Chapter Text
Dana rubbed at the bridge of her nose, futilely trying to massage away the headache that pulsed through her skull. She felt utterly depleted in that way that always followed hours of meetings and fruitless discussions and intense Q and A. She should have just gone straight home instead of staying afterwards to consolidate her notes. Now it was late and Shinra HQ was dark and empty.
She stared at the shiny steel elevator doors in front of her. Her eyeliner was smudged, of course. It never held up for this many hours. She ran a hand through her long black hair that was sprinkled with premature grey and tried to fluff up the front of it. Not much luck. Gaia, she couldn’t wait to kick off her shoes and take a hot shower.
Her shoulders sagged as she let out a long sigh. Her team had spent months compiling the data and running the numbers and building in every last factor they could think of that could affect the simulation models. The numbers didn’t lie – lower Midgar’s access to critical health services was deplorable. Their cancer rates were triple that of the upper worlders’ and their wait times were quadruple. The system needed a serious injection of physicians and nurses to be even remotely equitable (not to mention urban design needed a total revamp to bring down the incidence rates), and at best it would take another five to seven years to train up all those people. That is, if Shinra would act now instead of twiddling his fat thumbs.
Oh, but how much of this disparity is due to underlying genetic factors? They’d asked. And she’d plastered a polite smile on her face and assured them that they’d controlled for age, gender, ethnicity, disease severity, et cetera (because, duh).
I don’t know why you’re wasting our time with this presentation. Health care is a service of the free market. People should get what they pay for, they’d said. And really, she should have been prepared. She’d known that was coming. But she’d still stumbled over her words in shock and amazement, because what the actual fuck. Next time she supposed she’d have to come prepared with a full analysis of market forces and how they shouldn’t apply to a human being’s right to life saving technology that the government (really, Shinra) could absolutely fucking afford.
They probably needed to build an economic model. Maybe she could finally find some PhD students to work on it for free, because Gaia knew they didn’t have the budget to hire anyone.
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Dana stepped in to the empty compartment and pressed the lobby button then stared blankly at the floor as she began to descend.
If they could just prove the ripple effect of regained productivity from increasing access to care, they could make a compelling financial argument, she thought to herself. It wasn’t just the work lost from people dying young. There was also the work lost from family members leaving their jobs to provide care, and the impoverishing cycle caused by illness that then further reduced spending (and therefore economic participation and GDP). And fuck it but money was obviously the only language President Shinra understood.
The elevator slowed and Dana looked up surprised. She hadn’t expected anyone else to be here at this hour. It was probably a custodian.
The doors parted with a ding and in stepped Sephiroth.
Dana immediately straightened and shifted uncomfortably. She reached up and fidgeted with the straps of her oversized purse, heavy with the weight of her laptop. It was stupid, but being this close to Shinra’s finest SOLIDER was the last thing she wanted right now. He was, as always, astonishingly good looking, and ridiculously tall, and that silver hair gleamed in the overly bright lights of the elevator, and she just wanted to run the fuck away. She gave him a small smile and mumbled “Hi,” before looking back down at the linoleum floor.
Wait a minute, why was he coming from the 65th floor? Wasn’t that Urban Development and Administrative Research? And he was heading to the lobby too, not to floor 51 where the SOLDIER offices were.
She looked up to see him staring at the electronic display panel that showed them slowly descending through the tower. His eyes were bloodshot.
“Long day for you too, huh?” she asked conversationally, half expecting to be greeted by silence.
Instead he sighed and said, “Yeah.” He seemed to slump a little.
Dana sniffed the air. Was that…alcohol she smelled?
“Hey,” she said gently, all her mom/sister/everyone-expects-you-to-do-this-shit-because-you’re-a-girl-so-you’re-actually-pretty-damn-good-at-sensing-when-people-need-to-be-taken-care-of-and-doing-so instincts suddenly activated. “Listen, I know it’s none of my business, and I will back off in a second, but…are you okay? I thought SOLIDERs couldn’t get drunk?” Wasn’t the mako in their blood supposed to break down alcohol too fast?
“We can get drunk,” he said, slurring just a bit. His unfocused green eyes flicked over to her. “It just takes a lot.”
Well, she supposed that made sense. Just drink enough to overtake the mako.
Her eyed widened. Holy Shiva, then how much had he drunk? At the office no less? And not in his office?
“Uh…where…did you get all the booze?” she asked.
“Turks,” he answered simply. He looked away.
Gaia, did that mean he’d cleaned out the whole department’s stash? It probably meant he’d cleaned out the whole stash. This could not be a good thing. What now? Should she offer to help get him home? That seemed patently absurd. This was Sephiroth.
Sephiroth had just cleaned the Turks out of booze and was drunk after hours in Shinra Tower.
What the fuck.
“Do you…want to talk about it?” she asked awkwardly. That sounded pretty stupid. What even was ‘it?’
She didn’t expect him to laugh brokenly and cover his face with his gloved hands. Never in her life would she have imagined seeing First Class SOLIDER Sephiroth in such a state.
She reached out and pushed the STOP button. The elevator shuddered and groaned. Sephiroth looked up at her with those bloodshot eyes.
Oh Gaia, please don’t kill me, she thought. “Sorry,” she said out loud. “It just felt like the right thing to do.” And her intuition was usually such a powerful force she rarely questioned it. And nine times out of ten her intuition led to awesome results super fast. But this could, she acknowledged silently to herself, be that one time out of ten that it was totally wrong and got her super dead.
She stepped back and gestured at the button panel. “Here, you can unstop it if you want. I just thought, if you needed a friendly ear, maybe this would help get you talking.”
He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure he was seeing her, his thoughts were so obviously turned inwards.
“My name’s Dana,” she said, holding out a hand. “I’m from the Ministry of Public Services. I obviously know who you are, Sephiroth. So…how ‘bout it? Want to tell me why you stayed late drinking the Turks’ stash all by yourself tonight?”
He didn’t take her hand. After another second she dropped it. Silence. Awkward silence. She looked over at the button panel and thought maybe she should just stop holding them both hostage. She wanted to go home, and he had no reason to confide in her. He was leagues above her in status. He’d be fine.
And then she heard a quiet, strangled sound, and she could see him looking down at the floor, fists tight and body trembling, eyes hidden behind the long fall of his bangs.
She only hesitated one second more, then dropped her purse to the ground and walked over to him. She wrapped her arms around him. She had to go up on tip toes to do it. Beneath her hands, she felt him tense, and then curve around her much smaller frame. Breathing a small, sad sigh, she pressed her cheek against the leather of his uniform and rubbed small circles into his back with her palm.
They stood like that in silence for long minutes. It was only later that she would find her hair and suit jacket damp where his tears had landed.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Gen’s been declared a traitor,” he mumbled. “And Angeal’s missing now too. I don’t know what to do… I don’t want to hunt my friends.”
“So don’t,” she said.
He laughed bitterly into her hair. “You make it sound so easy.”
“There’s a whole lot of options between following your orders and not. You just need to be a little creative.” She squeezed him tight. He felt like a brick wall. “But I think the most important thing right now…is just to let yourself grieve. Whatever you’re feeling right now – it’s okay.”
SOLDIERs, it was well known, were all a bunch of alpha males who didn’t know how to deal with their feelings or ask for help when they needed it. Little wonder it had taken a booze binge on a work night to get to this moment. “It’s okay,” she said again. “Your friends, and the people who love you, I’m sure they will be there to help you if you ask.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone left,” he murmured.
And there was something about the way he said that…ordinarily she would have jumped straight to confident assurances, but instead she stayed quiet and just continued to hold him.
They stayed like that until a shudder ran through Sephiroth’s body, and then a sudden jerk of his arms and torso. Dana winced as a small puddle of vomit landed in her hair and on her clothes.
“I am so sorry,” Sephiroth said, stepping back. He looked vaguely embarrassed and would have probably been properly mortified if he was sober.
“It’s…okay…” She bent down and opened her purse to pull out a wad of napkins. She carefully wiped the gunk up and thought about how good that shower would be. The puke sure wasn’t all coming out of her hair. Then she reached back into her purse and pulled out a three quarters full water bottle. “Here,” she said, holding the bottle out to Sephiroth. “You should hydrate.”
He accepted the bottle and drank the whole thing down.
“You gonna be okay?” she asked when he finished.
“Yes,” he said. He was looking a lot more sober already.
“Okay,” she said with a watery smile.
She pushed the STOP button again and the elevator continued downwards. They didn’t look at each other for the rest of the ride. When the doors opened, she watched Sephiroth straighten up and square his shoulders. His mask slid back into place. The red had faded from his sclera already.
He nodded at her and said, “Thank you. Goodnight, then.”
She watched him walk to the front doors of the lobby while she lingered behind to throw out the soiled napkins. Then she stepped out into the crisp night air and strode to the first cab waiting across the street, thinking, Huh, Sephiroth threw up on me. The girls are not going to believe this.