Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Sephiroth the Man: an interview with an aide. ❯ Finding my Heart. ( Chapter 5 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

The next morning I half woke to hear voices at the entrance of my tent, a stranger?..speaking with Sephiroth..about me!..I lay there, on the edge of sleep, unable to rouse myself enough to wake fully, listening with the distant awareness of a sleepwalker. "What symptoms other than sweating, weakness, nausea and dizziness did she show sir?" the vaguely familiar deep voice asked. "She was shaking uncontrollably, and seemed disoriented, combative, and ...confused later..." Sephiroth said, the scowl obvious in his voice. "Confused sir?" "She acted in a very inappropriate fashion before I cast sleep on her." he growled. "How so?...Ohhh!..nevermind sir, I understand completely. It is a transitory effect of the poison..In all probability she didn't know what she was doing, and in any case certainly couldn't control it. Our analysis of the materia fragment you extracted show that it causes the victim to go slowly berserk..in other words it weakens impulse control to the point of nonexistence over time. It appears to have been intended to run it's course over a 12 hour period. It also slows coagulation of the blood so that when it takes full effect, the increased heart rate pumps it out faster. In lower doses, and over shorter periods of time, the effects are...less serious, and in at least one case last night, quite amusing...you know straight-laced old colonel Cole?..well he got nicked, and an hour later grabbed one of the umm...lady auxiliaries and drug her off into the bushes...As the resulting noises showed that the lady in question was not at all adverse, non-interference till things were, ahem, settled seemed the course of wisdom." he said. Oh, It's Dr.Ornari, I thought absently..he had such a very nice sounding voice..Gods he's so handsome! I could sleep easy with that voice in my ears...I thought distantly, still not quite awake. "Hmmph, what an awful image!...I trust that the esuna and antidote cleared it out of her system." the general said disapproval plain in his voice..I'd have been embarrassed if I had been fully awake. "Yes sir...Though it does take an hour or two for an antidote to be fully effective with it...hey! Maybe the berserker effect was why she was fighting so fiercely yesterday! She was....magnificent, sir, absolutely heroic to the other clerks and medics. She near single handedly kept the enemy from taking the medical tent or the command tent...A veritable battle goddess!" Dr. Ornari said, awe apparent in his voice. I really am dreaming..I thought as I heard the tent flap rustle.

"Hmm..Wait here" I heard the general say. "Major, wake up." he said, and I felt a weight settle on the edge of the cot, and a tug on the toes of my right foot..the standard signal for swift waking...With a SOLDIER's reflexes, you don't want to wake them in any way other than one of the signals. Swift waking meant that you were needed fully alert, but didn't need to be quiet about it, silent waking meant awake and totally quiet, and was for when an enemy might be close enough to hear you, and for a watch meant just that, quiet for courtesy, but not silent. Unless you want a fully combat ready and annoyed SOLDIER, calling them by their first name is the most sensible way, and is the signal for normal waking...In my case that was a fairly long process, so he used the signal to wake me faster. I gasped, abruptly fully awake and tried right away to sit up, only to meet the bar of the general's other arm restraining me. "Stitches, remember?...be careful how you sit up." he said. "You've met doctor Ornari..he is here to see to your wound now...I expect you will be fit for light duty some time this evening. I will need you to prepare requisitions for transmission then." he said as he walked out past the medic, "In the meantime, get some fresh air, clear your head."

The doctor really is as handsome in body as he is of voice, long dark hair with a few threads of premature silver at the temples, warm, dark amber eyes, tall, a little on the thin side, but strong, high cheekbones, a strong jaw line, and a chin just a tad more squared off than the general's, sensuous lips...And I was captivated by him the moment I saw him. He was part of the medical corps. Sephiroth had noticed me staring at him when he came to deliver the medical requisitions several days earlier; he'd even twitted me a bit about getting distracted.."A remarkable man, Dr Ornari. I've heard that he is a truly talented and dedicated healer..It's almost a shame he isn't actually a part of our unit." I remembered the General saying. Not part of our unit chain of command..that meant he wasn't off limits...I almost suspected the general of matchmaking! Maybe he was...I will say that it wasn't easy to be around someone as attractive as Sephiroth was and not react to it, even if I did love him as I would a kinsman. Perhaps he took pity on me.


The doctor maintained a pleasant balance between professionalism and banter as he worked at gently peeling back the bandage. "You're lucky your General is so well trained in first aid, and that he recognized the initial symptoms of this poison...you would have been at best dead by now." he said as he gently pressed at my ribs, and cast a medic's sense spell...I sensed his attraction to me, and was hard pressed to contain mine for him. "Let me know if this hurts at any time..By the way major, I'm Jairedh. he said. "Ana'eledore ..but for planet's sake call me Ana'e!" "Very well, and you can call me Jair."he said politely."What do you mean at best?" I asked. "If you hadn't been treated, you would have become a danger to friend as much as to foe..the poison causes you to go berserk and interferes with your ability to recognize friend and foe, but it is fortunately slow acting..It also erodes your impulse control, making you act irrationally...I've had to remand several patients to the psychs today because they'd killed buddies under the influence. To top things off, it causes a flood of certain hormones to be released as a side effect." he said, and understanding dawned on me. "So that's why I..." " What? he said. "Why you what?" "I, I, felt so, acted so, so,...why I,I made an improper advance at the general last night!" I confessed while alternately blanching and blushing brightly. "Yes, especially in combination with the post battle impulse to..reproduce, and the fact that he was the only nearby male." he said with a devilish flicker in his eye. "Damned embarrassing poison..especially as I don't feel that way about the general at all..he's more like an elder brother to me."I grumbled, absolutely mortified at the memory.

"Don't think you were the only one behaving out of character!..Shall I tell you about old Cole and his battle axe?" he said with that utterly charming twinkle in his eye. "Hmm!, you'd better!" I said archly..'damn he's sexy!!' was the gist of my thoughts, such as they were. "You wouldn't want me to perish of curiosity would you?" I said, and I really was curious, because old Cole was notorious for his exclusive preference of certain types of his own sex. He laughed at that and said "Just a minute, let me cast this.. I felt a sudden sensation of tingling heat as he released the cure spell at me.."Whew..that's better!" I said. "If I may be so bold to ask, why didn't you get this treated last night?" he said. "I thought it was just a scratch Dr. Ornari..Jair.. you guys had enough to do over there trying to save lives without me whining about a little damned scratch..and I didn't know about the poison." I said, being completely honest..I'd sensed the complete exhaustion of all the medics, as some of them used spells to exchange health for magic energy..Dr. Ornari had saved many lives by doing just that..he'd drained himself to the point of near unconsciousness, trying to save just one more.. "Very kind of you..though I am sure we could have spared at least an antidote for the poison."

"Huh..so what's this about old Cole?" He proceeded to give me a blow by blow descripition of the Colonel's misdeed. By the end of the tale I was giggling hysterically at the images he was giving me. "Hold still another moment." he said running his hand along the already fading scar pressing gently and removing the stitches as he went. I winced as he found a particularly sensitive spot. "That hurt?" he said frowning. "The blade hit the bone, doctor...there are bound to be a few sensitive spots." I said dryly. "It shouldn't still be hurting..unless there was some kind of secondary trauma after the original cut. Did you get hit, hard enough to bruise after the initial battle?" I thought about it for a moment, then remembered.."No..but...the general did have to put some..pressure on me to get me to let go of him.." I said blushing. "The pain must have been excruciating!..that's verging on abuse" he said his jaw tightening...He told me later a few of the kinds of abuse he'd run across among the other aides and pages. The general did have this reputation for being absolutely brutal on the battlefield...If I'd seen the abuses that Jair had seen, I would have jumped to the wrong conclusion too. "It was probably accidental as he pushed me away, and yes, it hurt a bit.. But I think he was being as careful as possible...At that I think I got off lightly..he could have pressed charges of attempted assault on a superior officer on me..besides, it's possible that in the ummm.. state.. I was in, nothing else would have gotten through." I said wryly, and it suddenly hit me what kind of position it would have put him in if he had allowed me to continue..headquarters took a dim view of officers who took advantage of their aides..and any fraternization would have been his responsibility because he was of higher rank...I remembered again what he'd bluntly told the trainees sometime ago. "Your fellow SOLDIERs are your family, they are your brothers and sisters... Anyone within your chain of command, whether they give you orders or you accept theirs, is your sibling, and you don't engage in sexual behavior with your brothers or sisters.." Fraternization within the army was discouraged, but things will still happen when you have men and women crammed together in camps and barracks. The rules were there to make sure that they wouldn't happen within the unit, or where there was a potential for abuse...Nevertheless, the system occasionally failed.

"I hope you aren't implying that he would have accepted my importunate advances! He could have let me go on, taken advantage of me without any regard to the shape I was in, and eliminated me with no one the wiser...I'd have been just another casualty of the war." I said.."But he didn't, because he has honor...The only reason he may have struck to cause pain is he knows my reflexes, he ought to know them because he trained most of them into me...and there was literally no other way to get my attention at that point. He insisted on checking to make sure he hadn't torn any of my stitches afterwards, before he half carried me into my own tent, and even partly tucked me in, fully clothed I might add, before casting a sleep spell on me to make sure I rested..I think he has always had my best interests at heart." I said vehemently. "Whoa there!..no need to get defensive!" he said. "Sorry Dr. Ornari. I said, but I've gotten used to hearing all kinds of wild stories about general Sephiroth..and he has never treated me or anyone else under his command with any force greater than necessary to their training and well being." I said firmly, not mentioning the little interrogation earlier. "Well..if you're sure.."I'm sure!" I said. "Then I will at least help quash the latest round of rumors..you were supposed to be jumping each other's bones last night..you were alone for almost three full hours..I can say with certainty that you were in no shape for anything untoward, as you were severely poisoned by a fragment of enemy materia lodged in your wound...and as to the remaining tenderness.." a wave of heat washed over me again, and the last of the pain disappeared. Heh..it was HIS bones I wanted to jump, not the general's...Had been since I first met him.

"There, good as new!..And now that you are no longer my patient, would you like to take a walk, get some of that fresh air you were ordered to get?..I have no more patients today, and would appreciate the company." he said with a hint of shyness, but his eyes were alight. "Sure!" I said as his attraction, and the fact that his hand was still resting on my ribs got through to the part of my brain that adds up such things..and damn but he's so hot!.."Maybe we can swing by the bathhouse, and you can give me a hand washing my back?" I said not at all coyly. "Oh, I think we can manage that." he said with a wicked grin, and finally, watching my reaction, he slowly ran his hand the few inches up that I had been wishing for what seemed hours he would. I leaned forward into his touch, to his surprise, and he stopped, startled for a moment. "What's the matter..Cat got your tongue?" I said saucily, and tilted my head at him in challenge. He leaned in and proved that his tongue was completely free with a very satisfying kiss as he slid his hand under my bra. I heard voices outside the tent, and abruptly became self concious. 'Uh, this way!" I said, and dragged him off into a private little clearing in the woods, where we could make all the noise we wanted...and oh planet did we ever make noise! We did end up at the bathhouse..eventually. It was in all a very satisfying day, one that was long overdue.

Oh my, too much information for you Mr. Zuri?..If your face gets any redder, people will mistake it for a tomato! Very well, I'll take pity on whoever's going to read this...As it turned out, Jair actually had security clearance equal to my own, which meant I had someone that it was okay to talk to about work if I wanted. We talked for hours, later...He'd noticed the internal scar tissue from my childhood, though he was so gentle that I hadn't, and I explained about it, the gory details of my past, and he told me some of the abuses he'd seen, young men and women raped and twisted into believing it was their fault, and of those who'd died under his hands the day before. I think I was the first person he could tell without worrying whether they'd understand, and keep it in confidence. We would continue dating on our days off, all through the war..which lasted several years, and beyond. I think that I was as much a haven for him as he for me. I was definitely falling for him, and I sensed the same from him. It was somehow safe for us to fall for each other because neither of us was in the thick of the fighting, and after the one incident the general set guards to prevent it from happening again, so we didn't see much more combat...We weren't going to lose each other. He turned out to be my lifesaver later. I don't believe we would have ever met outside of work had general Sephiroth not insisted on having the best treatment for me...Something he needn't have done at all...I would have been fit for duty with a simple potion.