes.
It's been so long since he had heard that voice. It's carving an empty void in him. He shouldn't miss him. He shouldn't miss them. Shinra continues to pound into him that they betrayed Shinra. He can't believe it. Yet, his mind can't equate their messages to their actions.
He hangs onto them anyways.
Does that make him a traitor to Shinra?
What is his point here?
What is the reason to stay in this organization that turned on him?
These are bruises that are not healing.
The ice crunches. He blinks at the sound. The door's hand is firm under his hand. The present is the safest place for him to be. Glancing back, he takes one more look at the rising sun. It shimmers against the buildings. The light climbs higher in the sky, inevitable as time passes.
"The wings of light…and the darkness spreads…" He stops and frowns. The words are lost to him. They are becoming translucent.
He shakes his head and opens the door. It is the start of another day.
Sephiroth decides to go to the office early.
Alvar's phone rings four minutes after Sephiroth sends the email. It took less than ten minutes for his message to be read. Sephiroth leans back in the chair and drinks his tea as he watches the surprise spread over his assistant's face. He's nodding and stuttering. Part of his body has risen from the chair as if responding to a physical threat.
The tea is peppermint. Angeal's favorite and what he would give him after a bad day at work. Half the time Sephiroth told him about it. The other half the tea and company would come without explanation. Sometimes that was even better. Someone was paying enough attention to take care of him without needing him to say anything.
The call button on his phone flashes red. He takes it.
"Sir, I've got Director Lazard on the phone." Alvar sounds like he has taken up jogging as a physical activity.
Sephiroth wakes up his computer and looks at his email.
Send Zack Fair still hovers there, typed and sent.
"I expect you do."
Alvar pauses. "He sounds…mad."
Sephiroth smiles to himself.
"I expect he is."