Chapter Text
The news of Professor Hojo’s untimely demise reached Sephiroth while he was in Wutai discussing terms of surrender. He and Genesis were on their way back to camp when a Turk – the redheaded woman, Cissnei – met them on the perimeter, carrying a missive from the President himself. Sephiroth had always hoped he’d feel something – satisfaction, perhaps – at the news of Hojo’s death but instead all he felt was regret that he hadn’t been the one to do the dead. Instead, it had been one of his other specimens, perhaps one who was balking at the confines of the science department.
“Is that all?” He asked the Turk, determined to return and change into something more comfortable before going a round with Genesis. They both were pent up and annoyed with the diplomacy of their mission, longing instead for the straight forward attitude of war. Still, peace was welcome after all they’d lost.
Cissnei shook her head. “The Turks are clearing out the science department for the new head to take his place. We’ve found some… surprising… experiments that Hojo failed to disclose to the President.”
“That in and of itself is not surprising.” Sephiroth pointed out. He swept past the woman, who trailed after him towards his tent. Genesis had already departed, seeing as he had little to no interest in Hojo’s affairs. Even after Hollander’s untimely death Angeal and Genesis had little interaction with Hojo, as content to ignore the scientist as he was them. “I fail to see how any of this involves me.”
Cissnei pulled a photograph from her back pocket and passed it to Sephiroth. A child, perhaps no more than four years of age, stared up from the photograph, solemn and stoic. Green eyes were slit pupiled beneath a halo of silver white hair. Had the date not been fairly recent, Sephiroth would have sworn he was looking at a picture of himself. Cissnei said, “She doesn’t have a name, just an ID number. Hojo’s notes about her are sparse and we’re still trying to recover all the details but there is one thing we’ve learned through a DNA test.” She paused and just when Sephiroth was about to order her to say whatever she was holding back, Cissnei said, “Congratulations, General, you have a daughter.”
For a moment there was nothing – no emotions, no outrage, no disbelief. He shouldn’t have put it past Hojo, should have known something like this would happen. How many times had Sephiroth been put under while in Hojo’s presence for the man to collect biological material from him?
“The mother?” Sephiroth asked.
Cissnei produced a second photo. This one was several years old and the child in the picture made Sephiroth want to be sick. The child was unconscious, eyes closed and golden blond hair matted and tangled around his face. There were old bruises around his neck and across pale skin, and a neat row of stitches across his neck. Sephiroth recognized the marks from a surgery Hojo was particularly fond of performing, one which Sephiroth had been saved from if only because he was destined to be a warrior and warriors needed voices. It spoke volumes about this specimen’s worth that his voice had been stolen so cruelly. He was intended to be bred and for that he didn’t need a voice.
“We don’t have a name on him either.” Cissnei said. “Male, omega, somewhere in his mid to late teens currently. Likely he was impregnated the first time during or shortly after his first heat.”
“The first time?” Sephiroth asked, not sure if he wanted the answer.
“He’s currently pregnant. Again, Hojo left little in the way of notes on him but we surmise that the child is also, likely, yours.”
Were Sephiroth a more emotional man he’d likely have snapped at Cissnei, let out his frustration by tearing up the picture. As it was he nodded to the woman and tucked both photos in his jacket pocket. “Thank you for telling me. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
The woman nodded and took off, disappearing into the shadows from which she’d emerged. Now Sephiroth really needed a go with Genesis. Hojo was dead and he was still fucking with Sephiroth’s life. Still, the course of action was obvious to him. Hojo had been a piss-poor father and Sephiroth would not trust him to have done any better raising his grandchildren. Until he’d met Angeal and Genesis, Sephiroth had assumed all families were as dysfunctional as his, but Gillian Hewley was a kind and loving woman and there was no doubt the Rhapsodos’s doted on their only son. It wasn’t ideal, and perhaps Sephiroth was not the best candidate for parenthood, but he refused to be his father. If nothing else, Sephiroth would make sure they were loved, if not by him than by someone. They would not suffer as he had.
Sephiroth was perhaps more aggressive than usual during his spar with Genesis, not that his rival minded the least, but afterwards when they’d both calmed down and sat a careful distance apart at the top of the camp watchtower, the general found himself explaining everything to his second in command. Genesis listened without his usual acerbic comments as Sephiroth explained the child and the omega, ending before he could reveal the tumultuous thoughts in his head. He didn’t need to tell Genesis that he was sure he’d be a terrible parent.
“Talk about terrible timing.” Genesis remarked. “The Goddess, though infinite in wisdom, is mysterious.” Sephiroth rolled his eyes at yet another quote from Loveless. Then, Genesis said, “I’m pregnant.”
Sephiroth squashed down the little thread of hurt in him that Genesis had waited until now to tell him – had dared to engage Sephiroth in battle when he was carrying a precious life inside of him. He could have hurt the man; how could Genesis be so reckless! Instead, Sephiroth aimed for supportive. It had to have taken a lot for the man to admit to any weakness. Genesis was on suppressants, hiding the fact that he was an omega because omegas could not be SOLDIERs. Had it not been for Hollander and Project G, Genesis would have been relegated to a life back in Banora waiting to marry and have children. SOLDIER gave him freedom Genesis craved.
“Have you told Angeal?” Sephiroth asked.
Genesis shook his head. “I just found out a few days ago. I was going to announce my retirement and my pregnancy at the same time just to see the look on everyone’s faces – I’d show them what an omega can do. With the war ending, now seems like as a good a time as any.”
Sephiroth shook his head. Typical Genesis. “So this one you’re keeping?” He hadn’t kept the last one – an accident in the middle of the war a few years back. It just wasn’t feasible. Sephiroth had needed both Angeal and Genesis on the battlefield and Genesis hadn’t wanted the child anyway.
“Yes. You may not have noticed but it broke Angeal’s heart when I gave up the last one. This one’s for him.” Genesis rolled his shoulders and looked at Sephiroth. “I’m telling you now not to usurp your own troubles but to let you know you don’t have to face this alone. I’ll keep my child if you keep yours. You never really know how precious they are until you’re making the choice to give them up.”
“I plan to keep them both, if I can.” Sephiroth replied. Then, in one of his much rarer moments of honesty he added, “Don’t retire, Genesis. Take all the time you need for your child, but we can’t afford to lose someone as talented as you in SOLDIER.”
He jumped off the watch tower so he didn’t have to hear Genesis’s reply. Knowing the man as long as Sephiroth had, he knew it would be something scathing about Sephiroth’s sentimental side.
*~*~*
Cloud woke up feeling groggy and dazed, like he normally did after one of the professor’s sessions. He tried to lift his hand to his aching head but was unsurprised to realize that his arms had been restrained to the bed. What did surprise him was that he was actually in a bed and not on a steel cold operating table. Likewise, the restraints were soft and supple, not hard manacles like he was used to, and there was a blanket covering him. He hadn’t been stripped of his shift either, and attention had been paid to his decency, something that Cloud couldn’t remember ever happening.
The room was unfamiliar – a pale cream color instead of stark white and metal gray. Sunlight filtered in through a nearby window and Cloud wondered idly when the last time he’d seen the sun was. Sometime before this nightmare began, he was sure. There was an IV in the back of his hand, and whatever they were dripping into his veins was keeping him from panicking because Cloud felt peaceful, confused and lightheaded, but not anxious.
He should be panicking. Where was Sarah? A quick glance around the room showed the little girl was nowhere in sight. They’d taken her again and each time Cloud feared it would be the last time he’d see her. The professor wouldn’t kill her – or so Cloud prayed. He mumbled that she was part of his plan to find the Promised Land since her father had been so monumental a failure at that.
Cloud didn’t know a thing about Sarah’s father. One day he’d been walking home from school after the bullies had picked on him again and the next he’d been strapped to a table writhing with the pain of his first heat, a heat he hadn’t even been able to satisfy by touching himself. No, instead the professor had inseminated him and when the heat faded Cloud had known. He was barely thirteen and pregnant.
His first pregnancy had been painful – his body may have thought it reached sexual maturity but it had not. He’d been too small and his mind hadn’t been ready for it. He’d spent so much of that first pregnancy in denial and praying he would be allowed to go home. He hadn’t even had the chance to hold Sarah after she was born. Instead she’d been ripped from him and he’d been left chained to an operating table as the professor ignored him. He’d delivered the afterbirth and passed out on that table, wanting to reach out and hold his screaming child. It’d been several days – Cloud wasn’t sure how many – before she was deposited into his arms in their cell and he could feed her for the first time.
Breastfeeding acted as a sort of natural birth control, keeping him from entering heat again. So he’d breastfed for as long as he possibly could before the professor realized what he was doing and took Sarah away again. Sure enough, within a few weeks he reentered heat and the professor had inseminated him again. That child had not made it to term and Cloud couldn’t help but blame himself for that. If only he’d been stronger, a better omega, he wouldn’t have lost the child. The professor waited a year after that, though Cloud hadn’t known why. He still spent every heat chained to a cold steel table unable to relieve the pain in his body. In that haze of pain and fever he’d been unable to tell what happened to his body, but then he’d woken up pregnant again.
As much as Cloud hated his circumstances and wouldn’t wish poor Sarah’s circumstances on anyone, he still prayed this child would make it. Just like he prayed someone, anyone, would come rescue him. Fat chance of that. He’d already been the pariah of Nibelheim, and then he’d presented as an omega. No one cared what happened to omegas, especially willful, headstrong ones like Cloud. Hopefully his mother had found some closure, able to move on after the disappearance of her only son.
The door on the far side of the room slid open and a doctor – not the professor – stepped into the room. She was an older woman with graying hair and the unmistakable scent of alpha on her. Cloud found himself shrinking back against the bed, wishing he could bring his arms up to protect his vulnerable belly. Strangers in close proximity to him always seemed to spell trouble, and there was still no sign of Sarah.
The alpha approached the bedside and wrote down Cloud’s vitals on her clipboard before turning to Cloud with a soft smile – the genuine kind, not the professor’s unnervingly creepy one. “Good morning. You’ve been asleep for just over thirteen hours. Do you remember anything that happened before we knocked you out?” Cloud shook his head. The doctor reached out to smooth Cloud’s hair from his brow and he flinched away. Alpha or beta, he didn’t want anyone touching him. “We were clearing out the science department when we found you in one of the containment units. You were exhibiting high levels of stress so we decided to knock you out before extraction. Your daughter was quite distressed to see her mama in such a state, but she’ll be pleased to know you’re awake again. I’ll have the SOLDIERs bring her over once my exam in finished.”
Sarah was safe? Oh thank the planet! Cloud didn’t really know whether to believe they’d actually let him see her, but as long as she was safe then he’d cooperate in hopes of seeing her again. The doctor pulled back the covers on the bed and very gently pressed her hands against Cloud’s swollen belly. The child hadn’t been terribly active lately, something that worried Cloud, but the doctor just smiled as if sensing Cloud’s fears and said, “We did an ultrasound while you were asleep. Seems you’re going to have a healthy baby girl. You’re going to have your hands full with two girls around.”
A girl – another one. Cloud blinked back tears. He wouldn’t be allowed to name this one, probably, just like he hadn’t been allowed to name Sarah, but in his mind he thought about what he wanted to call her. Sarah was his mother’s name. So maybe Jane? That was Tifa’s mother’s name. He didn’t have to decide today. He was just happy knowing more about the precious life in his belly.
“All right, everything feels good.” The doctor said, recovering Cloud. “Now, I’m going to release the restraints on your arms and legs. Promise me you aren’t going to try anything. I don’t want you to stand up or get out of bed, and if you attack me then the SOLDIERs out in the hall are going to come in and restrain you to the bed and I’m going to put a feeding tube down your throat. If you behave and do what I say we can give you food to eat. Promise me?”
Cloud nodded. He wasn’t going to fight anyway. He couldn’t escape and she was promising him more freedom than he normally got when he was outside his cell. She made quick work of his restraints and even helped him move so that he was propped up on the bed, extra pillows under his back for support. Then she walked back to the door, opening it to speak to someone in the hallway and a man – alpha – stepped into the room, Sarah cradled in his arms with her thumb in her mouth as she stared wide eyed over her shoulder at Cloud.
For a second Cloud panicked. If the professor saw Sarah with her thumb in her mouth he’d be displeased and possibly take it out on her. Cloud reached out for her and the man stepped over towards his bed, smiling gently at him. “Who’s this?” The man asked Sarah, bouncing her gently. Cloud wanted to cry, the alpha was holding Sarah like she was any child, smiling at her indulgently like Cloud had so often wished for her. He was tall and broad shouldered with chin length black hair and warm eyes, dressed in a black uniform that Cloud knew was associated with SOLDIER Firsts.
Sarah stared at Cloud solemnly for a moment. She was such a quiet child that Cloud didn’t expect her to say anything at all. Then she removed her thumb from her mouth and said, quite clearly, “It’s my mama.”
Tears overflowed. Cloud would blame it on hormones from his pregnancy making him emotional, but he knew the truth was it felt like witnessing a miracle. The professor always called Cloud by his specimen name, or stupid omega, or worse yet, Breeder. Sarah’s language was stunted but she had learned from the professor how to address Cloud. It hurt, having your own child call you Breeder when you couldn’t say anything to correct the language. She didn’t know it was wrong – she thought that was how you called your mother – but Cloud had never been able to tell her differently. The professor had encouraged Sarah’s behavior, drawing a divide between mother and child, a divide that Cloud could feel closing as the SOLDIER set Sarah on the edge of the bed and the little girl crawled up into Cloud’s waiting arms.
“’Geal said I should call you mama and make you happy.” Sarah was saying with a scowl at the SOLDIER. “He was lying.”
Cloud shook his head and kissed Sarah’s cheeks, trying to brush back tears so Sarah wouldn’t get the wrong idea. Cloud was so happy, so deliriously happy that they could take him back to the professor and he’d still be happy for at least a week.
The SOLDIER said, “Your mother is happy, little one. Sometimes people become so happy they cry.”
Sometime during the exchange the doctor had left the room, because when Cloud looked up from where he was holding Sarah tight against his chest he could see the SOLDIER had taken a seat and the doctor was nowhere to be seen. Cloud didn’t care so long as he could keep holding Sarah. He glanced over at the SOLDIER and managed a small, watery smile.
The SOLDIER smiled back at him, dark eyes soft as he regarded Cloud and Sarah. He held out his hand for Cloud to take, surprising Cloud. That was something people did with equals, and there was nothing equal between a SOLDIER First and a worthless omega like Cloud. Still, he took the hand and if his handshake was a little weak the SOLDIER didn’t comment on it. “My name’s Angeal Hewley. I was asked to handle your case on behalf of Tseng of the Turks and General Sephiroth. Sephiroth is in Wutai right now negotiating a treaty but he’ll be returning within the week. He’s looking forward to meeting you.”
Sephiroth? The General Sephiroth? Cloud had idolized the man as a child – looked up to him before he’d presented back when Cloud was so sure he had to be an alpha or a beta, because he was too willful to be an omega. Cloud stared at Angeal in disbelief. There was no way Sephiroth was looking forward to meeting a nobody like him.
Angeal chuckled, clearly reading the disbelief in Cloud’s expression. “Hojo didn’t make many notes on you, just enough for us to know your kidnapping and impregnation were done without the President’s consent or knowledge. We’d have never found you had the Turks not insisted on a thorough sweep of the science department. We have no information on you, no idea where you come from or if you have family to return home to. The Turks are cooking up the official story as we speak, but it sounds like they’re going with a traditionalist angle – not too uncommon even in Midgar for omegas as young as you to be sold off into marriage. Your older daughter’s story will be that she’s adopted, the result of an affair and youthful indiscretion. The younger one’s yours though. We don’t know how old you are but we can pass you off for being of legal age if you don’t remember. Consensual romance, loving father, happy union if you want it. Or if you want your life back we can pass you off as having died in childbirth – grieve for a while and then set you up with a new identity wherever you want. Sephiroth wants the children so they’re going to have a good life no matter what you choose.”
It was too much. Cloud shrank back against the pillows, holding Sarah against his chest even as he shook his head vehemently. Too long he’d been afraid of losing her – he wasn’t going to give her up without a fight, even if (oh planet) he had to fight General Sephiroth for his daughters. The Demon of Wutai was the father? How could Cloud have been so blind? He could see it in Sarah’s green eyes and pale hair – features she most assuredly did not get from the Strife side of the family.
Angeal raised his hands, placating. “All right, stay calm. Nobody is going to take your children away from you. Hojo is dead and Sephiroth has laid claim to you. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again.”
Cloud stared at him, wishing he could believe that. There was something about Angeal’s openness, his honesty, that made Cloud want to believe everything would be all right. But how in the world could anything be right anymore? He’d lost too much along the way.