Henry awoke to the sound of muffled voices.

Blinking blearily and straining his ears to try to hear it better, he muffled a long, low groan with his pillow and resisted the urge to just ignore it and let himself drift back off.

Lately, it seemed like there was always something interrupting his sleep. At least for the first few days after he woke up to find chains running across his door, he had been able to lounge around peacefully with nothing to disturb him. Then, however, the nightmares had begun, and then the hole had appeared, and then the hauntings had started.

Killing monsters took a lot of energy, and yet it seemed he was running purely on nutrition drinks and what was leftover of that white wine from his refrigerator. Mixing them did give a very . . . interesting effect, but still, all he was asking for was a few hours.

Rubbing his face against the cool, crisp pillowcase one last time, he forced himself up and off the bed, stumbling over to the desk in the corner of the room and grabbing a lighter and a holy candle.

Muttering unkind things about Walter's mother under his breath, he flung open the door to his bedroom and stepped out into the hall, padding quietly towards the main living area.

When he reached it, however, he had to stop and do a double take.

While he had been hearing voices, they didn't originate from a haunting—instead, Walter had somehow seemed to have moved from standing and staring insanely outside his door to standing and staring insanely inside his family room, and instead of staring at a peephole, he was now staring at a man.

A very, very strange man.

He wore a long leather coat with a large array of silver buckles and clasps all over it. He had matching leather pants on but no shirt, and what appeared to be an extraordinarily long katana was strapped to his back.

And his waist-length hair was silver, a shiny, metallic silver that Henry didn't think even existed in nature.

"She's lovely, Sullivan," said the man, glancing appreciatively around the room. "The kitchenette is a nice touch, though if I may—would you like the number of an interior decorator? He did the ShinRa Building in Midgar, and I'm definitely picturing something bold, yet sleek. Only the best for your Mother. Do you like black and silver? Or red? I could call Genesis . . ."

Walter shrugged. "I prefer blue, myself. Though I agree—my dear Receiver certainly hasn't done very much to make Mother homey. I will be sure to rectify this shortly, after I wake her up. What about your mother? How is she decorated?"

"My mother is not an apartment, actually."

Walter's eyebrows shot up, the expression on his face turning incredulous. "Really? She's not? But then, what could she possibly be, General Sephiroth?"

General Sephiroth made a vague gesture. "I'm not exactly sure of the proper name. But she is the ultimate lifeform, a goddess among ants, a queen among paupers, oh my blessed mother . . . Her name is Jenova."

"Name," Walter repeated, his eyes growing wider. "Your mother has a name?"

"Which will one day be worshipped, after I merge with the Lifestream and become a god who will take back the planet that was stolen from her by—"

"Perhaps I should name my mother . . . Henry, my Receiver, what should I name Mother?"

"Not Lucrecia," spat Sephiroth randomly. "I hate that name, I don't know why . . ."

Henry could only stare, the holy candle slipping out of his hands. "What . . . the . . . hell . . .?"

"He is awe before your mother's presence," said Sephiroth, nodding sharply at him. "If only Cloud felt the same way . . ."

"Cloud? Is he your Receiver?"

Sephiroth hesitated for a long moment, eventually shrugging, his lips pursing. "I suppose you could say that, in a way. But I'm not performing this, '21 Sacraments' ritual you speak of. I'm summoning Meteor."

"Meteor?"

"The Ultimate Destructive Power. It will kill the Planet, eliminating the majority of the human scum, and then I, Sephiroth, will become a god—"

"Kill a planet?" said Walter, practically salivating. "Murder a planet? That . . . is . . . magnificent . . .!"

The laundry room door opened abruptly.

Numbly, Henry's gaze slid over to it, and he found himself staring at a man with severely spiked blond hair and the handle of a sword sticking over his left shoulder.

He glanced around momentarily, his eyes flicking from Henry to the chained front door to Walter to the bloody chainsaw in Walter's hands to Sephiroth, who was now talking about something called a 'Nibelheim' and how he had done it after he had discovered his 'true heritage'.

"Is this another delusion?" the blond finally asked, giggling manically.

"I'm . . . starting to think that maybe it is," Henry offered meekly, awkwardly reaching down and setting the candle straight before lighting it.

"Henry!" Walter snapped, raising his chainsaw slightly. "Don't do that in front of guests, it's bothersome!"

"Oh, it doesn't affect me," said Sephiroth, even as he pulled the katana off his back and managed to precisely slice the wick of the candle off, instantly extinguishing the flame.

The blond giggled again. "Number . . . want my number . . ."

Henry blinked at the remains of his candle once, twice, three times before throwing his hands up into the air and retreating back down the hallway into his room.

"Freaks," he muttered, sliding back under the covers and pulling the pillow over his head.

_

_

Author's Note: Come on, this was inevitable. Especially when I saw Walter on the cross with the long white hair and thought, 'hey, he kind of looks like Sephiroth from that angle'.

Though, it's been awhile since I've been really into Final Fantasy VII, so Sephiroth's ramblings about his motives and Jenova might not be as accurately canonical as they could be. :)

Anna