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The Path to Redemption	By : Nakkinomiko Category: Final Fantasy VII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1095 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don’t own Final Fantasy VII or any of its characters. SquareEnix does. I make no money from this…I just like to play with them.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
Disclaimer: I don’t own Final Fantasy VII or any of its characters. SquareEnix does. I make no money from this…I just like to play with them.
A/N: Warnings for this chapter: um, none that won’t ruin this chapter for you. Muci, in regards to your question, you’ll have to wait and see! Kayla, sounds like you’re recovering from that cold/flu thing that’s going around, too. Hope you feel better soon. Thanks for your review! I’m so happy you’re enjoying the story!!
*****
Chapter 18
It was nearly midnight when Maggie arrived home. She had stayed with Sephiroth until he had drifted to sleep, and even then, it had been hard to leave him. The necessity for sleep had finally driven her home. Her next shift started in seven hours, and Maggie knew she’d be next to worthless if she did not get at least five hours of sleep.
She keyed open the door to her apartment and headed straight for the kitchen. She snicked the light on and unceremoniously dumped her purse on the small table before turning to check the messages on her machine. The first was from a phone solicitor wanting to sell her the latest and greatest in satellite TV. The second was from her mother, wanting to know why it was she and Daniel had not set a date for the wedding yet.
“Because he’s a lying, cheating bastard, that’s why,” Maggie replied as she deleted the message and forwarded to the third. She’d call her mother tomorrow.
“Hi, Maggie.” Daniel’s voice greeted from the answering machine.
“And speaking of the lying, cheating bastard,” Maggie grumbled. Her finger was moving for the delete button when a sound made her stop. Daniel was crying.
“Maggie, please don’t hang up. Please just listen to what I’m going to say.”
“Why should I?” Maggie asked the recording. “Why should I trust anything you’re going to say?”
“I know I messed up, and that I don’t deserve you, but this isn’t even about that,” the recording continued. “Maggie, you’re in danger.”
Maggie felt the hair on her arms stand on end. Daniel made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a cry of pain. His breathing sounded labored, as if every breath pained him a great deal.
“Maggie, something attacked me last night, in an alley, and it infected me with something. I can feel it in my system, and I can hear her in my head. She keeps whispering, Maggie, and she won’t stop. Pretty soon she’ll take over, and I won’t be able to stop her then. She’s after that kid, the one with the silver hair and green eyes. She wants him, Maggie. She keeps saying that he’s her son and that he belongs to her . . . Ah!” Another pained noise, and Daniel was most definitely sobbing.
Maggie stared at her answering machine with growing horror. She heard more noises, these not distinguishable as anything human, but rather something out of a bad horror movie. She was reminded of a werewolf film she once saw, and the snapping noises the bones of the werewolf had made during its change.
“Maggie!” Daniel’s voice was urgent now, and the pain in his tone was almost unbearable to listen to. “Maggie, if you see me after this, run. Don’t try to talk to me, just run away. It won’t really be me, Maggie. You’ve got to believe me!” Daniel cried out again, and there was more of that sickening popping sound, and then the line suddenly went dead.
The beep at the end of the message made her start and cry out with surprise. She reached out with trembling fingers and hit the rewind button, and listened to the message again. There were tears in her own eyes when she reached the end again, and she picked up the telephone with trembling fingers. She sat at the kitchen table and started to dig through her purse until she found the business card that Rufus Shinra had given her earlier in the week. She nearly cried with relief when she found it.
She was halfway through dialing the number when a noise made her pause. She held her breath and listened. She dismissed it after a moment, thinking that it had perhaps been Reginald, her orange tabby cat. The thought made her freeze again.
Reginald hadn’t greeted her at the door. He always greeted her at the door, whether he was ill or not. And he most definitely would have that evening, since he would have been horribly hungry, with her getting home four hours later than normal. Maggie felt the hair on her arms stand up again, and quite suddenly her instincts were screaming at her to take her purse and leave. She dropped the phone on the table and stood with her purse in hand. She fished around inside and withdrew her keys at the same time she was heading for the front door. She had her hand on the door knob when a voice spoke from behind her.
“Hello, Maggie.”
Fear, real and suffocating, closed in around her. Maggie found she was unable to move at all. She swallowed hard and managed to get enough control over herself to turn the doorknob and crack the door open before she turned slightly and looked over her shoulder.
“Daniel.” She was amazed at how even her voice sounded. “What are you doing here?”
“I have a key,” Daniel said. He was standing in the living room, just beyond where the light of the kitchen reached, and she could barely make him out in the shadows. She jumped slightly as the key was tossed to the carpet at her feet. “I thought I should bring it back.”
“That was thoughtful,” Maggie said, carefully. She opened the door a little further.
“Going somewhere?”
“Out,” Maggie said. She could hear the hysteria sneaking into her voice, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t like how he wouldn’t come into the light, and there was something off in his voice. All she could think of was the hideous noises she’d heard a moment ago in that recording.
“You just got here.” His voice had gone low, and sounded menacing now. “Surely you don’t have anywhere else to be right now.”
“I’m afraid I do,” Maggie said. She opened the door a little further. “I was merely stopping to check my messages. I’ve a double shift this evening.”
“You’re lying.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed slightly. “So what if I am? You’re not Daniel!”
A low laugh emanated from the shadows, and Maggie shifted so that the partially open door was between her and the being in her living room.
“Run, if you like.” The voice was different now, more female, and hollow in timbre. “I know where you work. I know who your friends are, and I will find you, and them. I will kill you all if that is what it takes. I will have Kadaj back.”
“Over my dead body,” Maggie growled in sudden anger. She screamed as a sudden whip-like crack tore the air, and a tentacle shot out of the darkness and drove into the wall just inches from where her head was. Plaster exploded outward at the impact and showered her face and coat. The tentacle was pale green in color and coated in slime. It pulsed with life as it struggled to free itself from the wall.
“That can be arranged,” came the dark reply.
Maggie turned and ran.
*****
A soft but insistent knocking woke Rufus from his sleep. He sighed as he shifted, and then smiled. Kadaj was plastered up against his side, deep asleep and snoring softly. Another knock on the bedroom door distracted him from the warmth at his side, and he frowned as he noted that it was almost one in the morning.
“Come,” Rufus called, just loud enough to be heard.
“Boss?” Reno’s hair was bright, even in the dark.
“I trust this is important.”
“Yes, sir. You weren’t answering your cell--the failsafe paged me.” Reno said.
Rufus frowned slightly. His cell phone was state of the art, and was programmed so that if for some reason he didn’t answer his cell phone it would page whoever was on guard duty at the time. The logic being that Rufus always answered his phone, and that if he didn’t, then something must be horribly wrong. Most nights it held true, but not this particular evening.
“I’m sorry, Reno,” Rufus said. He held his hand out for the phone Reno was holding. “I completely forgot to bring it in here with me.”
Reno’s eyes flicked to the sleeping form at Rufus’ side and he smirked a bit. “I can understand why,” he said. “Actually, I kind of knew that was why, and I wouldn’t have bothered you, except that someone has called four times for you in the last ten minutes. It’s the same number, and I don’t recognize it. It has to be someone you know, though. It’s coming in on the personal line.”
And even as Reno spoke the words, Rufus’ phone began to ring again. Rufus frowned down at the display. It was a number he didn’t recognize, but Reno was right--it was on his personal line. Rufus’ frown deepened as he depressed the talk button and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Rufus Shinra.”
“Rufus!”
“Maggie?” He barely recognized her voice for she was crying hard. “Maggie, what’s wrong?”
Hysterical laughter answered his question, and then she was sobbing again. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she finally managed. “I don’t know where to go! I don’t want to go back to the hospital yet . . . she’s sure to follow me there, and I don’t think she even knows that Sephiroth is alive! It’s bad enough that she wants Kadaj . . . and oh, Gods!” Her voice broke as she sobbed again. “She’s killed Daniel!”
“Maggie, you aren’t making any sense,” Rufus said. He did his best to make his voice soothing. Something had happened, and whatever it was, it had sent the poor woman into hysterics. “Where are you?”
“In my car, driving around,” she managed. “I don’t know where to go! There’s probably nowhere safe!” Hysteria was creeping into her tone again.
“Maggie, listen to me,” Rufus said. A feeling of great unease was starting in his gut. “Do you know where Shinra headquarters is?”
There was a moment of silence, and then: “Yes, of course,” she said. She was still emitting soft, hiccupping sobs.
“Go there. Go to the elevator on the south side of the building and Reno will meet you down there and bring you up to my apartment. What are you driving?”
“Light blue sedan, plates 87D57C,” Maggie replied.
“I’ll call the guards at the gate and give them the info, they’ll let you pass without trouble,” Rufus said.
“Okay,” she said.
“Are you going to make it? Should I send Reno out after you?”
“No, I’ll make it. I’m nearly there anyway . . .” She made another sound, like she was trying to suppress a sob. “I can see the tower now. I’m . . . I’m going to let you go now . . .”
“Okay,” Rufus said. “It will be fine, Maggie. You can tell me all about it when you get up here.”
“Okay,” Maggie whispered, and then the line went dead.
Rufus called the guards at the gate and then reached over to turn the bedside lamp on.
“Boss?”
“Maggie’s coming here,” Rufus said. “Go down and bring her up. She should be there any moment. Then I want you to call Tseng and Elena and have them come here right away, and stop and get Rude on your way back up the elevator.”
“Sure thing,” Reno said. He disappeared from the room.
“Rufus?” Kadaj rolled over and blinked up at him with sleepy eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Just Shinra business,” Rufus said. “Go back to sleep. There’s no reason for both of us to lose sleep.”
“Mm. . .’k.” Kadaj’s eyes slid shut, and a moment later his breathing was deep and even again. Rufus pulled a robe on before shutting the bedside lamp off and exiting the room. He closed the door silently behind him and made his way to the kitchen. He was just switching the coffee maker on when he heard the apartment door open and the sound of Maggie softly crying.
“Here she is, boss,” Reno said as he escorted her into the kitchen. She was all but clinging to Reno, and her cheeks were wet with tears.
Rufus took her from Reno and hugged her close. She started to cry harder then, her hands fisted in the terry cloth of Rufus’ robe and her face pressed against his chest.
“Maggie, tell me what happened,” Rufus said. He worked a finger beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him. He smoothed her hair away from her tearful face and smiled. “It’s okay now.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not okay!”
“Tell me,” Rufus urged again, his voice as gentle as he could make it.
“She’s not dead, Rufus! She’s still here, and she’s looking for Kadaj!” Maggie cried.
“Who’s looking for Kadaj?” Rufus demanded.
Maggie’s eyes filled with fresh tears, and she started to tremble in Rufus’s embrace. Her answer made his blood run cold.
“Jenova.”
*****
TBC
- 17
- 18
- 19
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The Path to Redemption