Summary: A single event can change the course of the future. If a single revelation have been given to Sephiroth before Nibelheim, what would have happened? AU of my own mostly-canon timeline. OCs, rated for lemons, mpreg. Ties in with past fics and oneshots.

Disclaimer: Akalara is mine, Kandi is Amazon's, Lily is Mystic's, canon characters are SE's... You get the basic idea.

Queen's Quornor: I have way too many chaptered fics already in progress, I know. Now that we have this understanding, I shall continue. (ahem) Since playing Crisis Core, I have been wondering if somehow there was a way to have kept Seph from ever going to Nibelheim in the first place. I have come up with several ways, most notably somebody telling him Lucrecia was his mother rather than Jenova, or him getting sent elsewhere. Zack could have handled Nibelheim by himself, after all; I think Shinra only sent Sephiroth to Cloud's hometown as a show of muscle, an example of what kind of power Shinra controlled. A silent warning, if you will. How might things have gone if Seph never learned about Jenova, and she never took over his body? Seeds of a fic, right there. But wait, it doesn't stop there! I've written up a discussion between Sephiroth and Azrael set when the younger silver-hair is about 13, in which Sephiroth points out that Az's life might not be as rosy as he believes if his father was alive and well. I'm still see-sawing on whether I'll post that or not, but out of that humble oneshot has grown an idea. What might have happened if Akalara told Seph how she felt before he left? What repercussions would that have for the entire planet, as well as their friends? So, here we are. This AU fic will tie in with a lot of my previous fics, namely "Return of the Green Sludge" and "Evidence of Sephiroth's Humanity". I was thinking of making this a collaboration fic, with me covering Seph and Akalara, Amazon running Zack and Kandi, and Mystic revealing the goings-on with Shinra (namely Tseng and Reno and Lily), and all three of us tag-teaming Hojo and the army, but they've also got a lot of stuff to do, so I dunno... We'll see. (Whatcha think, ladies?) For now, it's just lil' ol' me.

Note: This first chapter starts out an hour or two after the memory sequence in the first chapter of "A Mother's Love".

The Smallest Comment...

Her fingers traced down his side, eliciting the merest shiver from the sculpted form laying opposite her. She smiled, lowering her hand to leisurely circle his navel. The granite muscles trembled at the gentle touch, and his hand reached down to grasp her wrist.

"I didn't know you were ticklish, Seph."

"Neither did I, actually." Sephiroth guided her hand away from the overly-sensitive areas, tangling his long digits with hers. "You know, you're the only one I allow to touch me like this, Ak."

"Really?" Cranberry eyes traveled down the length of his body, then returned to his face. "Why is that?"

His free hand rose to stroke her cheek and temple, a gesture so at-odds with the cold, emotionless mannerisms revealed to the public. "I don't know. But..." Glowing peridot eyes fell to their twined fingers, shying away from his lover's countenance. "I feel safe with you," he confessed quietly.

Akalara turned her head slightly, pressing a warm kiss to his palm. "I couldn't hurt you, Seph. Even if I wanted to, I never could."

His fingers squeezed hers gently, his great strength held in check, as always. "It's more than that. I feel..." He brushed errant strands of dark emerald hair away from her eyes, tucking them behind her ears. "Comfortable, I think. As if I don't have to be the general of ShinRa's army, or the Great Sephiroth everyone admires and fears. When I'm alone with you like this, I'm only Sephiroth. A man, like any other."

Akalara bent her head forward, pressing her forehead to his. "I prefer you this way. This is the real you, not the great hero the public sees. I don't care about the hero. It's the man that I love."

Sephiroth inhaled sharply and Akalara's heart froze in its tracks, as the unexpected words filled the air between them. "You...love me?" the silver-haired man breathed, peridot eyes wide.

Her entire body emulating a boiled lobster, Akalara rolled away from him, hiding behind her arms. Damn her loose lips, she hadn't meant to tell him! Now he'd think she was just another crazy fan and throw her out, replace her with some other woman. And she'd be left alone, just as before. She tensed, waiting for his rejection.

But it never came.

Strong hands turned her onto her back and carefully pried her arms away. Akalara responded by rolling her head to the side, not wanting to witness the anger, the disappointment, she knew would be on her lover's face.

"Look at me, Ak."

Apprehensively, she turned to him, fighting the urge to cry. The Turk trainee couldn't look at his face; instead, her cranberry eyes focused on the left side of his chest, and the organ beating therein.

"Are you being truthful?" he inquired, just above a whisper. "Do you honestly love me?"

The green-haired teenager nodded, still watching Sephiroth's left pec.

"Say it. If you mean it, say it again," his black-velvet voice commanded.

Akalara swallowed hard, then opened her mouth, only to close it when firm fingers forced her chin upward.

"Look at me," he demanded softly.

Cranberry met peridot, and she forced herself to ignore the face that held those unchanging eyes. She could say it to his eyes, but not to his face.

"Say it," he urged.

The teen ignored the ear-splitting pounding of her heart, and forced out three simple words.

"I love you."

Her gaze dropped a moment later, and she braced herself for the explosion. Surely he'd toss her away now, thinking her exactly like all those other women lusting after him on a daily basis. Just another crazed fangirl who had managed to get luckier than the rest. Her life at ShinRa would continue, but he would no longer be a part of it. And it was her own damn fault that her heart was about to be broken.

She let out a startled gasp when she realized Sephiroth's arms were tight around her, and his lips were feverish on her own. The teen's arms slipped between them after a very responsive moment and pushed, providing just enough leverage to separate her from his passionate assault. "You're...not mad?" she panted, watching him with no small amount of shock.

His face was, for once, open and earnest. So honest it made her chest hurt. "Far from it. I never dared hope you felt that way, the way I do."

If Akalara thought her heart was breaking the speed limit before, now it shattered the sound barrier. "What do you mean?" she whispered hoarsely.

Sephiroth rolled onto his back, pulling her atop him and pillowing his head on one folded arm. The other hand began tracing her features, stroking through her mussed hair. "I've...been doing a lot of thinking lately. Zack lectured me a few days ago, and managed to beat some things into my head."

Akalara watched his face now, not daring to hope. Hardly able to breathe...

"Turns out, he was right about how you feel about me." Sephiroth trailed his thumb over her lips, eyes intent on her face. "I'm...not a very open man, Ak. I don't like letting people get close to me. Even with Zack and Kandi, even with you, there are some things I'm not willing to reveal. Or even admit to myself."

Akalara merely listened, realizing that he needed to talk before he could tell. He was like that sometimes.

"I kept telling myself that you were no more than an infatuation, that I'd tire of you eventually and send you away. I told myself this was a temporary arrangement, and you were just another conquest, no more. And a few months ago, I would have believed myself.

"But no longer."

The hand behind his head came forward to claim one of the slim hands resting on his chest, knotting their fingers together once more. "My heart refuses to obey me where you are concerned. Whenever I see you, it screams that you are mine and mine alone. That I am the only man with the right to hold you. To touch you, to know you. Once I attributed such feelings to another, but what I felt for her pales in comparison to this."

The teen goggled at him, pulse hammering at the base of her throat. He felt... More than Tareyna? His first, long-dead love?

"I've denied it, ignored it, and repeatedly told myself I was a fool. But recently, I've finally come to accept it. And now I freely admit it." Sephiroth's roaming hand came to rest on her cheek, the soft caress of a lover. "I am completely and totally in love with you, Akalara. If nothing else I know, and I think I've known it from the beginning, you are the only one for me."

In all the great romances, this was where the woman always broke down amongst tears and fervent declarations of everlasting love and devotion, perhaps interspersed by or followed with kisses and a sweet embrace, if not full-out sex. Akalara, however, was caught between a multitude of responses. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and never, ever stop kissing him. Instead, she found herself frozen, devoid of words.

"Say something," Sephiroth urged, peridot eyes pleading. Almost desperate. "Ak?"

Slowly awareness dawned. Her face was pressed into the side of his neck, and her arms were tingling from the weight of his upper body atop them. His strong limbs were secure around her, holding her close while she wept.

"Akalara?" he repeated. "What-"

"I never dreamed you'd accept me if I told you," she confessed through her tears. "You don't like any of your fangirls, and I thought..."

"You're nothing like those stupid little adolescent teeny-boppers," he told her lowly. "You're real, you're smart, and you know. You understand. Most of them couldn't care less about me, so long as they get a single night with my body."

The green-haired trainee nuzzled his neck, so happy for once in her life. "You're so much more than a piece of meat. And if you're the only man with the right to touch me, then I'm the only woman with the right to touch you."

"Undeniably," Sephiroth agreed. He lifted her head and laid a heated kiss against her lips. "I'm going to refuse the Nibelheim mission."

She stared at him in shock. "What? But I thought you had to go on this one whether you liked it or not!"

"Zack can handle it by himself. I was just getting sent along so ShinRa could show me off. I hate being paraded around like a prize chocobo. Besides," he continued, kissing her again, "you're more important than a malfunctioning reactor in a tiny village on the western continent."

"I'm glad you think so, Seph," she snickered, allowing him to roll atop her and pin her to the bed.

"I don't think." He kissed her once more, sliding comfortably between her open thighs. "I know."