Chapter 11

It was strange, being alive again.

Feeling hunger, eating and feeling full.

Feeling the need to brush my teeth.

Feeling everything more acutely. The scents in the air were sharper, the colors somehow brighter, every surface more textured under my fingers.

The face in the mirror looked different, somehow, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how.

O O O

Sephiroth found her in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom.

She wore the clothes she had worn to the victory banquet, her head tilted slightly as she stared at her reflection with an intense look on her face.

He was starting to doubt she had noticed him and then she proved him wrong when she turned and said: "Something is different." He blinked, at loss for words, but to his relief, she expected no response, because after a moment she continued: "And yet things are bizarrely the same."

"Yes", he said. Breaking free of the summon materia – unbecoming a summon – had strangely failed to make her all that much more human. She still radiated power. She still had all the power she had as a summon, he could feel it.

"What am I, Sephiroth?" She asked me, sounding almost fragile. He was quickly learning he hated to see her like this. She was a rock. She…

"You may not be my summon any longer, but you are still mine", he said, and she smiled. It was like seeing the sun on a cloudy day.

"Using my words against me? How sly of you", she said, amused, fond.

"For you", he corrected. "Using them for you."

She hummed, "Yes."

O O O

There was a slim black folder on the low table between myself and Turk Tseng. With practiced moves, he pulled out the small stack of papers and presented them to me.

"This is the contract I negotiated with President Shinra on your behalf", he said. I quirked a brow and he explained: "Director Veld thought it best you not be asked to join the President at the negotiation table. He deemed it an unnecessary risk."

"To whom?" I asked like it wasn't already clear.

"To the President", the young man obligingly replied. "Should you find this contract unacceptable on some account, I would be happy to bring your corrections to the President and renegotiate for you."

I inclined my head in acknowledgment and then said: "I am all ears."

"What ShinRa is offering you, Valkyria, is the post of the Personal Assistant to General Sephiroth", Tseng said. "The pay I negotiated for you is in line with one of a senior Turk - in other words, considerably more than is paid to any one assistant in the entire company. You are entitled to free housing at the Headquarters, thirty paid vacation days per year and to the full services of ShinRa Medical free of charge. Upon signing the contract, you will be paid thirty-thousand Gil to help you get settled, and to compensate for your past service."

That was certainly more than generous. I had no doubt that had President Shinra not made me the second face of ShinRa's military might just a few days ago with his boasting, the contract I would have been offered would have been a lot less - and that's presuming they would have offered to officially employ me at all. They might have decided to try a more forceful approach to compliance instead. I was practically a public figure now, though, so any botched attempt at containing me would have resulted in a public scandal and President Shinra definitely liked to actively avoid those.

"I expect you will want to read the contract through before signing - ", he said, and he 'expected' rightly, because I certainly did intend to read the papers through thoroughly before so much as putting pen to paper, "- but to summarize the more significant points... Should you find that ShinRa is not the company for you, your term of notice will be four weeks. Also, even after leaving the service, you will be legally bound by the stipulations on company secrets."

"Any obligations to - let's say - play lab rat for the Science Department?" I asked, tone deceptively light.

"No", the Turk answered. "I knew better than to think you would agree to such, and the President didn't think to ask."

I hummed thoughtfully. "I imagine the situation would have been quite different had Hojo had the chance to whisper into his ear beforehand." My brow rose slightly. "But of course Director Veld already thought of it. Thus the urgency." I lifted the contract up and started combing through it with extreme prejudice.

To my immense surprise, I didn't find anything I could really protest. The contract was exactly what Tseng had said it was - but with a lot more legal jargon to cover ShinRa's back. After I was done with it, I passed the contract over to Sephiroth, who had drifted over after finishing the after-breakfast cleanup. It would have been foolish to pass the opportunity to have someone of his caliber to look it through when he was right there.

It probably took him less time to read through it, but it felt longer. Finally, he handed the papers back to me with a solid nod. So, I took the pen Tseng offered to me and signed the contract that re-bound me to ShinRa, though in a completely different manner than being a summon had.

"ShinRa Electric Company is pleased to welcome you into our ranks, Valkyria", Tseng solemnly said. "Director Veld asked me to pass on his disappointment at failing to convince you to choose the Department of Internal Affairs. He also asked me to assure you that the offer will remain open, should you change your mind."

"Thank you, Tseng", I said with a smile that I found was genuinely friendly. Despite being a little stiff and stoic, I though him quite likable. "Now, I think it's time the General and I get to the office. I'm sure we will be getting plenty of unscheduled visitors today."

O O O

I wasn't wrong. While some people simply dropped in with a flimsy excuse to explain their presence, others popped in without pretext. These honest visitors were mostly SOLDIER, and a vast majority of them those that had been to Wutai with Sephiroth and me.

Genesis Rhapsodos stopped by before lunchtime. He looked slightly under the weather. His pallor just a hint on the side of sickly instead of the usual porcelain complexion that made most women jealous.

"I am happy to see that you haven't expired in my absence", I said to him as I started priming the energy in me.

He sneered, "Oh please, you weren't gone that long. Nor are you that irreplaceable."

I zapped him with a Cure strong enough to make him stagger. "You're welcome", I primly told him and then turned back to the papers I had been reading through.

He took a few steps toward the door and then stopped and asked: "Is it true?"

I shot a slightly impatient look at him, "Is what true?"

"That you are a summon no more, that you broke free", he clarified.

"To be fair, I wasn't a genuine summon to begin with", I replied. "Just a Science Department experiment, a non-genuine article, a poorly made imitation."

"But you are still powerful", he pointed out, "You are still something."

I inclined my head, agreeing with that statement nonverbally while arguing with my words: "I was always something. I don't think I'm really anything else, simply free of the prison Hojo had thrust me into with his ambitious ignorance."

There was a silence that was both tense, and actually less so, than what was normal for the two of us. Finally, he decided to leave me in peace and left me with a few uncharacteristic parting words: "It is good to have you back. Sephiroth was distraught while you were gone."

O O O

Zack Fair was practically vibrating with some pent-up emotion when he dashed into my territory. "You are alright!" I gave him a look that pretty much said 'was there ever any doubt?' and he shot me a sheepish look in return.

"I heard you returned to the tower all bloody and shit", he said a little defensively. "I was sure you'd be at the Medical and not back to work as usual."

"The blood wasn't mine", I said, with a carefully neutral tone of voice. "It was the blood of my captors. They didn't survive to regret their poor choices."

"Gaia!" He cursed, and god, how could anyone look that much of a puppy even while cursing? "Who would be stupid enough to try and kidnap you?"

"AVALANCHE", I replied. "Though to be fair, I got the impression that the rest of their little group was unaware of what my captors were up to. And well... Now they will never be up to anything ever again."

I looked at the boy shifting his weight from one foot to another restlessly, his hands twitching, and finally snapped at him: "Calm down, Zack!"

The boy cringed. "I'm sorry", and yet he kept fidgeting. "It's just... Are you sure you're alright?"

I blinked, caught off guard. "What? I'm fine."

"I mean, I know you were like, totally untouchable as a summon", he babbled nervously, "and that even if a summon is hurt, it just dispels and then they can be summoned again and they're back to full health again, but I heard you aren't a summon anymore! Everyone's talking about it! I wasn't really going to believe any of it, but the Angeal said that Genesis had said that you had said it was true, so it's gotta be true. Unless Genesis was just yanking Angeal's chain, which I can totally believe, if you tell me it's not true and you're still just like you were before and nothing's changed, and Genesis is a big fat liar and the rumor mill is just being a rumor mill and mixing fiction with reality like it usually does, and - "

"Zack", I said, cutting his tirade short. I rounded my desk until I stood right in front of him. "It is true that I am no longer a summon, but I can still hand you your ass any day of the week, repeatedly. You needn't worry, I am fine."

Hesitantly, he nodded. "Can I - ?"

When the words didn't appear to be coming, I pushed: "Can you..?"

And then I was being glomped. There were strong arms wrapped around me, crushing me against a rock-hard chest in a punishing hold that didn't actually register as a hug until several seconds in when I heard a wet sniffle right by my ear.

Slowly, I found myself relaxing into the hold that was just a teeny bit too tight to be comfortable. SOLDIER strength had to be hard to control in moments of emotional distress, so I let it pass, just this once.

"You gotta be more careful now that you can die." Sniffle. "You aren't allowed to die, okay?"

"I will try my best", I solemnly promised. I felt his cheek rub against my shoulder as he nodded.

When he pulled away, he was flushed, embarrassed. "Sorry..."

"Extenuating circumstances. Don't make a habit of it, though", I said, and he grinned.

Then the grin died. He glanced toward the door that led to the General's office, and with almost painful hesitance, in a low, hushed voice, he said: "It really is a good thing you weren't gone longer. The General... We thought he might be starting to lose it."

Shit. I didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean?" I asked, demanded.

"He was fine most of the time", Zack quickly said, seeking to reassure me. "A little tense, worried, focused. But then he had these moments when... When he got this faraway look in his eyes and then he would just... explode. I mean... sometimes he just got, like, extra intense, but most of the time? He got mad. They were just these bursts of anger, and he would calm down quickly, but it was like he didn't even realize what had happened." The expression on his face was the kind of serious that I wasn't used to seeing on him, and only highlighted the seriousness of the matter.

"Have you seen anything like it since you returned?" He asked, hopeful.

"No", I easily replied. And I would have noticed.

The boy sighed in relief. "Then maybe just having you back will have fixed it. Maybe there's nothing to worry about." He didn't really look like he believed it, though. He may have wanted to, but he didn't.

I put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. "Either way, I am here now, and I will make sure he is alright."

He nodded. "If nothing else, at least you can contain him."

Yes, I could see how that might have been something that made the people around here nervous. Sephiroth was the strongest fighter around. Rhapsodos and Hewley might share his rank as SOLDIER 1st, but they truly held no candle to Sephiroth. Should it ever come to a real fight, there was no doubt about who the victor would be, even with two against one.

To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure I could defeat Sephiroth either, should he go on a senseless rampage. I knew I certainly could never use lethal force on him. I would rather see this world burn than to kill the one person that mattered to me more than anyone or anything.

"Thank you for telling me", I said to the boy and made an attempt at a reassuring smile. "I will handle it, so you needn't worry yourself over it anymore."

Abusing his Mako-enhanced speed, he dashed forward and gave me another hug, this one over before I had the chance to react to it, and then he was skipping away from me, waving his hand at me, "Welp, I gotta run. See you later, 'kay? Bye!"

I blinked. I sighed. I survived Hurricane Zack.

Now, I was worried, though, not only about my own mental health but also that of the General. There was no doubt in my mind that the episodes had been Jenova slithering in. I hadn't expected it. Until now, there had been no sign of Her influence extending this far. The only time I had seen Sephiroth reacting to Her had been when we had been flying back from Wutai and passing relatively close to Mt. Nibel where the reactor housed Jenova was located.

But for Her to reach him while he was here. It was bad.

It also meant something needed to be done soon.

Because while it was entirely possible that with me here and safe, Sephiroth might be in a better state of mind to keep Jenova's influence out, to be harder to influence... No matter my intentions, it was entirely likely there would come a time he and I needed to spend time apart, or perhaps something else would happen that would shake him to the core. Either way, with things as they were, he was a ticking bomb and it was definitely better to defuse than to deal with the fallout.

I turned to return to my desk and found Sephiroth standing in the doorway of his office, his face blank, his eyes boring into me.

He had heard every word Zach had spoken, I realized. We had both realized he could hear but hadn't expected him to be listening.

"I don't remember", he finally said, his tone void of inflection. "Any of what Zack said I did. I think I have been feeling it, though. The thing. Nibelheim." His voice broke just a little, and I knew he was terrified. "You told me to run. You said it would make me a puppet."

I walked over to him slowly, like approaching a skittish animal. "Can you feel it now?"

He shook his head, and inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief.

"You need to block it out", I told him. "You need to refuse whatever - everything! - it tries to offer you. Just... Keep it out, Sephiroth. You keep it the fuck out."

"What is it?" He asked, and it was a demand if I had ever heard one. He took a step forward. "You need to tell me what it is."

I wish I knew what to do. Would it be better to just come clean, tell him everything I knew even when I couldn't really explain to him how I knew it without it all sounding completely insane? Or would it be better to just keep him in the dark, to keep him away from even the barest mention of Jenova? To keep him distracted and safe.

But where was he safe, if Jenova could reach him all the way from Mt. Nibel to Midgar?

He wouldn't be satisfied even if I told him all I knew. He would go poking once he had something he could poke at. There would be no stopping him. He would find lies - and truths - that would mess with his head and I didn't know if I would be enough to keep him grounded.

My mother would have known what to do. For such a silly woman, she always had this rare kind of wisdom, a unique point of view, like she could see more than anyone else could. In that moment, I missed her desperately.

I didn't even realize I had dropped my eyes before his hand rose to cup my jaw and he gently lifted my face until our eyes met again. "I don't know why you are this afraid of telling me what you know", he said. "I have never given you any reason to believe I wouldn't trust your word, and if you fear I cannot handle the truth, well, that is why I have you, isn't it?"

I found myself nodding. And then shook my head, "We can't have this conversation here. Tonight", I promised. "At your place, where there will be no interruptions."

Reluctantly, he agreed. The sound of the door to his office closing behind him sounded loud even though I knew he hadn't closed it with any more force than he usually did.

O O O

It shouldn't have surprised me, but the moment the workday was officially over, the General was out of his office and standing by my desk with a look that could only be read as 'impatient'. It was a first, him leaving the office this early.

I finished what I was doing, turned off my computer and then followed him. Neither of us spoke until we were in his apartment, seated in the living room, the low table between us.

"Tell me", he demanded.

I had had several hours to prepare for this discussion, and I was still a little unsure of what to say. But at least I had somewhere to begin: The beginning.

"I think it was approximately two millennia ago that a meteorite crashed into this Planet, creating the North Crater. With the meteorite came a creature. This creature that the Ancients called 'The Calamity from the Skies' is the reason the Ancients are now extinct. The Ancients didn't go quietly, though, for they trapped the creature into the North Crater, saving the Planet from the certain destruction in the hands of the creature." I paused, hating what I was about to reveal next. "ShinRa must have found the creature because there are Its cells in you, and in Genesis and Angeal. There is, just a hint of It, in every SOLDIER."

His face was void of emotion, his eyes hard. He was still like a statue.

"These cells are the reason Genesis and Angeal are degrading. And the reason why the creature can reach out to you, why you can feel It on Mt. Nibel."

"How much is there?" Sephiroth finally asked. "How much of It is there in me?"

I shook my head, "I don't know. Does it matter?"

He looked at me with thinly veiled incredulity. "Does it matter? Of course, it matters! Am I more man than monster?" I shot up from my seat. His eyes followed me as I rounded the table. "Or more monster than man?"

There was an urge to strike him, the words made me mad. But I restrained myself. I glared down at him. "Careful there. I do not take kindly to anyone speaking ill of my General, and that includes you, my General."

"I have always wondered what Professor Hojo had done to make me so different from the other SOLDIER", he said. "You can see the unnatural in me. All they have, is the Mako glow in their eyes, no other visible oddities, not even Angeal or Genesis. And I? There is nothing natural about my eyes or my hair. There is nothing natural about the Mako-levels my body can take. Nothing human."

"You were sired by a human man, birthed by a human woman", I told him. "You are human in all the ways that count. You could only become a monster if you were to act like one, and just as I trust you to keep me from acting like one, becoming one, I will do the same for you."

The cold, stony visage cracked, as the man hesitantly admitted: "I never met my mother, she died giving birth to me. The Professor only ever gave me her name, and I've never managed to find any information about her so it is likely it wasn't even her real name."

I had a sneaking suspicion it had been "Jenova", the name Hojo had given, but when it came to the specifics of Sephiroth's origins, I wasn't as well informed as I would have hoped. I was pretty sure Hojo had gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure no one could repeat his success with Sephiroth, so information was bound to be well buried if not outright destroyed.

Buried...

Funny how the strangest of things can lead you to the strangest of revelations.

Buried... Coffins... Vincent Valentine.

Vincent, who had been there, in Nibelheim, around the time of Sephiroth's birth, and who no doubt had all kinds of answers Hojo would have loved to snuff out. Vincent, who was in a coffin, but also alive.

Another reason for me to go Nibelheim.

"I need to go to Nibelheim", I said.

"What?" Sephiroth's eyes snapped up and then narrowed. "Not without me."

"If the Calamity can reach you here, then you going over there is out of the question", I told him.

"I know what I'm dealing with now", he pointed out. "And you will be there to keep an eye on me, to make sure I don't slip up."

"Or, I could just go alone", I argued.

The look he gave me showed me very clearly what he thought of that option. That he didn't consider it an option at all. "I am going with you."

"ShinRa can't know we are going there, not before I am done with my business there." Namely, destroying Jenova and waking up Vincent Valentine. Not necessarily in that order, especially considering I didn't really know how to kill Jevona in a way that would be sure to stick. "If Hojo hears of you going anywhere near Mt. Nibel, he will be sure to intervene, and it will surely be to our disadvantage. By myself, I might be able to avoid attention long enough."

He scoffed. "I think you are underestimating my ability to avoid ShinRa's eye. You forget, I have been a person of interest to this company from birth."

"This is a horrible idea", I said, and we both knew they were words of surrender.

As reluctant as I was to admit it to myself, I knew the only reason I had given in so easily was that I didn't really want to leave his side. In fact, the thought of leaving him behind while I went off to Nibelheim made something inside me clench painfully.

It was a horrible idea, though.

O O O

They hadn't spoken a word of where Valkyria would be spending the night. He hadn't even realized it until she was showering in his bathroom after invading his closet and borrowing a dress shirt to sleep in.

Then she was sitting on his bed, patting her hair dry with a towel, and he realized she had decided to share his bed with him, just like she had done last night. She looked completely at ease. A little tired, but not stressed or unsure.

A voice in his head whispered to him, telling him she was faking it, that no one could be that relaxed when faced with a night spent at close proximity to a monster like him.

He caught the thought and tried to ascertain if it was the Calamity whispering to him, or just his own doubts making themselves known. He couldn't tell.

He couldn't tell.

"Sephiroth?" A soothing voice quietly said. He found her eyes watching him worriedly. He didn't really know what to say to reassure her. To his relief, she didn't seem to expect anything of the like from him, because she said: "You should get ready for bed too. It's been a long day for both of us."

She was right.

The bathroom mirror mocked him.

It had been years since he had watched his own reflection with the displeasure that he did now. The eyes, the hair, they shone in the bright light. They were impossible to ignore, made more eye-catching by their light color. Unnatural color.

It wasn't just the color either. His pupils were slitted, like those of a wild beast. His hair, while similar, didn't quite feel like human hair. It was tougher, as the lab assistants of Professor Hojo liked to tell him when they gave him a trim and had to sharpen their scissors after each haircut.

His skin was unnatural too, in that it had not a single scar. Other SOLDIERs had scars from before they were accepted into the program and given their first Mako treatments.

He had been cut and burned countless times, and not a single mark had stuck.

He turned the water hotter until it burned. It wouldn't even make his skin redden, but at least he could feel the discomfort.

Valkyria was under the blankets when he came out. Her eyes blinked open tiredly and she shuffled a little to the left to make him more space. He slid into the sheets, eyes staring up at the white ceiling blankly. Then she rolled to him and pressed her face into his shoulder while sliding a hand over his waist, a leg over one of his.

His eyes flicked down.

She looked peaceful.

He fell asleep watching her sleep.

He didn't dream.

AN: Despite several tries over the (yikes!) year and a half, I haven't had much success in finding the inspiration to write this. The continued interest from all of you, however, has kept me coming back to this, over and over again, and it seems I'm finally making some progress with this.

The next chapter will hold some stuff that I have been eagerly waiting for since the very first words of this entire story, so stay tuned, because there is more to come :)

Posted on May 12th, 2019.