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Hojo was not exactly the model of a proud parent. He certainly didn't treat Sephiroth differently from any other test subject - well, maybe that wasn't entirely true, but his deep interest in the project had nothing to do with his familial relation to the boy. And he'd made it a point, and had instructed his colleagues to do the same, not to inform Sephiroth of his father's identity; he didn't want to skew the boy's behavior towards him. The experiments that produced the most reliable results were the ones with the least amount of variables introduced to them.

But he was proud of Sephiroth, in a quiet, vicarious sort of way. The boy had proved to be exceptional at almost every stage of development, mastering motor skills such as sitting, standing, walking and crawling far earlier than most children - and in rapid succession. Speech had taken a bit longer, but Sephiroth had evidently just been working up to it; the boy began speaking almost immediately after reaching a year of age, without warning and in parrot-perfect imitation of words he often heard - 'scientist', 'professor', 'subject', 'specimen', 'results', and even Gast's and Hojo's names. Hojo was privately convinced it had taken the boy longer than expected (given his rapid development in other areas) because he was perfecting the words in his mind before he spoke them. And from there it had been several dizzying leaps to learning the meaning of the words he spoke, learning how to string them together, until now - at several months shy of four years of age - he could have intelligent conversations with anyone who would stand still long enough.

Sephiroth was brilliant, in every area they'd tested him in. And while Hojo gave due credit to the JENOVA cells the boy had in him, a part of him gloated privately - after all, far more of Sephiroth's cells were his than were JENOVA's.

And, of course, there were unmistakable common traits between them. Physically - the least important area, truthfully, but it had caught Hojo's eye all the same - they shared the same lean face, the same darting eyes. Of course, the drastic differences in coloring (inexplicable, that, something that continually puzzled Hojo but that he assumed had to do with the JENOVA cells somehow) made the features seem rather alien on Sephiroth, but the resemblance could be seen if you looked past that. But it was in the personality that their similarities were glaringly obvious.

Sephiroth had rapidly developed a distinct personality as soon as he'd become able to verbalize his desires, and it had been an immediate headache for the scientists. He wanted to touch, examine, and take apart everything in sight, and if he wasn't given his way he became short-tempered and uncooperative - and the scientists had, mistakenly, given way the first few times, willing to indulge their pet project. But another characteristic of Sephiroth's personality was that he learned incredibly quickly, and once he discovered that sulking and refusing to do as he was asked got him what he wanted, he began employing the tactic constantly, to varying extremes. And as it was almost always easier to give Sephiroth what he wanted than to try to catch, shut up, and experiment on a screaming, struggling toddler, the boy was becoming all too used to getting his own way in whatever he wanted. They would be in real trouble, Hojo reflected, if he ever decided he didn't like needles anymore; he had blood samples taken regularly and was apparently too used to them to object, but if he ever changed his mind...

Sephiroth was also insatiably curious about everything. Scientists working with him for the day went in prepared to answer dozens of questions, most of them seemingly plucked at random from the air. If a new word was used in front of Sephiroth, he would demand the definition; it had gotten to the point where they'd simply started keeping a dictionary in his room, so the scientists could look up the exact definition if they weren't entirely sure. Hojo liked that; many of the scientists that took care of Sephiroth on a daily basis were closer to interns than actual scientists, and he doubted they even know the exact definitions to some of the words they used, and the thought of a brilliant child like Sephiroth learning something that wasn't even correct was abhorrent - a waste of intellect.

So he was disgusted when, going over the daily report of one of those interns, he found a brief account of Sephiroth asking her the standard 'where do people come from' question, and the intern telling him the old nursery story about a stork and swaddling blankets and who knew what other nonsense. Why waste the boy's brain on fantasy? There was so much real knowledge, so much important information to be given to him! Hojo had steadfastly refused to allow any celebrations of holidays for Sephiroth for that very reason - although he had, for the boy's own good, explained the make-believe stories he would hear eventually, of the Tooth Fairy and her ilk and the complete nonexistence thereof before someone misinformed him. (He'd tried to veto birthdays as well - self-indulgent nonsense that it was, as if a person deserved a reward for simply managing not to die for a year - but Gast would sneak a cake in somehow; the man simply didn't have the detachment of a true scientist.)

So he had the intern transferred to another department and resolved to make a personal visit to Sephiroth the very next morning. Damn it, he'd entirely forgotten about the stork story - people would dream up the stupidest stories to explain perfectly logical things. Laziness was what he called it.

- - -

"Good morning, Sephiroth," Hojo said smoothly, sitting down across from the boy. Whenever a scientist had free time, they could sit down with Sephiroth and talk to him about anything they wished; it helped mental development, and often gave the boy access to random snippets of information that they might not have thought to expose him to themselves. And Sephiroth, as rabidly curious as he was, was more than happy to take the opportunity to quiz the person across from him on whatever topic entered his head. Currently he was seated directly across from Hojo on a chair, his legs folded under him - Hojo had once told him to sit properly and, ever since, Sephiroth would do anything but as often as the chance arose.

"Good morning, Professor Hojo," Sephiroth said mechanically. The boy had developed chemistry with some of the other scientists on the project, happily chatting with them for hours and showing every evidence of looking forward to their visits, but Hojo - to his vague annoyance, although he had to appreciate the irony - was not one of those scientists.

"Sit properly, Sephiroth."

Sephiroth shifted in his chair until his legs dangled down off the edge of the chair without complaint. Hojo left it at that; he knew the point of Sephiroth's wordless defiance wasn't in the act itself, but in his reaction.

"Better," Hojo said crisply. "Now, I read in the reports last night that you asked Professor Jennings a question - "

"Maria," Sephiroth interjected placidly.

Hojo paused briefly. "I'm sorry?"

"Her name's Maria. She told me." There was the faintest hint of triumph on Sephiroth's face; he knew he'd just gotten the upper hand, Hojo mused. Amazing in a three-year-old, no matter how irritating the smug look was.

"I see," he replied aloud, rather piqued despite himself. Jennings knew better than to allow a first-name basis between herself and the boy; it eroded authority, letting Sephiroth feel he was on an equal level with any of the scientists, not to mention the fact that it encouraged personal connections - a variable. Variables were to be kept to a minimum, damn it! "Well, as it happens, she has been transferred to another department."

There was a brief flash of emotion across Sephiroth's face - disappointment. He'd learned that 'transferred to another department' meant that the person had been sent away, and that he wouldn't be seeing them again. Thankfully, however, the boy didn't sulk; instead he merely asked, "Why?"

"Because she didn't tell you the truth yesterday," Hojo replied flatly. "And I don't approve of that."

Sephiroth sat up a bit straighter, looking interested. "Why did she do that?"

Hojo paused briefly; it was a difficult thing to explain. "You asked about where people come from, didn't you?"

"Yes, Professor." Hojo noticed, with faint annoyance, that Sephiroth was sitting on his legs again, but he let it slide.

"What did she tell you?"

Sephiroth sat up straight and cleared his throat, adopting what Gast called his lecturing voice - the voice he used when he was repeating something from memory. "She told me that a stork - which is a large wading bird with long legs and a long, straight bill - delivers babies to their parents." Sephiroth gave Hojo a shrewd look. "She didn't say if there was more than one stork."

Hojo cleared his throat. "Do you remember what I told you about fantasy characters?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Well, the stork Professor Jennings told you about is another fantasy character. It's just a story people make up to explain something that has a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation."

"Oh." Sephiroth thought this over. "What is the explanation?"

Hojo paused a moment to gather his thoughts. "First of all," he began, "babies are not brought to their parents by anyone or anything. They are made through a biological process that is called copulation. There are other words, but many of them are crass and there is no need for you to know them - copulation is the most correct term."

"How does copulation work?" As always when learning a new thing, Sephiroth looked intrigued.

"I've already explained the physical differences between men and women, haven't I?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Well, copulation is when a man's penis enters a woman's vagina. You remember what those are?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Good. When a man and woman copulate, the man usually achieves what is called an orgasm; that is when he makes a white fluid inside the woman that is called semen, which contains sperm. The sperm is a living organism, and it swims inside the woman's reproductive system until it finds an egg. Once it finds the egg, it fertilizes it - and once the egg is fertilized, that woman becomes pregnant. Do you understand all this?"

To his credit, Sephiroth only seemed slightly bemused. "Repro - "

" - ductive system," Hojo finished the word for him. "It consists of the woman's organs for making children."

"Oh." Sephiroth's brows furrowed. "What's pregnant mean?"

"When a woman is pregnant," Hojo explained, "that means that the fertilized egg is growing inside her body. As the egg grows, it becomes a human baby, and approximately nine months after fertilization the woman gives birth to the baby. That woman is then the baby's mother, and the man whose sperm fertilized the egg is the father." Hojo mentally cursed himself even as the words left his mouth - he'd left himself wide open to questions about Sephiroth's own parents.

But Sephiroth didn't ask. He simply sat in his chair, looking thoughtfully at his knees as he digested the admittedly large amount of information he'd just been given. "If that's how it works," he finally said, "why didn't Maria tell me?"

Hojo paused. How on earth to explain social standards to a child not yet four years old? "Some people," he said slowly, "feel that copulation is a subject that children should not learn about until they are adults. They think children wouldn't understand, or would experiment with it while they were too young - most men, for instance, cannot produce semen during orgasm until a certain age, and most women cannot become pregnant until a certain age either...and it can be dangerous for a woman to become pregnant too young. So it is viewed as a topic for adults, and children are told fanciful stories until they are old enough to be told or until they learn on their own. And women are more inclined to protect children from inappropriate topics than men, which may perhaps explain why Professor Jennings didn't tell you the truth. But I believe that if you are old enough to ask the question, then you are old enough to hear the true answer."

"Oh." Sephiroth looked down at his knees again, falling surprisingly quiet - the boy usually bubbled over with questions. But then, Hojo privately noted, he'd been given quite a chunk of new data to process.

"That will be all for today, Sephiroth," he informed the boy, getting to his feet. "Good day."

"Good day, Professor," came the expected mechanical reply.

Hojo had nearly gone out the door when he heard the murmur behind him, almost too low for hearing, but he had good ears. It almost sounded a little sad.

"I liked it better with the stork."

Hojo shook his head as he closed the door behind him. Children were one of those things even science couldn't entirely fathom.

-Callisto