WELCOME TO FAIR HELP CENTER

Chapter One: Locked Doors

(As per usual, I don't own this. Wrap your minds around the dang concept.)

Tifa stared up at the building. Surrounded by a twenty-foot iron fence, made of sparkling white bricks, it was a fortress. It was intimidating, it was terrifying.

It was an asylum. Fair Help Center.

It was her new home.

Just to qualify—Tifa wasn't crazy. She was going to work as an attendant there. It didn't require as much schooling as a full medical degree (A/N: I have no idea if that's true, probably not, but it suits my story. This isn't Midgar, but I guess it's not Earth, either.) Tifa wanted to help people. And this was the best way she knew how, the only way she could think to suit her. And suit her it did.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside.

A middle-aged receptionist looked up from her computer and raked Tifa with her eyes. "Miss Lockhart, I presume?" she asked. Tifa nodded, her hands shaking quietly. The receptionist smiled and beckoned Tifa closer. "It's all right, dear. Here, come here—take this. It's your pass card—it'll open all the doors you're qualified to open as a new attendant. Now, see that hall on your left? Good. Go down that, take the second right, and keep walking until you find Aerith. Young thing, in a pink dress, long brown braid and bangs. You'll be working together, she'll explain everything." The receptionist smiled up at Tifa who was blinking and nodding slowly, processing and cataloging the information in her mind. "We take things quickly here, darling. I hope you don't mind. Don't worry—you'll catch on soon enough. Good luck!" She called to Tifa's back as the young woman walked away.

A pretty young woman in a pink dress smiled at her as Tifa walked down the hall. "Aerith Gainsborough," she greeted Tifa, extending a hand. Tifa shook it, smiling, as Aerith continued. "I'm the only attendant covering this wing. We haven't got many patients here, but having two attendants makes it so much easier." She gave Tifa a relieved smile. "C'mon, I'll show you the patients." She pulled on Tifa's hand, tugging her down the hall.

At the end of the hall, a locked glass door awaited them. Without opening it, Aerith began to point and name all the people gathered within. "That one there in the corner, that's Vincent Valentine." Tifa stared at the man. He was curled into a ball in the corner, covering his body and the lower half of his face with a crimson blanket. His long, dark hair was hanging all over the place, obscuring all of his face save for one glowing amber eye. "To use crude terms, he's a cutter. His family sent him in after he attempted suicide. And her," Aerith indicated a young woman with short black hair, rolling around laughing for no apparent reason. "She's Yuffie Kisaragi. She's irrepressibly happy. It might not seem like a bad thing, but—well, just before she was admitted, her father died. Yuffie just laughed." Tifa stared at Aerith, who continued to talk as if what she had just said was perfectly normal. "And those three silver-haired guys muttering to each other—that's Loz, Yazoo, and Kadaj. For some reason, they're convinced that they're brothers and all they ever talk about is their mother." The three men suddenly turned simultaneously to stare at Aerith and Tifa before returning, just as abruptly, to their conversation. Tifa forced a short, startled laugh.

"Come this way," Aerith called, pulling Tifa back down the hall. She paused momentarily before a heavily locked door. Curious, Tifa stepped closer to it and listened carefully. Slowly, she began to make out faint sounds of banging, crashing and hysterical screaming. Her face paled and Tifa backed away from the door rapidly. Aerith also paced backwards a few steps to stand next to the other young woman. "In there, that's Sephiroth. I don't know what's wrong with him, but if he gets out, he'll kill us. He'll kill anyone." The women looked at each other and shivered. Aerith continued, "We don't have to deal with him much—Dr. Fair takes care of him personally. Most of the time, he's just kept shut in there." The air around them became much easier as the two girls hurried away from the door.

They passed several open doors labeled with patients' names, which Aerith confirmed to be their sleeping quarters. Finally, they came to a single closed door. Aerith sighed. "And, of course, we can't forget Cloud." Knocking lightly on the door, she called gently, "Mr. Strife? Cloud? May I come in?"

A silken, muffled voice came from within. "Fuck off."

Aerith grinned at Tifa and waved her pass card over the door's lock. Tifa lifted an eyebrow at her. "That's as close to 'yes' as you'll ever get from Cloud." The lock clicked, and Aerith slid the door open.

Aerith stepped in first, and as Tifa waited to enter, she heard the voice again, only unmuffled this time. "Hey, don't you understand the meaning of 'fuck off,' you dumb slu—" Tifa snorted and moved to glare at the man inside.

Her artfully concocted scowl melted away as she stared at the boy lounging artfully on the bed.

His golden hair was glowing and luminescent as sunlight from the window filtered through the spikes. Even glaring at her, his pale face was almost impossibly beautiful. And, exquisitely splayed out over his narrow bed, partially masked by thick black clothes, his toned body inevitably drew her gawking gaze. But it couldn't hold her eyes long from his huge, cerulean blue eyes, glowing even in the brightness of the room.

She fought to hold her focus as Aerith began speaking in her sweet, soothing voice. "Cloud, why aren't you in the group room with everyone else?" She chided him gently.

Cloud rolled his beautiful cerulean blue eyes. "Because it's boring as hell in there with all those basket cases." Tifa's eyes narrowed. Beautiful, maybe, but rude as hell. And crazy, she reminded herself.

"Well, you're just going to have to endure it."

"No."

"Ex-cuse me?" For the first time Tifa had heard, a little bit of commanding bitchiness one would expect from an asylum attendant crept into Aerith's honey-sweet voice.

"I said no, you stupid golddigger!"

"Don't you dare call Miss Gainsborough that!" The new, commandingly male voice ordered from the door. Tifa turned and saw a tall, black-haired man in a white coat glaring at Cloud. The blonde man sighed, rolled his eyes again, and turned away from the three others to stare out the window. The black-haired doctor frowned. "Get your ass into the group room now or I'm gonna put it there, Strife."

Cloud stood and marched out of the room with as much dignity as possible for a person in his situation. The tall doctor shook his head, looking disappointed, and lightly rested his hand on Aerith's back. "Are you all right, Miss Gainsborough?" He asked, voice quiet and smooth. Aerith nodded twice and looked up at him with wordless adoration. The doctor grinned affectionately back and turned to Tifa. "Hello there!" he called cheerfully. "You must be Miss Tifa Lockhart. I'm Dr. Zack Fair, founder of Fair Help Center. Pleased to meet you." Grinning, he held out a hand for her to shake.

Tifa lightly grasped it and shook, slightly dazed. Dr. Fair smiled approvingly at her and sighed. "Terribly sorry, I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got an appointment with Seph, and I'm all stretched and ready, I can't put it off."

Aerith gasped and eagerly put in, "Can't we watch and talk afterward? It's probably good for Tifa to see a session, just so she knows…how he is. Please, Dr. Fair? It's group time for our patients, we really have nothing else to do." She pouted out her lips a tiny bit and looked up at Dr. Fair from underneath her brown bangs.

His lips twitched into a tiny smirk before he relented. "Fine…if it's all right with you, Miss Lockhart?" He gave Tifa a questioning look. She only smiled and shrugged. "All right, then…"

As Tifa followed Zack and Aerith out the door, she saw him lean closer to her and whisper in her ear. She just barely managed to catch, "Please, Miss Gainsborough…Call me Zack."

A smile twitched on Tifa's lips as she followed them.

"This way, this way, Tifa!" Aerith called, looking ten thousand times happier than anyone Tifa had ever seen. Tifa followed her into the door next to Sephiroth's, casting a final worried glance at Dr. Fair, who smiled reassuringly and tugged off his white lab coat.

She entered a very dark room, surfeited with recording equipment, video cameras, and several comfortable-looking chairs. Turning towards Sephiroth's room, Tifa was met with a large glass wall. For a second she panicked before realizing it was one-way glass that was glass on one side and a mirror on the other. She relaxed.

And stared at the man on the other side of the wall.

His long, white hair hung down past his waist. His face was hollow and wasted away, his body thin and worn with constant agony. His fists and arms were raw from continuous beating, and his face carried a thick layer of spotty stubble. All pretenses of sanity and hygiene were gone from him. His eyes were dark with rage, pain, and madness.

Tifa shivered. Aerith patted her on the arm. "He scares us all. Except for Dr. Fa—Zack."

As they watched, the door opened, and Dr. Fair walked in. He was naked from the waist up, showing off an amazingly muscular build. His frame was thicker and heavier than Cloud's, laden with muscle and self-assured strength. He slammed the door quickly behind him, and muscles rippled in his arms.

Next to Tifa, Aerith squeaked. The dark-haired woman shot her a look, which Aerith returned with a wide-eyed, utterly innocent stare. Tifa sighed and settled into a chair to watch.

Almost instantly, Sephiroth charged at Dr. Fair, screaming at the top of his lungs. Tifa gritted her teeth against the sound. Dr. Fair stood still, quite confident in his obvious strength, and waited for the pale-haired man to reach him. As Sephiroth reached the doctor, grossly long fingernails extended like claws, Dr. Fair seized his hands and threw him backwards over his hip.

Aerith sighed breathily, and Tifa rolled her eyes.

Dr. Fair held Sephiroth face down on the ground, his thick arms bulging with straining muscle, fighting to hold the thin man in place. Quick as thought, his left hand flashed to his back pocket and pulled a syringe out. He stuck it swiftly into the back of Sephiroth's arm, and slowly the thin man's howls quieted, and his struggling ceased. Dr. Fair slowly stepped away from him, and the man remained on the floor.

Pulling some restraining straps off the far wall, the doctor fitted them around the man's wrists, tightening them securely before pulling Sephiroth into a sitting position. His broad chest gleaming with a fine sweat, Zack stepped back a bit, smiled at the glass wall, and sat on the ground in front of Sephiroth.

Aerith's delighted squeal was so loud Tifa thought her eardrums were going to rupture. She leaned to the other woman and whispered, "How do you know he wasn't smiling at me?" Aerith gasped, horrified, and looked like someone had just crushed her soul into a thousand tiny pieces. Tifa sighed. "I'm only kidding, Aerith."

Dr. Fair settled onto the ground just out of Sephiroth's reach, his perfect musculature rippling and making Aerith practically salivate all over her chair. "So, Seph, how was your day?"

A/N

Woo-hoo! I'm finally writing a FFVII fanfic! Aaagh, I've been dying to do one for so long, and I never had the inspiration. But here it is! Alas, alack! I hope it doesn't suck too much.

Anyway. Not a whole lot to explain on this chapter. Any questions, message me or post it in a review, I suppose? Because I f**king love reviews. The damn things rock my socks. And actually help me write faster. Anyway. R & R, please! I love you all!