“Hey ‘Geal?” Genesis knocked on his office door to get his attention.

 

Looking up Angeal smiled at his best friend, “Yeah?”

 

“Um, would you and Zack like to come over for dinner tonight? There’s someone I would like you to meet.”

 

“Sure, Zack never passes up food. And I’ll always be there if you need me. You know that.” Angeal smiled at him.

 

“Thanks, dinner’s at seven.” With that the redhead moved off down the hallway.

 

Angeal went back to work, finishing the report he had been writing. Once it was done and sent off to Lazard he stood up and went in search of his Puppy. He found him hanging out with Kunsel and what seemed to be a Cadet. “Hey Zack. Genesis has invited us over for dinner at seven.”

 

Zack turned to face him with an excited bounce, “Awesome! Free food!”

 

The two boys next to him and Angeal chuckled, “Make sure you’re ready to go by then alright?”

 

Zack nodded and Angeal headed back to his office. He had more reports to go over.

 

Xeria is getting ready in Genesis’ apartment. She’d finished up her afternoon training a few hours ago and is now working on cooking dinner for herself, Genesis, and the two people he’d invited over.

 

She’s incredibly nervous because the people he’s invited over are Angeal Hewley and Zack Fair. She was nervous enough meeting Genesis for the first time but to meet another general and his student has her on edge. She’d looked up to the three Generals for years before she was old enough to join SOLDIER. She’s just glad that General Sephiroth is away on a mission at the moment because if he was at home he would have been invited over as well and she’s not sure if she could handle meeting him too on top of all this.

 

She’d grown up in a backwater town high up in the mountains without many friends, solely because there weren’t many other kids her age and those that were her age tended to avoid her because of her appearance. She’d greatly admired the three Generals and knew she wanted to be like them some day, to be strong and able to protect those she loved and to help as many people as possible.

 

She checks that the food in the oven is cooking properly and the timer is set to go off at the right time then goes to change into some clean clothes. She’d already showered after getting back from her training so she just needs to wash up from cooking a bit. She pulls on some black pants and a simple blue shirt with a grey vest over top.

 

She brushes her hair and braids it neatly as well. One she’s convinced she looks presentable, she heads back to the kitchen just as the timer beeps. she takes the lasagna out, lowering the temperature and popping in the cheesy garlic bread so it can stay warm while she waits for everyone to arrive. She once again checks the desert she’d made, a simple yellow cake with chocolate chips in it. It’s a simple recipe but it tastes absolutely heavenly, especially with a bit of sugar sprinkled on top to create a slightly crunchy top layer of sweetness.

 

Needing something to keep her busy lest she pace a hole in the floor, she goes to straighten the place settings on the table for the third time as she waits for everyone to arrive.

 

Angeal clocked off at six-thirty and headed to his apartment to get changed for dinner. He certainly wasn’t going to wear his uniform to a friendly gathering outside of work. He took a quick shower and pulled on a pair of old jeans and green t-shirt. He traded his boots for black tennis shoes and grabbed a jean jacket before leaving, just in case it was raining when he came back home.

 

He stopped by Zack’s and grabbed the hyperactive boy out of a nap. “You ready?”

 

Zack nodded sleepily, he’d gone with Kunsel and Cloud to prank the Turks… he was tired from having to hold still so long so they wouldn’t get caught. It took a lot of effort for him to remain still! He had come back to his apartment and changed into a blue turtleneck and black slacks, knowing that Genesis was a bit of a priss and would want him too look nice in his home.

 

“Good, come on. We don’t want to be late.” They walked the short distance to Genesis’ apartment and knocked on the door.

 

Genesis is home by now and answers the door. “Come in you two. I want to introduce you soon before the poor girl tears her hair out from nerves,” He says in a low voice, not wanting Xeria to hear.

 

He leads them to the living room and says he’ll be right back before going to the kitchen to fetch Xeria. Xeria is removing the cheesy garlic bread from the oven after hearing them arrive at the door. She’s checking that it didn’t burn at all when Genesis comes in. “They’re here. They’re waiting in the living room.”

 

Xeria bites her lip nervously. “Should I bring them drinks or something?” she asks anxiously.

 

Genesis sighs and places a hand on her shoulder, “Relax, Xeria. They aren’t going to bite your head off. They’re nice people. The worst you might have to deal with it getting hugged by Zack and that’s just because he might knock you over in his enthusiasm.”

 

She nods and takes a deep breath as she’s lead into the living room. “Angeal, Zack, I would like you to meet my new student, Xeria Free. Xeria this is Angeal Hewley and his student Zack Fair.”

 

Xeria bows nervously saying, “It’s nice to meet you!” She’s so nervous that she practically yells the words and mentally smacks herself, not even sure why she bowed. Probably to avoid looking them in the eye. Gaia damn her nerves. Why does she get so anxious about meeting new people?

 

Angeal and Zack follow Genesis to his living room and simply wait for the man and this other person to return. Upon being introduced to the young girl Angeal smiles gently at her. “It is nice to meet you as well.” He turned to face Genesis and poked a bit of fun at him, “I didn’t think you would ever take on a student of your own.”

 

Zack bounded over to the obviously shy girl and stuck out a hand, “I’m Zack, nice to meet you! Xeria’s a pretty name. It suits you.”

 

Xeria jerks up and back a bit at Zacks sudden approach, her eyes a bit wide. “U-um, th-thank you. It’s n-nice to meet you t-too.” She says accepting his hand.

 

Genesis sighs fondly, “I know but when I heard there was a Third with an unnaturally high affinity for Materia I knew I at least had to meet them, especially after what Hojo did when he got his hands on the last time a Third showed this much promise with Materia. I just couldn’t let that bastard get his hands on her.” he says.

 

Xeria looks at him nervously, “Who exactly is this Hojo guy. You’ve mentioned him before but no one will give me a straight answer as to who he is. They just say to avoid him as much as possible.”

 

Zack smiled at her as she stuttered, the girl was totally adorable. However his smile faded at the mention of Hojo, Angeal’s did as well.

 

“Yes, that last one was bad.” Angeal smiled down at Xeria again, “Don’t worry, with us around he won’t be able to bother you. Though to answer your question… Hojo is one of the scientists here. He takes great pleasure in hurting and corrupting people for his experiments. We all kind of hate him… a lot.”

 

Xeria’s mouth forms a neat little o at Angeal’s explanation of the man. She had never imagined there would be someone so horrible in the world.

 

“Oh no. That’s horrible. W-wait though. I’m pretty sure I’m scheduled to see him for my first Mako infusion tomorrow. You don’t think he would try to hurt me during the procedure would he?” She asks anxious.

 

Angeal froze, “Well, we’re changing that right now.”

 

“Yeah, you don’t want to see him for it. Not that he would hurt you or anything during the procedure, but once he saw you he would know who you are. And that seems to be what General Rhapsodos was trying to avoid.” Zack explained as Angeal pulled out his PHS and dialed a number.

 

“This is General Hewley, I would like to make a change to the Mako injection roster.” He paused as he listened to the other end of the line. “Yes, there is a Xeria Free on Hojo’s list?” He waited for confirmation, “Yes, I would like her moved to Hollander please. As she is now General Rhapsodos’ mentee it will make it easier if she sees the same person.” There was another long pause as he waited to hear back. “Yes, the same time slot will be fine. That’s alright, he can do mine at the same time, it’s not a problem.”

 

Finally hanging up he put his PHS back in his pocket and looked back at them. “Well that’s taken care of. You’ll see Hollander instead. And since it’s the same time slot I had already I can make sure Hojo doesn’t try to get you anyway.” He turned to Genesis, “I hope that’s alright.”

 

Xeria is surprised at his sudden statement and tries to stop him from pulling out his phone. She doesn’t want to cause any unnecessary trouble for them.

 

Once he puts up the phone Genesis nods. “Yes that should be fine. I’ll be there as well since it’s best to have someone to look after you for your injections, especially the first time since we don’t know how you’ll react. Remember the time Sephiroth learned to knit after his injection and went on a two day knitting spree while his body adjusted and then was surprised to find himself surrounded by scarfs when he came out of his daze?” He says chuckling to Angeal.

 

“A-are you sure it’s not a bother for you? I don’t want to be a burden or anything,” Xeria tells them.

 

Angeal chuckled, “I do, did you know that he still occasionally knits? He makes scarfs and blankets for the orphans in the slums.”

 

“No way?!” Zack looked from one to the other in shock.

 

“Yep, and it’s no trouble at all Miss Free. With you being mentored by Gen you’re now one of us. I just hope we don’t drive you insane.” Angeal smiled down at her.

 

“Yeah! One more for the par-tay!” Zack pumped a fist into the air and gave a little jump. “Now if we could just convince General Silver Hair to take up the Chocobo we’d be set for life!”

 

“Chocobo?” Angeal turned to his student.

 

Zack blushed, “Um, yeah, that Cadet I was talking to. His Instructors keep saying he’s not going to make it because he’s too scrawny so they’re wanting to send him to be Infantry.” He rubbed the back of his head and looked off to the side sheepishly.

 

“What were you, he and Kunsel doing anyway?” Angeal asked, he’d been wondering about it the whole time.

 

Zack’s whole face turned the color of Genesis coat, “Um, we pulled a prank on the Turks.”

 

Angeal face-palmed and shook his head. “I’ll deal with you later. What smells so good?”

 

Xeria is relieved to hear that she isn’t a burden. She’s not sure how to react to being told she’s an official member of their group now. These are the men she looked up to for years after all. It’d be overwhelming for anybody.

 

She perks up when she hears Zack mention Cloud. “Do you mean Cloud Strife? I’ve met him before. He joined the Cadets a bit before I made Third Class.”

 

“He’s a really nice kid and he’s got a whole bunch of potential, he just needs a bit of specialized help. Unfortunately the way the system is set up he probably won’t get that help,” she says, a bit sad for her friend.

 

At Angeal’s questions about the smell, she blushes and tells them. “I cooked dinner for everybody. I made lasagna and cheesy garlic bread. I hope that’s okay with you two. Neither of you guys have any allergies do you? Oh man I should have asked about that before I made dinner.“ She smacks the side of her head, feeling incredibly stupid for forgetting to ask if either of them were allergic to anything. It would be just her luck to make something that they were allergic to for the dinner she’d made in the hopes of making a good impression.

 

“You know Chocobohead?! Awesome, I knew I liked you.” Zack flung an arm around her shoulders, “We don’t have any food allergies that I know about, and dinner sounds amazing!”

 

Angeal chuckled, “No, no allergies. And all of that sounds delicious. You really didn’t have to cook for us. To be honest, I’m used to doing the cooking when Genesis invites me over.” He smirked at his best friend, receiving a shrug in return.

 

Xeria jumps a bit at his arm suddenly landing around her shoulders. She nods and gives a relieved smile at hearing they have no food allergies. “Good I would hate to have made something you couldn’t eat.”

 

She blushes and shrugs, “I don’t mind. I enjoy cooking and I want to make a good impression. Why don’t you guys head to the table and I’ll bring the food out?” She suggests, politely ducking out from under Zack’s arm and heading to the kitchen to bring the food to the table.

 

Angeal smiles at her as Zack nods and bounds over to the dining room table.

 

“I can help you if you’d like.” He says as he follows her into the kitchen. “And I’ll stay to help clean up afterwards as well.”

 

“No need I can carry them myself. Thank you for your offer though. I might take you up on your offer to help clean up.” She tells him, gently tapping the pan the lasagna is in to test it before finding it hot to the touch so she dons some baking mitts before bringing it to the table and hurrying back to fetch the bread as well.

 

“Here we are. The lasagna might still be a little hot so be careful. The bread should be fine though,” she tells them, taking her seat beside Genesis.

 

Angeal could do nothing but nod and sit down at the table. He grabbed himself a slice of the bread before Zack had a chance to attack the food spread across the table. Then he cut himself a square of lasagna and sat back down.

 

“It looks delicious.” Angeal sat back with a smile and watched everyone else dig into their food. He ate slowly enjoying the meal. He looked up and over at Xeria with a smile, “Tastes that way too.”

 

Zack was inhaling the food he had grabbed, but paused for a moment, swallowed and looked over to the girl. “Yeah, this is really amazing. Thank you for making dinner.”

 

Xeria is relieved when none of them make disgusted faces at their first bites. She starts to eat her own share as well.

 

She blushes at the compliments to her food. “Thank you and I’m really glad you guys like it. I hope you save room for dessert. I made something for that too.” She tells them.

 

She’s finally starting to feel a bit more at ease around them.

 

Zack dramatically puts a hand to his chest and looks at her with abject adoration, “I love you. Dessert, Angeal, did you hear? A woman after my own heart.”

 

Angeal whapped him in the back of the head lightly, “I very much doubt that she’s ‘after your heart’ Fair.” He chuckled though, “Though depending on what she made… I might actually have to agree with you.”

 

Xeria can’t help but laugh at Zack’s dramatic display, Genesis snickers as well. “Puppy, you’ll be lucky if you can get a chihuahua chasing after you,” he teases.

 

“Well, you three will just have to wait until dinner is done and the plates are cleared to see what I made. I can almost guarantee you’ll like it though. It’s an old family recipe.”

 

Zack laughed and mock glared at Genesis, “Oh, I’m sure I could get a Golden Retriever or a Saint Bernard.”

 

Angeal snorted, quickly covering his face with a hand and trying to not let wine come out his nose. “I can’t wait to see what it is you’ve made.”

 

He smiled across the table at Xeria and continued to eat his food.

 

She nods and says, “I look forward to you guys having it. I love sharing recipes and food from my home town. We’re pretty isolated so the food can get pretty unique.” She explains.

 

Once they finish dinner and Xeria puts away the leftovers and everyone clears away their plates. She gets out the cake and cuts everyone a piece, making Zacks a bit bigger since she figures he’ll love it and ask for more anyway.