Parenthood'z Nightmare

Chapter XVII - Dissolving into Memory

Laid on his back and too scared to move, afraid the searing pain would return, Sephiroth stared up at a clear blue sky.

Someone was pressed into him, and the gentle movements helped him recognise the sound and texture of grass beneath him. He guessed he was in Banora again, atop the sight-seeing hill, where he had once watched the clouds fly and found shapes in them.

"I'm sorry..." Posie wept into his neck.

"...YOU hurt me." He announced, shocked.

"I had to get to you while your guard was down."

"You definitely did that. Why?"

Her mouth twitched against his shoulder. "I'm not dead."

"Wishful thinking." He grunted.

Her hands balled into fists, gripping his shirt. "I'm not dead! I'm NOT!"

"I oversaw your post-mortem myself. No paperwork went in or out without my seeing it!" He dared to glare at her. "You said 'D.N.A tests are a wonderful thing', and trust me when I say that you were drained of blood, salvia and stripped of your hair, bone and flesh to prove that you are who you are... and that you are very much dead."

Her grip slackened. "You really think that... don't you?"

"I know it. True, when Alice appeared I thought I had it wrong, but I'd paid the morgue to keep tissue samples and after I found Alice I had hers and your cells tested to prove she's yours and it was a match. The corpse was yours, the child is yours. You are gone."

Posie laid her head back down. "I can't remember what the grass smells like." She began to weep. "The feel of the breeze, the scent of flowers... it's all faded." And then her weeping stopped, replaced with a dead realisation. "You're right. Maybe I am dead... I'm dissolving... and all that's here is my memory."

"It's my memory," Sephiroth confessed, "and it's keeping you alive within me in cruel nostalgia. ...Do you want me to let you go?"

Her eyes closed, exhausted. "I don't know..." She sighed. "It's like I'm the glitch in your brain."

"The spanner in my works."

"The virus up your nose."

He had to laugh, no matter how sad her voice was. "I'm beginning to think you're more of a security patch to keep me sane."

"Shh!" She hushed him and curled into him again. "Let me rest."

"Posie?"

"I just want to hear your heartbeat."

He reluctantly wrapped his arms around her. "You can stay here," he allowed, "you can rest here... eternally. I'll keep you company."

"Thank you."

But the light was beginning to fade and with a flutter of lashes the hill sank and Sephiroth fell onto his bed, it was that falling dream that awakens you from that deepest, most wonderful sleep with a fright. So once again, he had left the calming refuge of his dream and realised he was back in his nightmare, on his bed, with Hojo's voice looming in the background.

"He's awakening!" Hojo cried, like an odd retelling of Victor Frankenstein.

"Hojo...?" He growled and struggled to sit up. A hand pushed him back down. "Angeal?"

"You hit your head when you fell." Angeal explained. "I thought it was better to call someone in rather than send you to a hospital, it would make the news within the hour."