Chapter Text
Sephiroth had carried wounded men on his back in Wutai, usually infantry who did not carry materia and for whom potions were often times scarce. Once he’d carried an unconscious Genesis two miles back to camp when the man was injured by an IED to the point where his body was working overtime healing itself and Sephiroth was already suffering from mild mana exhaustion. That had been a tense day for him, and he honestly remembered fearing, for perhaps the first time, that he might lose his friend. Carrying Sarah, then, had less to do with concerns about his dignity as it did with the association of carrying someone with them being injured. Sarah was perfectly healthy. Underweight, according to the doctor, but healthy enough to walk by herself. Why, then, did she insist on being carried? Was she secretly unwell? Was she being lazy? Was Sephiroth encouraging bad behavior? He didn’t know.
Sephiroth was not a fan of being without proper intelligence. Too often it’d been a matter of flying blind and making up orders without a good idea if he was sending his men to their deaths or if he was working to prevent their own deaths. And, to be honest, raising another human being was just as important as keeping his men alive, because if she didn’t turn out like she was supposed to then it would be Sephiroth’s fault. So Sephiroth, reluctantly, took his cues from Cloud and Angeal. Angeal seemed to know a lot about children, and Cloud was Sarah’s mother. Plus, Sephiroth had to admit, it was nice being the reason why someone smiled, so if it made Sarah happy to be carried then he would do it.
The walk to the floors where various executives, Senior Turks, and high ranking SOLDIERs had their apartments was otherwise uneventful. Cloud stayed closer to Angeal, but still put a good distance between them, and glanced back at Sephiroth and Sarah frequently, smiling every time he saw Sarah clinging to Sephiroth like a barnacle. There were a few people out and about at this time of day, including a pair of SOLDIER Seconds who looked like they desperately wanted to ask their General what he had hanging off his back even as they greeted Angeal amicably and chatted with him on the elevator ride to their floor.
Sephiroth’s apartment was one of eight on the floor, at the very end next to Lazard and across the hall from Angeal and Genesis’s shared apartment. The three of them lived in each other’s pockets most of the time, but it was nice to have space to himself. Now, he was grateful that extra space could be used to help his daughter and Cloud. Over the last week, Angeal had made some changes to Sephiroth’s guest bedroom. Sephiroth had taken a peek at it last night but was honestly too tired to care except to hope that Cloud and Sarah would like it. Stepping into the apartment with its open kitchen and living area overlooking the Midgar skyline, Cloud gasped and Sarah pulled on Sephiroth’s hair as she looked around her surroundings wide eyed.
Sephiroth was an economical man by raising and lifestyle, but the apartment had been the result of the resident interior designer and thus minimal, modern, and tasteful – very little color, bold lines, and sleek, shiny surfaces. Angeal hung back by the door as Sephiroth set Sarah down and the little girl grabbed Cloud’s hand, following him around the room. Cloud immediately stepped over to the far wall where large bay windows overlooked Midgar. It was raining today, streaking the glass, and the gray over a gray city seemed solemn to Sephiroth, but soothing.
Sarah stood up on her tiptoes to look out the window, seemed unimpressed with the rain, and tugged on Cloud’s hand. “Mama, let’s go see the rest of the cell.”
“It’s called an apartment, Sarah, not a cell.” Sephiroth found himself correcting just as Angeal was opening his mouth to say something.
“Oh, why?” It took Sephiroth a moment to figure out what Sarah meant, long enough that Cloud reluctantly left the window and let Sarah tug him along. She toddled back over to Sephiroth.
Sephiroth had been seventeen when he returned home from Wutai the first time to discover he’d been moved out of the labs and into this apartment, as befitted his new rank as a SOLDIER First. Like Sarah, he’d thought it another cell and his confinement self-induced. It wasn’t until Angeal and Genesis moved in across the hallway three months later that Sephiroth even began to realize the newfound freedom he had. So he shared what Genesis had told him when he realized that Sephiroth saw his home as a prison. “There’s no lock on the door.” He said. “With your mother you can go anywhere you please. No one’s going to stop you. An apartment is a home.”
Sarah opened her mouth to say something before deciding not to and closing it again. Still clinging to Cloud she held out her free hand to Sephiroth, who took it after staring at it for a moment. She was so small, her hands and her tiny little fingers wrapped easily around his index finger. This little girl was fragile and Sephiroth suddenly realized that she was his. He’d always belonged to other people – to Hojo, to the President, to Angeal and Genesis – but Sarah belonged to him and he would do anything to keep her safe.
Realizing he was staring only when Angeal cleared his throat, Sephiroth mentally shook himself free of his thoughts and ignored Cloud’s openly curious gaze. “Let me show you your bedroom.” He said, and led the way to the short hallway past the kitchen where three doors converged on the same spot. To the left, behind the kitchen, was Sarah’s new room, Sephiroth’s horrendously underused guest bedroom. The bed had been dismantled and removed, and the room changed into a sort of nursery/children’s playroom. There was a trundle bed against the far wall and a crib for when the baby came. Next to the window was a rocking chair and changing table, all in sleek black with white accents to fit Sephiroth’s décor. The bedsheets at least, were a pale pastel purple and there were several stuffed animals on the bed, adding color to the colorless room.
Sarah let go of her parents and wandered around the room, touching everything and opening doors and drawers before finally climbing up on the bed and holding up one of the stuffed animals, a white creature with a round red nose, purple wings, and puff ball over its head. “What’s this?” She asked, holding up the toy for them to see.
Cloud smiled at it and sat down on the bed next to Sarah, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as he gently took the toy from her and used it to bop her on the nose. Sarah giggled and grabbed one of the other toys – a yellow chocobo wearing the uniform of a SOLDIER First. Angeal had followed them into the bedroom so Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at him in question. Where on the Planet did he find that thing? Angeal looked vaguely smug in return.
When he looked back over at Sarah and Cloud, Sarah was piling all her toys in Cloud’s lap. The teenager had slipped out of his shoes and was sitting cross leg on the bed, the white doll with the red nose cradled in his arms. Curiously, Sephiroth asked her, “Is there any particular reason you’re doing that?” He asked, gesturing to the toys. Was this something normal for a child or was there a problem?
Sarah nodded. “So the bad doctor doesn’t take them away.” She said. “Mama has to hide them because my hiding places suck.”
Sephiroth knelt down next to the bed so he was face to face with Sarah, ignoring the way Cloud flinched away from him and scooted closer to the wall. “Sarah, nobody is going to take your toys away.” Sephiroth said seriously. “This is your home.”
Sarah ignored him in favor of adding to her growing pile. “One time someone told the doctor that they’d take his toys away from him an’ he meant Mama and me.” Then she looked at Sephiroth and asked. “Did you take us away from the doctor? Does that make us your toys?”
Sephiroth heard Cloud’s sharp intake of breath and once again cursed Hojo for stealing Cloud’s voice from him, if only because Cloud couldn’t possibly explain to his daughter what was happening around her. “No Sarah.” Sephiroth said, glancing back at Angeal for some assistance. Angeal shrugged and motioned for Sephiroth to answer the question. Useless. “You’re a girl, a human, and human beings aren’t toys.” Never mind that, if Sephiroth were being honest, Sarah was only partially human in much the same way that Sephiroth himself wasn’t quite human either. Still, the little girl didn’t need to know that yet. It would only give her a complex.
Still, he didn’t know how to explain things any better than that. It was a weak excuse and he knew it, but on the other hand he knew from Angeal and Genesis’s patience and friendship that whether he was human or not did not matter in the end, he still deserved to be treated with respect and dignity.
(He believed, wholeheartedly, that Sarah deserved that, but sometimes it took more convincing to believe in that for himself.)
Sephiroth shook himself from his thoughts when he noticed Sarah and Cloud watching him. Cloud with a measured sort of caution, and Sarah with open confusion. “Will the doctor come back?” She asked. “I don’t want him to take me away again! You hafta not let him.”
“I will.” Sephiroth assured her easily. “Professor Hojo is dead. That means he won’t take you away, but I won’t let anyone take you away from me, and nobody will take anything away from you.”
With the wariness of a child who’d been lied to before but still wanted to believe in the best of people, Sarah nodded and grabbed one of her toys out of Cloud’s lap, a cactaur doll, and set it back on the bed beside her. The rest of the toys followed, except for the chocobo, which she clung to with one hand as she slipped off the bed and grabbed Cloud, pulling him after her. Sephiroth stepped away to give them space and looked at Angeal, seeing the man watching the three of them from the doorway.
“What do you say to something like that?” Sephiroth asked Angeal, leading him into the hall to give Cloud and Sarah space. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two of them were kneeling by the bed, and watched as both the doll Cloud was holding and Sarah’s chocobo were sequestered away in the space between the headboard and the wall.
“They’ve both been through a lot.” Angeal pointed out. “They won’t heal in a day. Do you remember what it was like when you were sent to Wutai that first time?”
Sephiroth did. He’d been fifteen and overwhelmed by the outside world, the chaos of it all without the careful rules and boundaries he’d grown around. He’d been briefed, though, on what to expect and the military had offered the same structure and hierarchy as the labs, the familiarity of it all a guide through the chaos of the rest. Even then, he’d known that the rest of the world didn’t operate the way his tiny, isolated world did, so he’d known not to approach it the same way. Sarah didn’t know any better. “I was much better prepared for the world than Sarah is.” He pointed out.
Angeal nodded. “Perhaps, but you were still thrown into a life you’d never experienced and told to make do. I remember having to drag you out of your apartment to do recreational things that didn’t involve slaughtering helpless monsters. Your job as her father is to guide her through the confusion and introduce her to the world so that she doesn’t grow up to be completely lost in it.”
The like you hung silent in the air between them.
“I want her.” Sephiroth admitted quietly. “Given the choice, I’d never choose to have children of my own, but since she exists I want to take care of her.”
“But?” Angeal prompted.
“Perhaps she’s better off with someone who can give her a normal childhood. Someone who had a normal childhood.”
Angeal didn’t respond immediately, looking pensive as he regarded Sephiroth. “It’s not normalcy that children need. It’s stability and love, both of which you can provide. There’s no instruction manual for raising children, and no right or wrong way to do it. Well, there’s Hojo’s method, of course, which you already know is a terrible way to raise a child so there you go. You’re already doing better than your own father.”
Well, there was that at least. If nothing else Sephiroth knew what not to do.
*~*~*
It was an exhausting day and long before dinner Cloud was ready to go back to bed. Instead he marveled at the apartment he and Sarah had found themselves in. It was two bedrooms and spacious enough to fit all of Cloud’s house inside it, certainly much larger than the tiny cell he and Sarah had occupied for years. Sarah’s room was too somber for a child but Cloud knew they could change that. Soon enough she’d be stringing toys from one end to the other and her artwork would decorate the walls. The thought made Cloud feel warm inside, a fluttering feeling in his stomach that he knew wasn’t just the baby kicking.
After listening to Sephiroth’s admittedly weak reassurances to Sarah, Cloud had privately rolled his eyes at the man, knowing that as much as Sarah wanted to trust her father she wouldn’t feel safe for a long time to come. So he’d done what he could to reassure her by helping her hide the moogle and the chocobo behind the bed, but left the rest of the toys in plain sight on the bed. Maybe if she saw that the rest of her toys weren’t going to go missing she’d believe she didn’t have to hide her belongings, but Cloud wasn’t going to leave her with that fear and half-hearted reassurances.
He could hear Angeal and Sephiroth talking in the hallway, but their voices were low enough he couldn’t make out the words. Instead Cloud busied himself by playing with Sarah, who was making up stories about her stuffed toys, giving them names in lieu of knowing what they were. The cactaur became Mr. Green while the Nibel Wolf was Fuzzbutt. The touch-me frog got the most attention, because Sarah at least recognized that while the Tonberry (complete with felt knife) was immediately chucked into the corner between the dresser and the bed. Knives and Sarah did not get along, and Cloud cursed whoever had thought giving a toy Tonberry to a traumatized child was a good idea. Then, at the realization that it was probably either Angeal or Zack, he let go of some of that irritation. They were trying their best and they’d done so much for the two of them already.
An hour or so later Cloud set Sarah down for a nap, tucking the Nibel Wolf and touch-me frog in beside her before turning out the lights and leaving her be. Angeal was nowhere to be found but Sephiroth was in the kitchen chopping vegetables. The smell of spices and cooking rice filled the apartment. After bland hospital food and whatever the professor had deigned to consider food, the smell of real food made Cloud’s mouth water.
Sephiroth glanced up at him and Cloud was surprised at how… normal… the man seemed. Maybe that wasn’t the right word, but it was strange to consider his childhood hero in this light. He’d changed clothes while Cloud was playing with Sarah. Instead of his uniform he was wearing black denim and a long sleeved dark blue shirt. His silver hair was tied up in a high ponytail, bangs still framing his face. Sarah’s hair was wild and curly like her grandmother’s, but she had Sephiroth’s narrow face and aquiline features. Cloud had always seen Sephiroth as someone untouchable, someone who didn’t actually exist outside of the public perception.
“Is there something you need?” Sephiroth asked, the picture of the gracious host. Cloud shook his head. Sephiroth set aside the knife and moved to the dining room table, Cloud following after. He picked up a small whiteboard from the table and handed it to Cloud, along with a satchel of markers. “Angeal left these for you. The Turks are working on finding a sign language teacher for us and a tutor for Sarah, but in the meantime he said this is how you’ve been communicating.”
Cloud accepted the gifts with a nod as Sephiroth returned to what he’d been doing. There was a barstool at the island which Cloud slid into so he could watch Sephiroth work. In careful letters he wrote; What does Sarah need a tutor for? He slid the whiteboard across the counter and waited for Sephiroth to look up long enough to read it.
“The psychologist that evaluated Sarah is concerned that she hasn’t hit her developmental milestones yet.” Sephiroth explained simply. “It would be good for her to catch up to children her own age.” He paused and went back to chopping and Cloud began writing his next question down before Sephiroth added. “I missed most of mine too. The professor was not happy to learn that children do not, in fact, learn to read on their own. It seems he never did quite figure that one out.” He smiled at Cloud, a tiny upturn of his mouth that belayed a dry, almost morbid sense of humor, and Cloud found himself smiling back.
Cloud erased his question. Thank you. He wrote instead.
“For what?” Sephiroth asked.
For letting me stay. For not taking Sarah from me.
“I very much doubt you’d let anyone take Sarah from you.” Sephiroth pointed out. “I don’t want to let her go, but I don’t want to take her from you. I’m hoping we can work something out.”
Joint custody of a child neither of us wanted? Cloud wrote, tamping down his annoyance. Sephiroth hadn’t been there, hadn’t carried her in his body for nine months and given birth to her, hadn’t raised her and feared she’d never learn to speak, only to be dismayed when he wasn’t there for her first words, had instead been writhing through another one of those awful heats on a cold steel operating table. Sephiroth hadn’t loved her from the moment she was born and Cloud held her for the first time several days later. And yet, he still somehow felt he was entitled to Sarah. Why? Because he was her sperm donor and everyone around him kept insisting that made him a father?
It wasn’t fair but Cloud didn’t care about fairness. He was free of the labs and the professor but he was still being jerked around by everyone around him. He couldn’t be Cloud Strife any longer because then ShinRa would have to admit they’d kidnapped him and Sarah couldn’t be Sarah Strife because then they’d have to admit that they’d kidnapped him and impregnated him at thirteen. Cloud didn’t care about the PR disaster any of that would cause, the outrage that would no doubt be short lived and easily forgotten.
Sephiroth didn’t deserve Sarah or the baby, but he was going to get both of them either way because the world seemed to have conspired against Cloud and all Cloud could do was deal with it.
At that realization Cloud found himself blinking back tears. It’s just hormones, you nitwit. He yelled at himself internally, abandoning the white board and stalking off to the living room to curl up in the corner of the couch, knees pulled to his chest and face buried in his arms. Planet, it wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair at all. The whole planet had been conspiring against him ever since he’d presented and it felt like and this was just the latest insult in a long stream.
He wasn’t sure how long he spent sulking on the couch sniffling back tears. Long enough that he gave up trying to rationalize his feelings. He was being dramatic. Maybe he’d feel better in the morning. He was watching the rain fall against the window panes through bleary eyes when he heard the crash of a slamming door and startled. It came from outside the apartment but not by far, close enough that when Cloud spun around to look back towards the entrance to the apartment, Sephiroth was moving to open the door. Cloud’s instincts told him to get away from the source of the noise, so he debated between moving from the relative safety of the couch and going back to Sarah’s room and locking the door. A door would stop precisely no one from getting in the room, but it would make him feel better.
He was still in the middle of that debate when Sephiroth opened up the door just in time for an unfamiliar voice to say, “Don’t walk away from me!”
By the lack of response and the ding of the elevator down the hall, it sounded like whoever was being spoken to didn’t listen.
Sephiroth said, “Another fight? What happened this time.”
“He’s supposed to be happy, not angry!”
“You told him about the baby?” Sephiroth asked. He took a step back into the apartment, allowing a man in a red leather jacket to step past him. He was only a little taller than Cloud with fire red hair cropped around his shoulders but he carried himself like an alpha in his own territory. He scowled at Cloud and Cloud quickly ducked back onto the couch, hiding from him.
“Yes, I told him about the baby. He was supposed to be happy but, my friend, the fates are indeed cruel. He said something about needing air and stormed off.” The red-haired man said. They came around the corner of the couch into the living area where Cloud was curled up and Cloud debated again whether to make a break for Sarah’s room and leave these two alpha SOLDIERs to talk. Instead he stayed where he was as Sephiroth sat down next to him, giving him enough room to remain in his curled position. The redhead sat down across from them on one of the two chairs. “He was so upset about the last child. I thought for sure this would make him happy.”
Sephiroth nodded. “It may be that he is happy. Angeal is… stoic.”
The redhead rolled his eyes, mako blue of course. “Compared to you? You’re right that he’s not very expressive but he usually talks to me. He’s the rock in our relationship. I expected him to be delighted, to jump for joy… not to storm off in a huff.”
Something about this conversation wasn’t making sense. Angeal had mentioned he had a mate once or twice and of course Cloud had assumed from the “he” pronouns that Angeal’s mate was an omega. Of course, omegas couldn’t join SOLDIER – it wasn’t their place to do so, after all. So who was this SOLDIER across from him who talked about Angeal and babies in a way that made Cloud think he was more than just a friend?
Sephiroth was quiet for a few moments before he said, “I cannot fathom what Angeal is thinking, but I believe that he may be feeling overwhelmed by the news. Parenthood is… quite the surprise.”
“I know.” The other man snapped. He took a deep breath. “I found out before we were supposed to leave for Wutai. My magic was off, materia responding too strongly or too weakly when I used it, which happened the last time so I went to medical and they did the test, they also scanned me to confirm it. I won’t lie and say I didn’t think about getting rid of it. I love my career, I love SOLDIER. But I love Angeal too and everything that’s his. We were blessed by the goddess not once but twice and I thought… I thought this time it would be all right in the end. I didn’t expect this.”
Sephiroth said, “You know better than to expect absolutes from me, but I believe that it will be, as you say, all right in the end. Genesis, Angeal looks at you like the stars could come crashing down and he wouldn’t care as long as you were there.” It seemed unusually poetic, but then what did Cloud know about Sephiroth? Really knew, that is, like he knew his mother and not like he’d collected stats like trading cards. Nothing, just about, except that he wore casual clothes when he wasn’t working, really wanted Cloud’s children apparently, and that he seemed to be able to wax poetic when he wanted to, at least when it came to his friends.
On the other hand, Cloud turned his attention to the redhead, Genesis. An omega. In SOLDIER. A mated omega even. Commander Hewley’s mate and if Cloud was remembering names he’d heard once or twice, this was Genesis Rhapsodos, the primary military commander of the Wutai War. Cloud once again cursed the professor in his head for cutting into his throat like that and paralyzing his vocal cords. He wanted to ask the man in front of him if he really was the Genesis Rhapsodos, and was he really an omega?
Cloud uncurled from himself and straightened on the couch, fear forgotten as he regarded Genesis. The commander turned his attention to Cloud, noticing the shift, and even Sephiroth glanced over at Cloud. Then Genesis smiled at him, to Cloud’s surprise. “You’re looking better today, Cloud.” Cloud ducked his head shyly and Genesis turned back to Sephiroth. “I know how Angeal feels about me. Thank the Planet I’ve never doubted, no matter how much we fight, that he loves me.”
“I doubt that.” Sephiroth said and stood up. “I understand what you intend and as I said, I believe that all will work itself out. Now, I must get back to dinner. You are welcome to join us, Genesis, if only because I’m afraid I don’t know what a normal appetite is like so I may have made too much.”
He left the living room and returned to the kitchen. Cloud sat on the couch and watched Genesis. Genesis watched him back for several minutes before he said. “You need to gain weight.”
Cloud almost rolled his eyes. So the doctor had said. Repeatedly. Before trying to force nasty tasting nutritional shakes down his throat. Cloud even suspected there were a couple in the fridge in the apartment. Yes, he had a bump and a second life form to feed in his belly, and yes, he needed more food to keep that baby from being born as small and sickly as Sarah had been, but he also didn’t need everyone trying to shove food down his throat. Cloud shook his head and sighed deeply.
“Tired of everyone pointing out how tiny you are?” Genesis asked, and Cloud wondered at his perception. He nodded. “Well, you are small. Skinny, short, underweight. It’s a wonder you carried one child to term.”
From the kitchen, Sephiroth said, “Quit antagonizing him.”
Genesis huffed. “I’m concerned for him. Someone should be.”
Someone is. Cloud thought, annoyed. I am concerned for me. He didn’t need a stranger looking after him, especially an apparent omega who smelled like… nothing. Genesis didn’t have a scent about him. Oh well, Cloud didn’t care. When Sephiroth called for dinner he stalked off towards Sarah’s room to wake the girl for food. Who cared about any of them.
It was the same moody and foul temper that followed him through dinner, abated only by Sarah’s antics and frequent questions. She ate about as unenthusiastically as Cloud, at first, but upon realizing that the food was actually pretty good and not the terribly bland nutrient bars of the lab or mush the hospital called food she ate eagerly. It was a stir fry of some sort without any apparent meat in it but the vegetables were fresh and crisp and there was a sweetness to the rice. It was delicious, but Cloud couldn’t help but pick at his food, appetite gone. Sarah held up every piece of vegetable with a curious “What’s this?” and Sephiroth patiently explained carrots and peas and baby corn to the little girl.
“Is it a baby because it was born from a bigger corn?” Sarah asked, looking reluctant to eat the young offspring of a helpless vegetable.
Sephiroth looked perplexed, and that was almost enough to get a smile out of Cloud, seeing how confused the man looked when it came to Sarah. “No.” Was that a question Cloud detected in the great General’s voice? “It is merely a smaller breed of corn.”
The only thing more amusing than watching Sephiroth stumble through parenthood was watching the way that Genesis flinched every time Sarah held up a vegetable. For an omega who was due to have a child in seven and half months he sure didn’t seem to know much about them, or even particularly like them. Only the thought of Angeal’s patience with Sarah and even temper kept Cloud from despairing for that poor child.
Dinner was wrapping up. Genesis and Sephiroth had finished their food, which was quite a bit as it turned out, Cloud was still pushing around food on a half full plate, much to Sephiroth’s apparent annoyance, and Sarah’s smaller portion was gone save for a few peas that she had loudly declared “gross.” Sephiroth was clearing the table when there was a knock on the door. Genesis was the one to open it to reveal a drenched Angeal looking mildly out of breath.
Angeal wrapped his arms around his mate and pulled him close. “We’re going to have to turn the guest room into a nursery.” Angeal said.
Genesis smiled slowly and pulled away just enough to kiss Angeal. “No.” He said simply. “You’re going to have to turn the guest room into a nursery. I’m indisposed.”